Raynergate might not be cutting through, but I am sensing restlessness in the remainer camp. There is a tacit contract that rejoiners (who are 60% of the electorate) will vote tory with the prospect of initiating a long term process towards SM an eventually rejoining. But Starmer basically might as well be Farage with good PR when it comes to the EU. If the GE comes and goes and the mask doesn't drop on the EU there will be FURY. My guess is that this very fluid and illoyal electorate will find new pastures. Just to illustrate yougov found that only 12% strongly oppose SM.
Omnisis/WeThink10-11.4.24Rejoin/Stay Out62/38
Brexiteerism is a dying movement married to the declining boomer segment. Rejoin enjoud huge majorities in the under 60 year olds. Labour is making a huge error if it remains so rigid on the eu. Everybody i talk to is betting that this brexit kabuki theater from labour is just electoral strategy and will fall away.... it better or labour support will drop like a rock in government.
I think this is a very important point. I find it hard to believe that the Labour leadership does not understand the depth of anti-Brexit feeling inside the party generally and that this is largely being kept in check by the prospect of power. Should we get a Labour government on the other side of a general election, there will be immense - I think irresistible - pressure to secure a closer relationship with the EU. If Starmer and co seek to hold back the dam, they are going to get overwhelmed. This is so clearly obvious to anyone close to or inside the Labour party that I cannot believe the leadership is unaware. But if it is, it is going to be in for a very big surprise.
The long game aspects of this are interesting though.
It’s probably in rejoin’s interests for politicians to be seen to be dragged kicking and screaming by the electorate to something they are nervous about doing.
I think, sadly, that Starmer’s public position on Brexit is real and he really doesn’t want to reopen the wound. But if Labour got too pushy on rejoin they could bring the cause down with their own popularity when the inevitable fall in polls happened.
The other thing is the generational dynamics. There is a generation- the same generation- who weren't keen on the EEC in '75 and we're keen on Brexit in '16. And young people aren't becoming more Eurosceptic as they age;
For those who think the issue of Brexit will go away, the frontier of age/Brexit preferences is steadily shifting in a pro-EU direction - and is likely to continue to do so as a result of population replacement. Data via BESResearch
This isn't about whether they should, who is objectively right and wrong on the merits of Brexit. It's about the vibes, and vibes win. Older people are nostalgic for their youth apart from the EEC, younger people are nostalgic for their youth inside.
If I'm right, Starmer has to keep away from the wound for the duration of his Premiership. Unpick the worst damage without changing anything drastic. Prepare the path for his successor to make bigger moves.
(Yes it is the "telling the mad old relative that we wouldn't dream of getting rid of their ghastly heirloom because they'll only kick off" theory of Brexit politics.)
I think that is right.
We have so far been sheltered from some of the more inconvenient aspects of Brexit. Rigerous customs inspections of imported consumables and the more stringent immigration checks are either on the way or kicked down the street for later.
Raynergate might not be cutting through, but I am sensing restlessness in the remainer camp. There is a tacit contract that rejoiners (who are 60% of the electorate) will vote tory with the prospect of initiating a long term process towards SM an eventually rejoining. But Starmer basically might as well be Farage with good PR when it comes to the EU. If the GE comes and goes and the mask doesn't drop on the EU there will be FURY. My guess is that this very fluid and illoyal electorate will find new pastures. Just to illustrate yougov found that only 12% strongly oppose SM.
Omnisis/WeThink10-11.4.24Rejoin/Stay Out62/38
Brexiteerism is a dying movement married to the declining boomer segment. Rejoin enjoud huge majorities in the under 60 year olds. Labour is making a huge error if it remains so rigid on the eu. Everybody i talk to is betting that this brexit kabuki theater from labour is just electoral strategy and will fall away.... it better or labour support will drop like a rock in government.
I wrote wrong the 60% will vote labour with the prospect of labour mellowing on the eu. Is there a hidden editing function on posted comments?
Yes, you get 6 minutes to edit by clicking on the post them the little cogwheel.
Raynergate might not be cutting through, but I am sensing restlessness in the remainer camp. There is a tacit contract that rejoiners (who are 60% of the electorate) will vote tory with the prospect of initiating a long term process towards SM an eventually rejoining. But Starmer basically might as well be Farage with good PR when it comes to the EU. If the GE comes and goes and the mask doesn't drop on the EU there will be FURY. My guess is that this very fluid and illoyal electorate will find new pastures. Just to illustrate yougov found that only 12% strongly oppose SM.
Omnisis/WeThink10-11.4.24Rejoin/Stay Out62/38
Brexiteerism is a dying movement married to the declining boomer segment. Rejoin enjoud huge majorities in the under 60 year olds. Labour is making a huge error if it remains so rigid on the eu. Everybody i talk to is betting that this brexit kabuki theater from labour is just electoral strategy and will fall away.... it better or labour support will drop like a rock in government.
I don't think it's quite as simple as that, but it does point to a significant, just possible very large opportunity for the LibDems in the next Parliament.
Rejoin is not on the table this GE in England, even though both LDs and Greens have it as a longer term goal.
A large part of Rejoinism is because of Brexits strong association with this failing government. The two are conjoined twins. What happens next parliament is unclear. Will that transfer to Starmers Brexit? Or will it become a separate political cause?
After another 4 years we may have sufficient groundswell to rejoin the SM, while negotiating full Rejoin. Voters cannot be ignored forever.
Nah. The world is going to be transformed in the next 5-10 years. We will be dealing with so much economic change the idea of a massively difficult and painful referendum to rejoin a rigid trading bloc will appear insane. No prime minister will go for it
I do see some form of free movement coming back tho. Both sides want it
It's basically men in their 50s and 60s who are still irritable they lost to people they despise and want to completely turn the tables as the ultimate revenge. From that confirmation bias follows.
We won't be going back to the status quo ante bellum. The world has moved on, so has the UK and so very definitely has the EU.
It's the fantasy - one of the heroic Lost Cause.
But that's not what the polling data say, is it? Brexit is only popular with the retired. People in their 50s and 60s are roughly equally split, but younger than that it's as popular as a poo on the carpet.
And there is no sign at all of people coming to terms with Brexit, or it embedding as the new normal. Of course that might change in the future. But it needs to change a lot to overcome the crude demographics.
Otherwise, the will of the people eventually becomes overwhelming. And at some point, the Conservatives have to soften on Europe or cap their support at thirty percent, then twenty five, then twenty...
I suspect business savvy Tories will drive rejoin in a decade or two's time.
I'd say the biggest barrier would be the EU letting us back in not a desirn from us to get back in, given there will probably always be a residual level of Brexit feeling which could resurface. Why go through that potential hassle again when they could have some kind of enhanced partnership agreement where we follow rules without getting to vote for them or something?
A generation at least I'd say.
Why do you assume that must be necessarily where we end up, with the only variable being the function of time?
Why do you assume I assume that is inevitably the path we end up?
I think it is a good possibility we end up with a political desire to go back in, but not a certainty. If we get to such a place, if, then I don't think it will be realised for a long time.
Because you said at least a generation.
I think the fundamentals are the fundamentals and if the model isn't right the model won't ever be right.
It's the model that will change, not the fundamentals.
Raynergate might not be cutting through, but I am sensing restlessness in the remainer camp. There is a tacit contract that rejoiners (who are 60% of the electorate) will vote tory with the prospect of initiating a long term process towards SM an eventually rejoining. But Starmer basically might as well be Farage with good PR when it comes to the EU. If the GE comes and goes and the mask doesn't drop on the EU there will be FURY. My guess is that this very fluid and illoyal electorate will find new pastures. Just to illustrate yougov found that only 12% strongly oppose SM.
Omnisis/WeThink10-11.4.24Rejoin/Stay Out62/38
Brexiteerism is a dying movement married to the declining boomer segment. Rejoin enjoud huge majorities in the under 60 year olds. Labour is making a huge error if it remains so rigid on the eu. Everybody i talk to is betting that this brexit kabuki theater from labour is just electoral strategy and will fall away.... it better or labour support will drop like a rock in government.
I wrote wrong the 60% will vote labour with the prospect of labour mellowing on the eu. Is there a hidden editing function on posted comments?
Yes, you get 6 minutes to edit by clicking on the post them the little cogwheel.
Raynergate might not be cutting through, but I am sensing restlessness in the remainer camp. There is a tacit contract that rejoiners (who are 60% of the electorate) will vote tory with the prospect of initiating a long term process towards SM an eventually rejoining. But Starmer basically might as well be Farage with good PR when it comes to the EU. If the GE comes and goes and the mask doesn't drop on the EU there will be FURY. My guess is that this very fluid and illoyal electorate will find new pastures. Just to illustrate yougov found that only 12% strongly oppose SM.
Omnisis/WeThink10-11.4.24Rejoin/Stay Out62/38
Brexiteerism is a dying movement married to the declining boomer segment. Rejoin enjoud huge majorities in the under 60 year olds. Labour is making a huge error if it remains so rigid on the eu. Everybody i talk to is betting that this brexit kabuki theater from labour is just electoral strategy and will fall away.... it better or labour support will drop like a rock in government.
I think this is a very important point. I find it hard to believe that the Labour leadership does not understand the depth of anti-Brexit feeling inside the party generally and that this is largely being kept in check by the prospect of power. Should we get a Labour government on the other side of a general election, there will be immense - I think irresistible - pressure to secure a closer relationship with the EU. If Starmer and co seek to hold back the dam, they are going to get overwhelmed. This is so clearly obvious to anyone close to or inside the Labour party that I cannot believe the leadership is unaware. But if it is, it is going to be in for a very big surprise.
The long game aspects of this are interesting though.
It’s probably in rejoin’s interests for politicians to be seen to be dragged kicking and screaming by the electorate to something they are nervous about doing.
I think, sadly, that Starmer’s public position on Brexit is real and he really doesn’t want to reopen the wound. But if Labour got too pushy on rejoin they could bring the cause down with their own popularity when the inevitable fall in polls happened.
The other thing is the generational dynamics. There is a generation- the same generation- who weren't keen on the EEC in '75 and we're keen on Brexit in '16. And young people aren't becoming more Eurosceptic as they age;
For those who think the issue of Brexit will go away, the frontier of age/Brexit preferences is steadily shifting in a pro-EU direction - and is likely to continue to do so as a result of population replacement. Data via BESResearch
This isn't about whether they should, who is objectively right and wrong on the merits of Brexit. It's about the vibes, and vibes win. Older people are nostalgic for their youth apart from the EEC, younger people are nostalgic for their youth inside.
If I'm right, Starmer has to keep away from the wound for the duration of his Premiership. Unpick the worst damage without changing anything drastic. Prepare the path for his successor to make bigger moves.
(Yes it is the "telling the mad old relative that we wouldn't dream of getting rid of their ghastly heirloom because they'll only kick off" theory of Brexit politics.)
I think that is right.
We have so far been sheltered from some of the more inconvenient aspects of Brexit. Rigerous customs inspections of imported consumables and the more stringent immigration checks are either on the way or kicked down the street for later.
That's what they told the Chartists about universal suffrage.
Universal male suffrage.
Still a few hold outs against the idea of actual universality.
A Michigan candidate for the US House backed by former President Donald Trump once railed against giving women the right to vote, arguing that America has “suffered” since women’s suffrage.
I'd say the biggest barrier would be the EU letting us back in not a desirn from us to get back in, given there will probably always be a residual level of Brexit feeling which could resurface. Why go through that potential hassle again when they could have some kind of enhanced partnership agreement where we follow rules without getting to vote for them or something?
A generation at least I'd say.
Why do you assume that must be necessarily where we end up, with the only variable being the function of time?
Rather oddly the sensible next step to leaving the EU and the sensible step to joining the rest of Europe for practical purposes is the Norway or the Swiss option.
In reality only FoM prevented this earlier. Now we know that 'controlling our borders' means inward migration of over 1 million a year, and net migration of 700K this has little significance.
I'd say the biggest barrier would be the EU letting us back in not a desirn from us to get back in, given there will probably always be a residual level of Brexit feeling which could resurface. Why go through that potential hassle again when they could have some kind of enhanced partnership agreement where we follow rules without getting to vote for them or something?
A generation at least I'd say.
Why do you assume that must be necessarily where we end up, with the only variable being the function of time?
Why do you assume I assume that is inevitably the path we end up?
I think it is a good possibility we end up with a political desire to go back in, but not a certainty. If we get to such a place, if, then I don't think it will be realised for a long time.
Because you said at least a generation.
Right, in that I don't think the EU will even contemplate letting us back in until at least then. Not that we inevitably will go back in at that point.
It was a point about how UK desire is not the only factor in play.
As Rishi seeks to address Britain's post-Covid sick note (now renamed fit note something something 1984) culture, his government proposes to extend state control of people's, or children's, lives with bans on smoking, smacking and smartphones. Not exactly small state, however meritorious those measures.
There is the possibility that rise in long term sick is gunuine, rather than skiving. It seems specific to Britain, as a similar phenomenon doesn't seem to be true elsewhere but isn't impossible.
Possibly a consequence of intractable economic and social problems (housing, work etc); in combination with 'disability' being the one residual safety net.
shit diets will not be helping either, surely cannot be any other country that eats as much processed cheap junk, sugary drinks , etc.
Indeed. Witness just right here on PB the amount of picky eaters who luxuriate in eating utter shite daily.
Raynergate might not be cutting through, but I am sensing restlessness in the remainer camp. There is a tacit contract that rejoiners (who are 60% of the electorate) will vote tory with the prospect of initiating a long term process towards SM an eventually rejoining. But Starmer basically might as well be Farage with good PR when it comes to the EU. If the GE comes and goes and the mask doesn't drop on the EU there will be FURY. My guess is that this very fluid and illoyal electorate will find new pastures. Just to illustrate yougov found that only 12% strongly oppose SM.
Omnisis/WeThink10-11.4.24Rejoin/Stay Out62/38
Brexiteerism is a dying movement married to the declining boomer segment. Rejoin enjoud huge majorities in the under 60 year olds. Labour is making a huge error if it remains so rigid on the eu. Everybody i talk to is betting that this brexit kabuki theater from labour is just electoral strategy and will fall away.... it better or labour support will drop like a rock in government.
I don't think it's quite as simple as that, but it does point to a significant, just possible very large opportunity for the LibDems in the next Parliament.
Rejoin is not on the table this GE in England, even though both LDs and Greens have it as a longer term goal.
A large part of Rejoinism is because of Brexits strong association with this failing government. The two are conjoined twins. What happens next parliament is unclear. Will that transfer to Starmers Brexit? Or will it become a separate political cause?
After another 4 years we may have sufficient groundswell to rejoin the SM, while negotiating full Rejoin. Voters cannot be ignored forever.
Nah. The world is going to be transformed in the next 5-10 years. We will be dealing with so much economic change the idea of a massively difficult and painful referendum to rejoin a rigid trading bloc will appear insane. No prime minister will go for it
I do see some form of free movement coming back tho. Both sides want it
It's basically men in their 50s and 60s who are still irritable they lost to people they despise and want to completely turn the tables as the ultimate revenge. From that confirmation bias follows.
We won't be going back to the status quo ante bellum. The world has moved on, so has the UK and so very definitely has the EU.
It's the fantasy - one of the heroic Lost Cause.
But that's not what the polling data say, is it? Brexit is only popular with the retired. People in their 50s and 60s are roughly equally split, but younger than that it's as popular as a poo on the carpet.
And there is no sign at all of people coming to terms with Brexit, or it embedding as the new normal. Of course that might change in the future. But it needs to change a lot to overcome the crude demographics.
Otherwise, the will of the people eventually becomes overwhelming. And at some point, the Conservatives have to soften on Europe or cap their support at thirty percent, then twenty five, then twenty...
No, it's the middle aged /retired Remainer men who are most angry about it - we see lots of them on here. I don't think younger people give a shit - what they care about is jobs, the economy and homes.
Most people got bored of Brexit a long time ago. Even on this site. And there is no popular movement desperate for reascension regardless of how many people on here might wish it to be so.
Weird how I just keep getting lucky. Yet I travel abroad more than anyone on this forum. Its almost as if all this Brexit delay travel stuff is just bullshit
I’ve encountered Brexity passport queues twice since Brexit and I travel incessantly
Firstly travel to a non EU country doesn't count as obviously nothing has changed. So trips to Thailand or USA are unaffected.
Secondly it has to be an EU airport that is an International hub ie not one that is taking local traffic or mainly UK holidaymakers and nobody else because the situation that causes the problem doesn't arise. So trips to Faro or Alicante are pretty much unaffected except for it being slightly slower.
However if you go to a main airport and happen to land at the same time as a large flight from the USA or from anywhere outside of the EU you will be stuffed.
So I have experienced numerous flights to small airports and the USA without any issues at all. However a flight to Lisbon which landed at the same time as two flights from the USA and it was a 3 hour wait to get through passport control. Counting the length and width of the snake I reckon it was 1000 people. All gates were open and they used the EU gate and priority gate as well to clear us. EU citizens just waltzed through the EU gate.
Yeah, but he's right though, isn't he? I flew to Bulgaria and it was very easy and hardly any queue.
Like "photographs of nothing on the supermarket shelves" that Remainers love to post on Twitter, it's all bollocks.
Well no he is not. That is like saying I have never experienced a queue because i have never flown and therefore queues don't exist.
The vast majority of my flights are like yours. I have just waltz my way through, BUT when you do go to a European hub airport and happen to land at the same time as a plane from outside of the EU you will be held up which you weren't before. So it happens and it happens enough to be annoying. Just because often it doesn't happen doesn't make it ok.
Similarly ferries. Most travel smoothly. I take them on my bike trips, but when they go wrong they go badly wrong. Now most times they go wrong it has absolutely nothing to do with Brexit, but it is often made worse by it. It is the added delay to a non Brexit issue.
And the reason I use Ferries instead of Eurostar is again because of Brexit because I can no longer take an unpacked bike on Eurostar and the idiots who decide this don't see it as a problem, but I can't carry the packaging with me while cycling. This has added a day extra in Paris for all our trips. So yes Brexit has an impact. Not great but annoying. Another one that impacts me is pet passports. That is hugely annoying which effectively stops as having random breaks in France. It now months of planning to just pop over.
Weird how I just keep getting lucky. Yet I travel abroad more than anyone on this forum. Its almost as if all this Brexit delay travel stuff is just bullshit
I’ve encountered Brexity passport queues twice since Brexit and I travel incessantly
Firstly travel to a non EU country doesn't count as obviously nothing has changed. So trips to Thailand or USA are unaffected.
Secondly it has to be an EU airport that is an International hub ie not one that is taking local traffic or mainly UK holidaymakers and nobody else because the situation that causes the problem doesn't arise. So trips to Faro or Alicante are pretty much unaffected except for it being slightly slower.
However if you go to a main airport and happen to land at the same time as a large flight from the USA or from anywhere outside of the EU you will be stuffed.
So I have experienced numerous flights to small airports and the USA without any issues at all. However a flight to Lisbon which landed at the same time as two flights from the USA and it was a 3 hour wait to get through passport control. Counting the length and width of the snake I reckon it was 1000 people. All gates were open and they used the EU gate and priority gate as well to clear us. EU citizens just waltzed through the EU gate.
I travel far more often that you. To the EU and everywhere else
Since Brexit I have encountered really annoying Brexit related delays (ie an hour+ extra queue) exactly twice. Once in Iceland once in Switzerland (for the reasons you say). And both a while ago
I’ve had smaller delays - 10-20 minutes - 3 or 4 times and none recently. That’s it. My god. The pain
Weird how I just keep getting lucky. Yet I travel abroad more than anyone on this forum. Its almost as if all this Brexit delay travel stuff is just bullshit
I’ve encountered Brexity passport queues twice since Brexit and I travel incessantly
Firstly travel to a non EU country doesn't count as obviously nothing has changed. So trips to Thailand or USA are unaffected.
Secondly it has to be an EU airport that is an International hub ie not one that is taking local traffic or mainly UK holidaymakers and nobody else because the situation that causes the problem doesn't arise. So trips to Faro or Alicante are pretty much unaffected except for it being slightly slower.
However if you go to a main airport and happen to land at the same time as a large flight from the USA or from anywhere outside of the EU you will be stuffed.
So I have experienced numerous flights to small airports and the USA without any issues at all. However a flight to Lisbon which landed at the same time as two flights from the USA and it was a 3 hour wait to get through passport control. Counting the length and width of the snake I reckon it was 1000 people. All gates were open and they used the EU gate and priority gate as well to clear us. EU citizens just waltzed through the EU gate.
Yeah, but he's right though, isn't he? I flew to Bulgaria and it was very easy and hardly any queue.
Like "photographs of nothing on the supermarket shelves" that Remainers love to post on Twitter, it's all bollocks.
Not sure Bulgaria counts as an international hub taking EU and non-EU transfer passengers.
But yes, it varies a lot. I’ve had plenty of smooth journeys and a handful where I experienced exactly what was described: a huge queue for non-EU while the EU passengers breezed through the E-gates.
Dover, try Dover. Infinitely worse than it used to be.
Dover is analogous to Brexit too. Chaos, decline and the homeless sleeping in doorways.
It is hard to follow Raynergate, especially since James Daly for the Conservatives refused to say just what she was accused of. (Snip)
Have Labour mentioned exactly what they think Menzies did, since they reported him to the police?
Answered in two TSE posts. One imagines the public will find it easier to understand Menzies, than the largely technical allegations against Rayner which as described in the header are not cutting through.
I do find it interesting this idea of third parties making referrals to the police
AIUI (not that interested so haven’t followed closely) Menzies got himself into a difficult position - presumably doing something he shouldn’t have - and needed money quickly
So he was the victim in this case (although potentially there was an underlying crime I suppose)
Then he used funds from the Tory party/ campaign fund (ignoring the interim step as she seems to have been refunded)
So the Tory party is the victim
If the Tories and/or Menzies don’t want to press charges what is Labour’s standing to make a police report and trigger an investigation?
I think a portion - not all, but a sizeable portion and the addressable portion for a solution - of currently signed-off people really want to work and are able to do something. But it depends on employers accepting part time work patterns that change at short notice and also on a supportive welfare system. Neither of which are there.
Exactly right. There’s an example in my extended family. Out of hospital after several months and a near death situation. Early 30s. Can work, wants to work, but probably can’t work anything close to full time and doesn’t have the physical capability to do his previous job (chef) in its usual form.
Many many people are ill enough that it impairs their ability to work but doesn't preclude them doing some work. They need a supportive welfare system, employers able to have the flexibility to accommodate their needs, and as little as possible of the binary yes/no sword of Damocles that is the heritage of the DWP.
Of course many do exactly this: maintain themselves on disability benefits but also do a bit of paid work on the side. Journalists would call them benefits cheats. But they are making very rational personal decisions.
I think it's very hard to get back into work if you duck out of it.
I recently looked at "entry" level jobs recently (out of sheer curiosity) for Aldi/Lidl and even those require CVs with relevant experience, interviews, selection days, references and hard work for basic jobs in basic jobs. They apparently get lots of applications but can also struggle to fill roles.
What do you do if you just want a job and you have nothing? Where do you go? And how do you get help adjusting to it?
I think it depends where you are. Hospitality and retail jobs around here are very easy to get into, and reasonably flexible. But everything is harder if your health situation means certain jobs aren’t possible.
Are they really easy to get into? Have you tried? You see social media posts from people despairing of getting supermarket jobs. My own anecdata from decades back is that it can be nigh-on impossible to land any job after long-term unemployment. This is not to blame employers. From their point of view, it is quite rational to give the job to the applicant already doing the same job for the company two miles up the road. And the unemployed guy might be hiding imprisonment, drugs or mental health issues.
No idea about supermarkets but around here there are loads of vacancies in coffee shops, restaurants, bookshops, delis etc. And of course the Deliveroo courier world. From the experience of people we know locally - students, parents returning part time after having children, semi-retired people taking a job in the local bookshop - there does seem to be plenty of opportunity.
But we’re in an area with a lot of small business and very dense population to serve. I’m sure it’s very different in other places.
Getting a job in a large business, such as a supermarket, can be a lot more difficult than getting one in the local cafe or corner shop. Starting with the dozen-page application form and a whole load of interviews and paperwork. Even when you walk out and see those working on the floor, who you thought couldn’t have possibly jumped through all of those hoops.
You leave voting bastards. I just had to wait over six minutes to clear the queues, the security, the passport. At one point I thought I might actually have to wait 7 minutes. You stupid gammony brexity Asda-shopping coffin dodging northern etc etc etc
Raynergate might not be cutting through, but I am sensing restlessness in the remainer camp. There is a tacit contract that rejoiners (who are 60% of the electorate) will vote tory with the prospect of initiating a long term process towards SM an eventually rejoining. But Starmer basically might as well be Farage with good PR when it comes to the EU. If the GE comes and goes and the mask doesn't drop on the EU there will be FURY. My guess is that this very fluid and illoyal electorate will find new pastures. Just to illustrate yougov found that only 12% strongly oppose SM.
Omnisis/WeThink10-11.4.24Rejoin/Stay Out62/38
Brexiteerism is a dying movement married to the declining boomer segment. Rejoin enjoud huge majorities in the under 60 year olds. Labour is making a huge error if it remains so rigid on the eu. Everybody i talk to is betting that this brexit kabuki theater from labour is just electoral strategy and will fall away.... it better or labour support will drop like a rock in government.
I think this is a very important point. I find it hard to believe that the Labour leadership does not understand the depth of anti-Brexit feeling inside the party generally and that this is largely being kept in check by the prospect of power. Should we get a Labour government on the other side of a general election, there will be immense - I think irresistible - pressure to secure a closer relationship with the EU. If Starmer and co seek to hold back the dam, they are going to get overwhelmed. This is so clearly obvious to anyone close to or inside the Labour party that I cannot believe the leadership is unaware. But if it is, it is going to be in for a very big surprise.
The long game aspects of this are interesting though.
It’s probably in rejoin’s interests for politicians to be seen to be dragged kicking and screaming by the electorate to something they are nervous about doing.
I think, sadly, that Starmer’s public position on Brexit is real and he really doesn’t want to reopen the wound. But if Labour got too pushy on rejoin they could bring the cause down with their own popularity when the inevitable fall in polls happened.
The other thing is the generational dynamics. There is a generation- the same generation- who weren't keen on the EEC in '75 and we're keen on Brexit in '16. And young people aren't becoming more Eurosceptic as they age;
For those who think the issue of Brexit will go away, the frontier of age/Brexit preferences is steadily shifting in a pro-EU direction - and is likely to continue to do so as a result of population replacement. Data via BESResearch
This isn't about whether they should, who is objectively right and wrong on the merits of Brexit. It's about the vibes, and vibes win. Older people are nostalgic for their youth apart from the EEC, younger people are nostalgic for their youth inside.
If I'm right, Starmer has to keep away from the wound for the duration of his Premiership. Unpick the worst damage without changing anything drastic. Prepare the path for his successor to make bigger moves.
(Yes it is the "telling the mad old relative that we wouldn't dream of getting rid of their ghastly heirloom because they'll only kick off" theory of Brexit politics.)
I think that is right.
We have so far been sheltered from some of the more inconvenient aspects of Brexit. Rigerous customs inspections of imported consumables and the more stringent immigration checks are either on the way or kicked down the street for later.
I think a portion - not all, but a sizeable portion and the addressable portion for a solution - of currently signed-off people really want to work and are able to do something. But it depends on employers accepting part time work patterns that change at short notice and also on a supportive welfare system. Neither of which are there.
Exactly right. There’s an example in my extended family. Out of hospital after several months and a near death situation. Early 30s. Can work, wants to work, but probably can’t work anything close to full time and doesn’t have the physical capability to do his previous job (chef) in its usual form.
Many many people are ill enough that it impairs their ability to work but doesn't preclude them doing some work. They need a supportive welfare system, employers able to have the flexibility to accommodate their needs, and as little as possible of the binary yes/no sword of Damocles that is the heritage of the DWP.
Of course many do exactly this: maintain themselves on disability benefits but also do a bit of paid work on the side. Journalists would call them benefits cheats. But they are making very rational personal decisions.
I think it's very hard to get back into work if you duck out of it.
I recently looked at "entry" level jobs recently (out of sheer curiosity) for Aldi/Lidl and even those require CVs with relevant experience, interviews, selection days, references and hard work for basic jobs in basic jobs. They apparently get lots of applications but can also struggle to fill roles.
What do you do if you just want a job and you have nothing? Where do you go? And how do you get help adjusting to it?
I think it depends where you are. Hospitality and retail jobs around here are very easy to get into, and reasonably flexible. But everything is harder if your health situation means certain jobs aren’t possible.
Are they really easy to get into? Have you tried? You see social media posts from people despairing of getting supermarket jobs. My own anecdata from decades back is that it can be nigh-on impossible to land any job after long-term unemployment. This is not to blame employers. From their point of view, it is quite rational to give the job to the applicant already doing the same job for the company two miles up the road. And the unemployed guy might be hiding imprisonment, drugs or mental health issues.
No idea about supermarkets but around here there are loads of vacancies in coffee shops, restaurants, bookshops, delis etc. And of course the Deliveroo courier world. From the experience of people we know locally - students, parents returning part time after having children, semi-retired people taking a job in the local bookshop - there does seem to be plenty of opportunity.
But we’re in an area with a lot of small business and very dense population to serve. I’m sure it’s very different in other places.
Getting a job in a large business, such as a supermarket, can be a lot more difficult than getting one in the local cafe or corner shop. Starting with the dozen-page application form and a whole load of interviews and paperwork. Even when you walk out and see those working on the floor, who you thought couldn’t have possibly jumped through all of those hoops.
I had to do that (just one interview in fairness) to get a job on trolleys at Tescos 20 years ago. Given I was 17 it seemed unnecessary.
Weird how I just keep getting lucky. Yet I travel abroad more than anyone on this forum. Its almost as if all this Brexit delay travel stuff is just bullshit
I’ve encountered Brexity passport queues twice since Brexit and I travel incessantly
Firstly travel to a non EU country doesn't count as obviously nothing has changed. So trips to Thailand or USA are unaffected.
Secondly it has to be an EU airport that is an International hub ie not one that is taking local traffic or mainly UK holidaymakers and nobody else because the situation that causes the problem doesn't arise. So trips to Faro or Alicante are pretty much unaffected except for it being slightly slower.
However if you go to a main airport and happen to land at the same time as a large flight from the USA or from anywhere outside of the EU you will be stuffed.
So I have experienced numerous flights to small airports and the USA without any issues at all. However a flight to Lisbon which landed at the same time as two flights from the USA and it was a 3 hour wait to get through passport control. Counting the length and width of the snake I reckon it was 1000 people. All gates were open and they used the EU gate and priority gate as well to clear us. EU citizens just waltzed through the EU gate.
Yeah, but he's right though, isn't he? I flew to Bulgaria and it was very easy and hardly any queue.
Like "photographs of nothing on the supermarket shelves" that Remainers love to post on Twitter, it's all bollocks.
Not sure Bulgaria counts as an international hub taking EU and non-EU transfer passengers.
But yes, it varies a lot. I’ve had plenty of smooth journeys and a handful where I experienced exactly what was described: a huge queue for non-EU while the EU passengers breezed through the E-gates.
Right, so if the Sun rises in the East, it's a massive hub, you happen to be non-EU, it's peak time, a flight from the US has just landed, you don't have kids so you qualify to use an E-gate, your surname begins with the letter 'M' to 'S', it's lunchtime for the customs officers, they don't particularly like the look of you, you were last off the plane, and you haven't just farted to clear away fellow queuees, then you might (just might) have to wait a few minutes more to get stamped before you join the precisely the same people at baggage reclaim a few minutes later.
Weird how I just keep getting lucky. Yet I travel abroad more than anyone on this forum. Its almost as if all this Brexit delay travel stuff is just bullshit
I’ve encountered Brexity passport queues twice since Brexit and I travel incessantly
Firstly travel to a non EU country doesn't count as obviously nothing has changed. So trips to Thailand or USA are unaffected.
Secondly it has to be an EU airport that is an International hub ie not one that is taking local traffic or mainly UK holidaymakers and nobody else because the situation that causes the problem doesn't arise. So trips to Faro or Alicante are pretty much unaffected except for it being slightly slower.
However if you go to a main airport and happen to land at the same time as a large flight from the USA or from anywhere outside of the EU you will be stuffed.
So I have experienced numerous flights to small airports and the USA without any issues at all. However a flight to Lisbon which landed at the same time as two flights from the USA and it was a 3 hour wait to get through passport control. Counting the length and width of the snake I reckon it was 1000 people. All gates were open and they used the EU gate and priority gate as well to clear us. EU citizens just waltzed through the EU gate.
Yeah, but he's right though, isn't he? I flew to Bulgaria and it was very easy and hardly any queue.
Like "photographs of nothing on the supermarket shelves" that Remainers love to post on Twitter, it's all bollocks.
Bit like NHS, some people get good and quick treatment , some however they are in the big queues. Only morons think Brexit was sensible, it was equivalent of shooting your foot off to make you a better runner.
I'd say the biggest barrier would be the EU letting us back in not a desirn from us to get back in, given there will probably always be a residual level of Brexit feeling which could resurface. Why go through that potential hassle again when they could have some kind of enhanced partnership agreement where we follow rules without getting to vote for them or something?
A generation at least I'd say.
Why do you assume that must be necessarily where we end up, with the only variable being the function of time?
Why do you assume I assume that is inevitably the path we end up?
I think it is a good possibility we end up with a political desire to go back in, but not a certainty. If we get to such a place, if, then I don't think it will be realised for a long time.
Because you said at least a generation.
Right, in that I don't think the EU will even contemplate letting us back in until at least then. Not that we inevitably will go back in at that point.
It was a point about how UK desire is not the only factor in play.
The end result is going to be something like the Church of England. Just as the CofE is capable of accommodating both Protestants and ultra-Catholics, a structure for Europe will evolve which will look like full European Integration to some, and like absolute separation to others. It's going to be an almighty fudge, and both sides are going to have to avert their gaze from some of the bits they don't like. There will be some form of freedom of movement, but it won't be called freedom of movement. There will be some form of trade harmonisation, but it won't be called a free trade zone or a customs union. some form of trade. We got into this state because of a series of almighty cock-ups, and it's going to need a pragmatic fudge to get us out of it.
Weird how I just keep getting lucky. Yet I travel abroad more than anyone on this forum. Its almost as if all this Brexit delay travel stuff is just bullshit
I’ve encountered Brexity passport queues twice since Brexit and I travel incessantly
Firstly travel to a non EU country doesn't count as obviously nothing has changed. So trips to Thailand or USA are unaffected.
Secondly it has to be an EU airport that is an International hub ie not one that is taking local traffic or mainly UK holidaymakers and nobody else because the situation that causes the problem doesn't arise. So trips to Faro or Alicante are pretty much unaffected except for it being slightly slower.
However if you go to a main airport and happen to land at the same time as a large flight from the USA or from anywhere outside of the EU you will be stuffed.
So I have experienced numerous flights to small airports and the USA without any issues at all. However a flight to Lisbon which landed at the same time as two flights from the USA and it was a 3 hour wait to get through passport control. Counting the length and width of the snake I reckon it was 1000 people. All gates were open and they used the EU gate and priority gate as well to clear us. EU citizens just waltzed through the EU gate.
I travel far more often that you. To the EU and everywhere else
Since Brexit I have encountered really annoying Brexit related delays (ie an hour+ extra queue) exactly twice. Once in Iceland once in Switzerland (for the reasons you say). And both a while ago
I’ve had smaller delays - 10-20 minutes - 3 or 4 times and none recently. That’s it. My god. The pain
Yes I know you do. But you shouldn't have those delays and if you are an infrequent traveller and unlucky it is really annoying. In your case you are taking it with the flow. You travel hugely. You know shit will happen occasionally (usually not Brexit related) and live with it. If you do it once or twice a year and are unlucky and wait 3 hours while you see an empty EU gate you really get pissed.
I'd say the biggest barrier would be the EU letting us back in not a desirn from us to get back in, given there will probably always be a residual level of Brexit feeling which could resurface. Why go through that potential hassle again when they could have some kind of enhanced partnership agreement where we follow rules without getting to vote for them or something?
A generation at least I'd say.
Why do you assume that must be necessarily where we end up, with the only variable being the function of time?
Why do you assume I assume that is inevitably the path we end up?
I think it is a good possibility we end up with a political desire to go back in, but not a certainty. If we get to such a place, if, then I don't think it will be realised for a long time.
Because you said at least a generation.
Right, in that I don't think the EU will even contemplate letting us back in until at least then. Not that we inevitably will go back in at that point.
It was a point about how UK desire is not the only factor in play.
The end result is going to be something like the Church of England. Just as the CofE is capable of accommodating both Protestants and ultra-Catholics, a structure for Europe will evolve which will look like full European Integration to some, and like absolute separation to others. It's going to be an almighty fudge, and both sides are going to have to avert their gaze from some of the bits they don't like. There will be some form of freedom of movement, but it won't be called freedom of movement. There will be some form of trade harmonisation, but it won't be called a free trade zone or a customs union. some form of trade. We got into this state because of a series of almighty cock-ups, and it's going to need a pragmatic fudge to get us out of it.
Good old British fudge, it gets the job done (mostly).
It's the nation builders who try to get it all down perfectly in precise detail for every little thing who run into difficulty.
Weird how I just keep getting lucky. Yet I travel abroad more than anyone on this forum. Its almost as if all this Brexit delay travel stuff is just bullshit
I’ve encountered Brexity passport queues twice since Brexit and I travel incessantly
Firstly travel to a non EU country doesn't count as obviously nothing has changed. So trips to Thailand or USA are unaffected.
Secondly it has to be an EU airport that is an International hub ie not one that is taking local traffic or mainly UK holidaymakers and nobody else because the situation that causes the problem doesn't arise. So trips to Faro or Alicante are pretty much unaffected except for it being slightly slower.
However if you go to a main airport and happen to land at the same time as a large flight from the USA or from anywhere outside of the EU you will be stuffed.
So I have experienced numerous flights to small airports and the USA without any issues at all. However a flight to Lisbon which landed at the same time as two flights from the USA and it was a 3 hour wait to get through passport control. Counting the length and width of the snake I reckon it was 1000 people. All gates were open and they used the EU gate and priority gate as well to clear us. EU citizens just waltzed through the EU gate.
Yeah, but he's right though, isn't he? I flew to Bulgaria and it was very easy and hardly any queue.
Like "photographs of nothing on the supermarket shelves" that Remainers love to post on Twitter, it's all bollocks.
Not sure Bulgaria counts as an international hub taking EU and non-EU transfer passengers.
But yes, it varies a lot. I’ve had plenty of smooth journeys and a handful where I experienced exactly what was described: a huge queue for non-EU while the EU passengers breezed through the E-gates.
Right, so if the Sun rises in the East, it's a massive hub, you happen to be non-EU, it's peak time, a flight from the US has just landed, you don't have kids so you qualify to use an E-gate, your surname begins with the letter 'M' to 'S', it's lunchtime for the customs officers, they don't particularly like the look of you, you were last off the plane, and you haven't just farted to clear away fellow queuees, then you might (just might) have to wait a few minutes more to get stamped before you join the precisely the same people at baggage reclaim a few minutes later.
Right. Got it. Sounds terrible, I agree.
They are idiots
Because of their endless Remoaner whining j got here to my Eurostar 90 minutes early. But I swang through customs etc in 5 minutes and now I’m just sitting here in the waiting room an hour early. I could have been at the champagne bar
Weird how I just keep getting lucky. Yet I travel abroad more than anyone on this forum. Its almost as if all this Brexit delay travel stuff is just bullshit
I’ve encountered Brexity passport queues twice since Brexit and I travel incessantly
Firstly travel to a non EU country doesn't count as obviously nothing has changed. So trips to Thailand or USA are unaffected.
Secondly it has to be an EU airport that is an International hub ie not one that is taking local traffic or mainly UK holidaymakers and nobody else because the situation that causes the problem doesn't arise. So trips to Faro or Alicante are pretty much unaffected except for it being slightly slower.
However if you go to a main airport and happen to land at the same time as a large flight from the USA or from anywhere outside of the EU you will be stuffed.
So I have experienced numerous flights to small airports and the USA without any issues at all. However a flight to Lisbon which landed at the same time as two flights from the USA and it was a 3 hour wait to get through passport control. Counting the length and width of the snake I reckon it was 1000 people. All gates were open and they used the EU gate and priority gate as well to clear us. EU citizens just waltzed through the EU gate.
I travel far more often that you. To the EU and everywhere else
Since Brexit I have encountered really annoying Brexit related delays (ie an hour+ extra queue) exactly twice. Once in Iceland once in Switzerland (for the reasons you say). And both a while ago
I’ve had smaller delays - 10-20 minutes - 3 or 4 times and none recently. That’s it. My god. The pain
Yes I know you do. But you shouldn't have those delays and if you are an infrequent traveller and unlucky it is really annoying. In your case you are taking it with the flow. You travel hugely. You know shit will happen occasionally (usually not Brexit related) and live with it. If you do it once or twice a year and are unlucky and wait 3 hours while you see an empty EU gate you really get pissed.
Weird how I just keep getting lucky. Yet I travel abroad more than anyone on this forum. Its almost as if all this Brexit delay travel stuff is just bullshit
I’ve encountered Brexity passport queues twice since Brexit and I travel incessantly
Firstly travel to a non EU country doesn't count as obviously nothing has changed. So trips to Thailand or USA are unaffected.
Secondly it has to be an EU airport that is an International hub ie not one that is taking local traffic or mainly UK holidaymakers and nobody else because the situation that causes the problem doesn't arise. So trips to Faro or Alicante are pretty much unaffected except for it being slightly slower.
However if you go to a main airport and happen to land at the same time as a large flight from the USA or from anywhere outside of the EU you will be stuffed.
So I have experienced numerous flights to small airports and the USA without any issues at all. However a flight to Lisbon which landed at the same time as two flights from the USA and it was a 3 hour wait to get through passport control. Counting the length and width of the snake I reckon it was 1000 people. All gates were open and they used the EU gate and priority gate as well to clear us. EU citizens just waltzed through the EU gate.
Yeah, but he's right though, isn't he? I flew to Bulgaria and it was very easy and hardly any queue.
Like "photographs of nothing on the supermarket shelves" that Remainers love to post on Twitter, it's all bollocks.
Not sure Bulgaria counts as an international hub taking EU and non-EU transfer passengers.
But yes, it varies a lot. I’ve had plenty of smooth journeys and a handful where I experienced exactly what was described: a huge queue for non-EU while the EU passengers breezed through the E-gates.
The biggest queues I’ve experienced were leaving (ha!) Hamburg airport. X hours to get through security. People missing their flights.
Seems to happen occasionally - they have a mismatch between peak usage and the capacity of the bag search security.
As Rishi seeks to address Britain's post-Covid sick note (now renamed fit note something something 1984) culture, his government proposes to extend state control of people's, or children's, lives with bans on smoking, smacking and smartphones. Not exactly small state, however meritorious those measures.
There is the possibility that rise in long term sick is gunuine, rather than skiving. It seems specific to Britain, as a similar phenomenon doesn't seem to be true elsewhere but isn't impossible.
The authors say: "From 2014 to 2015 infant mortality rates increased."
Here's the graph:
Neat illustration of facts vs truth, there.
If people want to argue than Austerity kills babies, fair enough, but they would do well to come up with something better than that. Otherwise it looks like a premise masquerading as a conclusion.
(A quick scroll through the author's twitter accounts shows, quelle suprise, they are Corbynites.)
They did cite the specific year 2014-15, not the entire period.
Also the context is that things are getting worse for specific communities (where large numbers of these claimants are), even when things are improving for other demographics. To quote from the article:
"In the past decade, life expectancy and infant mortality rates in the UK have alarmed observers. Both had been steadily improving, with some fluctuations, until 2012—when life expectancy improvements stalled before stopping completely. From 2014 to 2015 infant mortality rates increased. When analysed by ethnicity and deprivation, these numbers are even more concerning. Life expectancy has fallen for women living in the 10 per cent most deprived areas. Regional inequalities have also widened. Those living in the northeast of England now have an average life expectancy five years lower than people in London."
Prof Marmot has written extensively on these issues for decades, and wrote both the 2010 public health report for the Brown government and its 10 year follow up. To dismiss him as Corbynite is just lazy. If you want to tackle disability and its health effects we could do with updating and implementing his 2010 plan.
When regulators are reviewing health submissions by Pharma companies one thing they really focus on is selective use of statistics to present a misleading picture
Regardless of whether it is correctly references/cited/analysed etc
These days they request all of the underlying clinical reports and rebuild the locked database themselves
Just because you agree with the conclusion doesn’t mean that the author’s actions are justified
It is hard to follow Raynergate, especially since James Daly for the Conservatives refused to say just what she was accused of. (Snip)
Have Labour mentioned exactly what they think Menzies did, since they reported him to the police?
They don't have to. His former agent has already provided the details. And has been quoted extensively in the national media.
Or haven't you been "following closely" ?
Personally I know nothing about these cases and have barely been following them. But a wider point here is that it's very tempting as an MP to appoint your staff from longstanding friends and relatives, because it reduces the risk that you'll fall out with them and they'll then go to the media and report every embarrassing thing that ever happened to you (possibly plus some invented stuff). In theory MPs should be models of meritocracy and abhor croneyism, and advertise all positions with an open mind. But in practice...?
Raynergate might not be cutting through, but I am sensing restlessness in the remainer camp. There is a tacit contract that rejoiners (who are 60% of the electorate) will vote tory with the prospect of initiating a long term process towards SM an eventually rejoining. But Starmer basically might as well be Farage with good PR when it comes to the EU. If the GE comes and goes and the mask doesn't drop on the EU there will be FURY. My guess is that this very fluid and illoyal electorate will find new pastures. Just to illustrate yougov found that only 12% strongly oppose SM.
Omnisis/WeThink10-11.4.24Rejoin/Stay Out62/38
Brexiteerism is a dying movement married to the declining boomer segment. Rejoin enjoud huge majorities in the under 60 year olds. Labour is making a huge error if it remains so rigid on the eu. Everybody i talk to is betting that this brexit kabuki theater from labour is just electoral strategy and will fall away.... it better or labour support will drop like a rock in government.
I don't think it's quite as simple as that, but it does point to a significant, just possible very large opportunity for the LibDems in the next Parliament.
Rejoin is not on the table this GE in England, even though both LDs and Greens have it as a longer term goal.
A large part of Rejoinism is because of Brexits strong association with this failing government. The two are conjoined twins. What happens next parliament is unclear. Will that transfer to Starmers Brexit? Or will it become a separate political cause?
After another 4 years we may have sufficient groundswell to rejoin the SM, while negotiating full Rejoin. Voters cannot be ignored forever.
Nah. The world is going to be transformed in the next 5-10 years. We will be dealing with so much economic change the idea of a massively difficult and painful referendum to rejoin a rigid trading bloc will appear insane. No prime minister will go for it
I do see some form of free movement coming back tho. Both sides want it
It's basically men in their 50s and 60s who are still irritable they lost to people they despise and want to completely turn the tables as the ultimate revenge. From that confirmation bias follows.
We won't be going back to the status quo ante bellum. The world has moved on, so has the UK and so very definitely has the EU.
It's the fantasy - one of the heroic Lost Cause.
But that's not what the polling data say, is it? Brexit is only popular with the retired. People in their 50s and 60s are roughly equally split, but younger than that it's as popular as a poo on the carpet.
And there is no sign at all of people coming to terms with Brexit, or it embedding as the new normal. Of course that might change in the future. But it needs to change a lot to overcome the crude demographics.
Otherwise, the will of the people eventually becomes overwhelming. And at some point, the Conservatives have to soften on Europe or cap their support at thirty percent, then twenty five, then twenty...
No, it's the middle aged /retired Remainer men who are most angry about it - we see lots of them on here. I don't think younger people give a shit - what they care about is jobs, the economy and homes.
Most people got bored of Brexit a long time ago. Even on this site. And there is no popular movement desperate for reascension regardless of how many people on here might wish it to be so.
I find queuing at airports quite tiresome. Only being allowed 90 days in the EU is a distinct disadvantage for someone who had planned to retire to France, but other than that Brexit has more or less passed me by. My cousins in their forties and my sons in their twenties are incandescent with rage at the Conservative Party and it's Brexit folly. Strangely Remainer Cameron is the main subject of their ire.
Ah, work - like many on here, I'm in the latter stages of my working life.
I've pointed out on here may times the emerging problem of under-employment and the impact it is having especially but not exclusively in the public sector.
Seeing Rishi Sunak use the bully pulpit did raise a key question - is working an economic requirement or a social and moral obligation? A wise man told me you work to live, you don't live to work and while there are many who enjoy their work (I do too), I work because I need the money to live. The retired with whom I have contact and especially those with health and wealth, seem very happy and have zero desire to return to work.
There are those who want or need to work and can't - apart from those with long term illness (and that's as close a definition of purgatory as I need) there are that special breed known as carers. In an era with WFH, you'd think there would be huge scope to employ carers to admin tasks but is that happening? To be a carer and an employee isn't easy and you can shove all your tax cuts where the sun doesn't shine as far as I'm concerned if that means we can do whatever we can do to get long-term carers (both for older and younger people) into employment or at least give them as much help as possible.
I accept there are others who have chosen not to work and while that's their right (and if they can support themselves, I've absolutely no issue) I can see why those who choose to live off benefits and make no effort to find employment and where there are no extenuating circumstances aren't the most favoured or popular. Demonising those on welfare isn't helpful but I understand why the hard working should be annoyed at having to support those aren't working for no good reason.
I go to St Pancras via HS1 everyday. You lucked out.
Eurostar have had to cut the number of seats they fill because of the very real queues. There isn't enough physical capacity to add more border gates, so they have jacked up the prices to recoup lost revenue from the 25% or so of seats they cannot sell.
Weird how I just keep getting lucky. Yet I travel abroad more than anyone on this forum. Its almost as if all this Brexit delay travel stuff is just bullshit
I’ve encountered Brexity passport queues twice since Brexit and I travel incessantly
Firstly travel to a non EU country doesn't count as obviously nothing has changed. So trips to Thailand or USA are unaffected.
Secondly it has to be an EU airport that is an International hub ie not one that is taking local traffic or mainly UK holidaymakers and nobody else because the situation that causes the problem doesn't arise. So trips to Faro or Alicante are pretty much unaffected except for it being slightly slower.
However if you go to a main airport and happen to land at the same time as a large flight from the USA or from anywhere outside of the EU you will be stuffed.
So I have experienced numerous flights to small airports and the USA without any issues at all. However a flight to Lisbon which landed at the same time as two flights from the USA and it was a 3 hour wait to get through passport control. Counting the length and width of the snake I reckon it was 1000 people. All gates were open and they used the EU gate and priority gate as well to clear us. EU citizens just waltzed through the EU gate.
I travel far more often that you. To the EU and everywhere else
Since Brexit I have encountered really annoying Brexit related delays (ie an hour+ extra queue) exactly twice. Once in Iceland once in Switzerland (for the reasons you say). And both a while ago
I’ve had smaller delays - 10-20 minutes - 3 or 4 times and none recently. That’s it. My god. The pain
Yes I know you do. But you shouldn't have those delays and if you are an infrequent traveller and unlucky it is really annoying. In your case you are taking it with the flow. You travel hugely. You know shit will happen occasionally (usually not Brexit related) and live with it. If you do it once or twice a year and are unlucky and wait 3 hours while you see an empty EU gate you really get pissed.
Sure, but as one of those people who doesn't travel a lot, is it that big a deal then?
Weird how I just keep getting lucky. Yet I travel abroad more than anyone on this forum. Its almost as if all this Brexit delay travel stuff is just bullshit
I’ve encountered Brexity passport queues twice since Brexit and I travel incessantly
Firstly travel to a non EU country doesn't count as obviously nothing has changed. So trips to Thailand or USA are unaffected.
Secondly it has to be an EU airport that is an International hub ie not one that is taking local traffic or mainly UK holidaymakers and nobody else because the situation that causes the problem doesn't arise. So trips to Faro or Alicante are pretty much unaffected except for it being slightly slower.
However if you go to a main airport and happen to land at the same time as a large flight from the USA or from anywhere outside of the EU you will be stuffed.
So I have experienced numerous flights to small airports and the USA without any issues at all. However a flight to Lisbon which landed at the same time as two flights from the USA and it was a 3 hour wait to get through passport control. Counting the length and width of the snake I reckon it was 1000 people. All gates were open and they used the EU gate and priority gate as well to clear us. EU citizens just waltzed through the EU gate.
Yeah, but he's right though, isn't he? I flew to Bulgaria and it was very easy and hardly any queue.
Like "photographs of nothing on the supermarket shelves" that Remainers love to post on Twitter, it's all bollocks.
Not sure Bulgaria counts as an international hub taking EU and non-EU transfer passengers.
But yes, it varies a lot. I’ve had plenty of smooth journeys and a handful where I experienced exactly what was described: a huge queue for non-EU while the EU passengers breezed through the E-gates.
Right, so if the Sun rises in the East, it's a massive hub, you happen to be non-EU, it's peak time, a flight from the US has just landed, you don't have kids so you qualify to use an E-gate, your surname begins with the letter 'M' to 'S', it's lunchtime for the customs officers, they don't particularly like the look of you, you were last off the plane, and you haven't just farted to clear away fellow queuees, then you might (just might) have to wait a few minutes more to get stamped before you join the precisely the same people at baggage reclaim a few minutes later.
Right. Got it. Sounds terrible, I agree.
They are idiots
Because of their endless Remoaner whining j got here to my Eurostar 90 minutes early. But I swang through customs etc in 5 minutes and now I’m just sitting here in the waiting room an hour early. I could have been at the champagne bar
Thought you were a seasoned traveller.
You go and look at the queue, realise it’s only a short one, then go back to the champagne bar for a couple more glasses and and return to the queue 45m later.
As Rishi seeks to address Britain's post-Covid sick note (now renamed fit note something something 1984) culture, his government proposes to extend state control of people's, or children's, lives with bans on smoking, smacking and smartphones. Not exactly small state, however meritorious those measures.
There is the possibility that rise in long term sick is gunuine, rather than skiving. It seems specific to Britain, as a similar phenomenon doesn't seem to be true elsewhere but isn't impossible.
Possibly a consequence of intractable economic and social problems (housing, work etc); in combination with 'disability' being the one residual safety net.
shit diets will not be helping either, surely cannot be any other country that eats as much processed cheap junk, sugary drinks , etc.
The USA?
I did mean to include the USA, like every other thing we follow them rather than Europe where people actually have some semblence of sense and have choice of decent selection of food.
It is hard to follow Raynergate, especially since James Daly for the Conservatives refused to say just what she was accused of. (Snip)
Have Labour mentioned exactly what they think Menzies did, since they reported him to the police?
Answered in two TSE posts. One imagines the public will find it easier to understand Menzies, than the largely technical allegations against Rayner which as described in the header are not cutting through.
I do find it interesting this idea of third parties making referrals to the police
AIUI (not that interested so haven’t followed closely) Menzies got himself into a difficult position - presumably doing something he shouldn’t have - and needed money quickly
So he was the victim in this case (although potentially there was an underlying crime I suppose)
Then he used funds from the Tory party/ campaign fund (ignoring the interim step as she seems to have been refunded)
So the Tory party is the victim
If the Tories and/or Menzies don’t want to press charges what is Labour’s standing to make a police report and trigger an investigation?
I think a portion - not all, but a sizeable portion and the addressable portion for a solution - of currently signed-off people really want to work and are able to do something. But it depends on employers accepting part time work patterns that change at short notice and also on a supportive welfare system. Neither of which are there.
Exactly right. There’s an example in my extended family. Out of hospital after several months and a near death situation. Early 30s. Can work, wants to work, but probably can’t work anything close to full time and doesn’t have the physical capability to do his previous job (chef) in its usual form.
Many many people are ill enough that it impairs their ability to work but doesn't preclude them doing some work. They need a supportive welfare system, employers able to have the flexibility to accommodate their needs, and as little as possible of the binary yes/no sword of Damocles that is the heritage of the DWP.
Of course many do exactly this: maintain themselves on disability benefits but also do a bit of paid work on the side. Journalists would call them benefits cheats. But they are making very rational personal decisions.
I think it's very hard to get back into work if you duck out of it.
I recently looked at "entry" level jobs recently (out of sheer curiosity) for Aldi/Lidl and even those require CVs with relevant experience, interviews, selection days, references and hard work for basic jobs in basic jobs. They apparently get lots of applications but can also struggle to fill roles.
What do you do if you just want a job and you have nothing? Where do you go? And how do you get help adjusting to it?
I think it depends where you are. Hospitality and retail jobs around here are very easy to get into, and reasonably flexible. But everything is harder if your health situation means certain jobs aren’t possible.
Are they really easy to get into? Have you tried? You see social media posts from people despairing of getting supermarket jobs. My own anecdata from decades back is that it can be nigh-on impossible to land any job after long-term unemployment. This is not to blame employers. From their point of view, it is quite rational to give the job to the applicant already doing the same job for the company two miles up the road. And the unemployed guy might be hiding imprisonment, drugs or mental health issues.
No idea about supermarkets but around here there are loads of vacancies in coffee shops, restaurants, bookshops, delis etc. And of course the Deliveroo courier world. From the experience of people we know locally - students, parents returning part time after having children, semi-retired people taking a job in the local bookshop - there does seem to be plenty of opportunity.
But we’re in an area with a lot of small business and very dense population to serve. I’m sure it’s very different in other places.
Getting a job in a large business, such as a supermarket, can be a lot more difficult than getting one in the local cafe or corner shop. Starting with the dozen-page application form and a whole load of interviews and paperwork. Even when you walk out and see those working on the floor, who you thought couldn’t have possibly jumped through all of those hoops.
I had to do that (just one interview in fairness) to get a job on trolleys at Tescos 20 years ago. Given I was 17 it seemed unnecessary.
Good trolley staff are hard to find. Vital to the operation.
In terms of my travel, leaving the EU has made absolutely no difference.
When you get on a cruise ship in Southampton, I reckon on 15 minutes from dropping the cases with the porters at the terminal to stepping on board. The record was 9 minutes on a 45% full ship just after Covid - it has been half an hour on a full ship with one of the security x-ray scanners not working.
Weird how I just keep getting lucky. Yet I travel abroad more than anyone on this forum. Its almost as if all this Brexit delay travel stuff is just bullshit
I’ve encountered Brexity passport queues twice since Brexit and I travel incessantly
Firstly travel to a non EU country doesn't count as obviously nothing has changed. So trips to Thailand or USA are unaffected.
Secondly it has to be an EU airport that is an International hub ie not one that is taking local traffic or mainly UK holidaymakers and nobody else because the situation that causes the problem doesn't arise. So trips to Faro or Alicante are pretty much unaffected except for it being slightly slower.
However if you go to a main airport and happen to land at the same time as a large flight from the USA or from anywhere outside of the EU you will be stuffed.
So I have experienced numerous flights to small airports and the USA without any issues at all. However a flight to Lisbon which landed at the same time as two flights from the USA and it was a 3 hour wait to get through passport control. Counting the length and width of the snake I reckon it was 1000 people. All gates were open and they used the EU gate and priority gate as well to clear us. EU citizens just waltzed through the EU gate.
Yeah, but he's right though, isn't he? I flew to Bulgaria and it was very easy and hardly any queue.
Like "photographs of nothing on the supermarket shelves" that Remainers love to post on Twitter, it's all bollocks.
Not sure Bulgaria counts as an international hub taking EU and non-EU transfer passengers.
But yes, it varies a lot. I’ve had plenty of smooth journeys and a handful where I experienced exactly what was described: a huge queue for non-EU while the EU passengers breezed through the E-gates.
Right, so if the Sun rises in the East, it's a massive hub, you happen to be non-EU, it's peak time, a flight from the US has just landed, you don't have kids so you qualify to use an E-gate, your surname begins with the letter 'M' to 'S', it's lunchtime for the customs officers, they don't particularly like the look of you, you were last off the plane, and you haven't just farted to clear away fellow queuees, then you might (just might) have to wait a few minutes more to get stamped before you join the precisely the same people at baggage reclaim a few minutes later.
Right. Got it. Sounds terrible, I agree.
They are idiots
Because of their endless Remoaner whining j got here to my Eurostar 90 minutes early. But I swang through customs etc in 5 minutes and now I’m just sitting here in the waiting room an hour early. I could have been at the champagne bar
Thought you were a seasoned traveller.
You go and look at the queue, realise it’s only a short one, then go back to the champagne bar for a couple more glasses and and return to the queue 45m later.
Don't encourage him to the Champagne bar at this time in the morning. Imagine what he's going to be posting by teatime.
Interesting to compare Sunak to Blair’s speech during the 2001 GE campaign, one of a series on rights and responsibilities:
We will break down the barriers that keep people on incapacity benefit out of work. Many people on Incapacity Benefit aren't able to work. And our responsibility is to ensure they have decent income and services. But 1 in 3 people on sickness and disability benefits say they would like to work. We will help them to renew their skills and education - and where they are able to work - to take the steps back into a job. In the past, people on IB were just written off. In future every person claiming Incapacity Benefit will come to a work-focused interview, so that where they are able to, they can look at opportunities for work, volunteering and improving skills.
Sunak:
We don’t just need to change the sick note, we need to change the sick note culture so the default becomes what work you can do – not what you can’t.
“Building on the pilots we’ve already started we’re going to design a new system where people have easy and rapid access to specialised work and health support to help them back to work from the very first Fit Note conversation.
“We’re also going to test shifting the responsibility for assessment from GPs and giving it to specialist work and health professionals who have the dedicated time to provide an objective assessment of someone’s ability to work and the tailored support they need to do so.”
Because if you believe as I do, that work gives you the chance not just to earn but to contribute, to belong, to overcome feelings of loneliness and social isolation and if you believe, as I do, the growing body of evidence that good work can actually improve mental and physical health…
“…then it becomes clear: we need to be more ambitious about helping people back to work and more honest about the risk of over-medicalising the everyday challenges and worries of life.”
So, not so different really… but would Sunak be as bold as Blair was when he closed the Remploy factories?
I'd say the biggest barrier would be the EU letting us back in not a desirn from us to get back in, given there will probably always be a residual level of Brexit feeling which could resurface. Why go through that potential hassle again when they could have some kind of enhanced partnership agreement where we follow rules without getting to vote for them or something?
A generation at least I'd say.
Why do you assume that must be necessarily where we end up, with the only variable being the function of time?
Rather oddly the sensible next step to leaving the EU and the sensible step to joining the rest of Europe for practical purposes is the Norway or the Swiss option.
In reality only FoM prevented this earlier. Now we know that 'controlling our borders' means inward migration of over 1 million a year, and net migration of 700K this has little significance.
Now that the new £37,500 k Visa requirement has been brought in by the government this month that should reduce non EU immigration. EU/EEA immigration has already fallen to the UK since free movement was ended.
At the moment only the LDs, SNP and Greens back even rejoining the EEA Norway style.
Starmer Labour is too afraid of allowing the Conservatives to hold redwall seats by restoring free movement and that will probably remain the case for some time
Weird how I just keep getting lucky. Yet I travel abroad more than anyone on this forum. Its almost as if all this Brexit delay travel stuff is just bullshit
I’ve encountered Brexity passport queues twice since Brexit and I travel incessantly
Firstly travel to a non EU country doesn't count as obviously nothing has changed. So trips to Thailand or USA are unaffected.
Secondly it has to be an EU airport that is an International hub ie not one that is taking local traffic or mainly UK holidaymakers and nobody else because the situation that causes the problem doesn't arise. So trips to Faro or Alicante are pretty much unaffected except for it being slightly slower.
However if you go to a main airport and happen to land at the same time as a large flight from the USA or from anywhere outside of the EU you will be stuffed.
So I have experienced numerous flights to small airports and the USA without any issues at all. However a flight to Lisbon which landed at the same time as two flights from the USA and it was a 3 hour wait to get through passport control. Counting the length and width of the snake I reckon it was 1000 people. All gates were open and they used the EU gate and priority gate as well to clear us. EU citizens just waltzed through the EU gate.
Yeah, but he's right though, isn't he? I flew to Bulgaria and it was very easy and hardly any queue.
Like "photographs of nothing on the supermarket shelves" that Remainers love to post on Twitter, it's all bollocks.
Not sure Bulgaria counts as an international hub taking EU and non-EU transfer passengers.
But yes, it varies a lot. I’ve had plenty of smooth journeys and a handful where I experienced exactly what was described: a huge queue for non-EU while the EU passengers breezed through the E-gates.
Right, so if the Sun rises in the East, it's a massive hub, you happen to be non-EU, it's peak time, a flight from the US has just landed, you don't have kids so you qualify to use an E-gate, your surname begins with the letter 'M' to 'S', it's lunchtime for the customs officers, they don't particularly like the look of you, you were last off the plane, and you haven't just farted to clear away fellow queuees, then you might (just might) have to wait a few minutes more to get stamped before you join the precisely the same people at baggage reclaim a few minutes later.
Right. Got it. Sounds terrible, I agree.
Well lets take those one by one:
Sun rise in the East - irrelevant Not a massive hub, but any EU airport that takes proper scheduled flights will do We are non EU, that is the whole point Not peak time, but any time applies. International airports take international flights all the time A flight from the US has just landed. Nope, US, China, South Africa, etc, etc. Anywhere outside of the EU that is using a large plane, which most will be E gates, kids, M to S, lunch time, don't like the look of you etc, etc are all irrelevant Get to baggage collection at the same time - Nope, like most I don't use baggage reclaim unless I have to (once in the last decade or so)
Raynergate might not be cutting through, but I am sensing restlessness in the remainer camp. There is a tacit contract that rejoiners (who are 60% of the electorate) will vote tory with the prospect of initiating a long term process towards SM an eventually rejoining. But Starmer basically might as well be Farage with good PR when it comes to the EU. If the GE comes and goes and the mask doesn't drop on the EU there will be FURY. My guess is that this very fluid and illoyal electorate will find new pastures. Just to illustrate yougov found that only 12% strongly oppose SM.
Omnisis/WeThink10-11.4.24Rejoin/Stay Out62/38
Brexiteerism is a dying movement married to the declining boomer segment. Rejoin enjoud huge majorities in the under 60 year olds. Labour is making a huge error if it remains so rigid on the eu. Everybody i talk to is betting that this brexit kabuki theater from labour is just electoral strategy and will fall away.... it better or labour support will drop like a rock in government.
I don't think it's quite as simple as that, but it does point to a significant, just possible very large opportunity for the LibDems in the next Parliament.
Rejoin is not on the table this GE in England, even though both LDs and Greens have it as a longer term goal.
A large part of Rejoinism is because of Brexits strong association with this failing government. The two are conjoined twins. What happens next parliament is unclear. Will that transfer to Starmers Brexit? Or will it become a separate political cause?
After another 4 years we may have sufficient groundswell to rejoin the SM, while negotiating full Rejoin. Voters cannot be ignored forever.
Nah. The world is going to be transformed in the next 5-10 years. We will be dealing with so much economic change the idea of a massively difficult and painful referendum to rejoin a rigid trading bloc will appear insane. No prime minister will go for it
I do see some form of free movement coming back tho. Both sides want it
It's basically men in their 50s and 60s who are still irritable they lost to people they despise and want to completely turn the tables as the ultimate revenge. From that confirmation bias follows.
We won't be going back to the status quo ante bellum. The world has moved on, so has the UK and so very definitely has the EU.
It's the fantasy - one of the heroic Lost Cause.
But that's not what the polling data say, is it? Brexit is only popular with the retired. People in their 50s and 60s are roughly equally split, but younger than that it's as popular as a poo on the carpet.
And there is no sign at all of people coming to terms with Brexit, or it embedding as the new normal. Of course that might change in the future. But it needs to change a lot to overcome the crude demographics.
Otherwise, the will of the people eventually becomes overwhelming. And at some point, the Conservatives have to soften on Europe or cap their support at thirty percent, then twenty five, then twenty...
No, it's the middle aged /retired Remainer men who are most angry about it - we see lots of them on here. I don't think younger people give a shit - what they care about is jobs, the economy and homes.
Most people got bored of Brexit a long time ago. Even on this site. And there is no popular movement desperate for reascension regardless of how many people on here might wish it to be so.
My anecdata suggests your anecdata is wrong.
That there is no 'popular movement' just reflects the fact that for now it would be futile. It's entirely possible that changes - or doesn't. Neither you nor I can be sure about that.
I go to St Pancras via HS1 everyday. You lucked out.
Eurostar have had to cut the number of seats they fill because of the very real queues. There isn't enough physical capacity to add more border gates, so they have jacked up the prices to recoup lost revenue from the 25% or so of seats they cannot sell.
So that’s Brexit working. It’s stopping the stupid poor people from travelling. Good. Who cares about the lower middle classes and the working poor who can only afford half a holiday a year. It’s fine for me I don’t even pay
I mean, that’s the general attitude of Remainers isn’t it?Sod the poor, the stupid gammons in Lincolnshire and leaverstan.
Weird how I just keep getting lucky. Yet I travel abroad more than anyone on this forum. Its almost as if all this Brexit delay travel stuff is just bullshit
I’ve encountered Brexity passport queues twice since Brexit and I travel incessantly
Firstly travel to a non EU country doesn't count as obviously nothing has changed. So trips to Thailand or USA are unaffected.
Secondly it has to be an EU airport that is an International hub ie not one that is taking local traffic or mainly UK holidaymakers and nobody else because the situation that causes the problem doesn't arise. So trips to Faro or Alicante are pretty much unaffected except for it being slightly slower.
However if you go to a main airport and happen to land at the same time as a large flight from the USA or from anywhere outside of the EU you will be stuffed.
So I have experienced numerous flights to small airports and the USA without any issues at all. However a flight to Lisbon which landed at the same time as two flights from the USA and it was a 3 hour wait to get through passport control. Counting the length and width of the snake I reckon it was 1000 people. All gates were open and they used the EU gate and priority gate as well to clear us. EU citizens just waltzed through the EU gate.
Yeah, but he's right though, isn't he? I flew to Bulgaria and it was very easy and hardly any queue.
Like "photographs of nothing on the supermarket shelves" that Remainers love to post on Twitter, it's all bollocks.
Not sure Bulgaria counts as an international hub taking EU and non-EU transfer passengers.
But yes, it varies a lot. I’ve had plenty of smooth journeys and a handful where I experienced exactly what was described: a huge queue for non-EU while the EU passengers breezed through the E-gates.
Right, so if the Sun rises in the East, it's a massive hub, you happen to be non-EU, it's peak time, a flight from the US has just landed, you don't have kids so you qualify to use an E-gate, your surname begins with the letter 'M' to 'S', it's lunchtime for the customs officers, they don't particularly like the look of you, you were last off the plane, and you haven't just farted to clear away fellow queuees, then you might (just might) have to wait a few minutes more to get stamped before you join the precisely the same people at baggage reclaim a few minutes later.
Right. Got it. Sounds terrible, I agree.
They are idiots
Because of their endless Remoaner whining j got here to my Eurostar 90 minutes early. But I swang through customs etc in 5 minutes and now I’m just sitting here in the waiting room an hour early. I could have been at the champagne bar
So if there are no queues, and there is no problem, why did Eurostar cut the number of seats they sell on each train by a quarter? The demand is there, they just physically cannot process them when busy. Was it for fun? Or because they had no other choice?
You are Father Dougal. In the caravan. Having it very patiently explained to you that your experience today may not be representative of the regular experience at St Pancras and Gare du Nord by the train company and their staff...
Ah, work - like many on here, I'm in the latter stages of my working life.
I've pointed out on here may times the emerging problem of under-employment and the impact it is having especially but not exclusively in the public sector.
Seeing Rishi Sunak use the bully pulpit did raise a key question - is working an economic requirement or a social and moral obligation? A wise man told me you work to live, you don't live to work and while there are many who enjoy their work (I do too), I work because I need the money to live. The retired with whom I have contact and especially those with health and wealth, seem very happy and have zero desire to return to work.
There are those who want or need to work and can't - apart from those with long term illness (and that's as close a definition of purgatory as I need) there are that special breed known as carers. In an era with WFH, you'd think there would be huge scope to employ carers to admin tasks but is that happening? To be a carer and an employee isn't easy and you can shove all your tax cuts where the sun doesn't shine as far as I'm concerned if that means we can do whatever we can do to get long-term carers (both for older and younger people) into employment or at least give them as much help as possible.
I accept there are others who have chosen not to work and while that's their right (and if they can support themselves, I've absolutely no issue) I can see why those who choose to live off benefits and make no effort to find employment and where there are no extenuating circumstances aren't the most favoured or popular. Demonising those on welfare isn't helpful but I understand why the hard working should be annoyed at having to support those aren't working for no good reason.
Weird how I just keep getting lucky. Yet I travel abroad more than anyone on this forum. Its almost as if all this Brexit delay travel stuff is just bullshit
I’ve encountered Brexity passport queues twice since Brexit and I travel incessantly
Firstly travel to a non EU country doesn't count as obviously nothing has changed. So trips to Thailand or USA are unaffected.
Secondly it has to be an EU airport that is an International hub ie not one that is taking local traffic or mainly UK holidaymakers and nobody else because the situation that causes the problem doesn't arise. So trips to Faro or Alicante are pretty much unaffected except for it being slightly slower.
However if you go to a main airport and happen to land at the same time as a large flight from the USA or from anywhere outside of the EU you will be stuffed.
So I have experienced numerous flights to small airports and the USA without any issues at all. However a flight to Lisbon which landed at the same time as two flights from the USA and it was a 3 hour wait to get through passport control. Counting the length and width of the snake I reckon it was 1000 people. All gates were open and they used the EU gate and priority gate as well to clear us. EU citizens just waltzed through the EU gate.
Yeah, but he's right though, isn't he? I flew to Bulgaria and it was very easy and hardly any queue.
Like "photographs of nothing on the supermarket shelves" that Remainers love to post on Twitter, it's all bollocks.
Not sure Bulgaria counts as an international hub taking EU and non-EU transfer passengers.
But yes, it varies a lot. I’ve had plenty of smooth journeys and a handful where I experienced exactly what was described: a huge queue for non-EU while the EU passengers breezed through the E-gates.
Right, so if the Sun rises in the East, it's a massive hub, you happen to be non-EU, it's peak time, a flight from the US has just landed, you don't have kids so you qualify to use an E-gate, your surname begins with the letter 'M' to 'S', it's lunchtime for the customs officers, they don't particularly like the look of you, you were last off the plane, and you haven't just farted to clear away fellow queuees, then you might (just might) have to wait a few minutes more to get stamped before you join the precisely the same people at baggage reclaim a few minutes later.
Right. Got it. Sounds terrible, I agree.
Well lets take those one by one:
Sun rise in the East - irrelevant Not a massive hub, but any EU airport that takes proper scheduled flights will do We are non EU, that is the whole point Not peak time, but any time applies. International airports take international flights all the time A flight from the US has just landed. Nope, US, China, South Africa, etc, etc. Anywhere outside of the EU that is using a large plane, which most will be E gates, kids, M to S, lunch time, don't like the look of you etc, etc are all irrelevant Get to baggage collection at the same time - Nope, like most I don't use baggage reclaim unless I have to (once in the last decade or so)
Liberal Democrat activists really do have a cracking sense of humour.
Weird how I just keep getting lucky. Yet I travel abroad more than anyone on this forum. Its almost as if all this Brexit delay travel stuff is just bullshit
I’ve encountered Brexity passport queues twice since Brexit and I travel incessantly
Firstly travel to a non EU country doesn't count as obviously nothing has changed. So trips to Thailand or USA are unaffected.
Secondly it has to be an EU airport that is an International hub ie not one that is taking local traffic or mainly UK holidaymakers and nobody else because the situation that causes the problem doesn't arise. So trips to Faro or Alicante are pretty much unaffected except for it being slightly slower.
However if you go to a main airport and happen to land at the same time as a large flight from the USA or from anywhere outside of the EU you will be stuffed.
So I have experienced numerous flights to small airports and the USA without any issues at all. However a flight to Lisbon which landed at the same time as two flights from the USA and it was a 3 hour wait to get through passport control. Counting the length and width of the snake I reckon it was 1000 people. All gates were open and they used the EU gate and priority gate as well to clear us. EU citizens just waltzed through the EU gate.
Yeah, but he's right though, isn't he? I flew to Bulgaria and it was very easy and hardly any queue.
Like "photographs of nothing on the supermarket shelves" that Remainers love to post on Twitter, it's all bollocks.
Not sure Bulgaria counts as an international hub taking EU and non-EU transfer passengers.
But yes, it varies a lot. I’ve had plenty of smooth journeys and a handful where I experienced exactly what was described: a huge queue for non-EU while the EU passengers breezed through the E-gates.
Right, so if the Sun rises in the East, it's a massive hub, you happen to be non-EU, it's peak time, a flight from the US has just landed, you don't have kids so you qualify to use an E-gate, your surname begins with the letter 'M' to 'S', it's lunchtime for the customs officers, they don't particularly like the look of you, you were last off the plane, and you haven't just farted to clear away fellow queuees, then you might (just might) have to wait a few minutes more to get stamped before you join the precisely the same people at baggage reclaim a few minutes later.
Right. Got it. Sounds terrible, I agree.
They are idiots
Because of their endless Remoaner whining j got here to my Eurostar 90 minutes early. But I swang through customs etc in 5 minutes and now I’m just sitting here in the waiting room an hour early. I could have been at the champagne bar
Thought you were a seasoned traveller.
You go and look at the queue, realise it’s only a short one, then go back to the champagne bar for a couple more glasses and and return to the queue 45m later.
Please don’t tell him about Searcys champagne bar, JohnO and myself have had a few working man’s lunches in there.
We don’t want to be running into Leon, we do have standards.
Weird how I just keep getting lucky. Yet I travel abroad more than anyone on this forum. Its almost as if all this Brexit delay travel stuff is just bullshit
I’ve encountered Brexity passport queues twice since Brexit and I travel incessantly
Firstly travel to a non EU country doesn't count as obviously nothing has changed. So trips to Thailand or USA are unaffected.
Secondly it has to be an EU airport that is an International hub ie not one that is taking local traffic or mainly UK holidaymakers and nobody else because the situation that causes the problem doesn't arise. So trips to Faro or Alicante are pretty much unaffected except for it being slightly slower.
However if you go to a main airport and happen to land at the same time as a large flight from the USA or from anywhere outside of the EU you will be stuffed.
So I have experienced numerous flights to small airports and the USA without any issues at all. However a flight to Lisbon which landed at the same time as two flights from the USA and it was a 3 hour wait to get through passport control. Counting the length and width of the snake I reckon it was 1000 people. All gates were open and they used the EU gate and priority gate as well to clear us. EU citizens just waltzed through the EU gate.
Yeah, but he's right though, isn't he? I flew to Bulgaria and it was very easy and hardly any queue.
Like "photographs of nothing on the supermarket shelves" that Remainers love to post on Twitter, it's all bollocks.
Not sure Bulgaria counts as an international hub taking EU and non-EU transfer passengers.
But yes, it varies a lot. I’ve had plenty of smooth journeys and a handful where I experienced exactly what was described: a huge queue for non-EU while the EU passengers breezed through the E-gates.
Dover, try Dover. Infinitely worse than it used to be.
Dover is analogous to Brexit too. Chaos, decline and the homeless sleeping in doorways.
We use the tunnel (with a car) and Dover a lot. It varies from breezily quick to hours of delay or cancellation, though to be fair of the two times it’s really been apocalyptic only one was Brexit related. The other was the wildcat strike last Christmas. We were stationary on the slip road into the terminal for 4 hours, then sent away to the ferry port where we waited a further 3 hours.
Raynergate might not be cutting through, but I am sensing restlessness in the remainer camp. There is a tacit contract that rejoiners (who are 60% of the electorate) will vote tory with the prospect of initiating a long term process towards SM an eventually rejoining. But Starmer basically might as well be Farage with good PR when it comes to the EU. If the GE comes and goes and the mask doesn't drop on the EU there will be FURY. My guess is that this very fluid and illoyal electorate will find new pastures. Just to illustrate yougov found that only 12% strongly oppose SM.
Omnisis/WeThink10-11.4.24Rejoin/Stay Out62/38
Brexiteerism is a dying movement married to the declining boomer segment. Rejoin enjoud huge majorities in the under 60 year olds. Labour is making a huge error if it remains so rigid on the eu. Everybody i talk to is betting that this brexit kabuki theater from labour is just electoral strategy and will fall away.... it better or labour support will drop like a rock in government.
I don't think it's quite as simple as that, but it does point to a significant, just possible very large opportunity for the LibDems in the next Parliament.
Rejoin is not on the table this GE in England, even though both LDs and Greens have it as a longer term goal.
A large part of Rejoinism is because of Brexits strong association with this failing government. The two are conjoined twins. What happens next parliament is unclear. Will that transfer to Starmers Brexit? Or will it become a separate political cause?
After another 4 years we may have sufficient groundswell to rejoin the SM, while negotiating full Rejoin. Voters cannot be ignored forever.
Nah. The world is going to be transformed in the next 5-10 years. We will be dealing with so much economic change the idea of a massively difficult and painful referendum to rejoin a rigid trading bloc will appear insane. No prime minister will go for it
I do see some form of free movement coming back tho. Both sides want it
It's basically men in their 50s and 60s who are still irritable they lost to people they despise and want to completely turn the tables as the ultimate revenge. From that confirmation bias follows.
We won't be going back to the status quo ante bellum. The world has moved on, so has the UK and so very definitely has the EU.
It's the fantasy - one of the heroic Lost Cause.
But that's not what the polling data say, is it? Brexit is only popular with the retired. People in their 50s and 60s are roughly equally split, but younger than that it's as popular as a poo on the carpet.
And there is no sign at all of people coming to terms with Brexit, or it embedding as the new normal. Of course that might change in the future. But it needs to change a lot to overcome the crude demographics.
Otherwise, the will of the people eventually becomes overwhelming. And at some point, the Conservatives have to soften on Europe or cap their support at thirty percent, then twenty five, then twenty...
No, it's the middle aged /retired Remainer men who are most angry about it - we see lots of them on here. I don't think younger people give a shit - what they care about is jobs, the economy and homes.
Most people got bored of Brexit a long time ago. Even on this site. And there is no popular movement desperate for reascension regardless of how many people on here might wish it to be so.
My anecdata suggests your anecdata is wrong.
That there is no 'popular movement' just reflects the fact that for now it would be futile. It's entirely possible that changes - or doesn't. Neither you nor I can be sure about that.
I am sure. Work through the imponderables. An incredible sequence of events would have to align for a rejoin vote to happen and for rejoin to win
The EU would have to be doing way better than us economically. That’s not obviously true now. There would have to be no mitigations of what Brexit frictions we do have - unlikely, things will be smoothed. The world would have to be at peace so people feel confident. Hmm
The EU would have to want us in. There wouid have to be zero chance of a veto from 27 nations. The UK would surely be obliged to accept the euro and all the rest
The party calling the vote would have to be massively popular (so early in a term after a landslide win?). The leader would also have to be popular and extremely confident of winning. The leader would have to be prepared to expend two years and tons of capital to get the vote through
And so on and so on. And still it could go wrong. Referendums very often do
When you think about it like that it is never going to happen. Less than 1% chance. 0.1%. Put your dreams aside. It’s done
Weird how I just keep getting lucky. Yet I travel abroad more than anyone on this forum. Its almost as if all this Brexit delay travel stuff is just bullshit
I’ve encountered Brexity passport queues twice since Brexit and I travel incessantly
Firstly travel to a non EU country doesn't count as obviously nothing has changed. So trips to Thailand or USA are unaffected.
Secondly it has to be an EU airport that is an International hub ie not one that is taking local traffic or mainly UK holidaymakers and nobody else because the situation that causes the problem doesn't arise. So trips to Faro or Alicante are pretty much unaffected except for it being slightly slower.
However if you go to a main airport and happen to land at the same time as a large flight from the USA or from anywhere outside of the EU you will be stuffed.
So I have experienced numerous flights to small airports and the USA without any issues at all. However a flight to Lisbon which landed at the same time as two flights from the USA and it was a 3 hour wait to get through passport control. Counting the length and width of the snake I reckon it was 1000 people. All gates were open and they used the EU gate and priority gate as well to clear us. EU citizens just waltzed through the EU gate.
Yeah, but he's right though, isn't he? I flew to Bulgaria and it was very easy and hardly any queue.
Like "photographs of nothing on the supermarket shelves" that Remainers love to post on Twitter, it's all bollocks.
Not sure Bulgaria counts as an international hub taking EU and non-EU transfer passengers.
But yes, it varies a lot. I’ve had plenty of smooth journeys and a handful where I experienced exactly what was described: a huge queue for non-EU while the EU passengers breezed through the E-gates.
Right, so if the Sun rises in the East, it's a massive hub, you happen to be non-EU, it's peak time, a flight from the US has just landed, you don't have kids so you qualify to use an E-gate, your surname begins with the letter 'M' to 'S', it's lunchtime for the customs officers, they don't particularly like the look of you, you were last off the plane, and you haven't just farted to clear away fellow queuees, then you might (just might) have to wait a few minutes more to get stamped before you join the precisely the same people at baggage reclaim a few minutes later.
Right. Got it. Sounds terrible, I agree.
They are idiots
Because of their endless Remoaner whining j got here to my Eurostar 90 minutes early. But I swang through customs etc in 5 minutes and now I’m just sitting here in the waiting room an hour early. I could have been at the champagne bar
Thought you were a seasoned traveller.
You go and look at the queue, realise it’s only a short one, then go back to the champagne bar for a couple more glasses and and return to the queue 45m later.
Don't encourage him to the Champagne bar at this time in the morning. Imagine what he's going to be posting by teatime.
Whether he has a couple of glasses of the French in the fancy bar, or goes to the M&S next door for a bottle of something for the journey, makes almost no diffference to how much of an arse he’ll be in five or six hours’ time.
Weird how I just keep getting lucky. Yet I travel abroad more than anyone on this forum. Its almost as if all this Brexit delay travel stuff is just bullshit
I’ve encountered Brexity passport queues twice since Brexit and I travel incessantly
Firstly travel to a non EU country doesn't count as obviously nothing has changed. So trips to Thailand or USA are unaffected.
Secondly it has to be an EU airport that is an International hub ie not one that is taking local traffic or mainly UK holidaymakers and nobody else because the situation that causes the problem doesn't arise. So trips to Faro or Alicante are pretty much unaffected except for it being slightly slower.
However if you go to a main airport and happen to land at the same time as a large flight from the USA or from anywhere outside of the EU you will be stuffed.
So I have experienced numerous flights to small airports and the USA without any issues at all. However a flight to Lisbon which landed at the same time as two flights from the USA and it was a 3 hour wait to get through passport control. Counting the length and width of the snake I reckon it was 1000 people. All gates were open and they used the EU gate and priority gate as well to clear us. EU citizens just waltzed through the EU gate.
I travel far more often that you. To the EU and everywhere else
Since Brexit I have encountered really annoying Brexit related delays (ie an hour+ extra queue) exactly twice. Once in Iceland once in Switzerland (for the reasons you say). And both a while ago
I’ve had smaller delays - 10-20 minutes - 3 or 4 times and none recently. That’s it. My god. The pain
Yes I know you do. But you shouldn't have those delays and if you are an infrequent traveller and unlucky it is really annoying. In your case you are taking it with the flow. You travel hugely. You know shit will happen occasionally (usually not Brexit related) and live with it. If you do it once or twice a year and are unlucky and wait 3 hours while you see an empty EU gate you really get pissed.
Sure, but as one of those people who doesn't travel a lot, is it that big a deal then?
I think it is. It is worse for them. It buggers up their trip. For someone who travels all the time they know it is going to happen at some stage and take it in their stride.
Many decades ago I used to do a job in Jersey and flew there regularly. I'm one of these people who always gets place early as I hate being late, but I got arrogant and left getting to the airport later and later and one day I got held up in traffic and missed my flight. I shrugged my shoulders. Now if that had been my holiday buggered I would have been so annoyed.
@leon posted about missing a flight recently from the far east. He took it in his stride as a seasoned travel. Imagine if that was your flight back from a 2 week holiday. You would be beside yourself.
Sorry if this has already been said, but just catching up on the Israeli strikes. I think both Iran and Israel deserve quite a lot of credit. Whether through accident or design, both have calibrated responses to provocations that allow for de-escalation by the other side.
For two regimes that are both often seen as uncompromising (to put it mildly), this is quite an impressive feat. I do wonder whether Biden's seasoned diplomacy is a significant factor.
Weird how I just keep getting lucky. Yet I travel abroad more than anyone on this forum. Its almost as if all this Brexit delay travel stuff is just bullshit
I’ve encountered Brexity passport queues twice since Brexit and I travel incessantly
Firstly travel to a non EU country doesn't count as obviously nothing has changed. So trips to Thailand or USA are unaffected.
Secondly it has to be an EU airport that is an International hub ie not one that is taking local traffic or mainly UK holidaymakers and nobody else because the situation that causes the problem doesn't arise. So trips to Faro or Alicante are pretty much unaffected except for it being slightly slower.
However if you go to a main airport and happen to land at the same time as a large flight from the USA or from anywhere outside of the EU you will be stuffed.
So I have experienced numerous flights to small airports and the USA without any issues at all. However a flight to Lisbon which landed at the same time as two flights from the USA and it was a 3 hour wait to get through passport control. Counting the length and width of the snake I reckon it was 1000 people. All gates were open and they used the EU gate and priority gate as well to clear us. EU citizens just waltzed through the EU gate.
Yeah, but he's right though, isn't he? I flew to Bulgaria and it was very easy and hardly any queue.
Like "photographs of nothing on the supermarket shelves" that Remainers love to post on Twitter, it's all bollocks.
Not sure Bulgaria counts as an international hub taking EU and non-EU transfer passengers.
But yes, it varies a lot. I’ve had plenty of smooth journeys and a handful where I experienced exactly what was described: a huge queue for non-EU while the EU passengers breezed through the E-gates.
Right, so if the Sun rises in the East, it's a massive hub, you happen to be non-EU, it's peak time, a flight from the US has just landed, you don't have kids so you qualify to use an E-gate, your surname begins with the letter 'M' to 'S', it's lunchtime for the customs officers, they don't particularly like the look of you, you were last off the plane, and you haven't just farted to clear away fellow queuees, then you might (just might) have to wait a few minutes more to get stamped before you join the precisely the same people at baggage reclaim a few minutes later.
Right. Got it. Sounds terrible, I agree.
They are idiots
Because of their endless Remoaner whining j got here to my Eurostar 90 minutes early. But I swang through customs etc in 5 minutes and now I’m just sitting here in the waiting room an hour early. I could have been at the champagne bar
So if there are no queues, and there is no problem, why did Eurostar cut the number of seats they sell on each train by a quarter? The demand is there, they just physically cannot process them when busy. Was it for fun? Or because they had no other choice?
You are Father Dougal. In the caravan. Having it very patiently explained to you that your experience today may not be representative of the regular experience at St Pancras and Gare du Nord by the train company and their staff...
Weird how I just keep getting lucky. Yet I travel abroad more than anyone on this forum. Its almost as if all this Brexit delay travel stuff is just bullshit
I’ve encountered Brexity passport queues twice since Brexit and I travel incessantly
Firstly travel to a non EU country doesn't count as obviously nothing has changed. So trips to Thailand or USA are unaffected.
Secondly it has to be an EU airport that is an International hub ie not one that is taking local traffic or mainly UK holidaymakers and nobody else because the situation that causes the problem doesn't arise. So trips to Faro or Alicante are pretty much unaffected except for it being slightly slower.
However if you go to a main airport and happen to land at the same time as a large flight from the USA or from anywhere outside of the EU you will be stuffed.
So I have experienced numerous flights to small airports and the USA without any issues at all. However a flight to Lisbon which landed at the same time as two flights from the USA and it was a 3 hour wait to get through passport control. Counting the length and width of the snake I reckon it was 1000 people. All gates were open and they used the EU gate and priority gate as well to clear us. EU citizens just waltzed through the EU gate.
Yeah, but he's right though, isn't he? I flew to Bulgaria and it was very easy and hardly any queue.
Like "photographs of nothing on the supermarket shelves" that Remainers love to post on Twitter, it's all bollocks.
Not sure Bulgaria counts as an international hub taking EU and non-EU transfer passengers.
But yes, it varies a lot. I’ve had plenty of smooth journeys and a handful where I experienced exactly what was described: a huge queue for non-EU while the EU passengers breezed through the E-gates.
Right, so if the Sun rises in the East, it's a massive hub, you happen to be non-EU, it's peak time, a flight from the US has just landed, you don't have kids so you qualify to use an E-gate, your surname begins with the letter 'M' to 'S', it's lunchtime for the customs officers, they don't particularly like the look of you, you were last off the plane, and you haven't just farted to clear away fellow queuees, then you might (just might) have to wait a few minutes more to get stamped before you join the precisely the same people at baggage reclaim a few minutes later.
Right. Got it. Sounds terrible, I agree.
They are idiots
Because of their endless Remoaner whining j got here to my Eurostar 90 minutes early. But I swang through customs etc in 5 minutes and now I’m just sitting here in the waiting room an hour early. I could have been at the champagne bar
Thought you were a seasoned traveller.
You go and look at the queue, realise it’s only a short one, then go back to the champagne bar for a couple more glasses and and return to the queue 45m later.
Don't encourage him to the Champagne bar at this time in the morning. Imagine what he's going to be posting by teatime.
Whether he has a couple of glasses of the French in the fancy bar, or goes to the M&S next door for a bottle of something for the journey, makes almost no diffference to how much of an arse he’ll be in five or six hours’ time.
Raynergate might not be cutting through, but I am sensing restlessness in the remainer camp. There is a tacit contract that rejoiners (who are 60% of the electorate) will vote tory with the prospect of initiating a long term process towards SM an eventually rejoining. But Starmer basically might as well be Farage with good PR when it comes to the EU. If the GE comes and goes and the mask doesn't drop on the EU there will be FURY. My guess is that this very fluid and illoyal electorate will find new pastures. Just to illustrate yougov found that only 12% strongly oppose SM.
Omnisis/WeThink10-11.4.24Rejoin/Stay Out62/38
Brexiteerism is a dying movement married to the declining boomer segment. Rejoin enjoud huge majorities in the under 60 year olds. Labour is making a huge error if it remains so rigid on the eu. Everybody i talk to is betting that this brexit kabuki theater from labour is just electoral strategy and will fall away.... it better or labour support will drop like a rock in government.
I don't think it's quite as simple as that, but it does point to a significant, just possible very large opportunity for the LibDems in the next Parliament.
Rejoin is not on the table this GE in England, even though both LDs and Greens have it as a longer term goal.
A large part of Rejoinism is because of Brexits strong association with this failing government. The two are conjoined twins. What happens next parliament is unclear. Will that transfer to Starmers Brexit? Or will it become a separate political cause?
After another 4 years we may have sufficient groundswell to rejoin the SM, while negotiating full Rejoin. Voters cannot be ignored forever.
Nah. The world is going to be transformed in the next 5-10 years. We will be dealing with so much economic change the idea of a massively difficult and painful referendum to rejoin a rigid trading bloc will appear insane. No prime minister will go for it
I do see some form of free movement coming back tho. Both sides want it
It's basically men in their 50s and 60s who are still irritable they lost to people they despise and want to completely turn the tables as the ultimate revenge. From that confirmation bias follows.
We won't be going back to the status quo ante bellum. The world has moved on, so has the UK and so very definitely has the EU.
It's the fantasy - one of the heroic Lost Cause.
But that's not what the polling data say, is it? Brexit is only popular with the retired. People in their 50s and 60s are roughly equally split, but younger than that it's as popular as a poo on the carpet.
And there is no sign at all of people coming to terms with Brexit, or it embedding as the new normal. Of course that might change in the future. But it needs to change a lot to overcome the crude demographics.
Otherwise, the will of the people eventually becomes overwhelming. And at some point, the Conservatives have to soften on Europe or cap their support at thirty percent, then twenty five, then twenty...
No, it's the middle aged /retired Remainer men who are most angry about it - we see lots of them on here. I don't think younger people give a shit - what they care about is jobs, the economy and homes.
Most people got bored of Brexit a long time ago. Even on this site. And there is no popular movement desperate for reascension regardless of how many people on here might wish it to be so.
My anecdata suggests your anecdata is wrong.
That there is no 'popular movement' just reflects the fact that for now it would be futile. It's entirely possible that changes - or doesn't. Neither you nor I can be sure about that.
I am sure. Work through the imponderables. An incredible sequence of events would have to align for a rejoin vote to happen and for rejoin to win
The EU would have to be doing way better than us economically. That’s not obviously true now. There would have to be no mitigations of what Brexit frictions we do have - unlikely, things will be smoothed. The world would have to be at peace so people feel confident. Hmm
The EU would have to want us in. There wouid have to be zero chance of a veto from 27 nations. The UK would surely be obliged to accept the euro and all the rest
The party calling the vote would have to be massively popular (so early in a term after a landslide win?). The leader would also have to be popular and extremely confident of winning. The leader would have to be prepared to expend two years and tons of capital to get the vote through
And so on and so on. And still it could go wrong. Referendums very often do
When you think about it like that it is never going to happen. Less than 1% chance. 0.1%. Put your dreams aside. It’s done
Ok - will you 'do' me @ 1000/1 then? Just a small one. A tenner say.
Sorry if this has already been said, but just catching up on the Israeli strikes. I think both Iran and Israel deserve quite a lot of credit. Whether through accident or design, both have calibrated responses to provocations that allow for de-escalation by the other side.
For two regimes that are both often seen as uncompromising (to put it mildly), this is quite an impressive feat. I do wonder whether Biden's seasoned diplomacy is a significant factor.
Perhaps Blinken’s seasoned diplomacy was useful, but Biden doesn’t seem to know his Haifa from his Rafah this week.
Raynergate might not be cutting through, but I am sensing restlessness in the remainer camp. There is a tacit contract that rejoiners (who are 60% of the electorate) will vote tory with the prospect of initiating a long term process towards SM an eventually rejoining. But Starmer basically might as well be Farage with good PR when it comes to the EU. If the GE comes and goes and the mask doesn't drop on the EU there will be FURY. My guess is that this very fluid and illoyal electorate will find new pastures. Just to illustrate yougov found that only 12% strongly oppose SM.
Omnisis/WeThink10-11.4.24Rejoin/Stay Out62/38
Brexiteerism is a dying movement married to the declining boomer segment. Rejoin enjoud huge majorities in the under 60 year olds. Labour is making a huge error if it remains so rigid on the eu. Everybody i talk to is betting that this brexit kabuki theater from labour is just electoral strategy and will fall away.... it better or labour support will drop like a rock in government.
I don't think it's quite as simple as that, but it does point to a significant, just possible very large opportunity for the LibDems in the next Parliament.
Rejoin is not on the table this GE in England, even though both LDs and Greens have it as a longer term goal.
A large part of Rejoinism is because of Brexits strong association with this failing government. The two are conjoined twins. What happens next parliament is unclear. Will that transfer to Starmers Brexit? Or will it become a separate political cause?
After another 4 years we may have sufficient groundswell to rejoin the SM, while negotiating full Rejoin. Voters cannot be ignored forever.
Nah. The world is going to be transformed in the next 5-10 years. We will be dealing with so much economic change the idea of a massively difficult and painful referendum to rejoin a rigid trading bloc will appear insane. No prime minister will go for it
I do see some form of free movement coming back tho. Both sides want it
It's basically men in their 50s and 60s who are still irritable they lost to people they despise and want to completely turn the tables as the ultimate revenge. From that confirmation bias follows.
We won't be going back to the status quo ante bellum. The world has moved on, so has the UK and so very definitely has the EU.
It's the fantasy - one of the heroic Lost Cause.
But that's not what the polling data say, is it? Brexit is only popular with the retired. People in their 50s and 60s are roughly equally split, but younger than that it's as popular as a poo on the carpet.
And there is no sign at all of people coming to terms with Brexit, or it embedding as the new normal. Of course that might change in the future. But it needs to change a lot to overcome the crude demographics.
Otherwise, the will of the people eventually becomes overwhelming. And at some point, the Conservatives have to soften on Europe or cap their support at thirty percent, then twenty five, then twenty...
No, it's the middle aged /retired Remainer men who are most angry about it - we see lots of them on here. I don't think younger people give a shit - what they care about is jobs, the economy and homes.
Most people got bored of Brexit a long time ago. Even on this site. And there is no popular movement desperate for reascension regardless of how many people on here might wish it to be so.
My anecdata suggests your anecdata is wrong.
That there is no 'popular movement' just reflects the fact that for now it would be futile. It's entirely possible that changes - or doesn't. Neither you nor I can be sure about that.
I am sure. Work through the imponderables. An incredible sequence of events would have to align for a rejoin vote to happen and for rejoin to win
The EU would have to be doing way better than us economically. That’s not obviously true now. There would have to be no mitigations of what Brexit frictions we do have - unlikely, things will be smoothed. The world would have to be at peace so people feel confident. Hmm
The EU would have to want us in. There wouid have to be zero chance of a veto from 27 nations. The UK would surely be obliged to accept the euro and all the rest
The party calling the vote would have to be massively popular (so early in a term after a landslide win?). The leader would also have to be popular and extremely confident of winning. The leader would have to be prepared to expend two years and tons of capital to get the vote through
And so on and so on. And still it could go wrong. Referendums very often do
When you think about it like that it is never going to happen. Less than 1% chance. 0.1%. Put your dreams aside. It’s done
Ok - will you 'do' me @ 1000/1 then? Just a small one. A tenner say.
No of course not. But I’m right and you know it. Rejoiners don’t just need to get their ducks in a row they need a flock of about 200 ducks flying in random but perfect linear formation with the world’s best duck shooter using a pair of million pound Purdeys who just happens to be passing because he’s en route to the once a decade duck shoot competition which has been postponed eight times
For a rejoin referendum to be simultaneously desirable, feasible. callable and very very winnable needs a political miracle
I go to St Pancras via HS1 everyday. You lucked out.
Eurostar have had to cut the number of seats they fill because of the very real queues. There isn't enough physical capacity to add more border gates, so they have jacked up the prices to recoup lost revenue from the 25% or so of seats they cannot sell.
Raynergate might not be cutting through, but I am sensing restlessness in the remainer camp. There is a tacit contract that rejoiners (who are 60% of the electorate) will vote tory with the prospect of initiating a long term process towards SM an eventually rejoining. But Starmer basically might as well be Farage with good PR when it comes to the EU. If the GE comes and goes and the mask doesn't drop on the EU there will be FURY. My guess is that this very fluid and illoyal electorate will find new pastures. Just to illustrate yougov found that only 12% strongly oppose SM.
Omnisis/WeThink10-11.4.24Rejoin/Stay Out62/38
Brexiteerism is a dying movement married to the declining boomer segment. Rejoin enjoud huge majorities in the under 60 year olds. Labour is making a huge error if it remains so rigid on the eu. Everybody i talk to is betting that this brexit kabuki theater from labour is just electoral strategy and will fall away.... it better or labour support will drop like a rock in government.
I don't think it's quite as simple as that, but it does point to a significant, just possible very large opportunity for the LibDems in the next Parliament.
Rejoin is not on the table this GE in England, even though both LDs and Greens have it as a longer term goal.
A large part of Rejoinism is because of Brexits strong association with this failing government. The two are conjoined twins. What happens next parliament is unclear. Will that transfer to Starmers Brexit? Or will it become a separate political cause?
After another 4 years we may have sufficient groundswell to rejoin the SM, while negotiating full Rejoin. Voters cannot be ignored forever.
Nah. The world is going to be transformed in the next 5-10 years. We will be dealing with so much economic change the idea of a massively difficult and painful referendum to rejoin a rigid trading bloc will appear insane. No prime minister will go for it
I do see some form of free movement coming back tho. Both sides want it
It's basically men in their 50s and 60s who are still irritable they lost to people they despise and want to completely turn the tables as the ultimate revenge. From that confirmation bias follows.
We won't be going back to the status quo ante bellum. The world has moved on, so has the UK and so very definitely has the EU.
It's the fantasy - one of the heroic Lost Cause.
But that's not what the polling data say, is it? Brexit is only popular with the retired. People in their 50s and 60s are roughly equally split, but younger than that it's as popular as a poo on the carpet.
And there is no sign at all of people coming to terms with Brexit, or it embedding as the new normal. Of course that might change in the future. But it needs to change a lot to overcome the crude demographics.
Otherwise, the will of the people eventually becomes overwhelming. And at some point, the Conservatives have to soften on Europe or cap their support at thirty percent, then twenty five, then twenty...
No, it's the middle aged /retired Remainer men who are most angry about it - we see lots of them on here. I don't think younger people give a shit - what they care about is jobs, the economy and homes.
Most people got bored of Brexit a long time ago. Even on this site. And there is no popular movement desperate for reascension regardless of how many people on here might wish it to be so.
My anecdata suggests your anecdata is wrong.
That there is no 'popular movement' just reflects the fact that for now it would be futile. It's entirely possible that changes - or doesn't. Neither you nor I can be sure about that.
I am sure. Work through the imponderables. An incredible sequence of events would have to align for a rejoin vote to happen and for rejoin to win
The EU would have to be doing way better than us economically. That’s not obviously true now. There would have to be no mitigations of what Brexit frictions we do have - unlikely, things will be smoothed. The world would have to be at peace so people feel confident. Hmm
The EU would have to want us in. There wouid have to be zero chance of a veto from 27 nations. The UK would surely be obliged to accept the euro and all the rest
The party calling the vote would have to be massively popular (so early in a term after a landslide win?). The leader would also have to be popular and extremely confident of winning. The leader would have to be prepared to expend two years and tons of capital to get the vote through
And so on and so on. And still it could go wrong. Referendums very often do
When you think about it like that it is never going to happen. Less than 1% chance. 0.1%. Put your dreams aside. It’s done
Yes, a full-scale return to EU membership, done as an inversion of Dave's referendum, is off the cards. What will probably happen is a long series of incremental steps leading to the point where our relationship with the EU - a few niche exceptions aside - is logically indistinguishable from what we left. But I'll put the timeline on that to be around thirty years.
You can tell how supremely relaxed the Brexitards are over the prospect of rejoin by how they trip over their saggy old ball sacs in the rush to tell us, repeatedly and at length, how it's impossible.
The irreducible facts are that every flu season winnows the unlovely ranks of the leavers and that they've stopped making new ones.
Weird how I just keep getting lucky. Yet I travel abroad more than anyone on this forum. Its almost as if all this Brexit delay travel stuff is just bullshit
I’ve encountered Brexity passport queues twice since Brexit and I travel incessantly
Firstly travel to a non EU country doesn't count as obviously nothing has changed. So trips to Thailand or USA are unaffected.
Secondly it has to be an EU airport that is an International hub ie not one that is taking local traffic or mainly UK holidaymakers and nobody else because the situation that causes the problem doesn't arise. So trips to Faro or Alicante are pretty much unaffected except for it being slightly slower.
However if you go to a main airport and happen to land at the same time as a large flight from the USA or from anywhere outside of the EU you will be stuffed.
So I have experienced numerous flights to small airports and the USA without any issues at all. However a flight to Lisbon which landed at the same time as two flights from the USA and it was a 3 hour wait to get through passport control. Counting the length and width of the snake I reckon it was 1000 people. All gates were open and they used the EU gate and priority gate as well to clear us. EU citizens just waltzed through the EU gate.
Yeah, but he's right though, isn't he? I flew to Bulgaria and it was very easy and hardly any queue.
Like "photographs of nothing on the supermarket shelves" that Remainers love to post on Twitter, it's all bollocks.
Not sure Bulgaria counts as an international hub taking EU and non-EU transfer passengers.
But yes, it varies a lot. I’ve had plenty of smooth journeys and a handful where I experienced exactly what was described: a huge queue for non-EU while the EU passengers breezed through the E-gates.
Dover, try Dover. Infinitely worse than it used to be.
Dover is analogous to Brexit too. Chaos, decline and the homeless sleeping in doorways.
We use the tunnel (with a car) and Dover a lot. It varies from breezily quick to hours of delay or cancellation, though to be fair of the two times it’s really been apocalyptic only one was Brexit related. The other was the wildcat strike last Christmas. We were stationary on the slip road into the terminal for 4 hours, then sent away to the ferry port where we waited a further 3 hours.
Like Ryanair the tunnel is very efficient but if anything goes wrong the whole thing collapses. I have breezed through most time but had an horrendous experience twice (both before Brexit).
On bikes the ferry companies treat you like Gods. It is fantastic. Either off first or get an escort out of the port. No queuing to get on either just straight to the front so while the cars wait you can go to the cafe and pop back just before departure and be at the front.
The Brexit Eurostar issue for bikes is pathetic and I don't know why it is an issue because it isn't for ferries. They have set up an alternative whereby you can put your bike on a van at Folkestone and take it off the other side using the tunnel. Literally a van using the tunnel that drives 100 metres either end (Daft or what). However that is Folkstone/Calais not London/Paris so that doesn't work for us because we can't get to the van in time for when it leaves because there are no trains earlier enough from where I live and even if we could it adds another day. None of it makes sense and it wastes a whole day, but hey apparently I am just imagining these Brexit holdups.
Weird how I just keep getting lucky. Yet I travel abroad more than anyone on this forum. Its almost as if all this Brexit delay travel stuff is just bullshit
I’ve encountered Brexity passport queues twice since Brexit and I travel incessantly
Firstly travel to a non EU country doesn't count as obviously nothing has changed. So trips to Thailand or USA are unaffected.
Secondly it has to be an EU airport that is an International hub ie not one that is taking local traffic or mainly UK holidaymakers and nobody else because the situation that causes the problem doesn't arise. So trips to Faro or Alicante are pretty much unaffected except for it being slightly slower.
However if you go to a main airport and happen to land at the same time as a large flight from the USA or from anywhere outside of the EU you will be stuffed.
So I have experienced numerous flights to small airports and the USA without any issues at all. However a flight to Lisbon which landed at the same time as two flights from the USA and it was a 3 hour wait to get through passport control. Counting the length and width of the snake I reckon it was 1000 people. All gates were open and they used the EU gate and priority gate as well to clear us. EU citizens just waltzed through the EU gate.
I travel far more often that you. To the EU and everywhere else
Since Brexit I have encountered really annoying Brexit related delays (ie an hour+ extra queue) exactly twice. Once in Iceland once in Switzerland (for the reasons you say). And both a while ago
I’ve had smaller delays - 10-20 minutes - 3 or 4 times and none recently. That’s it. My god. The pain
Yes I know you do. But you shouldn't have those delays and if you are an infrequent traveller and unlucky it is really annoying. In your case you are taking it with the flow. You travel hugely. You know shit will happen occasionally (usually not Brexit related) and live with it. If you do it once or twice a year and are unlucky and wait 3 hours while you see an empty EU gate you really get pissed.
Sure, but as one of those people who doesn't travel a lot, is it that big a deal then?
@leon posted about missing a flight recently from the far east. He took it in his stride as a seasoned travel. Imagine if that was your flight back from a 2 week holiday. You would be beside yourself.
I’ve missed 5 flights in my adult life, which I believe is quite an unusual achievement:
1. Stansted to Malmo, because of traffic jam on the M11 2. Paris CDG to home: traffic jam on périphérique 3. Heathrow to Hamburg: got to the gate and realised I had my sons passport 4. Schipol to home: delayed flight so sat in the bar, relaxed, and missed final call 5. Dar es Salaam to home via Bahrain: didn’t reconfirm, flight overbooked, had to spend another 3 days in Tanzania before the next flight
I almost made it 6 on a return from Miami. Sat in the lounge, flight delayed, have a few drinks, then suddenly flight closing. They fitted me on but with a downgrade from business to economy right at the back.
Redfield Tees Valley Mayoral poll has Houchen tied at 47% with Labour, 5% ahead on most stringent certain to vote factor, indeed a chunk of Labour's vote intention is 'did not vote in 21', a very tight race again! Westminster Tees Valley 49 26 to Lab, I make that about a 13% swing meaning the two holds the Tories would be targeting would be Middlesborough South and Cleveland and Stockton West (both about 11.5% swing required). 13% swing nationally is lower than the national polling and would suggest 180 to 200 Tory seats. They'd bite your hand off for that
Weird how I just keep getting lucky. Yet I travel abroad more than anyone on this forum. Its almost as if all this Brexit delay travel stuff is just bullshit
I’ve encountered Brexity passport queues twice since Brexit and I travel incessantly
Firstly travel to a non EU country doesn't count as obviously nothing has changed. So trips to Thailand or USA are unaffected.
Secondly it has to be an EU airport that is an International hub ie not one that is taking local traffic or mainly UK holidaymakers and nobody else because the situation that causes the problem doesn't arise. So trips to Faro or Alicante are pretty much unaffected except for it being slightly slower.
However if you go to a main airport and happen to land at the same time as a large flight from the USA or from anywhere outside of the EU you will be stuffed.
So I have experienced numerous flights to small airports and the USA without any issues at all. However a flight to Lisbon which landed at the same time as two flights from the USA and it was a 3 hour wait to get through passport control. Counting the length and width of the snake I reckon it was 1000 people. All gates were open and they used the EU gate and priority gate as well to clear us. EU citizens just waltzed through the EU gate.
I travel far more often that you. To the EU and everywhere else
Since Brexit I have encountered really annoying Brexit related delays (ie an hour+ extra queue) exactly twice. Once in Iceland once in Switzerland (for the reasons you say). And both a while ago
I’ve had smaller delays - 10-20 minutes - 3 or 4 times and none recently. That’s it. My god. The pain
Yes I know you do. But you shouldn't have those delays and if you are an infrequent traveller and unlucky it is really annoying. In your case you are taking it with the flow. You travel hugely. You know shit will happen occasionally (usually not Brexit related) and live with it. If you do it once or twice a year and are unlucky and wait 3 hours while you see an empty EU gate you really get pissed.
Sure, but as one of those people who doesn't travel a lot, is it that big a deal then?
@leon posted about missing a flight recently from the far east. He took it in his stride as a seasoned travel. Imagine if that was your flight back from a 2 week holiday. You would be beside yourself.
I’ve missed 5 flights in my adult life, which I believe is quite an unusual achievement:
1. Stansted to Malmo, because of traffic jam on the M11 2. Paris CDG to home: traffic jam on périphérique 3. Heathrow to Hamburg: got to the gate and realised I had my sons passport 4. Schipol to home: delayed flight so sat in the bar, relaxed, and missed final call 5. Dar es Salaam to home via Bahrain: didn’t reconfirm, flight overbooked, had to spend another 3 days in Tanzania before the next flight
I almost made it 3 on a return from Miami. Sat in the lounge, flight delayed, have a few drinks, then suddenly flight closing. They fitted me on but with a downgrade from business to economy right at the back.
I love number 3. Did you put a dent in the wall with your forehead?
The Tories must shoulder some of the blame for this. They have been in power for 14 years and they've had ample opportunity to extirpate this vile, damaging Woke nonsense, to drive it out of public life and to punish those that proselytise it. Instead they have actively let it spread, it has got worse, to the extent that we now refuse to deport known sex offenders back to Afghanistan, because they might suffer for being sex offenders, and so they rape and murder British people instead. That is where we are. That is what the Tories have allowed to flourish, that level of insanity
The only way we retrieve the situation is something close to revolution. An entire class of people needs to be exiled from power forever, and a grotesque ideology needs to be forcibly eliminated. We need the Labour party to fuck up massively and a proper right wing party to assume power
Either that or let the machines take over
"Fourteen years of Tory rule have left Britain a lazy, dangerous, Left-wing mess It hardly matters that Labour will be worse, when voters feel so betrayed by the Tories
Imagine being called lazy by someone who writes newspaper columns for a living.
Have you ever had the job of newspaper columnist? I doubt it. Do you think they just sit there and toss out any old crap in half an hour and pocket £2k per column, ta very much? If it is that easy, surely everyone would do it? eg You?
But of course they don't. Because it is hard. And only a few people can do it and make it really pay
Is it really hard in the same way as, say, managing a big construction project is? Or running a hospital? Or successfully integrating a merger of two companies?
In fact I'll go further and illustrate my point. Your comparison is absurd, because you are making a category error
You're essentially asking which is harder, running a health trust, or being a brilliant premier league striker?
The query makes no sense. The latter requires skills which are much rarer than the former, even though the former is surely very hard work. But if you have the skills to be a great striker, if you are Erling Haaland, you will make it look effortless, but that is because you are very talented, and almost no one else has your talent. You might even appear "lazy" to people who don't understand football
Erling Haaland runs two 5km runs back to back every 3 days. Plus all the training and weightlifting behind the scenes. I am going to go out on a limb and declare him less lazy than an OpEd writer.
That's what I am saying. Haaland will look lazy to people who don't understand football. Those that do, know that Yes he's bloody talented, but he still has to train like a bastard because the competition is insane
I actually KNOW some newspaper columnists. They will spend days raging for an idea, exploring themes, engaging concepts, rejecting duds. They have to read tons of news and books and other stuff, to gather material. Vanishingly few - in fact, probably none - can constantly toss out brilliant columns in half an hour then piss off to the swimming pool
You really don't know what you're talking about, on this point
I have written 349 columns since March 2016 - not just for here but for other forums - some paid and some for trade journals. Not quite 1 a week (there have been 420 weeks since March 2016) but getting bloody close.
And, frankly, better than a lot of the dross in newspapers.
Well then off you go to the Telegraph or the Times and demand £200k a year
The Telegraph is crap; glance at the Times. Long time since I actually read a paper properly. Quite like Matthew Syed though.
Don't have the connections. And that's what counts these days after all.
Might the Knappers Gazette want something? I don't fit the usual mould after all - so would do wonders for their diversity stats. And I'd promise not to steal ideas from the "let me tell you about my brothel experiences" crowd.
The "Why deadheading roses is like delaying your orgasm" column would be more up my street.
It really is NOT "all about the connections". Sure your Daddy might get you a job for a year or two but if you can't do it, you're gone. Journalism is fiercely competitive
I can think of one long-time writer for the Spectator [1] who admittedly can write but nonetheless often writes vacuous shite and still doesn't get the sack - e.g. on fascist poster boy Gabriele d'Annunzio, or saying "I went to Ukraine and stayed in a hotel".
1) Or the Government Gazette as it will be known if the British state ever finds a place under the wing of Rome.
Raynergate might not be cutting through, but I am sensing restlessness in the remainer camp. There is a tacit contract that rejoiners (who are 60% of the electorate) will vote tory with the prospect of initiating a long term process towards SM an eventually rejoining. But Starmer basically might as well be Farage with good PR when it comes to the EU. If the GE comes and goes and the mask doesn't drop on the EU there will be FURY. My guess is that this very fluid and illoyal electorate will find new pastures. Just to illustrate yougov found that only 12% strongly oppose SM.
Omnisis/WeThink10-11.4.24Rejoin/Stay Out62/38
Brexiteerism is a dying movement married to the declining boomer segment. Rejoin enjoud huge majorities in the under 60 year olds. Labour is making a huge error if it remains so rigid on the eu. Everybody i talk to is betting that this brexit kabuki theater from labour is just electoral strategy and will fall away.... it better or labour support will drop like a rock in government.
I don't think it's quite as simple as that, but it does point to a significant, just possible very large opportunity for the LibDems in the next Parliament.
Rejoin is not on the table this GE in England, even though both LDs and Greens have it as a longer term goal.
A large part of Rejoinism is because of Brexits strong association with this failing government. The two are conjoined twins. What happens next parliament is unclear. Will that transfer to Starmers Brexit? Or will it become a separate political cause?
After another 4 years we may have sufficient groundswell to rejoin the SM, while negotiating full Rejoin. Voters cannot be ignored forever.
Nah. The world is going to be transformed in the next 5-10 years. We will be dealing with so much economic change the idea of a massively difficult and painful referendum to rejoin a rigid trading bloc will appear insane. No prime minister will go for it
I do see some form of free movement coming back tho. Both sides want it
It's basically men in their 50s and 60s who are still irritable they lost to people they despise and want to completely turn the tables as the ultimate revenge. From that confirmation bias follows.
We won't be going back to the status quo ante bellum. The world has moved on, so has the UK and so very definitely has the EU.
It's the fantasy - one of the heroic Lost Cause.
But that's not what the polling data say, is it? Brexit is only popular with the retired. People in their 50s and 60s are roughly equally split, but younger than that it's as popular as a poo on the carpet.
And there is no sign at all of people coming to terms with Brexit, or it embedding as the new normal. Of course that might change in the future. But it needs to change a lot to overcome the crude demographics.
Otherwise, the will of the people eventually becomes overwhelming. And at some point, the Conservatives have to soften on Europe or cap their support at thirty percent, then twenty five, then twenty...
No, it's the middle aged /retired Remainer men who are most angry about it - we see lots of them on here. I don't think younger people give a shit - what they care about is jobs, the economy and homes.
Most people got bored of Brexit a long time ago. Even on this site. And there is no popular movement desperate for reascension regardless of how many people on here might wish it to be so.
My anecdata suggests your anecdata is wrong.
That there is no 'popular movement' just reflects the fact that for now it would be futile. It's entirely possible that changes - or doesn't. Neither you nor I can be sure about that.
I am sure. Work through the imponderables. An incredible sequence of events would have to align for a rejoin vote to happen and for rejoin to win
The EU would have to be doing way better than us economically. That’s not obviously true now. There would have to be no mitigations of what Brexit frictions we do have - unlikely, things will be smoothed. The world would have to be at peace so people feel confident. Hmm
The EU would have to want us in. There wouid have to be zero chance of a veto from 27 nations. The UK would surely be obliged to accept the euro and all the rest
The party calling the vote would have to be massively popular (so early in a term after a landslide win?). The leader would also have to be popular and extremely confident of winning. The leader would have to be prepared to expend two years and tons of capital to get the vote through
And so on and so on. And still it could go wrong. Referendums very often do
When you think about it like that it is never going to happen. Less than 1% chance. 0.1%. Put your dreams aside. It’s done
Ok - will you 'do' me @ 1000/1 then? Just a small one. A tenner say.
No of course not. But I’m right and you know it. Rejoiners don’t just need to get their ducks in a row they need a flock of about 200 ducks flying in random but perfect linear formation with the world’s best duck shooter using a pair of million pound Purdeys who just happens to be passing because he’s en route to the once a decade duck shoot competition which has been postponed eight times
For a rejoin referendum to be simultaneously desirable, feasible. callable and very very winnable needs a political miracle
Then the British right are in deep trouble for a very long time.
There's a poo on the carpet that isn't vanishing. No amount of air freshener, or telling people that is doesn't smell that bad is taking the pong away. And even if it's not actually smelling- it's a poo. That someone did. On the carpet.
And we all know who did it, because it was done in public view. In fact, the person responsible was proud of it at the time and thought we would be grateful.
(If this isn't the plot of an unwatchable surrealist play, it ought to be.)
And that is why I anticipate Labour nervously slicing away some bits of Brexit, though more in 2028-32 than 2024-28. But the next Conservative PM, sometimes in the late 2030s, is likely to embrace Brejoin as their sign that the party has changed.
(See also Prohibition in America. Seemed unassailable, it was in the Constitution dammit, until it wasn't.)
Redfield Tees Valley Mayoral poll has Houchen tied at 47% with Labour, 5% ahead on most stringent certain to vote factor, indeed a chunk of Labour's vote intention is 'did not vote in 21', a very tight race again! Westminster Tees Valley 49 26 to Lab, I make that about a 13% swing meaning the two holds the Tories would be targeting would be Middlesborough South and Cleveland and Stockton West (both about 11.5% swing required). 13% swing nationally is lower than the national polling and would suggest 180 to 200 Tory seats. They'd bite your hand off for that
If Houchen and Street win then CCHQ would spin those results heavily even despite losses elsewhere, much as the Tories spun holds in Wandsworth and Westminster despite heavy losses elsewhere in the 1990 local elections
Spent the weekend in Singapore, enjoying the convenience of a new MRT line - jolly efficient and well run, with driverless trains, but yea gods the architecture is dire - unimaginative cookie cutter identikit stations. Where’s their Canary Wharf or Westminster station - let alone the new Elizabeth line ones?
Redfield Tees Valley Mayoral poll has Houchen tied at 47% with Labour, 5% ahead on most stringent certain to vote factor, indeed a chunk of Labour's vote intention is 'did not vote in 21', a very tight race again! Westminster Tees Valley 49 26 to Lab, I make that about a 13% swing meaning the two holds the Tories would be targeting would be Middlesborough South and Cleveland and Stockton West (both about 11.5% swing required). 13% swing nationally is lower than the national polling and would suggest 180 to 200 Tory seats. They'd bite your hand off for that
If Houchen and Street win then CCHQ would spin those results heavily even despite losses elsewhere, much as the Tories spun holds in Wandsworth and Westminster despite heavy losses elsewhere in the 1990 local elections
Houchen/Street wins and Hall within 10 to 15% probably saves Sunak and drives an election call immediately after a Rwanda flight takes off imo, we will see though
Weird how I just keep getting lucky. Yet I travel abroad more than anyone on this forum. Its almost as if all this Brexit delay travel stuff is just bullshit
I’ve encountered Brexity passport queues twice since Brexit and I travel incessantly
Firstly travel to a non EU country doesn't count as obviously nothing has changed. So trips to Thailand or USA are unaffected.
Secondly it has to be an EU airport that is an International hub ie not one that is taking local traffic or mainly UK holidaymakers and nobody else because the situation that causes the problem doesn't arise. So trips to Faro or Alicante are pretty much unaffected except for it being slightly slower.
However if you go to a main airport and happen to land at the same time as a large flight from the USA or from anywhere outside of the EU you will be stuffed.
So I have experienced numerous flights to small airports and the USA without any issues at all. However a flight to Lisbon which landed at the same time as two flights from the USA and it was a 3 hour wait to get through passport control. Counting the length and width of the snake I reckon it was 1000 people. All gates were open and they used the EU gate and priority gate as well to clear us. EU citizens just waltzed through the EU gate.
I travel far more often that you. To the EU and everywhere else
Since Brexit I have encountered really annoying Brexit related delays (ie an hour+ extra queue) exactly twice. Once in Iceland once in Switzerland (for the reasons you say). And both a while ago
I’ve had smaller delays - 10-20 minutes - 3 or 4 times and none recently. That’s it. My god. The pain
Yes I know you do. But you shouldn't have those delays and if you are an infrequent traveller and unlucky it is really annoying. In your case you are taking it with the flow. You travel hugely. You know shit will happen occasionally (usually not Brexit related) and live with it. If you do it once or twice a year and are unlucky and wait 3 hours while you see an empty EU gate you really get pissed.
Sure, but as one of those people who doesn't travel a lot, is it that big a deal then?
@leon posted about missing a flight recently from the far east. He took it in his stride as a seasoned travel. Imagine if that was your flight back from a 2 week holiday. You would be beside yourself.
I’ve missed 5 flights in my adult life, which I believe is quite an unusual achievement:
1. Stansted to Malmo, because of traffic jam on the M11 2. Paris CDG to home: traffic jam on périphérique 3. Heathrow to Hamburg: got to the gate and realised I had my sons passport 4. Schipol to home: delayed flight so sat in the bar, relaxed, and missed final call 5. Dar es Salaam to home via Bahrain: didn’t reconfirm, flight overbooked, had to spend another 3 days in Tanzania before the next flight
I almost made it 3 on a return from Miami. Sat in the lounge, flight delayed, have a few drinks, then suddenly flight closing. They fitted me on but with a downgrade from business to economy right at the back.
I love number 3. Did you put a dent in the wall with your forehead?
I was laughed at roundly by the gate staff. I then got to experience something very few do: being escorted back out of departures. You sit around for up to an hour until the next batch (they seem to do this in batches), then get taken through various service corridors and back rooms to the outside. Ally other fellow escortées were smokers desperate for a ciggie.
Weird how I just keep getting lucky. Yet I travel abroad more than anyone on this forum. Its almost as if all this Brexit delay travel stuff is just bullshit
I’ve encountered Brexity passport queues twice since Brexit and I travel incessantly
Firstly travel to a non EU country doesn't count as obviously nothing has changed. So trips to Thailand or USA are unaffected.
Secondly it has to be an EU airport that is an International hub ie not one that is taking local traffic or mainly UK holidaymakers and nobody else because the situation that causes the problem doesn't arise. So trips to Faro or Alicante are pretty much unaffected except for it being slightly slower.
However if you go to a main airport and happen to land at the same time as a large flight from the USA or from anywhere outside of the EU you will be stuffed.
So I have experienced numerous flights to small airports and the USA without any issues at all. However a flight to Lisbon which landed at the same time as two flights from the USA and it was a 3 hour wait to get through passport control. Counting the length and width of the snake I reckon it was 1000 people. All gates were open and they used the EU gate and priority gate as well to clear us. EU citizens just waltzed through the EU gate.
I travel far more often that you. To the EU and everywhere else
Since Brexit I have encountered really annoying Brexit related delays (ie an hour+ extra queue) exactly twice. Once in Iceland once in Switzerland (for the reasons you say). And both a while ago
I’ve had smaller delays - 10-20 minutes - 3 or 4 times and none recently. That’s it. My god. The pain
Well if it’s £45bn a year to have @kjh avoid an extra 20 minutes in a queue now and then that has to be value.
You forgot to add the fiercely anti Trump NYT 'Juror number one hails from Ireland. The jury foreperson, tasked with overseeing deliberations, he now works in sales and is married. In his spare time, he enjoys anything "outdoorsy", and gets his news from the New York Times, the Daily Mail and Fox News.'
In fact the most common media mentioned for jurors to read or watch are the NYT followed by CNN, neither of which are pro Trump in any shape or form.
The case is taking place in Manhattan and Manhattan voted 86% for Biden in 2020, this jury is extremely unlikely to be pro Trump. Indeed the foreman might be the only one on the jury who even considered voting for him looking at the profiles
Raynergate might not be cutting through, but I am sensing restlessness in the remainer camp. There is a tacit contract that rejoiners (who are 60% of the electorate) will vote tory with the prospect of initiating a long term process towards SM an eventually rejoining. But Starmer basically might as well be Farage with good PR when it comes to the EU. If the GE comes and goes and the mask doesn't drop on the EU there will be FURY. My guess is that this very fluid and illoyal electorate will find new pastures. Just to illustrate yougov found that only 12% strongly oppose SM.
Omnisis/WeThink10-11.4.24Rejoin/Stay Out62/38
Brexiteerism is a dying movement married to the declining boomer segment. Rejoin enjoud huge majorities in the under 60 year olds. Labour is making a huge error if it remains so rigid on the eu. Everybody i talk to is betting that this brexit kabuki theater from labour is just electoral strategy and will fall away.... it better or labour support will drop like a rock in government.
I don't think it's quite as simple as that, but it does point to a significant, just possible very large opportunity for the LibDems in the next Parliament.
Rejoin is not on the table this GE in England, even though both LDs and Greens have it as a longer term goal.
A large part of Rejoinism is because of Brexits strong association with this failing government. The two are conjoined twins. What happens next parliament is unclear. Will that transfer to Starmers Brexit? Or will it become a separate political cause?
After another 4 years we may have sufficient groundswell to rejoin the SM, while negotiating full Rejoin. Voters cannot be ignored forever.
Nah. The world is going to be transformed in the next 5-10 years. We will be dealing with so much economic change the idea of a massively difficult and painful referendum to rejoin a rigid trading bloc will appear insane. No prime minister will go for it
I do see some form of free movement coming back tho. Both sides want it
It's basically men in their 50s and 60s who are still irritable they lost to people they despise and want to completely turn the tables as the ultimate revenge. From that confirmation bias follows.
We won't be going back to the status quo ante bellum. The world has moved on, so has the UK and so very definitely has the EU.
It's the fantasy - one of the heroic Lost Cause.
But that's not what the polling data say, is it? Brexit is only popular with the retired. People in their 50s and 60s are roughly equally split, but younger than that it's as popular as a poo on the carpet.
And there is no sign at all of people coming to terms with Brexit, or it embedding as the new normal. Of course that might change in the future. But it needs to change a lot to overcome the crude demographics.
Otherwise, the will of the people eventually becomes overwhelming. And at some point, the Conservatives have to soften on Europe or cap their support at thirty percent, then twenty five, then twenty...
No, it's the middle aged /retired Remainer men who are most angry about it - we see lots of them on here. I don't think younger people give a shit - what they care about is jobs, the economy and homes.
Most people got bored of Brexit a long time ago. Even on this site. And there is no popular movement desperate for reascension regardless of how many people on here might wish it to be so.
My anecdata suggests your anecdata is wrong.
That there is no 'popular movement' just reflects the fact that for now it would be futile. It's entirely possible that changes - or doesn't. Neither you nor I can be sure about that.
I am sure. Work through the imponderables. An incredible sequence of events would have to align for a rejoin vote to happen and for rejoin to win
The EU would have to be doing way better than us economically. That’s not obviously true now. There would have to be no mitigations of what Brexit frictions we do have - unlikely, things will be smoothed. The world would have to be at peace so people feel confident. Hmm
The EU would have to want us in. There wouid have to be zero chance of a veto from 27 nations. The UK would surely be obliged to accept the euro and all the rest
The party calling the vote would have to be massively popular (so early in a term after a landslide win?). The leader would also have to be popular and extremely confident of winning. The leader would have to be prepared to expend two years and tons of capital to get the vote through
And so on and so on. And still it could go wrong. Referendums very often do
When you think about it like that it is never going to happen. Less than 1% chance. 0.1%. Put your dreams aside. It’s done
Yes, a full-scale return to EU membership, done as an inversion of Dave's referendum, is off the cards. What will probably happen is a long series of incremental steps leading to the point where our relationship with the EU - a few niche exceptions aside - is logically indistinguishable from what we left. But I'll put the timeline on that to be around thirty years.
Thirty years is a heck of a long time. The whole "European project" has always had strong support from the US, since the 1950s. When the US gets its neck wound all the way back in by China - meaning bye-bye Fulbright scholarships, bye-bye most US bases outside of the US itself - or if the US falls apart before then for some other reason (such as civil war), I'm not sure where that leaves either the military or the currency pillars of the EU.
Raynergate might not be cutting through, but I am sensing restlessness in the remainer camp. There is a tacit contract that rejoiners (who are 60% of the electorate) will vote tory with the prospect of initiating a long term process towards SM an eventually rejoining. But Starmer basically might as well be Farage with good PR when it comes to the EU. If the GE comes and goes and the mask doesn't drop on the EU there will be FURY. My guess is that this very fluid and illoyal electorate will find new pastures. Just to illustrate yougov found that only 12% strongly oppose SM.
Omnisis/WeThink10-11.4.24Rejoin/Stay Out62/38
Brexiteerism is a dying movement married to the declining boomer segment. Rejoin enjoud huge majorities in the under 60 year olds. Labour is making a huge error if it remains so rigid on the eu. Everybody i talk to is betting that this brexit kabuki theater from labour is just electoral strategy and will fall away.... it better or labour support will drop like a rock in government.
I don't think it's quite as simple as that, but it does point to a significant, just possible very large opportunity for the LibDems in the next Parliament.
Rejoin is not on the table this GE in England, even though both LDs and Greens have it as a longer term goal.
A large part of Rejoinism is because of Brexits strong association with this failing government. The two are conjoined twins. What happens next parliament is unclear. Will that transfer to Starmers Brexit? Or will it become a separate political cause?
After another 4 years we may have sufficient groundswell to rejoin the SM, while negotiating full Rejoin. Voters cannot be ignored forever.
Nah. The world is going to be transformed in the next 5-10 years. We will be dealing with so much economic change the idea of a massively difficult and painful referendum to rejoin a rigid trading bloc will appear insane. No prime minister will go for it
I do see some form of free movement coming back tho. Both sides want it
It's basically men in their 50s and 60s who are still irritable they lost to people they despise and want to completely turn the tables as the ultimate revenge. From that confirmation bias follows.
We won't be going back to the status quo ante bellum. The world has moved on, so has the UK and so very definitely has the EU.
It's the fantasy - one of the heroic Lost Cause.
But that's not what the polling data say, is it? Brexit is only popular with the retired. People in their 50s and 60s are roughly equally split, but younger than that it's as popular as a poo on the carpet.
And there is no sign at all of people coming to terms with Brexit, or it embedding as the new normal. Of course that might change in the future. But it needs to change a lot to overcome the crude demographics.
Otherwise, the will of the people eventually becomes overwhelming. And at some point, the Conservatives have to soften on Europe or cap their support at thirty percent, then twenty five, then twenty...
No, it's the middle aged /retired Remainer men who are most angry about it - we see lots of them on here. I don't think younger people give a shit - what they care about is jobs, the economy and homes.
Most people got bored of Brexit a long time ago. Even on this site. And there is no popular movement desperate for reascension regardless of how many people on here might wish it to be so.
My anecdata suggests your anecdata is wrong.
That there is no 'popular movement' just reflects the fact that for now it would be futile. It's entirely possible that changes - or doesn't. Neither you nor I can be sure about that.
I am sure. Work through the imponderables. An incredible sequence of events would have to align for a rejoin vote to happen and for rejoin to win
The EU would have to be doing way better than us economically. That’s not obviously true now. There would have to be no mitigations of what Brexit frictions we do have - unlikely, things will be smoothed. The world would have to be at peace so people feel confident. Hmm
The EU would have to want us in. There wouid have to be zero chance of a veto from 27 nations. The UK would surely be obliged to accept the euro and all the rest
The party calling the vote would have to be massively popular (so early in a term after a landslide win?). The leader would also have to be popular and extremely confident of winning. The leader would have to be prepared to expend two years and tons of capital to get the vote through
And so on and so on. And still it could go wrong. Referendums very often do
When you think about it like that it is never going to happen. Less than 1% chance. 0.1%. Put your dreams aside. It’s done
Ok - will you 'do' me @ 1000/1 then? Just a small one. A tenner say.
No of course not. But I’m right and you know it. Rejoiners don’t just need to get their ducks in a row they need a flock of about 200 ducks flying in random but perfect linear formation with the world’s best duck shooter using a pair of million pound Purdeys who just happens to be passing because he’s en route to the once a decade duck shoot competition which has been postponed eight times
For a rejoin referendum to be simultaneously desirable, feasible. callable and very very winnable needs a political miracle
Then the British right are in deep trouble for a very long time.
There's a poo on the carpet that isn't vanishing. No amount of air freshener, or telling people that is doesn't smell that bad is taking the pong away. And even if it's not actually smelling- it's a poo. That someone did. On the carpet.
And we all know who did it, because it was done in public view. In fact, the person responsible was proud of it at the time and thought we would be grateful.
(If this isn't the plot of an unwatchable surrealist play, it ought to be.)
And that is why I anticipate Labour nervously slicing away some bits of Brexit, though more in 2028-32 than 2024-28. But the next Conservative PM, sometimes in the late 2030s, is likely to embrace Brejoin as their sign that the party has changed.
(See also Prohibition in America. Seemed unassailable, it was in the Constitution dammit, until it wasn't.)
It’s just not going to happen. The world is anyway about to change in such dramatic ways Brexit will seem completely trivial (and therefore not worth worrying about)
Raynergate might not be cutting through, but I am sensing restlessness in the remainer camp. There is a tacit contract that rejoiners (who are 60% of the electorate) will vote tory with the prospect of initiating a long term process towards SM an eventually rejoining. But Starmer basically might as well be Farage with good PR when it comes to the EU. If the GE comes and goes and the mask doesn't drop on the EU there will be FURY. My guess is that this very fluid and illoyal electorate will find new pastures. Just to illustrate yougov found that only 12% strongly oppose SM.
Omnisis/WeThink10-11.4.24Rejoin/Stay Out62/38
Brexiteerism is a dying movement married to the declining boomer segment. Rejoin enjoud huge majorities in the under 60 year olds. Labour is making a huge error if it remains so rigid on the eu. Everybody i talk to is betting that this brexit kabuki theater from labour is just electoral strategy and will fall away.... it better or labour support will drop like a rock in government.
I don't think it's quite as simple as that, but it does point to a significant, just possible very large opportunity for the LibDems in the next Parliament.
Rejoin is not on the table this GE in England, even though both LDs and Greens have it as a longer term goal.
A large part of Rejoinism is because of Brexits strong association with this failing government. The two are conjoined twins. What happens next parliament is unclear. Will that transfer to Starmers Brexit? Or will it become a separate political cause?
After another 4 years we may have sufficient groundswell to rejoin the SM, while negotiating full Rejoin. Voters cannot be ignored forever.
Nah. The world is going to be transformed in the next 5-10 years. We will be dealing with so much economic change the idea of a massively difficult and painful referendum to rejoin a rigid trading bloc will appear insane. No prime minister will go for it
I do see some form of free movement coming back tho. Both sides want it
It's basically men in their 50s and 60s who are still irritable they lost to people they despise and want to completely turn the tables as the ultimate revenge. From that confirmation bias follows.
We won't be going back to the status quo ante bellum. The world has moved on, so has the UK and so very definitely has the EU.
It's the fantasy - one of the heroic Lost Cause.
But that's not what the polling data say, is it? Brexit is only popular with the retired. People in their 50s and 60s are roughly equally split, but younger than that it's as popular as a poo on the carpet.
And there is no sign at all of people coming to terms with Brexit, or it embedding as the new normal. Of course that might change in the future. But it needs to change a lot to overcome the crude demographics.
Otherwise, the will of the people eventually becomes overwhelming. And at some point, the Conservatives have to soften on Europe or cap their support at thirty percent, then twenty five, then twenty...
No, it's the middle aged /retired Remainer men who are most angry about it - we see lots of them on here. I don't think younger people give a shit - what they care about is jobs, the economy and homes.
Most people got bored of Brexit a long time ago. Even on this site. And there is no popular movement desperate for reascension regardless of how many people on here might wish it to be so.
My anecdata suggests your anecdata is wrong.
That there is no 'popular movement' just reflects the fact that for now it would be futile. It's entirely possible that changes - or doesn't. Neither you nor I can be sure about that.
I am sure. Work through the imponderables. An incredible sequence of events would have to align for a rejoin vote to happen and for rejoin to win
The EU would have to be doing way better than us economically. That’s not obviously true now. There would have to be no mitigations of what Brexit frictions we do have - unlikely, things will be smoothed. The world would have to be at peace so people feel confident. Hmm
The EU would have to want us in. There wouid have to be zero chance of a veto from 27 nations. The UK would surely be obliged to accept the euro and all the rest
The party calling the vote would have to be massively popular (so early in a term after a landslide win?). The leader would also have to be popular and extremely confident of winning. The leader would have to be prepared to expend two years and tons of capital to get the vote through
And so on and so on. And still it could go wrong. Referendums very often do
When you think about it like that it is never going to happen. Less than 1% chance. 0.1%. Put your dreams aside. It’s done
Ok - will you 'do' me @ 1000/1 then? Just a small one. A tenner say.
No of course not. But I’m right and you know it. Rejoiners don’t just need to get their ducks in a row they need a flock of about 200 ducks flying in random but perfect linear formation with the world’s best duck shooter using a pair of million pound Purdeys who just happens to be passing because he’s en route to the once a decade duck shoot competition which has been postponed eight times
For a rejoin referendum to be simultaneously desirable, feasible. callable and very very winnable needs a political miracle
Unlikely, agreed, but it's no 1000/1 shot or 100/1 or even 50/1 or 10/1. Route is closer integration until there's de facto membership. Then the final step is a rubberstamp with sufficient politicians and public in favour to avoid another divisive 50/50 type referendum. Chance of that future being the one that happens rather than the many others? I'd say about 25%.
Raynergate might not be cutting through, but I am sensing restlessness in the remainer camp. There is a tacit contract that rejoiners (who are 60% of the electorate) will vote tory with the prospect of initiating a long term process towards SM an eventually rejoining. But Starmer basically might as well be Farage with good PR when it comes to the EU. If the GE comes and goes and the mask doesn't drop on the EU there will be FURY. My guess is that this very fluid and illoyal electorate will find new pastures. Just to illustrate yougov found that only 12% strongly oppose SM.
Omnisis/WeThink10-11.4.24Rejoin/Stay Out62/38
Brexiteerism is a dying movement married to the declining boomer segment. Rejoin enjoud huge majorities in the under 60 year olds. Labour is making a huge error if it remains so rigid on the eu. Everybody i talk to is betting that this brexit kabuki theater from labour is just electoral strategy and will fall away.... it better or labour support will drop like a rock in government.
I don't think it's quite as simple as that, but it does point to a significant, just possible very large opportunity for the LibDems in the next Parliament.
Rejoin is not on the table this GE in England, even though both LDs and Greens have it as a longer term goal.
A large part of Rejoinism is because of Brexits strong association with this failing government. The two are conjoined twins. What happens next parliament is unclear. Will that transfer to Starmers Brexit? Or will it become a separate political cause?
After another 4 years we may have sufficient groundswell to rejoin the SM, while negotiating full Rejoin. Voters cannot be ignored forever.
Nah. The world is going to be transformed in the next 5-10 years. We will be dealing with so much economic change the idea of a massively difficult and painful referendum to rejoin a rigid trading bloc will appear insane. No prime minister will go for it
I do see some form of free movement coming back tho. Both sides want it
It's basically men in their 50s and 60s who are still irritable they lost to people they despise and want to completely turn the tables as the ultimate revenge. From that confirmation bias follows.
We won't be going back to the status quo ante bellum. The world has moved on, so has the UK and so very definitely has the EU.
It's the fantasy - one of the heroic Lost Cause.
But that's not what the polling data say, is it? Brexit is only popular with the retired. People in their 50s and 60s are roughly equally split, but younger than that it's as popular as a poo on the carpet.
And there is no sign at all of people coming to terms with Brexit, or it embedding as the new normal. Of course that might change in the future. But it needs to change a lot to overcome the crude demographics.
Otherwise, the will of the people eventually becomes overwhelming. And at some point, the Conservatives have to soften on Europe or cap their support at thirty percent, then twenty five, then twenty...
No, it's the middle aged /retired Remainer men who are most angry about it - we see lots of them on here. I don't think younger people give a shit - what they care about is jobs, the economy and homes.
Most people got bored of Brexit a long time ago. Even on this site. And there is no popular movement desperate for reascension regardless of how many people on here might wish it to be so.
My anecdata suggests your anecdata is wrong.
That there is no 'popular movement' just reflects the fact that for now it would be futile. It's entirely possible that changes - or doesn't. Neither you nor I can be sure about that.
I am sure. Work through the imponderables. An incredible sequence of events would have to align for a rejoin vote to happen and for rejoin to win
The EU would have to be doing way better than us economically. That’s not obviously true now. There would have to be no mitigations of what Brexit frictions we do have - unlikely, things will be smoothed. The world would have to be at peace so people feel confident. Hmm
The EU would have to want us in. There wouid have to be zero chance of a veto from 27 nations. The UK would surely be obliged to accept the euro and all the rest
The party calling the vote would have to be massively popular (so early in a term after a landslide win?). The leader would also have to be popular and extremely confident of winning. The leader would have to be prepared to expend two years and tons of capital to get the vote through
And so on and so on. And still it could go wrong. Referendums very often do
When you think about it like that it is never going to happen. Less than 1% chance. 0.1%. Put your dreams aside. It’s done
Ok - will you 'do' me @ 1000/1 then? Just a small one. A tenner say.
No of course not. But I’m right and you know it. Rejoiners don’t just need to get their ducks in a row they need a flock of about 200 ducks flying in random but perfect linear formation with the world’s best duck shooter using a pair of million pound Purdeys who just happens to be passing because he’s en route to the once a decade duck shoot competition which has been postponed eight times
For a rejoin referendum to be simultaneously desirable, feasible. callable and very very winnable needs a political miracle
Then the British right are in deep trouble for a very long time.
There's a poo on the carpet that isn't vanishing. No amount of air freshener, or telling people that is doesn't smell that bad is taking the pong away. And even if it's not actually smelling- it's a poo. That someone did. On the carpet.
And we all know who did it, because it was done in public view. In fact, the person responsible was proud of it at the time and thought we would be grateful.
(If this isn't the plot of an unwatchable surrealist play, it ought to be.)
And that is why I anticipate Labour nervously slicing away some bits of Brexit, though more in 2028-32 than 2024-28. But the next Conservative PM, sometimes in the late 2030s, is likely to embrace Brejoin as their sign that the party has changed.
(See also Prohibition in America. Seemed unassailable, it was in the Constitution dammit, until it wasn't.)
That analogy doesn't work. It frames the EU as a kind of state of nature from which we have artificially deviated, but the opposite is closer to the truth.
We can't abolish or repeal Brexit because it's not like that. What would we be 'slicing away' if we gave up having our own approach to AI and handed it over to Brussels?
Weird how I just keep getting lucky. Yet I travel abroad more than anyone on this forum. Its almost as if all this Brexit delay travel stuff is just bullshit
I’ve encountered Brexity passport queues twice since Brexit and I travel incessantly
Firstly travel to a non EU country doesn't count as obviously nothing has changed. So trips to Thailand or USA are unaffected.
Secondly it has to be an EU airport that is an International hub ie not one that is taking local traffic or mainly UK holidaymakers and nobody else because the situation that causes the problem doesn't arise. So trips to Faro or Alicante are pretty much unaffected except for it being slightly slower.
However if you go to a main airport and happen to land at the same time as a large flight from the USA or from anywhere outside of the EU you will be stuffed.
So I have experienced numerous flights to small airports and the USA without any issues at all. However a flight to Lisbon which landed at the same time as two flights from the USA and it was a 3 hour wait to get through passport control. Counting the length and width of the snake I reckon it was 1000 people. All gates were open and they used the EU gate and priority gate as well to clear us. EU citizens just waltzed through the EU gate.
I travel far more often that you. To the EU and everywhere else
Since Brexit I have encountered really annoying Brexit related delays (ie an hour+ extra queue) exactly twice. Once in Iceland once in Switzerland (for the reasons you say). And both a while ago
I’ve had smaller delays - 10-20 minutes - 3 or 4 times and none recently. That’s it. My god. The pain
Yes I know you do. But you shouldn't have those delays and if you are an infrequent traveller and unlucky it is really annoying. In your case you are taking it with the flow. You travel hugely. You know shit will happen occasionally (usually not Brexit related) and live with it. If you do it once or twice a year and are unlucky and wait 3 hours while you see an empty EU gate you really get pissed.
Sure, but as one of those people who doesn't travel a lot, is it that big a deal then?
@leon posted about missing a flight recently from the far east. He took it in his stride as a seasoned travel. Imagine if that was your flight back from a 2 week holiday. You would be beside yourself.
I’ve missed 5 flights in my adult life, which I believe is quite an unusual achievement:
1. Stansted to Malmo, because of traffic jam on the M11 2. Paris CDG to home: traffic jam on périphérique 3. Heathrow to Hamburg: got to the gate and realised I had my sons passport 4. Schipol to home: delayed flight so sat in the bar, relaxed, and missed final call 5. Dar es Salaam to home via Bahrain: didn’t reconfirm, flight overbooked, had to spend another 3 days in Tanzania before the next flight
I almost made it 6 on a return from Miami. Sat in the lounge, flight delayed, have a few drinks, then suddenly flight closing. They fitted me on but with a downgrade from business to economy right at the back.
I've had some very narrow escapes but never actually missed a flight. I'm flying back from the US tonight though, so there's a first time for everything!
Redfield Tees Valley Mayoral poll has Houchen tied at 47% with Labour, 5% ahead on most stringent certain to vote factor, indeed a chunk of Labour's vote intention is 'did not vote in 21', a very tight race again! Westminster Tees Valley 49 26 to Lab, I make that about a 13% swing meaning the two holds the Tories would be targeting would be Middlesborough South and Cleveland and Stockton West (both about 11.5% swing required). 13% swing nationally is lower than the national polling and would suggest 180 to 200 Tory seats. They'd bite your hand off for that
If Houchen and Street win then CCHQ would spin those results heavily even despite losses elsewhere, much as the Tories spun holds in Wandsworth and Westminster despite heavy losses elsewhere in the 1990 local elections
How on earth can Houchen win ? I get Street, but Houchen. Even ignoring the OTT partisan criticism in some parts he clearly has not delivered and there are many questions that need answering from his second term.
Redfield Tees Valley Mayoral poll has Houchen tied at 47% with Labour, 5% ahead on most stringent certain to vote factor, indeed a chunk of Labour's vote intention is 'did not vote in 21', a very tight race again! Westminster Tees Valley 49 26 to Lab, I make that about a 13% swing meaning the two holds the Tories would be targeting would be Middlesborough South and Cleveland and Stockton West (both about 11.5% swing required). 13% swing nationally is lower than the national polling and would suggest 180 to 200 Tory seats. They'd bite your hand off for that
If Houchen and Street win then CCHQ would spin those results heavily even despite losses elsewhere, much as the Tories spun holds in Wandsworth and Westminster despite heavy losses elsewhere in the 1990 local elections
How on earth can Houchen win ? I get Street, but Houchen. Even ignoring the OTT partisan criticism in some parts he clearly has not delivered and there are many questions that need answering from his second term.
He's on plus 8 good job/bad job in the poll, the polled appear to moderately like him (although it's 25/17 with 21 'neither' rest DK)
In an LTN double-whammy, buses can be delayed by more than an hour and there are no potential witnesses deterring crime on empty streets.
Good morning everyone. That's the Streatham Wells LTN in Lambeth, which Sadiq Khan has welcome being suspended for now.
Strange reporting from the Telegraph, but they have their audience to engage. They forgot to mention that it is only at phase 1 review, that the suspension is to do with extensive roadworks by Thames Water, and a big project to improve the A23. The traffic increase on boundary roads is only 8%.
The Streatham Wells LTN trial was introduced in October last year to reduce road danger and make the neighbourhood safer and healthier by restricting motor vehicle access to streets within the scheme.
The council will publish its ‘Streatham Wells Stage 1 – Initial Adjustments’ monitoring report in the coming days. There has been an average 60% decrease in traffic within the LTN and an 8% increase in traffic on boundary roads. Overall, there has been a 2% net reduction in traffic across the area.
The number of vehicles in the area breaking the speed limit has fallen by 68% compared with pre-LTN levels.
During the trial the traffic on boundary roads, including the A23 (Streatham High Road) and Streatham Common North has combined with frequent roadworks by Thames Water and other bodies to place a significant strain on bus services in Streatham.
Transport for London will begin a £9million project to substantially upgrade the experience for walking and cycling on the A23, starting at the end of spring and continuing into 2025. These improvement works will necessarily require some reduced road capacity while this major investment takes place.
You forgot to add the fiercely anti Trump NYT 'Juror number one hails from Ireland. The jury foreperson, tasked with overseeing deliberations, he now works in sales and is married. In his spare time, he enjoys anything "outdoorsy", and gets his news from the New York Times, the Daily Mail and Fox News.'
In fact the most common media mentioned for jurors to read or watch are the NYT followed by CNN, neither of which are pro Trump in any shape or form.
The case is taking place in Manhattan and Manhattan voted 86% for Biden in 2020, this jury is extremely unlikely to be pro Trump. Indeed the foreman might be the only one on the jury who even considered voting for him looking at the profiles
He only needs one. Of course the majority of the jury will find him guilty, because he is guilty and Trump will give ludicrous defences. But he will get his mistrial and call it being acquitted.
I go to St Pancras via HS1 everyday. You lucked out.
Eurostar have had to cut the number of seats they fill because of the very real queues. There isn't enough physical capacity to add more border gates, so they have jacked up the prices to recoup lost revenue from the 25% or so of seats they cannot sell.
Spent the weekend in Singapore, enjoying the convenience of a new MRT line - jolly efficient and well run, with driverless trains, but yea gods the architecture is dire - unimaginative cookie cutter identikit stations. Where’s their Canary Wharf or Westminster station - let alone the new Elizabeth line ones?
Being efficient and well run but at the same time boring and unimaginative is very on-brand for Singapore.
Got my leaflet on the north east Mayoral election.
I won’t vote in the PCC or general election this year but will probably vote for McGuinness as Driscoll was useless during the bus strikes.
I suspect labour were right about Durham, we should have had our own mayor divorced from the the other areas as I suspect the main focus will be the big cities and we will be left out.
I'm not a huge fan of Lee Anderson, but I do like his habit of doing 30-60s updates whilst walking to Parliament. It's a good time for a quick communication.
This one mentions MPs popping out for a fag after the Progressive Smoking Ban vote (which he supports - I'm guessing because everyone around here knows about friends who have died from lung diseases due to experiences of mineworkers): https://twitter.com/LeeAndersonMP_/status/1781247630544105899
Raynergate might not be cutting through, but I am sensing restlessness in the remainer camp. There is a tacit contract that rejoiners (who are 60% of the electorate) will vote tory with the prospect of initiating a long term process towards SM an eventually rejoining. But Starmer basically might as well be Farage with good PR when it comes to the EU. If the GE comes and goes and the mask doesn't drop on the EU there will be FURY. My guess is that this very fluid and illoyal electorate will find new pastures. Just to illustrate yougov found that only 12% strongly oppose SM.
Omnisis/WeThink10-11.4.24Rejoin/Stay Out62/38
Brexiteerism is a dying movement married to the declining boomer segment. Rejoin enjoud huge majorities in the under 60 year olds. Labour is making a huge error if it remains so rigid on the eu. Everybody i talk to is betting that this brexit kabuki theater from labour is just electoral strategy and will fall away.... it better or labour support will drop like a rock in government.
I don't think it's quite as simple as that, but it does point to a significant, just possible very large opportunity for the LibDems in the next Parliament.
Rejoin is not on the table this GE in England, even though both LDs and Greens have it as a longer term goal.
A large part of Rejoinism is because of Brexits strong association with this failing government. The two are conjoined twins. What happens next parliament is unclear. Will that transfer to Starmers Brexit? Or will it become a separate political cause?
After another 4 years we may have sufficient groundswell to rejoin the SM, while negotiating full Rejoin. Voters cannot be ignored forever.
Nah. The world is going to be transformed in the next 5-10 years. We will be dealing with so much economic change the idea of a massively difficult and painful referendum to rejoin a rigid trading bloc will appear insane. No prime minister will go for it
I do see some form of free movement coming back tho. Both sides want it
It's basically men in their 50s and 60s who are still irritable they lost to people they despise and want to completely turn the tables as the ultimate revenge. From that confirmation bias follows.
We won't be going back to the status quo ante bellum. The world has moved on, so has the UK and so very definitely has the EU.
It's the fantasy - one of the heroic Lost Cause.
But that's not what the polling data say, is it? Brexit is only popular with the retired. People in their 50s and 60s are roughly equally split, but younger than that it's as popular as a poo on the carpet.
And there is no sign at all of people coming to terms with Brexit, or it embedding as the new normal. Of course that might change in the future. But it needs to change a lot to overcome the crude demographics.
Otherwise, the will of the people eventually becomes overwhelming. And at some point, the Conservatives have to soften on Europe or cap their support at thirty percent, then twenty five, then twenty...
No, it's the middle aged /retired Remainer men who are most angry about it - we see lots of them on here. I don't think younger people give a shit - what they care about is jobs, the economy and homes.
Most people got bored of Brexit a long time ago. Even on this site. And there is no popular movement desperate for reascension regardless of how many people on here might wish it to be so.
My anecdata suggests your anecdata is wrong.
That there is no 'popular movement' just reflects the fact that for now it would be futile. It's entirely possible that changes - or doesn't. Neither you nor I can be sure about that.
I am sure. Work through the imponderables. An incredible sequence of events would have to align for a rejoin vote to happen and for rejoin to win
The EU would have to be doing way better than us economically. That’s not obviously true now. There would have to be no mitigations of what Brexit frictions we do have - unlikely, things will be smoothed. The world would have to be at peace so people feel confident. Hmm
The EU would have to want us in. There wouid have to be zero chance of a veto from 27 nations. The UK would surely be obliged to accept the euro and all the rest
The party calling the vote would have to be massively popular (so early in a term after a landslide win?). The leader would also have to be popular and extremely confident of winning. The leader would have to be prepared to expend two years and tons of capital to get the vote through
And so on and so on. And still it could go wrong. Referendums very often do
When you think about it like that it is never going to happen. Less than 1% chance. 0.1%. Put your dreams aside. It’s done
Ok - will you 'do' me @ 1000/1 then? Just a small one. A tenner say.
No of course not. But I’m right and you know it. Rejoiners don’t just need to get their ducks in a row they need a flock of about 200 ducks flying in random but perfect linear formation with the world’s best duck shooter using a pair of million pound Purdeys who just happens to be passing because he’s en route to the once a decade duck shoot competition which has been postponed eight times
For a rejoin referendum to be simultaneously desirable, feasible. callable and very very winnable needs a political miracle
Then the British right are in deep trouble for a very long time.
There's a poo on the carpet that isn't vanishing. No amount of air freshener, or telling people that is doesn't smell that bad is taking the pong away. And even if it's not actually smelling- it's a poo. That someone did. On the carpet.
And we all know who did it, because it was done in public view. In fact, the person responsible was proud of it at the time and thought we would be grateful.
(If this isn't the plot of an unwatchable surrealist play, it ought to be.)
And that is why I anticipate Labour nervously slicing away some bits of Brexit, though more in 2028-32 than 2024-28. But the next Conservative PM, sometimes in the late 2030s, is likely to embrace Brejoin as their sign that the party has changed.
(See also Prohibition in America. Seemed unassailable, it was in the Constitution dammit, until it wasn't.)
Raynergate might not be cutting through, but I am sensing restlessness in the remainer camp. There is a tacit contract that rejoiners (who are 60% of the electorate) will vote tory with the prospect of initiating a long term process towards SM an eventually rejoining. But Starmer basically might as well be Farage with good PR when it comes to the EU. If the GE comes and goes and the mask doesn't drop on the EU there will be FURY. My guess is that this very fluid and illoyal electorate will find new pastures. Just to illustrate yougov found that only 12% strongly oppose SM.
Omnisis/WeThink10-11.4.24Rejoin/Stay Out62/38
Brexiteerism is a dying movement married to the declining boomer segment. Rejoin enjoud huge majorities in the under 60 year olds. Labour is making a huge error if it remains so rigid on the eu. Everybody i talk to is betting that this brexit kabuki theater from labour is just electoral strategy and will fall away.... it better or labour support will drop like a rock in government.
I don't think it's quite as simple as that, but it does point to a significant, just possible very large opportunity for the LibDems in the next Parliament.
Rejoin is not on the table this GE in England, even though both LDs and Greens have it as a longer term goal.
A large part of Rejoinism is because of Brexits strong association with this failing government. The two are conjoined twins. What happens next parliament is unclear. Will that transfer to Starmers Brexit? Or will it become a separate political cause?
After another 4 years we may have sufficient groundswell to rejoin the SM, while negotiating full Rejoin. Voters cannot be ignored forever.
Nah. The world is going to be transformed in the next 5-10 years. We will be dealing with so much economic change the idea of a massively difficult and painful referendum to rejoin a rigid trading bloc will appear insane. No prime minister will go for it
I do see some form of free movement coming back tho. Both sides want it
It's basically men in their 50s and 60s who are still irritable they lost to people they despise and want to completely turn the tables as the ultimate revenge. From that confirmation bias follows.
We won't be going back to the status quo ante bellum. The world has moved on, so has the UK and so very definitely has the EU.
It's the fantasy - one of the heroic Lost Cause.
But that's not what the polling data say, is it? Brexit is only popular with the retired. People in their 50s and 60s are roughly equally split, but younger than that it's as popular as a poo on the carpet.
And there is no sign at all of people coming to terms with Brexit, or it embedding as the new normal. Of course that might change in the future. But it needs to change a lot to overcome the crude demographics.
Otherwise, the will of the people eventually becomes overwhelming. And at some point, the Conservatives have to soften on Europe or cap their support at thirty percent, then twenty five, then twenty...
No, it's the middle aged /retired Remainer men who are most angry about it - we see lots of them on here. I don't think younger people give a shit - what they care about is jobs, the economy and homes.
Most people got bored of Brexit a long time ago. Even on this site. And there is no popular movement desperate for reascension regardless of how many people on here might wish it to be so.
My anecdata suggests your anecdata is wrong.
That there is no 'popular movement' just reflects the fact that for now it would be futile. It's entirely possible that changes - or doesn't. Neither you nor I can be sure about that.
I am sure. Work through the imponderables. An incredible sequence of events would have to align for a rejoin vote to happen and for rejoin to win
The EU would have to be doing way better than us economically. That’s not obviously true now. There would have to be no mitigations of what Brexit frictions we do have - unlikely, things will be smoothed. The world would have to be at peace so people feel confident. Hmm
The EU would have to want us in. There wouid have to be zero chance of a veto from 27 nations. The UK would surely be obliged to accept the euro and all the rest
The party calling the vote would have to be massively popular (so early in a term after a landslide win?). The leader would also have to be popular and extremely confident of winning. The leader would have to be prepared to expend two years and tons of capital to get the vote through
And so on and so on. And still it could go wrong. Referendums very often do
When you think about it like that it is never going to happen. Less than 1% chance. 0.1%. Put your dreams aside. It’s done
Ok - will you 'do' me @ 1000/1 then? Just a small one. A tenner say.
No of course not. But I’m right and you know it. Rejoiners don’t just need to get their ducks in a row they need a flock of about 200 ducks flying in random but perfect linear formation with the world’s best duck shooter using a pair of million pound Purdeys who just happens to be passing because he’s en route to the once a decade duck shoot competition which has been postponed eight times
For a rejoin referendum to be simultaneously desirable, feasible. callable and very very winnable needs a political miracle
Then the British right are in deep trouble for a very long time.
There's a poo on the carpet that isn't vanishing. No amount of air freshener, or telling people that is doesn't smell that bad is taking the pong away. And even if it's not actually smelling- it's a poo. That someone did. On the carpet.
And we all know who did it, because it was done in public view. In fact, the person responsible was proud of it at the time and thought we would be grateful.
(If this isn't the plot of an unwatchable surrealist play, it ought to be.)
And that is why I anticipate Labour nervously slicing away some bits of Brexit, though more in 2028-32 than 2024-28. But the next Conservative PM, sometimes in the late 2030s, is likely to embrace Brejoin as their sign that the party has changed.
(See also Prohibition in America. Seemed unassailable, it was in the Constitution dammit, until it wasn't.)
Entirely sane steps are totally consistent with the Brexit vote, which meant and means only that we are not members of the EU. Just as Norway and Switzerland are not, and differently not. A Labour hegemony have options, which of course they would be insane to discuss now. It is reasonably possible, for example, that adoption of the Euro alone would make rejoining politically toxic (note that the SNP are sotto voce about it WRT Scotland).
I don't think it is possible to have a rational discussion about this until a Labour government has its feet under the table with a working majority, but it is obvious that available solutions exist which would shoot most of the foxes, avoid the Euro, respect the 2016 vote, keep out of political union and strengthen the union with Scotland.
Comments
I think the fundamentals are the fundamentals and if the model isn't right the model won't ever be right.
It's the model that will change, not the fundamentals.
A Michigan candidate for the US House backed by former President Donald Trump once railed against giving women the right to vote, arguing that America has “suffered” since women’s suffrage.
https://edition.cnn.com/2022/09/21/politics/john-gibbs-womens-suffrage-19th-amendment-kfile/index.html
He claimed it was satire.
In reality only FoM prevented this earlier. Now we know that 'controlling our borders' means inward migration of over 1 million a year, and net migration of 700K this has little significance.
It was a point about how UK desire is not the only factor in play.
Bra-CE
Most people got bored of Brexit a long time ago. Even on this site. And there is no popular movement desperate for reascension regardless of how many people on here might wish it to be so.
The vast majority of my flights are like yours. I have just waltz my way through, BUT when you do go to a European hub airport and happen to land at the same time as a plane from outside of the EU you will be held up which you weren't before. So it happens and it happens enough to be annoying. Just because often it doesn't happen doesn't make it ok.
Similarly ferries. Most travel smoothly. I take them on my bike trips, but when they go wrong they go badly wrong. Now most times they go wrong it has absolutely nothing to do with Brexit, but it is often made worse by it. It is the added delay to a non Brexit issue.
And the reason I use Ferries instead of Eurostar is again because of Brexit because I can no longer take an unpacked bike on Eurostar and the idiots who decide this don't see it as a problem, but I can't carry the packaging with me while cycling. This has added a day extra in Paris for all our trips. So yes Brexit has an impact. Not great but annoying. Another one that impacts me is pet passports. That is hugely annoying which effectively stops as having random breaks in France. It now months of planning to just pop over.
Since Brexit I have encountered really annoying Brexit related delays (ie an hour+ extra queue) exactly twice. Once in Iceland once in Switzerland (for the reasons you say). And both a while ago
I’ve had smaller delays - 10-20 minutes - 3 or 4 times and none recently. That’s it. My god. The pain
Dover is analogous to Brexit too. Chaos, decline and the homeless sleeping in doorways.
AIUI (not that interested so haven’t followed closely) Menzies got himself into a difficult position - presumably doing something he shouldn’t have - and needed money quickly
So he was the victim in this case (although potentially there was an underlying crime I suppose)
Then he used funds from the Tory party/ campaign fund (ignoring the interim step as she seems to have been refunded)
So the Tory party is the victim
If the Tories and/or Menzies don’t want to press charges what is Labour’s standing to make a police report and trigger an investigation?
Remainers are twats
Right. Got it. Sounds terrible, I agree.
It's the nation builders who try to get it all down perfectly in precise detail for every little thing who run into difficulty.
Because of their endless Remoaner whining j got here to my Eurostar 90 minutes early. But I swang through customs etc in 5 minutes and now I’m just sitting here in the waiting room an hour early. I could have been at the champagne bar
Seems to happen occasionally - they have a mismatch between peak usage and the capacity of the bag search security.
When regulators are reviewing health submissions by Pharma companies one thing they really focus on is selective use of statistics to present a misleading picture
Regardless of whether it is correctly references/cited/analysed etc
These days they request all of the underlying clinical reports and rebuild the locked database themselves
Just because you agree with the conclusion doesn’t mean that the author’s actions are justified
I've pointed out on here may times the emerging problem of under-employment and the impact it is having especially but not exclusively in the public sector.
Seeing Rishi Sunak use the bully pulpit did raise a key question - is working an economic requirement or a social and moral obligation? A wise man told me you work to live, you don't live to work and while there are many who enjoy their work (I do too), I work because I need the money to live. The retired with whom I have contact and especially those with health and wealth, seem very happy and have zero desire to return to work.
There are those who want or need to work and can't - apart from those with long term illness (and that's as close a definition of purgatory as I need) there are that special breed known as carers. In an era with WFH, you'd think there would be huge scope to employ carers to admin tasks but is that happening? To be a carer and an employee isn't easy and you can shove all your tax cuts where the sun doesn't shine as far as I'm concerned if that means we can do whatever we can do to get long-term carers (both for older and younger people) into employment or at least give them as much help as possible.
I accept there are others who have chosen not to work and while that's their right (and if they can support themselves, I've absolutely no issue) I can see why those who choose to live off benefits and make no effort to find employment and where there are no extenuating circumstances aren't the most favoured or popular. Demonising those on welfare isn't helpful but I understand why the hard working should be annoyed at having to support those aren't working for no good reason.
https://twitter.com/HuwMerriman/status/1574706735415271425
You go and look at the queue, realise it’s only a short one, then go back to the champagne bar for a couple more glasses and and return to the queue 45m later.
https://news.sky.com/story/tories-warned-mark-menzies-misuse-of-funds-claims-constituted-fraud-but-whistleblower-told-there-was-no-duty-to-report-it-13118889
When you get on a cruise ship in Southampton, I reckon on 15 minutes from dropping the cases with the porters at the terminal to stepping on board. The record was 9 minutes on a 45% full ship just after Covid - it has been half an hour on a full ship with one of the security x-ray scanners not working.
We will break down the barriers that keep people on incapacity benefit out of work. Many people on Incapacity Benefit aren't able to work. And our responsibility is to ensure they have decent income and services. But 1 in 3 people on sickness and disability benefits say they would like to work. We will help them to renew their skills and education - and where they are able to work - to take the steps back into a job. In the past, people on IB were just written off. In future every person claiming Incapacity Benefit will come to a work-focused interview, so that where they are able to, they can look at opportunities for work, volunteering and improving skills.
Sunak:
We don’t just need to change the sick note, we need to change the sick note culture so the default becomes what work you can do – not what you can’t.
“Building on the pilots we’ve already started we’re going to design a new system where people have easy and rapid access to specialised work and health support to help them back to work from the very first Fit Note conversation.
“We’re also going to test shifting the responsibility for assessment from GPs and giving it to specialist work and health professionals who have the dedicated time to provide an objective assessment of someone’s ability to work and the tailored support they need to do so.”
Because if you believe as I do, that work gives you the chance not just to earn but to contribute, to belong, to overcome feelings of loneliness and social isolation and if you believe, as I do, the growing body of evidence that good work can actually improve mental and physical health…
“…then it becomes clear: we need to be more ambitious about helping people back to work and more honest about the risk of over-medicalising the everyday challenges and worries of life.”
So, not so different really… but would Sunak be as bold as Blair was when he closed the Remploy factories?
At the moment only the LDs, SNP and Greens back even rejoining the EEA Norway style.
Starmer Labour is too afraid of allowing the Conservatives to hold redwall seats by restoring free movement and that will probably remain the case for some time
Sun rise in the East - irrelevant
Not a massive hub, but any EU airport that takes proper scheduled flights will do
We are non EU, that is the whole point
Not peak time, but any time applies. International airports take international flights all the time
A flight from the US has just landed. Nope, US, China, South Africa, etc, etc. Anywhere outside of the EU that is using a large plane, which most will be
E gates, kids, M to S, lunch time, don't like the look of you etc, etc are all irrelevant
Get to baggage collection at the same time - Nope, like most I don't use baggage reclaim unless I have to (once in the last decade or so)
That there is no 'popular movement' just reflects the fact that for now it would be futile.
It's entirely possible that changes - or doesn't.
Neither you nor I can be sure about that.
I mean, that’s the general attitude of Remainers isn’t it?Sod the poor, the stupid gammons in Lincolnshire and leaverstan.
It is amusing that it is now turned back on you
You are Father Dougal. In the caravan. Having it very patiently explained to you that your experience today may not be representative of the regular experience at St Pancras and Gare du Nord by the train company and their staff...
We don’t want to be running into Leon, we do have standards.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-68848665
Time to go back to my book.
The EU would have to be doing way better than us economically. That’s not obviously true now. There would have to be no mitigations of what Brexit frictions we do have - unlikely, things will be smoothed. The world would have to be at peace so people feel confident. Hmm
The EU would have to want us in. There wouid have to be zero chance of a veto from 27 nations. The UK would surely be obliged to accept the euro and all the rest
The party calling the vote would have to be massively popular (so early in a term after a landslide win?). The leader would also have to be popular and extremely confident of winning. The leader would have to be prepared to expend two years and tons of capital to get the vote through
And so on and so on. And still it could go wrong. Referendums very often do
When you think about it like that it is never going to happen. Less than 1% chance. 0.1%. Put your dreams aside. It’s done
Many decades ago I used to do a job in Jersey and flew there regularly. I'm one of these people who always gets place early as I hate being late, but I got arrogant and left getting to the airport later and later and one day I got held up in traffic and missed my flight. I shrugged my shoulders. Now if that had been my holiday buggered I would have been so annoyed.
@leon posted about missing a flight recently from the far east. He took it in his stride as a seasoned travel. Imagine if that was your flight back from a 2 week holiday. You would be beside yourself.
For two regimes that are both often seen as uncompromising (to put it mildly), this is quite an impressive feat. I do wonder whether Biden's seasoned diplomacy is a significant factor.
https://x.com/tksshawa/status/1781525138275520591
https://x.com/wolpalestine/status/1781136447560462595
https://www.yahoo.com/news/biden-appears-confuse-israeli-city-005200238.html
For a rejoin referendum to be simultaneously desirable, feasible. callable and very very winnable needs a political miracle
The irreducible facts are that every flu season winnows the unlovely ranks of the leavers and that they've stopped making new ones.
On bikes the ferry companies treat you like Gods. It is fantastic. Either off first or get an escort out of the port. No queuing to get on either just straight to the front so while the cars wait you can go to the cafe and pop back just before departure and be at the front.
The Brexit Eurostar issue for bikes is pathetic and I don't know why it is an issue because it isn't for ferries. They have set up an alternative whereby you can put your bike on a van at Folkestone and take it off the other side using the tunnel. Literally a van using the tunnel that drives 100 metres either end (Daft or what). However that is Folkstone/Calais not London/Paris so that doesn't work for us because we can't get to the van in time for when it leaves because there are no trains earlier enough from where I live and even if we could it adds another day. None of it makes sense and it wastes a whole day, but hey apparently I am just imagining these Brexit holdups.
1. Stansted to Malmo, because of traffic jam on the M11
2. Paris CDG to home: traffic jam on périphérique
3. Heathrow to Hamburg: got to the gate and realised I had my sons passport
4. Schipol to home: delayed flight so sat in the bar, relaxed, and missed final call
5. Dar es Salaam to home via Bahrain: didn’t reconfirm, flight overbooked, had to spend another 3 days in Tanzania before the next flight
I almost made it 6 on a return from Miami. Sat in the lounge, flight delayed, have a few drinks, then suddenly flight closing. They fitted me on but with a downgrade from business to economy right at the back.
Yes I am a lunatic. In my extremely limited packing space, I brought a toy cat for scale..
Westminster Tees Valley 49 26 to Lab, I make that about a 13% swing meaning the two holds the Tories would be targeting would be Middlesborough South and Cleveland and Stockton West (both about 11.5% swing required).
13% swing nationally is lower than the national polling and would suggest 180 to 200 Tory seats.
They'd bite your hand off for that
1) Or the Government Gazette as it will be known if the British state ever finds a place under the wing of Rome.
There's a poo on the carpet that isn't vanishing. No amount of air freshener, or telling people that is doesn't smell that bad is taking the pong away. And even if it's not actually smelling- it's a poo. That someone did. On the carpet.
And we all know who did it, because it was done in public view. In fact, the person responsible was proud of it at the time and thought we would be grateful.
(If this isn't the plot of an unwatchable surrealist play, it ought to be.)
And that is why I anticipate Labour nervously slicing away some bits of Brexit, though more in 2028-32 than 2024-28. But the next Conservative PM, sometimes in the late 2030s, is likely to embrace Brejoin as their sign that the party has changed.
(See also Prohibition in America. Seemed unassailable, it was in the Constitution dammit, until it wasn't.)
In fact the most common media mentioned for jurors to read or watch are the NYT followed by CNN, neither of which are pro Trump in any shape or form.
The case is taking place in Manhattan and Manhattan voted 86% for Biden in 2020, this jury is extremely unlikely to be pro Trump. Indeed the foreman might be the only one on the jury who even considered voting for him looking at the profiles
Very good. Please keep the photos coming
We can't abolish or repeal Brexit because it's not like that. What would we be 'slicing away' if we gave up having our own approach to AI and handed it over to Brussels?
Strange reporting from the Telegraph, but they have their audience to engage. They forgot to mention that it is only at phase 1 review, that the suspension is to do with extensive roadworks by Thames Water, and a big project to improve the A23. The traffic increase on boundary roads is only 8%.
Full piece:https://archive.ph/USvR7
Evaluation:https://love.lambeth.gov.uk/streatham-wells-a23-update/
The Streatham Wells LTN trial was introduced in October last year to reduce road danger and make the neighbourhood safer and healthier by restricting motor vehicle access to streets within the scheme.
The council will publish its ‘Streatham Wells Stage 1 – Initial Adjustments’ monitoring report in the coming days. There has been an average 60% decrease in traffic within the LTN and an 8% increase in traffic on boundary roads. Overall, there has been a 2% net reduction in traffic across the area.
The number of vehicles in the area breaking the speed limit has fallen by 68% compared with pre-LTN levels.
During the trial the traffic on boundary roads, including the A23 (Streatham High Road) and Streatham Common North has combined with frequent roadworks by Thames Water and other bodies to place a significant strain on bus services in Streatham.
Transport for London will begin a £9million project to substantially upgrade the experience for walking and cycling on the A23, starting at the end of spring and continuing into 2025. These improvement works will necessarily require some reduced road capacity while this major investment takes place.
Either way, they cannot sell a quarter of seats on every cross channel train they operate because of no capacity at the border posts.
I won’t vote in the PCC or general election this year but will probably vote for McGuinness as Driscoll was useless during the bus strikes.
I suspect labour were right about Durham, we should have had our own mayor divorced from the the other areas as I suspect the main focus will be the big cities and we will be left out.
This one mentions MPs popping out for a fag after the Progressive Smoking Ban vote (which he supports - I'm guessing because everyone around here knows about friends who have died from lung diseases due to experiences of mineworkers):
https://twitter.com/LeeAndersonMP_/status/1781247630544105899
I don't think it is possible to have a rational discussion about this until a Labour government has its feet under the table with a working majority, but it is obvious that available solutions exist which would shoot most of the foxes, avoid the Euro, respect the 2016 vote, keep out of political union and strengthen the union with Scotland.