Off Topic Politics Thread

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St Badger said:
Pressure would then be squarely on Buffoon as he wouldn’t be able to blame them for the hated No Deal he is aiming for.
Outsmarted?
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Don't think that will work because Johnson will just refuse to honor any EU commitments, essentially freeloading off of them. He is not interested in any deal. His idea of negotiations is to ask the EU to pay you all to go away, which of course they aren't going to do.

I mean yes, it will essentially put all the blame on BJ but how does that help the EU if the UK voters don't care? I think things are well past the point now. Everyone in the EU is (correctly) blaming the UK for this mess. And people in the UK haven't shown any signs that they are going to get their **** together and possibly remain or at least negotiate an acceptable exit plan.

Say they gave y'all another 6 months. What's going to change?
 
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I Sorry I Ruined The Party said:
Don't think that will work because Johnson will just refuse to honor any EU commitments, essentially freeloading off of them. He is not interested in any deal. His idea of negotiations is to ask the EU to pay you all to go away, which of course they aren't going to do.

I mean yes, it will essentially put all the blame on BJ but how does that help the EU if the UK voters don't care? I think things are well past the point now. Everyone in the EU is (correctly) blaming the UK for this mess. And people in the UK haven't shown any signs that they are going to get their **** together and possibly remain or at least negotiate an acceptable exit plan.

Say they gave y'all another 6 months. What's going to change?
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We are, even if we walk out of the EU with no deal, still subject to international law. Sanctions could be imposed on us which would effectively stop us trading with anyone if we didn’t honour our commitments.

When you say “people in the UK”, who exactly do you mean? Only the government has any ability to negotiate with the EU, and they have spectacularly failed to do so.

Believe me, there are plenty of people in the UK, probably a significant majority by now, who aren’t represented yet the shower of clowns currently in charge.
 
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I Sorry I Ruined The Party said:
Don't think that will work because Johnson will just refuse to honor any EU commitments, essentially freeloading off of them. He is not interested in any deal. His idea of negotiations is to ask the EU to pay you all to go away, which of course they aren't going to do.

I mean yes, it will essentially put all the blame on BJ but how does that help the EU if the UK voters don't care? I think things are well past the point now. Everyone in the EU is (correctly) blaming the UK for this mess. And people in the UK haven't shown any signs that they are going to get their **** together and possibly remain or at least negotiate an acceptable exit plan.

Say they gave y'all another 6 months. What's going to change?
Click to expand...

6 months should be enough to get a law in place stopping a no deal exit.
 
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ChilcoSaint said:
We are, even if we walk out of the EU with no deal, still subject to international law. Sanctions could be imposed on us which would effectively stop us trading with anyone if we didn’t honour our commitments.
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Yes, they have that leverage if they can get other countries to play along. And that's all the leverage they have whether you stay or go. Which is why they should be willing to let you leave. If you don't want to be there and you're not going to play by the rules, then they should kick you out and treat you as an outsider accordingly.

When you say “people in the UK”, who exactly do you mean? Only the government has any ability to negotiate with the EU, and they have spectacularly failed to do so.

Believe me, there are plenty of people in the UK, probably a significant majority by now, who aren’t represented yet the shower of clowns currently in charge.
Click to expand...

But that's not their affair. You guys have had plenty of time to figure something out and you haven't. That's why it's do-or-die and everyone has to go out and do absolutely everything they can to try and stop Johnson. You might fail, but if you can convince the EU that the tide has turned, then they'll wait. They'd rather have you in the EU than out, but if it were me, I'd need some assurances. The way it looks now, not only does it seem like you all will leave, but your whole democratic process is looking rather sketchy. Things look like they might get worse before they get better.

Their best shot is to hope you run your leaders out of there. And maybe the best way to do that is to pull support and let you hit rock bottom because otherwise they are just enabling you and costing themselves money.

Look, it's the same in the US. Trump lost the popular vote but he's still President. I think most of the world is still hoping we get our **** together. And it's why we're getting a little bit of the soft treatment from other countries. Everyone is hoping that Trump loses in 2020. If he doesn't, then at that point people will write us off. We've still got nukes and $$$ and a psychotic leader so they'll have to be extremely careful. But at that point, if Trump provokes China or the EU or whoever into a fight, they'll fight. They have to. There's no point in making deals with Trump who will ask for the world and never honor his side of the bargain. Just like there's no point in making deals with Johnson. These guys are scoundrels.
 
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I Sorry I Ruined The Party said:
Yes, they have that leverage if they can get other countries to play along. And that's all the leverage they have whether you stay or go. Which is why they should be willing to let you leave. If you don't want to be there and you're not going to play by the rules, then they should kick you out and treat you as an outsider accordingly.



But that's not their affair. You guys have had plenty of time to figure something out and you haven't. That's why it's do-or-die and everyone has to go out and do absolutely everything they can to try and stop Johnson. You might fail, but if you can convince the EU that the tide has turned, then they'll wait. They'd rather have you in the EU than out, but if it were me, I'd need some assurances. The way it looks now, not only does it seem like you all will leave, but your whole democratic process is looking rather sketchy. Things look like they might get worse before they get better.

Their best shot is to hope you run your leaders out of there. And maybe the best way to do that is to pull support and let you hit rock bottom because otherwise they are just enabling you and costing themselves money.

Look, it's the same in the US. Trump lost the popular vote but he's still President. I think most of the world is still hoping we get our **** together. And it's why we're getting a little bit of the soft treatment from other countries. Everyone is hoping that Trump loses in 2020. If he doesn't, then at that point people will write us off. We've still got nukes and $$$ and a psychotic leader so they'll have to be extremely careful. But at that point, if Trump provokes China or the EU or whoever into a fight, they'll fight. They have to. There's no point in making deals with Trump who will ask for the world and never honor his side of the bargain. Just like there's no point in making deals with Johnson. These guys are scoundrels.
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The risk to the planet, apart from Trump being a climate change denier, is as you say, he will drag the rest of us into a conflagration. You guys have a better history of disposing of leaders than we do, can’t you have a word with someone?
 
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Cut & Pasted from General Football thread:

I'm occasionally asked to do work for a guy who gets pretty much all his political opinion, of which he is very adamant about, from chit-chat and mainstream paper news. He doesn't question it, nor verify it. He has never gone into the whys and wherefores of Britain's role within the EU. He has never thought about what a group of cooperative countries can do, and all that flows from that in exchanges of culture, attitudes, friendships, etc.., rather than single isolated nations. He believes that the EU is undemocratic, as nobody voted for those euro servants [who votes in our own home variety?], and most of all... he wants our money and our sovereignty back. And he doesn't want a deal, but a clean break. And he has no idea of how 'locked-in', Britain's economy is to Europe, and the length of time to disentangle it. Oh, and he's at retirement age, so what does he care? And being the worst kind of Brexiteer, he has decided to dig his heels in and not listen to rational talk on this one. So I don't talk to him much about his view. I feel that I scored a major win when I converted this almost completely uninformed ex-continental diesel truck driver into an environmentalist. One miracle, per person, per lifetime, I think.

And, in my work, I see an awful lot of people who are just as badly informed on this stuff, and are not interested enough to separate at least some truth from the BS.
 
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TheSecondStain said:
Cut & Pasted from General Football thread:

I'm occasionally asked to do work for a guy who gets pretty much all his political opinion, of which he is very adamant about, from chit-chat and mainstream paper news. He doesn't question it, nor verify it. He has never gone into the whys and wherefores of Britain's role within the EU. He has never thought about what a group of cooperative countries can do, and all that flows from that in exchanges of culture, attitudes, friendships, etc.., rather than single isolated nations. He believes that the EU is undemocratic, as nobody voted for those euro servants [who votes in our own home variety?], and most of all... he wants our money and our sovereignty back. And he doesn't want a deal, but a clean break. And he has no idea of how 'locked-in', Britain's economy is to Europe, and the length of time to disentangle it. Oh, and he's at retirement age, so what does he care? And being the worst kind of Brexiteer, he has decided to dig his heels in and not listen to rational talk on this one. So I don't talk to him much about his view. I feel that I scored a major win when I converted this almost completely uninformed ex-continental diesel truck driver into an environmentalist. One miracle, per person, per lifetime, I think.

And, in my work, I see an awful lot of people who are just as badly informed on this stuff, and are not interested enough to separate at least some truth from the BS.
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Unfortunately true. No logical argument with verifiable facts attributed to sources will change the mindset of these bigots. I pointed out that HP sauce is made in the Netherlands to be told it's because of EU subsidies for manufacturing in Europe. A search on subsidies to the UK in particular deprived areas drew a "that's bollocks" response. There's Bob Hope and no hope, head bang and brick walls.
 
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I have to, yet again, highlight that while I agree with Corbyn on policy, he has managed this about as badly as it can be managed.

Boris is forging ahead in an anti-democratic fashion because doing so is, at the moment, a politically-beneficial choice: in current polling, his extreme approach to Brexit has clearly kneecapped the Brexit Party, while the left/center remains divided between the clearly anti-Brexit Lib Dems and a Labour Party that still hasn't quite figured out what it's about.

Because the left/center can't sort themselves out, forcing an election now runs the significant risk of a genuine, pro-no-deal Conservative Party getting a majority, and Boris is quite happy to cast aside any members who don't favour that, because not only would that give him Brexit, it'd provide him with a Greek chorus where he now has division.

There's only one real solution: for Labour and the Lib Dems and anyone else against this nonsense to make common cause, topple the government, and form a government (at least temporarily) to put an end to this nonsense. Boris is betting that won't happen, and sadly that appears to be a good bet.
 
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What the European media think of it all according today's Sunday Times:

Boris Johnson’s decision to prorogue parliament could complicate Britain’s relations with the European Union by “delegitimising” his government’s no-deal Brexit policy in European eyes, according to Norbert Röttgen, chairman of the German Bundestag’s influential foreign affairs committee.

In an interview with The Sunday Times, Röttgen, a leading member of chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union, called the prime minister’s move “outrageous”.

“We can’t simply ignore that on this fundamental question parliament has been removed as an actor in the political process and thwarted. We can’t accept that . . . This delegitimises the British government in European eyes,” Röttgen said. “As European democracies, we feel that in issues of fundamental importance for the future of our countries removing parliament from having a say at a crucial time by the executive branch is something we cannot understand or accept.”

Röttgen’s comments followed widespread condemnation across Europe about a development that is seen as likely to enhance the chance of Britain leaving the EU without a deal.

In a thunderous editorial, the French newspaper Le Monde described the prime minister as a “cynical and brutal” populist.

Elsewhere in Europe, he was accused in editorials of being “perfidious”, a “rogue” and “nefarious”. “This is happening not in Hong Kong, Moscow or a banana republic, but in the fatherland of rights. This adds to the shock,” said Italy’s La Repubblica newspaper.

Officials in Brussels and in national capitals have not given up hope of a deal, but they insist it is up to Britain to make credible proposals. “If the British don’t want the solution found several months ago, then to avoid [no-deal] the ball is in their court to make proposals that really work — and quickly,” Amélie de Montchalin, France’s Europe minister, told Le Point magazine.

There has been dismay that Johnson seized on remarks by Merkel, when they met in Berlin on August 21, in which she raised the possibility of finding an alternative to the Irish backstop within 30 days.

Merkel took the unusual step of clarifying her words the next day. “Nothing changed as a result at the meeting: 30 days was a throwaway phrase,” said Röttgen. “Merkel has reiterated that the back stop is an insurance policy, so if Britain finds a solution we don’t need the insurance.”
 
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The Buffoon is winging it. He has nothing to lose. He wasn't elected. Nobody outside of Tory membership wants him as PM. So he's decided to gamble and gatecrash the UK out of the EU. Of course, the UK will return to the EU in about 10 years time when we've finally come to our senses, and this idiotic flirtation with right-wing nationalism is over. That's if we can still vote.

Hopefully, it could be the end of right-wing power. Or was that my dreams getting into text?
 
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Populist leader refusing to hold a democratic vote, shutting down parliament and removing democratic representatives of minorities(although in this case a minority that makes up almost half the population)

Welcome to fascist Britain.

Next I expect to see EU citizens being held indefinitely in emigration camps after minor infractions, like protesting against Boris.
 
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