Brexit discussion thread IX (Please read OP before posting)

kuro68k

briany wrote: »

If there were too many burqas in the street, pre-Brexit, there will still be too many in the street, post-Brexit. It would be 'interesting' to see where the xenophobic part of Brexit goes when the number of brown faces and veiled faces doesn't really diminish after Oct. 31st.

They voted for more brown faces and burkas. People like Rees-Mogg were very clear that post-brexit the immigration situation for those countries would get easier. He and many others promised that.

Since they all knew exactly what they were voting for an were not mislead at all, they must have wanted that.

devnull

Not sure if it's been covered already but there's tlak on SKy this morning that the Tory party have a three point plan to thawt any chance of No Deal being topped by democratically elected representatives.

The three weapons they have are
- Prorouging Parliament
- Calling an election with an extremely long lead time
- Boris refusing to leave Downing Street if losing a vote of no confidence and squatting there.

Basically the feeling is now that they will do anything to push No Deal through and are effectively now saying that they will cease to be politicians and will simply start dictating how it will work like a true dictator.

Democracy it ain't.

Popeleo

Of course, it is not just newspapers that are the playthings of very rich men. The "new media" is also affected by this, except it is probably easier to hide financial ties.

It is amazing that someone like Brendan O'Neill is getting so much airtime when financial links between Spiked and the Koch brothers (of Tea Party infamy) are public knowledge. But, you know, every debate needs balance....



How US billionaires are fuelling the hard-right cause in Britain

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/dec/07/us-billionaires-hard-right-britain-spiked-magazine-charles-david-koch-foundation

Peregrinus

devnull wrote: »

Not sure if it's been covered already but there's tlak on SKy this morning that the Tory party have a three point plan to thawt any chance of No Deal being topped by democratically elected representatives.

The three weapons they have are
- Prorouging Parliament
- Calling an election with an extremely long lead time
- Boris refusing to leave Downing Street if losing a vote of no confidence and squatting there.

Basically the feeling is now that they will do anything to push No Deal through and are effectively now saying that they will cease to be politicians and will simply start dictating how it will work like a true dictator.

Democracy it ain't.

Well, in fairness, there's also the view that Johnson is promoting talk of this kind precisely to goad Parliament into acting to stop his drive for the cliff-edge. The thinking here is that he wants it stopped; he just doesn't want to wear the responsiblity for stopping it.

It's his "stop me before I kill again!" strategy.

First Up

kuro68k wrote:

Since they all knew exactly what they were voting for an were not mislead at all, they must have wanted that.

The typical reader of the Sun wouldn't be familiar with the nuances of international migration. "Keep the darkies out" was a line famously quoted in one Brexit forum.

I have no doubt that many voted for Brexit because they don't like Pakistanis.

Will they ever learn? Who cares?

Roger_007

kuro68k wrote: »

They voted for more brown faces and burkas. People like Rees-Mogg were very clear that post-brexit the immigration situation for those countries would get easier. He and many others promised that.

Since they all knew exactly what they were voting for an were not mislead at all, they must have wanted that.

What the Brexiteers were advocating was that immigration should only on a 'points' based system. What they want is only people with the qualifications and skills that, (in their view), will benefit the economy.
What seems not to have occurred to them is that the result of this policy would be that all the low-skill jobs would exclusively be occupied the 'natives'. I'm not sure that many leave voters voted for that outcome.

InTheShadows

devnull wrote: »

Not sure if it's been covered already but there's tlak on SKy this morning that the Tory party have a three point plan to thawt any chance of No Deal being topped by democratically elected representatives.

The three weapons they have are
- Prorouging Parliament
- Calling an election with an extremely long lead time
- Boris refusing to leave Downing Street if losing a vote of no confidence and squatting there.

Basically the feeling is now that they will do anything to push No Deal through and are effectively now saying that they will cease to be politicians and will simply start dictating how it will work like a true dictator.

Democracy it ain't.

It is democracy. It's parliament doing all it can to enforce the democratic will of the people.

swampgas

Joe_ Public wrote: »

I think it's unfair to suggest of Corbyn that he is a hard brexiteer who secretly wants a no deal crash-out. I know quite a few people hold this view, and i've seen it written by at least one serious commentator, but i dont believe it and i dont believe i've seen a scintilla of evidence in support of it in the 3 years since the referendum. I think corbyn can be criticised for many things, he has been weak on all the main issues no question, but the criticism can be overdone and the media, right and left, certainly does him no favours.

I don't really have an axe to grind with Corbyn (apart from him being totally dishonest about his position), but my reading of everything he has said and done so far is that his least preferred option is EU membership, and that he is prepared to gamble on the UK crashing out with no-deal rather than risk Article 50 being revoked or a future arrangement that resembles full membership in terms of constraints on what he might do as PM.

Johnson and Corbyn seem to have come to the same conclusion: the withdrawal agreement is not acceptable, staying fully in is not acceptable, so the only option is to crash out and then work on new arrangements with the EU afterwards.

If he really does want to stay in the EU, well his leadership has been so weak and ineffectual that he may as well be a hard Brexiter. He has neither articulated a strong remain argument nor has he stood down as leader to let someone else do so. He and his supporters are, unwittingly perhaps, assisting the likes of Rees-Mogg, Johnson and the ERG rather than doing what the majority of Labour Party members claim to believe in.

Peregrinus

InTheShadows wrote: »

It is democracy. It's parliament doing all it can to enforce the democratic will of the people.

Huh? It's not Parliament doing anything at all. It's unelected bureacrats like Dominic Cummings doing everything they can to prevent Parliament from takign control of the situation.

Christy42

InTheShadows wrote: »

It is democracy. It's parliament doing all it can to enforce the democratic will of the people.

Didn't Boris Johnson say no government would be stupid enough to take them out of the single market? Did they vote for no deal? Did they vote for the WA? Did they vote for Norway style deal?

The question was badly phrased so we don't know what they voted for.

Right now it is like asking someone if they want to go to the shops and taking them on a 3 hour journey across the country to a Tesco 100 miles away shouting at them that this was their choice and they wanted to go to the shops. And sure wasn't it absolutely clear that the question meant the Tesco miles away instead of the one around the corner.

beggars_bush

First Up wrote: »

The typical reader of the Sun wouldn't be familiar with the nuances of international migration. "Keep the darkies out" was a line famously quoted in one Brexit forum.

I have no doubt that many voted for Brexit because they don't like Pakistanis.

Will they ever learn? Who cares?

You cannot yearn for a return of The Empire, when all the peoples from the countries you subjugated followed you home; and then you complain about them

LuckyLloyd

InTheShadows wrote: »

It is democracy. It's parliament doing all it can to enforce the democratic will of the people.

I do wonder sometimes whether western people who have essentially been radicalised by a media divide and conquer assault realise it? Are people cognisant of how they have been manipulated in a grand game of disaster capitalism?

murphaph

I was originally hoping that the whole thing would be stopped somehow but now we see the vitriol aimed at us in Ireland for daring to put the peace process and an open border on our island ahead of Brexit. If it is stopped we will be painted as the Eternal Paddy.

I would much rather now that somehow Johnson calls a GE and wins a majority and can throw the DUP under the bus, deliver the NI only backstop and take GB out of the EU to see what it's like outside.

It would be the icing on the cake to see the NI economy prosper inside the EU (effectively) while GB goes into decline. That would hopefully show the idiots once and for all that being in the EU makes sense.

Fed up of the UK now.

Leroy42

One thing that is clear is that politicians are no longer accountable for previous positions or statements. Gove came out yesterday saying that it was wrong and sad that the EU won't renegotiate yet during the ref he said that the UK would hold all the cards in any talks.

Johnson has said it would be crazy to leave the SM, yet here he is almost defying the HoC to get it.

We have people like JRM claiming that the EU took away sovereignty and now are more than happy to see the HoL and HoC completely sidelined in order to get what they want.

I think at this stage a crash out is really the only option, even if Johnson was to do a uturn and accept the WA, can anyone really have any confidence that it would be adhered to? They have zero credibility.

I see that BBC are doing a No Deal day, looking at the realities of No Deal. I only heard a small bit, when someone talked about the possibile issues with No Deal, and then then had another person on about the opportunities. Of course the issues were pretty clear (tariffs, delays, costs, inflation, job losses etc) whilst the opportunities were nebulous at best (future growth, new markets, chance to try new things).

Faisal Islam is talking about food distribution in No Deal Britain and the supermarkets etc are asking that Competition laws been suspended to allow them to manage the crisis, like one would do in war or in the oil crisis. Just that part alone should have alarms bells ringing. There is no need for a crisis, this is all under their control.

So the result of Brexit will be the abandonment of competition laws! Really. Of course employment laws won't be far behind, a given since the Tory party have no problem with Fixed Hour Contracts.

FrancieBrady

murphaph wrote: »

I was originally hoping that the whole thing would be stopped somehow but now we see the vitriol aimed at us in Ireland for daring to put the peace process and an open border on our island ahead of Brexit. If it is stopped we will be painted as the Eternal Paddy.

Our revenge will be the laughter of our finance minister delivering the surplus budgets for a UI!

Nody

beggars_bush wrote: »

You cannot yearn for a return of The Empire, when all the peoples from the countries you subjugated followed you home; and then you complain about them

Of course you can; same way Brexiteers say there is a technological solution for NI in the same breath they can't accept the backstop as it would lock them into remaining in EU forever. Facts or logic does not need to apply; heck look at Boris interview on the GATT rules...

Seth Brundle

kuro68k wrote: »

They voted for more brown faces and burkas. People like Rees-Mogg were very clear that post-brexit the immigration situation for those countries would get easier. He and many others promised that.

Since they all knew exactly what they were voting for an were not mislead at all, they must have wanted that.

So they all knew what they were voting for?
Why then the need to google what the EU was? Even the poisonous Express "newspaper" writes

HOURS after the UK voted to leave the European Union, "What is the EU?" has become the second-most Google search term on the issue.

Google Trends showed the top query directed to the search engine was "What does it mean to leave the EU?"

The third most searched question on the EU was "Which countries are in the EU?", followed by "What will happen now we've left the EU?"

https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/683240/google-brexit-eu-referendum-vote-leave

Given, as you say, they all knew, did they all choose to have the same type of Brexit?
By ticking the yes option, did everyone choose to leave the single market?
By ticking the yes option, did everyone choose to leave the customs union?

As for the brown faces nonsense, Farage's group pushed the xenophobic angle in order to keep out the foreigners. So were people only listening to JRM and not Farage or are you wrong?

Valhallapt

What I’ll never understand is their insistence to leave everything all at once. I get that they want to leave SM and CU, but why couldn’t they manage this with a phased plan.

12 months after having voted to leave they could have left all the political institutions of the EU, aka the Norway plus model, in the scheme of things this would have been easy to implement.

After that settles down, they could give themselves another year to leave the customs union, some trade offs in NI would have to happen, the size of the changes would be smaller in a presumably less febrile atmosphere.

Then a few years after they make plans to leave the single market, probably the most complex transition with the biggest impact on NI, but the backstop wouldn't be seems as so undemocratic as now they are outside the EU it’s more of a technical protocol to ensure a future FTA.

FTA negotiations continue and Ireland has a veto it wields to minimize impact on the border to get a FTA that works for Ireland.

Doesn’t fit the disaster capatilism model though....

storker

FrancieBrady wrote: »

Our revenge will be the laughter of our finance minister delivering the surplus budgets for a UI!

A United Ireland could well turn out to be as much of a money-pit for Dublin as Northern Ireland has been for London.

Bit cynical

Valhallapt wrote: »

FTA negotiations continue and Ireland has a veto it wields to minimize impact on the border to get a FTA that works for Ireland.

I don't think Ireland's veto is that valuable to us since in the case of future negotiations between the UK and the EU, Ireland will want an FTA more than the EU as a whole.

Enzokk

devnull wrote: »

Not sure if it's been covered already but there's tlak on SKy this morning that the Tory party have a three point plan to thawt any chance of No Deal being topped by democratically elected representatives.

The three weapons they have are
- Prorouging Parliament
- Calling an election with an extremely long lead time
- Boris refusing to leave Downing Street if losing a vote of no confidence and squatting there.

Basically the feeling is now that they will do anything to push No Deal through and are effectively now saying that they will cease to be politicians and will simply start dictating how it will work like a true dictator.

Democracy it ain't.

Peregrinus has mentioned it before, but the irony of leaving the EU due to the unelected bureaucrats running it only to have one as the brains behind the PM.

PETER OBORNE: Why I fear the future of Britain (and Boris Johnson) is now in the hands of unelected Svengali Dominic Cummings

Dominic Cummings, who is today installed in Downing Street as arguably the second most powerful man in Britain, first came to public attention when played by Benedict Cumberbatch in Channel 4's Brexit: The Uncivil War.

The drama told the behind-the-scenes story of Vote Leave's successful campaign in the 2016 EU referendum.

Cumberbatch interpreted Cummings, the campaign director, as a sinister anti-hero and eminence grise controlling events.

Carole Cadwalladr warned and was vocal about that Channel 4 program and the dangers of humanizing Cummins, and so it has turned out to be.

I will just have one more quote from the article on the dangers of Cummins,

Tony Blair was also a creature of his powerful adviser, Alastair Campbell. They showed equal arrogance and contempt for Parliament.

They, too, were indifferent to truth. They, too, had little integrity. The Blair/Campbell double act ended in the tragedy of the Iraq war, the unnecessary deaths of countless Iraqis, 179 brave British service personnel and ultimately the rise of Islamic State.

We can only hope that the double act of Boris Johnson and Dominic Cummings has a happier outcome.

Peregrinus wrote: »

Well, in fairness, there's also the view that Johnson is promoting talk of this kind precisely to goad Parliament into acting to stop his drive for the cliff-edge. The thinking here is that he wants it stopped; he just doesn't want to wear the responsiblity for stopping it.

It's his "stop me before I kill again!" strategy.

On the Remainiacs podcast last week it was mentioned the danger of Johnson is that he actually wants to be the best PM ever to prove the doubters wrong. This means he is more likely to take risks and his pronouncement of (and I am paraphrasing here) not seeing risk but opportunities speaks to this.

I have no idea what the plan is, but my worst case scenario is that his team believes that he can cement his place in history by making a success of Brexit. That would eliminate the Brexit Party and if it goes well would win over the moderates once more. Then he would have a free hand for years to come.

Leroy42 wrote: »

I see that BBC are doing a No Deal day, looking at the realities of No Deal. I only heard a small bit, when someone talked about the possibile issues with No Deal, and then then had another person on about the opportunities. Of course the issues were pretty clear (tariffs, delays, costs, inflation, job losses etc) whilst the opportunities were nebulous at best (future growth, new markets, chance to try new things).

Faisal Islam is talking about food distribution in No Deal Britain and the supermarkets etc are asking that Competition laws been suspended to allow them to manage the crisis, like one would do in war or in the oil crisis. Just that part alone should have alarms bells ringing. There is no need for a crisis, this is all under their control.

So the result of Brexit will be the abandonment of competition laws! Really. Of course employment laws won't be far behind, a given since the Tory party have no problem with Fixed Hour Contracts.

I think what will happen is that there will be laws suspended to mitigate the worst of no-deal at the beginning. This would include the competition rules that you mention to ensure the shortages are held to an acceptable level. In the first few weeks after no-deal after a week of panic you will have 2 weeks or so of calm where the shelves will be managed and the predictions of doom and gloom will appear to have been project fear.

The Brexiteers will at this stage claim victory, ignoring why this has happened and being emboldened to shun the EU and head to the US and talks with Trump.

FrancieBrady

storker wrote: »

A United Ireland could well turn out to be as much of a money-pit for Dublin as it has been for London.

As a solution at the moment, it is of huge value:

To the rest of the EU
To London
And to us.

Each of the above benefit differently and to varying degrees.

Enzokk

The worrying thing for me is that right now we are seeing the same lies and deception that we saw with the Leave campaign, but now it is the UK Government with the propaganda.

https://twitter.com/the3million/status/1158744074138128384?s=20

So that is the Brexit Department tweeting that the UK has guaranteed the rights of EU Citizens and it is time for the EU to do the same. The reply is that this is a lie, nothing has been written into law and there is actually a bill in parliament right now to do the opposite.

Add to that the shambles of the NHS funding,

https://twitter.com/Channel4News/status/1158450781575684096?s=20

The funding is not new, it is funds that trusts saved with cost cutting and was told that they would be able to spend on capital when they reached their targets. To no surprise the UK then went back on the agreement and didn't allow them to spend the money.

Now Johnson is claiming that he is giving the NHS much needed funds. This is another lie. I hope the journalists are aware of this trend and will this time be more aware of it and hold those spouting these lies to task.

Shelga

FrancieBrady wrote: »

As a solution at the moment, it is of huge value:

To the rest of the EU
To London
And to us.

Each of the above benefit differently and to varying degrees.

Anything less than around 56-58% voting in favour of reunification with Ireland, and you’ll see huge trouble. I think we’re a long long way off those kinds of numbers.

A reunification referendum in the north that has a 50.2% result in favour of a united Ireland, will bring us years and years of trouble and strife. Dare I say, civil war?

I’d say wait 5+ years after a no deal Brexit, minimum, let’s just see what happens long-term.

murphaph

storker wrote: »

A United Ireland could well turn out to be as much of a money-pit for Dublin as Northern Ireland has been for London.

It would be in the beginning without a doubt. Might well be for a generation afterwards and I would have almost certainly voted against a UI before Brexit was a thing as I saw no huge benefit. Now I would vote for a UI if it meant eliminating an ugly hard border in Ireland caused by Brexit.

Ben Done

^Always appreciate your posts Enzo - good sources, and good analysis from yourself.

murphaph

Bit cynical wrote: »

I don't think Ireland's veto is that valuable to us since in the case of future negotiations between the UK and the EU, Ireland will want an FTA more than the EU as a whole.

But the UK will want one even more than Ireland.

Ben Done

J Mysterio wrote: »

I think the only way the wind can be taken out of the sails of these maniacs/ fanatics (and their deluded followers) is for them to have their hard Brexit. Once they stand in the ruins, they will know they were wrong.

Should they feel 'cheated' out of it, we'll never hear the end of this sh1te.

This doesnt mean those of right mind should bow down to Brexiteers or give over to them, but im not sure there is actually enough determined, concerted resistance to avoid what is seeming like the inevitable now. People are just worn down and fed up of it. Anything to make it 'end' (of course we all know this will be ongoing).

A referendum at this stage is a non runner I think, not before a GE anyway. A GE might be the only alternative to a crashout Brexit.

It is literally unbelievable how the UK government are behaving right now, they are every bit as bad as Trump, and in some ways worse. Trump is a bit 'off', but people like Gove are clever. Sneaky and deceitful, but clever.

The UK have gone full in on Cummings method now - manipulating people with populist 'us against them', nationalist rhetoric. It was very disturbing to see when Johnson, Raab, Javid and Gove all kept repeating the new mantra: 'the undemocratic backstop'. They will keep repeating it untill it is the first thing anyone (particularly Brexiteers) think when they hear the word 'backstop' (undemocratic). It's Goebbels stuff.

Gove also trying to frame the UK bluff as the EU refusing to negotiate is utterly contemptible, but that seems to be official UK policy now - play the biggest game of chicken there ever was - look how big our massive British balls are. Well, they are risking the livelihoods and welfare of millions of UK and EU citizens, and for what? Nonsense. Very few adults in the room and no saving them from themselves. The longer this goes on and the worse the rhetoric gets, the less you actually want to save them from themselves /rant

One of the best posts on this thread - thanks.

WomanSkirtFan8

Enzokk wrote: »

I know, but it was linked on the thread and I wanted to highlight some of the points the piece raises about Brexit. It is good to hear the opposing side, we have been accused of being an echo chamber here so seeing what is an opinion on the other side is at the very least interesting.

I look at it this way, if the argument put forward has some merit and is not veiled behind clever language or dubious use of statistics then we are bound to listen to it. The argument in that piece was not in any of the categories that made me sit up and reevaluate if there is merit in the policy being followed by the UK right now. So I agree there isn't a lot of value in it and seeing as it is from the 3rd August and has not attracted attention it seems that most have ignored it or others has not seen it fit to share it around.

OK fair enough I suppose.

storker

FrancieBrady wrote: »

As a solution at the moment, it is of huge value:

To the rest of the EU
To London
And to us.

Each of the above benefit differently and to varying degrees.

As a short-term political solution to the current Brexit-related crisis, perhaps it looks tempting, but to my mind the more short-term the implementation, the more dangerous is it in terms of costs and violence. When it comes to the idea of a United Ireland, there seems to be a "sure won't it be great" mentality that glosses over some serious risks, and I've yet to see them addressed in a realistic manner.