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  • initforthemoneyinitforthemoney Posts: 736
    edited August 2018
    'the polling needs to be taken literally. Something like a third of the population is so strongly motivated for Britain to leave the EU that any consequence up to and including the destruction of the United Kingdom and the outbreak of violence is acceptable'

    That isn't taking it literally. Taking it literally would be more like 'Something like a third of the population is so strongly motivated for Britain to leave the EU that the outbreak of some violence across the Irish Sea is less troubling than the UK remaining in the EU.'

    The bits about the destruction of the UK and any consequence (as if all consequences can be arranged in a universally accepted neat order of depravity) is hyperbole.

    I saw Sir John Curtice give a talk about polling on Brexit a few months ago when there had been lots of discussion about the NI border issue. One of his key points was that voters elsewhere in the UK don't give two hoots about NI and that the issue will shift very few opinions on Brexit outside NI.

    From a purely cynical point of view getting shot of NI would surely be good news for Britain, but that seems a very unlikely outcome.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,049
    edited August 2018
    Cyclefree said:

    Scott_P said:
    This one just runs and runs doesn't it.

    Labour must be extremely relieved that no one outside us junkies is paying any attention as it is hot and summer holidays.
    Yeah - and Boris hasn’t helped.

    Interesting though that after McDonnell’s intervention, which was implicitly critical of Corbyn, all this stuff comes out about what McDonnell has said and done. There’s some backstabbing going on, I think.

    I don't wish to defend Corbyn or his lackeys, but...

    Well, it *is* okay to accuse Israel of attempted genocide isn't it? Countries get accused of attempted or successful genocide all the time.

    Do they? Genocide has a very specific meaning. See the relevant international law on this. Israel can be criticised for its treatment of the Palestinians within the Occupied Territories but it is not committing genocide on any interpretation of the term, let alone legally. Using such overheated language is all part of a concerted campaign to justify Israel’s destruction.

    Would you agree that Moshe Heiglin's 2014 plan for liquidating Gaza was genocidal in intent? He was a Likud member of the Knesset at the time, indeed Deputy Speaker:

    http://www.voltairenet.org/article184845
  • initforthemoneyinitforthemoney Posts: 736
    edited August 2018
    deleted

  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950
    edited August 2018
    Off topic:

    the system changing people's posting idents is really screwing with my head.

    @FF43 was always yellow, @HYUFD always red and blue. Now we're all over the shop.
  • TOPPING said:

    I have the greatest of respect for Alastair, but he's got this one wrong. Respondents to this poll were far from bonkers. The poll, once you look through its false dichotomy, is essentially asking voters whether a small bunch of violent criminals (or, in the alternative poll he quotes, a small region of the UK) should have a veto on a democratic decision taken by the population of the UK as a whole. Whether you voted Leave or Remain, of course the answer is clear: No. Who can disagree with that?

    Anyone who understands the situation in Northern Ireland.

    Or understands the centuries of history of Irish nationalism. I'm sure we don't have to explain the significance of Padraig Pearse's GPO declaration to you now, do we Richard?
    That's a variant of the same false dichotomy. (Thanks BTW for your piece of a couple of days ago, which was very good, but which glossed over the point that a hard border isn't the inevitable result of us leaving the Single Market and/or Customs Union).
    Only if you use semantic arguments to pretend that a hard border isn't a hard border. The famous Smart Border 2.0 solution presented to the European parliament is a hard border, for example.
    Let's get on with it then.
    Get on with what? Having a referendum in Northern Ireland on special status in the EU to let them decide?
    No erecting that hard border if the EU won't give us a deal. If the people of NI want a border poll they can back parties putting that into their manifesto at an election.
    That's not necessary. The Secretary of State is legally obliged to call a border poll if she feels there would be a majority for unification. We're not far off that threshold.

    image
    You do know the combined Nationalist parties' vote at various NI elections has been no higher than 42% for some time now?
  • grabcocquegrabcocque Posts: 4,234
    Foxy said:



    Would you agree that Moshe Heiglin's 2014 plan for liquidating Gaza was genocidal in intent? He was a Likud member of the Knesset at the time, indeed Deputy Speaker:

    http://www.voltairenet.org/article184845

    I'd think that'd clear the bar set by the UN convention, yes.
  • Foxy said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Scott_P said:
    This one just runs and runs doesn't it.

    Labour must be extremely relieved that no one outside us junkies is paying any attention as it is hot and summer holidays.
    Yeah - and Boris hasn’t helped.

    Interesting though that after McDonnell’s intervention, which was implicitly critical of Corbyn, all this stuff comes out about what McDonnell has said and done. There’s some backstabbing going on, I think.

    I don't wish to defend Corbyn or his lackeys, but...

    Well, it *is* okay to accuse Israel of attempted genocide isn't it? Countries get accused of attempted or successful genocide all the time.

    Do they? Genocide has a very specific meaning. See the relevant international law on this. Israel can be criticised for its treatment of the Palestinians within the Occupied Territories but it is not committing genocide on any interpretation of the term, let alone legally. Using such overheated language is all part of a concerted campaign to justify Israel’s destruction.

    Would you agree that Moshe Heiglin's 2014 plan for liquidating Gaza was genocidal in intent? He was a Likud member of the Knesset at the time, indeed Deputy Speaker:

    http://www.voltairenet.org/article184845
    Gaza is still standing, last time I checked.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,706
    nielh said:

    HYUFD said:

    nielh said:

    Sean_F said:

    nielh said:

    I have the greatest of respect for Alastair, but he's got this one wrong. Respondents to this poll were far from bonkers. The poll, once you look through its false dichotomy, is essentially asking voters whether a small bunch of violent criminals (or, in the alternative poll he quotes, a small region of the UK) should have a veto on a democratic decision taken by the population of the UK as a whole. Whether you voted Leave or Remain, of course the answer is clear: No. Who can disagree with that?

    A fairer question would be whether the creation of a hard border in Ireland, and the attendant risk of civil war, is a price worth paying for Brexit.

    Sadly, people are ignorant about Irish politics. They have either forgotten the troubles, or they don't understand the history.
    It's an interesting point about the Troubles being forgotten - the over 50s (who tend to be most heavily Leave) are the very ones who should remember how shitty those times were... not just in Northern Ireland.
    I expect most of us don't prioritise the wishes of Irish Republicans when we cast our votes.

    It isn't about the wishes of Irish republicans. The whole peace process in Northern Ireland was based on both the UK and Ireland being in the EU.
    A majority of Northern Ireland Protestants voted to Leave the EU, the peace process was brought about by powersharing at Stormont which SF ended, not staying in the EU
    I don't think anyone sane in Northern Ireland (protestant or catholic) voted for a return to the troubles.

    The problem has been for some time that the English are obsessed with leaving not just the EU but also the single market/customs union and making trade deals with the rest of the world, without really thinking through the consequences of this for Ireland.
    A majority of Protestants in NI could not really care less about a hard border, certainly DUP voters, Catholic voters do care so again it is just an extension of the religious and sectarian divisions which define NI politics
  • Richard_NabaviRichard_Nabavi Posts: 30,820
    edited August 2018
    TOPPING said:

    Depends on the symbolism of how they "police" it. Adding chlorinated chicken to a paper list of verboten items or those which have differential tariffs and that's that? Not much, although one extra revenue opportunity.

    Anyone wanting to formalise the inspection process at that entry point (and not before), then much more of an issue.

    I of course have no idea how, where, or when eg. phytosanitary checks are performed. Please don't tell me we don't have an expert on PB to tell us.

    The inspections, where required, would take place where the EU+Republic want them (the UK will of course simply recognise EU standards as sufficient). So it's a political decision, 100% up to them. The simplest solution would be for them to agree mutual recognition of standards, so no inspections, other perhaps than occasional intelligence-led spot checks, would be necessary. This is a solution so obvious, cost-free and uncontroversial that only the EU could have failed to spot it. Or maybe they have spotted it, and are pretending not to have done so for political reasons?
  • grabcocquegrabcocque Posts: 4,234



    Gaza is still standing, last time I checked.

    Perhaps you misread the question?

  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 18,230
    Sean_F said:

    Sean_F said:

    Scott_P said:
    Parity, here we come. Perhaps we should join :lol:???
    Maybe we should join before we hit parity and continue to the point where parity would look excellent.

    Soon the Pound will be worth tuppence :)

    A good time to buy shares abroad.
    Suggested improvement (falling pound).
    Domestic shares too.
    Isn't the rationale something along the lines of future premiums being nominally larger due to the falling exchange rate leads to a greater net present value for a given share, and hence an increase in the present share price, mutatis mutandis?

    Or am i just talking bollocks?
  • notme said:

    Lol, just lol. The irony calling leavers unhinged after reading possibly the most unhinged article on PB since I joined a decade ago.

    Alastair is kind of a PB Institution. Not sure which Institution he escaped from, mind :lol:
  • Beverley_CBeverley_C Posts: 6,256
    TOPPING said:

    Off topic:

    the system changing people's posting idents is really screwing with my head.

    @FF43 was always yellow, @HYUFD always red and blue. Now we're all over the shop.

    Mine has always had shoes ...


  • Gaza is still standing, last time I checked.

    Perhaps you misread the question?

    The point being the Israeli govt didn't actually carry out some right-wing nutjob's idea?
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 18,230
    Why am I now red and doing a Cartman impersonation? I dislike this new emoji/ident so.
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 47,786

    TOPPING said:

    I have the greatest of respect for Alastair, but he's got this one wrong. Respondents to this poll were far from bonkers. The poll, once you look through its false dichotomy, is essentially asking voters whether a small bunch of violent criminals (or, in the alternative poll he quotes, a small region of the UK) should have a veto on a democratic decision taken by the population of the UK as a whole. Whether you voted Leave or Remain, of course the answer is clear: No. Who can disagree with that?

    Anyone who understands the situation in Northern Ireland.

    Or understands the centuries of history of Irish nationalism. I'm sure we don't have to explain the significance of Padraig Pearse's GPO declaration to you now, do we Richard?
    That's a variant of the same false dichotomy. (Thanks BTW for your piece of a couple of days ago, which was very good, but which glossed over the point that a hard border isn't the inevitable result of us leaving the Single Market and/or Customs Union).
    Only if you use semantic arguments to pretend that a hard border isn't a hard border. The famous Smart Border 2.0 solution presented to the European parliament is a hard border, for example.
    Let's get on with it then.
    Get on with what? Having a referendum in Northern Ireland on special status in the EU to let them decide?
    No erecting that hard border if the EU won't give us a deal. If the people of NI want a border poll they can back parties putting that into their manifesto at an election.
    That's not necessary. The Secretary of State is legally obliged to call a border poll if she feels there would be a majority for unification. We're not far off that threshold.

    image
    You do know the combined Nationalist parties' vote at various NI elections has been no higher than 42% for some time now?
    Just as there were nationalists who previously would have voted to stay in the UK, there are now unionists who would vote for a united Ireland. Brexit is a game changer.
  • viewcode said:

    Why am I now red and doing a Cartman impersonation? I dislike this new emoji/ident so.

    I removed my "Be Leave" logo some months ago :innocent:
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,049
    edited August 2018
    nielh said:

    This all goes back to central problem associated with Brexit. Why did the government give people the option of voting for something that would cause total chaos?

    To be fair, Brexit did not have to inevitably result in chaos, it is the incompetent implementation of Brexit that puts us at high risk of chaos.

    I still think Limbo Brexit is more likely, Transition to no agreed destination.
  • NemtynakhtNemtynakht Posts: 2,311

    Only if you use semantic arguments to pretend that a hard border isn't a hard border. The famous Smart Border 2.0 solution presented to the European parliament is a hard border, for example.

    Nothing semantic about it at all. Currently it's illegal to buy a truckload of booze or fags in Belfast and ship it to Dublin for sale, without declaring it and paying a fat sum to the Irish customs. Tariif divergence. And you can't buy a load of fireworks and take them across the border (legally) at all - regulatory divergence. So there's already a hard border, right?

    I've made this point dozens of times. It has always been ignored by those trying to pretend that somehow tariffs and/or regulatory differences would somehow spontaneously cause border posts to spring out of the bogs, despite the fact that not a single human on this earth wants them.

    They are sensible to ignore the point, of course - because it is incontrovertible.
    Yet again something that should be blindingly obvious. We should commit as part of no deal to having no hard border. Then if Ireland want to put up a border the republicans cannot complain that NI did it.
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 35,755

    TOPPING said:

    I have the greatest of respect for Alastair, but he's got this one wrong. Respondents to this poll were far from bonkers. The poll, once you look through its false dichotomy, is essentially asking voters whether a small bunch of violent criminals (or, in the alternative poll he quotes, a small region of the UK) should have a veto on a democratic decision taken by the population of the UK as a whole. Whether you voted Leave or Remain, of course the answer is clear: No. Who can disagree with that?

    Anyone who understands the situation in Northern Ireland.

    Or understands the centuries of history of Irish nationalism. I'm sure we don't have to explain the significance of Padraig Pearse's GPO declaration to you now, do we Richard?
    That's a variant of the same false dichotomy. (Thanks BTW for your piece of a couple of days ago, which was very good, but which glossed over the point that a hard border isn't the inevitable result of us leaving the Single Market and/or Customs Union).
    Only if you use semantic arguments to pretend that a hard border isn't a hard border. The famous Smart Border 2.0 solution presented to the European parliament is a hard border, for example.
    Let's get on with it then.
    Get on with what? Having a referendum in Northern Ireland on special status in the EU to let them decide?
    No erecting that hard border if the EU won't give us a deal. If the people of NI want a border poll they can back parties putting that into their manifesto at an election.
    That's not necessary. The Secretary of State is legally obliged to call a border poll if she feels there would be a majority for unification. We're not far off that threshold.

    image
    You do know the combined Nationalist parties' vote at various NI elections has been no higher than 42% for some time now?
    In 1997, the combined Unionist vote share was 50.6%, and the combined Nationalist vote share was 40.2%.

    In 2017, the respective shares were 49.3% and 41.4%, a shift in favour of Nationalism, but hardly seismic.
  • TOPPING said:

    I have the greatest of respect for Alastair, but he's got this one wrong. Respondents to this poll were far from bonkers. The poll, once you look through its false dichotomy, is essentially asking voters whether a small bunch of violent criminals (or, in the alternative poll he quotes, a small region of the UK) should have a veto on a democratic decision taken by the population of the UK as a whole. Whether you voted Leave or Remain, of course the answer is clear: No. Who can disagree with that?

    Anyone who understands the situation in Northern Ireland.

    Or understands the centuries of history of Irish nationalism. I'm sure we don't have to explain the significance of Padraig Pearse's GPO declaration to you now, do we Richard?
    That's a variant of the same false dichotomy. (Thanks BTW for your piece of a couple of days ago, which was very good, but which glossed over the point that a hard border isn't the inevitable result of us leaving the Single Market and/or Customs Union).
    Only if you use semantic arguments to pretend that a hard border isn't a hard border. The famous Smart Border 2.0 solution presented to the European parliament is a hard border, for example.
    Let's get on with it then.
    Get on with what? Having a referendum in Northern Ireland on special status in the EU to let them decide?
    No erecting that hard border if the EU won't give us a deal. If the people of NI want a border poll they can back parties putting that into their manifesto at an election.
    That's not necessary. The Secretary of State is legally obliged to call a border poll if she feels there would be a majority for unification. We're not far off that threshold.

    image
    You do know the combined Nationalist parties' vote at various NI elections has been no higher than 42% for some time now?
    Just as there were nationalists who previously would have voted to stay in the UK, there are now unionists who would vote for a united Ireland. Brexit is a game changer.
    But your poll still says 42%.
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,837



    Gaza is still standing, last time I checked.

    Perhaps you misread the question?

    The point being the Israeli govt didn't actually carry out some right-wing nutjob's idea?
    One thing I don't understand is why was there so much more hoo har over Trumps wall rather than Netanyahu's.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950
    edited August 2018

    TOPPING said:

    Depends on the symbolism of how they "police" it. Adding chlorinated chicken to a paper list of verboten items or those which have differential tariffs and that's that? Not much, although one extra revenue opportunity.

    Anyone wanting to formalise the inspection process at that entry point (and not before), then much more of an issue.

    I of course have no idea how, where, or when eg. phytosanitary checks are performed. Please don't tell me we don't have an expert on PB to tell us.

    Or maybe they have spotted it, and are pretending not to have done so for political reasons?
    Bingo.

    It is a bluff. Or rather, despite, as we have acknowledged many times on here, all parties declaring they don't want a hard border, the EU is incorporating the possibility of one into their formal negotiating position and letting the rules determine those negotiations on that basis. And they will likely succeed with this approach.
  • Beverley_CBeverley_C Posts: 6,256
    edited August 2018
    We have no-deal Brexit looming

    People think Boris or JRM eould be a good leader

    People think that the return of The Troubles is ok

    Corbyn's Labour looks like the only protest vote in town but is busy ripping itself apart

    .... and some on here wonder if the country has gone mad? I would say it is demonstrably bonkers
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 35,755

    TOPPING said:

    I have the greatest of respect for Alastair, but he's got this one wrong. Respondents to this poll were far from bonkers. The poll, once you look through its false dichotomy, is essentially asking voters whether a small bunch of violent criminals (or, in the alternative poll he quotes, a small region of the UK) should have a veto on a democratic decision taken by the population of the UK as a whole. Whether you voted Leave or Remain, of course the answer is clear: No. Who can disagree with that?

    Anyone who understands the situation in Northern Ireland.

    Or understands the centuries of history of Irish nationalism. I'm sure we don't have to explain the significance of Padraig Pearse's GPO declaration to you now, do we Richard?
    That's a variant of the same false dichotomy. (Thanks BTW for your piece of a couple of days ago, which was very good, but which glossed over the point that a hard border isn't the inevitable result of us leaving the Single Market and/or Customs Union).
    Only if you use semantic arguments to pretend that a hard border isn't a hard border. The famous Smart Border 2.0 solution presented to the European parliament is a hard border, for example.
    Let's get on with it then.
    Get on with what? Having a referendum in Northern Ireland on special status in the EU to let them decide?
    No erecting that hard border if the EU won't give us a deal. If the people of NI want a border poll they can back parties putting that into their manifesto at an election.
    That's not necessary. The Secretary of State is legally obliged to call a border poll if she feels there would be a majority for unification. We're not far off that threshold.

    image
    You do know the combined Nationalist parties' vote at various NI elections has been no higher than 42% for some time now?
    Just as there were nationalists who previously would have voted to stay in the UK, there are now unionists who would vote for a united Ireland. Brexit is a game changer.
    Do you know Unionists who support a United Ireland?
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,837



    Gaza is still standing, last time I checked.

    Perhaps you misread the question?

    Certainly not many read the question when we had the EU referendum. I don't just mean leave voters either.
  • Foxy said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Scott_P said:
    This one just runs and runs doesn't it.

    Labour must be extremely relieved that no one outside us junkies is paying any attention as it is hot and summer holidays.
    Yeah - and Boris hasn’t helped.

    Interesting though that after McDonnell’s intervention, which was implicitly critical of Corbyn, all this stuff comes out about what McDonnell has said and done. There’s some backstabbing going on, I think.

    I don't wish to defend Corbyn or his lackeys, but...

    Well, it *is* okay to accuse Israel of attempted genocide isn't it? Countries get accused of attempted or successful genocide all the time.

    Do they? Genocide has a very specific meaning. See the relevant international law on this. Israel can be criticised for its treatment of the Palestinians within the Occupied Territories but it is not committing genocide on any interpretation of the term, let alone legally. Using such overheated language is all part of a concerted campaign to justify Israel’s destruction.

    Would you agree that Moshe Heiglin's 2014 plan for liquidating Gaza was genocidal in intent? He was a Likud member of the Knesset at the time, indeed Deputy Speaker:

    http://www.voltairenet.org/article184845
    Not sure if displacement is genocide but yes certainly seems close if not there. I don't think he is Israel though do you?
  • Stark_DawningStark_Dawning Posts: 9,232

    ‘Some commentators tried to explain this away as an unwillingness among Leavers to be cowed by terrorism.’

    A number of appalling Islamic terrorist atrocities occurred during the referendum campaign. Sadly there were Leavers on here and elsewhere practically salivating over how that would be ‘great for Leave’ in the forthcoming polls. So that rings hollow.

    No they didn't.

    They occurred during the 2017 Genral Election. So your post is wank.

    The only attack during the Referendum camapign was the killing of Jo Cox.
    So was the massacre in Orlando, twelve days before the EU vote, not an Islamic terrorist atrocity?
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950

    Only if you use semantic arguments to pretend that a hard border isn't a hard border. The famous Smart Border 2.0 solution presented to the European parliament is a hard border, for example.

    Nothing semantic about it at all. Currently it's illegal to buy a truckload of booze or fags in Belfast and ship it to Dublin for sale, without declaring it and paying a fat sum to the Irish customs. Tariif divergence. And you can't buy a load of fireworks and take them across the border (legally) at all - regulatory divergence. So there's already a hard border, right?

    I've made this point dozens of times. It has always been ignored by those trying to pretend that somehow tariffs and/or regulatory differences would somehow spontaneously cause border posts to spring out of the bogs, despite the fact that not a single human on this earth wants them.

    They are sensible to ignore the point, of course - because it is incontrovertible.
    Yet again something that should be blindingly obvious. We should commit as part of no deal to having no hard border. Then if Ireland want to put up a border the republicans cannot complain that NI did it.
    While this may be a particularly compelling version of taking back control it is sadly not that simple. The EU can threaten to create a hard border and the UK will have to give in to whatever the EU demands not to do so because no UK PM can preside over a return to a hard border in Northern Ireland.

    It is a bluff when your opponent is showing you all their cards and they have a pair of twos and you have to fold when you have three kings.
  • hunchmanhunchman Posts: 2,591
    Usual drivel from Mr Meeks. The EU is in desperate economic trouble. The design of the Euro is totally flawed and threatens the rest of the world economy. Italy is a powder keg waiting to explode. We'll all wonder why we spent so much time debating Brexit in 2-3 years time.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,049
    Pulpstar said:



    Gaza is still standing, last time I checked.

    Perhaps you misread the question?

    The point being the Israeli govt didn't actually carry out some right-wing nutjob's idea?
    One thing I don't understand is why was there so much more hoo har over Trumps wall rather than Netanyahu's.
    There was quite a lot of hoo har at the time it was built, particularly as it effectively annexed considerable areas of the Occupied West Bank, 9.5% in this description:


    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_West_Bank_barrier
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603

    We have no-deal Brexit looming

    People think Boris or JRM eould be a good leader

    People think that the return of The Troubles is ok

    Corbyn's Labour looks like the only protest vote in town but is busy ripping itself apart

    .... and some on here wonder if the country has gone mad? I would say it is demonstrably bonkers

    If you want to know why people are looking at the extremes for answers then I suggest looking in the mirror. The liberal consensus has failed the British people for a decade. People are asking questions that liberals don't have the answer to.
  • Pulpstar said:



    Gaza is still standing, last time I checked.

    Perhaps you misread the question?

    The point being the Israeli govt didn't actually carry out some right-wing nutjob's idea?
    One thing I don't understand is why was there so much more hoo har over Trumps wall rather than Netanyahu's.
    Mexican terrorists aren't blowing themselves up with suicide vests?
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950
    MaxPB said:

    We have no-deal Brexit looming

    People think Boris or JRM eould be a good leader

    People think that the return of The Troubles is ok

    Corbyn's Labour looks like the only protest vote in town but is busy ripping itself apart

    .... and some on here wonder if the country has gone mad? I would say it is demonstrably bonkers

    If you want to know why people are looking at the extremes for answers then I suggest looking in the mirror. The liberal consensus has failed the British people for a decade. People are asking questions that liberals don't have the answer to.
    Are you going to be able to fit in a spell on the barricades before your gardening leave ends, Max?

    :wink:
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,049

    Foxy said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Scott_P said:
    This one just runs and runs doesn't it.

    Labour must be extremely relieved that no one outside us junkies is paying any attention as it is hot and summer holidays.
    Yeah - and Boris hasn’t helped.

    Interesting though that after McDonnell’s intervention, which was implicitly critical of Corbyn, all this stuff comes out about what McDonnell has said and done. There’s some backstabbing going on, I think.

    I don't wish to defend Corbyn or his lackeys, but...

    Well, it *is* okay to accuse Israel of attempted genocide isn't it? Countries get accused of attempted or successful genocide all the time.

    Do they? Genocide has a very specific meaning. See the relevant international law on this. Israel can be criticised for its treatment of the Palestinians within the Occupied Territories but it is not committing genocide on any interpretation of the term, let alone legally. Using such overheated language is all part of a concerted campaign to justify Israel’s destruction.

    Would you agree that Moshe Heiglin's 2014 plan for liquidating Gaza was genocidal in intent? He was a Likud member of the Knesset at the time, indeed Deputy Speaker:

    http://www.voltairenet.org/article184845
    Not sure if displacement is genocide but yes certainly seems close if not there. I don't think he is Israel though do you?
    If the Deputy Speaker of the PLO or Iran published a similar plan for Israel, would you consider it as evidence of genocidal intent?
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,837
    TOPPING said:

    Only if you use semantic arguments to pretend that a hard border isn't a hard border. The famous Smart Border 2.0 solution presented to the European parliament is a hard border, for example.

    Nothing semantic about it at all. Currently it's illegal to buy a truckload of booze or fags in Belfast and ship it to Dublin for sale, without declaring it and paying a fat sum to the Irish customs. Tariif divergence. And you can't buy a load of fireworks and take them across the border (legally) at all - regulatory divergence. So there's already a hard border, right?

    I've made this point dozens of times. It has always been ignored by those trying to pretend that somehow tariffs and/or regulatory differences would somehow spontaneously cause border posts to spring out of the bogs, despite the fact that not a single human on this earth wants them.

    They are sensible to ignore the point, of course - because it is incontrovertible.
    Yet again something that should be blindingly obvious. We should commit as part of no deal to having no hard border. Then if Ireland want to put up a border the republicans cannot complain that NI did it.
    While this may be a particularly compelling version of taking back control it is sadly not that simple. The EU can threaten to create a hard border and the UK will have to give in to whatever the EU demands not to do so because no UK PM can preside over a return to a hard border in Northern Ireland.

    It is a bluff when your opponent is showing you all their cards and they have a pair of twos and you have to fold when you have three kings.
    Which lucky contractor will take on the task of putting up a hard border. Good luck with that - Nabavi is right on this one. The border will be unenforced with all the loss of customs revenue that entails as a price worth paying.
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 35,755

    Foxy said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Scott_P said:
    This one just runs and runs doesn't it.

    Labour must be extremely relieved that no one outside us junkies is paying any attention as it is hot and summer holidays.
    Yeah - and Boris hasn’t helped.

    Interesting though that after McDonnell’s intervention, which was implicitly critical of Corbyn, all this stuff comes out about what McDonnell has said and done. There’s some backstabbing going on, I think.

    I don't wish to defend Corbyn or his lackeys, but...

    Well, it *is* okay to accuse Israel of attempted genocide isn't it? Countries get accused of attempted or successful genocide all the time.

    Do they? Genocide has a very specific meaning. See the relevant international law on this. Israel can be criticised for its treatment of the Palestinians within the Occupied Territories but it is not committing genocide on any interpretation of the term, let alone legally. Using such overheated language is all part of a concerted campaign to justify Israel’s destruction.

    Would you agree that Moshe Heiglin's 2014 plan for liquidating Gaza was genocidal in intent? He was a Likud member of the Knesset at the time, indeed Deputy Speaker:

    http://www.voltairenet.org/article184845
    Not sure if displacement is genocide but yes certainly seems close if not there. I don't think he is Israel though do you?
    Ethnic cleansing is now considered genocide, but was probably not considered as such prior to the 1990's.

    In the post WWII period, political leaders seem to have been pretty relaxed about deporting entire populations to new territories, and bringing in new stock.
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 47,786
    Sean_F said:

    TOPPING said:

    I have the greatest of respect for Alastair, but he's got this one wrong. Respondents to this poll were far from bonkers. The poll, once you look through its false dichotomy, is essentially asking voters whether a small bunch of violent criminals (or, in the alternative poll he quotes, a small region of the UK) should have a veto on a democratic decision taken by the population of the UK as a whole. Whether you voted Leave or Remain, of course the answer is clear: No. Who can disagree with that?

    Anyone who understands the situation in Northern Ireland.

    Or understands the centuries of history of Irish nationalism. I'm sure we don't have to explain the significance of Padraig Pearse's GPO declaration to you now, do we Richard?
    That's a variant of the same false dichotomy. (Thanks BTW for your piece of a couple of days ago, which was very good, but which glossed over the point that a hard border isn't the inevitable result of us leaving the Single Market and/or Customs Union).
    Only if you use semantic arguments to pretend that a hard border isn't a hard border. The famous Smart Border 2.0 solution presented to the European parliament is a hard border, for example.
    Let's get on with it then.
    Get on with what? Having a referendum in Northern Ireland on special status in the EU to let them decide?
    No erecting that hard border if the EU won't give us a deal. If the people of NI want a border poll they can back parties putting that into their manifesto at an election.
    That's not necessary. The Secretary of State is legally obliged to call a border poll if she feels there would be a majority for unification. We're not far off that threshold.

    image
    You do know the combined Nationalist parties' vote at various NI elections has been no higher than 42% for some time now?
    Just as there were nationalists who previously would have voted to stay in the UK, there are now unionists who would vote for a united Ireland. Brexit is a game changer.
    Do you know Unionists who support a United Ireland?
    There have been many contributions to the debate since Peter Robinson's intervention from unionists who regard it as inevitable saying that it would be foolish not to prepare for it.
  • AlastairMeeksAlastairMeeks Posts: 30,340
    I wasn’t expecting universal enthusiasm for the article. I was hoping that the actual argument might be engaged with. Two posters have offered up different versions of “they don’t really mean it”, despite this requiring radical reinterpretation of the formally asked questions and all the different polling evidence suggesting that they do.

    It’s time to take this polling literally and consider what that means. The answer is not good.
  • nielhnielh Posts: 1,307
    Foxy said:

    nielh said:

    This all goes back to central problem associated with Brexit. Why did the government give people the option of voting for something that would cause total chaos?

    To be fair, Brexit did not have to inevitably result in chaos, it is the incompetent implementation of Brexit that puts us at high risk of chaos.

    I still think Limbo Brexit is more likely, Transition to no agreed destination.
    I personally think hard brexit by default is more likely, with endless transition the main alternative.

    Had there been some sort of plan put forward to people in the event of a leave vote, many of these problems could have been predicted. The main problem is that no one agrees what Brexit means.
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 35,755

    I wasn’t expecting universal enthusiasm for the article. I was hoping that the actual argument might be engaged with. Two posters have offered up different versions of “they don’t really mean it”, despite this requiring radical reinterpretation of the formally asked questions and all the different polling evidence suggesting that they do.

    It’s time to take this polling literally and consider what that means. The answer is not good.

    Ask extremely loaded questions, and you get answers that don't mean a lot.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950
    edited August 2018
    Pulpstar said:

    TOPPING said:

    Only if you use semantic arguments to pretend that a hard border isn't a hard border. The famous Smart Border 2.0 solution presented to the European parliament is a hard border, for example.

    Nothing semantic about it at all. Currently it's illegal to buy a truckload of booze or fags in Belfast and ship it to Dublin for sale, without declaring it and paying a fat sum to the Irish customs. Tariif divergence. And you can't buy a load of fireworks and take them across the border (legally) at all - regulatory divergence. So there's already a hard border, right?

    I've made this point dozens of times. It has always been ignored by those trying to pretend that somehow tariffs and/or regulatory differences would somehow spontaneously cause border posts to spring out of the bogs, despite the fact that not a single human on this earth wants them.

    They are sensible to ignore the point, of course - because it is incontrovertible.
    Yet again something that should be blindingly obvious. We should commit as part of no deal to having no hard border. Then if Ireland want to put up a border the republicans cannot complain that NI did it.
    While this may be a particularly compelling version of taking back control it is sadly not that simple. The EU can threaten to create a hard border and the UK will have to give in to whatever the EU demands not to do so because no UK PM can preside over a return to a hard border in Northern Ireland.

    It is a bluff when your opponent is showing you all their cards and they have a pair of twos and you have to fold when you have three kings.
    Which lucky contractor will take on the task of putting up a hard border. Good luck with that - Nabavi is right on this one. The border will be unenforced with all the loss of customs revenue that entails as a price worth paying.
    Saying the border will be unenforced is to not understand the EU's rules-based negotiating process.

    Now of course you may well be right and the EU says fine, we don't care because it's NI/RoI. But it might not, and might say that absent an agreement, a border has to be in place. And as I have mentioned, if this is what they do, then TMay will have to cave.
  • AlastairMeeksAlastairMeeks Posts: 30,340
    Sean_F said:

    I wasn’t expecting universal enthusiasm for the article. I was hoping that the actual argument might be engaged with. Two posters have offered up different versions of “they don’t really mean it”, despite this requiring radical reinterpretation of the formally asked questions and all the different polling evidence suggesting that they do.

    It’s time to take this polling literally and consider what that means. The answer is not good.

    Ask extremely loaded questions, and you get answers that don't mean a lot.
    These aren’t extremely loaded questions. They are telling us something useful, if unwelcome.
  • TOPPING said:

    Only if you use semantic arguments to pretend that a hard border isn't a hard border. The famous Smart Border 2.0 solution presented to the European parliament is a hard border, for example.

    Nothing semantic about it at all. Currently it's illegal to buy a truckload of booze or fags in Belfast and ship it to Dublin for sale, without declaring it and paying a fat sum to the Irish customs. Tariif divergence. And you can't buy a load of fireworks and take them across the border (legally) at all - regulatory divergence. So there's already a hard border, right?

    I've made this point dozens of times. It has always been ignored by those trying to pretend that somehow tariffs and/or regulatory differences would somehow spontaneously cause border posts to spring out of the bogs, despite the fact that not a single human on this earth wants them.

    They are sensible to ignore the point, of course - because it is incontrovertible.
    Yet again something that should be blindingly obvious. We should commit as part of no deal to having no hard border. Then if Ireland want to put up a border the republicans cannot complain that NI did it.
    While this may be a particularly compelling version of taking back control it is sadly not that simple. The EU can threaten to create a hard border and the UK will have to give in to whatever the EU demands not to do so because no UK PM can preside over a return to a hard border in Northern Ireland.

    It is a bluff when your opponent is showing you all their cards and they have a pair of twos and you have to fold when you have three kings.
    We don't want a hard border.
    The Irish don't want a hard border.
    The other 26 EU nations won't have a border to put up.
    The EU won't put up a border as that's not their jurisdiction.

    So who is putting up this mythical border? If we say no deal and no border who is going to force Ireland to put one up and how? Because Ireland is the only nation that can and they vehemently don't want it.
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,837

    Pulpstar said:



    Gaza is still standing, last time I checked.

    Perhaps you misread the question?

    The point being the Israeli govt didn't actually carry out some right-wing nutjob's idea?
    One thing I don't understand is why was there so much more hoo har over Trumps wall rather than Netanyahu's.
    Mexican terrorists aren't blowing themselves up with suicide vests?
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_Drug_War
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 48,909
    edited August 2018
    Sean_F said:

    TOPPING said:

    I have the greatest of respect for Alastair, but he's got this one wrong. Respondents to this poll were far from bonkers. The poll, once you look through its false dichotomy, is essentially asking voters whether a small bunch of violent criminals (or, in the alternative poll he quotes, a small region of the UK) should have a veto on a democratic decision taken by the population of the UK as a whole. Whether you voted Leave or Remain, of course the answer is clear: No. Who can disagree with that?

    Anyone who understands the situation in Northern Ireland.

    Or understands the centuries of history of Irish nationalism. I'm sure we don't have to explain the significance of Padraig Pearse's GPO declaration to you now, do we Richard?
    That's a variant of the same false dichotomy. (Thanks BTW for your piece of a couple of days ago, which was very good, but which glossed over the point that a hard border isn't the inevitable result of us leaving the Single Market and/or Customs Union).
    Only if you use semantic arguments to pretend that a hard border isn't a hard border. The famous Smart Border 2.0 solution presented to the European parliament is a hard border, for example.
    Let's get on with it then.
    Get on with what? Having a referendum in Northern Ireland on special status in the EU to let them decide?
    image
    You do know the combined Nationalist parties' vote at various NI elections has been no higher than 42% for some time now?
    In 1997, the combined Unionist vote share was 50.6%, and the combined Nationalist vote share was 40.2%.

    In 2017, the respective shares were 49.3% and 41.4%, a shift in favour of Nationalism, but hardly seismic.
    	Sinn Fein	SDLP	Total Nat
    2017 28.7 11.8 40.5
    2016 24.0 12.0 36.0
    2015 24.5 13.9 38.4
    2014 25.5 13.0 38.5
    2011 26.9 14.2 41.1
    2010 25.5 16.5 42.0
    2009 26.0 16.2 42.2
    2007 26.2 15.2 41.4
    2005 24.3 17.5 41.8
    2004 26.3 15.9 42.2
    2003 23.5 17.0 40.5
    2001 21.7 21.0 42.7
    1999 17.3 28.1 45.4
    1998 17.6 22.0 39.6
    1997 16.1 24.1 40.2
  • CyclefreeCyclefree Posts: 25,074
    Foxy said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Scott_P said:
    This one just runs and runs doesn't it.

    Labour must be extremely relieved that no one outside us junkies is paying any attention as it is hot and summer holidays.
    Yeah - and Boris hasn’t helped.

    Interesting though that after McDonnell’s intervention, which was implicitly critical of Corbyn, all this stuff comes out about what McDonnell has said and done. There’s some backstabbing going on, I think.

    I don't wish to defend Corbyn or his lackeys, but...

    Well, it *is* okay to accuse Israel of attempted genocide isn't it? Countries get accused of attempted or successful genocide all the time.

    Do they? Genocide has a very specific meaning. See the relevant international law on this. Israel can be criticised for its treatment of the Palestinians within the Occupied Territories but it is not committing genocide on any interpretation of the term, let alone legally. Using such overheated language is all part of a concerted campaign to justify Israel’s destruction.

    Would you agree that Moshe Heiglin's 2014 plan for liquidating Gaza was genocidal in intent? He was a Likud member of the Knesset at the time, indeed Deputy Speaker:

    http://www.voltairenet.org/article184845
    It sounds utterly appalling and, prima facie (though I am not an expert in this area of law) if carried out by a state a breach of the 1951 Convention. My only legal doubt would be whether the reference to civilians leaving the area would bring it within scope of the Convention. But I don’t think your question is about the finer points of the law.

    He displays a mindset which thinks it acceptable to remove the inhabitants of Gaza from their land, despite Israel having agreed to leave Gaza and return it to the Palestinians. It is an appalling mindset. One Knesset member does not, thankfully, represent the state of Israel, though it is utterly to be deplored that there are parts of Israeli society who do think like he does.
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,837
    Sean_F said:

    Foxy said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Scott_P said:
    This one just runs and runs doesn't it.

    Labour must be extremely relieved that no one outside us junkies is paying any attention as it is hot and summer holidays.
    Yeah - and Boris hasn’t helped.

    Interesting though that after McDonnell’s intervention, which was implicitly critical of Corbyn, all this stuff comes out about what McDonnell has said and done. There’s some backstabbing going on, I think.

    I don't wish to defend Corbyn or his lackeys, but...

    Well, it *is* okay to accuse Israel of attempted genocide isn't it? Countries get accused of attempted or successful genocide all the time.

    Do they? Genocide has a very specific meaning. See the relevant international law on this. Israel can be criticised for its treatment of the Palestinians within the Occupied Territories but it is not committing genocide on any interpretation of the term, let alone legally. Using such overheated language is all part of a concerted campaign to justify Israel’s destruction.

    Would you agree that Moshe Heiglin's 2014 plan for liquidating Gaza was genocidal in intent? He was a Likud member of the Knesset at the time, indeed Deputy Speaker:

    http://www.voltairenet.org/article184845
    Not sure if displacement is genocide but yes certainly seems close if not there. I don't think he is Israel though do you?
    Ethnic cleansing is now considered genocide, but was probably not considered as such prior to the 1990's.

    In the post WWII period, political leaders seem to have been pretty relaxed about deporting entire populations to new territories, and bringing in new stock.
    Rwanda is the most recent example of genocide that springs to mind
  • rpjsrpjs Posts: 3,787
    edited August 2018
    I discovered today that the online service for checking the validity of a UK VAT number is run by the EU. If anyone knows if/when HMRC are planning to re-implement it for post-Brexit, please let me know so I can pass the details on to my colleagues.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,706

    Sean_F said:

    TOPPING said:

    I have the greatest of respect for Alastair, but he's got this one wrong. Respondents to this poll were No. Who can disagree with that?

    Anyone who understands the situation in Northern Ireland.

    Or understands the centuries of history of Irish nationalism. I'm sure we don't have to explain the significance of Padraig Pearse's GPO declaration to you now, do we Richard?
    That's a variant of the same false dichotomy. (Thanks BTW for your piece of a couple of days ago, which was very good, but which glossed over the point that a hard border isn't the inevitable result of us leaving the Single Market and/or Customs Union).
    Only if you use semantic arguments to pretend that a hard border isn't a hard border. The famous Smart Border 2.0 solution presented to the European parliament is a hard border, for example.
    Let's get on with it then.
    Get on with what? Having a referendum in Northern Ireland on special status in the EU to let them decide?
    No erecting that hard border if the EU won't give us a deal. If the people of NI want a border poll they can back parties putting that into their manifesto at an election.
    That's not necessary. The Secretary of State is legally obliged to call a border poll if she feels there would be a majority for unification. We're not far off that threshold.

    image
    You do know the combined Natiow?
    Just as there were nationalists who previously nd. Brexit is a game changer.
    Do you know Unionists who support a United Ireland?
    There have been many contributions to the debate since Peter Robinson's intervention from unionists who regard it as inevitable saying that it would be foolish not to prepare for it.
    Name one prominent Unionist who said a United Ireland was inevitable? Given a comfortable majority of counties Antrim and Down remain Protestant as long as that remains the case there will not be a United Ireland even if some Catholic counties of NI join the Republic
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950

    TOPPING said:

    Only if you use semantic arguments to pretend that a hard border isn't a hard border. The famous Smart Border 2.0 solution presented to the European parliament is a hard border, for example.

    Nothing semantic about it at all. Currently it's illegal to buy a truckload of booze or fags in Belfast and ship it to Dublin for sale, without declaring it and paying a fat sum to the Irish customs. Tariif divergence. And you can't buy a load of fireworks and take them across the border (legally) at all - regulatory divergence. So there's already a hard border, right?

    I've made this point dozens of times. It has always been ignored by those trying to pretend that somehow tariffs and/or regulatory differences would somehow spontaneously cause border posts to spring out of the bogs, despite the fact that not a single human on this earth wants them.

    They are sensible to ignore the point, of course - because it is incontrovertible.
    Yet again something that should be blindingly obvious. We should commit as part of no deal to having no hard border. Then if Ireland want to put up a border the republicans cannot complain that NI did it.
    While this may be a particularly compelling version of taking back control it is sadly not that simple. The EU can threaten to create a hard border and the UK will have to give in to whatever the EU demands not to do so because no UK PM can preside over a return to a hard border in Northern Ireland.

    It is a bluff when your opponent is showing you all their cards and they have a pair of twos and you have to fold when you have three kings.
    We don't want a hard border.
    The Irish don't want a hard border.
    The other 26 EU nations won't have a border to put up.
    The EU won't put up a border as that's not their jurisdiction.

    So who is putting up this mythical border? If we say no deal and no border who is going to force Ireland to put one up and how? Because Ireland is the only nation that can and they vehemently don't want it.
    Again, while setting aside the display of control this would be taking back (I mean aren't controlling one's own borders one of the few tangible examples of sovereignty?) you also are not understanding the dynamic at play here, which I have tried to explain previously.

    All those people you are right, don't want a border. But if the EU via its rules-based negotiating stance says we need to put up a border unless XYZ happens, then TMay will agree to XYZ. And they just might do that because, well, that's the EU.
  • CyclefreeCyclefree Posts: 25,074
    Sean_F said:

    Foxy said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Scott_P said:
    This one just runs and runs doesn't it.

    Labour must be extremely relieved that no one outside us junkies is paying any attention as it is hot and summer holidays.
    Yeah - and Boris hasn’t helped.

    Interesting though that after McDonnell’s intervention, which was implicitly critical of Corbyn, all this stuff comes out about what McDonnell has said and done. There’s some backstabbing going on, I think.

    I don't wish to defend Corbyn or his lackeys, but...

    Well, it *is* okay to accuse Israel of attempted genocide isn't it? Countries get accused of attempted or successful genocide all the time.

    Do they? Genocide has a very specific meaning. See the relevant international law on this. Israel can be criticised for its treatment of the Palestinians within the Occupied Territories but it is not committing genocide on any interpretation of the term, let alone legally. Using such overheated language is all part of a concerted campaign to justify Israel’s destruction.

    Would you agree that Moshe Heiglin's 2014 plan for liquidating Gaza was genocidal in intent? He was a Likud member of the Knesset at the time, indeed Deputy Speaker:

    http://www.voltairenet.org/article184845
    Not sure if displacement is genocide but yes certainly seems close if not there. I don't think he is Israel though do you?
    Ethnic cleansing is now considered genocide, but was probably not considered as such prior to the 1990's.

    In the post WWII period, political leaders seem to have been pretty relaxed about deporting entire populations to new territories, and bringing in new stock.
    Interestingly, the Ukrainian Holodomor does not fall within the UN definition of genocide. But that was because the Soviets refused to agree the definition until it was redrafted to exclude what they had done in Ukraine.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,706
    edited August 2018

    TOPPING said:

    I have the greatest of respect for Alastair, but he's got this one wrong. Respondents to this poll were far from bonkers. The poll, once you look through its false dichotomy, is essentially asking voters whether a small bunch of violent criminals (or, in the alternative poll he quotes, a small region of the UK) should have a veto on a democratic decision taken by the population of the UK as a whole. Whether you voted Leave or Remain, of course the answer is clear: No. Who can disagree with that?

    Anyone who understands the situation in Northern Ireland.

    Or understands the centuries of history of Irish nationalism. I'm sure we don't have to explain the significance of Padraig Pearse's GPO declaration to you now, do we Richard?
    That's a variant of the same false dichotomy. (Thanks BTW for your piece of a couple of days ago, which was very good, but which glossed over the point that a hard border isn't the inevitable result of us leaving the Single Market and/or Customs Union).
    Only if you use semantic arguments to pretend that a hard border isn't a hard border. The famous Smart Border 2.0 solution presented to the European parliament is a hard border, for example.
    Let's get on with it then.
    Get on with what? Having a referendum in Northern Ireland on special status in the EU to let them decide?
    No erecting that hard border if the EU won't give us a deal. If the people of NI want a border poll they can back parties putting that into their manifesto at an election.
    That's not neceff that threshold.

    image
    You do know the combinher than 42% for some time now?
    Just as there were nationalists who previously would have voted to stay in the UK, there are now unionists who would vote for a united Ireland. Brexit is a game changer.
    No it is not.

    85% of Catholics in Northern Ireland may have voted Remain but 60% of Protestants in Northern Ireland voted Leave.

    Indeed more Protestants in Northern Ireland voted Leave as a percentage than voters on the mainland UK and in England

    https://theconversation.com/how-northern-ireland-voted-in-the-eu-referendum-and-what-it-means-for-border-talks-76677
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 35,755
    edited August 2018

    Sean_F said:

    I wasn’t expecting universal enthusiasm for the article. I was hoping that the actual argument might be engaged with. Two posters have offered up different versions of “they don’t really mean it”, despite this requiring radical reinterpretation of the formally asked questions and all the different polling evidence suggesting that they do.

    It’s time to take this polling literally and consider what that means. The answer is not good.

    Ask extremely loaded questions, and you get answers that don't mean a lot.
    These aren’t extremely loaded questions. They are telling us something useful, if unwelcome.
    It's as loaded as saying "Imagine if it was possible for only one of the following to occur. Britain adopts the Euro, or Britain votes to leave the EU." Which would be more important to you?

    And then treating the answer as indicative of support for either joining the Euro, or leaving the EU.
  • CyclefreeCyclefree Posts: 25,074
    Pulpstar said:

    Sean_F said:

    Foxy said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Scott_P said:
    This one just runs and runs doesn't it.

    Labour must be extremely relieved that no one outside us junkies is paying any attention as it is hot and summer holidays.
    Yeah - and Boris hasn’t helped.

    Interesting though that after McDonnell’s intervention, which was implicitly critical of Corbyn, all this stuff comes out about what McDonnell has said and done. There’s some backstabbing going on, I think.

    I don't wish to defend Corbyn or his lackeys, but...

    Well, it *is* okay to accuse Israel of attempted genocide isn't it? Countries get accused of attempted or successful genocide all the time.

    Do they? Genocide has a very specific meaning. See the relevant international law on this. Israel can be criticised for its treatment of the Palestinians within the Occupied Territories but it is not committing genocide on any interpretation of the term, let alone legally. Using such overheated language is all part of a concerted campaign to justify Israel’s destruction.

    Would you agree that Moshe Heiglin's 2014 plan for liquidating Gaza was genocidal in intent? He was a Likud member of the Knesset at the time, indeed Deputy Speaker:

    http://www.voltairenet.org/article184845
    Not sure if displacement is genocide but yes certainly seems close if not there. I don't think he is Israel though do you?
    Ethnic cleansing is now considered genocide, but was probably not considered as such prior to the 1990's.

    In the post WWII period, political leaders seem to have been pretty relaxed about deporting entire populations to new territories, and bringing in new stock.
    Rwanda is the most recent example of genocide that springs to mind
    The US was very reluctant at the time to use the term “genocide” to describe the killings because that would have required the international community to do something.
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 48,909
    edited August 2018
    Sean_F said:


    You do know the combined Nationalist parties' vote at various NI elections has been no higher than 42% for some time now?

    In 1997, the combined Unionist vote share was 50.6%, and the combined Nationalist vote share was 40.2%.

    In 2017, the respective shares were 49.3% and 41.4%, a shift in favour of Nationalism, but hardly seismic.
    	
    Sinn Fein SDLP Total Nat
    2017 28.7 11.8 40.5
    2016 24.0 12.0 36.0
    2015 24.5 13.9 38.4
    2014 25.5 13.0 38.5
    2011 26.9 14.2 41.1
    2010 25.5 16.5 42.0
    2009 26.0 16.2 42.2
    2007 26.2 15.2 41.4
    2005 24.3 17.5 41.8
    2004 26.3 15.9 42.2
    2003 23.5 17.0 40.5
    2001 21.7 21.0 42.7
    1999 17.3 28.1 45.4
    1998 17.6 22.0 39.6
    1997 16.1 24.1 40.2
    2017 is average Stormont+Westminster
    1997, 2001, 2005, 2010, 2015 = Westminster
    1998, 2003, 2007, 2011, 2016 = Stormont
    1999, 2004, 2009, 2014 = Europe
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 47,786
    HYUFD said:

    TOPPING said:

    I have the greatest of respect for Alastair, but he's got this one wrong. Respondents to this poll were far from bonkers. The poll, once you look through its false dichotomy, is essentially asking voters whether a small bunch of violent criminals (or, in the alternative poll he quotes, a small region of the UK) should have a veto on a democratic decision taken by the population of the UK as a whole. Whether you voted Leave or Remain, of course the answer is clear: No. Who can disagree with that?

    Anyone who understands the situation in Northern Ireland.

    Or understands the centuries of history of Irish nationalism. I'm sure we don't have to explain the significance of Padraig Pearse's GPO declaration to you now, do we Richard?
    That's a variant of the same false dichotomy. (Thanks BTW for your piece of a couple of days ago, which was very good, but which glossed over the point that a hard border isn't the inevitable result of us leaving the Single Market and/or Customs Union).
    Only if you use semantic arguments to pretend that a hard border isn't a hard border. The famous Smart Border 2.0 solution presented to the European parliament is a hard border, for example.
    Let's get on with it then.
    Get on with what? Having a referendum in Northern Ireland on special status in the EU to let them decide?
    No erecting that hard border if the EU won't give us a deal. If the people of NI want a border poll they can back parties putting that into their manifesto at an election.
    That's not neceff that threshold.

    image
    You do know the combinher than 42% for some time now?
    Just as there were nationalists who previously would have voted to stay in the UK, there are now unionists who would vote for a united Ireland. Brexit is a game changer.
    No it is not.

    85% of Catholics in Northern Ireland may have voted Remain but 60% of Protestants in Northern Ireland voted Leave.

    Indeed more Protestants in Northern Ireland voted Leave as a percentage than voters on the mainland UK and in England

    https://theconversation.com/how-northern-ireland-voted-in-the-eu-referendum-and-what-it-means-for-border-talks-76677
    You can't analyse a dynamic situation by looking in the rear-view mirror.
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 35,755
    Cyclefree said:

    Sean_F said:

    Foxy said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Scott_P said:
    This one just runs and runs doesn't it.

    Labour must be extremely relieved that no one outside us junkies is paying any attention as it is hot and summer holidays.
    Yeah - and Boris hasn’t helped.

    Interesting though that after McDonnell’s intervention, which was implicitly critical of Corbyn, all this stuff comes out about what McDonnell has said and done. There’s some backstabbing going on, I think.

    I don't wish to defend Corbyn or his lackeys, but...

    Well, it *is* okay to accuse Israel of attempted genocide isn't it? Countries get accused of attempted or successful genocide all the time.

    Do they? Genocide has a very specific meaning. See the relevant international law on this. Israel can be criticised for its treatment of the Palestinians within the Occupied Territories but it is not committing genocide on any interpretation of the term, let alone legally. Using such overheated language is all part of a concerted campaign to justify Israel’s destruction.

    Would you agree that Moshe Heiglin's 2014 plan for liquidating Gaza was genocidal in intent? He was a Likud member of the Knesset at the time, indeed Deputy Speaker:

    http://www.voltairenet.org/article184845
    Not sure if displacement is genocide but yes certainly seems close if not there. I don't think he is Israel though do you?
    Ethnic cleansing is now considered genocide, but was probably not considered as such prior to the 1990's.

    In the post WWII period, political leaders seem to have been pretty relaxed about deporting entire populations to new territories, and bringing in new stock.
    Interestingly, the Ukrainian Holodomor does not fall within the UN definition of genocide. But that was because the Soviets refused to agree the definition until it was redrafted to exclude what they had done in Ukraine.
    Oddly enough, this came up in a fictional trial I did on a website about whether a character was or was not guilty of genocide. It is legally genocide to murder people on grounds of race, or religion, but not on grounds of political belief. The whole thing was extremely well argued on both sides.
  • CyclefreeCyclefree Posts: 25,074

    Sean_F said:

    I wasn’t expecting universal enthusiasm for the article. I was hoping that the actual argument might be engaged with. Two posters have offered up different versions of “they don’t really mean it”, despite this requiring radical reinterpretation of the formally asked questions and all the different polling evidence suggesting that they do.

    It’s time to take this polling literally and consider what that means. The answer is not good.

    Ask extremely loaded questions, and you get answers that don't mean a lot.
    These aren’t extremely loaded questions. They are telling us something useful, if unwelcome.
    The one issue I have with your interesting - if depressing - header is your assumption that Corbyn’s Labour will oppose Brexit. I see nothing to support this. Quite the opposite, in fact. Or are you saying that people believe that he might?
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 58,038
    rpjs said:

    I discovered today that the online service for checking the validity of a UK VAT number is run by the EU. If anyone knows if/when HMRC are planning to re-implement it for post-Brexit, please let me know so I can pass the details on to my colleagues.

    I suggest an email to Raab.
  • Pulpstar said:

    Sean_F said:

    Foxy said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Scott_P said:
    This one just runs and runs doesn't it.

    Labour must be extremely relieved that no one outside us junkies is paying any attention as it is hot and summer holidays.
    Yeah - and Boris hasn’t helped.

    Interesting though that after McDonnell’s intervention, which was implicitly critical of Corbyn, all this stuff comes out about what McDonnell has said and done. There’s some backstabbing going on, I think.

    I don't wish to defend Corbyn or his lackeys, but...

    Well, it *is* okay to accuse Israel of attempted genocide isn't it? Countries get accused of attempted or successful genocide all the time.

    Do they? Genocide has a very specific meaning. See the relevant international law on this. Israel can be criticised for its treatment of the Palestinians within the Occupied Territories but it is not committing genocide on any interpretation of the term, let alone legally. Using such overheated language is all part of a concerted campaign to justify Israel’s destruction.

    Would you agree that Moshe Heiglin's 2014 plan for liquidating Gaza was genocidal in intent? He was a Likud member of the Knesset at the time, indeed Deputy Speaker:

    http://www.voltairenet.org/article184845
    Not sure if displacement is genocide but yes certainly seems close if not there. I don't think he is Israel though do you?
    Ethnic cleansing is now considered genocide, but was probably not considered as such prior to the 1990's.

    In the post WWII period, political leaders seem to have been pretty relaxed about deporting entire populations to new territories, and bringing in new stock.
    Rwanda is the most recent example of genocide that springs to mind
    And not the Rohingas in Burma?
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,706

    HYUFD said:

    TOPPING said:

    I have the greatest of respect for Alastair, but he's got this one wrong. Respondents to this poll were far from o can disagree with that?

    Anyone who understands the situation in Northern Ireland.

    Or understands the centuries of history of Irish nationalism. I'm sure we don't have to explain the significance of Padraig Pearse's GPO declaration to you now, do we Richard?
    That's a variant of the same false dichotomy. (Thankor Customs Union).
    Only if you use semantic arguments to pretend that a hard border isn't a hard border. The famous Smart Border 2.0 solution presented to the European parliament is a hard border, for example.
    Let's get on with it then.
    Get on with what? Having a referendum in Northern Ireland on special status in the EU to let them decide?
    No erecting that hard border if the EU won't give us a deal. If the people of NI want a border poll they can back parties putting that into their manifesto at an election.
    That's not neceff that threshold.

    image
    You do know the combinher than 42% for some time now?
    Just as there were nationalists who prnited Ireland. Brexit is a game changer.
    No it is not.

    85% of Catholics in Northern Ireland may have voted Remain but 60% of Protestants in Northern Ireland voted Leave.

    Indeed more Protestants in Northern Ireland voted Leave as a percentage than voters on the mainland UK and in England

    https://theconversation.com/how-northern-ireland-voted-in-the-eu-referendum-and-what-it-means-for-border-talks-76677
    You can't analyse a dynamic situation by looking in the rear-view mirror.
    It is a very simple analysis, a majority of Catholics in NI were pro Irish Unity before the EU referendum and voted Remain and are still pro Irish Unity after the EU referendum.

    A majority of Protestants in NI wanted to remain in the UK before the EU referendum and voted Leave and still want to remain in the UK after the EU referendum.

    So in terms of the religious and sectarian divisions in NI Brexit means precisely nothing
  • TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    Only if you use semantic arguments to pretend that a hard border isn't a hard border. The famous Smart Border 2.0 solution presented to the European parliament is a hard border, for example.

    Nothing semantic about it at all. Currently it's illegal to buy a truckload of booze or fags in Belfast and ship it to Dublin for sale, without declaring it and paying a fat sum to the Irish customs. Tariif divergence. And you can't buy a load of fireworks and take them across the border (legally) at all - regulatory divergence. So there's already a hard border, right?

    I've made this point dozens of times. It has always been ignored by those trying to pretend that somehow tariffs and/or regulatory differences would somehow spontaneously cause border posts to spring out of the bogs, despite the fact that not a single human on this earth wants them.

    They are sensible to ignore the point, of course - because it is incontrovertible.
    Yet again something that should be blindingly obvious. We should commit as part of no deal to having no hard border. Then if Ireland want to put up a border the republicans cannot complain that NI did it.
    While this may be a particularly compelling version of taking back control it is sadly not that simple. The EU can threaten to create a hard border and the UK will have to give in to whatever the EU demands not to do so because no UK PM can preside over a return to a hard border in Northern Ireland.

    It is a bluff when your opponent is showing you all their cards and they have a pair of twos and you have to fold when you have three kings.
    We don't want a hard border.
    The Irish don't want a hard border.
    The other 26 EU nations won't have a border to put up.
    The EU won't put up a border as that's not their jurisdiction.

    So who is putting up this mythical border? If we say no deal and no border who is going to force Ireland to put one up and how? Because Ireland is the only nation that can and they vehemently don't want it.
    Again, while setting aside the display of control this would be taking back (I mean aren't controlling one's own borders one of the few tangible examples of sovereignty?) you also are not understanding the dynamic at play here, which I have tried to explain previously.

    All those people you are right, don't want a border. But if the EU via its rules-based negotiating stance says we need to put up a border unless XYZ happens, then TMay will agree to XYZ. And they just might do that because, well, that's the EU.
    TMay will agree to it.

    She shouldn't. I understand the dynamic I disagree with her inability to call Europe's bluff.
  • FF43FF43 Posts: 15,542
    edited August 2018
    Pulpstar said:

    TOPPING said:

    Only if you use semantic arguments to pretend that a hard border isn't a hard border. The famous Smart Border 2.0 solution presented to the European parliament is a hard border, for example.

    Nothing semantic about it at all. Currently it's illegal to buy a truckload of booze or fags in Belfast and ship it to Dublin for sale, without declaring it and paying a fat sum to the Irish customs. Tariif divergence. And you can't buy a load of fireworks and take them across the border (legally) at all - regulatory divergence. So there's already a hard border, right?

    I've made this point dozens of times. It has always been ignored by those trying to pretend that somehow tariffs and/or regulatory differences would somehow spontaneously cause border posts to spring out of the bogs, despite the fact that not a single human on this earth wants them.

    They are sensible to ignore the point, of course - because it is incontrovertible.
    Yet again something that should be blindingly obvious. We should commit as part of no deal to having no hard border. Then if Ireland want to put up a border the republicans cannot complain that NI did it.
    While this may be a particularly compelling version of taking back control it is sadly not that simple. The EU can threaten to create a hard border and the UK will have to give in to whatever the EU demands not to do so because no UK PM can preside over a return to a hard border in Northern Ireland.

    It is a bluff when your opponent is showing you all their cards and they have a pair of twos and you have to fold when you have three kings.
    Which lucky contractor will take on the task of putting up a hard border. Good luck with that - Nabavi is right on this one. The border will be unenforced with all the loss of customs revenue that entails as a price worth paying.
    I'm.afraid Nabavi is wrong. Soft borders aren't the norm. In fact the European Union members are essentially unique in more or less eliminating them. The only other somewhat similar border is that between Australia.and New Zealand, which is a physical sea border. In any case the whole point of Brexit is to create borders. That is why the DUP was in favour.
  • FF43 said:

    Pulpstar said:

    TOPPING said:

    Only if you use semantic arguments to pretend that a hard border isn't a hard border. The famous Smart Border 2.0 solution presented to the European parliament is a hard border, for example.

    Nothing semantic about it at all. Currently it's illegal to buy a truckload of booze or fags in Belfast and ship it to Dublin for sale, without declaring it and paying a fat sum to the Irish customs. Tariif divergence. And you can't buy a load of fireworks and take them across the border (legally) at all - regulatory divergence. So there's already a hard border, right?

    I've made this point dozens of times. It has always been ignored by those trying to pretend that somehow tariffs and/or regulatory differences would somehow spontaneously cause border posts to spring out of the bogs, despite the fact that not a single human on this earth wants them.

    They are sensible to ignore the point, of course - because it is incontrovertible.
    Yet again something that should be blindingly obvious. We should commit as part of no deal to having no hard border. Then if Ireland want to put up a border the republicans cannot complain that NI did it.
    While this may be a particularly compelling version of taking back control it is sadly not that simple. The EU can threaten to create a hard border and the UK will have to give in to whatever the EU demands not to do so because no UK PM can preside over a return to a hard border in Northern Ireland.

    It is a bluff when your opponent is showing you all their cards and they have a pair of twos and you have to fold when you have three kings.
    Which lucky contractor will take on the task of putting up a hard border. Good luck with that - Nabavi is right on this one. The border will be unenforced with all the loss of customs revenue that entails as a price worth paying.
    I'm.afraid Nabavi is wrong. Soft borders aren't the norm. In fact the European Union members are essentially unique in more or less eliminating them. The only other somewhat similar border is that between Australia.and New Zealand, which is a physical sea border. In any case the whole point of Brexit is to create borders. That is why the DUP was in favour.
    No it isn't to create borders. It is to control what happens within ours.

    The border itself is rather moot.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    Only if you use semantic arguments to pretend that a hard border isn't a hard border. The famous Smart Border 2.0 solution presented to the European parliament is a hard border, for example.

    Nothing semantic about it at all. Currently it's illegal to buy a truckload of booze or fags in Belfast and ship iross the border (legally) at all - regulatory divergence. So there's already a hard border, right?

    I've made this point dozens of times. It has always been ignored by those trying to pretend that somehow tariffs and/or regulatory differences would somehow spontaneously cause border posts to spring out of the bogs, despite the fact that not a single human on this earth wants them.

    They are sensible to ignore the point, of course - because it is incontrovertible.
    Yet again something that should be blindingly obvious. We should commit as part of no deal to having no hard border. Then if Ireland want to put up a border the republicans cannot complain that NI did it.
    While this may be a particularly compelling version of taking back control it is sadly not that simple. The EU can threaten to create a hard border and the UK will have to give in to whatever the EU demands not to do so because no UK PM can preside over a return to a hard border in Northern Ireland.

    It is a bluff when your opponent is showing you all their cards and they have a pair of twos and you have to fold when you have three kings.
    We don't want a hard border.
    The Irish don't want a hard border.
    The other 26 EU nations won't have a border to put up.
    The EU won't put up a border as that's not their jurisdiction.

    So who is putting up this mythical border? If we say no deal and no border who is going to force Ireland to put one up and how? Because Ireland is the only nation that can and they vehemently don't want it.
    Again, while setting aside the display of control this would be taking back (I mean aren't controlling one's own borders one of the few tangible examples of sovereignty?) you also are not understanding the dynamic at play here, which I have tried to explain previously.

    All those people you are right, don't want a border. But if the EU via its rules-based negotiating stance says we need to put up a border unless XYZ happens, then TMay will agree to XYZ. And they just might do that because, well, that's the EU.
    TMay will agree to it.

    She shouldn't. I understand the dynamic I disagree with her inability to call Europe's bluff.
    We have already agreed that the situation is bonkers.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 58,038
    Don't intervene when your enemy is making a mistake:

    https://twitter.com/tnewtondunn/status/1027313018445725701
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,049
    I think it quite likely that Labour will support #peoplesvote at its conference. Jezza does tend to like grass roots resolutions.
  • Foxy said:

    I think it quite likely that Labour will support #peoplesvote at its conference. Jezza does tend to like grass roots resolutions.
    In what way was 2016 NOT a #peoplesvote?
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 47,786

    FF43 said:

    Pulpstar said:

    TOPPING said:

    Only if you use semantic arguments to pretend that a hard border isn't a hard border. The famous Smart Border 2.0 solution presented to the European parliament is a hard border, for example.

    Nothing semantic about it at all. Currently it's illegal to buy a truckload of booze or fags in Belfast and ship it to Dublin for sale, without declaring it and paying a fat sum to the Irish customs. Tariif divergence. And you can't buy a load of fireworks and take them across the border (legally) at all - regulatory divergence. So there's already a hard border, right?

    I've made this point dozens of times. It has always been ignored by those trying to pretend that somehow tariffs and/or regulatory differences would somehow spontaneously cause border posts to spring out of the bogs, despite the fact that not a single human on this earth wants them.

    They are sensible to ignore the point, of course - because it is incontrovertible.
    Yet again something that should be blindingly obvious. We should commit as part of no deal to having no hard border. Then if Ireland want to put up a border the republicans cannot complain that NI did it.
    While this may be a particularly compelling version of taking back control it is sadly not that simple. The EU can threaten to create a hard border and the UK will have to give in to whatever the EU demands not to do so because no UK PM can preside over a return to a hard border in Northern Ireland.

    It is a bluff when your opponent is showing you all their cards and they have a pair of twos and you have to fold when you have three kings.
    Which lucky contractor will take on the task of putting up a hard border. Good luck with that - Nabavi is right on this one. The border will be unenforced with all the loss of customs revenue that entails as a price worth paying.
    I'm.afraid Nabavi is wrong. Soft borders aren't the norm. In fact the European Union members are essentially unique in more or less eliminating them. The only other somewhat similar border is that between Australia.and New Zealand, which is a physical sea border. In any case the whole point of Brexit is to create borders. That is why the DUP was in favour.
    No it isn't to create borders. It is to control what happens within ours.

    The border itself is rather moot.
    If it's moving "our" borders from the perimeter of the EU28 to the perimeter of the UK, it is creating new borders and that is the material fact of the process, not the supposed new-found control.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 58,038

    Foxy said:

    I think it quite likely that Labour will support #peoplesvote at its conference. Jezza does tend to like grass roots resolutions.
    In what way was 2016 NOT a #peoplesvote?
    This is a new vote, now that everyone knows what the fuck it actually means to leave the EU.
  • Tissue_PriceTissue_Price Posts: 9,039

    It’s time to take this polling literally and consider what that means. The answer is not good.

    Indulging this conceit (personally I'm with @Richard_Nabavi on this one), I would suggest that the biggest implication would be that many people don't give a monkey's about Northern Ireland.
  • brendan16brendan16 Posts: 2,315
    edited August 2018

    Foxy said:

    I think it quite likely that Labour will support #peoplesvote at its conference. Jezza does tend to like grass roots resolutions.
    In what way was 2016 NOT a #peoplesvote?
    This is a new vote, now that everyone knows what the fuck it actually means to leave the EU.
    Not a 'second' people's vote cos the plebs voted the wrong way the first time round?

    A people's vote to overturn the people's vote in 2016 using an electoral system the people rejected in a people's vote in 2011. Vive la democratie!
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 47,786
    brendan16 said:

    Foxy said:

    I think it quite likely that Labour will support #peoplesvote at its conference. Jezza does tend to like grass roots resolutions.
    In what way was 2016 NOT a #peoplesvote?
    This is a new vote, now that everyone knows what the fuck it actually means to leave the EU.
    Not a 'second' people's vote cos the plebs voted the wrong way the first time round?
    No, because the political elite campaigned the wrong way round.
  • Foxy said:

    I think it quite likely that Labour will support #peoplesvote at its conference. Jezza does tend to like grass roots resolutions.
    In what way was 2016 NOT a #peoplesvote?
    This is a new vote, now that everyone knows what the fuck it actually means to leave the EU.
    People have always known what it means to leave the EU. One day you are in it, they next day you are out and not in it ever again. And The majority knew what they wanted and how they would vote before the referendum was even called.

    The counter argument that the sky will suddenly fall in absolutely nobody at all actually believes, do they.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,706
    edited August 2018
    Foxy said:

    I think it quite likely that Labour will support #peoplesvote at its conference. Jezza does tend to like grass roots resolutions.
    Corbyn advisers have made it quite clear Corbyn will never support a second EU referendum as he cannot become PM without working class Labour Leave seats, especially as most Tory Remain voters will not tough him eith a bargepole .

    Corbyn also remains ideologically opposed to staying in the single market too as it would block his nationalisation plans
  • MyBurningEarsMyBurningEars Posts: 3,651
    edited August 2018

    It’s time to take this polling literally and consider what that means. The answer is not good.

    I think a significant lesson to be drawn from this polling is "don't let the people running a country bog it down in a political union bog it down in a political union that a large minority of its inhabitants find, or will start to find, absolutely intolerable."

    However irrational or distasteful one might find their viewpoint, this is largely a "feelz" thing and is closely related to the point that you can't just tell someone what country they should feel they belong to. These people simply do not feel European, at least in the political-identity sense, and therefore insist on not being inextricably involved in (or in their view, subjected to) political union with a subset of other Western and Central European states.

    Identity politics are ugly, but even "Europe" isn't above this - if "Europe" was merely about a Deal, not a Project, and if its primary concern was a combination of universal human values and economic ties, Morocco's attempts to join would not have been so hastily rebuffed, for example. They were perceived as lying outside some cultural or civilisational sphere, not merely a geographical one. (Cyprus might lie in Asia but had no such trouble securing entry.) Whatever European identity it is that the European Project claims - perhaps those office blocks in Brussels and Strasbourg and Frankfurt spiritually house the lofty heir to classical Greece and Rome, to the Renaissance and the Enlightenment - one simply can't compel people to identify primarily with that rather than their more insular national identity. And arguments about how much better off they might be, may suffer surprisingly ineffective traction.

    Leaving the EU will cause some people anguish, upset, and indeed anger. And so would remaining or rejoining. A Tory-contrived Remain at this juncture could end up pretty ugly in the years to come - I wouldn't bet against the UK following the European "new normal" and having a far-right party consistently polling 10-25%. That would leave us just one calamitously mistimed jolt away from it hitting 35-40% in an election year and then we really would be in trouble. Some people might - quite validly - find that a more palatable set of potential consequence, or probability-wise a more acceptable risk, than the dangers that await us should Brexit go ahead. Especially if it is badly botched by brinkmanship from both negotiating teams. But this polling should be a stark warning to anyone who thinks "let's call the whole thing off" would be the nice, easy, logical, obvious, fair, mutually beneficial, consequence-free solution.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 58,038

    Foxy said:

    I think it quite likely that Labour will support #peoplesvote at its conference. Jezza does tend to like grass roots resolutions.
    In what way was 2016 NOT a #peoplesvote?
    This is a new vote, now that everyone knows what the fuck it actually means to leave the EU.
    People have always known what it means to leave the EU. One day you are in it, they next day you are out and not in it ever again. And The majority knew what they wanted and how they would vote before the referendum was even called.

    The counter argument that the sky will suddenly fall in absolutely nobody at all actually believes, do they.
    So, how come the polls are starting to show people are changing their minds?
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,706

    Foxy said:

    I think it quite likely that Labour will support #peoplesvote at its conference. Jezza does tend to like grass roots resolutions.
    In what way was 2016 NOT a #peoplesvote?
    This is a new vote, now that everyone knows what the fuck it actually means to leave the EU.
    People have always known what it means to leave the EU. One day you are in it, they next day you are out and not in it ever again. And The majority knew what they wanted and how they would vote before the referendum was even called.

    The counter argument that the sky will suddenly fall in absolutely nobody at all actually believes, do they.
    So, how come the polls are starting to show people are changing their minds?
    They aren't really.

    As I posted earlier most polls give Leave with a Deal or without a Deal combined more than Remain and polls which give Remain leads are little different in margin to those before the EU referendum which Leave won
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,706

    It’s time to take this polling literally and consider what that means. The answer is not good.

    I think a significant lesson to be drawn from this polling is "don't let the people running a country bog it down in a political union bog it down in a political union that a large minority of its inhabitants find, or will start to find, absolutely intolerable."

    However irrational or distasteful one might find their viewpoint, this is largely a "feelz" thing and is closely related to the point that you can't just tell someone what country they should feel they belong to. These people simply do not feel European, at least in the political-identity sense, and therefore insist on not being inextricably involved in (or in their view, subjected to) political union with a subset of other Western and Central European states.

    Identity politics are ugly, but even "Europe" isn't above this - if "Europe" was merely about a Deal, not a Project, and if its primary concern was a combination of universal human values and economic ties, Morocco's attempts to join would not have been so hastily rebuffed, for example. They were perceived as lying outside some cultural or civilisational sphere, not merely a geographical one. (Cyprus might lie in Asia but had no such trouble securing entry.) Whatever European identity it is that the European Project claims - perhaps those office blocks in Brussels and Strasbourg and Frankfurt spiritually house the lofty heir to classical Greece and Rome, to the Renaissance and the Enlightenment - one simply can't compel people to identify primarily with that rather than their more insular national identity. And arguments about how much better off they might be, may suffer surprisingly ineffective traction.

    Leaving the EU will cause some people anguish, upset, and indeed anger. And so would remaining or rejoining. A Tory-contrived Remain at this juncture could end up pretty ugly in the years to come - I wouldn't bet against the UK following the European "new normal" and having a far-right party consistently polling 10-25%. That would leave us just one calamitously mistimed jolt away from it hitting 35-40% in an election year and then we really would be in trouble. Some people might - quite validly - find that a more palatable set of potential consequence, or probability-wise a more acceptable risk, than the dangers that await us should Brexit go ahead. Especially if it is badly botched by brinkmanship from both negotiating teams. But this polling should be a stark warning to anyone who thinks "let's call the whole thing off" would be the nice, easy, logical, obvious, fair, mutually beneficial, consequence-free solution.
    A hard right borderline Fascist Party on 25% combining UKIP and EDL types is pretty much guaranteed if the original Leave vote and Brexit are reversed
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 58,038

    Foxy said:

    I think it quite likely that Labour will support #peoplesvote at its conference. Jezza does tend to like grass roots resolutions.
    In what way was 2016 NOT a #peoplesvote?
    This is a new vote, now that everyone knows what the fuck it actually means to leave the EU.
    People have always known what it means to leave the EU. One day you are in it, they next day you are out and not in it ever again. And The majority knew what they wanted and how they would vote before the referendum was even called.

    The counter argument that the sky will suddenly fall in absolutely nobody at all actually believes, do they.
    But, what we have learnt is that 'the next day you are out' is utter utter bollx.

    Despite being a Remainer, I think the voters have every right to vote Leave and walk away. But, massive but, if they do, it has to be done in a fashion that is not a clusterfuck. Which means a long term plan and so a decent form of transition. My preference would be EEA.

    We have no plan.

    We are at the cliff edge.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,706
    edited August 2018

    Foxy said:

    I think it quite likely that Labour will support #peoplesvote at its conference. Jezza does tend to like grass roots resolutions.
    In what way was 2016 NOT a #peoplesvote?
    This is a new vote, now that everyone knows what the fuck it actually means to leave the EU.
    People have always known what it means to leave the EU. One day you are in it, they next day you are out and not in it ever again. And The majority knew what they wanted and how they would vote before the referendum was even called.

    The counter argument that the sky will suddenly fall in absolutely nobody at all actually believes, do they.
    But, what we have learnt is that 'the next day you are out' is utter utter bollx.

    Despite being a Remainer, I think the voters have every right to vote Leave and walk away. But, massive but, if they do, it has to be done in a fashion that is not a clusterfuck. Which means a long term plan and so a decent form of transition. My preference would be EEA.

    We have no plan.

    We are at the cliff edge.
    We have the Chequers Deal and stockpiling of medicines and food.

    EEA in a decade would be fine once immigration is under control, EEA now disrespects one of the key motives for the Leave vote as it requires free movement
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 47,786
    HYUFD said:

    Foxy said:

    I think it quite likely that Labour will support #peoplesvote at its conference. Jezza does tend to like grass roots resolutions.
    In what way was 2016 NOT a #peoplesvote?
    This is a new vote, now that everyone knows what the fuck it actually means to leave the EU.
    People have always known what it means to leave the EU. One day you are in it, they next day you are out and not in it ever again. And The majority knew what they wanted and how they would vote before the referendum was even called.

    The counter argument that the sky will suddenly fall in absolutely nobody at all actually believes, do they.
    But, what we have learnt is that 'the next day you are out' is utter utter bollx.

    Despite being a Remainer, I think the voters have every right to vote Leave and walk away. But, massive but, if they do, it has to be done in a fashion that is not a clusterfuck. Which means a long term plan and so a decent form of transition. My preference would be EEA.

    We have no plan.

    We are at the cliff edge.
    We have the Chequers Deal and stockpiling of medicines and food.

    EEA in a decade would be fine once immigration is under control, EEA now disrespects one of the key motives for the Leave vote as it requires free movement
    I thought you'd already admitted that the mobility framework would be free movement in all but name?
  • houndtanghoundtang Posts: 450

    Foxy said:

    I think it quite likely that Labour will support #peoplesvote at its conference. Jezza does tend to like grass roots resolutions.
    In what way was 2016 NOT a #peoplesvote?
    This is a new vote, now that everyone knows what the fuck it actually means to leave the EU.
    People have always known what it means to leave the EU. One day you are in it, they next day you are out and not in it ever again. And The majority knew what they wanted and how they would vote before the referendum was even called.

    The counter argument that the sky will suddenly fall in absolutely nobody at all actually believes, do they.

    Foxy said:

    I think it quite likely that Labour will support #peoplesvote at its conference. Jezza does tend to like grass roots resolutions.
    In what way was 2016 NOT a #peoplesvote?
    This is a new vote, now that everyone knows what the fuck it actually means to leave the EU.
    People have always known what it means to leave the EU. One day you are in it, they next day you are out and not in it ever again. And The majority knew what they wanted and how they would vote before the referendum was even called.

    The counter argument that the sky will suddenly fall in absolutely nobody at all actually believes, do they.
    What happens when Leave wins again? Why would the second referendum be respected if the first wasn't?
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 47,786
    houndtang said:

    Foxy said:

    I think it quite likely that Labour will support #peoplesvote at its conference. Jezza does tend to like grass roots resolutions.
    In what way was 2016 NOT a #peoplesvote?
    This is a new vote, now that everyone knows what the fuck it actually means to leave the EU.
    People have always known what it means to leave the EU. One day you are in it, they next day you are out and not in it ever again. And The majority knew what they wanted and how they would vote before the referendum was even called.

    The counter argument that the sky will suddenly fall in absolutely nobody at all actually believes, do they.

    Foxy said:

    I think it quite likely that Labour will support #peoplesvote at its conference. Jezza does tend to like grass roots resolutions.
    In what way was 2016 NOT a #peoplesvote?
    This is a new vote, now that everyone knows what the fuck it actually means to leave the EU.
    People have always known what it means to leave the EU. One day you are in it, they next day you are out and not in it ever again. And The majority knew what they wanted and how they would vote before the referendum was even called.

    The counter argument that the sky will suddenly fall in absolutely nobody at all actually believes, do they.
    What happens when Leave wins again? Why would the second referendum be respected if the first wasn't?
    Has it passed you by that our political system has spent the last two years being consumed by the process of leaving the EU? The 2016 referendum has hardly been ignored.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 58,038
    houndtang said:

    Foxy said:

    I think it quite likely that Labour will support #peoplesvote at its conference. Jezza does tend to like grass roots resolutions.
    In what way was 2016 NOT a #peoplesvote?
    This is a new vote, now that everyone knows what the fuck it actually means to leave the EU.
    People have always known what it means to leave the EU. One day you are in it, they next day you are out and not in it ever again. And The majority knew what they wanted and how they would vote before the referendum was even called.

    The counter argument that the sky will suddenly fall in absolutely nobody at all actually believes, do they.

    Foxy said:

    I think it quite likely that Labour will support #peoplesvote at its conference. Jezza does tend to like grass roots resolutions.
    In what way was 2016 NOT a #peoplesvote?
    This is a new vote, now that everyone knows what the fuck it actually means to leave the EU.
    People have always known what it means to leave the EU. One day you are in it, they next day you are out and not in it ever again. And The majority knew what they wanted and how they would vote before the referendum was even called.

    The counter argument that the sky will suddenly fall in absolutely nobody at all actually believes, do they.
    What happens when Leave wins again? Why would the second referendum be respected if the first wasn't?
    Because no one. Not even Adonis, could claim that no one knew what they the consequences would be this time. We would be out. No arguments. The economic damage would be ours to own and that would be that. Out for a generation. Even Chukka has said this iirc.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,706
    edited August 2018

    HYUFD said:

    Foxy said:

    I think it quite likely that Labour will support #peoplesvote at its conference. Jezza does tend to like grass roots resolutions.
    In what way was 2016 NOT a #peoplesvote?
    This is a new vote, now that everyone knows what the fuck it actually means to leave the EU.
    People have always known what it means to leave the EU. One day you are in it, they next day you are out and not in it ever again. And The majority knew what they wanted and how they would vote before the referendum was even called.

    The counter argument that the sky will suddenly fall in absolutely nobody at all actually believes, do they.
    But, what we have learnt is that 'the next day you are out' is utter utter bollx.

    Despite being a Remainer, I think the voters have every right to vote Leave and walk away. But, massive but, if they do, it has to be done in a fashion that is not a clusterfuck. Which means a long term plan and so a decent form of transition. My preference would be EEA.

    We have no plan.

    We are at the cliff edge.
    We have the Chequers Deal and stockpiling of medicines and food.

    EEA in a decade would be fine once immigration is under control, EEA now disrespects one of the key motives for the Leave vote as it requires free movement
    I thought you'd already admitted that the mobility framework would be free movement in all but name?
    I never said that, a mobility framework requires a job offer on arrival not after 3 months unlike free movement. It is similar to the transition controls Blair refused to impose in 2004.

    However the Chequers Deal would be customs union in all but name and in most other respects is a move towards the single market in all but name too
  • Foxy said:

    I think it quite likely that Labour will support #peoplesvote at its conference. Jezza does tend to like grass roots resolutions.
    In what way was 2016 NOT a #peoplesvote?
    This is a new vote, now that everyone knows what the fuck it actually means to leave the EU.
    People have always known what it means to leave the EU. One day you are in it, they next day you are out and not in it ever again. And The majority knew what they wanted and how they would vote before the referendum was even called.

    The counter argument that the sky will suddenly fall in absolutely nobody at all actually believes, do they.
    But, what we have learnt is that 'the next day you are out' is utter utter bollx.

    Despite being a Remainer, I think the voters have every right to vote Leave and walk away. But, massive but, if they do, it has to be done in a fashion that is not a clusterfuck. Which means a long term plan and so a decent form of transition. My preference would be EEA.

    We have no plan.

    We are at the cliff edge.
    No. Simply no. No again. The standard remain argument that something dramatic quickly happens is not only not true, but because it is not believed, it is the argument that helped leave win.

    With Brexit we make some of our commerce more expensive. It cannot be recovered by going global because trade with your nearest neighbours didn’t start with the EEC, it’s been there since time began and will always be there. With some of our commerce more expensive, commercial decisions over years and decades make Britain poorer as a nation, and households poorer. That’s the brexit reality, not the dramatic sky falling in remainers keep banging on about.
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 47,786

    Foxy said:

    I think it quite likely that Labour will support #peoplesvote at its conference. Jezza does tend to like grass roots resolutions.
    In what way was 2016 NOT a #peoplesvote?
    This is a new vote, now that everyone knows what the fuck it actually means to leave the EU.
    People have always known what it means to leave the EU. One day you are in it, they next day you are out and not in it ever again. And The majority knew what they wanted and how they would vote before the referendum was even called.

    The counter argument that the sky will suddenly fall in absolutely nobody at all actually believes, do they.
    But, what we have learnt is that 'the next day you are out' is utter utter bollx.

    Despite being a Remainer, I think the voters have every right to vote Leave and walk away. But, massive but, if they do, it has to be done in a fashion that is not a clusterfuck. Which means a long term plan and so a decent form of transition. My preference would be EEA.

    We have no plan.

    We are at the cliff edge.
    No. Simply no. No again. The standard remain argument that something dramatic quickly happens is not only not true, but because it is not believed, it is the argument that helped leave win.

    With Brexit we make some of our commerce more expensive. It cannot be recovered by going global because trade with your nearest neighbours didn’t start with the EEC, it’s been there since time began and will always be there. With some of our commerce more expensive, commercial decisions over years and decades make Britain poorer as a nation, and households poorer. That’s the brexit reality, not the dramatic sky falling in remainers keep banging on about.
    That is only the reality if it is a managed process rather than a cliff edge overnight transition to something very different from the status quo.
  • MyBurningEarsMyBurningEars Posts: 3,651
    edited August 2018
    HYUFD said:

    A hard right borderline Fascist Party on 25% combining UKIP and EDL types is pretty much guaranteed if the original Leave vote and Brexit are reversed

    I'd rate it as a risk rather than a guarantee, but I'd rate the risk as higher if it occurred (a) without a straight re-run referendum to legitimise it, (b) if it was primarily the Tories that did it, as this would push eurosceptics towards a new home, (c) if it was done by cross-party agreement (again, pushes eurosceptics out away from the "Establishment"), (d) if there was a referendum but it seemed deliberately contrived to favour Remain, (e) if there is any form of election or referendum with an especially tight result, or (f) all the "mainstream" parties reverted to accepting EU membership.

    If the government collapses, and Labour won an election on a platform of cancelling article 50, and the Tories retain some kind of pro-Brexit or eurosceptic policy (e.g. for a new referendum but this time with some specific plan for Leave in mind, or to push for some kind of associate membership structure) then the voter backlash might be somewhat limited. If the Tories reverted to acceptance of EU membership, for instance if Labour called a referendum on cancelling article 50 and comfortably won it to take the issue off the mainstream table, things could get a bit hairier. But the worst case I can think of would be a Tory Remainer-backed coup, or surprise change-of-heart from Mrs May of the kind that @william seems to think is going to happen, with an emergency "undo article 50" vote in parliament (perhaps seen through to a majority by Labour backbenchers). We've been very fortunate in this country that FPTP has proved an effective barrier to extremism, but that's partly been a feature of how low a percentage extreme parties have tended to score. In that scenario, and for several elections that follow it, I'd actually be quite scared of the flip side of FPTP - that you can win a landslide on 35% of the vote (see Blair '05) and if politics are split form a government with less than 30% (see MacDonald '23).
  • HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Foxy said:

    I think it quite likely that Labour will support #peoplesvote at its conference. Jezza does tend to like grass roots resolutions.
    In what way was 2016 NOT a #peoplesvote?
    This is a new vote, now that everyone knows what the fuck it actually means to leave the EU.
    The majority knew what they wanted and how they would vote before the referendum was even called.

    The counter argument that the sky will suddenly fall in absolutely nobody at all actually believes, do they.
    But, what we have learnt is that 'the next day you are out' is utter utter

    We have no plan.

    We are at the cliff edge.
    We have the Chequers Deal and stockpiling of medicines and food.

    EEA in a decade would be fine once immigration is under control, EEA now disrespects one of the key motives for the Leave vote as it requires free movement
    I thought you'd already admitted that the mobility framework would be free movement in all but name?
    I never said that, a mobility framework requires a job offer on arrival not after 3 months unlike free movement. It is similar to the transition controls Blair refused to impose in 2004.

    However the Chequers Deal would be customs union in all but name and in most other respects is a move towards the single market in all but name too
    No. There’s no control of borders coming back from leaving the EU. That’s nothing to do with Brexit. It’s hard to know when we last exercised such control to prove we had it, but if British state ever did have control of borders and immigration that was lost long ago to globalisation.

    Business dictates to government it can hire whatever medium, high, low skilled labour it wants from wherever it wants, if government says not in our little zone of control you aren’t, then the business can so easily set up outside that little zone of control. For that reason no British government will ever set up a little zone of control ever again. Staying in or leaving EU doesn’t change that fact in the slightest.

    Container ships, internet, cheap labour resource abroad, Germans waiting with open arms for start ups, etc. From business perspective it’s fuck you government.
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 27,835
    edited August 2018

    Foxy said:

    I think it quite likely that Labour will support #peoplesvote at its conference. Jezza does tend to like grass roots resolutions.
    In what way was 2016 NOT a #peoplesvote?
    This is a new vote, now that everyone knows what the fuck it actually means to leave the EU.
    People have always known what it means to leave the EU. One day you are in it, they next day you are out and not in it ever again. And The majority knew what they wanted and how they would vote before the referendum was even called.

    The counter argument that the sky will suddenly fall in absolutely nobody at all actually believes, do they.
    But, what we have learnt is that 'the next day you are out' is utter utter bollx.

    Despite being a Remainer, I think the voters have every right to vote Leave and walk away. But, massive but, if they do, it has to be done in a fashion that is not a clusterfuck. Which means a long term plan and so a decent form of transition. My preference would be EEA.

    We have no plan.

    We are at the cliff edge.
    Or do we NEED it to be "a massive clusterfuck" so that people understand what it actually means "to vote Leave and walk away."
    I am beginning to think so. So far it seems to be Brexit would be great if it wasn't for Remoaners, Barnier, transitional arrangements, Labour, Soubry and Grieve, the CBI, Project Fear, meddling kids, etc., etc,
    Anything really...other than Brexiters coming up with any kind of practical solution.
    So over the falls we must go Leavers and Remoaners as one.
    Apart from those abroad of course...
  • nielhnielh Posts: 1,307


    Leaving the EU will cause some people anguish, upset, and indeed anger. And so would remaining or rejoining. A Tory-contrived Remain at this juncture could end up pretty ugly in the years to come - I wouldn't bet against the UK following the European "new normal" and having a far-right party consistently polling 10-25%. That would leave us just one calamitously mistimed jolt away from it hitting 35-40% in an election year and then we really would be in trouble. Some people might - quite validly - find that a more palatable set of potential consequence, or probability-wise a more acceptable risk, than the dangers that await us should Brexit go ahead. Especially if it is badly botched by brinkmanship from both negotiating teams. But this polling should be a stark warning to anyone who thinks "let's call the whole thing off" would be the nice, easy, logical, obvious, fair, mutually beneficial, consequence-free solution.

    This "far right" movement is going to happen anyway. Brexit is just a sideshow. It hasn't changed anything. If Brexit happens, then it will lead to a fall in living standards, which people will complain about. If it is stopped, then it is a betrayal, and they will complain about that as well. Brexit has to both a) happen and b) be a great success to see off the threat from the far right. The omens are not looking good.

    The rise of the far right is the logical consequence of identity politics, political correctness and the marginalisation of the white working class.
    Eventually, the white working class will create their own identity politics.

  • Foxy said:

    I think it quite likely that Labour will support #peoplesvote at its conference. Jezza does tend to like grass roots resolutions.
    In what way was 2016 NOT a #peoplesvote?
    This is a new vote, now that everyone knows what the fuck it actually means to leave the EU.
    People have always known what it means to leave the EU. One day you are in it, they next day you are out and not in it ever again. And The majority knew what they wanted and how they would vote before the referendum was even called.

    The counter argument that the sky will suddenly fall in absolutely nobody at all actually believes, do they.
    But, what we have learnt is that 'the next day you are out' is utter utter bollx.

    Despite being a Remainer, I think the voters have every right to vote Leave and walk away. But, massive but, if they do, it has to be done in a fashion that is not a clusterfuck. Which means a long term plan and so a decent form of transition. My preference would be EEA.

    We have no plan.

    We are at the cliff edge.
    No. Simply no. No again. The standard remain argument that something dramatic quickly happens is not only not true, but because it is not believed, it is the argument that helped leave win.

    With Brexit we make some of our commerce more expensive. It cannot be recovered by going global because trade with your nearest neighbours didn’t start with the EEC, it’s been there since time began and will always be there. With some of our commerce more expensive, commercial decisions over years and decades make Britain poorer as a nation, and households poorer. That’s the brexit reality, not the dramatic sky falling in remainers keep banging on about.
    That is only the reality if it is a managed process rather than a cliff edge overnight transition to something very different from the status quo.
    No. That is the reality however well or poorly it is managed. Very worse case scenario is no deal plus. All roads from here lead to the reality I described.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,706
    edited August 2018

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Foxy said:

    I think it quite likely that Labour will support #peoplesvote at its conference. Jezza does tend to like grass roots resolutions.
    In what way was 2016 NOT a #peoplesvote?
    This is a new vote, now that everyone knows what the fuck it actually means to leave the EU.
    The majority knew what they wanted and how suddenly fall in absolutely nobody at all actually believes, do they.
    But, what we have learnt is that 'the next day you are out' is utter utter

    We have no plan.

    We are at the cliff edge.
    We have the ree movement
    I thought you'd already admitted that the mobility framework would be free movement in all but name?
    I never said that, a mobility framework requires a job offer on arrival not ut name too
    No. There’s no control of borders coming back from leaving the EU. That’s nothing to do with Brexit. It’s hard to know when we last exercised such control to prove we had it, but if British state ever did have control of borders and immigration that was lost long ago to globalisation.

    Business dictates to government it can hire whatever medium, high, low skilled labour it wants from wherever it wants, if government says not in our little zone of control you aren’t, then the business can so easily set up outside that little zone of control. For that reason no British government will ever set up a little zone of control ever again. Staying in or leaving EU doesn’t change that fact in the slightest.

    Container ships, internet, cheap labour resource abroad, Germans waiting with open arms for start ups, etc. From business perspective it’s fuck you government.
    The only reason Leave got over 50% was the lack of transition controls by Blair in 2004 on free movement from the new accession countries unlike most EU nations which did impose them. With those transition controls Leave would likely have got no more than 45%. That has got nothing to do with what business wants specifically as had we imposed them properly we would have been doing exactly the same as the rest of the EU.

    In any case you are also wrong as no country anywhere has open borders based on some sort of libertarian ultra big business globalisation plan. If it did the voters would throw the governing party out in 5 minutes for one imposing tighter controls
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,706

    HYUFD said:

    A hard right borderline Fascist Party on 25% combining UKIP and EDL types is pretty much guaranteed if the original Leave vote and Brexit are reversed

    I'd rate it as a risk rather than a guarantee, but I'd rate the risk as higher if it occurred (a) without a straight re-run referendum to legitimise it, (b) if it was primarily the Tories that did it, as this would push eurosceptics towards a new home, (c) if it was done by cross-party agreement (again, pushes eurosceptics out away from the "Establishment"), (d) if there was a referendum but it seemed deliberately contrived to favour Remain, (e) if there is any form of election or referendum with an especially tight result, or (f) all the "mainstream" parties reverted to accepting EU membership.

    If the government collapses, and Labour won an election on a platform of cancelling article 50, and the Tories retain some kind of pro-Brexit or eurosceptic policy (e.g. for a new referendum but this time with some specific plan for Leave in mind, or to push for some kind of associate membership structure) then the voter backlash might be somewhat limited. If the Tories reverted to acceptance of EU membership, for instance if Labour called a referendum on cancelling article 50 and comfortably won it to take the issue off the mainstream table, things could get a bit hairier. But the worst case I can think of would be a Tory Remainer-backed coup, or surprise change-of-heart from Mrs May of the kind that @william seems to think is going to happen, with an emergency "undo article 50" vote in parliament (perhaps seen through to a majority by Labour backbenchers). We've been very fortunate in this country that FPTP has proved an effective barrier to extremism, but that's partly been a feature of how low a percentage extreme parties have tended to score. In that scenario, and for several elections that follow it, I'd actually be quite scared of the flip side of FPTP - that you can win a landslide on 35% of the vote (see Blair '05) and if politics are split form a government with less than 30% (see MacDonald '23).
    A Bannon Farage Tommy Robinson Party could certainly get 25 to 35% of the vote and even end up the largest party in parliament under FPTP if Brexit was reversed
  • JohnLoonyJohnLoony Posts: 1,790
    I read as far as the first two lines of the article and then stopped. I am not prepared to waste my time if I am being gratuitously insulted in such a manner. Obviously Alastair Meeks is a luminous dollop of ectoplasm with purple custard hidden inside his elbows.
  • MyBurningEarsMyBurningEars Posts: 3,651
    edited August 2018
    nielh said:

    If Brexit happens, then it will lead to a fall in living standards, which people will complain about.

    Putting aside sudden shocks from a too-brief transition or the possibility of No Deal, decline in living standards relative to some unobserved counterfactual of continued EU membership may be masked by general improvements in living standards over time. Every year since granting Indian independence and starting the wind-up of its Empire, the UK has been getting poorer relative to the counterfactual of its post-imperial pivot being accession as a State of the USA. We would likely have converged to a significantly higher GDP per capita and standard of living had we done so, we could have kept the NHS, we could have significantly moderated US presidential politics... but the road not taken doesn't concern us so much as the one that we did. Brexit is somewhat different, as an active change of direction, and will doubtless be blamed for all manner of good and ills, rightly or wrongly, for decades to come.

    As for the inevitably to the rise of the far right, it's interesting that the two main parties are polling comparatively well at the moment when the public has such little truck with both their leaders - and even though many voters, particularly the young, reportedly feeling angry and energised by Brexit, the Lib Dems remain flatlined far below their peak. Meanwhile UKIP have practically evaporated. Post-Brexit, even with an EEA-type deal, it's hard to see an anti-European party serve as a significant vehicle for the far right, when UKIP struggled for so long even with the cause of full-on EU membership and the possibility of the UK joining the euro.
    nielh said:

    The rise of the far right is the logical consequence of identity politics, political correctness and the marginalisation of the white working class.
    Eventually, the white working class will create their own identity politics.

    If a significant subset of white people feel alienated by "diversity", or sick of seeing other groups be told they should be proud of the colour of their skin, embrace solidarity with their "community", and take pride in their roots and history, then at some point we are going to end up with people who are proud to be white, proud of those parts of history and society they can claim as "theirs" to the exclusion of "others", and they're going to have some "community leader" figures I wouldn't want to meet on a dark night. I am not a fan of identity politics partly for this reason. My hope is that such groups remain so fringe that FPTP gives us good enough insurance against them. But I wouldn't want to give them a more broadly acceptable platform, for instance some Great Brexit Betrayal, to exploit.
This discussion has been closed.