UK Politics & Brexit Discussion

[RandoEFC+]

1 hour ago, Bluewolf said:

And to quote the letter from his Housemaster at Eton... 

Boris sometimes seems affronted when criticised for what amounts to a gross failure of responsibility (and surprised at the same time that he was not appointed Captain of the School for next half): I think he honestly believes that it is churlish of us not to regard him as an exception, one who should be free of the network of obligation which binds everyone else.”

This letter is the type that'll appear as a source in a history/politics textbook or exam. It's done the rounds so many times now but it remains poignant.

[Stan]

 

[Dr. Gonzo]

On 23/11/2020 at 10:28, Stan said:

 

This won’t hurt many of the 61% of people who voted to leave in Sunderland. Yes Nissan employs 6,000 there. Yes, many more jobs are created by the plant because supply chains and dealerships are a part of getting cars to consumers.

But since so many Brexiteers were warned of reality and chose to ignore it and present their own alternative theories to what Brexit would mean to them... they’ve got their own reality.

These people aren’t losing their jobs. They’re gaining their freedom.

At least that’s what they’ll tell themselves when they’re waiting in the dole lines getting covid.

[Dr. Gonzo]

This article’s behind a paywall, but it’s not surprising at all. And it reflects why exactly we are in this position. https://www.ft.com/content/93821297-96ea-4286-8f01-ccb6fa09161f

[RandoEFC+]

38 minutes ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

This article’s behind a paywall, but it’s not surprising at all. And it reflects why exactly we are in this position. https://www.ft.com/content/93821297-96ea-4286-8f01-ccb6fa09161f

It's abysmal, Economics is an option subject at GCSE and A Level, which means the majority of school leavers never study it at all. Even those who take it at GCSE learn very little that's applicable to the real world aside the broad strokes of supply and demand, trade and a few definitions.

Understanding a but about economics and more broadly, politics, is pretty important if you're armed with a vote that can impact the lives of everyone in the country. Most schools teach PSHE or something similar, it was called Life Skills when I was a student. It covers stuff like healthy living, substance abuse, safe sex, relationships, mental health, employability, basically things that are quite important if you're alive and you want to stay alive and not have a shit life. I'd be very much in support of them throwing a vague understanding of democracy, politics and how the world works in there as well. So many people in the UK are pretty much born into their political views at the moment either through their family's preexisting loyalties or where they are geographically. We're not much of a nation for thinking for ourselves and thinking about what we read or hear before believing it.

[RandoEFC+]

 

I WISH TO REPORT A MURDER.

[Dr. Gonzo]

Liverpool's mayor's been arrested for bribery & suspended from the Labour party - Mayor of Liverpool Joe Anderson arrested along with four others in police probe - Liverpool Echo

[God is Haaland]

On 20/11/2020 at 01:11, 6666 said:

Increase of £16.5b in "defence" spending spread over the next four years. Funny how these nationalist cunts always find money to pour into the military.

Imagine the faces of right wing nutters when they find out this money will be used to buy Leopard 2s, Boxers or replace L30s with Rheinmetall smoothbore guns.

[God is Haaland]

BoJo might announce a No Deal Brexit later today and blame the French.

[RandoEFC+]

Basically everything the experts who backed Remain in 2016 has come true so far. No reason why that should stop now.

The government will try to blame the EU but ultimately people will realise that none of this would have happened if people had given Farage the complete lack of attention and platform that he ever justified.

[God is Haaland]

46 minutes ago, RandoEFC said:

Basically everything the experts who backed Remain in 2016 has come true so far. No reason why that should stop now.

The government will try to blame the EU

I think the government will try to blame a single country instead. This divide and conquer apporach is a little easier than blaming the entire EU at once. It will probably be France and if France doesn't work for some reason, then they'll try Germany.

Quote

but ultimately people will realise that none of this would have happened if people had given Farage the complete lack of attention and platform that he ever justified.

I wish I could be that optimistic.

Edited December 7, 2020 by God is Haaland

[RandoEFC+]

39 minutes ago, God is Haaland said:

I think the government will try to blame a single country instead. This divide and conquer apporach is a little easier than blaming the entire EU at once. It will probably be France and if France doesn't work for some reason, then they'll try Germany.

I wish I could be that optimistic.

Oh they'll definitely accuse France of being the worst culprits but they've had a narrative bubbling over of the EU being "obstinent" and "obstructive" whilst simultaneously beating the drum about how the UK won't back down over anything and they're taking No Deal because it's better than giving up our "sovereignty". It makes no sense under even the barest questioning but they've realised that the barest questioning just won't happen if they tap into the ill-informed flag-wavingness of the Britannia rules the waves demographic that make up a minority of their support base, but sadly is the loudest.

[Dr. Gonzo]

2 hours ago, RandoEFC said:

Basically everything the experts who backed Remain in 2016 has come true so far. No reason why that should stop now.

The government will try to blame the EU but ultimately people will realise that none of this would have happened if people had given Farage the complete lack of attention and platform that he ever justified.

How long will it take for people to realise this though?

I’m really not optimistic and scapegoating and pointing the finger elsewhere worked before I don’t see why it won’t work again. I’ve got very little faith in most of the leave voters to ever admit they were wrong.

[RandoEFC+]

47 minutes ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

How long will it take for people to realise this though?

I’m really not optimistic and scapegoating and pointing the finger elsewhere worked before I don’t see why it won’t work again. I’ve got very little faith in most of the leave voters to ever admit they were wrong.

The closer it gets to the deadline, the more people are losing faith in the whole project. I know it's only polling but this is before the consequences have even really started. If you take out the Don't Knows, the Leave/Remain split based on this polling is roughly now around 43/57, so around 1 in 5 Leave voters have moved towards it being the wrong decision. Of course there is a margin of error when it comes to polling but when you start getting to differences of about 10 points that's way outside that margin.

The loudest Brexiters will, by and large, never admit they were wrong, because they won't be able to psychologically even if it makes their lives worse. A lot more quieter ones who are actually capable of changing their minds will swing to thinking it was a bad idea as well. The likes of Nigel Farage and Jacob Rees-Mogg you'll obviously never hear change their minds.

[Stan]

 

[DeadLinesman]

39 minutes ago, Stan said:

 

Harped on and on about how great it is to be British. Except when it comes to his tax and businesses. Fuck off cunt.

[RandoEFC+]

It's all the Remainers' fault I'm hearing this week. We should have accepted a soft Brexit or something instead of continuing to try and stop the country from throwing itself off an economic cliff while taking freedom of movement away from ourselves. Some Remainers are actually peddling this shite as well (mainly the ones using it as an excuse to say you should have backed Corbyn if you wanted Brexit but not this disaster).

So Brexit being a failure is your fault if:

• You voted against Brexit.
• You campaigned against Brexit.
• You campaigned for a second referendum on Brexit after every poll for a year or more showed more support for Remain than Leave.
• You voted against the Conservatives at the last two general elections to try and stop Brexit.
• You didn't want Brexit.
• You tried to convince people that Brexit was a bad idea.
• You've had essentially no political power over the past 5 years.
• You're a Conservative MP who backed Remain and/or a reasonable Brexit deal to find some middle ground.

Whereas Brexit being a failure is not your fault if:

• You voted for Brexit.
• You campaigned for Brexit.
• Brexit was your idea.
• You're a part of what has been the country's ruling party for the last 10 years.
• You told the country during the referendum that it would be the easiest deal in history and have since been proven wrong.
• You're a member of the ERG who refused to compromise and accept Theresa May's Brexit deal instead of leading us down this rabbit hole.
• You're the current Prime Minister, who sold Brexit to the nation, became Foreign Secretary, a part of the UK's negotiation team under Theresa May, then resigned and voted against a Brexit deal last year, before then being elected on a slogan of "Get Brexit Done".
• You're a Conservative/Brexit Party member who has enough money not to be adversely affected by a disastrous Brexit.

I could go on. I've honestly got over it, it's happening, but I'm not having this shite about how its actually Remainers' fault for not getting on board sooner. If this was the 'will of the people' and 52% was the unquestionable majority that it's been made out to be over the past 5 years, then I'm afraid you dickheads have had 5 years to agree on something that you could get through parliament and get back to actually running the country (although with the current administration I dread to think what that looks like if/when it eventually happens).

There's serious talk of Boris Johnson facing a leadership challenge if he compromises on the remaining issues and makes some sort of deal. People need to wake up and see that this whole thing has been nothing more than a cross between a big game and an identity crisis for the Conservative party. Now that they've purged so many of the moderate and more progressive Conservatives from the party, they really are just politicking over who gets to be Head Boy.

Absolute fucking cunts.

[Inverted]

The biggest giveaway that Brexit was and is going to be a fucking disaster is that within months they were looking to assign blame for it. 
 

You’d think somebody at least would be wanting to take credit if it was going to bring even the most remote benefit to anyone whatsoever. 
 

Its also why its politically in their interest not to make a deal. If there’s a deal, there’s some definite “thing”, with their name on it, that they’re objectively answerable for, that you can call “Brexit”. If we just crash out with nothing, then all the consequences are just some shapeless calamity that’s fallen on us, and the media can spring promptly into action shaping the popular memory of what happened and who’s to blame. 

Edited December 9, 2020 by Inverted

[Dr. Gonzo]

Project fear!

A failure of statecraft to not get a deal!

We hold all the cards!

Oven-ready deal!

A bunch of fucking Turkeys that voted to be cooked for Christmas, who are now surprised the oven door is being shut behind them.

[Bluewolf]

30 minutes ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

Project fear!

A failure of statecraft to not get a deal!

We hold all the cards!

Oven-ready deal!

A bunch of fucking Turkeys that voted to be cooked for Christmas, who are now surprised the oven door is being shut behind them.

It's been interesting reading up on the deal breakers involved in this especially the fishing rights for example being a major stumbling block and although I don't know every crease of every page turned on this looking from the outside I can understand to some degree why we might be making a stand if, and I say if ( all things being truthful ) then we are going to walk away with a no deal and it's looking ever more likely that that will be the case... Looks like the promised oven ready deal needs to have stayed in the oven a bit longer because what's being served is as cold and tasteless as fuck... 

Edited December 10, 2020 by Bluewolf

[RandoEFC+]

The Leave campaign literally won the referendum by shouting loud enough and bullying enough TV stations into presenting Tory Brexiters as somehow equivalent to university professors and experts on international trade in TV debates, enough that actual information and reality was unable to gain a foothold in the public discourse. It's been all hands to the pump for four and a half years trying to suppress the increasingly unavoidable reality. It's hard to actually remember what they've been saying about Brexit. It turned from sunlit uplands into "it won't get that much worse" quite a long time ago.

Well, the rhetoric that has emerged since Johnson's dinner date with Ursula von Thingy says that there isn't going to be a trade deal and things are about to become pretty shit for a while. It's already "the EU's demands" aren't compatible with the UK's needs. Opinion polls ought to be interesting over the course of the next year. 

[Stan]

 

 

 

[Burning Gold]

On 09/12/2020 at 09:50, RandoEFC said:

It's all the Remainers' fault I'm hearing this week. We should have accepted a soft Brexit or something instead of continuing to try and stop the country from throwing itself off an economic cliff while taking freedom of movement away from ourselves. Some Remainers are actually peddling this shite as well (mainly the ones using it as an excuse to say you should have backed Corbyn if you wanted Brexit but not this disaster).

So Brexit being a failure is your fault if:

• You voted against Brexit.
• You campaigned against Brexit.
• You campaigned for a second referendum on Brexit after every poll for a year or more showed more support for Remain than Leave.
• You voted against the Conservatives at the last two general elections to try and stop Brexit.
• You didn't want Brexit.
• You tried to convince people that Brexit was a bad idea.
• You've had essentially no political power over the past 5 years.
• You're a Conservative MP who backed Remain and/or a reasonable Brexit deal to find some middle ground.

Whereas Brexit being a failure is not your fault if:

• You voted for Brexit.
• You campaigned for Brexit.
• Brexit was your idea.
• You're a part of what has been the country's ruling party for the last 10 years.
• You told the country during the referendum that it would be the easiest deal in history and have since been proven wrong.
• You're a member of the ERG who refused to compromise and accept Theresa May's Brexit deal instead of leading us down this rabbit hole.
• You're the current Prime Minister, who sold Brexit to the nation, became Foreign Secretary, a part of the UK's negotiation team under Theresa May, then resigned and voted against a Brexit deal last year, before then being elected on a slogan of "Get Brexit Done".
• You're a Conservative/Brexit Party member who has enough money not to be adversely affected by a disastrous Brexit.

I could go on. I've honestly got over it, it's happening, but I'm not having this shite about how its actually Remainers' fault for not getting on board sooner. If this was the 'will of the people' and 52% was the unquestionable majority that it's been made out to be over the past 5 years, then I'm afraid you dickheads have had 5 years to agree on something that you could get through parliament and get back to actually running the country (although with the current administration I dread to think what that looks like if/when it eventually happens).

There's serious talk of Boris Johnson facing a leadership challenge if he compromises on the remaining issues and makes some sort of deal. People need to wake up and see that this whole thing has been nothing more than a cross between a big game and an identity crisis for the Conservative party. Now that they've purged so many of the moderate and more progressive Conservatives from the party, they really are just politicking over who gets to be Head Boy.

Absolute fucking cunts.

I don't think it's "their fault", but there is absolutely a group of people who decided that, instead of accepting Brexit and trying for the most favourable terms possible, they'd try to block it altogether. Fair enough, you can argue it's a noble goal, but it hasn't come off and they need to accept their share of responsibility for the situation we've ended up in. The issue has become so polarised by various attempts to stop Brexit (even more so!) that the party line is now that hard Brexit is the only acceptable type and pro-Brexit Boris Johnson is Prime Minister. When the Brexit-neutral May was Prime Minister, there was an actual vote in parliament that could've seen us go down the soft Brexit route that failed by 3 votes because some were too determined to cancel Brexit altogether.

I know this sounds like when we blame Lib Dem voters for Tories winning instead of Tory voters, but you can only control so much and you have to expect that Tories are gonna Tory, and people who want Brexit are going to push it as far as they feel they can.

[RandoEFC+]

1 hour ago, Burning Gold said:

I don't think it's "their fault", but there is absolutely a group of people who decided that, instead of accepting Brexit and trying for the most favourable terms possible, they'd try to block it altogether. Fair enough, you can argue it's a noble goal, but it hasn't come off and they need to accept their share of responsibility for the situation we've ended up in. The issue has become so polarised by various attempts to stop Brexit (even more so!) that the party line is now that hard Brexit is the only acceptable type and pro-Brexit Boris Johnson is Prime Minister. When the Brexit-neutral May was Prime Minister, there was an actual vote in parliament that could've seen us go down the soft Brexit route that failed by 3 votes because some were too determined to cancel Brexit altogether.

I know this sounds like when we blame Lib Dem voters for Tories winning instead of Tory voters, but you can only control so much and you have to expect that Tories are gonna Tory, and people who want Brexit are going to push it as far as they feel they can.

I disagree, remainers were well within their rights to keep saying Brexit was a bad idea and were well within their rights to campaign for a second referendum last year when it became apparent that most of what won the Leave campaign the referendum was built on lies.

The second referendum campaign has had absolutely no impact on whether it's a hard or soft Brexit. The Tories had a majority government and they couldn't get any sort of Brexit anywhere near complete. They still have a majority government now, and they won't be able to pass a soft Brexit through parliament. Why? Because they can't get the nut job ERG wing of the party to get on board with any compromise and the mainstream Tories are terrified of Farage coming out of the woodwork to steal the Rule Britannia vote from them. Why should Remainers take the heat if they can't even get their own party to vote for any sort of Brexit?

At some point, Brexiters are going to have to own Brexit. We all have to compromise and I don't want it to be I told you so because that only leads to more division and is going to actively encourage those who still believe in Brexit to keep denying facts and reality rather than eventually changing their mind.

Continuing to campaign for what you believe in is basic democracy and Remainers should not apologise for fighting for what they believe in. The polls have said for 2-3 years almost uninterrupted that the majority agree with them on this issue.

Pretending that it's partially our fault for fighting against it just enables the Tories not to take responsibility for this insane, damaging policy that they've pursued at all costs, and god knows with this current shower in charge you know they don't need a second invitation to say "it's not my fault, look over there!"

[RandoEFC+]

Speaking of Brexiters, from the man that brought you "the Grenfell victims should have had more common sense"...