I enjoyed Question Time last night and was pleasantly surprised how pro WTO Brexit the Derby audience were. It really is a shame we have not properly prepared for it and that port problems will be inevitable for a period. Grayling was really not the ideal choice and the new Ramsgate operation would be a complete joke. What was Owen Jones doing impersonating an SNP lady?
Thanks @Dave Interesting reading. https://www.theguardian.com/comment...tain-state-politics-fit-for-purpose?CMP=fb_gu This seems, this week more than ever, a perfect description of the state to which British politics has been reduced – a lot of frantically anarchic running overseen by a defunct creature, the Brextinct dodo. And who has won? Carroll’s Dodo, of course, decrees: “Everybody has won, and all must have prizes.” Having emptied Alice’s pockets to provide rewards for everyone else, the Dodo solemnly presents her with the only thing that’s left: her own thimble. “We beg your acceptance of this elegant thimble.” The Brexit game is patently not worth the thimble to be presented at the end of it. Yet in Theresa May’s humiliation on Tuesday, there were prizes for almost everybody else: a glimpse of opportunity for her rivals in cabinet; a revival of their sadomasochistic no-deal fantasies for the zealots; the hope of a second referendum for remainers; proof of the near-collapse of the Westminster order for nationalists; the hope of a general election for Jeremy Corbyn. But in truth nobody has won anything – it is a losing game all round. For all of this is the afterlife of dead things. One of them is Brexit itself. When did Brextinction occur? On 24 June 2016. The project was driven by decades of camped-up mendacity about the tyranny of the EU, and sold in the referendum as a fantasy of national liberation. It simply could not survive contact with reality. It died the moment it became real. You cannot free yourself from imaginary oppression. Even if May were a political genius – and let us concede that she is not – Brexit was always going to come down to a choice between two evils: the heroic but catastrophic failure of crashing out; or the unheroic but less damaging failure of swapping first-class for second-class EU membership. These are the real afterlives of a departed reverie. If the choice between shooting oneself in the head or in the foot is the answer to Britain’s long-term problems, surely the wrong question is being asked. It is becoming ever clearer that Brexit is not about its ostensible subject: Britain’s relationship with the EU. The very word Brexit contains a literally unspoken truth. It does not include or even allude to Europe. It is British exit that is the point, not what it is exiting from. The tautologous slogan Leave Means Leave is similarly (if unintentionally) honest: the meaning is in the leaving, not in what is being left or how. Paradoxically, this drama of departure has really served only to displace a crisis of belonging. Brexit plays out a conflict between Them and Us, but it is surely obvious after this week that the problem is not with Them on the continent. It’s with the British Us, the unravelling of an imagined community. The visible collapse of the Westminster polity this week may be a result of Brexit, but Brexit itself is the result of the invisible subsidence of the political order over recent decades. It may seem strange to call this slow collapse invisible since so much of it is obvious: the deep uncertainties about the union after the Good Friday agreement of 1998 and the establishment of the Scottish parliament the following year; the consequent rise of English nationalism; the profound regional inequalities within England itself; the generational divergence of values and aspirations; the undermining of the welfare state and its promise of shared citizenship; the contempt for the poor and vulnerable expressed through austerity; the rise of a sensationally self-indulgent and clownish ruling class. But the collective effects of these interrelated developments do seem to have been barely visible within the political mainstream until David Cameron accidentally took the lid off by calling a referendum and asking people to endorse the status quo. What we see with the lid off and the fog of fantasies at last beginning to dissipate is the truth that Brexit is much less about Britain’s relationship with the EU than it is about Britain’s relationship with itself. It is the projection outwards of an inner turmoil. An archaic political system had carried on even while its foundations in a collective sense of belonging were crumbling. Brexit in one way alone has done a real service: it has forced the old system to play out its death throes in public. The spectacle is ugly, but at least it shows that a fissiparous four-nation state cannot be governed without radical social and constitutional change. European leaders have continually expressed exasperation that the British have really been negotiating not with them, but with each other. But perhaps it is time to recognise that there is a useful truth in this: Brexit is really just the vehicle that has delivered a fraught state to a place where it can no longer pretend to be a settled and functioning democracy. Brexit’s work is done – everyone can now see that the Westminster dodo is dead. It is time to move on from the pretence that the problem with British democracy is the EU and to recognise that it is with itself. After Brextinction there must be a whole new political ecosystem. Drop the dead dodo, end the mad race for a meaningless prize, and start talking about who you want to be.
It’s not just Brexit. R4 this morning, in opening gambit before introducing an ‘expert’ describing N. Korea fella off to US to progress discussions, in teh part which is balanced an non adversarial (which is the only interview technique they have) they described him as ‘henchman’. Unbalanced. Unneeded. Unacceptable.
At least with May's Deal ... although it didn't persuade many with regard to Brexit, it provides a useful template for when, in a generation's time, we offer the Scottish the chance to vote again for Indy. Assuming they still want the opportunity then. They'll readily go for an Independence that leaves the decision-making to to the organisation they have just left. They love that kind of thing North of The Wall.
You had the chance to move South of The Wall when you saw how things are up there. But you stayed. No sympathy for you. Get yourself a passport and shop for a new homeland. Maybe in the Middle East.
as apposed to the system we have now? we navent voted tory since 1955. Ruths best result is still no betterl than thatchers worst up here. some clever folks have worked out that scottish votes in the UK parliment have swung it less than 2% of the time. which coincedently, is the same amout as decissions made at EU level that have gone against us. its a no brainer.
Some decent bargains tbh. And preferable to South Scotchland. https://syria.realigro.com/for-sale/property/#annunci
Told ya they'd go for a MayDeal. Heh. Goat, finderman has really rubbed off on you. Tragic, in one so not-short and and not-stumpy.
Fintan O’Toole makes much of this being about the UK's internal political issues but avoids tackling the EU as an institution and a democracy (?). That, in my opinion, it is not. The EU have had ample opportunity to feel the pulse of European opinion but have ignored all the warnings and tensions that have built up. Just look at how well the EU is dealing with migration, financial imbalances, far right populism. Instead of steadying the project and making the required reforms, they have steamed ahead without change. Again, look at just Greece and Italy for the dreadful consequences and a clear demonstration of how the Euro doesn't work for all. Cameron was left without meaningful concessions and even after the Brexit vote, there was no move to find a way to keep the UK in the EU. Instead, it has always been treated as a "mistake" and that the UK was to be put into such a bad position that no other country would dare to leave. It has not been a negotiation due to this straight jacket; we have been left to batter ourselves against a wall. If there was another leader of the Labour party, I wonder where we'd be now. May has been something of a disaster in her handling of the so called negotiations. As soon as the EU were allowed to dictate the terms and timetable of this process, we were beaten. Negotiating £39 Billion without any connection to the final trade deal - unacceptable. Even someone like Trump (Boris?) would have headed towards a WTO exit and this alone would have brought the EU back to really negotiate a divorce that would have protected the EU (and us) from the damage that could be caused. We have a trade deficit of around £85 billion with the EU 27 and this needs to be rebalanced. We also pay around £16 Billion in protectionist tariffs that we will be freed from with a clean Brexit. I am confident that even with the immediate problems of a WTO Brexit, we will be best served by leaving the EU. We will adjust and ultimately prosper, as a flexible, creative and good place to do business. After all the pain lets not be defeated and run back to the EU or delay any further. Both Tory and Labour proclaimed at the last election that they would respect the referendum and deliver Brexit. Just do it!
eh, we build houses here. spare me the lectures on suply and demnd btw. you implied they where attempting to scare, i said they are attempting to appease up here.
The Prime Minister’s infamous red lines remain intact. Her determination that only that half of the UK which voted for Brexit needs to be listened to remains intact. Her fixation on immigration and ending freedom of movement remains intact. My 18 month old niece is currently fixated with videos of The Wheels On The Bus on YouTube. Even she shows greater mental flexibility than Theresa May does. At least the wheels on the wean’s bus are going round and round. Theresa’s are going nowhere. The wean’s going through a phase. With Theresa it’s a way of being.
Only politicians,remoaners and the media hope there will be a problem at the ports. Fortunately the professionals know differently: https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1073341/brexit-news-dover-ferry-ready-no-deal https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/brexit/8212931/dover-prepared-no-deal-brexit/ https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1...esa-May-port-delays-BBC-Today-Calais-Dover-EU https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-b...isruption-from-a-no-deal-brexit-idUKKCN1P31LO
why not reinstate a port crossing up here? i will be paying my share of the dodgy contracts being offered elsewhere.
That's really no what to be speaking about your PM, finderman. Shocked at your disloyalty. Shocked, I tell you!
