Howdy, Stranger!

It looks like you're new here. Sign in or register to get started.

If you think Brexit is going very well then you’re in a small minority – politicalbetting.com

SystemSystem Posts: 11,002
edited October 2021 in General
If you think Brexit is going very well then you’re in a small minority – politicalbetting.com

Who thinks Brexit has been going well this year?Con voters: 39% (-12)Leave voters: 35% (-10) British public: 18% (-7)Remain voters: 5% (-3)Lab voters: 3% (-2)Changes from Jun 21, 2021https://t.co/Vc1NkmmAS0 pic.twitter.com/m80O2Itxmg

Read the full story here

«1345

Comments

  • edmundintokyoedmundintokyo Posts: 17,136
    It's too early to decide the manifesto but as a very remainy person I wouldn't expect a new referendum yet even if it's polling like 60/40.

    Start with rejoining the Single Market without a referendum, that'll mitigate a lot of the damage and it's what a lot of Brexit voters thought they were getting in the first place. That's less bad electorally because it centres more on jobs and less on identity.

    A referendum on rejoining will be easier to win once all the alternatives have been tried in practice.

    Labour may also be able to get away with something vaguer like the traditional "renegotiate". There's a danger that the voters will be sick of the whole the whole thing and won't want the box opened, but I guess the Tories will have opened it already because of NI.
  • Sounds about right, and we should not overlook the possibility that rather than Covid giving cover to the damage done by Brexit, it is the other way round and that Brexit is blamed for the economic impact of Covid. Another paradox is that voters may indeed blame Brexit, but blame the EU for not negotiating or acting in good faith, rather than Boris or the government.
  • squareroot2squareroot2 Posts: 6,287
    Can we just accept that the next 100 threads would have been about something negative about the Govt and move on to something a bit more main stream.

    There have been no threads on the ghastly Rayner and that she and Starmer can't stand each other or that the Labour Party is completely split and with noone you would be comfortable with being a minister. Or that the Party is skint and has trouble paying its bills...

    The last Labour thread I recall was about how great Reeves was.. if she is the beacon of light, God help us.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    Not much of a conference bounce for Labour and LD this year.

    Anyone expecting things to go any better for the Tories this week? At least they won’t be tying themselves in knots over the definition of “Woman”, but that’s probably not enough for the party of government!

    Op-eds this morning making the connection between the COP26 “Green Crap” and rising energy bills, can the PM carry (Carrie?) his own party on this?
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    Mail on Sunday with quite the exclusive - if there’s anything to it.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10053155/Three-Labour-MPs-defect-Conservatives-Sir-Keir-Starmers-leadership.html

    Three Labour MPs, presumably from the remnants of the Red Wall, turning up at the Tory conference this week would be one hell of a coup for the PM.
  • Can we just accept that the next 100 threads would have been about something negative about the Govt and move on to something a bit more main stream.

    There have been no threads on the ghastly Rayner and that she and Starmer can't stand each other or that the Labour Party is completely split and with noone you would be comfortable with being a minister. Or that the Party is skint and has trouble paying its bills...

    The last Labour thread I recall was about how great Reeves was.. if she is the beacon of light, God help us.

    The Conservative Party conference starts today so expect more threads reacting to whatever news is made there.
  • TomsToms Posts: 2,478
    edited October 2021
    A scattershot silly cartoon just occurred to me:

    It shows a lone figure in a deep hole he has dug himself into with his bulldog. A spade leans against the wall. His dog wears a cover with "1966" on it. His shirt says something silly like "Saxe Coburg". Faces peer down from above. He adopts a defiant stance and, brandishing his fist, saying "Very well, alone."

    Apologies for my ranging imagination.
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 25,164
    Sandpit said:

    Mail on Sunday with quite the exclusive - if there’s anything to it.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10053155/Three-Labour-MPs-defect-Conservatives-Sir-Keir-Starmers-leadership.html

    Three Labour MPs, presumably from the remnants of the Red Wall, turning up at the Tory conference this week would be one hell of a coup for the PM.

    I find it odd that MPs upset with Starmer for not taking it to the Tories would.... join the Tories.

    If there were going to be defections, it would be over something fundamental, but even then I’m sceptical.
  • ClippPClippP Posts: 1,667

    Can we just accept that the next 100 threads would have been about something negative about the Govt and move on to something a bit more main stream.

    There have been no threads on the ghastly Rayner and that she and Starmer can't stand each other or that the Labour Party is completely split and with noone you would be comfortable with being a minister. Or that the Party is skint and has trouble paying its bills...

    The last Labour thread I recall was about how great Reeves was.. if she is the beacon of light, God help us.

    The Conservative Party conference starts today so expect more threads reacting to whatever news is made there.
    The country needs to wake up to the ever-growing dictatorship that this gang of crooks, cheats and incompetents are developing for us.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    tlg86 said:

    Sandpit said:

    Mail on Sunday with quite the exclusive - if there’s anything to it.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10053155/Three-Labour-MPs-defect-Conservatives-Sir-Keir-Starmers-leadership.html

    Three Labour MPs, presumably from the remnants of the Red Wall, turning up at the Tory conference this week would be one hell of a coup for the PM.

    I find it odd that MPs upset with Starmer for not taking it to the Tories would.... join the Tories.

    If there were going to be defections, it would be over something fundamental, but even then I’m sceptical.
    Just reading through the last thread, where there was some discussion of it.

    There’s got to be a couple of Red-Wallers who would quite like their constituencies to benefit from being able to lobby Gove and Sunak directly, and who are either planning to retire or would welcome a safe Tory seat after the boundaries go through. Defectors always get well looked after by their new party.

    I’m not sure, but the one other name that kept coming up was Rosie Duffield, who was personally shat on by Starmer last week over an issue that has led to her needing to employ security. Three feminists deserting Labour over their inability to stand up for women, would be one hell of a problem for SKS.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,770
    If Brexit was the number one or number two concern of British voters, this would be an important finding.

    But it's not.

    This may change, but right now, British voters aren't that "bovvered".
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,081
    You don’t need to be an economics expert to understand that sending so many key workers home isn’t working out very well for us, with the consequences magnified by the coincidence of the pandemic.

    On top of which pet owners who travel have certainly had a rude awakening as to the consequences of Brexit, as I know from another forum, and there have been extra costs and hassle for overseas second home owners, people who make extended visits to family, and people who take their cars abroad, on top of which the promise that high roaming charges wouldn’t return is proving bogus. Anyone who made it abroad this year knows there aren’t shortages in Europe.

    The collapse in trade, focussed in sectors like food, will have affected businesses, livelihoods and jobs, and the wider problems for Northern Ireland are well known. And the fishermen certainly aren’t happy.

    Then you add in the consequences of the step change decline in our currency, with a consequential burst of inflation, which every traveller will have noticed. The story in the news about the Americans snapping up Morrison’s while the £ is cheap is yet another consequence. And the shops and restaurants with reduced opening hours due to lack of staff.

    With stories in the news about threats to our Christmas toys and turkeys, we may still be at the beginning of a gathering storm.



  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,770

    Can we just accept that the next 100 threads would have been about something negative about the Govt and move on to something a bit more main stream.

    There have been no threads on the ghastly Rayner and that she and Starmer can't stand each other or that the Labour Party is completely split and with noone you would be comfortable with being a minister. Or that the Party is skint and has trouble paying its bills...

    The last Labour thread I recall was about how great Reeves was.. if she is the beacon of light, God help us.

    To be fair, the implicit assumption of a thread about how well Reeves is doing, is that Starmer is doing... less well.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,750
    IanB2 said:



    On top of which pet owners who travel have certainly had a rude awakening as to the consequences of Brexit, as I know from another forum, and there have been extra costs and hassle for overseas second home owners, people who make extended visits to family, and people who take their cars abroad, on top of which the promise that high roaming charges wouldn’t return is proving bogus. Anyone who made it abroad this year knows there aren’t shortages in Europe.

    Ahem:

    https://www.brusselstimes.com/belgium/187453/belgium-is-looking-for-5000-lorry-drivers-to-keep-shop-shelves-filled/

    Ok, so that was partly caused by a strike, but there are still shortages in Europe.

    What’s happened is that Brexit and Covid have brought forward a looming crisis over our supply chains. But the EU isn’t far behind.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,750
    Incidentally I find this talk about three Labour defectors pretty implausible. When was the last time more than one MP simultaneously defected directly to an established party, rather than to found a new one?
  • TazTaz Posts: 10,703
    ydoethur said:

    Incidentally I find this talk about three Labour defectors pretty implausible. When was the last time more than one MP simultaneously defected directly to an established party, rather than to found a new one?

    It’s not going to happen. Just mischief making.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    edited October 2021
    Taz said:

    ydoethur said:

    Incidentally I find this talk about three Labour defectors pretty implausible. When was the last time more than one MP simultaneously defected directly to an established party, rather than to found a new one?

    It’s not going to happen. Just mischief making.
    It does seem somewhat unlikely - but if the rumours persist, it will keep the Labour whips on their toes for the next few days trying to work out who is being talked about!

    The last Lab>Con defection was Reg Prentice - in 1977!
  • JonathanJonathan Posts: 20,901

    Can we just accept that the next 100 threads would have been about something negative about the Govt and move on to something a bit more main stream.

    There have been no threads on the ghastly Rayner and that she and Starmer can't stand each other or that the Labour Party is completely split and with noone you would be comfortable with being a minister. Or that the Party is skint and has trouble paying its bills...

    The last Labour thread I recall was about how great Reeves was.. if she is the beacon of light, God help us.

    misquoting Yea Minister.

    “Plays attacking the government are the second most boring evening out”

    “What’s the most boring?”

    “Plays praising the government “
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,750
    Jonathan said:

    Can we just accept that the next 100 threads would have been about something negative about the Govt and move on to something a bit more main stream.

    There have been no threads on the ghastly Rayner and that she and Starmer can't stand each other or that the Labour Party is completely split and with noone you would be comfortable with being a minister. Or that the Party is skint and has trouble paying its bills...

    The last Labour thread I recall was about how great Reeves was.. if she is the beacon of light, God help us.

    misquoting Yea Minister.

    “Plays attacking the government are the second most boring evening out”

    “What’s the most boring?”

    “Plays praising the government “
    In the novelisation Hacker added, ‘Personally I would have thought those would be much more interesting.’
  • As a Conswrvative and a brexiteer I hope Starmer does advocate rejoining. It will make winning the next election easier.
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797

    As a Conswrvative and a brexiteer I hope Starmer does advocate rejoining. It will make winning the next election easier.

    No one in Labour is that stupid.

  • Sandpit said:

    tlg86 said:

    Sandpit said:

    Mail on Sunday with quite the exclusive - if there’s anything to it.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10053155/Three-Labour-MPs-defect-Conservatives-Sir-Keir-Starmers-leadership.html

    Three Labour MPs, presumably from the remnants of the Red Wall, turning up at the Tory conference this week would be one hell of a coup for the PM.

    I find it odd that MPs upset with Starmer for not taking it to the Tories would.... join the Tories.

    If there were going to be defections, it would be over something fundamental, but even then I’m sceptical.
    Just reading through the last thread, where there was some discussion of it.

    There’s got to be a couple of Red-Wallers who would quite like their constituencies to benefit from being able to lobby Gove and Sunak directly, and who are either planning to retire or would welcome a safe Tory seat after the boundaries go through. Defectors always get well looked after by their new party.

    I’m not sure, but the one other name that kept coming up was Rosie Duffield, who was personally shat on by Starmer last week over an issue that has led to her needing to employ security. Three feminists deserting Labour over their inability to stand up for women, would be one hell of a problem for SKS.
    Is Starmer planning on being to women what Corbyn was to Jews? 🤔
  • Sandpit said:

    Mail on Sunday with quite the exclusive - if there’s anything to it.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10053155/Three-Labour-MPs-defect-Conservatives-Sir-Keir-Starmers-leadership.html

    Three Labour MPs, presumably from the remnants of the Red Wall, turning up at the Tory conference this week would be one hell of a coup for the PM.

    Please let it be Russel Lloyd-Mole, Zarah Sultana and Ding Dong Burgon. "We're defecting to the Tories because that Tory Starmer has failed to harry the Tories enough.
  • moonshinemoonshine Posts: 5,226
    ydoethur said:

    Incidentally I find this talk about three Labour defectors pretty implausible. When was the last time more than one MP simultaneously defected directly to an established party, rather than to found a new one?

    Presumably it’s three red wallers that clung on last time thanks to Faridge. And who have looked at Hartlepool and the continued state of the polls, and realised that their best chance of troughing beyond the next election is by changing their political stripes.

    No doubt HYFUD with his encyclopaedic brain for the constituency data could have a stab at guessing who meets that description.
  • On topic, Starmer started to lay out the strategy last week - "Make Brexit Work". Even the bit that so many voted for - control over immigration - isn't working because we're not trying to bring in the people that we need.

    Rejoin is dead and buried. But reorganising our post-Brexit lives so things are less hellish will increasingly become a fashionable debate. We are currently aligned with both the single market and customs union. We are not planning to become dramatically unaligned anytime soon. We remain the lead engine being pushed along the same track by the EU train, with just stubborn pretence that we are not.

    With trade an increasing disaster and unfixable supply problems, reinstating the pointlessly deleted trade and standards links will be increasingly seen as the simple fix. Not because the EU are forcing us to, but because Sovereign Britain is choosing to.

    "Did you know that the stupid Europeans have Our Standards? We're going to permit them to continue using them, and that means we can now drop much of the trade barriers they threw up." etc
  • moonshine said:

    ydoethur said:

    Incidentally I find this talk about three Labour defectors pretty implausible. When was the last time more than one MP simultaneously defected directly to an established party, rather than to found a new one?

    Presumably it’s three red wallers that clung on last time thanks to Faridge. And who have looked at Hartlepool and the continued state of the polls, and realised that their best chance of troughing beyond the next election is by changing their political stripes.

    No doubt HYFUD with his encyclopaedic brain for the constituency data could have a stab at guessing who meets that description.
    Yes. They must be in leave seats, with a majority smaller than the BXP vote who have neighbouring Tory MPs. I would also expect them not to be the most vocal in terms of policy or ideology - it won't be big names.

    If the story is true I assume the rationale is "if you can't beat them, join them". Because it cannot be on ideology grounds because Starmer is a Tory. So thats all the hard left frothballs out. Surely...
  • YBarddCwscYBarddCwsc Posts: 7,172
    edited October 2021
    IanB2 said:


    With stories in the news about threats to our Christmas toys and turkeys, we may still be at the beginning of a gathering storm.

    Oh, no, no, no ...... @IanB2 without his turkey & toys. No sparkly lights, no tree. Tears on the big day.

    If Brexit really has ended the misery & pain of our depressing Christmases, that is a truly excellent point in its favour.
  • Though just because you're in a minority doesn't make you wrong.
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,842
    moonshine said:

    ydoethur said:

    Incidentally I find this talk about three Labour defectors pretty implausible. When was the last time more than one MP simultaneously defected directly to an established party, rather than to found a new one?

    Presumably it’s three red wallers that clung on last time thanks to Faridge. And who have looked at Hartlepool and the continued state of the polls, and realised that their best chance of troughing beyond the next election is by changing their political stripes.

    No doubt HYFUD with his encyclopaedic brain for the constituency data could have a stab at guessing who meets that description.
    Look for high BXP shares in "red wall" places ?

    H&SS fits, but unlikely to be Bridget Phillipsen. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jun/02/constituency-voted-leave-labour-oppose-brexit-sunderland
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 55,014
    It's worth noting that, "how do you think Brexit is going this year?" is a different question to "was the UK was right or wrong to Leave the EU?", though there has been a slight increase in wrong as well.

    I think the last time right was in the lead was in May when we were at the peak of our comparative vaccine rollout success.

    The economic recovery post-Covid will be crucial for the Government, particularly next to our European competitors.
  • On topic, Starmer started to lay out the strategy last week - "Make Brexit Work". Even the bit that so many voted for - control over immigration - isn't working because we're not trying to bring in the people that we need.

    Rejoin is dead and buried. But reorganising our post-Brexit lives so things are less hellish will increasingly become a fashionable debate. We are currently aligned with both the single market and customs union. We are not planning to become dramatically unaligned anytime soon. We remain the lead engine being pushed along the same track by the EU train, with just stubborn pretence that we are not.

    With trade an increasing disaster and unfixable supply problems, reinstating the pointlessly deleted trade and standards links will be increasingly seen as the simple fix. Not because the EU are forcing us to, but because Sovereign Britain is choosing to.

    "Did you know that the stupid Europeans have Our Standards? We're going to permit them to continue using them, and that means we can now drop much of the trade barriers they threw up." etc

    I doubt that Rejoin is dead, for much the same reason that Leave didn't die in 1975, and won in 2016. Basically, if you are under about 50, it's the world that you grew up in (French exchange trips and all that) that's been taken from you and you will always want them back. In the same way that Leavers largely wanted the world of the 50's and 60's back. Remember the age profile on the Leave-Remain identities. However...

    Those who voted Leave will, in the main, never want to change their mind on it either. Partly because few people do (see para 1) and partly because it's the only great service to history that most have them have managed.

    Hence the stuckness. It will last about 20 years, I reckon. But it will stop helping the Conservatives well before that.

    "Making it work" is, in many ways, a smart slogan. The tricky bit will be putting enough flesh on it to reassure "our Brexit is in peril" types and "making it work = dilution" types.
  • So how much of the Tory vote is vulnerable based on the chart?

    Lets assume it is Tory Brexiteers who say very badly and Tory Remainers who say badly or very badly which would give about 12-13% of Tory voters or 5% of the electorate. Given that not all the vulnerable will switch and they won't all switch to the efficient switching party, it is enough for a reduced majority but still a Tory majority.

    The numbers actually need to get a fair bit worse to put the government in the danger zone. They might well get worse if the government don't plan to get ahead of events rather than react them as they seem more comfortable doing.
  • FishingFishing Posts: 4,555
    edited October 2021
    eek said:

    As a Conswrvative and a brexiteer I hope Starmer does advocate rejoining. It will make winning the next election easier.

    No one in Labour is that stupid.

    They elected Corbyn, didn't they? Twice.
  • IanB2 said:


    With stories in the news about threats to our Christmas toys and turkeys, we may still be at the beginning of a gathering storm.

    Oh, no, no, no ...... @IanB2 without his turkey & toys. No sparkly lights, no tree. Tears on the big day.

    If Brexit really has ended the misery & pain of our depressing Christmases, that is a truly excellent point in its favour.
    You do realise the man most bothered about saving Christmas is Dear Leader?
  • FF43FF43 Posts: 15,545
    The political takeaway from those figures is that people are still voting on Brexit ideology. Labour will struggle to win over Leavers.

    Also, no votes - yet - for damage limitation.
  • On topic, Starmer started to lay out the strategy last week - "Make Brexit Work". Even the bit that so many voted for - control over immigration - isn't working because we're not trying to bring in the people that we need.

    Rejoin is dead and buried. But reorganising our post-Brexit lives so things are less hellish will increasingly become a fashionable debate. We are currently aligned with both the single market and customs union. We are not planning to become dramatically unaligned anytime soon. We remain the lead engine being pushed along the same track by the EU train, with just stubborn pretence that we are not.

    With trade an increasing disaster and unfixable supply problems, reinstating the pointlessly deleted trade and standards links will be increasingly seen as the simple fix. Not because the EU are forcing us to, but because Sovereign Britain is choosing to.

    "Did you know that the stupid Europeans have Our Standards? We're going to permit them to continue using them, and that means we can now drop much of the trade barriers they threw up." etc

    I doubt that Rejoin is dead, for much the same reason that Leave didn't die in 1975, and won in 2016. Basically, if you are under about 50, it's the world that you grew up in (French exchange trips and all that) that's been taken from you and you will always want them back. In the same way that Leavers largely wanted the world of the 50's and 60's back. Remember the age profile on the Leave-Remain identities. However...

    Those who voted Leave will, in the main, never want to change their mind on it either. Partly because few people do (see para 1) and partly because it's the only great service to history that most have them have managed.

    Hence the stuckness. It will last about 20 years, I reckon. But it will stop helping the Conservatives well before that.

    "Making it work" is, in many ways, a smart slogan. The tricky bit will be putting enough flesh on it to reassure "our Brexit is in peril" types and "making it work = dilution" types.
    I would support rejoin if polling was 60% in favour for a sustained period of 3-5 years, but not otherwise. An in-out hokey-cokey or endless obsession and further division is far worse than staying out.

    Make Brexit work is the right tactic for all opposition parties with the exception of the SNP who have a realistic path to independence and membership.
  • FF43FF43 Posts: 15,545

    On topic, Starmer started to lay out the strategy last week - "Make Brexit Work". Even the bit that so many voted for - control over immigration - isn't working because we're not trying to bring in the people that we need.

    Rejoin is dead and buried. But reorganising our post-Brexit lives so things are less hellish will increasingly become a fashionable debate. We are currently aligned with both the single market and customs union. We are not planning to become dramatically unaligned anytime soon. We remain the lead engine being pushed along the same track by the EU train, with just stubborn pretence that we are not.

    With trade an increasing disaster and unfixable supply problems, reinstating the pointlessly deleted trade and standards links will be increasingly seen as the simple fix. Not because the EU are forcing us to, but because Sovereign Britain is choosing to.

    "Did you know that the stupid Europeans have Our Standards? We're going to permit them to continue using them, and that means we can now drop much of the trade barriers they threw up." etc

    I admit this was what I was expecting since 2016. That people would weary of all the arguments and the crap and just go for what's easiest. I have been quite wrong so far.
  • YBarddCwscYBarddCwsc Posts: 7,172

    IanB2 said:


    With stories in the news about threats to our Christmas toys and turkeys, we may still be at the beginning of a gathering storm.

    Oh, no, no, no ...... @IanB2 without his turkey & toys. No sparkly lights, no tree. Tears on the big day.

    If Brexit really has ended the misery & pain of our depressing Christmases, that is a truly excellent point in its favour.
    You do realise the man most bothered about saving Christmas is Dear Leader?
    I am trying to prevent reputational damage to @IanB2

    It is not a good look for a poster to come across as a Daily Mail screaming headline writer .... No toys, no trees, no pigs in blankets.
  • DavidL said:

    What we are getting at the moment is incessant media coverage of every small and not so small issue that arises blaming these bumps in the road on Brexit. The fact that other countries are also suffering dislocations and disruptions as a result of the chaos called by Covid is ignored: it must be the fault of Brexit.

    In many, probably most, cases this is just nonsense. So, for example, we have the problem of high gas prices. This is an international phenomenon which the UK is more than usually vulnerable to because successive governments failed to create enough storage. Do I claim that this was a misplaced reliance on the SM? Of course not, it was pure incompetence.

    In other cases Brexit plays a small part. So we are by far from being alone in finding we do not have enough HGV drivers as deliveries and economic activity pick up again but the assumption that we could just import all the cheap labour we needed is no longer valid and so there is an extra piquancy to our problems as a result of the fact we are weaning ourselves off cheap labour.

    In respect of food there is almost nothing to this at all because we have chosen not to impose the conditions on our imports that the EU is imposing on our exports, at least not yet. But every day we see stories about some supermarket somewhere being short of this or that.

    The reality, as I have expressed before is that trying to measure the pluses and minuses of Brexit (and I accept there are both) at this stage is like trying to measure the ripples caused by a stone thrown into a raging tempest. The world economy and ours have gone through something truly incredible as a result of the pandemic. The consequences are dozens, probably hundreds, of times more significant than Brexit effects. We are deluding ourselves and failing to address the very real problems if we pretend otherwise.

    So how will we be able to judge Brexit? I think it will take 10-20 years to determine whether cutting our own path has made a difference. If we do wean ourselves off imported labour and work hard as a nation to boost our productivity as a result it will have been a success. If we significantly reduce our horrendous trade deficit either by import substitution or exports to new markets it will have been a success. If we fail to do these things and continue with the disastrous policies of excess consumption, excess borrowing and poor training it will have failed. We will know in 20 years but a lot depends upon the quality of governments elected in the meantime.

    Excellent and agree 100%
  • HeathenerHeathener Posts: 5,096

    On topic, Starmer started to lay out the strategy last week - "Make Brexit Work". Even the bit that so many voted for - control over immigration - isn't working because we're not trying to bring in the people that we need.

    Rejoin is dead and buried. But reorganising our post-Brexit lives so things are less hellish will increasingly become a fashionable debate. We are currently aligned with both the single market and customs union. We are not planning to become dramatically unaligned anytime soon. We remain the lead engine being pushed along the same track by the EU train, with just stubborn pretence that we are not.

    With trade an increasing disaster and unfixable supply problems, reinstating the pointlessly deleted trade and standards links will be increasingly seen as the simple fix. Not because the EU are forcing us to, but because Sovereign Britain is choosing to.

    "Did you know that the stupid Europeans have Our Standards? We're going to permit them to continue using them, and that means we can now drop much of the trade barriers they threw up." etc

    I doubt that Rejoin is dead, for much the same reason that Leave didn't die in 1975, and won in 2016. Basically, if you are under about 50, it's the world that you grew up in (French exchange trips and all that) that's been taken from you and you will always want them back. In the same way that Leavers largely wanted the world of the 50's and 60's back. Remember the age profile on the Leave-Remain identities. However...

    Those who voted Leave will, in the main, never want to change their mind on it either. Partly because few people do (see para 1) and partly because it's the only great service to history that most have them have managed.

    Hence the stuckness. It will last about 20 years, I reckon. But it will stop helping the Conservatives well before that.

    "Making it work" is, in many ways, a smart slogan. The tricky bit will be putting enough flesh on it to reassure "our Brexit is in peril" types and "making it work = dilution" types.
    Good post and a good thread from TSE.

    It's a real conundrum this. It's fairly clear to all but the political diehards that Brexit isn't working but that doesn't mean the corollary of seeking to rejoin will work on many levels either.

    Right now the country is up the proverbial without a paddle.
  • geoffwgeoffw Posts: 8,092
    DavidL said:


    . . .
    like trying to measure the ripples caused by a stone thrown into a raging tempest.
    . . .

    Brilliant simile.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,739
    ...
  • IanB2 said:


    With stories in the news about threats to our Christmas toys and turkeys, we may still be at the beginning of a gathering storm.

    Oh, no, no, no ...... @IanB2 without his turkey & toys. No sparkly lights, no tree. Tears on the big day.

    If Brexit really has ended the misery & pain of our depressing Christmases, that is a truly excellent point in its favour.
    You do realise the man most bothered about saving Christmas is Dear Leader?
    I am trying to prevent reputational damage to @IanB2

    It is not a good look for a poster to come across as a Daily Mail screaming headline writer .... No toys, no trees, no pigs in blankets.
    If the government priority each winter is ensuring enough pigs in blankets and party hats so Boris can save Christmas, ahead of people on universal credit or even controlling a pandemic, then the government should expect a bit of ribbing when they fail to even manage that.
  • NickPalmerNickPalmer Posts: 21,263
    FF43 said:

    The political takeaway from those figures is that people are still voting on Brexit ideology. Labour will struggle to win over Leavers.

    Also, no votes - yet - for damage limitation.

    They may be, but I don't think the figures show that. It's certainly true that more Conservatives think it's going quite well, but that can easily be partly party loyalty - my guys did Brexit, they're in power, it must be OK - but it doesn't show that their view of Brexit is what's driving their VI. Lots of people agree with individual policies of other parties without changing voting - I approve of most of what the Defra team are doing in Government, doesn't make me vote Conservative. Also, I'm not clear whether YouGov asked for current VI or how people voted in 2019?
  • TazTaz Posts: 10,703
    Pulpstar said:

    moonshine said:

    ydoethur said:

    Incidentally I find this talk about three Labour defectors pretty implausible. When was the last time more than one MP simultaneously defected directly to an established party, rather than to found a new one?

    Presumably it’s three red wallers that clung on last time thanks to Faridge. And who have looked at Hartlepool and the continued state of the polls, and realised that their best chance of troughing beyond the next election is by changing their political stripes.

    No doubt HYFUD with his encyclopaedic brain for the constituency data could have a stab at guessing who meets that description.
    Look for high BXP shares in "red wall" places ?

    H&SS fits, but unlikely to be Bridget Phillipsen. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jun/02/constituency-voted-leave-labour-oppose-brexit-sunderland
    I’d find that highly unlikely. North East labour politicians are a pretty mediocre bunch but she is a good performer on TV and seems pretty steady and competent. She doesn’t seem to have a great deal,in common with the Tories and was staunch remain.

    If she left she’d be a loss.
  • TimSTimS Posts: 9,160
    I think there’s now consensus across much of the electorate that Brexit, at least the TCA variant, is proving a bit of a disaster. There are big differences in who gets blamed.

    There was a very interesting forum thread on Brexit yesterday in WineGB (the trade association for vine growers and wine makers). The industry has its fair share of Brexiteers - think gentleman farmers, former hedge fund types etc - and Home Counties remainers. On one side were the latter, bemoaning the lack of labour force, backlogs in agricultural equipment, parts being held up at the border and so on. The Brexiteer line was a mixture of “the issue is not Brexit per se, but the bungled way it’s been implemented” (in other words this isn’t the Brexit I voted for) and “if the remoaner parliament hadn’t tried to block it in 2019 we wouldn’t be in this mess” (that old trope, Brexit is remainers’ fault). Nobody was claiming it’s going well, nor did anyone try to imply it’s all a master plan to increase wages (though my in-laws seem suddenly to have discovered this angle. It was always about Britain being overrun by Muslims before).

    On defectors, I think Rosie Duffield would go to the LDs if anywhere (but she won’t move). She’s a committed pro-European.
  • TazTaz Posts: 10,703

    moonshine said:

    ydoethur said:

    Incidentally I find this talk about three Labour defectors pretty implausible. When was the last time more than one MP simultaneously defected directly to an established party, rather than to found a new one?

    Presumably it’s three red wallers that clung on last time thanks to Faridge. And who have looked at Hartlepool and the continued state of the polls, and realised that their best chance of troughing beyond the next election is by changing their political stripes.

    No doubt HYFUD with his encyclopaedic brain for the constituency data could have a stab at guessing who meets that description.
    Yes. They must be in leave seats, with a majority smaller than the BXP vote who have neighbouring Tory MPs. I would also expect them not to be the most vocal in terms of policy or ideology - it won't be big names.

    If the story is true I assume the rationale is "if you can't beat them, join them". Because it cannot be on ideology grounds because Starmer is a Tory. So thats all the hard left frothballs out. Surely...

    I cannot believe for a single minute this is anything other than mischief making,
  • FF43FF43 Posts: 15,545
    edited October 2021
    rcs1000 said:

    If Brexit was the number one or number two concern of British voters, this would be an important finding.

    But it's not.

    This may change, but right now, British voters aren't that "bovvered".

    I don't think the voting intention figures bear this out. If you voted Leave you will vote Conservative maybe Farrage; if you voted Remain you will vote Labour, Lib Dem, Green or SNP. To a high correlation.

    Slight correction to this. There has been a small shift <10% from Leave to Remain and vice versa. The biggest correlation is with what people think about Brexit now. Which just emphasises my point. People's voting intentions are driven by their views on Brexit.
  • TimSTimS Posts: 9,160

    FF43 said:

    The political takeaway from those figures is that people are still voting on Brexit ideology. Labour will struggle to win over Leavers.

    Also, no votes - yet - for damage limitation.

    They may be, but I don't think the figures show that. It's certainly true that more Conservatives think it's going quite well, but that can easily be partly party loyalty - my guys did Brexit, they're in power, it must be OK - but it doesn't show that their view of Brexit is what's driving their VI. Lots of people agree with individual policies of other parties without changing voting - I approve of most of what the Defra team are doing in Government, doesn't make me vote Conservative. Also, I'm not clear whether YouGov asked for current VI or how people voted in 2019?
    The conundrum for the opposition here is that in order to win an election they need a coalition of Brexit supporters and remainers. Whereas the conservatives need only appeal to the former, because of our electoral system which has multiple parties lined up on one side vs another with a virtual monopoly on one side of the argument.

    It’s Labour’s misfortune to have found itself in two of these situations, on Brexit and in Scotland. Until that changes, or the electoral system changes, the maths remains incredibly challenging.
  • Trevor Phillips on Sunday

    Andy Burnham endorses Michael Gove as levelling up minister
  • geoffwgeoffw Posts: 8,092
    TimS said:

    FF43 said:

    The political takeaway from those figures is that people are still voting on Brexit ideology. Labour will struggle to win over Leavers.

    Also, no votes - yet - for damage limitation.

    They may be, but I don't think the figures show that. It's certainly true that more Conservatives think it's going quite well, but that can easily be partly party loyalty - my guys did Brexit, they're in power, it must be OK - but it doesn't show that their view of Brexit is what's driving their VI. Lots of people agree with individual policies of other parties without changing voting - I approve of most of what the Defra team are doing in Government, doesn't make me vote Conservative. Also, I'm not clear whether YouGov asked for current VI or how people voted in 2019?
    The conundrum for the opposition here is that in order to win an election they need a coalition of Brexit supporters and remainers. Whereas the conservatives need only appeal to the former, because of our electoral system which has multiple parties lined up on one side vs another with a virtual monopoly on one side of the argument.

    It’s Labour’s misfortune to have found itself in two of these situations, on Brexit and in Scotland. Until that changes, or the electoral system changes, the maths remains incredibly challenging.
    Mirrors the situation in Scotland.

  • FarooqFarooq Posts: 10,775
    Brexit is going better than I expected.
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758
    Do you think it is meaningful to take a poll when there are high profile shortages (to which Brexit may have been a contributory factor but may not have been)? Especially where some Remoaners/FBPE types have blamed Brexit solely for it.

    I think that this poll’s predictive power and value is marginal
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758
    Toms said:

    A scattershot silly cartoon just occurred to me:

    It shows a lone figure in a deep hole he has dug himself into with his bulldog. A spade leans against the wall. His dog wears a cover with "1966" on it. His shirt says something silly like "Saxe Coburg". Faces peer down from above. He adopts a defiant stance and, brandishing his fist, saying "Very well, alone."

    Apologies for my ranging imagination.

    Put some knuckledusters and an ugly expression of his face and Ball may pick it up for the guardian
  • FF43FF43 Posts: 15,545
    edited October 2021

    FF43 said:

    The political takeaway from those figures is that people are still voting on Brexit ideology. Labour will struggle to win over Leavers.

    Also, no votes - yet - for damage limitation.

    They may be, but I don't think the figures show that. It's certainly true that more Conservatives think it's going quite well, but that can easily be partly party loyalty - my guys did Brexit, they're in power, it must be OK - but it doesn't show that their view of Brexit is what's driving their VI. Lots of people agree with individual policies of other parties without changing voting - I approve of most of what the Defra team are doing in Government, doesn't make me vote Conservative. Also, I'm not clear whether YouGov asked for current VI or how people voted in 2019?
    The specific figures I was interested in was that almost no-one who supports Labour thinks Brexit is going anything other than badly. The same level of dissatisfaction as Lib Dem voters in fact. I agree these figures don't show that Brexit is driving voting intentions, others do, but they do suggest Labour will struggle to win over Leavers on their Brexit policy.

    Sorry I wasn't clear in my earlier comment.
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758
    IanB2 said:

    You don’t need to be an economics expert to understand that sending so many key workers home isn’t working out very well for us, with the consequences magnified by the coincidence of the pandemic.

    On top of which pet owners who travel have certainly had a rude awakening as to the consequences of Brexit, as I know from another forum, and there have been extra costs and hassle for overseas second home owners, people who make extended visits to family, and people who take their cars abroad, on top of which the promise that high roaming charges wouldn’t return is proving bogus. Anyone who made it abroad this year knows there aren’t shortages in Europe.

    The collapse in trade, focussed in sectors like food, will have affected businesses, livelihoods and jobs, and the wider problems for Northern Ireland are well known. And the fishermen certainly aren’t happy.

    Then you add in the consequences of the step change decline in our currency, with a consequential burst of inflation, which every traveller will have noticed. The story in the news about the Americans snapping up Morrison’s while the £ is cheap is yet another consequence. And the shops and restaurants with reduced opening hours due to lack of staff.

    With stories in the news about threats to our Christmas toys and turkeys, we may still be at the beginning of a gathering storm.



    The pound has gone up over the last 5 years…
  • Heathener said:

    On topic, Starmer started to lay out the strategy last week - "Make Brexit Work". Even the bit that so many voted for - control over immigration - isn't working because we're not trying to bring in the people that we need.

    Rejoin is dead and buried. But reorganising our post-Brexit lives so things are less hellish will increasingly become a fashionable debate. We are currently aligned with both the single market and customs union. We are not planning to become dramatically unaligned anytime soon. We remain the lead engine being pushed along the same track by the EU train, with just stubborn pretence that we are not.

    With trade an increasing disaster and unfixable supply problems, reinstating the pointlessly deleted trade and standards links will be increasingly seen as the simple fix. Not because the EU are forcing us to, but because Sovereign Britain is choosing to.

    "Did you know that the stupid Europeans have Our Standards? We're going to permit them to continue using them, and that means we can now drop much of the trade barriers they threw up." etc

    I doubt that Rejoin is dead, for much the same reason that Leave didn't die in 1975, and won in 2016. Basically, if you are under about 50, it's the world that you grew up in (French exchange trips and all that) that's been taken from you and you will always want them back. In the same way that Leavers largely wanted the world of the 50's and 60's back. Remember the age profile on the Leave-Remain identities. However...

    Those who voted Leave will, in the main, never want to change their mind on it either. Partly because few people do (see para 1) and partly because it's the only great service to history that most have them have managed.

    Hence the stuckness. It will last about 20 years, I reckon. But it will stop helping the Conservatives well before that.

    "Making it work" is, in many ways, a smart slogan. The tricky bit will be putting enough flesh on it to reassure "our Brexit is in peril" types and "making it work = dilution" types.
    Good post and a good thread from TSE.

    It's a real conundrum this. It's fairly clear to all but the political diehards that Brexit isn't working but that doesn't mean the corollary of seeking to rejoin will work on many levels either.

    Right now the country is up the proverbial without a paddle.
    Yup. And the final pile of proverbial is that the rational next step (reduce the border friction by ongoing alignment, then await further developments) will please a fairly small minority and isn't that sustainable.

    Politically, it's a tough sell.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392
    ydoethur said:

    Incidentally I find this talk about three Labour defectors pretty implausible. When was the last time more than one MP simultaneously defected directly to an established party, rather than to found a new one?

    Involving the big two? Never.

    Three Lab to Con switchers total and none since 1977. Four Lab to Con switchers total, the first in 1995.

    It's not merely implausible its comically unlikely. And even the report is seriously weak.

    Fun to speculate though, and our minds will be blown if it happened.
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758

    On topic, Starmer started to lay out the strategy last week - "Make Brexit Work". Even the bit that so many voted for - control over immigration - isn't working because we're not trying to bring in the people that we need.

    Rejoin is dead and buried. But reorganising our post-Brexit lives so things are less hellish will increasingly become a fashionable debate. We are currently aligned with both the single market and customs union. We are not planning to become dramatically unaligned anytime soon. We remain the lead engine being pushed along the same track by the EU train, with just stubborn pretence that we are not.

    With trade an increasing disaster and unfixable supply problems, reinstating the pointlessly deleted trade and standards links will be increasingly seen as the simple fix. Not because the EU are forcing us to, but because Sovereign Britain is choosing to.

    "Did you know that the stupid Europeans have Our Standards? We're going to permit them to continue using them, and that means we can now drop much of the trade barriers they threw up." etc

    It’s funny how lots of other countries make global trade work for them without accepting unlimited immigration.

    How come we’re too stupid to do the same?
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392
    TimS said:

    FF43 said:

    The political takeaway from those figures is that people are still voting on Brexit ideology. Labour will struggle to win over Leavers.

    Also, no votes - yet - for damage limitation.

    They may be, but I don't think the figures show that. It's certainly true that more Conservatives think it's going quite well, but that can easily be partly party loyalty - my guys did Brexit, they're in power, it must be OK - but it doesn't show that their view of Brexit is what's driving their VI. Lots of people agree with individual policies of other parties without changing voting - I approve of most of what the Defra team are doing in Government, doesn't make me vote Conservative. Also, I'm not clear whether YouGov asked for current VI or how people voted in 2019?
    The conundrum for the opposition here is that in order to win an election they need a coalition of Brexit supporters and remainers. Whereas the conservatives need only appeal to the former, because of our electoral system which has multiple parties lined up on one side vs another with a virtual monopoly on one side of the argument.

    It’s Labour’s misfortune to have found itself in two of these situations, on Brexit and in Scotland. Until that changes, or the electoral system changes, the maths remains incredibly challenging.
    The Tories did not start with a monopoly on one side though, indeed they were hut by divisions on it for ages, so it's not fortune or misfortune.
  • FarooqFarooq Posts: 10,775
    edited October 2021
    Charles said:

    IanB2 said:

    You don’t need to be an economics expert to understand that sending so many key workers home isn’t working out very well for us, with the consequences magnified by the coincidence of the pandemic.

    On top of which pet owners who travel have certainly had a rude awakening as to the consequences of Brexit, as I know from another forum, and there have been extra costs and hassle for overseas second home owners, people who make extended visits to family, and people who take their cars abroad, on top of which the promise that high roaming charges wouldn’t return is proving bogus. Anyone who made it abroad this year knows there aren’t shortages in Europe.

    The collapse in trade, focussed in sectors like food, will have affected businesses, livelihoods and jobs, and the wider problems for Northern Ireland are well known. And the fishermen certainly aren’t happy.

    Then you add in the consequences of the step change decline in our currency, with a consequential burst of inflation, which every traveller will have noticed. The story in the news about the Americans snapping up Morrison’s while the £ is cheap is yet another consequence. And the shops and restaurants with reduced opening hours due to lack of staff.

    With stories in the news about threats to our Christmas toys and turkeys, we may still be at the beginning of a gathering storm.



    The pound has gone up over the last 5 years…
    Technically true, but 5 years ago was post-referendum. If you roll it back to just before the referendum, the pound has been constantly lower since.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392

    Trevor Phillips on Sunday

    Andy Burnham endorses Michael Gove as levelling up minister

    Several Labour people have said he gets things done and is not a placeholder minister, which reflects many on here - people may dislike him or what he comes up with, but at least he does come up with something.
  • Farooq said:

    Brexit is going better than I expected.

    Me too.

    I expected much more disruption than we've had so far.
  • kle4 said:

    Trevor Phillips on Sunday

    Andy Burnham endorses Michael Gove as levelling up minister

    Several Labour people have said he gets things done and is not a placeholder minister, which reflects many on here - people may dislike him or what he comes up with, but at least he does come up with something.
    He came over well
  • JohnLilburneJohnLilburne Posts: 5,997
    On Brexit silliness: I think I have worked out that I can't bring ham, cheese and chorizo back from my holiday because I am flying home from Gib, not Spain, and it's not in the EU. Which is slightly annoying, and mystifying as it's a British territory. Having said that, I am not sure I could have done before Brexit as I don't think it was in the Customs Union. What is the point of it being a tax free territory if you can't go shopping there?
  • Northern_AlNorthern_Al Posts: 7,459
    On defections, if Rosie Duffield were to leave the Labour Party (highly unlikely), it certainly wouldn't be to join the Conservative Party.

    If there's any substance to the story (which I doubt), we should be looking for this parliament's version of figures like John Mann and John Woodcock (aka spouse of Isabel Hardman of the Spectator). Right-wing Labour, pro-Brexit, anti-woke is the only risk of defections that I can see. I can't think of any.
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 47,787
    Pfizer will do fill and finish in the UK:

    https://twitter.com/borisjohnson/status/1444574943094661123

    Thanks to the vaccine roll out, we’re the most open economy in Europe, and set to have the fastest growth in the G7.

    I’m thrilled that Pfizer will manufacture vaccines in the UK, bringing hundreds of jobs and helping to deliver vaccines to millions of people around the world.
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758
    Taz said:

    moonshine said:

    ydoethur said:

    Incidentally I find this talk about three Labour defectors pretty implausible. When was the last time more than one MP simultaneously defected directly to an established party, rather than to found a new one?

    Presumably it’s three red wallers that clung on last time thanks to Faridge. And who have looked at Hartlepool and the continued state of the polls, and realised that their best chance of troughing beyond the next election is by changing their political stripes.

    No doubt HYFUD with his encyclopaedic brain for the constituency data could have a stab at guessing who meets that description.
    Yes. They must be in leave seats, with a majority smaller than the BXP vote who have neighbouring Tory MPs. I would also expect them not to be the most vocal in terms of policy or ideology - it won't be big names.

    If the story is true I assume the rationale is "if you can't beat them, join them". Because it cannot be on ideology grounds because Starmer is a Tory. So thats all the hard left frothballs out. Surely...

    I cannot believe for a single minute this is anything other than mischief making,
    May be it’s a Labour story to disrupt the Tory Conference by hyping expectations?

    They’ve already tried it with SKS demanding a recall of parliament during the conference
  • Daveyboy1961Daveyboy1961 Posts: 3,336
    OT

    Just heard Andrew Bowie on R5 being "interviewed". He seems to have learned his non-answering technique from the clown. It was like trying to nail down a jelly.
  • Daveyboy1961Daveyboy1961 Posts: 3,336

    Farooq said:

    Brexit is going better than I expected.

    Me too.

    I expected much more disruption than we've had so far.
    So you voted for disruption?, without warning the people at the time?
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758
    Farooq said:

    Charles said:

    IanB2 said:

    You don’t need to be an economics expert to understand that sending so many key workers home isn’t working out very well for us, with the consequences magnified by the coincidence of the pandemic.

    On top of which pet owners who travel have certainly had a rude awakening as to the consequences of Brexit, as I know from another forum, and there have been extra costs and hassle for overseas second home owners, people who make extended visits to family, and people who take their cars abroad, on top of which the promise that high roaming charges wouldn’t return is proving bogus. Anyone who made it abroad this year knows there aren’t shortages in Europe.

    The collapse in trade, focussed in sectors like food, will have affected businesses, livelihoods and jobs, and the wider problems for Northern Ireland are well known. And the fishermen certainly aren’t happy.

    Then you add in the consequences of the step change decline in our currency, with a consequential burst of inflation, which every traveller will have noticed. The story in the news about the Americans snapping up Morrison’s while the £ is cheap is yet another consequence. And the shops and restaurants with reduced opening hours due to lack of staff.

    With stories in the news about threats to our Christmas toys and turkeys, we may still be at the beginning of a gathering storm.



    The pound has gone up over the last 5 years…
    Technically true, but 5 years ago was post-referendum. If you roll it back to just before the referendum, the pound has been constantly lower since.
    Sure but that’s already priced it so it was just one item from @IanB2’s monastic litany of doom that can be crossed off
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758

    On Brexit silliness: I think I have worked out that I can't bring ham, cheese and chorizo back from my holiday because I am flying home from Gib, not Spain, and it's not in the EU. Which is slightly annoying, and mystifying as it's a British territory. Having said that, I am not sure I could have done before Brexit as I don't think it was in the Customs Union. What is the point of it being a tax free territory if you can't go shopping there?

    Stick it in your suitcase. No one will notice.
  • Farooq said:

    Brexit is going better than I expected.

    Me too.

    I expected much more disruption than we've had so far.
    So you voted for disruption?, without warning the people at the time?
    Yes I voted for disruption, change always takes disruption.

    I said at the time I expected disruption. I was a Remainer on this site until a few weeks before the Referendum where I became convinced that Brexit was the right thing to do despite the expected disruption.

    Claiming that Brexit is the wrong thing to do because it has some disruption is like claiming getting fit is the wrong thing to do because exercise is tough.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    kle4 said:

    Trevor Phillips on Sunday

    Andy Burnham endorses Michael Gove as levelling up minister

    Several Labour people have said he gets things done and is not a placeholder minister, which reflects many on here - people may dislike him or what he comes up with, but at least he does come up with something.
    Yep, the appointment of Gove to that ministry means that it’s going to be a priority, and will see serious policy movement.

    Burnham is being sensible in wanting to engage, it’s in his interest to make sure that the projects aren’t concentrated in the Red Wall seats and the remaining few Lab-held marginals.
  • paulyork64paulyork64 Posts: 2,461
    DavidL said:

    What we are getting at the moment is incessant media coverage of every small and not so small issue that arises blaming these bumps in the road on Brexit. The fact that other countries are also suffering dislocations and disruptions as a result of the chaos called by Covid is ignored: it must be the fault of Brexit.

    In many, probably most, cases this is just nonsense. So, for example, we have the problem of high gas prices. This is an international phenomenon which the UK is more than usually vulnerable to because successive governments failed to create enough storage. Do I claim that this was a misplaced reliance on the SM? Of course not, it was pure incompetence.

    In other cases Brexit plays a small part. So we are by far from being alone in finding we do not have enough HGV drivers as deliveries and economic activity pick up again but the assumption that we could just import all the cheap labour we needed is no longer valid and so there is an extra piquancy to our problems as a result of the fact we are weaning ourselves off cheap labour.

    In respect of food there is almost nothing to this at all because we have chosen not to impose the conditions on our imports that the EU is imposing on our exports, at least not yet. But every day we see stories about some supermarket somewhere being short of this or that.

    The reality, as I have expressed before is that trying to measure the pluses and minuses of Brexit (and I accept there are both) at this stage is like trying to measure the ripples caused by a stone thrown into a raging tempest. The world economy and ours have gone through something truly incredible as a result of the pandemic. The consequences are dozens, probably hundreds, of times more significant than Brexit effects. We are deluding ourselves and failing to address the very real problems if we pretend otherwise.

    So how will we be able to judge Brexit? I think it will take 10-20 years to determine whether cutting our own path has made a difference. If we do wean ourselves off imported labour and work hard as a nation to boost our productivity as a result it will have been a success. If we significantly reduce our horrendous trade deficit either by import substitution or exports to new markets it will have been a success. If we fail to do these things and continue with the disastrous policies of excess consumption, excess borrowing and poor training it will have failed. We will know in 20 years but a lot depends upon the quality of governments elected in the meantime.

    Not arguing with your last paragraph but stopping excess consumption, excess borrowing and poor training would need fixing even if were still in the EU.
  • DavidL said:

    What we are getting at the moment is incessant media coverage of every small and not so small issue that arises blaming these bumps in the road on Brexit. The fact that other countries are also suffering dislocations and disruptions as a result of the chaos called by Covid is ignored: it must be the fault of Brexit.

    In many, probably most, cases this is just nonsense. So, for example, we have the problem of high gas prices. This is an international phenomenon which the UK is more than usually vulnerable to because successive governments failed to create enough storage. Do I claim that this was a misplaced reliance on the SM? Of course not, it was pure incompetence.

    In other cases Brexit plays a small part. So we are by far from being alone in finding we do not have enough HGV drivers as deliveries and economic activity pick up again but the assumption that we could just import all the cheap labour we needed is no longer valid and so there is an extra piquancy to our problems as a result of the fact we are weaning ourselves off cheap labour.

    In respect of food there is almost nothing to this at all because we have chosen not to impose the conditions on our imports that the EU is imposing on our exports, at least not yet. But every day we see stories about some supermarket somewhere being short of this or that.

    The reality, as I have expressed before is that trying to measure the pluses and minuses of Brexit (and I accept there are both) at this stage is like trying to measure the ripples caused by a stone thrown into a raging tempest. The world economy and ours have gone through something truly incredible as a result of the pandemic. The consequences are dozens, probably hundreds, of times more significant than Brexit effects. We are deluding ourselves and failing to address the very real problems if we pretend otherwise.

    So how will we be able to judge Brexit? I think it will take 10-20 years to determine whether cutting our own path has made a difference. If we do wean ourselves off imported labour and work hard as a nation to boost our productivity as a result it will have been a success. If we significantly reduce our horrendous trade deficit either by import substitution or exports to new markets it will have been a success. If we fail to do these things and continue with the disastrous policies of excess consumption, excess borrowing and poor training it will have failed. We will know in 20 years but a lot depends upon the quality of governments elected in the meantime.

    Not arguing with your last paragraph but stopping excess consumption, excess borrowing and poor training would need fixing even if were still in the EU.
    Yes but there was little plausible way of doing so when the country was addicted to cheap labour instead of investment.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 49,958

    On topic, Starmer started to lay out the strategy last week - "Make Brexit Work". Even the bit that so many voted for - control over immigration - isn't working because we're not trying to bring in the people that we need.

    Rejoin is dead and buried. But reorganising our post-Brexit lives so things are less hellish will increasingly become a fashionable debate. We are currently aligned with both the single market and customs union. We are not planning to become dramatically unaligned anytime soon. We remain the lead engine being pushed along the same track by the EU train, with just stubborn pretence that we are not.

    With trade an increasing disaster and unfixable supply problems, reinstating the pointlessly deleted trade and standards links will be increasingly seen as the simple fix. Not because the EU are forcing us to, but because Sovereign Britain is choosing to.

    "Did you know that the stupid Europeans have Our Standards? We're going to permit them to continue using them, and that means we can now drop much of the trade barriers they threw up." etc

    I doubt that Rejoin is dead, for much the same reason that Leave didn't die in 1975, and won in 2016. Basically, if you are under about 50, it's the world that you grew up in (French exchange trips and all that) that's been taken from you and you will always want them back. In the same way that Leavers largely wanted the world of the 50's and 60's back. Remember the age profile on the Leave-Remain identities. However...

    Those who voted Leave will, in the main, never want to change their mind on it either. Partly because few people do (see para 1) and partly because it's the only great service to history that most have them have managed.

    Hence the stuckness. It will last about 20 years, I reckon. But it will stop helping the Conservatives well before that.

    "Making it work" is, in many ways, a smart slogan. The tricky bit will be putting enough flesh on it to reassure "our Brexit is in peril" types and "making it work = dilution" types.
    I would support rejoin if polling was 60% in favour for a sustained period of 3-5 years, but not otherwise. An in-out hokey-cokey or endless obsession and further division is far worse than staying out.

    Make Brexit work is the right tactic for all opposition parties with the exception of the SNP who have a realistic path to independence and membership.
    If we were ever to go back in, there'd be no hokey-cokey. It would be a condition of rejoining that Article 50 was a one-time event - and we had already used it. No escape ever again, regardless of the direction the EU took. "For you, Tommy, the Brexit war is over...."

    Which would kill any chance of your 60%.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392
    edited October 2021
    Charles said:

    Taz said:

    moonshine said:

    ydoethur said:

    Incidentally I find this talk about three Labour defectors pretty implausible. When was the last time more than one MP simultaneously defected directly to an established party, rather than to found a new one?

    Presumably it’s three red wallers that clung on last time thanks to Faridge. And who have looked at Hartlepool and the continued state of the polls, and realised that their best chance of troughing beyond the next election is by changing their political stripes.

    No doubt HYFUD with his encyclopaedic brain for the constituency data could have a stab at guessing who meets that description.
    Yes. They must be in leave seats, with a majority smaller than the BXP vote who have neighbouring Tory MPs. I would also expect them not to be the most vocal in terms of policy or ideology - it won't be big names.

    If the story is true I assume the rationale is "if you can't beat them, join them". Because it cannot be on ideology grounds because Starmer is a Tory. So thats all the hard left frothballs out. Surely...

    I cannot believe for a single minute this is anything other than mischief making,
    May be it’s a Labour story to disrupt the Tory Conference by hyping expectations?

    They’ve already tried it with SKS demanding a recall of parliament during the conference
    I think the key in the story is talk of frustration at Keir not doing better in the polls against Boris, which as has been pointed out makes joining Boris an odd response.

    So if it had any purpose besides mischief, I'd say it was to say to Keir 'nice conference, but you do need to start making inroads, or you lose more than the left'.

    Feels like a Cummings style wheeze though.
  • On topic, Starmer started to lay out the strategy last week - "Make Brexit Work". Even the bit that so many voted for - control over immigration - isn't working because we're not trying to bring in the people that we need.

    Rejoin is dead and buried. But reorganising our post-Brexit lives so things are less hellish will increasingly become a fashionable debate. We are currently aligned with both the single market and customs union. We are not planning to become dramatically unaligned anytime soon. We remain the lead engine being pushed along the same track by the EU train, with just stubborn pretence that we are not.

    With trade an increasing disaster and unfixable supply problems, reinstating the pointlessly deleted trade and standards links will be increasingly seen as the simple fix. Not because the EU are forcing us to, but because Sovereign Britain is choosing to.

    "Did you know that the stupid Europeans have Our Standards? We're going to permit them to continue using them, and that means we can now drop much of the trade barriers they threw up." etc

    I doubt that Rejoin is dead, for much the same reason that Leave didn't die in 1975, and won in 2016. Basically, if you are under about 50, it's the world that you grew up in (French exchange trips and all that) that's been taken from you and you will always want them back. In the same way that Leavers largely wanted the world of the 50's and 60's back. Remember the age profile on the Leave-Remain identities. However...

    Those who voted Leave will, in the main, never want to change their mind on it either. Partly because few people do (see para 1) and partly because it's the only great service to history that most have them have managed.

    Hence the stuckness. It will last about 20 years, I reckon. But it will stop helping the Conservatives well before that.

    "Making it work" is, in many ways, a smart slogan. The tricky bit will be putting enough flesh on it to reassure "our Brexit is in peril" types and "making it work = dilution" types.
    I would support rejoin if polling was 60% in favour for a sustained period of 3-5 years, but not otherwise. An in-out hokey-cokey or endless obsession and further division is far worse than staying out.

    Make Brexit work is the right tactic for all opposition parties with the exception of the SNP who have a realistic path to independence and membership.
    If we were ever to go back in, there'd be no hokey-cokey. It would be a condition of rejoining that Article 50 was a one-time event - and we had already used it. No escape ever again, regardless of the direction the EU took. "For you, Tommy, the Brexit war is over...."

    Which would kill any chance of your 60%.
    Not officially, officially there'd be no reason to take Article 50 off the table.

    But they can do that unofficially by making Euro membership a precondition of accession and a test of our seriousness.
  • Northern_AlNorthern_Al Posts: 7,459
    MaxPB said:

    The issue with all of the anti-Brexiy crowd going in so hard at the moment is that it lowers expectations and when, on Christmas Day, we're all eating our turkeys that magically got delivered that we were all assured would be unavailable everyone will wonder what the fuss was about.

    In a year from now when the new rush of HGV drivers have made it through the system all of the visible issues with Brexit go away and the working poor will have had 8-12% wage increases due to the labour shortage.

    As an anti-Brexit person, I sort of agree with that. 'Project Fear' over Christmas could certainly backfire if Christmas is just normal, as it may well be. Similarly over general food and other supply shortages - who knows? Although I think Brexit was a jolly bad idea, we're stuck with it and need to let events unfold one way or another. Which is why I thought Starmer's "Make Brexit Work" was a pretty sensible soundbite.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392
    edited October 2021

    On topic, Starmer started to lay out the strategy last week - "Make Brexit Work". Even the bit that so many voted for - control over immigration - isn't working because we're not trying to bring in the people that we need.

    Rejoin is dead and buried. But reorganising our post-Brexit lives so things are less hellish will increasingly become a fashionable debate. We are currently aligned with both the single market and customs union. We are not planning to become dramatically unaligned anytime soon. We remain the lead engine being pushed along the same track by the EU train, with just stubborn pretence that we are not.

    With trade an increasing disaster and unfixable supply problems, reinstating the pointlessly deleted trade and standards links will be increasingly seen as the simple fix. Not because the EU are forcing us to, but because Sovereign Britain is choosing to.

    "Did you know that the stupid Europeans have Our Standards? We're going to permit them to continue using them, and that means we can now drop much of the trade barriers they threw up." etc

    I doubt that Rejoin is dead, for much the same reason that Leave didn't die in 1975, and won in 2016. Basically, if you are under about 50, it's the world that you grew up in (French exchange trips and all that) that's been taken from you and you will always want them back. In the same way that Leavers largely wanted the world of the 50's and 60's back. Remember the age profile on the Leave-Remain identities. However...

    Those who voted Leave will, in the main, never want to change their mind on it either. Partly because few people do (see para 1) and partly because it's the only great service to history that most have them have managed.

    Hence the stuckness. It will last about 20 years, I reckon. But it will stop helping the Conservatives well before that.

    "Making it work" is, in many ways, a smart slogan. The tricky bit will be putting enough flesh on it to reassure "our Brexit is in peril" types and "making it work = dilution" types.
    I would support rejoin if polling was 60% in favour for a sustained period of 3-5 years, but not otherwise. An in-out hokey-cokey or endless obsession and further division is far worse than staying out.

    Make Brexit work is the right tactic for all opposition parties with the exception of the SNP who have a realistic path to independence and membership.
    If we were ever to go back in, there'd be no hokey-cokey. It would be a condition of rejoining that Article 50 was a one-time event - and we had already used it. No escape ever again, regardless of the direction the EU took. "For you, Tommy, the Brexit war is over...."

    Which would kill any chance of your 60%.
    Not officially, officially there'd be no reason to take Article 50 off the table.

    But they can do that unofficially by making Euro membership a precondition of accession and a test of our seriousness.
    If we go back in it has to be all the way in, that's not unreasonable I think, but it would make selling it harder.
  • Northern_AlNorthern_Al Posts: 7,459
    Charles said:

    On Brexit silliness: I think I have worked out that I can't bring ham, cheese and chorizo back from my holiday because I am flying home from Gib, not Spain, and it's not in the EU. Which is slightly annoying, and mystifying as it's a British territory. Having said that, I am not sure I could have done before Brexit as I don't think it was in the Customs Union. What is the point of it being a tax free territory if you can't go shopping there?

    Stick it in your suitcase. No one will notice.
    Are you sure? Won't ham, cheese and chorizo be potentially a bit pungent, even if in a suitcase?
  • Daveyboy1961Daveyboy1961 Posts: 3,336

    ClippP said:

    Can we just accept that the next 100 threads would have been about something negative about the Govt and move on to something a bit more main stream.

    There have been no threads on the ghastly Rayner and that she and Starmer can't stand each other or that the Labour Party is completely split and with noone you would be comfortable with being a minister. Or that the Party is skint and has trouble paying its bills...

    The last Labour thread I recall was about how great Reeves was.. if she is the beacon of light, God help us.

    The Conservative Party conference starts today so expect more threads reacting to whatever news is made there.
    The country needs to wake up to the ever-growing dictatorship that this gang of crooks, cheats and incompetents are developing for us.
    You are sounding hysterical. Not much than 6 years ago, your own gang of crooks, cheats and incompetents was in Coalition Government with this same Conservative Party. That your lot made it a condition to block off any discussion of our EU membership - despite having been pledged to a referendum on the very subject - in the end gave us Brexit.

    And "dictatorship"? Has anybody - and I mean ANYBODY - said we won't have an opportunity within 3 years or so to throw the Government out in a general election if they lose the support of the country? Hyperbolic toss. We are not America.

    If you are so worried, get going on an alternative set of proposals that a disillusioned country might actually row behind.
    Have you heard of the term "elective dictatorship"? For 5 years they can do anything, including lie, cheat, con, defraud, then achieve 40% of the vote in a FPTP system, which then gives them another 5 years.

    Democracy eh?
  • FarooqFarooq Posts: 10,775
    Charles said:

    Farooq said:

    Charles said:

    IanB2 said:

    You don’t need to be an economics expert to understand that sending so many key workers home isn’t working out very well for us, with the consequences magnified by the coincidence of the pandemic.

    On top of which pet owners who travel have certainly had a rude awakening as to the consequences of Brexit, as I know from another forum, and there have been extra costs and hassle for overseas second home owners, people who make extended visits to family, and people who take their cars abroad, on top of which the promise that high roaming charges wouldn’t return is proving bogus. Anyone who made it abroad this year knows there aren’t shortages in Europe.

    The collapse in trade, focussed in sectors like food, will have affected businesses, livelihoods and jobs, and the wider problems for Northern Ireland are well known. And the fishermen certainly aren’t happy.

    Then you add in the consequences of the step change decline in our currency, with a consequential burst of inflation, which every traveller will have noticed. The story in the news about the Americans snapping up Morrison’s while the £ is cheap is yet another consequence. And the shops and restaurants with reduced opening hours due to lack of staff.

    With stories in the news about threats to our Christmas toys and turkeys, we may still be at the beginning of a gathering storm.



    The pound has gone up over the last 5 years…
    Technically true, but 5 years ago was post-referendum. If you roll it back to just before the referendum, the pound has been constantly lower since.
    Sure but that’s already priced it so it was just one item from @IanB2’s monastic litany of doom that can be crossed off
    Hmm. I wouldn't be doomy about it, but it seems to me the pound is cheaper since the referendum results were announced. Of course lots of things influence the price and it's impossible to rerun the last 5+ years to know what would have happened differently, but the most reasonable position is that Brexit has cheapened the pound somewhat.

    This is part of the reason i say Brexit is going better than I expected. The economic consequences are mildly negative, not seriously negative. There will be (some) turkeys this Christmas, there will be fuel in all the pumps at some point this month, and the market will eventually balance out the distribution bottlenecks. But that's the market doing its job, bending under the strain of Brexit but not breaking.

    It's the political consequences of Brexit that have been terrible. The normalisation of extreme attitudes, and the grim bitterness that infect politics were entirely avoidable. Several people on here can be seen denying reality because it offends their ideology. It would be better if that stopped. And yes, both sides.
  • ClippP said:

    Can we just accept that the next 100 threads would have been about something negative about the Govt and move on to something a bit more main stream.

    There have been no threads on the ghastly Rayner and that she and Starmer can't stand each other or that the Labour Party is completely split and with noone you would be comfortable with being a minister. Or that the Party is skint and has trouble paying its bills...

    The last Labour thread I recall was about how great Reeves was.. if she is the beacon of light, God help us.

    The Conservative Party conference starts today so expect more threads reacting to whatever news is made there.
    The country needs to wake up to the ever-growing dictatorship that this gang of crooks, cheats and incompetents are developing for us.
    You are sounding hysterical. Not much than 6 years ago, your own gang of crooks, cheats and incompetents was in Coalition Government with this same Conservative Party. That your lot made it a condition to block off any discussion of our EU membership - despite having been pledged to a referendum on the very subject - in the end gave us Brexit.

    And "dictatorship"? Has anybody - and I mean ANYBODY - said we won't have an opportunity within 3 years or so to throw the Government out in a general election if they lose the support of the country? Hyperbolic toss. We are not America.

    If you are so worried, get going on an alternative set of proposals that a disillusioned country might actually row behind.
    Have you heard of the term "elective dictatorship"? For 5 years they can do anything, including lie, cheat, con, defraud, then achieve 40% of the vote in a FPTP system, which then gives them another 5 years.

    Democracy eh?
    Yes democracy. The people choose who to elect and then they act, then the people vote again. Democracy.

    Much better than PR like in Germany where the people vote, then the politicians haggle to determine what they said.
  • MaxPB said:

    The issue with all of the anti-Brexiy crowd going in so hard at the moment is that it lowers expectations and when, on Christmas Day, we're all eating our turkeys that magically got delivered that we were all assured would be unavailable everyone will wonder what the fuss was about.

    In a year from now when the new rush of HGV drivers have made it through the system all of the visible issues with Brexit go away and the working poor will have had 8-12% wage increases due to the labour shortage.

    As an anti-Brexit person, I sort of agree with that. 'Project Fear' over Christmas could certainly backfire if Christmas is just normal, as it may well be. Similarly over general food and other supply shortages - who knows? Although I think Brexit was a jolly bad idea, we're stuck with it and need to let events unfold one way or another. Which is why I thought Starmer's "Make Brexit Work" was a pretty sensible soundbite.
    The strange thing in all of this is that those so obsessed with being in the EU have not come out honestly and stated publicly they will rejoin the organisation

    Instead we have shouting from the sidelines how terrible Brexit is but almost a fear to say that which they want most
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392
    So the average Briton is a fat lazy slob who voted leave but thinks it's going badly.

    It's not how I imagined embodying the nation but I'll take it.
  • Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 12,880
    Charles said:


    How come we’re too stupid to do the same?

    Mainly inbreeding among the upper classes.
  • CyclefreeCyclefree Posts: 25,074
    edited October 2021
    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/so-there-it-is-predators-like-couzens-arent-the-polices-problem-theyre-womens-problem-8qbs0f587

    Also, if the reports in the ST are true it appears that the amount of vetting done on Couzens was pretty much nil and that MPs are now worried because he was given access to the Commons and might have put them at risk. I love how they seem to be more worried about a hypothetical risk to them than the actual risk he was to women.

    Anyway, Ms Patel - there is a glowing article about her in the magazine - won't do anything so that's that. Will the anger and frustration that many women feel simply dissipate or will it affect voting intentions and, if so, how? No idea.
  • paulyork64paulyork64 Posts: 2,461

    Charles said:

    On Brexit silliness: I think I have worked out that I can't bring ham, cheese and chorizo back from my holiday because I am flying home from Gib, not Spain, and it's not in the EU. Which is slightly annoying, and mystifying as it's a British territory. Having said that, I am not sure I could have done before Brexit as I don't think it was in the Customs Union. What is the point of it being a tax free territory if you can't go shopping there?

    Stick it in your suitcase. No one will notice.
    Are you sure? Won't ham, cheese and chorizo be potentially a bit pungent, even if in a suitcase?
    Wrap it in cocaine.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392
    edited October 2021

    ClippP said:

    Can we just accept that the next 100 threads would have been about something negative about the Govt and move on to something a bit more main stream.

    There have been no threads on the ghastly Rayner and that she and Starmer can't stand each other or that the Labour Party is completely split and with noone you would be comfortable with being a minister. Or that the Party is skint and has trouble paying its bills...

    The last Labour thread I recall was about how great Reeves was.. if she is the beacon of light, God help us.

    The Conservative Party conference starts today so expect more threads reacting to whatever news is made there.
    The country needs to wake up to the ever-growing dictatorship that this gang of crooks, cheats and incompetents are developing for us.
    You are sounding hysterical. Not much than 6 years ago, your own gang of crooks, cheats and incompetents was in Coalition Government with this same Conservative Party. That your lot made it a condition to block off any discussion of our EU membership - despite having been pledged to a referendum on the very subject - in the end gave us Brexit.

    And "dictatorship"? Has anybody - and I mean ANYBODY - said we won't have an opportunity within 3 years or so to throw the Government out in a general election if they lose the support of the country? Hyperbolic toss. We are not America.

    If you are so worried, get going on an alternative set of proposals that a disillusioned country might actually row behind.
    Have you heard of the term "elective dictatorship"? For 5 years they can do anything, including lie, cheat, con, defraud, then achieve 40% of the vote in a FPTP system, which then gives them another 5 years.

    Democracy eh?
    ClippP did not use the term elective dictatorship.

    And judging by PR systems, which I back, if they got 40% of the vote theyd probably be in power anyway. The problem you identify is of so much power whilst in government and still retaining popularity even if crap, not FPTP vs PR or another voting system. Most arguments around voting systems are proxies.
This discussion has been closed.