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UK Politics: Time Marches On


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12 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

Well to be fair a large portion of the stories constantly pumped out by the media about food shortages, medicine shortages etc have all been total nonsense. So the scare tactics are real. If you want to convince people that the media isn’t trying to thwart Brexit then maybe they should do a better job.

We will have to agree to disagree about the "total nonsense".

In so far as the stories are scare stories, they have been put out by May's government to pressure MPs into voting for her deal.

As for "convince people that the media isn’t trying to thwart Brexit" and them doing a poor job of it; that is certainly not how I would characterise the media! Just look at the tabloid headlines, I noticed that the Daily Express was saying "Betrayal of Brexit" today.

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1 hour ago, Heartofice said:

Well to be fair a large portion of the stories constantly pumped out by the media about food shortages, medicine shortages etc have all been total nonsense. So the scare tactics are real. If you want to convince people that the media isn’t trying to thwart Brexit then maybe they should do a better job.

There have been medicine shortages already (one of my friends has been told that her particular type of antidepressant is getting into short supply, and those are not things to fuck around with), let alone after we leave, and it's been made clear that there will be delays (moderate with a deal, extensive without one) as we switch to new customs services

Also, we haven't fucking left yet, so it's unsurprising that situations that were claimed would arise after we leave have not yet come to pass.

A functioning comprehension of the linear nature of time may be handy to employ at this juncture.

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15 hours ago, BigFatCoward said:

When people march do they do it to show resistance or to expect a result?  I remember policing the Iraq war march, and if you were in it you probably couldn't get a scope of how massive it was.  I was on a fixed point for hours and hours and hours and people just kept streaming past forever.  Its the most impresssive thing i've ever seen.  Made no difference. 

In this case however there is a much more intimate connection between the people who turn out and the fates of the politicians who are failing to make any decisions. With the Iraq War pretty much everyone in both parties were all gung ho for it and the govt was being decisive. Here no party in Parliament is united in anything, except perhaps the DUP and the SDP, and as importantly the govt is paralysed by not being able to pass any meaningful decision.

So this is one of those times when a huge protest turnout could actually turn politician's heads. When politicians are vascillating, that's when they are most susceptible to listening to the voice of the people.

If anyone is pissed at what the govt is doing (or failing to do) and not a Brexiteer then there is pretty good reason to get out and protest.

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But my point is that the there have been numerous news stories of impending doom in regards to No Deal that have been proven to be false the closer you get to the day. We were told plans wouldn't be able to fly, turned out to be a lie, we were told Calais would be a standstill yet the guy in charge of Calais says there wouldn't be any issues, we were told prices of everything would rise due to us having to impose tariffs yet the government published plans saying they would not be imposing tariffs.

The "guy in charge of Calais" (?) is trying to boost confidence for his town. The reality is that goods checks for goods coming into the EU from non-EU countries are required by law and there is no way to do this without causing delays at Calais for checks on goods and vehicles using the Channel Tunnel and the ferries. That's simply unavoidable.

As for the tariffs, Britain's plans on how to deal with this have been repeatedly shot down in flames by the WTO itself. They've also said that Britain has to satisfy certain requirements to trade under WTO rules after a no-deal Brexit and these have not been satisfied, Russia has said it will use its clout to try to fuck up Britain's place in the WTO and, if we refuse to impose tariffs on the EU, we must also lift all tariffs on the rest of the world, allowing anyone from any country on Earth to import anything they like into the UK without any checks or fees. That is fucking insane.

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Do you remember all the dire predictions for everything that will happen as soon as we voted leave, about GDP drops, huge unemployment etc, none of which happened either. 

This never happened. There were some predictions on what could happen if we had the dual shock of a Leave vote followed by the triggering of Article 50 immediately (since no-one was expecting Cameron to run off mewling like the coward he was), but the two events being separated by seven months reduced the shock of that. Despite that the pound dropped massively against the dollar and euro and is still in a much-weakened state compared to where it would have been without the vote. What did also happen was that George Osborne said the sky would literally explode the day after the vote, but he said that for political purposes and no credible economist agreed with him. We must also remember that George Osborne is by some considerable margin the most incompetent and pathetic excuse this country has ever had for a Chancellor of the Exchequer who had the economic nous of a bloatfish and the intelligence of a ham sandwich.

The government has also cooked the books over unemployment to a staggering degree, right to the very edge of outright lying. Employment in this country is one of the most perilous states it's been in decades due to vast swathes of full-time, high-paying jobs being wiped out and replaced by low-paying, gig economy jobs which allow the government to misrepresent that people are in work even when they're working one hour a fortnight on a zero hours contract. They also claim that anyone who was on Universal Credit who has left it because they've been sanctioned - usually due to the Job Centre's incompetence, ignoring of medical information or to hit their targets - is in work rather than appealing their decision, which is a flat-out lie.

It's also clear if you look in job sectors dependent on EU migrants, such as farming and particularly the NHS, there are massive problems now occurring because people no longer want to come and work in the UK directly because of Brexit, and those sectors are suffering and there is no easy replacement for them because British people either refuse to do those jobs or physically can't afford the training required.

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I think it would do you some good to put your head out the window sometimes.

The irony here is strong. You have come up with a narrative that the salt-of-the-earth, hard-working, honestly-not-even-remotely-racist English working class - "ordinary people" who should be listened to and respected - voted for Brexit having carefully sat down and read all of the legal advice and EU laws in considerable detail and rationally decided that voting to Leave is the best choice, and people who argue against them are "out-of-touch" middle-class buffoons. The fact that none of the polling or demographic data even remotely supports this has been ignored, and you were repeating this tripe this week.

The principle irrationality of Brexit remains strong: Remain not only won the argument, it absolutely atomised and flattened the argument using years and decades of data, precedent and facts. Leave lied their fucking heads off (and not just on a bus), engaging in astonishing scaremongering (the real Project Fear was over Turkey joining the EU and flooding Britain with Muslims, even as Turkey's relationship with the EU collapsed over Syria), violated an agreement to stop campaigning when someone was murdered and accepted money from the Russians. Leave won the vote (by a slim margin) by appealing to people's "poor feelings" about subjects they knew nothing about, by furthering slander and lies against immigrants and through outright illegal behaviour so toxic that a judge has basically said that if it had been a mandatory vote, he would have declared it null and void. There's also the fact that Leave introduced so much bollocks into the argument that it put off at least thousands and possibly millions of people from even voting in the first place, leaving 13 million eligible voters sitting on the fence (and it would be interesting to see how many of them would vote in a third referendum,which for them would be their first).

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So if all the pro-Brexit English were down-to-earth decent folk, who was sending hate mail to Polish people, spraying graffiti on their shops, attacking them physically in public, screaming at them to go home, and actually murdering a couple of them? Who told the children at school to get the hell out? Who told people who lived in the UK for 20, 30, or 50 years or since WW II that they were foreigners?

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10 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

So if all the pro-Brexit English were down-to-earth decent folk, who was sending hate mail to Polish people, spraying graffiti on their shops, attacking them physically in public, screaming at them to go home, and actually murdering a couple of them? Who told the children at school to get the hell out? Who told people who lived in the UK for 20, 30, or 50 years or since WW II that they were foreigners?

Who said that?  

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[mod] I think that's enough talk about one particular user. You're entitled to have opinions about each other, but they do not make a good topic for discussion, as a rule. [/mod]

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I think we need to be really careful about depicting all Brexiters as racists or far right nutters. Full disclosure: I was voting leave until pretty close to the actual referendum. 

My issues with the EU had nothing to do with immigration. What I had a problem with was people like this

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As Trade Commissioner, Cecilia Malmström occupies a powerful position in the apparatus of the EU. She heads up the trade directorate of the European Commission, the post previously given to Peter Mandelson when he was forced to quit front line politics in the UK. This puts her in charge of trade and investment policy for all 28 EU member states, and it is her officials that are currently trying to finalise the TTIP deal with the USA.

In our meeting, I challenged Malmström over the huge opposition to TTIP across Europe. In the last year, a record three and a quarter million European citizens have signed the petition against it. Thousands of meetings and protests have been held across all 28 EU member states, including a spectacular 250,000-strong demonstration in Berlin this weekend.

When put to her, Malmström acknowledged that a trade deal has never inspired such passionate and widespread opposition. Yet when I asked the trade commissioner how she could continue her persistent promotion of the deal in the face of such massive public opposition, her response came back icy cold: “I do not take my mandate from the European people.”

 

TTIP was terrifying. We faced the very real prospect of the NHS and the rest of our public services being auctioned off to US corporations. TTIP also included provision for the creation of some kind of kangaroo corporate legal framework whereby nation states could be easily sued by US corporations if they objected to any taxes or regulations that were imposed.

Ironically, it was only massive public opposition in Germany and France that killed it. Those governments finally listened to their people, while the British government couldn't wait to get it implemented. They still can't. So as it turns out the EU is protecting us from our own leaders. That's why I changed my vote.

If the Tories get their Brexit, they'll implement far worse than TTIP. Chlorinated chicken and Schwarzenegger-beef will be the least of our concerns. 

 

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7 hours ago, Spockydog said:

I think we need to be really careful about depicting all Brexiters as racists or far right nutters. Full disclosure: I was voting leave until pretty close to the actual referendum. 

My issues with the EU had nothing to do with immigration. What I had a problem with was people like this

TTIP was terrifying. We faced the very real prospect of the NHS and the rest of our public services being auctioned off to US corporations. TTIP also included provision for the creation of some kind of kangaroo corporate legal framework whereby nation states could be easily sued by US corporations if they objected to any taxes or regulations that were imposed.

Ironically, it was only massive public opposition in Germany and France that killed it. Those governments finally listened to their people, while the British government couldn't wait to get it implemented. They still can't. So as it turns out the EU is protecting us from our own leaders. That's why I changed my vote.

If the Tories get their Brexit, they'll implement far worse than TTIP. Chlorinated chicken and Schwarzenegger-beef will be the least of our concerns. 

 

Technically speaking Malmstrom was correct. Neither particularly well put, nor pleasent to hear, but technically correct.

Malmstrom was in a way probably the wrong person for the question. I mean putting that one to Malmstrom, is a bit like asking an RAF general during the Iraq war, how he/she could continue to with the war, despite all the widespread protests. The response would probably be the same, I don't get my orders from the British people.

Malmstrom is pretty high up in the foodchain, but in the end she is just the one executing the decissions, not making them. And the decissions are taken by the elected national goverments, which are voted into office by the people.

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Anyone have any insight into whether, as is being reported by number 10s mouthpieces in the media (i.e. James Forsyth), the DUP are close to breaking and senior ERG members including Mogg will move over to back the deal with them?

May does seem closer than ever to passing the deal but a lot of this could just be the usual hype to create momentum. If the DUP really do care about the constitutional position as much as they say they do they can't swallow the backstop.

If the do move over though MV3 will be very very close. 

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46 minutes ago, Nothing Has Changed said:

Anyone have any insight into whether, as is being reported by number 10s mouthpieces in the media (i.e. James Forsyth), the DUP are close to breaking and senior ERG members including Mogg will move over to back the deal with them?

May does seem closer than ever to passing the deal but a lot of this could just be the usual hype to create momentum. If the DUP really do care about the constitutional position as much as they say they do they can't swallow the backstop.

If the do move over though MV3 will be very very close. 

Difficult to say. I think the delay request has brought it home for the first time that Brexit may not happen, and the growing disgust from the people with politics and the Conservatives' handling of the situation could destroy them at the ballot box. The EU saying that any long delay might be up to 2 years, putting Brexit right before the next election, seems to have concentrated minds.

The ERG may be working on the basis that once we leave, we can then ignore or tear up any part of the agreement we're not happy with later on, so between delay/cancelling Brexit and May's deal with the chance to reform it later on, they'd go for the latter.

The DUP I think is in a more difficult position due to the backstop. Abandoning their opposition to it now would be a huge climbdown.

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Farage's farce of a Leavers march (the Gammonball Run, as its been nicknames)from Sunderland to London is now on day2, and down to about 77 people according to twitter. Not sure if that's excluding the photographers :p

He charged the marchers £50 and doesnt even have the decency to do the march with them.

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23 minutes ago, Werthead said:

Difficult to say. I think the delay request has brought it home for the first time that Brexit may not happen, and the growing disgust from the people with politics and the Conservatives' handling of the situation could destroy them at the ballot box. The EU saying that any long delay might be up to 2 years, putting Brexit right before the next election, seems to have concentrated minds.

The ERG may be working on the basis that once we leave, we can then ignore or tear up any part of the agreement we're not happy with later on, so between delay/cancelling Brexit and May's deal with the chance to reform it later on, they'd go for the latter.

The DUP I think is in a more difficult position due to the backstop. Abandoning their opposition to it now would be a huge climbdown.

The DUP are the ones I'm worried about. I don't think enough of the ERG will vote for the deal without the DUP going for it too to enable the deal to pass with some Labour votes (as a 20 strong squadron, led by Steve Baker will not vote for it - no matter what).  So if the DUP fold May has a chance. If they don't the deal is dead and it is even being suggested she wouldn't bring it back in those circumstances anyway. 

You are right about the tricky timing on a delay, too short and there is no time to explore other options and for MPs to psyche themselves up to a referendum/revocation, but too long and the decision is made very close to the next election which makes a foolish short-termist compromise, to just survive the next few months, dangerously enticing. 

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27 minutes ago, Derfel Cadarn said:

Farage's farce of a Leavers march (the Gammonball Run, as its been nicknames)from Sunderland to London is now on day2, and down to about 77 people according to twitter. Not sure if that's excluding the photographers :p

He charged the marchers £50 and doesnt even have the decency to do the march with them.

Wait, you have to pay to go on this March? Why?

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For the many USians who are struggling to understand the BREXIT voting and the aftermath of always leaving the EU and never going (not that many USians, probably, since so many tend to not even pay attention much to what is going on here either), here's story of an election in the US that helps explain what happened, is happening, and why.  It's really about how elections are designed.  It is pretty interesting -- and useful too, as far as it goes.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/16/world/europe/brexit-referendums.html?

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5 hours ago, Nothing Has Changed said:

Anyone have any insight into whether, as is being reported by number 10s mouthpieces in the media (i.e. James Forsyth), the DUP are close to breaking and senior ERG members including Mogg will move over to back the deal with them?

May does seem closer than ever to passing the deal but a lot of this could just be the usual hype to create momentum. If the DUP really do care about the constitutional position as much as they say they do they can't swallow the backstop.

If the do move over though MV3 will be very very close. 

May also has the problem that the alternative of a long delay could encourage the ERG and DUP to vote for her deal, but it might have the opposite effect on the small band of Tory remainers who didn't vote for her deal before.

I find it impossible to predict what the DUP might do, other than thinking they won't split their votes between the two options.

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