OT. The futures Bright, the Futures Brexit!!!

[MadAmster]

You don’t sound like some kind of ‘microchipped puppet’ to me, MA...and economic power in this country has been in the hands of a tiny minority for ever...long before the EU.

The EU hasn’t even managed to get us to drive on the right, fully embrace the metric system or join the Euro, nor have they tried - not in the case of the first two at least. Think you may have to look elsewhere for for a source of the ‘thought police’.

Correct rA, however, IMO the intent is to reduce the number of hands even further. Not an idea I fancy for me or my kids.

As for driving on the right, the cost of doing that is prohibitively high although I have heard a rumour that the Irish are to run a pilot project starting with just HGV's.........

The cost of replacing every road sign in the UK telling you how far town X is from here to reflect the distance in KM's is also ridiculously high.

Pints will not disappear either and at least you know what you are getting in the UK. A pint is a pint is a pint, Over here you order beer by the type of glass you want it in. a "fluitje", which is 20Cl, a "vaasje" 25Cl or a "pint" which is actually half a litre. Apart from the pint, the Dutch, in the main don't know how much is in which glass type.

In the old "bruin cafes", the old "working man's" bars they also have the "stapelglas". a small glass where 2/3 of the way up it "fattens" out and you can stack empty glasses easily. That's the big con. When you get a stapelglas of beer, you get beer up to the widening and then froth to the top. It's a 20CL galss and the froth at the top is half of the content.

Another big question is, do they already know where we are 24/7 and able to tap into much of our communication? Yes they are. It's all in the software in your mobilephone, tablet and your smart TV etc.

[Manofpride]

Nice to see the Farage Brexit party making a few headlines, looks like they're doing great in the polls too!
Saying that it's what I expected!

[Andy_Faber]

Nice to see the Farage Brexit party making a few headlines, looks like they're doing great in the polls too!
Saying that it's what I expected!

Current poll of polls puts them at 34% of the vote, more than Lab and Cons combined, and 11X the support generated by its 'opposition' party, the Independent Group, running at 3%. Based on Ramanag's comments about Brexit voters, we seem to have a lot of 'thick' people out there

[Trickytreesreds]

Nice to see the Farage Brexit party making a few headlines, looks like they're doing great in the polls too!
Saying that it's what I expected!

Try watching the channel 4 programme of following Verhofstadt and his team for 2 years.

Total mockery of the wine gulping slimes.
Laughing at the UK and branding us a "colony" of the EU, their plan all along.

Shocking and vile.

https://www.facebook.com/leaveeuofficial/videos/443466809746519/?t=24

[ramAnag]

Current poll of polls puts them at 34% of the vote, more than Lab and Cons combined, and 11X the support generated by its 'opposition' party, the Independent Group, running at 3%. Based on Ramanag's comments about Brexit voters, we seem to have a lot of 'thick' people out there

As I remember it, Andy, my comment was specifically aimed at those taken in by Johnson’s lies, Farage’s persona and those who believed that the Brexit negotiations were going to be the ‘easiest ever’. Please don’t misrepresent me.

So Farage has ‘34% of the vote’...so what? He was always going to have around 37% wasn’t he? Even easier now that both Labour and the Tories are hamstrung by Party splits and hopeless leaders...at the end of the day though your maths should also tell you that approximately 66% of the electorate haven’t fallen for his politics of selfishness.

Got quite cross on Marr this morning didn’t he? I expect you think it was that naughty old socialist undemocratic Beeb up to it’s tricks again, when actually it was just the leader of a new Party being fairly asked, in the absence of any manifesto, if he still believed in what he’s said in the past.

[MadAmster]

Interpretation. rA is right when he says 63% of those entitled to vote didn't vote Leave. Those who use the opposite logic say 67% didn't vote Remain.

Both major parties fought the last general election on a Leave platform. They got 80%+ of the votes cast between them. That vote ensured that the UK would Leave, or should have.

The problem is that 80+% of MPs of both parties want to Remain. They have angled for either a No Brexit situation, their preferred position or, a deal that has the UK More in than out, even when that means, as it does with May's deal, that the UK is only OUT of the decision making process but still in everything else including the paying of millions each year for access to the single market and the Customs Union. Two things May has said time and time again she wouldn't have.......

It's a huge mess.

[ramAnag]

Interpretation. rA is right when he says 63% of those entitled to vote didn't vote Leave. Those who use the opposite logic say 67% didn't vote Remain.

Both major parties fought the last general election on a Leave platform. They got 80%+ of the votes cast between them. That vote ensured that the UK would Leave, or should have.

The problem is that 80+% of MPs of both parties want to Remain. They have angled for either a No Brexit situation, their preferred position or, a deal that has the UK More in than out, even when that means, as it does with May's deal, that the UK is only OUT of the decision making process but still in everything else including the paying of millions each year for access to the single market and the Customs Union. Two things May has said time and time again she wouldn't have.......

It's a huge mess.

For what it’s worth MA I think that’s one of the most sensible and least divisive post of recent times.

I’d take issue with the idea that both parties fought the last election on a ‘Leave platform’ but you’re right it’s a ‘huge mess’.

We, as a country, are almost irreconcilably divided.

Labour and the Tories have been utterly hopeless, both inadequately led and divided by internal squabbles. Into the void has stepped probably the most opportunist political figure of all time - Mr. Mirage...the Oswald Mosley of the 21st Century - the one person to have benefited more than any other out of all the Brexit chaos but a figure who is almost entirely destructive...constantly challenging but never ever offering a solution or even, in the case of the forthcoming elections, a manifesto.

So where do we go from here? A second referendum is one answer. It’s interesting that this is an option that ‘Remainers’ are generally far more in favour of than those supporting ‘Leave’ and one cannot help but wonder why that should be.

Having said that a second referendum is only likely to reinforce the aforementioned ‘irreconcilable divisions’ as a narrow victory for either side - which seems most likely - will still leave around around half the electorate dissatisfied.

That is often the case after a General Election but at least the situation then can be ‘corrected’ within five years. With the Referendum result the consequences are likely to be with us for decades. We cannot afford to get this ‘choice’ wrong and the ‘people’ do not, imo and experience, know best where such hugely complicated issues are concerned.

So how about taking on the advice of the Referendum for what it was...advisory concern from a significant proportion of the electorate about the direction the EU has taken.

Let’s stop talking about abuses and betrayals of democracy...it’s no such thing, let’s stop letting the extremists and opportunists muddy the waters and allow our elected politicians on all sides to work out the best and most beneficial way for us to proceed in our relationship with our geographical and trading neighbours in Europe.

[Geoff Parkstone]

For what it’s worth MA I think that’s one of the most sensible and least divisive post of recent times.

I’d take issue with the idea that both parties fought the last election on a ‘Leave platform’ but you’re right it’s a ‘huge mess’.

We, as a country, are almost irreconcilably divided.

Labour and the Tories have been utterly hopeless, both inadequately led and divided by internal squabbles. Into the void has stepped probably the most opportunist political figure of all time - Mr. Mirage...the Oswald Mosley of the 21st Century - the one person to have benefited more than any other out of all the Brexit chaos but a figure who is almost entirely destructive...constantly challenging but never ever offering a solution or even, in the case of the forthcoming elections, a manifesto.

So where do we go from here? A second referendum is one answer. It’s interesting that this is an option that ‘Remainers’ are generally far more in favour of than those supporting ‘Leave’ and one cannot help but wonder why that should be.

Having said that a second referendum is only likely to reinforce the aforementioned ‘irreconcilable divisions’ as a narrow victory for either side - which seems most likely - will still leave around around half the electorate dissatisfied.

That is often the case after a General Election but at least the situation then can be ‘corrected’ within five years. With the Referendum result the consequences are likely to be with us for decades. We cannot afford to get this ‘choice’ wrong and the ‘people’ do not, imo and experience, know best where such hugely complicated issues are concerned.

So how about taking on the advice of the Referendum for what it was...advisory concern from a significant proportion of the electorate about the direction the EU has taken.

Let’s stop talking about abuses and betrayals of democracy...it’s no such thing, let’s stop letting the extremists and opportunists muddy the waters and allow our elected politicians on all sides to work out the best and most beneficial way for us to proceed in our relationship with our geographical and trading neighbours in Europe.

One thing puzzles me rA (well many things do in your stout defence of remain, but one big thing) one the one hand you constantly question the people's ability to understand the issues and thus decide / advise re Brexit yet on the other you call passionately for a second referendum.

How do you reconcile the inconsistency in these positions, or is it that you see a second referendum as a "get out of jail free" card for what might be a sub 50% majority vote to remain second time round?

IMHO both the people and Parliament are irreconcilably split. A bigger minority of the people voted leave and the balance in Parliament favours remain but are charged with leaving. The main parties ar also split.

So how will another referendum, which would undoubtedly not give an electorate majority either way, help? All it would do would be to give Parliament an excuse of "you told me to do it". Don't come on with the claptrap about politicians not lying second time around, people being better informed etc. That won't change, just be different. Politicians won't take the public for naive fools, they will just try to lie better and harder. On both sides.















.

[Geoff Parkstone]

Perhaps the solution is to leave in accordance with the referendum result and then parliament to immediately apply to join again. Then this thread could hit 8,000 posts 😂

[MadAmster]

I’d take issue with the idea that both parties fought the last election on a ‘Leave platform’ but you’re right it’s a ‘huge mess’.

Calling it a Platform might be overstating it a little but both said they would "respect/honour" the referendum decision or words to that effect....... and, IMO, most people would have taken that to mean that they would ensure that the UK left the EU.

[ramAnag]

Calling it a Platform might be overstating it a little but both said they would "respect/honour" the referendum decision or words to that effect....... and, IMO, most people would have taken that to mean that they would ensure that the UK left the EU.

I accept that point but would add that the last General Election was called by Theresa - ‘there will be no General Election’ - May as an opportunist move which backfired massively.

Context is everything and when it was called, only about nine months after the Referendum, a great deal less was known about the likely implications and consequences of Brexit. Both Parties were scared to death of appearing undemocratic and the Brexit debate was in its infancy.

Since then, contrary to TM’s words, everything has changed. People, including many politicians, are now much more aware.
Concepts such as ‘single market’, ‘no deal/soft Brexit’ and ‘Irish backstop’ have now almost entered the realms of common currency.
They’d been barely heard of in run up to the Referendum and the claims made by the likes of Johnson and Fox - £350m to the NHS and ‘easiest negotiations ever’ - have since been proved to be bogus.

The devil, as they say, is in the detail...and the details are markedly different from what people thought they were voting for approaching three years ago.

[MadAmster]

the claims made by the likes of Johnson and Fox - £350m to the NHS and ‘easiest negotiations ever’ - have since been proved to be bogus.
.

I never saw the £350M a week to the NHS as a promise. I saw it as an example of what COULD be done as opposed to what WOULD be done. Anybody who knew about the flow of money would have known that, of the £350M a week the UK pays the EU, almost half of it comes back in the form of grants, subsidies and Maggie's rebate. There was only ever £180M a week "available" unless grants to the regions were stopped.

As for the negotiations, I would contend that May hasn't negotiated, merely stood back and admired how the EU wrote a new treaty keeping the UK in everything except for the decision making process but still paying annually for the privilege over and above the £39Bn divorce settlement. The next bit, the trade deal, which the EU refuses to even discuss until the UK signs the surrender treaty. It should have been a single treaty affair and, when they said "political treaty first and only then will we talk trade", she should have walked away.

IMO they would have come back all the weaker for it and May would have been in a strong position able to get a deal that helps the UK as opposed to abject surrender. Weakest PM since Chamberlain.

[ramAnag]

‘I never saw the £350m a week to the NHS as a promise...anybody who knew about the flow of money would have known that.’

And there you have it...you might know about the ‘flow of money’ and you might have known the words on the side of Boris’ bloody battlebus were never deliverable, but then you are an intelligent, thinking, politically aware type of chap.

Not everyone has those attributes, indeed the majority don’t, which is precisely why such misleading and high profile suggestions, along with Farage’s ridiculous and dishonest poster are what we should be thinking of when we talk of democracy being compromised and betrayed.

‘Democratic’ decisions are worthless if based on false promises and dishonest evidence.

[MadAmster]

‘Democratic’ decisions are worthless if based on false promises and dishonest evidence.

AKA Party Political Manifestoes

[Andy_Faber]

Farage’s ridiculous and dishonest poster

Interesting point for discussion. The wily Farage didn't really put any context around that poster, he let folk draw their own conclusions. My conclusion was that the photo had no provenance so I ignored it. I was wrong, there was provenance, its easy to look it up on the internet. Being generous, half were true refugees and half were economic migrants. So to say 'that photo is of refugees' is wrong. Yet that is precisely what Anna Soubry 'said' (I don't know exactly how to describe the way she speaks these days, God knows how she gets served in a restaurant) on question time last week. Farage put her right but that's not my point. My point is that there were lies, exaggerations, ubfuscations, bending of the truth, paying with words etc on both sides, that's just the way of politics. As I've said a dozen times, there were/are no clean hands...