So all those bash Labour for their holocaust denying members will be piling in on the GOP?
Arthur Jones — an outspoken Holocaust denier, activist anti-Semite and white supremacist — is poised to become the Republican nominee for an Illinois congressional seat representing parts of Chicago and nearby suburbs.
“Well first of all, I’m running for Congress not the chancellor of Germany. All right. To me the Holocaust is what I said it is: It’s an international extortion racket,” Jones told the Chicago Sun-Times.
I think the demographics may be against you in the long run. Young people are generally more pro-European, but from looking at the pro-EU rallies in London the enthusiasts seem disproportionately white. As Britain grows less ethnically European, will appeals to European identity maintain their power?
They might, but I don’t think you can assume.
The "cultural values" argument I find baffling. What does it mean here? The expression is sometimes code for differences of morality, as in: immigrants must conform to our cultural values, meaning that throwing gays from rooftops is a big no-no, but that is first world rather than specifically European. If it means culture as in music, TV, cinema etc we are the fifty-first state, and have no more in common with continental Europe than with Papua New Guinea. I appreciate that is not quite true if you live in London and go to the opera, but if you do you are statistically invisible. So how we are we culturally tied to Europe in a way that we aren't to the USA?
I think that when you have competing ideas of what is good, then coming to an objective of the truth is almost impossible. Things that I think of as good are bad to many Remainers, and vice versa.
To a large extent Brexit concerns issues of national identity, in a similar way to how the Scottish independence referendum (and every other independence referendum ever) has touched on issues like the economy and how cross-border issues will be dealt with, but people were still very much swayed by whether they saw themselves as having an over-arching British identity or whether their Scottish identity took precedence
I would largely agree, but her in lies the problems for the future.
I am not the only one who will not forgive the Brexiteers for amputating my European identity. I will not be the only one who votes against the Tories whatever the post Brexit economy is like.
I voted Tory in 2010, as did Mrs Fox. Never again.
Works the other way too though Foxy. I have never forgiven the Europhiles at Maastricht making me a European citizen rather than a British subject, with no mandate and, worse, knowing they would not get a mandate if they sought one and not caring. Time has not been a healer.
All that has followed has flowed from the failure to get consent at that point imho.
So all those bash Labour for their holocaust denying members will be piling in on the GOP?
Arthur Jones — an outspoken Holocaust denier, activist anti-Semite and white supremacist — is poised to become the Republican nominee for an Illinois congressional seat representing parts of Chicago and nearby suburbs.
“Well first of all, I’m running for Congress not the chancellor of Germany. All right. To me the Holocaust is what I said it is: It’s an international extortion racket,” Jones told the Chicago Sun-Times.
So all those bash Labour for their holocaust denying members will be piling in on the GOP?
Arthur Jones — an outspoken Holocaust denier, activist anti-Semite and white supremacist — is poised to become the Republican nominee for an Illinois congressional seat representing parts of Chicago and nearby suburbs.
“Well first of all, I’m running for Congress not the chancellor of Germany. All right. To me the Holocaust is what I said it is: It’s an international extortion racket,” Jones told the Chicago Sun-Times.
Holocaust denying should be condemned no matter who does the denying. A significant number of your co-religionists share his holocaust denying, do they not?
I think the demographics may be against you in the long run. Young people are generally more pro-European, but from looking at the pro-EU rallies in London the enthusiasts seem disproportionately white. As Britain grows less ethnically European, will appeals to European identity maintain their power?
They might, but I don’t think you can assume.
The "cultural values" argument I find baffling. What does it mean here? The expression is sometimes code for differences of morality, as in: immigrants must conform to our cultural values, meaning that throwing gays from rooftops is a big no-no, but that is first world rather than specifically European. If it means culture as in music, TV, cinema etc we are the fifty-first state, and have no more in common with continental Europe than with Papua New Guinea. I appreciate that is not quite true if you live in London and go to the opera, but if you do you are statistically invisible. So how we are we culturally tied to Europe in a way that we aren't to the USA?
There is one thing the UK shares with Papua New Guinea.
It's presented as a truism that Brexit above all as a matter of identity. I challenge that. First of all practically no-one would see the EU as an alternative identity that excludes them being British, Scottish, English, Welsh etc. Only a small part, I believe, see the EU as incompatible with those identities. They might see the EU not workng for the UK or a malign thing we shouldn't have anything to do with, or alternatively that the EU is good for the UK and good for Europe. Those are practical and to some extent moral concerns. It matters because at some point practicalities will impose themselves and people aren't going to say, it's OK we can roast rats over the open fire because we're British.
On the Leave side, I'd say that there are millions of people who see the EU as a threat to their British identity, myself included.
Sean always says things more pithily than me, but Mr 43, have you ever shopped at Trago Mills in Newton Abbot? If you have, you should understand my point exactly.
For decades, walking through the doors of Trago Mills has been like entering a Brexiteers' fantasy - in true "Englishman's home is his castle" style, one is transported into a lone fortress where the last Brits are holding out against the dominion of the European Superstate, a bureaucratic Orwellian nightmare which has usurped the traditional liberties of this land.
That chap must be infuriatingly smug right now - if he's not getting panicky about BINO and the Great Remain Conspiracy.
I believe, Mr 43, that you are PB regular? If you tune in on just the right night, very occasionally a poster pops up to dispense his sage wisdom, whose username almost rhymes with Pillion Hen. It's possible you might have seen their posts before. I can't work out for the life of me if (s)he is a spoof or not, though (s)he's witty and quite entertaining, a proper Advocatus Diaboli just when the devil needed one. But regardless of the spoofdom question, my main point is there are real flesh-and-blood human beings with a right to vote in the UK who actually think like that.
Now I don't think I phrased my original post very well since your tone suggested you are disagreeing with me, yet what you are writing was essentially a verbatim agreement with my views (unless I have, in turn, misunderstood your good self). I'm not saying Brexit is like-for-like with the Sindy-ref or Quebec's neverendum. But "what kind of Britain do I want to live in" touches on many intangible issues, many of which relate to group identity. Especially: who counts as my "in-group" in terms of forming political and trading ties? To what depth do I want to be tied to what group? Closely related is the question of "who is on my/our side?" and whether that extends, say, to the European Commissioners or the judges of the ECJ, and in quite what way we feel akin to the Germans or Lithuanians or Greeks.
I really don't think that the core reason some people voted Leave and others Remain is that they each assessed the objective evidence of how many £/week their families would be better off by under the two scenarios, and those who concluded "better off if we leave" opted for "Leave" and vice versa for Remain. But the only reason economic and policy arguments had relevance to the result, was precisely because the identity issue is nuanced and non-binary. If 70% of Brits saw their national identity as inherently anti-European, like the proprietor of Trago Mills, then the UK would likely have either been unable to sign up to Maastricht or would have left shortly thereafter. If, along the lines of the aforementioned PBer, most UK citizens saw being British as merely the local flavour of European, their UK passports as merely the locally-produced version of their European passport, and looked forward to the day when Europe stood as one to protect all its peoples and accepted its mantle as the next global power ... there simply would never have been a Brexit referendum and Britain would stand at the heart of the European project.
Now it transpires that the truth lay somewhere in between, though on aggregate perhaps slightly closer to Brexiteer fantasy island than to cosmopolitan europhile Remainerhood. It was no doubt somewhere in between for most voters, too, so even on an individual level the matter of European identity might have been lurking or persuasive but not definitive. Overall, if it wasn't a fairly tight-run thing in a country somewhat torn on issues of identity and ultimate direction, I don't believe there'd have been a referendum at all. What the referendum has not delivered - sadly, but that would be expecting far too much of too weak a tool - is national clarity or consensus on where to go next.
To a large extent Brexit concerns issues of national identity, in a similar way to how the Scottish independence referendum (and every other independence referendum ever) has touched on issues like the economy and how cross-border issues will be dealt with, but people were still very much swayed by whether they saw themselves as having an over-arching British identity or whether their Scottish identity took precedence. If the vast majority of UK citizens saw being British as actively antithetical to being European, then** Leave would presumably have won a stonking majority. [SNIP]
I suspect the tru
It's presented as a truism that Brexit above all as a matter of identity. I challenge that. First of all practically no-one would see the EU as an alternative identity that excludes them being British, Scottish, English, Welsh etc. Only a small part, I believe, see the EU as incompatible with those identities. They might see the EU not workng for the UK or a malign thing we shouldn't have anything to do with, or alternatively that the EU is good for the UK and good for Europe. Those are practical and to some extent moral concerns. It matters because at some point practicalities will impose themselves and people aren't going to say, it's OK we can roast rats over the open fire because we're British.
On the Leave side, I'd say that there are millions of people who see the EU as a threat to their British identity, myself included.
I don't doubt that, but Brexiteers don't seem to realise that Remainers feel the polar opposite.
It is a matter of cultural values, and I don't think those change with age in the way that economic values do, which is why I expect that the UK will rejoin in time. Even if not, it will be a permanent culture war.
I'm not quite sure what the polar opposite is - not being pedantic, just not sure quite what you mean. I think it possible to retain a British identity within the EU but the progressives need to see the scale of the problem. There was an article in the Guardian the other about the Hijab being worn in Primary Schools. The writer had a preference for showing her hair in public but was unhappy at the Head of Ofsted talking about 'British values' - clearly a term that wasn't likely to encourage cross-cultural dialogue. Now I doubt 1% of people have read the article and most of them probably voted remain. But it is something that is in the air and people feel it. How do outward looking liberals deal with it?
It is simple. I have a multifaceted Identity, which includes being part of European culture and values.
To a large extent Brexit concerns issues of national identity, in a similar way to how the Scottish independence referendum (and every other independence referendum ever) has touched on issues like the economy and how cross-border issues will be dealt with, but people were still very much swayed by whether they saw themselves as having an over-arching British identity or whether their Scottish identity took precedence. If the vast majority of UK citizens saw being British as actively antithetical to being European, then** Leave would presumably have won a stonking majority. [SNIP]
I suspect the tru
It's presented as a truism that Brexit above all as a matter of identity. I challenge that. First of all practically no-one would see the EU as an alternative identity that excludes them being British, Scottish, English, Welsh etc. Only a small part, I believe, see the EU as incompatible with those identities. They might see the EU not workng for the UK or a malign thing we shouldn't have anything to do with, or alternatively that the EU is good for the UK and good for Europe. Those are practical and to some extent moral concerns. It matters because at some point practicalities will impose themselves and people aren't going to say, it's OK we can roast rats over the open fire because we're British.
On the Leave side, I'd say that there are millions of people who see the EU as a threat to their British identity, myself included.
I don't doubt that, but Brexiteers don't seem to realise that Remainers feel the polar opposite.
It is a matter of cultural values, and I don't think those change with age in the way that economic values do, which is why I expect that the UK will rejoin in time. Even if not, it will be a permanent culture war.
I'm not quite sure what the polar opposite is - not being pedantic, just not sure quite what you mean. I think it possible to retain a British identity within the EU but the progressives need to see the scale of the problem. There was an article in the Guardian the other about the Hijab being worn in Primary Schools. The writer had a preference for showing her hair in public but was unhappy at the Head of Ofsted talking about 'British values' - clearly a term that wasn't likely to encourage cross-cultural dialogue. Now I doubt 1% of people have read the article and most of them probably voted remain. But it is something that is in the air and people feel it. How do outward looking liberals deal with it?
It is simple. I have a multifaceted Identity, which includes being part of European culture and values.
Hitherto, attitudes towards the EU have altered as people have got older. People aged 59-70 in 2016 voted strongly for Remain in 1975. Strange as it may seem, I was hugely in favour of European Integration at university, when I considered it essential to counter the Warsaw Pact.
Do you think the average punter considers Brexit as a vote for no more integration or a vote to reverse the integration that has already taken place?
I'm struck by how many engaged Brexit voters still respond to arguments in favour of a USE by Verhofstaft or Schulz as relating to *our* future, not *their* future. Saying goodbye is hard to do, even for those who most wanted it.
I think the demographics may be against you in the long run. Young people are generally more pro-European, but from looking at the pro-EU rallies in London the enthusiasts seem disproportionately white. As Britain grows less ethnically European, will appeals to European identity maintain their power?
They might, but I don’t think you can assume.
The "cultural values" argument I find baffling. What does it mean here? The expression is sometimes code for differences of morality, as in: immigrants must conform to our cultural values, meaning that throwing gays from rooftops is a big no-no, but that is first world rather than specifically European. If it means culture as in music, TV, cinema etc we are the fifty-first state, and have no more in common with continental Europe than with Papua New Guinea. I appreciate that is not quite true if you live in London and go to the opera, but if you do you are statistically invisible. So how we are we culturally tied to Europe in a way that we aren't to the USA?
There is one thing the UK shares with Papua New Guinea.
I think the demographics may be against you in the long run. Young people are generally more pro-European, but from looking at the pro-EU rallies in London the enthusiasts seem disproportionately white. As Britain grows less ethnically European, will appeals to European identity maintain their power?
They might, but I don’t think you can assume.
The "cultural values" argument I find baffling. What does it mean here? The expression is sometimes code for differences of morality, as in: immigrants must conform to our cultural values, meaning that throwing gays from rooftops is a big no-no, but that is first world rather than specifically European. If it means culture as in music, TV, cinema etc we are the fifty-first state, and have no more in common with continental Europe than with Papua New Guinea. I appreciate that is not quite true if you live in London and go to the opera, but if you do you are statistically invisible. So how we are we culturally tied to Europe in a way that we aren't to the USA?
There is one thing the UK shares with Papua New Guinea.
Hitherto, attitudes towards the EU have altered as people have got older. People aged 59-70 in 2016 voted strongly for Remain in 1975. Strange as it may seem, I was hugely in favour of European Integration at university, when I considered it essential to counter the Warsaw Pact.
Do you think the average punter considers Brexit as a vote for no more integration or a vote to reverse the integration that has already taken place?
I'm struck by how many engaged Brexit voters still respond to arguments in favour of a USE by Verhofstaft or Schulz as relating to *our* future, not *their* future. Saying goodbye is hard to do, even for those who most wanted it.
Both.
But no-one is calling for customs posts to be built, are they? The standard argument is that we don't need any of that stuff, which is another way of saying we take the benefits of the EU as it is for granted.
I think the demographics may be against you in the long run. Young people are generally more pro-European, but from looking at the pro-EU rallies in London the enthusiasts seem disproportionately white. As Britain grows less ethnically European, will appeals to European identity maintain their power?
They might, but I don’t think you can assume.
The "cultural values" argument I find baffling. What does it mean here? The expression is sometimes code for differences of morality, as in: immigrants must conform to our cultural values, meaning that throwing gays from rooftops is a big no-no, but that is first world rather than specifically European. If it means culture as in music, TV, cinema etc we are the fifty-first state, and have no more in common with continental Europe than with Papua New Guinea. I appreciate that is not quite true if you live in London and go to the opera, but if you do you are statistically invisible. So how we are we culturally tied to Europe in a way that we aren't to the USA?
There is one thing the UK shares with Papua New Guinea.
It is simple. I have a multifaceted Identity, which includes being part of European culture and values.
What are "European culture and values"?
How do they differ from UK ones?
How does leaving the EU possibly change your identity?
I have no idea either. How are they different from American values or Indian values or Australian values or Singaporean values or indeed human values? We arguably share much more in common with those nations - a common shared language for a start and an integral history.
I actually feel much more at home in Singapore then Sofia and Brisbane than Bucharest.
I think the demographics may be against you in the long run. Young people are generally more pro-European, but from looking at the pro-EU rallies in London the enthusiasts seem disproportionately white. As Britain grows less ethnically European, will appeals to European identity maintain their power?
They might, but I don’t think you can assume.
The "cultural values" argument I find baffling. What does it mean here? The expression is sometimes code for differences of morality, as in: immigrants must conform to our cultural values, meaning that throwing gays from rooftops is a big no-no, but that is first world rather than specifically European. If it means culture as in music, TV, cinema etc we are the fifty-first state, and have no more in common with continental Europe than with Papua New Guinea. I appreciate that is not quite true if you live in London and go to the opera, but if you do you are statistically invisible. So how we are we culturally tied to Europe in a way that we aren't to the USA?
There is one thing the UK shares with Papua New Guinea.
It is simple. I have a multifaceted Identity, which includes being part of European culture and values.
"We are, we always have been, and I trust we always will be, detested in France." I don't say that that was ever a clever or admirable thing to say, but it is sure as hell part of your cultural heritage.
Do you actually mean anything more than that it's nice to pop over to see the Louvre at the weekend, occasionally?
So all those bash Labour for their holocaust denying members will be piling in on the GOP?
Arthur Jones — an outspoken Holocaust denier, activist anti-Semite and white supremacist — is poised to become the Republican nominee for an Illinois congressional seat representing parts of Chicago and nearby suburbs.
“Well first of all, I’m running for Congress not the chancellor of Germany. All right. To me the Holocaust is what I said it is: It’s an international extortion racket,” Jones told the Chicago Sun-Times.
It is simple. I have a multifaceted Identity, which includes being part of European culture and values.
What are "European culture and values"?
How do they differ from UK ones?
How does leaving the EU possibly change your identity?
That applies to many loyalties. How does Scottish Culture and values differ from English? Yet people strongly identify as Scottish.
Leaving the EU doesn't change my identity so much as make me uncomfortable with the one being forced onto me by the Brexiteers.
Very nicely put Dr Fox!
Incidentally, also a partial answer to "how could a government mandated to perform Brexit manage to do so without forever alienating remain-voters" ... I do wonder if part of the problem is that much of the government's senior leadership had argued the Remain case, as had the government of which they used to be a part, and this has created a need to play Public Brexit Top Trumps to see Who Is The Brexiest Of Them All. Maybe it would have been just as bad had Leavers taken over, but I wonder if the pressure on them would have been to be minimally triumphalist about it.
To a large extent Brexit concerns issues of national identity, in a similar wayindependence referendum ever) has touched on issues like the economy and how cross-border issues will be dealt with, but people were still very much swayed by whether they saw themselves as having an over-arching British identity or whether their Scottish identity took precedence. If the vast majority of UK citizens saw being British as actively antithetical to being European, then** Leave would presumably have won a stonking majority. [SNIP]
I suspect the tru
It's presented as a truism that Brexit above all as a matter of identity. I challenge that. First of all practically no-one would see the EU as an alternative identity that excludes them being British, Scottish, English, Welsh etc. Only a small part, I believe, see the EU as incompatible with those identities. They might see the EU not workng for the UK or a malign thing we shouldn't have anything to do with, or alternatively that the EU is good for the UK and good for Europe. Those are practical and to some extent moral concerns. It matters because at some point practicalities will impose themselves and people aren't going to say, it's OK we can roast rats over the open fire because we're British.
On the Leave side, I'd say that there are millions of people who see the EU as a threat to their British identity, myself included.
I don't doubt that, but Brexiteers don't seem to realise that Remainers feel the polar opposite.
It is a matter of cultural values, and I don't think those change with age in the way that economic values do, which is why I expect that the UK will rejoin in time. Even if not, it will be a permanent culture war.
I'm not quite sure what the polar opposite is - not being pedantic, just not sure quite what you mean. I think it possible to retain a British identity within the EU but the progressives need to see the scale of the problem. There was an article in the Guardian the other about the Hijab being worn in Primary Schools. The writer had a preference for showing her hair in public but was unhappy at the Head of Ofsted talking about 'British values' - clearly a term that wasn't likely to encourage cross-cultural dialogue. Now I doubt 1% of people have read the article and most of them probably voted remain. But it is something that is in the air and people feel it. How do outward looking liberals deal with it?
It is simple. I have a multifaceted Identity, which includes being part of European culture and values.
As do I. But my European identity and cultural values are not indelibly tied up with a temporary government structure
It is simple. I have a multifaceted Identity, which includes being part of European culture and values.
"We are, we always have been, and I trust we always will be, detested in France." I don't say that that was ever a clever or admirable thing to say, but it is sure as hell part of your cultural heritage.
Do you actually mean anything more than that it's nice to pop over to see the Louvre at the weekend, occasionally?
Our culture has interplayed with the mainland continent on so many levels, religious, intellectual, political, genetic, artistic, musical, military etc etc. We are a European country, hence I identify as European.
To a large extent Brexit concerns issues of national identity, in a similar way to how the Scottish independence referendum (and every other independence referendum ever) has touched on issues like the economy and how cross-border issues will be dealt with, but people were still very much swayed by whether they saw themselves as having an over-arching British identity or whether their Scottish identity took precedence. If the vast majority of UK citizens saw being British as actively antithetical to being European, then** Leave would presumably have won a stonking majority. [SNIP]
I suspect the tru
re practical and to some extent moral concerns. It matters because at some point practicalities will impose themselves and people aren't going to say, it's OK we can roast rats over the open fire because we're British.
On the Leave side, I'd say that there are millions of people who see the EU as a threat to their British identity, myself included.
I don't doubt that, but Brexiteers don't seem to realise that Remainers feel the polar opposite.
It is a matter of cultural values, and I don't think those change with age in the way that economic values do, which is why I expect that the UK will rejoin in time. Even if not, it will be a permanent culture war.
I'm not quite sure what the polar opposite is - not being pedantic, just not sure quite what you mean. I think it possible to retain a British identity within the EU but the progressives need to see the scale of the problem. There was an article in the Guardian the other about the Hijab being worn in Primary Schools. The writer had a preference for showing her hair in public but was unhappy at the Head of Ofsted talking about 'British values' - clearly a term that wasn't likely to encourage cross-cultural dialogue. Now I doubt 1% of people have read the article and most of them probably voted remain. But it is something that is in the air and people feel it. How do outward looking liberals deal with it?
It is simple. I have a multifaceted Identity, which includes being part of European culture and values.
Ah okay. The trouble is however that I'm not sure that's very widely shared. I may be wrong but I think most remainers were pragmatic or just general internationalists not much bothered with identity.
It is simple. I have a multifaceted Identity, which includes being part of European culture and values.
"We are, we always have been, and I trust we always will be, detested in France." I don't say that that was ever a clever or admirable thing to say, but it is sure as hell part of your cultural heritage.
Do you actually mean anything more than that it's nice to pop over to see the Louvre at the weekend, occasionally?
Our culture has interplayed with the mainland continent on so many levels, religious, intellectual, political, genetic, artistic, musical, military etc etc. We are a European country, hence I identify as European.
Adolf Hitler mentioned "Europe" or "European" no less than 19 times in his Stalingrad speech in Munich in November 1942:
So all those bash Labour for their holocaust denying members will be piling in on the GOP?
Arthur Jones — an outspoken Holocaust denier, activist anti-Semite and white supremacist — is poised to become the Republican nominee for an Illinois congressional seat representing parts of Chicago and nearby suburbs.
“Well first of all, I’m running for Congress not the chancellor of Germany. All right. To me the Holocaust is what I said it is: It’s an international extortion racket,” Jones told the Chicago Sun-Times.
Sean always says things more pithily than me, but Mr 43, have you ever shopped at Trago Mills in Newton Abbot? If you have, you should understand my point exactly.
For decades, walking through the doors of Trago Mills has been like entering a Brexiteers' fantasy - in true "Englishman's home is his castle" style, one is transported into a lone fortress where the last Brits are holding out against the dominion of the European Superstate, a bureaucratic Orwellian nightmare which has usurped the traditional liberties of this land.
That chap must be infuriatingly smug right now - if he's not getting panicky about BINO and the Great Remain Conspiracy.
I believe, Mr 43, that you are PB regular? If you tune in on just the right night, very occasionally a poster pops up to dispense his sage wisdom, whose username almost rhymes with Pillion Hen. It's possible you might have seen their posts before. I can't work out for the life of me if (s)he is a spoof or not, though (s)he's witty and quite entertaining, a proper Advocatus Diaboli just when the devil needed one. But regardless of the spoofdom question, my main point is there are real flesh-and-blood human beings with a right to vote in the UK who actually think like that.
Well no. I live in Scotland in a city that voted three quarters for Remain. You do occasionally come across someone who voted Leave and you do a quick, oh yes, they do exist. It puts me in mind of Matilda's headteacher as described by the brilliant Roald Dahl:
Thank goodness we don't meet many people like her in this world, although they do exist and all of us are likely to come across at least one of them in a lifetime. If you ever do, you should behave as you would if you met an enraged rhinoceros out in the bush - climb up the nearest tree and stay there until it has gone away.
It is simple. I have a multifaceted Identity, which includes being part of European culture and values.
"We are, we always have been, and I trust we always will be, detested in France." I don't say that that was ever a clever or admirable thing to say, but it is sure as hell part of your cultural heritage.
Do you actually mean anything more than that it's nice to pop over to see the Louvre at the weekend, occasionally?
Our culture has interplayed with the mainland continent on so many levels, religious, intellectual, political, genetic, artistic, musical, military etc etc. We are a European country, hence I identify as European.
Lots of military and cultural interplay in Dresden and Coventry, for sure.
And we are NOT a European country. Europe is a continent, which is a big land mass with lots of countries on it. We are a couple of small islands off the coast of Europe. We are not part of any continent. That has always been the case (over human timescales), and the theory of plate tectonics does not alter the situation by one smidgeon of an iota.
Foxy - another problem. That European culture has been around for centuries, nay millenia. The EU hasn't. I'm not sure it is quite tied up with being European in the way that say being British is with the Union. I would have been very saddened had Scotland voted out in 2014 for although I would still have continued calling myself British, obviously it would have affected how I saw my identity.
It is simple. I have a multifaceted Identity, which includes being part of European culture and values.
"We are, we always have been, and I trust we always will be, detested in France." I don't say that that was ever a clever or admirable thing to say, but it is sure as hell part of your cultural heritage.
Do you actually mean anything more than that it's nice to pop over to see the Louvre at the weekend, occasionally?
Our culture has interplayed with the mainland continent on so many levels, religious, intellectual, political, genetic, artistic, musical, military etc etc. We are a European country, hence I identify as European.
Lots of military and cultural interplay in Dresden and Coventry, for sure.
And we are NOT a European country. Europe is a continent, which is a big land mass with lots of countries on it. We are a couple of small islands off the coast of Europe. We are not part of any continent. That has always been the case (over human timescales), and the theory of plate tectonics does not alter the situation by one smidgeon of an iota.
Hitherto, attitudes towards the EU have altered as people have got older. People aged 59-70 in 2016 voted strongly for Remain in 1975. Strange as it may seem, I was hugely in favour of European Integration at university, when I considered it essential to counter the Warsaw Pact.
Do you think the average punter considers Brexit as a vote for no more integration or a vote to reverse the integration that has already taken place?
I'm struck by how many engaged Brexit voters still respond to arguments in favour of a USE by Verhofstaft or Schulz as relating to *our* future, not *their* future. Saying goodbye is hard to do, even for those who most wanted it.
Both.
But no-one is calling for customs posts to be built, are they? The standard argument is that we don't need any of that stuff, which is another way of saying we take the benefits of the EU as it is for granted.
I don't see anything terrifying about customs posts if they're needed. I've travelled through them often enough.
It is simple. I have a multifaceted Identity, which includes being part of European culture and values.
"We are, we always have been, and I trust we always will be, detested in France." I don't say that that was ever a clever or admirable thing to say, but it is sure as hell part of your cultural heritage.
Do you actually mean anything more than that it's nice to pop over to see the Louvre at the weekend, occasionally?
Our culture has interplayed with the mainland continent on so many levels, religious, intellectual, political, genetic, artistic, musical, military etc etc. We are a European country, hence I identify as European.
Lots of military and cultural interplay in Dresden and Coventry, for sure.
And we are NOT a European country. Europe is a continent, which is a big land mass with lots of countries on it. We are a couple of small islands off the coast of Europe. We are not part of any continent. That has always been the case (over human timescales), and the theory of plate tectonics does not alter the situation by one smidgeon of an iota.
Although I do identify as Gondwanan, at heart.
As that most English of poets puts it:
No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as any manner of thy friends or of thine own were; any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind. And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
Well no. I live in Scotland in a city that voted three quarters for Remain. You do occasionally come across someone who voted Leave and you do a quick, oh yes, they do exist. It puts me in mind of Matilda's headteacher as described by the brilliant Roald Dahl:
Thank goodness we don't meet many people like her in this world, although they do exist and all of us are likely to come across at least one of them in a lifetime. If you ever do, you should behave as you would if you met an enraged rhinoceros out in the bush - climb up the nearest tree and stay there until it has gone away.
That's really quite sad. I know many remainers and many leavers and many people who were essentially ambivalent, or could see both sides, but I was struck by how many leavers seem to know almost exclusively other leavers, and how many remainers seem to know almost exclusively other remainers. I fear it represents a narrowness of worldviews and indeed of the social networks (not necessarily in the technical sense) which generate them.
Reminds me of a social science survey that sadly I've forgotten the name of or link to, but the BBC did a piece on - folk who worked middle-class professional jobs were unlikely to be friends with anyone who worked as a cleaner, folk who worked low-skill jobs were quite likely to have a cleaner in their social circle. That sort of thing, whether with respect to political viewpoint or job, pains me greatly. I actually think it's more troubling, in many ways even more dangerous to a democratic society, than the (related) phenomenon of "inequality", which seems to hog the limelight as today's demon-of-choice.
It is simple. I have a multifaceted Identity, which includes being part of European culture and values.
What are "European culture and values"?
How do they differ from UK ones?
How does leaving the EU possibly change your identity?
That applies to many loyalties. How does Scottish Culture and values differ from English? Yet people strongly identify as Scottish.
Leaving the EU doesn't change my identity so much as make me uncomfortable with the one being forced onto me by the Brexiteers.
Very nicely put Dr Fox!
Incidentally, also a partial answer to "how could a government mandated to perform Brexit manage to do so without forever alienating remain-voters" ... I do wonder if part of the problem is that much of the government's senior leadership had argued the Remain case, as had the government of which they used to be a part, and this has created a need to play Public Brexit Top Trumps to see Who Is The Brexiest Of Them All. Maybe it would have been just as bad had Leavers taken over, but I wonder if the pressure on them would have been to be minimally triumphalist about it.
I've no desire to crow. I'd prefer a Canada-type arrangement with the EU, but I can live with closer ties.
It is simple. I have a multifaceted Identity, which includes being part of European culture and values.
"We are, we always have been, and I trust we always will be, detested in France." I don't say that that was ever a clever or admirable thing to say, but it is sure as hell part of your cultural heritage.
Do you actually mean anything more than that it's nice to pop over to see the Louvre at the weekend, occasionally?
Our culture has interplayed with the mainland continent on so many levels, religious, intellectual, political, genetic, artistic, musical, military etc etc. We are a European country, hence I identify as European.
Lots of military and cultural interplay in Dresden and Coventry, for sure.
And we are NOT a European country. Europe is a continent, which is a big land mass with lots of countries on it. We are a couple of small islands off the coast of Europe. We are not part of any continent. That has always been the case (over human timescales), and the theory of plate tectonics does not alter the situation by one smidgeon of an iota.
Although I do identify as Gondwanan, at heart.
As that most English of poets puts it:
No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as any manner of thy friends or of thine own were; any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind. And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
Exactly; what Donne is saying is that there is no continent/island distinction between human beings, whereas there is between continents and islands.
Btw it wasn't intended as poetry, so there is no need to lay it out like that.
It's presented as a truism that Brexit above all as a matter of identity. I challenge that. First of all practically no-one would see the EU as an alternative identity that excludes them being British, Scottish, English, Welsh etc. Only a small part, I believe, see the EU as incompatible with those identities. They might see the EU not workng for the UK or a malign thing we shouldn't have anything to do with, or alternatively that the EU is good for the UK and good for Europe. Those are practical and to some extent moral concerns. It matters because at some point practicalities will impose themselves and people aren't going to say, it's OK we can roast rats over the open fire because we're British.
On the Leave side, I'd say that there are millions of people who see the EU as a threat to their British identity, myself included.
Sean always says things more pithily than me, but Mr 43, have you ever shopped at Trago Mills in Newton Abbot? If you have, you should understand my point exactly.
For decades, walking through the doors of Trago Mills has been like entering a Brexiteers' fantasy - in true "Englishman's home is his castle" style, one is transported into a lone fortress where the last Brits are holding out against the dominion of the European Superstate, a bureaucratic Orwellian nightmare which has usurped the traditional liberties of this land.
That chap must be infuriatingly smug right now - if he's not getting panicky about BINO and the Great Remain Conspiracy.
I believe, Mr 43, that you are PB regular? If you tune in on just the right night, very occasionally a poster pops up to dispense his sage wisdom, whose username almost rhymes with Pillion Hen. It's possible you might have seen their posts before. I can't work out for the life of me if (s)he is a spoof or not, though (s)he's witty and quite entertaining, a proper Advocatus Diaboli just when the devil needed one. But regardless of the spoofdom question, my main point is there are real flesh-and-blood human beings with a right to vote in the UK who actually think like that.
I've never been in, but I've driven past it frequently.
But, I think I understand what you mean. If you go to the Great British Beer Festival, or a Masonic Lodge, or a hunt or shoot, or a County show, or doubtless many clubs or local events, you're encountering loads of people with old-fashioned values who believe that Britain is great, and voted accordingly.
Well no. I live in Scotland in a city that voted three quarters for Remain. You do occasionally come across someone who voted Leave and you do a quick, oh yes, they do exist. It puts me in mind of Matilda's headteacher as described by the brilliant Roald Dahl:
Thank goodness we don't meet many people like her in this world, although they do exist and all of us are likely to come across at least one of them in a lifetime. If you ever do, you should behave as you would if you met an enraged rhinoceros out in the bush - climb up the nearest tree and stay there until it has gone away.
That's really quite sad. I know many remainers and many leavers and many people who were essentially ambivalent, or could see both sides, but I was struck by how many leavers seem to know almost exclusively other leavers, and how many remainers seem to know almost exclusively other remainers. I fear it represents a narrowness of worldviews and indeed of the social networks (not necessarily in the technical sense) which generate them.
Reminds me of a social science survey that sadly I've forgotten the name of or link to, but the BBC did a piece on - folk who worked middle-class professional jobs were unlikely to be friends with anyone who worked as a cleaner, folk who worked low-skill jobs were quite likely to have a cleaner in their social circle. That sort of thing, whether with respect to political viewpoint or job, pains me greatly. I actually think it's more troubling, in many ways even more dangerous to a democratic society, than the (related) phenomenon of "inequality", which seems to hog the limelight as today's demon-of-choice.
The dividing issue for Scots is independence, obviously, and it certainly isn't difficult to meet people who voted for and against. Actually I quite like northern England that mostly voted Leave and I visit those parts often.
It is simple. I have a multifaceted Identity, which includes being part of European culture and values.
"We are, we always have been, and I trust we always will be, detested in France." I don't say that that was ever a clever or admirable thing to say, but it is sure as hell part of your cultural heritage.
Do you actually mean anything more than that it's nice to pop over to see the Louvre at the weekend, occasionally?
Our culture has interplayed with the mainland continent on so many levels, religious, intellectual, political, genetic, artistic, musical, military etc etc. We are a European country, hence I identify as European.
Lots of military and cultural interplay in Dresden and Coventry, for sure.
And we are NOT a European country. Europe is a continent, which is a big land mass with lots of countries on it. We are a couple of small islands off the coast of Europe. We are not part of any continent. That has always been the case (over human timescales), and the theory of plate tectonics does not alter the situation by one smidgeon of an iota.
Although I do identify as Gondwanan, at heart.
As that most English of poets puts it:
No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as any manner of thy friends or of thine own were; any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind. And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
Exactly; what Donne is saying is that there is no continent/island distinction between human beings, whereas there is between continents and islands.
Btw it wasn't intended as poetry, so there is no need to lay it out like that.
Still regretting only underbidding an early copy of Donne's Meditations 7 years later...
It is simple. I have a multifaceted Identity, which includes being part of European culture and values.
What are "European culture and values"?
How do they differ from UK ones?
How does leaving the EU possibly change your identity?
I have no idea either. How are they different from American values or Indian values or Australian values or Singaporean values or indeed human values? We arguably share much more in common with those nations - a common shared language for a start and an integral history.
I actually feel much more at home in Singapore then Sofia and Brisbane than Bucharest.
I feel more at home in almost any urban centre (New York, Hong Kong, Mumbai, London, Tokyo) than in the countryside.
So all those bash Labour for their holocaust denying members will be piling in on the GOP?
Arthur Jones — an outspoken Holocaust denier, activist anti-Semite and white supremacist — is poised to become the Republican nominee for an Illinois congressional seat representing parts of Chicago and nearby suburbs.
“Well first of all, I’m running for Congress not the chancellor of Germany. All right. To me the Holocaust is what I said it is: It’s an international extortion racket,” Jones told the Chicago Sun-Times.
Sean always says things more pithily than me, but Mr 43, have you ever shopped at Trago Mills in Newton Abbot? If you have, you should understand my point exactly.
For decades, walking through the doors of Trago Mills has been like entering a Brexiteers' fantasy - in true "Englishman's home is his castle" style, one is transported into a lone fortress where the last Brits are holding out against the dominion of the European Superstate, a bureaucratic Orwellian nightmare which has usurped the traditional liberties of this land.
I've never been in, but I've driven past it frequently.
But, I think I understand what you mean. If you go to the Great British Beer Festival, or a Masonic Lodge, or a hunt or shoot, or a County show, or doubtless many clubs or local events, you're encountering loads of people with old-fashioned values who believe that Britain is great, and voted accordingly.
Yes, you understood me loud and clear. Trago Mills is one of the rare places a Remainer might stumble upon a little fortress of Little Britain, without expecting to, and get a real feel of how the world must look from the other side. As a non-masonic, teetotal, urban vegetarian I'm not in the best position to confirm your datapoints! But from the masons and hunters and countryfolk that I know, that would all stand to reason. The country is a patchwork of interlocking subcommunities like this, and some of them have a very clear split on the matter (which is one reason I think identity and worldview is an important part of understanding Brexit, rather than common economic interests, because these subcommunities are often economically heterogeneous - farmhands and landowners I have known have seen the world from a surprisingly similar perspective). Now, should a Leave voter attend a human rights seminar in Cambridge, or sit in on the lunchtime staff room debate at a progressive comprehensive school in London, then they may get a dose of what the world looks like to another group.
So all those bash Labour for their holocaust denying members will be piling in on the GOP?
Arthur Jones — an outspoken Holocaust denier, activist anti-Semite and white supremacist — is poised to become the Republican nominee for an Illinois congressional seat representing parts of Chicago and nearby suburbs.
“Well first of all, I’m running for Congress not the chancellor of Germany. All right. To me the Holocaust is what I said it is: It’s an international extortion racket,” Jones told the Chicago Sun-Times.
So all those bash Labour for their holocaust denying members will be piling in on the GOP?
Arthur Jones — an outspoken Holocaust denier, activist anti-Semite and white supremacist — is poised to become the Republican nominee for an Illinois congressional seat representing parts of Chicago and nearby suburbs.
“Well first of all, I’m running for Congress not the chancellor of Germany. All right. To me the Holocaust is what I said it is: It’s an international extortion racket,” Jones told the Chicago Sun-Times.
I feel it in my waters that Mrs May will face a leadership challenge this week.
Will she survive it?
I think she'll win the vote/a majority of MPs but it'll be like 1990 all over again, like Thatcher she'll be destroyed in the process.
(I do know of some Tory MPs who have war gamed their campaign to ensure Mrs May loses a vote of confidence. 'You do know she'll interpret winning a vote of confidence as a mandate for fighting the next general election as leader, so vote to oust her')
I'm not sure that point of view enjoys universal agreement...
It does among those who know what ”continent” means, and/or have access to a dictionary.
So, shall you tell the inhabitants of Greenland, Tasmania, New Zealand, Japan, Madagascar, Ireland, Cyprus, the Phillipines, Hawaii, half of Greece and half of Canada that they are also not part of a continent? Perhaps they are not as fortunate in dictionary access as you...
A No. 10 source tried to quell the row last night. 'It is not our policy to stay in the customs union. It is not out policy to stay in a customs union,' the source said.
But only a few days ago the PB Leavers were forcefully insisting that joining 'a customs union' was fine and dandy with them. Have they been skipping their homework?
I'm not sure that point of view enjoys universal agreement...
It does among those who know what ”continent” means, and/or have access to a dictionary.
So, shall you tell the inhabitants of Greenland, Tasmania, New Zealand, Japan, Madagascar, Ireland, Cyprus, the Phillipines, Hawaii, half of Greece and half of Canada that they are also not part of a continent? Perhaps they are not as fortunate in dictionary access as you...
It is simple. I have a multifaceted Identity, which includes being part of European culture and values.
"We are, we always have been, and I trust we always will be, detested in France." I don't say that that was ever a clever or admirable thing to say, but it is sure as hell part of your cultural heritage.
Do you actually mean anything more than that it's nice to pop over to see the Louvre at the weekend, occasionally?
Our culture has interplayed with the mainland continent on so many levels, religious, intellectual, political, genetic, artistic, musical, military etc etc. We are a European country, hence I identify as European.
Lots of military and cultural interplay in Dresden and Coventry, for sure.
And we are NOT a European country. Europe is a continent, which is a big land mass with lots of countries on it. We are a couple of small islands off the coast of Europe. We are not part of any continent. That has always been the case (over human timescales), and the theory of plate tectonics does not alter the situation by one smidgeon of an iota.
Although I do identify as Gondwanan, at heart.
As that most English of poets puts it:
No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as any manner of thy friends or of thine own were; any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind. And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
Exactly; what Donne is saying is that there is no continent/island distinction between human beings, whereas there is between continents and islands.
Btw it wasn't intended as poetry, so there is no need to lay it out like that.
It's a truly beautiful passage. Donne's use of the the island/continent distinction was entirely appropriate 400 years ago, but now the use of 'continent' to mean the contiguous land mass only is generally considered obsolete or archaic. E.g. from Collins:
continent noun 1. one of the earth's large land masses (Asia, Australia, Africa, Europe, North and South America, and Antarctica) 2. that part of the earth's crust that rises above the oceans and is composed of sialic rocks. Including the continental shelves, the continents occupy 30 per cent of the earth's surface 3. obsolete a. mainland as opposed to islands b. a continuous extent of land
O/T France - 2 parliamentary by-elections, 2 defeats for Macron's majority (sorry for the long post, only for those interested in continental politics)
In Belfort, the LR (Les Républicains, right-wing opposition) incumbent easily won reelection, despite having his June election cancelled for use of false advertising (posters using other parties logos without their consent or support). He won with 58.93% of the vote against 41.07% for his LREM (Macron's party) opponent, a swing of 8.18% in his favour after a very close election in June. In a context of low turnout, LR was able to keep 75% of its June vote, compared to 55% for LREM. The main issue for LREM is that it did not receive full support of first-round left-wing voters while LR gained the support of all the far-right first round vote.
In Val d'Oise, the swing from LREM to LR was lower (5.7%) but it cost a seat to the majority. LR wins it with 51.45% of the vote, even if LREM was leading the first round by 6 points. Even more than in Belfort, the turnout was extremely low, even more than for the first round: only 16.9% of voters cast a vote (81% did not bother and 2% spoilt their ballot). LREM only managed to get the support of 43% of its June vote, while LR mobilized 55% of ots previous voters.
The government had more or less conceded defeat last week in Belfort but campaigned hard in Val d'Oise with visits from the PM and from the LREM secretary general. However the national picture does not change much after these results, LREM keeping a strong majority in the National assembly.
LR solidifies its role as the main opposition and clealry shows it has survived despite a lot of the old guard defecting to Macron and the clear push of LREM-supporting journalists to establish LREM as the "true centre-right".
The long-term LREM strategy is to be the natural party of government, only opposed by the far-left and the far-right. For this, it had to kill the socialist party, and it seems almost done. But the killing of LR might take longer, especially as Le Pen's FN is still very divided and mostly preoccupied by its struggle with other far-right outfits.
It is simple. I have a multifaceted Identity, which includes being part of European culture and values.
What are "European culture and values"?
How do they differ from UK ones?
How does leaving the EU possibly change your identity?
I have no idea either. How are they different from American values or Indian values or Australian values or Singaporean values or indeed human values? We arguably share much more in common with those nations - a common shared language for a start and an integral history.
I actually feel much more at home in Singapore then Sofia and Brisbane than Bucharest.
Which oddly is part of the (different problem): would you feel equally at home in the poorer bits like Middlesbrough, Stevenage, Newport, Glasgow, Bradford? Or the middling bits like Southampton, Leeds, Cardiff, Swindon, Newcastle? The latter are places that are not posh but are reasonably prosperous with little in the way of ethnic strife nor mass unemployment, with just normal problems and undramatic lives, the best most people can hope for in life.
As I pointed out before, the thing with Brexit was not just that the have-nots were pro-Brexit, it's that the haves were so split: yourself, Alanbrooke, Charles, SeanT, rcs1000 are very widely travelled individuals, arguably even globalists, and thirty years ago would be fervently anti-Brexit, but now...not so much. I have more in common with Brexiteers such as CasinoRoyale who live and stay here than you do, even though you were on the same side.
I'm not sure that point of view enjoys universal agreement...
It does among those who know what ”continent” means, and/or have access to a dictionary.
So, shall you tell the inhabitants of Greenland, Tasmania, New Zealand, Japan, Madagascar, Ireland, Cyprus, the Phillipines, Hawaii, half of Greece and half of Canada that they are also not part of a continent? Perhaps they are not as fortunate in dictionary access as you...
Which continent does Hawaii belong to?
More to the point how's their USexit campaign going?
I'm not sure that point of view enjoys universal agreement...
It does among those who know what ”continent” means, and/or have access to a dictionary.
So, shall you tell the inhabitants of Greenland, Tasmania, New Zealand, Japan, Madagascar, Ireland, Cyprus, the Phillipines, Hawaii, half of Greece and half of Canada that they are also not part of a continent? Perhaps they are not as fortunate in dictionary access as you...
Which continent does Hawaii belong to?
Oooh, I think you might be right there. OK, scratch Hawaii.
Why does Alastair persist in the mistake of thinking that Mrs May's 'citizens of nowhere' phrase had anything to do with Brexit or referred to Remainers?
O/T France - 2 parliamentary by-elections, 2 defeats for Macron's majority (sorry for the long post, only for those interested in continental politics)
In Belfort, the LR (Les Républicains, right-wing opposition) incumbent easily won reelection, despite having his June election cancelled for use of false advertising (posters using other parties logos without their consent or support). He won with 58.93% of the vote against 41.07% for his LREM (Macron's party) opponent, a swing of 8.18% in his favour after a very close election in June. In a context of low turnout, LR was able to keep 75% of its June vote, compared to 55% for LREM. The main issue for LREM is that it did not receive full support of first-round left-wing voters while LR gained the support of all the far-right first round vote.
In Val d'Oise, the swing from LREM to LR was lower (5.7%) but it cost a seat to the majority. LR wins it with 51.45% of the vote, even if LREM was leading the first round by 6 points. Even more than in Belfort, the turnout was extremely low, even more than for the first round: only 16.9% of voters cast a vote (81% did not bother and 2% spoilt their ballot). LREM only managed to get the support of 43% of its June vote, while LR mobilized 55% of ots previous voters.
The government had more or less conceded defeat last week in Belfort but campaigned hard in Val d'Oise with visits from the PM and from the LREM secretary general. However the national picture does not change much after these results, LREM keeping a strong majority in the National assembly.
LR solidifies its role as the main opposition and clealry shows it has survived despite a lot of the old guard defecting to Macron and the clear push of LREM-supporting journalists to establish LREM as the "true centre-right".
The long-term LREM strategy is to be the natural party of government, only opposed by the far-left and the far-right. For this, it had to kill the socialist party, and it seems almost done. But the killing of LR might take longer, especially as Le Pen's FN is still very divided and mostly preoccupied by its struggle with other far-right outfits.
I have just returned from a punishing Times assignment in Mauritius. I can report that it is a pleasant place, with good food, lovely beaches, and some truly excellent hotels (e.g. One and Only Saint Geran).
And there was absolutely no mention of Brexit.
I was there yesterday on Queen Mary 2. The other good thing is that they drive on the left. We also took on board Michael Howard as a guest lecturer who has said he will answer questions on the current state of the Conservative party. I will report back.
Comments
Arthur Jones — an outspoken Holocaust denier, activist anti-Semite and white supremacist — is poised to become the Republican nominee for an Illinois congressional seat representing parts of Chicago and nearby suburbs.
“Well first of all, I’m running for Congress not the chancellor of Germany. All right. To me the Holocaust is what I said it is: It’s an international extortion racket,” Jones told the Chicago Sun-Times.
https://chicago.suntimes.com/news/holocaust-denier-arthur-jones-republican-3rd-congressional-district-lipinski-newman/
For decades, walking through the doors of Trago Mills has been like entering a Brexiteers' fantasy - in true "Englishman's home is his castle" style, one is transported into a lone fortress where the last Brits are holding out against the dominion of the European Superstate, a bureaucratic Orwellian nightmare which has usurped the traditional liberties of this land.
That chap must be infuriatingly smug right now - if he's not getting panicky about BINO and the Great Remain Conspiracy.
I believe, Mr 43, that you are PB regular? If you tune in on just the right night, very occasionally a poster pops up to dispense his sage wisdom, whose username almost rhymes with Pillion Hen. It's possible you might have seen their posts before. I can't work out for the life of me if (s)he is a spoof or not, though (s)he's witty and quite entertaining, a proper Advocatus Diaboli just when the devil needed one. But regardless of the spoofdom question, my main point is there are real flesh-and-blood human beings with a right to vote in the UK who actually think like that.
Now I don't think I phrased my original post very well since your tone suggested you are disagreeing with me, yet what you are writing was essentially a verbatim agreement with my views (unless I have, in turn, misunderstood your good self). I'm not saying Brexit is like-for-like with the Sindy-ref or Quebec's neverendum. But "what kind of Britain do I want to live in" touches on many intangible issues, many of which relate to group identity. Especially: who counts as my "in-group" in terms of forming political and trading ties? To what depth do I want to be tied to what group? Closely related is the question of "who is on my/our side?" and whether that extends, say, to the European Commissioners or the judges of the ECJ, and in quite what way we feel akin to the Germans or Lithuanians or Greeks.
I really don't think that the core reason some people voted Leave and others Remain is that they each assessed the objective evidence of how many £/week their families would be better off by under the two scenarios, and those who concluded "better off if we leave" opted for "Leave" and vice versa for Remain. But the only reason economic and policy arguments had relevance to the result, was precisely because the identity issue is nuanced and non-binary. If 70% of Brits saw their national identity as inherently anti-European, like the proprietor of Trago Mills, then the UK would likely have either been unable to sign up to Maastricht or would have left shortly thereafter. If, along the lines of the aforementioned PBer, most UK citizens saw being British as merely the local flavour of European, their UK passports as merely the locally-produced version of their European passport, and looked forward to the day when Europe stood as one to protect all its peoples and accepted its mantle as the next global power ... there simply would never have been a Brexit referendum and Britain would stand at the heart of the European project.
Now it transpires that the truth lay somewhere in between, though on aggregate perhaps slightly closer to Brexiteer fantasy island than to cosmopolitan europhile Remainerhood. It was no doubt somewhere in between for most voters, too, so even on an individual level the matter of European identity might have been lurking or persuasive but not definitive. Overall, if it wasn't a fairly tight-run thing in a country somewhat torn on issues of identity and ultimate direction, I don't believe there'd have been a referendum at all. What the referendum has not delivered - sadly, but that would be expecting far too much of too weak a tool - is national clarity or consensus on where to go next.
What are "European culture and values"?
How do they differ from UK ones?
How does leaving the EU possibly change your identity?
I actually feel much more at home in Singapore then Sofia and Brisbane than Bucharest.
Leaving the EU doesn't change my identity so much as make me uncomfortable with the one being forced onto me by the Brexiteers.
Do you actually mean anything more than that it's nice to pop over to see the Louvre at the weekend, occasionally?
Incidentally, also a partial answer to "how could a government mandated to perform Brexit manage to do so without forever alienating remain-voters" ... I do wonder if part of the problem is that much of the government's senior leadership had argued the Remain case, as had the government of which they used to be a part, and this has created a need to play Public Brexit Top Trumps to see Who Is The Brexiest Of Them All. Maybe it would have been just as bad had Leavers taken over, but I wonder if the pressure on them would have been to be minimally triumphalist about it.
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Adolf_Hitler's_Stalingrad_Speech
Even the Supreme leader of North Korea doesn't win that well!
The Republicans have no interest in contesting the seat and clearly no mainstream Republican is willing to run.
https://www.elections.il.gov/ElectionResults.aspx?ID=vlS7uG8NT/0=
Thank goodness we don't meet many people like her in this world, although they do exist and all of us are likely to come across at least one of them in a lifetime. If you ever do, you should behave as you would if you met an enraged rhinoceros out in the bush - climb up the nearest tree and stay there until it has gone away.
And we are NOT a European country. Europe is a continent, which is a big land mass with lots of countries on it. We are a couple of small islands off the coast of Europe. We are not part of any continent. That has always been the case (over human timescales), and the theory of plate tectonics does not alter the situation by one smidgeon of an iota.
Although I do identify as Gondwanan, at heart.
Although I do identify as Gondwanan, at heart.
Break-ups can be hard to get over.
No man is an island entire of itself; every man
is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;
if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe
is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as
well as any manner of thy friends or of thine
own were; any man's death diminishes me,
because I am involved in mankind.
And therefore never send to know for whom
the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
Reminds me of a social science survey that sadly I've forgotten the name of or link to, but the BBC did a piece on - folk who worked middle-class professional jobs were unlikely to be friends with anyone who worked as a cleaner, folk who worked low-skill jobs were quite likely to have a cleaner in their social circle. That sort of thing, whether with respect to political viewpoint or job, pains me greatly. I actually think it's more troubling, in many ways even more dangerous to a democratic society, than the (related) phenomenon of "inequality", which seems to hog the limelight as today's demon-of-choice.
Btw it wasn't intended as poetry, so there is no need to lay it out like that.
But, I think I understand what you mean. If you go to the Great British Beer Festival, or a Masonic Lodge, or a hunt or shoot, or a County show, or doubtless many clubs or local events, you're encountering loads of people with old-fashioned values who believe that Britain is great, and voted accordingly.
But that may just be me.
That can't be good for democracy.
This sounds out an appalling message.
https://twitter.com/krishgm/status/960198585399865350
(I do know of some Tory MPs who have war gamed their campaign to ensure Mrs May loses a vote of confidence. 'You do know she'll interpret winning a vote of confidence as a mandate for fighting the next general election as leader, so vote to oust her')
HSBC UK (Retail) Ltd is headquartered in the UK, is a UK only retail bank, and conforms to all the appropriate regulatory and capital requirements.
But it is owned 100% by HSBC Group (Hong Kong).
Are the deposits of HSBC UK (Retail) Ltd covered?
A No. 10 source tried to quell the row last night. 'It is not our policy to stay in the customs union. It is not out policy to stay in a customs union,' the source said.
But only a few days ago the PB Leavers were forcefully insisting that joining 'a customs union' was fine and dandy with them. Have they been skipping their homework?
I believe TSB are having to do the same with their Spanish owners.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/dec/31/freemasons-blocking-reform-police-federation-leader
continent
noun
1. one of the earth's large land masses (Asia, Australia, Africa, Europe, North and South America, and Antarctica)
2. that part of the earth's crust that rises above the oceans and is composed of sialic rocks. Including the continental shelves, the continents occupy 30 per cent of the earth's surface
3. obsolete
a. mainland as opposed to islands
b. a continuous extent of land
In Belfort, the LR (Les Républicains, right-wing opposition) incumbent easily won reelection, despite having his June election cancelled for use of false advertising (posters using other parties logos without their consent or support).
He won with 58.93% of the vote against 41.07% for his LREM (Macron's party) opponent, a swing of 8.18% in his favour after a very close election in June.
In a context of low turnout, LR was able to keep 75% of its June vote, compared to 55% for LREM. The main issue for LREM is that it did not receive full support of first-round left-wing voters while LR gained the support of all the far-right first round vote.
In Val d'Oise, the swing from LREM to LR was lower (5.7%) but it cost a seat to the majority. LR wins it with 51.45% of the vote, even if LREM was leading the first round by 6 points.
Even more than in Belfort, the turnout was extremely low, even more than for the first round: only 16.9% of voters cast a vote (81% did not bother and 2% spoilt their ballot).
LREM only managed to get the support of 43% of its June vote, while LR mobilized 55% of ots previous voters.
The government had more or less conceded defeat last week in Belfort but campaigned hard in Val d'Oise with visits from the PM and from the LREM secretary general. However the national picture does not change much after these results, LREM keeping a strong majority in the National assembly.
LR solidifies its role as the main opposition and clealry shows it has survived despite a lot of the old guard defecting to Macron and the clear push of LREM-supporting journalists to establish LREM as the "true centre-right".
The long-term LREM strategy is to be the natural party of government, only opposed by the far-left and the far-right. For this, it had to kill the socialist party, and it seems almost done. But the killing of LR might take longer, especially as Le Pen's FN is still very divided and mostly preoccupied by its struggle with other far-right outfits.
If only the masons were as secretive and as influential as Common Purpose.
As I pointed out before, the thing with Brexit was not just that the have-nots were pro-Brexit, it's that the haves were so split: yourself, Alanbrooke, Charles, SeanT, rcs1000 are very widely travelled individuals, arguably even globalists, and thirty years ago would be fervently anti-Brexit, but now...not so much. I have more in common with Brexiteers such as CasinoRoyale who live and stay here than you do, even though you were on the same side.
continent
...
3. obsolete
a. mainland as opposed to islands
b. a continuous extent of land
Ah, my coat...
In reality, that is the definition of "the Continent" which has a specific meaning relating to mainland Europe only.
Euromedia (01/02)
Centre-right 38.4 (-0.7)
Centre-left 27.7 (-0.1)
5 stars movement 27.2 (+0.8)
Index (01/02)
Centre-right 37.3 (=)
Centre-left 28.3 (+0.4)
5 stars movement 26.9 (-0.1)
Piepoli (01/02)
Centre-right 35.5 (=)
Centre-left 29.5 (+0.5)
5 stars movement 27.5 (=)