O/T:- Who needs Parliament?

[jackal2]

Your middle two paragraphs are disingenuous bolox quite frankly. Winning campaigns win because of the promises and pledges they make. What losing campaigns promise or threaten doesn’t matter.

It's ironic that you make an allegation of disingenuous bollox and then immediately follow it with a sentence that is disingenuous bollox. Either stand on your (original) point of principle that campaigns should be truthful and honest, or accept the reality that campaigns include a mixture of truth and exaggeration and the public are responsible for deciding which one prevails, warts and all. The only reason you belatedly shifted your line to suggest that "only the winner's promises matter" is because you had previously disregarded the lies/hyperbole employed by Remain until I gave you an example.

If we’d joined the Euro the day after a vote to remain, it would rightly have been decried as undemocratic. No deal is the equivalent of that. The leave campaign repeatedly promised that we’d get a great deal, a promise that is already demonstrably rubbish.

Now there's a can of worms! If Remain had won, hard-line pro-EU politicians would have happily used that outcome to progressively suggest that UK voters favoured even closer ties with the EU. The smarter ones would probably have left a discreet interval before doing so, but the mantra would have been that the UK public had wholeheartedly backed being in the EU, and the mission creep to push for more would have started from there.

On the ballot paper the options were 'Leave' or 'Remain'. It didn't say 'Leave with a deal' or 'Leave without a deal'. It didn't say 'Remain and keep the relationship as it is now' or 'Remain and forge even closer ties with the EU'. Rightly or wrongly, people were given a binary choice. They were asked to point the country in a direction, and by implication it was then down to the politicians to chart the precise course thereafter. The one certainty is that the public voted 'Leave' and therefore the democratic responsibility of the politicians is to deliver that, be it with or without a deal. Remainers are the disingenuous ones, dancing on a pinhead and playing semantics as they seek to delay or reverse the outcome any way they can.

You likened the EU to the mafia in a previous post. This was because of its reluctance to let anyone leave. You used that as a reason why we should leave. If the EU had been accommodating, and we as promised left with a great deal, that would have been a reason to leave as well.

There's a very simple 'reason' we should leave. That's because the UK public voted 'Leave'.

As I said in an earlier post, if the EU still remained true to the original Common Market ideal of a voluntary, mutually beneficial partnership of sovereign European trading states, then in theory it should be understanding and helpful towards any state whose people opted to leave. In principle, it should have been a case of "Thanks for your considerable time with us, we respect your decision, sorry to see you go but we'll remain friends and maybe see you again sometime."

The problem is that the EU as an entity has become a self-serving, malevolent, undemocratic bureaucracy which was never going to make it easy for one of its biggest benefactors to walk away. You refer to them having negotiators that would "eat the UK alive", which definitely sounds more like the mafia to me than an institution which respects states' free will and works with them!

That said, the proven hostility of the EU doesn't automatically mean we couldn't have got a good deal, but Old Pie is correct that Theresa May ended up negotiating from a weak position because she completely blew a General Election campaign that was intended to give a her a big majority and a strong hand in the negotiations.

[jackal2]

Hi all

When using the 'reply with quote' facility can you be careful that the quote code has copied the correct part and attributed it to the right poster? It's been pointed out that confusion is happening due to misattributed quotes and although I've attempted to repair them when spotted or pointed out (and probably made it worse!) it becomes increasingly tricky after the first one

Ta!

Hang on, how do we know this is you speaking?

[magpie_mania]

Twisting them again son aren't you? Please refer to post #492. I said " If Boris lied OR misled the Queen" - I'd support your campaign.

To mislead doesn't necessarily mean telling falsehoods or untruths, just that the end result is in causing someone to have a misconception about something. Lying, meanwhile, is the act of saying something that is demonstrably not true while knowing it to be not true. I would assume Boris ONLY asked the Queen to prologue parliament, to which she agreed - so no LIES involved, which seems to be your way of thinking. Do you not honestly believe the Queen was unaware of his other motives? She's not thick you know, she granted prorogation perfectly lawfully and I'm sure the Supreme Court will agree. Keep reading the 'Mirror' and listening to the BBC to keep your spirits up old lad.

It depends whether she asked him why doesn't it?

[tarquinbeech]

Boris seems to be pulling away in the opinion polls.....extract from the Guardian....the general public appear happy with his handling of Brexit, Labour struggling 12 points back, no wonder they don't want to go for an election.

"Tories extend poll lead to 12% despite week of political chaos
Boris Johnson also has a far higher net approval rating for his handling of Brexit than Jeremy Corbyn"

https://www.theguardian.com/politics...olitical-chaos

[drillerpie]

the general public appear happy with his handling of Brexit

I don't think you can say that about the leader of a party on 37%, nor can you say it about a man whose disapproval rating is higher than his approval rating.

I think it would be more honest to say that leave voters are generally happy with his handling of Brexit, which is what Boris's Brexit strategy has always been about (taking back votes from the Brexit party and securing the long term interests of the Conservative party)

[tarquinbeech]

I don't think you can say that about the leader of a party on 37%, nor can you say it about a man whose disapproval rating is higher than his approval rating.

I think it would be more honest to say that leave voters are generally happy with his handling of Brexit, which is what Boris's Brexit strategy has always been about (taking back votes from the Brexit party and securing the long term interests of the Conservative party)

He doesn't appear to be taking any votes off the Brexit party, they are still on 13% (which if the 2 can do a tactical voting deal, will give the Leave camp 50% at the next election).....Boris appears to be gaining votes from the Lib Dems, the SNP and the Greens, though I realise that is too simplistic ie it could be a mix of these other parties having voters chopping and changing, possibly in and out of the Labour camp, whose voters intensely disapprove of Corbyn (60% disapproval)

Can the Remain camp ever "do a deal" at the ballot box? I strongly doubt it ....SNP 4% and Lib Dems 16% and Greens 2% quite possibly, but where do Labour sit? I'm not sure and nor is the public.
Their whole policy appears to be to go against the Tory position, ignoring huge swathes of their own voting heartland outside London, rather than actually having a coherent policy of their own.

I take your point about the disapproval record of Boris at 43% v 38, a 5 point gap?, but that is dwarfed by Corbyn on 60% disapproval v 16% approval, a staggering 46 point gap!! and MPs in general (the House) on 53% v 20, a 33 point gap?.....maybe all the shenanigans over the last 3 years have basically peed off the general public who just want an end to it.

[drillerpie]

He doesn't appear to be taking any votes off the Brexit party, they are still on 13% (which if the 2 can do a tactical voting deal, will give the Leave camp 50% at the next election).....Boris appears to be gaining votes from the Lib Dems, the SNP and the Greens, though I realise that is too simplistic ie it could be a mix of these other parties having voters chopping and changing, possibly in and out of the Labour camp, whose voters intensely disapprove of Corbyn (60% disapproval)

Can the Remain camp ever "do a deal" at the ballot box? I strongly doubt it ....SNP 4% and Lib Dems 16% and Greens 2% quite possibly, but where do Labour sit? I'm not sure and nor is the public.
Their whole policy appears to be to go against the Tory position, ignoring huge swathes of their own voting heartland outside London, rather than actually having a coherent policy of their own.

I take your point about the disapproval record of Boris at 43% v 38, a 5 point gap?, but that is dwarfed by Corbyn on 60% disapproval v 16% approval, a staggering 46 point gap!! and MPs in general (the House) on 53% v 20, a 33 point gap?.....maybe all the shenanigans over the last 3 years have basically peed off the general public who just want an end to it.

I think the Brexit party was polling much higher than that and the Conservatives much lower than that a few months ago, so presumably they've got those votes back now and what remains of the Brexit vote is Leave-minded ex Labour voters.

[countygump]

I think the Brexit party was polling much higher than that and the Conservatives much lower than that a few months ago, so presumably they've got those votes back now and what remains of the Brexit vote is Leave-minded ex Labour voters.

Two very interesting articles, well worth a look. ''Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we venture too deceive'', (the electorate).



https://waitingfortax.com/2019/09/15...-the-benn-act/




https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...xit-track.html

[i961pie]

It will be interesting to see how well the Lib Dems will do at the next election. They will get votes from fed up Labour and Tory voters but now they have nailed their colours to cancelling brexit I wonder how that will affect them.
Hopefully very badly

[bridpie78]

It will be interesting to see how well the Lib Dems will do at the next election. They will get votes from fed up Labour and Tory voters but now they have nailed their colours to cancelling brexit I wonder how that will affect them.
Hopefully very badly

It is a bold move by Swinson, they should mop up a fair chunk of those who want things to go back to how we were 3 years ago, they also have gone hard on Indyref2 and said its an absolute no from them so that gains votes in scotland but also alienates over half the population.
All i really see it doing is further damaging labour and making it impossible for them to work together in any sort of relationship to bring down the tories,(then again this is the libdems they could just change their minds and partner up with whoever is convenient )
I think its a strong move to become the main opposition party after the next election rather than than a serious attempt at winning an election.