Just possibly the departure of Boris is having an effect. He was certainly a lightning rod for anti Brexit sentiment and some of it might just have been hostility to him.
It's also just a less salient issue so the numbers mean less. It wouldn't be surprising if it swings dramatically the other way the next time there is an EU crisis in the news.
Yes. The really embittered Remoaners will either leave or die or quietly accept the situation. Young people will grow up with the UK outside the EU and consider it natural. The idea of submitting ourselves to rule from Brussels will come to seem fanciful and silly - who would do that? They are foreigners, we rule ourselves
This outcome is more likely than anything else (eg Rejoin) as it accords with human nature. In five years time it is quite possible those polls will be completely reversed
This is why I believe Remainers have a narrowing window of opportunity. If they want to make a significant shift back to the EU it has to happen in the next few years, while there is still sentiment on their side. PM Starmer will come under intense pressure to do this
You always talk about remoaners. But at which point do leavers also "leave or die or quietly accept the situation"?
Leave won, we left the EU and delivered a pretty hard Brexit. Yet to listen to the core of the leave campaign and various newspapers and a lot of voters, its as if the battle hasn't yet been fought.
Its fine to say "remainers won't accept defeat" - but neither will leavers accept victory...
OK, set aside ALL the Brexit arguments, and all the Leaver Remainer stuff
I am talking about human nature. People come to accept the status quo around them as the natural order - this can be good or bad, depending, but it is the case. Revolutions are rare of necessity (especially in the UK)
So Britain will get accustomed to being outside the EU. The irritation of having our passports stamped will ease and then disappear, we will get used to ALL our laws being made by our own democratic politicians, and the weirdness that is EU politics in Brussels (and boy is it weird) will grow evermore distant and alien
Check polls in Norway and Switzerland. No one there proposes to join the EU because the idea is deeply unpopular
The whole Brexit argument will fade like an old carpet in strong sunshine, and Rejoin will come to be seen as a quaint cause adopted by cranks
But the issue is not our membership of the EU. People in Norway don't want to join the EU because their membership of the EEA means they get all those benefits but still retain the freedoms you mention.
You really think in this connected global digital age that people here will accept being poorer, more constrained and less connected than everyone around them? Name me one of the countries you visited recently who learned to accept their own status quo having seen the differences elsewhere.
Britain was in relative decline in the single market, and Brexit was a vote against that. People didn't want to be the low-wage employer of last resort, or a captive market for EU goods.
As the Brexiteers are not inspecting incoming EU goods, we are a captive market for EU exports, while our own exports are subject to self imposed red tape. It really isn't a very good or for that matter a stable outcome.
Not bad for consumers though as we continue to benefit from excellent quality consumer goods from the EU, just a problem for exporters.
Our exports to the EU are at an all time high so not that much of a problem.
As I understand it, the record high is driven by LNG going through the UK to the continent. I’m not certain that demonstrates that all other exports are doing well.
In last night's debate both candidates gave a cautious welcome to the return of fracking, apparently. Got missed in all the furore.
Given current gas prices it would be so profitable that the frackers would be able to offer fracked areas discounts on their energy bills/council tax.
And of course the government would get its cut.
Money talks.
And if we turned Germany into our gas b*tch, that would help negotations on NI and trade, too.
Win, win, win. win.
They should be thinking about underground coal gasification. All that coal stretching out under the North Sea. Combine it with CCS and we get a low carbon source of energy (blue hydrogen) from our own hydrocarbons to compliment intermittent renewables.
The advantage of developing wholly new technologies, like renewables and storage, is that you can hope to make them cheaper than the status quo.
The problem with carbon capture and storage is that it will always be more expensive than the status quo of simply venting the carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
In order to get the deal you want, would you tear up all Truss's trade deals and give up on the CPTPP?
A good idea to tear them up anyway - as the New Zealanders were observing this week, it's mysterious why we decided to disadvantage our farmers for no benefit.
Mr. JS, I'm wondering if it's worth putting a little on Sunak.
Although all the mood music is rather grim for him.
Rishi has not had a good few days:
1. Roundly accepted to have come across poorly in the debate against Liz Truss on Monday (in the best case, narrowly squeezed out a win or a score draw). This is against a woman whose debating skills are abysmal.
2. Had all the bad luck re “the fainting” with the event allowing Liz to appear human (Liz very rarely manages to appear human).
3. Today, single handedly trashing all his attack lines and positioning in all the debates and media appearances up to now by pre-announcing tax cuts after spending weeks going around telling people off for how irresponsible it made them sound.
We also have to bear in mind that Liz was the favourite before all these things happened.
Might be value for a small punt given there is always the possibility in a two-horse race that the other horse pulls up due to scandal or unexpected event, but if the race proceeds to its finish now without those I think it is pretty much death-and-taxes level certainty that Liz is going to be the next PM.
The question is whether she breaks 65%+ or not.
Great summation.
The striking thing for me is the political chasm between many conservative MPs and their members (and voters?). If it were up to the MPs Rishi would be being crowned with fanfares right now, right?
It will be interesting to see whether an emphatic Truss win helps create a more united front on the NI protocol.
Just possibly the departure of Boris is having an effect. He was certainly a lightning rod for anti Brexit sentiment and some of it might just have been hostility to him.
It's also just a less salient issue so the numbers mean less. It wouldn't be surprising if it swings dramatically the other way the next time there is an EU crisis in the news.
Yes. The really embittered Remoaners will either leave or die or quietly accept the situation. Young people will grow up with the UK outside the EU and consider it natural. The idea of submitting ourselves to rule from Brussels will come to seem fanciful and silly - who would do that? They are foreigners, we rule ourselves
This outcome is more likely than anything else (eg Rejoin) as it accords with human nature. In five years time it is quite possible those polls will be completely reversed
This is why I believe Remainers have a narrowing window of opportunity. If they want to make a significant shift back to the EU it has to happen in the next few years, while there is still sentiment on their side. PM Starmer will come under intense pressure to do this
You always talk about remoaners. But at which point do leavers also "leave or die or quietly accept the situation"?
Leave won, we left the EU and delivered a pretty hard Brexit. Yet to listen to the core of the leave campaign and various newspapers and a lot of voters, its as if the battle hasn't yet been fought.
Its fine to say "remainers won't accept defeat" - but neither will leavers accept victory...
OK, set aside ALL the Brexit arguments, and all the Leaver Remainer stuff
I am talking about human nature. People come to accept the status quo around them as the natural order - this can be good or bad, depending, but it is the case. Revolutions are rare of necessity (especially in the UK)
So Britain will get accustomed to being outside the EU. The irritation of having our passports stamped will ease and then disappear, we will get used to ALL our laws being made by our own democratic politicians, and the weirdness that is EU politics in Brussels (and boy is it weird) will grow evermore distant and alien
Check polls in Norway and Switzerland. No one there proposes to join the EU because the idea is deeply unpopular
The whole Brexit argument will fade like an old carpet in strong sunshine, and Rejoin will come to be seen as a quaint cause adopted by cranks
But the issue is not our membership of the EU. People in Norway don't want to join the EU because their membership of the EEA means they get all those benefits but still retain the freedoms you mention.
You really think in this connected global digital age that people here will accept being poorer, more constrained and less connected than everyone around them? Name me one of the countries you visited recently who learned to accept their own status quo having seen the differences elsewhere.
Britain was in relative decline in the single market, and Brexit was a vote against that. People didn't want to be the low-wage employer of last resort, or a captive market for EU goods.
As the Brexiteers are not inspecting incoming EU goods, we are a captive market for EU exports, while our own exports are subject to self imposed red tape. It really isn't a very good or for that matter a stable outcome.
Not bad for consumers though as we continue to benefit from excellent quality consumer goods from the EU, just a problem for exporters.
Our exports to the EU are at an all time high so not that much of a problem.
As I understand it, the record high is driven by LNG going through the UK to the continent. I’m not certain that demonstrates that all other exports are doing well.
In last night's debate both candidates gave a cautious welcome to the return of fracking, apparently. Got missed in all the furore.
Given current gas prices it would be so profitable that the frackers would be able to offer fracked areas discounts on their energy bills/council tax.
And of course the government would get its cut.
Money talks.
And if we turned Germany into our gas b*tch, that would help negotations on NI and trade, too.
Win, win, win. win.
You assume there exists large recoverable deposits - far from certain.
What's your timescale ? Exploratory drilling, and planning permissions would take years.
Who is going to assume the political risk ahead of the next election when their project might get cancelled anyway ?
And what value would be left when the war in Ukraine is over ?
Oh I agree there are big risks and what I presented is a best case scenario.
Its interesting though, that the risks of fracking have been examined minutely, whereas the risks of allowing the tyrant Putin to hold the West to gas ransom have been ignored.
Just possibly the departure of Boris is having an effect. He was certainly a lightning rod for anti Brexit sentiment and some of it might just have been hostility to him.
It's also just a less salient issue so the numbers mean less. It wouldn't be surprising if it swings dramatically the other way the next time there is an EU crisis in the news.
Yes. The really embittered Remoaners will either leave or die or quietly accept the situation. Young people will grow up with the UK outside the EU and consider it natural. The idea of submitting ourselves to rule from Brussels will come to seem fanciful and silly - who would do that? They are foreigners, we rule ourselves
This outcome is more likely than anything else (eg Rejoin) as it accords with human nature. In five years time it is quite possible those polls will be completely reversed
This is why I believe Remainers have a narrowing window of opportunity. If they want to make a significant shift back to the EU it has to happen in the next few years, while there is still sentiment on their side. PM Starmer will come under intense pressure to do this
Young people will grow up wondering why they can't travel freely and work and live in Europe like their Irish or Dutch friends can. They will grow up wondering why our economy is under performing, why things cost more here, why they have to queue so long at passport control, why they have to pay roaming charges, why they are locked out of a market of over 300 million people on our doorstep by a decision they played no part in. Even more so in Scotland and Northern Ireland, where even the young people's parents didn't vote for it. Brexiteers will have to do a lot more to demonstrate that Brexit is delivering tangible benefits if they want this decision to stick. Shouting about "Remoaners" doesn't really cut it.
No, I'm right. And it perturbs you
There you go again. Your response to a good post is nothing.
It was a trivially inane post, not least because it says the EU contains "300 million people", when it actually contains 450 million. If @OnlyLivingBoy can't even get a fact as basic as that right, what is the point is responding to anything else he says?
Shape up, or shut up
It wasn't and when you make posts like this after a few exchanges it just looks like you have lost the argument badly. You might not think you have but that is very much what it looks like.
Whatevs
While I agree with your postion regarding further Scottish referenda, I have a quick question for you, old buddy; if Leave had lost, would you have accepted it as "the settled will of the people" and told all those who requested a further referendum that they were being unreasonable for at least a generation. No crossing fingers as you type now.
Yes, absolutely. I would have said: Accept it. It is done
Indeed I would have gone further. If we had voted Remain I'd have said: let's at least join Schenghen, and maybe consider- in time - the euro
You van choose to believe me or not, but that is exactly what I mentally decided before I cast my carefully balanced vote. Britain had to choose: properly In or Out, all that faffing was poisonous, for them and for us
If any Leaver had tried to revive the argument I would have held them in contempt. "We had our chance, but the country decided otherwise..."
I would have accepted it too. I would have still wanted reform and democratic accountability within the EU but the in out principle would have been determined.
I would find a Scexit much, much more difficult to live with. Indeed I would probably move south of the border at some point, probably on retirement.
We might only let you in for 90 days in every 180 David
Just possibly the departure of Boris is having an effect. He was certainly a lightning rod for anti Brexit sentiment and some of it might just have been hostility to him.
It's also just a less salient issue so the numbers mean less. It wouldn't be surprising if it swings dramatically the other way the next time there is an EU crisis in the news.
Yes. The really embittered Remoaners will either leave or die or quietly accept the situation. Young people will grow up with the UK outside the EU and consider it natural. The idea of submitting ourselves to rule from Brussels will come to seem fanciful and silly - who would do that? They are foreigners, we rule ourselves
This outcome is more likely than anything else (eg Rejoin) as it accords with human nature. In five years time it is quite possible those polls will be completely reversed
This is why I believe Remainers have a narrowing window of opportunity. If they want to make a significant shift back to the EU it has to happen in the next few years, while there is still sentiment on their side. PM Starmer will come under intense pressure to do this
Young people will grow up wondering why they can't travel freely and work and live in Europe like their Irish or Dutch friends can. They will grow up wondering why our economy is under performing, why things cost more here, why they have to queue so long at passport control, why they have to pay roaming charges, why they are locked out of a market of over 300 million people on our doorstep by a decision they played no part in. Even more so in Scotland and Northern Ireland, where even the young people's parents didn't vote for it. Brexiteers will have to do a lot more to demonstrate that Brexit is delivering tangible benefits if they want this decision to stick. Shouting about "Remoaners" doesn't really cut it.
No, I'm right. And it perturbs you
There you go again. Your response to a good post is nothing.
It was a trivially inane post, not least because it says the EU contains "300 million people", when it actually contains 450 million. If @OnlyLivingBoy can't even get a fact as basic as that right, what is the point is responding to anything else he says?
Shape up, or shut up
It wasn't and when you make posts like this after a few exchanges it just looks like you have lost the argument badly. You might not think you have but that is very much what it looks like.
Whatevs
While I agree with your postion regarding further Scottish referenda, I have a quick question for you, old buddy; if Leave had lost, would you have accepted it as "the settled will of the people" and told all those who requested a further referendum that they were being unreasonable for at least a generation. No crossing fingers as you type now.
Yes, absolutely. I would have said: Accept it. It is done
Indeed I would have gone further. If we had voted Remain I'd have said: let's at least join Schenghen, and maybe consider- in time - the euro
You van choose to believe me or not, but that is exactly what I mentally decided before I cast my carefully balanced vote. Britain had to choose: properly In or Out, all that faffing was poisonous, for them and for us
If any Leaver had tried to revive the argument I would have held them in contempt. "We had our chance, but the country decided otherwise..."
I would have accepted it too. I would have still wanted reform and democratic accountability within the EU but the in out principle would have been determined.
I would find a Scexit much, much more difficult to live with. Indeed I would probably move south of the border at some point, probably on retirement.
Yes. One of the lessons of these profound constitutional referendums is that they are hugely disturbing, divisive and they rouse up dangerous passions. And Scexit would be Brexit on uber-testosterone. This is why these votes need to be decidedly rare: every 15-20 years minimum
I take your earlier point BTW. That Scotland perhaps needs a guaranteed way of triggering a referendum, that does not entirely rely on the whims and politics of Westminster
There is no reason for the UKG to cave into the Nats any time soon. However a wise UK government would address this. A Royal Commission, establishing terms on which a Scottish government can rightly ask for a plebiscite, agreeable to all. It must simultaneously respect Scottish and British political sentiment, because this huge question affects everyone in GB, profoundly. So, Holyrood can't just ask for a vote and get one whenever, but neither can the UKG deny one forever
I am not sure what the mechanism might be. But it should not be beyond the wit of man to find one?
Just possibly the departure of Boris is having an effect. He was certainly a lightning rod for anti Brexit sentiment and some of it might just have been hostility to him.
It's also just a less salient issue so the numbers mean less. It wouldn't be surprising if it swings dramatically the other way the next time there is an EU crisis in the news.
Yes. The really embittered Remoaners will either leave or die or quietly accept the situation. Young people will grow up with the UK outside the EU and consider it natural. The idea of submitting ourselves to rule from Brussels will come to seem fanciful and silly - who would do that? They are foreigners, we rule ourselves
This outcome is more likely than anything else (eg Rejoin) as it accords with human nature. In five years time it is quite possible those polls will be completely reversed
This is why I believe Remainers have a narrowing window of opportunity. If they want to make a significant shift back to the EU it has to happen in the next few years, while there is still sentiment on their side. PM Starmer will come under intense pressure to do this
Young people will grow up wondering why they can't travel freely and work and live in Europe like their Irish or Dutch friends can. They will grow up wondering why our economy is under performing, why things cost more here, why they have to queue so long at passport control, why they have to pay roaming charges, why they are locked out of a market of over 300 million people on our doorstep by a decision they played no part in. Even more so in Scotland and Northern Ireland, where even the young people's parents didn't vote for it. Brexiteers will have to do a lot more to demonstrate that Brexit is delivering tangible benefits if they want this decision to stick. Shouting about "Remoaners" doesn't really cut it.
No, I'm right. And it perturbs you
There you go again. Your response to a good post is nothing.
It was a trivially inane post, not least because it says the EU contains "300 million people", when it actually contains 450 million. If @OnlyLivingBoy can't even get a fact as basic as that right, what is the point is responding to anything else he says?
Shape up, or shut up
It wasn't and when you make posts like this after a few exchanges it just looks like you have lost the argument badly. You might not think you have but that is very much what it looks like.
Whatevs
While I agree with your postion regarding further Scottish referenda, I have a quick question for you, old buddy; if Leave had lost, would you have accepted it as "the settled will of the people" and told all those who requested a further referendum that they were being unreasonable for at least a generation. No crossing fingers as you type now.
Yes, absolutely. I would have said: Accept it. It is done
Indeed I would have gone further. If we had voted Remain I'd have said: let's at least join Schenghen, and maybe consider- in time - the euro
You van choose to believe me or not, but that is exactly what I mentally decided before I cast my carefully balanced vote. Britain had to choose: properly In or Out, all that faffing was poisonous, for them and for us
If any Leaver had tried to revive the argument I would have held them in contempt. "We had our chance, but the country decided otherwise..."
I will give you the benefit of the doubt, but you will forgive me (or not) if I feel a certain level of scepticism. I doubt most Leavers would have shared your position though. Mr. Faridge would have been clamouring immediately
All the Leavers I know were of like mind. This was our once in a generation chance, if we lose, we lose. That's it. Give up, for at least 20 years. Not worth the arse-ache
I am sure some Leavers would have gone into Japanese-in-the-jungle mode, maybe including Farage, but that's not my business
So why is that having won they can't accept their victory and move on?
‘They?!’ You voted Leave too RP!
I have to say I don’t agree with Leon though. Farage was saying at the start of the night ‘our campaign for a second referendum starts now.’
Ironic, given the circumstances. But ‘we’re taking the route Nigel Farage took’ isn’t a great look for the Nats.
Oh I am sure Farage would have agitated and complained, but he would have been leading a rump of malcontents
As @moonshine says, if Remain had won - say 52:48 - Remain would have had the support of the nation, all the Remainers plus a very large chunk of the Leavers - like me - who respect democracy. A solid solid majority
What you would never have seen is the British Establishment trying to reverse the narrow Remain win, by having another go, to get a Leave vote. Unthinkable
Yet that happened: with Remainers....
Didn't you want to lock up people who disagree with you, in the name of free speech?
Just possibly the departure of Boris is having an effect. He was certainly a lightning rod for anti Brexit sentiment and some of it might just have been hostility to him.
It's also just a less salient issue so the numbers mean less. It wouldn't be surprising if it swings dramatically the other way the next time there is an EU crisis in the news.
Yes. The really embittered Remoaners will either leave or die or quietly accept the situation. Young people will grow up with the UK outside the EU and consider it natural. The idea of submitting ourselves to rule from Brussels will come to seem fanciful and silly - who would do that? They are foreigners, we rule ourselves
This outcome is more likely than anything else (eg Rejoin) as it accords with human nature. In five years time it is quite possible those polls will be completely reversed
This is why I believe Remainers have a narrowing window of opportunity. If they want to make a significant shift back to the EU it has to happen in the next few years, while there is still sentiment on their side. PM Starmer will come under intense pressure to do this
Young people will grow up wondering why they can't travel freely and work and live in Europe like their Irish or Dutch friends can. They will grow up wondering why our economy is under performing, why things cost more here, why they have to queue so long at passport control, why they have to pay roaming charges, why they are locked out of a market of over 300 million people on our doorstep by a decision they played no part in. Even more so in Scotland and Northern Ireland, where even the young people's parents didn't vote for it. Brexiteers will have to do a lot more to demonstrate that Brexit is delivering tangible benefits if they want this decision to stick. Shouting about "Remoaners" doesn't really cut it.
Supposedly the economic benefits are long term and it is unfair to point to the fact that we have made ourselves poorer. Similarly the trade lost to making ourselves uncompetitive in our largest market will eventually be made up by growing trade from all the markets currently far smaller.
TBH all of that is meh - economies grow and shrink and we have suffered loss of GDP before as have other EU countries which isn't the fault of Brexit. So I think what will really get to people is our loss of relevance to the world, and the myriad stupid petty bureaucracies and costs of these getting in our way.
Until in probably not too far into the future a political leader stands up and offers people a vision of alternative - a vision of freedom.
"Just think for a moment what a prospect that is. A single market without barriers—visible or invisible—giving you direct and unhindered access to the purchasing power of over 300 million of the world's wealthiest and most prosperous people.
Bigger than Japan. Bigger than the United States. On your doorstep. It's not a dream. It's not a vision. It's not some bureaucrat's plan. It's for real."
The idea that being outside the EU becomes the new normal also ignores the fact that most countries in Europe are inside the EU, with more still seeking to join. If being outside the EU is so normal, why is Ireland inside the EU? Why is Sweden inside the EU? Why do Swedes deserve to have free movement and access to the single market, but we don't? Why do we get our passports stamped, but our Irish mates don't?
It really would make this simpler if instead of "EU" we could address the real subject - the "EEA". We can deliver Brexit, depart the EU and its political ideals, take back control and keep trading freely in the biggest marketplace on the planet.
@Leon said nobody in Switzerland or Norway want into the EU. Why would they - 90% of the action is the EEA and both have full and free access. We - uniquely in western Europe - do not.
Starmer's ruled out FoM which makes that a non starter I think ?
I can't see that we will rejoin the single market or the customs union. But we will likely find ourselves in a single market with the EEA and a customs union...
Are you trying to be funny or do you not understand what you're saying?
Switzerland is not in the EEA yet has access to the single market. In *a* single market, not *the* single market. Turkey has a customs union with the EU but is not in the ECU.
I think it may be you who does not understand. The Europeans are happy to lay on lashings of fudge. No to joining the customs union, but here is your bespoke customs access arrangement which copies it. You Swiss want independence but also access? Here is your bespoke deal which gets your entry to the single market.
The UK can have the same. We just need to ask for it.
Indeed. Once the current generation of Leave campaigners leave office, we can move on from their play-acting and sensibly negotiate a bespoke relationship with the EU along similar lines to Switzerland or Turkey. Chiefly, we want to be a free trade zone that stretches from Iceland to Turkey, which was what the Leave campaign promised we would get!
Great! Sign me up
But how do you get that without Free Movement?
You do away with customs, tariffs, and quotas.
I thought we had a free trade agreement with the EU? Still need checks apparently. I for one did not appreciate this before the referendum, but I have the luxury of having voted remain, unlike others, such as @RochdalePioneers
A free trade agreement where all goods have to be categorised and notarised and catalogued is not free trade. Yes the goods I import are zero tariff zero quota zero VAT. But the reams of paperwork needed are slow expensive and pointlessly bureaucratic. Have 3 pallets on a truck and it suffers a breakdown on route and the truck gets swapped out? All your paperwork is invalid and it can't cross until all companies with pallets on board get new ones.
Vs put goods on truck, drive truck, unload truck.
How do we get back to that? Without freedom of movement? Is it all about accepting EU standards (and judgement)?
The Good News is that EU standards are our standards are EU standards - because we wrote them. There is one example now of where they have banned something we have not - a metallic food additive which isn't widely used. Our government is pledged to increasing food standards so it won't be long before we follow suit.
The judgement bit is a red herring. Companies make products which are as universally compliant as possible. As so much our external trade is with the EEA we can't wander too far away and design decisions are made to make universality work. Was watching a Doug Demuro video reviewing the (mental) Land Rover Defender 90 V8, and he commented that some of the things it was missing or was forced to have are for compliance in other markets.
Anyway, remember that most other EU countries act first and worry about being taken to a Euro court later. Other countries illegally intervene to save their steel industries from Chinese ramping and deal with the slap on the wrists later. Britain was fairly unique in saying "no sorry your industry has to die we aren't allowed to pump money into you. As if they actually wanted to - the ECJ was always just an excuse.
When Tata pulls out of Port Talbot, assuming government money for the electric arc furnace programme is not forthcoming, who can we blame?
Where would the electricity to power it come from and how much energy does it require 24/7....
Just possibly the departure of Boris is having an effect. He was certainly a lightning rod for anti Brexit sentiment and some of it might just have been hostility to him.
It's also just a less salient issue so the numbers mean less. It wouldn't be surprising if it swings dramatically the other way the next time there is an EU crisis in the news.
Yes. The really embittered Remoaners will either leave or die or quietly accept the situation. Young people will grow up with the UK outside the EU and consider it natural. The idea of submitting ourselves to rule from Brussels will come to seem fanciful and silly - who would do that? They are foreigners, we rule ourselves
This outcome is more likely than anything else (eg Rejoin) as it accords with human nature. In five years time it is quite possible those polls will be completely reversed
This is why I believe Remainers have a narrowing window of opportunity. If they want to make a significant shift back to the EU it has to happen in the next few years, while there is still sentiment on their side. PM Starmer will come under intense pressure to do this
Young people will grow up wondering why they can't travel freely and work and live in Europe like their Irish or Dutch friends can. They will grow up wondering why our economy is under performing, why things cost more here, why they have to queue so long at passport control, why they have to pay roaming charges, why they are locked out of a market of over 300 million people on our doorstep by a decision they played no part in. Even more so in Scotland and Northern Ireland, where even the young people's parents didn't vote for it. Brexiteers will have to do a lot more to demonstrate that Brexit is delivering tangible benefits if they want this decision to stick. Shouting about "Remoaners" doesn't really cut it.
No, I'm right. And it perturbs you
There you go again. Your response to a good post is nothing.
It was a trivially inane post, not least because it says the EU contains "300 million people", when it actually contains 450 million. If @OnlyLivingBoy can't even get a fact as basic as that right, what is the point is responding to anything else he says?
Shape up, or shut up
It wasn't and when you make posts like this after a few exchanges it just looks like you have lost the argument badly. You might not think you have but that is very much what it looks like.
Whatevs
While I agree with your postion regarding further Scottish referenda, I have a quick question for you, old buddy; if Leave had lost, would you have accepted it as "the settled will of the people" and told all those who requested a further referendum that they were being unreasonable for at least a generation. No crossing fingers as you type now.
Yes, absolutely. I would have said: Accept it. It is done
Indeed I would have gone further. If we had voted Remain I'd have said: let's at least join Schenghen, and maybe consider- in time - the euro
You van choose to believe me or not, but that is exactly what I mentally decided before I cast my carefully balanced vote. Britain had to choose: properly In or Out, all that faffing was poisonous, for them and for us
If any Leaver had tried to revive the argument I would have held them in contempt. "We had our chance, but the country decided otherwise..."
I would have accepted it too. I would have still wanted reform and democratic accountability within the EU but the in out principle would have been determined.
I would find a Scexit much, much more difficult to live with. Indeed I would probably move south of the border at some point, probably on retirement.
Yes. One of the lessons of these profound constitutional referendums is that they are hugely disturbing, divisive and they rouse up dangerous passions. And Scexit would be Brexit on uber-testosterone. This is why these votes need to be decidedly rare: every 15-20 years minimum
I take your earlier point BTW. That Scotland perhaps needs a guaranteed way of triggering a referendum, that does not entirely rely on the whims and politics of Westminster
There is no reason for the UKG to cave into the Nats any time soon. However a wise UK government would address this. A Royal Commission, establishing terms on which a Scottish government can rightly ask for a plebiscite, agreeable to all. It must simultaneously respect Scottish and British political sentiment, because this huge question affects everyone in GB, profoundly. So, Holyrood can't just ask for a vote and get one whenever, but neither can the UKG deny one forever
I am not sure what the mechanism might be. But it should not be beyond the wit of man to find one?
One suggestion (from a Corbynite) was actually sensible - not before twenty years have passed, unless 2/3 of MSPs vote to request one.
On the basis that if it’s got to that level of support Leave is going to be irresistible anyway, vote or no.
AIUI the Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case on whether Holyrood can hold a referendum unilaterally. That's possibly a good sign for the Nats, as the government argument was that the case didn't even deserve a hearing as proper process hadn't been followed.
It's rather difficult to see how they could rule in Sturgeon's favour under the law, but then the Supreme Court has form for bizarre judgements which bear as much relationship to the law as SeanT does to sobriety. Prorogation and Shamima Begum spring to mind.
What the Supreme Court has done is decide the question of prematurity (since the bill has yet to be passed by Holyrood) and competency (since it is a constitutional matter) will be decided together. FWIW I think that they will still determine that the reference of the Bill is premature but they want to deal with the substantive matter too so everyone is clear where they stand.
My very strong expectation is that they will say that this is beyond the competency of the Scottish Parliament and that a referendum cannot proceed without a s30 order. For the reasons @TSE has given no PM is going to be keen to grant a s30 order and risk losing. This raises a real question of democratic deficit in Scotland which is troubling, even for a Unionist like me.
It is indeed troubling. Whether one thinks Scotland should leave the union or not, most reasonable people, and certainly most Scots, would say that they have the right to. If there is no legal route for that right to be exercised then there will be trouble.
But this is not a one way matter. The UK is a joint enterprise in which Scotland has equal (arguably greater) sovereignty with England, Wales and NI
The break-up of the UK would be a profound national trauma that would deeply impact every UK citizen. Inter alia I am sure it would cause economic depression in Scotland and severe recession in rUK as investors fled the chaos and the £ crashed
Therefore Scotland’s right to secede must be balanced with the UK’s right to say “hang on a minute”
It’s not like the UK is some evil colonial power forbidding democracy; the UK Parliament - in which Scotland is fully represented - granted an indyref as recently as 8 years ago
The SNP needs to persuade its own supreme parliament at Westminster to grant a 2nd vote. I doubt that will happen before a generation has actually elapsed. 15-20 years, as in Canada
No that is bollocks. If Scotland wants to leave the Union then of course it will affect other countries in the Union but they don't have a veto. By your argument, the EU should have had the right to refuse the Brexit referendum. England, Wales and NI should have the same unilateral right to seceed, of course.
Truly infantile levels of analysis
Why?
I had the same argument with you recently and you came out with the same type of reply i.e. you stop arguing and just throw insults. The analogy is a good one.
The bizarre thing is when we had the discussion before you actually said it mattered not one jot what trauma leaving the EU caused even if massive because we gained independence (it trumped all) and then (as above) gave the trauma of Scotland leaving the union as a reason for not allowing it.
When called out on the inconsistency each time you stop arguing and resort to insults.
No, I give up arguing with people whose argumentation is so clueless or stupid it is waste of my time
And these days I care more about wasted time
But just this once I will indulge you
The differences between the Union of the EU and the Union of the United Kingdom are so vast they barely need explaining. But apparently they do
The UK is 300 years old; the EU is at best 70 years old, more like 30
The UK’s identity has been forged through 300 years of shared endeavour and pooled resources: building an empire, making a great nation, fighting existential wars; not so for the EU
The nations of the UK have a shared and supreme parliament which creates and passes our laws; not so the EU
The nations of the UK have a shared head of state deeply woven into our shared history and shared institutions; not true of the EU
The nations of the UK share one common language; unlike the EU
The nations of the UK share - with variations - a military, a seashore, a health service, a national broadcaster, a culture, a media, a demos, a character, a cuisine, a trade pattern, a climate, an architecture, an archipelago off the northwest coast of Europe, a sense of humour; not so the EU
All of which makes leaving the UK infinitely and impossibly complex compared to the already-painful process of quitting the EU
And finally, there are two DIFFERENT processes for leaving both. If you want to quit the EU you can trigger Article 50 unilaterally. In the UK it is different, you must get permission from Parliament at Westminster to have a referendum: as sturgeon acknowledges
And there it is. Endex
See how much better it is when you engage rather than insulting people?
Some of these are good arguments. For me the question of whether Scotland should be independent is finely balanced.
The UK in its present form is 100 years old, not 300, of course.
The argument about whether Scotland can legally unilaterally secede is of course different from whether it can morally. We can all read the legislation. My contention is that it is a moral outrage that Scotland's moral right to self determination is not matched by a legal right to do so, as it is in the EU. Even committed unionist Scots like DavidL find this troubling. I think the idea that Scotland is on some deep level "sovereign" regardless of legal status is widely held in Scotland by those on all sides of the independence debate. It is perhaps worrying that it is not shared in England.
But everything I said is obvious. If you need it spelled out to you then you are a cretin. I have given up explaining things to individual cretins: life is too short
I will not engage with you again, other than to hurl squalid, excessive and unjustified abuse
You have my word
Hi Leon, I read this exchange with interest. I said we'd return to this one - Brexit v Sindy - middle of this week, didn't I? Rhetorical only (I did) and it's Wednesday, the exact middle of this week. And seems you're talking about it anyway.
So, that question of mine: As somebody with such a burning love of absolutist untrammelled national sovereignty that iyo we had to have Brexit regardless of the practical consequences, how come you have zero empathy for the similar (and arguably stronger) argument for Sindy - stronger because Scotland, unlike the UK in the EU, lacks sovereign nation status - and a pretty visceral opposition to it ever happening?
I've been able to answer this to my own satisfaction, you'll be happy to hear.
The fact is you DO have empathy for the Sindy case. Of course you do. It'd be plain bizarre if you didn't. But the empathy you feel is swamped by your horror of what Sindy would mean. To wit no more Britain. Your love of (and pride in) Britain and its associated thing - Britishness - is real and it's bone-deep. It's not an annex to your persona it's integral. You clear Casino Royale's quite challenging bar for a Patriot with room to spare. This is why the thought of Sindy pains you so.
Very pleased with this. Think it's both true and fair.
Mate, this is not some startling insight. I say as much every day
I am a Briton and I love Britain. I don't want it broken up. Is this some bizarre new emotion you've just encountered? You'll be surprised to hear I am not alone
I am also a democrat. Scotland deserves a say. They had a say in 2014. Now for the sake of all Britain, we wait a generation to see if the mood changes, and they can have a say again
No country can survive constant referendums on its break up, any more than a marriage can survive the husband filing for divorce every year - then changing his mind at the last moment - year after year
I am sorry you have apparently spent days trying to work out something I could have told you in two minutes
Now you are goalpost moving.
This argument has nothing whatsoever to do with whether you love Briton or not.
This argument has nothing to do with multiple referendums
This argument has nothing to do with whether they had a say in 2014 or not and waiting a generation.
This argument is about the inconsistency in your stance re Sindy and EU. You used the exact mirror image to argue for and against Independence in the two scenarios. That is what the argument is about. The argument is about you being irrational.
I think what he's saying is he knows he's being irrational but that's where his 'patriotism' (ie in the hard nationalistic sense of the word) leads. I don't like it or agree with it but it's good to have it clarified.
The Sindy Ref point is something else imo. I think the argument for having one is compelling - because of Brexit and the Holyrood mandate - and I don't think to do so is to risk a "Ref every year until it's a Yes". Think that's a nonsense since if it's another No the SNP would have to backburner the issue or lose power.
It's not irrational at all
I am quite sure there are many Scots who feel the same way about Scotland as I do about Britain. That Scotland has their fundamental loyalty, and needs to be free, to the extent that it must be taken out of the UK (maybe even if it is economically harmful). Just as I wanted us out of the EU
That's fair. I understand it entirely. BECAUSE I am a patriot, like them
However if they want to press the point home and do it - secede - they need to do it legally - via the British method (Westminster approval for a referendum) as we - the UK - did it legally in Europe, via Article 50
Moreover, they can't do it every year or every five years, that would make a nonsense of the constitution and render Britain hideously unstable - impoverishing us all, as investors flee etc. I therefore believe in the generation argument (you don't, but this is a matter of opinion not objective fact)
And FWIW I would have applied the generation argument to the UK in the EU. If we had voted Remain I would have said: right, we have to accept it, let's make the best of it. And I would have neither expected nor wished for us to revisit the question for 15-20 years minimum.
My position is not irrational nor is it inconsistent, indeed I suspect it bugs you because it is the opposite
But the assumption holding all this together is a false one. Granting this Sindy Ref (due to Brexit and the Holyrood mandate) does not open the floodgates for one every 5 years or whatever. If it's held and it's a No that is 'it' for a long time. Any solid analysis of the political calculus shows that. Sturgeon certainly knows it. Hence her cautious approach.
Just possibly the departure of Boris is having an effect. He was certainly a lightning rod for anti Brexit sentiment and some of it might just have been hostility to him.
It's also just a less salient issue so the numbers mean less. It wouldn't be surprising if it swings dramatically the other way the next time there is an EU crisis in the news.
Yes. The really embittered Remoaners will either leave or die or quietly accept the situation. Young people will grow up with the UK outside the EU and consider it natural. The idea of submitting ourselves to rule from Brussels will come to seem fanciful and silly - who would do that? They are foreigners, we rule ourselves
This outcome is more likely than anything else (eg Rejoin) as it accords with human nature. In five years time it is quite possible those polls will be completely reversed
This is why I believe Remainers have a narrowing window of opportunity. If they want to make a significant shift back to the EU it has to happen in the next few years, while there is still sentiment on their side. PM Starmer will come under intense pressure to do this
Young people will grow up wondering why they can't travel freely and work and live in Europe like their Irish or Dutch friends can. They will grow up wondering why our economy is under performing, why things cost more here, why they have to queue so long at passport control, why they have to pay roaming charges, why they are locked out of a market of over 300 million people on our doorstep by a decision they played no part in. Even more so in Scotland and Northern Ireland, where even the young people's parents didn't vote for it. Brexiteers will have to do a lot more to demonstrate that Brexit is delivering tangible benefits if they want this decision to stick. Shouting about "Remoaners" doesn't really cut it.
No, I'm right. And it perturbs you
There you go again. Your response to a good post is nothing.
It was a trivially inane post, not least because it says the EU contains "300 million people", when it actually contains 450 million. If @OnlyLivingBoy can't even get a fact as basic as that right, what is the point is responding to anything else he says?
Shape up, or shut up
It wasn't and when you make posts like this after a few exchanges it just looks like you have lost the argument badly. You might not think you have but that is very much what it looks like.
Whatevs
While I agree with your postion regarding further Scottish referenda, I have a quick question for you, old buddy; if Leave had lost, would you have accepted it as "the settled will of the people" and told all those who requested a further referendum that they were being unreasonable for at least a generation. No crossing fingers as you type now.
Yes, absolutely. I would have said: Accept it. It is done
Indeed I would have gone further. If we had voted Remain I'd have said: let's at least join Schenghen, and maybe consider- in time - the euro
You van choose to believe me or not, but that is exactly what I mentally decided before I cast my carefully balanced vote. Britain had to choose: properly In or Out, all that faffing was poisonous, for them and for us
If any Leaver had tried to revive the argument I would have held them in contempt. "We had our chance, but the country decided otherwise..."
I will give you the benefit of the doubt, but you will forgive me (or not) if I feel a certain level of scepticism. I doubt most Leavers would have shared your position though. Mr. Faridge would have been clamouring immediately
All the Leavers I know were of like mind. This was our once in a generation chance, if we lose, we lose. That's it. Give up, for at least 20 years. Not worth the arse-ache
I am sure some Leavers would have gone into Japanese-in-the-jungle mode, maybe including Farage, but that's not my business
So why is that having won they can't accept their victory and move on?
‘They?!’ You voted Leave too RP!
I have to say I don’t agree with Leon though. Farage was saying at the start of the night ‘our campaign for a second referendum starts now.’
Ironic, given the circumstances. But ‘we’re taking the route Nigel Farage took’ isn’t a great look for the Nats.
Oh I am sure Farage would have agitated and complained, but he would have been leading a rump of malcontents
As @moonshine says, if Remain had won - say 52:48 - Remain would have had the support of the nation, all the Remainers plus a very large chunk of the Leavers - like me - who respect democracy. A solid solid majority
What you would never have seen is the British Establishment trying to reverse the narrow Remain win, by having another go, to get a Leave vote. Unthinkable
Yet that happened: with Remainers....
Lol! British Establishment = 'people in power whom you disagree with'.
My British Establishment is a different, but just as valid, set of people in power to yours.
Truth is, the BE were just as split as the rest of us.
The heights of UK politics, academe, media, the arts, business, law, charities, the civil service - were all majority Remain - do you deny this?
Not sure how you can deny this given that Remainers spent six years telling us how they were so much more intelligent - hence their elevated positions in society - while Leavers were thick white racists in Worksop. The British Establishment is not centred on Worksop
Just possibly the departure of Boris is having an effect. He was certainly a lightning rod for anti Brexit sentiment and some of it might just have been hostility to him.
It's also just a less salient issue so the numbers mean less. It wouldn't be surprising if it swings dramatically the other way the next time there is an EU crisis in the news.
Yes. The really embittered Remoaners will either leave or die or quietly accept the situation. Young people will grow up with the UK outside the EU and consider it natural. The idea of submitting ourselves to rule from Brussels will come to seem fanciful and silly - who would do that? They are foreigners, we rule ourselves
This outcome is more likely than anything else (eg Rejoin) as it accords with human nature. In five years time it is quite possible those polls will be completely reversed
This is why I believe Remainers have a narrowing window of opportunity. If they want to make a significant shift back to the EU it has to happen in the next few years, while there is still sentiment on their side. PM Starmer will come under intense pressure to do this
Young people will grow up wondering why they can't travel freely and work and live in Europe like their Irish or Dutch friends can. They will grow up wondering why our economy is under performing, why things cost more here, why they have to queue so long at passport control, why they have to pay roaming charges, why they are locked out of a market of over 300 million people on our doorstep by a decision they played no part in. Even more so in Scotland and Northern Ireland, where even the young people's parents didn't vote for it. Brexiteers will have to do a lot more to demonstrate that Brexit is delivering tangible benefits if they want this decision to stick. Shouting about "Remoaners" doesn't really cut it.
No, I'm right. And it perturbs you
There you go again. Your response to a good post is nothing.
It was a trivially inane post, not least because it says the EU contains "300 million people", when it actually contains 450 million. If @OnlyLivingBoy can't even get a fact as basic as that right, what is the point is responding to anything else he says?
Shape up, or shut up
It wasn't and when you make posts like this after a few exchanges it just looks like you have lost the argument badly. You might not think you have but that is very much what it looks like.
Whatevs
While I agree with your postion regarding further Scottish referenda, I have a quick question for you, old buddy; if Leave had lost, would you have accepted it as "the settled will of the people" and told all those who requested a further referendum that they were being unreasonable for at least a generation. No crossing fingers as you type now.
Yes, absolutely. I would have said: Accept it. It is done
Indeed I would have gone further. If we had voted Remain I'd have said: let's at least join Schenghen, and maybe consider- in time - the euro
You van choose to believe me or not, but that is exactly what I mentally decided before I cast my carefully balanced vote. Britain had to choose: properly In or Out, all that faffing was poisonous, for them and for us
If any Leaver had tried to revive the argument I would have held them in contempt. "We had our chance, but the country decided otherwise..."
I will give you the benefit of the doubt, but you will forgive me (or not) if I feel a certain level of scepticism. I doubt most Leavers would have shared your position though. Mr. Faridge would have been clamouring immediately
All the Leavers I know were of like mind. This was our once in a generation chance, if we lose, we lose. That's it. Give up, for at least 20 years. Not worth the arse-ache
I am sure some Leavers would have gone into Japanese-in-the-jungle mode, maybe including Farage, but that's not my business
So why is that having won they can't accept their victory and move on?
Probably because your lot spent three years trying to overturn the democratic will of the people, and now you're off trying to Rejoin?
I think most of us have accepted it, and the fact that we will have to live with it. Doesn't stop us from taking the piss out of the sad gullible folk/loonies that still believe in it though.
Tell, me though Leon, other than having a dark blue/black passport for you to get excited over when you can't manage to switch on PornHub, what are "the benefits of Brexit"?
PS. We could have had a black passport when part of the EU BTW.
It amazes me that those banging on about Brexit, are Leavers who seem disappointed by Brexit but don't want to admit their discomfort. They would rather blame someone else, for example Leon who whiles away the hours so doing on PB.
Just possibly the departure of Boris is having an effect. He was certainly a lightning rod for anti Brexit sentiment and some of it might just have been hostility to him.
It's also just a less salient issue so the numbers mean less. It wouldn't be surprising if it swings dramatically the other way the next time there is an EU crisis in the news.
Yes. The really embittered Remoaners will either leave or die or quietly accept the situation. Young people will grow up with the UK outside the EU and consider it natural. The idea of submitting ourselves to rule from Brussels will come to seem fanciful and silly - who would do that? They are foreigners, we rule ourselves
This outcome is more likely than anything else (eg Rejoin) as it accords with human nature. In five years time it is quite possible those polls will be completely reversed
This is why I believe Remainers have a narrowing window of opportunity. If they want to make a significant shift back to the EU it has to happen in the next few years, while there is still sentiment on their side. PM Starmer will come under intense pressure to do this
You always talk about remoaners. But at which point do leavers also "leave or die or quietly accept the situation"?
Leave won, we left the EU and delivered a pretty hard Brexit. Yet to listen to the core of the leave campaign and various newspapers and a lot of voters, its as if the battle hasn't yet been fought.
Its fine to say "remainers won't accept defeat" - but neither will leavers accept victory...
OK, set aside ALL the Brexit arguments, and all the Leaver Remainer stuff
I am talking about human nature. People come to accept the status quo around them as the natural order - this can be good or bad, depending, but it is the case. Revolutions are rare of necessity (especially in the UK)
So Britain will get accustomed to being outside the EU. The irritation of having our passports stamped will ease and then disappear, we will get used to ALL our laws being made by our own democratic politicians, and the weirdness that is EU politics in Brussels (and boy is it weird) will grow evermore distant and alien
Check polls in Norway and Switzerland. No one there proposes to join the EU because the idea is deeply unpopular
The whole Brexit argument will fade like an old carpet in strong sunshine, and Rejoin will come to be seen as a quaint cause adopted by cranks
But the issue is not our membership of the EU. People in Norway don't want to join the EU because their membership of the EEA means they get all those benefits but still retain the freedoms you mention.
You really think in this connected global digital age that people here will accept being poorer, more constrained and less connected than everyone around them? Name me one of the countries you visited recently who learned to accept their own status quo having seen the differences elsewhere.
Britain was in relative decline in the single market, and Brexit was a vote against that. People didn't want to be the low-wage employer of last resort, or a captive market for EU goods.
As the Brexiteers are not inspecting incoming EU goods, we are a captive market for EU exports, while our own exports are subject to self imposed red tape. It really isn't a very good or for that matter a stable outcome.
Not bad for consumers though as we continue to benefit from excellent quality consumer goods from the EU, just a problem for exporters.
Our exports to the EU are at an all time high so not that much of a problem.
As I understand it, the record high is driven by LNG going through the UK to the continent. I’m not certain that demonstrates that all other exports are doing well.
In last night's debate both candidates gave a cautious welcome to the return of fracking, apparently. Got missed in all the furore.
Given current gas prices it would be so profitable that the frackers would be able to offer fracked areas discounts on their energy bills/council tax.
And of course the government would get its cut.
Money talks.
And if we turned Germany into our gas b*tch, that would help negotations on NI and trade, too.
Win, win, win. win.
They should be thinking about underground coal gasification. All that coal stretching out under the North Sea. Combine it with CCS and we get a low carbon source of energy (blue hydrogen) from our own hydrocarbons to compliment intermittent renewables.
The advantage of developing wholly new technologies, like renewables and storage, is that you can hope to make them cheaper than the status quo.
The problem with carbon capture and storage is that it will always be more expensive than the status quo of simply venting the carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
Which is why you have carbon credits and monetise the capture.
In order to get the deal you want, would you tear up all Truss's trade deals and give up on the CPTPP?
A good idea to tear them up anyway - as the New Zealanders were observing this week, it's mysterious why we decided to disadvantage our farmers for no benefit.
To advantage our consumers?
You know, “voters”.
The issue about fucking over our farmers is not that this deal might fuck them over, it is that the Cons for as long as anyone can remember have positioned themselves as being the party that would not fuck over our farmers.
AIUI the Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case on whether Holyrood can hold a referendum unilaterally. That's possibly a good sign for the Nats, as the government argument was that the case didn't even deserve a hearing as proper process hadn't been followed.
It's rather difficult to see how they could rule in Sturgeon's favour under the law, but then the Supreme Court has form for bizarre judgements which bear as much relationship to the law as SeanT does to sobriety. Prorogation and Shamima Begum spring to mind.
What the Supreme Court has done is decide the question of prematurity (since the bill has yet to be passed by Holyrood) and competency (since it is a constitutional matter) will be decided together. FWIW I think that they will still determine that the reference of the Bill is premature but they want to deal with the substantive matter too so everyone is clear where they stand.
My very strong expectation is that they will say that this is beyond the competency of the Scottish Parliament and that a referendum cannot proceed without a s30 order. For the reasons @TSE has given no PM is going to be keen to grant a s30 order and risk losing. This raises a real question of democratic deficit in Scotland which is troubling, even for a Unionist like me.
It is indeed troubling. Whether one thinks Scotland should leave the union or not, most reasonable people, and certainly most Scots, would say that they have the right to. If there is no legal route for that right to be exercised then there will be trouble.
But this is not a one way matter. The UK is a joint enterprise in which Scotland has equal (arguably greater) sovereignty with England, Wales and NI
The break-up of the UK would be a profound national trauma that would deeply impact every UK citizen. Inter alia I am sure it would cause economic depression in Scotland and severe recession in rUK as investors fled the chaos and the £ crashed
Therefore Scotland’s right to secede must be balanced with the UK’s right to say “hang on a minute”
It’s not like the UK is some evil colonial power forbidding democracy; the UK Parliament - in which Scotland is fully represented - granted an indyref as recently as 8 years ago
The SNP needs to persuade its own supreme parliament at Westminster to grant a 2nd vote. I doubt that will happen before a generation has actually elapsed. 15-20 years, as in Canada
No that is bollocks. If Scotland wants to leave the Union then of course it will affect other countries in the Union but they don't have a veto. By your argument, the EU should have had the right to refuse the Brexit referendum. England, Wales and NI should have the same unilateral right to seceed, of course.
Truly infantile levels of analysis
Why?
I had the same argument with you recently and you came out with the same type of reply i.e. you stop arguing and just throw insults. The analogy is a good one.
The bizarre thing is when we had the discussion before you actually said it mattered not one jot what trauma leaving the EU caused even if massive because we gained independence (it trumped all) and then (as above) gave the trauma of Scotland leaving the union as a reason for not allowing it.
When called out on the inconsistency each time you stop arguing and resort to insults.
No, I give up arguing with people whose argumentation is so clueless or stupid it is waste of my time
And these days I care more about wasted time
But just this once I will indulge you
The differences between the Union of the EU and the Union of the United Kingdom are so vast they barely need explaining. But apparently they do
The UK is 300 years old; the EU is at best 70 years old, more like 30
The UK’s identity has been forged through 300 years of shared endeavour and pooled resources: building an empire, making a great nation, fighting existential wars; not so for the EU
The nations of the UK have a shared and supreme parliament which creates and passes our laws; not so the EU
The nations of the UK have a shared head of state deeply woven into our shared history and shared institutions; not true of the EU
The nations of the UK share one common language; unlike the EU
The nations of the UK share - with variations - a military, a seashore, a health service, a national broadcaster, a culture, a media, a demos, a character, a cuisine, a trade pattern, a climate, an architecture, an archipelago off the northwest coast of Europe, a sense of humour; not so the EU
All of which makes leaving the UK infinitely and impossibly complex compared to the already-painful process of quitting the EU
And finally, there are two DIFFERENT processes for leaving both. If you want to quit the EU you can trigger Article 50 unilaterally. In the UK it is different, you must get permission from Parliament at Westminster to have a referendum: as sturgeon acknowledges
And there it is. Endex
See how much better it is when you engage rather than insulting people?
Some of these are good arguments. For me the question of whether Scotland should be independent is finely balanced.
The UK in its present form is 100 years old, not 300, of course.
The argument about whether Scotland can legally unilaterally secede is of course different from whether it can morally. We can all read the legislation. My contention is that it is a moral outrage that Scotland's moral right to self determination is not matched by a legal right to do so, as it is in the EU. Even committed unionist Scots like DavidL find this troubling. I think the idea that Scotland is on some deep level "sovereign" regardless of legal status is widely held in Scotland by those on all sides of the independence debate. It is perhaps worrying that it is not shared in England.
But everything I said is obvious. If you need it spelled out to you then you are a cretin. I have given up explaining things to individual cretins: life is too short
I will not engage with you again, other than to hurl squalid, excessive and unjustified abuse
You have my word
Hi Leon, I read this exchange with interest. I said we'd return to this one - Brexit v Sindy - middle of this week, didn't I? Rhetorical only (I did) and it's Wednesday, the exact middle of this week. And seems you're talking about it anyway.
So, that question of mine: As somebody with such a burning love of absolutist untrammelled national sovereignty that iyo we had to have Brexit regardless of the practical consequences, how come you have zero empathy for the similar (and arguably stronger) argument for Sindy - stronger because Scotland, unlike the UK in the EU, lacks sovereign nation status - and a pretty visceral opposition to it ever happening?
I've been able to answer this to my own satisfaction, you'll be happy to hear.
The fact is you DO have empathy for the Sindy case. Of course you do. It'd be plain bizarre if you didn't. But the empathy you feel is swamped by your horror of what Sindy would mean. To wit no more Britain. Your love of (and pride in) Britain and its associated thing - Britishness - is real and it's bone-deep. It's not an annex to your persona it's integral. You clear Casino Royale's quite challenging bar for a Patriot with room to spare. This is why the thought of Sindy pains you so.
Very pleased with this. Think it's both true and fair.
Mate, this is not some startling insight. I say as much every day
I am a Briton and I love Britain. I don't want it broken up. Is this some bizarre new emotion you've just encountered? You'll be surprised to hear I am not alone
I am also a democrat. Scotland deserves a say. They had a say in 2014. Now for the sake of all Britain, we wait a generation to see if the mood changes, and they can have a say again
No country can survive constant referendums on its break up, any more than a marriage can survive the husband filing for divorce every year - then changing his mind at the last moment - year after year
I am sorry you have apparently spent days trying to work out something I could have told you in two minutes
Now you are goalpost moving.
This argument has nothing whatsoever to do with whether you love Briton or not.
This argument has nothing to do with multiple referendums
This argument has nothing to do with whether they had a say in 2014 or not and waiting a generation.
This argument is about the inconsistency in your stance re Sindy and EU. You used the exact mirror image to argue for and against Independence in the two scenarios. That is what the argument is about. The argument is about you being irrational.
I think what he's saying is he knows he's being irrational but that's where his 'patriotism' (ie in the hard nationalistic sense of the word) leads. I don't like it or agree with it but it's good to have it clarified.
The Sindy Ref point is something else imo. I think the argument for having one is compelling - because of Brexit and the Holyrood mandate - and I don't think to do so is to risk a "Ref every year until it's a Yes". Think that's a nonsense since if it's another No the SNP would have to backburner the issue or lose power.
It's not irrational at all
I am quite sure there are many Scots who feel the same way about Scotland as I do about Britain. That Scotland has their fundamental loyalty, and needs to be free, to the extent that it must be taken out of the UK (maybe even if it is economically harmful). Just as I wanted us out of the EU
That's fair. I understand it entirely. BECAUSE I am a patriot, like them
However if they want to press the point home and do it - secede - they need to do it legally - via the British method (Westminster approval for a referendum) as we - the UK - did it legally in Europe, via Article 50
Moreover, they can't do it every year or every five years, that would make a nonsense of the constitution and render Britain hideously unstable - impoverishing us all, as investors flee etc. I therefore believe in the generation argument (you don't, but this is a matter of opinion not objective fact)
And FWIW I would have applied the generation argument to the UK in the EU. If we had voted Remain I would have said: right, we have to accept it, let's make the best of it. And I would have neither expected nor wished for us to revisit the question for 15-20 years minimum.
My position is not irrational nor is it inconsistent, indeed I suspect it bugs you because it is the opposite
But the assumption holding all this together is a false one. Granting this Sindy Ref (due to Brexit and the Holyrood mandate) does not open the floodgates for one every 5 years or whatever. If it's held and it's a No that is 'it' for a long time. Any solid analysis of the political calculus shows that. Sturgeon certainly knows it. Hence her cautious approach.
As I say, this difference is a matter of opinion, not objective fact. I simply disagree with you
Jolyon Maugham is a weirdo and a dickhead, part 493
Sunder Katwala @sundersays · 6m I am now blocked by the QC who opened this debate about whether people with brown skin could be viable candidates with the membership. He has clearly now had enough of experts & evidence on this topic!
Sunder Katwala is one of the most polite people on Twitter. I find his obsession with race stats a little wearying, but that's his field, and he is judicious and measured, and never rude, aggressive, any of that
If you need to block him the problem is YOURS. Maugham can't stand even being contradicted, let alone being made to look foolish
It's amazing he's still on Twitter after that fracas with the fox. That should have been the end of his public life.
Mr. JS, I'm wondering if it's worth putting a little on Sunak.
Although all the mood music is rather grim for him.
Rishi has not had a good few days:
1. Roundly accepted to have come across poorly in the debate against Liz Truss on Monday (in the best case, narrowly squeezed out a win or a score draw). This is against a woman whose debating skills are abysmal.
2. Had all the bad luck re “the fainting” with the event allowing Liz to appear human (Liz very rarely manages to appear human).
3. Today, single handedly trashing all his attack lines and positioning in all the debates and media appearances up to now by pre-announcing tax cuts after spending weeks going around telling people off for how irresponsible it made them sound.
We also have to bear in mind that Liz was the favourite before all these things happened.
Might be value for a small punt given there is always the possibility in a two-horse race that the other horse pulls up due to scandal or unexpected event, but if the race proceeds to its finish now without those I think it is pretty much death-and-taxes level certainty that Liz is going to be the next PM.
The question is whether she breaks 65%+ or not.
Great summation.
The striking thing for me is the political chasm between many conservative MPs and their members (and voters?). If it were up to the MPs Rishi would be being crowned with fanfares right now, right?
Yes if it was down to MPs I suspect Rishi would probably have won by a decent margin though his support in the final round wasn’t significantly stronger than Mordaunt or Truss. I also suspected that his support was bolstered a bit by the fact he had built up a head of steam as the anointed heir (recall the Rishi love-in during Covid) that hadn’t worn off by the time the contest started (even though his downsides had grown since then).
I suspect that MPs will get behind Truss when she wins - I don’t think there was a tremendous enthusiasm for her candidacy but by the same token I don’t think she is hated or distrusted - the parliamentary party is too pro-Brexit and Boris-picked (hangover from the 2019 civil war) to really have a tremendous issue with what Truss stands for or says. She would do well to build as broad a team as she can however (roles for Penny, Kemi, possibly even Hunt), rather than rebuilding the Boris due-hard crew.
Just possibly the departure of Boris is having an effect. He was certainly a lightning rod for anti Brexit sentiment and some of it might just have been hostility to him.
It's also just a less salient issue so the numbers mean less. It wouldn't be surprising if it swings dramatically the other way the next time there is an EU crisis in the news.
Yes. The really embittered Remoaners will either leave or die or quietly accept the situation. Young people will grow up with the UK outside the EU and consider it natural. The idea of submitting ourselves to rule from Brussels will come to seem fanciful and silly - who would do that? They are foreigners, we rule ourselves
This outcome is more likely than anything else (eg Rejoin) as it accords with human nature. In five years time it is quite possible those polls will be completely reversed
This is why I believe Remainers have a narrowing window of opportunity. If they want to make a significant shift back to the EU it has to happen in the next few years, while there is still sentiment on their side. PM Starmer will come under intense pressure to do this
Young people will grow up wondering why they can't travel freely and work and live in Europe like their Irish or Dutch friends can. They will grow up wondering why our economy is under performing, why things cost more here, why they have to queue so long at passport control, why they have to pay roaming charges, why they are locked out of a market of over 300 million people on our doorstep by a decision they played no part in. Even more so in Scotland and Northern Ireland, where even the young people's parents didn't vote for it. Brexiteers will have to do a lot more to demonstrate that Brexit is delivering tangible benefits if they want this decision to stick. Shouting about "Remoaners" doesn't really cut it.
No, I'm right. And it perturbs you
There you go again. Your response to a good post is nothing.
It was a trivially inane post, not least because it says the EU contains "300 million people", when it actually contains 450 million. If @OnlyLivingBoy can't even get a fact as basic as that right, what is the point is responding to anything else he says?
Shape up, or shut up
It wasn't and when you make posts like this after a few exchanges it just looks like you have lost the argument badly. You might not think you have but that is very much what it looks like.
Whatevs
While I agree with your postion regarding further Scottish referenda, I have a quick question for you, old buddy; if Leave had lost, would you have accepted it as "the settled will of the people" and told all those who requested a further referendum that they were being unreasonable for at least a generation. No crossing fingers as you type now.
Yes, absolutely. I would have said: Accept it. It is done
Indeed I would have gone further. If we had voted Remain I'd have said: let's at least join Schenghen, and maybe consider- in time - the euro
You van choose to believe me or not, but that is exactly what I mentally decided before I cast my carefully balanced vote. Britain had to choose: properly In or Out, all that faffing was poisonous, for them and for us
If any Leaver had tried to revive the argument I would have held them in contempt. "We had our chance, but the country decided otherwise..."
I will give you the benefit of the doubt, but you will forgive me (or not) if I feel a certain level of scepticism. I doubt most Leavers would have shared your position though. Mr. Faridge would have been clamouring immediately
All the Leavers I know were of like mind. This was our once in a generation chance, if we lose, we lose. That's it. Give up, for at least 20 years. Not worth the arse-ache
I am sure some Leavers would have gone into Japanese-in-the-jungle mode, maybe including Farage, but that's not my business
So why is that having won they can't accept their victory and move on?
Probably because your lot spent three years trying to overturn the democratic will of the people, and now you're off trying to Rejoin?
Starmer is saying no to even rejoining things like the Single Market and Customs Union which are not even part of the Brexit vote. How won do you want to be?
Just possibly the departure of Boris is having an effect. He was certainly a lightning rod for anti Brexit sentiment and some of it might just have been hostility to him.
It's also just a less salient issue so the numbers mean less. It wouldn't be surprising if it swings dramatically the other way the next time there is an EU crisis in the news.
Yes. The really embittered Remoaners will either leave or die or quietly accept the situation. Young people will grow up with the UK outside the EU and consider it natural. The idea of submitting ourselves to rule from Brussels will come to seem fanciful and silly - who would do that? They are foreigners, we rule ourselves
This outcome is more likely than anything else (eg Rejoin) as it accords with human nature. In five years time it is quite possible those polls will be completely reversed
This is why I believe Remainers have a narrowing window of opportunity. If they want to make a significant shift back to the EU it has to happen in the next few years, while there is still sentiment on their side. PM Starmer will come under intense pressure to do this
Young people will grow up wondering why they can't travel freely and work and live in Europe like their Irish or Dutch friends can. They will grow up wondering why our economy is under performing, why things cost more here, why they have to queue so long at passport control, why they have to pay roaming charges, why they are locked out of a market of over 300 million people on our doorstep by a decision they played no part in. Even more so in Scotland and Northern Ireland, where even the young people's parents didn't vote for it. Brexiteers will have to do a lot more to demonstrate that Brexit is delivering tangible benefits if they want this decision to stick. Shouting about "Remoaners" doesn't really cut it.
No, I'm right. And it perturbs you
There you go again. Your response to a good post is nothing.
It was a trivially inane post, not least because it says the EU contains "300 million people", when it actually contains 450 million. If @OnlyLivingBoy can't even get a fact as basic as that right, what is the point is responding to anything else he says?
Shape up, or shut up
It wasn't and when you make posts like this after a few exchanges it just looks like you have lost the argument badly. You might not think you have but that is very much what it looks like.
Whatevs
While I agree with your postion regarding further Scottish referenda, I have a quick question for you, old buddy; if Leave had lost, would you have accepted it as "the settled will of the people" and told all those who requested a further referendum that they were being unreasonable for at least a generation. No crossing fingers as you type now.
Yes, absolutely. I would have said: Accept it. It is done
Indeed I would have gone further. If we had voted Remain I'd have said: let's at least join Schenghen, and maybe consider- in time - the euro
You van choose to believe me or not, but that is exactly what I mentally decided before I cast my carefully balanced vote. Britain had to choose: properly In or Out, all that faffing was poisonous, for them and for us
If any Leaver had tried to revive the argument I would have held them in contempt. "We had our chance, but the country decided otherwise..."
I would have accepted it too. I would have still wanted reform and democratic accountability within the EU but the in out principle would have been determined.
I would find a Scexit much, much more difficult to live with. Indeed I would probably move south of the border at some point, probably on retirement.
We might only let you in for 90 days in every 180 David
Just possibly the departure of Boris is having an effect. He was certainly a lightning rod for anti Brexit sentiment and some of it might just have been hostility to him.
It's also just a less salient issue so the numbers mean less. It wouldn't be surprising if it swings dramatically the other way the next time there is an EU crisis in the news.
Yes. The really embittered Remoaners will either leave or die or quietly accept the situation. Young people will grow up with the UK outside the EU and consider it natural. The idea of submitting ourselves to rule from Brussels will come to seem fanciful and silly - who would do that? They are foreigners, we rule ourselves
This outcome is more likely than anything else (eg Rejoin) as it accords with human nature. In five years time it is quite possible those polls will be completely reversed
This is why I believe Remainers have a narrowing window of opportunity. If they want to make a significant shift back to the EU it has to happen in the next few years, while there is still sentiment on their side. PM Starmer will come under intense pressure to do this
Young people will grow up wondering why they can't travel freely and work and live in Europe like their Irish or Dutch friends can. They will grow up wondering why our economy is under performing, why things cost more here, why they have to queue so long at passport control, why they have to pay roaming charges, why they are locked out of a market of over 300 million people on our doorstep by a decision they played no part in. Even more so in Scotland and Northern Ireland, where even the young people's parents didn't vote for it. Brexiteers will have to do a lot more to demonstrate that Brexit is delivering tangible benefits if they want this decision to stick. Shouting about "Remoaners" doesn't really cut it.
No, I'm right. And it perturbs you
There you go again. Your response to a good post is nothing.
It was a trivially inane post, not least because it says the EU contains "300 million people", when it actually contains 450 million. If @OnlyLivingBoy can't even get a fact as basic as that right, what is the point is responding to anything else he says?
Shape up, or shut up
It wasn't and when you make posts like this after a few exchanges it just looks like you have lost the argument badly. You might not think you have but that is very much what it looks like.
Whatevs
While I agree with your postion regarding further Scottish referenda, I have a quick question for you, old buddy; if Leave had lost, would you have accepted it as "the settled will of the people" and told all those who requested a further referendum that they were being unreasonable for at least a generation. No crossing fingers as you type now.
Yes, absolutely. I would have said: Accept it. It is done
Indeed I would have gone further. If we had voted Remain I'd have said: let's at least join Schenghen, and maybe consider- in time - the euro
You van choose to believe me or not, but that is exactly what I mentally decided before I cast my carefully balanced vote. Britain had to choose: properly In or Out, all that faffing was poisonous, for them and for us
If any Leaver had tried to revive the argument I would have held them in contempt. "We had our chance, but the country decided otherwise..."
I would have accepted it too. I would have still wanted reform and democratic accountability within the EU but the in out principle would have been determined.
I would find a Scexit much, much more difficult to live with. Indeed I would probably move south of the border at some point, probably on retirement.
Yes. One of the lessons of these profound constitutional referendums is that they are hugely disturbing, divisive and they rouse up dangerous passions. And Scexit would be Brexit on uber-testosterone. This is why these votes need to be decidedly rare: every 15-20 years minimum
I take your earlier point BTW. That Scotland perhaps needs a guaranteed way of triggering a referendum, that does not entirely rely on the whims and politics of Westminster
There is no reason for the UKG to cave into the Nats any time soon. However a wise UK government would address this. A Royal Commission, establishing terms on which a Scottish government can rightly ask for a plebiscite, agreeable to all. It must simultaneously respect Scottish and British political sentiment, because this huge question affects everyone in GB, profoundly. So, Holyrood can't just ask for a vote and get one whenever, but neither can the UKG deny one forever
I am not sure what the mechanism might be. But it should not be beyond the wit of man to find one?
One suggestion (from a Corbynite) was actually sensible - not before twenty years have passed, unless 2/3 of MSPs vote to request one.
On the basis that if it’s got to that level of support Leave is going to be irresistible anyway, vote or no.
That's actually not bad, tho I still think it perhaps needs input from British MPs as well, because Britain really does need a say
If we had a sensible second chamber, a kind of Federal UK Senate (where Scotland and Wales and NI had more representation) that would be the place to solve it
Jolyon Maugham is a weirdo and a dickhead, part 493
Sunder Katwala @sundersays · 6m I am now blocked by the QC who opened this debate about whether people with brown skin could be viable candidates with the membership. He has clearly now had enough of experts & evidence on this topic!
Sunder Katwala is one of the most polite people on Twitter. I find his obsession with race stats a little wearying, but that's his field, and he is judicious and measured, and never rude, aggressive, any of that
If you need to block him the problem is YOURS. Maugham can't stand even being contradicted, let alone being made to look foolish
It's amazing he's still on Twitter after that fracas with the fox. That should have been the end of his public life.
AIUI the Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case on whether Holyrood can hold a referendum unilaterally. That's possibly a good sign for the Nats, as the government argument was that the case didn't even deserve a hearing as proper process hadn't been followed.
It's rather difficult to see how they could rule in Sturgeon's favour under the law, but then the Supreme Court has form for bizarre judgements which bear as much relationship to the law as SeanT does to sobriety. Prorogation and Shamima Begum spring to mind.
What the Supreme Court has done is decide the question of prematurity (since the bill has yet to be passed by Holyrood) and competency (since it is a constitutional matter) will be decided together. FWIW I think that they will still determine that the reference of the Bill is premature but they want to deal with the substantive matter too so everyone is clear where they stand.
My very strong expectation is that they will say that this is beyond the competency of the Scottish Parliament and that a referendum cannot proceed without a s30 order. For the reasons @TSE has given no PM is going to be keen to grant a s30 order and risk losing. This raises a real question of democratic deficit in Scotland which is troubling, even for a Unionist like me.
It is indeed troubling. Whether one thinks Scotland should leave the union or not, most reasonable people, and certainly most Scots, would say that they have the right to. If there is no legal route for that right to be exercised then there will be trouble.
But this is not a one way matter. The UK is a joint enterprise in which Scotland has equal (arguably greater) sovereignty with England, Wales and NI
The break-up of the UK would be a profound national trauma that would deeply impact every UK citizen. Inter alia I am sure it would cause economic depression in Scotland and severe recession in rUK as investors fled the chaos and the £ crashed
Therefore Scotland’s right to secede must be balanced with the UK’s right to say “hang on a minute”
It’s not like the UK is some evil colonial power forbidding democracy; the UK Parliament - in which Scotland is fully represented - granted an indyref as recently as 8 years ago
The SNP needs to persuade its own supreme parliament at Westminster to grant a 2nd vote. I doubt that will happen before a generation has actually elapsed. 15-20 years, as in Canada
No that is bollocks. If Scotland wants to leave the Union then of course it will affect other countries in the Union but they don't have a veto. By your argument, the EU should have had the right to refuse the Brexit referendum. England, Wales and NI should have the same unilateral right to seceed, of course.
Truly infantile levels of analysis
Why?
I had the same argument with you recently and you came out with the same type of reply i.e. you stop arguing and just throw insults. The analogy is a good one.
The bizarre thing is when we had the discussion before you actually said it mattered not one jot what trauma leaving the EU caused even if massive because we gained independence (it trumped all) and then (as above) gave the trauma of Scotland leaving the union as a reason for not allowing it.
When called out on the inconsistency each time you stop arguing and resort to insults.
No, I give up arguing with people whose argumentation is so clueless or stupid it is waste of my time
And these days I care more about wasted time
But just this once I will indulge you
The differences between the Union of the EU and the Union of the United Kingdom are so vast they barely need explaining. But apparently they do
The UK is 300 years old; the EU is at best 70 years old, more like 30
The UK’s identity has been forged through 300 years of shared endeavour and pooled resources: building an empire, making a great nation, fighting existential wars; not so for the EU
The nations of the UK have a shared and supreme parliament which creates and passes our laws; not so the EU
The nations of the UK have a shared head of state deeply woven into our shared history and shared institutions; not true of the EU
The nations of the UK share one common language; unlike the EU
The nations of the UK share - with variations - a military, a seashore, a health service, a national broadcaster, a culture, a media, a demos, a character, a cuisine, a trade pattern, a climate, an architecture, an archipelago off the northwest coast of Europe, a sense of humour; not so the EU
All of which makes leaving the UK infinitely and impossibly complex compared to the already-painful process of quitting the EU
And finally, there are two DIFFERENT processes for leaving both. If you want to quit the EU you can trigger Article 50 unilaterally. In the UK it is different, you must get permission from Parliament at Westminster to have a referendum: as sturgeon acknowledges
And there it is. Endex
See how much better it is when you engage rather than insulting people?
Some of these are good arguments. For me the question of whether Scotland should be independent is finely balanced.
The UK in its present form is 100 years old, not 300, of course.
The argument about whether Scotland can legally unilaterally secede is of course different from whether it can morally. We can all read the legislation. My contention is that it is a moral outrage that Scotland's moral right to self determination is not matched by a legal right to do so, as it is in the EU. Even committed unionist Scots like DavidL find this troubling. I think the idea that Scotland is on some deep level "sovereign" regardless of legal status is widely held in Scotland by those on all sides of the independence debate. It is perhaps worrying that it is not shared in England.
But everything I said is obvious. If you need it spelled out to you then you are a cretin. I have given up explaining things to individual cretins: life is too short
I will not engage with you again, other than to hurl squalid, excessive and unjustified abuse
You have my word
Hi Leon, I read this exchange with interest. I said we'd return to this one - Brexit v Sindy - middle of this week, didn't I? Rhetorical only (I did) and it's Wednesday, the exact middle of this week. And seems you're talking about it anyway.
So, that question of mine: As somebody with such a burning love of absolutist untrammelled national sovereignty that iyo we had to have Brexit regardless of the practical consequences, how come you have zero empathy for the similar (and arguably stronger) argument for Sindy - stronger because Scotland, unlike the UK in the EU, lacks sovereign nation status - and a pretty visceral opposition to it ever happening?
I've been able to answer this to my own satisfaction, you'll be happy to hear.
The fact is you DO have empathy for the Sindy case. Of course you do. It'd be plain bizarre if you didn't. But the empathy you feel is swamped by your horror of what Sindy would mean. To wit no more Britain. Your love of (and pride in) Britain and its associated thing - Britishness - is real and it's bone-deep. It's not an annex to your persona it's integral. You clear Casino Royale's quite challenging bar for a Patriot with room to spare. This is why the thought of Sindy pains you so.
Very pleased with this. Think it's both true and fair.
Mate, this is not some startling insight. I say as much every day
I am a Briton and I love Britain. I don't want it broken up. Is this some bizarre new emotion you've just encountered? You'll be surprised to hear I am not alone
I am also a democrat. Scotland deserves a say. They had a say in 2014. Now for the sake of all Britain, we wait a generation to see if the mood changes, and they can have a say again
No country can survive constant referendums on its break up, any more than a marriage can survive the husband filing for divorce every year - then changing his mind at the last moment - year after year
I am sorry you have apparently spent days trying to work out something I could have told you in two minutes
Now you are goalpost moving.
This argument has nothing whatsoever to do with whether you love Briton or not.
This argument has nothing to do with multiple referendums
This argument has nothing to do with whether they had a say in 2014 or not and waiting a generation.
This argument is about the inconsistency in your stance re Sindy and EU. You used the exact mirror image to argue for and against Independence in the two scenarios. That is what the argument is about. The argument is about you being irrational.
I think what he's saying is he knows he's being irrational but that's where his 'patriotism' (ie in the hard nationalistic sense of the word) leads. I don't like it or agree with it but it's good to have it clarified.
The Sindy Ref point is something else imo. I think the argument for having one is compelling - because of Brexit and the Holyrood mandate - and I don't think to do so is to risk a "Ref every year until it's a Yes". Think that's a nonsense since if it's another No the SNP would have to backburner the issue or lose power.
It's not irrational at all
I am quite sure there are many Scots who feel the same way about Scotland as I do about Britain. That Scotland has their fundamental loyalty, and needs to be free, to the extent that it must be taken out of the UK (maybe even if it is economically harmful). Just as I wanted us out of the EU
That's fair. I understand it entirely. BECAUSE I am a patriot, like them
However if they want to press the point home and do it - secede - they need to do it legally - via the British method (Westminster approval for a referendum) as we - the UK - did it legally in Europe, via Article 50
Moreover, they can't do it every year or every five years, that would make a nonsense of the constitution and render Britain hideously unstable - impoverishing us all, as investors flee etc. I therefore believe in the generation argument (you don't, but this is a matter of opinion not objective fact)
And FWIW I would have applied the generation argument to the UK in the EU. If we had voted Remain I would have said: right, we have to accept it, let's make the best of it. And I would have neither expected nor wished for us to revisit the question for 15-20 years minimum.
My position is not irrational nor is it inconsistent, indeed I suspect it bugs you because it is the opposite
But the assumption holding all this together is a false one. Granting this Sindy Ref (due to Brexit and the Holyrood mandate) does not open the floodgates for one every 5 years or whatever. If it's held and it's a No that is 'it' for a long time. Any solid analysis of the political calculus shows that. Sturgeon certainly knows it. Hence her cautious approach.
As I say, this difference is a matter of opinion, not objective fact. I simply disagree with you
There is no such thing as "disagreement" on PB. There is right and there is wrong.
The difficulty with you and @kini is that you are usually both wrong so I can't call it here.
Just possibly the departure of Boris is having an effect. He was certainly a lightning rod for anti Brexit sentiment and some of it might just have been hostility to him.
It's also just a less salient issue so the numbers mean less. It wouldn't be surprising if it swings dramatically the other way the next time there is an EU crisis in the news.
Yes. The really embittered Remoaners will either leave or die or quietly accept the situation. Young people will grow up with the UK outside the EU and consider it natural. The idea of submitting ourselves to rule from Brussels will come to seem fanciful and silly - who would do that? They are foreigners, we rule ourselves
This outcome is more likely than anything else (eg Rejoin) as it accords with human nature. In five years time it is quite possible those polls will be completely reversed
This is why I believe Remainers have a narrowing window of opportunity. If they want to make a significant shift back to the EU it has to happen in the next few years, while there is still sentiment on their side. PM Starmer will come under intense pressure to do this
Young people will grow up wondering why they can't travel freely and work and live in Europe like their Irish or Dutch friends can. They will grow up wondering why our economy is under performing, why things cost more here, why they have to queue so long at passport control, why they have to pay roaming charges, why they are locked out of a market of over 300 million people on our doorstep by a decision they played no part in. Even more so in Scotland and Northern Ireland, where even the young people's parents didn't vote for it. Brexiteers will have to do a lot more to demonstrate that Brexit is delivering tangible benefits if they want this decision to stick. Shouting about "Remoaners" doesn't really cut it.
No, I'm right. And it perturbs you
There you go again. Your response to a good post is nothing.
It was a trivially inane post, not least because it says the EU contains "300 million people", when it actually contains 450 million. If @OnlyLivingBoy can't even get a fact as basic as that right, what is the point is responding to anything else he says?
Shape up, or shut up
It wasn't and when you make posts like this after a few exchanges it just looks like you have lost the argument badly. You might not think you have but that is very much what it looks like.
Whatevs
While I agree with your postion regarding further Scottish referenda, I have a quick question for you, old buddy; if Leave had lost, would you have accepted it as "the settled will of the people" and told all those who requested a further referendum that they were being unreasonable for at least a generation. No crossing fingers as you type now.
Yes, absolutely. I would have said: Accept it. It is done
Indeed I would have gone further. If we had voted Remain I'd have said: let's at least join Schenghen, and maybe consider- in time - the euro
You van choose to believe me or not, but that is exactly what I mentally decided before I cast my carefully balanced vote. Britain had to choose: properly In or Out, all that faffing was poisonous, for them and for us
If any Leaver had tried to revive the argument I would have held them in contempt. "We had our chance, but the country decided otherwise..."
I will give you the benefit of the doubt, but you will forgive me (or not) if I feel a certain level of scepticism. I doubt most Leavers would have shared your position though. Mr. Faridge would have been clamouring immediately
All the Leavers I know were of like mind. This was our once in a generation chance, if we lose, we lose. That's it. Give up, for at least 20 years. Not worth the arse-ache
I am sure some Leavers would have gone into Japanese-in-the-jungle mode, maybe including Farage, but that's not my business
So why is that having won they can't accept their victory and move on?
Probably because your lot spent three years trying to overturn the democratic will of the people, and now you're off trying to Rejoin?
Starmer is saying no to even rejoining things like the Single Market and Customs Union which are not even part of the Brexit vote. How won do you want to be?
That wasn't his position before the 2019 election.
Just possibly the departure of Boris is having an effect. He was certainly a lightning rod for anti Brexit sentiment and some of it might just have been hostility to him.
It's also just a less salient issue so the numbers mean less. It wouldn't be surprising if it swings dramatically the other way the next time there is an EU crisis in the news.
Yes. The really embittered Remoaners will either leave or die or quietly accept the situation. Young people will grow up with the UK outside the EU and consider it natural. The idea of submitting ourselves to rule from Brussels will come to seem fanciful and silly - who would do that? They are foreigners, we rule ourselves
This outcome is more likely than anything else (eg Rejoin) as it accords with human nature. In five years time it is quite possible those polls will be completely reversed
This is why I believe Remainers have a narrowing window of opportunity. If they want to make a significant shift back to the EU it has to happen in the next few years, while there is still sentiment on their side. PM Starmer will come under intense pressure to do this
Young people will grow up wondering why they can't travel freely and work and live in Europe like their Irish or Dutch friends can. They will grow up wondering why our economy is under performing, why things cost more here, why they have to queue so long at passport control, why they have to pay roaming charges, why they are locked out of a market of over 300 million people on our doorstep by a decision they played no part in. Even more so in Scotland and Northern Ireland, where even the young people's parents didn't vote for it. Brexiteers will have to do a lot more to demonstrate that Brexit is delivering tangible benefits if they want this decision to stick. Shouting about "Remoaners" doesn't really cut it.
Supposedly the economic benefits are long term and it is unfair to point to the fact that we have made ourselves poorer. Similarly the trade lost to making ourselves uncompetitive in our largest market will eventually be made up by growing trade from all the markets currently far smaller.
TBH all of that is meh - economies grow and shrink and we have suffered loss of GDP before as have other EU countries which isn't the fault of Brexit. So I think what will really get to people is our loss of relevance to the world, and the myriad stupid petty bureaucracies and costs of these getting in our way.
Until in probably not too far into the future a political leader stands up and offers people a vision of alternative - a vision of freedom.
"Just think for a moment what a prospect that is. A single market without barriers—visible or invisible—giving you direct and unhindered access to the purchasing power of over 300 million of the world's wealthiest and most prosperous people.
Bigger than Japan. Bigger than the United States. On your doorstep. It's not a dream. It's not a vision. It's not some bureaucrat's plan. It's for real."
The idea that being outside the EU becomes the new normal also ignores the fact that most countries in Europe are inside the EU, with more still seeking to join. If being outside the EU is so normal, why is Ireland inside the EU? Why is Sweden inside the EU? Why do Swedes deserve to have free movement and access to the single market, but we don't? Why do we get our passports stamped, but our Irish mates don't?
It really would make this simpler if instead of "EU" we could address the real subject - the "EEA". We can deliver Brexit, depart the EU and its political ideals, take back control and keep trading freely in the biggest marketplace on the planet.
@Leon said nobody in Switzerland or Norway want into the EU. Why would they - 90% of the action is the EEA and both have full and free access. We - uniquely in western Europe - do not.
Starmer's ruled out FoM which makes that a non starter I think ?
I can't see that we will rejoin the single market or the customs union. But we will likely find ourselves in a single market with the EEA and a customs union...
Are you trying to be funny or do you not understand what you're saying?
Switzerland is not in the EEA yet has access to the single market. In *a* single market, not *the* single market. Turkey has a customs union with the EU but is not in the ECU.
I think it may be you who does not understand. The Europeans are happy to lay on lashings of fudge. No to joining the customs union, but here is your bespoke customs access arrangement which copies it. You Swiss want independence but also access? Here is your bespoke deal which gets your entry to the single market.
The UK can have the same. We just need to ask for it.
Indeed. Once the current generation of Leave campaigners leave office, we can move on from their play-acting and sensibly negotiate a bespoke relationship with the EU along similar lines to Switzerland or Turkey. Chiefly, we want to be a free trade zone that stretches from Iceland to Turkey, which was what the Leave campaign promised we would get!
Great! Sign me up
But how do you get that without Free Movement?
You do away with customs, tariffs, and quotas.
I thought we had a free trade agreement with the EU? Still need checks apparently. I for one did not appreciate this before the referendum, but I have the luxury of having voted remain, unlike others, such as @RochdalePioneers
A free trade agreement where all goods have to be categorised and notarised and catalogued is not free trade. Yes the goods I import are zero tariff zero quota zero VAT. But the reams of paperwork needed are slow expensive and pointlessly bureaucratic. Have 3 pallets on a truck and it suffers a breakdown on route and the truck gets swapped out? All your paperwork is invalid and it can't cross until all companies with pallets on board get new ones.
Vs put goods on truck, drive truck, unload truck.
How do we get back to that? Without freedom of movement? Is it all about accepting EU standards (and judgement)?
The Good News is that EU standards are our standards are EU standards - because we wrote them. There is one example now of where they have banned something we have not - a metallic food additive which isn't widely used. Our government is pledged to increasing food standards so it won't be long before we follow suit.
The judgement bit is a red herring. Companies make products which are as universally compliant as possible. As so much our external trade is with the EEA we can't wander too far away and design decisions are made to make universality work. Was watching a Doug Demuro video reviewing the (mental) Land Rover Defender 90 V8, and he commented that some of the things it was missing or was forced to have are for compliance in other markets.
Anyway, remember that most other EU countries act first and worry about being taken to a Euro court later. Other countries illegally intervene to save their steel industries from Chinese ramping and deal with the slap on the wrists later. Britain was fairly unique in saying "no sorry your industry has to die we aren't allowed to pump money into you. As if they actually wanted to - the ECJ was always just an excuse.
When Tata pulls out of Port Talbot, assuming government money for the electric arc furnace programme is not forthcoming, who can we blame?
The government. Like so many other nations globally we could take an interest in these strategic national assets. But don't.
Just possibly the departure of Boris is having an effect. He was certainly a lightning rod for anti Brexit sentiment and some of it might just have been hostility to him.
It's also just a less salient issue so the numbers mean less. It wouldn't be surprising if it swings dramatically the other way the next time there is an EU crisis in the news.
Yes. The really embittered Remoaners will either leave or die or quietly accept the situation. Young people will grow up with the UK outside the EU and consider it natural. The idea of submitting ourselves to rule from Brussels will come to seem fanciful and silly - who would do that? They are foreigners, we rule ourselves
This outcome is more likely than anything else (eg Rejoin) as it accords with human nature. In five years time it is quite possible those polls will be completely reversed
This is why I believe Remainers have a narrowing window of opportunity. If they want to make a significant shift back to the EU it has to happen in the next few years, while there is still sentiment on their side. PM Starmer will come under intense pressure to do this
Young people will grow up wondering why they can't travel freely and work and live in Europe like their Irish or Dutch friends can. They will grow up wondering why our economy is under performing, why things cost more here, why they have to queue so long at passport control, why they have to pay roaming charges, why they are locked out of a market of over 300 million people on our doorstep by a decision they played no part in. Even more so in Scotland and Northern Ireland, where even the young people's parents didn't vote for it. Brexiteers will have to do a lot more to demonstrate that Brexit is delivering tangible benefits if they want this decision to stick. Shouting about "Remoaners" doesn't really cut it.
No, I'm right. And it perturbs you
There you go again. Your response to a good post is nothing.
It was a trivially inane post, not least because it says the EU contains "300 million people", when it actually contains 450 million. If @OnlyLivingBoy can't even get a fact as basic as that right, what is the point is responding to anything else he says?
Shape up, or shut up
It wasn't and when you make posts like this after a few exchanges it just looks like you have lost the argument badly. You might not think you have but that is very much what it looks like.
Whatevs
While I agree with your postion regarding further Scottish referenda, I have a quick question for you, old buddy; if Leave had lost, would you have accepted it as "the settled will of the people" and told all those who requested a further referendum that they were being unreasonable for at least a generation. No crossing fingers as you type now.
Yes, absolutely. I would have said: Accept it. It is done
Indeed I would have gone further. If we had voted Remain I'd have said: let's at least join Schenghen, and maybe consider- in time - the euro
You van choose to believe me or not, but that is exactly what I mentally decided before I cast my carefully balanced vote. Britain had to choose: properly In or Out, all that faffing was poisonous, for them and for us
If any Leaver had tried to revive the argument I would have held them in contempt. "We had our chance, but the country decided otherwise..."
I would have accepted it too. I would have still wanted reform and democratic accountability within the EU but the in out principle would have been determined.
I would find a Scexit much, much more difficult to live with. Indeed I would probably move south of the border at some point, probably on retirement.
We might only let you in for 90 days in every 180 David
Well, as long as it covers the cricket season...
Speaking of cricket, I’m at Cheltenham and it’s not going well. We need help. Could you explain how Northants are nailed on to win by an innings and 110?
Jolyon Maugham is a weirdo and a dickhead, part 493
Another Twitter activist who isn't having a good week is Alex Andreou. He ended up blocking Owen Jones after this exchange.
@sturdyAlex If you’re a ‘progressive’ witnessing this total Tory meltdown, a competition between two evil fools to embarrass each other, while the country literally burns, and your instinct is to interject and publicly flame Starmer, delete your account and hand over your phone to your mum.
@OwenJones84 So it was OK to literally agitate for people to vote against the Labour party when Theresa May's government was in meltdown, but now anyone who criticises Keir Starmer for abandoning his leadership promises should be silenced?
I understand Owen Jones. He is angry because Starmer lied to him. He knew what he had to say to knobhead hard left members to get elected and made sure that he said it.
And then once elected has focused on driving away as many of the hard left nobbers as possible. What Jonesy should be upset about is that he was foolish enough to listen to the obvious lies and think it to be truth.
How naïve were that lot? It was obvious that Starmer was stringing them along.
Indeed. Sir Keir has the honesty and integrity of Boris Johnson.
It will take him far.
His alternative was tell the truth and Rebecca Wrong-Daily would be LOTO.
Indeed.
So lying would further his career and his politics. Integrity didn't matter.
Up to you if that's what you're looking for in a politician or not.
Mr. Leon, aye. From some, the line "Hey, idiot. You're voting wrong" did not necessarily prove persuasive.
By the time they realised it was close and they could lose it was too late to turn around the impressively terrible campaign.
Had we voted Remain 52/48 I'm sure the Lib Dems would've been pushing for further integration. Corbynite Labour would not, though a new leader might have gone that way. Farage might will be in a new UKIP-style political vehicle.
The Conservatives might have split.
But then, if Alexander hadn't died when he did the Romans might have been crushed beneath his heel.
In order to get the deal you want, would you tear up all Truss's trade deals and give up on the CPTPP?
A good idea to tear them up anyway - as the New Zealanders were observing this week, it's mysterious why we decided to disadvantage our farmers for no benefit.
To advantage our consumers?
You know, “voters”.
The issue about fucking over our farmers is not that this deal might fuck them over, it is that the Cons for as long as anyone can remember have positioned themselves as being the party that would not fuck over our farmers.
Indeed. Also how does shutting down UK farming so that we are reliant on imports "advantage our consumers"?
Bailey has won her claim against her Chambers, but not against Stomewall:
1/The Employment Tribunal found that Garden Court Chambers discriminated against me because of my gender critical belief when it published a statement that I was under investigation & in upholding Stonewall’s complaint against me.
To be precise: she won the smallest of four (? three) claims against her chambers.
She lost every claim against Stonewall, after fundraising under the banner “I am suing Stonewall”.
As is (by now) completely normal, the GC crowd are spinning this as a massive win. They definitely have the media management bit down: get your story out in front of people first & very few people will read the fine print.
1. The claim against the first respondent (i.e. Stonewall) is dismissed 2. The second and third respondents discriminated against the claimant because of belief in respect of detriments 2 and 4. They also victimised her in respect of detriment 4 because of protected act 2. 3. The second and third respondents are ordered to pay the claimant £22,000 compensation for injury to feelings, and interest thereon of £4,693.33. 4. Claims of discrimination and victimisation by the second and third respondents in detriments 1,3 and 5 are dismissed. 5. The indirect discrimination claim against the second and third respondents is dismissed.
Just possibly the departure of Boris is having an effect. He was certainly a lightning rod for anti Brexit sentiment and some of it might just have been hostility to him.
It's also just a less salient issue so the numbers mean less. It wouldn't be surprising if it swings dramatically the other way the next time there is an EU crisis in the news.
Yes. The really embittered Remoaners will either leave or die or quietly accept the situation. Young people will grow up with the UK outside the EU and consider it natural. The idea of submitting ourselves to rule from Brussels will come to seem fanciful and silly - who would do that? They are foreigners, we rule ourselves
This outcome is more likely than anything else (eg Rejoin) as it accords with human nature. In five years time it is quite possible those polls will be completely reversed
This is why I believe Remainers have a narrowing window of opportunity. If they want to make a significant shift back to the EU it has to happen in the next few years, while there is still sentiment on their side. PM Starmer will come under intense pressure to do this
Young people will grow up wondering why they can't travel freely and work and live in Europe like their Irish or Dutch friends can. They will grow up wondering why our economy is under performing, why things cost more here, why they have to queue so long at passport control, why they have to pay roaming charges, why they are locked out of a market of over 300 million people on our doorstep by a decision they played no part in. Even more so in Scotland and Northern Ireland, where even the young people's parents didn't vote for it. Brexiteers will have to do a lot more to demonstrate that Brexit is delivering tangible benefits if they want this decision to stick. Shouting about "Remoaners" doesn't really cut it.
No, I'm right. And it perturbs you
There you go again. Your response to a good post is nothing.
It was a trivially inane post, not least because it says the EU contains "300 million people", when it actually contains 450 million. If @OnlyLivingBoy can't even get a fact as basic as that right, what is the point is responding to anything else he says?
Shape up, or shut up
It wasn't and when you make posts like this after a few exchanges it just looks like you have lost the argument badly. You might not think you have but that is very much what it looks like.
Whatevs
While I agree with your postion regarding further Scottish referenda, I have a quick question for you, old buddy; if Leave had lost, would you have accepted it as "the settled will of the people" and told all those who requested a further referendum that they were being unreasonable for at least a generation. No crossing fingers as you type now.
Yes, absolutely. I would have said: Accept it. It is done
Indeed I would have gone further. If we had voted Remain I'd have said: let's at least join Schenghen, and maybe consider- in time - the euro
You van choose to believe me or not, but that is exactly what I mentally decided before I cast my carefully balanced vote. Britain had to choose: properly In or Out, all that faffing was poisonous, for them and for us
If any Leaver had tried to revive the argument I would have held them in contempt. "We had our chance, but the country decided otherwise..."
I would have accepted it too. I would have still wanted reform and democratic accountability within the EU but the in out principle would have been determined.
I would find a Scexit much, much more difficult to live with. Indeed I would probably move south of the border at some point, probably on retirement.
We might only let you in for 90 days in every 180 David
Well, as long as it covers the cricket season...
Speaking of cricket, I’m at Cheltenham and it’s not going well. We need help. Could you explain how Northants are nailed on to win by an innings and 110?
Ta muchly.
I think that I can confidently say that Gloucestershire have no chance whatsoever. Will that do?
Just possibly the departure of Boris is having an effect. He was certainly a lightning rod for anti Brexit sentiment and some of it might just have been hostility to him.
It's also just a less salient issue so the numbers mean less. It wouldn't be surprising if it swings dramatically the other way the next time there is an EU crisis in the news.
Yes. The really embittered Remoaners will either leave or die or quietly accept the situation. Young people will grow up with the UK outside the EU and consider it natural. The idea of submitting ourselves to rule from Brussels will come to seem fanciful and silly - who would do that? They are foreigners, we rule ourselves
This outcome is more likely than anything else (eg Rejoin) as it accords with human nature. In five years time it is quite possible those polls will be completely reversed
This is why I believe Remainers have a narrowing window of opportunity. If they want to make a significant shift back to the EU it has to happen in the next few years, while there is still sentiment on their side. PM Starmer will come under intense pressure to do this
Young people will grow up wondering why they can't travel freely and work and live in Europe like their Irish or Dutch friends can. They will grow up wondering why our economy is under performing, why things cost more here, why they have to queue so long at passport control, why they have to pay roaming charges, why they are locked out of a market of over 300 million people on our doorstep by a decision they played no part in. Even more so in Scotland and Northern Ireland, where even the young people's parents didn't vote for it. Brexiteers will have to do a lot more to demonstrate that Brexit is delivering tangible benefits if they want this decision to stick. Shouting about "Remoaners" doesn't really cut it.
Supposedly the economic benefits are long term and it is unfair to point to the fact that we have made ourselves poorer. Similarly the trade lost to making ourselves uncompetitive in our largest market will eventually be made up by growing trade from all the markets currently far smaller.
TBH all of that is meh - economies grow and shrink and we have suffered loss of GDP before as have other EU countries which isn't the fault of Brexit. So I think what will really get to people is our loss of relevance to the world, and the myriad stupid petty bureaucracies and costs of these getting in our way.
Until in probably not too far into the future a political leader stands up and offers people a vision of alternative - a vision of freedom.
"Just think for a moment what a prospect that is. A single market without barriers—visible or invisible—giving you direct and unhindered access to the purchasing power of over 300 million of the world's wealthiest and most prosperous people.
Bigger than Japan. Bigger than the United States. On your doorstep. It's not a dream. It's not a vision. It's not some bureaucrat's plan. It's for real."
The idea that being outside the EU becomes the new normal also ignores the fact that most countries in Europe are inside the EU, with more still seeking to join. If being outside the EU is so normal, why is Ireland inside the EU? Why is Sweden inside the EU? Why do Swedes deserve to have free movement and access to the single market, but we don't? Why do we get our passports stamped, but our Irish mates don't?
It really would make this simpler if instead of "EU" we could address the real subject - the "EEA". We can deliver Brexit, depart the EU and its political ideals, take back control and keep trading freely in the biggest marketplace on the planet.
@Leon said nobody in Switzerland or Norway want into the EU. Why would they - 90% of the action is the EEA and both have full and free access. We - uniquely in western Europe - do not.
Starmer's ruled out FoM which makes that a non starter I think ?
I can't see that we will rejoin the single market or the customs union. But we will likely find ourselves in a single market with the EEA and a customs union...
Are you trying to be funny or do you not understand what you're saying?
Switzerland is not in the EEA yet has access to the single market. In *a* single market, not *the* single market. Turkey has a customs union with the EU but is not in the ECU.
I think it may be you who does not understand. The Europeans are happy to lay on lashings of fudge. No to joining the customs union, but here is your bespoke customs access arrangement which copies it. You Swiss want independence but also access? Here is your bespoke deal which gets your entry to the single market.
The UK can have the same. We just need to ask for it.
Indeed. Once the current generation of Leave campaigners leave office, we can move on from their play-acting and sensibly negotiate a bespoke relationship with the EU along similar lines to Switzerland or Turkey. Chiefly, we want to be a free trade zone that stretches from Iceland to Turkey, which was what the Leave campaign promised we would get!
Great! Sign me up
But how do you get that without Free Movement?
You do away with customs, tariffs, and quotas.
I thought we had a free trade agreement with the EU? Still need checks apparently. I for one did not appreciate this before the referendum, but I have the luxury of having voted remain, unlike others, such as @RochdalePioneers
A free trade agreement where all goods have to be categorised and notarised and catalogued is not free trade. Yes the goods I import are zero tariff zero quota zero VAT. But the reams of paperwork needed are slow expensive and pointlessly bureaucratic. Have 3 pallets on a truck and it suffers a breakdown on route and the truck gets swapped out? All your paperwork is invalid and it can't cross until all companies with pallets on board get new ones.
Vs put goods on truck, drive truck, unload truck.
How do we get back to that? Without freedom of movement? Is it all about accepting EU standards (and judgement)?
The Good News is that EU standards are our standards are EU standards - because we wrote them. There is one example now of where they have banned something we have not - a metallic food additive which isn't widely used. Our government is pledged to increasing food standards so it won't be long before we follow suit.
The judgement bit is a red herring. Companies make products which are as universally compliant as possible. As so much our external trade is with the EEA we can't wander too far away and design decisions are made to make universality work. Was watching a Doug Demuro video reviewing the (mental) Land Rover Defender 90 V8, and he commented that some of the things it was missing or was forced to have are for compliance in other markets.
Anyway, remember that most other EU countries act first and worry about being taken to a Euro court later. Other countries illegally intervene to save their steel industries from Chinese ramping and deal with the slap on the wrists later. Britain was fairly unique in saying "no sorry your industry has to die we aren't allowed to pump money into you. As if they actually wanted to - the ECJ was always just an excuse.
When Tata pulls out of Port Talbot, assuming government money for the electric arc furnace programme is not forthcoming, who can we blame?
The government. Like so many other nations globally we could take an interest in these strategic national assets. But don't.
I'll rephrase. Who can the Government blame?
Don't we also come tumbling down the economic league tables should we as a nation dispense with making primary product?
Bailey has won her claim against her Chambers, but not against Stomewall:
1/The Employment Tribunal found that Garden Court Chambers discriminated against me because of my gender critical belief when it published a statement that I was under investigation & in upholding Stonewall’s complaint against me.
To be precise: she won the smallest of four (? three) claims against her chambers.
She lost every claim against Stonewall, after fundraising under the banner “I am suing Stonewall”.
As is (by now) completely normal, the GC crowd are spinning this as a massive win. They definitely have the media management bit down: get your story out in front of people first & very few people will read the fine print.
1. The claim against the first respondent (i.e. Stonewall) is dismissed 2. The second and third respondents discriminated against the claimant because of belief in respect of detriments 2 and 4. They also victimised her in respect of detriment 4 because of protected act 2. 3. The second and third respondents are ordered to pay the claimant £22,000 compensation for injury to feelings, and interest thereon of £4,693.33. 4. Claims of discrimination and victimisation by the second and third respondents in detriments 1,3 and 5 are dismissed. 5. The indirect discrimination claim against the second and third respondents is dismissed.
If you want to know who really won... who is liable for her costs ?
Just possibly the departure of Boris is having an effect. He was certainly a lightning rod for anti Brexit sentiment and some of it might just have been hostility to him.
It's also just a less salient issue so the numbers mean less. It wouldn't be surprising if it swings dramatically the other way the next time there is an EU crisis in the news.
Yes. The really embittered Remoaners will either leave or die or quietly accept the situation. Young people will grow up with the UK outside the EU and consider it natural. The idea of submitting ourselves to rule from Brussels will come to seem fanciful and silly - who would do that? They are foreigners, we rule ourselves
This outcome is more likely than anything else (eg Rejoin) as it accords with human nature. In five years time it is quite possible those polls will be completely reversed
This is why I believe Remainers have a narrowing window of opportunity. If they want to make a significant shift back to the EU it has to happen in the next few years, while there is still sentiment on their side. PM Starmer will come under intense pressure to do this
You always talk about remoaners. But at which point do leavers also "leave or die or quietly accept the situation"?
Leave won, we left the EU and delivered a pretty hard Brexit. Yet to listen to the core of the leave campaign and various newspapers and a lot of voters, its as if the battle hasn't yet been fought.
Its fine to say "remainers won't accept defeat" - but neither will leavers accept victory...
OK, set aside ALL the Brexit arguments, and all the Leaver Remainer stuff
I am talking about human nature. People come to accept the status quo around them as the natural order - this can be good or bad, depending, but it is the case. Revolutions are rare of necessity (especially in the UK)
So Britain will get accustomed to being outside the EU. The irritation of having our passports stamped will ease and then disappear, we will get used to ALL our laws being made by our own democratic politicians, and the weirdness that is EU politics in Brussels (and boy is it weird) will grow evermore distant and alien
Check polls in Norway and Switzerland. No one there proposes to join the EU because the idea is deeply unpopular
The whole Brexit argument will fade like an old carpet in strong sunshine, and Rejoin will come to be seen as a quaint cause adopted by cranks
But the issue is not our membership of the EU. People in Norway don't want to join the EU because their membership of the EEA means they get all those benefits but still retain the freedoms you mention.
You really think in this connected global digital age that people here will accept being poorer, more constrained and less connected than everyone around them? Name me one of the countries you visited recently who learned to accept their own status quo having seen the differences elsewhere.
Britain was in relative decline in the single market, and Brexit was a vote against that. People didn't want to be the low-wage employer of last resort, or a captive market for EU goods.
As the Brexiteers are not inspecting incoming EU goods, we are a captive market for EU exports, while our own exports are subject to self imposed red tape. It really isn't a very good or for that matter a stable outcome.
Not bad for consumers though as we continue to benefit from excellent quality consumer goods from the EU, just a problem for exporters.
Our exports to the EU are at an all time high so not that much of a problem.
As I understand it, the record high is driven by LNG going through the UK to the continent. I’m not certain that demonstrates that all other exports are doing well.
In last night's debate both candidates gave a cautious welcome to the return of fracking, apparently. Got missed in all the furore.
Given current gas prices it would be so profitable that the frackers would be able to offer fracked areas discounts on their energy bills/council tax.
And of course the government would get its cut.
Money talks.
And if we turned Germany into our gas b*tch, that would help negotations on NI and trade, too.
Win, win, win. win.
They should be thinking about underground coal gasification. All that coal stretching out under the North Sea. Combine it with CCS and we get a low carbon source of energy (blue hydrogen) from our own hydrocarbons to compliment intermittent renewables.
The advantage of developing wholly new technologies, like renewables and storage, is that you can hope to make them cheaper than the status quo.
The problem with carbon capture and storage is that it will always be more expensive than the status quo of simply venting the carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
Not necessarily.
There's a certain irony that CO2 can actually be extremely valuable and useful. And so while we're trying to eliminate it from much of society, its actually getting manufactured to be used.
Food-grade CO2 especially is a valuable commodity and used in a lot of processes, from manufacturing to alcohol. During the World Cup I think it was, there was a Europe-wide CO2 shortage that led some pubs to run out of beer during the World Cup which was a bit unfortunate.
Theoretically if you could get carbon capture that's then put through a filtration system that gets pure, clean, useable CO2 from waste CO2 that can then be used in manufacturing, hospitality etc could be quite a useful product.
Just possibly the departure of Boris is having an effect. He was certainly a lightning rod for anti Brexit sentiment and some of it might just have been hostility to him.
It's also just a less salient issue so the numbers mean less. It wouldn't be surprising if it swings dramatically the other way the next time there is an EU crisis in the news.
Yes. The really embittered Remoaners will either leave or die or quietly accept the situation. Young people will grow up with the UK outside the EU and consider it natural. The idea of submitting ourselves to rule from Brussels will come to seem fanciful and silly - who would do that? They are foreigners, we rule ourselves
This outcome is more likely than anything else (eg Rejoin) as it accords with human nature. In five years time it is quite possible those polls will be completely reversed
This is why I believe Remainers have a narrowing window of opportunity. If they want to make a significant shift back to the EU it has to happen in the next few years, while there is still sentiment on their side. PM Starmer will come under intense pressure to do this
Young people will grow up wondering why they can't travel freely and work and live in Europe like their Irish or Dutch friends can. They will grow up wondering why our economy is under performing, why things cost more here, why they have to queue so long at passport control, why they have to pay roaming charges, why they are locked out of a market of over 300 million people on our doorstep by a decision they played no part in. Even more so in Scotland and Northern Ireland, where even the young people's parents didn't vote for it. Brexiteers will have to do a lot more to demonstrate that Brexit is delivering tangible benefits if they want this decision to stick. Shouting about "Remoaners" doesn't really cut it.
No, I'm right. And it perturbs you
There you go again. Your response to a good post is nothing.
It was a trivially inane post, not least because it says the EU contains "300 million people", when it actually contains 450 million. If @OnlyLivingBoy can't even get a fact as basic as that right, what is the point is responding to anything else he says?
Shape up, or shut up
It wasn't and when you make posts like this after a few exchanges it just looks like you have lost the argument badly. You might not think you have but that is very much what it looks like.
Whatevs
While I agree with your postion regarding further Scottish referenda, I have a quick question for you, old buddy; if Leave had lost, would you have accepted it as "the settled will of the people" and told all those who requested a further referendum that they were being unreasonable for at least a generation. No crossing fingers as you type now.
Yes, absolutely. I would have said: Accept it. It is done
Indeed I would have gone further. If we had voted Remain I'd have said: let's at least join Schenghen, and maybe consider- in time - the euro
You van choose to believe me or not, but that is exactly what I mentally decided before I cast my carefully balanced vote. Britain had to choose: properly In or Out, all that faffing was poisonous, for them and for us
If any Leaver had tried to revive the argument I would have held them in contempt. "We had our chance, but the country decided otherwise..."
I would have accepted it too. I would have still wanted reform and democratic accountability within the EU but the in out principle would have been determined.
I would find a Scexit much, much more difficult to live with. Indeed I would probably move south of the border at some point, probably on retirement.
Yes. One of the lessons of these profound constitutional referendums is that they are hugely disturbing, divisive and they rouse up dangerous passions. And Scexit would be Brexit on uber-testosterone. This is why these votes need to be decidedly rare: every 15-20 years minimum
I take your earlier point BTW. That Scotland perhaps needs a guaranteed way of triggering a referendum, that does not entirely rely on the whims and politics of Westminster
There is no reason for the UKG to cave into the Nats any time soon. However a wise UK government would address this. A Royal Commission, establishing terms on which a Scottish government can rightly ask for a plebiscite, agreeable to all. It must simultaneously respect Scottish and British political sentiment, because this huge question affects everyone in GB, profoundly. So, Holyrood can't just ask for a vote and get one whenever, but neither can the UKG deny one forever
I am not sure what the mechanism might be. But it should not be beyond the wit of man to find one?
Yes!
Hence why it's such an odd and jaundiced view of the Scots to think granting this one would mean - if they vote No again - that they'd be pressuring for another in no time.
They would not. The SNP would have to ice the issue or lose power. They wouldn't win any of the next few elections at Holyrood with a commitment for another Ref front and centre.
Sturgeon is fully aware of this and she understands Scottish politics better than most.
Just possibly the departure of Boris is having an effect. He was certainly a lightning rod for anti Brexit sentiment and some of it might just have been hostility to him.
It's also just a less salient issue so the numbers mean less. It wouldn't be surprising if it swings dramatically the other way the next time there is an EU crisis in the news.
Yes. The really embittered Remoaners will either leave or die or quietly accept the situation. Young people will grow up with the UK outside the EU and consider it natural. The idea of submitting ourselves to rule from Brussels will come to seem fanciful and silly - who would do that? They are foreigners, we rule ourselves
This outcome is more likely than anything else (eg Rejoin) as it accords with human nature. In five years time it is quite possible those polls will be completely reversed
This is why I believe Remainers have a narrowing window of opportunity. If they want to make a significant shift back to the EU it has to happen in the next few years, while there is still sentiment on their side. PM Starmer will come under intense pressure to do this
Young people will grow up wondering why they can't travel freely and work and live in Europe like their Irish or Dutch friends can. They will grow up wondering why our economy is under performing, why things cost more here, why they have to queue so long at passport control, why they have to pay roaming charges, why they are locked out of a market of over 300 million people on our doorstep by a decision they played no part in. Even more so in Scotland and Northern Ireland, where even the young people's parents didn't vote for it. Brexiteers will have to do a lot more to demonstrate that Brexit is delivering tangible benefits if they want this decision to stick. Shouting about "Remoaners" doesn't really cut it.
No, I'm right. And it perturbs you
There you go again. Your response to a good post is nothing.
It was a trivially inane post, not least because it says the EU contains "300 million people", when it actually contains 450 million. If @OnlyLivingBoy can't even get a fact as basic as that right, what is the point is responding to anything else he says?
Shape up, or shut up
It wasn't and when you make posts like this after a few exchanges it just looks like you have lost the argument badly. You might not think you have but that is very much what it looks like.
Whatevs
While I agree with your postion regarding further Scottish referenda, I have a quick question for you, old buddy; if Leave had lost, would you have accepted it as "the settled will of the people" and told all those who requested a further referendum that they were being unreasonable for at least a generation. No crossing fingers as you type now.
Yes, absolutely. I would have said: Accept it. It is done
Indeed I would have gone further. If we had voted Remain I'd have said: let's at least join Schenghen, and maybe consider- in time - the euro
You van choose to believe me or not, but that is exactly what I mentally decided before I cast my carefully balanced vote. Britain had to choose: properly In or Out, all that faffing was poisonous, for them and for us
If any Leaver had tried to revive the argument I would have held them in contempt. "We had our chance, but the country decided otherwise..."
I would have accepted it too. I would have still wanted reform and democratic accountability within the EU but the in out principle would have been determined.
I would find a Scexit much, much more difficult to live with. Indeed I would probably move south of the border at some point, probably on retirement.
We might only let you in for 90 days in every 180 David
Well, as long as it covers the cricket season...
I think we can agree that. Personally I'll give you all 365 days in the year.
Just possibly the departure of Boris is having an effect. He was certainly a lightning rod for anti Brexit sentiment and some of it might just have been hostility to him.
It's also just a less salient issue so the numbers mean less. It wouldn't be surprising if it swings dramatically the other way the next time there is an EU crisis in the news.
Yes. The really embittered Remoaners will either leave or die or quietly accept the situation. Young people will grow up with the UK outside the EU and consider it natural. The idea of submitting ourselves to rule from Brussels will come to seem fanciful and silly - who would do that? They are foreigners, we rule ourselves
This outcome is more likely than anything else (eg Rejoin) as it accords with human nature. In five years time it is quite possible those polls will be completely reversed
This is why I believe Remainers have a narrowing window of opportunity. If they want to make a significant shift back to the EU it has to happen in the next few years, while there is still sentiment on their side. PM Starmer will come under intense pressure to do this
Young people will grow up wondering why they can't travel freely and work and live in Europe like their Irish or Dutch friends can. They will grow up wondering why our economy is under performing, why things cost more here, why they have to queue so long at passport control, why they have to pay roaming charges, why they are locked out of a market of over 300 million people on our doorstep by a decision they played no part in. Even more so in Scotland and Northern Ireland, where even the young people's parents didn't vote for it. Brexiteers will have to do a lot more to demonstrate that Brexit is delivering tangible benefits if they want this decision to stick. Shouting about "Remoaners" doesn't really cut it.
No, I'm right. And it perturbs you
There you go again. Your response to a good post is nothing.
It was a trivially inane post, not least because it says the EU contains "300 million people", when it actually contains 450 million. If @OnlyLivingBoy can't even get a fact as basic as that right, what is the point is responding to anything else he says?
Shape up, or shut up
It wasn't and when you make posts like this after a few exchanges it just looks like you have lost the argument badly. You might not think you have but that is very much what it looks like.
Whatevs
While I agree with your postion regarding further Scottish referenda, I have a quick question for you, old buddy; if Leave had lost, would you have accepted it as "the settled will of the people" and told all those who requested a further referendum that they were being unreasonable for at least a generation. No crossing fingers as you type now.
Yes, absolutely. I would have said: Accept it. It is done
Indeed I would have gone further. If we had voted Remain I'd have said: let's at least join Schenghen, and maybe consider- in time - the euro
You van choose to believe me or not, but that is exactly what I mentally decided before I cast my carefully balanced vote. Britain had to choose: properly In or Out, all that faffing was poisonous, for them and for us
If any Leaver had tried to revive the argument I would have held them in contempt. "We had our chance, but the country decided otherwise..."
I would have accepted it too. I would have still wanted reform and democratic accountability within the EU but the in out principle would have been determined.
I would find a Scexit much, much more difficult to live with. Indeed I would probably move south of the border at some point, probably on retirement.
Yes. One of the lessons of these profound constitutional referendums is that they are hugely disturbing, divisive and they rouse up dangerous passions. And Scexit would be Brexit on uber-testosterone. This is why these votes need to be decidedly rare: every 15-20 years minimum
I take your earlier point BTW. That Scotland perhaps needs a guaranteed way of triggering a referendum, that does not entirely rely on the whims and politics of Westminster
There is no reason for the UKG to cave into the Nats any time soon. However a wise UK government would address this. A Royal Commission, establishing terms on which a Scottish government can rightly ask for a plebiscite, agreeable to all. It must simultaneously respect Scottish and British political sentiment, because this huge question affects everyone in GB, profoundly. So, Holyrood can't just ask for a vote and get one whenever, but neither can the UKG deny one forever
I am not sure what the mechanism might be. But it should not be beyond the wit of man to find one?
This is precisely correct.
Hopefully Starmer puts something like this in place; it is sadly beyond the wit of today’s Conservatives.
Just possibly the departure of Boris is having an effect. He was certainly a lightning rod for anti Brexit sentiment and some of it might just have been hostility to him.
It's also just a less salient issue so the numbers mean less. It wouldn't be surprising if it swings dramatically the other way the next time there is an EU crisis in the news.
Yes. The really embittered Remoaners will either leave or die or quietly accept the situation. Young people will grow up with the UK outside the EU and consider it natural. The idea of submitting ourselves to rule from Brussels will come to seem fanciful and silly - who would do that? They are foreigners, we rule ourselves
This outcome is more likely than anything else (eg Rejoin) as it accords with human nature. In five years time it is quite possible those polls will be completely reversed
This is why I believe Remainers have a narrowing window of opportunity. If they want to make a significant shift back to the EU it has to happen in the next few years, while there is still sentiment on their side. PM Starmer will come under intense pressure to do this
Young people will grow up wondering why they can't travel freely and work and live in Europe like their Irish or Dutch friends can. They will grow up wondering why our economy is under performing, why things cost more here, why they have to queue so long at passport control, why they have to pay roaming charges, why they are locked out of a market of over 300 million people on our doorstep by a decision they played no part in. Even more so in Scotland and Northern Ireland, where even the young people's parents didn't vote for it. Brexiteers will have to do a lot more to demonstrate that Brexit is delivering tangible benefits if they want this decision to stick. Shouting about "Remoaners" doesn't really cut it.
No, I'm right. And it perturbs you
There you go again. Your response to a good post is nothing.
It was a trivially inane post, not least because it says the EU contains "300 million people", when it actually contains 450 million. If @OnlyLivingBoy can't even get a fact as basic as that right, what is the point is responding to anything else he says?
Shape up, or shut up
It wasn't and when you make posts like this after a few exchanges it just looks like you have lost the argument badly. You might not think you have but that is very much what it looks like.
Whatevs
While I agree with your postion regarding further Scottish referenda, I have a quick question for you, old buddy; if Leave had lost, would you have accepted it as "the settled will of the people" and told all those who requested a further referendum that they were being unreasonable for at least a generation. No crossing fingers as you type now.
Yes, absolutely. I would have said: Accept it. It is done
Indeed I would have gone further. If we had voted Remain I'd have said: let's at least join Schenghen, and maybe consider- in time - the euro
You van choose to believe me or not, but that is exactly what I mentally decided before I cast my carefully balanced vote. Britain had to choose: properly In or Out, all that faffing was poisonous, for them and for us
If any Leaver had tried to revive the argument I would have held them in contempt. "We had our chance, but the country decided otherwise..."
I would have accepted it too. I would have still wanted reform and democratic accountability within the EU but the in out principle would have been determined.
I would find a Scexit much, much more difficult to live with. Indeed I would probably move south of the border at some point, probably on retirement.
We might only let you in for 90 days in every 180 David
Well, as long as it covers the cricket season...
Speaking of cricket, I’m at Cheltenham and it’s not going well. We need help. Could you explain how Northants are nailed on to win by an innings and 110?
Ta muchly.
I think that I can confidently say that Gloucestershire have no chance whatsoever. Will that do?
Harris has just survived what looked to me like a stone dead lbw and been missed behind the stumps off consecutive balls.
It’s a start. Maybe if you could say it every hour or so?
The problem for acceptance of the Brexit referendum was that the wrong people won. I'm serious here. When the posh people lose, they don't accept defeat gracefully because they're not used to it. And they didn't expect to lose, not when you're dealing with thicko, knuckle-dragging, Neanderthals.
I voted leave for a variety of reasons. The idea of a European free-trade area was sound, but merging countries without the join showing was a step too far. Perhaps it's too soon. I went to European meetings (only on the scientific side - where co-operation was the norm), but national characterists came to the fore on the admin side. Ours too.
To fully work, we had shelve differences and work fully together. The German admin people. bless their cotton socks, were scrupulously neutral, but I wish I could say the same about one or two others. Merkel left a mess so obviously all the other countries in the EU should pay the penalty too? Not sure, that's a popular opinion away from what's called the liberal elite. I suspect they think that's the price they pay for knowing more than the common hoi-poloi.
To explain some of the rancour, and to paraphrase Kipling, "Tommy aint a blooming fool, Tommy sees."
Perhaps it was always a step too far for us? Perhaps there's still that class divide.
Just possibly the departure of Boris is having an effect. He was certainly a lightning rod for anti Brexit sentiment and some of it might just have been hostility to him.
It's also just a less salient issue so the numbers mean less. It wouldn't be surprising if it swings dramatically the other way the next time there is an EU crisis in the news.
Yes. The really embittered Remoaners will either leave or die or quietly accept the situation. Young people will grow up with the UK outside the EU and consider it natural. The idea of submitting ourselves to rule from Brussels will come to seem fanciful and silly - who would do that? They are foreigners, we rule ourselves
This outcome is more likely than anything else (eg Rejoin) as it accords with human nature. In five years time it is quite possible those polls will be completely reversed
This is why I believe Remainers have a narrowing window of opportunity. If they want to make a significant shift back to the EU it has to happen in the next few years, while there is still sentiment on their side. PM Starmer will come under intense pressure to do this
You always talk about remoaners. But at which point do leavers also "leave or die or quietly accept the situation"?
Leave won, we left the EU and delivered a pretty hard Brexit. Yet to listen to the core of the leave campaign and various newspapers and a lot of voters, its as if the battle hasn't yet been fought.
Its fine to say "remainers won't accept defeat" - but neither will leavers accept victory...
OK, set aside ALL the Brexit arguments, and all the Leaver Remainer stuff
I am talking about human nature. People come to accept the status quo around them as the natural order - this can be good or bad, depending, but it is the case. Revolutions are rare of necessity (especially in the UK)
So Britain will get accustomed to being outside the EU. The irritation of having our passports stamped will ease and then disappear, we will get used to ALL our laws being made by our own democratic politicians, and the weirdness that is EU politics in Brussels (and boy is it weird) will grow evermore distant and alien
Check polls in Norway and Switzerland. No one there proposes to join the EU because the idea is deeply unpopular
The whole Brexit argument will fade like an old carpet in strong sunshine, and Rejoin will come to be seen as a quaint cause adopted by cranks
But the issue is not our membership of the EU. People in Norway don't want to join the EU because their membership of the EEA means they get all those benefits but still retain the freedoms you mention.
You really think in this connected global digital age that people here will accept being poorer, more constrained and less connected than everyone around them? Name me one of the countries you visited recently who learned to accept their own status quo having seen the differences elsewhere.
Britain was in relative decline in the single market, and Brexit was a vote against that. People didn't want to be the low-wage employer of last resort, or a captive market for EU goods.
As the Brexiteers are not inspecting incoming EU goods, we are a captive market for EU exports, while our own exports are subject to self imposed red tape. It really isn't a very good or for that matter a stable outcome.
Not bad for consumers though as we continue to benefit from excellent quality consumer goods from the EU, just a problem for exporters.
Our exports to the EU are at an all time high so not that much of a problem.
As I understand it, the record high is driven by LNG going through the UK to the continent. I’m not certain that demonstrates that all other exports are doing well.
In last night's debate both candidates gave a cautious welcome to the return of fracking, apparently. Got missed in all the furore.
Given current gas prices it would be so profitable that the frackers would be able to offer fracked areas discounts on their energy bills/council tax.
And of course the government would get its cut.
Money talks.
And if we turned Germany into our gas b*tch, that would help negotations on NI and trade, too.
Win, win, win. win.
They should be thinking about underground coal gasification. All that coal stretching out under the North Sea. Combine it with CCS and we get a low carbon source of energy (blue hydrogen) from our own hydrocarbons to compliment intermittent renewables.
The price is such that all kinds of schemes are surely now viable. Britain would potentially be a far more reliable gas partner for Germany than Russia.
A lot of these sites are in the Midlands and the North, which would magically turn into boom towns with no need of a dogsh1t 'levelling up' strategy.
It's risky though isn't it? The shale industry in the US got hammered by the oil price coming down in 2014. Gas prices could quite easily come right back down again since so much of the current pricing is politically motivated.
Just possibly the departure of Boris is having an effect. He was certainly a lightning rod for anti Brexit sentiment and some of it might just have been hostility to him.
It's also just a less salient issue so the numbers mean less. It wouldn't be surprising if it swings dramatically the other way the next time there is an EU crisis in the news.
Yes. The really embittered Remoaners will either leave or die or quietly accept the situation. Young people will grow up with the UK outside the EU and consider it natural. The idea of submitting ourselves to rule from Brussels will come to seem fanciful and silly - who would do that? They are foreigners, we rule ourselves
This outcome is more likely than anything else (eg Rejoin) as it accords with human nature. In five years time it is quite possible those polls will be completely reversed
This is why I believe Remainers have a narrowing window of opportunity. If they want to make a significant shift back to the EU it has to happen in the next few years, while there is still sentiment on their side. PM Starmer will come under intense pressure to do this
Young people will grow up wondering why they can't travel freely and work and live in Europe like their Irish or Dutch friends can. They will grow up wondering why our economy is under performing, why things cost more here, why they have to queue so long at passport control, why they have to pay roaming charges, why they are locked out of a market of over 300 million people on our doorstep by a decision they played no part in. Even more so in Scotland and Northern Ireland, where even the young people's parents didn't vote for it. Brexiteers will have to do a lot more to demonstrate that Brexit is delivering tangible benefits if they want this decision to stick. Shouting about "Remoaners" doesn't really cut it.
No, I'm right. And it perturbs you
There you go again. Your response to a good post is nothing.
It was a trivially inane post, not least because it says the EU contains "300 million people", when it actually contains 450 million. If @OnlyLivingBoy can't even get a fact as basic as that right, what is the point is responding to anything else he says?
Shape up, or shut up
It wasn't and when you make posts like this after a few exchanges it just looks like you have lost the argument badly. You might not think you have but that is very much what it looks like.
Whatevs
While I agree with your postion regarding further Scottish referenda, I have a quick question for you, old buddy; if Leave had lost, would you have accepted it as "the settled will of the people" and told all those who requested a further referendum that they were being unreasonable for at least a generation. No crossing fingers as you type now.
Yes, absolutely. I would have said: Accept it. It is done
Indeed I would have gone further. If we had voted Remain I'd have said: let's at least join Schenghen, and maybe consider- in time - the euro
You van choose to believe me or not, but that is exactly what I mentally decided before I cast my carefully balanced vote. Britain had to choose: properly In or Out, all that faffing was poisonous, for them and for us
If any Leaver had tried to revive the argument I would have held them in contempt. "We had our chance, but the country decided otherwise..."
I would have accepted it too. I would have still wanted reform and democratic accountability within the EU but the in out principle would have been determined.
I would find a Scexit much, much more difficult to live with. Indeed I would probably move south of the border at some point, probably on retirement.
Yes. One of the lessons of these profound constitutional referendums is that they are hugely disturbing, divisive and they rouse up dangerous passions. And Scexit would be Brexit on uber-testosterone. This is why these votes need to be decidedly rare: every 15-20 years minimum
I take your earlier point BTW. That Scotland perhaps needs a guaranteed way of triggering a referendum, that does not entirely rely on the whims and politics of Westminster
There is no reason for the UKG to cave into the Nats any time soon. However a wise UK government would address this. A Royal Commission, establishing terms on which a Scottish government can rightly ask for a plebiscite, agreeable to all. It must simultaneously respect Scottish and British political sentiment, because this huge question affects everyone in GB, profoundly. So, Holyrood can't just ask for a vote and get one whenever, but neither can the UKG deny one forever
I am not sure what the mechanism might be. But it should not be beyond the wit of man to find one?
We'd be better off without referendums. The problem is when the views of MPs and the public become divorced from each other on a particular subject. Actually, it's surprising that MPs would ever grant a referendum in those circumstances: they only allow one when they're misinformed about the state of public opinion, as Cameron and Osborne were.
Just possibly the departure of Boris is having an effect. He was certainly a lightning rod for anti Brexit sentiment and some of it might just have been hostility to him.
It's also just a less salient issue so the numbers mean less. It wouldn't be surprising if it swings dramatically the other way the next time there is an EU crisis in the news.
Yes. The really embittered Remoaners will either leave or die or quietly accept the situation. Young people will grow up with the UK outside the EU and consider it natural. The idea of submitting ourselves to rule from Brussels will come to seem fanciful and silly - who would do that? They are foreigners, we rule ourselves
This outcome is more likely than anything else (eg Rejoin) as it accords with human nature. In five years time it is quite possible those polls will be completely reversed
This is why I believe Remainers have a narrowing window of opportunity. If they want to make a significant shift back to the EU it has to happen in the next few years, while there is still sentiment on their side. PM Starmer will come under intense pressure to do this
Young people will grow up wondering why they can't travel freely and work and live in Europe like their Irish or Dutch friends can. They will grow up wondering why our economy is under performing, why things cost more here, why they have to queue so long at passport control, why they have to pay roaming charges, why they are locked out of a market of over 300 million people on our doorstep by a decision they played no part in. Even more so in Scotland and Northern Ireland, where even the young people's parents didn't vote for it. Brexiteers will have to do a lot more to demonstrate that Brexit is delivering tangible benefits if they want this decision to stick. Shouting about "Remoaners" doesn't really cut it.
No, I'm right. And it perturbs you
There you go again. Your response to a good post is nothing.
It was a trivially inane post, not least because it says the EU contains "300 million people", when it actually contains 450 million. If @OnlyLivingBoy can't even get a fact as basic as that right, what is the point is responding to anything else he says?
Shape up, or shut up
It wasn't and when you make posts like this after a few exchanges it just looks like you have lost the argument badly. You might not think you have but that is very much what it looks like.
Whatevs
While I agree with your postion regarding further Scottish referenda, I have a quick question for you, old buddy; if Leave had lost, would you have accepted it as "the settled will of the people" and told all those who requested a further referendum that they were being unreasonable for at least a generation. No crossing fingers as you type now.
Yes, absolutely. I would have said: Accept it. It is done
Indeed I would have gone further. If we had voted Remain I'd have said: let's at least join Schenghen, and maybe consider- in time - the euro
You van choose to believe me or not, but that is exactly what I mentally decided before I cast my carefully balanced vote. Britain had to choose: properly In or Out, all that faffing was poisonous, for them and for us
If any Leaver had tried to revive the argument I would have held them in contempt. "We had our chance, but the country decided otherwise..."
I would have accepted it too. I would have still wanted reform and democratic accountability within the EU but the in out principle would have been determined.
I would find a Scexit much, much more difficult to live with. Indeed I would probably move south of the border at some point, probably on retirement.
We might only let you in for 90 days in every 180 David
Well, as long as it covers the cricket season...
Speaking of cricket, I’m at Cheltenham and it’s not going well. We need help. Could you explain how Northants are nailed on to win by an innings and 110?
Ta muchly.
I think that I can confidently say that Gloucestershire have no chance whatsoever. Will that do?
Harris has just survived what looked to me like a stone dead lbw and been missed behind the stumps off consecutive balls.
It’s a start. Maybe if you could say it every hour or so?
You'll be back for a swift half by happy hour in the King's Arms at this rate.
Bailey has won her claim against her Chambers, but not against Stomewall:
1/The Employment Tribunal found that Garden Court Chambers discriminated against me because of my gender critical belief when it published a statement that I was under investigation & in upholding Stonewall’s complaint against me.
To be precise: she won the smallest of four (? three) claims against her chambers.
She lost every claim against Stonewall, after fundraising under the banner “I am suing Stonewall”.
As is (by now) completely normal, the GC crowd are spinning this as a massive win. They definitely have the media management bit down: get your story out in front of people first & very few people will read the fine print.
1. The claim against the first respondent (i.e. Stonewall) is dismissed 2. The second and third respondents discriminated against the claimant because of belief in respect of detriments 2 and 4. They also victimised her in respect of detriment 4 because of protected act 2. 3. The second and third respondents are ordered to pay the claimant £22,000 compensation for injury to feelings, and interest thereon of £4,693.33. 4. Claims of discrimination and victimisation by the second and third respondents in detriments 1,3 and 5 are dismissed. 5. The indirect discrimination claim against the second and third respondents is dismissed.
You don’t think the public exposure of “Stonewall Law” (in contrast to the actual law) is a “win” - least of all the way Stonewall threw Garden Court Chambers under the bus in their response to the verdict:
The case heard by the Employment Tribunal did not accurately reflect our intentions and our influence on organisations. Leaders within organisations are responsible for the organisational culture and the behaviour of their employees and workers. Stonewall’s resources, support and guidance is just one set of inputs they use to help them as they consider how best to meet the needs of their own organisation.
Just possibly the departure of Boris is having an effect. He was certainly a lightning rod for anti Brexit sentiment and some of it might just have been hostility to him.
It's also just a less salient issue so the numbers mean less. It wouldn't be surprising if it swings dramatically the other way the next time there is an EU crisis in the news.
Yes. The really embittered Remoaners will either leave or die or quietly accept the situation. Young people will grow up with the UK outside the EU and consider it natural. The idea of submitting ourselves to rule from Brussels will come to seem fanciful and silly - who would do that? They are foreigners, we rule ourselves
This outcome is more likely than anything else (eg Rejoin) as it accords with human nature. In five years time it is quite possible those polls will be completely reversed
This is why I believe Remainers have a narrowing window of opportunity. If they want to make a significant shift back to the EU it has to happen in the next few years, while there is still sentiment on their side. PM Starmer will come under intense pressure to do this
You always talk about remoaners. But at which point do leavers also "leave or die or quietly accept the situation"?
Leave won, we left the EU and delivered a pretty hard Brexit. Yet to listen to the core of the leave campaign and various newspapers and a lot of voters, its as if the battle hasn't yet been fought.
Its fine to say "remainers won't accept defeat" - but neither will leavers accept victory...
OK, set aside ALL the Brexit arguments, and all the Leaver Remainer stuff
I am talking about human nature. People come to accept the status quo around them as the natural order - this can be good or bad, depending, but it is the case. Revolutions are rare of necessity (especially in the UK)
So Britain will get accustomed to being outside the EU. The irritation of having our passports stamped will ease and then disappear, we will get used to ALL our laws being made by our own democratic politicians, and the weirdness that is EU politics in Brussels (and boy is it weird) will grow evermore distant and alien
Check polls in Norway and Switzerland. No one there proposes to join the EU because the idea is deeply unpopular
The whole Brexit argument will fade like an old carpet in strong sunshine, and Rejoin will come to be seen as a quaint cause adopted by cranks
But the issue is not our membership of the EU. People in Norway don't want to join the EU because their membership of the EEA means they get all those benefits but still retain the freedoms you mention.
You really think in this connected global digital age that people here will accept being poorer, more constrained and less connected than everyone around them? Name me one of the countries you visited recently who learned to accept their own status quo having seen the differences elsewhere.
Britain was in relative decline in the single market, and Brexit was a vote against that. People didn't want to be the low-wage employer of last resort, or a captive market for EU goods.
As the Brexiteers are not inspecting incoming EU goods, we are a captive market for EU exports, while our own exports are subject to self imposed red tape. It really isn't a very good or for that matter a stable outcome.
Not bad for consumers though as we continue to benefit from excellent quality consumer goods from the EU, just a problem for exporters.
Our exports to the EU are at an all time high so not that much of a problem.
As I understand it, the record high is driven by LNG going through the UK to the continent. I’m not certain that demonstrates that all other exports are doing well.
In last night's debate both candidates gave a cautious welcome to the return of fracking, apparently. Got missed in all the furore.
Given current gas prices it would be so profitable that the frackers would be able to offer fracked areas discounts on their energy bills/council tax.
And of course the government would get its cut.
Money talks.
And if we turned Germany into our gas b*tch, that would help negotations on NI and trade, too.
Win, win, win. win.
You assume there exists large recoverable deposits - far from certain.
What's your timescale ? Exploratory drilling, and planning permissions would take years.
Who is going to assume the political risk ahead of the next election when their project might get cancelled anyway ?
And what value would be left when the war in Ukraine is over ?
Oh I agree there are big risks and what I presented is a best case scenario.
Its interesting though, that the risks of fracking have been examined minutely, whereas the risks of allowing the tyrant Putin to hold the West to gas ransom have been ignored.
We perhaps ought to have allowed a full exploratory drilling program a decade or so back, but I think it's too late now.
Just possibly the departure of Boris is having an effect. He was certainly a lightning rod for anti Brexit sentiment and some of it might just have been hostility to him.
It's also just a less salient issue so the numbers mean less. It wouldn't be surprising if it swings dramatically the other way the next time there is an EU crisis in the news.
Yes. The really embittered Remoaners will either leave or die or quietly accept the situation. Young people will grow up with the UK outside the EU and consider it natural. The idea of submitting ourselves to rule from Brussels will come to seem fanciful and silly - who would do that? They are foreigners, we rule ourselves
This outcome is more likely than anything else (eg Rejoin) as it accords with human nature. In five years time it is quite possible those polls will be completely reversed
This is why I believe Remainers have a narrowing window of opportunity. If they want to make a significant shift back to the EU it has to happen in the next few years, while there is still sentiment on their side. PM Starmer will come under intense pressure to do this
Young people will grow up wondering why they can't travel freely and work and live in Europe like their Irish or Dutch friends can. They will grow up wondering why our economy is under performing, why things cost more here, why they have to queue so long at passport control, why they have to pay roaming charges, why they are locked out of a market of over 300 million people on our doorstep by a decision they played no part in. Even more so in Scotland and Northern Ireland, where even the young people's parents didn't vote for it. Brexiteers will have to do a lot more to demonstrate that Brexit is delivering tangible benefits if they want this decision to stick. Shouting about "Remoaners" doesn't really cut it.
No, I'm right. And it perturbs you
There you go again. Your response to a good post is nothing.
It was a trivially inane post, not least because it says the EU contains "300 million people", when it actually contains 450 million. If @OnlyLivingBoy can't even get a fact as basic as that right, what is the point is responding to anything else he says?
Shape up, or shut up
It wasn't and when you make posts like this after a few exchanges it just looks like you have lost the argument badly. You might not think you have but that is very much what it looks like.
Whatevs
While I agree with your postion regarding further Scottish referenda, I have a quick question for you, old buddy; if Leave had lost, would you have accepted it as "the settled will of the people" and told all those who requested a further referendum that they were being unreasonable for at least a generation. No crossing fingers as you type now.
Yes, absolutely. I would have said: Accept it. It is done
Indeed I would have gone further. If we had voted Remain I'd have said: let's at least join Schenghen, and maybe consider- in time - the euro
You van choose to believe me or not, but that is exactly what I mentally decided before I cast my carefully balanced vote. Britain had to choose: properly In or Out, all that faffing was poisonous, for them and for us
If any Leaver had tried to revive the argument I would have held them in contempt. "We had our chance, but the country decided otherwise..."
I would have accepted it too. I would have still wanted reform and democratic accountability within the EU but the in out principle would have been determined.
I would find a Scexit much, much more difficult to live with. Indeed I would probably move south of the border at some point, probably on retirement.
We might only let you in for 90 days in every 180 David
Well, as long as it covers the cricket season...
Speaking of cricket, I’m at Cheltenham and it’s not going well. We need help. Could you explain how Northants are nailed on to win by an innings and 110?
Ta muchly.
I think that I can confidently say that Gloucestershire have no chance whatsoever. Will that do?
Harris has just survived what looked to me like a stone dead lbw and been missed behind the stumps off consecutive balls.
It’s a start. Maybe if you could say it every hour or so?
You'll be back for a swift half by happy hour in the Kings Arms at this rate.
The King’s Arms doesn’t do Happy Hour. It’s the Black Dog I need to time things for.
Just possibly the departure of Boris is having an effect. He was certainly a lightning rod for anti Brexit sentiment and some of it might just have been hostility to him.
It's also just a less salient issue so the numbers mean less. It wouldn't be surprising if it swings dramatically the other way the next time there is an EU crisis in the news.
Yes. The really embittered Remoaners will either leave or die or quietly accept the situation. Young people will grow up with the UK outside the EU and consider it natural. The idea of submitting ourselves to rule from Brussels will come to seem fanciful and silly - who would do that? They are foreigners, we rule ourselves
This outcome is more likely than anything else (eg Rejoin) as it accords with human nature. In five years time it is quite possible those polls will be completely reversed
This is why I believe Remainers have a narrowing window of opportunity. If they want to make a significant shift back to the EU it has to happen in the next few years, while there is still sentiment on their side. PM Starmer will come under intense pressure to do this
You always talk about remoaners. But at which point do leavers also "leave or die or quietly accept the situation"?
Leave won, we left the EU and delivered a pretty hard Brexit. Yet to listen to the core of the leave campaign and various newspapers and a lot of voters, its as if the battle hasn't yet been fought.
Its fine to say "remainers won't accept defeat" - but neither will leavers accept victory...
OK, set aside ALL the Brexit arguments, and all the Leaver Remainer stuff
I am talking about human nature. People come to accept the status quo around them as the natural order - this can be good or bad, depending, but it is the case. Revolutions are rare of necessity (especially in the UK)
So Britain will get accustomed to being outside the EU. The irritation of having our passports stamped will ease and then disappear, we will get used to ALL our laws being made by our own democratic politicians, and the weirdness that is EU politics in Brussels (and boy is it weird) will grow evermore distant and alien
Check polls in Norway and Switzerland. No one there proposes to join the EU because the idea is deeply unpopular
The whole Brexit argument will fade like an old carpet in strong sunshine, and Rejoin will come to be seen as a quaint cause adopted by cranks
But the issue is not our membership of the EU. People in Norway don't want to join the EU because their membership of the EEA means they get all those benefits but still retain the freedoms you mention.
You really think in this connected global digital age that people here will accept being poorer, more constrained and less connected than everyone around them? Name me one of the countries you visited recently who learned to accept their own status quo having seen the differences elsewhere.
Britain was in relative decline in the single market, and Brexit was a vote against that. People didn't want to be the low-wage employer of last resort, or a captive market for EU goods.
As the Brexiteers are not inspecting incoming EU goods, we are a captive market for EU exports, while our own exports are subject to self imposed red tape. It really isn't a very good or for that matter a stable outcome.
Not bad for consumers though as we continue to benefit from excellent quality consumer goods from the EU, just a problem for exporters.
Our exports to the EU are at an all time high so not that much of a problem.
Those figures are somewhat artificial, though. ...Businesses in the UK exported a record level of goods to the EU through April driven primarily by increases in machinery and fuels. “This is down to the UK’s imports of substantial reserves of LNG from countries like Qatar to fill storage sites in continental Europe, driving this uptick, said Jack Sirett, Head of Dealing at Ebury, a financial services firm....
That's very likely not more than a short term trade - and note that our trade deficit is also at an all time high. Again partly owing to energy prices.
Just possibly the departure of Boris is having an effect. He was certainly a lightning rod for anti Brexit sentiment and some of it might just have been hostility to him.
It's also just a less salient issue so the numbers mean less. It wouldn't be surprising if it swings dramatically the other way the next time there is an EU crisis in the news.
Yes. The really embittered Remoaners will either leave or die or quietly accept the situation. Young people will grow up with the UK outside the EU and consider it natural. The idea of submitting ourselves to rule from Brussels will come to seem fanciful and silly - who would do that? They are foreigners, we rule ourselves
This outcome is more likely than anything else (eg Rejoin) as it accords with human nature. In five years time it is quite possible those polls will be completely reversed
This is why I believe Remainers have a narrowing window of opportunity. If they want to make a significant shift back to the EU it has to happen in the next few years, while there is still sentiment on their side. PM Starmer will come under intense pressure to do this
Young people will grow up wondering why they can't travel freely and work and live in Europe like their Irish or Dutch friends can. They will grow up wondering why our economy is under performing, why things cost more here, why they have to queue so long at passport control, why they have to pay roaming charges, why they are locked out of a market of over 300 million people on our doorstep by a decision they played no part in. Even more so in Scotland and Northern Ireland, where even the young people's parents didn't vote for it. Brexiteers will have to do a lot more to demonstrate that Brexit is delivering tangible benefits if they want this decision to stick. Shouting about "Remoaners" doesn't really cut it.
No, I'm right. And it perturbs you
There you go again. Your response to a good post is nothing.
It was a trivially inane post, not least because it says the EU contains "300 million people", when it actually contains 450 million. If @OnlyLivingBoy can't even get a fact as basic as that right, what is the point is responding to anything else he says?
Shape up, or shut up
It wasn't and when you make posts like this after a few exchanges it just looks like you have lost the argument badly. You might not think you have but that is very much what it looks like.
Whatevs
While I agree with your postion regarding further Scottish referenda, I have a quick question for you, old buddy; if Leave had lost, would you have accepted it as "the settled will of the people" and told all those who requested a further referendum that they were being unreasonable for at least a generation. No crossing fingers as you type now.
Yes, absolutely. I would have said: Accept it. It is done
Indeed I would have gone further. If we had voted Remain I'd have said: let's at least join Schenghen, and maybe consider- in time - the euro
You van choose to believe me or not, but that is exactly what I mentally decided before I cast my carefully balanced vote. Britain had to choose: properly In or Out, all that faffing was poisonous, for them and for us
If any Leaver had tried to revive the argument I would have held them in contempt. "We had our chance, but the country decided otherwise..."
I would have accepted it too. I would have still wanted reform and democratic accountability within the EU but the in out principle would have been determined.
I would find a Scexit much, much more difficult to live with. Indeed I would probably move south of the border at some point, probably on retirement.
We might only let you in for 90 days in every 180 David
Well, as long as it covers the cricket season...
Speaking of cricket, I’m at Cheltenham and it’s not going well. We need help. Could you explain how Northants are nailed on to win by an innings and 110?
Ta muchly.
Not going to happen. We are barely D1 standard, didn't you see how we blew it against Lancs last week?
Does anyone seriously support removing the right to strike?
On balance, no, but some of the nonsense has to stop, like causing five days of disruption by only taking two days action.
So what would you do?
Have a strike ballot be for a single, continuous strike action. That could be for one day, a month, four months or indefinite if people so choose. But once the strike ends, then its finished, if you want another strike there needs to be another ballot.
Would stop having people striking for every other day but getting paid most of the time, but they would be fully entitled to strike for the whole week if they wanted to instead.
Just possibly the departure of Boris is having an effect. He was certainly a lightning rod for anti Brexit sentiment and some of it might just have been hostility to him.
It's also just a less salient issue so the numbers mean less. It wouldn't be surprising if it swings dramatically the other way the next time there is an EU crisis in the news.
Yes. The really embittered Remoaners will either leave or die or quietly accept the situation. Young people will grow up with the UK outside the EU and consider it natural. The idea of submitting ourselves to rule from Brussels will come to seem fanciful and silly - who would do that? They are foreigners, we rule ourselves
This outcome is more likely than anything else (eg Rejoin) as it accords with human nature. In five years time it is quite possible those polls will be completely reversed
This is why I believe Remainers have a narrowing window of opportunity. If they want to make a significant shift back to the EU it has to happen in the next few years, while there is still sentiment on their side. PM Starmer will come under intense pressure to do this
You always talk about remoaners. But at which point do leavers also "leave or die or quietly accept the situation"?
Leave won, we left the EU and delivered a pretty hard Brexit. Yet to listen to the core of the leave campaign and various newspapers and a lot of voters, its as if the battle hasn't yet been fought.
Its fine to say "remainers won't accept defeat" - but neither will leavers accept victory...
OK, set aside ALL the Brexit arguments, and all the Leaver Remainer stuff
I am talking about human nature. People come to accept the status quo around them as the natural order - this can be good or bad, depending, but it is the case. Revolutions are rare of necessity (especially in the UK)
So Britain will get accustomed to being outside the EU. The irritation of having our passports stamped will ease and then disappear, we will get used to ALL our laws being made by our own democratic politicians, and the weirdness that is EU politics in Brussels (and boy is it weird) will grow evermore distant and alien
Check polls in Norway and Switzerland. No one there proposes to join the EU because the idea is deeply unpopular
The whole Brexit argument will fade like an old carpet in strong sunshine, and Rejoin will come to be seen as a quaint cause adopted by cranks
But the issue is not our membership of the EU. People in Norway don't want to join the EU because their membership of the EEA means they get all those benefits but still retain the freedoms you mention.
You really think in this connected global digital age that people here will accept being poorer, more constrained and less connected than everyone around them? Name me one of the countries you visited recently who learned to accept their own status quo having seen the differences elsewhere.
Britain was in relative decline in the single market, and Brexit was a vote against that. People didn't want to be the low-wage employer of last resort, or a captive market for EU goods.
As the Brexiteers are not inspecting incoming EU goods, we are a captive market for EU exports, while our own exports are subject to self imposed red tape. It really isn't a very good or for that matter a stable outcome.
Not bad for consumers though as we continue to benefit from excellent quality consumer goods from the EU, just a problem for exporters.
Our exports to the EU are at an all time high so not that much of a problem.
As I understand it, the record high is driven by LNG going through the UK to the continent. I’m not certain that demonstrates that all other exports are doing well.
In last night's debate both candidates gave a cautious welcome to the return of fracking, apparently. Got missed in all the furore.
Given current gas prices it would be so profitable that the frackers would be able to offer fracked areas discounts on their energy bills/council tax.
And of course the government would get its cut.
Money talks.
And if we turned Germany into our gas b*tch, that would help negotations on NI and trade, too.
Win, win, win. win.
They should be thinking about underground coal gasification. All that coal stretching out under the North Sea. Combine it with CCS and we get a low carbon source of energy (blue hydrogen) from our own hydrocarbons to compliment intermittent renewables.
The advantage of developing wholly new technologies, like renewables and storage, is that you can hope to make them cheaper than the status quo.
The problem with carbon capture and storage is that it will always be more expensive than the status quo of simply venting the carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
Not necessarily.
There's a certain irony that CO2 can actually be extremely valuable and useful. And so while we're trying to eliminate it from much of society, its actually getting manufactured to be used.
Food-grade CO2 especially is a valuable commodity and used in a lot of processes, from manufacturing to alcohol. During the World Cup I think it was, there was a Europe-wide CO2 shortage that led some pubs to run out of beer during the World Cup which was a bit unfortunate.
Theoretically if you could get carbon capture that's then put through a filtration system that gets pure, clean, useable CO2 from waste CO2 that can then be used in manufacturing, hospitality etc could be quite a useful product.
This is being done by some cement plants*, where the CO2 is used in a different industrial process.
However, using the CO2 for fizzy drinks, say, doesn't store it. Might be an improvement on releasing the CO2 twice, but unless the CO2 is fixed in some way it's not quite the same.
AIUI the Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case on whether Holyrood can hold a referendum unilaterally. That's possibly a good sign for the Nats, as the government argument was that the case didn't even deserve a hearing as proper process hadn't been followed.
It's rather difficult to see how they could rule in Sturgeon's favour under the law, but then the Supreme Court has form for bizarre judgements which bear as much relationship to the law as SeanT does to sobriety. Prorogation and Shamima Begum spring to mind.
What the Supreme Court has done is decide the question of prematurity (since the bill has yet to be passed by Holyrood) and competency (since it is a constitutional matter) will be decided together. FWIW I think that they will still determine that the reference of the Bill is premature but they want to deal with the substantive matter too so everyone is clear where they stand.
My very strong expectation is that they will say that this is beyond the competency of the Scottish Parliament and that a referendum cannot proceed without a s30 order. For the reasons @TSE has given no PM is going to be keen to grant a s30 order and risk losing. This raises a real question of democratic deficit in Scotland which is troubling, even for a Unionist like me.
It is indeed troubling. Whether one thinks Scotland should leave the union or not, most reasonable people, and certainly most Scots, would say that they have the right to. If there is no legal route for that right to be exercised then there will be trouble.
But this is not a one way matter. The UK is a joint enterprise in which Scotland has equal (arguably greater) sovereignty with England, Wales and NI
The break-up of the UK would be a profound national trauma that would deeply impact every UK citizen. Inter alia I am sure it would cause economic depression in Scotland and severe recession in rUK as investors fled the chaos and the £ crashed
Therefore Scotland’s right to secede must be balanced with the UK’s right to say “hang on a minute”
It’s not like the UK is some evil colonial power forbidding democracy; the UK Parliament - in which Scotland is fully represented - granted an indyref as recently as 8 years ago
The SNP needs to persuade its own supreme parliament at Westminster to grant a 2nd vote. I doubt that will happen before a generation has actually elapsed. 15-20 years, as in Canada
No that is bollocks. If Scotland wants to leave the Union then of course it will affect other countries in the Union but they don't have a veto. By your argument, the EU should have had the right to refuse the Brexit referendum. England, Wales and NI should have the same unilateral right to seceed, of course.
Truly infantile levels of analysis
Why?
I had the same argument with you recently and you came out with the same type of reply i.e. you stop arguing and just throw insults. The analogy is a good one.
The bizarre thing is when we had the discussion before you actually said it mattered not one jot what trauma leaving the EU caused even if massive because we gained independence (it trumped all) and then (as above) gave the trauma of Scotland leaving the union as a reason for not allowing it.
When called out on the inconsistency each time you stop arguing and resort to insults.
No, I give up arguing with people whose argumentation is so clueless or stupid it is waste of my time
And these days I care more about wasted time
But just this once I will indulge you
The differences between the Union of the EU and the Union of the United Kingdom are so vast they barely need explaining. But apparently they do
The UK is 300 years old; the EU is at best 70 years old, more like 30
The UK’s identity has been forged through 300 years of shared endeavour and pooled resources: building an empire, making a great nation, fighting existential wars; not so for the EU
The nations of the UK have a shared and supreme parliament which creates and passes our laws; not so the EU
The nations of the UK have a shared head of state deeply woven into our shared history and shared institutions; not true of the EU
The nations of the UK share one common language; unlike the EU
The nations of the UK share - with variations - a military, a seashore, a health service, a national broadcaster, a culture, a media, a demos, a character, a cuisine, a trade pattern, a climate, an architecture, an archipelago off the northwest coast of Europe, a sense of humour; not so the EU
All of which makes leaving the UK infinitely and impossibly complex compared to the already-painful process of quitting the EU
And finally, there are two DIFFERENT processes for leaving both. If you want to quit the EU you can trigger Article 50 unilaterally. In the UK it is different, you must get permission from Parliament at Westminster to have a referendum: as sturgeon acknowledges
And there it is. Endex
See how much better it is when you engage rather than insulting people?
Some of these are good arguments. For me the question of whether Scotland should be independent is finely balanced.
The UK in its present form is 100 years old, not 300, of course.
The argument about whether Scotland can legally unilaterally secede is of course different from whether it can morally. We can all read the legislation. My contention is that it is a moral outrage that Scotland's moral right to self determination is not matched by a legal right to do so, as it is in the EU. Even committed unionist Scots like DavidL find this troubling. I think the idea that Scotland is on some deep level "sovereign" regardless of legal status is widely held in Scotland by those on all sides of the independence debate. It is perhaps worrying that it is not shared in England.
But everything I said is obvious. If you need it spelled out to you then you are a cretin. I have given up explaining things to individual cretins: life is too short
I will not engage with you again, other than to hurl squalid, excessive and unjustified abuse
You have my word
Hi Leon, I read this exchange with interest. I said we'd return to this one - Brexit v Sindy - middle of this week, didn't I? Rhetorical only (I did) and it's Wednesday, the exact middle of this week. And seems you're talking about it anyway.
So, that question of mine: As somebody with such a burning love of absolutist untrammelled national sovereignty that iyo we had to have Brexit regardless of the practical consequences, how come you have zero empathy for the similar (and arguably stronger) argument for Sindy - stronger because Scotland, unlike the UK in the EU, lacks sovereign nation status - and a pretty visceral opposition to it ever happening?
I've been able to answer this to my own satisfaction, you'll be happy to hear.
The fact is you DO have empathy for the Sindy case. Of course you do. It'd be plain bizarre if you didn't. But the empathy you feel is swamped by your horror of what Sindy would mean. To wit no more Britain. Your love of (and pride in) Britain and its associated thing - Britishness - is real and it's bone-deep. It's not an annex to your persona it's integral. You clear Casino Royale's quite challenging bar for a Patriot with room to spare. This is why the thought of Sindy pains you so.
Very pleased with this. Think it's both true and fair.
Mate, this is not some startling insight. I say as much every day
I am a Briton and I love Britain. I don't want it broken up. Is this some bizarre new emotion you've just encountered? You'll be surprised to hear I am not alone
I am also a democrat. Scotland deserves a say. They had a say in 2014. Now for the sake of all Britain, we wait a generation to see if the mood changes, and they can have a say again
No country can survive constant referendums on its break up, any more than a marriage can survive the husband filing for divorce every year - then changing his mind at the last moment - year after year
I am sorry you have apparently spent days trying to work out something I could have told you in two minutes
Now you are goalpost moving.
This argument has nothing whatsoever to do with whether you love Briton or not.
This argument has nothing to do with multiple referendums
This argument has nothing to do with whether they had a say in 2014 or not and waiting a generation.
This argument is about the inconsistency in your stance re Sindy and EU. You used the exact mirror image to argue for and against Independence in the two scenarios. That is what the argument is about. The argument is about you being irrational.
I think what he's saying is he knows he's being irrational but that's where his 'patriotism' (ie in the hard nationalistic sense of the word) leads. I don't like it or agree with it but it's good to have it clarified.
The Sindy Ref point is something else imo. I think the argument for having one is compelling - because of Brexit and the Holyrood mandate - and I don't think to do so is to risk a "Ref every year until it's a Yes". Think that's a nonsense since if it's another No the SNP would have to backburner the issue or lose power.
It's not irrational at all
I am quite sure there are many Scots who feel the same way about Scotland as I do about Britain. That Scotland has their fundamental loyalty, and needs to be free, to the extent that it must be taken out of the UK (maybe even if it is economically harmful). Just as I wanted us out of the EU
That's fair. I understand it entirely. BECAUSE I am a patriot, like them
However if they want to press the point home and do it - secede - they need to do it legally - via the British method (Westminster approval for a referendum) as we - the UK - did it legally in Europe, via Article 50
Moreover, they can't do it every year or every five years, that would make a nonsense of the constitution and render Britain hideously unstable - impoverishing us all, as investors flee etc. I therefore believe in the generation argument (you don't, but this is a matter of opinion not objective fact)
And FWIW I would have applied the generation argument to the UK in the EU. If we had voted Remain I would have said: right, we have to accept it, let's make the best of it. And I would have neither expected nor wished for us to revisit the question for 15-20 years minimum.
My position is not irrational nor is it inconsistent, indeed I suspect it bugs you because it is the opposite
But the assumption holding all this together is a false one. Granting this Sindy Ref (due to Brexit and the Holyrood mandate) does not open the floodgates for one every 5 years or whatever. If it's held and it's a No that is 'it' for a long time. Any solid analysis of the political calculus shows that. Sturgeon certainly knows it. Hence her cautious approach.
As I say, this difference is a matter of opinion, not objective fact. I simply disagree with you
But you've just said - and I agree - that if we'd voted No to Leave there's no way we Brits would have been agitating for EU Referendums on a regular basis thereafter to keep having another bash.
Why? You said it. Because these type of Referendums are hugely divisive and are enormous drains of resource energy and emotion. That btw was why I both opposed a 2nd EU Referendum and made a lot of money betting against one happening. The idea was both wrong and absurd.
Yet when it comes to Scotland you ditch that impeccable line of analysis and go, "hey no, we can't grant another Sindy Ref now cos if we do they'll take it as carte blanche to be having them all the time. Give em an inch, these Scots, and they'll take a mile."
Bailey has won her claim against her Chambers, but not against Stomewall:
1/The Employment Tribunal found that Garden Court Chambers discriminated against me because of my gender critical belief when it published a statement that I was under investigation & in upholding Stonewall’s complaint against me.
To be precise: she won the smallest of four (? three) claims against her chambers.
She lost every claim against Stonewall, after fundraising under the banner “I am suing Stonewall”.
As is (by now) completely normal, the GC crowd are spinning this as a massive win. They definitely have the media management bit down: get your story out in front of people first & very few people will read the fine print.
1. The claim against the first respondent (i.e. Stonewall) is dismissed 2. The second and third respondents discriminated against the claimant because of belief in respect of detriments 2 and 4. They also victimised her in respect of detriment 4 because of protected act 2. 3. The second and third respondents are ordered to pay the claimant £22,000 compensation for injury to feelings, and interest thereon of £4,693.33. 4. Claims of discrimination and victimisation by the second and third respondents in detriments 1,3 and 5 are dismissed. 5. The indirect discrimination claim against the second and third respondents is dismissed.
If you want to know who really won... who is liable for her costs ?
No idea! My understanding is that employment tribunals do not make usually make cost awards. But I could be misinformed.
I believe she raised ~ £500k towards the costs of the case.
Just possibly the departure of Boris is having an effect. He was certainly a lightning rod for anti Brexit sentiment and some of it might just have been hostility to him.
It's also just a less salient issue so the numbers mean less. It wouldn't be surprising if it swings dramatically the other way the next time there is an EU crisis in the news.
Yes. The really embittered Remoaners will either leave or die or quietly accept the situation. Young people will grow up with the UK outside the EU and consider it natural. The idea of submitting ourselves to rule from Brussels will come to seem fanciful and silly - who would do that? They are foreigners, we rule ourselves
This outcome is more likely than anything else (eg Rejoin) as it accords with human nature. In five years time it is quite possible those polls will be completely reversed
This is why I believe Remainers have a narrowing window of opportunity. If they want to make a significant shift back to the EU it has to happen in the next few years, while there is still sentiment on their side. PM Starmer will come under intense pressure to do this
You always talk about remoaners. But at which point do leavers also "leave or die or quietly accept the situation"?
Leave won, we left the EU and delivered a pretty hard Brexit. Yet to listen to the core of the leave campaign and various newspapers and a lot of voters, its as if the battle hasn't yet been fought.
Its fine to say "remainers won't accept defeat" - but neither will leavers accept victory...
OK, set aside ALL the Brexit arguments, and all the Leaver Remainer stuff
I am talking about human nature. People come to accept the status quo around them as the natural order - this can be good or bad, depending, but it is the case. Revolutions are rare of necessity (especially in the UK)
So Britain will get accustomed to being outside the EU. The irritation of having our passports stamped will ease and then disappear, we will get used to ALL our laws being made by our own democratic politicians, and the weirdness that is EU politics in Brussels (and boy is it weird) will grow evermore distant and alien
Check polls in Norway and Switzerland. No one there proposes to join the EU because the idea is deeply unpopular
The whole Brexit argument will fade like an old carpet in strong sunshine, and Rejoin will come to be seen as a quaint cause adopted by cranks
But the issue is not our membership of the EU. People in Norway don't want to join the EU because their membership of the EEA means they get all those benefits but still retain the freedoms you mention.
You really think in this connected global digital age that people here will accept being poorer, more constrained and less connected than everyone around them? Name me one of the countries you visited recently who learned to accept their own status quo having seen the differences elsewhere.
Britain was in relative decline in the single market, and Brexit was a vote against that. People didn't want to be the low-wage employer of last resort, or a captive market for EU goods.
As the Brexiteers are not inspecting incoming EU goods, we are a captive market for EU exports, while our own exports are subject to self imposed red tape. It really isn't a very good or for that matter a stable outcome.
Not bad for consumers though as we continue to benefit from excellent quality consumer goods from the EU, just a problem for exporters.
Our exports to the EU are at an all time high so not that much of a problem.
Those figures are somewhat artificial, though. ...Businesses in the UK exported a record level of goods to the EU through April driven primarily by increases in machinery and fuels. “This is down to the UK’s imports of substantial reserves of LNG from countries like Qatar to fill storage sites in continental Europe, driving this uptick, said Jack Sirett, Head of Dealing at Ebury, a financial services firm....
That's very likely not more than a short term trade - and note that our trade deficit is also at an all time high. Again partly owing to energy prices.
DavidL is awfully keen to pronounce standard textbook trade economics as “wrong” based on one data point from a single period.
Just possibly the departure of Boris is having an effect. He was certainly a lightning rod for anti Brexit sentiment and some of it might just have been hostility to him.
It's also just a less salient issue so the numbers mean less. It wouldn't be surprising if it swings dramatically the other way the next time there is an EU crisis in the news.
Yes. The really embittered Remoaners will either leave or die or quietly accept the situation. Young people will grow up with the UK outside the EU and consider it natural. The idea of submitting ourselves to rule from Brussels will come to seem fanciful and silly - who would do that? They are foreigners, we rule ourselves
This outcome is more likely than anything else (eg Rejoin) as it accords with human nature. In five years time it is quite possible those polls will be completely reversed
This is why I believe Remainers have a narrowing window of opportunity. If they want to make a significant shift back to the EU it has to happen in the next few years, while there is still sentiment on their side. PM Starmer will come under intense pressure to do this
You always talk about remoaners. But at which point do leavers also "leave or die or quietly accept the situation"?
Leave won, we left the EU and delivered a pretty hard Brexit. Yet to listen to the core of the leave campaign and various newspapers and a lot of voters, its as if the battle hasn't yet been fought.
Its fine to say "remainers won't accept defeat" - but neither will leavers accept victory...
OK, set aside ALL the Brexit arguments, and all the Leaver Remainer stuff
I am talking about human nature. People come to accept the status quo around them as the natural order - this can be good or bad, depending, but it is the case. Revolutions are rare of necessity (especially in the UK)
So Britain will get accustomed to being outside the EU. The irritation of having our passports stamped will ease and then disappear, we will get used to ALL our laws being made by our own democratic politicians, and the weirdness that is EU politics in Brussels (and boy is it weird) will grow evermore distant and alien
Check polls in Norway and Switzerland. No one there proposes to join the EU because the idea is deeply unpopular
The whole Brexit argument will fade like an old carpet in strong sunshine, and Rejoin will come to be seen as a quaint cause adopted by cranks
But the issue is not our membership of the EU. People in Norway don't want to join the EU because their membership of the EEA means they get all those benefits but still retain the freedoms you mention.
You really think in this connected global digital age that people here will accept being poorer, more constrained and less connected than everyone around them? Name me one of the countries you visited recently who learned to accept their own status quo having seen the differences elsewhere.
Britain was in relative decline in the single market, and Brexit was a vote against that. People didn't want to be the low-wage employer of last resort, or a captive market for EU goods.
As the Brexiteers are not inspecting incoming EU goods, we are a captive market for EU exports, while our own exports are subject to self imposed red tape. It really isn't a very good or for that matter a stable outcome.
Not bad for consumers though as we continue to benefit from excellent quality consumer goods from the EU, just a problem for exporters.
Our exports to the EU are at an all time high so not that much of a problem.
Those figures are somewhat artificial, though. ...Businesses in the UK exported a record level of goods to the EU through April driven primarily by increases in machinery and fuels. “This is down to the UK’s imports of substantial reserves of LNG from countries like Qatar to fill storage sites in continental Europe, driving this uptick, said Jack Sirett, Head of Dealing at Ebury, a financial services firm....
That's very likely not more than a short term trade - and note that our trade deficit is also at an all time high. Again partly owing to energy prices.
We also re-export a very large amount of piped Norwegian gas to Ireland, and the value of that gas moves with prices.
Just possibly the departure of Boris is having an effect. He was certainly a lightning rod for anti Brexit sentiment and some of it might just have been hostility to him.
It's also just a less salient issue so the numbers mean less. It wouldn't be surprising if it swings dramatically the other way the next time there is an EU crisis in the news.
Yes. The really embittered Remoaners will either leave or die or quietly accept the situation. Young people will grow up with the UK outside the EU and consider it natural. The idea of submitting ourselves to rule from Brussels will come to seem fanciful and silly - who would do that? They are foreigners, we rule ourselves
This outcome is more likely than anything else (eg Rejoin) as it accords with human nature. In five years time it is quite possible those polls will be completely reversed
This is why I believe Remainers have a narrowing window of opportunity. If they want to make a significant shift back to the EU it has to happen in the next few years, while there is still sentiment on their side. PM Starmer will come under intense pressure to do this
Young people will grow up wondering why they can't travel freely and work and live in Europe like their Irish or Dutch friends can. They will grow up wondering why our economy is under performing, why things cost more here, why they have to queue so long at passport control, why they have to pay roaming charges, why they are locked out of a market of over 300 million people on our doorstep by a decision they played no part in. Even more so in Scotland and Northern Ireland, where even the young people's parents didn't vote for it. Brexiteers will have to do a lot more to demonstrate that Brexit is delivering tangible benefits if they want this decision to stick. Shouting about "Remoaners" doesn't really cut it.
No, I'm right. And it perturbs you
There you go again. Your response to a good post is nothing.
It was a trivially inane post, not least because it says the EU contains "300 million people", when it actually contains 450 million. If @OnlyLivingBoy can't even get a fact as basic as that right, what is the point is responding to anything else he says?
Shape up, or shut up
It wasn't and when you make posts like this after a few exchanges it just looks like you have lost the argument badly. You might not think you have but that is very much what it looks like.
Whatevs
While I agree with your postion regarding further Scottish referenda, I have a quick question for you, old buddy; if Leave had lost, would you have accepted it as "the settled will of the people" and told all those who requested a further referendum that they were being unreasonable for at least a generation. No crossing fingers as you type now.
Yes, absolutely. I would have said: Accept it. It is done
Indeed I would have gone further. If we had voted Remain I'd have said: let's at least join Schenghen, and maybe consider- in time - the euro
You van choose to believe me or not, but that is exactly what I mentally decided before I cast my carefully balanced vote. Britain had to choose: properly In or Out, all that faffing was poisonous, for them and for us
If any Leaver had tried to revive the argument I would have held them in contempt. "We had our chance, but the country decided otherwise..."
I would have accepted it too. I would have still wanted reform and democratic accountability within the EU but the in out principle would have been determined.
I would find a Scexit much, much more difficult to live with. Indeed I would probably move south of the border at some point, probably on retirement.
We might only let you in for 90 days in every 180 David
Well, as long as it covers the cricket season...
Speaking of cricket, I’m at Cheltenham and it’s not going well. We need help. Could you explain how Northants are nailed on to win by an innings and 110?
Ta muchly.
Not going to happen. We are barely D1 standard, didn't you see how we blew it against Lancs last week?
There isn’t really a division 1 ‘standard’ although it suits the ECB, most journalists and several county boards to claim otherwise. Gloucestershire beat Surrey and Somerset with ease last year and lost to Leicestershire.
But it has to be said neither Northants nor Gloucs are enjoying this season. Or Warwickshire, for the matter of that.
AIUI the Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case on whether Holyrood can hold a referendum unilaterally. That's possibly a good sign for the Nats, as the government argument was that the case didn't even deserve a hearing as proper process hadn't been followed.
It's rather difficult to see how they could rule in Sturgeon's favour under the law, but then the Supreme Court has form for bizarre judgements which bear as much relationship to the law as SeanT does to sobriety. Prorogation and Shamima Begum spring to mind.
What the Supreme Court has done is decide the question of prematurity (since the bill has yet to be passed by Holyrood) and competency (since it is a constitutional matter) will be decided together. FWIW I think that they will still determine that the reference of the Bill is premature but they want to deal with the substantive matter too so everyone is clear where they stand.
My very strong expectation is that they will say that this is beyond the competency of the Scottish Parliament and that a referendum cannot proceed without a s30 order. For the reasons @TSE has given no PM is going to be keen to grant a s30 order and risk losing. This raises a real question of democratic deficit in Scotland which is troubling, even for a Unionist like me.
It is indeed troubling. Whether one thinks Scotland should leave the union or not, most reasonable people, and certainly most Scots, would say that they have the right to. If there is no legal route for that right to be exercised then there will be trouble.
But this is not a one way matter. The UK is a joint enterprise in which Scotland has equal (arguably greater) sovereignty with England, Wales and NI
The break-up of the UK would be a profound national trauma that would deeply impact every UK citizen. Inter alia I am sure it would cause economic depression in Scotland and severe recession in rUK as investors fled the chaos and the £ crashed
Therefore Scotland’s right to secede must be balanced with the UK’s right to say “hang on a minute”
It’s not like the UK is some evil colonial power forbidding democracy; the UK Parliament - in which Scotland is fully represented - granted an indyref as recently as 8 years ago
The SNP needs to persuade its own supreme parliament at Westminster to grant a 2nd vote. I doubt that will happen before a generation has actually elapsed. 15-20 years, as in Canada
No that is bollocks. If Scotland wants to leave the Union then of course it will affect other countries in the Union but they don't have a veto. By your argument, the EU should have had the right to refuse the Brexit referendum. England, Wales and NI should have the same unilateral right to seceed, of course.
Truly infantile levels of analysis
Why?
I had the same argument with you recently and you came out with the same type of reply i.e. you stop arguing and just throw insults. The analogy is a good one.
The bizarre thing is when we had the discussion before you actually said it mattered not one jot what trauma leaving the EU caused even if massive because we gained independence (it trumped all) and then (as above) gave the trauma of Scotland leaving the union as a reason for not allowing it.
When called out on the inconsistency each time you stop arguing and resort to insults.
No, I give up arguing with people whose argumentation is so clueless or stupid it is waste of my time
And these days I care more about wasted time
But just this once I will indulge you
The differences between the Union of the EU and the Union of the United Kingdom are so vast they barely need explaining. But apparently they do
The UK is 300 years old; the EU is at best 70 years old, more like 30
The UK’s identity has been forged through 300 years of shared endeavour and pooled resources: building an empire, making a great nation, fighting existential wars; not so for the EU
The nations of the UK have a shared and supreme parliament which creates and passes our laws; not so the EU
The nations of the UK have a shared head of state deeply woven into our shared history and shared institutions; not true of the EU
The nations of the UK share one common language; unlike the EU
The nations of the UK share - with variations - a military, a seashore, a health service, a national broadcaster, a culture, a media, a demos, a character, a cuisine, a trade pattern, a climate, an architecture, an archipelago off the northwest coast of Europe, a sense of humour; not so the EU
All of which makes leaving the UK infinitely and impossibly complex compared to the already-painful process of quitting the EU
And finally, there are two DIFFERENT processes for leaving both. If you want to quit the EU you can trigger Article 50 unilaterally. In the UK it is different, you must get permission from Parliament at Westminster to have a referendum: as sturgeon acknowledges
And there it is. Endex
See how much better it is when you engage rather than insulting people?
Some of these are good arguments. For me the question of whether Scotland should be independent is finely balanced.
The UK in its present form is 100 years old, not 300, of course.
The argument about whether Scotland can legally unilaterally secede is of course different from whether it can morally. We can all read the legislation. My contention is that it is a moral outrage that Scotland's moral right to self determination is not matched by a legal right to do so, as it is in the EU. Even committed unionist Scots like DavidL find this troubling. I think the idea that Scotland is on some deep level "sovereign" regardless of legal status is widely held in Scotland by those on all sides of the independence debate. It is perhaps worrying that it is not shared in England.
But everything I said is obvious. If you need it spelled out to you then you are a cretin. I have given up explaining things to individual cretins: life is too short
I will not engage with you again, other than to hurl squalid, excessive and unjustified abuse
You have my word
Hi Leon, I read this exchange with interest. I said we'd return to this one - Brexit v Sindy - middle of this week, didn't I? Rhetorical only (I did) and it's Wednesday, the exact middle of this week. And seems you're talking about it anyway.
So, that question of mine: As somebody with such a burning love of absolutist untrammelled national sovereignty that iyo we had to have Brexit regardless of the practical consequences, how come you have zero empathy for the similar (and arguably stronger) argument for Sindy - stronger because Scotland, unlike the UK in the EU, lacks sovereign nation status - and a pretty visceral opposition to it ever happening?
I've been able to answer this to my own satisfaction, you'll be happy to hear.
The fact is you DO have empathy for the Sindy case. Of course you do. It'd be plain bizarre if you didn't. But the empathy you feel is swamped by your horror of what Sindy would mean. To wit no more Britain. Your love of (and pride in) Britain and its associated thing - Britishness - is real and it's bone-deep. It's not an annex to your persona it's integral. You clear Casino Royale's quite challenging bar for a Patriot with room to spare. This is why the thought of Sindy pains you so.
Very pleased with this. Think it's both true and fair.
Mate, this is not some startling insight. I say as much every day
I am a Briton and I love Britain. I don't want it broken up. Is this some bizarre new emotion you've just encountered? You'll be surprised to hear I am not alone
I am also a democrat. Scotland deserves a say. They had a say in 2014. Now for the sake of all Britain, we wait a generation to see if the mood changes, and they can have a say again
No country can survive constant referendums on its break up, any more than a marriage can survive the husband filing for divorce every year - then changing his mind at the last moment - year after year
I am sorry you have apparently spent days trying to work out something I could have told you in two minutes
Now you are goalpost moving.
This argument has nothing whatsoever to do with whether you love Briton or not.
This argument has nothing to do with multiple referendums
This argument has nothing to do with whether they had a say in 2014 or not and waiting a generation.
This argument is about the inconsistency in your stance re Sindy and EU. You used the exact mirror image to argue for and against Independence in the two scenarios. That is what the argument is about. The argument is about you being irrational.
I think what he's saying is he knows he's being irrational but that's where his 'patriotism' (ie in the hard nationalistic sense of the word) leads. I don't like it or agree with it but it's good to have it clarified.
The Sindy Ref point is something else imo. I think the argument for having one is compelling - because of Brexit and the Holyrood mandate - and I don't think to do so is to risk a "Ref every year until it's a Yes". Think that's a nonsense since if it's another No the SNP would have to backburner the issue or lose power.
It's not irrational at all
I am quite sure there are many Scots who feel the same way about Scotland as I do about Britain. That Scotland has their fundamental loyalty, and needs to be free, to the extent that it must be taken out of the UK (maybe even if it is economically harmful). Just as I wanted us out of the EU
That's fair. I understand it entirely. BECAUSE I am a patriot, like them
However if they want to press the point home and do it - secede - they need to do it legally - via the British method (Westminster approval for a referendum) as we - the UK - did it legally in Europe, via Article 50
Moreover, they can't do it every year or every five years, that would make a nonsense of the constitution and render Britain hideously unstable - impoverishing us all, as investors flee etc. I therefore believe in the generation argument (you don't, but this is a matter of opinion not objective fact)
And FWIW I would have applied the generation argument to the UK in the EU. If we had voted Remain I would have said: right, we have to accept it, let's make the best of it. And I would have neither expected nor wished for us to revisit the question for 15-20 years minimum.
My position is not irrational nor is it inconsistent, indeed I suspect it bugs you because it is the opposite
But the assumption holding all this together is a false one. Granting this Sindy Ref (due to Brexit and the Holyrood mandate) does not open the floodgates for one every 5 years or whatever. If it's held and it's a No that is 'it' for a long time. Any solid analysis of the political calculus shows that. Sturgeon certainly knows it. Hence her cautious approach.
As I say, this difference is a matter of opinion, not objective fact. I simply disagree with you
There is no such thing as "disagreement" on PB. There is right and there is wrong.
The difficulty with you and @kini is that you are usually both wrong so I can't call it here.
You agree with me, I think - and I'm delighted to have that support.
The problem for acceptance of the Brexit referendum was that the wrong people won. I'm serious here. When the posh people lose, they don't accept defeat gracefully because they're not used to it. And they didn't expect to lose, not when you're dealing with thicko, knuckle-dragging, Neanderthals.
I voted leave for a variety of reasons. The idea of a European free-trade area was sound, but merging countries without the join showing was a step too far. Perhaps it's too soon. I went to European meetings (only on the scientific side - where co-operation was the norm), but national characterists came to the fore on the admin side. Ours too.
To fully work, we had shelve differences and work fully together. The German admin people. bless their cotton socks, were scrupulously neutral, but I wish I could say the same about one or two others. Merkel left a mess so obviously all the other countries in the EU should pay the penalty too? Not sure, that's a popular opinion away from what's called the liberal elite. I suspect they think that's the price they pay for knowing more than the common hoi-poloi.
To explain some of the rancour, and to paraphrase Kipling, "Tommy aint a blooming fool, Tommy sees."
Perhaps it was always a step too far for us? Perhaps there's still that class divide.
The Brexit vote and campaign was also led by and for the posh people, who had lost originally 40 odd years ago when we joined the EEC. The story of Brexit is essentially the battle between two elite capitalist classes and the people they attracted. Those elites pushing for Brexit wanted a low tax, free market, hyper capitalist state that would relive the glory days of Rule Britannia with our swashbuckling maritime trading tradition (fantasy). The Remain elites are business as usual, neoliberal capitalists, who still agree with the elite agenda and capitalism, but were more managerial about their proposed planned decline of the welfare state.
When we look at those who voted either way, again, the position is murky. Lots of rich pensioners voted leave, lots of young people who work crap jobs voted remain. Biggest indicator was not class as is understood through English history, but educational background - which included the age range of people like me who were just out of uni at the time of the referendum but came from a working class familial background. The group most likely to vote for Brexit were slightly well off people who didn't have university degrees but did have levels; the middling class (not necessarily middle class) who have enough right now but can see that they could lose what they have.
What we see with Brexit and Trump and other pangs of nationalist / antiglobalist policy is that people have (correctly in my view) identified that capitalist globalisation has done more harm than good, but these two sets of elite groups have different ways of trying to use that. Again, one group are trying to wallpaper over the cracks, and the other want to smash it open so they can be kings over the rubble.
AIUI the Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case on whether Holyrood can hold a referendum unilaterally. That's possibly a good sign for the Nats, as the government argument was that the case didn't even deserve a hearing as proper process hadn't been followed.
It's rather difficult to see how they could rule in Sturgeon's favour under the law, but then the Supreme Court has form for bizarre judgements which bear as much relationship to the law as SeanT does to sobriety. Prorogation and Shamima Begum spring to mind.
What the Supreme Court has done is decide the question of prematurity (since the bill has yet to be passed by Holyrood) and competency (since it is a constitutional matter) will be decided together. FWIW I think that they will still determine that the reference of the Bill is premature but they want to deal with the substantive matter too so everyone is clear where they stand.
My very strong expectation is that they will say that this is beyond the competency of the Scottish Parliament and that a referendum cannot proceed without a s30 order. For the reasons @TSE has given no PM is going to be keen to grant a s30 order and risk losing. This raises a real question of democratic deficit in Scotland which is troubling, even for a Unionist like me.
It is indeed troubling. Whether one thinks Scotland should leave the union or not, most reasonable people, and certainly most Scots, would say that they have the right to. If there is no legal route for that right to be exercised then there will be trouble.
But this is not a one way matter. The UK is a joint enterprise in which Scotland has equal (arguably greater) sovereignty with England, Wales and NI
The break-up of the UK would be a profound national trauma that would deeply impact every UK citizen. Inter alia I am sure it would cause economic depression in Scotland and severe recession in rUK as investors fled the chaos and the £ crashed
Therefore Scotland’s right to secede must be balanced with the UK’s right to say “hang on a minute”
It’s not like the UK is some evil colonial power forbidding democracy; the UK Parliament - in which Scotland is fully represented - granted an indyref as recently as 8 years ago
The SNP needs to persuade its own supreme parliament at Westminster to grant a 2nd vote. I doubt that will happen before a generation has actually elapsed. 15-20 years, as in Canada
No that is bollocks. If Scotland wants to leave the Union then of course it will affect other countries in the Union but they don't have a veto. By your argument, the EU should have had the right to refuse the Brexit referendum. England, Wales and NI should have the same unilateral right to seceed, of course.
Truly infantile levels of analysis
Why?
I had the same argument with you recently and you came out with the same type of reply i.e. you stop arguing and just throw insults. The analogy is a good one.
The bizarre thing is when we had the discussion before you actually said it mattered not one jot what trauma leaving the EU caused even if massive because we gained independence (it trumped all) and then (as above) gave the trauma of Scotland leaving the union as a reason for not allowing it.
When called out on the inconsistency each time you stop arguing and resort to insults.
No, I give up arguing with people whose argumentation is so clueless or stupid it is waste of my time
And these days I care more about wasted time
But just this once I will indulge you
The differences between the Union of the EU and the Union of the United Kingdom are so vast they barely need explaining. But apparently they do
The UK is 300 years old; the EU is at best 70 years old, more like 30
The UK’s identity has been forged through 300 years of shared endeavour and pooled resources: building an empire, making a great nation, fighting existential wars; not so for the EU
The nations of the UK have a shared and supreme parliament which creates and passes our laws; not so the EU
The nations of the UK have a shared head of state deeply woven into our shared history and shared institutions; not true of the EU
The nations of the UK share one common language; unlike the EU
The nations of the UK share - with variations - a military, a seashore, a health service, a national broadcaster, a culture, a media, a demos, a character, a cuisine, a trade pattern, a climate, an architecture, an archipelago off the northwest coast of Europe, a sense of humour; not so the EU
All of which makes leaving the UK infinitely and impossibly complex compared to the already-painful process of quitting the EU
And finally, there are two DIFFERENT processes for leaving both. If you want to quit the EU you can trigger Article 50 unilaterally. In the UK it is different, you must get permission from Parliament at Westminster to have a referendum: as sturgeon acknowledges
And there it is. Endex
See how much better it is when you engage rather than insulting people?
Some of these are good arguments. For me the question of whether Scotland should be independent is finely balanced.
The UK in its present form is 100 years old, not 300, of course.
The argument about whether Scotland can legally unilaterally secede is of course different from whether it can morally. We can all read the legislation. My contention is that it is a moral outrage that Scotland's moral right to self determination is not matched by a legal right to do so, as it is in the EU. Even committed unionist Scots like DavidL find this troubling. I think the idea that Scotland is on some deep level "sovereign" regardless of legal status is widely held in Scotland by those on all sides of the independence debate. It is perhaps worrying that it is not shared in England.
But everything I said is obvious. If you need it spelled out to you then you are a cretin. I have given up explaining things to individual cretins: life is too short
I will not engage with you again, other than to hurl squalid, excessive and unjustified abuse
You have my word
Hi Leon, I read this exchange with interest. I said we'd return to this one - Brexit v Sindy - middle of this week, didn't I? Rhetorical only (I did) and it's Wednesday, the exact middle of this week. And seems you're talking about it anyway.
So, that question of mine: As somebody with such a burning love of absolutist untrammelled national sovereignty that iyo we had to have Brexit regardless of the practical consequences, how come you have zero empathy for the similar (and arguably stronger) argument for Sindy - stronger because Scotland, unlike the UK in the EU, lacks sovereign nation status - and a pretty visceral opposition to it ever happening?
I've been able to answer this to my own satisfaction, you'll be happy to hear.
The fact is you DO have empathy for the Sindy case. Of course you do. It'd be plain bizarre if you didn't. But the empathy you feel is swamped by your horror of what Sindy would mean. To wit no more Britain. Your love of (and pride in) Britain and its associated thing - Britishness - is real and it's bone-deep. It's not an annex to your persona it's integral. You clear Casino Royale's quite challenging bar for a Patriot with room to spare. This is why the thought of Sindy pains you so.
Very pleased with this. Think it's both true and fair.
Mate, this is not some startling insight. I say as much every day
I am a Briton and I love Britain. I don't want it broken up. Is this some bizarre new emotion you've just encountered? You'll be surprised to hear I am not alone
I am also a democrat. Scotland deserves a say. They had a say in 2014. Now for the sake of all Britain, we wait a generation to see if the mood changes, and they can have a say again
No country can survive constant referendums on its break up, any more than a marriage can survive the husband filing for divorce every year - then changing his mind at the last moment - year after year
I am sorry you have apparently spent days trying to work out something I could have told you in two minutes
Now you are goalpost moving.
This argument has nothing whatsoever to do with whether you love Briton or not.
This argument has nothing to do with multiple referendums
This argument has nothing to do with whether they had a say in 2014 or not and waiting a generation.
This argument is about the inconsistency in your stance re Sindy and EU. You used the exact mirror image to argue for and against Independence in the two scenarios. That is what the argument is about. The argument is about you being irrational.
I think what he's saying is he knows he's being irrational but that's where his 'patriotism' (ie in the hard nationalistic sense of the word) leads. I don't like it or agree with it but it's good to have it clarified.
The Sindy Ref point is something else imo. I think the argument for having one is compelling - because of Brexit and the Holyrood mandate - and I don't think to do so is to risk a "Ref every year until it's a Yes". Think that's a nonsense since if it's another No the SNP would have to backburner the issue or lose power.
It's not irrational at all
I am quite sure there are many Scots who feel the same way about Scotland as I do about Britain. That Scotland has their fundamental loyalty, and needs to be free, to the extent that it must be taken out of the UK (maybe even if it is economically harmful). Just as I wanted us out of the EU
That's fair. I understand it entirely. BECAUSE I am a patriot, like them
However if they want to press the point home and do it - secede - they need to do it legally - via the British method (Westminster approval for a referendum) as we - the UK - did it legally in Europe, via Article 50
Moreover, they can't do it every year or every five years, that would make a nonsense of the constitution and render Britain hideously unstable - impoverishing us all, as investors flee etc. I therefore believe in the generation argument (you don't, but this is a matter of opinion not objective fact)
And FWIW I would have applied the generation argument to the UK in the EU. If we had voted Remain I would have said: right, we have to accept it, let's make the best of it. And I would have neither expected nor wished for us to revisit the question for 15-20 years minimum.
My position is not irrational nor is it inconsistent, indeed I suspect it bugs you because it is the opposite
But the assumption holding all this together is a false one. Granting this Sindy Ref (due to Brexit and the Holyrood mandate) does not open the floodgates for one every 5 years or whatever. If it's held and it's a No that is 'it' for a long time. Any solid analysis of the political calculus shows that. Sturgeon certainly knows it. Hence her cautious approach.
As I say, this difference is a matter of opinion, not objective fact. I simply disagree with you
But you've just said - and I agree - that if we'd voted No to Leave there's no way we Brits would have been agitating for EU Referendums on a regular basis thereafter to keep having another bash.
Why? You said it. Because these type of Referendums are hugely divisive and are enormous drains of resource energy and emotion. That btw was why I both opposed a 2nd EU Referendum and made a lot of money betting against one happening. The idea was both wrong and absurd.
Yet when it comes to Scotland you ditch that impeccable line of analysis and go, "hey no, we can't grant another Sindy Ref now cos if we do they'll take it as carte blanche to be having them all the time. Give em an inch, these Scots, and they'll take a mile."
See? It's irrational, inconsistent and jaundiced.
The second EU referendum in 2016 was 41 years after the first EEC referendum in 1975, not just 8 years
AIUI the Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case on whether Holyrood can hold a referendum unilaterally. That's possibly a good sign for the Nats, as the government argument was that the case didn't even deserve a hearing as proper process hadn't been followed.
It's rather difficult to see how they could rule in Sturgeon's favour under the law, but then the Supreme Court has form for bizarre judgements which bear as much relationship to the law as SeanT does to sobriety. Prorogation and Shamima Begum spring to mind.
What the Supreme Court has done is decide the question of prematurity (since the bill has yet to be passed by Holyrood) and competency (since it is a constitutional matter) will be decided together. FWIW I think that they will still determine that the reference of the Bill is premature but they want to deal with the substantive matter too so everyone is clear where they stand.
My very strong expectation is that they will say that this is beyond the competency of the Scottish Parliament and that a referendum cannot proceed without a s30 order. For the reasons @TSE has given no PM is going to be keen to grant a s30 order and risk losing. This raises a real question of democratic deficit in Scotland which is troubling, even for a Unionist like me.
It is indeed troubling. Whether one thinks Scotland should leave the union or not, most reasonable people, and certainly most Scots, would say that they have the right to. If there is no legal route for that right to be exercised then there will be trouble.
But this is not a one way matter. The UK is a joint enterprise in which Scotland has equal (arguably greater) sovereignty with England, Wales and NI
The break-up of the UK would be a profound national trauma that would deeply impact every UK citizen. Inter alia I am sure it would cause economic depression in Scotland and severe recession in rUK as investors fled the chaos and the £ crashed
Therefore Scotland’s right to secede must be balanced with the UK’s right to say “hang on a minute”
It’s not like the UK is some evil colonial power forbidding democracy; the UK Parliament - in which Scotland is fully represented - granted an indyref as recently as 8 years ago
The SNP needs to persuade its own supreme parliament at Westminster to grant a 2nd vote. I doubt that will happen before a generation has actually elapsed. 15-20 years, as in Canada
No that is bollocks. If Scotland wants to leave the Union then of course it will affect other countries in the Union but they don't have a veto. By your argument, the EU should have had the right to refuse the Brexit referendum. England, Wales and NI should have the same unilateral right to seceed, of course.
Truly infantile levels of analysis
Why?
I had the same argument with you recently and you came out with the same type of reply i.e. you stop arguing and just throw insults. The analogy is a good one.
The bizarre thing is when we had the discussion before you actually said it mattered not one jot what trauma leaving the EU caused even if massive because we gained independence (it trumped all) and then (as above) gave the trauma of Scotland leaving the union as a reason for not allowing it.
When called out on the inconsistency each time you stop arguing and resort to insults.
No, I give up arguing with people whose argumentation is so clueless or stupid it is waste of my time
And these days I care more about wasted time
But just this once I will indulge you
The differences between the Union of the EU and the Union of the United Kingdom are so vast they barely need explaining. But apparently they do
The UK is 300 years old; the EU is at best 70 years old, more like 30
The UK’s identity has been forged through 300 years of shared endeavour and pooled resources: building an empire, making a great nation, fighting existential wars; not so for the EU
The nations of the UK have a shared and supreme parliament which creates and passes our laws; not so the EU
The nations of the UK have a shared head of state deeply woven into our shared history and shared institutions; not true of the EU
The nations of the UK share one common language; unlike the EU
The nations of the UK share - with variations - a military, a seashore, a health service, a national broadcaster, a culture, a media, a demos, a character, a cuisine, a trade pattern, a climate, an architecture, an archipelago off the northwest coast of Europe, a sense of humour; not so the EU
All of which makes leaving the UK infinitely and impossibly complex compared to the already-painful process of quitting the EU
And finally, there are two DIFFERENT processes for leaving both. If you want to quit the EU you can trigger Article 50 unilaterally. In the UK it is different, you must get permission from Parliament at Westminster to have a referendum: as sturgeon acknowledges
And there it is. Endex
See how much better it is when you engage rather than insulting people?
Some of these are good arguments. For me the question of whether Scotland should be independent is finely balanced.
The UK in its present form is 100 years old, not 300, of course.
The argument about whether Scotland can legally unilaterally secede is of course different from whether it can morally. We can all read the legislation. My contention is that it is a moral outrage that Scotland's moral right to self determination is not matched by a legal right to do so, as it is in the EU. Even committed unionist Scots like DavidL find this troubling. I think the idea that Scotland is on some deep level "sovereign" regardless of legal status is widely held in Scotland by those on all sides of the independence debate. It is perhaps worrying that it is not shared in England.
But everything I said is obvious. If you need it spelled out to you then you are a cretin. I have given up explaining things to individual cretins: life is too short
I will not engage with you again, other than to hurl squalid, excessive and unjustified abuse
You have my word
Hi Leon, I read this exchange with interest. I said we'd return to this one - Brexit v Sindy - middle of this week, didn't I? Rhetorical only (I did) and it's Wednesday, the exact middle of this week. And seems you're talking about it anyway.
So, that question of mine: As somebody with such a burning love of absolutist untrammelled national sovereignty that iyo we had to have Brexit regardless of the practical consequences, how come you have zero empathy for the similar (and arguably stronger) argument for Sindy - stronger because Scotland, unlike the UK in the EU, lacks sovereign nation status - and a pretty visceral opposition to it ever happening?
I've been able to answer this to my own satisfaction, you'll be happy to hear.
The fact is you DO have empathy for the Sindy case. Of course you do. It'd be plain bizarre if you didn't. But the empathy you feel is swamped by your horror of what Sindy would mean. To wit no more Britain. Your love of (and pride in) Britain and its associated thing - Britishness - is real and it's bone-deep. It's not an annex to your persona it's integral. You clear Casino Royale's quite challenging bar for a Patriot with room to spare. This is why the thought of Sindy pains you so.
Very pleased with this. Think it's both true and fair.
Mate, this is not some startling insight. I say as much every day
I am a Briton and I love Britain. I don't want it broken up. Is this some bizarre new emotion you've just encountered? You'll be surprised to hear I am not alone
I am also a democrat. Scotland deserves a say. They had a say in 2014. Now for the sake of all Britain, we wait a generation to see if the mood changes, and they can have a say again
No country can survive constant referendums on its break up, any more than a marriage can survive the husband filing for divorce every year - then changing his mind at the last moment - year after year
I am sorry you have apparently spent days trying to work out something I could have told you in two minutes
Didn't take days, just an hour or so. And I've asked you many times and only got abuse for my efforts.
But never mind, we're there now. And it was important. I spend a lot of time on here and you are the most prolific poster. Meaning you're a big part of my life, for better or worse, and I like to understand things that are a big part of my life.
Mysteries remain - eg why iyo is Britain so special that we have to be outside the EU to be our full and best selves when the likes of France and Germany and most every other European country seem to think they can manage that as a member - but this can wait for another time. Perhaps the middle of next week.
See. That's your narrow mind again, working against you
I believe you are incapable of understanding patriotism. The idea that some people are genuinely, emotionally attached to a nation. To you it seems bizarre, and a touch childish, and embarrassing. But it is in fact no more bizarre than loving your kids
A nation is the larger genetic embodiment of the self, it is a larger version of the family or the tribe, thus a normal person wishes it well. To my mind, moreover, Britain is unusually deserving of love and loyalty, because it has done much that is admirable (and made some big mistakes as well) - from Magna Carta to World War 2, from the Industrial Revolution to the abolition of slavery (yes, this after we profited hugely from slavery), from world sports to landscape gardens, from the Putney Debates to discovering DNA to the English language, the global language - Britain has played an outsize, remarkable and often honourable role on the world stage, and has the potential to do more
Also, our funny little island is beautiful, various and green, albeit scarred by history (and a bit drizzly today)
So, yes, I love my country. I love Britain. I don't want it sliced in two. Amazing, huh
If you didn't have that weird pinched lefty brain you'd have worked this out in a second - "he's a British patriot, I understand patriotism". But you do, so you didn't
I'd say a person who loves their country as they do their kids is a tad unusual - esp when it comes to them being sliced in two. But each to his own.
And here you've for some reason repeated all the stuff we'd already clarified - ie you're irrational about Brexit and Sindy because of your nationalistic and somewhat sentimentalized Patriotism - rather than tackle the next question.
Being - why does Britain have to be outside the EU to be true to itself when most other European countries feel no such thing?
But I did say that was for next Wednesday, I suppose.
You're so desperate to paint me as a "nationalist". It is poignant
It's a self-portrait - and reasonably well executed by you too.
Bailey has won her claim against her Chambers, but not against Stomewall:
1/The Employment Tribunal found that Garden Court Chambers discriminated against me because of my gender critical belief when it published a statement that I was under investigation & in upholding Stonewall’s complaint against me.
To be precise: she won the smallest of four (? three) claims against her chambers.
She lost every claim against Stonewall, after fundraising under the banner “I am suing Stonewall”.
As is (by now) completely normal, the GC crowd are spinning this as a massive win. They definitely have the media management bit down: get your story out in front of people first & very few people will read the fine print.
1. The claim against the first respondent (i.e. Stonewall) is dismissed 2. The second and third respondents discriminated against the claimant because of belief in respect of detriments 2 and 4. They also victimised her in respect of detriment 4 because of protected act 2. 3. The second and third respondents are ordered to pay the claimant £22,000 compensation for injury to feelings, and interest thereon of £4,693.33. 4. Claims of discrimination and victimisation by the second and third respondents in detriments 1,3 and 5 are dismissed. 5. The indirect discrimination claim against the second and third respondents is dismissed.
You don’t think the public exposure of “Stonewall Law” (in contrast to the actual law) is a “win” - least of all the way Stonewall threw Garden Court Chambers under the bus in their response to the verdict:
The case heard by the Employment Tribunal did not accurately reflect our intentions and our influence on organisations. Leaders within organisations are responsible for the organisational culture and the behaviour of their employees and workers. Stonewall’s resources, support and guidance is just one set of inputs they use to help them as they consider how best to meet the needs of their own organisation.
After their reverse ferret over “trans toddlers” it’s not been a great few days for Stonewall.
Personally, as I’ve said before, I think the result in the Maya Forstater case was the right one: it cannot be right to sack someone for anything except the most egregious philosophical beliefs, where the belief itself would be sufficient to conclude that employing the individual would bring harm to other employees, or to the organisation.
However, expressing your beliefs in the workplace continues to be at your own risk - if you create a discriminatory work environment for other employees who are in a protected class (which includes transgender people) then you risk suffering the consequences. Anti-trans campaigners are here in much the same situation as those with strongly anti-homosexual Christian beliefs. Having the belief is not grounds for dismissal. Acting on it in ways that prejudice other employees is.
Stonewall get to put out their position in the “marketplace of ideas”, just as the GC crowd do. Seems fair to me.
AIUI the Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case on whether Holyrood can hold a referendum unilaterally. That's possibly a good sign for the Nats, as the government argument was that the case didn't even deserve a hearing as proper process hadn't been followed.
It's rather difficult to see how they could rule in Sturgeon's favour under the law, but then the Supreme Court has form for bizarre judgements which bear as much relationship to the law as SeanT does to sobriety. Prorogation and Shamima Begum spring to mind.
What the Supreme Court has done is decide the question of prematurity (since the bill has yet to be passed by Holyrood) and competency (since it is a constitutional matter) will be decided together. FWIW I think that they will still determine that the reference of the Bill is premature but they want to deal with the substantive matter too so everyone is clear where they stand.
My very strong expectation is that they will say that this is beyond the competency of the Scottish Parliament and that a referendum cannot proceed without a s30 order. For the reasons @TSE has given no PM is going to be keen to grant a s30 order and risk losing. This raises a real question of democratic deficit in Scotland which is troubling, even for a Unionist like me.
It is indeed troubling. Whether one thinks Scotland should leave the union or not, most reasonable people, and certainly most Scots, would say that they have the right to. If there is no legal route for that right to be exercised then there will be trouble.
But this is not a one way matter. The UK is a joint enterprise in which Scotland has equal (arguably greater) sovereignty with England, Wales and NI
The break-up of the UK would be a profound national trauma that would deeply impact every UK citizen. Inter alia I am sure it would cause economic depression in Scotland and severe recession in rUK as investors fled the chaos and the £ crashed
Therefore Scotland’s right to secede must be balanced with the UK’s right to say “hang on a minute”
It’s not like the UK is some evil colonial power forbidding democracy; the UK Parliament - in which Scotland is fully represented - granted an indyref as recently as 8 years ago
The SNP needs to persuade its own supreme parliament at Westminster to grant a 2nd vote. I doubt that will happen before a generation has actually elapsed. 15-20 years, as in Canada
No that is bollocks. If Scotland wants to leave the Union then of course it will affect other countries in the Union but they don't have a veto. By your argument, the EU should have had the right to refuse the Brexit referendum. England, Wales and NI should have the same unilateral right to seceed, of course.
Truly infantile levels of analysis
Why?
I had the same argument with you recently and you came out with the same type of reply i.e. you stop arguing and just throw insults. The analogy is a good one.
The bizarre thing is when we had the discussion before you actually said it mattered not one jot what trauma leaving the EU caused even if massive because we gained independence (it trumped all) and then (as above) gave the trauma of Scotland leaving the union as a reason for not allowing it.
When called out on the inconsistency each time you stop arguing and resort to insults.
No, I give up arguing with people whose argumentation is so clueless or stupid it is waste of my time
And these days I care more about wasted time
But just this once I will indulge you
The differences between the Union of the EU and the Union of the United Kingdom are so vast they barely need explaining. But apparently they do
The UK is 300 years old; the EU is at best 70 years old, more like 30
The UK’s identity has been forged through 300 years of shared endeavour and pooled resources: building an empire, making a great nation, fighting existential wars; not so for the EU
The nations of the UK have a shared and supreme parliament which creates and passes our laws; not so the EU
The nations of the UK have a shared head of state deeply woven into our shared history and shared institutions; not true of the EU
The nations of the UK share one common language; unlike the EU
The nations of the UK share - with variations - a military, a seashore, a health service, a national broadcaster, a culture, a media, a demos, a character, a cuisine, a trade pattern, a climate, an architecture, an archipelago off the northwest coast of Europe, a sense of humour; not so the EU
All of which makes leaving the UK infinitely and impossibly complex compared to the already-painful process of quitting the EU
And finally, there are two DIFFERENT processes for leaving both. If you want to quit the EU you can trigger Article 50 unilaterally. In the UK it is different, you must get permission from Parliament at Westminster to have a referendum: as sturgeon acknowledges
And there it is. Endex
See how much better it is when you engage rather than insulting people?
Some of these are good arguments. For me the question of whether Scotland should be independent is finely balanced.
The UK in its present form is 100 years old, not 300, of course.
The argument about whether Scotland can legally unilaterally secede is of course different from whether it can morally. We can all read the legislation. My contention is that it is a moral outrage that Scotland's moral right to self determination is not matched by a legal right to do so, as it is in the EU. Even committed unionist Scots like DavidL find this troubling. I think the idea that Scotland is on some deep level "sovereign" regardless of legal status is widely held in Scotland by those on all sides of the independence debate. It is perhaps worrying that it is not shared in England.
But everything I said is obvious. If you need it spelled out to you then you are a cretin. I have given up explaining things to individual cretins: life is too short
I will not engage with you again, other than to hurl squalid, excessive and unjustified abuse
You have my word
Hi Leon, I read this exchange with interest. I said we'd return to this one - Brexit v Sindy - middle of this week, didn't I? Rhetorical only (I did) and it's Wednesday, the exact middle of this week. And seems you're talking about it anyway.
So, that question of mine: As somebody with such a burning love of absolutist untrammelled national sovereignty that iyo we had to have Brexit regardless of the practical consequences, how come you have zero empathy for the similar (and arguably stronger) argument for Sindy - stronger because Scotland, unlike the UK in the EU, lacks sovereign nation status - and a pretty visceral opposition to it ever happening?
I've been able to answer this to my own satisfaction, you'll be happy to hear.
The fact is you DO have empathy for the Sindy case. Of course you do. It'd be plain bizarre if you didn't. But the empathy you feel is swamped by your horror of what Sindy would mean. To wit no more Britain. Your love of (and pride in) Britain and its associated thing - Britishness - is real and it's bone-deep. It's not an annex to your persona it's integral. You clear Casino Royale's quite challenging bar for a Patriot with room to spare. This is why the thought of Sindy pains you so.
Very pleased with this. Think it's both true and fair.
Mate, this is not some startling insight. I say as much every day
I am a Briton and I love Britain. I don't want it broken up. Is this some bizarre new emotion you've just encountered? You'll be surprised to hear I am not alone
I am also a democrat. Scotland deserves a say. They had a say in 2014. Now for the sake of all Britain, we wait a generation to see if the mood changes, and they can have a say again
No country can survive constant referendums on its break up, any more than a marriage can survive the husband filing for divorce every year - then changing his mind at the last moment - year after year
I am sorry you have apparently spent days trying to work out something I could have told you in two minutes
Now you are goalpost moving.
This argument has nothing whatsoever to do with whether you love Briton or not.
This argument has nothing to do with multiple referendums
This argument has nothing to do with whether they had a say in 2014 or not and waiting a generation.
This argument is about the inconsistency in your stance re Sindy and EU. You used the exact mirror image to argue for and against Independence in the two scenarios. That is what the argument is about. The argument is about you being irrational.
I think what he's saying is he knows he's being irrational but that's where his 'patriotism' (ie in the hard nationalistic sense of the word) leads. I don't like it or agree with it but it's good to have it clarified.
The Sindy Ref point is something else imo. I think the argument for having one is compelling - because of Brexit and the Holyrood mandate - and I don't think to do so is to risk a "Ref every year until it's a Yes". Think that's a nonsense since if it's another No the SNP would have to backburner the issue or lose power.
It's not irrational at all
I am quite sure there are many Scots who feel the same way about Scotland as I do about Britain. That Scotland has their fundamental loyalty, and needs to be free, to the extent that it must be taken out of the UK (maybe even if it is economically harmful). Just as I wanted us out of the EU
That's fair. I understand it entirely. BECAUSE I am a patriot, like them
However if they want to press the point home and do it - secede - they need to do it legally - via the British method (Westminster approval for a referendum) as we - the UK - did it legally in Europe, via Article 50
Moreover, they can't do it every year or every five years, that would make a nonsense of the constitution and render Britain hideously unstable - impoverishing us all, as investors flee etc. I therefore believe in the generation argument (you don't, but this is a matter of opinion not objective fact)
And FWIW I would have applied the generation argument to the UK in the EU. If we had voted Remain I would have said: right, we have to accept it, let's make the best of it. And I would have neither expected nor wished for us to revisit the question for 15-20 years minimum.
My position is not irrational nor is it inconsistent, indeed I suspect it bugs you because it is the opposite
But the assumption holding all this together is a false one. Granting this Sindy Ref (due to Brexit and the Holyrood mandate) does not open the floodgates for one every 5 years or whatever. If it's held and it's a No that is 'it' for a long time. Any solid analysis of the political calculus shows that. Sturgeon certainly knows it. Hence her cautious approach.
As I say, this difference is a matter of opinion, not objective fact. I simply disagree with you
But you've just said - and I agree - that if we'd voted No to Leave there's no way we Brits would have been agitating for EU Referendums on a regular basis thereafter to keep having another bash.
Why? You said it. Because these type of Referendums are hugely divisive and are enormous drains of resource energy and emotion. That btw was why I both opposed a 2nd EU Referendum and made a lot of money betting against one happening. The idea was both wrong and absurd.
Yet when it comes to Scotland you ditch that impeccable line of analysis and go, "hey no, we can't grant another Sindy Ref now cos if we do they'll take it as carte blanche to be having them all the time. Give em an inch, these Scots, and they'll take a mile."
See? It's irrational, inconsistent and jaundiced.
This is wearisome. We just disagree. I believe a generation should elapse. That's it
You can goad me however you like. Make a day of it. Have a picnic
Does anyone seriously support removing the right to strike?
On balance, no, but some of the nonsense has to stop, like causing five days of disruption by only taking two days action.
So what would you do?
Have a strike ballot be for a single, continuous strike action. That could be for one day, a month, four months or indefinite if people so choose. But once the strike ends, then its finished, if you want another strike there needs to be another ballot.
Would stop having people striking for every other day but getting paid most of the time, but they would be fully entitled to strike for the whole week if they wanted to instead.
This seems reasonable but Liz wants to do far more than that, she wants to modify the right itself.
Just possibly the departure of Boris is having an effect. He was certainly a lightning rod for anti Brexit sentiment and some of it might just have been hostility to him.
It's also just a less salient issue so the numbers mean less. It wouldn't be surprising if it swings dramatically the other way the next time there is an EU crisis in the news.
Yes. The really embittered Remoaners will either leave or die or quietly accept the situation. Young people will grow up with the UK outside the EU and consider it natural. The idea of submitting ourselves to rule from Brussels will come to seem fanciful and silly - who would do that? They are foreigners, we rule ourselves
This outcome is more likely than anything else (eg Rejoin) as it accords with human nature. In five years time it is quite possible those polls will be completely reversed
This is why I believe Remainers have a narrowing window of opportunity. If they want to make a significant shift back to the EU it has to happen in the next few years, while there is still sentiment on their side. PM Starmer will come under intense pressure to do this
Young people will grow up wondering why they can't travel freely and work and live in Europe like their Irish or Dutch friends can. They will grow up wondering why our economy is under performing, why things cost more here, why they have to queue so long at passport control, why they have to pay roaming charges, why they are locked out of a market of over 300 million people on our doorstep by a decision they played no part in. Even more so in Scotland and Northern Ireland, where even the young people's parents didn't vote for it. Brexiteers will have to do a lot more to demonstrate that Brexit is delivering tangible benefits if they want this decision to stick. Shouting about "Remoaners" doesn't really cut it.
No, I'm right. And it perturbs you
There you go again. Your response to a good post is nothing.
It was a trivially inane post, not least because it says the EU contains "300 million people", when it actually contains 450 million. If @OnlyLivingBoy can't even get a fact as basic as that right, what is the point is responding to anything else he says?
Shape up, or shut up
It wasn't and when you make posts like this after a few exchanges it just looks like you have lost the argument badly. You might not think you have but that is very much what it looks like.
Whatevs
While I agree with your postion regarding further Scottish referenda, I have a quick question for you, old buddy; if Leave had lost, would you have accepted it as "the settled will of the people" and told all those who requested a further referendum that they were being unreasonable for at least a generation. No crossing fingers as you type now.
Yes, absolutely. I would have said: Accept it. It is done
Indeed I would have gone further. If we had voted Remain I'd have said: let's at least join Schenghen, and maybe consider- in time - the euro
You van choose to believe me or not, but that is exactly what I mentally decided before I cast my carefully balanced vote. Britain had to choose: properly In or Out, all that faffing was poisonous, for them and for us
If any Leaver had tried to revive the argument I would have held them in contempt. "We had our chance, but the country decided otherwise..."
I will give you the benefit of the doubt, but you will forgive me (or not) if I feel a certain level of scepticism. I doubt most Leavers would have shared your position though. Mr. Faridge would have been clamouring immediately
All the Leavers I know were of like mind. This was our once in a generation chance, if we lose, we lose. That's it. Give up, for at least 20 years. Not worth the arse-ache
I am sure some Leavers would have gone into Japanese-in-the-jungle mode, maybe including Farage, but that's not my business
So why is that having won they can't accept their victory and move on?
‘They?!’ You voted Leave too RP!
I have to say I don’t agree with Leon though. Farage was saying at the start of the night ‘our campaign for a second referendum starts now.’
Ironic, given the circumstances. But ‘we’re taking the route Nigel Farage took’ isn’t a great look for the Nats.
Oh I am sure Farage would have agitated and complained, but he would have been leading a rump of malcontents
As @moonshine says, if Remain had won - say 52:48 - Remain would have had the support of the nation, all the Remainers plus a very large chunk of the Leavers - like me - who respect democracy. A solid solid majority
What you would never have seen is the British Establishment trying to reverse the narrow Remain win, by having another go, to get a Leave vote. Unthinkable
Yet that happened: with Remainers....
Lol! British Establishment = 'people in power whom you disagree with'.
My British Establishment is a different, but just as valid, set of people in power to yours.
Truth is, the BE were just as split as the rest of us.
The heights of UK politics, academe, media, the arts, business, law, charities, the civil service - were all majority Remain - do you deny this?
Not sure how you can deny this given that Remainers spent six years telling us how they were so much more intelligent - hence their elevated positions in society - while Leavers were thick white racists in Worksop. The British Establishment is not centred on Worksop
Brexit was supported by such anti-establishment figures as, to name but a few:
Barlcay bros, Murdoch, Dacre, Dyson, Bamford, Tim Martin, Jim Ratcliffe, Helena Morrisey, Simon Wolfson, Gove, Johnson, Lord Lawson, The Queen...
The Queen FFS! - you don't get much more establishment than that.
The Daily Mail, Express, Sun, Telegrapgh, Star were all vehemently pro-Brexit, but presumably the major national dailies are anti-establishment too.
Imagine joining a protection racket, following the rules slavishly, but finding out that in the end there's no protection, your reputation's trashed, your bank account's empty and the racketeers just walk away saying "nothing to do with us, guv".
Just possibly the departure of Boris is having an effect. He was certainly a lightning rod for anti Brexit sentiment and some of it might just have been hostility to him.
It's also just a less salient issue so the numbers mean less. It wouldn't be surprising if it swings dramatically the other way the next time there is an EU crisis in the news.
Yes. The really embittered Remoaners will either leave or die or quietly accept the situation. Young people will grow up with the UK outside the EU and consider it natural. The idea of submitting ourselves to rule from Brussels will come to seem fanciful and silly - who would do that? They are foreigners, we rule ourselves
This outcome is more likely than anything else (eg Rejoin) as it accords with human nature. In five years time it is quite possible those polls will be completely reversed
This is why I believe Remainers have a narrowing window of opportunity. If they want to make a significant shift back to the EU it has to happen in the next few years, while there is still sentiment on their side. PM Starmer will come under intense pressure to do this
You always talk about remoaners. But at which point do leavers also "leave or die or quietly accept the situation"?
Leave won, we left the EU and delivered a pretty hard Brexit. Yet to listen to the core of the leave campaign and various newspapers and a lot of voters, its as if the battle hasn't yet been fought.
Its fine to say "remainers won't accept defeat" - but neither will leavers accept victory...
OK, set aside ALL the Brexit arguments, and all the Leaver Remainer stuff
I am talking about human nature. People come to accept the status quo around them as the natural order - this can be good or bad, depending, but it is the case. Revolutions are rare of necessity (especially in the UK)
So Britain will get accustomed to being outside the EU. The irritation of having our passports stamped will ease and then disappear, we will get used to ALL our laws being made by our own democratic politicians, and the weirdness that is EU politics in Brussels (and boy is it weird) will grow evermore distant and alien
Check polls in Norway and Switzerland. No one there proposes to join the EU because the idea is deeply unpopular
The whole Brexit argument will fade like an old carpet in strong sunshine, and Rejoin will come to be seen as a quaint cause adopted by cranks
But the issue is not our membership of the EU. People in Norway don't want to join the EU because their membership of the EEA means they get all those benefits but still retain the freedoms you mention.
You really think in this connected global digital age that people here will accept being poorer, more constrained and less connected than everyone around them? Name me one of the countries you visited recently who learned to accept their own status quo having seen the differences elsewhere.
Britain was in relative decline in the single market, and Brexit was a vote against that. People didn't want to be the low-wage employer of last resort, or a captive market for EU goods.
As the Brexiteers are not inspecting incoming EU goods, we are a captive market for EU exports, while our own exports are subject to self imposed red tape. It really isn't a very good or for that matter a stable outcome.
Not bad for consumers though as we continue to benefit from excellent quality consumer goods from the EU, just a problem for exporters.
Our exports to the EU are at an all time high so not that much of a problem.
As I understand it, the record high is driven by LNG going through the UK to the continent. I’m not certain that demonstrates that all other exports are doing well.
Imagine joining a protection racket, following the rules slavishly, but finding out that in the end there's no protection, your reputation's trashed, your bank account's empty and the racketeers just walk away saying "nothing to do with us, guv".
Worth remembering that when @HRwritesnews broke this story on Sunday, the SNP's first response was to threaten her with an IPSO complaint about her reporting
Does anyone seriously support removing the right to strike?
On balance, no, but some of the nonsense has to stop, like causing five days of disruption by only taking two days action.
So what would you do?
Have a strike ballot be for a single, continuous strike action. That could be for one day, a month, four months or indefinite if people so choose. But once the strike ends, then its finished, if you want another strike there needs to be another ballot.
Would stop having people striking for every other day but getting paid most of the time, but they would be fully entitled to strike for the whole week if they wanted to instead.
This seems reasonable but Liz wants to do far more than that, she wants to modify the right itself.
It's not reasonable though really. I'm not a big fan of the RMT strikes but if a ballot is needed every time, then the company just has to ride out the first strike (be it a day, a week etc) and then they get weeks of uninterrupted service as a ballot needs to be fairly organised and new notice given.
Yeah, you can just strike indefinitely, but the people going on strike still need to live and would receive no income. They'd be doomed to do short strikes every 8-9 weeks that the company/industry can effectively ignore so the workers' living standards would slip anyway, or the worse alternative, an indefinite strike and not being able to put food on the table at all.
AIUI the Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case on whether Holyrood can hold a referendum unilaterally. That's possibly a good sign for the Nats, as the government argument was that the case didn't even deserve a hearing as proper process hadn't been followed.
It's rather difficult to see how they could rule in Sturgeon's favour under the law, but then the Supreme Court has form for bizarre judgements which bear as much relationship to the law as SeanT does to sobriety. Prorogation and Shamima Begum spring to mind.
What the Supreme Court has done is decide the question of prematurity (since the bill has yet to be passed by Holyrood) and competency (since it is a constitutional matter) will be decided together. FWIW I think that they will still determine that the reference of the Bill is premature but they want to deal with the substantive matter too so everyone is clear where they stand.
My very strong expectation is that they will say that this is beyond the competency of the Scottish Parliament and that a referendum cannot proceed without a s30 order. For the reasons @TSE has given no PM is going to be keen to grant a s30 order and risk losing. This raises a real question of democratic deficit in Scotland which is troubling, even for a Unionist like me.
It is indeed troubling. Whether one thinks Scotland should leave the union or not, most reasonable people, and certainly most Scots, would say that they have the right to. If there is no legal route for that right to be exercised then there will be trouble.
But this is not a one way matter. The UK is a joint enterprise in which Scotland has equal (arguably greater) sovereignty with England, Wales and NI
The break-up of the UK would be a profound national trauma that would deeply impact every UK citizen. Inter alia I am sure it would cause economic depression in Scotland and severe recession in rUK as investors fled the chaos and the £ crashed
Therefore Scotland’s right to secede must be balanced with the UK’s right to say “hang on a minute”
It’s not like the UK is some evil colonial power forbidding democracy; the UK Parliament - in which Scotland is fully represented - granted an indyref as recently as 8 years ago
The SNP needs to persuade its own supreme parliament at Westminster to grant a 2nd vote. I doubt that will happen before a generation has actually elapsed. 15-20 years, as in Canada
No that is bollocks. If Scotland wants to leave the Union then of course it will affect other countries in the Union but they don't have a veto. By your argument, the EU should have had the right to refuse the Brexit referendum. England, Wales and NI should have the same unilateral right to seceed, of course.
Truly infantile levels of analysis
Why?
I had the same argument with you recently and you came out with the same type of reply i.e. you stop arguing and just throw insults. The analogy is a good one.
The bizarre thing is when we had the discussion before you actually said it mattered not one jot what trauma leaving the EU caused even if massive because we gained independence (it trumped all) and then (as above) gave the trauma of Scotland leaving the union as a reason for not allowing it.
When called out on the inconsistency each time you stop arguing and resort to insults.
No, I give up arguing with people whose argumentation is so clueless or stupid it is waste of my time
And these days I care more about wasted time
But just this once I will indulge you
The differences between the Union of the EU and the Union of the United Kingdom are so vast they barely need explaining. But apparently they do
The UK is 300 years old; the EU is at best 70 years old, more like 30
The UK’s identity has been forged through 300 years of shared endeavour and pooled resources: building an empire, making a great nation, fighting existential wars; not so for the EU
The nations of the UK have a shared and supreme parliament which creates and passes our laws; not so the EU
The nations of the UK have a shared head of state deeply woven into our shared history and shared institutions; not true of the EU
The nations of the UK share one common language; unlike the EU
The nations of the UK share - with variations - a military, a seashore, a health service, a national broadcaster, a culture, a media, a demos, a character, a cuisine, a trade pattern, a climate, an architecture, an archipelago off the northwest coast of Europe, a sense of humour; not so the EU
All of which makes leaving the UK infinitely and impossibly complex compared to the already-painful process of quitting the EU
And finally, there are two DIFFERENT processes for leaving both. If you want to quit the EU you can trigger Article 50 unilaterally. In the UK it is different, you must get permission from Parliament at Westminster to have a referendum: as sturgeon acknowledges
And there it is. Endex
See how much better it is when you engage rather than insulting people?
Some of these are good arguments. For me the question of whether Scotland should be independent is finely balanced.
The UK in its present form is 100 years old, not 300, of course.
The argument about whether Scotland can legally unilaterally secede is of course different from whether it can morally. We can all read the legislation. My contention is that it is a moral outrage that Scotland's moral right to self determination is not matched by a legal right to do so, as it is in the EU. Even committed unionist Scots like DavidL find this troubling. I think the idea that Scotland is on some deep level "sovereign" regardless of legal status is widely held in Scotland by those on all sides of the independence debate. It is perhaps worrying that it is not shared in England.
But everything I said is obvious. If you need it spelled out to you then you are a cretin. I have given up explaining things to individual cretins: life is too short
I will not engage with you again, other than to hurl squalid, excessive and unjustified abuse
You have my word
Hi Leon, I read this exchange with interest. I said we'd return to this one - Brexit v Sindy - middle of this week, didn't I? Rhetorical only (I did) and it's Wednesday, the exact middle of this week. And seems you're talking about it anyway.
So, that question of mine: As somebody with such a burning love of absolutist untrammelled national sovereignty that iyo we had to have Brexit regardless of the practical consequences, how come you have zero empathy for the similar (and arguably stronger) argument for Sindy - stronger because Scotland, unlike the UK in the EU, lacks sovereign nation status - and a pretty visceral opposition to it ever happening?
I've been able to answer this to my own satisfaction, you'll be happy to hear.
The fact is you DO have empathy for the Sindy case. Of course you do. It'd be plain bizarre if you didn't. But the empathy you feel is swamped by your horror of what Sindy would mean. To wit no more Britain. Your love of (and pride in) Britain and its associated thing - Britishness - is real and it's bone-deep. It's not an annex to your persona it's integral. You clear Casino Royale's quite challenging bar for a Patriot with room to spare. This is why the thought of Sindy pains you so.
Very pleased with this. Think it's both true and fair.
Mate, this is not some startling insight. I say as much every day
I am a Briton and I love Britain. I don't want it broken up. Is this some bizarre new emotion you've just encountered? You'll be surprised to hear I am not alone
I am also a democrat. Scotland deserves a say. They had a say in 2014. Now for the sake of all Britain, we wait a generation to see if the mood changes, and they can have a say again
No country can survive constant referendums on its break up, any more than a marriage can survive the husband filing for divorce every year - then changing his mind at the last moment - year after year
I am sorry you have apparently spent days trying to work out something I could have told you in two minutes
Now you are goalpost moving.
This argument has nothing whatsoever to do with whether you love Briton or not.
This argument has nothing to do with multiple referendums
This argument has nothing to do with whether they had a say in 2014 or not and waiting a generation.
This argument is about the inconsistency in your stance re Sindy and EU. You used the exact mirror image to argue for and against Independence in the two scenarios. That is what the argument is about. The argument is about you being irrational.
I think what he's saying is he knows he's being irrational but that's where his 'patriotism' (ie in the hard nationalistic sense of the word) leads. I don't like it or agree with it but it's good to have it clarified.
The Sindy Ref point is something else imo. I think the argument for having one is compelling - because of Brexit and the Holyrood mandate - and I don't think to do so is to risk a "Ref every year until it's a Yes". Think that's a nonsense since if it's another No the SNP would have to backburner the issue or lose power.
It's not irrational at all
I am quite sure there are many Scots who feel the same way about Scotland as I do about Britain. That Scotland has their fundamental loyalty, and needs to be free, to the extent that it must be taken out of the UK (maybe even if it is economically harmful). Just as I wanted us out of the EU
That's fair. I understand it entirely. BECAUSE I am a patriot, like them
However if they want to press the point home and do it - secede - they need to do it legally - via the British method (Westminster approval for a referendum) as we - the UK - did it legally in Europe, via Article 50
Moreover, they can't do it every year or every five years, that would make a nonsense of the constitution and render Britain hideously unstable - impoverishing us all, as investors flee etc. I therefore believe in the generation argument (you don't, but this is a matter of opinion not objective fact)
And FWIW I would have applied the generation argument to the UK in the EU. If we had voted Remain I would have said: right, we have to accept it, let's make the best of it. And I would have neither expected nor wished for us to revisit the question for 15-20 years minimum.
My position is not irrational nor is it inconsistent, indeed I suspect it bugs you because it is the opposite
But the assumption holding all this together is a false one. Granting this Sindy Ref (due to Brexit and the Holyrood mandate) does not open the floodgates for one every 5 years or whatever. If it's held and it's a No that is 'it' for a long time. Any solid analysis of the political calculus shows that. Sturgeon certainly knows it. Hence her cautious approach.
As I say, this difference is a matter of opinion, not objective fact. I simply disagree with you
But you've just said - and I agree - that if we'd voted No to Leave there's no way we Brits would have been agitating for EU Referendums on a regular basis thereafter to keep having another bash.
Why? You said it. Because these type of Referendums are hugely divisive and are enormous drains of resource energy and emotion. That btw was why I both opposed a 2nd EU Referendum and made a lot of money betting against one happening. The idea was both wrong and absurd.
Yet when it comes to Scotland you ditch that impeccable line of analysis and go, "hey no, we can't grant another Sindy Ref now cos if we do they'll take it as carte blanche to be having them all the time. Give em an inch, these Scots, and they'll take a mile."
See? It's irrational, inconsistent and jaundiced.
The second EU referendum in 2016 was 41 years after the first EEC referendum in 1975, not just 8 years
Sure. But my objection is to the view that granting a Sindy Ref now means the Scots will be agitating for them all the time. I find this view to be irrational and jaundiced for the reasons explained.
Imagine joining a protection racket, following the rules slavishly, but finding out that in the end there's no protection, your reputation's trashed, your bank account's empty and the racketeers just walk away saying "nothing to do with us, guv".
I think it was a little more visceral. Certainly, the Bostonians I spoke to were not talking about International neoliberal capitalists. They wouldn't know who they were, and neither would I. They were moaning about massive class sizes in the local schools because of the enormous and sudden increase in the population. "Only a few will come," the government said. They were lying.
They weren't predominatly racists. The immigrants were virtually all white Europeans.
"It could be worse," I said, trying to cheer them up. "They could have been cockneys."
Imagine joining a protection racket, following the rules slavishly, but finding out that in the end there's no protection, your reputation's trashed, your bank account's empty and the racketeers just walk away saying "nothing to do with us, guv".
Just possibly the departure of Boris is having an effect. He was certainly a lightning rod for anti Brexit sentiment and some of it might just have been hostility to him.
It's also just a less salient issue so the numbers mean less. It wouldn't be surprising if it swings dramatically the other way the next time there is an EU crisis in the news.
Yes. The really embittered Remoaners will either leave or die or quietly accept the situation. Young people will grow up with the UK outside the EU and consider it natural. The idea of submitting ourselves to rule from Brussels will come to seem fanciful and silly - who would do that? They are foreigners, we rule ourselves
This outcome is more likely than anything else (eg Rejoin) as it accords with human nature. In five years time it is quite possible those polls will be completely reversed
This is why I believe Remainers have a narrowing window of opportunity. If they want to make a significant shift back to the EU it has to happen in the next few years, while there is still sentiment on their side. PM Starmer will come under intense pressure to do this
Young people will grow up wondering why they can't travel freely and work and live in Europe like their Irish or Dutch friends can. They will grow up wondering why our economy is under performing, why things cost more here, why they have to queue so long at passport control, why they have to pay roaming charges, why they are locked out of a market of over 300 million people on our doorstep by a decision they played no part in. Even more so in Scotland and Northern Ireland, where even the young people's parents didn't vote for it. Brexiteers will have to do a lot more to demonstrate that Brexit is delivering tangible benefits if they want this decision to stick. Shouting about "Remoaners" doesn't really cut it.
No, I'm right. And it perturbs you
There you go again. Your response to a good post is nothing.
It was a trivially inane post, not least because it says the EU contains "300 million people", when it actually contains 450 million. If @OnlyLivingBoy can't even get a fact as basic as that right, what is the point is responding to anything else he says?
Shape up, or shut up
It wasn't and when you make posts like this after a few exchanges it just looks like you have lost the argument badly. You might not think you have but that is very much what it looks like.
Whatevs
While I agree with your postion regarding further Scottish referenda, I have a quick question for you, old buddy; if Leave had lost, would you have accepted it as "the settled will of the people" and told all those who requested a further referendum that they were being unreasonable for at least a generation. No crossing fingers as you type now.
Yes, absolutely. I would have said: Accept it. It is done
Indeed I would have gone further. If we had voted Remain I'd have said: let's at least join Schenghen, and maybe consider- in time - the euro
You van choose to believe me or not, but that is exactly what I mentally decided before I cast my carefully balanced vote. Britain had to choose: properly In or Out, all that faffing was poisonous, for them and for us
If any Leaver had tried to revive the argument I would have held them in contempt. "We had our chance, but the country decided otherwise..."
I would have accepted it too. I would have still wanted reform and democratic accountability within the EU but the in out principle would have been determined.
I would find a Scexit much, much more difficult to live with. Indeed I would probably move south of the border at some point, probably on retirement.
We might only let you in for 90 days in every 180 David
Well, as long as it covers the cricket season...
Speaking of cricket, I’m at Cheltenham and it’s not going well. We need help. Could you explain how Northants are nailed on to win by an innings and 110?
Ta muchly.
Not going to happen. We are barely D1 standard, didn't you see how we blew it against Lancs last week?
There isn’t really a division 1 ‘standard’ although it suits the ECB, most journalists and several county boards to claim otherwise. Gloucestershire beat Surrey and Somerset with ease last year and lost to Leicestershire.
But it has to be said neither Northants nor Gloucs are enjoying this season. Or Warwickshire, for the matter of that.
Northants have just dropped Dent now as well.
We've had six draws, and most of those should have been wins, really. This game feels like another one such...
AIUI the Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case on whether Holyrood can hold a referendum unilaterally. That's possibly a good sign for the Nats, as the government argument was that the case didn't even deserve a hearing as proper process hadn't been followed.
It's rather difficult to see how they could rule in Sturgeon's favour under the law, but then the Supreme Court has form for bizarre judgements which bear as much relationship to the law as SeanT does to sobriety. Prorogation and Shamima Begum spring to mind.
What the Supreme Court has done is decide the question of prematurity (since the bill has yet to be passed by Holyrood) and competency (since it is a constitutional matter) will be decided together. FWIW I think that they will still determine that the reference of the Bill is premature but they want to deal with the substantive matter too so everyone is clear where they stand.
My very strong expectation is that they will say that this is beyond the competency of the Scottish Parliament and that a referendum cannot proceed without a s30 order. For the reasons @TSE has given no PM is going to be keen to grant a s30 order and risk losing. This raises a real question of democratic deficit in Scotland which is troubling, even for a Unionist like me.
It is indeed troubling. Whether one thinks Scotland should leave the union or not, most reasonable people, and certainly most Scots, would say that they have the right to. If there is no legal route for that right to be exercised then there will be trouble.
But this is not a one way matter. The UK is a joint enterprise in which Scotland has equal (arguably greater) sovereignty with England, Wales and NI
The break-up of the UK would be a profound national trauma that would deeply impact every UK citizen. Inter alia I am sure it would cause economic depression in Scotland and severe recession in rUK as investors fled the chaos and the £ crashed
Therefore Scotland’s right to secede must be balanced with the UK’s right to say “hang on a minute”
It’s not like the UK is some evil colonial power forbidding democracy; the UK Parliament - in which Scotland is fully represented - granted an indyref as recently as 8 years ago
The SNP needs to persuade its own supreme parliament at Westminster to grant a 2nd vote. I doubt that will happen before a generation has actually elapsed. 15-20 years, as in Canada
No that is bollocks. If Scotland wants to leave the Union then of course it will affect other countries in the Union but they don't have a veto. By your argument, the EU should have had the right to refuse the Brexit referendum. England, Wales and NI should have the same unilateral right to seceed, of course.
Truly infantile levels of analysis
Why?
I had the same argument with you recently and you came out with the same type of reply i.e. you stop arguing and just throw insults. The analogy is a good one.
The bizarre thing is when we had the discussion before you actually said it mattered not one jot what trauma leaving the EU caused even if massive because we gained independence (it trumped all) and then (as above) gave the trauma of Scotland leaving the union as a reason for not allowing it.
When called out on the inconsistency each time you stop arguing and resort to insults.
No, I give up arguing with people whose argumentation is so clueless or stupid it is waste of my time
And these days I care more about wasted time
But just this once I will indulge you
The differences between the Union of the EU and the Union of the United Kingdom are so vast they barely need explaining. But apparently they do
The UK is 300 years old; the EU is at best 70 years old, more like 30
The UK’s identity has been forged through 300 years of shared endeavour and pooled resources: building an empire, making a great nation, fighting existential wars; not so for the EU
The nations of the UK have a shared and supreme parliament which creates and passes our laws; not so the EU
The nations of the UK have a shared head of state deeply woven into our shared history and shared institutions; not true of the EU
The nations of the UK share one common language; unlike the EU
The nations of the UK share - with variations - a military, a seashore, a health service, a national broadcaster, a culture, a media, a demos, a character, a cuisine, a trade pattern, a climate, an architecture, an archipelago off the northwest coast of Europe, a sense of humour; not so the EU
All of which makes leaving the UK infinitely and impossibly complex compared to the already-painful process of quitting the EU
And finally, there are two DIFFERENT processes for leaving both. If you want to quit the EU you can trigger Article 50 unilaterally. In the UK it is different, you must get permission from Parliament at Westminster to have a referendum: as sturgeon acknowledges
And there it is. Endex
See how much better it is when you engage rather than insulting people?
Some of these are good arguments. For me the question of whether Scotland should be independent is finely balanced.
The UK in its present form is 100 years old, not 300, of course.
The argument about whether Scotland can legally unilaterally secede is of course different from whether it can morally. We can all read the legislation. My contention is that it is a moral outrage that Scotland's moral right to self determination is not matched by a legal right to do so, as it is in the EU. Even committed unionist Scots like DavidL find this troubling. I think the idea that Scotland is on some deep level "sovereign" regardless of legal status is widely held in Scotland by those on all sides of the independence debate. It is perhaps worrying that it is not shared in England.
But everything I said is obvious. If you need it spelled out to you then you are a cretin. I have given up explaining things to individual cretins: life is too short
I will not engage with you again, other than to hurl squalid, excessive and unjustified abuse
You have my word
Hi Leon, I read this exchange with interest. I said we'd return to this one - Brexit v Sindy - middle of this week, didn't I? Rhetorical only (I did) and it's Wednesday, the exact middle of this week. And seems you're talking about it anyway.
So, that question of mine: As somebody with such a burning love of absolutist untrammelled national sovereignty that iyo we had to have Brexit regardless of the practical consequences, how come you have zero empathy for the similar (and arguably stronger) argument for Sindy - stronger because Scotland, unlike the UK in the EU, lacks sovereign nation status - and a pretty visceral opposition to it ever happening?
I've been able to answer this to my own satisfaction, you'll be happy to hear.
The fact is you DO have empathy for the Sindy case. Of course you do. It'd be plain bizarre if you didn't. But the empathy you feel is swamped by your horror of what Sindy would mean. To wit no more Britain. Your love of (and pride in) Britain and its associated thing - Britishness - is real and it's bone-deep. It's not an annex to your persona it's integral. You clear Casino Royale's quite challenging bar for a Patriot with room to spare. This is why the thought of Sindy pains you so.
Very pleased with this. Think it's both true and fair.
Mate, this is not some startling insight. I say as much every day
I am a Briton and I love Britain. I don't want it broken up. Is this some bizarre new emotion you've just encountered? You'll be surprised to hear I am not alone
I am also a democrat. Scotland deserves a say. They had a say in 2014. Now for the sake of all Britain, we wait a generation to see if the mood changes, and they can have a say again
No country can survive constant referendums on its break up, any more than a marriage can survive the husband filing for divorce every year - then changing his mind at the last moment - year after year
I am sorry you have apparently spent days trying to work out something I could have told you in two minutes
Now you are goalpost moving.
This argument has nothing whatsoever to do with whether you love Briton or not.
This argument has nothing to do with multiple referendums
This argument has nothing to do with whether they had a say in 2014 or not and waiting a generation.
This argument is about the inconsistency in your stance re Sindy and EU. You used the exact mirror image to argue for and against Independence in the two scenarios. That is what the argument is about. The argument is about you being irrational.
I think what he's saying is he knows he's being irrational but that's where his 'patriotism' (ie in the hard nationalistic sense of the word) leads. I don't like it or agree with it but it's good to have it clarified.
The Sindy Ref point is something else imo. I think the argument for having one is compelling - because of Brexit and the Holyrood mandate - and I don't think to do so is to risk a "Ref every year until it's a Yes". Think that's a nonsense since if it's another No the SNP would have to backburner the issue or lose power.
It's not irrational at all
I am quite sure there are many Scots who feel the same way about Scotland as I do about Britain. That Scotland has their fundamental loyalty, and needs to be free, to the extent that it must be taken out of the UK (maybe even if it is economically harmful). Just as I wanted us out of the EU
That's fair. I understand it entirely. BECAUSE I am a patriot, like them
However if they want to press the point home and do it - secede - they need to do it legally - via the British method (Westminster approval for a referendum) as we - the UK - did it legally in Europe, via Article 50
Moreover, they can't do it every year or every five years, that would make a nonsense of the constitution and render Britain hideously unstable - impoverishing us all, as investors flee etc. I therefore believe in the generation argument (you don't, but this is a matter of opinion not objective fact)
And FWIW I would have applied the generation argument to the UK in the EU. If we had voted Remain I would have said: right, we have to accept it, let's make the best of it. And I would have neither expected nor wished for us to revisit the question for 15-20 years minimum.
My position is not irrational nor is it inconsistent, indeed I suspect it bugs you because it is the opposite
But the assumption holding all this together is a false one. Granting this Sindy Ref (due to Brexit and the Holyrood mandate) does not open the floodgates for one every 5 years or whatever. If it's held and it's a No that is 'it' for a long time. Any solid analysis of the political calculus shows that. Sturgeon certainly knows it. Hence her cautious approach.
As I say, this difference is a matter of opinion, not objective fact. I simply disagree with you
But you've just said - and I agree - that if we'd voted No to Leave there's no way we Brits would have been agitating for EU Referendums on a regular basis thereafter to keep having another bash.
Why? You said it. Because these type of Referendums are hugely divisive and are enormous drains of resource energy and emotion. That btw was why I both opposed a 2nd EU Referendum and made a lot of money betting against one happening. The idea was both wrong and absurd.
Yet when it comes to Scotland you ditch that impeccable line of analysis and go, "hey no, we can't grant another Sindy Ref now cos if we do they'll take it as carte blanche to be having them all the time. Give em an inch, these Scots, and they'll take a mile."
See? It's irrational, inconsistent and jaundiced.
This is wearisome. We just disagree. I believe a generation should elapse. That's it
You can goad me however you like. Make a day of it. Have a picnic
No, I'm keen to hit pause. But pls think about what you're saying. You're saying we Brits are mature enough to not keep wanting to hold big constitutional referendums on the same thing whereas the Scots aren't.
AIUI the Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case on whether Holyrood can hold a referendum unilaterally. That's possibly a good sign for the Nats, as the government argument was that the case didn't even deserve a hearing as proper process hadn't been followed.
It's rather difficult to see how they could rule in Sturgeon's favour under the law, but then the Supreme Court has form for bizarre judgements which bear as much relationship to the law as SeanT does to sobriety. Prorogation and Shamima Begum spring to mind.
What the Supreme Court has done is decide the question of prematurity (since the bill has yet to be passed by Holyrood) and competency (since it is a constitutional matter) will be decided together. FWIW I think that they will still determine that the reference of the Bill is premature but they want to deal with the substantive matter too so everyone is clear where they stand.
My very strong expectation is that they will say that this is beyond the competency of the Scottish Parliament and that a referendum cannot proceed without a s30 order. For the reasons @TSE has given no PM is going to be keen to grant a s30 order and risk losing. This raises a real question of democratic deficit in Scotland which is troubling, even for a Unionist like me.
It is indeed troubling. Whether one thinks Scotland should leave the union or not, most reasonable people, and certainly most Scots, would say that they have the right to. If there is no legal route for that right to be exercised then there will be trouble.
But this is not a one way matter. The UK is a joint enterprise in which Scotland has equal (arguably greater) sovereignty with England, Wales and NI
The break-up of the UK would be a profound national trauma that would deeply impact every UK citizen. Inter alia I am sure it would cause economic depression in Scotland and severe recession in rUK as investors fled the chaos and the £ crashed
Therefore Scotland’s right to secede must be balanced with the UK’s right to say “hang on a minute”
It’s not like the UK is some evil colonial power forbidding democracy; the UK Parliament - in which Scotland is fully represented - granted an indyref as recently as 8 years ago
The SNP needs to persuade its own supreme parliament at Westminster to grant a 2nd vote. I doubt that will happen before a generation has actually elapsed. 15-20 years, as in Canada
No that is bollocks. If Scotland wants to leave the Union then of course it will affect other countries in the Union but they don't have a veto. By your argument, the EU should have had the right to refuse the Brexit referendum. England, Wales and NI should have the same unilateral right to seceed, of course.
Truly infantile levels of analysis
Why?
I had the same argument with you recently and you came out with the same type of reply i.e. you stop arguing and just throw insults. The analogy is a good one.
The bizarre thing is when we had the discussion before you actually said it mattered not one jot what trauma leaving the EU caused even if massive because we gained independence (it trumped all) and then (as above) gave the trauma of Scotland leaving the union as a reason for not allowing it.
When called out on the inconsistency each time you stop arguing and resort to insults.
No, I give up arguing with people whose argumentation is so clueless or stupid it is waste of my time
And these days I care more about wasted time
But just this once I will indulge you
The differences between the Union of the EU and the Union of the United Kingdom are so vast they barely need explaining. But apparently they do
The UK is 300 years old; the EU is at best 70 years old, more like 30
The UK’s identity has been forged through 300 years of shared endeavour and pooled resources: building an empire, making a great nation, fighting existential wars; not so for the EU
The nations of the UK have a shared and supreme parliament which creates and passes our laws; not so the EU
The nations of the UK have a shared head of state deeply woven into our shared history and shared institutions; not true of the EU
The nations of the UK share one common language; unlike the EU
The nations of the UK share - with variations - a military, a seashore, a health service, a national broadcaster, a culture, a media, a demos, a character, a cuisine, a trade pattern, a climate, an architecture, an archipelago off the northwest coast of Europe, a sense of humour; not so the EU
All of which makes leaving the UK infinitely and impossibly complex compared to the already-painful process of quitting the EU
And finally, there are two DIFFERENT processes for leaving both. If you want to quit the EU you can trigger Article 50 unilaterally. In the UK it is different, you must get permission from Parliament at Westminster to have a referendum: as sturgeon acknowledges
And there it is. Endex
See how much better it is when you engage rather than insulting people?
Some of these are good arguments. For me the question of whether Scotland should be independent is finely balanced.
The UK in its present form is 100 years old, not 300, of course.
The argument about whether Scotland can legally unilaterally secede is of course different from whether it can morally. We can all read the legislation. My contention is that it is a moral outrage that Scotland's moral right to self determination is not matched by a legal right to do so, as it is in the EU. Even committed unionist Scots like DavidL find this troubling. I think the idea that Scotland is on some deep level "sovereign" regardless of legal status is widely held in Scotland by those on all sides of the independence debate. It is perhaps worrying that it is not shared in England.
But everything I said is obvious. If you need it spelled out to you then you are a cretin. I have given up explaining things to individual cretins: life is too short
I will not engage with you again, other than to hurl squalid, excessive and unjustified abuse
You have my word
Hi Leon, I read this exchange with interest. I said we'd return to this one - Brexit v Sindy - middle of this week, didn't I? Rhetorical only (I did) and it's Wednesday, the exact middle of this week. And seems you're talking about it anyway.
So, that question of mine: As somebody with such a burning love of absolutist untrammelled national sovereignty that iyo we had to have Brexit regardless of the practical consequences, how come you have zero empathy for the similar (and arguably stronger) argument for Sindy - stronger because Scotland, unlike the UK in the EU, lacks sovereign nation status - and a pretty visceral opposition to it ever happening?
I've been able to answer this to my own satisfaction, you'll be happy to hear.
The fact is you DO have empathy for the Sindy case. Of course you do. It'd be plain bizarre if you didn't. But the empathy you feel is swamped by your horror of what Sindy would mean. To wit no more Britain. Your love of (and pride in) Britain and its associated thing - Britishness - is real and it's bone-deep. It's not an annex to your persona it's integral. You clear Casino Royale's quite challenging bar for a Patriot with room to spare. This is why the thought of Sindy pains you so.
Very pleased with this. Think it's both true and fair.
Mate, this is not some startling insight. I say as much every day
I am a Briton and I love Britain. I don't want it broken up. Is this some bizarre new emotion you've just encountered? You'll be surprised to hear I am not alone
I am also a democrat. Scotland deserves a say. They had a say in 2014. Now for the sake of all Britain, we wait a generation to see if the mood changes, and they can have a say again
No country can survive constant referendums on its break up, any more than a marriage can survive the husband filing for divorce every year - then changing his mind at the last moment - year after year
I am sorry you have apparently spent days trying to work out something I could have told you in two minutes
Now you are goalpost moving.
This argument has nothing whatsoever to do with whether you love Briton or not.
This argument has nothing to do with multiple referendums
This argument has nothing to do with whether they had a say in 2014 or not and waiting a generation.
This argument is about the inconsistency in your stance re Sindy and EU. You used the exact mirror image to argue for and against Independence in the two scenarios. That is what the argument is about. The argument is about you being irrational.
I think what he's saying is he knows he's being irrational but that's where his 'patriotism' (ie in the hard nationalistic sense of the word) leads. I don't like it or agree with it but it's good to have it clarified.
The Sindy Ref point is something else imo. I think the argument for having one is compelling - because of Brexit and the Holyrood mandate - and I don't think to do so is to risk a "Ref every year until it's a Yes". Think that's a nonsense since if it's another No the SNP would have to backburner the issue or lose power.
It's not irrational at all
I am quite sure there are many Scots who feel the same way about Scotland as I do about Britain. That Scotland has their fundamental loyalty, and needs to be free, to the extent that it must be taken out of the UK (maybe even if it is economically harmful). Just as I wanted us out of the EU
That's fair. I understand it entirely. BECAUSE I am a patriot, like them
However if they want to press the point home and do it - secede - they need to do it legally - via the British method (Westminster approval for a referendum) as we - the UK - did it legally in Europe, via Article 50
Moreover, they can't do it every year or every five years, that would make a nonsense of the constitution and render Britain hideously unstable - impoverishing us all, as investors flee etc. I therefore believe in the generation argument (you don't, but this is a matter of opinion not objective fact)
And FWIW I would have applied the generation argument to the UK in the EU. If we had voted Remain I would have said: right, we have to accept it, let's make the best of it. And I would have neither expected nor wished for us to revisit the question for 15-20 years minimum.
My position is not irrational nor is it inconsistent, indeed I suspect it bugs you because it is the opposite
But the assumption holding all this together is a false one. Granting this Sindy Ref (due to Brexit and the Holyrood mandate) does not open the floodgates for one every 5 years or whatever. If it's held and it's a No that is 'it' for a long time. Any solid analysis of the political calculus shows that. Sturgeon certainly knows it. Hence her cautious approach.
As I say, this difference is a matter of opinion, not objective fact. I simply disagree with you
But you've just said - and I agree - that if we'd voted No to Leave there's no way we Brits would have been agitating for EU Referendums on a regular basis thereafter to keep having another bash.
Why? You said it. Because these type of Referendums are hugely divisive and are enormous drains of resource energy and emotion. That btw was why I both opposed a 2nd EU Referendum and made a lot of money betting against one happening. The idea was both wrong and absurd.
Yet when it comes to Scotland you ditch that impeccable line of analysis and go, "hey no, we can't grant another Sindy Ref now cos if we do they'll take it as carte blanche to be having them all the time. Give em an inch, these Scots, and they'll take a mile."
See? It's irrational, inconsistent and jaundiced.
The second EU referendum in 2016 was 41 years after the first EEC referendum in 1975, not just 8 years
Sure. But my objection is to the view that granting a Sindy Ref now means the Scots will be agitating for them all the time. I find this view to be irrational and jaundiced for the reasons explained.
There is a pretty legitimate reason to be agitating for a new Sindy Ref now - a huge change in the constitutional makeup of the UK that the Scottish rejected. If the Brexit vote had occurred before the first Sindy Ref, I think we could say the Scots would have picked the EU over the UK and voted for independence. To say the Scots have to take all the harms of Brexit when they didn't want it without another say on their alignment with the UK seems unfair, especially from a movement that seemingly cares so much about so called national sovereignty. The Scots voted to stay in a UK that was in the EU by a very narrow margin.
Imagine joining a protection racket, following the rules slavishly, but finding out that in the end there's no protection, your reputation's trashed, your bank account's empty and the racketeers just walk away saying "nothing to do with us, guv".
Comments
The problem with carbon capture and storage is that it will always be more expensive than the status quo of simply venting the carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
You know, “voters”.
Its interesting though, that the risks of fracking have been examined minutely, whereas the risks of allowing the tyrant Putin to hold the West to gas ransom have been ignored.
I take your earlier point BTW. That Scotland perhaps needs a guaranteed way of triggering a referendum, that does not entirely rely on the whims and politics of Westminster
There is no reason for the UKG to cave into the Nats any time soon. However a wise UK government would address this. A Royal Commission, establishing terms on which a Scottish government can rightly ask for a plebiscite, agreeable to all. It must simultaneously respect Scottish and British political sentiment, because this huge question affects everyone in GB, profoundly. So, Holyrood can't just ask for a vote and get one whenever, but neither can the UKG deny one forever
I am not sure what the mechanism might be. But it should not be beyond the wit of man to find one?
On the basis that if it’s got to that level of support Leave is going to be irresistible anyway, vote or no.
Not sure how you can deny this given that Remainers spent six years telling us how they were so much more intelligent - hence their elevated positions in society - while Leavers were thick white racists in Worksop. The British Establishment is not centred on Worksop
I think the absolute furthest one could go, is cut off gas and electric to the houses of strikers. And ban them from foodbanks.
I suspect that MPs will get behind Truss when she wins - I don’t think there was a tremendous enthusiasm for her candidacy but by the same token I don’t think she is hated or distrusted - the parliamentary party is too pro-Brexit and Boris-picked (hangover from the 2019 civil war) to really have a tremendous issue with what Truss stands for or says. She would do well to build as broad a team as she can however (roles for Penny, Kemi, possibly even Hunt), rather than rebuilding the Boris due-hard crew.
If we had a sensible second chamber, a kind of Federal UK Senate (where Scotland and Wales and NI had more representation) that would be the place to solve it
The difficulty with you and @kini is that you are usually both wrong so I can't call it here.
Ta muchly.
So lying would further his career and his politics. Integrity didn't matter.
Up to you if that's what you're looking for in a politician or not.
By the time they realised it was close and they could lose it was too late to turn around the impressively terrible campaign.
Had we voted Remain 52/48 I'm sure the Lib Dems would've been pushing for further integration. Corbynite Labour would not, though a new leader might have gone that way. Farage might will be in a new UKIP-style political vehicle.
The Conservatives might have split.
But then, if Alexander hadn't died when he did the Romans might have been crushed beneath his heel.
She lost every claim against Stonewall, after fundraising under the banner “I am suing Stonewall”.
As is (by now) completely normal, the GC crowd are spinning this as a massive win. They definitely have the media management bit down: get your story out in front of people first & very few people will read the fine print.
Full Judgement is here: https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Bailey-judgment.pdf
Decision:
1. The claim against the first respondent (i.e. Stonewall) is dismissed
2. The second and third respondents discriminated against the claimant
because of belief in respect of detriments 2 and 4. They also victimised
her in respect of detriment 4 because of protected act 2.
3. The second and third respondents are ordered to pay the claimant
£22,000 compensation for injury to feelings, and interest thereon of
£4,693.33.
4. Claims of discrimination and victimisation by the second and third
respondents in detriments 1,3 and 5 are dismissed.
5. The indirect discrimination claim against the second and third respondents
is dismissed.
Don't we also come tumbling down the economic league tables should we as a nation dispense with making primary product?
There's a certain irony that CO2 can actually be extremely valuable and useful. And so while we're trying to eliminate it from much of society, its actually getting manufactured to be used.
Food-grade CO2 especially is a valuable commodity and used in a lot of processes, from manufacturing to alcohol. During the World Cup I think it was, there was a Europe-wide CO2 shortage that led some pubs to run out of beer during the World Cup which was a bit unfortunate.
Theoretically if you could get carbon capture that's then put through a filtration system that gets pure, clean, useable CO2 from waste CO2 that can then be used in manufacturing, hospitality etc could be quite a useful product.
Hence why it's such an odd and jaundiced view of the Scots to think granting this one would mean - if they vote No again - that they'd be pressuring for another in no time.
They would not. The SNP would have to ice the issue or lose power. They wouldn't win any of the next few elections at Holyrood with a commitment for another Ref front and centre.
Sturgeon is fully aware of this and she understands Scottish politics better than most.
1.21 Liz Truss 83%
5.9 Rishi Sunak 17%
Next Conservative leader
1.2 Liz Truss 83%
6 Rishi Sunak 17%
Hopefully Starmer puts something like this in place; it is sadly beyond the wit of today’s Conservatives.
It’s a start. Maybe if you could say it every hour or so?
I voted leave for a variety of reasons. The idea of a European free-trade area was sound, but merging countries without the join showing was a step too far. Perhaps it's too soon. I went to European meetings (only on the scientific side - where co-operation was the norm), but national characterists came to the fore on the admin side. Ours too.
To fully work, we had shelve differences and work fully together. The German admin people. bless their cotton socks, were scrupulously neutral, but I wish I could say the same about one or two others. Merkel left a mess so obviously all the other countries in the EU should pay the penalty too? Not sure, that's a popular opinion away from what's called the liberal elite. I suspect they think that's the price they pay for knowing more than the common hoi-poloi.
To explain some of the rancour, and to paraphrase Kipling, "Tommy aint a blooming fool, Tommy sees."
Perhaps it was always a step too far for us? Perhaps there's still that class divide.
It makes a mockery of his entire platform.
Striking however annoying, surely must be allowed in a democratic society. Even Thatcher didn't actually ever remove the right to strike itself.
The case heard by the Employment Tribunal did not accurately reflect our intentions and our influence on organisations. Leaders within organisations are responsible for the organisational culture and the behaviour of their employees and workers. Stonewall’s resources, support and guidance is just one set of inputs they use to help them as they consider how best to meet the needs of their own organisation.
https://www.stonewall.org.uk/about-us/news/stonewall-statement-outcome-allison-bailey-case
After their reverse ferret over “trans toddlers” it’s not been a great few days for Stonewall.
All voters
Sunak 28%
Truss 25%
But ...
Current conservatives
Sunak 36%
Truss 41%
2019 conservatives
Sunak 30%
Truss 39%
Leavers
Sunak 24%
Truss 38%
YouGov, Jul 22. Released today.
https://twitter.com/GoodwinMJ/status/1552247816747188224?s=20&t=wFmNMyRptGbN0gjaDyPcaA
...Businesses in the UK exported a record level of goods to the EU through April driven primarily by increases in machinery and fuels.
“This is down to the UK’s imports of substantial reserves of LNG from countries like Qatar to fill storage sites in continental Europe, driving this uptick, said Jack Sirett, Head of Dealing at Ebury, a financial services firm....
That's very likely not more than a short term trade - and note that our trade deficit is also at an all time high. Again partly owing to energy prices.
Would stop having people striking for every other day but getting paid most of the time, but they would be fully entitled to strike for the whole week if they wanted to instead.
However, using the CO2 for fizzy drinks, say, doesn't store it. Might be an improvement on releasing the CO2 twice, but unless the CO2 is fixed in some way it's not quite the same.
* See, for example, this. https://www.carbonclean.com/media-center/news/article/2019/09/dalmia-cement-and-ccsl-sign-mou
Why? You said it. Because these type of Referendums are hugely divisive and are enormous drains of resource energy and emotion. That btw was why I both opposed a 2nd EU Referendum and made a lot of money betting against one happening. The idea was both wrong and absurd.
Yet when it comes to Scotland you ditch that impeccable line of analysis and go, "hey no, we can't grant another Sindy Ref now cos if we do they'll take it as carte blanche to be having them all the time. Give em an inch, these Scots, and they'll take a mile."
See? It's irrational, inconsistent and jaundiced.
I believe she raised ~ £500k towards the costs of the case.
But it has to be said neither Northants nor Gloucs are enjoying this season. Or Warwickshire, for the matter of that.
Northants have just dropped Dent now as well.
When we look at those who voted either way, again, the position is murky. Lots of rich pensioners voted leave, lots of young people who work crap jobs voted remain. Biggest indicator was not class as is understood through English history, but educational background - which included the age range of people like me who were just out of uni at the time of the referendum but came from a working class familial background. The group most likely to vote for Brexit were slightly well off people who didn't have university degrees but did have levels; the middling class (not necessarily middle class) who have enough right now but can see that they could lose what they have.
What we see with Brexit and Trump and other pangs of nationalist / antiglobalist policy is that people have (correctly in my view) identified that capitalist globalisation has done more harm than good, but these two sets of elite groups have different ways of trying to use that. Again, one group are trying to wallpaper over the cracks, and the other want to smash it open so they can be kings over the rubble.
His campaign pitching to MPs was quite polished. Since he got through to the final two, not so much.
However, expressing your beliefs in the workplace continues to be at your own risk - if you create a discriminatory work environment for other employees who are in a protected class (which includes transgender people) then you risk suffering the consequences. Anti-trans campaigners are here in much the same situation as those with strongly anti-homosexual Christian beliefs. Having the belief is not grounds for dismissal. Acting on it in ways that prejudice other employees is.
Stonewall get to put out their position in the “marketplace of ideas”, just as the GC crowd do. Seems fair to me.
You can goad me however you like. Make a day of it. Have a picnic
Londoners prefer Sunak to Truss by 27% to 18% and Scots prefer Sunak to Truss by 28% to 23% and Southerners prefer Sunak to Truss by 32% to 23%.
However voters in the North prefer Truss to Sunak by 26% to 23% with voters in the Midlands and Wales split 28% for each
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2022/07/27/where-do-britons-stand-liz-truss-and-rishi-sunak
Barlcay bros, Murdoch, Dacre, Dyson, Bamford, Tim Martin, Jim Ratcliffe, Helena Morrisey, Simon Wolfson, Gove, Johnson, Lord Lawson, The Queen...
The Queen FFS! - you don't get much more establishment than that.
The Daily Mail, Express, Sun, Telegrapgh, Star were all vehemently pro-Brexit, but presumably the major national dailies are anti-establishment too.
https://twitter.com/TAFKAMacM/status/1552269702776471553
It's the sort of fate Roald Dhal might have come up with, had he written political novels.
I wonder what date Date has in store for Truss? She doesn't strike me as the Charlie Bucket of the tale.
https://twitter.com/HTScotPol/status/1552294401308762112
Yeah, you can just strike indefinitely, but the people going on strike still need to live and would receive no income. They'd be doomed to do short strikes every 8-9 weeks that the company/industry can effectively ignore so the workers' living standards would slip anyway, or the worse alternative, an indefinite strike and not being able to put food on the table at all.
However it appears he’s got “the big calls” wrong. To be fair, Brexit was probably the first indicator that he was a loser.
It’s possible that Boris will be the only ever PM who actually voted Leave.
I think it was a little more visceral. Certainly, the Bostonians I spoke to were not talking about International neoliberal capitalists. They wouldn't know who they were, and neither would I. They were moaning about massive class sizes in the local schools because of the enormous and sudden increase in the population. "Only a few will come," the government said. They were lying.
They weren't predominatly racists. The immigrants were virtually all white Europeans.
"It could be worse," I said, trying to cheer them up. "They could have been cockneys."
Everlasting gobstopper and black lentil curry.