Off Topic Politics Thread

[Schrodinger's Cat]

There were also many people on this very thread who openly criticised those who voted leave as stupid, and far, far worse names iirc, and the whole process wasn’t as simple as that.

I felt then and still do, and made a light ref to this recently on here, that Labour voters cling on so much to ridiculing the incumbent Gov, rather than focusing on their leader, Labour policies or letting people know how things can be different, that it makes people, at times, come across as slightly deranged - it is an unbelievable agenda against the Gov rather than actually, you know - promoting the good policies and ways things will be under labour.

I did wonder from IOAG’s post above, about believing the two jokers on here, that he must have been referring to Badger and Jabbo, so made me actually start watching the video to see if he was talking about them Although the former at times is relentless in just posting videos, mainly poking the Gov, without really offering an opinion. Doesn’t help imo.

The Bexit vote was very difficult to make many informed decisions imo, and I could see both sides of the fence.

My real irk with the whole debacle was Cameron allowing the vote, and May then thinking she was the second coming of Thatcher by calling the GE when she did, significantly weakening our negotiating position and making it almost impossible to get legislation through.

I did naively hope that all parties would work together over Brexit, to make sure it went as well as possible, but that was never going to happen, and something I dislike both reds and blues over.

As for the next GE, whilst I have always sat slightly right of centre, I have no idea who I will vote for just now.

If I went by the way in which many Labour supporters on here act, that may scupper Labours chances in the GE, although that would be a big leap suggested this forum is very reflective of Labour voters.

Just imaging if their own supports ****ed it up for them. What a ****ing triumph.

Spot on about Cameron enabling the vote but the biggest villain was May making it as law before we had a chance to try and do something possibly less self destructive when there was never a need for the referendum result to immediately be implemented or indeed at all. The GE call was crazy too.
I am an unapologetic labour voter, but I'm an idealist, and I lean much more towards Corbyn's Socialist Labour rather than the current version. Unfortunately my version of labour was corrupted and smeared out of existence and I'm left with an acceptable version that could sell to the majority. Realistically, my little socialist utopia never stood a chance and I'm almost forced into voting for Starmers labour because true socialism doesn't sell. So that's where I stand, cynical, disappointed and still bitter at our lost chance when Corbyn was beaten at the polls by some voters and the entire British media. But I still try to he positive

 

[StJabbo1]

How about a change? I feel like switching sides for a bit.

Recently, in the office I work in, the conversation turned to Brexit and we all agreed it has been a disaster and we were all misled. Fine. Now, I then said the big issue for me is that people's legitimate worries about immigration are often simplified into "that's racist" and "people don't understand how much immigration helps them". People looked at me like I was crazy. That IS the issue they said. I said that's exactly the problem, you are simplifying all people down into wealth stats and not looking at people's lives. I then had someone literally laugh at me and say it was where people don't experience multicultural societies that people voted Brexit.

I shut up then. It felt hostile. So I went away and looked up the stats. It is actually fascinating to look at the lie we lefties have built up about immigration and multiculturalism and the Brexit vote.

1. Clearly most people live in cities and therefore most of the Brexit vote came from cities. The "sleepy village myth" is a total lie

2. Southampton and Coventry have the largest levels of people born outside the UK in England. Both choose to leave. Those levels are around 25%.

3. Edinburgh was the lowest level of leave voting in a big city. This is a city which is rising in multiculturalism and has now hit a massive... 8 percent.

Let's come back to Southampton. Southampton's population changed dramatically in the ten years before Brexit. Not due to a nation that looks different, so not a racial change. Southampton became 10% Polish very rapidly. Shops changed. Housing got a little tougher. It got cheaper to find a builder, plumber or electrician - and consequently harder to get a decent pay packet if you were already here in those jobs. I don't think Southampton would have voted Brexit before that influx of people. I also think there is a cosy elite belief that people in nice middle class neighbourhoods know best about this stuff.

Anyway, joining my right wing friends on this one - if anyone fancies the debate.

Reading this and the comments that followed the view from the vast majority of our friends and acquaintances in the Netherlands during the campaign was how can anyone believe the leave lies and misinformation. That simple majority, narrow as it was and more than likely reversed by some distance now, was far to close to take such a monumental decision. The Dutch PM at the time Mark Rutte agreed when I had a chat with him in the Hague. Brexit is and will continue to be national self harm. Requests for lists of the benefits have gone long unanswered. Moving to a closer relationship with the EU should be the priority, joining the customs union and single market a start.

 

[Shandy_top_89]

My attitude towards Brexit remains the same, it is nonsensical and it only got across the line because that twat Cameron in his hubris made himself the face of remain and added a lovely anti Cameron protest vote bonus which got Brexit over the line, then quit after losing.

However (depending on the logic) I don’t blame all of the people who voted it, politicians are largely a shifty bunch but you SHOULD be able to trust them enough not to have to wonder if they are pointing a loaded gun at the country’s head.

The biggest reason Brexit will fail long term is that the Brexiteers never extended their hand to the remainers and tried to bring them onside in anyway, it was all about total victory, the hardest Brexit possible whilst throwing ‘L’ signs at the other side, all the while achieving literally nothing that improves our country in anyway.

Whether or not we end up back in the EU, I am almost certain we will be back in the single market in a couple of decades, only we will be a rule taker and subservient to the will of the EU with no say, all that Brexit managed to achieve was to cost the country a **** load of money and a huge chunk of our international standing which we will only partially recover. Well, other than to fill the pockets of some pound shorting hedge funds (better described as traitors).

Because they didn’t work to bring the remainers onside the majority of the country will be decisively pro EU when the core vote of Brexit has passed on, upcoming voters are massively pro European and their position has hardened over time.

 

[Shandy_top_89]

Deleted

 

[SR get out of my club]

My attitude towards Brexit remains the same, it is nonsensical and it only got across the line because that twat Cameron in his hubris made himself the face of remain and added a lovely anti Cameron protest vote bonus which got Brexit over the line, then quit after losing.

However (depending on the logic) I don’t blame all of the people who voted it, politicians are largely a shifty bunch but you SHOULD be able to trust them enough not to have to wonder if they are pointing a loaded gun at the country’s head.

The biggest reason Brexit will fail long term is that the Brexiteers never extended their hand to the remainers and tried to bring them onside in anyway, it was all about total victory, the hardest Brexit possible whilst throwing ‘L’ signs at the other side, all the whole achieving literally nothing that improves our country in anyway.

Whether or not we end up back in the EU, I am almost certain we will be back in the single market in a couple of decades, only we will be a rule taker and subservient to the will of the EU with no say, all that the Brexiteers managed to achieve was to cost the country a **** load of money and a huge chunk of our international standing which we will only partially recover.

Because they didn’t work to bring the remainers onside the majority of the country will be decisively pro EU when the core vote of Brexit has passed on, upcoming voters are massively pro European and their position has hardened over time.

Yeah I’d agree with this, but also add, had we voted to remain, the so called gloating would have carried on by them to the leavers, such is the poor attitude and school playground politics wee have. And that many who pay close attention to, also live by.

It’s maybe why I don’t really take politics too seriously, and definitely don’t trust anyone who is involved in Politics. Weirdly I trust Starmer about as much as I trust Boris, and think when Labour get in, I’m not sure many people will like him either. Just a hunch, always looks a little smug and shifty for my liking.

 

[StJabbo1]

Hamas isn't remotely an existential threat. Don't get me wrong: they would like to be. But 4000-5000 guys with small arms aren't taking down a nuclear-armed nation in our lifetime, particularly given that they were deeply unpopular in Gaza prior to this. And there will be more members of Hamas after this than there were before, because that's what happens when you indiscriminately kill tens of thousands of civilians.

Israel also isn't looking for a two-state solution. Bibi has long refused to endorse the principle, while also overseeing the annexation of vast swathes of the West Bank, making a two-state solution utterly impossible.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/while...-tells-trump-israel-will-not-annex-west-bank/

Note the slight of hand there: he doesn't want to annex Palestinians. He was perfectly happy to keep pushing them off their land and annexing that peacemeal, however. Hamas holds sway in Gaza specifically because Bibi preferred them as a foil given that they were, as he is, uninterested in a two-state solution (unlike Fatah):

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news...ext-term/0000017f-da73-d718-a5ff-faf7614a0000



You freely admitted a couple weeks ago that you don't know anything about the history of the conflict, and that you were going to do the reading. Before you move on to your usual nonsense about 'woke mind virus', I'd suggest that you continue doing that reading.

May I suggest an edit "I'd suggest that you start doing that reading."

 

[saintlyhero]

My attitude towards Brexit remains the same, it is nonsensical and it only got across the line because that twat Cameron in his hubris made himself the face of remain and added a lovely anti Cameron protest vote bonus which got Brexit over the line, then quit after losing.

However (depending on the logic) I don’t blame all of the people who voted it, politicians are largely a shifty bunch but you SHOULD be able to trust them enough not to have to wonder if they are pointing a loaded gun at the country’s head.

The biggest reason Brexit will fail long term is that the Brexiteers never extended their hand to the remainers and tried to bring them onside in anyway, it was all about total victory, the hardest Brexit possible whilst throwing ‘L’ signs at the other side, all the while achieving literally nothing that improves our country in anyway.

Whether or not we end up back in the EU, I am almost certain we will be back in the single market in a couple of decades, only we will be a rule taker and subservient to the will of the EU with no say, all that Brexit managed to achieve was to cost the country a **** load of money and a huge chunk of our international standing which we will only partially recover. Well, other than to fill the pockets of some pound shorting hedge funds (better described as traitors).

Because they didn’t work to bring the remainers onside the majority of the country will be decisively pro EU when the core vote of Brexit has passed on, upcoming voters are massively pro European and their position has hardened over time.

Odd take, those who wanted to remain were/are more transfixed with reversing or delegitimising the vote than coming up with a suitable brexit plan.

 

[Shandy_top_89]

Odd take, those who wanted to remain were/are more transfixed with reversing or delegitimising the vote than coming up with a suitable brexit plan.

I mean its not odd when it is reality is it? Brexiteers have 100% had their own way and this is what they have chosen to do with it.

It was never the responsibility of Remainers to come up with a suitable Brexit plan, its not as if Brexiteers have ever attempted to offer an olive branch or listen to the concerns of the other side and where Remainers did engage by trying to suggest areas where we might not want to diverge they were told to **** off in no uncertain terms.

Right now is the Brexiteers chance to make this stick, if they dont figure it out now then they will lose it in the long term. Onus is on them to provide the goods.

If it fails they will have no one to blame but themselves, they have been firmly in control now for at least 5 years.

 

[Schad]

Odd take, those who wanted to remain were/are more transfixed with reversing or delegitimising the vote than coming up with a suitable brexit plan.

There never was a suitable Brexit plan. That those supporting Brexit were arguing that the impossible could be done (retain all the benefits with none of the obligations) was precisely why many argued against Brexit in the first place. It's not up to those who pointed out reality to somehow make the impossible possible.

 

[Schad]

https://www.vice.com/en/article/5d9jqx/israel-gaza-leak-displacement-nakba?utm_source=reddit.com

Israel has acknowledged that a government ministry drafted a report proposing the forced, permanent transfer of Gaza’s population to Egypt, fuelling fears of a further catastrophic dispossession of Palestinians.

The 10-page document by Israel’s Ministry of Intelligence, dated the 13th of October, recommends the transfer of Gaza’s population of more than 2 million people to Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, as the preferred option for securing Israel’s security at the end of the assault on Gaza.

The document recommended that civilians from Gaza be evacuated into northern Sinai where they would be housed in tent cities and serviced by a humanitarian corridor before permanent cities were built. A buffer zone of several kilometres would also be created along the border with Israel.

The report recommended that this strategy should be pitched to the international community as a humanitarian approach to minimising civilian casualties in Israel’s assault on Gaza and be accompanied by a push for Arab and Western countries to also take in Palestinian refugees.

Forcing two million people out of their lands, into a tent city in a literal desert. Genocidal. But I'm sure they'll be PEACEFUL about it.

 

[Archers Road]

There were also many people on this very thread who openly criticised those who voted leave as stupid, and far, far worse names iirc, and the whole process wasn’t as simple as that.

I felt then and still do, and made a light ref to this recently on here, that Labour voters cling on so much to ridiculing the incumbent Gov, rather than focusing on their leader, Labour policies or letting people know how things can be different, that it makes people, at times, come across as slightly deranged - it is an unbelievable agenda against the Gov rather than actually, you know - promoting the good policies and ways things will be under labour.

I did wonder from IOAG’s post above, about believing the two jokers on here, that he must have been referring to Badger and Jabbo, so made me actually start watching the video to see if he was talking about them Although the former at times is relentless in just posting videos, mainly poking the Gov, without really offering an opinion. Doesn’t help imo.

The Bexit vote was very difficult to make many informed decisions imo, and I could see both sides of the fence.

My real irk with the whole debacle was Cameron allowing the vote, and May then thinking she was the second coming of Thatcher by calling the GE when she did, significantly weakening our negotiating position and making it almost impossible to get legislation through.

I did naively hope that all parties would work together over Brexit, to make sure it went as well as possible, but that was never going to happen, and something I dislike both reds and blues over.

As for the next GE, whilst I have always sat slightly right of centre, I have no idea who I will vote for just now.

If I went by the way in which many Labour supporters on here act, that may scupper Labours chances in the GE, although that would be a big leap suggested this forum is very reflective of Labour voters.

Just imagine if their own supporters ****ed it up for them. What a ****ing triumph.

It’s done now, and time to move on, but idiocy is idiocy and Brexit is a classic example of idiocy in action. No ifs, no buts, own the ****ing mess.

 

[SR get out of my club]

It’s done now, and time to move on, but idiocy is idiocy and Brexit is a classic example of idiocy in action. No ifs, no buts, own the ****ing mess.

See this is part of the brexit issue for me. Actually maybe part of the issue of Politics also…

We are in the situation we are in, and working together to fix it will largely provide a far better outcome. Your view is very one sided considering the nuances involved.

Also, to me this is a very left view from you, id almost go as far and say a very unionised view, and one which is **** you all I’m not interested, apart from complaining and sniping about it for years afterwards.

If people learn to work more together, they may realise more can be achieved, and that considering all sides of a situation are important, to gain an understanding not from our own vantage point.

I am sure during the negotiations had politicians worked together better then, we have got a better deal, instead of point scoring, complaining, and sniping etc.

I’m sure also you’ll likely come back with something sarcastic, instead of working together, hey maybe me and you could even solve some of the issues

 

[Archers Road]

See this is part of the brexit issue for me. Actually maybe part of the issue of Politics also…

We are in the situation we are in, and working together to fix it will largely provide a far better outcome. Your view is very one sided considering the nuances involved.

Also, to me this is a very left view from you, id almost go as far and say a very unionised view, and one which is **** you all I’m not interested, apart from complaining and sniping about it for years afterwards.

If people learn to work more together, they may realise more can be achieved, and that considering all sides of a situation are important, to gain an understanding not from our own vantage point.

I am sure during the negotiations had politicians worked together better then, we have got a better deal, instead of point scoring, complaining, and sniping etc.

I’m sure also you’ll likely come back with something sarcastic, instead of working together, hey maybe me and you could even solve some of the issues

We’re all in it together. But some of us are more in it than others, and the bloke who originally said that has his trotters up in clover iirc

 

[Onionman]

Are we seriously rerunning the Brexit debate?

Brexit's happened. It's in the past. We left the EU. There is literally nothing we can change about that.

I'm in the tribe you still label as 'Remainers'. Odd to label me for so long over one topic but let's run with it.

So I'm now asking (as it has been implied by several posters that this is possible) what can I do practically as a 'Remainer' to make Britain, in the aftermath of Brexit, better?

Vin

 

[StJabbo1]

Odd take, those who wanted to remain were/are more transfixed with reversing or delegitimising the vote than coming up with a suitable brexit plan.

Not at all, rejoining the customs union and single market, realigning standards stopping, diversification and returning to freedom of movement have been mine and many other remain voters solutions to the national self harm the hard brexit has done.

 

[StJabbo1]

Odd take, those who wanted to remain were/are more transfixed with reversing or delegitimising the vote than coming up with a suitable brexit plan.

So what is a suitable Brexit plan? Where are all the trade deals that were going to be done as soon as we left the EU? What happened to the promises on immigration? Why should those wanting to remain come up with impossible solutions to the brexit negotiated by Johnson that he was reneging on before the ink was dry?

 

[thereisonlyoneno7]

Re Brexit, we are where we are.

Didn't vote for it, didn't want it.

I have stopped bleating about it as we now have to make the best out of a bad (self inflicted) situation.

The past is the past, learn from it and move on. Doing that doesn't make you a leaver all of a sudden, but helps get this country back on its feet.

In the words of Chumbawamba, I get knocked down, I get up again.

 

[Lemons and Oranges]

Re Brexit, we are where we are.

Didn't vote for it, didn't want it.

I have stopped bleating about it as we now have to make the best out of a bad (self inflicted) situation.

The past is the past, learn from it and move on. Doing that doesn't make you a leaver all of a sudden, but helps get this country back on its feet.

In the words of Chumbawamba, I get knocked down, I get up again.

Spoken like a true (aka long-suffering) Saints fan

 

[Le Tissier's Laces]

Posted without comment (though this is excellent)

I thought you would be interested in this story from The Times: You don’t need to share your views on Gaza.

 

[StJabbo1]

Re Brexit, we are where we are.

Didn't vote for it, didn't want it.

I have stopped bleating about it as we now have to make the best out of a bad (self inflicted) situation.

The past is the past, learn from it and move on. Doing that doesn't make you a leaver all of a sudden, but helps get this country back on its feet.

In the words of Chumbawamba, I get knocked down, I get up again.

Waiting for the great leap forward? Accepting brexit as it stands isn't an option for me and others who want closer ties to the EU not diversification.