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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » UKIP as a political party – one of the big casualties of Brexi

SystemSystem Posts: 11,002
edited February 2018 in General

imagepoliticalbetting.com » Blog Archive » UKIP as a political party – one of the big casualties of Brexit

Love this pic.twitter.com/A0lylpFIRJ

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  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 113,957
    edited February 2018
    I reckon UKIP would be screwed under AV
  • This isn't hugely surprising. UKIP has achieved its key aim, they've been bloody terrible at General Elections, and their biggest gun has wandered off.
  • My biggest fear is that the fruitcakes, loonies, and not so closet racists join the Tory party.
  • rkrkrkrkrkrk Posts: 7,881
    Electorally dead - but they’ve had a big impact.
    More than the greens and arguably more than the Lib Dems?
  • This isn't hugely surprising. UKIP has achieved its key aim, they've been bloody terrible at General Elections, and their biggest gun has wandered off.

    UKIP have never won a parliamentary seat without a traitor-defector-incumbent.
  • Just a thought, but Europe has regularly toppled Tory leaders. Might it be the turn of a Labour leader?
  • It 'should' be exactly as Mike describes it. UKIP has no purpose now beyond satisfying the egos of a few wanna be politicians (which was always an element in their existence anyway). It has achieved the one core thing it was founded to do and by rights should now cease to exist.

    But never underestimate the idiocy and arrogance of those with political ambitions. UKIP will crawl on for a while yet I think as a vehicle for successive non entities seeking to get themselves elected.
  • swing_voterswing_voter Posts: 1,435
    Tony Blair's Labour of course switched the EU Parliamentary elections to the PR system, I wonder if he puts that on his list of impressive changes? look what it spawned.
  • I reckon UKIP would be screwed under AV

    Has there been a thread to discuss AV?
    It may be interesting.

  • JonWCJonWC Posts: 285
    I wondered if anyone on here is following/betting on the Mexican election. Lopez Obrador (typical Latam populist, rather like our own JC, though Mexico first rather than Mexico last). I've followed him for a couple of decades now, mainly from the financial market point of view.

    He has a worthwhile lead and it would be huge news for the US/Trump/NAFTA if he were to win.
  • Mr. Voter, are MEPs elected by different systems in different countries?
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 113,957
    edited February 2018

    I reckon UKIP would be screwed under AV

    Has there been a thread to discuss AV?
    It may be interesting.

    This Sunday should see a thread which contains a brief reference to AV.
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 20,393

    I reckon UKIP would be screwed under AV

    A party on 3% of the vote would be screwed under any voting system.
  • Biden. If no strong candidate emerges in next year then will consider running.

    https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2018/02/18/biden-public-and-private-hints-run/k8qmHTh98vItVrpHjD183L/story.html
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 35,765

    My biggest fear is that the fruitcakes, loonies, and not so closet racists join the Tory party.

    The gay donkey man is now an adviser to Theresa May.
  • I reckon UKIP would be screwed under AV

    Adult Videos?? :open_mouth:
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,841
    Davis wasn't lieing,

    It's always hot and sunny in Mad Max.
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 20,393
    JonWC said:

    I wondered if anyone on here is following/betting on the Mexican election. Lopez Obrador (typical Latam populist, rather like our own JC, though Mexico first rather than Mexico last). I've followed him for a couple of decades now, mainly from the financial market point of view.

    He has a worthwhile lead and it would be huge news for the US/Trump/NAFTA if he were to win.

    Under L Obrador, Mexico would go to the dogs.

    (Lobrador / Labrador - get it?!?)
  • 148grss148grss Posts: 3,630
    So does that mean we can blame the "nameless undemocratic MEP / you don't even know your MEP" meme on the decisions of the British Parliament? Or was it an executive decision that did not include a vote?

    I also hate that argument because I doubt many people know the name of their MP either, because for most normal people (ie people not on PB) politics is an event that happens once or twice a year, with minor updates from the news when things happen.
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,715
    Comments underneath were NOT supportive.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,762

    It 'should' be exactly as Mike describes it. UKIP has no purpose now beyond satisfying the egos of a few wanna be politicians (which was always an element in their existence anyway). It has achieved the one core thing it was founded to do and by rights should now cease to exist.

    But never underestimate the idiocy and arrogance of those with political ambitions. UKIP will crawl on for a while yet I think as a vehicle for successive non entities seeking to get themselves elected.

    Except they won't be which largely (if not completely) defeats the point. There will still be the odd ego maniac who thinks it means something to take part in local debates or whatever but this is now an ex Party.
  • Like an ichneumon wasp, UKIP has reproduced by parasitising the Conservative party and which now wanders zombie-like carrying out UKIP's agenda.
  • He's just surely too old isn't he? He's 75 now?
  • Mr. Meeks, do you think the Conservatives should be ignoring the referendum result or seeking to reverse it? Even if you believe leaving the EU is horrendous, surely you can see the great danger of teaching the electorate that democracy doesn't count if the Establishment disagrees with the result?
  • JonathanJonathan Posts: 20,901
    The voters voted ukip. Democracy
  • Mr. Meeks, do you think the Conservatives should be ignoring the referendum result or seeking to reverse it? Even if you believe leaving the EU is horrendous, surely you can see the great danger of teaching the electorate that democracy doesn't count if the Establishment disagrees with the result?

    No, as I have repeatedly said, the referendum result has to be implemented. It does not need to be implemented in accordance with a faith-based ideology, as it is at present.
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 35,765

    Like an ichneumon wasp, UKIP has reproduced by parasitising the Conservative party and which now wanders zombie-like carrying out UKIP's agenda.

    Mr. Meeks, do you think the Conservatives should be ignoring the referendum result or seeking to reverse it? Even if you believe leaving the EU is horrendous, surely you can see the great danger of teaching the electorate that democracy doesn't count if the Establishment disagrees with the result?

    Most Conservative voters are pretty content with Theresa May, so the government is largely doing what most right of centre voters want it to do.
  • John_MJohn_M Posts: 7,503
    edited February 2018

    Mr. Meeks, do you think the Conservatives should be ignoring the referendum result or seeking to reverse it? Even if you believe leaving the EU is horrendous, surely you can see the great danger of teaching the electorate that democracy doesn't count if the Establishment disagrees with the result?

    You don't have to be an ultra-Remainer to get a bit fidgety at the current prospect of the Cabinet still disappearing up its own fundament 13 months before leaving the Elysian fields/Pit of Mordor (delete as applicable).

    There's actual practical work to be done, almost irrespective of which mode of exit we plump for. Holes to be dug. Fences erected. Lorry parks and so forth. In the mean time, we've had a Boris speech ( vintage 2016), May saying nothing useful and now Davies waffling on about Mad Max.
  • Mr. Meeks, the single market/customs union (which I guess is what you're referring to) create similar problems. Sovereignty and immigration were two themes of the campaign, after all.

    If we end up half-in, half-out, the running sore in British politics will only grow bloodier. One side will feel betrayed, the other that they have a foot inside the door to rejoin.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709
    edited February 2018
    Ironically had we had the PR we had for European Parliament elections and which is so loved by left liberals at the 2015 general election we would probably have had a Tory UKIP government.

    Though not even PR would save UKIP now it has achieved its primary purpose of a UK out of the EU
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 38,517

    It 'should' be exactly as Mike describes it. UKIP has no purpose now beyond satisfying the egos of a few wanna be politicians (which was always an element in their existence anyway). It has achieved the one core thing it was founded to do and by rights should now cease to exist.

    But never underestimate the idiocy and arrogance of those with political ambitions. UKIP will crawl on for a while yet I think as a vehicle for successive non entities seeking to get themselves elected.

    Independence from the EU may have been the core of UKIP's aims, but they wanted much more than that. There are many people who want things that I might refer to as 'backwards-looking' - things like wanting more grammar schools, and stupidities like being against breast feeding in public; and immigration will always be an issue as long as any 'foreigner' gets in. To be blunt, they're the people who always like to complain that they don't like the direction the country is heading.

    And they will still want to complain. There is a chance (and a fear for TSE) that they will join the Conservatives if they are mad enough to elect someone like Leadsom or JRM to be leader; if not, they will still want a home for their views.

    The key for UKIP's future existence is to find a central complaint to build on, something to get such people's ire up. Ensuring Brexit is Brexit isn't enough - at least at the moment.

    But in the medium and long term, there is certainly room for a backwards-looking party that might appeal to both left and right wings of political opinion.
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 35,765
    DavidL said:

    It 'should' be exactly as Mike describes it. UKIP has no purpose now beyond satisfying the egos of a few wanna be politicians (which was always an element in their existence anyway). It has achieved the one core thing it was founded to do and by rights should now cease to exist.

    But never underestimate the idiocy and arrogance of those with political ambitions. UKIP will crawl on for a while yet I think as a vehicle for successive non entities seeking to get themselves elected.

    Except they won't be which largely (if not completely) defeats the point. There will still be the odd ego maniac who thinks it means something to take part in local debates or whatever but this is now an ex Party.
    Lots of egomaniacs prefer to be the undisputed leader of a tiny party than to have to share power in a bigger, more successful, organisation.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,738
    HYUFD said:

    Ironically had we had the PR we had for European Parliament elections and which is so loved by left liberals at the 2015 general election we would probably have had a Tory UKIP government.

    Though not even PR would save UKIP now it had achieved its primary purpose

    The Anti-Corn Law League disbanded in 1846 after it had achieved its primary purpose, even though various other tariffs still remained.

    If only UKIP would stop embarrassing themselves and do something similar. Never mind Fairy Liquid, I'm still on the same packet of tea for the last four leaders or so.
  • Mr. M (and possibly Mr. Meeks), ah, right. Well, yes. Can't argue with that. May's dithering daftness is less than good.

    If Labour hadn't been occupied by the far left I might be looking in that direction.
  • John_MJohn_M Posts: 7,503
    Sean_F said:

    DavidL said:

    It 'should' be exactly as Mike describes it. UKIP has no purpose now beyond satisfying the egos of a few wanna be politicians (which was always an element in their existence anyway). It has achieved the one core thing it was founded to do and by rights should now cease to exist.

    But never underestimate the idiocy and arrogance of those with political ambitions. UKIP will crawl on for a while yet I think as a vehicle for successive non entities seeking to get themselves elected.

    Except they won't be which largely (if not completely) defeats the point. There will still be the odd ego maniac who thinks it means something to take part in local debates or whatever but this is now an ex Party.
    Lots of egomaniacs prefer to be the undisputed leader of a tiny party than to have to share power in a bigger, more successful, organisation.
    'Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven'.
  • Mr. Meeks, the single market/customs union (which I guess is what you're referring to) create similar problems. Sovereignty and immigration were two themes of the campaign, after all.

    If we end up half-in, half-out, the running sore in British politics will only grow bloodier. One side will feel betrayed, the other that they have a foot inside the door to rejoin.

    The public remembers two things about the Leave campaign - keep out the foreigners and give money to the NHS.

    Everything else is up for grabs. All that talk of betrayal is strictly for the golf club bores.
  • stodgestodge Posts: 12,741
    Morning again all :)

    It's hard not to argue UKIP has had a huge impact. Without the very real possibility of the Conservatives losing significant votes to UKIP, there'd have been no referendum and without that commitment no Cameron majority in 2015.

    Had REMAIN won, UKIP would have still faced an existential crisis. The only thing worse for them than losing was winning. Most parties keep their ultimate objectives suitably vague in order to stay in existence. UKIP didn't - they wanted a Referendum on our membership of the EU in which they would support us leaving.

    Had they folded in July 2016 nobody would have argued. Unfortunately, the last 20 months has been a catalogue of disaster and they now fade inauspiciously into the night. Without Farage they were lead by tenth raters like Bolton and Nuttall.

    Farage is no titan but he embodied and voiced a strand of opinion beautifully at the right time. In essence, UKIP was his vehicle and he succeeded.

    It also heavily influenced the Conservative Party completing that party's journey from being the most pro-EU of the main parties to the most sceptical. Farage and UKIP didn't start that - Thatcher did with Bruges (arguably) but Farage picked up the banner especially in the post-1997 Conservative wilderness years and his impact, through UKIP, was to bring through a generation of emboldened sceptics in the Conservative party who left a more pro-EU leadership under Cameron with no choice but to accede to the Referendum.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709
    edited February 2018
    ydoethur said:

    HYUFD said:

    Ironically had we had the PR we had for European Parliament elections and which is so loved by left liberals at the 2015 general election we would probably have had a Tory UKIP government.

    Though not even PR would save UKIP now it had achieved its primary purpose

    The Anti-Corn Law League disbanded in 1846 after it had achieved its primary purpose, even though various other tariffs still remained.

    If only UKIP would stop embarrassing themselves and do something similar. Never mind Fairy Liquid, I'm still on the same packet of tea for the last four leaders or so.
    The irony is that the quickest way to revive UKIP would be for there to be a second EU referendum narrowly won by Remain.

    The Leave victory and the government's decision to end free movement and leave the single market and customs union has been a disaster for UKIP as they have little to protest about
  • JonathanJonathan Posts: 20,901

    Mr. Meeks, the single market/customs union (which I guess is what you're referring to) create similar problems. Sovereignty and immigration were two themes of the campaign, after all.

    If we end up half-in, half-out, the running sore in British politics will only grow bloodier. One side will feel betrayed, the other that they have a foot inside the door to rejoin.

    The public remembers two things about the Leave campaign - keep out the foreigners and give money to the NHS.

    Everything else is up for grabs. All that talk of betrayal is strictly for the golf club bores.
    Especially when leavers were advocating EFTA, customs union and single market access in campaign.
  • Mr. Stodge, good morning. Worth also considering the impact of decades of triangulation. We had parties that were sceptical in opposition and pro-EU in office. Who offered a referendum on Lisbon and then reneged. A failure to either be consistent, or to explain and defend one side, did nothing but exacerbate concerns about the degree of political integration with the EU.

    And, as I've said before, triangulating for the centre ground doesn't work in a binary choice, as presented in a referendum. It may be that Cameron simply didn't realise how sceptical so many people were.

    I do wonder how things would've gone had Remain won 52% (I suspect the grumpy broadcast media would now be calling for unity and that the public's will must be respected), or had Cameron not offered the referendum at the 2015 General Election.
  • Jonathan said:

    Mr. Meeks, the single market/customs union (which I guess is what you're referring to) create similar problems. Sovereignty and immigration were two themes of the campaign, after all.

    If we end up half-in, half-out, the running sore in British politics will only grow bloodier. One side will feel betrayed, the other that they have a foot inside the door to rejoin.

    The public remembers two things about the Leave campaign - keep out the foreigners and give money to the NHS.

    Everything else is up for grabs. All that talk of betrayal is strictly for the golf club bores.
    Especially when leavers were advocating EFTA, customs union and single market access in campaign.
    No they weren't, that's a lie.
  • FF43FF43 Posts: 15,543
    The fruitcakes are now well ensconced in the Tory party, not so much running the show as ruining it.

    Making Jeremy Corbyn look somewhat normal is their big achievement
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 35,765

    Mr. Stodge, good morning. Worth also considering the impact of decades of triangulation. We had parties that were sceptical in opposition and pro-EU in office. Who offered a referendum on Lisbon and then reneged. A failure to either be consistent, or to explain and defend one side, did nothing but exacerbate concerns about the degree of political integration with the EU.

    And, as I've said before, triangulating for the centre ground doesn't work in a binary choice, as presented in a referendum. It may be that Cameron simply didn't realise how sceptical so many people were.

    I do wonder how things would've gone had Remain won 52% (I suspect the grumpy broadcast media would now be calling for unity and that the public's will must be respected), or had Cameron not offered the referendum at the 2015 General Election.

    If Cameron had held out against an EU referendum, I expect seats like Thanet South and Thurrock would have gone to UKIP.
  • Jonathan said:

    Mr. Meeks, the single market/customs union (which I guess is what you're referring to) create similar problems. Sovereignty and immigration were two themes of the campaign, after all.

    If we end up half-in, half-out, the running sore in British politics will only grow bloodier. One side will feel betrayed, the other that they have a foot inside the door to rejoin.

    The public remembers two things about the Leave campaign - keep out the foreigners and give money to the NHS.

    Everything else is up for grabs. All that talk of betrayal is strictly for the golf club bores.
    Especially when leavers were advocating EFTA, customs union and single market access in campaign.
    At the time of the referendum the Prime minister and official government press releases said you could not be in the single market and stop freedom of movement nor be in the customs union and negotiate your own trade deals.
  • Sean_F said:

    Mr. Stodge, good morning. Worth also considering the impact of decades of triangulation. We had parties that were sceptical in opposition and pro-EU in office. Who offered a referendum on Lisbon and then reneged. A failure to either be consistent, or to explain and defend one side, did nothing but exacerbate concerns about the degree of political integration with the EU.

    And, as I've said before, triangulating for the centre ground doesn't work in a binary choice, as presented in a referendum. It may be that Cameron simply didn't realise how sceptical so many people were.

    I do wonder how things would've gone had Remain won 52% (I suspect the grumpy broadcast media would now be calling for unity and that the public's will must be respected), or had Cameron not offered the referendum at the 2015 General Election.

    If Cameron had held out against an EU referendum, I expect seats like Thanet South and Thurrock would have gone to UKIP.
    Had Cameron held out against an EU referendum, I expect more than 2 MPs would have defected.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,738

    Jonathan said:

    Mr. Meeks, the single market/customs union (which I guess is what you're referring to) create similar problems. Sovereignty and immigration were two themes of the campaign, after all.

    If we end up half-in, half-out, the running sore in British politics will only grow bloodier. One side will feel betrayed, the other that they have a foot inside the door to rejoin.

    The public remembers two things about the Leave campaign - keep out the foreigners and give money to the NHS.

    Everything else is up for grabs. All that talk of betrayal is strictly for the golf club bores.
    Especially when leavers were advocating EFTA, customs union and single market access in campaign.
    No they weren't, that's a lie.
    Did anyone tell Daniel Hannan he wasn't advocating EFTA and SM?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xGt3QmRSZY

    (or here: https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/staggers/2018/01/brexit-really-incompatible-single-market-referendum-campaigns-revisited - for those who prefer written evidence)
  • John_MJohn_M Posts: 7,503

    Jonathan said:

    Mr. Meeks, the single market/customs union (which I guess is what you're referring to) create similar problems. Sovereignty and immigration were two themes of the campaign, after all.

    If we end up half-in, half-out, the running sore in British politics will only grow bloodier. One side will feel betrayed, the other that they have a foot inside the door to rejoin.

    The public remembers two things about the Leave campaign - keep out the foreigners and give money to the NHS.

    Everything else is up for grabs. All that talk of betrayal is strictly for the golf club bores.
    Especially when leavers were advocating EFTA, customs union and single market access in campaign.
    No they weren't, that's a lie.
    Point of order. It might not have been advocated by the official campaigns, but PB discussed EFTA and the EEA a good deal, less so the customs union (which was normally considered indivisible from the SM). Single Market access is, of course, meaningless.

    We were warned repeatedly that a vote to Leave would mean leaving the Single Market ( if people really want to contend this point, I'll trudge off and get the videos of Cameron and Osborne saying so, and a piccie of Chukka's bus, hope it's not necessary). Other than that, no guidance as to our destination.
  • Mr. Meeks, the single market/customs union (which I guess is what you're referring to) create similar problems. Sovereignty and immigration were two themes of the campaign, after all.

    If we end up half-in, half-out, the running sore in British politics will only grow bloodier. One side will feel betrayed, the other that they have a foot inside the door to rejoin.

    The public remembers two things about the Leave campaign - keep out the foreigners and give money to the NHS.

    Everything else is up for grabs. All that talk of betrayal is strictly for the golf club bores.
    Surely the most memorable thing is to "take back control".
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,715

    Mr. Stodge, good morning. Worth also considering the impact of decades of triangulation. We had parties that were sceptical in opposition and pro-EU in office. Who offered a referendum on Lisbon and then reneged. A failure to either be consistent, or to explain and defend one side, did nothing but exacerbate concerns about the degree of political integration with the EU.

    And, as I've said before, triangulating for the centre ground doesn't work in a binary choice, as presented in a referendum. It may be that Cameron simply didn't realise how sceptical so many people were.

    I do wonder how things would've gone had Remain won 52% (I suspect the grumpy broadcast media would now be calling for unity and that the public's will must be respected), or had Cameron not offered the referendum at the 2015 General Election.

    Don’t know why, but I was thinking of the last para. this morning. I suspect we’d have seen Farage and the Heil, and possibly Johnson calling for ‘one more heave’ or something like that.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709
    edited February 2018

    Mr. Stodge, good morning. Worth also considering the impact of decades of triangulation. We had parties that were sceptical in opposition and pro-EU in office. Who offered a referendum on Lisbon and then reneged. A failure to either be consistent, or to explain and defend one side, did nothing but exacerbate concerns about the degree of political integration with the EU.

    And, as I've said before, triangulating for the centre ground doesn't work in a binary choice, as presented in a referendum. It may be that Cameron simply didn't realise how sceptical so many people were.

    I do wonder how things would've gone had Remain won 52% (I suspect the grumpy broadcast media would now be calling for unity and that the public's will must be respected), or had Cameron not offered the referendum at the 2015 General Election.

    Had Remain got 52% Cameron would still be PM but I suspect the Tories, Labour and UKIP would all be roughly level pegging on 25 to 30% each in the polls rather than the Tories and Labour on 40%+ each and UKIP on less than 5% in the polls as is the case now following the Leave vote
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,762
    Sean_F said:

    DavidL said:

    It 'should' be exactly as Mike describes it. UKIP has no purpose now beyond satisfying the egos of a few wanna be politicians (which was always an element in their existence anyway). It has achieved the one core thing it was founded to do and by rights should now cease to exist.

    But never underestimate the idiocy and arrogance of those with political ambitions. UKIP will crawl on for a while yet I think as a vehicle for successive non entities seeking to get themselves elected.

    Except they won't be which largely (if not completely) defeats the point. There will still be the odd ego maniac who thinks it means something to take part in local debates or whatever but this is now an ex Party.
    Lots of egomaniacs prefer to be the undisputed leader of a tiny party than to have to share power in a bigger, more successful, organisation.
    True but I really don't see what is going to hold this band together. They have served their purpose. I am not sure that a 1950s style party, such as @JosiasJessop is contemplating are going to find a common enough thread (such as leaving the EU was) to form an even vaguely coherent platform. Without the MEPs money will be much tighter and the expenses awarded against the party in the defamation case may well cause a formal winding up.
  • It is time for me to express my view on Brexit and TM. I despise everything Brexit is doing to our Country with such hatred and intolerance on both sides of the argument and the obvious maneuverings by very powerful people both in the EU and this Country to try and frustrate the vote.

    I am conflicted as I would like to have stayed in the EU but not the EU of Junckers and the federalists but I would also like to be a free trading Nation not hindered by an unelected Euro elite in Brussels.

    I am of the opinion the only way to lance the boil is to exit the EU and review attitudes once we have had a period as an Independent Country. Any successful attempt to keep us in Europe through the single market or customs union would create a chasm so large in our politics I doubt we would get over it in a generation.

    AS far as TM is concerned she is hopeless at decision making and for that reason she has to go by Mid 2019. Yesterday's speech on tuition fees and Universities identified so many important issues but then she kicked it into the long grass with a one year review. This cannot go on beyond Spring 2019 and if she is still in power by then even I would send in a letter to Graham Brady, even though I am only a humble member.

    As for her successor most of the candidates are white, pale and stale, and it must come from the new intake and probably another female.

    This honesty may surprise some who have identified me as a TM apparatchik, but I am not, and I am saddened that she has not proved to be the leader that this Country so richly deserves.

    And as for Corbyn I cannot find words to express my contempt for his politics.

    We are in a really difficult place as a Country and how this pans out over the next couple of years no one, and I mean no one, can predict
  • ydoethur said:

    Jonathan said:

    Mr. Meeks, the single market/customs union (which I guess is what you're referring to) create similar problems. Sovereignty and immigration were two themes of the campaign, after all.

    If we end up half-in, half-out, the running sore in British politics will only grow bloodier. One side will feel betrayed, the other that they have a foot inside the door to rejoin.

    The public remembers two things about the Leave campaign - keep out the foreigners and give money to the NHS.

    Everything else is up for grabs. All that talk of betrayal is strictly for the golf club bores.
    Especially when leavers were advocating EFTA, customs union and single market access in campaign.
    No they weren't, that's a lie.
    Did anyone tell Daniel Hannan he wasn't advocating EFTA and SM?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xGt3QmRSZY

    (or here: https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/staggers/2018/01/brexit-really-incompatible-single-market-referendum-campaigns-revisited - for those who prefer written evidence)
    That's the video that's an outright lie. Not only have many of those quotes been taken so out of context as to twist their meaning, not a single one of those quotes was made during the campaign.

    Andrew Neil completely tore apart that pack of disreputable lies when it was released and its embarrassing that so many are still using it shamelessly either out of ignorance or not caring that its full of lies.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9dKcjfeVTs
  • FF43FF43 Posts: 15,543

    Mr. M (and possibly Mr. Meeks), ah, right. Well, yes. Can't argue with that. May's dithering daftness is less than good.

    If Labour hadn't been occupied by the far left I might be looking in that direction.

    May's dithering aims to put off the evil hour, to keep the irreconcilable contradictions unreconciled. Which seems better to me than the alternative. When passed the poisoned chalice, not drinking from it is a good short term strategy
  • JackWJackW Posts: 14,787
    edited February 2018
    "Now hands that do dishes can feel as soft as your face with mild green Fairy Liquid"

    UKIP left licking the dishes and their fatal wounds ....
  • John_M said:

    Jonathan said:

    Mr. Meeks, the single market/customs union (which I guess is what you're referring to) create similar problems. Sovereignty and immigration were two themes of the campaign, after all.

    If we end up half-in, half-out, the running sore in British politics will only grow bloodier. One side will feel betrayed, the other that they have a foot inside the door to rejoin.

    The public remembers two things about the Leave campaign - keep out the foreigners and give money to the NHS.

    Everything else is up for grabs. All that talk of betrayal is strictly for the golf club bores.
    Especially when leavers were advocating EFTA, customs union and single market access in campaign.
    No they weren't, that's a lie.
    Point of order. It might not have been advocated by the official campaigns, but PB discussed EFTA and the EEA a good deal, less so the customs union (which was normally considered indivisible from the SM). Single Market access is, of course, meaningless.

    We were warned repeatedly that a vote to Leave would mean leaving the Single Market ( if people really want to contend this point, I'll trudge off and get the videos of Cameron and Osborne saying so, and a piccie of Chukka's bus, hope it's not necessary). Other than that, no guidance as to our destination.
    PBers like @Richard_Tyndall especially did indeed discuss the Single Market but official leaders on all sides were crystal clear that leaving the EU meant leaving the Single Market.
  • YorkcityYorkcity Posts: 4,382

    Mr. Stodge, good morning. Worth also considering the impact of decades of triangulation. We had parties that were sceptical in opposition and pro-EU in office. Who offered a referendum on Lisbon and then reneged. A failure to either be consistent, or to explain and defend one side, did nothing but exacerbate concerns about the degree of political integration with the EU.

    And, as I've said before, triangulating for the centre ground doesn't work in a binary choice, as presented in a referendum. It may be that Cameron simply didn't realise how sceptical so many people were.

    I do wonder how things would've gone had Remain won 52% (I suspect the grumpy broadcast media would now be calling for unity and that the public's will must be respected), or had Cameron not offered the referendum at the 2015 General Election.

    Fair post Morris.You are correct the Bill Clinton triangulation third way politics , does not work in a binary choice.Obviously Cameron thought otherwise , after the Scottish referendum and gaining a conservative majority for the first time in 23 years.
  • I reckon UKIP would be screwed under AV

    Nigel Farage was on the same side as Nick Clegg during he AV referendum - which they lost by a big margin.
  • New Labour sowed the wind of many things in the late 1990s from which they subsequently reaped they whirlwind.
  • Sean_F said:

    Like an ichneumon wasp, UKIP has reproduced by parasitising the Conservative party and which now wanders zombie-like carrying out UKIP's agenda.

    Mr. Meeks, do you think the Conservatives should be ignoring the referendum result or seeking to reverse it? Even if you believe leaving the EU is horrendous, surely you can see the great danger of teaching the electorate that democracy doesn't count if the Establishment disagrees with the result?

    Most Conservative voters are pretty content with Theresa May, so the government is largely doing what most right of centre voters want it to do.
    In my view, the Government is acting much differently to how it would if we had PR and a formal Con/UKIP/DUP coalition. Albeit I think under those circumstances, immigration policy would be even tougher, there probably would have been no hint of a self-selecting gender policy and Anna Soubry /Heidi Allen and Nicky Morgan would be in an FDP type party, and not the Conservatives.
  • Mr. City, something I'd add, to elaborate upon that point, is that all of us, to a greater or lesser extent, consider ourselves normal. We define right and left usually in relation to our own position, seeing ourselves as the sun around which relative descriptions revolve. It's why many opt for softer terms like "I'm centre-right".

    Cameron being pro-EU but less than a full-blown federalist may also have meant that he thought the EU centre of public opinion was more positive towards the institution than it was. And perhaps he can't be blamed too much for that. Even those of us who are sceptics thought, for a long time, Remain would win easily (something like 60/40). Were we wrong? Or was the campaign simply so dreadful that, in a contest between grossly exaggerated woe and grossly exaggerated complacency, people believed the positive fiction over the negative one?

    The bias I describe also applies very much to journalists. Sometimes they act in such an obviously partisan fashion it seems they cannot conceive that other people might think in a different way. When reporting on declining migration statistics, one Sky journalist described them as "worsening". If you're pro-mass migration (the stats were still well into six figures for inward net migration) that's true, but if you're anti-mass migration that's not the case. And if one were to seek to be objective, the term wouldn't be used at all.

    I think (to ramble some more) this is also starting to apply not merely to the language that we use but the meanings different groups attach to the same terms. "Human rights abuses" can mean everything from evicting illegal squatters after a decade on a farm, to the concentration camps of North Korea. Sometimes I think we're finding inter-group discussions more difficult because precisely the same terms can have wildly different meanings, so the speaker says one thing and the listener hears another.

    /endramble
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,738
    @Philip_Thompson

    Please explain to me how it is possible to take the words 'nobody is talking about threatening Britain's place in the single market' out of context.

    It was a lie at the time he told it anyway, as it was patently obvious that leaving the EU would mean leaving the single market - that's one of the things that tipped me to Remain.

    But to suggest that he didn't say it - well, all I can say is you remind me of Richard Dawkins trying to explain that Stalin's support for the League of Militant Godless was not somehow state-sponsored atheist terrorism. Do not think that is a compliment!
  • ydoethur said:

    Jonathan said:

    Mr. Meeks, the single market/customs union (which I guess is what you're referring to) create similar problems. Sovereignty and immigration were two themes of the campaign, after all.

    If we end up half-in, half-out, the running sore in British politics will only grow bloodier. One side will feel betrayed, the other that they have a foot inside the door to rejoin.

    The public remembers two things about the Leave campaign - keep out the foreigners and give money to the NHS.

    Everything else is up for grabs. All that talk of betrayal is strictly for the golf club bores.
    Especially when leavers were advocating EFTA, customs union and single market access in campaign.
    No they weren't, that's a lie.
    Did anyone tell Daniel Hannan he wasn't advocating EFTA and SM?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xGt3QmRSZY

    (or here: https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/staggers/2018/01/brexit-really-incompatible-single-market-referendum-campaigns-revisited - for those who prefer written evidence)
    Sorry ydoethur but using that video after its producer was completely destroyed by Andrew Neil over its outright lies does nothing to advance your argument.

    As it happens some like me did (and still do) argue for EFTA and EEA membership to remain in the Single Market. But not the Customs Union which would be an idiotic decision.
  • DavidL said:

    Sean_F said:

    DavidL said:

    It 'should' be exactly as Mike describes it. UKIP has no purpose now beyond satisfying the egos of a few wanna be politicians (which was always an element in their existence anyway). It has achieved the one core thing it was founded to do and by rights should now cease to exist.

    But never underestimate the idiocy and arrogance of those with political ambitions. UKIP will crawl on for a while yet I think as a vehicle for successive non entities seeking to get themselves elected.

    Except they won't be which largely (if not completely) defeats the point. There will still be the odd ego maniac who thinks it means something to take part in local debates or whatever but this is now an ex Party.
    Lots of egomaniacs prefer to be the undisputed leader of a tiny party than to have to share power in a bigger, more successful, organisation.
    True but I really don't see what is going to hold this band together. They have served their purpose. I am not sure that a 1950s style party, such as @JosiasJessop is contemplating are going to find a common enough thread (such as leaving the EU was) to form an even vaguely coherent platform. Without the MEPs money will be much tighter and the expenses awarded against the party in the defamation case may well cause a formal winding up.
    The gap in the market is for an anti-Islamic party, as Alastair Meeks has pointed out in the past.

    With Bolton gone, I could see a UKIP leader less reasonable than he is (for all his faults, he was not one of those) winning the leadership election on such a platform.
  • Sean_F said:

    Mr. Stodge, good morning. Worth also considering the impact of decades of triangulation. We had parties that were sceptical in opposition and pro-EU in office. Who offered a referendum on Lisbon and then reneged. A failure to either be consistent, or to explain and defend one side, did nothing but exacerbate concerns about the degree of political integration with the EU.

    And, as I've said before, triangulating for the centre ground doesn't work in a binary choice, as presented in a referendum. It may be that Cameron simply didn't realise how sceptical so many people were.

    I do wonder how things would've gone had Remain won 52% (I suspect the grumpy broadcast media would now be calling for unity and that the public's will must be respected), or had Cameron not offered the referendum at the 2015 General Election.

    If Cameron had held out against an EU referendum, I expect seats like Thanet South and Thurrock would have gone to UKIP.
    He had almost 100 MPs of his agitating for one.

    Ignoring it was not politically sustainable.
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 38,517
    DavidL said:

    Sean_F said:

    DavidL said:

    It 'should' be exactly as Mike describes it. UKIP has no purpose now beyond satisfying the egos of a few wanna be politicians (which was always an element in their existence anyway). It has achieved the one core thing it was founded to do and by rights should now cease to exist.

    But never underestimate the idiocy and arrogance of those with political ambitions. UKIP will crawl on for a while yet I think as a vehicle for successive non entities seeking to get themselves elected.

    Except they won't be which largely (if not completely) defeats the point. There will still be the odd ego maniac who thinks it means something to take part in local debates or whatever but this is now an ex Party.
    Lots of egomaniacs prefer to be the undisputed leader of a tiny party than to have to share power in a bigger, more successful, organisation.
    True but I really don't see what is going to hold this band together. They have served their purpose. I am not sure that a 1950s style party, such as @JosiasJessop is contemplating are going to find a common enough thread (such as leaving the EU was) to form an even vaguely coherent platform. Without the MEPs money will be much tighter and the expenses awarded against the party in the defamation case may well cause a formal winding up.
    You might well be right. But there have always been angry people on the left of politics in the country, and Euroscepticism allowed the angry (generally) on the right to vocally vent their anger.

    I just cannot see them going quiet.

    And yes, the lack of a unifying coherent platform is a problem. But one might evolve, or be created.
  • YorkcityYorkcity Posts: 4,382
    https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/5618235/theresa-may-uni-review-grade-inflation-tuition-fees-ian-birrell-opinion/ Ian Birrell suggests slashing rates on loans.Just what I said yesterday about people stuck on overpriced SVR rates for mortgages .May said she would help the JAms.
  • OchEyeOchEye Posts: 1,469
    JackW said:

    "Now hands that do dishes can feel as soft as your face with mild green Fairy Liquid"

    UKIP left licking the dishes and their fatal wounds ....

    So that's why Farage frothes at the mouth....
  • rkrkrkrkrkrk Posts: 7,881
    edited February 2018

    It is time for me to express my view on Brexit and TM. I despise everything Brexit is doing to our Country with such hatred and intolerance on both sides of the argument and the obvious maneuverings by very powerful people both in the EU and this Country to try and frustrate the vote.

    I am conflicted as I would like to have stayed in the EU but not the EU of Junckers and the federalists but I would also like to be a free trading Nation not hindered by an unelected Euro elite in Brussels.

    I am of the opinion the only way to lance the boil is to exit the EU and review attitudes once we have had a period as an Independent Country. Any successful attempt to keep us in Europe through the single market or customs union would create a chasm so large in our politics I doubt we would get over it in a generation.

    AS far as TM is concerned she is hopeless at decision making and for that reason she has to go by Mid 2019. Yesterday's speech on tuition fees and Universities identified so many important issues but then she kicked it into the long grass with a one year review. This cannot go on beyond Spring 2019 and if she is still in power by then even I would send in a letter to Graham Brady, even though I am only a humble member.

    As for her successor most of the candidates are white, pale and stale, and it must come from the new intake and probably another female.

    This honesty may surprise some who have identified me as a TM apparatchik, but I am not, and I am saddened that she has not proved to be the leader that this Country so richly deserves.

    And as for Corbyn I cannot find words to express my contempt for his politics.

    We are in a really difficult place as a Country and how this pans out over the next couple of years no one, and I mean no one, can predict

    If she’s lost you then TM really is doomed.

    Edit - also surprised you think it has to be someone from the new intake.
    There are lots of Tories with experience, there are Tory MPs who are competent and even a few who overlap both groups.
  • Jonathan said:

    Mr. Meeks, the single market/customs union (which I guess is what you're referring to) create similar problems. Sovereignty and immigration were two themes of the campaign, after all.

    If we end up half-in, half-out, the running sore in British politics will only grow bloodier. One side will feel betrayed, the other that they have a foot inside the door to rejoin.

    The public remembers two things about the Leave campaign - keep out the foreigners and give money to the NHS.

    Everything else is up for grabs. All that talk of betrayal is strictly for the golf club bores.
    Especially when leavers were advocating EFTA, customs union and single market access in campaign.
    Saw your post last night. Sorry to hear you're having a hard time at work.

    My answer is: yes. I quit one of the big four for a smaller firm, and a less intense/stressful life.

    You only live once. No-one really cares about you after you've left. Your family and friends do.
    If you're not enjoying it, and you can afford it, then I'd recommend looking for other opportunities. It might be the best thing you ever do.

    I found the hardest bit was actually motivating myself to apply. Once I had another job offer in my hands I felt so much better, and starting at a new firm isn't half as bad as you might think it is.
  • Awb683Awb683 Posts: 80
    UKIP deserve a huge thankyou for getting us this far down the Brexit road - particularly Nigel of course.
  • Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 12,880

    This cannot go on beyond Spring 2019 and if she is still in power by then even I would send in a letter to Graham Brady, even though I am only a humble member.

    Why Spring 2019? If she's so shit she might as well go now. Is it just so she can take the blame for Brexit?

  • MortimerMortimer Posts: 13,921

    ydoethur said:

    Jonathan said:

    Mr. Meeks, the single market/customs union (which I guess is what you're referring to) create similar problems. Sovereignty and immigration were two themes of the campaign, after all.

    If we end up half-in, half-out, the running sore in British politics will only grow bloodier. One side will feel betrayed, the other that they have a foot inside the door to rejoin.

    The public remembers two things about the Leave campaign - keep out the foreigners and give money to the NHS.

    Everything else is up for grabs. All that talk of betrayal is strictly for the golf club bores.
    Especially when leavers were advocating EFTA, customs union and single market access in campaign.
    No they weren't, that's a lie.
    Did anyone tell Daniel Hannan he wasn't advocating EFTA and SM?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xGt3QmRSZY

    (or here: https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/staggers/2018/01/brexit-really-incompatible-single-market-referendum-campaigns-revisited - for those who prefer written evidence)
    That's the video that's an outright lie. Not only have many of those quotes been taken so out of context as to twist their meaning, not a single one of those quotes was made during the campaign.

    Andrew Neil completely tore apart that pack of disreputable lies when it was released and its embarrassing that so many are still using it shamelessly either out of ignorance or not caring that its full of lies.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9dKcjfeVTs
    Good grief, one of the worst interview responses I've ever seen.
  • Big_G_NorthWalesBig_G_NorthWales Posts: 60,001
    edited February 2018
    rkrkrk said:

    It is time for me to express my view on Brexit and TM. I despise everything Brexit is doing to our Country with such hatred and intolerance on both sides of the argument and the obvious maneuverings by very powerful people both in the EU and this Country to try and frustrate the vote.

    I am conflicted as I would like to have stayed in the EU but not the EU of Junckers and the federalists but I would also like to be a free trading Nation not hindered by an unelected Euro elite in Brussels.

    I am of the opinion the only way to lance the boil is to exit the EU and review attitudes once we have had a period as an Independent Country. Any successful attempt to keep us in Europe through the single market or customs union would create a chasm so large in our politics I doubt we would get over it in a generation.

    AS far as TM is concerned she is hopeless at decision making and for that reason she has to go by Mid 2019. Yesterday's speech on tuition fees and Universities identified so many important issues but then she kicked it into the long grass with a one year review. This cannot go on beyond Spring 2019 and if she is still in power by then even I would send in a letter to Graham Brady, even though I am only a humble member.

    As for her successor most of the candidates are white, pale and stale, and it must come from the new intake and probably another female.

    This honesty may surprise some who have identified me as a TM apparatchik, but I am not, and I am saddened that she has not proved to be the leader that this Country so richly deserves.

    And as for Corbyn I cannot find words to express my contempt for his politics.

    We are in a really difficult place as a Country and how this pans out over the next couple of years no one, and I mean no one, can predict

    If she’s lost you then TM really is doomed.
    She is the Brexit PM but her indecision and lack of communication skills will see her succeeded
  • TGOHFTGOHF Posts: 21,633
    Is funding not a big issue for Ukip even putting candidates up moving forward - particularly in a GE.

    They can poll 4/5% all they want but if votes cant be cast then the result of a GE can change dramatically.
  • YorkcityYorkcity Posts: 4,382

    Mr. City, something I'd add, to elaborate upon that point, is that all of us, to a greater or lesser extent, consider ourselves normal. We define right and left usually in relation to our own position, seeing ourselves as the sun around which relative descriptions revolve. It's why many opt for softer terms like "I'm centre-right".

    Cameron being pro-EU but less than a full-blown federalist may also have meant that he thought the EU centre of public opinion was more positive towards the institution than it was. And perhaps he can't be blamed too much for that. Even those of us who are sceptics thought, for a long time, Remain would win easily (something like 60/40). Were we wrong? Or was the campaign simply so dreadful that, in a contest between grossly exaggerated woe and grossly exaggerated complacency, people believed the positive fiction over the negative one?

    The bias I describe also applies very much to journalists. Sometimes they act in such an obviously partisan fashion it seems they cannot conceive that other people might think in a different way. When reporting on declining migration statistics, one Sky journalist described them as "worsening". If you're pro-mass migration (the stats were still well into six figures for inward net migration) that's true, but if you're anti-mass migration that's not the case. And if one were to seek to be objective, the term wouldn't be used at all.

    I think (to ramble some more) this is also starting to apply not merely to the language that we use but the meanings different groups attach to the same terms. "Human rights abuses" can mean everything from evicting illegal squatters after a decade on a farm, to the concentration camps of North Korea. Sometimes I think we're finding inter-group discussions more difficult because precisely the same terms can have wildly different meanings, so the speaker says one thing and the listener hears another.

    /endramble

    Excellent post , out are on form today Morris.
  • MortimerMortimer Posts: 13,921
    Yorkcity said:

    Mr. City, something I'd add, to elaborate upon that point, is that all of us, to a greater or lesser extent, consider ourselves normal. We define right and left usually in relation to our own position, seeing ourselves as the sun around which relative descriptions revolve. It's why many opt for softer terms like "I'm centre-right".

    Cameron being pro-EU but less than a full-blown federalist may also have meant that he thought the EU centre of public opinion was more positive towards the institution than it was. And perhaps he can't be blamed too much for that. Even those of us who are sceptics thought, for a long time, Remain would win easily (something like 60/40). Were we wrong? Or was the campaign simply so dreadful that, in a contest between grossly exaggerated woe and grossly exaggerated complacency, people believed the positive fiction over the negative one?

    The bias I describe also applies very much to journalists. Sometimes they act in such an obviously partisan fashion it seems they cannot conceive that other people might think in a different way. When reporting on declining migration statistics, one Sky journalist described them as "worsening". If you're pro-mass migration (the stats were still well into six figures for inward net migration) that's true, but if you're anti-mass migration that's not the case. And if one were to seek to be objective, the term wouldn't be used at all.

    I think (to ramble some more) this is also starting to apply not merely to the language that we use but the meanings different groups attach to the same terms. "Human rights abuses" can mean everything from evicting illegal squatters after a decade on a farm, to the concentration camps of North Korea. Sometimes I think we're finding inter-group discussions more difficult because precisely the same terms can have wildly different meanings, so the speaker says one thing and the listener hears another.

    /endramble

    Excellent post , out are on form today Morris.
    +1
  • Dura_Ace said:

    This cannot go on beyond Spring 2019 and if she is still in power by then even I would send in a letter to Graham Brady, even though I am only a humble member.

    Why Spring 2019? If she's so shit she might as well go now. Is it just so she can take the blame for Brexit?

    No - she is absolutely the right person for Brexit - no one else could take over at this stage.

  • Mr. City/Mr. Mortimer, thanks. To be honest, I'm quite tired after yet another bad night's sleep (and possible mild pestilence yesterday) so I'm procrastinating when it comes to actual work. Plus, I find language/psychology quite interesting. Anyway, glad my prevaricating prognostications were deemed worth reading.
  • On topic, I don't entirely agree with Mike's analysis. PR certainly helped UKIP get MEPs elected but few people care about the outcome - far less so than in general elections and probably even less so that local elections. It's true that back when voting was FPTP, there was an element of personal votes for some MEPs but it was extremely limited.

    European elections are a chance to protest - or register support - by voting for a party based on its values, policies and objectives, largely free from considerations of the ability to govern (though current competence in government will matter). There is no way, for example, that the Greens would have polled as they did in 1989 in any other kind of election (indeed, in the local elections that year, only a few weeks previously, they didn't do anything like as well).

    Even under FPTP, the irrelevance to many of the European elections combined with UKIP's stance on the EU would have produced a substantial protest vote for them - probably little different from that which they actually got. It wouldn't have netted them any MPs in 1999 or probably 2004 but that wouldn't have mattered. As with general elections, their mere presence and the size of the vote they attracted would have had an impact - as the Greens' 'success' in 1989 did in boosting the profile of environmental concerns. By 2014, by contrast, UKIP could well have won far more than they actually did under PR.
  • FF43FF43 Posts: 15,543
    edited February 2018

    It is time for me to express my view on Brexit and TM. I despise everything Brexit is doing to our Country with such hatred and intolerance on both sides of the argument and the obvious maneuverings by very powerful people both in the EU and this Country to try and frustrate the vote.

    I am conflicted as I would like to have stayed in the EU but not the EU of Junckers and the federalists but I would also like to be a free trading Nation not hindered by an unelected Euro elite in Brussels.

    I am of the opinion the only way to lance the boil is to exit the EU and review attitudes once we have had a period as an Independent Country. Any successful attempt to keep us in Europe through the single market or customs union would create a chasm so large in our politics I doubt we would get over it in a generation.

    AS far as TM is concerned she is hopeless at decision making and for that reason she has to go by Mid 2019. Yesterday's speech on tuition fees and Universities identified so many important issues but then she kicked it into the long grass with a one year review. This cannot go on beyond Spring 2019 and if she is still in power by then even I would send in a letter to Graham Brady, even though I am only a humble member.

    As for her successor most of the candidates are white, pale and stale, and it must come from the new intake and probably another female.

    This honesty may surprise some who have identified me as a TM apparatchik, but I am not, and I am saddened that she has not proved to be the leader that this Country so richly deserves.

    And as for Corbyn I cannot find words to express my contempt for his politics.

    We are in a really difficult place as a Country and how this pans out over the next couple of years no one, and I mean no one, can predict

    That's a heartfelt and thought through take on the situation. The only part I would take issue with is the idea that being "Independent Country" will lance the boil. A Brexit that works for business and our prosperity and limits an indefinite period of uncertainty requires us to stay in the EU system on a do what you are told basis. Or we can reject the EU system entirely along with the prosperity that is built on it. We can have connectivity and prosperity or we can have control, but not both. We could end up with neither. As EU members we gave up control for influence and reaped the benefits. EU
    membership is the best option but we rejected it.

    I am often accused here of being a Remainiac. I don't mind but I don't think it a particularly accurate insult. The point is, I don't think Brexit will work, at least as people voted for. The fact we voted for it doesn't magically make it work. We have to decide whether we are prepared to be a vassal state or accept the consequences of not being one. Wishful thinking gets you into the hole but it doesn't get you out of it.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,738


    Sorry ydoethur but using that video after its producer was completely destroyed by Andrew Neil over its outright lies does nothing to advance your argument.

    As it happens some like me did (and still do) argue for EFTA and EEA membership to remain in the Single Market. But not the Customs Union which would be an idiotic decision.

    Are you saying the producer falsified those words? Or that the New Statesman did? Because if so I am very puzzled. I remember Hannan saying that at the time and thinking what an idiot he was for telling such a blatant untruth.

    Now as it happens, Hannan was a fringe figure. I don't recall Farage, or Gove, or Johnson saying anything similar. But it gives the lie to the claim that no-one was saying we could stay in the single market if we voted leave. It would be more accurate to say, as @John_M does, that it was one of a number of claims made in the overall campaign that looked dubious (we could add Osborne's punishment budget in, for balance).

    I cannot understand why leavers and indeed remainers think that exaggerating their claims and making simple statements where complexity and nuance is needed advances their cause. It doesn't. It merely makes them look ridiculous. Admittedly in the case of the good Mr Thompson this is his default state of being, but I'm slightly disappointed you've gone down the same route as I have always respected you as a poster even if I don't think we'll ever agree over Michael Gove!

    (And @Big_G_NorthWales - I'd upvote that fifty times if I could.)

    Well, it's half term. I am off on holiday to recharge my batteries and be ready for the punishing run to the finish line on these new exams.

    I wish everybody a very happy and productive week.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 49,958
    One of the great factors in the Referendum debate that now seems to be totally forgotten is the extent to which Cameron benefitted from Miliband refusing point blank to have one. How different might history have been if Ed had said "Sod it. Let's clear the air on Europe, once and for all...yes, Labour will grant the people a Referendum. In or out, within three months of my taking office."

    I also wonder if Clegg now thinks it was so wise to block it during the term of the Coalition....
  • Mr. Mark, Clegg, it may be recalled, had a three line whip to abstain on a Lisbon referendum. He thought, at the time (when there was no prospect of it occurring), we should have an In/Out referendum. One might accuse him of being a shade weaselly.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 49,958

    Mr. Mark, Clegg, it may be recalled, had a three line whip to abstain on a Lisbon referendum. He thought, at the time (when there was no prospect of it occurring), we should have an In/Out referendum. One might accuse him of being a shade weaselly.

    He paid a heavy price. The obliteration of his party - then Brexit. Those the Gods wish to destroy, they first have a real laugh about.....
  • FensterFenster Posts: 2,115

    It is time for me to express my view on Brexit and TM. I despise everything Brexit is doing to our Country with such hatred and intolerance on both sides of the argument and the obvious maneuverings by very powerful people both in the EU and this Country to try and frustrate the vote.

    I am conflicted as I would like to have stayed in the EU but not the EU of Junckers and the federalists but I would also like to be a free trading Nation not hindered by an unelected Euro elite in Brussels.

    I am of the opinion the only way to lance the boil is to exit the EU and review attitudes once we have had a period as an Independent Country. Any successful attempt to keep us in Europe through the single market or customs union would create a chasm so large in our politics I doubt we would get over it in a generation.

    AS far as TM is concerned she is hopeless at decision making and for that reason she has to go by Mid 2019. Yesterday's speech on tuition fees and Universities identified so many important issues but then she kicked it into the long grass with a one year review. This cannot go on beyond Spring 2019 and if she is still in power by then even I would send in a letter to Graham Brady, even though I am only a humble member.

    As for her successor most of the candidates are white, pale and stale, and it must come from the new intake and probably another female.

    This honesty may surprise some who have identified me as a TM apparatchik, but I am not, and I am saddened that she has not proved to be the leader that this Country so richly deserves.

    And as for Corbyn I cannot find words to express my contempt for his politics.

    We are in a really difficult place as a Country and how this pans out over the next couple of years no one, and I mean no one, can predict

    Console yourself with the fact that out here in the real world, no-one really cares. I see the word BREXIT written on nearly every comment here and constantly on Twitter but I can't remember the last time I ever heard it spoken out loud. And I work all round the country. Business is going well and life is normal. Only political obsessives obsess about it. I can guarantee that there'll be eventually be a fudge, an agreement, some more fudge and more agreement and ad infinitum.

    As long as Corbyn doesn't get his hands on power the country will be okay.
  • UKIP has a future. Even if we get the hardest possible Brexit, there'll still be plenty discontented with their luck and desperate for something to blame. I can actually envisage the EU still being a bogeyman even after we've left. It will be portrayed as this giant, malevolent superstate across the water, doing everything in it's power to immiserate the poor Brits who had the temerity to abandon it. Eventually even Brexit itself may be seen as an EU plot - intended from the outset to strip Britain of her influence and silence a dissenting voice. The Leavers will be come to be regarded by the alienated masses as traitors or dupes.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950
    What the f**k is the score with Ellie Christie?

    Oscar Wilde comes to mind.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,762


    rkrkrk said:

    If she’s lost you then TM really is doomed.
    She is the Brexit PM but her indecision and lack of communication skills will see her succeeded
    In some respects Mrs May's anxious search for a consensus and tendency towards procrastination is quite suitable for Brexit and will help the deal emerge in a reasonable enough fashion in due course. What concerns me about her is that the same traits mean that the government is making pitiful progress in all the other, much more serious, issues that it faces.

    Yesterday was a good example. Her analysis of the problems caused by the student loan system was reasonable and candid, not seeking to hide the role her own party had in the creation of the mess. But there was a total lack of leadership or ideas of how to resolve it. Instead we are having yet another review, delegating the task of finding some sort of solution to someone else, albeit within restricted financial parameters which will make their task pretty much impossible.

    And then we have this: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-43121642
    The new apprenticeships which she has sought to promote as a part of the solution are really struggling, being seriously underfunded and more than a bit patchwork. And yet they should be key to our economic future and productivity issues.

    I fear that the old cliché of being in office but not in power is applicable. Time is a wasting and there are so many concerns to be addressed: education funding, training, housing, social care, a drug epidemic, the horrendous consequences of care in the community/neglect, our transport infrastructure, the facilitating of new industries...the list is almost endless. Whilst it is convenient for Brexit I am really not sure that we can continue to mark time like this.

  • FF43FF43 Posts: 15,543

    Jonathan said:

    Mr. Meeks, the single market/customs union (which I guess is what you're referring to) create similar problems. Sovereignty and immigration were two themes of the campaign, after all.

    If we end up half-in, half-out, the running sore in British politics will only grow bloodier. One side will feel betrayed, the other that they have a foot inside the door to rejoin.

    The public remembers two things about the Leave campaign - keep out the foreigners and give money to the NHS.

    Everything else is up for grabs. All that talk of betrayal is strictly for the golf club bores.
    Especially when leavers were advocating EFTA, customs union and single market access in campaign.
    No they weren't, that's a lie.
    The big Leaver lie was to imply Brexit was free of consequences. They didn't have to be specific. They campaigned in poetry, of a sort.
  • Fenster said:

    It is time for me to express my view on Brexit and TM. I despise everything Brexit is doing to our Country with such hatred and intolerance on both sides of the argument and the obvious maneuverings by very powerful people both in the EU and this Country to try and frustrate the vote.

    I am conflicted as I would like to have stayed in the EU but not the EU of Junckers and the federalists but I would also like to be a free trading Nation not hindered by an unelected Euro elite in Brussels.

    I am of the opinion the only way to lance the boil is to exit the EU and review attitudes once we have had a period as an Independent Country. Any successful attempt to keep us in Europe through the single market or customs union would create a chasm so large in our politics I doubt we would get over it in a generation.

    AS far as TM is concerned she is hopeless at decision making and for that reason she has to go by Mid 2019. Yesterday's speech on tuition fees and Universities identified so many important issues but then she kicked it into the long grass with a one year review. This cannot go on beyond Spring 2019 and if she is still in power by then even I would send in a letter to Graham Brady, even though I am only a humble member.

    As for her successor most of the candidates are white, pale and stale, and it must come from the new intake and probably another female.

    This honesty may surprise some who have identified me as a TM apparatchik, but I am not, and I am saddened that she has not proved to be the leader that this Country so richly deserves.

    And as for Corbyn I cannot find words to express my contempt for his politics.

    We are in a really difficult place as a Country and how this pans out over the next couple of years no one, and I mean no one, can predict

    Console yourself with the fact that out here in the real world, no-one really cares. I see the word BREXIT written on nearly every comment here and constantly on Twitter but I can't remember the last time I ever heard it spoken out loud. And I work all round the country. Business is going well and life is normal. Only political obsessives obsess about it. I can guarantee that there'll be eventually be a fudge, an agreement, some more fudge and more agreement and ad infinitum.

    As long as Corbyn doesn't get his hands on power the country will be okay.
    I agree your last sentence is key to the Country's future
  • FensterFenster Posts: 2,115
    Serious question, regarding Northern Ireland.

    If the UK doesn't want a hard border and the Irish don't want a hard border, and the UK and the Irish are comfy with localised trade crossing the border unchecked, what's the problem?

  • FF43 said:

    Jonathan said:

    Mr. Meeks, the single market/customs union (which I guess is what you're referring to) create similar problems. Sovereignty and immigration were two themes of the campaign, after all.

    If we end up half-in, half-out, the running sore in British politics will only grow bloodier. One side will feel betrayed, the other that they have a foot inside the door to rejoin.

    The public remembers two things about the Leave campaign - keep out the foreigners and give money to the NHS.

    Everything else is up for grabs. All that talk of betrayal is strictly for the golf club bores.
    Especially when leavers were advocating EFTA, customs union and single market access in campaign.
    No they weren't, that's a lie.
    The big Leaver lie was to imply Brexit was free of consequences. They didn't have to be specific. They campaigned in poetry, of a sort.
    Depending on what you believe
    You may have voted to Leave
    Those with something to gain
    Will have voted Remain
  • welshowlwelshowl Posts: 4,460

    Mr. Mark, Clegg, it may be recalled, had a three line whip to abstain on a Lisbon referendum. He thought, at the time (when there was no prospect of it occurring), we should have an In/Out referendum. One might accuse him of being a shade weaselly.

    Lisbon/Constitution and the referendum that never was, was the moment that my ears pricked up on this whole thing.

    To see politicians on the TV telling me it was a "tidying up exercise" if I recall the phrasing correctly reeked to me of patronising "there, there, run along little voter, you need to leave all this constitutional stuff to the big boys".

    They promised a vote, on second thoughts saw they would go down in flames, so pulled the vote and went ahead anyway. Fools, idiots, dunderheads. We could have sent a signal at that point that we were not happy with further integration, and all 28 have a rethink, but we were denied the chance.

    Cameron, in whom I placed some hope of something real, in terms of a renegotiation, clearly did not have much of a clue about the head of steam that had built up, and his attempts were laughable, as to be fair was the attitude of the EU leaders who also were utterly clueless as to the real possibility we would vote out.

    So the die was cast, better off out and independent. Hopefully, as I have said in the past, when it's all calmed down in ten years or so, we end up as Canada to their USA, or something along those lines.
  • DavidL said:


    rkrkrk said:

    If she’s lost you then TM really is doomed.
    She is the Brexit PM but her indecision and lack of communication skills will see her succeeded
    In some respects Mrs May's anxious search for a consensus and tendency towards procrastination is quite suitable for Brexit and will help the deal emerge in a reasonable enough fashion in due course. What concerns me about her is that the same traits mean that the government is making pitiful progress in all the other, much more serious, issues that it faces.

    Yesterday was a good example. Her analysis of the problems caused by the student loan system was reasonable and candid, not seeking to hide the role her own party had in the creation of the mess. But there was a total lack of leadership or ideas of how to resolve it. Instead we are having yet another review, delegating the task of finding some sort of solution to someone else, albeit within restricted financial parameters which will make their task pretty much impossible.

    And then we have this: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-43121642
    The new apprenticeships which she has sought to promote as a part of the solution are really struggling, being seriously underfunded and more than a bit patchwork. And yet they should be key to our economic future and productivity issues.

    I fear that the old cliché of being in office but not in power is applicable. Time is a wasting and there are so many concerns to be addressed: education funding, training, housing, social care, a drug epidemic, the horrendous consequences of care in the community/neglect, our transport infrastructure, the facilitating of new industries...the list is almost endless. Whilst it is convenient for Brexit I am really not sure that we can continue to mark time like this.

    I think we both agree it is not sustainable beyond next Spring
  • ydoethur said:


    Sorry ydoethur but using that video after its producer was completely destroyed by Andrew Neil over its outright lies does nothing to advance your argument.

    As it happens some like me did (and still do) argue for EFTA and EEA membership to remain in the Single Market. But not the Customs Union which would be an idiotic decision.

    Are you saying the producer falsified those words? Or that the New Statesman did? Because if so I am very puzzled. I remember Hannan saying that at the time and thinking what an idiot he was for telling such a blatant untruth.

    Now as it happens, Hannan was a fringe figure. I don't recall Farage, or Gove, or Johnson saying anything similar. But it gives the lie to the claim that no-one was saying we could stay in the single market if we voted leave. It would be more accurate to say, as @John_M does, that it was one of a number of claims made in the overall campaign that looked dubious (we could add Osborne's punishment budget in, for balance).

    I cannot understand why leavers and indeed remainers think that exaggerating their claims and making simple statements where complexity and nuance is needed advances their cause. It doesn't. It merely makes them look ridiculous. Admittedly in the case of the good Mr Thompson this is his default state of being, but I'm slightly disappointed you've gone down the same route as I have always respected you as a poster even if I don't think we'll ever agree over Michael Gove!

    (And @Big_G_NorthWales - I'd upvote that fifty times if I could.)

    Well, it's half term. I am off on holiday to recharge my batteries and be ready for the punishing run to the finish line on these new exams.

    I wish everybody a very happy and productive week.
    It is shame you don't seem to understand the basic principle of taking words out of context to change their meaning. That is exactly what Andrew Neil showed had been done with this video.
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 20,393
    Fenster said:

    Serious question, regarding Northern Ireland.

    If the UK doesn't want a hard border and the Irish don't want a hard border, and the UK and the Irish are comfy with localised trade crossing the border unchecked, what's the problem?

    Brussels.
This discussion has been closed.