Off Topic The Politics Thread

  • Please bear with us on the new site integration and fixing any known bugs over the coming days. If you can not log in please try resetting your password and check your spam box. If you have tried these steps and are still struggling email [email protected] with your username/registered email address
  • Log in now to remove adverts - no adverts at all to registered members!

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 .
Every Brexit poster on here should be made to read this post 10 times ... the slightly slower ones should try 15

Sovereignty is a wet history dream
We are British come what may but this is 2019 and half the country has been brainwashed with the blame culture ... it’s all of us we made this happen

Some have just noticed the UK ship is sinking

We sold out and got fat easy as that ... now we can’t do anything but complain

I only read it once and realised it was your usual bollox P
 
Kim Darroch, Britain's ambassador to the US, resigns. Effectively sacked by Boris Johnson at Donald Trump's behest.

Really? His position was immediately untenable the moment his comments were leaked. I’m sure Ambassadors make comments such as Our Kim’s every day right across the globe but, the moment they’re leaked, how can they possibly remain in the role?

The only way Johnson could be blamed for Darroch’s departure is if he was somehow implicated in the leak.
 
Really? His position was immediately untenable the moment his comments were leaked. I’m sure Ambassadors make comments such as Our Kim’s every day right across the globe but, the moment they’re leaked, how can they possibly remain in the role?

The only way Johnson could be blamed for Darroch’s departure is if he was somehow implicated in the leak.
did these people learn nothing from wikileaks
 
  • Like
Reactions: Uber_Hoop
I'd simply say that a country maintains sovereignty when entering free trade agreements, because the ability to agree terms with a third party derives from sovereignty and there is no necessary derogation merely because you abide by the terms - so long as the sovereign country can pull out unilaterally pursuant to the termination terms under the agreement. This is why the backstop was so controversial. The UK did not have that unilateral right.

There wasn't much difference between EU and non-EU immigration before 2016 - Non-EU was slightly higher. It includes large numbers of students here to study. Since the referendum, EU immigration has gone down. It will be interesting to see whether Boris brings in the Australian points system after Brexit.

Money - there's lots of dispute over this, but what is clear is that the UK pays net about £8-9 billion per year. This will be a saving.

I think after what we've seen from Parliament over the last 3 years, there is a case for reform. As to what, my mind is wide open.
Lot of legal jargon in your first paragraph, but isn’t the sovereign country unilaterally pulling out of the treaty exactly what we are doing with the EU, exercising our sovereignty? The problem is the termination process was clear but the terms were not. We have other obligations under sovereignty sharing agreements with Ireland and the communities of Northern Ireland which would be breached by changing the status of the border, it’s not just the EU.

The way to reduce immigration then, is to lower the value of the £, which is why EU migration has reduced, plus uncertainty over future status. Immigration policy has been a mess for decades, I have no faith that any politician will sort it out coherently. If we are driven by economic growth and measure ourselves by GDP we need a lot of young, working, taxpaying migrants. Personally I think this obsession with perpetual economic growth is the root of all of our problems, but that’s just me.

£9bn is a lot of money but not in terms of government spending. In the early years it will need to be spent on mitigating the effects of Brexit - Customs officers, tax men, setting up our own medicines regulation system (or buying into someone else’s), compensating farmers who lose markets etc. Of course Boris wants to give it to his mates in tax cuts. Last year we spent £55bn on interest payments on the national debt, to put it in context.

Latest estimate to refurbish the hideous Houses of Parliament, a Victorian Gothic monstrosity, is £3.5bn. Let’s complete Guy Fawkes’ radical reconstruction and parliamentary system reform in one project.
 
Labour as we knew it is no more
Labour Leave’s Brendan Chilton on this day of Brexit betrayal.
You must log in or register to see images

Brendan Chilton
9th July 2019

In an extraordinary and unprecedented u-turn, the Labour Party announced today that it would campaign for Remain in a future EU referendum. This is despite the 2017 manifesto promise, written in ink, to accept the outcome of the original 2016 referendum. This follows three years of campaigning by those within the Labour movement who refused to accept the referendum result. They piled enormous pressure on Jeremy Corbyn to change Labour’s stance. Today he buckled to those very same people who a few years ago were challenging him for his leadership of the party.
Today is a tragic day in the Labour Party’s history, and a fatal day for British democracy. It is, potentially, the beginning of the end of the Labour Party as we know it. Labour continues to spiral downwards in the opinion polls, despite Labour MPs from the Leave-voting Midlands and north making a gallant last stand in the defence of democracy, and for the preservation of Labour as a party of the working man and woman. Their efforts may be too late to save Labour from a possible catastrophic defeat at the next election.
The British people voted for the Labour Party in their millions in 2017, in the knowledge that the party accepted the outcome of the referendum. Labour was able to deprive the Tories of a majority in part because of the stance it took on leaving the European Union. Four million Labour Leave voters stayed loyal to Labour, and despite great concerns about the party’s commitment to Brexit, they voted for Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party. A Europhile Labour Party has now discounted their loyalty and trust. Many will now be looking elsewhere, seeking political representation through other parties that share their views.
The victorious Remain campaign within the Labour Party will be celebrating today, but its jubilation will be short-lived. The Brexit Party and the Boris Johnson leadership campaign will be the other people celebrating today. They probably cannot believe their luck. Having already breached the outer perimeter walls of fort Labour in the European elections, the Brexit Party will now march full speed into the void left in the Labour heartlands. There is nothing there to stop them. Swathes of constituencies, dominated by working-class Leave voters, are now ripe for the picking as Labour finally abandons its core.
Seventy per cent of Labour constituencies at the time of the 2016 referendum voted to leave the European Union. Support for Brexit was highest among the lowest socioeconomic classes within our society. A majority of Labour’s most marginal seats voted Leave and a majority of the seats Labour needs to win in order to form a government also voted Leave. Those seats are now beyond reach, as Labour returns to the protective shield of the M25. Who will stand up for the working classes of England now? Who will represent the millions of our poorest people who voted in the hope of a better future outside the European Union?



We are witnessing the splintering of party politics in the United Kingdom. Labour’s old alliance of middle-class professionals and working-class voters is broken. It is, perhaps, now beyond repair. That century-old party that brought about great social, economic and political advances for ordinary men and women has succumbed to the will of the British Remain establishment. So many European social-democratic parties who pursued the same metropolitan demographic and political agenda have fallen into history. Labour, following this same path now, risks its very existence as a major party in British politics.
The Red Flag, the old and famous symbol of labour social democracy, internationalism and working-class representation has been tattered and torn down. In its place, the blue flag studded with yellow stars has been hoisted over the Labour and trade-union movement. Capital has beaten labour. The bosses have beaten the workers. Europe has beaten democracy. The establishment has won. When history is written, it will record a peculiar paradox: that the party that was established to challenge the elites was ultimately the party that knelt before our masters and propped up the old order.
Brendan Chilton is director of Labour Future and co-author of 30 Truths About Leaving on WTO Terms.
 
Every Brexit poster on here should be made to read this post 10 times ... the slightly slower ones should try 15

Sovereignty is a wet history dream
We are British come what may but this is 2019 and half the country has been brainwashed with the blame culture ... it’s all of us we made this happen

Some have just noticed the UK ship is sinking

We sold out and got fat easy as that ... now we can’t do anything but complain

A lot of it is crap.

Everything you come out with is also crap.
 
I was taking your name in vain mate, for dramatic effect.

What we need is strong unions and collective bargaining and no tolerance of undercutting agreed rates for agreed trades. Nowt to do with immigration.

There is no difference between the ‘independence’ argument and the ‘sovereignty’ argument, which is why I said it’s your strongest one. But the only true, complete, sovereignty is one which operates in isolation, no treaties, trade or otherwise, with other countries - a treaty is a mechanism to share sovereignty on certain issues, the members of the EU have agreed to share sovereignty over a wider range of things, voluntarily. Any future trade agreements involve voluntarily surrendering unilateral control over the things covered by the treaty.

The things which you think will flow from no longer sharing sovereignty with the EU are largely in our control anyway - most immigration is non EU, and we failed to use the tools available to restrict EU immigration when they were relevant; we are not in Schengen, everybody has to go through border control (the process is exactly the same for me if I am flying back from the US or France) except in Ireland which never had a trade border, only a security one which the peace process rendered unnecessary; we have our own currency, with no compulsion to join the Euro, we set our own interest and tax rates, what will change with money? Lawmaking is admittedly more complex, but I reckon only a tiny minority of our laws and the way they are implemented are directly affected by our membership of the EU. Certainly the basis of our legal system - common law - remains very different to the Napoleonic Codes of many EU countries. Appeals mechanisms on certain things may be more influenced by Europe, whether it’s the EU or European Court of Human Rights, which is nothing to do with the EU.

Parliament already has most of what is called sovereignty in this country. It might get a bit more, but I can’t see this changing anyone’s life for the better, unless it is purely the principle of the thing which bothers them*Doesn’t bother me at all, but I can understand the principle of the argument.

* and in that case, why should it be Parliament that is sovereign? Why not something much closer to home that we can participate in more than a vote for someone we have never met every few years? Why on Earth would I trust Boris Johnson or Jeremy Corbyn with my sovereignty?


You do come out with some long winded bollocks at times mate.
 
Really? His position was immediately untenable the moment his comments were leaked. I’m sure Ambassadors make comments such as Our Kim’s every day right across the globe but, the moment they’re leaked, how can they possibly remain in the role?

The only way Johnson could be blamed for Darroch’s departure is if he was somehow implicated in the leak.
The journalist credited with breaking the story is Isabel Oakeshott, who has worked for Lord Ashcroft, King of Belize, and Arron Banks in the past, is mates with Farage and a big Brexiter, but probably because of the intrigue and getting to bask in the glow of the ‘bad boys’ than through any strong conviction. Theory is that Darroch will be replaced with a Brexiter, though how this makes any difference is beyond me.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Uber_Hoop
Really? His position was immediately untenable the moment his comments were leaked. I’m sure Ambassadors make comments such as Our Kim’s every day right across the globe but, the moment they’re leaked, how can they possibly remain in the role?

The only way Johnson could be blamed for Darroch’s departure is if he was somehow implicated in the leak.


Exactly.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Uber_Hoop
Really? His position was immediately untenable the moment his comments were leaked. I’m sure Ambassadors make comments such as Our Kim’s every day right across the globe but, the moment they’re leaked, how can they possibly remain in the role?

The only way Johnson could be blamed for Darroch’s departure is if he was somehow implicated in the leak.
So what we need is either an ambassador who will lie for the sake of it or somebody not to leak things.
 
Can’t see how they can negotiate anything
About time people get this out of their heads
We are getting chucked out end of October as I see it as the EU has been nothing but fair and patient
Everyone over here nows it’s a massive mistake but it’s accepted and the EU will make easy meat of any Englishman as I see it

Honestly people are openly laughing at the events in the U.K.
Where do you get your facts from ?
And how in all that’s said can you still sit and justify that your beloved corrupt EU has played fair and been sincere in their efforts to deny us the Brexit we voted for, when will your warped mind accept that the corrupt EU cannot afford to lose our trade or our money.
It appears in most of your posts on this thread that unfortunately you only see thing through blue and yellow starred glasses.
You told us that Airbus was leaving, lock, stock and all it’s smoking engines, they aren’t leaving at all in fact they are investing billions at Airbus in ( Broughton) Chester.
You said all the banks were leaving and the city of London would be a ghost town in fact more investors and banks are moving in than are leaving,
Building of commercial and business premises in London and around the country are rocketing, the pound is going up, investments in the U.K. are up, exports are up, imports about level, youth unemployment almost lowest in Europe, employment in general at an all time high, unemployment at lowest levels in decades wages going up here but not in EU, the list is endless.
All the lies we were told about millions of jobs going, unemployment rocketing to unprecedented levels, the pound becoming worthless etc, etc, etc have all been proved wrong and yet you still keep on !!!!
WHY ?
 
  • Like
Reactions: rangercol
Let’s keep a list of all the benefits when we get all of our sovereignty back.


Whatever.

I disagreed with your assertion that sovereignty is surrendered as soon as a trade deal is entered into. Pure semantics....again.

Sovereignty is as much a personal perception as it is a tangible thing imo. As I've said before, if one doesn't feel sovereignty then one doesn't get it.