The Brexit Thread

[Muukalainen]

Farage has changed his mind again: he doesn't want a second referendum, but it might be forced on him.

[E10 Rifle]

A second referendum now isn't going to happen – there's no realistic way of making it happen – so it's a pointless froth of a story really. A referendum on the eventual deal would make sense, as would one after a few years out, after a commitment in parties' manifestos.

[Muukalainen]

I'd agree with your first sentence, E10, though I wonder what Farage's motives are for preparing the ground for it. I don't follow why a referendum on the eventual deal would make sense though. Do I interpret you correctly as meaning an approve / don't approve vote on whatever deal the negotiations between the UK and Europe end up as? If so, what are you going to do with the result of that referendum? If it's approve then, fair enough, the British public has rubber stamped whatever has been agreed, but what happens if it's don't approve?

[E10 Rifle]

Then we stay in the EU. You'd have to frame the referendum in those clear terms.

As for Farage, other than a desire to keep himself and his rancid party in the news, I'm not sure of his strategy. It could be that a second leave verdict will put much more serious wind in the sails of an explicitly racist rightwing agenda. Which he'd obviously love, as would the free-marketeer ultras such as Liam Fox

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

One day when we can all laugh about it, over our last few remaining cans of corned beef (from, ironically, Argentina, with whom we struck up one of our few free trade deals in exchange for the Falklands) this whole farce will be a case study in why ill-informed democracy cannot be trusted. That £350m bus still makes my blood boil. I mean it was such obvious bollocks - and pandering directly to the fears of the very people who voted leave as a result of it - that it was tantamount to a criminal act of fraudulent advertising. Someone should go to jail for that.

[Erskine Bridges]

Whatever about the involvement of Russia and those Cambridge Analytica shadies, I can’t see a second ref being greeted with resounding enthusiasm and a high turnout. Think a lot of soft remainers are resigned to it and like lemmings wanting a quiet life, just want the Govt to get on with the job of herding us off a cliff.

Would imagine the leave vote will stay high from folk wanting to Finish the Job. Severely doubt all 32 councils in Scotland would return Remain majorities this time. The soft Tory People of the Fish in the NE will almost def roll for suicide Brexit this time. Fuckin Dorics.

Do you have one scintilla of evidence to back any of that up?

The actual fishing people should know by now that their industry is going to get thrown onto the Brussels table in return for 'more important' concessions (I'd guess The City) so you may see some of them actually changing their vote.

Because of the international nature of the Energy Industry, Aberdeen is probably one of the most multi-cultural and euro centric cities in Scotland where a high percentage of people are very well aware of the implications of hard brexit but you wouldn't know that.

As for the local Tory tendency, a lot of the Scotland wide Tory vote was a direct 'Naw' to Independence. I strongly suspect you take Indy out of the equation then that vote withers. A lot of the local Tory vote here was a direct 'fuck you' to the SNP, driven in large part because of the way the SNP treats the North East of Scotland. Exactly the way Labour used to, as a milk cow to be squeezed for all its worth. They got away with that while the oil and money was flowing but that stopped 3 years ago. The money stopping hasn't stopped the gouging and businesses are going to the wall left, right and centre up here, many due to rates bills going through the roof just as turnover goes through the floor. Some rates are up 50-100%+. That's not happening in the Central Belt. Buildings less than 20 years years old are being demolished because owners can't afford the empty rates.

But you're West Coast I assume and the antipathy towards a different part of your country will be programmed in. Just as it is going the other way. Christ knows what we might achieve if we laid off each other for a while and actually thought about what was good for all of us. But that would never do, would it.

And who the fuck is this Nigel Farage? I want another referendum on Brexit, loads of people do. Voters, politicians, ex politicians, people who voted out who now realise what a disaster this is going to be. Any sniff of another one? No. Then Nige pops up. The ex leader of a political party that never had more than, what, one MP? He moots another ref and it's all over the news. It seems to be being discussed as a real possibility. Great stuff Nigel, I really hope he regrets letting that genie out of the bottle.

I'll be writing to my MP demanding my democratic right to not leap off the cliff. We all should.

[Lang Spoon]

East coast Erskine. And my dad has been 40 years on the rigs. I meant Moray really, I’ve no doubt Aberdeen will vote remain. And I was being unnecessarily flippant. But I don’t think the remain vote would be as high again in Scotland, or that folk will vote rationally. No evidence at all but.

[Lang Spoon]

I’d also put the Borders as an area where the Remain vote may go down on a rerun.

[Erskine Bridges]

Moray, apologies, I was taking you for a weegie!

I'm not so sure about a poorer turn out. I would definitely get active if there was another one and while that in itself wouldn't make much difference, if enough people like me do the same then it may well do. Would have to be UK wide mind you.

[Lang Spoon]

Weegies and their satellites definitely have a tendency to see Scotland and themselves as interchangeable terms, that all Scotland is a progressive left of centre Remember Red Clydeside Keir Hardie would be spinning in his grave. These are people who’ve never been to the Perthshire colonelocracy. Weegie/Ayrshire fellow students at Uni did regard Fife as teucherdom, which is fair enough from their position on the central belt, and Fife’s lack of a proper city sized conurbation, but a few were also adamant Fife was in the Highlands. Fuck sake the paps of Fife are in training bras even compared to the Trossachs.

[ember]

The money stopping hasn't stopped the gouging and businesses are going to the wall left, right and centre up here, many due to rates bills going through the roof just as turnover goes through the floor. Some rates are up 50-100%+. That's not happening in the Central Belt. Buildings less than 20 years years old are being demolished because owners can't afford the empty rates.

Yes it is.

Christ knows what we might achieve if we laid off each other for a while and actually thought about what was good for all of us.

Sage advice which you would do well to heed.

[Lang Spoon]

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

Then we stay in the EU. You'd have to frame the referendum in those clear terms.

As for Farage, other than a desire to keep himself and his rancid party in the news, I'm not sure of his strategy. It could be that a second leave verdict will put much more serious wind in the sails of an explicitly racist rightwing agenda. Which he'd obviously love, as would the free-marketeer ultras such as Liam Fox

yeah, I just took the whole thing to be that Nigel is pissed off that he doesn't get to be on question time twice a month any more.

[Nefertiti2]

He has his own show on LBC, and yet the BBC are ready to drop everything to put him on air

[Moonlight Shadow]

Be interesting to see what soft brexit they have in mind in Spain and the Netherlands?

[Tubby Isaacs]

You don't hear much from Liam Fox these days, do you?

Shouldn't it all be hotting up by now, with trade deals "ready to go"?

[johnr]

Moray, apologies, I was taking you for a weegie!

I'm not so sure about a poorer turn out. I would definitely get active if there was another one and while that in itself wouldn't make much difference, if enough people like me do the same then it may well do. Would have to be UK wide mind you.

I'm not attacking you EB, but why didn't enough people like you get out before? Genuine question - did you think we - Remain - would win, and/or others would campaign on your behalf?

It sounds harsh when written rather than said, so as I say it's not an attack, I'm just interested.

[Antepli Ejderha]

You don't hear much from Liam Fox these days, do you?

Shouldn't it all be hotting up by now, with trade deals "ready to go"?

I think he's making sure that his kick backs are safely in his off shore accounts first before releasing the deals. Allegedly of course.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Allegedly. In other news, man points out the bears shit in forests.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics...sh-hard-border

Owen Smith, the shadow Northern Ireland secretary, has waded into the row about Labour’s Brexit stance, warning the return of border posts in Northern Ireland will be unavoidable without the UK “effectively retaining membership of the single market and the customs union”.

Jeremy Corbyn expressed renewed scepticism about some aspects of the single market on Sunday, and repeated his assertion that it is not possible to remain inside the single market without being a member of the European Union.

Smith said: “I find that slightly puzzling, because it is clearly possible for us to be outside the EU and inside the single market, as is Norway and other countries.”

The EU stuck the Irish border in the first stage as a hint to us- don't go for hard Brexit or you're fucked, across the board.

[Vicarious Thrillseeker]

So why is Corbyn continuing with this assertion?

[Tubby Isaacs]

Different views on that.

He and McDonnell don't like the Single Market's state aid limitations, he thinks Labour Brexit voters aren't ready for straight talk, he's worried about Labour MPs strongly against EU immigration (mostly Remain voters, strangely), or he doesn't get the issue properly. And combinations thereof.

I think wariness about public opinion is a very fair point. But I'd be surprised if it got much easier till it was too late.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

Because in order to have access to the single market, like Norway, you basically have to be in the EU in virtually every major respect, other than actually being a member.

what precisely is it about the State aid rules that they have problems with? EU state Aid rules are the sort of thing that provide an excuse for governments to not do things they don't want to do, while not preventing them from doing things that they want to do. The Irish Govt says that EU borrowing requirements prevent them from engaging in a large scale public sector building program. That's because Fine Gael don't want to do that. However if the Irish Govt went to the EU and dressed it up as tackling a severe housing shortage, which was crippling our competitiveness, and becoming a risk to our economy, then I'm pretty sure it would be ok.

[ursus arctos]

Interesting rationalisation going around today that what they "really mean" is that one can't be "in the single market" without having a say in its rule-making (which Norway et al do not).

Slightly better than the GOP Senators who are telling everyone that 45 didn't describe the developing world as "shithole countries" because they think he said "shithouse countries".

[sw2borshch]

They're cowardly? Like France in Republican thought? Or does shithouse mean something else there?

[anton pulisov]

Because in order to have access to the single market, like Norway, you basically have to be in the EU in virtually every major respect, other than actually being a member.

Exactly. And Norwegian governments actually wanted to join the EU along with the other Nordics, but the people rejected membership in a referendum, convinced that the Europeans were coming to steal all their oil money.

So instead they joined the EU in all but name.