yip, some call it progress. i'm not so sure. and i still have a really bad feeling about all this. referendums suck. lets just call udi. *smug grin*. anyhoo.
Brexit, it turns out, was a majority view. A small majority, but a majority all the same. Yet other than Ukip and some very small fringe parties is was a view that went completely unrepresented by the political mainstream. You cannot have a democratic deficit on that scale and expect a nation to remain governable. All the big parties are controlled by top-down rule and the issue of Europe has for decades been suppressed in the interests of short-term electoral expedience by both Tories and Labour (who are as split on the subject as the Tories, if not more so) . You cannot conspire to disenfranchise more than half the population and expect their concerns to simply evaporate. It is not the referendum itself that has been divisive but the prevarication, the establishment connivance, the denial, the generational refusal to discuss the question of Europe for so many years, to strike it from the public discourse, to caricature the matter quite inaccurately as some internal Tory party obsession when in fact it crossed all social and party-political boundaries, and to subject intelligent adults who did want to talk about it to hysterical demonising and the most ridiculous slander. The referendum was a consequence of divisions over Europe that were stoked by being unaddressed, it was not the cause. Anyone who doesn't understand this is doomed to keep repeating the same mistakes indefinitely in all contentious areas of politics.
I think the bit that broke the camels back was when everyone knew the above and in many ways hoped when Cameron went to the eu and said look guys, help me out here, we need the eu to see it is all hitting the fan and people want the eu to take a good long hard look at itself and change so give me something to work with so I can take it back and use it to promote the stay campaign, they basically told him to eff off and offered some crumbs from the table. For many I feel, that was the turning point in that those on the top table of the eu saw those they were their to serve, as people who should be ruled and not represented. Duke is a good example on the next bit with his brextard mantra. Those who feel unable to stand on their own countries two feet and so panic if they feel they can no longer have the safe space of the eu breast to suckle on, could not aim their anger at one group so created one, the brexiteers. What stifles some of them is that the wish to leave was across all of the nations, across all of the parties and across all classes so the usual chant of it's all ukippers, failed , as it was not just those who supported ukip. 15,188,406 English, 349,442 Northern Irish, 1,018,322 Scottish, 854,572 welsh all voted to leave, this rather busts the claim of it was/is "Little Englanders"
yip, the reffs arnt in its self divisive, i like to think i have said as much a thousand times, maybe not quite as elegantly. for me its starts and ends with who is doing the telling, their too powerful,hypocritical and uncountable in a J.Edgar Hoover styli. noob noob noob. you had to put somebody in the spotlight again. you had to make it personal again. thats the divisiveness we are talking about. whats this "WE" noob. there is no one size fits all in the uk. options that could satisfy are available. quoting the Scottish figures is irrelevant. especially if i can come back with 62% voting remain less than 3years after the other big decision. you know, the one that should of been the once in a political generation. for many the decision made was based on the economy and the EU. and they where rightly told they are intrinsically linked. they have a god given right to feel pissed off, lied to and now even less trusting of the media and uk gov. with all the consequences that come with it. telling people like me that we are responsible for the fratricidal goings on that does not exist every time i switch on the radio, the news, catch a headline in the papers and then repeated on on ere is getting you nowhere. its bollox. we aint gonna change the world, inform or understand on this thread. i dont suffer from "the Cringe" but i am fully aware what it must look like. so fug it, i am gonna stick with tradition and prove my old lancastrian boss wrong and put the whole freekin thread on ignore. i will however leave you with this *smug grin*
No divisiveness fin at all as you claim, I pointed out that despite the accusation of it's the little englanders who wanted to take us out, all 4 of the nations had substantial numbers also saying offski Now Loz, we know its never true unless it has a link to wingz over zummerzet attached
Tony Blair has written the following piece in the Times. I'll leave you to make your own minds up and read between the lines https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/...that-will-do-britain-immense-damage-rfk76c73s Article: There is a wide open space in British politics, a politics, for now, in thrall to Brexit. That space can be filled only by a strategy that recognises that there is no diversion possible from Brexit without addressing the grievances that gave rise to it. Paradoxically, we have to respect the referendum vote to change it. There are hardline Eurosceptic ideologues. But they are a minority of the “leave” support. The ballast for the Brexit vote was from communities and people feeling, justifiably, marginalised and unheard. Ten years ago, Britain’s economy was strong, satisfaction levels with the NHS were at record highs, educational attainment was improving, crime was falling and inequality was narrowing. But the financial crisis and years of austerity have taken their toll. The poorest have suffered; middle incomes have stagnated; and the cultural gap between metropolitan and rural, north and south, older and younger, has yawned over our political discourse, dividing the nation. Brexit was the instrument to force the political class to abandon its lassitude and wake up to the depth of the anger. However, Brexit is not the answer to it. Most senior politicians know this but feel trapped. If they follow the people down a path they believe is mistaken, they are not leading. If they drag them from that path against their will, they are not listening. So far “the will of the people” expressed in the referendum has trumped the impulse for leadership. But there is a way to listen and to lead. There can be no change to Brexit unless we confront the underlying causes of it. This will involve uncomfortable choices for those opposed to Brexit. But what is at stake is the future of our country. And that imposes a supreme political obligation. If you genuinely believe Brexit is the right course, then do it. But if you don’t, then at least try a different way, dealing with the anxieties behind Brexit with solutions that work; and steer the country away from the immense damage a hard Brexit — and frankly there is no other on offer — will do. Can this strategy succeed? It’s unclear. The attack on it will be bitter and the charge of fostering disillusion will be fierce. But if those of us warning about the consequence of Brexit turn out to be right, and it makes us poorer and weaker, the disillusion at a later point will be much more intense and the choices then much more ugly. This is the space between Brexit at any cost and simple reversal of the referendum decision. It reaches out to “leave” voters to show their concerns are better met without the damage Brexit will do. Principal among these concerns is immigration. This issue bedevils the politics of virtually every European country. It can destroy or elevate governments. It agonises the left and tempts the right. It has produced new parties, new alliances of political affiliation and bitterly divides communities and generations. It cannot be ignored. It has to be deconstructed, analysed, broken down into component parts, reordered and reconstructed as viable policy. The worries about immigration are relatively easy to describe: there can be pressure on services within communities from an influx of refugees and migrants; downward pressure on wages in certain sectors; there are questions of cultural integration, especially when immigrants are from more conservative Muslim backgrounds; and there is anxiety that we don’t properly control who comes here and who has a right to stay. Most people are not actually anti-immigrant. They understand that we need some categories of migrant worker, particularly the highly skilled; and they are not indifferent to the plight of genuine refugees. But they believe we should have the right to control our own borders and that the system is fundamentally unsystematic. So there is no discussion about Brexit that can set aside discussion of immigration. My government in 2004 did not invoke the transitional arrangements when eastern Europe joined the EU that would have delayed the freedom to work – though not freedom of movement – until 2011. Back then the economy was strong, the workers were needed and actually the biggest annual numbers came post-2011. But the real point is that the times were different; the sentiment was different; and intelligent politics takes account of such change. The Tony Blair Institute for Global Change is publishing a paper, EU Migration: Examining the Evidence and Policy Choices. The paper is a comprehensive analysis of who comes, why and with what consequence. It suggests ways in which we could limit or control freedom of movement without abandoning the basic principle. It should be seen in contrast to the recent Home Office paper that, if implemented, would do significant economic damage to our country, deterring both the high-skilled and low-skilled workers we need. It then goes on to place European immigration within the wider context of immigration as a whole and sets the scene for the next paper, which will examine what a controlled immigration policy should look like. The idea is to garner support for an immigration policy that reasserts control, allows us to reduce immigration sensibly and fairly, and stops immigration undercutting wages and services; it makes a virtue of immigration which is necessary and productive, and avoids picking an arbitrary number and making it a government policy. The irony of the present situation is that by focusing on European immigration, we are targeting the one group of migrants who clearly contribute more than they take. There are particular issues over European immigration. They may not be the only immigration concern or even the main one, but they cannot be ignored. The paper shows, however, how they can be largely assuaged by measures within our own law or by negotiation with Europe. The paper demonstrates clearly that most of those who come to Britain from other European countries either have skilled jobs to go to, or are working in industries where there is a shortage of British workers, or are studying, or are legitimate dependants. Of those who come looking for work, we can estimate most find jobs in sectors such as hospitality in the south of England. The reality is that after Brexit we will need to encourage most of these categories to keep coming, otherwise we will do ourselves serious economic damage. For this, therefore, to be a principal factor in the biggest decision that Britain will take since the Second World War is irrational. As the paper shows, we can curtail the things that people feel are damaging about European immigration, both by domestic policy change and by agreeing change within Europe to the freedom of movement principle, including supporting the campaign of President Emmanuel Macron on the “posted workers directive”. This is precisely the territory that the Labour Party should camp upon. The party’s recent shift to supporting a transition within the single market and customs union is greatly to be welcomed. But it needs to be a step to a bigger one: keep freedom of movement but reform it; support the single market as a matter of principle together with its social protections; control overall immigration in ways that meet public anxiety but are true to our values; and then explain why Brexit is a distraction from the Tory failures, not a solution to them. There is a progressive case for the single market and enlargement. Essentially for three decades or more, Britain, under successive governments, has argued two big causes. The first was that Europe should concentrate on the economic gains Europe could bring to its citizens by creating a unique European single market where goods and services could be traded freely across borders. This required not only the absence of trade barriers but a single system of regulation so as to avoid the complicated bureaucracy associated with different standards and specification; and one adjudicating body, the European Court. Progressives in Europe also wanted a social dimension to Europe with protection for workers and so created the Social Charter, bitterly opposed by the Tories at the time. The second cause was to ensure that after the fall of the Berlin Wall, eastern European countries previously occupied by the Soviet Union could be brought within the European family of nations, with their freedom and democracy guaranteed. So Germany unified and the process of enlargement to the east was begun, with British leadership at the fore. There was a price for this. As Europe enlarged, western Europe paid through structural funds to support former Soviet satellites to develop. Hence much of the so-called Brexit divorce bill. So, yes, Britain pays net into Europe about £8bn a year, as does France, with Germany paying more; but bear in mind that Britain’s annual trade with Poland alone has risen from just under £4bn in 2004 to over £13bn today. Therefore imagine the feeling in Europe today when Britain wants to leave Europe on the basis of opposition to the rules of the single market, and because of the bill for enlargement. This is the extraordinary position in which we have placed ourselves as a country. If we go ahead with Brexit, we will have taken the unprecedented decision for a major country to relegate ourselves, like a top-six Premiership side deciding to play exclusively in the Championship. Other than President Donald Trump, I can’t think of a single leader of any of our major allies or partners who thinks this decision is anything other than self-harming. Labour should have confidence in making the case against this. The Tory dilemma is different. Many in government know all this. But they feel they are irrevocably bound by the referendum and hemmed in by party division. So, they want to negotiate an exit from the single market with then a renegotiation that restores its benefits. Or, as some ministers have apparently said behind closed doors, we want to “leave without leaving”. I understand this as a matter of politics. But I fear that they are trying to negotiate the unnegotiable, placate the implacable. The Brexit coalition comprised two groups that came together in support of leaving, but which really profoundly disagree with each other. The intellectual force behind Brexit are the right-wing ultra-Thatcherites, who believe that out of Europe, Britain can be a free-market, freewheeling hub, positioning itself in stark relief to bureaucratic old continental Europe. They pretend concern over immigration. Really, they support a stronger form of globalisation. But the largest vote was the other group, those who are socially conservative, who fear globalisation, of which immigration is the manifestation. The danger for the Tories is that if we do the hard Brexit that the ultra-Thatcherites want, the combination of failing public services and a weakened economy could deliver a Corbyn government. The danger for Labour is that the Tories decide to go all out on immigration: hard Brexit, so no freedom of movement; big curbs on non-EU migration; paint Labour as the “open borders” party; and then turn their fire on Labour’s economic programme, which hard Brexit renders much less credible. The danger for the country is that it is left with a political choice that millions will feel they cannot support and a policy debate completely irrelevant to the real challenges the country faces. Many MPs across the political spectrum know this. Brexit is not a decision like any other. It is life-changing. Every person involved in the business of politics has a duty now to follow what they believe is right, not what they believe is career-enhancing. At this moment, which will define Britain’s future, all our MPs should behave as if they are the leader of our nation, with the responsibility to put country above party.
Blair has a lot in common with Alex Salmon, Nick Clegg etc, they genuinely believe they have a place in politics and being deluded enough not to see the damage they have caused whilst in it. His whole mention of the chaos and the economic crash is only ever mentioned in 4 words in one line and even then he tries to gloss over the damage Labour did But the financial crisis and years of austerity have taken their toll. That was it, clearing up Labours mess is even dressed up as austerity rather than yeah, we left no money. He invades Iraq, leaves labour, then gets a job as a middle east peace envoy. He opens Britain's doors with no control and allows the biggest enlargement of the eu's powers and now he's lecturing on how to stop the damage he caused and allowed, that is his pattern, paid to create the chaos then paid to try and clean up his own mess whilst saying it was nothing to do with him. Even now his insultive narrative saying about intelligent politics can see a reverse of the decision, he still doesn't get it. If he feels that these things were wrong and partially explains the leave vote, why wasn't he saying this during the leave vote or shortly after? The key here I feel is last week when Barnier and Davies were talking and the honesty of punishing us by the eu was leaking out, 2 doors down from that negotiating room and at the same time, Blair was in talks with Junker and this article appears a week after. Blair will always feel he is relevant, between his own ears he probably is and he will never see the damage he has done nor accept it.
Absolutely spot on. The gaul of Blair is quite staggering and following the recent meeting with his good friend Juncker I would presume this carrot dangling exercise has his seal of approval. One minute it's threats and patronising insults, the next it's olive branch 'what ifs and maybes' delivered by one of the most hated politicians in the country. Bravo
Sometimes,Gimlet,there is such eloquence and poetry in your contributions to this thread that I wish there was an,"admire",button. Nice one. Here's something amusing: https://albertjack.com/2017/09/10/u-ks-unfunny-left-wing-comedians-dying-arse-outside-london/
Macron's version of France could as big a problem for the eu than brexit ever could. http://www.theaustralian.com.au/new...s/news-story/8d801c7d53ca59cbc9f04466df459212
At the moment the eu is making much of their love for Ireland and the people of Ireland. They seem to forget their stance on the Lisbon Treaty Just as a late edition, I'm not sure how many read/watch european news through their members states own papers but events in France at the moment are getting very interesting for Macron
Typical imperialist divide and rule. Try to weaken opposition by playing one region of a chattel state against another and then claim a moral imperative for the imposition of supranational governance to ensure political harmony. In other words, stir up trouble and then claim the children can't be trusted to play together and need adult supervision for their own good.
Juncker's playbook when Cameron went cap in hand. He's giving his state of the union speech tomorrow. He'll be sauced up and having a pop at Brexit.
One of the most sickening displays of cynicism from the EU was the claim that Brexit would imperil the Northern Ireland peace process when in fact it is the UK government which has shown flexibility and come up with a variety of perfectly feasible solutions to the border issue and the EU which has invoked the threat of a return to conflict in an effort to shut that conversation down. We know EU ideologues are only too happy to sacrifice the economic life chances of millions of people to pursue their crazy vanity project, but their willingness to weigh physical lives in the balance as well is beyond contempt. They disgust me.
