UK Politics - From Russia with Love

[Hereward]

3 hours ago, mormont said:

Don't worry. The next time Farage belches, the mainstream press will still be there to report what it sounded like.

I’m reliably informed it sounds like the Horst Wessel Lied.

[mankytoes]

5 hours ago, The BlackBear said:

So UKIP continue to slide into irrelevance, that can only be a good thing.

Brexit got Cameron and Osbourne out and killed UKIP, that is beautiful collateral damage.

[mormont]

1 minute ago, mankytoes said:

Brexit got Cameron and Osbourne out and killed UKIP, that is beautiful collateral damage.

This is a pretty odd thing to say, since Cameron and Osbourne were replaced by people who are much worse. And I say that as someone who has no time at all for either Cameron or Osbourne.

[mankytoes]

37 minutes ago, mormont said:

This is a pretty odd thing to say, since Cameron and Osbourne were replaced by people who are much worse. And I say that as someone who has no time at all for either Cameron or Osbourne.

Nope, no one worse than the reptilian Eton amoral fuckheads. I know both jobs are still held by Remainers, but these guys are the best of the worst, especially if they can get shot of the third of the Bullingdon three. 

Whichever Tories you prefer, you can't deny Brexit killed UKIP. 

[Werthead]

These elections do give the media a chance to pretend they're covering the Wars of the Roses or something.

"SHOCK LIB DEM VICTORY AT RICHMOND."

"CONSERVATIVES TAKE PETERBOROUGH AND BASILDON, ASK IF THEY CAN RETURN THEM."

"LABOUR REPULSED FROM WANDSWORTH."

[mormont]

2 hours ago, mankytoes said:

Nope, no one worse than the reptilian Eton amoral fuckheads. I know both jobs are still held by Remainers, but these guys are the best of the worst, especially if they can get shot of the third of the Bullingdon three. 

This is piffle. Sorry.

If Theresa May was ever a Remainer, she sure as fuck isn't one now. I wish she was. She might, if the multiple worlds theory is true, in some far-off dimension, one of billions upon billions, actually be a Remainer, as opposed to her actual position, which is pro-Theresa May. I doubt it, but one must admit it as a theoretical possibility. In that dimension, therefore, she might actually be some sort of improvement over Cameron, though the likelihood is that she would still be considerably less competent - which is saying something, I realise.

In this dimension, though, she is absolutely unquestionably worse than Cameron. Much worse. Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay worse. Worse with a side of worse on a bed of worse with worse sauce and worse salad.

This is not to deny that Cameron was and will go down in history as a stunning failure. It is merely to point out that, incredible as it may seem, May is even worse.

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Whichever Tories you prefer, you can't deny Brexit killed UKIP. 

Whoop de fucking do. A meteorite hitting the earth would probably kill off a few unpleasant people too, but I would not be cheering about that being an up-side. A disaster is a disaster. If it takes out a few dickheads, it is not any less a disaster.

[polishgenius]

24 minutes ago, mormont said:

Whoop de fucking do. A meteorite hitting the earth would probably kill off a few unpleasant people too, but I would not be cheering about that being an up-side. A disaster is a disaster. If it takes out a few dickheads, it is not any less a disaster.

It's not even that: Brexit ended UKIP because it was what UKIP existed to achieve. It's like saying a nuclear strike has the side benefit of having one less nuclear warhead in the world.

UKIP won.

[williamjm]

11 hours ago, mormont said:

The English council elections seem to be an apt summary of the state of modern UK politics in that it appears that, against normal electoral logic, every party lost.

It's not a great sign for Corbyn's hopes of an electoral wave sweeping him to power when the Lib Dems are gaining more seats than Labour and gaining four councils compared to Labour's single gain. 

Cambridge City seems virtually unchanged, although the Lib Dems gained control of the surrounding South Cambridgeshire council from the Tories, which even they seem a bit surprised by.

1 hour ago, Werthead said:

These elections do give the media a chance to pretend they're covering the Wars of the Roses or something.

"SHOCK LIB DEM VICTORY AT RICHMOND."

"CONSERVATIVES TAKE PETERBOROUGH AND BASILDON, ASK IF THEY CAN RETURN THEM."

"LABOUR REPULSED FROM WANDSWORTH."

Apparently the Lib Dems were also victorious in the Three Rivers, which does sound like a rural location that the hero in an epic fantasy series would come from.

[mankytoes]

58 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

It's not even that: Brexit ended UKIP because it was what UKIP existed to achieve. It's like saying a nuclear strike has the side benefit of having one less nuclear warhead in the world.

UKIP won.

Yeah, but instead of just pointing out structural flaws in the EU which can be appreciated by people from all political backgrounds (although, admittedly, isn't the easiest message to put to the electorate. I don't want to patronise the public, but when my critique starts with the concept of a demos, I'm not going to get attention like Farage), they became the semi respectable face of bigotry in British politics. 

The public wanted Brexit. We never wanted UKIP, hence their grand historical total of two MPs elected, serving a total of four years between them. 

1 hour ago, mormont said:

This is piffle. Sorry.

If Theresa May was ever a Remainer, she sure as fuck isn't one now. I wish she was. She might, if the multiple worlds theory is true, in some far-off dimension, one of billions upon billions, actually be a Remainer, as opposed to her actual position, which is pro-Theresa May. I doubt it, but one must admit it as a theoretical possibility. In that dimension, therefore, she might actually be some sort of improvement over Cameron, though the likelihood is that she would still be considerably less competent - which is saying something, I realise.

In this dimension, though, she is absolutely unquestionably worse than Cameron. Much worse. Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay worse. Worse with a side of worse on a bed of worse with worse sauce and worse salad.

This is not to deny that Cameron was and will go down in history as a stunning failure. It is merely to point out that, incredible as it may seem, May is even worse.

Whoop de fucking do. A meteorite hitting the earth would probably kill off a few unpleasant people too, but I would not be cheering about that being an up-side. A disaster is a disaster. If it takes out a few dickheads, it is not any less a disaster.

I mean, I like your rhetorical flourish, and your apology, which I appreciate from anyone defending Cameron, but I still don't understand your point. Cameron caused Brexit. He called the referendum. May is merely respecting the result. He also repeatedly explicitly lied and said he'd stay if we left (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/eu-referendum-david-cameron-resign-step-down-boris-johnson-brexit-stay-as-prime-minister-result-poll-a7088811.html), which deprived you of a europhile PM. 

You like the EU a lot, and dislike Brexit a lot. I get this. But surely you understand that your position of blatantly not respecting the referendum result would be totally politically impossible? You can't have your party call a national referendum, repeatedly explicitly say you'll accept the result, and then just turn around and say "nah, I think it's a bad idea, you're wrong, I'm right, try again". 

It's been almost two years since the vote now, I would hope that people would start getting on with other issues, things that they can actually effect, not playing this one out over and over. To be fair, a lot have. I watched Question Time yesterday, and aside from some Remain numpty (apparantly a comedian, it was awkward how no one was laughing at his jokes) making a stupid point about how we voted to leave because we like our flag, and a Leave numpty from the Express playing the victim because she was the only Brexiter on the panel (slip it in on the sly, no one likes a self declared victim), Brexit was largely in the background. 

[Werthead]

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You like the EU a lot, and dislike Brexit a lot. I get this. But surely you understand that your position of blatantly not respecting the referendum result would be totally politically impossible? You can't have your party call a national referendum, repeatedly explicitly say you'll accept the result, and then just turn around and say "nah, I think it's a bad idea, you're wrong, I'm right, try again". 

Well, you can when the result was 52-48 (and that only reached by excluding significant proportions of the population). Going for the hardest of hard Brexits when more than half the population - the Remainers and soft Brexiteers - vehemently does not want that outcome is also totally politically impossible.

The problem wasn't that a referendum was held, it was that there was utterly no nuance and no discussion over what the result of the referendum meant.

And yes, this is all on Cameron: he framed the question badly, he didn't hold back the date so legislation could be passed allowing 16-17 year olds to vote (although that precedent was set by the Scottish referendum) and he didn't hold the Brexiteers to account by asking them to prepare a victory plan ahead of time so Britain could move forward in full awareness of the issues. If you said during the Brexit campaign, "There is a nontrivial chance that a Yes vote means putting in place a border in Ireland that could restart the Troubles at worst and, at best, devastate economies in Northern Ireland," I suspect quite a few people (in Northern Ireland at least) would have voted differently.

I mean, according to the Daily Mail at least, there's a very large number of people who voted Brexit who are apoplectic that Brexit means that there is an excellent chance that they will have to pay money for visas every time they want to go on holiday to Spain, and they will no longer have the automatic right to move to Spain if they want, despite this being exactly what the concept of Brexit means. If this had been spelled out more strongly before the referendum, that could have made a difference as well.

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It's been almost two years since the vote now, I would hope that people would start getting on with other issues, things that they can actually effect, not playing this one out over and over. To be fair, a lot have. I watched Question Time yesterday, and aside from some Remain numpty (apparantly a comedian, it was awkward how no one was laughing at his jokes) making a stupid point about how we voted to leave because we like our flag, and a Leave numpty from the Express playing the victim because she was the only Brexiter on the panel (slip it in on the sly, no one likes a self declared victim), Brexit was largely in the background. 

It's been two years since the vote, but we still haven't left, the Brexit negotiations are still ongoing (and are getting quagmired over Northern Ireland whilst progress in other, equally critical areas like trade seems to be lacking) and Brexit is consuming almost the entire bandwidth of government, to the point where MPs are going home early because almost all the Parliamentary business is taken up by Brexit issues and everything else seems to be on hold. That people are "getting bored of Brexit" may well be true, but it's also utterly irrelevant: this is the most important and potentially transformative moment for Britain as a nation since the end of World War II, and how it's handled will determine the country's prosperity, its reputation, its profile and its power in the world to come for generations, maybe permanently. Getting this right would be taxing for the greatest British politicians in history in a time of prosperity, let alone this shower of incompetents now.

[Xray the Enforcer]

7 hours ago, Hereward said:

I’m reliably informed it sounds like the Horst Wessel Lied.

 

[mankytoes]

31 minutes ago, Werthead said:

Well, you can when the result was 52-48 (and that only reached by excluding significant proportions of the population). Going for the hardest of hard Brexits when more than half the population - the Remainers and soft Brexiteers - vehemently does not want that outcome is also totally politically impossible.

And yes, this is all on Cameron: he framed the question badly, he didn't hold back the date so legislation could be passed allowing 16-17 year olds to vote (although that precedent was set by the Scottish referendum) and he didn't hold the Brexiteers to account by asking them to prepare a victory plan ahead of time so Britain could move forward in full awareness of the issues.

If you said during the Brexit campaign, "There is a nontrivial chance that a Yes vote means putting in place a border in Ireland that could restart the Troubles at worst and, at best, devastate economies in Northern Ireland," I suspect quite a few people (in Northern Ireland at least) would have voted differently.

I mean, according to the Daily Mail at least, there's a very large number of people who voted Brexit who are apoplectic that Brexit means that there is an excellent chance that they will have to pay money for visas every time they want to go on holiday to Spain, and they will no longer have the automatic right to move to Spain if they want, despite this being exactly what the concept of Brexit means. If this had been spelled out more strongly before the referendum, that could have made a difference as well.

It's been two years since the vote, but we still haven't left, the Brexit negotiations are still ongoing (and are getting quagmired over Northern Ireland whilst progress in other, equally critical areas like trade seems to be lacking) and Brexit is consuming almost the entire bandwidth of government, to the point where MPs are going home early because almost all the Parliamentary business is taken up by Brexit issues and everything else seems to be on hold. That people are "getting bored of Brexit" may well be true, but it's also utterly irrelevant: this is the most important and potentially transformative moment for Britain as a nation since the end of World War II, and how it's handled will determine the country's prosperity, its reputation, its profile and its power in the world to come for generations, maybe permanently. Getting this right would be taxing for the greatest British politicians in history in a time of prosperity, let alone this shower of incompetents now.

She isn't "going for the hardest of hard Brexits" though. That wouldn't be politically feasible with her party even if she did want it.

That's always seemed an odd argument to me. Brexiteers were never going to be in charge. Surely it's the people in charge, the government, who should be making a plan? I.e. Cameron? He called a referendum, with two possible outcomes. He is the one who should have planned for both outcomes. Farage could have made the most detailed plans possible, but he's failed continually to be elected as an MP, let alone a PM, so what would be the point? 

Wasn't that your (as in, Remainers) job? Shouldn't you all have been talking about the Irish border question? 

Well those are two very different issues. Of course we wouldn't expect to pay for a holiday visa for Spain. You don't pay for one for Sweden, or Switzerland, or Norway, or Iceland. Holiday visas are generally a bad idea, they put off tourists who will put way more money into the economy than the amount you'll raise by the visa. And as a massive market for Spanish tourism, I'd be shocked if they wanted to put British tourists off. 

On the other hand, I think it was very clear that Brexit means you wouldn't have the automatic right to move to a European country permanently. I haven't heard anyone say they voted Brexit and then regretted it for that reason, though I guess there are always one or two idiots. 

I don't disagree with much of that, which is why it's frustrating that so many people that I agree with on many political issues seem to be of the attitude that, instead of looking at the opportunities and benefits we can get from Brexit, they want to pointlessly harp on about having another referendum, which they surely know will never happen, I guess it's just a cynical political move. And still you get the ridiculously hyperbolic project fear leftovers, how can tiny little Britain possibly compete in the big bad world. You would never guess, as an outsider, these people were talking about the fifth biggest economy in the world. 

[mormont]

6 hours ago, mankytoes said:

Brexiteers were never going to be in charge.

Who the heck do you think is actually now in charge?

Boris Johnson sits around the Cabinet table as one of the most senior ministers in the government as a direct result of his role in the Brexit campaign, and you're saying it's unreasonable to suggest that he might perhaps have been expected to have some solid answers ahead of the campaign because he was 'never going to be in charge'?

This is absolute nonsense.

[mankytoes]

1 hour ago, mormont said:

Who the heck do you think is actually now in charge?

Boris Johnson sits around the Cabinet table as one of the most senior ministers in the government as a direct result of his role in the Brexit campaign, and you're saying it's unreasonable to suggest that he might perhaps have been expected to have some solid answers ahead of the campaign because he was 'never going to be in charge'?

This is absolute nonsense.

You know, I was too soft on Cameron there. He didn't really need much of a plan if Remain won, because it would have been business as usual. So he really needed to make one plan, a plan for Brexit. 

So out the Big Four offices we've got one person who actually supported Brexit, who literally everyone acknowledges did so for opportunistic, rather than ideological, reasons. Remainers are still running the country. 

[polishgenius]

7 hours ago, mankytoes said:

You would never guess, as an outsider, these people were talking about the fifth biggest economy in the world. 

 

That's because a large part of the strength of that economy these days depends on London and a large part of the strength of London depends on it being the financial capital of the EU, a state of affairs that is unlikely to continue once it is no longer in the EU.


 

7 hours ago, mankytoes said:

Wasn't that your (as in, Remainers) job? Shouldn't you all have been talking about the Irish border question? 

The Remain campaign was fucking terrible, but if anyone from that side had raised the idea that Brexit could restart the troubles it'd have been dismissed as just more fear-mongering. The idea that it's the opponent's role to suggest how it's going to work is bizarre.

 

 

8 hours ago, mankytoes said:

instead of looking at the opportunities and benefits we can get from Brexit

Look, most of us at this stage would love to be able to move on and look at finding the best ways to dealing with Brexit, but we haven't the slightest confidence that the people negotiating it have any idea what the opportunities and benefits might be, so how can we look forward to them?

[mankytoes]

9 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

That's because a large part of the strength of that economy these days depends on London and a large part of the strength of London depends on it being the financial capital of the EU, a state of affairs that is unlikely to continue once it is no longer in the EU.

The Remain campaign was fucking terrible, but if anyone from that side had raised the idea that Brexit could restart the troubles it'd have been dismissed as just more fear-mongering. The idea that it's the opponent's role to suggest how it's going to work is bizarre.

Look, most of us at this stage would love to be able to move on and look at finding the best ways to dealing with Brexit, but we haven't the slightest confidence that the people negotiating it have any idea what the opportunities and benefits might be, so how can we look forward to them?

Well the rise of the city took place before the EU existed, and London is more a global financial capital than a European one. Obviously there's the currency issue, but I don't know if you are aware, I've seen EU debates where they're openly saying "how can we take financial power from London and move it towards Frankfurt and other European financial centres?". I can't say they were being duplicitous with us, these are open debates, about trying to weaken one of our economies strongest areas.

So you expected the the Brexit campaign to be the one telling you about the potential problems with Brexit? 

Well, at the very least don't sabotage the whole thing by demanding a referendum on the final deal, which would obviously just mean the EU offer us the most terrible deal they possibly can in the hope that we will reject it. 

[polishgenius]

31 minutes ago, mankytoes said:

 

So you expected the the Brexit campaign to be the one telling you about the potential problems with Brexit? 

I expected the Brexit campaign to be telling me (true things) about how Brexit was actually going to work. Refusing to acknowledge that potential problems even exist was the height of irresponsibility.

Remain told me lots of things wrong with Brexit, but some I already knew and some were stupid.

 

32 minutes ago, mankytoes said:

 

Well, at the very least don't sabotage the whole thing by demanding a referendum on the final deal, which would obviously just mean the EU offer us the most terrible deal they possibly can in the hope that we will reject it. 

Why not? That would be ideal.

But in any case we'd also be a lot less antsy about a referendum on the final deal if May and cronies weren't so clear that they were trying to avoid any accountability whatsoever and trying to cut Parliament out of the equation.

[Werthead]

11 hours ago, mankytoes said:

I don't disagree with much of that, which is why it's frustrating that so many people that I agree with on many political issues seem to be of the attitude that, instead of looking at the opportunities and benefits we can get from Brexit, they want to pointlessly harp on about having another referendum, which they surely know will never happen, I guess it's just a cynical political move. And still you get the ridiculously hyperbolic project fear leftovers, how can tiny little Britain possibly compete in the big bad world. You would never guess, as an outsider, these people were talking about the fifth biggest economy in the world. 

We're the fifth-biggest economy in the world by GDP (only ninth by PPP, however) mainly (but not totally) because of our position in the European Union: the British economy is driven by banking and services and our banking and services are dependent on free and unhindered access to the European market. Once that access disappears, companies from outside the EU have no logical reason to use the UK as a bridge to the EU. They're instead much better directly relocating offices to Frankfurt, Brussels or, if they prefer an English-speaking location, Dublin rather than endure the additional red tape on top of already-insane costs for keeping a foot in London.

If we saw other British industries stepping up to take over from this sector to maintain British prosperity post-Brexit that would be one thing. But we're not. Britain will be permanently poorer country after Brexit unless there is some kind of general collapse of the EU as a whole (putting everyone back on equal footing), or some hitherto unforeseen revolution takes place and Britain becomes a manufacturing powerhouse once again. Instead, the government's sole economic plan for a post-Brexit Britain is for us to become a convenient tax haven located just off the EU's coast, with not encouraging ramifications for jobs.

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That's always seemed an odd argument to me. Brexiteers were never going to be in charge. Surely it's the people in charge, the government, who should be making a plan? I.e. Cameron? He called a referendum, with two possible outcomes. He is the one who should have planned for both outcomes. Farage could have made the most detailed plans possible, but he's failed continually to be elected as an MP, let alone a PM, so what would be the point?

This is an illogical argument. Cameron backed Remain very strongly and staked his reputation on Remain winning. When it didn't, he quit. It was the moral responsibility of the official Leave campaign, Vote Leave, to come up with a plan and they didn't.

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Wasn't that your (as in, Remainers) job? Shouldn't you all have been talking about the Irish border question? 

We were. It was described as hysteria and fear-mongering, and ignored by most Brexit-voters, as was the status of Gibraltar, the status of expats in the EU and EU citizens here and the dependence on enormous sectors of the British economy on immigrant workers who get those jobs because British people pointblank refuse to do them (and this will not change after Brexit).

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On the other hand, I think it was very clear that Brexit means you wouldn't have the automatic right to move to a European country permanently. I haven't heard anyone say they voted Brexit and then regretted it for that reason, though I guess there are always one or two idiots.

About a quarter of British expats somehow voted for Brexit, despite it potentially having an impact on their pensions, working rights and accommodation rights. That's rather more than "one or two idiots".

[Werthead]

Final local council election results: Labour up 77, Conservatives down 33, Liberal Democrats up 75, Green up 8, UKIP down 123 and others down 4.

Media already discussing how this is a massive failure for Labour and good news for the Tories, somehow (although council elections are generally a poor barometer of overall national performance).

[Derfel Cadarn]

quite a bit in the bews about Commons Speaker Bercow being a bully, with a former staffer signing an NDA on being paid off (which he's now broken).

Others have backed the claims, though some claim he isn't.  If you believe his supporters, he's a gentle soul who wouldn't raise hos voice; if you believe his detractors he's basically the Hulk when angry.