Off Topic Politics Thread

But Brexit enabled the racists, hence why racist abuse and attacks are going up. As I have said before, voting for Brexit itself isn't racist, but by voting Brexit people enabled racists.

I have a huge problem voting and always have to way up the good vs the bad. I don't just mean the good vs bad for me as well. I am fairly well off and have a flat I nearly own. So I like to look out for the less well off, like the sick and poor. So mainly look at stuff that will help them, I can take a hit, but they can't.

 

I think we're going round in circles with the racist thing so I'll leave it there.

I think most people try to do the right thing when voting but unfortunately we don't all agree what the right thing is.

 

Imp: The point is that the Conseravitves should be a mainstream centre-right party. Their natural allies should be the CDs of Germany, the Gaullists. Yet here in the UK we have a mainstream Conservative party adopting the policies of UKIP, who if we are honest have a similar outlook to AfD and the Dutch Freedom party. Is this what we want from the UK Conservative party. If it is they should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves. There are huge numbers of Conservatives who voted to remain in the EU, and these millions are being ignored by their own Government, so the Government needs to be shamed until this is addressed and the Conservatives rejoin mainstream European politics.

 

Theresa May and Donald Trump have started trade negotiations by giving a lucrative military contract to Trotters Independent Traders!

 

Exactly, my thoughts. I don't think I've ever voted selfishly, or at least, entirely selfishly with a Blair Labour government. For most of my working life I've been fairly comfortably off, even after I broke up with the ex-wife, by making sure she would be very comfortable. But you'd think I'd be centre right or right wing in my thinking. Not a bit of it. I cannot condone a society that allows people to drop through the system, wasting their lives away and getting used to grinding poverty and despair, while a minority live the high-life. If we have that kind of society then the support system has to be so much better. Instead of which, this government wants to tip the balance even more in favour of those who don't actually need any help.

 

Facts from the Red Cross:

More than half of the world's refugees (60 per cent) came from just five countries:

Numbers of people per country:

• Syria: 4.2 million
• Afghanistan: 2.6 million
• Somalia: 1.1 million
• Sudan: 744,000
• South Sudan: 641,000

So one of your list is in the top five sources of refugees. And (factually) there's civil war in Somalia as well. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somali_Civil_War)

Guesswork does not good politics make.

Vin

 

They are a centre right mainstream party. You didn't say before that you thought they "should be" you said that historically "they were." They were pro the common market because they are pro business but the common market is not the EU and they have never been "Pro EU" until Cameron filled the ranks with Blairites like himself. In the same way as Labour were not Pro EU until Blair won and filled all those empty spots up with like minded people.

Neither of the main parties were "proEU", The Tories were Pro common market. It was the landslide of Blair that enabled Blair to change the Labour parliamentary opinion and then the Cameron takeover of the Tory party that enabled him to do the same and that is why parliament does not represent the general opinion of the country anymore. Because Blair and Cameron installed people in there that wiped out the usual spread of opinions within parties.

The Tories are no way inline with what you call conservative in the US, Germany or France. All 4 countries are vastly different in their makeup, their beliefs and so much more which is one reason why we have such problems and it is foolish to try and say that the Tories should be aligned with the CDU or even the right in France. They will share similar opinions on many things but on others will be worlds apart.

This whole premise of Tories adopting UKIP policy is crazy. The Tories are not adopting UKIP policies at all. Since Cameron they have moved way off to the left on some things and further right than UKIP on others because Cameron adopted Blairite policies. That meaning uber-capitalism with uber liberal values to cover it up.

UKIP are in no way equivalent to the Dutch Freedom Party nor AfD or Front Nacional, again vastly different parties with huge differences on many issues. It is wrong to lump them all together as racist anti-immigration parties when Wilders lot and Le Pen's lot are quite blatantly very anti immigration with racist leanings while UKIP want controlled immigration. They are anti MASS immigration. AfD seem to me to be something even nastier.

Of course within the ranks of UKIP there will be some racist element using a viable cover and certainly racist voters but you can say this of all parties. Extremism is not something you can only pin down to UKIP or its supporters. Labour has an extreme left problem visibly in its ranks and struggles with extreme muslim elements that try to get into the party. The lutfur Rahman case was one of those where people were told they must vote a certain way by Imams as it was their duty as well. The names surrounding Rahman have crept up in many other areas too where there is a suspicion that people are either not voting of their own free mind or that they aren't even voting because someone else is collecting the cards up and filling them all in for them.

That does not make a party extreme and while I will freely admit that Farage will intentionally sail close to the wind he is not racist. All parties want the votes of the extremists though whichever side or leaning they are because it is the total that counts. You don't win anything by being picking and choosing who votes for you and there are not 4 million racists in the UK that voted for UKIP!

You are right that there are millions of Conservatives that voted remain but how many? What %? How many Labour voters voted to remain? Nobody really knows.

You are wrong to say what the Conservative Party should be though. You are saying what YOU think they should be and ignoring that Cameron like Blair changed his party's parliamentary representation after lying to get the job. If anything people are happy the Tories are seemingly back to being Conservatives instead of a continuation of Blair. They haven't adopted UKIP policies though. The real Tories (if May continues the way she is) have only been in power now for 6 months. Cameron and Blair were one and the same and Cameron's Tories adopted Blairite policies not UKIP ones. UKIP economic policies were to the left of the uber capitalists.

 

I assume you stopped voting for Blair then after the first term when it was clear he was doing exactly this?

 

Doesn't answer this stat though. What happened to "families" and "women and Children first."

According to UNHCR data, 58% of the refugees and migrants arriving in Europe by sea in 2015 were men, 17% were women and 25% were children.

 

Just be satisfied with the fact that I've never voted Tory.

 

266 pages this thread - probably half of it written by Imp. I've read a lot of it, understood about 10% of it. If you were Prime Minister Imp - what would your policies be? Do it like Trump - for the morons like me

 

He'd build a wall around Lincolnshire!...

 

And make Rutland pay for it.

Only kidding Imps.

 

lol that's funny! yes everything he says seems to be anti something - is he pro something?

 

I'm no good at building walls or pussy grabbing.

If I could reel of what I would do then I wouldn;t be sat on my sofa moaning. I would be out there manoeuvering for a perch and a leg up the greasy ladder.

 

No offence but thats equivalent to saying if you buy any branded goods, you are supporting corporations who take advantage of the poor in the countries who build/create/manufacture your samsung/iphone/laptop/clothes for peanuts who not only probably use child labour and have outrageous health and safety they then go and probably use that money to bribe someone like trump so indirectly support him. YOU ARE ENABLING TRUMP.

Using Beefys argument you mr warmongering blair because you voted him in. Indirectly you killed and refugeed hundreds and thousands of iraqis.

P.s. i didn't vote brexit.

 

With a gate on the road to Nottingham

 

I am pro people chilling out and stop finding offence at everything because then I would not feel the need to moan about. I am PRO equal rights whether you believe that or not but very anti quotas or positive discrimination.

I just think that there should be equal opportunity for all, properly enforced and not this forced situation to try and correct things.

I think that people should stop abusing identity politics to suit their political agendas because it ends up making the problems worse (or keeping them alive, stoking the fires)

Other than that, I react. I am not overly pro-active, have no really new ideas or solutions. I am after all just a normal nobody with 1 vote like you and ave no influence in the world.

 

but you've written pages and pages of stuff! you obviously have an opinion on everything that has happened over the last 4 decades and therefore must have an opinion on where you'd like it to go! Come on - get my vote!

 

Actually Imp - you are not just a normal nobody! Anyone is just a normal nobody until they are heard!