Off Topic Politics Thread

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ChilcoSaint said:
First of all, I was unhappy that the referendum was ever called. No one, or only a tiny fraction of the population, wanted to leave the EU until the spectre of the Anti-Tax Avoidance Directive reared its head. Then, suddenly, Farage and the ERG, funded by the likes of Arron Banks and other super-rich figures, started eating into David Cameron’s pact with the Lib Dem’s and he decided to make a referendum part of the 2015 manifesto.

Secondly, the whole referendum campaign was flawed in the extreme: Cameron as leader of Remain, was shambolic and uninterested and couldn’t be bothered to appear on TV debates, and the Leave campaign was criminally fraudulent. The fact that Leave won an extremely narrow majority was, at least partly, due to illegal targeting of floating voters by millions of personalised tweets and Facebook posts. As I said earlier, the referendum would have been declared null and void by the Electoral Commission if it hadn’t been constituted as a purely advisory plebiscite. To his shame, Jeremy Corbyn wanted the new Prime Minister Theresa May to invoke Article 50 straight away, and she would have done but for the heroic legal battle won by Gina Miller, which forced the calling of Article 50 to be voted through in Parliament, which it very sadly was in March 2017.

Thirdly, the expectation of many people who voted Leave was that we would merely be leaving the political union, and still remaining linked with our largest trading partner via the Single Market and the Customs Union. This, by the way, would have meant no change to the “soft” border in Ireland. Theresa May, again at the behest of the right wing of her party, wanted nothing to do with either the SM or the CU, and her red lines led to the negotiated Withdrawal Agreement which, because of the perfectly reasonable Irish Backstop, was opposed by the ERG, and because it didn’t guarantee workers’ rights enjoyed within the EU would be protected once we left, and because we were out of the SM and CU, was opposed by everyone else except May’s own government.

The truth about Brexit and all its ramifications has slowly become clearer. In a nutshell, whichever form Brexit takes, we will be worse off. The only people to benefit will be the super-rich who won’t have their offshore assets taxed. Everyone else, everyone who reads this, every hospital patient waiting for an operation, every sheep farmer trying to sell their sheep to Europe, every worker in a car factory waiting for components held up by Customs checks, every single person in these islands and the rest of the EU will be worse off.

Time to have a second referendum with all the facts clear I’d say.
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Well said Chilcs that and Jo Johnson's statement I posted earlier sums things up perfectly.
 
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ChilcoSaint said:
Time to have a second referendum with all the facts clear I’d say.
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I agree with what you say, but do you think that a second referendum would truly solve things? The facts don't help if people won't listen.

It seems like there is still a large chunk of people in the "we can have our cake and eat it, too" crowd. Isn't Boris arguing that he needs a deadline and a no-deal threat as leverage to get concessions from the EU and not because he wants to leave without a deal? I don't trust anything he says of course, but the fact that he feels to perpetuate the lie that he can somehow get the dream deal shows that people still believe in it.

If you force a vote between option A and option B, but people really want option C, then they'll just vote for whichever option they think moves them towards option C. Some people will vote for "No Deal" Brexit because they buy Johnson's theory that a "No Deal" vote is a negotiating chip that gets them to the "dream deal." Some people will vote for "Remain" because they believe the UK should stay in the EU and then try to throw their weight around until they get the 'dream deal." I suspect that will be Corbyn's pitch, no? Because he's spiritually a leaver.

Not that I think there shouldn't be a second referendum. There should, just in the interest of democracy. I just think there's going to have to be a third referendum, maybe a fourth, etc. Until people either come to their sense or the politicians stop trying to sell them on false hopes. That could take a long time.
 
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I Sorry I Ruined The Party said:
I agree with what you say, but do you think that a second referendum would truly solve things? The facts don't help if people won't listen.

It seems like there is still a large chunk of people in the "we can have our cake and eat it, too" crowd. Isn't Boris arguing that he needs a deadline and a no-deal threat as leverage to get concessions from the EU and not because he wants to leave without a deal? I don't trust anything he says of course, but the fact that he feels to perpetuate the lie that he can somehow get the dream deal shows that people still believe in it.

If you force a vote between option A and option B, but people really want option C, then they'll just vote for whichever option they think moves them towards option C. Some people will vote for "No Deal" Brexit because they buy Johnson's theory that a "No Deal" vote is a negotiating chip that gets them to the "dream deal." Some people will vote for "Remain" because they believe the UK should stay in the EU and then try to throw their weight around until they get the 'dream deal." I suspect that will be Corbyn's pitch, no? Because he's spiritually a leaver.

Not that I think there shouldn't be a second referendum. There should, just in the interest of democracy. I just think there's going to have to be a third referendum, maybe a fourth, etc. Until people either come to their sense or the politicians stop trying to sell them on false hopes. That could take a long time.
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Johnson’s argument would have a tinge of credibility if he or his negotiator David Frost had actually put forward any proposals to remove the need for the Irish Backstop. EU spokespeople said today that there has been nothing so far, not even the sketch of a plan, to coin a phrase. The whole strategy seems to be based on the premise that no deal will hurt the EU as much as it will hurt us, which is complete nonsense. The EU will suffer of course, but they will still have all their trade deals except one intact, whereas we will wake up on 1st November without any, which is a situation we have never been in in history. Just as an example of what that means, Canada has just concluded a free trade agreement with the EU, which has taken 7 years of hard bargaining.

Even that terrifying scenario pales into insignificance when the Irish border is considered. No deal means there would have to be border checks on movement between the Republic and Northern Ireland, which hasn’t been the case for more than 20 years since the Good Friday Agreement was signed. The soft border is the whole basis of the peace which has held throughout that time, and any kind of border posts would be an immediate target for the lunatic fringe which still sadly exists. The people on both sides of the border are terrified of what might happen and none of them want to return to the bad old days.

The fact is that there isn’t any possibility of a deal which gives us anything remotely approaching the freedoms, prosperity, and peace which we enjoy now. Corbyn’s antipathy to the EU is based around the Labour policies on renationalisation of rail, water, and energy, which the EU have shown in the past they would oppose. I think if we ended up remaining in the EU, they would be sympathetic to compromise on this, which could change things completely as far as Labour is concerned.
 
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ChilcoSaint said:
Johnson’s argument would have a tinge of credibility if he or his negotiator David Frost had actually put forward any proposals to remove the need for the Irish Backstop. EU spokespeople said today that there has been nothing so far, not even the sketch of a plan, to coin a phrase. The whole strategy seems to be based on the premise that no deal will hurt the EU as much as it will hurt us, which is complete nonsense. The EU will suffer of course, but they will still have all their trade deals except one intact, whereas we will wake up on 1st November without any, which is a situation we have never been in in history. Just as an example of what that means, Canada has just concluded a free trade agreement with the EU, which has taken 7 years of hard bargaining.

Even that terrifying scenario pales into insignificance when the Irish border is considered. No deal means there would have to be border checks on movement between the Republic and Northern Ireland, which hasn’t been the case for more than 20 years since the Good Friday Agreement was signed. The soft border is the whole basis of the peace which has held throughout that time, and any kind of border posts would be an immediate target for the lunatic fringe which still sadly exists. The people on both sides of the border are terrified of what might happen and none of them want to return to the bad old days.

The fact is that there isn’t any possibility of a deal which gives us anything remotely approaching the freedoms, prosperity, and peace which we enjoy now. Corbyn’s antipathy to the EU is based around the Labour policies on renationalisation of rail, water, and energy, which the EU have shown in the past they would oppose. I think if we ended up remaining in the EU, they would be sympathetic to compromise on this, which could change things completely as far as Labour is concerned.
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Reference the renationalisation of businesses, aren’t many train services nationalised already, in some countries within the EU?
If so, how could they say that we can’t do it?
Thinking aloud......

Would it not be possible for a government to, for example, buy a small utility company, and then undercut the private ones, thus nationalising by stealth as customers moved across to save money?
If not, they could force private companies to reduce costs in order to retain their customer base.
 
St Badger said:
Reference the renationalisation of businesses, aren’t many train services nationalised already, in some countries within the EU?
If so, how could they say that we can’t do it?
Thinking aloud......

Would it not be possible for a government to, for example, buy a small utility company, and then undercut the private ones, thus nationalising by stealth as customers moved across to save money?
If not, they could force private companies to reduce costs in order to retain their customer base.
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Apparently the EU laws on state ownership and subsidy are changing, so something like dear old British Rail might be possible, not that anyone is actually advocating that.
 
I mean no disrespect at all to our police when i say this, but when seeing Johnson standing in front of officers while talking about the importance of law and order, having just sacking a load of his own MP simply for disagreeing with him, i don't see:

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I see:

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VocalMinority said:
How should people who wanted to customs union but not be part of the EU (I think beddy is one IIRC) have voted in the referendum then?
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I just recall that David Cameron said in the referendum campaign something along the lines, ‘if we leave, we leave the Customs Union, the Single Market and the ECJ.’?
 
Brinkworth Saint said:
I just recall that David Cameron said in the referendum campaign something along the lines, ‘if we leave, we leave the Customs Union, the Single Market and the ECJ.’?
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So in other words, they didn't have an option. If you assume that most of the remain voters would vote for a customs union if they cant remain, combine it with those neglected customs union voters, that makes it a more popular leave option than no deal. Might even finally get a majority if the vote was done like that.

Instead some people think that ignoring both soft brexiteers and remainers which make up the majority of the population, going with no deal and following the minority that want it is somehow democratic.
 
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VocalMinority said:
So in other words, they didn't have an option. If you assume that most of the remain voters would vote for a customs union if they cant remain, combine it with those neglected customs union voters, that makes it a more popular option than no deal. Might even finally get a majority if the vote was done like that.

Instead some people think that ignoring both soft brexiteers and remainers which make up the majority of the population, going with no deal and following the minority that want it is somehow democratic.
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Where things went badly wrong was after the 2017 general election, when May lost her majority. She should have formed a Commission to find the best compromise solution from all parties in the House of Commons before going to Brussels.
 
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