The 88% net favourability rating for Liz Truss is as preposterous as the woman herself. A reflection of the Conservative Party and the times we live in, I guess.
Your bitterness over the UK having an independent trade policy is one of the best rewards of Brexit. Thank you.
Hate to ask, but if FF43's (alleged) bitterness really is one of the best rewards of Brexit, was it really worth all the hassle? What are the other top five say, for context?
It's probably spaces 1-3, personally along with the bitterness from other EU supporting fifth columnists.
If "remainers" are fifth columnists for the EU are Leavers fifth columnists for Putin? Which would be worse? I think as Brexit is now "done" people trading insults over it just make themselves look a little silly. There are many on both sides of the argument who have done service for their country, and often much more than the people from the opposing side that suggest they are "traitors" perhaps?
The trouble is that, for some, this was their Great Patriotic War to save democracy. Not all, but some. And rather than being saluted for their sacrifices in victory, they are being moaned at or- worse- ignored.
For while, my theory has been that the internal logic of Brexit makes most sense to those born in the 50's and 60's. The most Eurosceptic generation in both 1975 and 2016. Always lived in the shadow of the generation who actually experienced WW2. Too old to see the benefits of a continent without borders for work and play as anything other than a dangerous novelty.
And deep down, some of them suspect that it will all get reversed the minute their backs are turned. Their great achievement down the swannee. And slowly, by a thousand accommodations, chips and cuts, they're probably right.
Johnson understandably won in 2019 on "Brexit is in Peril. Defend it with All Your Might." Unless things change in a way that they haven't so far, there will come a point where the considered response of the public is "Brexit is in Peril? Good".
Meanwhile, time passes.
Although I think Brexit was the biggest foreign policy folly since Suez, I think it would be a mistake to try and re-join. That said I can't help wondering whether in my dotage I will have a good old titter at all those Brexity Col. Blimps when re do regain membership. It will be very funny.
What is funny is how Remainers always insist their vindication is coming. No matter the evidence, the great moment when the up-to-now foolish public suddenly turns around and embraces their Europhile betters. Not only will they regret the decision that has been made, they will actually seek to go back to an even worse membership status than we had before. And to do that when the EU is even more integrated in the years and decades to come. When the UK's economy and trade profile has been restructured completely and status quo bias works in the opposite direction. When the EU is an even smaller share of the world economy than ever.
I suppose it is the only way they can psychologically deal with it. As an upper middle class professional group, they have never really learnt how to accept defeat. They got sent to nice schools, had the way padded to nice universities, and went into nice jobs, where their living standards were padded by the benefits of cheap immigrant and outsourced labour. And they had every election go their way until 2016.
Then they lost, and have been looking for cope ever since. Part of that is the religious certainty that deliverance will arrive in the end. Part of that is the need to assure each other of their moral superiority, with snide comments about how ghastily white, middle aged and - horrors of horrors - *British* those damn Brexiters are. Don't they know how culturally superior Provence and Tuscany are?
Your second paragraph is absurd. Your stereotype applies, if at all, to a small proportion of the 48% who voted to remain, and is no better than the reverse stereotype of 'thick leavers'. And as one of the unprivileged hard-working people who voted remain, and is getting on a bit, far from "every election going (my) way until 2016", very few have done, and I've spent most of my life with governments I oppose.
There's a lot of hard truths in the second paragraphs, it's difficult to look into that mirror so I'm not surprised that remainers are so dismissive of the idea that they benefited from the impoverishment of white working class Brits by Eastern Europeans living 8 to single bedroom flats working for the minimum wage or below and turning it into an effective maximum wage for millions of people. You may have been someone who came from that background but you also pulled the ladder up.
You know fuck all about me, so don't accuse me of pulling ladders up. It's the rich who benefit from what you describe, obviously. Some of the rich were remainers, some leavers. Probably about 48:52. That's capitalism for you - I suspect you benefit from it much more than I ever have.
It probably did benefit me more than most given that I live and work in London and have a well paid job. Low wage workers have always been a net benefit not low wage workers. All of those studies which removed the human element from the misery of low wage work and living in working poverty and simply said that EU immigration didn't impact wages of low wage workers were always bullshit. One of the major reasons I voted to leave was to give those people who espoused it a massive black eye and from this thread we can see that it's hurt them a lot.
Plus we now know, thanks to the FT and Jonathan Portes (both big Remainers) that the number of Eastern European economic migrants was undercounted by a huge amount. People who were competing for jobs, services and housing knew this, and voted Leave. Their employers knew it, and voted Remain, whilst the Blairite/Cameroon virtue signallers believed what they wanted to believe and called those in the know nasty names
Who will do the jobs in the future? How will we pay the increased costs?
The answer to both questions contains the word productivity - something we haven't had sufficient market pressure to solve for a long time.
Can productivity create people?
Early trade unionist argued that mechanisation "ate people" since it replaced jobs with machines.
A relative in the construction business has just replaced X Polish blokes with a machine that cost a fraction of X Polish blokes to own, run and depreciate down until you buy the next one. This includes the higher wage cost of bloke who drives it, since he is skilled.
I wonder if the Japanese system of self service in bars might catch on here.....
This thread is worth a read if you interested in the effects of Covid, including Brexit, on employment and wages.
Once furlough fully unwinds and the remaining recipients roll out substantially to unemployment, employment demand will go back to where it was, and real wages aren't rising that much faster either.
More than five years on and we're still fighting and re-fighting the same battle. It's like a perverted form of Groundhog Day.
The irony is poll after poll suggested most people didn't care about the European Union or our membership - it was a non-issue beside Health, the Economy or Security.
Clearly, it was there or rather it became the touchstone for a series of other issues/concerns/grievances which had poisoned the body politic.
The problem was if having the debate was going to be divisive, so was not having the debate. Having the debate, it was argued, would lance the boil (sorry) and ease the pain but it hasn't.
I know why and I don't know why at the same time.
As with all things, we love to celebrate our successes and dwell on our failures. Those who "won" revel in why they think they won, those who "lost" try to explain their defeat.
Ultimately, it's a waste of time, effort and life.
The truth is it was mostly not about the EU at all - it was a deeper debate and raised awkward and still unresolved questions about the nature of our identity, country and society.
The 88% net favourability rating for Liz Truss is as preposterous as the woman herself. A reflection of the Conservative Party and the times we live in, I guess.
Your bitterness over the UK having an independent trade policy is one of the best rewards of Brexit. Thank you.
Hate to ask, but if FF43's (alleged) bitterness really is one of the best rewards of Brexit, was it really worth all the hassle? What are the other top five say, for context?
It's probably spaces 1-3, personally along with the bitterness from other EU supporting fifth columnists.
If "remainers" are fifth columnists for the EU are Leavers fifth columnists for Putin? Which would be worse? I think as Brexit is now "done" people trading insults over it just make themselves look a little silly. There are many on both sides of the argument who have done service for their country, and often much more than the people from the opposing side that suggest they are "traitors" perhaps?
The trouble is that, for some, this was their Great Patriotic War to save democracy. Not all, but some. And rather than being saluted for their sacrifices in victory, they are being moaned at or- worse- ignored.
For while, my theory has been that the internal logic of Brexit makes most sense to those born in the 50's and 60's. The most Eurosceptic generation in both 1975 and 2016. Always lived in the shadow of the generation who actually experienced WW2. Too old to see the benefits of a continent without borders for work and play as anything other than a dangerous novelty.
And deep down, some of them suspect that it will all get reversed the minute their backs are turned. Their great achievement down the swannee. And slowly, by a thousand accommodations, chips and cuts, they're probably right.
Johnson understandably won in 2019 on "Brexit is in Peril. Defend it with All Your Might." Unless things change in a way that they haven't so far, there will come a point where the considered response of the public is "Brexit is in Peril? Good".
Meanwhile, time passes.
Although I think Brexit was the biggest foreign policy folly since Suez, I think it would be a mistake to try and re-join. That said I can't help wondering whether in my dotage I will have a good old titter at all those Brexity Col. Blimps when re do regain membership. It will be very funny.
What is funny is how Remainers always insist their vindication is coming. No matter the evidence, the great moment when the up-to-now foolish public suddenly turns around and embraces their Europhile betters. Not only will they regret the decision that has been made, they will actually seek to go back to an even worse membership status than we had before. And to do that when the EU is even more integrated in the years and decades to come. When the UK's economy and trade profile has been restructured completely and status quo bias works in the opposite direction. When the EU is an even smaller share of the world economy than ever.
I suppose it is the only way they can psychologically deal with it. As an upper middle class professional group, they have never really learnt how to accept defeat. They got sent to nice schools, had the way padded to nice universities, and went into nice jobs, where their living standards were padded by the benefits of cheap immigrant and outsourced labour. And they had every election go their way until 2016.
Then they lost, and have been looking for cope ever since. Part of that is the religious certainty that deliverance will arrive in the end. Part of that is the need to assure each other of their moral superiority, with snide comments about how ghastily white, middle aged and - horrors of horrors - *British* those damn Brexiters are. Don't they know how culturally superior Provence and Tuscany are?
Your second paragraph is absurd. Your stereotype applies, if at all, to a small proportion of the 48% who voted to remain, and is no better than the reverse stereotype of 'thick leavers'. And as one of the unprivileged hard-working people who voted remain, and is getting on a bit, far from "every election going (my) way until 2016", very few have done, and I've spent most of my life with governments I oppose.
There's a lot of hard truths in the second paragraphs, it's difficult to look into that mirror so I'm not surprised that remainers are so dismissive of the idea that they benefited from the impoverishment of white working class Brits by Eastern Europeans living 8 to single bedroom flats working for the minimum wage or below and turning it into an effective maximum wage for millions of people. You may have been someone who came from that background but you also pulled the ladder up.
You know fuck all about me, so don't accuse me of pulling ladders up. It's the rich who benefit from what you describe, obviously. Some of the rich were remainers, some leavers. Probably about 48:52. That's capitalism for you - I suspect you benefit from it much more than I ever have.
It probably did benefit me more than most given that I live and work in London and have a well paid job. Low wage workers have always been a net benefit not low wage workers. All of those studies which removed the human element from the misery of low wage work and living in working poverty and simply said that EU immigration didn't impact wages of low wage workers were always bullshit. One of the major reasons I voted to leave was to give those people who espoused it a massive black eye and from this thread we can see that it's hurt them a lot.
Plus we now know, thanks to the FT and Jonathan Portes (both big Remainers) that the number of Eastern European economic migrants was undercounted by a huge amount. People who were competing for jobs, services and housing knew this, and voted Leave. Their employers knew it, and voted Remain, whilst the Blairite/Cameroon virtue signallers believed what they wanted to believe and called those in the know nasty names
Who will do the jobs in the future? How will we pay the increased costs?
The answer to both questions contains the word productivity - something we haven't had sufficient market pressure to solve for a long time.
Can productivity create people?
What?! Productivity means creating the environment for fewer people to produce more - and receive better rewards as a result of lower unit costs. The lazy solution has been to import cheap labour.
The 88% net favourability rating for Liz Truss is as preposterous as the woman herself. A reflection of the Conservative Party and the times we live in, I guess.
Your bitterness over the UK having an independent trade policy is one of the best rewards of Brexit. Thank you.
Hate to ask, but if FF43's (alleged) bitterness really is one of the best rewards of Brexit, was it really worth all the hassle? What are the other top five say, for context?
It's probably spaces 1-3, personally along with the bitterness from other EU supporting fifth columnists.
If "remainers" are fifth columnists for the EU are Leavers fifth columnists for Putin? Which would be worse? I think as Brexit is now "done" people trading insults over it just make themselves look a little silly. There are many on both sides of the argument who have done service for their country, and often much more than the people from the opposing side that suggest they are "traitors" perhaps?
The trouble is that, for some, this was their Great Patriotic War to save democracy. Not all, but some. And rather than being saluted for their sacrifices in victory, they are being moaned at or- worse- ignored.
For while, my theory has been that the internal logic of Brexit makes most sense to those born in the 50's and 60's. The most Eurosceptic generation in both 1975 and 2016. Always lived in the shadow of the generation who actually experienced WW2. Too old to see the benefits of a continent without borders for work and play as anything other than a dangerous novelty.
And deep down, some of them suspect that it will all get reversed the minute their backs are turned. Their great achievement down the swannee. And slowly, by a thousand accommodations, chips and cuts, they're probably right.
Johnson understandably won in 2019 on "Brexit is in Peril. Defend it with All Your Might." Unless things change in a way that they haven't so far, there will come a point where the considered response of the public is "Brexit is in Peril? Good".
Meanwhile, time passes.
Although I think Brexit was the biggest foreign policy folly since Suez, I think it would be a mistake to try and re-join. That said I can't help wondering whether in my dotage I will have a good old titter at all those Brexity Col. Blimps when re do regain membership. It will be very funny.
What is funny is how Remainers always insist their vindication is coming. No matter the evidence, the great moment when the up-to-now foolish public suddenly turns around and embraces their Europhile betters. Not only will they regret the decision that has been made, they will actually seek to go back to an even worse membership status than we had before. And to do that when the EU is even more integrated in the years and decades to come. When the UK's economy and trade profile has been restructured completely and status quo bias works in the opposite direction. When the EU is an even smaller share of the world economy than ever.
I suppose it is the only way they can psychologically deal with it. As an upper middle class professional group, they have never really learnt how to accept defeat. They got sent to nice schools, had the way padded to nice universities, and went into nice jobs, where their living standards were padded by the benefits of cheap immigrant and outsourced labour. And they had every election go their way until 2016.
Then they lost, and have been looking for cope ever since. Part of that is the religious certainty that deliverance will arrive in the end. Part of that is the need to assure each other of their moral superiority, with snide comments about how ghastily white, middle aged and - horrors of horrors - *British* those damn Brexiters are. Don't they know how culturally superior Provence and Tuscany are?
Yep. Brexit is essentially about the humbling of social & financial elites (exactly as you explain here) but what's strange is that almost all its leading proponents in public life are reactionary right wing Conservatives. It seems these chaps have all got the wrong end of the stick. I know when it comes to politics that Right doesn't equal Bright, but still, it's a puzzle.
In any competition for the Patron Saint of Brexit, there is one and only one serious candidate - the one who declared in 1968 that he was "filled with foreboding".
He's not remembered with affection by Dennis Skinner, nor by George Galloway, but hey, being revered by 90% of Brexiteers is quite something.
The 88% net favourability rating for Liz Truss is as preposterous as the woman herself. A reflection of the Conservative Party and the times we live in, I guess.
Your bitterness over the UK having an independent trade policy is one of the best rewards of Brexit. Thank you.
Hate to ask, but if FF43's (alleged) bitterness really is one of the best rewards of Brexit, was it really worth all the hassle? What are the other top five say, for context?
It's probably spaces 1-3, personally along with the bitterness from other EU supporting fifth columnists.
If "remainers" are fifth columnists for the EU are Leavers fifth columnists for Putin? Which would be worse? I think as Brexit is now "done" people trading insults over it just make themselves look a little silly. There are many on both sides of the argument who have done service for their country, and often much more than the people from the opposing side that suggest they are "traitors" perhaps?
The trouble is that, for some, this was their Great Patriotic War to save democracy. Not all, but some. And rather than being saluted for their sacrifices in victory, they are being moaned at or- worse- ignored.
For while, my theory has been that the internal logic of Brexit makes most sense to those born in the 50's and 60's. The most Eurosceptic generation in both 1975 and 2016. Always lived in the shadow of the generation who actually experienced WW2. Too old to see the benefits of a continent without borders for work and play as anything other than a dangerous novelty.
And deep down, some of them suspect that it will all get reversed the minute their backs are turned. Their great achievement down the swannee. And slowly, by a thousand accommodations, chips and cuts, they're probably right.
Johnson understandably won in 2019 on "Brexit is in Peril. Defend it with All Your Might." Unless things change in a way that they haven't so far, there will come a point where the considered response of the public is "Brexit is in Peril? Good".
Meanwhile, time passes.
Although I think Brexit was the biggest foreign policy folly since Suez, I think it would be a mistake to try and re-join. That said I can't help wondering whether in my dotage I will have a good old titter at all those Brexity Col. Blimps when re do regain membership. It will be very funny.
What is funny is how Remainers always insist their vindication is coming. No matter the evidence, the great moment when the up-to-now foolish public suddenly turns around and embraces their Europhile betters. Not only will they regret the decision that has been made, they will actually seek to go back to an even worse membership status than we had before. And to do that when the EU is even more integrated in the years and decades to come. When the UK's economy and trade profile has been restructured completely and status quo bias works in the opposite direction. When the EU is an even smaller share of the world economy than ever.
I suppose it is the only way they can psychologically deal with it. As an upper middle class professional group, they have never really learnt how to accept defeat. They got sent to nice schools, had the way padded to nice universities, and went into nice jobs, where their living standards were padded by the benefits of cheap immigrant and outsourced labour. And they had every election go their way until 2016.
Then they lost, and have been looking for cope ever since. Part of that is the religious certainty that deliverance will arrive in the end. Part of that is the need to assure each other of their moral superiority, with snide comments about how ghastily white, middle aged and - horrors of horrors - *British* those damn Brexiters are. Don't they know how culturally superior Provence and Tuscany are?
Your second paragraph is absurd. Your stereotype applies, if at all, to a small proportion of the 48% who voted to remain, and is no better than the reverse stereotype of 'thick leavers'. And as one of the unprivileged hard-working people who voted remain, and is getting on a bit, far from "every election going (my) way until 2016", very few have done, and I've spent most of my life with governments I oppose.
There's a lot of hard truths in the second paragraphs, it's difficult to look into that mirror so I'm not surprised that remainers are so dismissive of the idea that they benefited from the impoverishment of white working class Brits by Eastern Europeans living 8 to single bedroom flats working for the minimum wage or below and turning it into an effective maximum wage for millions of people. You may have been someone who came from that background but you also pulled the ladder up.
You know fuck all about me, so don't accuse me of pulling ladders up. It's the rich who benefit from what you describe, obviously. Some of the rich were remainers, some leavers. Probably about 48:52. That's capitalism for you - I suspect you benefit from it much more than I ever have.
Many people don't see the result of their privilege (paging kinabalu) - bit like fish probably don't think much about the water.
We all benefited from low wages in various areas of the economy.
Every time we went out for a coffee - the staff were cheap, the builders who refitted the cafe were cheap etc etc. Cheap ready made meals in the supermarket.... cheaper building work on our properties... cheaper food delivery....
I'll put you down for the campaign to strengthen trade unions and regulate the gig economy then, will I?
Not sure what trade unions will do about a supply of labour in excess of demand. Unless you are suggesting going back tis the joy joy days of the closed shop? In which case there will be fun deciding who is "in" and gets work and who is "out" and doesn't.
I was just checking how far your concern for the low paid goes. Sounds like stopping the Poles etc coming in was the main thing for you. So you've done your duty for fighting inequality with that Leave vote. Which is nice.
The genius of modern nationalism is its ability to turn on a sixpence when circumstances demand it. Now that Britain is outside the EU, and given the First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon’s, alleged (but unpersuasive) commitment to taking Scotland into the EU as a full member, a trade border between Scotland and non-EU England would be inevitable. In fact, as a good European, Sturgeon could be expected to reflect precisely the view of her new bosses in Brussels, that the absence of a hard border at Gretna would pose a serious threat to the integrity of the single market.
And suddenly, for no reason other than that every development, every fact, every political reality must be harnessed in the cause of independence, a hard border with Scotland’s biggest export market has been transformed into an argument for independence, just as the promise of no hard border was an equally persuasive argument for independence seven years ago.
The 88% net favourability rating for Liz Truss is as preposterous as the woman herself. A reflection of the Conservative Party and the times we live in, I guess.
Your bitterness over the UK having an independent trade policy is one of the best rewards of Brexit. Thank you.
Hate to ask, but if FF43's (alleged) bitterness really is one of the best rewards of Brexit, was it really worth all the hassle? What are the other top five say, for context?
It's probably spaces 1-3, personally along with the bitterness from other EU supporting fifth columnists.
If "remainers" are fifth columnists for the EU are Leavers fifth columnists for Putin? Which would be worse? I think as Brexit is now "done" people trading insults over it just make themselves look a little silly. There are many on both sides of the argument who have done service for their country, and often much more than the people from the opposing side that suggest they are "traitors" perhaps?
The trouble is that, for some, this was their Great Patriotic War to save democracy. Not all, but some. And rather than being saluted for their sacrifices in victory, they are being moaned at or- worse- ignored.
For while, my theory has been that the internal logic of Brexit makes most sense to those born in the 50's and 60's. The most Eurosceptic generation in both 1975 and 2016. Always lived in the shadow of the generation who actually experienced WW2. Too old to see the benefits of a continent without borders for work and play as anything other than a dangerous novelty.
And deep down, some of them suspect that it will all get reversed the minute their backs are turned. Their great achievement down the swannee. And slowly, by a thousand accommodations, chips and cuts, they're probably right.
Johnson understandably won in 2019 on "Brexit is in Peril. Defend it with All Your Might." Unless things change in a way that they haven't so far, there will come a point where the considered response of the public is "Brexit is in Peril? Good".
Meanwhile, time passes.
Although I think Brexit was the biggest foreign policy folly since Suez, I think it would be a mistake to try and re-join. That said I can't help wondering whether in my dotage I will have a good old titter at all those Brexity Col. Blimps when re do regain membership. It will be very funny.
What is funny is how Remainers always insist their vindication is coming. No matter the evidence, the great moment when the up-to-now foolish public suddenly turns around and embraces their Europhile betters. Not only will they regret the decision that has been made, they will actually seek to go back to an even worse membership status than we had before. And to do that when the EU is even more integrated in the years and decades to come. When the UK's economy and trade profile has been restructured completely and status quo bias works in the opposite direction. When the EU is an even smaller share of the world economy than ever.
I suppose it is the only way they can psychologically deal with it. As an upper middle class professional group, they have never really learnt how to accept defeat. They got sent to nice schools, had the way padded to nice universities, and went into nice jobs, where their living standards were padded by the benefits of cheap immigrant and outsourced labour. And they had every election go their way until 2016.
Then they lost, and have been looking for cope ever since. Part of that is the religious certainty that deliverance will arrive in the end. Part of that is the need to assure each other of their moral superiority, with snide comments about how ghastily white, middle aged and - horrors of horrors - *British* those damn Brexiters are. Don't they know how culturally superior Provence and Tuscany are?
Your second paragraph is absurd. Your stereotype applies, if at all, to a small proportion of the 48% who voted to remain, and is no better than the reverse stereotype of 'thick leavers'. And as one of the unprivileged hard-working people who voted remain, and is getting on a bit, far from "every election going (my) way until 2016", very few have done, and I've spent most of my life with governments I oppose.
There's a lot of hard truths in the second paragraphs, it's difficult to look into that mirror so I'm not surprised that remainers are so dismissive of the idea that they benefited from the impoverishment of white working class Brits by Eastern Europeans living 8 to single bedroom flats working for the minimum wage or below and turning it into an effective maximum wage for millions of people. You may have been someone who came from that background but you also pulled the ladder up.
You know fuck all about me, so don't accuse me of pulling ladders up. It's the rich who benefit from what you describe, obviously. Some of the rich were remainers, some leavers. Probably about 48:52. That's capitalism for you - I suspect you benefit from it much more than I ever have.
Many people don't see the result of their privilege (paging kinabalu) - bit like fish probably don't think much about the water.
We all benefited from low wages in various areas of the economy.
Every time we went out for a coffee - the staff were cheap, the builders who refitted the cafe were cheap etc etc. Cheap ready made meals in the supermarket.... cheaper building work on our properties... cheaper food delivery....
Does Costa have differential pricing depending on what area of the country it is in and what the labour market looks like?
Maybe they would if the minimum wage wasn't the maximum wage for those jobs? Companies could innovate on pricing and wages quite easily. Smaller businesses with no presence in London could easily offer lower prices and outcompete the big boys if they stick to a rigid pricing structure.
The 88% net favourability rating for Liz Truss is as preposterous as the woman herself. A reflection of the Conservative Party and the times we live in, I guess.
Your bitterness over the UK having an independent trade policy is one of the best rewards of Brexit. Thank you.
Hate to ask, but if FF43's (alleged) bitterness really is one of the best rewards of Brexit, was it really worth all the hassle? What are the other top five say, for context?
It's probably spaces 1-3, personally along with the bitterness from other EU supporting fifth columnists.
If "remainers" are fifth columnists for the EU are Leavers fifth columnists for Putin? Which would be worse? I think as Brexit is now "done" people trading insults over it just make themselves look a little silly. There are many on both sides of the argument who have done service for their country, and often much more than the people from the opposing side that suggest they are "traitors" perhaps?
The trouble is that, for some, this was their Great Patriotic War to save democracy. Not all, but some. And rather than being saluted for their sacrifices in victory, they are being moaned at or- worse- ignored.
For while, my theory has been that the internal logic of Brexit makes most sense to those born in the 50's and 60's. The most Eurosceptic generation in both 1975 and 2016. Always lived in the shadow of the generation who actually experienced WW2. Too old to see the benefits of a continent without borders for work and play as anything other than a dangerous novelty.
And deep down, some of them suspect that it will all get reversed the minute their backs are turned. Their great achievement down the swannee. And slowly, by a thousand accommodations, chips and cuts, they're probably right.
Johnson understandably won in 2019 on "Brexit is in Peril. Defend it with All Your Might." Unless things change in a way that they haven't so far, there will come a point where the considered response of the public is "Brexit is in Peril? Good".
Meanwhile, time passes.
Although I think Brexit was the biggest foreign policy folly since Suez, I think it would be a mistake to try and re-join. That said I can't help wondering whether in my dotage I will have a good old titter at all those Brexity Col. Blimps when re do regain membership. It will be very funny.
What is funny is how Remainers always insist their vindication is coming. No matter the evidence, the great moment when the up-to-now foolish public suddenly turns around and embraces their Europhile betters. Not only will they regret the decision that has been made, they will actually seek to go back to an even worse membership status than we had before. And to do that when the EU is even more integrated in the years and decades to come. When the UK's economy and trade profile has been restructured completely and status quo bias works in the opposite direction. When the EU is an even smaller share of the world economy than ever.
I suppose it is the only way they can psychologically deal with it. As an upper middle class professional group, they have never really learnt how to accept defeat. They got sent to nice schools, had the way padded to nice universities, and went into nice jobs, where their living standards were padded by the benefits of cheap immigrant and outsourced labour. And they had every election go their way until 2016.
Then they lost, and have been looking for cope ever since. Part of that is the religious certainty that deliverance will arrive in the end. Part of that is the need to assure each other of their moral superiority, with snide comments about how ghastily white, middle aged and - horrors of horrors - *British* those damn Brexiters are. Don't they know how culturally superior Provence and Tuscany are?
Yep. Brexit is essentially about the humbling of social & financial elites (exactly as you explain here) but what's strange is that almost all its leading proponents in public life are reactionary right wing Conservatives. It seems these chaps have all got the wrong end of the stick. I know when it comes to politics that Right doesn't equal Bright, but still, it's a puzzle.
Brexit was also a massive great Fuck You from Provincial Britain to London. You can't blame the yokels, they spent 30 years watching property owning Londoners get insanely wealthy, through no personal merit, while also enjoying all the restaurants, bars, girls, boys, fun, parties, better weather and nice shiny new trains
Brexit was regional Britain saying "this is our country as well": to arrogant Londoners
Talking of which I can report back from my Groucho lunch. The restaurant was jammed, the menu was oddly truncated (lack of staff?) but delicious, the new decor is beautiful, and central London as a whole - the bits of Soho, Fitzrovia, Bloomsbury, and Marylebone that I walked through - definitely feels a whole lot better. Many places are shut but many are reopening. The pavements are busier than I have seen since 2019.
And I don't think it is just the effect of a nice sunny day: it isn't. It's overcast, quite cool.
Central London might be reviving, for real.
That's great news that the Groucho is buzzing. Can't wait to get myself there and see what all the fuss is about.
As for Brexit being a cry from the provinces for a more equitable split of power, wealth and opportunity in early 21st century Britain, it's a nice thought, but I wonder if it's accurate.
Reason I'm skeptical is that I very much want that, whereas you very much don't, and I very much voted Remain whereas you very much voted Leave. That's close to being a disprove when you think about it - given both you and I are astuties who know what we want and know how to get it.
My extended family in Cornwall - a large bunch of people - is generally pro-Leave (like the rest of Cornwall). Get them a bit tipsy and ask them about their Brexit vote, and a general resentment at London having all the fun and money emerges. I am sure it is a driver across provincial Britain
And you are simply wrong that I "very much voted Leave" - tho I can see why you might think that, so this is not a critique
My vote was finely balanced. My head and heart were both split. I liked aspects of the EU very much - FOM the most of all. Tho I respect voters who wanted an end to it, as it was damaging their lives. This was a real issue. I also strongly suspected Brexit would damage the country economically (but not grievously), and be bad for London property owners - eg me
But the sovereignty argument won out, on the morning of the vote. I do believe we will be better off governing ourselves, in the end, and more prosperous too, and there are just too many repulsive aspects to the EU. The fraud of the Lisbon Treaty/Constitution was an unforgivable outrage against the European people
So there you are, I actually voted UNSELFISHLY. I voted against my own perceived financial interests, and for the betterment of the country and the country my daughters will inherit. But it was a close call
Was it really sovereignty that swung it for the people of Cornwall? Or just envy of the people in different parts of the country who they perceive are more rich than them. (grass is always greener etc..). Funny how they aren't envious when the tourists from the rest of the country fill their caravans and campsites, as well as attend their attractions, whether remainer or leaver. Sovereignty is such a mysterious concept. We've had it for a year now, but I wonder what difference it makes. No difference to me. Uk parliament and Welsh assembly have made our laws for a long time now.
The love hate relationship with tourists in tourist areas is a pretty common thing round the world.
The tourists come and pay ludicrous prices. In a number of places in Cornwall, the tourist prices are London prices. The locals get priced out of all the good local housing. Which gets turned into holiday homes that are empty for a large chunk of the year....
I agree about the holiday homes, but here in Wales the local council is allowed to charge double poll tax.
All that is going to do is raise extra cash for the Council. It’s not going to deter people buying second homes
Given the financial straits most councils are in, that might be a good thing in itself.
A way of soaking the rich outsiders for extra council tax to repair local roads? Most people would jump at that.
A very minor bafflement to me: the ticket machines at the big seaside council carpark at widemouth bay (so Bude town council, impoverished North Cornwall) have been out of order all year (at least till 20 July when I was last there). Say it's a 100 space car park and each space yields a tenner a day that's £7000 a week mainly incomer being pissed away. How does this kind of thing happen?
The 88% net favourability rating for Liz Truss is as preposterous as the woman herself. A reflection of the Conservative Party and the times we live in, I guess.
Your bitterness over the UK having an independent trade policy is one of the best rewards of Brexit. Thank you.
Hate to ask, but if FF43's (alleged) bitterness really is one of the best rewards of Brexit, was it really worth all the hassle? What are the other top five say, for context?
It's probably spaces 1-3, personally along with the bitterness from other EU supporting fifth columnists.
If "remainers" are fifth columnists for the EU are Leavers fifth columnists for Putin? Which would be worse? I think as Brexit is now "done" people trading insults over it just make themselves look a little silly. There are many on both sides of the argument who have done service for their country, and often much more than the people from the opposing side that suggest they are "traitors" perhaps?
The trouble is that, for some, this was their Great Patriotic War to save democracy. Not all, but some. And rather than being saluted for their sacrifices in victory, they are being moaned at or- worse- ignored.
For while, my theory has been that the internal logic of Brexit makes most sense to those born in the 50's and 60's. The most Eurosceptic generation in both 1975 and 2016. Always lived in the shadow of the generation who actually experienced WW2. Too old to see the benefits of a continent without borders for work and play as anything other than a dangerous novelty.
And deep down, some of them suspect that it will all get reversed the minute their backs are turned. Their great achievement down the swannee. And slowly, by a thousand accommodations, chips and cuts, they're probably right.
Johnson understandably won in 2019 on "Brexit is in Peril. Defend it with All Your Might." Unless things change in a way that they haven't so far, there will come a point where the considered response of the public is "Brexit is in Peril? Good".
Meanwhile, time passes.
Although I think Brexit was the biggest foreign policy folly since Suez, I think it would be a mistake to try and re-join. That said I can't help wondering whether in my dotage I will have a good old titter at all those Brexity Col. Blimps when re do regain membership. It will be very funny.
What is funny is how Remainers always insist their vindication is coming. No matter the evidence, the great moment when the up-to-now foolish public suddenly turns around and embraces their Europhile betters. Not only will they regret the decision that has been made, they will actually seek to go back to an even worse membership status than we had before. And to do that when the EU is even more integrated in the years and decades to come. When the UK's economy and trade profile has been restructured completely and status quo bias works in the opposite direction. When the EU is an even smaller share of the world economy than ever.
I suppose it is the only way they can psychologically deal with it. As an upper middle class professional group, they have never really learnt how to accept defeat. They got sent to nice schools, had the way padded to nice universities, and went into nice jobs, where their living standards were padded by the benefits of cheap immigrant and outsourced labour. And they had every election go their way until 2016.
Then they lost, and have been looking for cope ever since. Part of that is the religious certainty that deliverance will arrive in the end. Part of that is the need to assure each other of their moral superiority, with snide comments about how ghastily white, middle aged and - horrors of horrors - *British* those damn Brexiters are. Don't they know how culturally superior Provence and Tuscany are?
Yep. Brexit is essentially about the humbling of social & financial elites (exactly as you explain here) but what's strange is that almost all its leading proponents in public life are reactionary right wing Conservatives. It seems these chaps have all got the wrong end of the stick. I know when it comes to politics that Right doesn't equal Bright, but still, it's a puzzle.
Brexit was also a massive great Fuck You from Provincial Britain to London. You can't blame the yokels, they spent 30 years watching property owning Londoners get insanely wealthy, through no personal merit, while also enjoying all the restaurants, bars, girls, boys, fun, parties, better weather and nice shiny new trains
Brexit was regional Britain saying "this is our country as well": to arrogant Londoners
Talking of which I can report back from my Groucho lunch. The restaurant was jammed, the menu was oddly truncated (lack of staff?) but delicious, the new decor is beautiful, and central London as a whole - the bits of Soho, Fitzrovia, Bloomsbury, and Marylebone that I walked through - definitely feels a whole lot better. Many places are shut but many are reopening. The pavements are busier than I have seen since 2019.
And I don't think it is just the effect of a nice sunny day: it isn't. It's overcast, quite cool.
Central London might be reviving, for real.
That's great news that the Groucho is buzzing. Can't wait to get myself there and see what all the fuss is about.
As for Brexit being a cry from the provinces for a more equitable split of power, wealth and opportunity in early 21st century Britain, it's a nice thought, but I wonder if it's accurate.
Reason I'm skeptical is that I very much want that, whereas you very much don't, and I very much voted Remain whereas you very much voted Leave. That's close to being a disprove when you think about it - given both you and I are astuties who know what we want and know how to get it.
My extended family in Cornwall - a large bunch of people - is generally pro-Leave (like the rest of Cornwall). Get them a bit tipsy and ask them about their Brexit vote, and a general resentment at London having all the fun and money emerges. I am sure it is a driver across provincial Britain
And you are simply wrong that I "very much voted Leave" - tho I can see why you might think that, so this is not a critique
My vote was finely balanced. My head and heart were both split. I liked aspects of the EU very much - FOM the most of all. Tho I respect voters who wanted an end to it, as it was damaging their lives. This was a real issue. I also strongly suspected Brexit would damage the country economically (but not grievously), and be bad for London property owners - eg me
But the sovereignty argument won out, on the morning of the vote. I do believe we will be better off governing ourselves, in the end, and more prosperous too, and there are just too many repulsive aspects to the EU. The fraud of the Lisbon Treaty/Constitution was an unforgivable outrage against the European people
So there you are, I actually voted UNSELFISHLY. I voted against my own perceived financial interests, and for the betterment of the country and the country my daughters will inherit. But it was a close call
Was it really sovereignty that swung it for the people of Cornwall? Or just envy of the people in different parts of the country who they perceive are more rich than them. (grass is always greener etc..). Funny how they aren't envious when the tourists from the rest of the country fill their caravans and campsites, as well as attend their attractions, whether remainer or leaver. Sovereignty is such a mysterious concept. We've had it for a year now, but I wonder what difference it makes. No difference to me. Uk parliament and Welsh assembly have made our laws for a long time now.
The love hate relationship with tourists in tourist areas is a pretty common thing round the world.
The tourists come and pay ludicrous prices. In a number of places in Cornwall, the tourist prices are London prices. The locals get priced out of all the good local housing. Which gets turned into holiday homes that are empty for a large chunk of the year....
I agree about the holiday homes, but here in Wales the local council is allowed to charge double poll tax.
All that is going to do is raise extra cash for the Council. It’s not going to deter people buying second homes
Given the financial straits most councils are in, that might be a good thing in itself.
A way of soaking the rich outsiders for extra council tax to repair local roads? Most people would jump at that.
A very minor bafflement to me: the ticket machines at the big seaside council carpark at widemouth bay (so Bude town council, impoverished North Cornwall) have been out of order all year (at least till 20 July when I was last there). Say it's a 100 space car park and each space yields a tenner a day that's £7000 a week mainly incomer being pissed away. How does this kind of thing happen?
It took me a while to read it, but the key sovereingty bit is:
European sovereignty is born of Member States' national sovereignty and does not replace it. Sharing sovereignty – when and where needed – makes each of our nation states stronger.
The 88% net favourability rating for Liz Truss is as preposterous as the woman herself. A reflection of the Conservative Party and the times we live in, I guess.
Your bitterness over the UK having an independent trade policy is one of the best rewards of Brexit. Thank you.
Hate to ask, but if FF43's (alleged) bitterness really is one of the best rewards of Brexit, was it really worth all the hassle? What are the other top five say, for context?
It's probably spaces 1-3, personally along with the bitterness from other EU supporting fifth columnists.
If "remainers" are fifth columnists for the EU are Leavers fifth columnists for Putin? Which would be worse? I think as Brexit is now "done" people trading insults over it just make themselves look a little silly. There are many on both sides of the argument who have done service for their country, and often much more than the people from the opposing side that suggest they are "traitors" perhaps?
The trouble is that, for some, this was their Great Patriotic War to save democracy. Not all, but some. And rather than being saluted for their sacrifices in victory, they are being moaned at or- worse- ignored.
For while, my theory has been that the internal logic of Brexit makes most sense to those born in the 50's and 60's. The most Eurosceptic generation in both 1975 and 2016. Always lived in the shadow of the generation who actually experienced WW2. Too old to see the benefits of a continent without borders for work and play as anything other than a dangerous novelty.
And deep down, some of them suspect that it will all get reversed the minute their backs are turned. Their great achievement down the swannee. And slowly, by a thousand accommodations, chips and cuts, they're probably right.
Johnson understandably won in 2019 on "Brexit is in Peril. Defend it with All Your Might." Unless things change in a way that they haven't so far, there will come a point where the considered response of the public is "Brexit is in Peril? Good".
Meanwhile, time passes.
Although I think Brexit was the biggest foreign policy folly since Suez, I think it would be a mistake to try and re-join. That said I can't help wondering whether in my dotage I will have a good old titter at all those Brexity Col. Blimps when re do regain membership. It will be very funny.
What is funny is how Remainers always insist their vindication is coming. No matter the evidence, the great moment when the up-to-now foolish public suddenly turns around and embraces their Europhile betters. Not only will they regret the decision that has been made, they will actually seek to go back to an even worse membership status than we had before. And to do that when the EU is even more integrated in the years and decades to come. When the UK's economy and trade profile has been restructured completely and status quo bias works in the opposite direction. When the EU is an even smaller share of the world economy than ever.
I suppose it is the only way they can psychologically deal with it. As an upper middle class professional group, they have never really learnt how to accept defeat. They got sent to nice schools, had the way padded to nice universities, and went into nice jobs, where their living standards were padded by the benefits of cheap immigrant and outsourced labour. And they had every election go their way until 2016.
Then they lost, and have been looking for cope ever since. Part of that is the religious certainty that deliverance will arrive in the end. Part of that is the need to assure each other of their moral superiority, with snide comments about how ghastily white, middle aged and - horrors of horrors - *British* those damn Brexiters are. Don't they know how culturally superior Provence and Tuscany are?
Yep. Brexit is essentially about the humbling of social & financial elites (exactly as you explain here) but what's strange is that almost all its leading proponents in public life are reactionary right wing Conservatives. It seems these chaps have all got the wrong end of the stick. I know when it comes to politics that Right doesn't equal Bright, but still, it's a puzzle.
Brexit was also a massive great Fuck You from Provincial Britain to London. You can't blame the yokels, they spent 30 years watching property owning Londoners get insanely wealthy, through no personal merit, while also enjoying all the restaurants, bars, girls, boys, fun, parties, better weather and nice shiny new trains
Brexit was regional Britain saying "this is our country as well": to arrogant Londoners
Talking of which I can report back from my Groucho lunch. The restaurant was jammed, the menu was oddly truncated (lack of staff?) but delicious, the new decor is beautiful, and central London as a whole - the bits of Soho, Fitzrovia, Bloomsbury, and Marylebone that I walked through - definitely feels a whole lot better. Many places are shut but many are reopening. The pavements are busier than I have seen since 2019.
And I don't think it is just the effect of a nice sunny day: it isn't. It's overcast, quite cool.
Central London might be reviving, for real.
That's great news that the Groucho is buzzing. Can't wait to get myself there and see what all the fuss is about.
As for Brexit being a cry from the provinces for a more equitable split of power, wealth and opportunity in early 21st century Britain, it's a nice thought, but I wonder if it's accurate.
Reason I'm skeptical is that I very much want that, whereas you very much don't, and I very much voted Remain whereas you very much voted Leave. That's close to being a disprove when you think about it - given both you and I are astuties who know what we want and know how to get it.
My extended family in Cornwall - a large bunch of people - is generally pro-Leave (like the rest of Cornwall). Get them a bit tipsy and ask them about their Brexit vote, and a general resentment at London having all the fun and money emerges. I am sure it is a driver across provincial Britain
And you are simply wrong that I "very much voted Leave" - tho I can see why you might think that, so this is not a critique
My vote was finely balanced. My head and heart were both split. I liked aspects of the EU very much - FOM the most of all. Tho I respect voters who wanted an end to it, as it was damaging their lives. This was a real issue. I also strongly suspected Brexit would damage the country economically (but not grievously), and be bad for London property owners - eg me
But the sovereignty argument won out, on the morning of the vote. I do believe we will be better off governing ourselves, in the end, and more prosperous too, and there are just too many repulsive aspects to the EU. The fraud of the Lisbon Treaty/Constitution was an unforgivable outrage against the European people
So there you are, I actually voted UNSELFISHLY. I voted against my own perceived financial interests, and for the betterment of the country and the country my daughters will inherit. But it was a close call
Was it really sovereignty that swung it for the people of Cornwall? Or just envy of the people in different parts of the country who they perceive are more rich than them. (grass is always greener etc..). Funny how they aren't envious when the tourists from the rest of the country fill their caravans and campsites, as well as attend their attractions, whether remainer or leaver. Sovereignty is such a mysterious concept. We've had it for a year now, but I wonder what difference it makes. No difference to me. Uk parliament and Welsh assembly have made our laws for a long time now.
The love hate relationship with tourists in tourist areas is a pretty common thing round the world.
The tourists come and pay ludicrous prices. In a number of places in Cornwall, the tourist prices are London prices. The locals get priced out of all the good local housing. Which gets turned into holiday homes that are empty for a large chunk of the year....
I agree about the holiday homes, but here in Wales the local council is allowed to charge double poll tax.
All that is going to do is raise extra cash for the Council. It’s not going to deter people buying second homes
Given the financial straits most councils are in, that might be a good thing in itself.
A way of soaking the rich outsiders for extra council tax to repair local roads? Most people would jump at that.
A very minor bafflement to me: the ticket machines at the big seaside council carpark at widemouth bay (so Bude town council, impoverished North Cornwall) have been out of order all year (at least till 20 July when I was last there). Say it's a 100 space car park and each space yields a tenner a day that's £7000 a week mainly incomer being pissed away. How does this kind of thing happen?
The 88% net favourability rating for Liz Truss is as preposterous as the woman herself. A reflection of the Conservative Party and the times we live in, I guess.
Your bitterness over the UK having an independent trade policy is one of the best rewards of Brexit. Thank you.
Hate to ask, but if FF43's (alleged) bitterness really is one of the best rewards of Brexit, was it really worth all the hassle? What are the other top five say, for context?
It's probably spaces 1-3, personally along with the bitterness from other EU supporting fifth columnists.
If "remainers" are fifth columnists for the EU are Leavers fifth columnists for Putin? Which would be worse? I think as Brexit is now "done" people trading insults over it just make themselves look a little silly. There are many on both sides of the argument who have done service for their country, and often much more than the people from the opposing side that suggest they are "traitors" perhaps?
The trouble is that, for some, this was their Great Patriotic War to save democracy. Not all, but some. And rather than being saluted for their sacrifices in victory, they are being moaned at or- worse- ignored.
For while, my theory has been that the internal logic of Brexit makes most sense to those born in the 50's and 60's. The most Eurosceptic generation in both 1975 and 2016. Always lived in the shadow of the generation who actually experienced WW2. Too old to see the benefits of a continent without borders for work and play as anything other than a dangerous novelty.
And deep down, some of them suspect that it will all get reversed the minute their backs are turned. Their great achievement down the swannee. And slowly, by a thousand accommodations, chips and cuts, they're probably right.
Johnson understandably won in 2019 on "Brexit is in Peril. Defend it with All Your Might." Unless things change in a way that they haven't so far, there will come a point where the considered response of the public is "Brexit is in Peril? Good".
Meanwhile, time passes.
Although I think Brexit was the biggest foreign policy folly since Suez, I think it would be a mistake to try and re-join. That said I can't help wondering whether in my dotage I will have a good old titter at all those Brexity Col. Blimps when re do regain membership. It will be very funny.
What is funny is how Remainers always insist their vindication is coming. No matter the evidence, the great moment when the up-to-now foolish public suddenly turns around and embraces their Europhile betters. Not only will they regret the decision that has been made, they will actually seek to go back to an even worse membership status than we had before. And to do that when the EU is even more integrated in the years and decades to come. When the UK's economy and trade profile has been restructured completely and status quo bias works in the opposite direction. When the EU is an even smaller share of the world economy than ever.
I suppose it is the only way they can psychologically deal with it. As an upper middle class professional group, they have never really learnt how to accept defeat. They got sent to nice schools, had the way padded to nice universities, and went into nice jobs, where their living standards were padded by the benefits of cheap immigrant and outsourced labour. And they had every election go their way until 2016.
Then they lost, and have been looking for cope ever since. Part of that is the religious certainty that deliverance will arrive in the end. Part of that is the need to assure each other of their moral superiority, with snide comments about how ghastily white, middle aged and - horrors of horrors - *British* those damn Brexiters are. Don't they know how culturally superior Provence and Tuscany are?
Yep. Brexit is essentially about the humbling of social & financial elites (exactly as you explain here) but what's strange is that almost all its leading proponents in public life are reactionary right wing Conservatives. It seems these chaps have all got the wrong end of the stick. I know when it comes to politics that Right doesn't equal Bright, but still, it's a puzzle.
Brexit was also a massive great Fuck You from Provincial Britain to London. You can't blame the yokels, they spent 30 years watching property owning Londoners get insanely wealthy, through no personal merit, while also enjoying all the restaurants, bars, girls, boys, fun, parties, better weather and nice shiny new trains
Brexit was regional Britain saying "this is our country as well": to arrogant Londoners
Talking of which I can report back from my Groucho lunch. The restaurant was jammed, the menu was oddly truncated (lack of staff?) but delicious, the new decor is beautiful, and central London as a whole - the bits of Soho, Fitzrovia, Bloomsbury, and Marylebone that I walked through - definitely feels a whole lot better. Many places are shut but many are reopening. The pavements are busier than I have seen since 2019.
And I don't think it is just the effect of a nice sunny day: it isn't. It's overcast, quite cool.
Central London might be reviving, for real.
That's great news that the Groucho is buzzing. Can't wait to get myself there and see what all the fuss is about.
As for Brexit being a cry from the provinces for a more equitable split of power, wealth and opportunity in early 21st century Britain, it's a nice thought, but I wonder if it's accurate.
Reason I'm skeptical is that I very much want that, whereas you very much don't, and I very much voted Remain whereas you very much voted Leave. That's close to being a disprove when you think about it - given both you and I are astuties who know what we want and know how to get it.
My extended family in Cornwall - a large bunch of people - is generally pro-Leave (like the rest of Cornwall). Get them a bit tipsy and ask them about their Brexit vote, and a general resentment at London having all the fun and money emerges. I am sure it is a driver across provincial Britain
And you are simply wrong that I "very much voted Leave" - tho I can see why you might think that, so this is not a critique
My vote was finely balanced. My head and heart were both split. I liked aspects of the EU very much - FOM the most of all. Tho I respect voters who wanted an end to it, as it was damaging their lives. This was a real issue. I also strongly suspected Brexit would damage the country economically (but not grievously), and be bad for London property owners - eg me
But the sovereignty argument won out, on the morning of the vote. I do believe we will be better off governing ourselves, in the end, and more prosperous too, and there are just too many repulsive aspects to the EU. The fraud of the Lisbon Treaty/Constitution was an unforgivable outrage against the European people
So there you are, I actually voted UNSELFISHLY. I voted against my own perceived financial interests, and for the betterment of the country and the country my daughters will inherit. But it was a close call
Was it really sovereignty that swung it for the people of Cornwall? Or just envy of the people in different parts of the country who they perceive are more rich than them. (grass is always greener etc..). Funny how they aren't envious when the tourists from the rest of the country fill their caravans and campsites, as well as attend their attractions, whether remainer or leaver. Sovereignty is such a mysterious concept. We've had it for a year now, but I wonder what difference it makes. No difference to me. Uk parliament and Welsh assembly have made our laws for a long time now.
The love hate relationship with tourists in tourist areas is a pretty common thing round the world.
The tourists come and pay ludicrous prices. In a number of places in Cornwall, the tourist prices are London prices. The locals get priced out of all the good local housing. Which gets turned into holiday homes that are empty for a large chunk of the year....
I agree about the holiday homes, but here in Wales the local council is allowed to charge double poll tax.
All that is going to do is raise extra cash for the Council. It’s not going to deter people buying second homes
Given the financial straits most councils are in, that might be a good thing in itself.
A way of soaking the rich outsiders for extra council tax to repair local roads? Most people would jump at that.
A very minor bafflement to me: the ticket machines at the big seaside council carpark at widemouth bay (so Bude town council, impoverished North Cornwall) have been out of order all year (at least till 20 July when I was last there). Say it's a 100 space car park and each space yields a tenner a day that's £7000 a week mainly incomer being pissed away. How does this kind of thing happen?
Incompetence?
And a lack of effective anti incompetence mechanisms.
The 88% net favourability rating for Liz Truss is as preposterous as the woman herself. A reflection of the Conservative Party and the times we live in, I guess.
Your bitterness over the UK having an independent trade policy is one of the best rewards of Brexit. Thank you.
Hate to ask, but if FF43's (alleged) bitterness really is one of the best rewards of Brexit, was it really worth all the hassle? What are the other top five say, for context?
It's probably spaces 1-3, personally along with the bitterness from other EU supporting fifth columnists.
If "remainers" are fifth columnists for the EU are Leavers fifth columnists for Putin? Which would be worse? I think as Brexit is now "done" people trading insults over it just make themselves look a little silly. There are many on both sides of the argument who have done service for their country, and often much more than the people from the opposing side that suggest they are "traitors" perhaps?
The trouble is that, for some, this was their Great Patriotic War to save democracy. Not all, but some. And rather than being saluted for their sacrifices in victory, they are being moaned at or- worse- ignored.
For while, my theory has been that the internal logic of Brexit makes most sense to those born in the 50's and 60's. The most Eurosceptic generation in both 1975 and 2016. Always lived in the shadow of the generation who actually experienced WW2. Too old to see the benefits of a continent without borders for work and play as anything other than a dangerous novelty.
And deep down, some of them suspect that it will all get reversed the minute their backs are turned. Their great achievement down the swannee. And slowly, by a thousand accommodations, chips and cuts, they're probably right.
Johnson understandably won in 2019 on "Brexit is in Peril. Defend it with All Your Might." Unless things change in a way that they haven't so far, there will come a point where the considered response of the public is "Brexit is in Peril? Good".
Meanwhile, time passes.
Although I think Brexit was the biggest foreign policy folly since Suez, I think it would be a mistake to try and re-join. That said I can't help wondering whether in my dotage I will have a good old titter at all those Brexity Col. Blimps when re do regain membership. It will be very funny.
What is funny is how Remainers always insist their vindication is coming. No matter the evidence, the great moment when the up-to-now foolish public suddenly turns around and embraces their Europhile betters. Not only will they regret the decision that has been made, they will actually seek to go back to an even worse membership status than we had before. And to do that when the EU is even more integrated in the years and decades to come. When the UK's economy and trade profile has been restructured completely and status quo bias works in the opposite direction. When the EU is an even smaller share of the world economy than ever.
I suppose it is the only way they can psychologically deal with it. As an upper middle class professional group, they have never really learnt how to accept defeat. They got sent to nice schools, had the way padded to nice universities, and went into nice jobs, where their living standards were padded by the benefits of cheap immigrant and outsourced labour. And they had every election go their way until 2016.
Then they lost, and have been looking for cope ever since. Part of that is the religious certainty that deliverance will arrive in the end. Part of that is the need to assure each other of their moral superiority, with snide comments about how ghastily white, middle aged and - horrors of horrors - *British* those damn Brexiters are. Don't they know how culturally superior Provence and Tuscany are?
Yep. Brexit is essentially about the humbling of social & financial elites (exactly as you explain here) but what's strange is that almost all its leading proponents in public life are reactionary right wing Conservatives. It seems these chaps have all got the wrong end of the stick. I know when it comes to politics that Right doesn't equal Bright, but still, it's a puzzle.
Brexit was also a massive great Fuck You from Provincial Britain to London. You can't blame the yokels, they spent 30 years watching property owning Londoners get insanely wealthy, through no personal merit, while also enjoying all the restaurants, bars, girls, boys, fun, parties, better weather and nice shiny new trains
Brexit was regional Britain saying "this is our country as well": to arrogant Londoners
Talking of which I can report back from my Groucho lunch. The restaurant was jammed, the menu was oddly truncated (lack of staff?) but delicious, the new decor is beautiful, and central London as a whole - the bits of Soho, Fitzrovia, Bloomsbury, and Marylebone that I walked through - definitely feels a whole lot better. Many places are shut but many are reopening. The pavements are busier than I have seen since 2019.
And I don't think it is just the effect of a nice sunny day: it isn't. It's overcast, quite cool.
Central London might be reviving, for real.
That's great news that the Groucho is buzzing. Can't wait to get myself there and see what all the fuss is about.
As for Brexit being a cry from the provinces for a more equitable split of power, wealth and opportunity in early 21st century Britain, it's a nice thought, but I wonder if it's accurate.
Reason I'm skeptical is that I very much want that, whereas you very much don't, and I very much voted Remain whereas you very much voted Leave. That's close to being a disprove when you think about it - given both you and I are astuties who know what we want and know how to get it.
My extended family in Cornwall - a large bunch of people - is generally pro-Leave (like the rest of Cornwall). Get them a bit tipsy and ask them about their Brexit vote, and a general resentment at London having all the fun and money emerges. I am sure it is a driver across provincial Britain
And you are simply wrong that I "very much voted Leave" - tho I can see why you might think that, so this is not a critique
My vote was finely balanced. My head and heart were both split. I liked aspects of the EU very much - FOM the most of all. Tho I respect voters who wanted an end to it, as it was damaging their lives. This was a real issue. I also strongly suspected Brexit would damage the country economically (but not grievously), and be bad for London property owners - eg me
But the sovereignty argument won out, on the morning of the vote. I do believe we will be better off governing ourselves, in the end, and more prosperous too, and there are just too many repulsive aspects to the EU. The fraud of the Lisbon Treaty/Constitution was an unforgivable outrage against the European people
So there you are, I actually voted UNSELFISHLY. I voted against my own perceived financial interests, and for the betterment of the country and the country my daughters will inherit. But it was a close call
Was it really sovereignty that swung it for the people of Cornwall? Or just envy of the people in different parts of the country who they perceive are more rich than them. (grass is always greener etc..). Funny how they aren't envious when the tourists from the rest of the country fill their caravans and campsites, as well as attend their attractions, whether remainer or leaver. Sovereignty is such a mysterious concept. We've had it for a year now, but I wonder what difference it makes. No difference to me. Uk parliament and Welsh assembly have made our laws for a long time now.
The love hate relationship with tourists in tourist areas is a pretty common thing round the world.
The tourists come and pay ludicrous prices. In a number of places in Cornwall, the tourist prices are London prices. The locals get priced out of all the good local housing. Which gets turned into holiday homes that are empty for a large chunk of the year....
I agree about the holiday homes, but here in Wales the local council is allowed to charge double poll tax.
All that is going to do is raise extra cash for the Council. It’s not going to deter people buying second homes
Given the financial straits most councils are in, that might be a good thing in itself.
A way of soaking the rich outsiders for extra council tax to repair local roads? Most people would jump at that.
A very minor bafflement to me: the ticket machines at the big seaside council carpark at widemouth bay (so Bude town council, impoverished North Cornwall) have been out of order all year (at least till 20 July when I was last there). Say it's a 100 space car park and each space yields a tenner a day that's £7000 a week mainly incomer being pissed away. How does this kind of thing happen?
Incompetence?
In local government?
Well, while it’s hard to believe, once you’ve eliminated the impossible, such as a deliberate policy decision, whatever remains, however improbable, must be true.
The 88% net favourability rating for Liz Truss is as preposterous as the woman herself. A reflection of the Conservative Party and the times we live in, I guess.
Your bitterness over the UK having an independent trade policy is one of the best rewards of Brexit. Thank you.
Hate to ask, but if FF43's (alleged) bitterness really is one of the best rewards of Brexit, was it really worth all the hassle? What are the other top five say, for context?
It's probably spaces 1-3, personally along with the bitterness from other EU supporting fifth columnists.
If "remainers" are fifth columnists for the EU are Leavers fifth columnists for Putin? Which would be worse? I think as Brexit is now "done" people trading insults over it just make themselves look a little silly. There are many on both sides of the argument who have done service for their country, and often much more than the people from the opposing side that suggest they are "traitors" perhaps?
The trouble is that, for some, this was their Great Patriotic War to save democracy. Not all, but some. And rather than being saluted for their sacrifices in victory, they are being moaned at or- worse- ignored.
For while, my theory has been that the internal logic of Brexit makes most sense to those born in the 50's and 60's. The most Eurosceptic generation in both 1975 and 2016. Always lived in the shadow of the generation who actually experienced WW2. Too old to see the benefits of a continent without borders for work and play as anything other than a dangerous novelty.
And deep down, some of them suspect that it will all get reversed the minute their backs are turned. Their great achievement down the swannee. And slowly, by a thousand accommodations, chips and cuts, they're probably right.
Johnson understandably won in 2019 on "Brexit is in Peril. Defend it with All Your Might." Unless things change in a way that they haven't so far, there will come a point where the considered response of the public is "Brexit is in Peril? Good".
Meanwhile, time passes.
Although I think Brexit was the biggest foreign policy folly since Suez, I think it would be a mistake to try and re-join. That said I can't help wondering whether in my dotage I will have a good old titter at all those Brexity Col. Blimps when re do regain membership. It will be very funny.
What is funny is how Remainers always insist their vindication is coming. No matter the evidence, the great moment when the up-to-now foolish public suddenly turns around and embraces their Europhile betters. Not only will they regret the decision that has been made, they will actually seek to go back to an even worse membership status than we had before. And to do that when the EU is even more integrated in the years and decades to come. When the UK's economy and trade profile has been restructured completely and status quo bias works in the opposite direction. When the EU is an even smaller share of the world economy than ever.
I suppose it is the only way they can psychologically deal with it. As an upper middle class professional group, they have never really learnt how to accept defeat. They got sent to nice schools, had the way padded to nice universities, and went into nice jobs, where their living standards were padded by the benefits of cheap immigrant and outsourced labour. And they had every election go their way until 2016.
Then they lost, and have been looking for cope ever since. Part of that is the religious certainty that deliverance will arrive in the end. Part of that is the need to assure each other of their moral superiority, with snide comments about how ghastily white, middle aged and - horrors of horrors - *British* those damn Brexiters are. Don't they know how culturally superior Provence and Tuscany are?
Yep. Brexit is essentially about the humbling of social & financial elites (exactly as you explain here) but what's strange is that almost all its leading proponents in public life are reactionary right wing Conservatives. It seems these chaps have all got the wrong end of the stick. I know when it comes to politics that Right doesn't equal Bright, but still, it's a puzzle.
Brexit was also a massive great Fuck You from Provincial Britain to London. You can't blame the yokels, they spent 30 years watching property owning Londoners get insanely wealthy, through no personal merit, while also enjoying all the restaurants, bars, girls, boys, fun, parties, better weather and nice shiny new trains
Brexit was regional Britain saying "this is our country as well": to arrogant Londoners
Talking of which I can report back from my Groucho lunch. The restaurant was jammed, the menu was oddly truncated (lack of staff?) but delicious, the new decor is beautiful, and central London as a whole - the bits of Soho, Fitzrovia, Bloomsbury, and Marylebone that I walked through - definitely feels a whole lot better. Many places are shut but many are reopening. The pavements are busier than I have seen since 2019.
And I don't think it is just the effect of a nice sunny day: it isn't. It's overcast, quite cool.
Central London might be reviving, for real.
That's great news that the Groucho is buzzing. Can't wait to get myself there and see what all the fuss is about.
As for Brexit being a cry from the provinces for a more equitable split of power, wealth and opportunity in early 21st century Britain, it's a nice thought, but I wonder if it's accurate.
Reason I'm skeptical is that I very much want that, whereas you very much don't, and I very much voted Remain whereas you very much voted Leave. That's close to being a disprove when you think about it - given both you and I are astuties who know what we want and know how to get it.
My extended family in Cornwall - a large bunch of people - is generally pro-Leave (like the rest of Cornwall). Get them a bit tipsy and ask them about their Brexit vote, and a general resentment at London having all the fun and money emerges. I am sure it is a driver across provincial Britain
And you are simply wrong that I "very much voted Leave" - tho I can see why you might think that, so this is not a critique
My vote was finely balanced. My head and heart were both split. I liked aspects of the EU very much - FOM the most of all. Tho I respect voters who wanted an end to it, as it was damaging their lives. This was a real issue. I also strongly suspected Brexit would damage the country economically (but not grievously), and be bad for London property owners - eg me
But the sovereignty argument won out, on the morning of the vote. I do believe we will be better off governing ourselves, in the end, and more prosperous too, and there are just too many repulsive aspects to the EU. The fraud of the Lisbon Treaty/Constitution was an unforgivable outrage against the European people
So there you are, I actually voted UNSELFISHLY. I voted against my own perceived financial interests, and for the betterment of the country and the country my daughters will inherit. But it was a close call
Was it really sovereignty that swung it for the people of Cornwall? Or just envy of the people in different parts of the country who they perceive are more rich than them. (grass is always greener etc..). Funny how they aren't envious when the tourists from the rest of the country fill their caravans and campsites, as well as attend their attractions, whether remainer or leaver. Sovereignty is such a mysterious concept. We've had it for a year now, but I wonder what difference it makes. No difference to me. Uk parliament and Welsh assembly have made our laws for a long time now.
The love hate relationship with tourists in tourist areas is a pretty common thing round the world.
The tourists come and pay ludicrous prices. In a number of places in Cornwall, the tourist prices are London prices. The locals get priced out of all the good local housing. Which gets turned into holiday homes that are empty for a large chunk of the year....
I agree about the holiday homes, but here in Wales the local council is allowed to charge double poll tax.
All that is going to do is raise extra cash for the Council. It’s not going to deter people buying second homes
Given the financial straits most councils are in, that might be a good thing in itself.
A way of soaking the rich outsiders for extra council tax to repair local roads? Most people would jump at that.
A very minor bafflement to me: the ticket machines at the big seaside council carpark at widemouth bay (so Bude town council, impoverished North Cornwall) have been out of order all year (at least till 20 July when I was last there). Say it's a 100 space car park and each space yields a tenner a day that's £7000 a week mainly incomer being pissed away. How does this kind of thing happen?
The 88% net favourability rating for Liz Truss is as preposterous as the woman herself. A reflection of the Conservative Party and the times we live in, I guess.
Your bitterness over the UK having an independent trade policy is one of the best rewards of Brexit. Thank you.
Hate to ask, but if FF43's (alleged) bitterness really is one of the best rewards of Brexit, was it really worth all the hassle? What are the other top five say, for context?
It's probably spaces 1-3, personally along with the bitterness from other EU supporting fifth columnists.
If "remainers" are fifth columnists for the EU are Leavers fifth columnists for Putin? Which would be worse? I think as Brexit is now "done" people trading insults over it just make themselves look a little silly. There are many on both sides of the argument who have done service for their country, and often much more than the people from the opposing side that suggest they are "traitors" perhaps?
The trouble is that, for some, this was their Great Patriotic War to save democracy. Not all, but some. And rather than being saluted for their sacrifices in victory, they are being moaned at or- worse- ignored.
For while, my theory has been that the internal logic of Brexit makes most sense to those born in the 50's and 60's. The most Eurosceptic generation in both 1975 and 2016. Always lived in the shadow of the generation who actually experienced WW2. Too old to see the benefits of a continent without borders for work and play as anything other than a dangerous novelty.
And deep down, some of them suspect that it will all get reversed the minute their backs are turned. Their great achievement down the swannee. And slowly, by a thousand accommodations, chips and cuts, they're probably right.
Johnson understandably won in 2019 on "Brexit is in Peril. Defend it with All Your Might." Unless things change in a way that they haven't so far, there will come a point where the considered response of the public is "Brexit is in Peril? Good".
Meanwhile, time passes.
Although I think Brexit was the biggest foreign policy folly since Suez, I think it would be a mistake to try and re-join. That said I can't help wondering whether in my dotage I will have a good old titter at all those Brexity Col. Blimps when re do regain membership. It will be very funny.
What is funny is how Remainers always insist their vindication is coming. No matter the evidence, the great moment when the up-to-now foolish public suddenly turns around and embraces their Europhile betters. Not only will they regret the decision that has been made, they will actually seek to go back to an even worse membership status than we had before. And to do that when the EU is even more integrated in the years and decades to come. When the UK's economy and trade profile has been restructured completely and status quo bias works in the opposite direction. When the EU is an even smaller share of the world economy than ever.
I suppose it is the only way they can psychologically deal with it. As an upper middle class professional group, they have never really learnt how to accept defeat. They got sent to nice schools, had the way padded to nice universities, and went into nice jobs, where their living standards were padded by the benefits of cheap immigrant and outsourced labour. And they had every election go their way until 2016.
Then they lost, and have been looking for cope ever since. Part of that is the religious certainty that deliverance will arrive in the end. Part of that is the need to assure each other of their moral superiority, with snide comments about how ghastily white, middle aged and - horrors of horrors - *British* those damn Brexiters are. Don't they know how culturally superior Provence and Tuscany are?
Yep. Brexit is essentially about the humbling of social & financial elites (exactly as you explain here) but what's strange is that almost all its leading proponents in public life are reactionary right wing Conservatives. It seems these chaps have all got the wrong end of the stick. I know when it comes to politics that Right doesn't equal Bright, but still, it's a puzzle.
Brexit was also a massive great Fuck You from Provincial Britain to London. You can't blame the yokels, they spent 30 years watching property owning Londoners get insanely wealthy, through no personal merit, while also enjoying all the restaurants, bars, girls, boys, fun, parties, better weather and nice shiny new trains
Brexit was regional Britain saying "this is our country as well": to arrogant Londoners
Talking of which I can report back from my Groucho lunch. The restaurant was jammed, the menu was oddly truncated (lack of staff?) but delicious, the new decor is beautiful, and central London as a whole - the bits of Soho, Fitzrovia, Bloomsbury, and Marylebone that I walked through - definitely feels a whole lot better. Many places are shut but many are reopening. The pavements are busier than I have seen since 2019.
And I don't think it is just the effect of a nice sunny day: it isn't. It's overcast, quite cool.
Central London might be reviving, for real.
That's great news that the Groucho is buzzing. Can't wait to get myself there and see what all the fuss is about.
As for Brexit being a cry from the provinces for a more equitable split of power, wealth and opportunity in early 21st century Britain, it's a nice thought, but I wonder if it's accurate.
Reason I'm skeptical is that I very much want that, whereas you very much don't, and I very much voted Remain whereas you very much voted Leave. That's close to being a disprove when you think about it - given both you and I are astuties who know what we want and know how to get it.
My extended family in Cornwall - a large bunch of people - is generally pro-Leave (like the rest of Cornwall). Get them a bit tipsy and ask them about their Brexit vote, and a general resentment at London having all the fun and money emerges. I am sure it is a driver across provincial Britain
And you are simply wrong that I "very much voted Leave" - tho I can see why you might think that, so this is not a critique
My vote was finely balanced. My head and heart were both split. I liked aspects of the EU very much - FOM the most of all. Tho I respect voters who wanted an end to it, as it was damaging their lives. This was a real issue. I also strongly suspected Brexit would damage the country economically (but not grievously), and be bad for London property owners - eg me
But the sovereignty argument won out, on the morning of the vote. I do believe we will be better off governing ourselves, in the end, and more prosperous too, and there are just too many repulsive aspects to the EU. The fraud of the Lisbon Treaty/Constitution was an unforgivable outrage against the European people
So there you are, I actually voted UNSELFISHLY. I voted against my own perceived financial interests, and for the betterment of the country and the country my daughters will inherit. But it was a close call
Well, as I think I've mentioned before, if you thought we were governed by Brussels rather than Westminster - truly thought it, I mean, rather than just embraced it as a talking point - you'd have been relaxed about the election of a left wing Labour government. Course you would since such a government would be toothless, the real power residing with unelected Eurocrats. Yet you weren't relaxed about this at all. You tended to shit bricks at such a prospect. Ditto all the other right wing Brexiter pundits, on PB or elsewhere, who make the most play of this "sovereignty' point. So I conclude it's a red herring. It's a bit of self-aiding doublethink.
No attempt to engage with the argument, just a retreat to your comforting shibboleths. As ever
It's a crap argument, voting for soveriegnty is like voting for the Loch Ness Monster, it doesn't really exist outside the minds of conspiracy theorists and other assorted UFO believers.
Absolute sovereignty doesn't exist, but that doesn't make it a meaningless concept. Why do you think the EU increasingly bangs on about it?
Exists in a weird form north of Gretna apparently. Giving up a greater degree of sovereignty in a non consenting union apparently gives Scots more control than ceding a lesser degree of sovereignty in a union of consent.
Non-consenting union? There was a vote on that a few years ago.
In Scotland-wide votes so far this century, it's 12-0 to unionists: in 2001 (Westminster), 2003 (Holyrood), 2005 (W), 2007 (H), 2010 (W), 2011 (H), 2014 (referendum), 2015 (W), 2016 (H), 2017 (W), 2019 (W), and 2021 (H).
It must be so hard for Scots to live under the iron-heeled jackboot of English colonial rulers who never ask them what they want. And it's fake news to suggest otherwise.
THat's a remarkable analysis of parliamentary elections. The last one at Holyrood, for instance, gave a majority at Holyrood for an independence referendum as a route [edit] for independence.
The 88% net favourability rating for Liz Truss is as preposterous as the woman herself. A reflection of the Conservative Party and the times we live in, I guess.
Your bitterness over the UK having an independent trade policy is one of the best rewards of Brexit. Thank you.
Hate to ask, but if FF43's (alleged) bitterness really is one of the best rewards of Brexit, was it really worth all the hassle? What are the other top five say, for context?
It's probably spaces 1-3, personally along with the bitterness from other EU supporting fifth columnists.
If "remainers" are fifth columnists for the EU are Leavers fifth columnists for Putin? Which would be worse? I think as Brexit is now "done" people trading insults over it just make themselves look a little silly. There are many on both sides of the argument who have done service for their country, and often much more than the people from the opposing side that suggest they are "traitors" perhaps?
The trouble is that, for some, this was their Great Patriotic War to save democracy. Not all, but some. And rather than being saluted for their sacrifices in victory, they are being moaned at or- worse- ignored.
For while, my theory has been that the internal logic of Brexit makes most sense to those born in the 50's and 60's. The most Eurosceptic generation in both 1975 and 2016. Always lived in the shadow of the generation who actually experienced WW2. Too old to see the benefits of a continent without borders for work and play as anything other than a dangerous novelty.
And deep down, some of them suspect that it will all get reversed the minute their backs are turned. Their great achievement down the swannee. And slowly, by a thousand accommodations, chips and cuts, they're probably right.
Johnson understandably won in 2019 on "Brexit is in Peril. Defend it with All Your Might." Unless things change in a way that they haven't so far, there will come a point where the considered response of the public is "Brexit is in Peril? Good".
Meanwhile, time passes.
Although I think Brexit was the biggest foreign policy folly since Suez, I think it would be a mistake to try and re-join. That said I can't help wondering whether in my dotage I will have a good old titter at all those Brexity Col. Blimps when re do regain membership. It will be very funny.
What is funny is how Remainers always insist their vindication is coming. No matter the evidence, the great moment when the up-to-now foolish public suddenly turns around and embraces their Europhile betters. Not only will they regret the decision that has been made, they will actually seek to go back to an even worse membership status than we had before. And to do that when the EU is even more integrated in the years and decades to come. When the UK's economy and trade profile has been restructured completely and status quo bias works in the opposite direction. When the EU is an even smaller share of the world economy than ever.
I suppose it is the only way they can psychologically deal with it. As an upper middle class professional group, they have never really learnt how to accept defeat. They got sent to nice schools, had the way padded to nice universities, and went into nice jobs, where their living standards were padded by the benefits of cheap immigrant and outsourced labour. And they had every election go their way until 2016.
Then they lost, and have been looking for cope ever since. Part of that is the religious certainty that deliverance will arrive in the end. Part of that is the need to assure each other of their moral superiority, with snide comments about how ghastily white, middle aged and - horrors of horrors - *British* those damn Brexiters are. Don't they know how culturally superior Provence and Tuscany are?
Your second paragraph is absurd. Your stereotype applies, if at all, to a small proportion of the 48% who voted to remain, and is no better than the reverse stereotype of 'thick leavers'. And as one of the unprivileged hard-working people who voted remain, and is getting on a bit, far from "every election going (my) way until 2016", very few have done, and I've spent most of my life with governments I oppose.
There's a lot of hard truths in the second paragraphs, it's difficult to look into that mirror so I'm not surprised that remainers are so dismissive of the idea that they benefited from the impoverishment of white working class Brits by Eastern Europeans living 8 to single bedroom flats working for the minimum wage or below and turning it into an effective maximum wage for millions of people. You may have been someone who came from that background but you also pulled the ladder up.
Absolute drivel.
And yet out of the EU wage inflation at the bottom of the market has gone insane.
There’s a global labour shortage (I mean in the West), although likely worse here because of Brexit.
Check out the US data.
So the labour market does adhere to basic economic principles of supply and demand? I mean I've read about a billion papers by liberal academics suggesting otherwise and saying that EU immigration had no impact on wages. Which is it? Is Brexit having an inflationary impact on wages or did EU immigration cause have deflationary effect on wages?
Yeah the evidence is that it increased overall wages, especially for people like yourself.
I’m not sure why you are such a hysterical denialist on this subject. Your comments that Brexit is worthwhile to see other people suffer is frankly pathetic at your age.
A very minor bafflement to me: the ticket machines at the big seaside council carpark at widemouth bay (so Bude town council, impoverished North Cornwall) have been out of order all year (at least till 20 July when I was last there). Say it's a 100 space car park and each space yields a tenner a day that's £7000 a week mainly incomer being pissed away. How does this kind of thing happen?
Incompetence?
Depends on how the local car parks are managed and by whom. It's possible a private company runs the car park on behalf of the Town Council.
The company pays the Town Council a fee for the management of the parking contract and then makes its profit from a cut of the actual parking charges.
As long as it continues to pay the fee, the Town Council and the tax/rate payer isn't losing out - the private company and its shareholders (if there are any) would be the big losers if they are not properly maintaining the machines and collecting the charges.
The 88% net favourability rating for Liz Truss is as preposterous as the woman herself. A reflection of the Conservative Party and the times we live in, I guess.
Your bitterness over the UK having an independent trade policy is one of the best rewards of Brexit. Thank you.
Hate to ask, but if FF43's (alleged) bitterness really is one of the best rewards of Brexit, was it really worth all the hassle? What are the other top five say, for context?
It's probably spaces 1-3, personally along with the bitterness from other EU supporting fifth columnists.
If "remainers" are fifth columnists for the EU are Leavers fifth columnists for Putin? Which would be worse? I think as Brexit is now "done" people trading insults over it just make themselves look a little silly. There are many on both sides of the argument who have done service for their country, and often much more than the people from the opposing side that suggest they are "traitors" perhaps?
The trouble is that, for some, this was their Great Patriotic War to save democracy. Not all, but some. And rather than being saluted for their sacrifices in victory, they are being moaned at or- worse- ignored.
For while, my theory has been that the internal logic of Brexit makes most sense to those born in the 50's and 60's. The most Eurosceptic generation in both 1975 and 2016. Always lived in the shadow of the generation who actually experienced WW2. Too old to see the benefits of a continent without borders for work and play as anything other than a dangerous novelty.
And deep down, some of them suspect that it will all get reversed the minute their backs are turned. Their great achievement down the swannee. And slowly, by a thousand accommodations, chips and cuts, they're probably right.
Johnson understandably won in 2019 on "Brexit is in Peril. Defend it with All Your Might." Unless things change in a way that they haven't so far, there will come a point where the considered response of the public is "Brexit is in Peril? Good".
Meanwhile, time passes.
Although I think Brexit was the biggest foreign policy folly since Suez, I think it would be a mistake to try and re-join. That said I can't help wondering whether in my dotage I will have a good old titter at all those Brexity Col. Blimps when re do regain membership. It will be very funny.
What is funny is how Remainers always insist their vindication is coming. No matter the evidence, the great moment when the up-to-now foolish public suddenly turns around and embraces their Europhile betters. Not only will they regret the decision that has been made, they will actually seek to go back to an even worse membership status than we had before. And to do that when the EU is even more integrated in the years and decades to come. When the UK's economy and trade profile has been restructured completely and status quo bias works in the opposite direction. When the EU is an even smaller share of the world economy than ever.
I suppose it is the only way they can psychologically deal with it. As an upper middle class professional group, they have never really learnt how to accept defeat. They got sent to nice schools, had the way padded to nice universities, and went into nice jobs, where their living standards were padded by the benefits of cheap immigrant and outsourced labour. And they had every election go their way until 2016.
Then they lost, and have been looking for cope ever since. Part of that is the religious certainty that deliverance will arrive in the end. Part of that is the need to assure each other of their moral superiority, with snide comments about how ghastily white, middle aged and - horrors of horrors - *British* those damn Brexiters are. Don't they know how culturally superior Provence and Tuscany are?
Yep. Brexit is essentially about the humbling of social & financial elites (exactly as you explain here) but what's strange is that almost all its leading proponents in public life are reactionary right wing Conservatives. It seems these chaps have all got the wrong end of the stick. I know when it comes to politics that Right doesn't equal Bright, but still, it's a puzzle.
Brexit was also a massive great Fuck You from Provincial Britain to London. You can't blame the yokels, they spent 30 years watching property owning Londoners get insanely wealthy, through no personal merit, while also enjoying all the restaurants, bars, girls, boys, fun, parties, better weather and nice shiny new trains
Brexit was regional Britain saying "this is our country as well": to arrogant Londoners
Talking of which I can report back from my Groucho lunch. The restaurant was jammed, the menu was oddly truncated (lack of staff?) but delicious, the new decor is beautiful, and central London as a whole - the bits of Soho, Fitzrovia, Bloomsbury, and Marylebone that I walked through - definitely feels a whole lot better. Many places are shut but many are reopening. The pavements are busier than I have seen since 2019.
And I don't think it is just the effect of a nice sunny day: it isn't. It's overcast, quite cool.
Central London might be reviving, for real.
That's great news that the Groucho is buzzing. Can't wait to get myself there and see what all the fuss is about.
As for Brexit being a cry from the provinces for a more equitable split of power, wealth and opportunity in early 21st century Britain, it's a nice thought, but I wonder if it's accurate.
Reason I'm skeptical is that I very much want that, whereas you very much don't, and I very much voted Remain whereas you very much voted Leave. That's close to being a disprove when you think about it - given both you and I are astuties who know what we want and know how to get it.
My extended family in Cornwall - a large bunch of people - is generally pro-Leave (like the rest of Cornwall). Get them a bit tipsy and ask them about their Brexit vote, and a general resentment at London having all the fun and money emerges. I am sure it is a driver across provincial Britain
And you are simply wrong that I "very much voted Leave" - tho I can see why you might think that, so this is not a critique
My vote was finely balanced. My head and heart were both split. I liked aspects of the EU very much - FOM the most of all. Tho I respect voters who wanted an end to it, as it was damaging their lives. This was a real issue. I also strongly suspected Brexit would damage the country economically (but not grievously), and be bad for London property owners - eg me
But the sovereignty argument won out, on the morning of the vote. I do believe we will be better off governing ourselves, in the end, and more prosperous too, and there are just too many repulsive aspects to the EU. The fraud of the Lisbon Treaty/Constitution was an unforgivable outrage against the European people
So there you are, I actually voted UNSELFISHLY. I voted against my own perceived financial interests, and for the betterment of the country and the country my daughters will inherit. But it was a close call
Well, as I think I've mentioned before, if you thought we were governed by Brussels rather than Westminster - truly thought it, I mean, rather than just embraced it as a talking point - you'd have been relaxed about the election of a left wing Labour government. Course you would since such a government would be toothless, the real power residing with unelected Eurocrats. Yet you weren't relaxed about this at all. You tended to shit bricks at such a prospect. Ditto all the other right wing Brexiter pundits, on PB or elsewhere, who make the most play of this "sovereignty' point. So I conclude it's a red herring. It's a bit of self-aiding doublethink.
No attempt to engage with the argument, just a retreat to your comforting shibboleths. As ever
It's a crap argument, voting for soveriegnty is like voting for the Loch Ness Monster, it doesn't really exist outside the minds of conspiracy theorists and other assorted UFO believers.
Absolute sovereignty doesn't exist, but that doesn't make it a meaningless concept. Why do you think the EU increasingly bangs on about it?
Exists in a weird form north of Gretna apparently. Giving up a greater degree of sovereignty in a non consenting union apparently gives Scots more control than ceding a lesser degree of sovereignty in a union of consent.
Non-consenting union? There was a vote on that a few years ago.
In Scotland-wide votes so far this century, it's 12-0 to unionists: in 2001 (Westminster), 2003 (Holyrood), 2005 (W), 2007 (H), 2010 (W), 2011 (H), 2014 (referendum), 2015 (W), 2016 (H), 2017 (W), 2019 (W), and 2021 (H).
It must be so hard for Scots to live under the iron-heeled jackboot of English colonial rulers who never ask them what they want. And it's fake news to suggest otherwise.
THat's a remarkable analysis of parliamentary elections. The last one at Holyrood, for instance, gave a majority at Holyrood for an independence referendum as a route [edit] for independence.
It wasn't an analysis. It (the first paragraph) was a statement of fact. To be legitimate any referendum would be decided by OPOV.
The 88% net favourability rating for Liz Truss is as preposterous as the woman herself. A reflection of the Conservative Party and the times we live in, I guess.
Your bitterness over the UK having an independent trade policy is one of the best rewards of Brexit. Thank you.
Hate to ask, but if FF43's (alleged) bitterness really is one of the best rewards of Brexit, was it really worth all the hassle? What are the other top five say, for context?
It's probably spaces 1-3, personally along with the bitterness from other EU supporting fifth columnists.
If "remainers" are fifth columnists for the EU are Leavers fifth columnists for Putin? Which would be worse? I think as Brexit is now "done" people trading insults over it just make themselves look a little silly. There are many on both sides of the argument who have done service for their country, and often much more than the people from the opposing side that suggest they are "traitors" perhaps?
The trouble is that, for some, this was their Great Patriotic War to save democracy. Not all, but some. And rather than being saluted for their sacrifices in victory, they are being moaned at or- worse- ignored.
For while, my theory has been that the internal logic of Brexit makes most sense to those born in the 50's and 60's. The most Eurosceptic generation in both 1975 and 2016. Always lived in the shadow of the generation who actually experienced WW2. Too old to see the benefits of a continent without borders for work and play as anything other than a dangerous novelty.
And deep down, some of them suspect that it will all get reversed the minute their backs are turned. Their great achievement down the swannee. And slowly, by a thousand accommodations, chips and cuts, they're probably right.
Johnson understandably won in 2019 on "Brexit is in Peril. Defend it with All Your Might." Unless things change in a way that they haven't so far, there will come a point where the considered response of the public is "Brexit is in Peril? Good".
Meanwhile, time passes.
Although I think Brexit was the biggest foreign policy folly since Suez, I think it would be a mistake to try and re-join. That said I can't help wondering whether in my dotage I will have a good old titter at all those Brexity Col. Blimps when re do regain membership. It will be very funny.
What is funny is how Remainers always insist their vindication is coming. No matter the evidence, the great moment when the up-to-now foolish public suddenly turns around and embraces their Europhile betters. Not only will they regret the decision that has been made, they will actually seek to go back to an even worse membership status than we had before. And to do that when the EU is even more integrated in the years and decades to come. When the UK's economy and trade profile has been restructured completely and status quo bias works in the opposite direction. When the EU is an even smaller share of the world economy than ever.
I suppose it is the only way they can psychologically deal with it. As an upper middle class professional group, they have never really learnt how to accept defeat. They got sent to nice schools, had the way padded to nice universities, and went into nice jobs, where their living standards were padded by the benefits of cheap immigrant and outsourced labour. And they had every election go their way until 2016.
Then they lost, and have been looking for cope ever since. Part of that is the religious certainty that deliverance will arrive in the end. Part of that is the need to assure each other of their moral superiority, with snide comments about how ghastily white, middle aged and - horrors of horrors - *British* those damn Brexiters are. Don't they know how culturally superior Provence and Tuscany are?
Yep. Brexit is essentially about the humbling of social & financial elites (exactly as you explain here) but what's strange is that almost all its leading proponents in public life are reactionary right wing Conservatives. It seems these chaps have all got the wrong end of the stick. I know when it comes to politics that Right doesn't equal Bright, but still, it's a puzzle.
Brexit was also a massive great Fuck You from Provincial Britain to London. You can't blame the yokels, they spent 30 years watching property owning Londoners get insanely wealthy, through no personal merit, while also enjoying all the restaurants, bars, girls, boys, fun, parties, better weather and nice shiny new trains
Brexit was regional Britain saying "this is our country as well": to arrogant Londoners
Talking of which I can report back from my Groucho lunch. The restaurant was jammed, the menu was oddly truncated (lack of staff?) but delicious, the new decor is beautiful, and central London as a whole - the bits of Soho, Fitzrovia, Bloomsbury, and Marylebone that I walked through - definitely feels a whole lot better. Many places are shut but many are reopening. The pavements are busier than I have seen since 2019.
And I don't think it is just the effect of a nice sunny day: it isn't. It's overcast, quite cool.
Central London might be reviving, for real.
That's great news that the Groucho is buzzing. Can't wait to get myself there and see what all the fuss is about.
As for Brexit being a cry from the provinces for a more equitable split of power, wealth and opportunity in early 21st century Britain, it's a nice thought, but I wonder if it's accurate.
Reason I'm skeptical is that I very much want that, whereas you very much don't, and I very much voted Remain whereas you very much voted Leave. That's close to being a disprove when you think about it - given both you and I are astuties who know what we want and know how to get it.
My extended family in Cornwall - a large bunch of people - is generally pro-Leave (like the rest of Cornwall). Get them a bit tipsy and ask them about their Brexit vote, and a general resentment at London having all the fun and money emerges. I am sure it is a driver across provincial Britain
And you are simply wrong that I "very much voted Leave" - tho I can see why you might think that, so this is not a critique
My vote was finely balanced. My head and heart were both split. I liked aspects of the EU very much - FOM the most of all. Tho I respect voters who wanted an end to it, as it was damaging their lives. This was a real issue. I also strongly suspected Brexit would damage the country economically (but not grievously), and be bad for London property owners - eg me
But the sovereignty argument won out, on the morning of the vote. I do believe we will be better off governing ourselves, in the end, and more prosperous too, and there are just too many repulsive aspects to the EU. The fraud of the Lisbon Treaty/Constitution was an unforgivable outrage against the European people
So there you are, I actually voted UNSELFISHLY. I voted against my own perceived financial interests, and for the betterment of the country and the country my daughters will inherit. But it was a close call
Was it really sovereignty that swung it for the people of Cornwall? Or just envy of the people in different parts of the country who they perceive are more rich than them. (grass is always greener etc..). Funny how they aren't envious when the tourists from the rest of the country fill their caravans and campsites, as well as attend their attractions, whether remainer or leaver. Sovereignty is such a mysterious concept. We've had it for a year now, but I wonder what difference it makes. No difference to me. Uk parliament and Welsh assembly have made our laws for a long time now.
The love hate relationship with tourists in tourist areas is a pretty common thing round the world.
The tourists come and pay ludicrous prices. In a number of places in Cornwall, the tourist prices are London prices. The locals get priced out of all the good local housing. Which gets turned into holiday homes that are empty for a large chunk of the year....
I agree about the holiday homes, but here in Wales the local council is allowed to charge double poll tax.
All that is going to do is raise extra cash for the Council. It’s not going to deter people buying second homes
Given the financial straits most councils are in, that might be a good thing in itself.
A way of soaking the rich outsiders for extra council tax to repair local roads? Most people would jump at that.
A very minor bafflement to me: the ticket machines at the big seaside council carpark at widemouth bay (so Bude town council, impoverished North Cornwall) have been out of order all year (at least till 20 July when I was last there). Say it's a 100 space car park and each space yields a tenner a day that's £7000 a week mainly incomer being pissed away. How does this kind of thing happen?
Alternatively. On the subject of productivity, they could have gone the route of a barrier and a person to collect the fees. Then the machines being broken wouldn't be an issue. Further to which, the entirety of Northern Rail's ticket machines have been out of order for over 2 weeks on my local line. Only Newcastle has barriers, and they are often open. Were it not for the presence of guards (who they are hoping to remove), they'd have had no income whatsoever over that period. There would be no way to pay, even if you were scrupulously honest and made every effort to.
I'm homing onto the very crux of your argument. You say it was about sovereignty, I'm showing that it really wasn't. The question therefore begged is what was it about? And there I will not tread. I think I know but I'm not 100% sure, and I need to be before going to press with it. You throw up just enough dust to get in my eyes sometimes and prevent a firm read.
Based on what people say, which I see no reason to dispute, the reason why Leave won the referendum is that Leave messages of control, getting out of an unloved institution and the ability to reduce immigration was very marginally more convincing than Remain arguments of the EU being in the UK's interest.
The 88% net favourability rating for Liz Truss is as preposterous as the woman herself. A reflection of the Conservative Party and the times we live in, I guess.
Your bitterness over the UK having an independent trade policy is one of the best rewards of Brexit. Thank you.
Hate to ask, but if FF43's (alleged) bitterness really is one of the best rewards of Brexit, was it really worth all the hassle? What are the other top five say, for context?
It's probably spaces 1-3, personally along with the bitterness from other EU supporting fifth columnists.
If "remainers" are fifth columnists for the EU are Leavers fifth columnists for Putin? Which would be worse? I think as Brexit is now "done" people trading insults over it just make themselves look a little silly. There are many on both sides of the argument who have done service for their country, and often much more than the people from the opposing side that suggest they are "traitors" perhaps?
The trouble is that, for some, this was their Great Patriotic War to save democracy. Not all, but some. And rather than being saluted for their sacrifices in victory, they are being moaned at or- worse- ignored.
For while, my theory has been that the internal logic of Brexit makes most sense to those born in the 50's and 60's. The most Eurosceptic generation in both 1975 and 2016. Always lived in the shadow of the generation who actually experienced WW2. Too old to see the benefits of a continent without borders for work and play as anything other than a dangerous novelty.
And deep down, some of them suspect that it will all get reversed the minute their backs are turned. Their great achievement down the swannee. And slowly, by a thousand accommodations, chips and cuts, they're probably right.
Johnson understandably won in 2019 on "Brexit is in Peril. Defend it with All Your Might." Unless things change in a way that they haven't so far, there will come a point where the considered response of the public is "Brexit is in Peril? Good".
Meanwhile, time passes.
Although I think Brexit was the biggest foreign policy folly since Suez, I think it would be a mistake to try and re-join. That said I can't help wondering whether in my dotage I will have a good old titter at all those Brexity Col. Blimps when re do regain membership. It will be very funny.
What is funny is how Remainers always insist their vindication is coming. No matter the evidence, the great moment when the up-to-now foolish public suddenly turns around and embraces their Europhile betters. Not only will they regret the decision that has been made, they will actually seek to go back to an even worse membership status than we had before. And to do that when the EU is even more integrated in the years and decades to come. When the UK's economy and trade profile has been restructured completely and status quo bias works in the opposite direction. When the EU is an even smaller share of the world economy than ever.
I suppose it is the only way they can psychologically deal with it. As an upper middle class professional group, they have never really learnt how to accept defeat. They got sent to nice schools, had the way padded to nice universities, and went into nice jobs, where their living standards were padded by the benefits of cheap immigrant and outsourced labour. And they had every election go their way until 2016.
Then they lost, and have been looking for cope ever since. Part of that is the religious certainty that deliverance will arrive in the end. Part of that is the need to assure each other of their moral superiority, with snide comments about how ghastily white, middle aged and - horrors of horrors - *British* those damn Brexiters are. Don't they know how culturally superior Provence and Tuscany are?
Yep. Brexit is essentially about the humbling of social & financial elites (exactly as you explain here) but what's strange is that almost all its leading proponents in public life are reactionary right wing Conservatives. It seems these chaps have all got the wrong end of the stick. I know when it comes to politics that Right doesn't equal Bright, but still, it's a puzzle.
Brexit was also a massive great Fuck You from Provincial Britain to London. You can't blame the yokels, they spent 30 years watching property owning Londoners get insanely wealthy, through no personal merit, while also enjoying all the restaurants, bars, girls, boys, fun, parties, better weather and nice shiny new trains
Brexit was regional Britain saying "this is our country as well": to arrogant Londoners
Talking of which I can report back from my Groucho lunch. The restaurant was jammed, the menu was oddly truncated (lack of staff?) but delicious, the new decor is beautiful, and central London as a whole - the bits of Soho, Fitzrovia, Bloomsbury, and Marylebone that I walked through - definitely feels a whole lot better. Many places are shut but many are reopening. The pavements are busier than I have seen since 2019.
And I don't think it is just the effect of a nice sunny day: it isn't. It's overcast, quite cool.
Central London might be reviving, for real.
That's great news that the Groucho is buzzing. Can't wait to get myself there and see what all the fuss is about.
As for Brexit being a cry from the provinces for a more equitable split of power, wealth and opportunity in early 21st century Britain, it's a nice thought, but I wonder if it's accurate.
Reason I'm skeptical is that I very much want that, whereas you very much don't, and I very much voted Remain whereas you very much voted Leave. That's close to being a disprove when you think about it - given both you and I are astuties who know what we want and know how to get it.
My extended family in Cornwall - a large bunch of people - is generally pro-Leave (like the rest of Cornwall). Get them a bit tipsy and ask them about their Brexit vote, and a general resentment at London having all the fun and money emerges. I am sure it is a driver across provincial Britain
And you are simply wrong that I "very much voted Leave" - tho I can see why you might think that, so this is not a critique
My vote was finely balanced. My head and heart were both split. I liked aspects of the EU very much - FOM the most of all. Tho I respect voters who wanted an end to it, as it was damaging their lives. This was a real issue. I also strongly suspected Brexit would damage the country economically (but not grievously), and be bad for London property owners - eg me
But the sovereignty argument won out, on the morning of the vote. I do believe we will be better off governing ourselves, in the end, and more prosperous too, and there are just too many repulsive aspects to the EU. The fraud of the Lisbon Treaty/Constitution was an unforgivable outrage against the European people
So there you are, I actually voted UNSELFISHLY. I voted against my own perceived financial interests, and for the betterment of the country and the country my daughters will inherit. But it was a close call
Was it really sovereignty that swung it for the people of Cornwall? Or just envy of the people in different parts of the country who they perceive are more rich than them. (grass is always greener etc..). Funny how they aren't envious when the tourists from the rest of the country fill their caravans and campsites, as well as attend their attractions, whether remainer or leaver. Sovereignty is such a mysterious concept. We've had it for a year now, but I wonder what difference it makes. No difference to me. Uk parliament and Welsh assembly have made our laws for a long time now.
The love hate relationship with tourists in tourist areas is a pretty common thing round the world.
The tourists come and pay ludicrous prices. In a number of places in Cornwall, the tourist prices are London prices. The locals get priced out of all the good local housing. Which gets turned into holiday homes that are empty for a large chunk of the year....
I agree about the holiday homes, but here in Wales the local council is allowed to charge double poll tax.
All that is going to do is raise extra cash for the Council. It’s not going to deter people buying second homes
Given the financial straits most councils are in, that might be a good thing in itself.
A way of soaking the rich outsiders for extra council tax to repair local roads? Most people would jump at that.
A very minor bafflement to me: the ticket machines at the big seaside council carpark at widemouth bay (so Bude town council, impoverished North Cornwall) have been out of order all year (at least till 20 July when I was last there). Say it's a 100 space car park and each space yields a tenner a day that's £7000 a week mainly incomer being pissed away. How does this kind of thing happen?
Alternatively. On the subject of productivity, they could have gone the route of a barrier and a person to collect the fees. Then the machines being broken wouldn't be an issue. Further to which, the entirety of Northern Rail's ticket machines have been out of order for over 2 weeks on my local line. Only Newcastle has barriers, and they are often open. Were it not for the presence of guards they'd have had no income whatsoever over that period. There would be no way to pay, even if you were scrupulously honest and made every effort to.
You'd need at least three people for coverage for sensible hours, seven days a week. Would that really be cheaper than maintaining a ticket machine?
A very minor bafflement to me: the ticket machines at the big seaside council carpark at widemouth bay (so Bude town council, impoverished North Cornwall) have been out of order all year (at least till 20 July when I was last there). Say it's a 100 space car park and each space yields a tenner a day that's £7000 a week mainly incomer being pissed away. How does this kind of thing happen?
Incompetence?
Depends on how the local car parks are managed and by whom. It's possible a private company runs the car park on behalf of the Town Council.
The company pays the Town Council a fee for the management of the parking contract and then makes its profit from a cut of the actual parking charges.
As long as it continues to pay the fee, the Town Council and the tax/rate payer isn't losing out - the private company and its shareholders (if there are any) would be the big losers if they are not properly maintaining the machines and collecting the charges.
It seemed odd - but a quick look on google while I wait for the dinner to cook shows that (a) Widemouith Bay is county council car parking and (b) Cornwall CC seem to have suspended parking fees this year till at least mid-May to encourage local businesses.
Boris Johnson continues to lead over Keir Starmer as being the one who best embodies the following descriptions: ‘can build a strong economy’ (44% to 28%), ‘stands up for the interests of the United Kingdom’ (43% to 28%), ‘knows how to get things done’ (42% to 27%), and ‘can tackle the coronavirus pandemic’ (42% to 26%).
Keir Starmer continues to lead only when it comes to best embodying the description of ‘being in good physical and mental health’ (36% to 29%).
Am I reading this correctly that Boris is 26% on telling the truth to Starmer on only 27%, just 1% difference
That needs some explanation by all those accusing Boris of being economical with the truth
There are three types of people in this country at the moment. 1) people who believe everything Boris Johnson says is the truth 2) people who believe everything Boris Johnson says is a lie 3) the rest of us who don't really care (they're all politicians anyway).
Though comedic, I don't really agree with that. No politician tells the whole truth all the time (even if direct lying is, thankfully, still unusual enough to draw comment), but whether they do or not, or only do so some of the time, what they say really matters when they have power over every one of us.
You've misunderstood what I said here. whether or not people believe a politician is lying doesn't matter. Some people will always disbelieve them, some always believe them while others don't really care what they say. Boris Johnson is polarising enough to split the country three ways equally.
Anecdata from central London: There's a whole new generation, about 16-22, wearing absolutely INSANE clothes. Like cloth caps with kilts and Kenyan ponchos and goggles.
A very minor bafflement to me: the ticket machines at the big seaside council carpark at widemouth bay (so Bude town council, impoverished North Cornwall) have been out of order all year (at least till 20 July when I was last there). Say it's a 100 space car park and each space yields a tenner a day that's £7000 a week mainly incomer being pissed away. How does this kind of thing happen?
Incompetence?
Depends on how the local car parks are managed and by whom. It's possible a private company runs the car park on behalf of the Town Council.
The company pays the Town Council a fee for the management of the parking contract and then makes its profit from a cut of the actual parking charges.
As long as it continues to pay the fee, the Town Council and the tax/rate payer isn't losing out - the private company and its shareholders (if there are any) would be the big losers if they are not properly maintaining the machines and collecting the charges.
It seemed odd - but a quick look on google while I wait for the dinner to cook shows that (a) Widemouith Bay is county council car parking and (b) Cornwall CC seem to have suspended parking fees this year till at least mid-May to encourage local businesses.
The 88% net favourability rating for Liz Truss is as preposterous as the woman herself. A reflection of the Conservative Party and the times we live in, I guess.
Your bitterness over the UK having an independent trade policy is one of the best rewards of Brexit. Thank you.
Hate to ask, but if FF43's (alleged) bitterness really is one of the best rewards of Brexit, was it really worth all the hassle? What are the other top five say, for context?
It's probably spaces 1-3, personally along with the bitterness from other EU supporting fifth columnists.
If "remainers" are fifth columnists for the EU are Leavers fifth columnists for Putin? Which would be worse? I think as Brexit is now "done" people trading insults over it just make themselves look a little silly. There are many on both sides of the argument who have done service for their country, and often much more than the people from the opposing side that suggest they are "traitors" perhaps?
The trouble is that, for some, this was their Great Patriotic War to save democracy. Not all, but some. And rather than being saluted for their sacrifices in victory, they are being moaned at or- worse- ignored.
For while, my theory has been that the internal logic of Brexit makes most sense to those born in the 50's and 60's. The most Eurosceptic generation in both 1975 and 2016. Always lived in the shadow of the generation who actually experienced WW2. Too old to see the benefits of a continent without borders for work and play as anything other than a dangerous novelty.
And deep down, some of them suspect that it will all get reversed the minute their backs are turned. Their great achievement down the swannee. And slowly, by a thousand accommodations, chips and cuts, they're probably right.
Johnson understandably won in 2019 on "Brexit is in Peril. Defend it with All Your Might." Unless things change in a way that they haven't so far, there will come a point where the considered response of the public is "Brexit is in Peril? Good".
Meanwhile, time passes.
Although I think Brexit was the biggest foreign policy folly since Suez, I think it would be a mistake to try and re-join. That said I can't help wondering whether in my dotage I will have a good old titter at all those Brexity Col. Blimps when re do regain membership. It will be very funny.
What is funny is how Remainers always insist their vindication is coming. No matter the evidence, the great moment when the up-to-now foolish public suddenly turns around and embraces their Europhile betters. Not only will they regret the decision that has been made, they will actually seek to go back to an even worse membership status than we had before. And to do that when the EU is even more integrated in the years and decades to come. When the UK's economy and trade profile has been restructured completely and status quo bias works in the opposite direction. When the EU is an even smaller share of the world economy than ever.
I suppose it is the only way they can psychologically deal with it. As an upper middle class professional group, they have never really learnt how to accept defeat. They got sent to nice schools, had the way padded to nice universities, and went into nice jobs, where their living standards were padded by the benefits of cheap immigrant and outsourced labour. And they had every election go their way until 2016.
Then they lost, and have been looking for cope ever since. Part of that is the religious certainty that deliverance will arrive in the end. Part of that is the need to assure each other of their moral superiority, with snide comments about how ghastily white, middle aged and - horrors of horrors - *British* those damn Brexiters are. Don't they know how culturally superior Provence and Tuscany are?
Yep. Brexit is essentially about the humbling of social & financial elites (exactly as you explain here) but what's strange is that almost all its leading proponents in public life are reactionary right wing Conservatives. It seems these chaps have all got the wrong end of the stick. I know when it comes to politics that Right doesn't equal Bright, but still, it's a puzzle.
Brexit was also a massive great Fuck You from Provincial Britain to London. You can't blame the yokels, they spent 30 years watching property owning Londoners get insanely wealthy, through no personal merit, while also enjoying all the restaurants, bars, girls, boys, fun, parties, better weather and nice shiny new trains
Brexit was regional Britain saying "this is our country as well": to arrogant Londoners
Talking of which I can report back from my Groucho lunch. The restaurant was jammed, the menu was oddly truncated (lack of staff?) but delicious, the new decor is beautiful, and central London as a whole - the bits of Soho, Fitzrovia, Bloomsbury, and Marylebone that I walked through - definitely feels a whole lot better. Many places are shut but many are reopening. The pavements are busier than I have seen since 2019.
And I don't think it is just the effect of a nice sunny day: it isn't. It's overcast, quite cool.
Central London might be reviving, for real.
That's great news that the Groucho is buzzing. Can't wait to get myself there and see what all the fuss is about.
As for Brexit being a cry from the provinces for a more equitable split of power, wealth and opportunity in early 21st century Britain, it's a nice thought, but I wonder if it's accurate.
Reason I'm skeptical is that I very much want that, whereas you very much don't, and I very much voted Remain whereas you very much voted Leave. That's close to being a disprove when you think about it - given both you and I are astuties who know what we want and know how to get it.
My extended family in Cornwall - a large bunch of people - is generally pro-Leave (like the rest of Cornwall). Get them a bit tipsy and ask them about their Brexit vote, and a general resentment at London having all the fun and money emerges. I am sure it is a driver across provincial Britain
And you are simply wrong that I "very much voted Leave" - tho I can see why you might think that, so this is not a critique
My vote was finely balanced. My head and heart were both split. I liked aspects of the EU very much - FOM the most of all. Tho I respect voters who wanted an end to it, as it was damaging their lives. This was a real issue. I also strongly suspected Brexit would damage the country economically (but not grievously), and be bad for London property owners - eg me
But the sovereignty argument won out, on the morning of the vote. I do believe we will be better off governing ourselves, in the end, and more prosperous too, and there are just too many repulsive aspects to the EU. The fraud of the Lisbon Treaty/Constitution was an unforgivable outrage against the European people
So there you are, I actually voted UNSELFISHLY. I voted against my own perceived financial interests, and for the betterment of the country and the country my daughters will inherit. But it was a close call
Was it really sovereignty that swung it for the people of Cornwall? Or just envy of the people in different parts of the country who they perceive are more rich than them. (grass is always greener etc..). Funny how they aren't envious when the tourists from the rest of the country fill their caravans and campsites, as well as attend their attractions, whether remainer or leaver. Sovereignty is such a mysterious concept. We've had it for a year now, but I wonder what difference it makes. No difference to me. Uk parliament and Welsh assembly have made our laws for a long time now.
The love hate relationship with tourists in tourist areas is a pretty common thing round the world.
The tourists come and pay ludicrous prices. In a number of places in Cornwall, the tourist prices are London prices. The locals get priced out of all the good local housing. Which gets turned into holiday homes that are empty for a large chunk of the year....
I agree about the holiday homes, but here in Wales the local council is allowed to charge double poll tax.
All that is going to do is raise extra cash for the Council. It’s not going to deter people buying second homes
Given the financial straits most councils are in, that might be a good thing in itself.
A way of soaking the rich outsiders for extra council tax to repair local roads? Most people would jump at that.
A very minor bafflement to me: the ticket machines at the big seaside council carpark at widemouth bay (so Bude town council, impoverished North Cornwall) have been out of order all year (at least till 20 July when I was last there). Say it's a 100 space car park and each space yields a tenner a day that's £7000 a week mainly incomer being pissed away. How does this kind of thing happen?
Alternatively. On the subject of productivity, they could have gone the route of a barrier and a person to collect the fees. Then the machines being broken wouldn't be an issue. Further to which, the entirety of Northern Rail's ticket machines have been out of order for over 2 weeks on my local line. Only Newcastle has barriers, and they are often open. Were it not for the presence of guards they'd have had no income whatsoever over that period. There would be no way to pay, even if you were scrupulously honest and made every effort to.
You'd need at least three people for coverage for sensible hours, seven days a week. Would that really be cheaper than maintaining a ticket machine?
Well. It would be cheaper than having no income for a year cos the machines don't work!
I'm homing onto the very crux of your argument. You say it was about sovereignty, I'm showing that it really wasn't. The question therefore begged is what was it about? And there I will not tread. I think I know but I'm not 100% sure, and I need to be before going to press with it. You throw up just enough dust to get in my eyes sometimes and prevent a firm read.
Based on what people say, which I see no reason to dispute, the reason why Leave won the referendum is that Leave messages of control, getting out of an unloved institution and the ability to reduce immigration was very marginally more convincing than Remain arguments of the EU being in the UK's interest.
Leave also persuaded people we’d be economically better off.
By a mechanism hitherto unknown to professional economists.
Shades of the SNP’s forthcoming “a hard border will create jobs”.
A very minor bafflement to me: the ticket machines at the big seaside council carpark at widemouth bay (so Bude town council, impoverished North Cornwall) have been out of order all year (at least till 20 July when I was last there). Say it's a 100 space car park and each space yields a tenner a day that's £7000 a week mainly incomer being pissed away. How does this kind of thing happen?
Incompetence?
Depends on how the local car parks are managed and by whom. It's possible a private company runs the car park on behalf of the Town Council.
The company pays the Town Council a fee for the management of the parking contract and then makes its profit from a cut of the actual parking charges.
As long as it continues to pay the fee, the Town Council and the tax/rate payer isn't losing out - the private company and its shareholders (if there are any) would be the big losers if they are not properly maintaining the machines and collecting the charges.
It seemed odd - but a quick look on google while I wait for the dinner to cook shows that (a) Widemouith Bay is county council car parking and (b) Cornwall CC seem to have suspended parking fees this year till at least mid-May to encourage local businesses.
The 88% net favourability rating for Liz Truss is as preposterous as the woman herself. A reflection of the Conservative Party and the times we live in, I guess.
Your bitterness over the UK having an independent trade policy is one of the best rewards of Brexit. Thank you.
Hate to ask, but if FF43's (alleged) bitterness really is one of the best rewards of Brexit, was it really worth all the hassle? What are the other top five say, for context?
It's probably spaces 1-3, personally along with the bitterness from other EU supporting fifth columnists.
If "remainers" are fifth columnists for the EU are Leavers fifth columnists for Putin? Which would be worse? I think as Brexit is now "done" people trading insults over it just make themselves look a little silly. There are many on both sides of the argument who have done service for their country, and often much more than the people from the opposing side that suggest they are "traitors" perhaps?
The trouble is that, for some, this was their Great Patriotic War to save democracy. Not all, but some. And rather than being saluted for their sacrifices in victory, they are being moaned at or- worse- ignored.
For while, my theory has been that the internal logic of Brexit makes most sense to those born in the 50's and 60's. The most Eurosceptic generation in both 1975 and 2016. Always lived in the shadow of the generation who actually experienced WW2. Too old to see the benefits of a continent without borders for work and play as anything other than a dangerous novelty.
And deep down, some of them suspect that it will all get reversed the minute their backs are turned. Their great achievement down the swannee. And slowly, by a thousand accommodations, chips and cuts, they're probably right.
Johnson understandably won in 2019 on "Brexit is in Peril. Defend it with All Your Might." Unless things change in a way that they haven't so far, there will come a point where the considered response of the public is "Brexit is in Peril? Good".
Meanwhile, time passes.
Although I think Brexit was the biggest foreign policy folly since Suez, I think it would be a mistake to try and re-join. That said I can't help wondering whether in my dotage I will have a good old titter at all those Brexity Col. Blimps when re do regain membership. It will be very funny.
What is funny is how Remainers always insist their vindication is coming. No matter the evidence, the great moment when the up-to-now foolish public suddenly turns around and embraces their Europhile betters. Not only will they regret the decision that has been made, they will actually seek to go back to an even worse membership status than we had before. And to do that when the EU is even more integrated in the years and decades to come. When the UK's economy and trade profile has been restructured completely and status quo bias works in the opposite direction. When the EU is an even smaller share of the world economy than ever.
I suppose it is the only way they can psychologically deal with it. As an upper middle class professional group, they have never really learnt how to accept defeat. They got sent to nice schools, had the way padded to nice universities, and went into nice jobs, where their living standards were padded by the benefits of cheap immigrant and outsourced labour. And they had every election go their way until 2016.
Then they lost, and have been looking for cope ever since. Part of that is the religious certainty that deliverance will arrive in the end. Part of that is the need to assure each other of their moral superiority, with snide comments about how ghastily white, middle aged and - horrors of horrors - *British* those damn Brexiters are. Don't they know how culturally superior Provence and Tuscany are?
Yep. Brexit is essentially about the humbling of social & financial elites (exactly as you explain here) but what's strange is that almost all its leading proponents in public life are reactionary right wing Conservatives. It seems these chaps have all got the wrong end of the stick. I know when it comes to politics that Right doesn't equal Bright, but still, it's a puzzle.
Brexit was also a massive great Fuck You from Provincial Britain to London. You can't blame the yokels, they spent 30 years watching property owning Londoners get insanely wealthy, through no personal merit, while also enjoying all the restaurants, bars, girls, boys, fun, parties, better weather and nice shiny new trains
Brexit was regional Britain saying "this is our country as well": to arrogant Londoners
Talking of which I can report back from my Groucho lunch. The restaurant was jammed, the menu was oddly truncated (lack of staff?) but delicious, the new decor is beautiful, and central London as a whole - the bits of Soho, Fitzrovia, Bloomsbury, and Marylebone that I walked through - definitely feels a whole lot better. Many places are shut but many are reopening. The pavements are busier than I have seen since 2019.
And I don't think it is just the effect of a nice sunny day: it isn't. It's overcast, quite cool.
Central London might be reviving, for real.
That's great news that the Groucho is buzzing. Can't wait to get myself there and see what all the fuss is about.
As for Brexit being a cry from the provinces for a more equitable split of power, wealth and opportunity in early 21st century Britain, it's a nice thought, but I wonder if it's accurate.
Reason I'm skeptical is that I very much want that, whereas you very much don't, and I very much voted Remain whereas you very much voted Leave. That's close to being a disprove when you think about it - given both you and I are astuties who know what we want and know how to get it.
My extended family in Cornwall - a large bunch of people - is generally pro-Leave (like the rest of Cornwall). Get them a bit tipsy and ask them about their Brexit vote, and a general resentment at London having all the fun and money emerges. I am sure it is a driver across provincial Britain
And you are simply wrong that I "very much voted Leave" - tho I can see why you might think that, so this is not a critique
My vote was finely balanced. My head and heart were both split. I liked aspects of the EU very much - FOM the most of all. Tho I respect voters who wanted an end to it, as it was damaging their lives. This was a real issue. I also strongly suspected Brexit would damage the country economically (but not grievously), and be bad for London property owners - eg me
But the sovereignty argument won out, on the morning of the vote. I do believe we will be better off governing ourselves, in the end, and more prosperous too, and there are just too many repulsive aspects to the EU. The fraud of the Lisbon Treaty/Constitution was an unforgivable outrage against the European people
So there you are, I actually voted UNSELFISHLY. I voted against my own perceived financial interests, and for the betterment of the country and the country my daughters will inherit. But it was a close call
Was it really sovereignty that swung it for the people of Cornwall? Or just envy of the people in different parts of the country who they perceive are more rich than them. (grass is always greener etc..). Funny how they aren't envious when the tourists from the rest of the country fill their caravans and campsites, as well as attend their attractions, whether remainer or leaver. Sovereignty is such a mysterious concept. We've had it for a year now, but I wonder what difference it makes. No difference to me. Uk parliament and Welsh assembly have made our laws for a long time now.
The love hate relationship with tourists in tourist areas is a pretty common thing round the world.
The tourists come and pay ludicrous prices. In a number of places in Cornwall, the tourist prices are London prices. The locals get priced out of all the good local housing. Which gets turned into holiday homes that are empty for a large chunk of the year....
I agree about the holiday homes, but here in Wales the local council is allowed to charge double poll tax.
All that is going to do is raise extra cash for the Council. It’s not going to deter people buying second homes
Given the financial straits most councils are in, that might be a good thing in itself.
A way of soaking the rich outsiders for extra council tax to repair local roads? Most people would jump at that.
A very minor bafflement to me: the ticket machines at the big seaside council carpark at widemouth bay (so Bude town council, impoverished North Cornwall) have been out of order all year (at least till 20 July when I was last there). Say it's a 100 space car park and each space yields a tenner a day that's £7000 a week mainly incomer being pissed away. How does this kind of thing happen?
Alternatively. On the subject of productivity, they could have gone the route of a barrier and a person to collect the fees. Then the machines being broken wouldn't be an issue. Further to which, the entirety of Northern Rail's ticket machines have been out of order for over 2 weeks on my local line. Only Newcastle has barriers, and they are often open. Were it not for the presence of guards they'd have had no income whatsoever over that period. There would be no way to pay, even if you were scrupulously honest and made every effort to.
You'd need at least three people for coverage for sensible hours, seven days a week. Would that really be cheaper than maintaining a ticket machine?
Well. It would be cheaper than having no income for a year cos the machines don't work!
I don't think a rational business or council would allow them to be left broken for a full year.
The 88% net favourability rating for Liz Truss is as preposterous as the woman herself. A reflection of the Conservative Party and the times we live in, I guess.
Your bitterness over the UK having an independent trade policy is one of the best rewards of Brexit. Thank you.
Hate to ask, but if FF43's (alleged) bitterness really is one of the best rewards of Brexit, was it really worth all the hassle? What are the other top five say, for context?
It's probably spaces 1-3, personally along with the bitterness from other EU supporting fifth columnists.
If "remainers" are fifth columnists for the EU are Leavers fifth columnists for Putin? Which would be worse? I think as Brexit is now "done" people trading insults over it just make themselves look a little silly. There are many on both sides of the argument who have done service for their country, and often much more than the people from the opposing side that suggest they are "traitors" perhaps?
The trouble is that, for some, this was their Great Patriotic War to save democracy. Not all, but some. And rather than being saluted for their sacrifices in victory, they are being moaned at or- worse- ignored.
For while, my theory has been that the internal logic of Brexit makes most sense to those born in the 50's and 60's. The most Eurosceptic generation in both 1975 and 2016. Always lived in the shadow of the generation who actually experienced WW2. Too old to see the benefits of a continent without borders for work and play as anything other than a dangerous novelty.
And deep down, some of them suspect that it will all get reversed the minute their backs are turned. Their great achievement down the swannee. And slowly, by a thousand accommodations, chips and cuts, they're probably right.
Johnson understandably won in 2019 on "Brexit is in Peril. Defend it with All Your Might." Unless things change in a way that they haven't so far, there will come a point where the considered response of the public is "Brexit is in Peril? Good".
Meanwhile, time passes.
Although I think Brexit was the biggest foreign policy folly since Suez, I think it would be a mistake to try and re-join. That said I can't help wondering whether in my dotage I will have a good old titter at all those Brexity Col. Blimps when re do regain membership. It will be very funny.
What is funny is how Remainers always insist their vindication is coming. No matter the evidence, the great moment when the up-to-now foolish public suddenly turns around and embraces their Europhile betters. Not only will they regret the decision that has been made, they will actually seek to go back to an even worse membership status than we had before. And to do that when the EU is even more integrated in the years and decades to come. When the UK's economy and trade profile has been restructured completely and status quo bias works in the opposite direction. When the EU is an even smaller share of the world economy than ever.
I suppose it is the only way they can psychologically deal with it. As an upper middle class professional group, they have never really learnt how to accept defeat. They got sent to nice schools, had the way padded to nice universities, and went into nice jobs, where their living standards were padded by the benefits of cheap immigrant and outsourced labour. And they had every election go their way until 2016.
Then they lost, and have been looking for cope ever since. Part of that is the religious certainty that deliverance will arrive in the end. Part of that is the need to assure each other of their moral superiority, with snide comments about how ghastily white, middle aged and - horrors of horrors - *British* those damn Brexiters are. Don't they know how culturally superior Provence and Tuscany are?
Yep. Brexit is essentially about the humbling of social & financial elites (exactly as you explain here) but what's strange is that almost all its leading proponents in public life are reactionary right wing Conservatives. It seems these chaps have all got the wrong end of the stick. I know when it comes to politics that Right doesn't equal Bright, but still, it's a puzzle.
Brexit was also a massive great Fuck You from Provincial Britain to London. You can't blame the yokels, they spent 30 years watching property owning Londoners get insanely wealthy, through no personal merit, while also enjoying all the restaurants, bars, girls, boys, fun, parties, better weather and nice shiny new trains
Brexit was regional Britain saying "this is our country as well": to arrogant Londoners
Talking of which I can report back from my Groucho lunch. The restaurant was jammed, the menu was oddly truncated (lack of staff?) but delicious, the new decor is beautiful, and central London as a whole - the bits of Soho, Fitzrovia, Bloomsbury, and Marylebone that I walked through - definitely feels a whole lot better. Many places are shut but many are reopening. The pavements are busier than I have seen since 2019.
And I don't think it is just the effect of a nice sunny day: it isn't. It's overcast, quite cool.
Central London might be reviving, for real.
That's great news that the Groucho is buzzing. Can't wait to get myself there and see what all the fuss is about.
As for Brexit being a cry from the provinces for a more equitable split of power, wealth and opportunity in early 21st century Britain, it's a nice thought, but I wonder if it's accurate.
Reason I'm skeptical is that I very much want that, whereas you very much don't, and I very much voted Remain whereas you very much voted Leave. That's close to being a disprove when you think about it - given both you and I are astuties who know what we want and know how to get it.
My extended family in Cornwall - a large bunch of people - is generally pro-Leave (like the rest of Cornwall). Get them a bit tipsy and ask them about their Brexit vote, and a general resentment at London having all the fun and money emerges. I am sure it is a driver across provincial Britain
And you are simply wrong that I "very much voted Leave" - tho I can see why you might think that, so this is not a critique
My vote was finely balanced. My head and heart were both split. I liked aspects of the EU very much - FOM the most of all. Tho I respect voters who wanted an end to it, as it was damaging their lives. This was a real issue. I also strongly suspected Brexit would damage the country economically (but not grievously), and be bad for London property owners - eg me
But the sovereignty argument won out, on the morning of the vote. I do believe we will be better off governing ourselves, in the end, and more prosperous too, and there are just too many repulsive aspects to the EU. The fraud of the Lisbon Treaty/Constitution was an unforgivable outrage against the European people
So there you are, I actually voted UNSELFISHLY. I voted against my own perceived financial interests, and for the betterment of the country and the country my daughters will inherit. But it was a close call
Well, as I think I've mentioned before, if you thought we were governed by Brussels rather than Westminster - truly thought it, I mean, rather than just embraced it as a talking point - you'd have been relaxed about the election of a left wing Labour government. Course you would since such a government would be toothless, the real power residing with unelected Eurocrats. Yet you weren't relaxed about this at all. You tended to shit bricks at such a prospect. Ditto all the other right wing Brexiter pundits, on PB or elsewhere, who make the most play of this "sovereignty' point. So I conclude it's a red herring. It's a bit of self-aiding doublethink.
No attempt to engage with the argument, just a retreat to your comforting shibboleths. As ever
It's a crap argument, voting for soveriegnty is like voting for the Loch Ness Monster, it doesn't really exist outside the minds of conspiracy theorists and other assorted UFO believers.
Absolute sovereignty doesn't exist, but that doesn't make it a meaningless concept. Why do you think the EU increasingly bangs on about it?
Exists in a weird form north of Gretna apparently. Giving up a greater degree of sovereignty in a non consenting union apparently gives Scots more control than ceding a lesser degree of sovereignty in a union of consent.
Non-consenting union? There was a vote on that a few years ago.
Who decides when Scotland has another referendum? Who decided when the UK wanted (sic) a referendum on EU membership?
The UK government. The UK government also decided when a referendum should be held on EU membership 40 years after the first one on the EEC.
As long as the Tories remain in power at Westminster you can expect indyref2 on a similar timeframe
I'm homing onto the very crux of your argument. You say it was about sovereignty, I'm showing that it really wasn't. The question therefore begged is what was it about? And there I will not tread. I think I know but I'm not 100% sure, and I need to be before going to press with it. You throw up just enough dust to get in my eyes sometimes and prevent a firm read.
Based on what people say, which I see no reason to dispute, the reason why Leave won the referendum is that Leave messages of control, getting out of an unloved institution and the ability to reduce immigration was very marginally more convincing than Remain arguments of the EU being in the UK's interest.
Leave also persuaded people we’d be economically better off.
By a mechanism hitherto unknown to professional economists.
Shades of the SNP’s forthcoming “a hard border will create jobs”.
People hear what they want to hear. "Project Fear" is a way of shutting down the argument, delegitimising it rather than engaging in it
Depends on how the local car parks are managed and by whom. It's possible a private company runs the car park on behalf of the Town Council.
The company pays the Town Council a fee for the management of the parking contract and then makes its profit from a cut of the actual parking charges.
As long as it continues to pay the fee, the Town Council and the tax/rate payer isn't losing out - the private company and its shareholders (if there are any) would be the big losers if they are not properly maintaining the machines and collecting the charges.
It seemed odd - but a quick look on google while I wait for the dinner to cook shows that (a) Widemouith Bay is county council car parking and (b) Cornwall CC seem to have suspended parking fees this year till at least mid-May to encourage local businesses.
A very minor bafflement to me: the ticket machines at the big seaside council carpark at widemouth bay (so Bude town council, impoverished North Cornwall) have been out of order all year (at least till 20 July when I was last there). Say it's a 100 space car park and each space yields a tenner a day that's £7000 a week mainly incomer being pissed away. How does this kind of thing happen?
Incompetence?
Depends on how the local car parks are managed and by whom. It's possible a private company runs the car park on behalf of the Town Council.
The company pays the Town Council a fee for the management of the parking contract and then makes its profit from a cut of the actual parking charges.
As long as it continues to pay the fee, the Town Council and the tax/rate payer isn't losing out - the private company and its shareholders (if there are any) would be the big losers if they are not properly maintaining the machines and collecting the charges.
It seemed odd - but a quick look on google while I wait for the dinner to cook shows that (a) Widemouith Bay is county council car parking and (b) Cornwall CC seem to have suspended parking fees this year till at least mid-May to encourage local businesses.
Apropos of nothing, has "contrarian" been by recently to explain how Florida has just recorded more new cases than at any other point in the pandemic, despite previous assurances that Florida was proof there was no link between lockdowns and case numbers?
The 88% net favourability rating for Liz Truss is as preposterous as the woman herself. A reflection of the Conservative Party and the times we live in, I guess.
Your bitterness over the UK having an independent trade policy is one of the best rewards of Brexit. Thank you.
Hate to ask, but if FF43's (alleged) bitterness really is one of the best rewards of Brexit, was it really worth all the hassle? What are the other top five say, for context?
It's probably spaces 1-3, personally along with the bitterness from other EU supporting fifth columnists.
If "remainers" are fifth columnists for the EU are Leavers fifth columnists for Putin? Which would be worse? I think as Brexit is now "done" people trading insults over it just make themselves look a little silly. There are many on both sides of the argument who have done service for their country, and often much more than the people from the opposing side that suggest they are "traitors" perhaps?
The trouble is that, for some, this was their Great Patriotic War to save democracy. Not all, but some. And rather than being saluted for their sacrifices in victory, they are being moaned at or- worse- ignored.
For while, my theory has been that the internal logic of Brexit makes most sense to those born in the 50's and 60's. The most Eurosceptic generation in both 1975 and 2016. Always lived in the shadow of the generation who actually experienced WW2. Too old to see the benefits of a continent without borders for work and play as anything other than a dangerous novelty.
And deep down, some of them suspect that it will all get reversed the minute their backs are turned. Their great achievement down the swannee. And slowly, by a thousand accommodations, chips and cuts, they're probably right.
Johnson understandably won in 2019 on "Brexit is in Peril. Defend it with All Your Might." Unless things change in a way that they haven't so far, there will come a point where the considered response of the public is "Brexit is in Peril? Good".
Meanwhile, time passes.
Although I think Brexit was the biggest foreign policy folly since Suez, I think it would be a mistake to try and re-join. That said I can't help wondering whether in my dotage I will have a good old titter at all those Brexity Col. Blimps when re do regain membership. It will be very funny.
What is funny is how Remainers always insist their vindication is coming. No matter the evidence, the great moment when the up-to-now foolish public suddenly turns around and embraces their Europhile betters. Not only will they regret the decision that has been made, they will actually seek to go back to an even worse membership status than we had before. And to do that when the EU is even more integrated in the years and decades to come. When the UK's economy and trade profile has been restructured completely and status quo bias works in the opposite direction. When the EU is an even smaller share of the world economy than ever.
I suppose it is the only way they can psychologically deal with it. As an upper middle class professional group, they have never really learnt how to accept defeat. They got sent to nice schools, had the way padded to nice universities, and went into nice jobs, where their living standards were padded by the benefits of cheap immigrant and outsourced labour. And they had every election go their way until 2016.
Then they lost, and have been looking for cope ever since. Part of that is the religious certainty that deliverance will arrive in the end. Part of that is the need to assure each other of their moral superiority, with snide comments about how ghastily white, middle aged and - horrors of horrors - *British* those damn Brexiters are. Don't they know how culturally superior Provence and Tuscany are?
Yep. Brexit is essentially about the humbling of social & financial elites (exactly as you explain here) but what's strange is that almost all its leading proponents in public life are reactionary right wing Conservatives. It seems these chaps have all got the wrong end of the stick. I know when it comes to politics that Right doesn't equal Bright, but still, it's a puzzle.
Brexit was also a massive great Fuck You from Provincial Britain to London. You can't blame the yokels, they spent 30 years watching property owning Londoners get insanely wealthy, through no personal merit, while also enjoying all the restaurants, bars, girls, boys, fun, parties, better weather and nice shiny new trains
Brexit was regional Britain saying "this is our country as well": to arrogant Londoners
Talking of which I can report back from my Groucho lunch. The restaurant was jammed, the menu was oddly truncated (lack of staff?) but delicious, the new decor is beautiful, and central London as a whole - the bits of Soho, Fitzrovia, Bloomsbury, and Marylebone that I walked through - definitely feels a whole lot better. Many places are shut but many are reopening. The pavements are busier than I have seen since 2019.
And I don't think it is just the effect of a nice sunny day: it isn't. It's overcast, quite cool.
Central London might be reviving, for real.
That's great news that the Groucho is buzzing. Can't wait to get myself there and see what all the fuss is about.
As for Brexit being a cry from the provinces for a more equitable split of power, wealth and opportunity in early 21st century Britain, it's a nice thought, but I wonder if it's accurate.
Reason I'm skeptical is that I very much want that, whereas you very much don't, and I very much voted Remain whereas you very much voted Leave. That's close to being a disprove when you think about it - given both you and I are astuties who know what we want and know how to get it.
My extended family in Cornwall - a large bunch of people - is generally pro-Leave (like the rest of Cornwall). Get them a bit tipsy and ask them about their Brexit vote, and a general resentment at London having all the fun and money emerges. I am sure it is a driver across provincial Britain
And you are simply wrong that I "very much voted Leave" - tho I can see why you might think that, so this is not a critique
My vote was finely balanced. My head and heart were both split. I liked aspects of the EU very much - FOM the most of all. Tho I respect voters who wanted an end to it, as it was damaging their lives. This was a real issue. I also strongly suspected Brexit would damage the country economically (but not grievously), and be bad for London property owners - eg me
But the sovereignty argument won out, on the morning of the vote. I do believe we will be better off governing ourselves, in the end, and more prosperous too, and there are just too many repulsive aspects to the EU. The fraud of the Lisbon Treaty/Constitution was an unforgivable outrage against the European people
So there you are, I actually voted UNSELFISHLY. I voted against my own perceived financial interests, and for the betterment of the country and the country my daughters will inherit. But it was a close call
Was it really sovereignty that swung it for the people of Cornwall? Or just envy of the people in different parts of the country who they perceive are more rich than them. (grass is always greener etc..). Funny how they aren't envious when the tourists from the rest of the country fill their caravans and campsites, as well as attend their attractions, whether remainer or leaver. Sovereignty is such a mysterious concept. We've had it for a year now, but I wonder what difference it makes. No difference to me. Uk parliament and Welsh assembly have made our laws for a long time now.
The love hate relationship with tourists in tourist areas is a pretty common thing round the world.
The tourists come and pay ludicrous prices. In a number of places in Cornwall, the tourist prices are London prices. The locals get priced out of all the good local housing. Which gets turned into holiday homes that are empty for a large chunk of the year....
I agree about the holiday homes, but here in Wales the local council is allowed to charge double poll tax.
All that is going to do is raise extra cash for the Council. It’s not going to deter people buying second homes
Given the financial straits most councils are in, that might be a good thing in itself.
A way of soaking the rich outsiders for extra council tax to repair local roads? Most people would jump at that.
A very minor bafflement to me: the ticket machines at the big seaside council carpark at widemouth bay (so Bude town council, impoverished North Cornwall) have been out of order all year (at least till 20 July when I was last there). Say it's a 100 space car park and each space yields a tenner a day that's £7000 a week mainly incomer being pissed away. How does this kind of thing happen?
Alternatively. On the subject of productivity, they could have gone the route of a barrier and a person to collect the fees. Then the machines being broken wouldn't be an issue. Further to which, the entirety of Northern Rail's ticket machines have been out of order for over 2 weeks on my local line. Only Newcastle has barriers, and they are often open. Were it not for the presence of guards they'd have had no income whatsoever over that period. There would be no way to pay, even if you were scrupulously honest and made every effort to.
You'd need at least three people for coverage for sensible hours, seven days a week. Would that really be cheaper than maintaining a ticket machine?
Well. It would be cheaper than having no income for a year cos the machines don't work!
I don't think a rational business or council would allow them to be left broken for a full year.
I think all has been cleared up above, or below. Depending on your vanilla choices.
The 88% net favourability rating for Liz Truss is as preposterous as the woman herself. A reflection of the Conservative Party and the times we live in, I guess.
Your bitterness over the UK having an independent trade policy is one of the best rewards of Brexit. Thank you.
Hate to ask, but if FF43's (alleged) bitterness really is one of the best rewards of Brexit, was it really worth all the hassle? What are the other top five say, for context?
It's probably spaces 1-3, personally along with the bitterness from other EU supporting fifth columnists.
If "remainers" are fifth columnists for the EU are Leavers fifth columnists for Putin? Which would be worse? I think as Brexit is now "done" people trading insults over it just make themselves look a little silly. There are many on both sides of the argument who have done service for their country, and often much more than the people from the opposing side that suggest they are "traitors" perhaps?
The trouble is that, for some, this was their Great Patriotic War to save democracy. Not all, but some. And rather than being saluted for their sacrifices in victory, they are being moaned at or- worse- ignored.
For while, my theory has been that the internal logic of Brexit makes most sense to those born in the 50's and 60's. The most Eurosceptic generation in both 1975 and 2016. Always lived in the shadow of the generation who actually experienced WW2. Too old to see the benefits of a continent without borders for work and play as anything other than a dangerous novelty.
And deep down, some of them suspect that it will all get reversed the minute their backs are turned. Their great achievement down the swannee. And slowly, by a thousand accommodations, chips and cuts, they're probably right.
Johnson understandably won in 2019 on "Brexit is in Peril. Defend it with All Your Might." Unless things change in a way that they haven't so far, there will come a point where the considered response of the public is "Brexit is in Peril? Good".
Meanwhile, time passes.
Although I think Brexit was the biggest foreign policy folly since Suez, I think it would be a mistake to try and re-join. That said I can't help wondering whether in my dotage I will have a good old titter at all those Brexity Col. Blimps when re do regain membership. It will be very funny.
What is funny is how Remainers always insist their vindication is coming. No matter the evidence, the great moment when the up-to-now foolish public suddenly turns around and embraces their Europhile betters. Not only will they regret the decision that has been made, they will actually seek to go back to an even worse membership status than we had before. And to do that when the EU is even more integrated in the years and decades to come. When the UK's economy and trade profile has been restructured completely and status quo bias works in the opposite direction. When the EU is an even smaller share of the world economy than ever.
I suppose it is the only way they can psychologically deal with it. As an upper middle class professional group, they have never really learnt how to accept defeat. They got sent to nice schools, had the way padded to nice universities, and went into nice jobs, where their living standards were padded by the benefits of cheap immigrant and outsourced labour. And they had every election go their way until 2016.
Then they lost, and have been looking for cope ever since. Part of that is the religious certainty that deliverance will arrive in the end. Part of that is the need to assure each other of their moral superiority, with snide comments about how ghastily white, middle aged and - horrors of horrors - *British* those damn Brexiters are. Don't they know how culturally superior Provence and Tuscany are?
Yep. Brexit is essentially about the humbling of social & financial elites (exactly as you explain here) but what's strange is that almost all its leading proponents in public life are reactionary right wing Conservatives. It seems these chaps have all got the wrong end of the stick. I know when it comes to politics that Right doesn't equal Bright, but still, it's a puzzle.
Brexit was also a massive great Fuck You from Provincial Britain to London. You can't blame the yokels, they spent 30 years watching property owning Londoners get insanely wealthy, through no personal merit, while also enjoying all the restaurants, bars, girls, boys, fun, parties, better weather and nice shiny new trains
Brexit was regional Britain saying "this is our country as well": to arrogant Londoners
Talking of which I can report back from my Groucho lunch. The restaurant was jammed, the menu was oddly truncated (lack of staff?) but delicious, the new decor is beautiful, and central London as a whole - the bits of Soho, Fitzrovia, Bloomsbury, and Marylebone that I walked through - definitely feels a whole lot better. Many places are shut but many are reopening. The pavements are busier than I have seen since 2019.
And I don't think it is just the effect of a nice sunny day: it isn't. It's overcast, quite cool.
Central London might be reviving, for real.
That's great news that the Groucho is buzzing. Can't wait to get myself there and see what all the fuss is about.
As for Brexit being a cry from the provinces for a more equitable split of power, wealth and opportunity in early 21st century Britain, it's a nice thought, but I wonder if it's accurate.
Reason I'm skeptical is that I very much want that, whereas you very much don't, and I very much voted Remain whereas you very much voted Leave. That's close to being a disprove when you think about it - given both you and I are astuties who know what we want and know how to get it.
My extended family in Cornwall - a large bunch of people - is generally pro-Leave (like the rest of Cornwall). Get them a bit tipsy and ask them about their Brexit vote, and a general resentment at London having all the fun and money emerges. I am sure it is a driver across provincial Britain
And you are simply wrong that I "very much voted Leave" - tho I can see why you might think that, so this is not a critique
My vote was finely balanced. My head and heart were both split. I liked aspects of the EU very much - FOM the most of all. Tho I respect voters who wanted an end to it, as it was damaging their lives. This was a real issue. I also strongly suspected Brexit would damage the country economically (but not grievously), and be bad for London property owners - eg me
But the sovereignty argument won out, on the morning of the vote. I do believe we will be better off governing ourselves, in the end, and more prosperous too, and there are just too many repulsive aspects to the EU. The fraud of the Lisbon Treaty/Constitution was an unforgivable outrage against the European people
So there you are, I actually voted UNSELFISHLY. I voted against my own perceived financial interests, and for the betterment of the country and the country my daughters will inherit. But it was a close call
Well, as I think I've mentioned before, if you thought we were governed by Brussels rather than Westminster - truly thought it, I mean, rather than just embraced it as a talking point - you'd have been relaxed about the election of a left wing Labour government. Course you would since such a government would be toothless, the real power residing with unelected Eurocrats. Yet you weren't relaxed about this at all. You tended to shit bricks at such a prospect. Ditto all the other right wing Brexiter pundits, on PB or elsewhere, who make the most play of this "sovereignty' point. So I conclude it's a red herring. It's a bit of self-aiding doublethink.
No attempt to engage with the argument, just a retreat to your comforting shibboleths. As ever
I'm homing onto the very crux of your argument. You say it was about sovereignty - I'm showing that it really wasn't. The question therefore begged is what was it about. And there, I will not tread. I think I know but I'm not 100% sure and I need to be before going to press with it. You throw up just enough dust to get in my eyes sometimes and prevent a firm read.
Sovereignty is fundamental to the question of immigration, which nobody would deny played a part in the vote. Do we as a political community have the right to set conditions on migration, or do we merely elect people to administer the province of the UK?
Yep, in the EU debate sovereignty is largely Leaver code for immigration. EU membership entailed the free movement of people within the EU. Given we had - in the true rather than Leaver sense of the word - sovereignty, we could leave the EU if we were so unhappy with this that it made us feel oppressed and violated. And that is precisely what has happened.
Anecdata from central London: There's a whole new generation, about 16-22, wearing absolutely INSANE clothes. Like cloth caps with kilts and Kenyan ponchos and goggles.
A very minor bafflement to me: the ticket machines at the big seaside council carpark at widemouth bay (so Bude town council, impoverished North Cornwall) have been out of order all year (at least till 20 July when I was last there). Say it's a 100 space car park and each space yields a tenner a day that's £7000 a week mainly incomer being pissed away. How does this kind of thing happen?
Incompetence?
Depends on how the local car parks are managed and by whom. It's possible a private company runs the car park on behalf of the Town Council.
The company pays the Town Council a fee for the management of the parking contract and then makes its profit from a cut of the actual parking charges.
As long as it continues to pay the fee, the Town Council and the tax/rate payer isn't losing out - the private company and its shareholders (if there are any) would be the big losers if they are not properly maintaining the machines and collecting the charges.
It seemed odd - but a quick look on google while I wait for the dinner to cook shows that (a) Widemouith Bay is county council car parking and (b) Cornwall CC seem to have suspended parking fees this year till at least mid-May to encourage local businesses.
It isn't great competence if the purpose was free parking to attract more visitors. And yet, a visitor was unaware parking was free, despite visiting. And that it takes a Google to discover that there actually is free parking. Surely, the first thing you do after such a decision is widely publicise it? Starting with a big FREE PARKING sign at the entrance and on said ticket machines.
According to this thread, Brexit was in fact a chance to kick out the elite. Thank fuck for that... Over 170 people applied to a position on the independent committee responsible for upholding ethics and integrity in our politics and public life.
Boris Johnson appointed his chum from the Bullingdon Club instead. A total joke.
The 88% net favourability rating for Liz Truss is as preposterous as the woman herself. A reflection of the Conservative Party and the times we live in, I guess.
Your bitterness over the UK having an independent trade policy is one of the best rewards of Brexit. Thank you.
Hate to ask, but if FF43's (alleged) bitterness really is one of the best rewards of Brexit, was it really worth all the hassle? What are the other top five say, for context?
It's probably spaces 1-3, personally along with the bitterness from other EU supporting fifth columnists.
If "remainers" are fifth columnists for the EU are Leavers fifth columnists for Putin? Which would be worse? I think as Brexit is now "done" people trading insults over it just make themselves look a little silly. There are many on both sides of the argument who have done service for their country, and often much more than the people from the opposing side that suggest they are "traitors" perhaps?
The trouble is that, for some, this was their Great Patriotic War to save democracy. Not all, but some. And rather than being saluted for their sacrifices in victory, they are being moaned at or- worse- ignored.
For while, my theory has been that the internal logic of Brexit makes most sense to those born in the 50's and 60's. The most Eurosceptic generation in both 1975 and 2016. Always lived in the shadow of the generation who actually experienced WW2. Too old to see the benefits of a continent without borders for work and play as anything other than a dangerous novelty.
And deep down, some of them suspect that it will all get reversed the minute their backs are turned. Their great achievement down the swannee. And slowly, by a thousand accommodations, chips and cuts, they're probably right.
Johnson understandably won in 2019 on "Brexit is in Peril. Defend it with All Your Might." Unless things change in a way that they haven't so far, there will come a point where the considered response of the public is "Brexit is in Peril? Good".
Meanwhile, time passes.
Although I think Brexit was the biggest foreign policy folly since Suez, I think it would be a mistake to try and re-join. That said I can't help wondering whether in my dotage I will have a good old titter at all those Brexity Col. Blimps when re do regain membership. It will be very funny.
What is funny is how Remainers always insist their vindication is coming. No matter the evidence, the great moment when the up-to-now foolish public suddenly turns around and embraces their Europhile betters. Not only will they regret the decision that has been made, they will actually seek to go back to an even worse membership status than we had before. And to do that when the EU is even more integrated in the years and decades to come. When the UK's economy and trade profile has been restructured completely and status quo bias works in the opposite direction. When the EU is an even smaller share of the world economy than ever.
I suppose it is the only way they can psychologically deal with it. As an upper middle class professional group, they have never really learnt how to accept defeat. They got sent to nice schools, had the way padded to nice universities, and went into nice jobs, where their living standards were padded by the benefits of cheap immigrant and outsourced labour. And they had every election go their way until 2016.
Then they lost, and have been looking for cope ever since. Part of that is the religious certainty that deliverance will arrive in the end. Part of that is the need to assure each other of their moral superiority, with snide comments about how ghastily white, middle aged and - horrors of horrors - *British* those damn Brexiters are. Don't they know how culturally superior Provence and Tuscany are?
Yep. Brexit is essentially about the humbling of social & financial elites (exactly as you explain here) but what's strange is that almost all its leading proponents in public life are reactionary right wing Conservatives. It seems these chaps have all got the wrong end of the stick. I know when it comes to politics that Right doesn't equal Bright, but still, it's a puzzle.
Brexit was also a massive great Fuck You from Provincial Britain to London. You can't blame the yokels, they spent 30 years watching property owning Londoners get insanely wealthy, through no personal merit, while also enjoying all the restaurants, bars, girls, boys, fun, parties, better weather and nice shiny new trains
Brexit was regional Britain saying "this is our country as well": to arrogant Londoners
Talking of which I can report back from my Groucho lunch. The restaurant was jammed, the menu was oddly truncated (lack of staff?) but delicious, the new decor is beautiful, and central London as a whole - the bits of Soho, Fitzrovia, Bloomsbury, and Marylebone that I walked through - definitely feels a whole lot better. Many places are shut but many are reopening. The pavements are busier than I have seen since 2019.
And I don't think it is just the effect of a nice sunny day: it isn't. It's overcast, quite cool.
Central London might be reviving, for real.
That's great news that the Groucho is buzzing. Can't wait to get myself there and see what all the fuss is about.
As for Brexit being a cry from the provinces for a more equitable split of power, wealth and opportunity in early 21st century Britain, it's a nice thought, but I wonder if it's accurate.
Reason I'm skeptical is that I very much want that, whereas you very much don't, and I very much voted Remain whereas you very much voted Leave. That's close to being a disprove when you think about it - given both you and I are astuties who know what we want and know how to get it.
My extended family in Cornwall - a large bunch of people - is generally pro-Leave (like the rest of Cornwall). Get them a bit tipsy and ask them about their Brexit vote, and a general resentment at London having all the fun and money emerges. I am sure it is a driver across provincial Britain
And you are simply wrong that I "very much voted Leave" - tho I can see why you might think that, so this is not a critique
My vote was finely balanced. My head and heart were both split. I liked aspects of the EU very much - FOM the most of all. Tho I respect voters who wanted an end to it, as it was damaging their lives. This was a real issue. I also strongly suspected Brexit would damage the country economically (but not grievously), and be bad for London property owners - eg me
But the sovereignty argument won out, on the morning of the vote. I do believe we will be better off governing ourselves, in the end, and more prosperous too, and there are just too many repulsive aspects to the EU. The fraud of the Lisbon Treaty/Constitution was an unforgivable outrage against the European people
So there you are, I actually voted UNSELFISHLY. I voted against my own perceived financial interests, and for the betterment of the country and the country my daughters will inherit. But it was a close call
Well, as I think I've mentioned before, if you thought we were governed by Brussels rather than Westminster - truly thought it, I mean, rather than just embraced it as a talking point - you'd have been relaxed about the election of a left wing Labour government. Course you would since such a government would be toothless, the real power residing with unelected Eurocrats. Yet you weren't relaxed about this at all. You tended to shit bricks at such a prospect. Ditto all the other right wing Brexiter pundits, on PB or elsewhere, who make the most play of this "sovereignty' point. So I conclude it's a red herring. It's a bit of self-aiding doublethink.
No attempt to engage with the argument, just a retreat to your comforting shibboleths. As ever
I'm homing onto the very crux of your argument. You say it was about sovereignty - I'm showing that it really wasn't. The question therefore begged is what was it about. And there, I will not tread. I think I know but I'm not 100% sure and I need to be before going to press with it. You throw up just enough dust to get in my eyes sometimes and prevent a firm read.
Sovereignty is fundamental to the question of immigration, which nobody would deny played a part in the vote. Do we as a political community have the right to set conditions on migration, or do we merely elect people to administer the province of the UK?
Yep, in the EU debate sovereignty is largely Leaver code for immigration. EU membership entailed the free movement of people within the EU. Given we had - in the true rather than Leaver sense of the word - sovereignty, we could leave the EU if we were so unhappy with this that it made us feel oppressed and violated. And that is precisely what has happened.
While I think this is true for most Brexiters, there *is* a principled case for greater U.K. sovreignty outside the EU and the ECJ.
I guess this appeals to maybe 5% of the population?
Maybe less, because even those who major on this seem completely unworried by Boris’s “executive” power grab versus Parliament which has a much more tangible impact on sovreignty.
Apropos of nothing, has "contrarian" been by recently to explain how Florida has just recorded more new cases than at any other point in the pandemic, despite previous assurances that Florida was proof there was no link between lockdowns and case numbers?
I think you will find that Florida is really a super vaccinated state or something.....
The 88% net favourability rating for Liz Truss is as preposterous as the woman herself. A reflection of the Conservative Party and the times we live in, I guess.
Your bitterness over the UK having an independent trade policy is one of the best rewards of Brexit. Thank you.
Hate to ask, but if FF43's (alleged) bitterness really is one of the best rewards of Brexit, was it really worth all the hassle? What are the other top five say, for context?
It's probably spaces 1-3, personally along with the bitterness from other EU supporting fifth columnists.
If "remainers" are fifth columnists for the EU are Leavers fifth columnists for Putin? Which would be worse? I think as Brexit is now "done" people trading insults over it just make themselves look a little silly. There are many on both sides of the argument who have done service for their country, and often much more than the people from the opposing side that suggest they are "traitors" perhaps?
The trouble is that, for some, this was their Great Patriotic War to save democracy. Not all, but some. And rather than being saluted for their sacrifices in victory, they are being moaned at or- worse- ignored.
For while, my theory has been that the internal logic of Brexit makes most sense to those born in the 50's and 60's. The most Eurosceptic generation in both 1975 and 2016. Always lived in the shadow of the generation who actually experienced WW2. Too old to see the benefits of a continent without borders for work and play as anything other than a dangerous novelty.
And deep down, some of them suspect that it will all get reversed the minute their backs are turned. Their great achievement down the swannee. And slowly, by a thousand accommodations, chips and cuts, they're probably right.
Johnson understandably won in 2019 on "Brexit is in Peril. Defend it with All Your Might." Unless things change in a way that they haven't so far, there will come a point where the considered response of the public is "Brexit is in Peril? Good".
Meanwhile, time passes.
Although I think Brexit was the biggest foreign policy folly since Suez, I think it would be a mistake to try and re-join. That said I can't help wondering whether in my dotage I will have a good old titter at all those Brexity Col. Blimps when re do regain membership. It will be very funny.
What is funny is how Remainers always insist their vindication is coming. No matter the evidence, the great moment when the up-to-now foolish public suddenly turns around and embraces their Europhile betters. Not only will they regret the decision that has been made, they will actually seek to go back to an even worse membership status than we had before. And to do that when the EU is even more integrated in the years and decades to come. When the UK's economy and trade profile has been restructured completely and status quo bias works in the opposite direction. When the EU is an even smaller share of the world economy than ever.
I suppose it is the only way they can psychologically deal with it. As an upper middle class professional group, they have never really learnt how to accept defeat. They got sent to nice schools, had the way padded to nice universities, and went into nice jobs, where their living standards were padded by the benefits of cheap immigrant and outsourced labour. And they had every election go their way until 2016.
Then they lost, and have been looking for cope ever since. Part of that is the religious certainty that deliverance will arrive in the end. Part of that is the need to assure each other of their moral superiority, with snide comments about how ghastily white, middle aged and - horrors of horrors - *British* those damn Brexiters are. Don't they know how culturally superior Provence and Tuscany are?
Yep. Brexit is essentially about the humbling of social & financial elites (exactly as you explain here) but what's strange is that almost all its leading proponents in public life are reactionary right wing Conservatives. It seems these chaps have all got the wrong end of the stick. I know when it comes to politics that Right doesn't equal Bright, but still, it's a puzzle.
Brexit was also a massive great Fuck You from Provincial Britain to London. You can't blame the yokels, they spent 30 years watching property owning Londoners get insanely wealthy, through no personal merit, while also enjoying all the restaurants, bars, girls, boys, fun, parties, better weather and nice shiny new trains
Brexit was regional Britain saying "this is our country as well": to arrogant Londoners
Talking of which I can report back from my Groucho lunch. The restaurant was jammed, the menu was oddly truncated (lack of staff?) but delicious, the new decor is beautiful, and central London as a whole - the bits of Soho, Fitzrovia, Bloomsbury, and Marylebone that I walked through - definitely feels a whole lot better. Many places are shut but many are reopening. The pavements are busier than I have seen since 2019.
And I don't think it is just the effect of a nice sunny day: it isn't. It's overcast, quite cool.
Central London might be reviving, for real.
That's great news that the Groucho is buzzing. Can't wait to get myself there and see what all the fuss is about.
As for Brexit being a cry from the provinces for a more equitable split of power, wealth and opportunity in early 21st century Britain, it's a nice thought, but I wonder if it's accurate.
Reason I'm skeptical is that I very much want that, whereas you very much don't, and I very much voted Remain whereas you very much voted Leave. That's close to being a disprove when you think about it - given both you and I are astuties who know what we want and know how to get it.
My extended family in Cornwall - a large bunch of people - is generally pro-Leave (like the rest of Cornwall). Get them a bit tipsy and ask them about their Brexit vote, and a general resentment at London having all the fun and money emerges. I am sure it is a driver across provincial Britain
And you are simply wrong that I "very much voted Leave" - tho I can see why you might think that, so this is not a critique
My vote was finely balanced. My head and heart were both split. I liked aspects of the EU very much - FOM the most of all. Tho I respect voters who wanted an end to it, as it was damaging their lives. This was a real issue. I also strongly suspected Brexit would damage the country economically (but not grievously), and be bad for London property owners - eg me
But the sovereignty argument won out, on the morning of the vote. I do believe we will be better off governing ourselves, in the end, and more prosperous too, and there are just too many repulsive aspects to the EU. The fraud of the Lisbon Treaty/Constitution was an unforgivable outrage against the European people
So there you are, I actually voted UNSELFISHLY. I voted against my own perceived financial interests, and for the betterment of the country and the country my daughters will inherit. But it was a close call
Well, as I think I've mentioned before, if you thought we were governed by Brussels rather than Westminster - truly thought it, I mean, rather than just embraced it as a talking point - you'd have been relaxed about the election of a left wing Labour government. Course you would since such a government would be toothless, the real power residing with unelected Eurocrats. Yet you weren't relaxed about this at all. You tended to shit bricks at such a prospect. Ditto all the other right wing Brexiter pundits, on PB or elsewhere, who make the most play of this "sovereignty' point. So I conclude it's a red herring. It's a bit of self-aiding doublethink.
No attempt to engage with the argument, just a retreat to your comforting shibboleths. As ever
I'm homing onto the very crux of your argument. You say it was about sovereignty - I'm showing that it really wasn't. The question therefore begged is what was it about. And there, I will not tread. I think I know but I'm not 100% sure and I need to be before going to press with it. You throw up just enough dust to get in my eyes sometimes and prevent a firm read.
Sovereignty is fundamental to the question of immigration, which nobody would deny played a part in the vote. Do we as a political community have the right to set conditions on migration, or do we merely elect people to administer the province of the UK?
Yep, in the EU debate sovereignty is largely Leaver code for immigration. EU membership entailed the free movement of people within the EU. Given we had - in the true rather than Leaver sense of the word - sovereignty, we could leave the EU if we were so unhappy with this that it made us feel oppressed and violated. And that is precisely what has happened.
While I think this is true for most Brexiters, there *is* a principled case for greater U.K. sovreignty outside the EU and the ECJ.
I guess this appeals to maybe 5% of the population?
Maybe less, because even those who major on this seem completely unworried by Boris’s “executive” power grab versus Parliament which has a much more tangible impact on sovreignty.
There's a point here - we've gone from forced abstinence to encouraged excess almost overnight.
Some people can't handle that.
Oddly enough, going racing with restricted crowd numbers was a real pleasure yet I'm told it's not the same without a "crowd".
No, it's much worse but I can understand why Lingfield Park want a crowd of 10,000 drinking rather than 2,000 enjoying the racing.
I thought that this had become common at racing long before COVID.
Yes, you're not wrong though the racing authorities vehemently deny it and a lot of "trouble" at race courses goes unreported.
It's just plain honest greed on the part of the tracks.
UB40 (who aren't a bad band in all fairness) were playing so they upped the admission price (and I imagine the food and drink prices) to pay for the band and hoped the increased numbers through the gate would help. The economics are obvious really but the course also has to pay for a "little" extra security in case some of the crowd get a little boisterous.
The problem comes when the course turns a blind eye to the drunks, the drug taking, the fights, the vomit and the violence outside the course. It's basically bringing a town centre to a corner of rural Surrey and it's not in my view appropriate.
"I've been to Magaluf, but this was just crazy..." LOL.
There's a point here - we've gone from forced abstinence to encouraged excess almost overnight.
Some people can't handle that.
Oddly enough, going racing with restricted crowd numbers was a real pleasure yet I'm told it's not the same without a "crowd".
No, it's much worse but I can understand why Lingfield Park want a crowd of 10,000 drinking rather than 2,000 enjoying the racing.
Indeed there is a point. And you've put your finger on it. Newcastle City centre has had a distinctly, evil air abroad in the late hours recently. Stag and hens, aren't in Prague and Amsterdam. The quayside bar staff I know reckon it has never been anything like this bad. Not local accents. Blood, urine and vomit on the Tyne is all mine.
Apropos of nothing, has "contrarian" been by recently to explain how Florida has just recorded more new cases than at any other point in the pandemic, despite previous assurances that Florida was proof there was no link between lockdowns and case numbers?
I think you will find that Florida is really a super vaccinated state or something.....
The 88% net favourability rating for Liz Truss is as preposterous as the woman herself. A reflection of the Conservative Party and the times we live in, I guess.
Your bitterness over the UK having an independent trade policy is one of the best rewards of Brexit. Thank you.
Hate to ask, but if FF43's (alleged) bitterness really is one of the best rewards of Brexit, was it really worth all the hassle? What are the other top five say, for context?
It's probably spaces 1-3, personally along with the bitterness from other EU supporting fifth columnists.
If "remainers" are fifth columnists for the EU are Leavers fifth columnists for Putin? Which would be worse? I think as Brexit is now "done" people trading insults over it just make themselves look a little silly. There are many on both sides of the argument who have done service for their country, and often much more than the people from the opposing side that suggest they are "traitors" perhaps?
The trouble is that, for some, this was their Great Patriotic War to save democracy. Not all, but some. And rather than being saluted for their sacrifices in victory, they are being moaned at or- worse- ignored.
For while, my theory has been that the internal logic of Brexit makes most sense to those born in the 50's and 60's. The most Eurosceptic generation in both 1975 and 2016. Always lived in the shadow of the generation who actually experienced WW2. Too old to see the benefits of a continent without borders for work and play as anything other than a dangerous novelty.
And deep down, some of them suspect that it will all get reversed the minute their backs are turned. Their great achievement down the swannee. And slowly, by a thousand accommodations, chips and cuts, they're probably right.
Johnson understandably won in 2019 on "Brexit is in Peril. Defend it with All Your Might." Unless things change in a way that they haven't so far, there will come a point where the considered response of the public is "Brexit is in Peril? Good".
Meanwhile, time passes.
Although I think Brexit was the biggest foreign policy folly since Suez, I think it would be a mistake to try and re-join. That said I can't help wondering whether in my dotage I will have a good old titter at all those Brexity Col. Blimps when re do regain membership. It will be very funny.
What is funny is how Remainers always insist their vindication is coming. No matter the evidence, the great moment when the up-to-now foolish public suddenly turns around and embraces their Europhile betters. Not only will they regret the decision that has been made, they will actually seek to go back to an even worse membership status than we had before. And to do that when the EU is even more integrated in the years and decades to come. When the UK's economy and trade profile has been restructured completely and status quo bias works in the opposite direction. When the EU is an even smaller share of the world economy than ever.
I suppose it is the only way they can psychologically deal with it. As an upper middle class professional group, they have never really learnt how to accept defeat. They got sent to nice schools, had the way padded to nice universities, and went into nice jobs, where their living standards were padded by the benefits of cheap immigrant and outsourced labour. And they had every election go their way until 2016.
Then they lost, and have been looking for cope ever since. Part of that is the religious certainty that deliverance will arrive in the end. Part of that is the need to assure each other of their moral superiority, with snide comments about how ghastily white, middle aged and - horrors of horrors - *British* those damn Brexiters are. Don't they know how culturally superior Provence and Tuscany are?
Yep. Brexit is essentially about the humbling of social & financial elites (exactly as you explain here) but what's strange is that almost all its leading proponents in public life are reactionary right wing Conservatives. It seems these chaps have all got the wrong end of the stick. I know when it comes to politics that Right doesn't equal Bright, but still, it's a puzzle.
Brexit was also a massive great Fuck You from Provincial Britain to London. You can't blame the yokels, they spent 30 years watching property owning Londoners get insanely wealthy, through no personal merit, while also enjoying all the restaurants, bars, girls, boys, fun, parties, better weather and nice shiny new trains
Brexit was regional Britain saying "this is our country as well": to arrogant Londoners
Talking of which I can report back from my Groucho lunch. The restaurant was jammed, the menu was oddly truncated (lack of staff?) but delicious, the new decor is beautiful, and central London as a whole - the bits of Soho, Fitzrovia, Bloomsbury, and Marylebone that I walked through - definitely feels a whole lot better. Many places are shut but many are reopening. The pavements are busier than I have seen since 2019.
And I don't think it is just the effect of a nice sunny day: it isn't. It's overcast, quite cool.
Central London might be reviving, for real.
That's great news that the Groucho is buzzing. Can't wait to get myself there and see what all the fuss is about.
As for Brexit being a cry from the provinces for a more equitable split of power, wealth and opportunity in early 21st century Britain, it's a nice thought, but I wonder if it's accurate.
Reason I'm skeptical is that I very much want that, whereas you very much don't, and I very much voted Remain whereas you very much voted Leave. That's close to being a disprove when you think about it - given both you and I are astuties who know what we want and know how to get it.
My extended family in Cornwall - a large bunch of people - is generally pro-Leave (like the rest of Cornwall). Get them a bit tipsy and ask them about their Brexit vote, and a general resentment at London having all the fun and money emerges. I am sure it is a driver across provincial Britain
And you are simply wrong that I "very much voted Leave" - tho I can see why you might think that, so this is not a critique
My vote was finely balanced. My head and heart were both split. I liked aspects of the EU very much - FOM the most of all. Tho I respect voters who wanted an end to it, as it was damaging their lives. This was a real issue. I also strongly suspected Brexit would damage the country economically (but not grievously), and be bad for London property owners - eg me
But the sovereignty argument won out, on the morning of the vote. I do believe we will be better off governing ourselves, in the end, and more prosperous too, and there are just too many repulsive aspects to the EU. The fraud of the Lisbon Treaty/Constitution was an unforgivable outrage against the European people
So there you are, I actually voted UNSELFISHLY. I voted against my own perceived financial interests, and for the betterment of the country and the country my daughters will inherit. But it was a close call
Well, as I think I've mentioned before, if you thought we were governed by Brussels rather than Westminster - truly thought it, I mean, rather than just embraced it as a talking point - you'd have been relaxed about the election of a left wing Labour government. Course you would since such a government would be toothless, the real power residing with unelected Eurocrats. Yet you weren't relaxed about this at all. You tended to shit bricks at such a prospect. Ditto all the other right wing Brexiter pundits, on PB or elsewhere, who make the most play of this "sovereignty' point. So I conclude it's a red herring. It's a bit of self-aiding doublethink.
No attempt to engage with the argument, just a retreat to your comforting shibboleths. As ever
I'm homing onto the very crux of your argument. You say it was about sovereignty - I'm showing that it really wasn't. The question therefore begged is what was it about. And there, I will not tread. I think I know but I'm not 100% sure and I need to be before going to press with it. You throw up just enough dust to get in my eyes sometimes and prevent a firm read.
Sovereignty is fundamental to the question of immigration, which nobody would deny played a part in the vote. Do we as a political community have the right to set conditions on migration, or do we merely elect people to administer the province of the UK?
Yep, in the EU debate sovereignty is largely Leaver code for immigration. EU membership entailed the free movement of people within the EU. Given we had - in the true rather than Leaver sense of the word - sovereignty, we could leave the EU if we were so unhappy with this that it made us feel oppressed and violated. And that is precisely what has happened.
While I think this is true for most Brexiters, there *is* a principled case for greater U.K. sovreignty outside the EU and the ECJ.
I guess this appeals to maybe 5% of the population?
Maybe less, because even those who major on this seem completely unworried by Boris’s “executive” power grab versus Parliament which has a much more tangible impact on sovreignty.
The 88% net favourability rating for Liz Truss is as preposterous as the woman herself. A reflection of the Conservative Party and the times we live in, I guess.
Your bitterness over the UK having an independent trade policy is one of the best rewards of Brexit. Thank you.
Hate to ask, but if FF43's (alleged) bitterness really is one of the best rewards of Brexit, was it really worth all the hassle? What are the other top five say, for context?
It's probably spaces 1-3, personally along with the bitterness from other EU supporting fifth columnists.
If "remainers" are fifth columnists for the EU are Leavers fifth columnists for Putin? Which would be worse? I think as Brexit is now "done" people trading insults over it just make themselves look a little silly. There are many on both sides of the argument who have done service for their country, and often much more than the people from the opposing side that suggest they are "traitors" perhaps?
The trouble is that, for some, this was their Great Patriotic War to save democracy. Not all, but some. And rather than being saluted for their sacrifices in victory, they are being moaned at or- worse- ignored.
For while, my theory has been that the internal logic of Brexit makes most sense to those born in the 50's and 60's. The most Eurosceptic generation in both 1975 and 2016. Always lived in the shadow of the generation who actually experienced WW2. Too old to see the benefits of a continent without borders for work and play as anything other than a dangerous novelty.
And deep down, some of them suspect that it will all get reversed the minute their backs are turned. Their great achievement down the swannee. And slowly, by a thousand accommodations, chips and cuts, they're probably right.
Johnson understandably won in 2019 on "Brexit is in Peril. Defend it with All Your Might." Unless things change in a way that they haven't so far, there will come a point where the considered response of the public is "Brexit is in Peril? Good".
Meanwhile, time passes.
Although I think Brexit was the biggest foreign policy folly since Suez, I think it would be a mistake to try and re-join. That said I can't help wondering whether in my dotage I will have a good old titter at all those Brexity Col. Blimps when re do regain membership. It will be very funny.
What is funny is how Remainers always insist their vindication is coming. No matter the evidence, the great moment when the up-to-now foolish public suddenly turns around and embraces their Europhile betters. Not only will they regret the decision that has been made, they will actually seek to go back to an even worse membership status than we had before. And to do that when the EU is even more integrated in the years and decades to come. When the UK's economy and trade profile has been restructured completely and status quo bias works in the opposite direction. When the EU is an even smaller share of the world economy than ever.
I suppose it is the only way they can psychologically deal with it. As an upper middle class professional group, they have never really learnt how to accept defeat. They got sent to nice schools, had the way padded to nice universities, and went into nice jobs, where their living standards were padded by the benefits of cheap immigrant and outsourced labour. And they had every election go their way until 2016.
Then they lost, and have been looking for cope ever since. Part of that is the religious certainty that deliverance will arrive in the end. Part of that is the need to assure each other of their moral superiority, with snide comments about how ghastily white, middle aged and - horrors of horrors - *British* those damn Brexiters are. Don't they know how culturally superior Provence and Tuscany are?
Your second paragraph is absurd. Your stereotype applies, if at all, to a small proportion of the 48% who voted to remain, and is no better than the reverse stereotype of 'thick leavers'. And as one of the unprivileged hard-working people who voted remain, and is getting on a bit, far from "every election going (my) way until 2016", very few have done, and I've spent most of my life with governments I oppose.
There's a lot of hard truths in the second paragraphs, it's difficult to look into that mirror so I'm not surprised that remainers are so dismissive of the idea that they benefited from the impoverishment of white working class Brits by Eastern Europeans living 8 to single bedroom flats working for the minimum wage or below and turning it into an effective maximum wage for millions of people. You may have been someone who came from that background but you also pulled the ladder up.
Absolute drivel.
And yet out of the EU wage inflation at the bottom of the market has gone insane.
There’s a global labour shortage (I mean in the West), although likely worse here because of Brexit.
Check out the US data.
So the labour market does adhere to basic economic principles of supply and demand? I mean I've read about a billion papers by liberal academics suggesting otherwise and saying that EU immigration had no impact on wages. Which is it? Is Brexit having an inflationary impact on wages or did EU immigration cause have deflationary effect on wages?
Yeah the evidence is that it increased overall wages, especially for people like yourself.
I’m not sure why you are such a hysterical denialist on this subject. Your comments that Brexit is worthwhile to see other people suffer is frankly pathetic at your age.
So the rich (people like me) got richer and the wages of the not so rich and working poor got propped up by the minimum wage (which is evidenced by actual ONS data, not studies). Not exactly a great development, feels a bit like pulling up the ladder.
My view is that the people who lost could do with the experience of losing given that they (well we, given what I do for a living) had got used to always winning at life and the EU simply entrenched the advantages of the highly educated and highly paid class. Rolling that back will probably make me every so slightly poorer but if it means that people at the lower end get a decent wage and don't have their pay held down by having an unlimited pool of cheap labour to compete with then there's only ever going to be one choice to make.
In general I'm not one to get overly personal and for most people I wouldn't. There are, however, some people's bitterness that really reinforce my leave vote. On days when I wonder whether it was worth it one of them will handily pop up (not you, mind) and remind me that this is what I voted leave for, to give that class of people a loss for the first time.
"I've been to Magaluf, but this was just crazy..." LOL.
There's a point here - we've gone from forced abstinence to encouraged excess almost overnight.
Some people can't handle that.
Oddly enough, going racing with restricted crowd numbers was a real pleasure yet I'm told it's not the same without a "crowd".
No, it's much worse but I can understand why Lingfield Park want a crowd of 10,000 drinking rather than 2,000 enjoying the racing.
Indeed there is a point. And you've put your finger on it. Newcastle City centre has had a distinctly, evil air abroad in the late hours recently. Stag and hens, aren't in Prague and Amsterdam. The quayside bar staff I know reckon it has never been anything like this bad. Not local accents. Blood, urine and vomit on the Tyne is all mine.
Why and who?
Some parts of London have definitely got edgier, some are quieter than ever.
More than five years on and we're still fighting and re-fighting the same battle. It's like a perverted form of Groundhog Day.
The irony is poll after poll suggested most people didn't care about the European Union or our membership - it was a non-issue beside Health, the Economy or Security.
Clearly, it was there or rather it became the touchstone for a series of other issues/concerns/grievances which had poisoned the body politic.
The problem was if having the debate was going to be divisive, so was not having the debate. Having the debate, it was argued, would lance the boil (sorry) and ease the pain but it hasn't.
I know why and I don't know why at the same time.
As with all things, we love to celebrate our successes and dwell on our failures. Those who "won" revel in why they think they won, those who "lost" try to explain their defeat.
Ultimately, it's a waste of time, effort and life.
The truth is it was mostly not about the EU at all - it was a deeper debate and raised awkward and still unresolved questions about the nature of our identity, country and society.
On fire, Stodge. A take as good as your "Sturgeon doesn't want Sindy" one is bad. Which means VERY good.
According to this thread, Brexit was in fact a chance to kick out the elite. Thank fuck for that... Over 170 people applied to a position on the independent committee responsible for upholding ethics and integrity in our politics and public life.
Boris Johnson appointed his chum from the Bullingdon Club instead. A total joke.
What is interesting (to me, as I observe the degradation of U.K. institutions) is that in previous times the media would have given Boris a much harder time on this stuff.
However Brexit (and social media) have rendered us so partisan that the right leaning media tend to (not always) give Boris a free pass, and the left leaning media can simply be dismissed as suffering Boris derangement syndrome.
This hyper division, whatever your Brexit position, is detrimental.
Who don't instigate laws, and who sit in a ludicrous parliament in a foreign country and for which the turnout in the last 5 elections has been about 45%, a parliament which moves every three weeks at vast expense for reasons too insane to elaborate
There's a point here - we've gone from forced abstinence to encouraged excess almost overnight.
Some people can't handle that.
Oddly enough, going racing with restricted crowd numbers was a real pleasure yet I'm told it's not the same without a "crowd".
No, it's much worse but I can understand why Lingfield Park want a crowd of 10,000 drinking rather than 2,000 enjoying the racing.
I thought that this had become common at racing long before COVID.
Yes, you're not wrong though the racing authorities vehemently deny it and a lot of "trouble" at race courses goes unreported.
It's just plain honest greed on the part of the tracks.
UB40 (who aren't a bad band in all fairness) were playing so they upped the admission price (and I imagine the food and drink prices) to pay for the band and hoped the increased numbers through the gate would help. The economics are obvious really but the course also has to pay for a "little" extra security in case some of the crowd get a little boisterous.
The problem comes when the course turns a blind eye to the drunks, the drug taking, the fights, the vomit and the violence outside the course. It's basically bringing a town centre to a corner of rural Surrey and it's not in my view appropriate.
Agree with you about the extra special pleasure of going racing with a small crowd. I really enjoyed the Craven meeting when I went a few years ago. Midweek, early season, not many there but all of them totally there for the horses.
Depends on how the local car parks are managed and by whom. It's possible a private company runs the car park on behalf of the Town Council.
The company pays the Town Council a fee for the management of the parking contract and then makes its profit from a cut of the actual parking charges.
As long as it continues to pay the fee, the Town Council and the tax/rate payer isn't losing out - the private company and its shareholders (if there are any) would be the big losers if they are not properly maintaining the machines and collecting the charges.
It seemed odd - but a quick look on google while I wait for the dinner to cook shows that (a) Widemouith Bay is county council car parking and (b) Cornwall CC seem to have suspended parking fees this year till at least mid-May to encourage local businesses.
Yes, as usual, there's a reasonable explanation but that doesn't stop some having a predictable pop at local Government.
Aren't county councils local government?
It still looks a fiasco to me. It's completely unnecessary, because Cornwall doesn't seem short of visitors. It is completely unannounced - the machines just look broken down, no big friendly notices saying Welcome to our free car park, now go forth and buy artisan pasties. There is no mention of it on the main CCC page about the car park linked to above. "The plan...to resume charging on May 17, in line with the government’s roadmap out of lockdown" referred to in the article linked to above seems to have fallen by the wayside. And so on.
The 88% net favourability rating for Liz Truss is as preposterous as the woman herself. A reflection of the Conservative Party and the times we live in, I guess.
Your bitterness over the UK having an independent trade policy is one of the best rewards of Brexit. Thank you.
Hate to ask, but if FF43's (alleged) bitterness really is one of the best rewards of Brexit, was it really worth all the hassle? What are the other top five say, for context?
It's probably spaces 1-3, personally along with the bitterness from other EU supporting fifth columnists.
If "remainers" are fifth columnists for the EU are Leavers fifth columnists for Putin? Which would be worse? I think as Brexit is now "done" people trading insults over it just make themselves look a little silly. There are many on both sides of the argument who have done service for their country, and often much more than the people from the opposing side that suggest they are "traitors" perhaps?
The trouble is that, for some, this was their Great Patriotic War to save democracy. Not all, but some. And rather than being saluted for their sacrifices in victory, they are being moaned at or- worse- ignored.
For while, my theory has been that the internal logic of Brexit makes most sense to those born in the 50's and 60's. The most Eurosceptic generation in both 1975 and 2016. Always lived in the shadow of the generation who actually experienced WW2. Too old to see the benefits of a continent without borders for work and play as anything other than a dangerous novelty.
And deep down, some of them suspect that it will all get reversed the minute their backs are turned. Their great achievement down the swannee. And slowly, by a thousand accommodations, chips and cuts, they're probably right.
Johnson understandably won in 2019 on "Brexit is in Peril. Defend it with All Your Might." Unless things change in a way that they haven't so far, there will come a point where the considered response of the public is "Brexit is in Peril? Good".
Meanwhile, time passes.
Although I think Brexit was the biggest foreign policy folly since Suez, I think it would be a mistake to try and re-join. That said I can't help wondering whether in my dotage I will have a good old titter at all those Brexity Col. Blimps when re do regain membership. It will be very funny.
What is funny is how Remainers always insist their vindication is coming. No matter the evidence, the great moment when the up-to-now foolish public suddenly turns around and embraces their Europhile betters. Not only will they regret the decision that has been made, they will actually seek to go back to an even worse membership status than we had before. And to do that when the EU is even more integrated in the years and decades to come. When the UK's economy and trade profile has been restructured completely and status quo bias works in the opposite direction. When the EU is an even smaller share of the world economy than ever.
I suppose it is the only way they can psychologically deal with it. As an upper middle class professional group, they have never really learnt how to accept defeat. They got sent to nice schools, had the way padded to nice universities, and went into nice jobs, where their living standards were padded by the benefits of cheap immigrant and outsourced labour. And they had every election go their way until 2016.
Then they lost, and have been looking for cope ever since. Part of that is the religious certainty that deliverance will arrive in the end. Part of that is the need to assure each other of their moral superiority, with snide comments about how ghastily white, middle aged and - horrors of horrors - *British* those damn Brexiters are. Don't they know how culturally superior Provence and Tuscany are?
Yep. Brexit is essentially about the humbling of social & financial elites (exactly as you explain here) but what's strange is that almost all its leading proponents in public life are reactionary right wing Conservatives. It seems these chaps have all got the wrong end of the stick. I know when it comes to politics that Right doesn't equal Bright, but still, it's a puzzle.
Brexit was also a massive great Fuck You from Provincial Britain to London. You can't blame the yokels, they spent 30 years watching property owning Londoners get insanely wealthy, through no personal merit, while also enjoying all the restaurants, bars, girls, boys, fun, parties, better weather and nice shiny new trains
Brexit was regional Britain saying "this is our country as well": to arrogant Londoners
Talking of which I can report back from my Groucho lunch. The restaurant was jammed, the menu was oddly truncated (lack of staff?) but delicious, the new decor is beautiful, and central London as a whole - the bits of Soho, Fitzrovia, Bloomsbury, and Marylebone that I walked through - definitely feels a whole lot better. Many places are shut but many are reopening. The pavements are busier than I have seen since 2019.
And I don't think it is just the effect of a nice sunny day: it isn't. It's overcast, quite cool.
Central London might be reviving, for real.
That's great news that the Groucho is buzzing. Can't wait to get myself there and see what all the fuss is about.
As for Brexit being a cry from the provinces for a more equitable split of power, wealth and opportunity in early 21st century Britain, it's a nice thought, but I wonder if it's accurate.
Reason I'm skeptical is that I very much want that, whereas you very much don't, and I very much voted Remain whereas you very much voted Leave. That's close to being a disprove when you think about it - given both you and I are astuties who know what we want and know how to get it.
My extended family in Cornwall - a large bunch of people - is generally pro-Leave (like the rest of Cornwall). Get them a bit tipsy and ask them about their Brexit vote, and a general resentment at London having all the fun and money emerges. I am sure it is a driver across provincial Britain
And you are simply wrong that I "very much voted Leave" - tho I can see why you might think that, so this is not a critique
My vote was finely balanced. My head and heart were both split. I liked aspects of the EU very much - FOM the most of all. Tho I respect voters who wanted an end to it, as it was damaging their lives. This was a real issue. I also strongly suspected Brexit would damage the country economically (but not grievously), and be bad for London property owners - eg me
But the sovereignty argument won out, on the morning of the vote. I do believe we will be better off governing ourselves, in the end, and more prosperous too, and there are just too many repulsive aspects to the EU. The fraud of the Lisbon Treaty/Constitution was an unforgivable outrage against the European people
So there you are, I actually voted UNSELFISHLY. I voted against my own perceived financial interests, and for the betterment of the country and the country my daughters will inherit. But it was a close call
Well, as I think I've mentioned before, if you thought we were governed by Brussels rather than Westminster - truly thought it, I mean, rather than just embraced it as a talking point - you'd have been relaxed about the election of a left wing Labour government. Course you would since such a government would be toothless, the real power residing with unelected Eurocrats. Yet you weren't relaxed about this at all. You tended to shit bricks at such a prospect. Ditto all the other right wing Brexiter pundits, on PB or elsewhere, who make the most play of this "sovereignty' point. So I conclude it's a red herring. It's a bit of self-aiding doublethink.
No attempt to engage with the argument, just a retreat to your comforting shibboleths. As ever
I'm homing onto the very crux of your argument. You say it was about sovereignty - I'm showing that it really wasn't. The question therefore begged is what was it about. And there, I will not tread. I think I know but I'm not 100% sure and I need to be before going to press with it. You throw up just enough dust to get in my eyes sometimes and prevent a firm read.
Sovereignty is fundamental to the question of immigration, which nobody would deny played a part in the vote. Do we as a political community have the right to set conditions on migration, or do we merely elect people to administer the province of the UK?
Yep, in the EU debate sovereignty is largely Leaver code for immigration. EU membership entailed the free movement of people within the EU. Given we had - in the true rather than Leaver sense of the word - sovereignty, we could leave the EU if we were so unhappy with this that it made us feel oppressed and violated. And that is precisely what has happened.
While I think this is true for most Brexiters, there *is* a principled case for greater U.K. sovreignty outside the EU and the ECJ.
I guess this appeals to maybe 5% of the population?
Maybe less, because even those who major on this seem completely unworried by Boris’s “executive” power grab versus Parliament which has a much more tangible impact on sovreignty.
Because Boris can be ejected by the voters
Voters can't eject the Secretary General of NATO either. I think the point is if you don't think the EU has any value you might as well leave, but if it does do useful things you really don't care about Ursula von der Leyen.
I despise Boris Johnson but I don't see him as a reason for leaving the UK. There's more to the Union than the sleazebag occupying No 10.
The 88% net favourability rating for Liz Truss is as preposterous as the woman herself. A reflection of the Conservative Party and the times we live in, I guess.
Your bitterness over the UK having an independent trade policy is one of the best rewards of Brexit. Thank you.
Hate to ask, but if FF43's (alleged) bitterness really is one of the best rewards of Brexit, was it really worth all the hassle? What are the other top five say, for context?
It's probably spaces 1-3, personally along with the bitterness from other EU supporting fifth columnists.
If "remainers" are fifth columnists for the EU are Leavers fifth columnists for Putin? Which would be worse? I think as Brexit is now "done" people trading insults over it just make themselves look a little silly. There are many on both sides of the argument who have done service for their country, and often much more than the people from the opposing side that suggest they are "traitors" perhaps?
The trouble is that, for some, this was their Great Patriotic War to save democracy. Not all, but some. And rather than being saluted for their sacrifices in victory, they are being moaned at or- worse- ignored.
For while, my theory has been that the internal logic of Brexit makes most sense to those born in the 50's and 60's. The most Eurosceptic generation in both 1975 and 2016. Always lived in the shadow of the generation who actually experienced WW2. Too old to see the benefits of a continent without borders for work and play as anything other than a dangerous novelty.
And deep down, some of them suspect that it will all get reversed the minute their backs are turned. Their great achievement down the swannee. And slowly, by a thousand accommodations, chips and cuts, they're probably right.
Johnson understandably won in 2019 on "Brexit is in Peril. Defend it with All Your Might." Unless things change in a way that they haven't so far, there will come a point where the considered response of the public is "Brexit is in Peril? Good".
Meanwhile, time passes.
Although I think Brexit was the biggest foreign policy folly since Suez, I think it would be a mistake to try and re-join. That said I can't help wondering whether in my dotage I will have a good old titter at all those Brexity Col. Blimps when re do regain membership. It will be very funny.
What is funny is how Remainers always insist their vindication is coming. No matter the evidence, the great moment when the up-to-now foolish public suddenly turns around and embraces their Europhile betters. Not only will they regret the decision that has been made, they will actually seek to go back to an even worse membership status than we had before. And to do that when the EU is even more integrated in the years and decades to come. When the UK's economy and trade profile has been restructured completely and status quo bias works in the opposite direction. When the EU is an even smaller share of the world economy than ever.
I suppose it is the only way they can psychologically deal with it. As an upper middle class professional group, they have never really learnt how to accept defeat. They got sent to nice schools, had the way padded to nice universities, and went into nice jobs, where their living standards were padded by the benefits of cheap immigrant and outsourced labour. And they had every election go their way until 2016.
Then they lost, and have been looking for cope ever since. Part of that is the religious certainty that deliverance will arrive in the end. Part of that is the need to assure each other of their moral superiority, with snide comments about how ghastily white, middle aged and - horrors of horrors - *British* those damn Brexiters are. Don't they know how culturally superior Provence and Tuscany are?
Yep. Brexit is essentially about the humbling of social & financial elites (exactly as you explain here) but what's strange is that almost all its leading proponents in public life are reactionary right wing Conservatives. It seems these chaps have all got the wrong end of the stick. I know when it comes to politics that Right doesn't equal Bright, but still, it's a puzzle.
Brexit was also a massive great Fuck You from Provincial Britain to London. You can't blame the yokels, they spent 30 years watching property owning Londoners get insanely wealthy, through no personal merit, while also enjoying all the restaurants, bars, girls, boys, fun, parties, better weather and nice shiny new trains
Brexit was regional Britain saying "this is our country as well": to arrogant Londoners
Talking of which I can report back from my Groucho lunch. The restaurant was jammed, the menu was oddly truncated (lack of staff?) but delicious, the new decor is beautiful, and central London as a whole - the bits of Soho, Fitzrovia, Bloomsbury, and Marylebone that I walked through - definitely feels a whole lot better. Many places are shut but many are reopening. The pavements are busier than I have seen since 2019.
And I don't think it is just the effect of a nice sunny day: it isn't. It's overcast, quite cool.
Central London might be reviving, for real.
That's great news that the Groucho is buzzing. Can't wait to get myself there and see what all the fuss is about.
As for Brexit being a cry from the provinces for a more equitable split of power, wealth and opportunity in early 21st century Britain, it's a nice thought, but I wonder if it's accurate.
Reason I'm skeptical is that I very much want that, whereas you very much don't, and I very much voted Remain whereas you very much voted Leave. That's close to being a disprove when you think about it - given both you and I are astuties who know what we want and know how to get it.
My extended family in Cornwall - a large bunch of people - is generally pro-Leave (like the rest of Cornwall). Get them a bit tipsy and ask them about their Brexit vote, and a general resentment at London having all the fun and money emerges. I am sure it is a driver across provincial Britain
And you are simply wrong that I "very much voted Leave" - tho I can see why you might think that, so this is not a critique
My vote was finely balanced. My head and heart were both split. I liked aspects of the EU very much - FOM the most of all. Tho I respect voters who wanted an end to it, as it was damaging their lives. This was a real issue. I also strongly suspected Brexit would damage the country economically (but not grievously), and be bad for London property owners - eg me
But the sovereignty argument won out, on the morning of the vote. I do believe we will be better off governing ourselves, in the end, and more prosperous too, and there are just too many repulsive aspects to the EU. The fraud of the Lisbon Treaty/Constitution was an unforgivable outrage against the European people
So there you are, I actually voted UNSELFISHLY. I voted against my own perceived financial interests, and for the betterment of the country and the country my daughters will inherit. But it was a close call
Well, as I think I've mentioned before, if you thought we were governed by Brussels rather than Westminster - truly thought it, I mean, rather than just embraced it as a talking point - you'd have been relaxed about the election of a left wing Labour government. Course you would since such a government would be toothless, the real power residing with unelected Eurocrats. Yet you weren't relaxed about this at all. You tended to shit bricks at such a prospect. Ditto all the other right wing Brexiter pundits, on PB or elsewhere, who make the most play of this "sovereignty' point. So I conclude it's a red herring. It's a bit of self-aiding doublethink.
No attempt to engage with the argument, just a retreat to your comforting shibboleths. As ever
It's a crap argument, voting for soveriegnty is like voting for the Loch Ness Monster, it doesn't really exist outside the minds of conspiracy theorists and other assorted UFO believers.
Absolute sovereignty doesn't exist, but that doesn't make it a meaningless concept. Why do you think the EU increasingly bangs on about it?
Exists in a weird form north of Gretna apparently. Giving up a greater degree of sovereignty in a non consenting union apparently gives Scots more control than ceding a lesser degree of sovereignty in a union of consent.
Non-consenting union? There was a vote on that a few years ago.
In Scotland-wide votes so far this century, it's 12-0 to unionists: in 2001 (Westminster), 2003 (Holyrood), 2005 (W), 2007 (H), 2010 (W), 2011 (H), 2014 (referendum), 2015 (W), 2016 (H), 2017 (W), 2019 (W), and 2021 (H).
It must be so hard for Scots to live under the iron-heeled jackboot of English colonial rulers who never ask them what they want. And it's fake news to suggest otherwise.
THat's a remarkable analysis of parliamentary elections. The last one at Holyrood, for instance, gave a majority at Holyrood for an independence referendum as a route [edit] for independence.
It wasn't an analysis. It (the first paragraph) was a statement of fact. To be legitimate any referendum would be decided by OPOV.
The SNP won 50% of the vote in the 2015 ge. Even if you’re doing HYUFD-brain counting of all non SNP parties for No, that’s not a win for the Unionists.
The 88% net favourability rating for Liz Truss is as preposterous as the woman herself. A reflection of the Conservative Party and the times we live in, I guess.
Your bitterness over the UK having an independent trade policy is one of the best rewards of Brexit. Thank you.
Hate to ask, but if FF43's (alleged) bitterness really is one of the best rewards of Brexit, was it really worth all the hassle? What are the other top five say, for context?
It's probably spaces 1-3, personally along with the bitterness from other EU supporting fifth columnists.
If "remainers" are fifth columnists for the EU are Leavers fifth columnists for Putin? Which would be worse? I think as Brexit is now "done" people trading insults over it just make themselves look a little silly. There are many on both sides of the argument who have done service for their country, and often much more than the people from the opposing side that suggest they are "traitors" perhaps?
The trouble is that, for some, this was their Great Patriotic War to save democracy. Not all, but some. And rather than being saluted for their sacrifices in victory, they are being moaned at or- worse- ignored.
For while, my theory has been that the internal logic of Brexit makes most sense to those born in the 50's and 60's. The most Eurosceptic generation in both 1975 and 2016. Always lived in the shadow of the generation who actually experienced WW2. Too old to see the benefits of a continent without borders for work and play as anything other than a dangerous novelty.
And deep down, some of them suspect that it will all get reversed the minute their backs are turned. Their great achievement down the swannee. And slowly, by a thousand accommodations, chips and cuts, they're probably right.
Johnson understandably won in 2019 on "Brexit is in Peril. Defend it with All Your Might." Unless things change in a way that they haven't so far, there will come a point where the considered response of the public is "Brexit is in Peril? Good".
Meanwhile, time passes.
Although I think Brexit was the biggest foreign policy folly since Suez, I think it would be a mistake to try and re-join. That said I can't help wondering whether in my dotage I will have a good old titter at all those Brexity Col. Blimps when re do regain membership. It will be very funny.
What is funny is how Remainers always insist their vindication is coming. No matter the evidence, the great moment when the up-to-now foolish public suddenly turns around and embraces their Europhile betters. Not only will they regret the decision that has been made, they will actually seek to go back to an even worse membership status than we had before. And to do that when the EU is even more integrated in the years and decades to come. When the UK's economy and trade profile has been restructured completely and status quo bias works in the opposite direction. When the EU is an even smaller share of the world economy than ever.
I suppose it is the only way they can psychologically deal with it. As an upper middle class professional group, they have never really learnt how to accept defeat. They got sent to nice schools, had the way padded to nice universities, and went into nice jobs, where their living standards were padded by the benefits of cheap immigrant and outsourced labour. And they had every election go their way until 2016.
Then they lost, and have been looking for cope ever since. Part of that is the religious certainty that deliverance will arrive in the end. Part of that is the need to assure each other of their moral superiority, with snide comments about how ghastily white, middle aged and - horrors of horrors - *British* those damn Brexiters are. Don't they know how culturally superior Provence and Tuscany are?
Your second paragraph is absurd. Your stereotype applies, if at all, to a small proportion of the 48% who voted to remain, and is no better than the reverse stereotype of 'thick leavers'. And as one of the unprivileged hard-working people who voted remain, and is getting on a bit, far from "every election going (my) way until 2016", very few have done, and I've spent most of my life with governments I oppose.
There's a lot of hard truths in the second paragraphs, it's difficult to look into that mirror so I'm not surprised that remainers are so dismissive of the idea that they benefited from the impoverishment of white working class Brits by Eastern Europeans living 8 to single bedroom flats working for the minimum wage or below and turning it into an effective maximum wage for millions of people. You may have been someone who came from that background but you also pulled the ladder up.
Absolute drivel.
And yet out of the EU wage inflation at the bottom of the market has gone insane.
There’s a global labour shortage (I mean in the West), although likely worse here because of Brexit.
Check out the US data.
So the labour market does adhere to basic economic principles of supply and demand? I mean I've read about a billion papers by liberal academics suggesting otherwise and saying that EU immigration had no impact on wages. Which is it? Is Brexit having an inflationary impact on wages or did EU immigration cause have deflationary effect on wages?
Yeah the evidence is that it increased overall wages, especially for people like yourself.
I’m not sure why you are such a hysterical denialist on this subject. Your comments that Brexit is worthwhile to see other people suffer is frankly pathetic at your age.
So the rich (people like me) got richer and the wages of the not so rich and working poor got propped up by the minimum wage (which is evidenced by actual ONS data, not studies). Not exactly a great development, feels a bit like pulling up the ladder.
My view is that the people who lost could do with the experience of losing given that they (well we, given what I do for a living) had got used to always winning at life and the EU simply entrenched the advantages of the highly educated and highly paid class. Rolling that back will probably make me every so slightly poorer but if it means that people at the lower end get a decent wage and don't have their pay held down by having an unlimited pool of cheap labour to compete with then there's only ever going to be one choice to make.
In general I'm not one to get overly personal and for most people I wouldn't. There are, however, some people's bitterness that really reinforce my leave vote. On days when I wonder whether it was worth it one of them will handily pop up (not you, mind) and remind me that this is what I voted leave for, to give that class of people a loss for the first time.
Thank you for this response.
I fear you are due to be disappointed. Britain’s low wage problem is caused by a) low skills b) low productivity Indeed, the two are linked.
FDI and immigration actually both served to improve the overall skill base and indeed our productivity. FDI is now down steeply, and immigration from the EU at least has almost disappeared.
All things being equal, Brexit will keep those wages low.
One area where Brexiters *might* have a point is that for unproductive businesses, access to an “unlimited” labour pool served to disincentivise capital investment.
However, Britain’s problems in this respect are long lasting, systemic, and AIUI are not significantly impacted by this greater access to labour.
The 88% net favourability rating for Liz Truss is as preposterous as the woman herself. A reflection of the Conservative Party and the times we live in, I guess.
Your bitterness over the UK having an independent trade policy is one of the best rewards of Brexit. Thank you.
Hate to ask, but if FF43's (alleged) bitterness really is one of the best rewards of Brexit, was it really worth all the hassle? What are the other top five say, for context?
It's probably spaces 1-3, personally along with the bitterness from other EU supporting fifth columnists.
If "remainers" are fifth columnists for the EU are Leavers fifth columnists for Putin? Which would be worse? I think as Brexit is now "done" people trading insults over it just make themselves look a little silly. There are many on both sides of the argument who have done service for their country, and often much more than the people from the opposing side that suggest they are "traitors" perhaps?
The trouble is that, for some, this was their Great Patriotic War to save democracy. Not all, but some. And rather than being saluted for their sacrifices in victory, they are being moaned at or- worse- ignored.
For while, my theory has been that the internal logic of Brexit makes most sense to those born in the 50's and 60's. The most Eurosceptic generation in both 1975 and 2016. Always lived in the shadow of the generation who actually experienced WW2. Too old to see the benefits of a continent without borders for work and play as anything other than a dangerous novelty.
And deep down, some of them suspect that it will all get reversed the minute their backs are turned. Their great achievement down the swannee. And slowly, by a thousand accommodations, chips and cuts, they're probably right.
Johnson understandably won in 2019 on "Brexit is in Peril. Defend it with All Your Might." Unless things change in a way that they haven't so far, there will come a point where the considered response of the public is "Brexit is in Peril? Good".
Meanwhile, time passes.
Although I think Brexit was the biggest foreign policy folly since Suez, I think it would be a mistake to try and re-join. That said I can't help wondering whether in my dotage I will have a good old titter at all those Brexity Col. Blimps when re do regain membership. It will be very funny.
What is funny is how Remainers always insist their vindication is coming. No matter the evidence, the great moment when the up-to-now foolish public suddenly turns around and embraces their Europhile betters. Not only will they regret the decision that has been made, they will actually seek to go back to an even worse membership status than we had before. And to do that when the EU is even more integrated in the years and decades to come. When the UK's economy and trade profile has been restructured completely and status quo bias works in the opposite direction. When the EU is an even smaller share of the world economy than ever.
I suppose it is the only way they can psychologically deal with it. As an upper middle class professional group, they have never really learnt how to accept defeat. They got sent to nice schools, had the way padded to nice universities, and went into nice jobs, where their living standards were padded by the benefits of cheap immigrant and outsourced labour. And they had every election go their way until 2016.
Then they lost, and have been looking for cope ever since. Part of that is the religious certainty that deliverance will arrive in the end. Part of that is the need to assure each other of their moral superiority, with snide comments about how ghastily white, middle aged and - horrors of horrors - *British* those damn Brexiters are. Don't they know how culturally superior Provence and Tuscany are?
Your second paragraph is absurd. Your stereotype applies, if at all, to a small proportion of the 48% who voted to remain, and is no better than the reverse stereotype of 'thick leavers'. And as one of the unprivileged hard-working people who voted remain, and is getting on a bit, far from "every election going (my) way until 2016", very few have done, and I've spent most of my life with governments I oppose.
There's a lot of hard truths in the second paragraphs, it's difficult to look into that mirror so I'm not surprised that remainers are so dismissive of the idea that they benefited from the impoverishment of white working class Brits by Eastern Europeans living 8 to single bedroom flats working for the minimum wage or below and turning it into an effective maximum wage for millions of people. You may have been someone who came from that background but you also pulled the ladder up.
Absolute drivel.
And yet out of the EU wage inflation at the bottom of the market has gone insane.
There’s a global labour shortage (I mean in the West), although likely worse here because of Brexit.
Check out the US data.
So the labour market does adhere to basic economic principles of supply and demand? I mean I've read about a billion papers by liberal academics suggesting otherwise and saying that EU immigration had no impact on wages. Which is it? Is Brexit having an inflationary impact on wages or did EU immigration cause have deflationary effect on wages?
Yeah the evidence is that it increased overall wages, especially for people like yourself.
I’m not sure why you are such a hysterical denialist on this subject. Your comments that Brexit is worthwhile to see other people suffer is frankly pathetic at your age.
So the rich (people like me) got richer and the wages of the not so rich and working poor got propped up by the minimum wage (which is evidenced by actual ONS data, not studies). Not exactly a great development, feels a bit like pulling up the ladder.
My view is that the people who lost could do with the experience of losing given that they (well we, given what I do for a living) had got used to always winning at life and the EU simply entrenched the advantages of the highly educated and highly paid class. Rolling that back will probably make me every so slightly poorer but if it means that people at the lower end get a decent wage and don't have their pay held down by having an unlimited pool of cheap labour to compete with then there's only ever going to be one choice to make.
In general I'm not one to get overly personal and for most people I wouldn't. There are, however, some people's bitterness that really reinforce my leave vote. On days when I wonder whether it was worth it one of them will handily pop up (not you, mind) and remind me that this is what I voted leave for, to give that class of people a loss for the first time.
However. The 48% who voted Remain are far more than those "who had got used to always winning at life...the highly educated and highly paid." They comprised folk of all incomes, classes, regions and walks of life. Pensioners, the disabled, minimum wage zero hour contractors, bin men, cleaners, factory workers, 30 % of Hartlepool, voted Remain in their millions. Indeed a huge percentage of those you so describe, like yourself, and many others on PB voted Leave.
The 88% net favourability rating for Liz Truss is as preposterous as the woman herself. A reflection of the Conservative Party and the times we live in, I guess.
Your bitterness over the UK having an independent trade policy is one of the best rewards of Brexit. Thank you.
Hate to ask, but if FF43's (alleged) bitterness really is one of the best rewards of Brexit, was it really worth all the hassle? What are the other top five say, for context?
It's probably spaces 1-3, personally along with the bitterness from other EU supporting fifth columnists.
If "remainers" are fifth columnists for the EU are Leavers fifth columnists for Putin? Which would be worse? I think as Brexit is now "done" people trading insults over it just make themselves look a little silly. There are many on both sides of the argument who have done service for their country, and often much more than the people from the opposing side that suggest they are "traitors" perhaps?
The trouble is that, for some, this was their Great Patriotic War to save democracy. Not all, but some. And rather than being saluted for their sacrifices in victory, they are being moaned at or- worse- ignored.
For while, my theory has been that the internal logic of Brexit makes most sense to those born in the 50's and 60's. The most Eurosceptic generation in both 1975 and 2016. Always lived in the shadow of the generation who actually experienced WW2. Too old to see the benefits of a continent without borders for work and play as anything other than a dangerous novelty.
And deep down, some of them suspect that it will all get reversed the minute their backs are turned. Their great achievement down the swannee. And slowly, by a thousand accommodations, chips and cuts, they're probably right.
Johnson understandably won in 2019 on "Brexit is in Peril. Defend it with All Your Might." Unless things change in a way that they haven't so far, there will come a point where the considered response of the public is "Brexit is in Peril? Good".
Meanwhile, time passes.
Although I think Brexit was the biggest foreign policy folly since Suez, I think it would be a mistake to try and re-join. That said I can't help wondering whether in my dotage I will have a good old titter at all those Brexity Col. Blimps when re do regain membership. It will be very funny.
What is funny is how Remainers always insist their vindication is coming. No matter the evidence, the great moment when the up-to-now foolish public suddenly turns around and embraces their Europhile betters. Not only will they regret the decision that has been made, they will actually seek to go back to an even worse membership status than we had before. And to do that when the EU is even more integrated in the years and decades to come. When the UK's economy and trade profile has been restructured completely and status quo bias works in the opposite direction. When the EU is an even smaller share of the world economy than ever.
I suppose it is the only way they can psychologically deal with it. As an upper middle class professional group, they have never really learnt how to accept defeat. They got sent to nice schools, had the way padded to nice universities, and went into nice jobs, where their living standards were padded by the benefits of cheap immigrant and outsourced labour. And they had every election go their way until 2016.
Then they lost, and have been looking for cope ever since. Part of that is the religious certainty that deliverance will arrive in the end. Part of that is the need to assure each other of their moral superiority, with snide comments about how ghastily white, middle aged and - horrors of horrors - *British* those damn Brexiters are. Don't they know how culturally superior Provence and Tuscany are?
Yep. Brexit is essentially about the humbling of social & financial elites (exactly as you explain here) but what's strange is that almost all its leading proponents in public life are reactionary right wing Conservatives. It seems these chaps have all got the wrong end of the stick. I know when it comes to politics that Right doesn't equal Bright, but still, it's a puzzle.
Brexit was also a massive great Fuck You from Provincial Britain to London. You can't blame the yokels, they spent 30 years watching property owning Londoners get insanely wealthy, through no personal merit, while also enjoying all the restaurants, bars, girls, boys, fun, parties, better weather and nice shiny new trains
Brexit was regional Britain saying "this is our country as well": to arrogant Londoners
Talking of which I can report back from my Groucho lunch. The restaurant was jammed, the menu was oddly truncated (lack of staff?) but delicious, the new decor is beautiful, and central London as a whole - the bits of Soho, Fitzrovia, Bloomsbury, and Marylebone that I walked through - definitely feels a whole lot better. Many places are shut but many are reopening. The pavements are busier than I have seen since 2019.
And I don't think it is just the effect of a nice sunny day: it isn't. It's overcast, quite cool.
Central London might be reviving, for real.
That's great news that the Groucho is buzzing. Can't wait to get myself there and see what all the fuss is about.
As for Brexit being a cry from the provinces for a more equitable split of power, wealth and opportunity in early 21st century Britain, it's a nice thought, but I wonder if it's accurate.
Reason I'm skeptical is that I very much want that, whereas you very much don't, and I very much voted Remain whereas you very much voted Leave. That's close to being a disprove when you think about it - given both you and I are astuties who know what we want and know how to get it.
My extended family in Cornwall - a large bunch of people - is generally pro-Leave (like the rest of Cornwall). Get them a bit tipsy and ask them about their Brexit vote, and a general resentment at London having all the fun and money emerges. I am sure it is a driver across provincial Britain
And you are simply wrong that I "very much voted Leave" - tho I can see why you might think that, so this is not a critique
My vote was finely balanced. My head and heart were both split. I liked aspects of the EU very much - FOM the most of all. Tho I respect voters who wanted an end to it, as it was damaging their lives. This was a real issue. I also strongly suspected Brexit would damage the country economically (but not grievously), and be bad for London property owners - eg me
But the sovereignty argument won out, on the morning of the vote. I do believe we will be better off governing ourselves, in the end, and more prosperous too, and there are just too many repulsive aspects to the EU. The fraud of the Lisbon Treaty/Constitution was an unforgivable outrage against the European people
So there you are, I actually voted UNSELFISHLY. I voted against my own perceived financial interests, and for the betterment of the country and the country my daughters will inherit. But it was a close call
Well, as I think I've mentioned before, if you thought we were governed by Brussels rather than Westminster - truly thought it, I mean, rather than just embraced it as a talking point - you'd have been relaxed about the election of a left wing Labour government. Course you would since such a government would be toothless, the real power residing with unelected Eurocrats. Yet you weren't relaxed about this at all. You tended to shit bricks at such a prospect. Ditto all the other right wing Brexiter pundits, on PB or elsewhere, who make the most play of this "sovereignty' point. So I conclude it's a red herring. It's a bit of self-aiding doublethink.
No attempt to engage with the argument, just a retreat to your comforting shibboleths. As ever
I'm homing onto the very crux of your argument. You say it was about sovereignty - I'm showing that it really wasn't. The question therefore begged is what was it about. And there, I will not tread. I think I know but I'm not 100% sure and I need to be before going to press with it. You throw up just enough dust to get in my eyes sometimes and prevent a firm read.
Sovereignty is fundamental to the question of immigration, which nobody would deny played a part in the vote. Do we as a political community have the right to set conditions on migration, or do we merely elect people to administer the province of the UK?
Yep, in the EU debate sovereignty is largely Leaver code for immigration. EU membership entailed the free movement of people within the EU. Given we had - in the true rather than Leaver sense of the word - sovereignty, we could leave the EU if we were so unhappy with this that it made us feel oppressed and violated. And that is precisely what has happened.
While I think this is true for most Brexiters, there *is* a principled case for greater U.K. sovreignty outside the EU and the ECJ.
I guess this appeals to maybe 5% of the population?
Maybe less, because even those who major on this seem completely unworried by Boris’s “executive” power grab versus Parliament which has a much more tangible impact on sovreignty.
Yes. We've taken back control but it's unclear who the "we" is.
The 88% net favourability rating for Liz Truss is as preposterous as the woman herself. A reflection of the Conservative Party and the times we live in, I guess.
Your bitterness over the UK having an independent trade policy is one of the best rewards of Brexit. Thank you.
Hate to ask, but if FF43's (alleged) bitterness really is one of the best rewards of Brexit, was it really worth all the hassle? What are the other top five say, for context?
It's probably spaces 1-3, personally along with the bitterness from other EU supporting fifth columnists.
If "remainers" are fifth columnists for the EU are Leavers fifth columnists for Putin? Which would be worse? I think as Brexit is now "done" people trading insults over it just make themselves look a little silly. There are many on both sides of the argument who have done service for their country, and often much more than the people from the opposing side that suggest they are "traitors" perhaps?
The trouble is that, for some, this was their Great Patriotic War to save democracy. Not all, but some. And rather than being saluted for their sacrifices in victory, they are being moaned at or- worse- ignored.
For while, my theory has been that the internal logic of Brexit makes most sense to those born in the 50's and 60's. The most Eurosceptic generation in both 1975 and 2016. Always lived in the shadow of the generation who actually experienced WW2. Too old to see the benefits of a continent without borders for work and play as anything other than a dangerous novelty.
And deep down, some of them suspect that it will all get reversed the minute their backs are turned. Their great achievement down the swannee. And slowly, by a thousand accommodations, chips and cuts, they're probably right.
Johnson understandably won in 2019 on "Brexit is in Peril. Defend it with All Your Might." Unless things change in a way that they haven't so far, there will come a point where the considered response of the public is "Brexit is in Peril? Good".
Meanwhile, time passes.
Although I think Brexit was the biggest foreign policy folly since Suez, I think it would be a mistake to try and re-join. That said I can't help wondering whether in my dotage I will have a good old titter at all those Brexity Col. Blimps when re do regain membership. It will be very funny.
What is funny is how Remainers always insist their vindication is coming. No matter the evidence, the great moment when the up-to-now foolish public suddenly turns around and embraces their Europhile betters. Not only will they regret the decision that has been made, they will actually seek to go back to an even worse membership status than we had before. And to do that when the EU is even more integrated in the years and decades to come. When the UK's economy and trade profile has been restructured completely and status quo bias works in the opposite direction. When the EU is an even smaller share of the world economy than ever.
I suppose it is the only way they can psychologically deal with it. As an upper middle class professional group, they have never really learnt how to accept defeat. They got sent to nice schools, had the way padded to nice universities, and went into nice jobs, where their living standards were padded by the benefits of cheap immigrant and outsourced labour. And they had every election go their way until 2016.
Then they lost, and have been looking for cope ever since. Part of that is the religious certainty that deliverance will arrive in the end. Part of that is the need to assure each other of their moral superiority, with snide comments about how ghastily white, middle aged and - horrors of horrors - *British* those damn Brexiters are. Don't they know how culturally superior Provence and Tuscany are?
Yep. Brexit is essentially about the humbling of social & financial elites (exactly as you explain here) but what's strange is that almost all its leading proponents in public life are reactionary right wing Conservatives. It seems these chaps have all got the wrong end of the stick. I know when it comes to politics that Right doesn't equal Bright, but still, it's a puzzle.
Brexit was also a massive great Fuck You from Provincial Britain to London. You can't blame the yokels, they spent 30 years watching property owning Londoners get insanely wealthy, through no personal merit, while also enjoying all the restaurants, bars, girls, boys, fun, parties, better weather and nice shiny new trains
Brexit was regional Britain saying "this is our country as well": to arrogant Londoners
Talking of which I can report back from my Groucho lunch. The restaurant was jammed, the menu was oddly truncated (lack of staff?) but delicious, the new decor is beautiful, and central London as a whole - the bits of Soho, Fitzrovia, Bloomsbury, and Marylebone that I walked through - definitely feels a whole lot better. Many places are shut but many are reopening. The pavements are busier than I have seen since 2019.
And I don't think it is just the effect of a nice sunny day: it isn't. It's overcast, quite cool.
Central London might be reviving, for real.
That's great news that the Groucho is buzzing. Can't wait to get myself there and see what all the fuss is about.
As for Brexit being a cry from the provinces for a more equitable split of power, wealth and opportunity in early 21st century Britain, it's a nice thought, but I wonder if it's accurate.
Reason I'm skeptical is that I very much want that, whereas you very much don't, and I very much voted Remain whereas you very much voted Leave. That's close to being a disprove when you think about it - given both you and I are astuties who know what we want and know how to get it.
My extended family in Cornwall - a large bunch of people - is generally pro-Leave (like the rest of Cornwall). Get them a bit tipsy and ask them about their Brexit vote, and a general resentment at London having all the fun and money emerges. I am sure it is a driver across provincial Britain
And you are simply wrong that I "very much voted Leave" - tho I can see why you might think that, so this is not a critique
My vote was finely balanced. My head and heart were both split. I liked aspects of the EU very much - FOM the most of all. Tho I respect voters who wanted an end to it, as it was damaging their lives. This was a real issue. I also strongly suspected Brexit would damage the country economically (but not grievously), and be bad for London property owners - eg me
But the sovereignty argument won out, on the morning of the vote. I do believe we will be better off governing ourselves, in the end, and more prosperous too, and there are just too many repulsive aspects to the EU. The fraud of the Lisbon Treaty/Constitution was an unforgivable outrage against the European people
So there you are, I actually voted UNSELFISHLY. I voted against my own perceived financial interests, and for the betterment of the country and the country my daughters will inherit. But it was a close call
Well, as I think I've mentioned before, if you thought we were governed by Brussels rather than Westminster - truly thought it, I mean, rather than just embraced it as a talking point - you'd have been relaxed about the election of a left wing Labour government. Course you would since such a government would be toothless, the real power residing with unelected Eurocrats. Yet you weren't relaxed about this at all. You tended to shit bricks at such a prospect. Ditto all the other right wing Brexiter pundits, on PB or elsewhere, who make the most play of this "sovereignty' point. So I conclude it's a red herring. It's a bit of self-aiding doublethink.
No attempt to engage with the argument, just a retreat to your comforting shibboleths. As ever
It's a crap argument, voting for soveriegnty is like voting for the Loch Ness Monster, it doesn't really exist outside the minds of conspiracy theorists and other assorted UFO believers.
Absolute sovereignty doesn't exist, but that doesn't make it a meaningless concept. Why do you think the EU increasingly bangs on about it?
Exists in a weird form north of Gretna apparently. Giving up a greater degree of sovereignty in a non consenting union apparently gives Scots more control than ceding a lesser degree of sovereignty in a union of consent.
Non-consenting union? There was a vote on that a few years ago.
Who decides when Scotland has another referendum? Who decided when the UK wanted (sic) a referendum on EU membership?
The UK government. The UK government also decided when a referendum should be held on EU membership 40 years after the first one on the EEC.
As long as the Tories remain in power at Westminster you can expect indyref2 on a similar timeframe
Kool, thanks for agreeing with my non consent point.
The 88% net favourability rating for Liz Truss is as preposterous as the woman herself. A reflection of the Conservative Party and the times we live in, I guess.
Your bitterness over the UK having an independent trade policy is one of the best rewards of Brexit. Thank you.
Hate to ask, but if FF43's (alleged) bitterness really is one of the best rewards of Brexit, was it really worth all the hassle? What are the other top five say, for context?
It's probably spaces 1-3, personally along with the bitterness from other EU supporting fifth columnists.
If "remainers" are fifth columnists for the EU are Leavers fifth columnists for Putin? Which would be worse? I think as Brexit is now "done" people trading insults over it just make themselves look a little silly. There are many on both sides of the argument who have done service for their country, and often much more than the people from the opposing side that suggest they are "traitors" perhaps?
The trouble is that, for some, this was their Great Patriotic War to save democracy. Not all, but some. And rather than being saluted for their sacrifices in victory, they are being moaned at or- worse- ignored.
For while, my theory has been that the internal logic of Brexit makes most sense to those born in the 50's and 60's. The most Eurosceptic generation in both 1975 and 2016. Always lived in the shadow of the generation who actually experienced WW2. Too old to see the benefits of a continent without borders for work and play as anything other than a dangerous novelty.
And deep down, some of them suspect that it will all get reversed the minute their backs are turned. Their great achievement down the swannee. And slowly, by a thousand accommodations, chips and cuts, they're probably right.
Johnson understandably won in 2019 on "Brexit is in Peril. Defend it with All Your Might." Unless things change in a way that they haven't so far, there will come a point where the considered response of the public is "Brexit is in Peril? Good".
Meanwhile, time passes.
Although I think Brexit was the biggest foreign policy folly since Suez, I think it would be a mistake to try and re-join. That said I can't help wondering whether in my dotage I will have a good old titter at all those Brexity Col. Blimps when re do regain membership. It will be very funny.
What is funny is how Remainers always insist their vindication is coming. No matter the evidence, the great moment when the up-to-now foolish public suddenly turns around and embraces their Europhile betters. Not only will they regret the decision that has been made, they will actually seek to go back to an even worse membership status than we had before. And to do that when the EU is even more integrated in the years and decades to come. When the UK's economy and trade profile has been restructured completely and status quo bias works in the opposite direction. When the EU is an even smaller share of the world economy than ever.
I suppose it is the only way they can psychologically deal with it. As an upper middle class professional group, they have never really learnt how to accept defeat. They got sent to nice schools, had the way padded to nice universities, and went into nice jobs, where their living standards were padded by the benefits of cheap immigrant and outsourced labour. And they had every election go their way until 2016.
Then they lost, and have been looking for cope ever since. Part of that is the religious certainty that deliverance will arrive in the end. Part of that is the need to assure each other of their moral superiority, with snide comments about how ghastily white, middle aged and - horrors of horrors - *British* those damn Brexiters are. Don't they know how culturally superior Provence and Tuscany are?
Yep. Brexit is essentially about the humbling of social & financial elites (exactly as you explain here) but what's strange is that almost all its leading proponents in public life are reactionary right wing Conservatives. It seems these chaps have all got the wrong end of the stick. I know when it comes to politics that Right doesn't equal Bright, but still, it's a puzzle.
Brexit was also a massive great Fuck You from Provincial Britain to London. You can't blame the yokels, they spent 30 years watching property owning Londoners get insanely wealthy, through no personal merit, while also enjoying all the restaurants, bars, girls, boys, fun, parties, better weather and nice shiny new trains
Brexit was regional Britain saying "this is our country as well": to arrogant Londoners
Talking of which I can report back from my Groucho lunch. The restaurant was jammed, the menu was oddly truncated (lack of staff?) but delicious, the new decor is beautiful, and central London as a whole - the bits of Soho, Fitzrovia, Bloomsbury, and Marylebone that I walked through - definitely feels a whole lot better. Many places are shut but many are reopening. The pavements are busier than I have seen since 2019.
And I don't think it is just the effect of a nice sunny day: it isn't. It's overcast, quite cool.
Central London might be reviving, for real.
That's great news that the Groucho is buzzing. Can't wait to get myself there and see what all the fuss is about.
As for Brexit being a cry from the provinces for a more equitable split of power, wealth and opportunity in early 21st century Britain, it's a nice thought, but I wonder if it's accurate.
Reason I'm skeptical is that I very much want that, whereas you very much don't, and I very much voted Remain whereas you very much voted Leave. That's close to being a disprove when you think about it - given both you and I are astuties who know what we want and know how to get it.
My extended family in Cornwall - a large bunch of people - is generally pro-Leave (like the rest of Cornwall). Get them a bit tipsy and ask them about their Brexit vote, and a general resentment at London having all the fun and money emerges. I am sure it is a driver across provincial Britain
And you are simply wrong that I "very much voted Leave" - tho I can see why you might think that, so this is not a critique
My vote was finely balanced. My head and heart were both split. I liked aspects of the EU very much - FOM the most of all. Tho I respect voters who wanted an end to it, as it was damaging their lives. This was a real issue. I also strongly suspected Brexit would damage the country economically (but not grievously), and be bad for London property owners - eg me
But the sovereignty argument won out, on the morning of the vote. I do believe we will be better off governing ourselves, in the end, and more prosperous too, and there are just too many repulsive aspects to the EU. The fraud of the Lisbon Treaty/Constitution was an unforgivable outrage against the European people
So there you are, I actually voted UNSELFISHLY. I voted against my own perceived financial interests, and for the betterment of the country and the country my daughters will inherit. But it was a close call
Well, as I think I've mentioned before, if you thought we were governed by Brussels rather than Westminster - truly thought it, I mean, rather than just embraced it as a talking point - you'd have been relaxed about the election of a left wing Labour government. Course you would since such a government would be toothless, the real power residing with unelected Eurocrats. Yet you weren't relaxed about this at all. You tended to shit bricks at such a prospect. Ditto all the other right wing Brexiter pundits, on PB or elsewhere, who make the most play of this "sovereignty' point. So I conclude it's a red herring. It's a bit of self-aiding doublethink.
No attempt to engage with the argument, just a retreat to your comforting shibboleths. As ever
I'm homing onto the very crux of your argument. You say it was about sovereignty - I'm showing that it really wasn't. The question therefore begged is what was it about. And there, I will not tread. I think I know but I'm not 100% sure and I need to be before going to press with it. You throw up just enough dust to get in my eyes sometimes and prevent a firm read.
Sovereignty is fundamental to the question of immigration, which nobody would deny played a part in the vote. Do we as a political community have the right to set conditions on migration, or do we merely elect people to administer the province of the UK?
Yep, in the EU debate sovereignty is largely Leaver code for immigration. EU membership entailed the free movement of people within the EU. Given we had - in the true rather than Leaver sense of the word - sovereignty, we could leave the EU if we were so unhappy with this that it made us feel oppressed and violated. And that is precisely what has happened.
While I think this is true for most Brexiters, there *is* a principled case for greater U.K. sovreignty outside the EU and the ECJ.
I guess this appeals to maybe 5% of the population?
Maybe less, because even those who major on this seem completely unworried by Boris’s “executive” power grab versus Parliament which has a much more tangible impact on sovreignty.
Because Boris can be ejected by the voters
Voters can't eject the Secretary General of NATO either. I think the point is if you don't think the EU has any value you might as well leave, but if it does do useful things you really don't care about Ursula von der Leyen.
I despise Boris Johnson but I don't see him as a reason for leaving the UK. There's more to the Union than the sleazebag occupying No 10.
The early vaccine fiasco in the EU (now largely remedied, but it still happened) is proof that your argument is entirely wrong
The Commission, in particular Ursula von der Leyen, was handed the job of vaccine procurement and distribution for the whole EU. They badly fucked it up, despite having immense advantages - lots of money, big influence, major pharma companies and factories inside the EU
Probably quite a few thousand EU citizens died simply because of Ursula's personal incompetence. So she does matter, a lot, and she and her fellow commissioners are only gaining more power every year (as we see here)
But if you're an EU citizen and your granny died coz of Ursula's fuck up, what can you do to make her pay the price for her errors? Nothing. She is unelected, She is entirely insulated from your anger. You are powerless, she is powerful
Boris, by contrast, lives in fear of the voters, as we see every day. And that is how it should be. Those in power over us should live in fear of our votes.
Hence, Brexit. That's the entire argument for Brexit and it is irrefutable.
While I think this is true for most Brexiters, there *is* a principled case for greater U.K. sovreignty outside the EU and the ECJ.
I guess this appeals to maybe 5% of the population?
Maybe less, because even those who major on this seem completely unworried by Boris’s “executive” power grab versus Parliament which has a much more tangible impact on sovreignty.
Because Boris can be ejected by the voters
As Michael Foot put it in the 1975 referendum campaign:
“People didn’t fight for the vote just to have the fun of electioneering. They wanted to see that the vote that they used at the ballot box could change things, stop things, alter things, remove governments when necessary.
"That's one of the principal reasons for having a vote, but that's not going to happen if we stay in the market and if we become enmeshed in the whole of their machinery and apparatus, because what will happen then is that you can go and have an election in this country in which you vote out the government here, but you won't be voting out all the governments that meet in Brussels to decide what's going to happen to us.
"It is that precious inheritance given us by the people who fought for the right to vote, fought for the right to form trade unions, fought for the right to establish their own institutions, fought for the right to have an elected House of Commons which should be the supreme authority in this country and answerable to nobody else. It is those things that are at stake in this campaign.
"We will have plenty of problems to solve, but let us make it clear, not merely to our own country but to the other countries, that we believe here in Britain we can solve these problems by using the strength of our democratic institutions instead of casting them aside in this trivial, wanton way.
"We were led into it by Heath and his companions - a more defeatist, miserable lot has never exercised power in British history. We were led into it by a mood of defeatism. What we have to do is to reassert the power, the spirit and the determination of British democracy. That's what this campaign is about."
Who don't instigate laws, and who sit in a ludicrous parliament in a foreign country and for which the turnout in the last 5 elections has been about 45%, a parliament which moves every three weeks at vast expense for reasons too insane to elaborate
Juncker to be fair to him was indirectly elected like Boris after the 2014 EU Parliament elections by being the Spitzenkandidat of the EPP who ended up the largest party in the European Parliament. Just as Boris became PM as leader of the largest party in the House of Commons. The European Council then nominated Juncker to be European Commission President and the European Parliament confirmed it.
However the idea was dumped after the 2019 elections when the EPP picked Manfred Weber as their Spitzenkandidat and the EPP again won most seats but the European Council picked Ursuala von der Leyen instead, then German defence minister
The 88% net favourability rating for Liz Truss is as preposterous as the woman herself. A reflection of the Conservative Party and the times we live in, I guess.
Your bitterness over the UK having an independent trade policy is one of the best rewards of Brexit. Thank you.
Hate to ask, but if FF43's (alleged) bitterness really is one of the best rewards of Brexit, was it really worth all the hassle? What are the other top five say, for context?
It's probably spaces 1-3, personally along with the bitterness from other EU supporting fifth columnists.
If "remainers" are fifth columnists for the EU are Leavers fifth columnists for Putin? Which would be worse? I think as Brexit is now "done" people trading insults over it just make themselves look a little silly. There are many on both sides of the argument who have done service for their country, and often much more than the people from the opposing side that suggest they are "traitors" perhaps?
The trouble is that, for some, this was their Great Patriotic War to save democracy. Not all, but some. And rather than being saluted for their sacrifices in victory, they are being moaned at or- worse- ignored.
For while, my theory has been that the internal logic of Brexit makes most sense to those born in the 50's and 60's. The most Eurosceptic generation in both 1975 and 2016. Always lived in the shadow of the generation who actually experienced WW2. Too old to see the benefits of a continent without borders for work and play as anything other than a dangerous novelty.
And deep down, some of them suspect that it will all get reversed the minute their backs are turned. Their great achievement down the swannee. And slowly, by a thousand accommodations, chips and cuts, they're probably right.
Johnson understandably won in 2019 on "Brexit is in Peril. Defend it with All Your Might." Unless things change in a way that they haven't so far, there will come a point where the considered response of the public is "Brexit is in Peril? Good".
Meanwhile, time passes.
Although I think Brexit was the biggest foreign policy folly since Suez, I think it would be a mistake to try and re-join. That said I can't help wondering whether in my dotage I will have a good old titter at all those Brexity Col. Blimps when re do regain membership. It will be very funny.
What is funny is how Remainers always insist their vindication is coming. No matter the evidence, the great moment when the up-to-now foolish public suddenly turns around and embraces their Europhile betters. Not only will they regret the decision that has been made, they will actually seek to go back to an even worse membership status than we had before. And to do that when the EU is even more integrated in the years and decades to come. When the UK's economy and trade profile has been restructured completely and status quo bias works in the opposite direction. When the EU is an even smaller share of the world economy than ever.
I suppose it is the only way they can psychologically deal with it. As an upper middle class professional group, they have never really learnt how to accept defeat. They got sent to nice schools, had the way padded to nice universities, and went into nice jobs, where their living standards were padded by the benefits of cheap immigrant and outsourced labour. And they had every election go their way until 2016.
Then they lost, and have been looking for cope ever since. Part of that is the religious certainty that deliverance will arrive in the end. Part of that is the need to assure each other of their moral superiority, with snide comments about how ghastily white, middle aged and - horrors of horrors - *British* those damn Brexiters are. Don't they know how culturally superior Provence and Tuscany are?
Yep. Brexit is essentially about the humbling of social & financial elites (exactly as you explain here) but what's strange is that almost all its leading proponents in public life are reactionary right wing Conservatives. It seems these chaps have all got the wrong end of the stick. I know when it comes to politics that Right doesn't equal Bright, but still, it's a puzzle.
Brexit was also a massive great Fuck You from Provincial Britain to London. You can't blame the yokels, they spent 30 years watching property owning Londoners get insanely wealthy, through no personal merit, while also enjoying all the restaurants, bars, girls, boys, fun, parties, better weather and nice shiny new trains
Brexit was regional Britain saying "this is our country as well": to arrogant Londoners
Talking of which I can report back from my Groucho lunch. The restaurant was jammed, the menu was oddly truncated (lack of staff?) but delicious, the new decor is beautiful, and central London as a whole - the bits of Soho, Fitzrovia, Bloomsbury, and Marylebone that I walked through - definitely feels a whole lot better. Many places are shut but many are reopening. The pavements are busier than I have seen since 2019.
And I don't think it is just the effect of a nice sunny day: it isn't. It's overcast, quite cool.
Central London might be reviving, for real.
That's great news that the Groucho is buzzing. Can't wait to get myself there and see what all the fuss is about.
As for Brexit being a cry from the provinces for a more equitable split of power, wealth and opportunity in early 21st century Britain, it's a nice thought, but I wonder if it's accurate.
Reason I'm skeptical is that I very much want that, whereas you very much don't, and I very much voted Remain whereas you very much voted Leave. That's close to being a disprove when you think about it - given both you and I are astuties who know what we want and know how to get it.
My extended family in Cornwall - a large bunch of people - is generally pro-Leave (like the rest of Cornwall). Get them a bit tipsy and ask them about their Brexit vote, and a general resentment at London having all the fun and money emerges. I am sure it is a driver across provincial Britain
And you are simply wrong that I "very much voted Leave" - tho I can see why you might think that, so this is not a critique
My vote was finely balanced. My head and heart were both split. I liked aspects of the EU very much - FOM the most of all. Tho I respect voters who wanted an end to it, as it was damaging their lives. This was a real issue. I also strongly suspected Brexit would damage the country economically (but not grievously), and be bad for London property owners - eg me
But the sovereignty argument won out, on the morning of the vote. I do believe we will be better off governing ourselves, in the end, and more prosperous too, and there are just too many repulsive aspects to the EU. The fraud of the Lisbon Treaty/Constitution was an unforgivable outrage against the European people
So there you are, I actually voted UNSELFISHLY. I voted against my own perceived financial interests, and for the betterment of the country and the country my daughters will inherit. But it was a close call
Well, as I think I've mentioned before, if you thought we were governed by Brussels rather than Westminster - truly thought it, I mean, rather than just embraced it as a talking point - you'd have been relaxed about the election of a left wing Labour government. Course you would since such a government would be toothless, the real power residing with unelected Eurocrats. Yet you weren't relaxed about this at all. You tended to shit bricks at such a prospect. Ditto all the other right wing Brexiter pundits, on PB or elsewhere, who make the most play of this "sovereignty' point. So I conclude it's a red herring. It's a bit of self-aiding doublethink.
No attempt to engage with the argument, just a retreat to your comforting shibboleths. As ever
I'm homing onto the very crux of your argument. You say it was about sovereignty - I'm showing that it really wasn't. The question therefore begged is what was it about. And there, I will not tread. I think I know but I'm not 100% sure and I need to be before going to press with it. You throw up just enough dust to get in my eyes sometimes and prevent a firm read.
Sovereignty is fundamental to the question of immigration, which nobody would deny played a part in the vote. Do we as a political community have the right to set conditions on migration, or do we merely elect people to administer the province of the UK?
Yep, in the EU debate sovereignty is largely Leaver code for immigration. EU membership entailed the free movement of people within the EU. Given we had - in the true rather than Leaver sense of the word - sovereignty, we could leave the EU if we were so unhappy with this that it made us feel oppressed and violated. And that is precisely what has happened.
While I think this is true for most Brexiters, there *is* a principled case for greater U.K. sovreignty outside the EU and the ECJ.
I guess this appeals to maybe 5% of the population?
Maybe less, because even those who major on this seem completely unworried by Boris’s “executive” power grab versus Parliament which has a much more tangible impact on sovreignty.
Because Boris can be ejected by the voters
Voters can't eject the Secretary General of NATO either. I think the point is if you don't think the EU has any value you might as well leave, but if it does do useful things you really don't care about Ursula von der Leyen.
I despise Boris Johnson but I don't see him as a reason for leaving the UK. There's more to the Union than the sleazebag occupying No 10.
The early vaccine fiasco in the EU (now largely remedied, but it still happened) is proof that your argument is entirely wrong
The Commission, in particular Ursula von Leyen, was handed the job of vaccine procurement and distribution for the whole EU. They badly fucked ii up, despite having immense advantages - lots of money, big influence, major pharma companies and factories inside the EU
Probably quite a few thousand EU citizens died simply because of Ursula's personal incompetence. So she does matter, a lot, and she and her fellow commissioners are only gaining more power every year (as we see here)
But if you're an EU citizen and your granny died coz of Ursula's fuck up, what can you do to make her pay the price for her errors? Nothing. She is unelected, She is entirely insulated from your anger. You are powerless, she is powerful
Boris, by contrast, lives in fear of the voters, as we see every day. And that is how it should be. Those in power over us should live in fear of our votes.
Hence, Brexit. That's the entire argument for Brexit and it is irrefutable.
I think you mean the Government can introduce a bill in the Lords.
Like the commission can introduce at the EU Parliament.
So we are agreed, they both write the laws.
One is elected, one is not.
Which is democratic?
Are you suggesting there is no mechanism for members of the Lords (or Commons) to introduce their own legislation, without the consent of the executive? Because if you are, you are wrong. And this mechanism doesn’t exist in the EU Parliament. It is entirely subservient to the executive.
Comments
A relative in the construction business has just replaced X Polish blokes with a machine that cost a fraction of X Polish blokes to own, run and depreciate down until you buy the next one. This includes the higher wage cost of bloke who drives it, since he is skilled.
I wonder if the Japanese system of self service in bars might catch on here.....
Once furlough fully unwinds and the remaining recipients roll out substantially to unemployment, employment demand will go back to where it was, and real wages aren't rising that much faster either.
A wash, basically.
https://twitter.com/tomashirstecon/status/1415573362269634563
We all make mistakes.
But Angela Merkel made a fecking huge one there.
More than five years on and we're still fighting and re-fighting the same battle. It's like a perverted form of Groundhog Day.
The irony is poll after poll suggested most people didn't care about the European Union or our membership - it was a non-issue beside Health, the Economy or Security.
Clearly, it was there or rather it became the touchstone for a series of other issues/concerns/grievances which had poisoned the body politic.
The problem was if having the debate was going to be divisive, so was not having the debate. Having the debate, it was argued, would lance the boil (sorry) and ease the pain but it hasn't.
I know why and I don't know why at the same time.
As with all things, we love to celebrate our successes and dwell on our failures. Those who "won" revel in why they think they won, those who "lost" try to explain their defeat.
Ultimately, it's a waste of time, effort and life.
The truth is it was mostly not about the EU at all - it was a deeper debate and raised awkward and still unresolved questions about the nature of our identity, country and society.
He's not remembered with affection by Dennis Skinner, nor by George Galloway, but hey, being revered by 90% of Brexiteers is quite something.
And suddenly, for no reason other than that every development, every fact, every political reality must be harnessed in the cause of independence, a hard border with Scotland’s biggest export market has been transformed into an argument for independence, just as the promise of no hard border was an equally persuasive argument for independence seven years ago.
https://capx.co/in-snp-fantasyland-a-hard-border-with-england-is-now-an-argument-for-independence/
European sovereignty is born of Member States' national sovereignty and does not replace it. Sharing sovereignty – when and where needed – makes each of our nation states stronger.
This seems quite a reasonable view to be honest.
https://twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1422239894676643854
I’m not sure why you are such a hysterical denialist on this subject. Your comments that Brexit is worthwhile to see other people suffer is frankly pathetic at your age.
The company pays the Town Council a fee for the management of the parking contract and then makes its profit from a cut of the actual parking charges.
As long as it continues to pay the fee, the Town Council and the tax/rate payer isn't losing out - the private company and its shareholders (if there are any) would be the big losers if they are not properly maintaining the machines and collecting the charges.
To be legitimate any referendum would be decided by OPOV.
Then the machines being broken wouldn't be an issue.
Further to which, the entirety of Northern Rail's ticket machines have been out of order for over 2 weeks on my local line. Only Newcastle has barriers, and they are often open.
Were it not for the presence of guards (who they are hoping to remove), they'd have had no income whatsoever over that period. There would be no way to pay, even if you were scrupulously honest and made every effort to.
https://www.cornwall.gov.uk/transport-parking-and-streets/parking/cornwall-council-car-parks/widemouth-bay-bude-ex23-0aw/
https://www.bude-today.co.uk/article.cfm?id=115927&headline=Council car parks to remain free until May 17&sectionIs=news&searchyear=2021
Perhaps you don't....
https://www.racingpost.com/news/latest/man-arrested-after-car-crashes-into-crowd-leaving-lingfield-on-saturday/503869
By a mechanism hitherto unknown to professional economists.
Shades of the SNP’s forthcoming “a hard border will create jobs”.
As long as the Tories remain in power at Westminster you can expect indyref2 on a similar timeframe
Whether it’s competence is another question.
SpaceX's new booster (first stage) has its engines. And it looks (ahem) powerful and complex.
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1422222995305676802/photo/1
Eyeware is best left until you're old.
Some people can't handle that.
Oddly enough, going racing with restricted crowd numbers was a real pleasure yet I'm told it's not the same without a "crowd".
No, it's much worse but I can understand why Lingfield Park want a crowd of 10,000 drinking rather than 2,000 enjoying the racing.
Thank you.
And yet, a visitor was unaware parking was free, despite visiting.
And that it takes a Google to discover that there actually is free parking.
Surely, the first thing you do after such a decision is widely publicise it?
Starting with a big FREE PARKING sign at the entrance and on said ticket machines.
Over 170 people applied to a position on the independent committee responsible for upholding ethics and integrity in our politics and public life.
Boris Johnson appointed his chum from the Bullingdon Club instead. A total joke.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/boris-johnson-sleaze-committee-standards-public-life-b1895212.html
I guess this appeals to maybe 5% of the population?
Maybe less, because even those who major on this seem completely unworried by Boris’s “executive” power grab versus Parliament which has a much more tangible impact on sovreignty.
It's just plain honest greed on the part of the tracks.
UB40 (who aren't a bad band in all fairness) were playing so they upped the admission price (and I imagine the food and drink prices) to pay for the band and hoped the increased numbers through the gate would help. The economics are obvious really but the course also has to pay for a "little" extra security in case some of the crowd get a little boisterous.
The problem comes when the course turns a blind eye to the drunks, the drug taking, the fights, the vomit and the violence outside the course. It's basically bringing a town centre to a corner of rural Surrey and it's not in my view appropriate.
Newcastle City centre has had a distinctly, evil air abroad in the late hours recently.
Stag and hens, aren't in Prague and Amsterdam. The quayside bar staff I know reckon it has never been anything like this bad. Not local accents.
Blood, urine and vomit on the Tyne is all mine.
My view is that the people who lost could do with the experience of losing given that they (well we, given what I do for a living) had got used to always winning at life and the EU simply entrenched the advantages of the highly educated and highly paid class. Rolling that back will probably make me every so slightly poorer but if it means that people at the lower end get a decent wage and don't have their pay held down by having an unlimited pool of cheap labour to compete with then there's only ever going to be one choice to make.
In general I'm not one to get overly personal and for most people I wouldn't. There are, however, some people's bitterness that really reinforce my leave vote. On days when I wonder whether it was worth it one of them will handily pop up (not you, mind) and remind me that this is what I voted leave for, to give that class of people a loss for the first time.
Some parts of London have definitely got edgier, some are quieter than ever.
However Brexit (and social media) have rendered us so partisan that the right leaning media tend to (not always) give Boris a free pass, and the left leaning media can simply be dismissed as suffering Boris derangement syndrome.
This hyper division, whatever your Brexit position, is detrimental.
Cleary not a fan...
Spite is the driver.
Unbearable...
It still looks a fiasco to me. It's completely unnecessary, because Cornwall doesn't seem short of visitors. It is completely unannounced - the machines just look broken down, no big friendly notices saying Welcome to our free car park, now go forth and buy artisan pasties. There is no mention of it on the main CCC page about the car park linked to above. "The plan...to resume charging on May 17, in line with the government’s roadmap out of lockdown" referred to in the article linked to above seems to have fallen by the wayside. And so on.
I despise Boris Johnson but I don't see him as a reason for leaving the UK. There's more to the Union than the sleazebag occupying No 10.
I fear you are due to be disappointed.
Britain’s low wage problem is caused by
a) low skills
b) low productivity
Indeed, the two are linked.
FDI and immigration actually both served to improve the overall skill base and indeed our productivity. FDI is now down steeply, and immigration from the EU at least has almost disappeared.
All things being equal, Brexit will keep those wages low.
One area where Brexiters *might* have a point is that for unproductive businesses, access to an “unlimited” labour pool served to disincentivise capital investment.
However, Britain’s problems in this respect are long lasting, systemic, and AIUI are not significantly impacted by this greater access to labour.
They comprised folk of all incomes, classes, regions and walks of life.
Pensioners, the disabled, minimum wage zero hour contractors, bin men, cleaners, factory workers, 30 % of Hartlepool, voted Remain in their millions.
Indeed a huge percentage of those you so describe, like yourself, and many others on PB voted Leave.
In the same way The Lords write our laws.
They don't instigate them. They don't transcribe them. You really want to claim they don't write them?
I started having flu-like symptoms Saturday night and went to the doctor this morning.
https://twitter.com/LindseyGrahamSC/status/1422271969165201412
The Commission, in particular Ursula von der Leyen, was handed the job of vaccine procurement and distribution for the whole EU. They badly fucked it up, despite having immense advantages - lots of money, big influence, major pharma companies and factories inside the EU
Probably quite a few thousand EU citizens died simply because of Ursula's personal incompetence. So she does matter, a lot, and she and her fellow commissioners are only gaining more power every year (as we see here)
But if you're an EU citizen and your granny died coz of Ursula's fuck up, what can you do to make her pay the price for her errors? Nothing. She is unelected, She is entirely insulated from your anger. You are powerless, she is powerful
Boris, by contrast, lives in fear of the voters, as we see every day. And that is how it should be. Those in power over us should live in fear of our votes.
Hence, Brexit. That's the entire argument for Brexit and it is irrefutable.
“People didn’t fight for the vote just to have the fun of electioneering. They wanted to see that the vote that they used at the ballot box could change things, stop things, alter things, remove governments when necessary.
"That's one of the principal reasons for having a vote, but that's not going to happen if we stay in the market and if we become enmeshed in the whole of their machinery and apparatus, because what will happen then is that you can go and have an election in this country in which you vote out the government here, but you won't be voting out all the governments that meet in Brussels to decide what's going to happen to us.
"It is that precious inheritance given us by the people who fought for the right to vote, fought for the right to form trade unions, fought for the right to establish their own institutions, fought for the right to have an elected House of Commons which should be the supreme authority in this country and answerable to nobody else. It is those things that are at stake in this campaign.
"We will have plenty of problems to solve, but let us make it clear, not merely to our own country but to the other countries, that we believe here in Britain we can solve these problems by using the strength of our democratic institutions instead of casting them aside in this trivial, wanton way.
"We were led into it by Heath and his companions - a more defeatist, miserable lot has never exercised power in British history. We were led into it by a mood of defeatism. What we have to do is to reassert the power, the spirit and the determination of British democracy. That's what this campaign is about."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usJUMOlpE24
However the idea was dumped after the 2019 elections when the EPP picked Manfred Weber as their Spitzenkandidat and the EPP again won most seats but the European Council picked Ursuala von der Leyen instead, then German defence minister
Like the commission can introduce at the EU Parliament.
So we are agreed, they both write the laws.
One is elected, one is not.
Which is democratic?
The only thing he fears is a crap legacy. The voters don't feature at all