Off Topic The Politics Thread

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Should the UK remain a part of the EU or leave?

  • Stay in

    Votes: 56 47.9%

  • Get out

    Votes: 61 52.1%
  • Total voters
    117
  • Poll closed .
Goldhawk-Road said:
Don't believe in hell? You've never been to Millwall (away)

There were exaggerations of both Remain and Leave sides, and Remain spent huge amounts of tax payers money (many multiples of Leave spending) to no avail.

Since the 2016 referendum, the EU have treated the UK not as a sovereign nation seeking to regain independence, but like a teacher dealing with a recalcitrant pupil.

As Ellers says, Tusk looks a broken man because, partly as a result of EU inflexible negotiations, he sees Remain having a dwindling influence in Parliament. He can't just rely on Mad Anna and Chukka.

I personally don't feel insulted but I do think it's strange and disrespectful language from a senior politician. I can see a big split coming between the EU ideologues and European industry. You can see Tusk preparing his defence, by talking about preservation of peace.
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The question was do you think that the people shouting loudest in the leave campaign who were then temporarily most of them in government have done a good job for Leave voters?
 
sb_73 said:
Do you think these people have done a good job for you? Immediately after the vote they were all jockeying for jobs rather than concentrating on the strategy. Which was obvious even to a Remainer like me - interpret the vote as a mandate for a complete break with the EU (which I assumed it was) start planning for that immediately, invoke article 50 when you are sure you can cope with leaving with no deal, and make this strategy crystal clear to the EU. We would have taken a lot of the pain already and be in a much better place, probably with the EU keen to do a treaty with us. Instead weak leadership, a flimsy ‘have our cake and eat it’ approach, and total lack of vision on our side, and a ‘hope it will all go away’ and an ‘it’s their choice they have to own it’ attitude on the part of the EU have lead us to where we are now.
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I have always agreed that the negotiations have not been good, however it doesn't help when you have remain MP's going to Brussels and undermining our hand. It didn't help having a remainer like Olly Robbins doing our dealing. It should have been someone who knows how brokered big deals. May wanted to please everyone which you can't do.
I would have gone to Brussels and said we have voted to leave and we will on the date with a no deal. We would like a free trade deal.
 
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sb_73 said:
The question was do you think that the people shouting loudest in the leave campaign who were then temporarily most of them in government have done a good job for Leave voters?
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For me, they did a good job in getting the 52% leave vote on a shoestring, faced with government spending massive amounts to manufacture a Remain vote.

Of course, individual politicians can be criticised. There's not one that comes out smelling of roses, but again, for me, they smell a lot better than the Osbornes, Rudds, Adonises, Blairs, Majors
 
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Tusk, who has long hoped that Brexit would somehow be called off, said it was now clear that the divorce will happen. There is no "leadership for remain,” he said. The priority now is to avoid no-deal, and to safeguard an open Irish border. He said the EU won’t "gamble with peace," and won’t accept a time limit on the backstop.
As I said and Goldie mentioned, Tusk looked broken. Realisation has set in and his hopes for Chukka and co to derail the process has failed. I bet he wished he never had any "cake to eat"?
It's the way you say things and the way you deliver it can say so much. He was on a downer.
The ERG and business has drawn up a 300 page document for a free trade deal (Malthouse) and that is gaining pace. It will solve many of the problems but will the house agree it?
 
Goldhawk-Road said:
For me, they did a good job in getting the 52% leave vote on a shoestring, faced with government spending massive amounts to manufacture a Remain vote.

Of course, individual politicians can be criticised. There's not one that comes out smelling of roses, but again, for me, they smell a lot better than the Osbornes, Rudds, Adonises, Blairs, Majors
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Yeah, Rudd and Major come out of this looking much worse than Boris :emoticon-0112-wonde<doh>
 
ELLERS said:
I have always agreed that the negotiations have not been good, however it doesn't help when you have remain MP's going to Brussels and undermining our hand. It didn't help having a remainer like Olly Robbins doing our dealing. It should have been someone who knows how brokered big deals. May wanted to please everyone which you can't do.
I would have gone to Brussels and said we have voted to leave and we will on the date with a no deal. We would like a free trade deal.
Click to expand...

Goldhawk-Road said:
For me, they did a good job in getting the 52% leave vote on a shoestring, faced with government spending massive amounts to manufacture a Remain vote.

Of course, individual politicians can be criticised. There's not one that comes out smelling of roses, but again, for me, they smell a lot better than the Osbornes, Rudds, Adonises, Blairs, Majors
Click to expand...
Well it’s too late now, we are where we are. It’s been an epic fail to date from all political perspectives, UK and EU, and incredibly stressful to many ordinary people, however they voted. Nobody has anything to be proud of.

In my opinion.
 
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sb_73 said:
There’s a lot of great bars in Brussels, including the excellent Delirium, and exceptional moules and frites. But I prefer the smaller Belgian towns, like Ypres and Bruges.
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You know what I meant. However on a serious note I did once have a very good drunken weekend in Brussels. :emoticon-0167-beer:
 
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sb_73 said:
Well it’s too late now, we are where we are. It’s been an epic fail to date from all political perspectives, UK and EU, and incredibly stressful to many ordinary people, however they voted. Nobody has anything to be proud of.

In my opinion.
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May was weak in negotiations which is hardly beyond dispute. Beyond that, it is subjective, Stan. For Remainers, it's a lot of trouble to change something they felt was not broken, or rather, was broken but could be mended from within (despite years of trying). For Leavers, nothing worthwhile comes easy but independence to make all our own decisions will be worth all the effort.
 
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sb_73 said:
Well, I learned something that I have been hitherto unaware of this morning, next week Dr Fox is bringing a bill to Parliament to enable the UK to have zero tariffs on all imports from anywhere post Brexit. Note that this does not involve other countries having no tariffs on our exports, it’s a unilateral decision.

They had a bloke from the Adam Smith Institute, the free market capitalism think tank, on the wireless to sing the praises of this idea. I bet Dr Fox wishes that this chap hadn’t turned up, as he graphically and enthusiastically put the case in terms of how brilliant it would be for consumers to flood the country with cheap imports, cheerfully agreeing that British manufacturing and agriculture would suffer and jobs would be lost unless they get ‘more efficient and competitive’, but it doesn’t matter because the consumer wins and anyway we are a service based economy (2.7 million people are employed in UK manufacturing, 500,000 in agriculture), and the sooner we can do trade treaties with other countries so we can recognise their standards and regulations (which would be the only things stemming the deluge of incoming crap) the better.

Let’s just pause to ponder this for a moment.

- it will be good for consumers - if they have a job and want cheap stuff
- it will decrease tax revenue, both from tariffs, VAT and income tax from the newly unemployed
- simultaneously welfare and health costs, the inevitable follow on from unemployment, will rise
- it will be bad for the environment, as more useless crap is transported around the world
- to compete with low cost foreign firms British firms will have to cut costs and quality, unless they bank on their ‘superior’ quality attracting customers
- it has absolutely zero reciprocal benefit to exports

This is the Fox, Mogg, Johnson true agenda. It’s nothing to do with sovereignty or borders or immigration, and everything to do with red in tooth and claw capitalism, unfettered competition where the uncompetitive die along with plenty of collateral damage. It’s an ideological position of the most extreme type, economic fundamentalists, the type who don’t care that the one thing this government can justifiably boast of, employment levels, could be thrown under the bus.

Call me a protectionist, but I like protecting things.
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The other thing these loony right-wing fanatics want to do to make us 'more efficient and competitive' is to 'deregulate the labour market' - shorthand for removing workers' rights. These rights have largely been won and protected through our EU membership, so as soon as we're out they want to start dismantling them. Corbyn has made clear that they must remain protected, the dirty Commie.
 
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