has been mythologised as *nobody* saying that we would leave the single market, even though both Leave and Remain campaigns were clear before the referendum that this is what would happen.
Cameron knew he would have to resign, immediately, if he lost the Brexit vote (tho he denied it for obvious reasons) so I don’t think his stupid opinion counts for much, as to what he would have done “after Brexit”
Senior Brexiteers like Hannah DID say we would stay in the Single Market. I can’t remember Boris’s position, I imagine it was constructively ambiguous
On this point we disagree. Leavers knew that the vaguer they were, the more votes they would get
I agree that they tried to be constructively ambiguous about what Leave would mean, but when forced to take a position, they did commit to leaving the single market.
My point is more about the subsequent rewriting of history by people who seem to think the question was never addressed before the referendum at all, and see it as the result of some kind of 'coup' after the fact.
"There is a free trade area from the Baltic to the Atlantic, and the UK will be a member of it."
I believe those were the exact words in the Brexit leaflet.
Creatively ambiguous would be generous.
To be fair, that's sort of true and has been delivered.
So far SKS has mainly lied to his party membership, whereas Boris lied to everyone including the country. I can see that for a Labour member that's one and the same thing, but for non members like me there's a difference.
Now it's quite possible he will go on to lie to us all and not deliver on his winning manifesto, but we're not there yet.
Still, as a Lib Dem I'm very pleased to see him changing his mind on tuition fees. It means nobody can ever point the finger at us again.
If I were the Lib Dems right now id be getting on a “only party pledging to axe tuition fees” pledge ASAP.
It would be obscenely cynical. But they might as well.
I suppose these results with change once Starmer experiences the terrible backlash over hiring Sue Gray.
There's little else that people are talking about. In drivetime phone-ins in Lothian, bowling clubs in surrey, and all-night kebab shops in Islington, my first-hand experience is that people are furious.
It's going to change everything, for Sunak.
I've had exactly the same personal experience recently in the youth clubs of Builth Wells, the sushi bars of West Byfleet, and the veterinary surgeons' waiting rooms of Largs. Something is in the air.
The taverns of north London, the houseboats on the banks of the Lea, even the wilds of Epping Forest, are thick with murmur.
Graygate hangs over Starmer like a shroud. If Currygate was the squall, Graygate is the storm.
I’m sipping a martini in a wine bar on soi 8, Sukhumvit and there’s a table of Brits next to me who’ve stopped watching the Liverpool game so - no joke - they can discuss “Greygate”
One guy just said he’s flying home two weeks early to vote Tory when he’s normally Plaid Cymru, just because of Greygate. Another guy said Yeah Starmer’s Ok but Sunak looks so HEALTHY
Bet accordingly
It really makes you want to be there.
Like the tax office in Hartlepool
Soi 8 Sukhumvit is fucking brilliant. Superb restaurants and bars, full of all nationalities, and cuisines, with that intense vivacity of nightlife that only Bangkok delivers
I agree with Janan Ganesh of the FT on the greatest cities in the world - London and Bangkok - I just demur on his third choice: Los Angeles. No
That may be but it looks gopping full of old white blokes drinking Tetleys.
"sipping a martini in a wine bar" sounds très élégant. My arse.
I know you’ve not traveled much so I’ll give you a little tour
Soi 8 is magical because you get such a mix. This is Det 5, a garden bar which dates back to when these were dirt roads in the 1960s and this bar was full of American GIs on RnR. They have the photos in the bogs
Ten yards away is a chic Italian which does great food and is seriously pricey
Yet just across the road locals are cooking up their own food on a brazier
And all of this is surrounded by soaring skyscrapers with rooftop bars full hi-so Chinese Thai billionaire girls
Yes I've been to Bangkok and of all of it you've found the Troppo bar which serves Tetleys on tap.
You’ve never been to Bangkok have you? Or, if you have, it was about 30 years ago and you went to Patpong once and did the ping pong thing
Fair enough. It’s a rite of passage for every slightly dull middle class army type
The big difference between Leavers and Remainers is that Leavers are stupid and Remainers are just as stupid - see @TOPPING et al - but Remainers are haughtily convinced they are much cleverer. This, in a weird way, makes Remainers even stupider - in practise - than Leavers, who are genuinely stupid
Once you understand that, the entire farcical madness of Brexit is explicable, right down to the daily debates on here, still ongoing
Leavers or remainers may or may not be stupid.
People who don't understand that it is perfectly democratic to ask the people about a decision that you previously asked them, nor that parliaments cannot bind successive parliaments, nor that parliament is sovereign are, however, very, very stupid indeed.
You can't step into the same river twice.
2016 was a one-off fork in the road. We can't go back and change our minds, and the previous status quo isn't on offer anyway.
Any new attempt to join the EU needs to start with a party winning an election with a commitment to negotiate accession and everything that comes with it. It doesn't start with rerunning the 2016 vote.
Another Referendum is all it takes.
"Should the United Kingdom remain in no man's land or leave to join every other European country in the European Union?
Tick one box only:
Leave Remain
The government will implement whatever the majority decide."
You sound like the people who were eagerly waiting for Nicola Sturgeon to give them another referendum on Scottish independence and thought that's all it would take.
I'm saying there's no need to overthink it. Party wins a GE promising an In/Out referendum. Same as last time. The only difference is it's the insurgent IN that triggers the EU negotiation process rather than the status quo of OUT. Instead of an exit deal the mandate is to agree an entry deal. This will happen in the medium term and IN will win comfortably as the country collectively screws its head back on.
Issue one in the campaign: is a vote to rejoin a mandate to join the Euro?
Rejoin would have to say "no" in order to avoid holing their campaign below the waterline, but what if the EU doesn't recreate our opt-outs?
It's Leave (no man's land) not Rejoin. That's number 1. Then to the substantive point. So, fine, just as in all campaigns there'll be issues, questions, truth and lies. It will be for Leave to make their case and Remain (in no man's land) to make theirs.
The bottom line is as before. If the 'change' proposition prevails it then falls on the government to negotiate the best deal with the EU that it can. An entry deal this time rather than an exit one.
Will the details of the deal have to be known before the vote? Nope. Of course not. Did the details of the deal last time have to be known before the vote? I should cocoa.
The lesson of Brexit - to be taken to heart for any other EU referendum or indeed for the Sindy one when it comes - is that for the change campaign to win they must AVOID SPECIFICS.
That would be the big problem for the Rejoin campaign. It would be open to their opponents to pin all manner of charges on the Rejoiners.
And, you'd have a very bemused EU leadership thinking "Why the hell do we want to go through this, all over again?" with perhaps a very fractious set of negotiations to follow a Rejoin vote in the referendum, with the possibility of a change of government in the intervening years.
Nobody's saying it'll be a cakewalk. The fundamentals will be like last time but in reverse. Remain failed to pin Leave down on what Leave meant? Yep. Ok so maybe the same happens again on the details of our refreshed membership. Will the EU want us back if we clearly want back ourselves? I think so. I don't know for sure but neither do you or anybody else know they won't. Much will depend on the circumstances at the time and the UK/EU political leaderships in place. All of this is unknown.
And utterly fanciful. No matter how much you might want it, it isn't happening. No serious politician wants to reopen that can of worms.
And of course time is against you. The same dynamics that made Brexit necessary at the point it happened will only make it all the more difficult to rejoin.
Cut your loses and campaign for something sensible like EFTA membership. That at least has a reasonable chance of happening.
The big difference between Leavers and Remainers is that Leavers are stupid and Remainers are just as stupid - see @TOPPING et al - but Remainers are haughtily convinced they are much cleverer. This, in a weird way, makes Remainers even stupider - in practise - than Leavers, who are genuinely stupid
Once you understand that, the entire farcical madness of Brexit is explicable, right down to the daily debates on here, still ongoing
Leavers or remainers may or may not be stupid.
People who don't understand that it is perfectly democratic to ask the people about a decision that you previously asked them, nor that parliaments cannot bind successive parliaments, nor that parliament is sovereign are, however, very, very stupid indeed.
You can't step into the same river twice.
2016 was a one-off fork in the road. We can't go back and change our minds, and the previous status quo isn't on offer anyway.
Any new attempt to join the EU needs to start with a party winning an election with a commitment to negotiate accession and everything that comes with it. It doesn't start with rerunning the 2016 vote.
Another Referendum is all it takes.
"Should the United Kingdom remain in no man's land or leave to join every other European country in the European Union?
Tick one box only:
Leave Remain
The government will implement whatever the majority decide."
No - the conditions would need to be said too - otherwise when we lose the pound, are forced into the Euro, lose our central bank, pay lots more into the EU budget, have no rebate etc, then the whole shitshow starts again.
Make an honest case of the pros (trade, jobs for those who wish to work in Europe, boost to GDP etc) vs cost (being a net contributer to the budget, no check on Europeans moving to the UK). Otherwise it sets up the next 20 years of arguments.
We're talking practical politics not an exam question. For the Change proposition to win it should stay vague and simplistic and aspirational. It should also avoid engaging with difficult questions. Look at 2016. Would Leave have won if it'd been defined. Nope. And would Leave have won if there'd been a rigorous, informed and intelligent debate? Not a chance. Everybody knows this. THAT is the lesson of the EU referendum, none of this "next time we should be all elevated and thoughtful" wishcasting. That's naive or it's virtue-signalling or (when it comes from unreformed Leavers) it's pure and simple trolling.
But can't you see the issue with the BiB? Do that and you set the future argument up right there.
You also risk the EU saying "non".
EU threatening to say non might be exactly what rejoiners need. Makes membership look like a privilege worth fighting for rather than a favour Britain might deign to bestow on our continental supplicants.
Not an SKS fan. Not voting for his party. But: 1 Boris was lying to the public. Over and over. As people had their lives upended and saw their relatives died. A big deal 2 Starmer was lying to an electorate of trot entryists knowing that once he secured the leadership most would leave and thus could be discarded.
Starmer lying to you isn't the same as Boris lying to the nation.
But there's an interesting parallel with the Tory right, for whom the will of the paid up membership constitutes a "mandate". Remember Truss and her mandate to govern?
Truss had a mandate to govern as she could command a majority in the Commons. She could not secure a majority for whatever batshit policies the Tory members wanted and she had to go.
What the hard left don't get is that when they screech about "Starmer is a liar" most voters think "only to you" if they even think about it at all.
Look at the tuition fees thing. They haven't committed to maintain the current system, only that they won't just abolish fees. And yet only 28% *of students* supported the abolition of fees. So its not even that he will lose the student vote.
I was thinking of her claim that she had a mandate for slash and burn fiscal policies because that's what the membership voted for.
But yes I agree - as I said downthread, and as a Lib Dem, I really don't care if he's lied to the members especially that far out from an actual election.
I suppose these results with change once Starmer experiences the terrible backlash over hiring Sue Gray.
There's little else that people are talking about. In drivetime phone-ins in Lothian, bowling clubs in surrey, and all-night kebab shops in Islington, my first-hand experience is that people are furious.
It's going to change everything, for Sunak.
I've had exactly the same personal experience recently in the youth clubs of Builth Wells, the sushi bars of West Byfleet, and the veterinary surgeons' waiting rooms of Largs. Something is in the air.
The taverns of north London, the houseboats on the banks of the Lea, even the wilds of Epping Forest, are thick with murmur.
Graygate hangs over Starmer like a shroud. If Currygate was the squall, Graygate is the storm.
I’m sipping a martini in a wine bar on soi 8, Sukhumvit and there’s a table of Brits next to me who’ve stopped watching the Liverpool game so - no joke - they can discuss “Greygate”
One guy just said he’s flying home two weeks early to vote Tory when he’s normally Plaid Cymru, just because of Greygate. Another guy said Yeah Starmer’s Ok but Sunak looks so HEALTHY
Bet accordingly
It really makes you want to be there.
Like the tax office in Hartlepool
Soi 8 Sukhumvit is fucking brilliant. Superb restaurants and bars, full of all nationalities, and cuisines, with that intense vivacity of nightlife that only Bangkok delivers
I agree with Janan Ganesh of the FT on the greatest cities in the world - London and Bangkok - I just demur on his third choice: Los Angeles. No
That may be but it looks gopping full of old white blokes drinking Tetleys.
"sipping a martini in a wine bar" sounds très élégant. My arse.
I know you’ve not traveled much so I’ll give you a little tour
Soi 8 is magical because you get such a mix. This is Det 5, a garden bar which dates back to when these were dirt roads in the 1960s and this bar was full of American GIs on RnR. They have the photos in the bogs
Ten yards away is a chic Italian which does great food and is seriously pricey
Yet just across the road locals are cooking up their own food on a brazier
And all of this is surrounded by soaring skyscrapers with rooftop bars full hi-so Chinese Thai billionaire girls
Yes I've been to Bangkok and of all of it you've found the Troppo bar which serves Tetleys on tap.
You’ve never been to Bangkok have you? Or, if you have, it was about 30 years ago and you went to Patpong once and did the ping pong thing
Fair enough. It’s a rite of passage for every slightly dull middle class army type
Mate look at yourself. Sitting in some gopping bar listening to wistful expats opine about politics of the mother country while sipping an ice cold Stella.
And that passes as sophistication for you, now, does it.
I suppose these results with change once Starmer experiences the terrible backlash over hiring Sue Gray.
There's little else that people are talking about. In drivetime phone-ins in Lothian, bowling clubs in surrey, and all-night kebab shops in Islington, my first-hand experience is that people are furious.
It's going to change everything, for Sunak.
I've had exactly the same personal experience recently in the youth clubs of Builth Wells, the sushi bars of West Byfleet, and the veterinary surgeons' waiting rooms of Largs. Something is in the air.
The taverns of north London, the houseboats on the banks of the Lea, even the wilds of Epping Forest, are thick with murmur.
Graygate hangs over Starmer like a shroud. If Currygate was the squall, Graygate is the storm.
I’m sipping a martini in a wine bar on soi 8, Sukhumvit and there’s a table of Brits next to me who’ve stopped watching the Liverpool game so - no joke - they can discuss “Greygate”
One guy just said he’s flying home two weeks early to vote Tory when he’s normally Plaid Cymru, just because of Greygate. Another guy said Yeah Starmer’s Ok but Sunak looks so HEALTHY
Bet accordingly
It really makes you want to be there.
Like the tax office in Hartlepool
Soi 8 Sukhumvit is fucking brilliant. Superb restaurants and bars, full of all nationalities, and cuisines, with that intense vivacity of nightlife that only Bangkok delivers
I agree with Janan Ganesh of the FT on the greatest cities in the world - London and Bangkok - I just demur on his third choice: Los Angeles. No
That may be but it looks gopping full of old white blokes drinking Tetleys.
"sipping a martini in a wine bar" sounds très élégant. My arse.
I know you’ve not traveled much so I’ll give you a little tour
Soi 8 is magical because you get such a mix. This is Det 5, a garden bar which dates back to when these were dirt roads in the 1960s and this bar was full of American GIs on RnR. They have the photos in the bogs
Ten yards away is a chic Italian which does great food and is seriously pricey
Yet just across the road locals are cooking up their own food on a brazier
And all of this is surrounded by soaring skyscrapers with rooftop bars full hi-so Chinese Thai billionaire girls
Yes I've been to Bangkok and of all of it you've found the Troppo bar which serves Tetleys on tap.
You’ve never been to Bangkok have you? Or, if you have, it was about 30 years ago and you went to Patpong once and did the ping pong thing
Fair enough. It’s a rite of passage for every slightly dull middle class army type
What we need now is for Nick Palmer to slide into the chat with "I went to Bangkok once, many years ago".
I suppose these results with change once Starmer experiences the terrible backlash over hiring Sue Gray.
There's little else that people are talking about. In drivetime phone-ins in Lothian, bowling clubs in surrey, and all-night kebab shops in Islington, my first-hand experience is that people are furious.
It's going to change everything, for Sunak.
I've had exactly the same personal experience recently in the youth clubs of Builth Wells, the sushi bars of West Byfleet, and the veterinary surgeons' waiting rooms of Largs. Something is in the air.
The taverns of north London, the houseboats on the banks of the Lea, even the wilds of Epping Forest, are thick with murmur.
Graygate hangs over Starmer like a shroud. If Currygate was the squall, Graygate is the storm.
I’m sipping a martini in a wine bar on soi 8, Sukhumvit and there’s a table of Brits next to me who’ve stopped watching the Liverpool game so - no joke - they can discuss “Greygate”
One guy just said he’s flying home two weeks early to vote Tory when he’s normally Plaid Cymru, just because of Greygate. Another guy said Yeah Starmer’s Ok but Sunak looks so HEALTHY
Bet accordingly
It really makes you want to be there.
Like the tax office in Hartlepool
Soi 8 Sukhumvit is fucking brilliant. Superb restaurants and bars, full of all nationalities, and cuisines, with that intense vivacity of nightlife that only Bangkok delivers
I agree with Janan Ganesh of the FT on the greatest cities in the world - London and Bangkok - I just demur on his third choice: Los Angeles. No
That may be but it looks gopping full of old white blokes drinking Tetleys.
"sipping a martini in a wine bar" sounds très élégant. My arse.
I know you’ve not traveled much so I’ll give you a little tour
Soi 8 is magical because you get such a mix. This is Det 5, a garden bar which dates back to when these were dirt roads in the 1960s and this bar was full of American GIs on RnR. They have the photos in the bogs
Ten yards away is a chic Italian which does great food and is seriously pricey
Yet just across the road locals are cooking up their own food on a brazier
And all of this is surrounded by soaring skyscrapers with rooftop bars full hi-so Chinese Thai billionaire girls
Personally speaking, would prefer to hang with the folks at the card table, provided they'd let me.
It would be an experience, it looks like they’re drinking Mekong whisky. Ouch!
On the single market, there is a (very famous? I'm not going to try to find it) clip of all sides saying categorically that Brexit would mean the UK leaving the single market.
As @kinabalu has pointed out, relying on your constituency to be TAPS is evidently a winning strategy.
Yep. And will 'Rejoin' reject a proven winning strategy? No way jose.
"We will be in the Euro but will negotiate a special British way of being in it that gives us the efficiencies without the monetary union aspect. The Bank of England will have our back, don't you worry. We hold all the cards. They really want us back. They're just about begging."
Not an SKS fan. Not voting for his party. But: 1 Boris was lying to the public. Over and over. As people had their lives upended and saw their relatives died. A big deal 2 Starmer was lying to an electorate of trot entryists knowing that once he secured the leadership most would leave and thus could be discarded.
Starmer lying to you isn't the same as Boris lying to the nation.
But there's an interesting parallel with the Tory right, for whom the will of the paid up membership constitutes a "mandate". Remember Truss and her mandate to govern?
Truss had a mandate to govern as she could command a majority in the Commons. She could not secure a majority for whatever batshit policies the Tory members wanted and she had to go.
What the hard left don't get is that when they screech about "Starmer is a liar" most voters think "only to you" if they even think about it at all.
Look at the tuition fees thing. They haven't committed to maintain the current system, only that they won't just abolish fees. And yet only 28% *of students* supported the abolition of fees. So its not even that he will lose the student vote.
I was thinking of her claim that she had a mandate for slash and burn fiscal policies because that's what the membership voted for.
But yes I agree - as I said downthread, and as a Lib Dem, I really don't care if he's lied to the members especially that far out from an actual election.
There is this baffling arrogance of some in both of the big parties that what they think is what all right-thinking people think. Truss thought that what the members said was what parliament and the markets must just accept. Nope. Same as mostly ex-Labour trot entryists aggrieved that a party they aren't voting for is refusing to just accept their wishes. Nope.
I suppose these results with change once Starmer experiences the terrible backlash over hiring Sue Gray.
There's little else that people are talking about. In drivetime phone-ins in Lothian, bowling clubs in surrey, and all-night kebab shops in Islington, my first-hand experience is that people are furious.
It's going to change everything, for Sunak.
I've had exactly the same personal experience recently in the youth clubs of Builth Wells, the sushi bars of West Byfleet, and the veterinary surgeons' waiting rooms of Largs. Something is in the air.
The taverns of north London, the houseboats on the banks of the Lea, even the wilds of Epping Forest, are thick with murmur.
Graygate hangs over Starmer like a shroud. If Currygate was the squall, Graygate is the storm.
I’m sipping a martini in a wine bar on soi 8, Sukhumvit and there’s a table of Brits next to me who’ve stopped watching the Liverpool game so - no joke - they can discuss “Greygate”
One guy just said he’s flying home two weeks early to vote Tory when he’s normally Plaid Cymru, just because of Greygate. Another guy said Yeah Starmer’s Ok but Sunak looks so HEALTHY
Bet accordingly
It really makes you want to be there.
Like the tax office in Hartlepool
Soi 8 Sukhumvit is fucking brilliant. Superb restaurants and bars, full of all nationalities, and cuisines, with that intense vivacity of nightlife that only Bangkok delivers
I agree with Janan Ganesh of the FT on the greatest cities in the world - London and Bangkok - I just demur on his third choice: Los Angeles. No
That may be but it looks gopping full of old white blokes drinking Tetleys.
"sipping a martini in a wine bar" sounds très élégant. My arse.
I know you’ve not traveled much so I’ll give you a little tour
Soi 8 is magical because you get such a mix. This is Det 5, a garden bar which dates back to when these were dirt roads in the 1960s and this bar was full of American GIs on RnR. They have the photos in the bogs
Ten yards away is a chic Italian which does great food and is seriously pricey
Yet just across the road locals are cooking up their own food on a brazier
And all of this is surrounded by soaring skyscrapers with rooftop bars full hi-so Chinese Thai billionaire girls
Yes I've been to Bangkok and of all of it you've found the Troppo bar which serves Tetleys on tap.
You’ve never been to Bangkok have you? Or, if you have, it was about 30 years ago and you went to Patpong once and did the ping pong thing
Fair enough. It’s a rite of passage for every slightly dull middle class army type
Mate look at yourself. Sitting in some gopping bar listening to wistful expats opine about politics of the mother country while sipping an ice cold Stella.
And that passes as sophistication for you, now, does it.
Amazingly - though this seems to have passed you by - when I said
“ there’s a table of Brits next to me who’ve stopped watching the Liverpool game so - no joke - they can discuss “Greygate”
One guy just said he’s flying home two weeks early to vote Tory when he’s normally Plaid Cymru, just because of Greygate. Another guy said Yeah Starmer’s Ok but Sunak looks so HEALTHY”
…. I was joking. Did you not detect that? Or did you honestly believe there were Brits discussing Graygate and their Plaid Cymru vote and the relative healthiness of the UK prime minister?
I know I correctly labeled you as a “stupid Remainer” earlier on, and this has clearly irked you, but you don’t have to toil away proving me right, with every single comment hereafter
A generation to undo the damage caused by the selfish few.
52%
Hardly “the few”
53%, actually. Versus the 33% who still think it a good idea.
I'll put you down as one of the don't knows.
I agree. These numbers are starkly in favour of Shit, Brexit is crap, let’s go back.
I personally know several Brexit voters who regret their vote
I suspect a lot of if it just because Brexit unfortunately collided with a plague and then a massive war so it’s all turned out worse, and felt worse, than it might have done otherwise, nonetheless the numbers are the numbers and there SHOULD be a serious party campaigning for a new referendum and Rejoin, in the next GE, as it is clearly the wish of millions of people
I can’t for the life of me understand why the Lib Dems aren’t seizing this position and making it their territory. What is the point of them otherwise?
I get why Starmer can’t quite be so courageous but if Labour at some point take up this stance then good luck to them
We Brexited, democratically, and if the British people decide to reverse that in another vote, so be it. Fair enough. That’s what makes us different from the EU (and to my mind democratically superior) - WE DO NOT IGNORE OR OVERRULE REFERENDUMS
It doesn't matter now. It's not in the gift of any British government to reverse Brexit. Why would Starmer, or any other PM, wish to spend years negotiating terms of accession with the EU, when a referendum on rejoining might well be lost, and when the EU wouldn't want a lukewarm member anyway?
The moving hand hath writ.
I don't want it but I think it depends on the EU.
If they really wanted Britain back the smart thing for them to do would be to offer previous terms, with Cameron's deal, plus the end of the rebate, and hugely accelerate the reaccession process. I.e. also with an ever closer union cop out clause and the Maastricht exemption on the Euro back in but you pay more because fuck up and we need it - sorry. Otherwise we'd vote it down.
But, they've never shown themselves to be that flexible. So I expect them to say standard terms, take it or leave it sister.
The alternative pro EU approach is lots and lots of side deals that progressively approach an asymptote of where our previous membership roughly was anyway, with payments, freer movement, and lots of "informal" consultation in future that reflects the real-politik. EPU++++
If they had, we wouldn't be here.
I think you (and @Leon) are right here: we won't rejoin the EU. But we will, over the years, get closer to it. There will be little deals here, and little deals there, that mean that (for example) Rule of Origin don't apply to British car exports to the Continent. And there'll be visa fast tracking. And there'll be cooperation on policing and intellectual property. And there'll be some common standards bodies. And there'll be double taxation treaties.
And we'll end up, not quite as close as Switzerland, and never in an absolutely fixed position (because we'll always be negotiating something), but closer than now.
The big difference between Leavers and Remainers is that Leavers are stupid and Remainers are just as stupid - see @TOPPING et al - but Remainers are haughtily convinced they are much cleverer. This, in a weird way, makes Remainers even stupider - in practise - than Leavers, who are genuinely stupid
Once you understand that, the entire farcical madness of Brexit is explicable, right down to the daily debates on here, still ongoing
Leavers or remainers may or may not be stupid.
People who don't understand that it is perfectly democratic to ask the people about a decision that you previously asked them, nor that parliaments cannot bind successive parliaments, nor that parliament is sovereign are, however, very, very stupid indeed.
You can't step into the same river twice.
2016 was a one-off fork in the road. We can't go back and change our minds, and the previous status quo isn't on offer anyway.
Any new attempt to join the EU needs to start with a party winning an election with a commitment to negotiate accession and everything that comes with it. It doesn't start with rerunning the 2016 vote.
The absolute madness of the Euroref 2nd voters can be revealed if you simply game out what would have happened if, say, the Scots had voted YES in 2014 then a bunch of YOON politicians had said Nah, that’s a stupid decision, we’re gonna make Scotland vote again, without even enacting independence in the first place
A small but significant number of Nats would have realised that British/Scottish democracy was a sham, and could never deliver Indy, and they would have turned to violence. Scotland would have become Ireland in 1916-1920
Would the Brits have done the same if the Brexit vote had been overruled and a 2nd vote ordered, without us Brexiting? Probably, possibly, who knows - remember there was violence before the first Brexit vote: an MP was killed
Even if civil strife had been averted, millions of Leave voters would have boycotted the 2nd vote, correctly assuming that the whole thing was a fix, and their will would never be honoured, and democracy was a lie, and what’s the fucking point. Turnout in future elections would have plunged. Basically it would have shattered British democracy for a generation, maybe forever. Utter utter madness
That’s what I mean when I say hardcore Remainers weren’t just stupid, like Leavers, they were dangerously stupid because they thought their ludicrous shenanigans were “clever”
The madness was attempting to have a second vote before the first was implemented.
A second vote is entirely possible now to my mind, precisely because we've left.
The hardcore remainer scenario was the equivalent of say Corbyn winning the GE and then proceeding to have a 'confirmatory vote' before he ever stepped into office. The equivalent now would be to have a vote after say 4 or 5 years of him having been in office (Say he'd won GE19) which of course is completely democratic.
The key for me is that Brexit has happened as an event. Which makes a vote to rejoin now perfectly democratic. A vote prior to leaving properly (Which was 31st January 2020) would have been unconscionable.
Political reality is it's not going to happen for a while now, but democratically anything after 31st Jan 2020 to rejoin is/was fine.
Yes, of course
We have now brexited. The vote is honoured. British democracy works. It sticks to promises made by the prime minister, no less. Your Vote Will Count. This Is It. So it is still worth voting in future elections and referendums because it makes a difference. it matters. YOU, the voter, YOU MATTER
Now we’ve done that, Remainers/Rejoiners are free to start campaigning for an immediate 2nd referendum to go straight back in. Heck, if they are persuasive enough, I might even vote for them
But we HAD to honour the first vote. Anything else was insane self harm and would have sent us to a terrible place
Rejoin (as in a full rejoin of the EU) is going to become like the Death Penalty. Even if there are consistent polling majorities in favour, no mainstream political party, knowing what a shit show it would cause, is going to be dumb enough to suggest it.
I think you're right but there will be other long term consequences. The most obvious is the slow death of the Conservative Party. The damage they've caused will become ever more apparent-God Knows it's bad enough already-and the public led by the young will over time vent their spleen in the only direction available.
The death of the Conservative party is long overdue anyway - as is the death of the Labour party. Sadly I think both will be around long after you and I have shuffled off but such a fate, were it to happen should be something top look forward to rather than fear.
And the young are always vebting their spleen. FOr all the good it ever does them.
I suppose these results with change once Starmer experiences the terrible backlash over hiring Sue Gray.
There's little else that people are talking about. In drivetime phone-ins in Lothian, bowling clubs in surrey, and all-night kebab shops in Islington, my first-hand experience is that people are furious.
It's going to change everything, for Sunak.
I've had exactly the same personal experience recently in the youth clubs of Builth Wells, the sushi bars of West Byfleet, and the veterinary surgeons' waiting rooms of Largs. Something is in the air.
The taverns of north London, the houseboats on the banks of the Lea, even the wilds of Epping Forest, are thick with murmur.
Graygate hangs over Starmer like a shroud. If Currygate was the squall, Graygate is the storm.
I’m sipping a martini in a wine bar on soi 8, Sukhumvit and there’s a table of Brits next to me who’ve stopped watching the Liverpool game so - no joke - they can discuss “Greygate”
One guy just said he’s flying home two weeks early to vote Tory when he’s normally Plaid Cymru, just because of Greygate. Another guy said Yeah Starmer’s Ok but Sunak looks so HEALTHY
Bet accordingly
What dId the Albanian taxi drivers at the other table say?
If anyone needs an up to date guide on where to go in Bangkok RIGHT NOW, I heartily recommend this piece by much missed exPBer @SeanT, who was recently given the arduous assignment of visiting all the best new restaurants and bars, right across the city
I suppose these results with change once Starmer experiences the terrible backlash over hiring Sue Gray.
There's little else that people are talking about. In drivetime phone-ins in Lothian, bowling clubs in surrey, and all-night kebab shops in Islington, my first-hand experience is that people are furious.
It's going to change everything, for Sunak.
I've had exactly the same personal experience recently in the youth clubs of Builth Wells, the sushi bars of West Byfleet, and the veterinary surgeons' waiting rooms of Largs. Something is in the air.
The taverns of north London, the houseboats on the banks of the Lea, even the wilds of Epping Forest, are thick with murmur.
Graygate hangs over Starmer like a shroud. If Currygate was the squall, Graygate is the storm.
I’m sipping a martini in a wine bar on soi 8, Sukhumvit and there’s a table of Brits next to me who’ve stopped watching the Liverpool game so - no joke - they can discuss “Greygate”
One guy just said he’s flying home two weeks early to vote Tory when he’s normally Plaid Cymru, just because of Greygate. Another guy said Yeah Starmer’s Ok but Sunak looks so HEALTHY
Bet accordingly
It really makes you want to be there.
Like the tax office in Hartlepool
Soi 8 Sukhumvit is fucking brilliant. Superb restaurants and bars, full of all nationalities, and cuisines, with that intense vivacity of nightlife that only Bangkok delivers
I agree with Janan Ganesh of the FT on the greatest cities in the world - London and Bangkok - I just demur on his third choice: Los Angeles. No
That may be but it looks gopping full of old white blokes drinking Tetleys.
"sipping a martini in a wine bar" sounds très élégant. My arse.
I know you’ve not traveled much so I’ll give you a little tour
Soi 8 is magical because you get such a mix. This is Det 5, a garden bar which dates back to when these were dirt roads in the 1960s and this bar was full of American GIs on RnR. They have the photos in the bogs
Ten yards away is a chic Italian which does great food and is seriously pricey
Yet just across the road locals are cooking up their own food on a brazier
And all of this is surrounded by soaring skyscrapers with rooftop bars full hi-so Chinese Thai billionaire girls
Yes I've been to Bangkok and of all of it you've found the Troppo bar which serves Tetleys on tap.
You’ve never been to Bangkok have you? Or, if you have, it was about 30 years ago and you went to Patpong once and did the ping pong thing
Fair enough. It’s a rite of passage for every slightly dull middle class army type
Mate look at yourself. Sitting in some gopping bar listening to wistful expats opine about politics of the mother country while sipping an ice cold Stella.
And that passes as sophistication for you, now, does it.
Amazingly - though this seems to have passed you by - when I said
“ there’s a table of Brits next to me who’ve stopped watching the Liverpool game so - no joke - they can discuss “Greygate”
One guy just said he’s flying home two weeks early to vote Tory when he’s normally Plaid Cymru, just because of Greygate. Another guy said Yeah Starmer’s Ok but Sunak looks so HEALTHY”
…. I was joking. Did you not detect that? Or did you honestly believe there were Brits discussing Graygate and their Plaid Cymru vote and the relative healthiness of the UK prime minister?
I know I correctly labeled you as a “stupid Remainer” earlier on, and this has clearly irked you, but you don’t have to toil away proving me right, with every single comment hereafter
You really are having a 'mare here. You are in a bar with sad old ex-pats. Drinking Stella. It doesn't matter what they are talking about but sad old ex-pats tend to opine about the mother country and perhaps they are there to watch the English footie and you are in that bar with them "sipping martinis" and trying to make out, posting to a UK-based internet chat room, that I am the stupid one and that is what makes you sad also.
I suppose these results with change once Starmer experiences the terrible backlash over hiring Sue Gray.
There's little else that people are talking about. In drivetime phone-ins in Lothian, bowling clubs in surrey, and all-night kebab shops in Islington, my first-hand experience is that people are furious.
It's going to change everything, for Sunak.
I've had exactly the same personal experience recently in the youth clubs of Builth Wells, the sushi bars of West Byfleet, and the veterinary surgeons' waiting rooms of Largs. Something is in the air.
The taverns of north London, the houseboats on the banks of the Lea, even the wilds of Epping Forest, are thick with murmur.
Graygate hangs over Starmer like a shroud. If Currygate was the squall, Graygate is the storm.
I’m sipping a martini in a wine bar on soi 8, Sukhumvit and there’s a table of Brits next to me who’ve stopped watching the Liverpool game so - no joke - they can discuss “Greygate”
One guy just said he’s flying home two weeks early to vote Tory when he’s normally Plaid Cymru, just because of Greygate. Another guy said Yeah Starmer’s Ok but Sunak looks so HEALTHY
Bet accordingly
It really makes you want to be there.
Like the tax office in Hartlepool
Soi 8 Sukhumvit is fucking brilliant. Superb restaurants and bars, full of all nationalities, and cuisines, with that intense vivacity of nightlife that only Bangkok delivers
I agree with Janan Ganesh of the FT on the greatest cities in the world - London and Bangkok - I just demur on his third choice: Los Angeles. No
That may be but it looks gopping full of old white blokes drinking Tetleys.
"sipping a martini in a wine bar" sounds très élégant. My arse.
I know you’ve not traveled much so I’ll give you a little tour
Soi 8 is magical because you get such a mix. This is Det 5, a garden bar which dates back to when these were dirt roads in the 1960s and this bar was full of American GIs on RnR. They have the photos in the bogs
Ten yards away is a chic Italian which does great food and is seriously pricey
Yet just across the road locals are cooking up their own food on a brazier
And all of this is surrounded by soaring skyscrapers with rooftop bars full hi-so Chinese Thai billionaire girls
Personally speaking, would prefer to hang with the folks at the card table, provided they'd let me.
Here you go. Soi 8 Arrondissement 13.....Leon and chum
I suppose these results with change once Starmer experiences the terrible backlash over hiring Sue Gray.
There's little else that people are talking about. In drivetime phone-ins in Lothian, bowling clubs in surrey, and all-night kebab shops in Islington, my first-hand experience is that people are furious.
It's going to change everything, for Sunak.
I've had exactly the same personal experience recently in the youth clubs of Builth Wells, the sushi bars of West Byfleet, and the veterinary surgeons' waiting rooms of Largs. Something is in the air.
The taverns of north London, the houseboats on the banks of the Lea, even the wilds of Epping Forest, are thick with murmur.
Graygate hangs over Starmer like a shroud. If Currygate was the squall, Graygate is the storm.
I’m sipping a martini in a wine bar on soi 8, Sukhumvit and there’s a table of Brits next to me who’ve stopped watching the Liverpool game so - no joke - they can discuss “Greygate”
One guy just said he’s flying home two weeks early to vote Tory when he’s normally Plaid Cymru, just because of Greygate. Another guy said Yeah Starmer’s Ok but Sunak looks so HEALTHY
Bet accordingly
It really makes you want to be there.
Like the tax office in Hartlepool
Soi 8 Sukhumvit is fucking brilliant. Superb restaurants and bars, full of all nationalities, and cuisines, with that intense vivacity of nightlife that only Bangkok delivers
I agree with Janan Ganesh of the FT on the greatest cities in the world - London and Bangkok - I just demur on his third choice: Los Angeles. No
That may be but it looks gopping full of old white blokes drinking Tetleys.
"sipping a martini in a wine bar" sounds très élégant. My arse.
I know you’ve not traveled much so I’ll give you a little tour
Soi 8 is magical because you get such a mix. This is Det 5, a garden bar which dates back to when these were dirt roads in the 1960s and this bar was full of American GIs on RnR. They have the photos in the bogs
Ten yards away is a chic Italian which does great food and is seriously pricey
Yet just across the road locals are cooking up their own food on a brazier
And all of this is surrounded by soaring skyscrapers with rooftop bars full hi-so Chinese Thai billionaire girls
Yes I've been to Bangkok and of all of it you've found the Troppo bar which serves Tetleys on tap.
You’ve never been to Bangkok have you? Or, if you have, it was about 30 years ago and you went to Patpong once and did the ping pong thing
Fair enough. It’s a rite of passage for every slightly dull middle class army type
Mate look at yourself. Sitting in some gopping bar listening to wistful expats opine about politics of the mother country while sipping an ice cold Stella.
And that passes as sophistication for you, now, does it.
Amazingly - though this seems to have passed you by - when I said
“ there’s a table of Brits next to me who’ve stopped watching the Liverpool game so - no joke - they can discuss “Greygate”
One guy just said he’s flying home two weeks early to vote Tory when he’s normally Plaid Cymru, just because of Greygate. Another guy said Yeah Starmer’s Ok but Sunak looks so HEALTHY”
…. I was joking. Did you not detect that? Or did you honestly believe there were Brits discussing Graygate and their Plaid Cymru vote and the relative healthiness of the UK prime minister?
I know I correctly labeled you as a “stupid Remainer” earlier on, and this has clearly irked you, but you don’t have to toil away proving me right, with every single comment hereafter
You really are having a 'mare here. You are in a bar with sad old ex-pats. Drinking Stella. It doesn't matter what they are talking about but sad old ex-pats tend to opine about the mother country and perhaps they are there to watch the English footie and you are in that bar with them "sipping martinis" and trying to make out, posting to a UK-based internet chat room, that I am the stupid one and that is what makes you sad also.
If anyone needs an up to date guide on where to go in Bangkok RIGHT NOW, I heartily recommend this piece by much missed exPBer @SeanT, who was recently given the arduous assignment of visiting all the best new restaurants and bars, right across the city
I’d argue the problem is too much attempted determinism from Westminster.
A little while ago, a friend put the idea of subsidy-on-delivery for Green tech investment to their local MP. As in, say pay X per actual battery cell delivered to a customer, with X a function of U.K. content/work.
The response (from an opposition MP) was that would be a ghastly abdication of the responsibility of government to direct spending in detail.
You need to be slightly careful with arrangements like that, because they almost certainly breach our FTA obligations.
The big difference between Leavers and Remainers is that Leavers are stupid and Remainers are just as stupid - see @TOPPING et al - but Remainers are haughtily convinced they are much cleverer. This, in a weird way, makes Remainers even stupider - in practise - than Leavers, who are genuinely stupid
Once you understand that, the entire farcical madness of Brexit is explicable, right down to the daily debates on here, still ongoing
Leavers or remainers may or may not be stupid.
People who don't understand that it is perfectly democratic to ask the people about a decision that you previously asked them, nor that parliaments cannot bind successive parliaments, nor that parliament is sovereign are, however, very, very stupid indeed.
You can't step into the same river twice.
2016 was a one-off fork in the road. We can't go back and change our minds, and the previous status quo isn't on offer anyway.
Any new attempt to join the EU needs to start with a party winning an election with a commitment to negotiate accession and everything that comes with it. It doesn't start with rerunning the 2016 vote.
Another Referendum is all it takes.
"Should the United Kingdom remain in no man's land or leave to join every other European country in the European Union?
Tick one box only:
Leave Remain
The government will implement whatever the majority decide."
You sound like the people who were eagerly waiting for Nicola Sturgeon to give them another referendum on Scottish independence and thought that's all it would take.
I'm saying there's no need to overthink it. Party wins a GE promising an In/Out referendum. Same as last time. The only difference is it's the insurgent IN that triggers the EU negotiation process rather than the status quo of OUT. Instead of an exit deal the mandate is to agree an entry deal. This will happen in the medium term and IN will win comfortably as the country collectively screws its head back on.
Issue one in the campaign: is a vote to rejoin a mandate to join the Euro?
Rejoin would have to say "no" in order to avoid holing their campaign below the waterline, but what if the EU doesn't recreate our opt-outs?
It's Leave (no man's land) not Rejoin. That's number 1. Then to the substantive point. So, fine, just as in all campaigns there'll be issues, questions, truth and lies. It will be for Leave to make their case and Remain (in no man's land) to make theirs.
The bottom line is as before. If the 'change' proposition prevails it then falls on the government to negotiate the best deal with the EU that it can. An entry deal this time rather than an exit one.
Will the details of the deal have to be known before the vote? Nope. Of course not. Did the details of the deal last time have to be known before the vote? I should cocoa.
The lesson of Brexit - to be taken to heart for any other EU referendum or indeed for the Sindy one when it comes - is that for the change campaign to win they must AVOID SPECIFICS.
That would be the big problem for the Rejoin campaign. It would be open to their opponents to pin all manner of charges on the Rejoiners.
And, you'd have a very bemused EU leadership thinking "Why the hell do we want to go through this, all over again?" with perhaps a very fractious set of negotiations to follow a Rejoin vote in the referendum, with the possibility of a change of government in the intervening years.
Nobody's saying it'll be a cakewalk. The fundamentals will be like last time but in reverse. Remain failed to pin Leave down on what Leave meant? Yep. Ok so maybe the same happens again on the details of our refreshed membership. Will the EU want us back if we clearly want back ourselves? I think so. I don't know for sure but neither do you or anybody else know they won't. Much will depend on the circumstances at the time and the UK/EU political leaderships in place. All of this is unknown.
And utterly fanciful. No matter how much you might want it, it isn't happening. No serious politician wants to reopen that can of worms.
And of course time is against you. The same dynamics that made Brexit necessary at the point it happened will only make it all the more difficult to rejoin.
Cut your loses and campaign for something sensible like EFTA membership. That at least has a reasonable chance of happening.
I don't want it. The 1st Referendum was bad enough. It was a damaging event and experience. I don't want to even think about repeating it. What's that old definition of 'insanity' again?
I'm just making a couple of observations.
(1) People saying there's no chance of us rejoining have little clue how the next 5 years will pan out let alone the next 20.
(2) IF another Referendum happens - and pls god no - don't go assuming Rejoin will have to be defined the way that Leave wasn't. That is deeply arguable.
I suppose these results with change once Starmer experiences the terrible backlash over hiring Sue Gray.
There's little else that people are talking about. In drivetime phone-ins in Lothian, bowling clubs in surrey, and all-night kebab shops in Islington, my first-hand experience is that people are furious.
It's going to change everything, for Sunak.
I've had exactly the same personal experience recently in the youth clubs of Builth Wells, the sushi bars of West Byfleet, and the veterinary surgeons' waiting rooms of Largs. Something is in the air.
The taverns of north London, the houseboats on the banks of the Lea, even the wilds of Epping Forest, are thick with murmur.
Graygate hangs over Starmer like a shroud. If Currygate was the squall, Graygate is the storm.
I’m sipping a martini in a wine bar on soi 8, Sukhumvit and there’s a table of Brits next to me who’ve stopped watching the Liverpool game so - no joke - they can discuss “Greygate”
One guy just said he’s flying home two weeks early to vote Tory when he’s normally Plaid Cymru, just because of Greygate. Another guy said Yeah Starmer’s Ok but Sunak looks so HEALTHY
Bet accordingly
Once the mail order brides have been collected is there any point in staying on?
These two unwillingly and against their members vote, so continuing the campaign for the next pay round, no doubt wanting to make up for the real terms pay cut.
The big difference between Leavers and Remainers is that Leavers are stupid and Remainers are just as stupid - see @TOPPING et al - but Remainers are haughtily convinced they are much cleverer. This, in a weird way, makes Remainers even stupider - in practise - than Leavers, who are genuinely stupid
Once you understand that, the entire farcical madness of Brexit is explicable, right down to the daily debates on here, still ongoing
Leavers or remainers may or may not be stupid.
People who don't understand that it is perfectly democratic to ask the people about a decision that you previously asked them, nor that parliaments cannot bind successive parliaments, nor that parliament is sovereign are, however, very, very stupid indeed.
You can't step into the same river twice.
2016 was a one-off fork in the road. We can't go back and change our minds, and the previous status quo isn't on offer anyway.
Any new attempt to join the EU needs to start with a party winning an election with a commitment to negotiate accession and everything that comes with it. It doesn't start with rerunning the 2016 vote.
Another Referendum is all it takes.
"Should the United Kingdom remain in no man's land or leave to join every other European country in the European Union?
Tick one box only:
Leave Remain
The government will implement whatever the majority decide."
No - the conditions would need to be said too - otherwise when we lose the pound, are forced into the Euro, lose our central bank, pay lots more into the EU budget, have no rebate etc, then the whole shitshow starts again.
Make an honest case of the pros (trade, jobs for those who wish to work in Europe, boost to GDP etc) vs cost (being a net contributer to the budget, no check on Europeans moving to the UK). Otherwise it sets up the next 20 years of arguments.
We're talking practical politics not an exam question.. It should also avoid engaging with difficult questions. Look at 2016. Would Leave have won if it'd been defined. Nope. And would Leave have won if there'd been a rigorous, informed and intelligent debate? Not a chance. Everybody knows this. THAT is the lesson of the EU referendum, none of this "next time we should be all elevated and thoughtful" wishcasting. That's naive or it's virtue-signalling or (when it comes from unreformed Leavers) it's pure and simple trolling.
The big difference between Leavers and Remainers is that Leavers are stupid and Remainers are just as stupid - see @TOPPING et al - but Remainers are haughtily convinced they are much cleverer. This, in a weird way, makes Remainers even stupider - in practise - than Leavers, who are genuinely stupid
Once you understand that, the entire farcical madness of Brexit is explicable, right down to the daily debates on here, still ongoing
Leavers or remainers may or may not be stupid.
People who don't understand that it is perfectly democratic to ask the people about a decision that you previously asked them, nor that parliaments cannot bind successive parliaments, nor that parliament is sovereign are, however, very, very stupid indeed.
You can't step into the same river twice.
2016 was a one-off fork in the road. We can't go back and change our minds, and the previous status quo isn't on offer anyway.
Any new attempt to join the EU needs to start with a party winning an election with a commitment to negotiate accession and everything that comes with it. It doesn't start with rerunning the 2016 vote.
Another Referendum is all it takes.
"Should the United Kingdom remain in no man's land or leave to join every other European country in the European Union?
Tick one box only:
Leave Remain
The government will implement whatever the majority decide."
No - the conditions would need to be said too - otherwise when we lose the pound, are forced into the Euro, lose our central bank, pay lots more into the EU budget, have no rebate etc, then the whole shitshow starts again.
Make an honest case of the pros (trade, jobs for those who wish to work in Europe, boost to GDP etc) vs cost (being a net contributer to the budget, no check on Europeans moving to the UK). Otherwise it sets up the next 20 years of arguments.
We're talking practical politics not an exam question. For the Change proposition to win it should stay vague and simplistic and aspirational. It should also avoid engaging with difficult questions. Look at 2016. Would Leave have won if it'd been defined. Nope. And would Leave have won if there'd been a rigorous, informed and intelligent debate? Not a chance. Everybody knows this. THAT is the lesson of the EU referendum, none of this "next time we should be all elevated and thoughtful" wishcasting. That's naive or it's virtue-signalling or (when it comes from unreformed Leavers) it's pure and simple trolling.
But can't you see the issue with the BiB? Do that and you set the future argument up right there.
You also risk the EU saying "non".
They won't say 'non', but they may say 'sorry, the price has increased on last time'
All part of the negotiations. Nothing is agreed until everything is agreed. No Deal is better than ... ah no, we can't have that one for our reentry. Then again it was never a real world possibility for our exit either. Slogan only. I'm sure Rejoin can come up with some equivalent chuntering drivel.
These two unwillingly and against their members vote, so continuing the campaign for the next pay round, no doubt wanting to make up for the real terms pay cut.
Hang on.
"The next pay round" - when is this? If it hasn't happened yet then surely there is no extant industrial dispute in which inflicting pain on the innocent public by choosing to go on strike can be justified?
The big difference between Leavers and Remainers is that Leavers are stupid and Remainers are just as stupid - see @TOPPING et al - but Remainers are haughtily convinced they are much cleverer. This, in a weird way, makes Remainers even stupider - in practise - than Leavers, who are genuinely stupid
Once you understand that, the entire farcical madness of Brexit is explicable, right down to the daily debates on here, still ongoing
Leavers or remainers may or may not be stupid.
People who don't understand that it is perfectly democratic to ask the people about a decision that you previously asked them, nor that parliaments cannot bind successive parliaments, nor that parliament is sovereign are, however, very, very stupid indeed.
You can't step into the same river twice.
2016 was a one-off fork in the road. We can't go back and change our minds, and the previous status quo isn't on offer anyway.
Any new attempt to join the EU needs to start with a party winning an election with a commitment to negotiate accession and everything that comes with it. It doesn't start with rerunning the 2016 vote.
The absolute madness of the Euroref 2nd voters can be revealed if you simply game out what would have happened if, say, the Scots had voted YES in 2014 then a bunch of YOON politicians had said Nah, that’s a stupid decision, we’re gonna make Scotland vote again, without even enacting independence in the first place
A small but significant number of Nats would have realised that British/Scottish democracy was a sham, and could never deliver Indy, and they would have turned to violence. Scotland would have become Ireland in 1916-1920
Would the Brits have done the same if the Brexit vote had been overruled and a 2nd vote ordered, without us Brexiting? Probably, possibly, who knows - remember there was violence before the first Brexit vote: an MP was killed
Even if civil strife had been averted, millions of Leave voters would have boycotted the 2nd vote, correctly assuming that the whole thing was a fix, and their will would never be honoured, and democracy was a lie, and what’s the fucking point. Turnout in future elections would have plunged. Basically it would have shattered British democracy for a generation, maybe forever. Utter utter madness
That’s what I mean when I say hardcore Remainers weren’t just stupid, like Leavers, they were dangerously stupid because they thought their ludicrous shenanigans were “clever”
The madness was attempting to have a second vote before the first was implemented.
A second vote is entirely possible now to my mind, precisely because we've left.
The hardcore remainer scenario was the equivalent of say Corbyn winning the GE and then proceeding to have a 'confirmatory vote' before he ever stepped into office. The equivalent now would be to have a vote after say 4 or 5 years of him having been in office (Say he'd won GE19) which of course is completely democratic.
The key for me is that Brexit has happened as an event. Which makes a vote to rejoin now perfectly democratic. A vote prior to leaving properly (Which was 31st January 2020) would have been unconscionable.
Political reality is it's not going to happen for a while now, but democratically anything after 31st Jan 2020 to rejoin is/was fine.
Yes, of course
We have now brexited. The vote is honoured. British democracy works. It sticks to promises made by the prime minister, no less. Your Vote Will Count. This Is It. So it is still worth voting in future elections and referendums because it makes a difference. it matters. YOU, the voter, YOU MATTER
Now we’ve done that, Remainers/Rejoiners are free to start campaigning for an immediate 2nd referendum to go straight back in. Heck, if they are persuasive enough, I might even vote for them
But we HAD to honour the first vote. Anything else was insane self harm and would have sent us to a terrible place
Rejoin (as in a full rejoin of the EU) is going to become like the Death Penalty. Even if there are consistent polling majorities in favour, no mainstream political party, knowing what a shit show it would cause, is going to be dumb enough to suggest it.
I think you're right but there will be other long term consequences. The most obvious is the slow death of the Conservative Party. The damage they've caused will become ever more apparent-God Knows it's bad enough already-and the public led by the young will over time vent their spleen in the only direction available.
If the Conservatives die, they'll simply be replaced by another right wing party.
A prominent member of the England Athletics board has been banned from holding such a position for three years after suggesting that black athletes make good sprinters because they have to flee the burglaries they commit.
Julian Starkey was the chairman of the governing body’s England Council as well as a director on the board when he made the “shocking” and “totally unacceptable” comment at an event run by Sporting Equals, which promotes ethnic diversity across sport, in November last year.
A witness alleged that Starkey, who has also been suspended from coaching for two years, said the following or similar words: “Usually when athletes start to be more specific in events, most black athletes tend to edge towards sprinting and hurdling . . . the blacks are all good at running because they have to get away from their burglaries.”
Starkey, who has also served as secretary of Bracknell Athletics Club, admitted to an independent UK Athletics disciplinary panel that he had made the comment, blaming mental health issues while claiming there had been “a gap between the first and second sentences”. His defence, however, was dismissed.
The 62-year-old resigned from his non-executive roles at England Athletics in December but it was only last month that the details of his case were published on the latest UKA sanctions list.
A generation to undo the damage caused by the selfish few.
52%
Hardly “the few”
53%, actually. Versus the 33% who still think it a good idea.
I'll put you down as one of the don't knows.
I agree. These numbers are starkly in favour of Shit, Brexit is crap, let’s go back.
I personally know several Brexit voters who regret their vote
I suspect a lot of if it just because Brexit unfortunately collided with a plague and then a massive war so it’s all turned out worse, and felt worse, than it might have done otherwise, nonetheless the numbers are the numbers and there SHOULD be a serious party campaigning for a new referendum and Rejoin, in the next GE, as it is clearly the wish of millions of people
I can’t for the life of me understand why the Lib Dems aren’t seizing this position and making it their territory. What is the point of them otherwise?
I get why Starmer can’t quite be so courageous but if Labour at some point take up this stance then good luck to them
We Brexited, democratically, and if the British people decide to reverse that in another vote, so be it. Fair enough. That’s what makes us different from the EU (and to my mind democratically superior) - WE DO NOT IGNORE OR OVERRULE REFERENDUMS
It doesn't matter now. It's not in the gift of any British government to reverse Brexit. Why would Starmer, or any other PM, wish to spend years negotiating terms of accession with the EU, when a referendum on rejoining might well be lost, and when the EU wouldn't want a lukewarm member anyway?
The moving hand hath writ.
I don't want it but I think it depends on the EU.
If they really wanted Britain back the smart thing for them to do would be to offer previous terms, with Cameron's deal, plus the end of the rebate, and hugely accelerate the reaccession process. I.e. also with an ever closer union cop out clause and the Maastricht exemption on the Euro back in but you pay more because fuck up and we need it - sorry. Otherwise we'd vote it down.
But, they've never shown themselves to be that flexible. So I expect them to say standard terms, take it or leave it sister.
The alternative pro EU approach is lots and lots of side deals that progressively approach an asymptote of where our previous membership roughly was anyway, with payments, freer movement, and lots of "informal" consultation in future that reflects the real-politik. EPU++++
If they had, we wouldn't be here.
I think you (and @Leon) are right here: we won't rejoin the EU. But we will, over the years, get closer to it. There will be little deals here, and little deals there, that mean that (for example) Rule of Origin don't apply to British car exports to the Continent. And there'll be visa fast tracking. And there'll be cooperation on policing and intellectual property. And there'll be some common standards bodies. And there'll be double taxation treaties.
And we'll end up, not quite as close as Switzerland, and never in an absolutely fixed position (because we'll always be negotiating something), but closer than now.
I think it's as likely there won't be much of a car industry left in the UK as the EU rules of origin requirement dropped. But I could see FoM being reintroduced. I agree small deals are the foreseeable future but individually they will only happen if both parties see the advantage.
There was an interesting comment from a trader about the UK introducing import requirements, not yet implemented. These will add cost and red tape but they were in favour. The UK needs something to bargain with in negotiations with the EU.
I suppose these results with change once Starmer experiences the terrible backlash over hiring Sue Gray.
There's little else that people are talking about. In drivetime phone-ins in Lothian, bowling clubs in surrey, and all-night kebab shops in Islington, my first-hand experience is that people are furious.
It's going to change everything, for Sunak.
I've had exactly the same personal experience recently in the youth clubs of Builth Wells, the sushi bars of West Byfleet, and the veterinary surgeons' waiting rooms of Largs. Something is in the air.
The taverns of north London, the houseboats on the banks of the Lea, even the wilds of Epping Forest, are thick with murmur.
Graygate hangs over Starmer like a shroud. If Currygate was the squall, Graygate is the storm.
I’m sipping a martini in a wine bar on soi 8, Sukhumvit and there’s a table of Brits next to me who’ve stopped watching the Liverpool game so - no joke - they can discuss “Greygate”
One guy just said he’s flying home two weeks early to vote Tory when he’s normally Plaid Cymru, just because of Greygate. Another guy said Yeah Starmer’s Ok but Sunak looks so HEALTHY
Bet accordingly
It really makes you want to be there.
Like the tax office in Hartlepool
Soi 8 Sukhumvit is fucking brilliant. Superb restaurants and bars, full of all nationalities, and cuisines, with that intense vivacity of nightlife that only Bangkok delivers
I agree with Janan Ganesh of the FT on the greatest cities in the world - London and Bangkok - I just demur on his third choice: Los Angeles. No
That may be but it looks gopping full of old white blokes drinking Tetleys.
"sipping a martini in a wine bar" sounds très élégant. My arse.
I know you’ve not traveled much so I’ll give you a little tour
Soi 8 is magical because you get such a mix. This is Det 5, a garden bar which dates back to when these were dirt roads in the 1960s and this bar was full of American GIs on RnR. They have the photos in the bogs
Ten yards away is a chic Italian which does great food and is seriously pricey
Yet just across the road locals are cooking up their own food on a brazier
And all of this is surrounded by soaring skyscrapers with rooftop bars full hi-so Chinese Thai billionaire girls
Yes I've been to Bangkok and of all of it you've found the Troppo bar which serves Tetleys on tap.
You’ve never been to Bangkok have you? Or, if you have, it was about 30 years ago and you went to Patpong once and did the ping pong thing
Fair enough. It’s a rite of passage for every slightly dull middle class army type
What we need now is for Nick Palmer to slide into the chat with "I went to Bangkok once, many years ago".
My hotel is, I confess, bang in the middle of one of the main BKK red light districts. I come here solely because in Bangkok “red light district” also, generally, means an area full of fun bars and restaurants and general nightlife happiness - the same is true of Sala Daeng, for instance. Nonetheless I can’t deny the existence of the demimonde all around me
There’s an attractive woman of about 28 who stands on the corner on my road by the Swan restaurant (excellent sea bass in soi sauce) who stops every man that passes and says, as her opening line, “Hello, I will lick your asshole?”
About half the men reel away in shock, the other half burst out laughing. i suspect she is waiting for Nick Palmer, the ex Labour MP for Broxtowe, to walk past, then she’ll be sorted
So far SKS has mainly lied to his party membership, whereas Boris lied to everyone including the country. I can see that for a Labour member that's one and the same thing, but for non members like me there's a difference.
Now it's quite possible he will go on to lie to us all and not deliver on his winning manifesto, but we're not there yet.
Still, as a Lib Dem I'm very pleased to see him changing his mind on tuition fees. It means nobody can ever point the finger at us again.
Exactly. Only a section of the Labour membership - many now ex - are annoyed. I'm annoyed in a sense. One of the glories of the Corbyn era was how we didn't give a shit about what Rupert Murdoch and the Rupert Murdoch influenced 'floating' voters of Middle England thought about whatever they think about. Now we're back to pandering.
But as against this I sense that SKS is judging the politics very well and I'm on board for an 'ends justifies the means' approach which ends in a Labour government next year. But, god, if he goes and loses after all this I don't know what I'll do. Don't even want to contemplate that. It'll probably mark the end of my life in political punditry.
Remember that female officer I mentioned yesterday who was sacked for drink driving....
A high-ranking Scotland Yard officer was allowed to keep his job despite being found to be paying “high-class” prostitutes regularly, it has been claimed.
The middle-aged officer was given a minor rebuke for his behaviour, after the Metropolitan Police’s Professional Standards Unit discovered his activities.
The case, reported last night by the Daily Mail, was said to have come to light after whistleblowers expressed concern at the apparent double standards that allowed him to continue in his post while a more junior officer would probably have been sacked for gross misconduct.
These two unwillingly and against their members vote, so continuing the campaign for the next pay round, no doubt wanting to make up for the real terms pay cut.
Hang on.
"The next pay round" - when is this? If it hasn't happened yet then surely there is no extant industrial dispute in which inflicting pain on the innocent public by choosing to go on strike can be justified?
Barclay has some months to open negotiations before the strike on a longer term pay restoration deal.
I suppose these results with change once Starmer experiences the terrible backlash over hiring Sue Gray.
There's little else that people are talking about. In drivetime phone-ins in Lothian, bowling clubs in surrey, and all-night kebab shops in Islington, my first-hand experience is that people are furious.
It's going to change everything, for Sunak.
I've had exactly the same personal experience recently in the youth clubs of Builth Wells, the sushi bars of West Byfleet, and the veterinary surgeons' waiting rooms of Largs. Something is in the air.
The taverns of north London, the houseboats on the banks of the Lea, even the wilds of Epping Forest, are thick with murmur.
Graygate hangs over Starmer like a shroud. If Currygate was the squall, Graygate is the storm.
I’m sipping a martini in a wine bar on soi 8, Sukhumvit and there’s a table of Brits next to me who’ve stopped watching the Liverpool game so - no joke - they can discuss “Greygate”
One guy just said he’s flying home two weeks early to vote Tory when he’s normally Plaid Cymru, just because of Greygate. Another guy said Yeah Starmer’s Ok but Sunak looks so HEALTHY
Bet accordingly
It really makes you want to be there.
Like the tax office in Hartlepool
Soi 8 Sukhumvit is fucking brilliant. Superb restaurants and bars, full of all nationalities, and cuisines, with that intense vivacity of nightlife that only Bangkok delivers
I agree with Janan Ganesh of the FT on the greatest cities in the world - London and Bangkok - I just demur on his third choice: Los Angeles. No
That may be but it looks gopping full of old white blokes drinking Tetleys.
"sipping a martini in a wine bar" sounds très élégant. My arse.
I know you’ve not traveled much so I’ll give you a little tour
Soi 8 is magical because you get such a mix. This is Det 5, a garden bar which dates back to when these were dirt roads in the 1960s and this bar was full of American GIs on RnR. They have the photos in the bogs
Ten yards away is a chic Italian which does great food and is seriously pricey
Yet just across the road locals are cooking up their own food on a brazier
And all of this is surrounded by soaring skyscrapers with rooftop bars full hi-so Chinese Thai billionaire girls
Yes I've been to Bangkok and of all of it you've found the Troppo bar which serves Tetleys on tap.
You’ve never been to Bangkok have you? Or, if you have, it was about 30 years ago and you went to Patpong once and did the ping pong thing
Fair enough. It’s a rite of passage for every slightly dull middle class army type
What we need now is for Nick Palmer to slide into the chat with "I went to Bangkok once, many years ago".
My hotel is, I confess, bang in the middle of one of the main BKK red light districts. I come here solely because in Bangkok “red light district” also, generally, means an area full of fun bars and restaurants and general nightlife happiness - the same is true of Sala Daeng, for instance. Nonetheless I can’t deny the existence of the demimonde all around me
There’s an attractive woman of about 28 who stands on the corner on my road by the Swan restaurant (excellent sea bass in soi sauce) who stops every man that passes and says, as her opening line, “Hello, I will lick your asshole?”
About half the men reel away in shock, the other half burst out laughing. i suspect she is waiting for Nick Palmer, the ex Labour MP for Broxtowe, to walk past, then she’ll be sorted
And to compound all your sins - misgendering the working locals.
These two unwillingly and against their members vote, so continuing the campaign for the next pay round, no doubt wanting to make up for the real terms pay cut.
Hang on.
"The next pay round" - when is this? If it hasn't happened yet then surely there is no extant industrial dispute in which inflicting pain on the innocent public by choosing to go on strike can be justified?
Barclay has some months to open negotiations before the strike on a longer term pay restoration deal.
The big difference between Leavers and Remainers is that Leavers are stupid and Remainers are just as stupid - see @TOPPING et al - but Remainers are haughtily convinced they are much cleverer. This, in a weird way, makes Remainers even stupider - in practise - than Leavers, who are genuinely stupid
Once you understand that, the entire farcical madness of Brexit is explicable, right down to the daily debates on here, still ongoing
Leavers or remainers may or may not be stupid.
People who don't understand that it is perfectly democratic to ask the people about a decision that you previously asked them, nor that parliaments cannot bind successive parliaments, nor that parliament is sovereign are, however, very, very stupid indeed.
You can't step into the same river twice.
2016 was a one-off fork in the road. We can't go back and change our minds, and the previous status quo isn't on offer anyway.
Any new attempt to join the EU needs to start with a party winning an election with a commitment to negotiate accession and everything that comes with it. It doesn't start with rerunning the 2016 vote.
Another Referendum is all it takes.
"Should the United Kingdom remain in no man's land or leave to join every other European country in the European Union?
Tick one box only:
Leave Remain
The government will implement whatever the majority decide."
You sound like the people who were eagerly waiting for Nicola Sturgeon to give them another referendum on Scottish independence and thought that's all it would take.
I'm saying there's no need to overthink it. Party wins a GE promising an In/Out referendum. Same as last time. The only difference is it's the insurgent IN that triggers the EU negotiation process rather than the status quo of OUT. Instead of an exit deal the mandate is to agree an entry deal. This will happen in the medium term and IN will win comfortably as the country collectively screws its head back on.
Issue one in the campaign: is a vote to rejoin a mandate to join the Euro?
Rejoin would have to say "no" in order to avoid holing their campaign below the waterline, but what if the EU doesn't recreate our opt-outs?
It's Leave (no man's land) not Rejoin. That's number 1. Then to the substantive point. So, fine, just as in all campaigns there'll be issues, questions, truth and lies. It will be for Leave to make their case and Remain (in no man's land) to make theirs.
The bottom line is as before. If the 'change' proposition prevails it then falls on the government to negotiate the best deal with the EU that it can. An entry deal this time rather than an exit one.
Will the details of the deal have to be known before the vote? Nope. Of course not. Did the details of the deal last time have to be known before the vote? I should cocoa.
The lesson of Brexit - to be taken to heart for any other EU referendum or indeed for the Sindy one when it comes - is that for the change campaign to win they must AVOID SPECIFICS.
That would be the big problem for the Rejoin campaign. It would be open to their opponents to pin all manner of charges on the Rejoiners.
And, you'd have a very bemused EU leadership thinking "Why the hell do we want to go through this, all over again?" with perhaps a very fractious set of negotiations to follow a Rejoin vote in the referendum, with the possibility of a change of government in the intervening years.
If Rejoin ever happens it will be as the result of bottom up pressure and it will be many years from now. I may be wrong, but I don't think the under-45 demographic on PB is in any way typical of that demographic generally. Attachment to the pound, dislike of freedom of movement, concerns about sovereignty and so on just do not resonate in the way they do, for perfectly understandable reasons, to older generations. That does not guarantee anything, of course, but in 10 years time the voting public will look and feel very different to the one we have now. If growth is sluggish, if living standards are not improving, if public services are not functioning and so on, EU membership on whatever terms may start to look like a solution to deep-seated problems - just as it did in the 1970s. Obviously, if the UK actually starts to move in the right direction, that is far less likely to be the case. In the meantime, we are clearly going to move closer to the EU.
Remember that female officer I mentioned yesterday who was sacked for drink driving....
A high-ranking Scotland Yard officer was allowed to keep his job despite being found to be paying “high-class” prostitutes regularly, it has been claimed.
The middle-aged officer was given a minor rebuke for his behaviour, after the Metropolitan Police’s Professional Standards Unit discovered his activities.
The case, reported last night by the Daily Mail, was said to have come to light after whistleblowers expressed concern at the apparent double standards that allowed him to continue in his post while a more junior officer would probably have been sacked for gross misconduct.
Not great. Mitigation I guess is that it's better to accept you are not going to make your commitment before an election than pretend you have made it after.
The big difference between Leavers and Remainers is that Leavers are stupid and Remainers are just as stupid - see @TOPPING et al - but Remainers are haughtily convinced they are much cleverer. This, in a weird way, makes Remainers even stupider - in practise - than Leavers, who are genuinely stupid
Once you understand that, the entire farcical madness of Brexit is explicable, right down to the daily debates on here, still ongoing
Leavers or remainers may or may not be stupid.
People who don't understand that it is perfectly democratic to ask the people about a decision that you previously asked them, nor that parliaments cannot bind successive parliaments, nor that parliament is sovereign are, however, very, very stupid indeed.
You can't step into the same river twice.
2016 was a one-off fork in the road. We can't go back and change our minds, and the previous status quo isn't on offer anyway.
Any new attempt to join the EU needs to start with a party winning an election with a commitment to negotiate accession and everything that comes with it. It doesn't start with rerunning the 2016 vote.
Another Referendum is all it takes.
"Should the United Kingdom remain in no man's land or leave to join every other European country in the European Union?
Tick one box only:
Leave Remain
The government will implement whatever the majority decide."
You sound like the people who were eagerly waiting for Nicola Sturgeon to give them another referendum on Scottish independence and thought that's all it would take.
I'm saying there's no need to overthink it. Party wins a GE promising an In/Out referendum. Same as last time. The only difference is it's the insurgent IN that triggers the EU negotiation process rather than the status quo of OUT. Instead of an exit deal the mandate is to agree an entry deal. This will happen in the medium term and IN will win comfortably as the country collectively screws its head back on.
Issue one in the campaign: is a vote to rejoin a mandate to join the Euro?
Rejoin would have to say "no" in order to avoid holing their campaign below the waterline, but what if the EU doesn't recreate our opt-outs?
It's Leave (no man's land) not Rejoin. That's number 1. Then to the substantive point. So, fine, just as in all campaigns there'll be issues, questions, truth and lies. It will be for Leave to make their case and Remain (in no man's land) to make theirs.
The bottom line is as before. If the 'change' proposition prevails it then falls on the government to negotiate the best deal with the EU that it can. An entry deal this time rather than an exit one.
Will the details of the deal have to be known before the vote? Nope. Of course not. Did the details of the deal last time have to be known before the vote? I should cocoa.
The lesson of Brexit - to be taken to heart for any other EU referendum or indeed for the Sindy one when it comes - is that for the change campaign to win they must AVOID SPECIFICS.
That would be the big problem for the Rejoin campaign. It would be open to their opponents to pin all manner of charges on the Rejoiners.
And, you'd have a very bemused EU leadership thinking "Why the hell do we want to go through this, all over again?" with perhaps a very fractious set of negotiations to follow a Rejoin vote in the referendum, with the possibility of a change of government in the intervening years.
If Rejoin ever happens it will be as the result of bottom up pressure and it will be many years from now. I may be wrong, but I don't think the under-45 demographic on PB is in any way typical of that demographic generally. Attachment to the pound, dislike of freedom of movement, concerns about sovereignty and so on just do not resonate in the way they do, for perfectly understandable reasons, to older generations. That does not guarantee anything, of course, but in 10 years time the voting public will look and feel very different to the one we have now. If growth is sluggish, if living standards are not improving, if public services are not functioning and so on, EU membership on whatever terms may start to look like a solution to deep-seated problems - just as it did in the 1970s. Obviously, if the UK actually starts to move in the right direction, that is far less likely to be the case. In the meantime, we are clearly going to move closer to the EU.
Whilst this is true, in 20 years time there will be voters entering the electorate whose only knowledge of EU membership will be their parents moaning about how it was so much better in the olden days.
Lowest % to answer 'No' and highest % to answer 'Yes' that we've recorded.
Do Britons believe the UK Government is currently taking the right measures to address the cost-of-living crisis? (30 April)
No 57% (-6) Yes 31% (+6) Don't know 12% (–)
Changes +/- 23 April
Highest % to answer 'Yes' that we've recorded.
Do Britons believe a UK Government led by the Labour Party would currently be taking the right measures to address the cost-of-living crisis? (30 April)
The big difference between Leavers and Remainers is that Leavers are stupid and Remainers are just as stupid - see @TOPPING et al - but Remainers are haughtily convinced they are much cleverer. This, in a weird way, makes Remainers even stupider - in practise - than Leavers, who are genuinely stupid
Once you understand that, the entire farcical madness of Brexit is explicable, right down to the daily debates on here, still ongoing
Leavers or remainers may or may not be stupid.
People who don't understand that it is perfectly democratic to ask the people about a decision that you previously asked them, nor that parliaments cannot bind successive parliaments, nor that parliament is sovereign are, however, very, very stupid indeed.
You can't step into the same river twice.
2016 was a one-off fork in the road. We can't go back and change our minds, and the previous status quo isn't on offer anyway.
Any new attempt to join the EU needs to start with a party winning an election with a commitment to negotiate accession and everything that comes with it. It doesn't start with rerunning the 2016 vote.
The absolute madness of the Euroref 2nd voters can be revealed if you simply game out what would have happened if, say, the Scots had voted YES in 2014 then a bunch of YOON politicians had said Nah, that’s a stupid decision, we’re gonna make Scotland vote again, without even enacting independence in the first place
A small but significant number of Nats would have realised that British/Scottish democracy was a sham, and could never deliver Indy, and they would have turned to violence. Scotland would have become Ireland in 1916-1920
Would the Brits have done the same if the Brexit vote had been overruled and a 2nd vote ordered, without us Brexiting? Probably, possibly, who knows - remember there was violence before the first Brexit vote: an MP was killed
Even if civil strife had been averted, millions of Leave voters would have boycotted the 2nd vote, correctly assuming that the whole thing was a fix, and their will would never be honoured, and democracy was a lie, and what’s the fucking point. Turnout in future elections would have plunged. Basically it would have shattered British democracy for a generation, maybe forever. Utter utter madness
That’s what I mean when I say hardcore Remainers weren’t just stupid, like Leavers, they were dangerously stupid because they thought their ludicrous shenanigans were “clever”
The madness was attempting to have a second vote before the first was implemented.
A second vote is entirely possible now to my mind, precisely because we've left.
The hardcore remainer scenario was the equivalent of say Corbyn winning the GE and then proceeding to have a 'confirmatory vote' before he ever stepped into office. The equivalent now would be to have a vote after say 4 or 5 years of him having been in office (Say he'd won GE19) which of course is completely democratic.
The key for me is that Brexit has happened as an event. Which makes a vote to rejoin now perfectly democratic. A vote prior to leaving properly (Which was 31st January 2020) would have been unconscionable.
Political reality is it's not going to happen for a while now, but democratically anything after 31st Jan 2020 to rejoin is/was fine.
Yes, of course
We have now brexited. The vote is honoured. British democracy works. It sticks to promises made by the prime minister, no less. Your Vote Will Count. This Is It. So it is still worth voting in future elections and referendums because it makes a difference. it matters. YOU, the voter, YOU MATTER
Now we’ve done that, Remainers/Rejoiners are free to start campaigning for an immediate 2nd referendum to go straight back in. Heck, if they are persuasive enough, I might even vote for them
But we HAD to honour the first vote. Anything else was insane self harm and would have sent us to a terrible place
Rejoin (as in a full rejoin of the EU) is going to become like the Death Penalty. Even if there are consistent polling majorities in favour, no mainstream political party, knowing what a shit show it would cause, is going to be dumb enough to suggest it.
I think you're right but there will be other long term consequences. The most obvious is the slow death of the Conservative Party. The damage they've caused will become ever more apparent-God Knows it's bad enough already-and the public led by the young will over time vent their spleen in the only direction available.
If the Conservatives die, they'll simply be replaced by another right wing party.
The big difference between Leavers and Remainers is that Leavers are stupid and Remainers are just as stupid - see @TOPPING et al - but Remainers are haughtily convinced they are much cleverer. This, in a weird way, makes Remainers even stupider - in practise - than Leavers, who are genuinely stupid
Once you understand that, the entire farcical madness of Brexit is explicable, right down to the daily debates on here, still ongoing
Leavers or remainers may or may not be stupid.
People who don't understand that it is perfectly democratic to ask the people about a decision that you previously asked them, nor that parliaments cannot bind successive parliaments, nor that parliament is sovereign are, however, very, very stupid indeed.
You can't step into the same river twice.
2016 was a one-off fork in the road. We can't go back and change our minds, and the previous status quo isn't on offer anyway.
Any new attempt to join the EU needs to start with a party winning an election with a commitment to negotiate accession and everything that comes with it. It doesn't start with rerunning the 2016 vote.
Another Referendum is all it takes.
"Should the United Kingdom remain in no man's land or leave to join every other European country in the European Union?
Tick one box only:
Leave Remain
The government will implement whatever the majority decide."
You sound like the people who were eagerly waiting for Nicola Sturgeon to give them another referendum on Scottish independence and thought that's all it would take.
I'm saying there's no need to overthink it. Party wins a GE promising an In/Out referendum. Same as last time. The only difference is it's the insurgent IN that triggers the EU negotiation process rather than the status quo of OUT. Instead of an exit deal the mandate is to agree an entry deal. This will happen in the medium term and IN will win comfortably as the country collectively screws its head back on.
Issue one in the campaign: is a vote to rejoin a mandate to join the Euro?
Rejoin would have to say "no" in order to avoid holing their campaign below the waterline, but what if the EU doesn't recreate our opt-outs?
It's Leave (no man's land) not Rejoin. That's number 1. Then to the substantive point. So, fine, just as in all campaigns there'll be issues, questions, truth and lies. It will be for Leave to make their case and Remain (in no man's land) to make theirs.
The bottom line is as before. If the 'change' proposition prevails it then falls on the government to negotiate the best deal with the EU that it can. An entry deal this time rather than an exit one.
Will the details of the deal have to be known before the vote? Nope. Of course not. Did the details of the deal last time have to be known before the vote? I should cocoa.
The lesson of Brexit - to be taken to heart for any other EU referendum or indeed for the Sindy one when it comes - is that for the change campaign to win they must AVOID SPECIFICS.
That would be the big problem for the Rejoin campaign. It would be open to their opponents to pin all manner of charges on the Rejoiners.
And, you'd have a very bemused EU leadership thinking "Why the hell do we want to go through this, all over again?" with perhaps a very fractious set of negotiations to follow a Rejoin vote in the referendum, with the possibility of a change of government in the intervening years.
If Rejoin ever happens it will be as the result of bottom up pressure and it will be many years from now. I may be wrong, but I don't think the under-45 demographic on PB is in any way typical of that demographic generally. Attachment to the pound, dislike of freedom of movement, concerns about sovereignty and so on just do not resonate in the way they do, for perfectly understandable reasons, to older generations. That does not guarantee anything, of course, but in 10 years time the voting public will look and feel very different to the one we have now. If growth is sluggish, if living standards are not improving, if public services are not functioning and so on, EU membership on whatever terms may start to look like a solution to deep-seated problems - just as it did in the 1970s. Obviously, if the UK actually starts to move in the right direction, that is far less likely to be the case. In the meantime, we are clearly going to move closer to the EU.
Again, the impending AI revolution renders all of this fairly meaningless, in an unusually profound way. Human life is about to change. A tsunami approaches which will upend EVERYTHING
It’s like a squabble between pre-Colombian Mexican tribes even as Hernan Cortes marches towards Tenochtitlan
Lab > Grn switching doesn't hurt the Tories anywhere, surely? Both their second places in 2019 were in Labour seats, and their two third places with over 10% of the vote has Labour between them and the Tories.
The Red Wall seems a dated concept now - all very Brexit, Boris and Farage. I wonder if the Tories will come to regret diverting such a large amount of political capital to it. Matthew Parris made a similar point with his (what became) notorious article about the Tories getting too hung up over Clacton-on-Sea.
Lab > Grn switching doesn't hurt the Tories anywhere, surely? Both their second places in 2019 were in Labour seats, and their two third places with over 10% of the vote has Labour between them and the Tories.
The LDs - yes, that's worth watching.
I am thinking more about the switch back from Green to Labour at a GE. Clearly, though, the LD number is the one to watch closest.
The Red Wall seems a dated concept now - all very Brexit, Boris and Farage. I wonder if the Tories will come to regret diverting such a large amount of political capital to it. Matthew Parris made a similar point with his (what became) notorious article about the Tories getting too hung up over Clacton-on-Sea.
Lowest % to answer 'No' and highest % to answer 'Yes' that we've recorded.
Do Britons believe the UK Government is currently taking the right measures to address the cost-of-living crisis? (30 April)
No 57% (-6) Yes 31% (+6) Don't know 12% (–)
Changes +/- 23 April
Highest % to answer 'Yes' that we've recorded.
Do Britons believe a UK Government led by the Labour Party would currently be taking the right measures to address the cost-of-living crisis? (30 April)
Surely in part because "the cost-of-living crisis" is just a political invention. Of course there are people who are struggling, and many more who are feeling the pinch, but the phrase really is just used as a political football.
The big difference between Leavers and Remainers is that Leavers are stupid and Remainers are just as stupid - see @TOPPING et al - but Remainers are haughtily convinced they are much cleverer. This, in a weird way, makes Remainers even stupider - in practise - than Leavers, who are genuinely stupid
Once you understand that, the entire farcical madness of Brexit is explicable, right down to the daily debates on here, still ongoing
Leavers or remainers may or may not be stupid.
People who don't understand that it is perfectly democratic to ask the people about a decision that you previously asked them, nor that parliaments cannot bind successive parliaments, nor that parliament is sovereign are, however, very, very stupid indeed.
You can't step into the same river twice.
2016 was a one-off fork in the road. We can't go back and change our minds, and the previous status quo isn't on offer anyway.
Any new attempt to join the EU needs to start with a party winning an election with a commitment to negotiate accession and everything that comes with it. It doesn't start with rerunning the 2016 vote.
The absolute madness of the Euroref 2nd voters can be revealed if you simply game out what would have happened if, say, the Scots had voted YES in 2014 then a bunch of YOON politicians had said Nah, that’s a stupid decision, we’re gonna make Scotland vote again, without even enacting independence in the first place
A small but significant number of Nats would have realised that British/Scottish democracy was a sham, and could never deliver Indy, and they would have turned to violence. Scotland would have become Ireland in 1916-1920
Would the Brits have done the same if the Brexit vote had been overruled and a 2nd vote ordered, without us Brexiting? Probably, possibly, who knows - remember there was violence before the first Brexit vote: an MP was killed
Even if civil strife had been averted, millions of Leave voters would have boycotted the 2nd vote, correctly assuming that the whole thing was a fix, and their will would never be honoured, and democracy was a lie, and what’s the fucking point. Turnout in future elections would have plunged. Basically it would have shattered British democracy for a generation, maybe forever. Utter utter madness
That’s what I mean when I say hardcore Remainers weren’t just stupid, like Leavers, they were dangerously stupid because they thought their ludicrous shenanigans were “clever”
The madness was attempting to have a second vote before the first was implemented.
A second vote is entirely possible now to my mind, precisely because we've left.
The hardcore remainer scenario was the equivalent of say Corbyn winning the GE and then proceeding to have a 'confirmatory vote' before he ever stepped into office. The equivalent now would be to have a vote after say 4 or 5 years of him having been in office (Say he'd won GE19) which of course is completely democratic.
The key for me is that Brexit has happened as an event. Which makes a vote to rejoin now perfectly democratic. A vote prior to leaving properly (Which was 31st January 2020) would have been unconscionable.
Political reality is it's not going to happen for a while now, but democratically anything after 31st Jan 2020 to rejoin is/was fine.
Yes, of course
We have now brexited. The vote is honoured. British democracy works. It sticks to promises made by the prime minister, no less. Your Vote Will Count. This Is It. So it is still worth voting in future elections and referendums because it makes a difference. it matters. YOU, the voter, YOU MATTER
Now we’ve done that, Remainers/Rejoiners are free to start campaigning for an immediate 2nd referendum to go straight back in. Heck, if they are persuasive enough, I might even vote for them
But we HAD to honour the first vote. Anything else was insane self harm and would have sent us to a terrible place
Rejoin (as in a full rejoin of the EU) is going to become like the Death Penalty. Even if there are consistent polling majorities in favour, no mainstream political party, knowing what a shit show it would cause, is going to be dumb enough to suggest it.
I think you're right but there will be other long term consequences. The most obvious is the slow death of the Conservative Party. The damage they've caused will become ever more apparent-God Knows it's bad enough already-and the public led by the young will over time vent their spleen in the only direction available.
The big difference between Leavers and Remainers is that Leavers are stupid and Remainers are just as stupid - see @TOPPING et al - but Remainers are haughtily convinced they are much cleverer. This, in a weird way, makes Remainers even stupider - in practise - than Leavers, who are genuinely stupid
Once you understand that, the entire farcical madness of Brexit is explicable, right down to the daily debates on here, still ongoing
Leavers or remainers may or may not be stupid.
People who don't understand that it is perfectly democratic to ask the people about a decision that you previously asked them, nor that parliaments cannot bind successive parliaments, nor that parliament is sovereign are, however, very, very stupid indeed.
You can't step into the same river twice.
2016 was a one-off fork in the road. We can't go back and change our minds, and the previous status quo isn't on offer anyway.
Any new attempt to join the EU needs to start with a party winning an election with a commitment to negotiate accession and everything that comes with it. It doesn't start with rerunning the 2016 vote.
Another Referendum is all it takes.
"Should the United Kingdom remain in no man's land or leave to join every other European country in the European Union?
Tick one box only:
Leave Remain
The government will implement whatever the majority decide."
You sound like the people who were eagerly waiting for Nicola Sturgeon to give them another referendum on Scottish independence and thought that's all it would take.
I'm saying there's no need to overthink it. Party wins a GE promising an In/Out referendum. Same as last time. The only difference is it's the insurgent IN that triggers the EU negotiation process rather than the status quo of OUT. Instead of an exit deal the mandate is to agree an entry deal. This will happen in the medium term and IN will win comfortably as the country collectively screws its head back on.
Issue one in the campaign: is a vote to rejoin a mandate to join the Euro?
Rejoin would have to say "no" in order to avoid holing their campaign below the waterline, but what if the EU doesn't recreate our opt-outs?
It's Leave (no man's land) not Rejoin. That's number 1. Then to the substantive point. So, fine, just as in all campaigns there'll be issues, questions, truth and lies. It will be for Leave to make their case and Remain (in no man's land) to make theirs.
The bottom line is as before. If the 'change' proposition prevails it then falls on the government to negotiate the best deal with the EU that it can. An entry deal this time rather than an exit one.
Will the details of the deal have to be known before the vote? Nope. Of course not. Did the details of the deal last time have to be known before the vote? I should cocoa.
The lesson of Brexit - to be taken to heart for any other EU referendum or indeed for the Sindy one when it comes - is that for the change campaign to win they must AVOID SPECIFICS.
That would be the big problem for the Rejoin campaign. It would be open to their opponents to pin all manner of charges on the Rejoiners.
And, you'd have a very bemused EU leadership thinking "Why the hell do we want to go through this, all over again?" with perhaps a very fractious set of negotiations to follow a Rejoin vote in the referendum, with the possibility of a change of government in the intervening years.
If Rejoin ever happens it will be as the result of bottom up pressure and it will be many years from now. I may be wrong, but I don't think the under-45 demographic on PB is in any way typical of that demographic generally. Attachment to the pound, dislike of freedom of movement, concerns about sovereignty and so on just do not resonate in the way they do, for perfectly understandable reasons, to older generations. That does not guarantee anything, of course, but in 10 years time the voting public will look and feel very different to the one we have now. If growth is sluggish, if living standards are not improving, if public services are not functioning and so on, EU membership on whatever terms may start to look like a solution to deep-seated problems - just as it did in the 1970s. Obviously, if the UK actually starts to move in the right direction, that is far less likely to be the case. In the meantime, we are clearly going to move closer to the EU.
Again, the impending AI revolution renders all of this fairly meaningless, in an unusually profound way. Human life is about to change. A tsunami approaches which will upend EVERYTHING
It’s like a squabble between pre-Colombian Mexican tribes even as Hernan Cortes marches towards Tenochtitlan
AI will not stop the arguments on here. It will just make them a lot more confusing.
Similarly, it will never be a substitute for live experience. AI can't sit on the beach for you, or stand on that mountain top, or eat that steak, or drink that bottle of wine. AI will never stop Spurs from being Spursy or an England batting collapse. Real life will still matter.
The Red Wall seems a dated concept now - all very Brexit, Boris and Farage. I wonder if the Tories will come to regret diverting such a large amount of political capital to it. Matthew Parris made a similar point with his (what became) notorious article about the Tories getting too hung up over Clacton-on-Sea.
The Red Wall did need more attention and resources thrown at it but not quite sure why that required the likes of JRM and Boris to claim that anyone who had the temerity to live in a city was somehow the evil elite establishment.
Remember that female officer I mentioned yesterday who was sacked for drink driving....
A high-ranking Scotland Yard officer was allowed to keep his job despite being found to be paying “high-class” prostitutes regularly, it has been claimed.
The middle-aged officer was given a minor rebuke for his behaviour, after the Metropolitan Police’s Professional Standards Unit discovered his activities.
The case, reported last night by the Daily Mail, was said to have come to light after whistleblowers expressed concern at the apparent double standards that allowed him to continue in his post while a more junior officer would probably have been sacked for gross misconduct.
Don’t worry. He will, undoubtedly, have a letter from a shrink diagnosing him with sex addiction and recommending a 3 month stay at the branch of the Priory which has two different Michelin starred restaurants.
The 3 month stay will be tax payer funded, include full pay and no loss of pension rights.
A prominent member of the England Athletics board has been banned from holding such a position for three years after suggesting that black athletes make good sprinters because they have to flee the burglaries they commit.
Julian Starkey was the chairman of the governing body’s England Council as well as a director on the board when he made the “shocking” and “totally unacceptable” comment at an event run by Sporting Equals, which promotes ethnic diversity across sport, in November last year.
A witness alleged that Starkey, who has also been suspended from coaching for two years, said the following or similar words: “Usually when athletes start to be more specific in events, most black athletes tend to edge towards sprinting and hurdling . . . the blacks are all good at running because they have to get away from their burglaries.”
Starkey, who has also served as secretary of Bracknell Athletics Club, admitted to an independent UK Athletics disciplinary panel that he had made the comment, blaming mental health issues while claiming there had been “a gap between the first and second sentences”. His defence, however, was dismissed.
The 62-year-old resigned from his non-executive roles at England Athletics in December but it was only last month that the details of his case were published on the latest UKA sanctions list.
The Red Wall seems a dated concept now - all very Brexit, Boris and Farage. I wonder if the Tories will come to regret diverting such a large amount of political capital to it. Matthew Parris made a similar point with his (what became) notorious article about the Tories getting too hung up over Clacton-on-Sea.
The Red Wall should be levelled, not levelled up.
Why ?
Many parts of it are very pleasant. Certainly in the North East.
The big difference between Leavers and Remainers is that Leavers are stupid and Remainers are just as stupid - see @TOPPING et al - but Remainers are haughtily convinced they are much cleverer. This, in a weird way, makes Remainers even stupider - in practise - than Leavers, who are genuinely stupid
Once you understand that, the entire farcical madness of Brexit is explicable, right down to the daily debates on here, still ongoing
Leavers or remainers may or may not be stupid.
People who don't understand that it is perfectly democratic to ask the people about a decision that you previously asked them, nor that parliaments cannot bind successive parliaments, nor that parliament is sovereign are, however, very, very stupid indeed.
You can't step into the same river twice.
2016 was a one-off fork in the road. We can't go back and change our minds, and the previous status quo isn't on offer anyway.
Any new attempt to join the EU needs to start with a party winning an election with a commitment to negotiate accession and everything that comes with it. It doesn't start with rerunning the 2016 vote.
Another Referendum is all it takes.
"Should the United Kingdom remain in no man's land or leave to join every other European country in the European Union?
Tick one box only:
Leave Remain
The government will implement whatever the majority decide."
You sound like the people who were eagerly waiting for Nicola Sturgeon to give them another referendum on Scottish independence and thought that's all it would take.
I'm saying there's no need to overthink it. Party wins a GE promising an In/Out referendum. Same as last time. The only difference is it's the insurgent IN that triggers the EU negotiation process rather than the status quo of OUT. Instead of an exit deal the mandate is to agree an entry deal. This will happen in the medium term and IN will win comfortably as the country collectively screws its head back on.
Issue one in the campaign: is a vote to rejoin a mandate to join the Euro?
Rejoin would have to say "no" in order to avoid holing their campaign below the waterline, but what if the EU doesn't recreate our opt-outs?
It's Leave (no man's land) not Rejoin. That's number 1. Then to the substantive point. So, fine, just as in all campaigns there'll be issues, questions, truth and lies. It will be for Leave to make their case and Remain (in no man's land) to make theirs.
The bottom line is as before. If the 'change' proposition prevails it then falls on the government to negotiate the best deal with the EU that it can. An entry deal this time rather than an exit one.
Will the details of the deal have to be known before the vote? Nope. Of course not. Did the details of the deal last time have to be known before the vote? I should cocoa.
The lesson of Brexit - to be taken to heart for any other EU referendum or indeed for the Sindy one when it comes - is that for the change campaign to win they must AVOID SPECIFICS.
That would be the big problem for the Rejoin campaign. It would be open to their opponents to pin all manner of charges on the Rejoiners.
And, you'd have a very bemused EU leadership thinking "Why the hell do we want to go through this, all over again?" with perhaps a very fractious set of negotiations to follow a Rejoin vote in the referendum, with the possibility of a change of government in the intervening years.
If Rejoin ever happens it will be as the result of bottom up pressure and it will be many years from now. I may be wrong, but I don't think the under-45 demographic on PB is in any way typical of that demographic generally. Attachment to the pound, dislike of freedom of movement, concerns about sovereignty and so on just do not resonate in the way they do, for perfectly understandable reasons, to older generations. That does not guarantee anything, of course, but in 10 years time the voting public will look and feel very different to the one we have now. If growth is sluggish, if living standards are not improving, if public services are not functioning and so on, EU membership on whatever terms may start to look like a solution to deep-seated problems - just as it did in the 1970s. Obviously, if the UK actually starts to move in the right direction, that is far less likely to be the case. In the meantime, we are clearly going to move closer to the EU.
Again, the impending AI revolution renders all of this fairly meaningless, in an unusually profound way. Human life is about to change. A tsunami approaches which will upend EVERYTHING
It’s like a squabble between pre-Colombian Mexican tribes even as Hernan Cortes marches towards Tenochtitlan
AI will not stop the arguments on here. It will just make them a lot more confusing.
Similarly, it will never be a substitute for live experience. AI can't sit on the beach for you, or stand on that mountain top, or eat that steak, or drink that bottle of wine. AI will never stop Spurs from being Spursy or an England batting collapse. Real life will still matter.
I’m not arguing with any of that waffle, I’m arguing that the human economic (and hence political) landscape is about to be redrawn in a way which will make debates about EU relationships looks pitifully jejune and insignificant
See here:
“3. IBM plans to replace 7800 jobs with AI
Dropbox first planned to lay off 500 employees and replace them with AI a week ago.
Now, IBM follows with plans to replace 7,800 jobs with AI and pause hiring for roles that could be automated”
“IBM CEO Arvind Krishna says most back-office positions, such as HR and accounting, will be replaced:
“I could easily see 30% of that getting replaced by AI and automation over a five-year period.”
AI is having an insane impact on the job market already.”
The Red Wall seems a dated concept now - all very Brexit, Boris and Farage. I wonder if the Tories will come to regret diverting such a large amount of political capital to it. Matthew Parris made a similar point with his (what became) notorious article about the Tories getting too hung up over Clacton-on-Sea.
The Red Wall should be levelled, not levelled up.
Why ?
Many parts of it are very pleasant. Certainly in the North East.
The big difference between Leavers and Remainers is that Leavers are stupid and Remainers are just as stupid - see @TOPPING et al - but Remainers are haughtily convinced they are much cleverer. This, in a weird way, makes Remainers even stupider - in practise - than Leavers, who are genuinely stupid
Once you understand that, the entire farcical madness of Brexit is explicable, right down to the daily debates on here, still ongoing
Leavers or remainers may or may not be stupid.
People who don't understand that it is perfectly democratic to ask the people about a decision that you previously asked them, nor that parliaments cannot bind successive parliaments, nor that parliament is sovereign are, however, very, very stupid indeed.
You can't step into the same river twice.
2016 was a one-off fork in the road. We can't go back and change our minds, and the previous status quo isn't on offer anyway.
Any new attempt to join the EU needs to start with a party winning an election with a commitment to negotiate accession and everything that comes with it. It doesn't start with rerunning the 2016 vote.
Another Referendum is all it takes.
"Should the United Kingdom remain in no man's land or leave to join every other European country in the European Union?
Tick one box only:
Leave Remain
The government will implement whatever the majority decide."
You sound like the people who were eagerly waiting for Nicola Sturgeon to give them another referendum on Scottish independence and thought that's all it would take.
I'm saying there's no need to overthink it. Party wins a GE promising an In/Out referendum. Same as last time. The only difference is it's the insurgent IN that triggers the EU negotiation process rather than the status quo of OUT. Instead of an exit deal the mandate is to agree an entry deal. This will happen in the medium term and IN will win comfortably as the country collectively screws its head back on.
Issue one in the campaign: is a vote to rejoin a mandate to join the Euro?
Rejoin would have to say "no" in order to avoid holing their campaign below the waterline, but what if the EU doesn't recreate our opt-outs?
It's Leave (no man's land) not Rejoin. That's number 1. Then to the substantive point. So, fine, just as in all campaigns there'll be issues, questions, truth and lies. It will be for Leave to make their case and Remain (in no man's land) to make theirs.
The bottom line is as before. If the 'change' proposition prevails it then falls on the government to negotiate the best deal with the EU that it can. An entry deal this time rather than an exit one.
Will the details of the deal have to be known before the vote? Nope. Of course not. Did the details of the deal last time have to be known before the vote? I should cocoa.
The lesson of Brexit - to be taken to heart for any other EU referendum or indeed for the Sindy one when it comes - is that for the change campaign to win they must AVOID SPECIFICS.
That would be the big problem for the Rejoin campaign. It would be open to their opponents to pin all manner of charges on the Rejoiners.
And, you'd have a very bemused EU leadership thinking "Why the hell do we want to go through this, all over again?" with perhaps a very fractious set of negotiations to follow a Rejoin vote in the referendum, with the possibility of a change of government in the intervening years.
If Rejoin ever happens it will be as the result of bottom up pressure and it will be many years from now. I may be wrong, but I don't think the under-45 demographic on PB is in any way typical of that demographic generally. Attachment to the pound, dislike of freedom of movement, concerns about sovereignty and so on just do not resonate in the way they do, for perfectly understandable reasons, to older generations. That does not guarantee anything, of course, but in 10 years time the voting public will look and feel very different to the one we have now. If growth is sluggish, if living standards are not improving, if public services are not functioning and so on, EU membership on whatever terms may start to look like a solution to deep-seated problems - just as it did in the 1970s. Obviously, if the UK actually starts to move in the right direction, that is far less likely to be the case. In the meantime, we are clearly going to move closer to the EU.
Again, the impending AI revolution renders all of this fairly meaningless, in an unusually profound way. Human life is about to change. A tsunami approaches which will upend EVERYTHING
It’s like a squabble between pre-Colombian Mexican tribes even as Hernan Cortes marches towards Tenochtitlan
AI will not stop the arguments on here. It will just make them a lot more confusing.
Similarly, it will never be a substitute for live experience. AI can't sit on the beach for you, or stand on that mountain top, or eat that steak, or drink that bottle of wine. AI will never stop Spurs from being Spursy or an England batting collapse. Real life will still matter.
Indeed. Actual reality beats virtual reality every time.
The Red Wall seems a dated concept now - all very Brexit, Boris and Farage. I wonder if the Tories will come to regret diverting such a large amount of political capital to it. Matthew Parris made a similar point with his (what became) notorious article about the Tories getting too hung up over Clacton-on-Sea.
The Red Wall did need more attention and resources thrown at it but not quite sure why that required the likes of JRM and Boris to claim that anyone who had the temerity to live in a city was somehow the evil elite establishment.
Because they needed someone to blame for the fact that they'd no intention of focusing resources on it.
The big difference between Leavers and Remainers is that Leavers are stupid and Remainers are just as stupid - see @TOPPING et al - but Remainers are haughtily convinced they are much cleverer. This, in a weird way, makes Remainers even stupider - in practise - than Leavers, who are genuinely stupid
Once you understand that, the entire farcical madness of Brexit is explicable, right down to the daily debates on here, still ongoing
Leavers or remainers may or may not be stupid.
People who don't understand that it is perfectly democratic to ask the people about a decision that you previously asked them, nor that parliaments cannot bind successive parliaments, nor that parliament is sovereign are, however, very, very stupid indeed.
You can't step into the same river twice.
2016 was a one-off fork in the road. We can't go back and change our minds, and the previous status quo isn't on offer anyway.
Any new attempt to join the EU needs to start with a party winning an election with a commitment to negotiate accession and everything that comes with it. It doesn't start with rerunning the 2016 vote.
The absolute madness of the Euroref 2nd voters can be revealed if you simply game out what would have happened if, say, the Scots had voted YES in 2014 then a bunch of YOON politicians had said Nah, that’s a stupid decision, we’re gonna make Scotland vote again, without even enacting independence in the first place
A small but significant number of Nats would have realised that British/Scottish democracy was a sham, and could never deliver Indy, and they would have turned to violence. Scotland would have become Ireland in 1916-1920
Would the Brits have done the same if the Brexit vote had been overruled and a 2nd vote ordered, without us Brexiting? Probably, possibly, who knows - remember there was violence before the first Brexit vote: an MP was killed
Even if civil strife had been averted, millions of Leave voters would have boycotted the 2nd vote, correctly assuming that the whole thing was a fix, and their will would never be honoured, and democracy was a lie, and what’s the fucking point. Turnout in future elections would have plunged. Basically it would have shattered British democracy for a generation, maybe forever. Utter utter madness
That’s what I mean when I say hardcore Remainers weren’t just stupid, like Leavers, they were dangerously stupid because they thought their ludicrous shenanigans were “clever”
The madness was attempting to have a second vote before the first was implemented.
A second vote is entirely possible now to my mind, precisely because we've left.
The hardcore remainer scenario was the equivalent of say Corbyn winning the GE and then proceeding to have a 'confirmatory vote' before he ever stepped into office. The equivalent now would be to have a vote after say 4 or 5 years of him having been in office (Say he'd won GE19) which of course is completely democratic.
The key for me is that Brexit has happened as an event. Which makes a vote to rejoin now perfectly democratic. A vote prior to leaving properly (Which was 31st January 2020) would have been unconscionable.
Political reality is it's not going to happen for a while now, but democratically anything after 31st Jan 2020 to rejoin is/was fine.
Yes, of course
We have now brexited. The vote is honoured. British democracy works. It sticks to promises made by the prime minister, no less. Your Vote Will Count. This Is It. So it is still worth voting in future elections and referendums because it makes a difference. it matters. YOU, the voter, YOU MATTER
Now we’ve done that, Remainers/Rejoiners are free to start campaigning for an immediate 2nd referendum to go straight back in. Heck, if they are persuasive enough, I might even vote for them
But we HAD to honour the first vote. Anything else was insane self harm and would have sent us to a terrible place
Rejoin (as in a full rejoin of the EU) is going to become like the Death Penalty. Even if there are consistent polling majorities in favour, no mainstream political party, knowing what a shit show it would cause, is going to be dumb enough to suggest it.
I think you're right but there will be other long term consequences. The most obvious is the slow death of the Conservative Party. The damage they've caused will become ever more apparent-God Knows it's bad enough already-and the public led by the young will over time vent their spleen in the only direction available.
If the Conservatives die, they'll simply be replaced by another right wing party.
Sure but right wing parties and indeed the Conservative party come in all different flavours. I am old enough to remember when the likes of Heseltine and Clarke were considered right wingers. Nowadays its a battle between the fiscally dry but lost and confused, the fiscal fantasists who know what they want to do but cannot convince anyone else and the revolutionary communist entryists with their culture war.
A new right party could be anything, but likely an improvement on the current Conservative party.
Lowest % to answer 'No' and highest % to answer 'Yes' that we've recorded.
Do Britons believe the UK Government is currently taking the right measures to address the cost-of-living crisis? (30 April)
No 57% (-6) Yes 31% (+6) Don't know 12% (–)
Changes +/- 23 April
Highest % to answer 'Yes' that we've recorded.
Do Britons believe a UK Government led by the Labour Party would currently be taking the right measures to address the cost-of-living crisis? (30 April)
The big difference between Leavers and Remainers is that Leavers are stupid and Remainers are just as stupid - see @TOPPING et al - but Remainers are haughtily convinced they are much cleverer. This, in a weird way, makes Remainers even stupider - in practise - than Leavers, who are genuinely stupid
Once you understand that, the entire farcical madness of Brexit is explicable, right down to the daily debates on here, still ongoing
Leavers or remainers may or may not be stupid.
People who don't understand that it is perfectly democratic to ask the people about a decision that you previously asked them, nor that parliaments cannot bind successive parliaments, nor that parliament is sovereign are, however, very, very stupid indeed.
You can't step into the same river twice.
2016 was a one-off fork in the road. We can't go back and change our minds, and the previous status quo isn't on offer anyway.
Any new attempt to join the EU needs to start with a party winning an election with a commitment to negotiate accession and everything that comes with it. It doesn't start with rerunning the 2016 vote.
Another Referendum is all it takes.
"Should the United Kingdom remain in no man's land or leave to join every other European country in the European Union?
Tick one box only:
Leave Remain
The government will implement whatever the majority decide."
You sound like the people who were eagerly waiting for Nicola Sturgeon to give them another referendum on Scottish independence and thought that's all it would take.
I'm saying there's no need to overthink it. Party wins a GE promising an In/Out referendum. Same as last time. The only difference is it's the insurgent IN that triggers the EU negotiation process rather than the status quo of OUT. Instead of an exit deal the mandate is to agree an entry deal. This will happen in the medium term and IN will win comfortably as the country collectively screws its head back on.
Issue one in the campaign: is a vote to rejoin a mandate to join the Euro?
Rejoin would have to say "no" in order to avoid holing their campaign below the waterline, but what if the EU doesn't recreate our opt-outs?
It's Leave (no man's land) not Rejoin. That's number 1. Then to the substantive point. So, fine, just as in all campaigns there'll be issues, questions, truth and lies. It will be for Leave to make their case and Remain (in no man's land) to make theirs.
The bottom line is as before. If the 'change' proposition prevails it then falls on the government to negotiate the best deal with the EU that it can. An entry deal this time rather than an exit one.
Will the details of the deal have to be known before the vote? Nope. Of course not. Did the details of the deal last time have to be known before the vote? I should cocoa.
The lesson of Brexit - to be taken to heart for any other EU referendum or indeed for the Sindy one when it comes - is that for the change campaign to win they must AVOID SPECIFICS.
That would be the big problem for the Rejoin campaign. It would be open to their opponents to pin all manner of charges on the Rejoiners.
And, you'd have a very bemused EU leadership thinking "Why the hell do we want to go through this, all over again?" with perhaps a very fractious set of negotiations to follow a Rejoin vote in the referendum, with the possibility of a change of government in the intervening years.
If Rejoin ever happens it will be as the result of bottom up pressure and it will be many years from now. I may be wrong, but I don't think the under-45 demographic on PB is in any way typical of that demographic generally. Attachment to the pound, dislike of freedom of movement, concerns about sovereignty and so on just do not resonate in the way they do, for perfectly understandable reasons, to older generations. That does not guarantee anything, of course, but in 10 years time the voting public will look and feel very different to the one we have now. If growth is sluggish, if living standards are not improving, if public services are not functioning and so on, EU membership on whatever terms may start to look like a solution to deep-seated problems - just as it did in the 1970s. Obviously, if the UK actually starts to move in the right direction, that is far less likely to be the case. In the meantime, we are clearly going to move closer to the EU.
Again, the impending AI revolution renders all of this fairly meaningless, in an unusually profound way. Human life is about to change. A tsunami approaches which will upend EVERYTHING
It’s like a squabble between pre-Colombian Mexican tribes even as Hernan Cortes marches towards Tenochtitlan
AI will not stop the arguments on here. It will just make them a lot more confusing.
Similarly, it will never be a substitute for live experience. AI can't sit on the beach for you, or stand on that mountain top, or eat that steak, or drink that bottle of wine. AI will never stop Spurs from being Spursy or an England batting collapse. Real life will still matter.
I’m not arguing with any of that waffle, I’m arguing that the human economic (and hence political) landscape is about to be redrawn in a way which will make debates about EU relationships looks pitifully jejune and insignificant
See here:
“3. IBM plans to replace 7800 jobs with AI
Dropbox first planned to lay off 500 employees and replace them with AI a week ago.
Now, IBM follows with plans to replace 7,800 jobs with AI and pause hiring for roles that could be automated”
“IBM CEO Arvind Krishna says most back-office positions, such as HR and accounting, will be replaced:
“I could easily see 30% of that getting replaced by AI and automation over a five-year period.”
AI is having an insane impact on the job market already.”
Like I said, Cortes is marching from Veracruz and Remainers are banging on about the correct methods of Mexica sun worship
I sit on the advisory board - and hold shares in - an AI invention company. I know what's going on. The challenges AI poses are not going to be solved on a national basis, that is for sure. If we think that way, AI is certainly something that will be done to us.
The Red Wall seems a dated concept now - all very Brexit, Boris and Farage. I wonder if the Tories will come to regret diverting such a large amount of political capital to it. Matthew Parris made a similar point with his (what became) notorious article about the Tories getting too hung up over Clacton-on-Sea.
The Red Wall should be levelled, not levelled up.
Why ?
Many parts of it are very pleasant. Certainly in the North East.
Punishment for voting for Brexit.
Would anybody really miss places like Stoke?
I’m guessing it’s not top of any football fans list of favourite away days.
The big difference between Leavers and Remainers is that Leavers are stupid and Remainers are just as stupid - see @TOPPING et al - but Remainers are haughtily convinced they are much cleverer. This, in a weird way, makes Remainers even stupider - in practise - than Leavers, who are genuinely stupid
Once you understand that, the entire farcical madness of Brexit is explicable, right down to the daily debates on here, still ongoing
Leavers or remainers may or may not be stupid.
People who don't understand that it is perfectly democratic to ask the people about a decision that you previously asked them, nor that parliaments cannot bind successive parliaments, nor that parliament is sovereign are, however, very, very stupid indeed.
You can't step into the same river twice.
2016 was a one-off fork in the road. We can't go back and change our minds, and the previous status quo isn't on offer anyway.
Any new attempt to join the EU needs to start with a party winning an election with a commitment to negotiate accession and everything that comes with it. It doesn't start with rerunning the 2016 vote.
Another Referendum is all it takes.
"Should the United Kingdom remain in no man's land or leave to join every other European country in the European Union?
Tick one box only:
Leave Remain
The government will implement whatever the majority decide."
You sound like the people who were eagerly waiting for Nicola Sturgeon to give them another referendum on Scottish independence and thought that's all it would take.
I'm saying there's no need to overthink it. Party wins a GE promising an In/Out referendum. Same as last time. The only difference is it's the insurgent IN that triggers the EU negotiation process rather than the status quo of OUT. Instead of an exit deal the mandate is to agree an entry deal. This will happen in the medium term and IN will win comfortably as the country collectively screws its head back on.
Issue one in the campaign: is a vote to rejoin a mandate to join the Euro?
Rejoin would have to say "no" in order to avoid holing their campaign below the waterline, but what if the EU doesn't recreate our opt-outs?
It's Leave (no man's land) not Rejoin. That's number 1. Then to the substantive point. So, fine, just as in all campaigns there'll be issues, questions, truth and lies. It will be for Leave to make their case and Remain (in no man's land) to make theirs.
The bottom line is as before. If the 'change' proposition prevails it then falls on the government to negotiate the best deal with the EU that it can. An entry deal this time rather than an exit one.
Will the details of the deal have to be known before the vote? Nope. Of course not. Did the details of the deal last time have to be known before the vote? I should cocoa.
The lesson of Brexit - to be taken to heart for any other EU referendum or indeed for the Sindy one when it comes - is that for the change campaign to win they must AVOID SPECIFICS.
That would be the big problem for the Rejoin campaign. It would be open to their opponents to pin all manner of charges on the Rejoiners.
And, you'd have a very bemused EU leadership thinking "Why the hell do we want to go through this, all over again?" with perhaps a very fractious set of negotiations to follow a Rejoin vote in the referendum, with the possibility of a change of government in the intervening years.
If Rejoin ever happens it will be as the result of bottom up pressure and it will be many years from now. I may be wrong, but I don't think the under-45 demographic on PB is in any way typical of that demographic generally. Attachment to the pound, dislike of freedom of movement, concerns about sovereignty and so on just do not resonate in the way they do, for perfectly understandable reasons, to older generations. That does not guarantee anything, of course, but in 10 years time the voting public will look and feel very different to the one we have now. If growth is sluggish, if living standards are not improving, if public services are not functioning and so on, EU membership on whatever terms may start to look like a solution to deep-seated problems - just as it did in the 1970s. Obviously, if the UK actually starts to move in the right direction, that is far less likely to be the case. In the meantime, we are clearly going to move closer to the EU.
Again, the impending AI revolution renders all of this fairly meaningless, in an unusually profound way. Human life is about to change. A tsunami approaches which will upend EVERYTHING
It’s like a squabble between pre-Colombian Mexican tribes even as Hernan Cortes marches towards Tenochtitlan
AI will not stop the arguments on here. It will just make them a lot more confusing.
Similarly, it will never be a substitute for live experience. AI can't sit on the beach for you, or stand on that mountain top, or eat that steak, or drink that bottle of wine. AI will never stop Spurs from being Spursy or an England batting collapse. Real life will still matter.
Indeed. Actual reality beats virtual reality every time.
Who wants to live plugged into The Matrix?
You should tell that to the 7,800 people just sacked by IBM to be replaced by AI, I’m sure it will be a momentous consolation that “a a machine cannot drink that bottle of wine that they can no longer afford coz they’ve been sacked”
The Red Wall seems a dated concept now - all very Brexit, Boris and Farage. I wonder if the Tories will come to regret diverting such a large amount of political capital to it. Matthew Parris made a similar point with his (what became) notorious article about the Tories getting too hung up over Clacton-on-Sea.
The Red Wall seems to be outperforming national polling for Labour. As, now, is Scotland. So this implies somewhere else the Tories are hanging on. My fear is the blue wall where they're up against Lib Dems, but my guess is that new Tory heartland the Midlands.
The Red Wall seems a dated concept now - all very Brexit, Boris and Farage. I wonder if the Tories will come to regret diverting such a large amount of political capital to it. Matthew Parris made a similar point with his (what became) notorious article about the Tories getting too hung up over Clacton-on-Sea.
But without the Red Wall seats, how do the Conservatives get to a working majority?
The big difference between Leavers and Remainers is that Leavers are stupid and Remainers are just as stupid - see @TOPPING et al - but Remainers are haughtily convinced they are much cleverer. This, in a weird way, makes Remainers even stupider - in practise - than Leavers, who are genuinely stupid
Once you understand that, the entire farcical madness of Brexit is explicable, right down to the daily debates on here, still ongoing
Leavers or remainers may or may not be stupid.
People who don't understand that it is perfectly democratic to ask the people about a decision that you previously asked them, nor that parliaments cannot bind successive parliaments, nor that parliament is sovereign are, however, very, very stupid indeed.
You can't step into the same river twice.
2016 was a one-off fork in the road. We can't go back and change our minds, and the previous status quo isn't on offer anyway.
Any new attempt to join the EU needs to start with a party winning an election with a commitment to negotiate accession and everything that comes with it. It doesn't start with rerunning the 2016 vote.
Another Referendum is all it takes.
"Should the United Kingdom remain in no man's land or leave to join every other European country in the European Union?
Tick one box only:
Leave Remain
The government will implement whatever the majority decide."
You sound like the people who were eagerly waiting for Nicola Sturgeon to give them another referendum on Scottish independence and thought that's all it would take.
I'm saying there's no need to overthink it. Party wins a GE promising an In/Out referendum. Same as last time. The only difference is it's the insurgent IN that triggers the EU negotiation process rather than the status quo of OUT. Instead of an exit deal the mandate is to agree an entry deal. This will happen in the medium term and IN will win comfortably as the country collectively screws its head back on.
Issue one in the campaign: is a vote to rejoin a mandate to join the Euro?
Rejoin would have to say "no" in order to avoid holing their campaign below the waterline, but what if the EU doesn't recreate our opt-outs?
It's Leave (no man's land) not Rejoin. That's number 1. Then to the substantive point. So, fine, just as in all campaigns there'll be issues, questions, truth and lies. It will be for Leave to make their case and Remain (in no man's land) to make theirs.
The bottom line is as before. If the 'change' proposition prevails it then falls on the government to negotiate the best deal with the EU that it can. An entry deal this time rather than an exit one.
Will the details of the deal have to be known before the vote? Nope. Of course not. Did the details of the deal last time have to be known before the vote? I should cocoa.
The lesson of Brexit - to be taken to heart for any other EU referendum or indeed for the Sindy one when it comes - is that for the change campaign to win they must AVOID SPECIFICS.
That would be the big problem for the Rejoin campaign. It would be open to their opponents to pin all manner of charges on the Rejoiners.
And, you'd have a very bemused EU leadership thinking "Why the hell do we want to go through this, all over again?" with perhaps a very fractious set of negotiations to follow a Rejoin vote in the referendum, with the possibility of a change of government in the intervening years.
If Rejoin ever happens it will be as the result of bottom up pressure and it will be many years from now. I may be wrong, but I don't think the under-45 demographic on PB is in any way typical of that demographic generally. Attachment to the pound, dislike of freedom of movement, concerns about sovereignty and so on just do not resonate in the way they do, for perfectly understandable reasons, to older generations. That does not guarantee anything, of course, but in 10 years time the voting public will look and feel very different to the one we have now. If growth is sluggish, if living standards are not improving, if public services are not functioning and so on, EU membership on whatever terms may start to look like a solution to deep-seated problems - just as it did in the 1970s. Obviously, if the UK actually starts to move in the right direction, that is far less likely to be the case. In the meantime, we are clearly going to move closer to the EU.
Again, the impending AI revolution renders all of this fairly meaningless, in an unusually profound way. Human life is about to change. A tsunami approaches which will upend EVERYTHING
It’s like a squabble between pre-Colombian Mexican tribes even as Hernan Cortes marches towards Tenochtitlan
AI will not stop the arguments on here. It will just make them a lot more confusing.
Similarly, it will never be a substitute for live experience. AI can't sit on the beach for you, or stand on that mountain top, or eat that steak, or drink that bottle of wine. AI will never stop Spurs from being Spursy or an England batting collapse. Real life will still matter.
I’m not arguing with any of that waffle, I’m arguing that the human economic (and hence political) landscape is about to be redrawn in a way which will make debates about EU relationships looks pitifully jejune and insignificant
See here:
“3. IBM plans to replace 7800 jobs with AI
Dropbox first planned to lay off 500 employees and replace them with AI a week ago.
Now, IBM follows with plans to replace 7,800 jobs with AI and pause hiring for roles that could be automated”
“IBM CEO Arvind Krishna says most back-office positions, such as HR and accounting, will be replaced:
“I could easily see 30% of that getting replaced by AI and automation over a five-year period.”
AI is having an insane impact on the job market already.”
Like I said, Cortes is marching from Veracruz and Remainers are banging on about the correct methods of Mexica sun worship
Certainly easy to replace travel journalism:
"When it comes to watching football in Bangkok, there are few places that can rival the atmosphere of a lively bar. The sound of excited fans cheering for their team, the clinking of glasses, and the smell of pub grub in the air - it's all part of the experience.
As a Liverpool FC fan, I found myself in a cozy bar in Bangkok, with a pint of Stella in hand and the game blasting from the big screen. The energy in the bar was palpable, as fans from all over the world came together to witness the magic of the sport.
In Bangkok, football isn't just a sport - it's a way of life. And for fans like me, there's no better way to experience it than by grabbing a pint, settling in at a local bar, and cheering on your team with fellow British fans while discussing Local elections on Political betting.com"
It's interesting Rishi Sunak and the cabinet secretary seem so obsessed with following the rules for Sue Grey but not for Rishi Sunak and his declaration of interests.
has been mythologised as *nobody* saying that we would leave the single market, even though both Leave and Remain campaigns were clear before the referendum that this is what would happen.
Cameron knew he would have to resign, immediately, if he lost the Brexit vote (tho he denied it for obvious reasons) so I don’t think his stupid opinion counts for much, as to what he would have done “after Brexit”
Senior Brexiteers like Hannah DID say we would stay in the Single Market. I can’t remember Boris’s position, I imagine it was constructively ambiguous
On this point we disagree. Leavers knew that the vaguer they were, the more votes they would get
But Remainers also told terrible lies: Turkey’s accession was always out of the question, etc etc, and of course the europhiles had to overcome three decades of CONSTANT lies (there is no loss of sovereignty, it’s all a tidying up exercise, we will give you a vote on the Constitution etc)
Below is a great twitter thread from 2019 documenting how the debate moved from membership or not of the SM if we chose to leave the EU being an active issue before the referendum and immediately afterwards to becoming "Both sides said" by January 2017.
The video showing David Davies position developing from "its a negotiation" to "both sides said" is probably enough , but there is loads more contemporary evidence besides.
Sorry to impose cognitive dissonance on anyone who has "remembered" differently!
Very selective examples given William's links below.
I am sure others can add other links showing it either way - in other words there was an active debate. The only way to avoid that was if Leave had been more specific about what sort of Leave was being proposed - but of course Cummings genius was to recognise you needed to make it all things to everyone.
The big difference between Leavers and Remainers is that Leavers are stupid and Remainers are just as stupid - see @TOPPING et al - but Remainers are haughtily convinced they are much cleverer. This, in a weird way, makes Remainers even stupider - in practise - than Leavers, who are genuinely stupid
Once you understand that, the entire farcical madness of Brexit is explicable, right down to the daily debates on here, still ongoing
Leavers or remainers may or may not be stupid.
People who don't understand that it is perfectly democratic to ask the people about a decision that you previously asked them, nor that parliaments cannot bind successive parliaments, nor that parliament is sovereign are, however, very, very stupid indeed.
You can't step into the same river twice.
2016 was a one-off fork in the road. We can't go back and change our minds, and the previous status quo isn't on offer anyway.
Any new attempt to join the EU needs to start with a party winning an election with a commitment to negotiate accession and everything that comes with it. It doesn't start with rerunning the 2016 vote.
Another Referendum is all it takes.
"Should the United Kingdom remain in no man's land or leave to join every other European country in the European Union?
Tick one box only:
Leave Remain
The government will implement whatever the majority decide."
No - the conditions would need to be said too - otherwise when we lose the pound, are forced into the Euro, lose our central bank, pay lots more into the EU budget, have no rebate etc, then the whole shitshow starts again.
Make an honest case of the pros (trade, jobs for those who wish to work in Europe, boost to GDP etc) vs cost (being a net contributer to the budget, no check on Europeans moving to the UK). Otherwise it sets up the next 20 years of arguments.
We're talking practical politics not an exam question. For the Change proposition to win it should stay vague and simplistic and aspirational. It should also avoid engaging with difficult questions. Look at 2016. Would Leave have won if it'd been defined. Nope. And would Leave have won if there'd been a rigorous, informed and intelligent debate? Not a chance. Everybody knows this. THAT is the lesson of the EU referendum, none of this "next time we should be all elevated and thoughtful" wishcasting. That's naive or it's virtue-signalling or (when it comes from unreformed Leavers) it's pure and simple trolling.
But can't you see the issue with the BiB? Do that and you set the future argument up right there.
Sorry Driver missed that you'd asked me a question. Answer is yes I do see. But I think we're at cross purposes. I'm talking about winning a Referendum not what's best for the country. Lessons of 2016 etc.
The big difference between Leavers and Remainers is that Leavers are stupid and Remainers are just as stupid - see @TOPPING et al - but Remainers are haughtily convinced they are much cleverer. This, in a weird way, makes Remainers even stupider - in practise - than Leavers, who are genuinely stupid
Once you understand that, the entire farcical madness of Brexit is explicable, right down to the daily debates on here, still ongoing
Leavers or remainers may or may not be stupid.
People who don't understand that it is perfectly democratic to ask the people about a decision that you previously asked them, nor that parliaments cannot bind successive parliaments, nor that parliament is sovereign are, however, very, very stupid indeed.
You can't step into the same river twice.
2016 was a one-off fork in the road. We can't go back and change our minds, and the previous status quo isn't on offer anyway.
Any new attempt to join the EU needs to start with a party winning an election with a commitment to negotiate accession and everything that comes with it. It doesn't start with rerunning the 2016 vote.
Another Referendum is all it takes.
"Should the United Kingdom remain in no man's land or leave to join every other European country in the European Union?
Tick one box only:
Leave Remain
The government will implement whatever the majority decide."
You sound like the people who were eagerly waiting for Nicola Sturgeon to give them another referendum on Scottish independence and thought that's all it would take.
I'm saying there's no need to overthink it. Party wins a GE promising an In/Out referendum. Same as last time. The only difference is it's the insurgent IN that triggers the EU negotiation process rather than the status quo of OUT. Instead of an exit deal the mandate is to agree an entry deal. This will happen in the medium term and IN will win comfortably as the country collectively screws its head back on.
Issue one in the campaign: is a vote to rejoin a mandate to join the Euro?
Rejoin would have to say "no" in order to avoid holing their campaign below the waterline, but what if the EU doesn't recreate our opt-outs?
It's Leave (no man's land) not Rejoin. That's number 1. Then to the substantive point. So, fine, just as in all campaigns there'll be issues, questions, truth and lies. It will be for Leave to make their case and Remain (in no man's land) to make theirs.
The bottom line is as before. If the 'change' proposition prevails it then falls on the government to negotiate the best deal with the EU that it can. An entry deal this time rather than an exit one.
Will the details of the deal have to be known before the vote? Nope. Of course not. Did the details of the deal last time have to be known before the vote? I should cocoa.
The lesson of Brexit - to be taken to heart for any other EU referendum or indeed for the Sindy one when it comes - is that for the change campaign to win they must AVOID SPECIFICS.
That would be the big problem for the Rejoin campaign. It would be open to their opponents to pin all manner of charges on the Rejoiners.
And, you'd have a very bemused EU leadership thinking "Why the hell do we want to go through this, all over again?" with perhaps a very fractious set of negotiations to follow a Rejoin vote in the referendum, with the possibility of a change of government in the intervening years.
If Rejoin ever happens it will be as the result of bottom up pressure and it will be many years from now. I may be wrong, but I don't think the under-45 demographic on PB is in any way typical of that demographic generally. Attachment to the pound, dislike of freedom of movement, concerns about sovereignty and so on just do not resonate in the way they do, for perfectly understandable reasons, to older generations. That does not guarantee anything, of course, but in 10 years time the voting public will look and feel very different to the one we have now. If growth is sluggish, if living standards are not improving, if public services are not functioning and so on, EU membership on whatever terms may start to look like a solution to deep-seated problems - just as it did in the 1970s. Obviously, if the UK actually starts to move in the right direction, that is far less likely to be the case. In the meantime, we are clearly going to move closer to the EU.
Again, the impending AI revolution renders all of this fairly meaningless, in an unusually profound way. Human life is about to change. A tsunami approaches which will upend EVERYTHING
It’s like a squabble between pre-Colombian Mexican tribes even as Hernan Cortes marches towards Tenochtitlan
AI will not stop the arguments on here. It will just make them a lot more confusing.
Similarly, it will never be a substitute for live experience. AI can't sit on the beach for you, or stand on that mountain top, or eat that steak, or drink that bottle of wine. AI will never stop Spurs from being Spursy or an England batting collapse. Real life will still matter.
I’m not arguing with any of that waffle, I’m arguing that the human economic (and hence political) landscape is about to be redrawn in a way which will make debates about EU relationships looks pitifully jejune and insignificant
See here:
“3. IBM plans to replace 7800 jobs with AI
Dropbox first planned to lay off 500 employees and replace them with AI a week ago.
Now, IBM follows with plans to replace 7,800 jobs with AI and pause hiring for roles that could be automated”
“IBM CEO Arvind Krishna says most back-office positions, such as HR and accounting, will be replaced:
“I could easily see 30% of that getting replaced by AI and automation over a five-year period.”
AI is having an insane impact on the job market already.”
Like I said, Cortes is marching from Veracruz and Remainers are banging on about the correct methods of Mexica sun worship
I sit on the advisory board - and hold shares in - an AI invention company. I know what's going on. The challenges AI poses are not going to be solved on a national basis, that is for sure. If we think that way, AI is certainly something that will be done to us.
But neither is it going to be solved on a quasi-continental confederal level. This is like saying an asteroid impact can be dealt with better if Paraguay and Uruguay have a shared football team
And, actually, there is PERHAPS an argument that a nimble single country with a responsive democracy might just handle this incredible revolution better than a large lumbering bureaucracy. Certainly the UK has an advantage in AI over most of Europe, Tho that may not mean much if the most epochal prognoses come to pass
has been mythologised as *nobody* saying that we would leave the single market, even though both Leave and Remain campaigns were clear before the referendum that this is what would happen.
Cameron knew he would have to resign, immediately, if he lost the Brexit vote (tho he denied it for obvious reasons) so I don’t think his stupid opinion counts for much, as to what he would have done “after Brexit”
Senior Brexiteers like Hannah DID say we would stay in the Single Market. I can’t remember Boris’s position, I imagine it was constructively ambiguous
On this point we disagree. Leavers knew that the vaguer they were, the more votes they would get
But Remainers also told terrible lies: Turkey’s accession was always out of the question, etc etc, and of course the europhiles had to overcome three decades of CONSTANT lies (there is no loss of sovereignty, it’s all a tidying up exercise, we will give you a vote on the Constitution etc)
Below is a great twitter thread from 2019 documenting how the debate moved from membership or not of the SM if we chose to leave the EU being an active issue before the referendum and immediately afterwards to becoming "Both sides said" by January 2017.
The video showing David Davies position developing from "its a negotiation" to "both sides said" is probably enough , but there is loads more contemporary evidence besides.
Remember that female officer I mentioned yesterday who was sacked for drink driving....
A high-ranking Scotland Yard officer was allowed to keep his job despite being found to be paying “high-class” prostitutes regularly, it has been claimed.
The middle-aged officer was given a minor rebuke for his behaviour, after the Metropolitan Police’s Professional Standards Unit discovered his activities.
The case, reported last night by the Daily Mail, was said to have come to light after whistleblowers expressed concern at the apparent double standards that allowed him to continue in his post while a more junior officer would probably have been sacked for gross misconduct.
The Red Wall seems a dated concept now - all very Brexit, Boris and Farage. I wonder if the Tories will come to regret diverting such a large amount of political capital to it. Matthew Parris made a similar point with his (what became) notorious article about the Tories getting too hung up over Clacton-on-Sea.
The Red Wall should be levelled, not levelled up.
Why ?
Many parts of it are very pleasant. Certainly in the North East.
Punishment for voting for Brexit.
Would anybody really miss places like Stoke?
I’m guessing it’s not top of any football fans list of favourite away days.
It's not.
Also in 2006 I caught the Manchester to Euston train which broke down in Stoke, and it was the day the BNP were holding a rally in Stoke.
The Red Wall seems a dated concept now - all very Brexit, Boris and Farage. I wonder if the Tories will come to regret diverting such a large amount of political capital to it. Matthew Parris made a similar point with his (what became) notorious article about the Tories getting too hung up over Clacton-on-Sea.
The Red Wall should be levelled, not levelled up.
Why ?
Many parts of it are very pleasant. Certainly in the North East.
Lowest % to answer 'No' and highest % to answer 'Yes' that we've recorded.
Do Britons believe the UK Government is currently taking the right measures to address the cost-of-living crisis? (30 April)
No 57% (-6) Yes 31% (+6) Don't know 12% (–)
Changes +/- 23 April
Highest % to answer 'Yes' that we've recorded.
Do Britons believe a UK Government led by the Labour Party would currently be taking the right measures to address the cost-of-living crisis? (30 April)
Perhaps the crisis was oversold? That is not saying there was and is no crisis nor that it is not catastrophic for some. But might it be that the media and opposition have overplayed the issue to the extent that people are finding that although things are tough, they are not, for a significant number at least, as bad as they expected it to be?
To make it clear I am not saying this is the case, just asking if that might be the reason for the apparent slight improvement in numbers for the Tories.
The Red Wall seems a dated concept now - all very Brexit, Boris and Farage. I wonder if the Tories will come to regret diverting such a large amount of political capital to it. Matthew Parris made a similar point with his (what became) notorious article about the Tories getting too hung up over Clacton-on-Sea.
The Red Wall should be levelled, not levelled up.
Why ?
Many parts of it are very pleasant. Certainly in the North East.
Those who have been briefing the Tory press this week either knew Gray hadn't engaged with the enquiry and didn't share that info; or they didn't know, so had no serious knowledge of what was going on. Either way, the Tory press has been made to look spectacularly stupid. Such is client journalism.
The Red Wall seems a dated concept now - all very Brexit, Boris and Farage. I wonder if the Tories will come to regret diverting such a large amount of political capital to it. Matthew Parris made a similar point with his (what became) notorious article about the Tories getting too hung up over Clacton-on-Sea.
But without the Red Wall seats, how do the Conservatives get to a working majority?
The big difference between Leavers and Remainers is that Leavers are stupid and Remainers are just as stupid - see @TOPPING et al - but Remainers are haughtily convinced they are much cleverer. This, in a weird way, makes Remainers even stupider - in practise - than Leavers, who are genuinely stupid
Once you understand that, the entire farcical madness of Brexit is explicable, right down to the daily debates on here, still ongoing
Leavers or remainers may or may not be stupid.
People who don't understand that it is perfectly democratic to ask the people about a decision that you previously asked them, nor that parliaments cannot bind successive parliaments, nor that parliament is sovereign are, however, very, very stupid indeed.
You can't step into the same river twice.
2016 was a one-off fork in the road. We can't go back and change our minds, and the previous status quo isn't on offer anyway.
Any new attempt to join the EU needs to start with a party winning an election with a commitment to negotiate accession and everything that comes with it. It doesn't start with rerunning the 2016 vote.
Another Referendum is all it takes.
"Should the United Kingdom remain in no man's land or leave to join every other European country in the European Union?
Tick one box only:
Leave Remain
The government will implement whatever the majority decide."
You sound like the people who were eagerly waiting for Nicola Sturgeon to give them another referendum on Scottish independence and thought that's all it would take.
I'm saying there's no need to overthink it. Party wins a GE promising an In/Out referendum. Same as last time. The only difference is it's the insurgent IN that triggers the EU negotiation process rather than the status quo of OUT. Instead of an exit deal the mandate is to agree an entry deal. This will happen in the medium term and IN will win comfortably as the country collectively screws its head back on.
Issue one in the campaign: is a vote to rejoin a mandate to join the Euro?
Rejoin would have to say "no" in order to avoid holing their campaign below the waterline, but what if the EU doesn't recreate our opt-outs?
It's Leave (no man's land) not Rejoin. That's number 1. Then to the substantive point. So, fine, just as in all campaigns there'll be issues, questions, truth and lies. It will be for Leave to make their case and Remain (in no man's land) to make theirs.
The bottom line is as before. If the 'change' proposition prevails it then falls on the government to negotiate the best deal with the EU that it can. An entry deal this time rather than an exit one.
Will the details of the deal have to be known before the vote? Nope. Of course not. Did the details of the deal last time have to be known before the vote? I should cocoa.
The lesson of Brexit - to be taken to heart for any other EU referendum or indeed for the Sindy one when it comes - is that for the change campaign to win they must AVOID SPECIFICS.
That would be the big problem for the Rejoin campaign. It would be open to their opponents to pin all manner of charges on the Rejoiners.
And, you'd have a very bemused EU leadership thinking "Why the hell do we want to go through this, all over again?" with perhaps a very fractious set of negotiations to follow a Rejoin vote in the referendum, with the possibility of a change of government in the intervening years.
If Rejoin ever happens it will be as the result of bottom up pressure and it will be many years from now. I may be wrong, but I don't think the under-45 demographic on PB is in any way typical of that demographic generally. Attachment to the pound, dislike of freedom of movement, concerns about sovereignty and so on just do not resonate in the way they do, for perfectly understandable reasons, to older generations. That does not guarantee anything, of course, but in 10 years time the voting public will look and feel very different to the one we have now. If growth is sluggish, if living standards are not improving, if public services are not functioning and so on, EU membership on whatever terms may start to look like a solution to deep-seated problems - just as it did in the 1970s. Obviously, if the UK actually starts to move in the right direction, that is far less likely to be the case. In the meantime, we are clearly going to move closer to the EU.
Again, the impending AI revolution renders all of this fairly meaningless, in an unusually profound way. Human life is about to change. A tsunami approaches which will upend EVERYTHING
It’s like a squabble between pre-Colombian Mexican tribes even as Hernan Cortes marches towards Tenochtitlan
AI will not stop the arguments on here. It will just make them a lot more confusing.
Similarly, it will never be a substitute for live experience. AI can't sit on the beach for you, or stand on that mountain top, or eat that steak, or drink that bottle of wine. AI will never stop Spurs from being Spursy or an England batting collapse. Real life will still matter.
Indeed. Actual reality beats virtual reality every time.
Who wants to live plugged into The Matrix?
You should tell that to the 7,800 people just sacked by IBM to be replaced by AI, I’m sure it will be a momentous consolation that “a a machine cannot drink that bottle of wine that they can no longer afford coz they’ve been sacked”
700 at Dropbox too.
This is going to be huge.
Doctors, teachers, lecturers, accountants, this will taken large swathes of middle class jobs.
Kids today. Get a trade. Become a plumber or a brickie or a sparkle.
Those who have been briefing the Tory press this week either knew Gray hadn't engaged with the enquiry and didn't share that info; or they didn't know, so had no serious knowledge of what was going on. Either way, the Tory press has been made to look spectacularly stupid. Such is client journalism.
I know, all those gullible PBers who fell for the spin as well.
They really shouldn't be allowed out of the house.
The big difference between Leavers and Remainers is that Leavers are stupid and Remainers are just as stupid - see @TOPPING et al - but Remainers are haughtily convinced they are much cleverer. This, in a weird way, makes Remainers even stupider - in practise - than Leavers, who are genuinely stupid
Once you understand that, the entire farcical madness of Brexit is explicable, right down to the daily debates on here, still ongoing
Leavers or remainers may or may not be stupid.
People who don't understand that it is perfectly democratic to ask the people about a decision that you previously asked them, nor that parliaments cannot bind successive parliaments, nor that parliament is sovereign are, however, very, very stupid indeed.
You can't step into the same river twice.
2016 was a one-off fork in the road. We can't go back and change our minds, and the previous status quo isn't on offer anyway.
Any new attempt to join the EU needs to start with a party winning an election with a commitment to negotiate accession and everything that comes with it. It doesn't start with rerunning the 2016 vote.
Another Referendum is all it takes.
"Should the United Kingdom remain in no man's land or leave to join every other European country in the European Union?
Tick one box only:
Leave Remain
The government will implement whatever the majority decide."
You sound like the people who were eagerly waiting for Nicola Sturgeon to give them another referendum on Scottish independence and thought that's all it would take.
I'm saying there's no need to overthink it. Party wins a GE promising an In/Out referendum. Same as last time. The only difference is it's the insurgent IN that triggers the EU negotiation process rather than the status quo of OUT. Instead of an exit deal the mandate is to agree an entry deal. This will happen in the medium term and IN will win comfortably as the country collectively screws its head back on.
Issue one in the campaign: is a vote to rejoin a mandate to join the Euro?
Rejoin would have to say "no" in order to avoid holing their campaign below the waterline, but what if the EU doesn't recreate our opt-outs?
It's Leave (no man's land) not Rejoin. That's number 1. Then to the substantive point. So, fine, just as in all campaigns there'll be issues, questions, truth and lies. It will be for Leave to make their case and Remain (in no man's land) to make theirs.
The bottom line is as before. If the 'change' proposition prevails it then falls on the government to negotiate the best deal with the EU that it can. An entry deal this time rather than an exit one.
Will the details of the deal have to be known before the vote? Nope. Of course not. Did the details of the deal last time have to be known before the vote? I should cocoa.
The lesson of Brexit - to be taken to heart for any other EU referendum or indeed for the Sindy one when it comes - is that for the change campaign to win they must AVOID SPECIFICS.
That would be the big problem for the Rejoin campaign. It would be open to their opponents to pin all manner of charges on the Rejoiners.
And, you'd have a very bemused EU leadership thinking "Why the hell do we want to go through this, all over again?" with perhaps a very fractious set of negotiations to follow a Rejoin vote in the referendum, with the possibility of a change of government in the intervening years.
If Rejoin ever happens it will be as the result of bottom up pressure and it will be many years from now. I may be wrong, but I don't think the under-45 demographic on PB is in any way typical of that demographic generally. Attachment to the pound, dislike of freedom of movement, concerns about sovereignty and so on just do not resonate in the way they do, for perfectly understandable reasons, to older generations. That does not guarantee anything, of course, but in 10 years time the voting public will look and feel very different to the one we have now. If growth is sluggish, if living standards are not improving, if public services are not functioning and so on, EU membership on whatever terms may start to look like a solution to deep-seated problems - just as it did in the 1970s. Obviously, if the UK actually starts to move in the right direction, that is far less likely to be the case. In the meantime, we are clearly going to move closer to the EU.
Again, the impending AI revolution renders all of this fairly meaningless, in an unusually profound way. Human life is about to change. A tsunami approaches which will upend EVERYTHING
It’s like a squabble between pre-Colombian Mexican tribes even as Hernan Cortes marches towards Tenochtitlan
AI will not stop the arguments on here. It will just make them a lot more confusing.
Similarly, it will never be a substitute for live experience. AI can't sit on the beach for you, or stand on that mountain top, or eat that steak, or drink that bottle of wine. AI will never stop Spurs from being Spursy or an England batting collapse. Real life will still matter.
I’m not arguing with any of that waffle, I’m arguing that the human economic (and hence political) landscape is about to be redrawn in a way which will make debates about EU relationships looks pitifully jejune and insignificant
See here:
“3. IBM plans to replace 7800 jobs with AI
Dropbox first planned to lay off 500 employees and replace them with AI a week ago.
Now, IBM follows with plans to replace 7,800 jobs with AI and pause hiring for roles that could be automated”
“IBM CEO Arvind Krishna says most back-office positions, such as HR and accounting, will be replaced:
“I could easily see 30% of that getting replaced by AI and automation over a five-year period.”
AI is having an insane impact on the job market already.”
Like I said, Cortes is marching from Veracruz and Remainers are banging on about the correct methods of Mexica sun worship
Certainly easy to replace travel journalism:
"When it comes to watching football in Bangkok, there are few places that can rival the atmosphere of a lively bar. The sound of excited fans cheering for their team, the clinking of glasses, and the smell of pub grub in the air - it's all part of the experience.
As a Liverpool FC fan, I found myself in a cozy bar in Bangkok, with a pint of Stella in hand and the game blasting from the big screen. The energy in the bar was palpable, as fans from all over the world came together to witness the magic of the sport.
In Bangkok, football isn't just a sport - it's a way of life. And for fans like me, there's no better way to experience it than by grabbing a pint, settling in at a local bar, and cheering on your team with fellow British fans while discussing Local elections on Political betting.com"
Actually, and chillingly, that is not bad, and certainly publishable in, say, a local newspaper or on a blog. And it will only get better
The great, almost godlike exPBer @SeanT did predict that AI would be “the end of writing” to much scorn at the time
Also see here. The Writers Guild of America is going on strike. One of the reasons is that they have demanded Hollywood swears it will never use AI writers. Unsurprisingly, Hollywood has told them to go jump. It’s like ostlers demanding that London Transport only ever use horses
The Red Wall seems a dated concept now - all very Brexit, Boris and Farage. I wonder if the Tories will come to regret diverting such a large amount of political capital to it. Matthew Parris made a similar point with his (what became) notorious article about the Tories getting too hung up over Clacton-on-Sea.
But without the Red Wall seats, how do the Conservatives get to a working majority?
Massive gains in Scotland.
Starmer's a duffer etc.
Not enough.
Dave vs. Ed was a majority of 10.
John vs. Neil was a majority of 21.
It leaders that awesome can only get majorities that small against those windbags, Conservatives have a problem with the map. If you don't Red Wall out of that, what does a party do?
The whole thing is ludicrous . She’s already left the Civil Service so what’s the point of an enquiry . This whole Tory outrage is concocted to put pressure on the Priviliges Committee .
Comments
It would be obscenely cynical. But they might as well.
Fair enough. It’s a rite of passage for every slightly dull middle class army type
But yes I agree - as I said downthread, and as a Lib Dem, I really don't care if he's lied to the members especially that far out from an actual election.
And that passes as sophistication for you, now, does it.
"We will be in the Euro but will negotiate a special British way of being in it that gives us the efficiencies without the monetary union aspect. The Bank of England will have our back, don't you worry. We hold all the cards. They really want us back. They're just about begging."
Amazingly - though this seems to have passed you by - when I said
“ there’s a table of Brits next to me who’ve stopped watching the Liverpool game so - no joke - they can discuss “Greygate”
One guy just said he’s flying home two weeks early to vote Tory when he’s normally Plaid Cymru, just because of Greygate. Another guy said Yeah Starmer’s Ok but Sunak looks so HEALTHY”
…. I was joking. Did you not detect that? Or did you honestly believe there were Brits discussing Graygate and their Plaid Cymru vote and the relative healthiness of the UK prime minister?
I know I correctly labeled you as a “stupid Remainer” earlier on, and this has clearly irked you, but you don’t have to toil away proving me right, with every single comment hereafter
And we'll end up, not quite as close as Switzerland, and never in an absolutely fixed position (because we'll always be negotiating something), but closer than now.
And the young are always vebting their spleen. FOr all the good it ever does them.
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/how-to-see-bangkok-without-the-crowds/
https://bonjourparis.com/museums/favorite-paintings-in-paris-labsinthe-by-edgar-degas/
written from a table adjacent to some Brits watching the English footie.
Oh if only your audience knew the reality.
I'm just making a couple of observations.
(1) People saying there's no chance of us rejoining have little clue how the next 5 years will pan out let alone the next 20.
(2) IF another Referendum happens - and pls god no - don't go assuming Rejoin will have to be defined the way that Leave wasn't. That is deeply arguable.
https://twitter.com/HSJnews/status/1653400838210035715?t=1-_y0OE0DsFUYRiT5r8srA&s=19
Unite too:
https://twitter.com/unitetheunion/status/1653392658251804674?t=6DKRcXPHdJh7OLTDpnwigw&s=19
How come I’ve walked 25,000 steps today, and all of them have been uphill? I’ve forgotten what living in a hilly city is like!
Didn't the unions just accept the pay offer?
"The next pay round" - when is this? If it hasn't happened yet then surely there is no extant industrial dispute in which inflicting pain on the innocent public by choosing to go on strike can be justified?
Lab 44.0%
Con 28.4%
They can be hideously bony but if you get a good one: MMMMMM
Tho this review says the mackerel is now frozen and from Norway. SIGH
Still fun tho
https://eatyourworld.com/destinations/europe/turkey/istanbul/what_to_eat/balik_ekmek_fish_sandwich
A prominent member of the England Athletics board has been banned from holding such a position for three years after suggesting that black athletes make good sprinters because they have to flee the burglaries they commit.
Julian Starkey was the chairman of the governing body’s England Council as well as a director on the board when he made the “shocking” and “totally unacceptable” comment at an event run by Sporting Equals, which promotes ethnic diversity across sport, in November last year.
A witness alleged that Starkey, who has also been suspended from coaching for two years, said the following or similar words: “Usually when athletes start to be more specific in events, most black athletes tend to edge towards sprinting and hurdling . . . the blacks are all good at running because they have to get away from their burglaries.”
Starkey, who has also served as secretary of Bracknell Athletics Club, admitted to an independent UK Athletics disciplinary panel that he had made the comment, blaming mental health issues while claiming there had been “a gap between the first and second sentences”. His defence, however, was dismissed.
The 62-year-old resigned from his non-executive roles at England Athletics in December but it was only last month that the details of his case were published on the latest UKA sanctions list.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/official-banned-for-saying-fleeing-burglaries-helps-black-sprinters-dwkfkqnb5
There was an interesting comment from a trader about the UK introducing import requirements, not yet implemented. These will add cost and red tape but they were in favour. The UK needs something to bargain with in negotiations with the EU.
There’s an attractive woman of about 28 who stands on the corner on my road by the Swan restaurant (excellent sea bass in soi sauce) who stops every man that passes and says, as her opening line, “Hello, I will lick your asshole?”
About half the men reel away in shock, the other half burst out laughing. i suspect she is waiting for Nick Palmer, the ex Labour MP for Broxtowe, to walk past, then she’ll be sorted
But as against this I sense that SKS is judging the politics very well and I'm on board for an 'ends justifies the means' approach which ends in a Labour government next year. But, god, if he goes and loses after all this I don't know what I'll do. Don't even want to contemplate that. It'll probably mark the end of my life in political punditry.
Remember that female officer I mentioned yesterday who was sacked for drink driving....
A high-ranking Scotland Yard officer was allowed to keep his job despite being found to be paying “high-class” prostitutes regularly, it has been claimed.
The middle-aged officer was given a minor rebuke for his behaviour, after the Metropolitan Police’s Professional Standards Unit discovered his activities.
The case, reported last night by the Daily Mail, was said to have come to light after whistleblowers expressed concern at the apparent double standards that allowed him to continue in his post while a more junior officer would probably have been sacked for gross misconduct.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/05/01/senior-met-officer-who-paid-prostitutes-only-given-advice/
Honest question: why should a copper be disciplined for doing something legal (however amoral or immoral in the eyes of many)?
Somebody please explain.
Labour leads by 18% in the Red Wall.
Red Wall VI (30 April):
Labour 48% (+1)
Conservative 30% (-1)
Liberal Democrat 8% (+1)
Reform UK 6% (-1)
Green 5% (–)
Plaid Cymru 2% (+1)
Other 1% (-1)
Starmer leads Sunak by 7%.
At this moment, which of the following do Red Wall voters think would be the better PM for the UK? (30 April)
Starmer 39% (+2)
Sunak 32% (-4)
Don't Know 29% (+2)
Changes +/- 16 April
Rishi Sunak's approval rating in the Red Wall is -9%.
Rishi Sunak Red Wall Net Approval Rating (30 April):
Disapprove: 39% (+1)
Approve: 30% (-1)
Net: -9% (-2)
Changes +/- 16 April
Keir Starmer's approval rating in the Red Wall is +4%.
Keir Starmer Red Wall Net Approval Rating (30 April):
Approve: 35% (+1)
Disapprove: 31% (–)
Net: +4% (+1)
Changes +/- 16 April
https://twitter.com/RedfieldWilton
Comparing polls from the last week (n=6) to the same firms' polls at the end of Feb (before the polls started narrowing), we find:
LAB: 43.8% (-3.7)
CON: 28.0% (+1.5)
LDM: 10.5% (+1.7)
GRN: 5.5% (+0.5)
Lead down to 15.8 pts (-5.2 pts), but LD/GRN now benefiting more than Con.
https://twitter.com/Beyond_Topline/status/1653437319066599425
Lowest % to answer 'No' and highest % to answer 'Yes' that we've recorded.
Do Britons believe the UK Government is currently taking the right measures to address the cost-of-living crisis? (30 April)
No 57% (-6)
Yes 31% (+6)
Don't know 12% (–)
Changes +/- 23 April
Highest % to answer 'Yes' that we've recorded.
Do Britons believe a UK Government led by the Labour Party would currently be taking the right measures to address the cost-of-living crisis? (30 April)
Yes 45% (+9)
No 34% (-3)
Don't know 21% (-6)
Changes +/- 23 April
https://twitter.com/RedfieldWilton/status/1653356156591517697
https://twitter.com/RedfieldWilton/status/1653354101193818112
It’s like a squabble between pre-Colombian Mexican tribes even as Hernan Cortes marches towards Tenochtitlan
The LDs - yes, that's worth watching.
"Notice of execution"
Similarly, it will never be a substitute for live experience. AI can't sit on the beach for you, or stand on that mountain top, or eat that steak, or drink that bottle of wine. AI will never stop Spurs from being Spursy or an England batting collapse. Real life will still matter.
Lab/LD/Green/ChUK: 49%
Con/UKIP: 45%
2023 polling (adjusted for last week's polls)
Lab/LD/Green: 59.8%
Con/Reform: 34.2%
That's one hell of a swing if it happens that way.
https://twitter.com/Beyond_Topline/status/1653442329246564378
The 3 month stay will be tax payer funded, include full pay and no loss of pension rights.
Someone had our leaflet blu tacked in our window.❤️
The local LibDem candidate complained about our bar chart. 😂
Also
Approached by well spoken bloke in green wellies and with a black Lab is voting Labour because of Keir Starmer.
Just been grabbed by someone at my exercise class, wishing me good luck. Not used to this.
Many parts of it are very pleasant. Certainly in the North East.
See here:
“3. IBM plans to replace 7800 jobs with AI
Dropbox first planned to lay off 500 employees and replace them with AI a week ago.
Now, IBM follows with plans to replace 7,800 jobs with AI and pause hiring for roles that could be automated”
“IBM CEO Arvind Krishna says most back-office positions, such as HR and accounting, will be replaced:
“I could easily see 30% of that getting replaced by AI and automation over a five-year period.”
AI is having an insane impact on the job market already.”
https://twitter.com/rowancheung/status/1653291044551680003?s=61&t=GGp3Vs1t1kTWDiyA-odnZg
Like I said, Cortes is marching from Veracruz and Remainers are banging on about the correct methods of Mexica sun worship
Would anybody really miss places like Stoke?
Who wants to live plugged into The Matrix?
A new right party could be anything, but likely an improvement on the current Conservative party.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/may/02/government-puts-inquiry-into-sue-gray-departure-on-hold
"When it comes to watching football in Bangkok, there are few places that can rival the atmosphere of a lively bar. The sound of excited fans cheering for their team, the clinking of glasses, and the smell of pub grub in the air - it's all part of the experience.
As a Liverpool FC fan, I found myself in a cozy bar in Bangkok, with a pint of Stella in hand and the game blasting from the big screen. The energy in the bar was palpable, as fans from all over the world came together to witness the magic of the sport.
In Bangkok, football isn't just a sport - it's a way of life. And for fans like me, there's no better way to experience it than by grabbing a pint, settling in at a local bar, and cheering on your team with fellow British fans while discussing Local elections on Political betting.com"
And, actually, there is PERHAPS an argument that a nimble single country with a responsive democracy might just handle this incredible revolution better than a large lumbering bureaucracy. Certainly the UK has an advantage in AI over most of Europe, Tho that may not mean much if the most epochal prognoses come to pass
Also in 2006 I caught the Manchester to Euston train which broke down in Stoke, and it was the day the BNP were holding a rally in Stoke.
Me and my very white girlfriend in Stoke.
Fun.
To make it clear I am not saying this is the case, just asking if that might be the reason for the apparent slight improvement in numbers for the Tories.
Starmer's a duffer etc.
This is going to be huge.
Doctors, teachers, lecturers, accountants, this will taken large swathes of middle class jobs.
Kids today. Get a trade. Become a plumber or a brickie or a sparkle.
They really shouldn't be allowed out of the house.
Actually, and chillingly, that is not bad, and certainly publishable in, say, a local newspaper or on a blog. And it will only get better
The great, almost godlike exPBer @SeanT did predict that AI would be “the end of writing” to much scorn at the time
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/ai-is-the-end-of-writing/
Why is he so annoyingly correct about everything?
Also see here. The Writers Guild of America is going on strike. One of the reasons is that they have demanded Hollywood swears it will never use AI writers. Unsurprisingly, Hollywood has told them to go jump. It’s like ostlers demanding that London Transport only ever use horses
Dave vs. Ed was a majority of 10.
John vs. Neil was a majority of 21.
It leaders that awesome can only get majorities that small against those windbags, Conservatives have a problem with the map. If you don't Red Wall out of that, what does a party do?