Brexit: Uniting the Country Since 31/01/2020

[RingoMcCartney]

So why did the poorest areas of Scotland vote to remain then?

No idea. They voted as they saw fit I guess. That's democracy.

[RingoMcCartney]

Using the same logic they’re also more likely to have brown hair and wear glasses.

Probably.

However , hair colour and visual impairment, had none, but "Ordinary People " voting Leave, did have a direct on the result of the referendum result.


If you needed reminding.





You lost.

[RingoMcCartney]

Have a great weekend ladies.




Enjoy the game. UTC

[Walton]

I think the Brexiteers have been fairly calm in the main. I don’t condone threats or violence either.

The ballot box is the best way for us to express our opinion, if only they would let us.

Apart from that time a Brexiteer murdered an MP

[summitclaret]

BBC political correspondent Nick Eardley said he had been told by a senior SNP source that the party's MPs were prepared to put Mr Corbyn in 10 Downing Street "as soon as next week" to extend the Brexit deadline and call an election.

As if the 22 tory rebels are going to vote for that.

[timshorts]

So, do you support Dominic Cummings' view that it's Ok to riot, with people possibly getting killed in the process?
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/br ... 22826.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Let he who incited it get hit by the first stone.

[summitclaret]

However as a brexiteer it would be wonderful. Imagine if JC has to send in the surrender letter instead of BJ. Remainders are seen to have taken over when they represent just 1/3 rd of constituencies.

Talk about playing into the hands of leave at that GE.

[AndyClaret]

Apart from that time a Brexiteer murdered an MP

Seeing that he was arrested before the vote i doubt that very much.

[summitclaret]

He means brown people and folk with foreign accents.

No he doesn't. Who are you to make such assumptions. I was offering a possible answer to a question.

[timshorts]

As if the 22 tory rebels are going to vote for that.

Well it was clear that it wasn't necessarily going to be corbyn.

In many ways, it would be better if it was not a current leader, but somebody from one of the constituent groups that the others all have respect for. Corbyn could stay leader of Labour etc with a figurehead selected as the best unity leader.

The purpose of the concensus group would be limited initially, but no problem if they come up with some other policies that would command majority approval of the house.

There is no reason why the nominal pm need be a Labour MP, or any other. I wouldn't mind Rory Stewart getting the job quite honestly. He doesn't exactly have a party, so is not a threat on that respect. It was pretty clear during the Tory leadership that he was the only one that had any grasp of reality and the only one that didn't claim that he was going to fly on a platinum unicorn and slay the backstop in a Cape of St george while holding off Farage with his third hand.

It's about time that we all grew up a bit. We may have one of the oldest democracies in the world, but it's living in some pre-victorian age and hasn't moved on. Of course, the two main political parties want it that way, but we need to grow up, watch a couple of series of borgen, and work out that we absolutely do not need any party to have a majority to effectively run a country. It just needs a change of thought process and perhaps that isn't the right place for testosterone fuelled self promoting belligerants such as the present pm, Geoffrey Cox and their like.

[If it be your will]

To If it be your will. That didn't wind me up at all, not least because I agree with most of what you say. The poorer sections of British society have been horribly abused over the last forty years or so and the anger felt is only to be expected. But from what I can see that anger has been pointed entirely in the wrong direction. Instead of the Blairites and the Tories who caused their distress, the anger is channelled into nationalist sentiments directed at immigrants and the EU.

It's the oldest right wing trick in the book. When the poorest people are angry at their deprivation give them a flag to wave and blame the 'other' thereby creating a distraction from the real cause of poverty. It is the cheerleaders for Brexit, people like Johnson, Gove and Rees-Mogg who have been most responsible for poverty and deprivation, and somehow, perversely, they have become the leaders of that section of society.

I fully sympathise with your view that leaving the EU would enable a fuller implementation of socialist policies, but I just don't think that is going to happen. The establishment elite is too powerful. They will hang on to their largest slice of the cake whatever happens and if the cake gets smaller they are not going to share it out more evenly. They will make sure they keep their wealth and leave the poorest people with the same small slice of even smaller cake.

You speak as if the left had no role in pushing the working class towards nationalism, that all the right have to do is hand the proles a Union Jack and they immediately succumb. I profoundly disagree. They're not that shallow. That might be where they're heading, but the liberal left certainly helped push them there.

Let's take an example on this very messageboard. As far as I'm aware Lowbankclaret is the only open Brexit Party supporter that bothers to engage on here. Just watch what happens the next time he posts (or look back at when he has previously). The response will be post after post of sneering derision as to how he can be so thick and bigoted as to support Farage. The liberal left can barely bring themselves to engage with him as a human, such is the withering contempt in which he is held (my favourite one is: But we're doing this all for you. It's the poor that will suffer most from Brexit.). I know what people are thinking: 'Well he deserves it, the stupid bigot.' And this is supposed to bring him into the socialist fold? No chance.

The slice of the cake thing we've discussed before. Not only do I consider it defeatist and craven, but it's also straight out of the neoliberal playbook. It's basically a variation of 'trickle down' and 'A rising tide lifts all boats'. It's patent nonsense. If the poor want a bigger slice of the cake, they must demand it.

[timshorts]

But it helps if they don't crap all over on the cake before trying to gobble a bigger mouthful of what is left of it.

[Pstotto]

Kate R, what is this 'both sides' of which you speak?

The people voted democratically to leave.

Any opposition to that is anti-democratic.

Surely they deserve violence against them, after all, that is a declaration of war on not only the people, but the sovereignty of the nation and right of home rule, taken away by the Benn Act?

How is a country to protect itself against war within otherwise?

The sensible thing is to leave the EU immediately then that part of the equation is over.

[Walton]

Seeing that he was arrested before the vote i doubt that very much.

What do you doubt?

[AndrewJB]

I was talking about non EU immigrants so we are aligned there. I also agree with your statement regarding "perception" but perception is what drives people in all walks of life, music, fashion, art, etc. etc. We don't all agree on those things even though we have numerous experts who tell us what to wear, what to listen to etc. Yet some people disregard that the expert convention and have there own ideas or "perception" of what they like, what looks good, no different to politics in many ways, and certainly to do with immigration. The fact remains as you noted, those towns have little immigration but voted for leave and also quoted immigration as an issue, you seem to have been holding it out there and I merely answered your question.

How is it many people in areas of the country without many immigrants perceived that the country as a whole is overrun by immigrants, and that these immigrants are being given preferential treatment over British born people in our welfare system?

The establishment press - the Daily Mail, Sun, Telegraph, etc - have for decades now been spinning this line, and of course we know their position on the issue of brexit. This isn't people being persuaded through perception to wear funny clothes, or get ridiculous haircuts, or listen to silence as "the next big thing in music" - it's people being willfully mislead, and their genuine anger at their own situations redirected to serve the political and economic purposes of the owners of those same newspapers.

The reason it didn't work in London (where poverty, the strain on the NHS, schools, housing etc is just as bad as elsewhere) is that people saw through it. They'd see the same "news" in the papers, but they'd also see their Polish, or French, or Slovakian neighbour - who works hard, and looks after their family, and participates in the local community - and they went with the evidence of their own experience rather than that fed to them by the establishment press. Perhaps if Stoke and Sunderland had more immigration, the people in those places wouldn't have been hoodwinked.

[AndyClaret]

What do you doubt?

That he voted for brexit.

[Pstotto]

You are demented, Andrew.

[Tall Paul]

Seeing that he was arrested before the vote i doubt that very much.

[Tall Paul]

No he doesn't. Who are you to make such assumptions. I was offering a possible answer to a question.

It wasn't a possible answer though, as immigrants weren't allowed to vote.

[Burnley Ace]

That you're talking shite.

If the MPs voted Corbyn as PM, how is that any less democratic than when they voted Theresa May PM after the last general election?

It’s not, but that wasn’t what was either mentioned or compared. Which is more democratic a general election with 46 million registered voters or 600 people voting?

[Burnley Ace]

So, do you support Dominic Cummings' view that it's Ok to riot, with people possibly getting killed in the process?
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/br ... 22826.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I’ve read the article, where has he said it’s OK to riot with people possibly getting killed?

[Tall Paul]

It’s not, but that wasn’t what was either mentioned or compared. Which is more democratic a general election with 46 million registered voters or 600 people voting?

A general election, but that wasn't what was compared either. We don't vote for the PM in a general election.

[Spijed]

I’ve read the article, where has he said it’s OK to riot with people possibly getting killed?

It's fairly obvious that if there are riots there will be people who will die in the process.

[summitclaret]

It wasn't a possible answer though, as immigrants weren't allowed to vote.

All British citzens were allowed including those previously from all over the world.

[aggi]

Lancaster asked me a while ago, and there's nothing in the EU that resembles Corbyn's 2017 manifesto. There are odd isolated pockets here and there, mainly because the market and/or EU haven't caught up with them yet.

For instance: Germany's Landesbanken system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landesbank" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; really push the boundaries with the State Aid Rules, but even they are nothing like Labour's proposed National Investment Bank. I gather rail services exclusively operating within EIRE are essentially run on a state monopoly system (anyone living in Ireland that can confirm this?) but the EU is chasing them up on this as we speak. So there are bits and bats where the EU rules have yet to be fully applied, but that's all. If you can find any other examples, let me know.

Maybe I wasn't clear. I wasn't asking where in the EU are there nationalised utilities, etc I was asking which countries in the world, if any, have the kind of system that you're hoping we'll have after we leave the EU.

[Greenmile]

All British citzens were allowed including those previously from all over the world.

You mean the brown people and folk with funny accents.

Why else would you need to differentiate them from any other British citizens?

[aggi]

You speak as if the left had no role in pushing the working class towards nationalism, that all the right have to do is hand the proles a Union Jack and they immediately succumb. I profoundly disagree. They're not that shallow. That might be where they're heading, but the liberal left certainly helped push them there.

Let's take an example on this very messageboard. As far as I'm aware Lowbankclaret is the only open Brexit Party supporter that bothers to engage on here. Just watch what happens the next time he posts (or look back at when he has previously). The response will be post after post of sneering derision as to how he can be so thick and bigoted as to support Farage. The liberal left can barely bring themselves to engage with him as a human, such is the withering contempt in which he is held (my favourite one is: But we're doing this all for you. It's the poor that will suffer most from Brexit.). I know what people are thinking: 'Well he deserves it, the stupid bigot.' And this is supposed to bring him into the socialist fold? No chance.

The slice of the cake thing we've discussed before. Not only do I consider it defeatist and craven, but it's also straight out of the neoliberal playbook. It's basically a variation of 'trickle down' and 'A rising tide lifts all boats'. It's patent nonsense. If the poor want a bigger slice of the cake, they must demand it.

You should probably take a closer look at the posts in response to lowbank. It's not about how he can be so thick to support farage, it's about how he can be so thick full stop.

For instance yesterday he kept peddling the absolute bullshit that Johnson can prevent an election after the extension is agreed because the fixed term parliament act requires a two thirds majority.

Many people explained that a vote of no confidence only requires a simple majority and will trigger an election but he continued to insist that it could be blocked by Johnson.

He wasn't being called thick for supporting Farage. He was being called thick because his posts were incredibly stupid.

[If it be your will]

Maybe I wasn't clear. I wasn't asking where in the EU are there nationalised utilities, etc I was asking which countries in the world, if any, have the kind of system that you're hoping we'll have after we leave the EU.

Most of Europe Pre-Maastricht. (More like pre-1985 in the case of the UK. We were an early adopter of neoliberalism, then Maastricht cemented it into the EU permanently.)

[Erasmus]

Well I can only speak for myself and I don't think I've shown contempt for anybody. It might seem craven and defeatist, If it be your will, but I would say it is pragmatic. The idealist in me might say, yes, let's go for the big win and move more fully to a form of socialism that will properly benefit the marginalised sections of society, but I really can't see that happening and I think if we go for that all or nothing approach the end result will be that the suffering and deprivation will get worse not better.

Ultimately, it is the end result that matters and ideals only have value in terms of the practical benefits they bring to people. I just don't believe that the approach you advocate will bring those benefits, and I think leaving the EU will make conditions for those sections of society worse. So it's not really on goals and values that we differ, it is over the best methods to achieve those goals and actualise those values. I think your approach will increase suffering and deprivation, and even if it be craven and defeatist not to do so, I can't go along with that approach.

[AndrewJB]

What can we summarise from that? That the people in Stoke and Sunderland, like Burnley have had 40 odd years of EU membership to decide it's been bad for their families, town and countries prospects. They voted to leave.

And since they voted to Leave are sick to the back teeth of parliament, the establishment, the political sneering class and the dwellers of the metropolitan London borough of Ivory Towers, telling them they voted the wrong way and need to try again.


Anyway, you brought up London.


You said "so if immigration was bad for ordinary people you'd expect London to have voted heavily to leave, but it did the opposite"

You can be "ordinary people," successful and white. They arent mutually exclusive.

Doesn't change the fact that 620,000 white British people left the capital.

Given they moved out of London means they moved to areas that far more likely voted leave. Because of you look at a map of how the country voted once outside london most constituencies voted Leave. (206 remain against 460 to Leave.)

So, not only did they vote with their feet and "left" London. I'd say that given the spread of how voting went they were also more likely to have voted Leave as well.

Considering the vote was overall fifty-two-something to forty-seven, all the constituencies that voted to leave had sizable remain votes. if you produce a map of Britain with constituencies coloured in how they voted it won't give you a truly accurate picture of the country. This is the reality of where we are. I think it would be more interesting to get your opinion on how the country could be brought back together.

if you were in overall charge, and the EU were fairly compliant, how would you play it? How would you bring the country together to move forward? I'm not asking to try to get you shot down - although you (we all) have to allow for some valid criticism of what you say (and I'll do my own version for you to critique too).

The whole conversation has gone into that awful polar opposite thing where the centre ground has disappeared. This is a mere football messageboard, but it would be interesting to try to find the middle ground here.

[If it be your will]

Well I can only speak for myself and I don't think I've shown contempt for anybody. It might seem craven and defeatist, If it be your will, but I would say it is pragmatic. The idealist in me might say, yes, let's go for the big win and move more fully to a form of socialism that will properly benefit the marginalised sections of society, but I really can't see that happening and I think if we go for that all or nothing approach the end result will be that the suffering and deprivation will get worse not better.

Ultimately, it is the end result that matters and ideals only have value in terms of the practical benefits they bring to people. I just don't believe that the approach you advocate will bring those benefits, and I think leaving the EU will make conditions for those sections of society worse. So it's not really on goals and values that we differ, it is over the best methods to achieve those goals and actualise those values. I think your approach will increase suffering and deprivation, and even if it be craven and defeatist not to do so, I can't go along with that approach.

Obviously I disagree, but ok. (Suggesting I'm an idealist not grounded in pragmatism seems a cheap shot, considering all I'm doing is advocating leaving the EU. We're both merely offering our best guesses, all said.)

[summitclaret]

You mean the brown people and folk with funny accents.

Why else would you need to differentiate them from any other British citizens?

What?. No. Do you have some kind of problem?

[If it be your will]

The whole conversation has gone into that awful polar opposite thing where the centre ground has disappeared. This is a mere football messageboard, but it would be interesting to try to find the middle ground here.

Honestly, if this can be healed at all, I think it will take decades. I'm not certain we've reached that point of no return yet, but watching Boris, this messageboard, and generally people I speak to, we must be close to it. Neither side is making even the slightest attempt to build bridges. Is it time to accept there is no compromise position here, and each side must instead seek victory? It could be, you know.

[Damo]

Momentum loons have turned on Jo Swinson now haha

[Lancasterclaret]

Honestly, if this can be healed at all, I think it will take decades. I'm not certain we've reached that point of no return yet, but watching Boris, this messageboard, and generally people I speak to, we must be close to it. Neither side is making even the slightest attempt to build bridges. Is it time to accept there is no compromise position here, and each side must instead seek victory? It could be, you know.

I've been screaming for Mays Deal for a while now.

If I can compromise, why can't the Brexit Bunch on here?

[martin_p]

Honestly, if this can be healed at all, I think it will take decades. I'm not certain we've reached that point of no return yet, but watching Boris, this messageboard, and generally people I speak to, we must be close to it. Neither side is making even the slightest attempt to build bridges. Is it time to accept there is no compromise position here, and each side must instead seek victory? It could be, you know.

I don’t buy that there hasn’t been an attempt at compromise, by one side at least. Many remainers have been prepared to support a softer form of Brexit once the referendum was lost, the type of Brexit that was promoted by many in the Leave camp pre-referendum. But there has been no attempt from the winners to get the losers on board and bring them with them. That works fine when you have bigger support than 52% for what you are doing or a big majority in the HoC. Compromise was always the way forward, unfortunately May’s ill judged general election left her hostage to the more extreme elements of her party and they took control, promoting the most extreme version of Brexit which was never going to win ‘across the divide’ support.

[Lowbankclaret]

Well it was clear that it wasn't necessarily going to be corbyn.

In many ways, it would be better if it was not a current leader, but somebody from one of the constituent groups that the others all have respect for. Corbyn could stay leader of Labour etc with a figurehead selected as the best unity leader.

The purpose of the concensus group would be limited initially, but no problem if they come up with some other policies that would command majority approval of the house.

There is no reason why the nominal pm need be a Labour MP, or any other. I wouldn't mind Rory Stewart getting the job quite honestly. He doesn't exactly have a party, so is not a threat on that respect. It was pretty clear during the Tory leadership that he was the only one that had any grasp of reality and the only one that didn't claim that he was going to fly on a platinum unicorn and slay the backstop in a Cape of St george while holding off Farage with his third hand.

It's about time that we all grew up a bit. We may have one of the oldest democracies in the world, but it's living in some pre-victorian age and hasn't moved on. Of course, the two main political parties want it that way, but we need to grow up, watch a couple of series of borgen, and work out that we absolutely do not need any party to have a majority to effectively run a country. It just needs a change of thought process and perhaps that isn't the right place for testosterone fuelled self promoting belligerants such as the present pm, Geoffrey Cox and their like.

Not sure your understanding Corbyn, there’s no chance he is not being the man in power.

It’s all he is trying to do, get power.

[Damo]

I've been screaming for Mays Deal for a while now.

If I can compromise, why can't the Brexit Bunch on here?

The fact that you of all people are screaming for it, proves it's more than a compromise for anyone wanting to leave

[If it be your will]

I've been screaming for Mays Deal for a while now.

If I can compromise, why can't the Brexit Bunch on here?

It's not just which deal anymore. Leavers v Remainers; Corbynites v Blairites; Free-marketeers v Nationalists; Graduates v non-graduates; City v town; Young v old; Home-owners v renters; Salaried v gig-economy...

The list is endless. These conflicts were always there, of course, but the gloves seem to have come off in so many arenas the situation is quickly becoming hopeless.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncdY2nGKzBs" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; (not to everyone's musical taste!)

[Spijed]

The fact that you of all people are screaming for it, proves it's more than a compromise for anyone wanting to leave

Does this not really worry you?

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... xit-report" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[aggi]

Most of Europe Pre-Maastricht. (More like pre-1985 in the case of the UK. We were an early adopter of neoliberalism, then Maastricht cemented it into the EU permanently.)

Cheers. Is there anywhere that has done it successfully in the past thirty years? I'm generally curious, it's not something I'd really thought about before.

[Lancasterclaret]

The fact that you of all people are screaming for it, proves it's more than a compromise for anyone wanting to leave

It isn't though is it?

You have to wait two years for your Brexit, but you still get it.

I don't get to remain.

You get to leave.

Take the Brexit that works, rather than one that might not exist

[If it be your will]

I don’t buy that there hasn’t been an attempt at compromise, by one side at least. Many remainers have been prepared to support a softer form of Brexit once the referendum was lost, the type of Brexit that was promoted by many in the Leave camp pre-referendum. But there has been no attempt from the winners to get the losers on board and bring them with them. That works fine when you have bigger support than 52% for what you are doing or a big majority in the HoC. Compromise was always the way forward, unfortunately May’s ill judged general election left her hostage to the more extreme elements of her party and they took control, promoting the most extreme version of Brexit which was never going to win ‘across the divide’ support.

Can you see how that one small segment makes the whole of that post an utterly divisive one? I'm not even having a pop here, well not really, but neither side is saying anything conciliatory anymore.

[martin_p]

Can you see how that one small segment makes the whole of that post an utterly divisive one? I'm not even having a pop here, well not really, but neither side is saying anything conciliatory anymore.

So ‘I voted Remain but would support a softer Brexit’ isn’t conciliatory?

[Damo]

Does this not really worry you?

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... xit-report" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

No. Put it on the list with the other things that were supposed to happen

[Damo]

It isn't though is it?

You have to wait two years for your Brexit, but you still get it.

I don't get to remain.

You get to leave.

Take the Brexit that works, rather than one that might not exist

Ok, if we leave with no deal, but call it remain. You would be ok with that?

[dsr]

It wasn't a possible answer though, as immigrants weren't allowed to vote.

Not true. Immigrants were and are allowed full and free voting rights in all UK elections, including Brexit - there is no restriction on place of birth in deciding whether UK citizens can vote.

What you are confusing it with is that temporary migrant workers were not allowed to vote. This vote was for UK citizens, but foreigners passing through - whether short or long term - they were the ones who couldn't vote.

[Lowbankclaret]

You speak as if the left had no role in pushing the working class towards nationalism, that all the right have to do is hand the proles a Union Jack and they immediately succumb. I profoundly disagree. They're not that shallow. That might be where they're heading, but the liberal left certainly helped push them there.

Let's take an example on this very messageboard. As far as I'm aware Lowbankclaret is the only open Brexit Party supporter that bothers to engage on here. Just watch what happens the next time he posts (or look back at when he has previously). The response will be post after post of sneering derision as to how he can be so thick and bigoted as to support Farage. The liberal left can barely bring themselves to engage with him as a human, such is the withering contempt in which he is held (my favourite one is: But we're doing this all for you. It's the poor that will suffer most from Brexit.). I know what people are thinking: 'Well he deserves it, the stupid bigot.' And this is supposed to bring him into the socialist fold? No chance.

The slice of the cake thing we've discussed before. Not only do I consider it defeatist and craven, but it's also straight out of the neoliberal playbook. It's basically a variation of 'trickle down' and 'A rising tide lifts all boats'. It's patent nonsense. If the poor want a bigger slice of the cake, they must demand it.

It was interesting how at the Brexit Party meeting tonight it was discussed about how the racist, fascist card is thrown at Brexit ME-P’s.
When in fact it is so far away from the truth.

The Brexit parties parliamentary candidates has a higher number of minority people represented without any box ticking quotas, just selecting the best candidates.

[martin_p]

Ok, if we leave with no deal, but call it remain. You would be ok with that?

But the May deal had us leaving the EU. It would have had us out six months now.

[summitclaret]

So ‘I voted Remain but would support a softer Brexit’ isn’t conciliatory?

It is but can you see that i voted to leave and want a Canada style ftd is also a compromise as it is not the hardest of Brexit.