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Let’s talk about Brexit – politicalbetting.com

SystemSystem Posts: 11,002
edited November 2022 in General
Let’s talk about Brexit – politicalbetting.com

New from @IpsosUK: 51% of Brits think Brexit has had a negative impact on the UK.Just 22% think the impact has been positive. 22% say it has made no difference (the rest don't know).Net positive / negative is -29. Lowest in our series going back to GE2019. pic.twitter.com/YW4jd9rgRh

Read the full story here

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Comments

  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,770
    Surely "the Brexit"?
  • TomsToms Posts: 2,478
    Lunacy.
    Stupidity.
    Obduracy.
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146
    rcs1000 said:

    Three points:

    (1) We are not rejoining
    (2) We are not rejoining
    (3) It is possible we will have a closer relationship with the EU in future
    (3a) We are not rejoining

    England aren’t rejoining. Or certainly not within the next 20 years. I can’t even see her joining the Single Market before the end of the decade, so I’d be a layer if such a market existed.

    Scotland and NI won’t be hanging about, and will both be heartily welcomed into the European family again. Wales probably will, but won’t be having any say.

    Several markets are based on wordings using “United Kingdom”, eg Hill’s “UK to be an EU Member State before 2026” (currently 33/1) What happens to punters’ stake money if and when the UK is dissolved? I presume the market is void.

    The key player in English politics in the coming decade is the Labour Party, and for reasons unknown, they are terrified of their own shadow. There is no way they are going to embark on anything radical in any policy area whatsoever. It’ll be Managed Decline all the way with that bunch. Including European policy and trade policy. Still, better than Supercharged Decline under the sleazy Tories.
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146
    Toms said:

    Lunacy.
    Stupidity.
    Obduracy.

    You have just authored the fresh, updated version of Walter Bagehot’s classic ‘The English Constitution’.

    A lot more succinct than the original, your œuvre perfectly captures the England de nos jours.
  • HeathenerHeathener Posts: 5,096
    Good thread. I agree with you @TSE with your nuanced understanding of what may come next. I think rejoining the single market in some form, if they have us, is probably inevitable.

    Unless you're a complete ideological bigot it makes no sense to be outside the biggest trading bloc in the world.
  • HeathenerHeathener Posts: 5,096
    rcs1000 said:

    Three points:

    (1) We are not rejoining

    [etc.]

    Repeating it doesn't make it any the more true.

    I think with respect that if you lived in the UK you'd possibly have a different perspective on this. It's a shitshow and most of us now realise it.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,770
    Heathener said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Three points:

    (1) We are not rejoining

    [etc.]

    Repeating it doesn't make it any the more true.

    I think with respect that if you lived in the UK you'd possibly have a different perspective on this. It's a shitshow and most of us now realise it.
    Nevertheless, it is patently and obviously true.

    The UK will not seek readmission to the EU in your or my lifetime, and even if they did (which they won't), they wouldn't take us.
  • moonshinemoonshine Posts: 5,226
    Rcs on Musk: “I wish him well, and I'm sure he'll do a better job than the previous owners, but I suspect it will never pay back the $44bn.”

    I suspect this comment is going to look quite amusing in a few years. Musk was drawing up plans for the “everything app” way back in his PayPal days and before Wechat even existed. He bought the x.com brand years ago and has had it sat there doing nothing ever since. Waiting for something.

    The market timing of his acquisition was poor certainly. But I reckon he’s got to the place where a lot of the heavy lifting from him at Tesla is done, it’s on a self sustaining path now to fast expanding cashflow growth. SpaceX still has hurdles to cross to be sure with Starship but the satellite business is close to reaching sufficient scale to take the company’s valuation to another next level, which should mean the financial means for it to act as the bus to Mars are secure, even if there are crinkles to iron out on what to do upon arrival!

    So he’s decided to spend more time on the thing he gave most headspace to early in his career, before he was eased out of PayPal.

  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,770
    Heathener said:

    Good thread. I agree with you @TSE with your nuanced understanding of what may come next. I think rejoining the single market in some form, if they have us, is probably inevitable.

    Unless you're a complete ideological bigot it makes no sense to be outside the biggest trading bloc in the world.

    As an aside, I agree that it is entirely possible we rejoin the Single Market in some form.

    But we aren't rejoining the EU.
  • HeathenerHeathener Posts: 5,096
    edited October 2022
    rcs1000 said:

    Heathener said:

    Good thread. I agree with you @TSE with your nuanced understanding of what may come next. I think rejoining the single market in some form, if they have us, is probably inevitable.

    Unless you're a complete ideological bigot it makes no sense to be outside the biggest trading bloc in the world.

    But we aren't rejoining the EU.
    You really don't know that so I don't see the point of being so assertive about it, which suggest insecurity about your view not assurance. It's your theory. You may be right, I suspect now that you're not. So do many others.

    If the UK continues to struggle economically then the pressure to rejoin will probably become irresistible. I can see a referendum to rejoin in the next 20 years as being plausible.
  • HeathenerHeathener Posts: 5,096
    rcs1000 said:

    Heathener said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Three points:

    (1) We are not rejoining

    [etc.]

    Repeating it doesn't make it any the more true.

    I think with respect that if you lived in the UK you'd possibly have a different perspective on this. It's a shitshow and most of us now realise it.
    Nevertheless, it is patently and obviously true.

    The UK will not seek readmission to the EU in your or my lifetime, and even if they did (which they won't), they wouldn't take us.
    Really, the more assertive you are the less impressed I am with you stating it. You've provided no backing except a strident viewpoint.

    It's perfectly plausible.

    I mentioned a week or two back that when we have a new Labour Government, the mood will continue to change. Quite significantly so. And in those circumstances the pressures to rejoin will increase further, especially if we continue to struggle economically outside of the bloc. I could see a referendum to rejoin being part of Labour's second term in office, assuming they have one.

    Remember too that with every passing year and month, more of the Brexit demographic dies. Literally.



  • moonshinemoonshine Posts: 5,226
    Heathener said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Heathener said:

    Good thread. I agree with you @TSE with your nuanced understanding of what may come next. I think rejoining the single market in some form, if they have us, is probably inevitable.

    Unless you're a complete ideological bigot it makes no sense to be outside the biggest trading bloc in the world.

    But we aren't rejoining the EU.
    You really don't know that so I don't see the point of being so assertive about it, which suggest insecurity about your view not assurance. It's your theory. You may be right, I suspect now that you're not. So do many others.

    If the UK continues to struggle economically then the pressure to rejoin will probably become irresistible. I can see a referendum to rejoin in the next 20 years as being plausible.
    https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/german-economic-institutes-see-2023-contraction-gas-crisis-hits-2022-09-29/

    Why do people still have this view of the eu as being some bastion of economic dynamism? Odd.

  • HeathenerHeathener Posts: 5,096
    edited October 2022
    rcs1000 said:

    Heathener said:

    Good thread. I agree with you @TSE with your nuanced understanding of what may come next. I think rejoining the single market in some form, if they have us, is probably inevitable.

    Unless you're a complete ideological bigot it makes no sense to be outside the biggest trading bloc in the world.

    As an aside, I agree that it is entirely possible we [...]
    This isn't Ad Hominem because I think it's pertinent, but when you write 'we' you're not resident in the UK, I don't think Robert? A US citizen? I think that colors ( ;) ) your perspective from across the Atlantic. I'm sure in lots of positive ways, but on this occasion I don't think you're quite seeing the world from a 'we' British perspective.

    Peace.
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146
    We have now had 7 polls since Rishi Sunak took over. Here’s the average VI (compared to average VI in the last 7 polls under Truss):

    Lab 51.4% (-1.6)
    Con 24.3% (+2.9)
    LD 8.9% (-0.7)
    Ref 5.2% (+1.2)
    SNP 4.4% (+0.4)
    Grn 4.3% (+0.2)

    In other words, not much change. Certainly not enough to calm Tory nerves.

    How long will the party wait without an upswing before they become restless again? A month? Six months? Certainly not a year.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,770
    edited October 2022
    moonshine said:

    Rcs on Musk: “I wish him well, and I'm sure he'll do a better job than the previous owners, but I suspect it will never pay back the $44bn.”

    I suspect this comment is going to look quite amusing in a few years. Musk was drawing up plans for the “everything app” way back in his PayPal days and before Wechat even existed. He bought the x.com brand years ago and has had it sat there doing nothing ever since. Waiting for something.

    The market timing of his acquisition was poor certainly. But I reckon he’s got to the place where a lot of the heavy lifting from him at Tesla is done, it’s on a self sustaining path now to fast expanding cashflow growth. SpaceX still has hurdles to cross to be sure with Starship but the satellite business is close to reaching sufficient scale to take the company’s valuation to another next level, which should mean the financial means for it to act as the bus to Mars are secure, even if there are crinkles to iron out on what to do upon arrival!

    So he’s decided to spend more time on the thing he gave most headspace to early in his career, before he was eased out of PayPal.

    Well, we'll see.

    But here's why I am sceptical:

    (1) There is (effectively) no Apple in China. Everyone is on Android, and there's no dominant handset software provider. You can do the "Everything App" in China, because there's no handset lockin. To do it in the West, the "everything app" has to fit around Apple's plans. And Apple are bastards.

    (2) Inertia is a powerful thing. And real innovation tends to come from smaller companies. Yes, people will go to Twitter (or pb.com) because that's what they've always done. But something new and killer... well if I had a killer app idea, I'd quit and launch it myself. Musk may have that killer app idea... but he also may not.

    (3) There's no cashflow to milk at Twitter. And the cost of maintaining the platform is non-trivial. Sure - as I said - I reckon he'll do better than previous owners. But to make the $5bn/year post tax necessary to ultimately justify the price, he needs to probably triple sales, while holding costs flat. In a business which is losing, not gaining, relevance.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,770
    Heathener said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Heathener said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Three points:

    (1) We are not rejoining

    [etc.]

    Repeating it doesn't make it any the more true.

    I think with respect that if you lived in the UK you'd possibly have a different perspective on this. It's a shitshow and most of us now realise it.
    Nevertheless, it is patently and obviously true.

    The UK will not seek readmission to the EU in your or my lifetime, and even if they did (which they won't), they wouldn't take us.
    Really, the more assertive you are the less impressed I am with you stating it. You've provided no backing except a strident viewpoint.

    It's perfectly plausible.

    I mentioned a week or two back that when we have a new Labour Government, the mood will continue to change. Quite significantly so. And in those circumstances the pressures to rejoin will increase further, especially if we continue to struggle economically outside of the bloc. I could see a referendum to rejoin being part of Labour's second term in office, assuming they have one.

    Remember too that with every passing year and month, more of the Brexit demographic dies. Literally.



    Happy to actually have some money on this if you like:

    Full Fat Membership of the EU by 2032, I'll give you 10-1.

    Your call.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,770
    Heathener said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Heathener said:

    Good thread. I agree with you @TSE with your nuanced understanding of what may come next. I think rejoining the single market in some form, if they have us, is probably inevitable.

    Unless you're a complete ideological bigot it makes no sense to be outside the biggest trading bloc in the world.

    As an aside, I agree that it is entirely possible we [...]
    This isn't Ad Hominem because I think it's pertinent, but when you write 'we' you're not resident in the UK, I don't think Robert? A US citizen? I think that colors ( ;) ) your perspective from across the Atlantic. I'm sure in lots of positive ways, but on this occasion I don't think you're quite seeing the world from a 'we' British perspective.

    Peace.
    I'm not a US citizen, and I'm not even on an immigrant visa. I am here because my business is here.
  • Morris_DancerMorris_Dancer Posts: 60,933
    edited October 2022
    Good morning, everyone.

    F1: shockingly close between Perez and Verstappen. Identical times in first practice, nine-thousandths apart in the second.

    Edited extra bit: Betfair has 2023 title market up. Not betting on that (yet, anyway).
  • moonshinemoonshine Posts: 5,226
    rcs1000 said:

    moonshine said:

    Rcs on Musk: “I wish him well, and I'm sure he'll do a better job than the previous owners, but I suspect it will never pay back the $44bn.”

    I suspect this comment is going to look quite amusing in a few years. Musk was drawing up plans for the “everything app” way back in his PayPal days and before Wechat even existed. He bought the x.com brand years ago and has had it sat there doing nothing ever since. Waiting for something.

    The market timing of his acquisition was poor certainly. But I reckon he’s got to the place where a lot of the heavy lifting from him at Tesla is done, it’s on a self sustaining path now to fast expanding cashflow growth. SpaceX still has hurdles to cross to be sure with Starship but the satellite business is close to reaching sufficient scale to take the company’s valuation to another next level, which should mean the financial means for it to act as the bus to Mars are secure, even if there are crinkles to iron out on what to do upon arrival!

    So he’s decided to spend more time on the thing he gave most headspace to early in his career, before he was eased out of PayPal.

    Well, we'll see.

    But here's why I am sceptical:

    (1) There is (effectively) no Apple in China. Everyone is on Android, and there's no dominant handset software provider. You can do the "Everything App" in China, because there's no handset lockin. To do it in the West, the "everything app" has to fit around Apple's plans. And Apple are bastards.

    (2) Inertia is a powerful thing. And real innovation tends to come from smaller companies. Yes, people will go to Twitter (or pb.com) because that's what they've always done. But something new and killer... well if I had a killer app idea, I'd quit and launch it myself. Musk may have that killer app idea... but he also may not.

    (3) There's no cashflow to milk at Twitter. And the cost of maintaining the platform is non-trivial. Sure - as I said - I reckon he'll do better than previous owners. But to make the $5bn/year post tax necessary to ultimately justify the price, he
    needs to probably triple sales, while holding costs
    flat. In a business which is losing, not gaining,
    relevance.
    The Apple are bastards line probably trumps my argument to be sure!

  • HeathenerHeathener Posts: 5,096
    rcs1000 said:

    Heathener said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Heathener said:

    Good thread. I agree with you @TSE with your nuanced understanding of what may come next. I think rejoining the single market in some form, if they have us, is probably inevitable.

    Unless you're a complete ideological bigot it makes no sense to be outside the biggest trading bloc in the world.

    As an aside, I agree that it is entirely possible we [...]
    This isn't Ad Hominem because I think it's pertinent, but when you write 'we' you're not resident in the UK, I don't think Robert? A US citizen? I think that colors ( ;) ) your perspective from across the Atlantic. I'm sure in lots of positive ways, but on this occasion I don't think you're quite seeing the world from a 'we' British perspective.

    Peace.
    I'm not a US citizen, and I'm not even on an immigrant visa. I am here because my business is here.
    Okay well sorry about the former but the point is that you are living in the US, west coast I believe. I think on this occasion it does give you a different perspective to British people on these shores. Not a bad perspective at all. It may be a brilliant global one, I'm sure it is. However for the UK at the moment, we are struggling. @TSE summarised it well in his thread header. We need every bit of help we can get and I can't see that changing anytime soon, nor can most economists.

    Under these circumstances to sit outside the largest trading bloc in the world simply makes no economic sense. A majority of British people now think the same.

    The point is that Brexit was mainly a political, not an economic, choice. Which was fine when the garden was rosy. It ain't now.
  • HeathenerHeathener Posts: 5,096
    edited October 2022
    rcs1000 said:

    Heathener said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Heathener said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Three points:

    (1) We are not rejoining

    [etc.]

    Repeating it doesn't make it any the more true.

    I think with respect that if you lived in the UK you'd possibly have a different perspective on this. It's a shitshow and most of us now realise it.
    Nevertheless, it is patently and obviously true.

    The UK will not seek readmission to the EU in your or my lifetime, and even if they did (which they won't), they wouldn't take us.
    Really, the more assertive you are the less impressed I am with you stating it. You've provided no backing except a strident viewpoint.

    It's perfectly plausible.

    I mentioned a week or two back that when we have a new Labour Government, the mood will continue to change. Quite significantly so. And in those circumstances the pressures to rejoin will increase further, especially if we continue to struggle economically outside of the bloc. I could see a referendum to rejoin being part of Labour's second term in office, assuming they have one.

    Remember too that with every passing year and month, more of the Brexit demographic dies. Literally.



    Happy to actually have some money on this if you like:

    Full Fat Membership of the EU by 2032, I'll give you 10-1.

    Your call.
    Ha! So now your 'never in our lifetimes' has shrunk to 9 years and to 'Full Fat Membership.'

    That's a massive moving of the goalposts.

    I said that: 'If the UK continues to struggle economically then the pressure to rejoin will probably become irresistible. I can see a referendum to rejoin in the next 20 years as being plausible.'

    I'd go back to your original assertion, endlessly repeated, that it will never happen, then qualified by 'never happen in our lifetimes'.

    I think you're missing the mood on this Robert. Not just anecdotally either. Polling.
  • moonshinemoonshine Posts: 5,226
    Heathener said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Heathener said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Heathener said:

    Good thread. I agree with you @TSE with your nuanced understanding of what may come next. I think rejoining the single market in some form, if they have us, is probably inevitable.

    Unless you're a complete ideological bigot it makes no sense to be outside the biggest trading bloc in the world.

    As an aside, I agree that it is entirely possible we [...]
    This isn't Ad Hominem because I think it's pertinent, but when you write 'we' you're not resident in the UK, I don't think Robert? A US citizen? I think that colors ( ;) ) your perspective from across the Atlantic. I'm sure in lots of positive ways, but on this occasion I don't think you're quite seeing the world from a 'we' British perspective.

    Peace.
    I'm not a US citizen, and I'm not even on an immigrant visa. I am here because my business is here.
    Okay well sorry about the former but the point is that you are living in the US, west coast I believe. I think on this occasion it does give you a different perspective to British people on these shores. Not a bad perspective at all. It may be a brilliant global one, I'm sure it is. However for the UK at the moment, we are struggling. @TSE summarised it well in his thread header. We need every bit of help we can get and I can't see that changing anytime soon, nor can most economists.

    Under these circumstances to sit outside the largest trading bloc in the world simply makes no economic sense. A majority of British people now think the same.


    The point is that Brexit was mainly a political, not an economic, choice. Which was fine when the garden was rosy. It ain't now.
    How do you think it would go if the UK joined the exchange rate mechanism right now?
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146
    moonshine said:

    Heathener said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Heathener said:

    Good thread. I agree with you @TSE with your nuanced understanding of what may come next. I think rejoining the single market in some form, if they have us, is probably inevitable.

    Unless you're a complete ideological bigot it makes no sense to be outside the biggest trading bloc in the world.

    But we aren't rejoining the EU.
    You really don't know that so I don't see the point of being so assertive about it, which suggest insecurity about your view not assurance. It's your theory. You may be right, I suspect now that you're not. So do many others.

    If the UK continues to struggle economically then the pressure to rejoin will probably become irresistible. I can see a referendum to rejoin in the next 20 years as being plausible.
    https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/german-economic-institutes-see-2023-contraction-gas-crisis-hits-2022-09-29/

    Why do people still have this view of the eu as being some bastion of economic dynamism? Odd.

    The UK economy is the only one on the G7 not to recover to pre-covid levels. In 2016 the UK economy was 90% of the size of Germany’s, it’s now 70%. That’s Brexit for you.

    Right now Germany is no bastion of economic dynamism (nowhere is), but she is certainly a lot more dynamic than Little England.
  • Morris_DancerMorris_Dancer Posts: 60,933
    Mr. Dickson, is that based on a dollar valuation with the high exchange rate (circa $1.46 to the pound) when the markets thought, on the night, we were in?

    Picking the data point for comparison is lots of fun.
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 38,517
    rcs1000 said:

    moonshine said:

    Rcs on Musk: “I wish him well, and I'm sure he'll do a better job than the previous owners, but I suspect it will never pay back the $44bn.”

    I suspect this comment is going to look quite amusing in a few years. Musk was drawing up plans for the “everything app” way back in his PayPal days and before Wechat even existed. He bought the x.com brand years ago and has had it sat there doing nothing ever since. Waiting for something.

    The market timing of his acquisition was poor certainly. But I reckon he’s got to the place where a lot of the heavy lifting from him at Tesla is done, it’s on a self sustaining path now to fast expanding cashflow growth. SpaceX still has hurdles to cross to be sure with Starship but the satellite business is close to reaching sufficient scale to take the company’s valuation to another next level, which should mean the financial means for it to act as the bus to Mars are secure, even if there are crinkles to iron out on what to do upon arrival!

    So he’s decided to spend more time on the thing he gave most headspace to early in his career, before he was eased out of PayPal.

    Well, we'll see.

    But here's why I am sceptical:

    (1) There is (effectively) no Apple in China. Everyone is on Android, and there's no dominant handset software provider. You can do the "Everything App" in China, because there's no handset lockin. To do it in the West, the "everything app" has to fit around Apple's plans. And Apple are bastards.

    (2) Inertia is a powerful thing. And real innovation tends to come from smaller companies. Yes, people will go to Twitter (or pb.com) because that's what they've always done. But something new and killer... well if I had a killer app idea, I'd quit and launch it myself. Musk may have that killer app idea... but he also may not.

    (3) There's no cashflow to milk at Twitter. And the cost of maintaining the platform is non-trivial. Sure - as I said - I reckon he'll do better than previous owners. But to make the $5bn/year post tax necessary to ultimately justify the price, he needs to probably triple sales, while holding costs flat. In a business which is losing, not gaining, relevance.
    (4) Musk himself. Not only is he becoming increasingly Marmite; he might find himself in regulatory difficulties, particularly in Europe.
  • TazTaz Posts: 10,703
    edited October 2022
    Heathener said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Heathener said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Heathener said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Three points:

    (1) We are not rejoining

    [etc.]

    Repeating it doesn't make it any the more true.

    I think with respect that if you lived in the UK you'd possibly have a different perspective on this. It's a shitshow and most of us now realise it.
    Nevertheless, it is patently and obviously true.

    The UK will not seek readmission to the EU in your or my lifetime, and even if they did (which they won't), they wouldn't take us.
    Really, the more assertive you are the less impressed I am with you stating it. You've provided no backing except a strident viewpoint.

    It's perfectly plausible.

    I mentioned a week or two back that when we have a new Labour Government, the mood will continue to change. Quite significantly so. And in those circumstances the pressures to rejoin will increase further, especially if we continue to struggle economically outside of the bloc. I could see a referendum to rejoin being part of Labour's second term in office, assuming they have one.

    Remember too that with every passing year and month, more of the Brexit demographic dies. Literally.



    Happy to actually have some money on this if you like:

    Full Fat Membership of the EU by 2032, I'll give you 10-1.

    Your call.
    Ha! So now your 'never in our lifetimes' has shrunk to 9 years and to 'Full Fat Membership.'

    That's a massive moving of the goalposts.

    I said that: 'If the UK continues to struggle economically then the pressure to rejoin will probably become irresistible. I can see a referendum to rejoin in the next 20 years as being plausible.'

    I'd go back to your original assertion, endlessly repeated, that it will never happen, then qualified by 'never happen in our lifetimes'.

    I think you're missing the mood on this Robert. Not just anecdotally either. Polling.
    So, that’s just a long winded way of saying no to Robert’s bet.
  • darkagedarkage Posts: 4,746
    It is one thing to regret leaving, but the UK would find it very difficult to make the compromises necessary to rejoin. The requirements imposed on countries in terms of the pooling of sovereignty, and participation in the development of policy as one player amongst many, and then accepting the outcomes of this process will ultimately be too difficult for people in the UK to accept. Britain just has a completely different attitude to this than almost every other member state. I think it is something that will increasingly be talked about and discussed, but will not be a serious proposition for perhaps 20 or 30 years.

    I voted remain and support the EU, but wouldn't support rejoining. It has always been the case that the "Brexit opportunities" are mostly for the EU; it has the opportunity of fixing its problems and contradictions without Britain messing up the process. I just hope that they can make this happen, as there is a lot of work to do.
  • TazTaz Posts: 10,703

    moonshine said:

    Heathener said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Heathener said:

    Good thread. I agree with you @TSE with your nuanced understanding of what may come next. I think rejoining the single market in some form, if they have us, is probably inevitable.

    Unless you're a complete ideological bigot it makes no sense to be outside the biggest trading bloc in the world.

    But we aren't rejoining the EU.
    You really don't know that so I don't see the point of being so assertive about it, which suggest insecurity about your view not assurance. It's your theory. You may be right, I suspect now that you're not. So do many others.

    If the UK continues to struggle economically then the pressure to rejoin will probably become irresistible. I can see a referendum to rejoin in the next 20 years as being plausible.
    https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/german-economic-institutes-see-2023-contraction-gas-crisis-hits-2022-09-29/

    Why do people still have this view of the eu as being some bastion of economic dynamism? Odd.

    The UK economy is the only one on the G7 not to recover to pre-covid levels. In 2016 the UK economy was 90% of the size of Germany’s, it’s now 70%. That’s Brexit for you.

    Right now Germany is no bastion of economic dynamism (nowhere is), but she is certainly a lot more dynamic than Little England.
    This 90%/70% claim is making the rounds on social media but just is not true.

    https://twitter.com/richkav/status/1585021940166955009?s=61&t=-_QCiLtrq2iOnjVNKSjnDQ
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146
    Taz said:
    You really ought not to encourage him.

    You do realise that all these hobby-horses are just his way of spotting squirrels while his beloved Tory party disappears down the plughole. He’s very, very good at it.
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146
    Taz said:

    moonshine said:

    Heathener said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Heathener said:

    Good thread. I agree with you @TSE with your nuanced understanding of what may come next. I think rejoining the single market in some form, if they have us, is probably inevitable.

    Unless you're a complete ideological bigot it makes no sense to be outside the biggest trading bloc in the world.

    But we aren't rejoining the EU.
    You really don't know that so I don't see the point of being so assertive about it, which suggest insecurity about your view not assurance. It's your theory. You may be right, I suspect now that you're not. So do many others.

    If the UK continues to struggle economically then the pressure to rejoin will probably become irresistible. I can see a referendum to rejoin in the next 20 years as being plausible.
    https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/german-economic-institutes-see-2023-contraction-gas-crisis-hits-2022-09-29/

    Why do people still have this view of the eu as being some bastion of economic dynamism? Odd.

    The UK economy is the only one on the G7 not to recover to pre-covid levels. In 2016 the UK economy was 90% of the size of Germany’s, it’s now 70%. That’s Brexit for you.

    Right now Germany is no bastion of economic dynamism (nowhere is), but she is certainly a lot more dynamic than Little England.
    This 90%/70% claim is making the rounds on social media but just is not true.

    https://twitter.com/richkav/status/1585021940166955009?s=61&t=-_QCiLtrq2iOnjVNKSjnDQ
    Tell that to The Rest is Politics podcast: they cited it last week.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,770
    Taz said:

    moonshine said:

    Heathener said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Heathener said:

    Good thread. I agree with you @TSE with your nuanced understanding of what may come next. I think rejoining the single market in some form, if they have us, is probably inevitable.

    Unless you're a complete ideological bigot it makes no sense to be outside the biggest trading bloc in the world.

    But we aren't rejoining the EU.
    You really don't know that so I don't see the point of being so assertive about it, which suggest insecurity about your view not assurance. It's your theory. You may be right, I suspect now that you're not. So do many others.

    If the UK continues to struggle economically then the pressure to rejoin will probably become irresistible. I can see a referendum to rejoin in the next 20 years as being plausible.
    https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/german-economic-institutes-see-2023-contraction-gas-crisis-hits-2022-09-29/

    Why do people still have this view of the eu as being some bastion of economic dynamism? Odd.

    The UK economy is the only one on the G7 not to recover to pre-covid levels. In 2016 the UK economy was 90% of the size of Germany’s, it’s now 70%. That’s Brexit for you.

    Right now Germany is no bastion of economic dynamism (nowhere is), but she is certainly a lot more dynamic than Little England.
    This 90%/70% claim is making the rounds on social media but just is not true.

    https://twitter.com/richkav/status/1585021940166955009?s=61&t=-_QCiLtrq2iOnjVNKSjnDQ
    It doesn't sound impossible, but is mostly currency moves:

    End of 2015, GBPEUR was around 1.35-40, and is now 1.17
  • TazTaz Posts: 10,703

    Taz said:

    moonshine said:

    Heathener said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Heathener said:

    Good thread. I agree with you @TSE with your nuanced understanding of what may come next. I think rejoining the single market in some form, if they have us, is probably inevitable.

    Unless you're a complete ideological bigot it makes no sense to be outside the biggest trading bloc in the world.

    But we aren't rejoining the EU.
    You really don't know that so I don't see the point of being so assertive about it, which suggest insecurity about your view not assurance. It's your theory. You may be right, I suspect now that you're not. So do many others.

    If the UK continues to struggle economically then the pressure to rejoin will probably become irresistible. I can see a referendum to rejoin in the next 20 years as being plausible.
    https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/german-economic-institutes-see-2023-contraction-gas-crisis-hits-2022-09-29/

    Why do people still have this view of the eu as being some bastion of economic dynamism? Odd.

    The UK economy is the only one on the G7 not to recover to pre-covid levels. In 2016 the UK economy was 90% of the size of Germany’s, it’s now 70%. That’s Brexit for you.

    Right now Germany is no bastion of economic dynamism (nowhere is), but she is certainly a lot more dynamic than Little England.
    This 90%/70% claim is making the rounds on social media but just is not true.

    https://twitter.com/richkav/status/1585021940166955009?s=61&t=-_QCiLtrq2iOnjVNKSjnDQ
    Tell that to The Rest is Politics podcast: they cited it last week.
    So did Anthony Scaramucci on CNBC, doesn’t make it true though.

    It has been spouted on social media and being accepted as fact.

    Brexit is a shit sandwich. However the claim is not correct.

    https://twitter.com/jdportes/status/1584441202576830464?s=61&t=-_QCiLtrq2iOnjVNKSjnDQ
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,741

    rcs1000 said:

    Three points:

    (1) We are not rejoining
    (2) We are not rejoining
    (3) It is possible we will have a closer relationship with the EU in future
    (3a) We are not rejoining

    England aren’t rejoining. Or certainly not within the next 20 years. I can’t even see her joining the Single Market before the end of the decade, so I’d be a layer if such a market existed.

    Scotland and NI won’t be hanging about, and will both be heartily welcomed into the European family again. Wales probably will, but won’t be having any say.
    In the same way Sweden and Finland would never join NATO?
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146
    Scrapping farm nature payments may worsen English river pollution up to 20%

    Every single river in England is polluted beyond legal limits, and 86% are deemed not to be in “good ecological condition”.

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/oct/27/scrapping-farm-nature-payments-may-worsen-english-river-pollution-up-to-20
  • TazTaz Posts: 10,703

    Taz said:
    You really ought not to encourage him.

    You do realise that all these hobby-horses are just his way of spotting squirrels while his beloved Tory party disappears down the plughole. He’s very, very good at it.
    UFOs is my favourite of his.

  • TazTaz Posts: 10,703
    Poor Harry Cole, shilling his book on Truss.

    I’ll wait until it’s in ‘The Works’ for a quid or so.

    https://twitter.com/mrharrycole/status/1586110969968676864?s=61&t=-_QCiLtrq2iOnjVNKSjnDQ
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,741

    Scrapping farm nature payments may worsen English river pollution up to 20%

    Every single river in England is polluted beyond legal limits, and 86% are deemed not to be in “good ecological condition”.

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/oct/27/scrapping-farm-nature-payments-may-worsen-english-river-pollution-up-to-20

    Good job everything is hunky dory in Scotland, due to the publicly owned Scottish Water.

    Oh.

    https://www.thenational.scot/news/19674520.fact-check-scotland-immune-sewage-waterways/
  • At some point, and we’re inching there slowly, but it could take another decade or more, it will become inevitable, unignorable, as plain as the nose on your face, that we dropped a massive bollock leaving the EU. We will look at the EU enviously.

    By then, a big chunk of the Leave vote will have departed this earthly realm. The politicians who pushed for it will have departed the scene. There will be new blood.

    Now that’s just my opinion, but peering back over the wreckage of the last six years it seems very plausible to me. And if we’re at that stage anything could happen. And I think they would have us back. By that point we could well be begging to join the Euro, to be part of Schengen. Who knows?

    We have none of the benefits Brexit promised, other than ‘sovereignty’. The recent economic turmoil wrought by Trussonomics has shown us how sovereign we really are. We have another damaging bout of austerity looming. We will have more of a population similar to me who were raised as EU citizens, who cherished their freedom of movement, who aren’t hamstrung by nostalgia for Empire, who weren’t around when it was falling apart.

    Of course the real horror for Leavers is that if it turns out that the EU is delivering a better standard of living for its people, better services, with better protection for them through environmental regs and the rest, and here we continue to see increasing inequality, threadbare public services, all the rest that seems to be our fate. Maybe those faceless Brussels bureaucrats can deliver a better life for the majority of their people. And we’ll want to be part of it.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,056
    rcs1000 said:

    Heathener said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Three points:

    (1) We are not rejoining

    [etc.]

    Repeating it doesn't make it any the more true.

    I think with respect that if you lived in the UK you'd possibly have a different perspective on this. It's a shitshow and most of us now realise it.
    Nevertheless, it is patently and obviously true.

    The UK will not seek readmission to the EU in your or my lifetime, and even if they did (which they won't), they wouldn't take us.
    Neither statement is true, merely opinion, though there is no immediate prospect of Rejoin.

    The British public increasingly see Brexit as a folly, and Rejoin polls well. Sooner or later it will be a serious prospect politically.
  • kyf_100kyf_100 Posts: 3,911
    darkage said:

    It is one thing to regret leaving, but the UK would find it very difficult to make the compromises necessary to rejoin. The requirements imposed on countries in terms of the pooling of sovereignty, and participation in the development of policy as one player amongst many, and then accepting the outcomes of this process will ultimately be too difficult for people in the UK to accept. Britain just has a completely different attitude to this than almost every other member state. I think it is something that will increasingly be talked about and discussed, but will not be a serious proposition for perhaps 20 or 30 years.

    I voted remain and support the EU, but wouldn't support rejoining. It has always been the case that the "Brexit opportunities" are mostly for the EU; it has the opportunity of fixing its problems and contradictions without Britain messing up the process. I just hope that they can make this happen, as there is a lot of work to do.

    It comes down to what it always came down to - the UK wanted an economic union, the EU wanted a political one.

    The economics makes a lot of sense for the UK in a multipolar world of competing trade blocs. The politics - surrendering democratic accountability and allowing a technocratic elite to manage our lives in perpetuity - never did.

    Ulitmately people made the choice to be a little poorer but also freer, with greater accountability and localisation of the decision-making process. A decision our friends north of the border are always champing at the bit to make.
  • As long as the EU doesn't do something stupid which is always possible I am guessing you will rejoin sooner or later.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,741
    edited October 2022
    Foxy said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Heathener said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Three points:

    (1) We are not rejoining

    [etc.]

    Repeating it doesn't make it any the more true.

    I think with respect that if you lived in the UK you'd possibly have a different perspective on this. It's a shitshow and most of us now realise it.
    Nevertheless, it is patently and obviously true.

    The UK will not seek readmission to the EU in your or my lifetime, and even if they did (which they won't), they wouldn't take us.
    Neither statement is true, merely opinion, though there is no immediate prospect of Rejoin.

    The British public increasingly see Brexit as a folly, and Rejoin polls well. Sooner or later it will be a serious prospect politically.
    Just because it would be popular doesn’t mean it would be feasible. It has to be on terms acceptable to Brussels as well, which would likely not be acceptable to the electorate.

    For example, the strongest support for rejoining is in Scotland, but as the EU have pointed out there isn’t a realistic pathway to Scotland rejoining in the foreseeable future even if it becomes independent.

    The deal we had wasn’t perfect but was better than the demands that would be made for rejoining. The deal May got was an exceptionally good substitute.

    Unfortunately Johnson and his dim witted acolytes like Raab blew the whole lot up and put us out of the EU on very bad terms.

    And neither of the earlier options are now available for us but no others would be acceptable.
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146
    Taz said:

    Taz said:
    You really ought not to encourage him.

    You do realise that all these hobby-horses are just his way of spotting squirrels while his beloved Tory party disappears down the plughole. He’s very, very good at it.
    UFOs is my favourite of his.

    Everyone has a Sean favourite. He really was genuinely extremely funny back in the early years, maybe about 2005-2008. He used to have me in stitches.

    Last decade or so? Barely a hint of a smile. Really quite a tragic figure.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,741

    Taz said:

    Taz said:
    You really ought not to encourage him.

    You do realise that all these hobby-horses are just his way of spotting squirrels while his beloved Tory party disappears down the plughole. He’s very, very good at it.
    UFOs is my favourite of his.

    Everyone has a Sean favourite. He really was genuinely extremely funny back in the early years, maybe about 2005-2008. He used to have me in stitches.

    Last decade or so? Barely a hint of a smile. Really quite a tragic figure.
    Leaving aside the fact doxxing isn’t a good thing, you’re doing really badly on the irony front today.
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146
    I try to be fair, but I do just think it is professionally dubious to write a glowing column about the PM in the Comment pages of the Times without mentioning he’s your best friend and was best man at your wedding.

    https://twitter.com/jamiesusskind/status/1585740150713229312?s=46&t=_hm6YDVlrJ8AYBO6BWxL-A
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 39,748
    edited October 2022
    rcs1000 said:

    Three points:

    (1) We are not rejoining
    (2) We are not rejoining
    (3) It is possible we will have a closer relationship with the EU in future
    (3a) We are not rejoining

    The transition of Brexiteers from 'we're doing it and it'll stick cos it'll be great' to 'we're doing it and it'll stick cos iwe've fcuked it up so badly that the EU wouldn't touch us with a shitty stick' is a remarkable thing.
  • JonathanJonathan Posts: 20,901
    Musk, Sunak we are living an oligarchy. Money knows best.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 55,009
    darkage said:

    It is one thing to regret leaving, but the UK would find it very difficult to make the compromises necessary to rejoin. The requirements imposed on countries in terms of the pooling of sovereignty, and participation in the development of policy as one player amongst many, and then accepting the outcomes of this process will ultimately be too difficult for people in the UK to accept. Britain just has a completely different attitude to this than almost every other member state. I think it is something that will increasingly be talked about and discussed, but will not be a serious proposition for perhaps 20 or 30 years.

    I voted remain and support the EU, but wouldn't support rejoining. It has always been the case that the "Brexit opportunities" are mostly for the EU; it has the opportunity of fixing its problems and contradictions without Britain messing up the process. I just hope that they can make this happen, as there is a lot of work to do.

    Whether rejoin potentially gets traction or not in the next 5-10 years depends on the behaviour of the EU.

    If they offered the status quo antebellum in a special treaty for the UK (i.e. what we had before, perhaps with some caveats on free movement) with a united EU27 position on it then i think such a referendum would be won.

    If they offered "standard terms", which means signing up to the Euro, all of the charter of fundamental rights, and all crime and justice measures, then I think it wouldn't - although things are so polarised in the UK now that such a vote could still get 40% in favour.

    The EU are dogmatic and inflexible so I'd be almost certain they'd insist on the latter.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,741

    rcs1000 said:

    Three points:

    (1) We are not rejoining
    (2) We are not rejoining
    (3) It is possible we will have a closer relationship with the EU in future
    (3a) We are not rejoining

    The transition of Brexiteers from 'we're doing it and it'll stick cos it's great' to 'we're doing it and it'll stick cos iwe've fcuked it up so badly that the EU wouldn't touch us with a shitty stick' is a remarkable thing.
    I wonder how quickly it would happen if Scotland ever went independent?
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,279
    edited October 2022

    Taz said:

    Taz said:
    You really ought not to encourage him.

    You do realise that all these hobby-horses are just his way of spotting squirrels while his beloved Tory party disappears down the plughole. He’s very, very good at it.
    UFOs is my favourite of his.

    Everyone has a Sean favourite. He really was genuinely extremely funny back in the early years, maybe about 2005-2008. He used to have me in stitches.

    Last decade or so? Barely a hint of a smile. Really quite a tragic figure.
    He was on here as early as that? I think I joined in 2010 or thereabouts.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 55,009
    More likely is an outer crust of European governance with the EPU and perhaps a strengthened EEA/EFTA that doughnut rings around the core EU.

    I think that's more likely and probably desirable.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 55,009

    Taz said:

    Taz said:
    You really ought not to encourage him.

    You do realise that all these hobby-horses are just his way of spotting squirrels while his beloved Tory party disappears down the plughole. He’s very, very good at it.
    UFOs is my favourite of his.

    Everyone has a Sean favourite. He really was genuinely extremely funny back in the early years, maybe about 2005-2008. He used to have me in stitches.

    Last decade or so? Barely a hint of a smile. Really quite a tragic figure.
    Unusually, I've actually started skipping over most of his posts.

    He just to give brilliant insights whereas now much of it is repetitive or narcissistic.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,741

    More likely is an outer crust of European governance with the EPU and perhaps a strengthened EEA/EFTA that doughnut rings around the core EU.

    I think that's more likely and probably desirable.

    It’s very desirable. Moreover it would be the right approach.

    For everyone except the EU, as it undermines their obsession with a federal superstate to which everything else including economic reality is subjugated.

    So it will not happen.
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 14,772
    Oh God. Brexit again. I think I'd rather have fifteen more minutes of Brian Dobson on the live crib.

    I desperately hate that we left the EU, but the last thing British politics needs is to be dominated over an argument about rejoining the EU for the next couple of decades.

    If we do rejoin the single market then that isn't an incremental step to rejoining the EU. It's a dead end that the majority will be happy with, at least at first. The economic benefits, but none of the extraneous political crap. Are most people really clamouring for membership of the CAP and CFP? But the constant harping on about EU laws being imposed on Britain against its will starts up again, this time with validity. I don't see it as a stable end state, especially as all the clamour to rejoin comes from a position of weakness and lack of self-respect.

    This was the fundamental error of Britain's membership of the EU. It was a policy born of a lack of self-confidence, a determination that we couldn't cope alone and needed not to be left out. But every country would resent such an analysis, and once it had regained some self-confidence it would feel it no longer required the comfort blanket it had sought when it felt vulnerable.

    Britain will only be secure in the EU when it decides to join with self-confidence. Out of a sense of how much it can contribute and the good that it can create, and of its own self-worth. The current campaign by rejoiners to make the case for British EU membership on the basis of British weakness is therefore entirely self-defeating.

    There's a parallel here with arguments over Scottish Independence too.
  • We have now had 7 polls since Rishi Sunak took over. Here’s the average VI (compared to average VI in the last 7 polls under Truss):

    Lab 51.4% (-1.6)
    Con 24.3% (+2.9)
    LD 8.9% (-0.7)
    Ref 5.2% (+1.2)
    SNP 4.4% (+0.4)
    Grn 4.3% (+0.2)

    In other words, not much change. Certainly not enough to calm Tory nerves.

    How long will the party wait without an upswing before they become restless again? A month? Six months? Certainly not a year.

    they should have picked Boris
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 14,772
    rcs1000 said:

    Taz said:

    moonshine said:

    Heathener said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Heathener said:

    Good thread. I agree with you @TSE with your nuanced understanding of what may come next. I think rejoining the single market in some form, if they have us, is probably inevitable.

    Unless you're a complete ideological bigot it makes no sense to be outside the biggest trading bloc in the world.

    But we aren't rejoining the EU.
    You really don't know that so I don't see the point of being so assertive about it, which suggest insecurity about your view not assurance. It's your theory. You may be right, I suspect now that you're not. So do many others.

    If the UK continues to struggle economically then the pressure to rejoin will probably become irresistible. I can see a referendum to rejoin in the next 20 years as being plausible.
    https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/german-economic-institutes-see-2023-contraction-gas-crisis-hits-2022-09-29/

    Why do people still have this view of the eu as being some bastion of economic dynamism? Odd.

    The UK economy is the only one on the G7 not to recover to pre-covid levels. In 2016 the UK economy was 90% of the size of Germany’s, it’s now 70%. That’s Brexit for you.

    Right now Germany is no bastion of economic dynamism (nowhere is), but she is certainly a lot more dynamic than Little England.
    This 90%/70% claim is making the rounds on social media but just is not true.

    https://twitter.com/richkav/status/1585021940166955009?s=61&t=-_QCiLtrq2iOnjVNKSjnDQ
    It doesn't sound impossible, but is mostly currency moves:

    End of 2015, GBPEUR was around 1.35-40, and is now 1.17
    The surprisingly high 90% figure is the best evidence I've seen that Sterling was overvalued at ~€1.40 which is a shame as it has some pleasing mathematical properties at £1 = €√2
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 55,009

    Oh God. Brexit again. I think I'd rather have fifteen more minutes of Brian Dobson on the live crib.

    I desperately hate that we left the EU, but the last thing British politics needs is to be dominated over an argument about rejoining the EU for the next couple of decades.

    If we do rejoin the single market then that isn't an incremental step to rejoining the EU. It's a dead end that the majority will be happy with, at least at first. The economic benefits, but none of the extraneous political crap. Are most people really clamouring for membership of the CAP and CFP? But the constant harping on about EU laws being imposed on Britain against its will starts up again, this time with validity. I don't see it as a stable end state, especially as all the clamour to rejoin comes from a position of weakness and lack of self-respect.

    This was the fundamental error of Britain's membership of the EU. It was a policy born of a lack of self-confidence, a determination that we couldn't cope alone and needed not to be left out. But every country would resent such an analysis, and once it had regained some self-confidence it would feel it no longer required the comfort blanket it had sought when it felt vulnerable.

    Britain will only be secure in the EU when it decides to join with self-confidence. Out of a sense of how much it can contribute and the good that it can create, and of its own self-worth. The current campaign by rejoiners to make the case for British EU membership on the basis of British weakness is therefore entirely self-defeating.

    There's a parallel here with arguments over Scottish Independence too.

    Fundamentally, it would require a change in the character of the British and our outlook to work. Which would go against what's been the case for centuries.

    I don't think that's pretty likely and is independent of the current generation of voters who voted for Brexit in 2016, so those who hope it will all change when "the Leavers die out" are clutching at straws.
  • JonathanJonathan Posts: 20,901
    edited October 2022

    We have now had 7 polls since Rishi Sunak took over. Here’s the average VI (compared to average VI in the last 7 polls under Truss):

    Lab 51.4% (-1.6)
    Con 24.3% (+2.9)
    LD 8.9% (-0.7)
    Ref 5.2% (+1.2)
    SNP 4.4% (+0.4)
    Grn 4.3% (+0.2)

    In other words, not much change. Certainly not enough to calm Tory nerves.

    How long will the party wait without an upswing before they become restless again? A month? Six months? Certainly not a year.

    they should have picked Boris
    Steady on, let’s not go crazy. FWIW I’m keeping an eye on REF to see if they grow. Potentially the beneficiary if Sunak cannot connect with Boris’ Blukip vote.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,279

    We have now had 7 polls since Rishi Sunak took over. Here’s the average VI (compared to average VI in the last 7 polls under Truss):

    Lab 51.4% (-1.6)
    Con 24.3% (+2.9)
    LD 8.9% (-0.7)
    Ref 5.2% (+1.2)
    SNP 4.4% (+0.4)
    Grn 4.3% (+0.2)

    In other words, not much change. Certainly not enough to calm Tory nerves.

    How long will the party wait without an upswing before they become restless again? A month? Six months? Certainly not a year.

    they should have picked Boris
    The Tories will probably be on 30% within a few weeks.
  • JonathanJonathan Posts: 20,901
    Andy_JS said:

    We have now had 7 polls since Rishi Sunak took over. Here’s the average VI (compared to average VI in the last 7 polls under Truss):

    Lab 51.4% (-1.6)
    Con 24.3% (+2.9)
    LD 8.9% (-0.7)
    Ref 5.2% (+1.2)
    SNP 4.4% (+0.4)
    Grn 4.3% (+0.2)

    In other words, not much change. Certainly not enough to calm Tory nerves.

    How long will the party wait without an upswing before they become restless again? A month? Six months? Certainly not a year.

    they should have picked Boris
    The Tories will probably be on 30% within a few weeks.
    Why? It it the tax rises or reduced spending that will bring voters back into the fold?
  • kamskikamski Posts: 4,199
    Taz said:

    Heathener said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Heathener said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Heathener said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Three points:

    (1) We are not rejoining

    [etc.]

    Repeating it doesn't make it any the more true.

    I think with respect that if you lived in the UK you'd possibly have a different perspective on this. It's a shitshow and most of us now realise it.
    Nevertheless, it is patently and obviously true.

    The UK will not seek readmission to the EU in your or my lifetime, and even if they did (which they won't), they wouldn't take us.
    Really, the more assertive you are the less impressed I am with you stating it. You've provided no backing except a strident viewpoint.

    It's perfectly plausible.

    I mentioned a week or two back that when we have a new Labour Government, the mood will continue to change. Quite significantly so. And in those circumstances the pressures to rejoin will increase further, especially if we continue to struggle economically outside of the bloc. I could see a referendum to rejoin being part of Labour's second term in office, assuming they have one.

    Remember too that with every passing year and month, more of the Brexit demographic dies. Literally.



    Happy to actually have some money on this if you like:

    Full Fat Membership of the EU by 2032, I'll give you 10-1.

    Your call.
    Ha! So now your 'never in our lifetimes' has shrunk to 9 years and to 'Full Fat Membership.'

    That's a massive moving of the goalposts.

    I said that: 'If the UK continues to struggle economically then the pressure to rejoin will probably become irresistible. I can see a referendum to rejoin in the next 20 years as being plausible.'

    I'd go back to your original assertion, endlessly repeated, that it will never happen, then qualified by 'never happen in our lifetimes'.

    I think you're missing the mood on this Robert. Not just anecdotally either. Polling.
    So, that’s just a long winded way of saying no to Robert’s bet.
    Alternatively, RCS1000 going from 0% chance in our lifetimes, to 10-1 in 10 years is either offering odds so miserly it would make the greediest bookie blush, or he's effectively admitting his other categorical statements were wrong. Only an idiot would take that bet.



    What about 1000-1 on Britain becoming a full member by 2040?
  • Morris_DancerMorris_Dancer Posts: 60,933
    Betting Post

    F1: backed Sainz at 7.5 to top qualifying, each way (third the odds top 2).

    https://enormo-haddock.blogspot.com/2022/10/mexico-pre-qualifying-2022.html

    He was fastest in first practice, and beat Leclerc in qualifying at the circuit last year. Given the closeness of Verstappen and Perez to one another this could make both the full and no win outcomes more likely as there's a decent chance the Red Bulls will be right next to each other.
  • OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 14,911
    I agree with this header. There is only one version of Brexit that makes sense economically - a complete free market free for all, junking all regulations and tariffs, slashing taxes and spending, and a free trade deal with the US including on food. A decisive break from a European style social market economy and embrace of full on capitalism. The NHS would become a basic emergency medical service for the poor. The agricultural sector would mostly disappear. The state pension would be set at a level where pensioners could just afford to eat. There would be a huge increase in inequality. But at some point the economy might start growing more quickly, even if the 1% would see almost all of the gains. The tax and regulatory burden would be sufficiently low to attract business despite the barriers created by Brexit and the poor standards of infrastructure and education associated with a minimalist state.
    However, I don't see that credible version of Brexit as having any political support in the country. The political implosion of Trussism proved that. In which case we are just waiting for public opinion to catch up to the fact that Brexit is an economic failure. I think it is inevitable we will rejoin the single market. The public made a mistake with Brexit but we are a democracy and democracies can reverse their mistakes.
    I also agree that the Tories might well change their view, and could well be the party to bring us back into the EU the second time around, like the first time. They are the ultimate political opportunists and realists.
  • @rcs1000

    'The UK will not seek readmission to the EU in your or my lifetime, and even if they did (which they won't), they wouldn't take us.'

    That's about all that can be said, all that needs to be said on the subject.

    There probably isn't a bigger Europhile on this Site than me and I have zero interest in rejoining, and zero expection that it will happen.

    We have made our bed. Now we lie in it.
  • HeathenerHeathener Posts: 5,096
    Taz said:

    Heathener said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Heathener said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Heathener said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Three points:

    (1) We are not rejoining

    [etc.]

    Repeating it doesn't make it any the more true.

    I think with respect that if you lived in the UK you'd possibly have a different perspective on this. It's a shitshow and most of us now realise it.
    Nevertheless, it is patently and obviously true.

    The UK will not seek readmission to the EU in your or my lifetime, and even if they did (which they won't), they wouldn't take us.
    Really, the more assertive you are the less impressed I am with you stating it. You've provided no backing except a strident viewpoint.

    It's perfectly plausible.

    I mentioned a week or two back that when we have a new Labour Government, the mood will continue to change. Quite significantly so. And in those circumstances the pressures to rejoin will increase further, especially if we continue to struggle economically outside of the bloc. I could see a referendum to rejoin being part of Labour's second term in office, assuming they have one.

    Remember too that with every passing year and month, more of the Brexit demographic dies. Literally.



    Happy to actually have some money on this if you like:

    Full Fat Membership of the EU by 2032, I'll give you 10-1.

    Your call.
    Ha! So now your 'never in our lifetimes' has shrunk to 9 years and to 'Full Fat Membership.'

    That's a massive moving of the goalposts.

    I said that: 'If the UK continues to struggle economically then the pressure to rejoin will probably become irresistible. I can see a referendum to rejoin in the next 20 years as being plausible.'

    I'd go back to your original assertion, endlessly repeated, that it will never happen, then qualified by 'never happen in our lifetimes'.

    I think you're missing the mood on this Robert. Not just anecdotally either. Polling.
    So, that’s just a long winded way of saying no to Robert’s bet.
    It wasn't long winded and an explanation was necessary
  • Oh God. Brexit again. I think I'd rather have fifteen more minutes of Brian Dobson on the live crib.

    I desperately hate that we left the EU, but the last thing British politics needs is to be dominated over an argument about rejoining the EU for the next couple of decades.

    If we do rejoin the single market then that isn't an incremental step to rejoining the EU. It's a dead end that the majority will be happy with, at least at first. The economic benefits, but none of the extraneous political crap. Are most people really clamouring for membership of the CAP and CFP? But the constant harping on about EU laws being imposed on Britain against its will starts up again, this time with validity. I don't see it as a stable end state, especially as all the clamour to rejoin comes from a position of weakness and lack of self-respect.

    This was the fundamental error of Britain's membership of the EU. It was a policy born of a lack of self-confidence, a determination that we couldn't cope alone and needed not to be left out. But every country would resent such an analysis, and once it had regained some self-confidence it would feel it no longer required the comfort blanket it had sought when it felt vulnerable.

    Britain will only be secure in the EU when it decides to join with self-confidence. Out of a sense of how much it can contribute and the good that it can create, and of its own self-worth. The current campaign by rejoiners to make the case for British EU membership on the basis of British weakness is therefore entirely self-defeating.

    There's a parallel here with arguments over Scottish Independence too.

    What is genuinely interesting now is that the reason for talking about it has changed. We're not fighting over the old battle, we're trying to find solutions for the current economic mess.

    The other key point here is that this is not about rejoining the EU. That's a long way off at best. This is about dismantling the stupidity that is the Boris post-Brexit settlement, none of which was required by the referendum.

    So if we want to fill billions of £££ back into the hole, we can normalise our trading relations with the EEA. Which Brexiteers screamed isn't proper Brexit. And will now have to admit has nothing to do with it.
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 14,772
    kamski said:

    Taz said:

    Heathener said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Heathener said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Heathener said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Three points:

    (1) We are not rejoining

    [etc.]

    Repeating it doesn't make it any the more true.

    I think with respect that if you lived in the UK you'd possibly have a different perspective on this. It's a shitshow and most of us now realise it.
    Nevertheless, it is patently and obviously true.

    The UK will not seek readmission to the EU in your or my lifetime, and even if they did (which they won't), they wouldn't take us.
    Really, the more assertive you are the less impressed I am with you stating it. You've provided no backing except a strident viewpoint.

    It's perfectly plausible.

    I mentioned a week or two back that when we have a new Labour Government, the mood will continue to change. Quite significantly so. And in those circumstances the pressures to rejoin will increase further, especially if we continue to struggle economically outside of the bloc. I could see a referendum to rejoin being part of Labour's second term in office, assuming they have one.

    Remember too that with every passing year and month, more of the Brexit demographic dies. Literally.



    Happy to actually have some money on this if you like:

    Full Fat Membership of the EU by 2032, I'll give you 10-1.

    Your call.
    Ha! So now your 'never in our lifetimes' has shrunk to 9 years and to 'Full Fat Membership.'

    That's a massive moving of the goalposts.

    I said that: 'If the UK continues to struggle economically then the pressure to rejoin will probably become irresistible. I can see a referendum to rejoin in the next 20 years as being plausible.'

    I'd go back to your original assertion, endlessly repeated, that it will never happen, then qualified by 'never happen in our lifetimes'.

    I think you're missing the mood on this Robert. Not just anecdotally either. Polling.
    So, that’s just a long winded way of saying no to Robert’s bet.
    Alternatively, RCS1000 going from 0% chance in our lifetimes, to 10-1 in 10 years is either offering odds so miserly it would make the greediest bookie blush, or he's effectively admitting his other categorical statements were wrong. Only an idiot would take that bet.



    What about 1000-1 on Britain becoming a full member by 2040?
    The time value of money makes it very hard to craft a sensible bet on this question.

    The way I would do it is as follows. The stake of the bet is £x, uprated by British nominal GDP growth, every year. If Britain is not a member of the EU, defined as having elected MEPs with full voting rights in the European Parliament at 23:59 UTC on December 31st each year, then @Heathener pays @rcs1000 and vice versa.
  • ThomasNasheThomasNashe Posts: 4,920

    I agree with this header. There is only one version of Brexit that makes sense economically - a complete free market free for all, junking all regulations and tariffs, slashing taxes and spending, and a free trade deal with the US including on food. A decisive break from a European style social market economy and embrace of full on capitalism. The NHS would become a basic emergency medical service for the poor. The agricultural sector would mostly disappear. The state pension would be set at a level where pensioners could just afford to eat. There would be a huge increase in inequality. But at some point the economy might start growing more quickly, even if the 1% would see almost all of the gains. The tax and regulatory burden would be sufficiently low to attract business despite the barriers created by Brexit and the poor standards of infrastructure and education associated with a minimalist state.
    However, I don't see that credible version of Brexit as having any political support in the country. The political implosion of Trussism proved that. In which case we are just waiting for public opinion to catch up to the fact that Brexit is an economic failure. I think it is inevitable we will rejoin the single market. The public made a mistake with Brexit but we are a democracy and democracies can reverse their mistakes.
    I also agree that the Tories might well change their view, and could well be the party to bring us back into the EU the second time around, like the first time. They are the ultimate political opportunists and realists.

    That’s pretty much the long and short of it. Nothing more to be said. Let’s move on to the next topic.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,741
    edited October 2022
    I know it's a serious and sensitive subject, but really, have the BBC got no subeditors who can spot grammatical howlers?

    Navy investigates submarine sex harassment claims.
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-63435129
  • HeathenerHeathener Posts: 5,096
    edited October 2022

    Taz said:

    Taz said:
    You really ought not to encourage him.

    You do realise that all these hobby-horses are just his way of spotting squirrels while his beloved Tory party disappears down the plughole. He’s very, very good at it.
    UFOs is my favourite of his.

    Everyone has a Sean favourite. He really was genuinely extremely funny back in the early years, maybe about 2005-2008. He used to have me in stitches.

    Last decade or so? Barely a hint of a smile. Really quite a tragic figure.
    He is. He is so bitterly anti-woke that it probably helps to understand why. Here's a guy who wrote a bestselling memoir based on male conquests of women, something which 20 years ago worked. He built a meme around it.

    But the world moved on and that kind of approach to women became totally unacceptable. It's not just #MeToo though that was the final kick in the teeth.

    He began writing under pseudonyms to cover his identity.

    I hope he finds happiness again because this embittered person raging against the dying light is not pretty.
  • Oh God. Brexit again. I think I'd rather have fifteen more minutes of Brian Dobson on the live crib.

    I desperately hate that we left the EU, but the last thing British politics needs is to be dominated over an argument about rejoining the EU for the next couple of decades.

    If we do rejoin the single market then that isn't an incremental step to rejoining the EU. It's a dead end that the majority will be happy with, at least at first. The economic benefits, but none of the extraneous political crap. Are most people really clamouring for membership of the CAP and CFP? But the constant harping on about EU laws being imposed on Britain against its will starts up again, this time with validity. I don't see it as a stable end state, especially as all the clamour to rejoin comes from a position of weakness and lack of self-respect.

    This was the fundamental error of Britain's membership of the EU. It was a policy born of a lack of self-confidence, a determination that we couldn't cope alone and needed not to be left out. But every country would resent such an analysis, and once it had regained some self-confidence it would feel it no longer required the comfort blanket it had sought when it felt vulnerable.

    Britain will only be secure in the EU when it decides to join with self-confidence. Out of a sense of how much it can contribute and the good that it can create, and of its own self-worth. The current campaign by rejoiners to make the case for British EU membership on the basis of British weakness is therefore entirely self-defeating.

    There's a parallel here with arguments over Scottish Independence too.

    For rejoin to make sense the minimum standard at the UK end (they may not want us, or only on punitive terms) should be 60%+ approval sustained for 5 years, and a confirmatory referendum on any terms offered too. None of this vague 52-48 for an unspecified break at a snapshot in time ever again please.
  • FF43FF43 Posts: 15,543
    rcs1000 said:

    Three points:

    (1) We are not rejoining
    (2) We are not rejoining
    (3) It is possible we will have a closer relationship with the EU in future
    (3a) We are not rejoining

    It's about learning to live with your mistake, or in the case of half of us,learning to live with other people's mistake. Once you have eliminated your best option you start rejecting your most damaging alternatives.

    So Britain's destiny is Vassal State, I believe.. It takes a long time for people to accept that.
  • GhedebravGhedebrav Posts: 2,995
    Gradual reengagement is probably what will happen. God knows the vast majority of normal people don’t want the country torn apart with yet another self-inflicted Dreyfus Affair.
  • kamskikamski Posts: 4,199

    kamski said:

    Taz said:

    Heathener said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Heathener said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Heathener said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Three points:

    (1) We are not rejoining

    [etc.]

    Repeating it doesn't make it any the more true.

    I think with respect that if you lived in the UK you'd possibly have a different perspective on this. It's a shitshow and most of us now realise it.
    Nevertheless, it is patently and obviously true.

    The UK will not seek readmission to the EU in your or my lifetime, and even if they did (which they won't), they wouldn't take us.
    Really, the more assertive you are the less impressed I am with you stating it. You've provided no backing except a strident viewpoint.

    It's perfectly plausible.

    I mentioned a week or two back that when we have a new Labour Government, the mood will continue to change. Quite significantly so. And in those circumstances the pressures to rejoin will increase further, especially if we continue to struggle economically outside of the bloc. I could see a referendum to rejoin being part of Labour's second term in office, assuming they have one.

    Remember too that with every passing year and month, more of the Brexit demographic dies. Literally.



    Happy to actually have some money on this if you like:

    Full Fat Membership of the EU by 2032, I'll give you 10-1.

    Your call.
    Ha! So now your 'never in our lifetimes' has shrunk to 9 years and to 'Full Fat Membership.'

    That's a massive moving of the goalposts.

    I said that: 'If the UK continues to struggle economically then the pressure to rejoin will probably become irresistible. I can see a referendum to rejoin in the next 20 years as being plausible.'

    I'd go back to your original assertion, endlessly repeated, that it will never happen, then qualified by 'never happen in our lifetimes'.

    I think you're missing the mood on this Robert. Not just anecdotally either. Polling.
    So, that’s just a long winded way of saying no to Robert’s bet.
    Alternatively, RCS1000 going from 0% chance in our lifetimes, to 10-1 in 10 years is either offering odds so miserly it would make the greediest bookie blush, or he's effectively admitting his other categorical statements were wrong. Only an idiot would take that bet.



    What about 1000-1 on Britain becoming a full member by 2040?
    The time value of money makes it very hard to craft a sensible bet on this question.

    The way I would do it is as follows. The stake of the bet is £x, uprated by British nominal GDP growth, every year. If Britain is not a member of the EU, defined as having elected MEPs with full voting rights in the European Parliament at 23:59 UTC on December 31st each year, then @Heathener pays @rcs1000 and vice versa.
    Yes it was more of a hypothetical bet.

    As Heathener was talking about the plausibility of a rejoin referendum within 20 years and RCS1000 the impossibility of rejoining in our lifetimes, and allowing for 5 years for potential negotiations and transition period after a vote to rejoin - the bet should be on whether the UK (or rump UK) is a member within 25 years from now. (With winnings paid equivalent to today's money in the way you suggest, for example).

    What odds would RSC1000 and Heathener be theoretically happy to lay/back on this bet?
  • Andy_JS said:

    Taz said:

    Taz said:
    You really ought not to encourage him.

    You do realise that all these hobby-horses are just his way of spotting squirrels while his beloved Tory party disappears down the plughole. He’s very, very good at it.
    UFOs is my favourite of his.

    Everyone has a Sean favourite. He really was genuinely extremely funny back in the early years, maybe about 2005-2008. He used to have me in stitches.

    Last decade or so? Barely a hint of a smile. Really quite a tragic figure.
    He was on here as early as that? I think I joined in 2010 or thereabouts.
    Yup, I met him back in 2005. He signed a copy of his book for me.
  • Ishmael_ZIshmael_Z Posts: 8,981
    Heathener said:

    Taz said:

    Taz said:
    You really ought not to encourage him.

    You do realise that all these hobby-horses are just his way of spotting squirrels while his beloved Tory party disappears down the plughole. He’s very, very good at it.
    UFOs is my favourite of his.

    Everyone has a Sean favourite. He really was genuinely extremely funny back in the early years, maybe about 2005-2008. He used to have me in stitches.

    Last decade or so? Barely a hint of a smile. Really quite a tragic figure.
    He is. He is so bitterly anti-woke that it probably helps to understand why. Here's a guy who wrote a bestselling memoir based on male conquests of women, something which 20 years ago worked. He built a meme around it.

    But the world moved on and that kind of approach to women became totally unacceptable. It's not just #MeToo though that was the final kick in the teeth.

    He began writing under pseudonyms to cover his identity.

    I hope he finds happiness again because this embittered person raging against the dying light is not pretty.
    I toy with the idea that you are a joke created by Sean. The reference to the memoir with approximately correct date and roughly accurate summary is suspicious. On the other hand you never lapse into stylistic seanisms and I am not sure he would have the self discipline to get up early and post in character for two hours.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 55,009
    Heathener said:

    Taz said:

    Taz said:
    You really ought not to encourage him.

    You do realise that all these hobby-horses are just his way of spotting squirrels while his beloved Tory party disappears down the plughole. He’s very, very good at it.
    UFOs is my favourite of his.

    Everyone has a Sean favourite. He really was genuinely extremely funny back in the early years, maybe about 2005-2008. He used to have me in stitches.

    Last decade or so? Barely a hint of a smile. Really quite a tragic figure.
    He is. He is so bitterly anti-woke that it probably helps to understand why. Here's a guy who wrote a bestselling memoir based on male conquests of women, something which 20 years ago worked. He built a meme around it.

    But the world moved on and that kind of approach to women became totally unacceptable. It's not just #MeToo though that was the final kick in the teeth.

    He began writing under pseudonyms to cover his identity.

    I hope he finds happiness again because this embittered person raging against the dying light is not pretty.
    You didn't read that book, did you?
  • Ishmael_Z said:

    Heathener said:

    Taz said:

    Taz said:
    You really ought not to encourage him.

    You do realise that all these hobby-horses are just his way of spotting squirrels while his beloved Tory party disappears down the plughole. He’s very, very good at it.
    UFOs is my favourite of his.

    Everyone has a Sean favourite. He really was genuinely extremely funny back in the early years, maybe about 2005-2008. He used to have me in stitches.

    Last decade or so? Barely a hint of a smile. Really quite a tragic figure.
    He is. He is so bitterly anti-woke that it probably helps to understand why. Here's a guy who wrote a bestselling memoir based on male conquests of women, something which 20 years ago worked. He built a meme around it.

    But the world moved on and that kind of approach to women became totally unacceptable. It's not just #MeToo though that was the final kick in the teeth.

    He began writing under pseudonyms to cover his identity.

    I hope he finds happiness again because this embittered person raging against the dying light is not pretty.
    I toy with the idea that you are a joke created by Sean. The reference to the memoir with approximately correct date and roughly accurate summary is suspicious. On the other hand you never lapse into stylistic seanisms and I am not sure he would have the self discipline to get up early and post in character for two hours.
    Remember some us are Leon creations run by AI, so the master does not need to be awake whilst we post. He just defines our parameters and style.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 55,009
    FF43 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Three points:

    (1) We are not rejoining
    (2) We are not rejoining
    (3) It is possible we will have a closer relationship with the EU in future
    (3a) We are not rejoining

    It's about learning to live with your mistake, or in the case of half of us,learning to live with other people's mistake. Once you have eliminated your best option you start rejecting your most damaging alternatives.

    So Britain's destiny is Vassal State, I believe.. It takes a long time for people to accept that.
    It will never be "vassal state" because Britain's raw geopolitical power is equal to or surpasses the top two EU members on their level, and that will tell regardless of the formal treaty relationships that have been established.

    Were we an Ireland, Belgium or Denmark I'd agree with you.
  • FarooqFarooq Posts: 10,775

    Andy_JS said:

    Taz said:

    Taz said:
    You really ought not to encourage him.

    You do realise that all these hobby-horses are just his way of spotting squirrels while his beloved Tory party disappears down the plughole. He’s very, very good at it.
    UFOs is my favourite of his.

    Everyone has a Sean favourite. He really was genuinely extremely funny back in the early years, maybe about 2005-2008. He used to have me in stitches.

    Last decade or so? Barely a hint of a smile. Really quite a tragic figure.
    He was on here as early as that? I think I joined in 2010 or thereabouts.
    Yup, I met him back in 2005. He signed a copy of his book for me.
    ...which immediately halved in value
  • Oh God. Brexit again. I think I'd rather have fifteen more minutes of Brian Dobson on the live crib.

    I desperately hate that we left the EU, but the last thing British politics needs is to be dominated over an argument about rejoining the EU for the next couple of decades.

    If we do rejoin the single market then that isn't an incremental step to rejoining the EU. It's a dead end that the majority will be happy with, at least at first. The economic benefits, but none of the extraneous political crap. Are most people really clamouring for membership of the CAP and CFP? But the constant harping on about EU laws being imposed on Britain against its will starts up again, this time with validity. I don't see it as a stable end state, especially as all the clamour to rejoin comes from a position of weakness and lack of self-respect.

    This was the fundamental error of Britain's membership of the EU. It was a policy born of a lack of self-confidence, a determination that we couldn't cope alone and needed not to be left out. But every country would resent such an analysis, and once it had regained some self-confidence it would feel it no longer required the comfort blanket it had sought when it felt vulnerable.

    Britain will only be secure in the EU when it decides to join with self-confidence. Out of a sense of how much it can contribute and the good that it can create, and of its own self-worth. The current campaign by rejoiners to make the case for British EU membership on the basis of British weakness is therefore entirely self-defeating.

    There's a parallel here with arguments over Scottish Independence too.

    What is genuinely interesting now is that the reason for talking about it has changed. We're not fighting over the old battle, we're trying to find solutions for the current economic mess.

    The other key point here is that this is not about rejoining the EU. That's a long way off at best. This is about dismantling the stupidity that is the Boris post-Brexit settlement, none of which was required by the referendum.

    So if we want to fill billions of £££ back into the hole, we can normalise our trading relations with the EEA. Which Brexiteers screamed isn't proper Brexit. And will now have to admit has nothing to do with it.
    Good morning

    I am very much on the same page and the extreme views of leavers and remainers are tedious and do not contribute to the need for sensible settled compromise
  • FarooqFarooq Posts: 10,775
    "in a little over a decade the Tory party went from being pro Section 28 to introducing same sex marriage"

    I feel it necessary to point out that most Conservatives voted against equal marriage.
    And the government that introduced it was a Conservative/Lib Dem coalition.

    People give the Tories way too much credit for equal marriage. Cameron deserves kudos, but the party was (is?) largely bigoted.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950
    Yeah Robert went from never (x3) to nine years in pretty short order.

    Nigel didn't give up and look where it got him.
  • @rcs1000

    'The UK will not seek readmission to the EU in your or my lifetime, and even if they did (which they won't), they wouldn't take us.'

    That's about all that can be said, all that needs to be said on the subject.

    There probably isn't a bigger Europhile on this Site than me and I have zero interest in rejoining, and zero expection that it will happen.

    We have made our bed. Now we lie in it.

    I don’t share your fatalism, or Smithson Jr’s absolutism.

    It may not be so black and white as rejoin. It’ll be incremental shades of gray, perhaps, a classic British fudge. A treaty here, an agreement there, back into the single market. If not quite galloping fields of unicorns as promised, it won’t be the scorched wasteland we’re currently wandering round, shell shocked and embittered.

    If that’s the direction of travel that would make me happier than I am now. But we need a new government for that. This bunch of knee jerk ideologues, steeped in decades of anti-EUism, stoked by Johnson’s fairytale columns, can’t do it. They would rather us be poorer than give up their comforting dogma.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,741
    Ishmael_Z said:

    Heathener said:

    Taz said:

    Taz said:
    You really ought not to encourage him.

    You do realise that all these hobby-horses are just his way of spotting squirrels while his beloved Tory party disappears down the plughole. He’s very, very good at it.
    UFOs is my favourite of his.

    Everyone has a Sean favourite. He really was genuinely extremely funny back in the early years, maybe about 2005-2008. He used to have me in stitches.

    Last decade or so? Barely a hint of a smile. Really quite a tragic figure.
    He is. He is so bitterly anti-woke that it probably helps to understand why. Here's a guy who wrote a bestselling memoir based on male conquests of women, something which 20 years ago worked. He built a meme around it.

    But the world moved on and that kind of approach to women became totally unacceptable. It's not just #MeToo though that was the final kick in the teeth.

    He began writing under pseudonyms to cover his identity.

    I hope he finds happiness again because this embittered person raging against the dying light is not pretty.
    I toy with the idea that you are a joke created by Sean. The reference to the memoir with approximately correct date and roughly accurate summary is suspicious. On the other hand you never lapse into stylistic seanisms and I am not sure he would have the self discipline to get up early and post in character for two hours.
    He could only do it if he were completely sober and hadn't touched a drop the night bef...you're right, it would never happen.
  • FarooqFarooq Posts: 10,775
    edited October 2022

    There probably isn't a bigger Europhile on this Site than me and I have zero interest in rejoining

    Then you aren't the biggest Europhile on this site, because there is at least one rejoiner in your midst.
  • Jonathan said:

    Leaving the EU was considered impossible pretty much right up until we left. If rejoining feels impossible now, that’s neither a surprise nor an indication on how events will turn out.

    The thing is that all the future options from here look implausible.

    It's implausible that the UK will continue down this path given that it has minority support that's falling.

    It's implausible the EU will bother setting up an outer fringe relationship that's ultimately congenial for the UK. Once you go beyond "some sort of associate membership" to specific rights, obligations, democratic inputs and optouts, it tends to fall apart. For the same reasons we ended up here 2016-9.

    It's implausible that the UK rejoins.

    But one of those things has to happen. And as I've said before, my reading of polls since the 1970s is that Euroscepticism is predominantly the project of one specific generation- young in the 1970s, old now. It's tactless to tell them that their project is a flop and isn't likely to outlive them, but that's democracy.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,139
    edited October 2022
    Farooq said:

    "in a little over a decade the Tory party went from being pro Section 28 to introducing same sex marriage"

    I feel it necessary to point out that most Conservatives voted against equal marriage.
    And the government that introduced it was a Conservative/Lib Dem coalition.

    People give the Tories way too much credit for equal marriage. Cameron deserves kudos, but the party was (is?) largely bigoted.

    Smoking in pubs. Fracking. Judicial murder. All done after kicking and screaming about the other parties bringing in those innovations.
  • Ishmael_ZIshmael_Z Posts: 8,981

    Ishmael_Z said:

    Heathener said:

    Taz said:

    Taz said:
    You really ought not to encourage him.

    You do realise that all these hobby-horses are just his way of spotting squirrels while his beloved Tory party disappears down the plughole. He’s very, very good at it.
    UFOs is my favourite of his.

    Everyone has a Sean favourite. He really was genuinely extremely funny back in the early years, maybe about 2005-2008. He used to have me in stitches.

    Last decade or so? Barely a hint of a smile. Really quite a tragic figure.
    He is. He is so bitterly anti-woke that it probably helps to understand why. Here's a guy who wrote a bestselling memoir based on male conquests of women, something which 20 years ago worked. He built a meme around it.

    But the world moved on and that kind of approach to women became totally unacceptable. It's not just #MeToo though that was the final kick in the teeth.

    He began writing under pseudonyms to cover his identity.

    I hope he finds happiness again because this embittered person raging against the dying light is not pretty.
    I toy with the idea that you are a joke created by Sean. The reference to the memoir with approximately correct date and roughly accurate summary is suspicious. On the other hand you never lapse into stylistic seanisms and I am not sure he would have the self discipline to get up early and post in character for two hours.
    Remember some us are Leon creations run by AI, so the master does not need to be awake whilst we post. He just defines our parameters and style.
    OTOH I read a thriller by him, and everyone in it talked exactly like him.

    I put my talent into my writing, my genius I reserve for my life - o. Wilde
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,741

    Jonathan said:

    Leaving the EU was considered impossible pretty much right up until we left. If rejoining feels impossible now, that’s neither a surprise nor an indication on how events will turn out.

    The thing is that all the future options from here look implausible.

    It's implausible that the UK will continue down this path given that it has minority support that's falling.

    It's implausible the EU will bother setting up an outer fringe relationship that's ultimately congenial for the UK. Once you go beyond "some sort of associate membership" to specific rights, obligations, democratic inputs and optouts, it tends to fall apart. For the same reasons we ended up here 2016-9.

    It's implausible that the UK rejoins.

    But one of those things has to happen. And as I've said before, my reading of polls since the 1970s is that Euroscepticism is predominantly the project of one specific generation- young in the 1970s, old now. It's tactless to tell them that their project is a flop and isn't likely to outlive them, but that's democracy.
    The difference of course is the default has now flipped from 'stay in' to 'stay out.'

    So unless we take a positive decision to do 3, or the EU takes a positive decision to consider 2, it will be 1.

    You're a physicist. How important is the power of inertia?
  • Farooq said:

    There probably isn't a bigger Europhile on this Site than me and I have zero interest in rejoining

    Then you aren't the biggest Europhile on this site, because there is at least one rejoiner in your midst.
    Non-sequitur?
  • FarooqFarooq Posts: 10,775
    Carnyx said:

    Farooq said:

    "in a little over a decade the Tory party went from being pro Section 28 to introducing same sex marriage"

    I feel it necessary to point out that most Conservatives voted against equal marriage.
    And the government that introduced it was a Conservative/Lib Dem coalition.

    People give the Tories way too much credit for equal marriage. Cameron deserves kudos, but the party was (is?) largely bigoted.

    Smoking in pubs. Fracking. Judicial murder. All done after kicking and screaming about the other parties bringing in those innovations.
    Which is fine. Conservatives gonna Conservative. I don't mind people being wrong, just as long as we don't rewrite history to pretend they were right.
    Suddenly remembering some chump (Coffey?) trying to give the Conservatives credit for creating the NHS or something. But then she is a professional troll, like JRM.
  • bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 7,165
    rcs1000 said:

    Heathener said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Three points:

    (1) We are not rejoining

    [etc.]

    Repeating it doesn't make it any the more true.

    I think with respect that if you lived in the UK you'd possibly have a different perspective on this. It's a shitshow and most of us now realise it.
    Nevertheless, it is patently and obviously true.

    The UK will not seek readmission to the EU in your or my lifetime, and even if they did (which they won't), they wouldn't take us.
    While I am sympathetic to your argument, rcs1000, I think this claim depends how old you and Heathener are! A week is a long time in politics, and, say, 40 years is an eternity. I wouldn’t be making predictions that far out.

    That’s within some PBers’ lifetimes.

  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,139
    edited October 2022

    FF43 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Three points:

    (1) We are not rejoining
    (2) We are not rejoining
    (3) It is possible we will have a closer relationship with the EU in future
    (3a) We are not rejoining

    It's about learning to live with your mistake, or in the case of half of us,learning to live with other people's mistake. Once you have eliminated your best option you start rejecting your most damaging alternatives.

    So Britain's destiny is Vassal State, I believe.. It takes a long time for people to accept that.
    It will never be "vassal state" because Britain's raw geopolitical power is equal to or surpasses the top two EU members on their level, and that will tell regardless of the formal treaty relationships that have been established.

    Were we an Ireland, Belgium or Denmark I'd agree with you.
    I find that astoundingly optimistic. It might have been true 50 years ago, but compare the British armed forces with some other nations and consider the rate of change of position in the table. At the current rate of failure to replace or modernise kit the UK soon won't have a useable army. As for the navy, the Conservative obsession with a Royal Yacht was distinctly unhelpful, not least because the RY would require the almost permanent detachment of a frigate to escort it (as, for instance, the Battle-class destroyer HMS Solebay did for HMY Britannia)>
  • Oh God. Brexit again. I think I'd rather have fifteen more minutes of Brian Dobson on the live crib.

    I desperately hate that we left the EU, but the last thing British politics needs is to be dominated over an argument about rejoining the EU for the next couple of decades.

    If we do rejoin the single market then that isn't an incremental step to rejoining the EU. It's a dead end that the majority will be happy with, at least at first. The economic benefits, but none of the extraneous political crap. Are most people really clamouring for membership of the CAP and CFP? But the constant harping on about EU laws being imposed on Britain against its will starts up again, this time with validity. I don't see it as a stable end state, especially as all the clamour to rejoin comes from a position of weakness and lack of self-respect.

    This was the fundamental error of Britain's membership of the EU. It was a policy born of a lack of self-confidence, a determination that we couldn't cope alone and needed not to be left out. But every country would resent such an analysis, and once it had regained some self-confidence it would feel it no longer required the comfort blanket it had sought when it felt vulnerable.

    Britain will only be secure in the EU when it decides to join with self-confidence. Out of a sense of how much it can contribute and the good that it can create, and of its own self-worth. The current campaign by rejoiners to make the case for British EU membership on the basis of British weakness is therefore entirely self-defeating.

    There's a parallel here with arguments over Scottish Independence too.

    What is genuinely interesting now is that the reason for talking about it has changed. We're not fighting over the old battle, we're trying to find solutions for the current economic mess.

    The other key point here is that this is not about rejoining the EU. That's a long way off at best. This is about dismantling the stupidity that is the Boris post-Brexit settlement, none of which was required by the referendum.

    So if we want to fill billions of £££ back into the hole, we can normalise our trading relations with the EEA. Which Brexiteers screamed isn't proper Brexit. And will now have to admit has nothing to do with it.
    Good morning

    I am very much on the same page and the extreme views of leavers and remainers are tedious and do not contribute to the need for sensible settled compromise
    The real stupidity is English Exceptionalism. We hold all the cards. Easiest deal in history. BMW will force the EU to concede. Etc. Even Lets Go WTO where apparently we would be able to do whatever we like and the rest of the world would just accept it.

    The punishment of the Truss government was the crash and burn of this nonsense. There are rules. There are counterparties. And we can't just impose our will on them. Now that lesson has been painfully learned can we get back to doing what we're good at - inventing things and selling them around the globe? Remove the idiot trade barriers that Boris imposed on us and move on.
  • Farooq said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Taz said:

    Taz said:
    You really ought not to encourage him.

    You do realise that all these hobby-horses are just his way of spotting squirrels while his beloved Tory party disappears down the plughole. He’s very, very good at it.
    UFOs is my favourite of his.

    Everyone has a Sean favourite. He really was genuinely extremely funny back in the early years, maybe about 2005-2008. He used to have me in stitches.

    Last decade or so? Barely a hint of a smile. Really quite a tragic figure.
    He was on here as early as that? I think I joined in 2010 or thereabouts.
    Yup, I met him back in 2005. He signed a copy of his book for me.
    ...which immediately halved in value
    True, but at least I know he exists, and is not an AI creation.
This discussion has been closed.