The Brexit Thread

[DCI Harry Batt]

Not that shitty fucking article with its shitty fucking lying headline again!

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

I don't see the likeness, myself.

Well they're both posh, both grew up in a big house, both went to fee paying schools, both have spent their lives adopting ostentatiously extreme positions )but only within the context of their own society) that would be against their own class 'interests' if only there was ever a serious chance of them being implemented. This makes them look more 'virtuous' and they can remain free of all the compromises required to actually do anything.

Except it turns out that england is so utterly fucked, and that the Labour party is so utterly and unspeakably screwed that he's the last shit baby boomer left standing, and now he's in charge of a major party, and it turns out that he's utterly fucking useless. Completely and utterly useless, incapable of using his fucking brain in any meaningful way to deal with the appalling situation around him. He manages to convince people that he's authentic by having started his poses before most people were born. His positions when implementable are ridiculously timid. His unimplementable positions are simply stupid.

I don't care with the headlines of that interview, I don't care with any of the words written by the journalist. His Quotes make me Ill. He may as well have a plate of month old mince between his fucking ears. The Problem is that virtually everyone else in the labour parliamentary party is worse. There's no point in getting angry about tories, because they are utter scum and you can't expect any better. But this fuckwit is at best a scum-enabler, and at worst scum himself.

[Tubby Isaacs]

“I think the state aid rules do need to be looked at again, because quite clearly, if you want to regenerate an economy, as we would want to do in government, then I don’t want to be told by somebody else that we can’t use state aid in order to be able to develop industry in this country,” he said.

But asked if he could imagine a referendum emerging as a solution if it becomes clear that parliament is deadlocked – as the work and pensions secretary, Amber Rudd, mooted this week – he said: “I think we should vote down this deal; we should then go back to the EU with a discussion about a customs union.”

What's George Peretz got wrong?

[Snake Plissken]

Here are the UK government predictions for various Brexit scenarios.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-42977967

Nothing specifically on the Customs Union, though most people think it's a fair bit worse than the Single Market. Yet that's what the leader of the Labour Party personally wants to go for. So that's what? About 4% knocked off the economy of Wales, Scotland, West Midlands, North West England and more off North East England? He seriously wants that?

I’ll pose the question again and I’m not expecting a realistic answer from anyone on this planet, even though I would dearly love one.

How do you tell 52% of Leave voters that they were wrong and then ignore them? And how do you do that from a position of being in Opposition, facing a hostile media and still expect to win power?

[Snake Plissken]

And by the way, if the answer is “being honest” then how about Campbell, Mandelson, Straw Jr etc be honest about the austerity, the income gaps, the deliberate ignoring of their traditional heartlands, the reasons why immigration matters and the kowtowing to the Murdochs and Dacres and evisceration of the BBC post-Iraq which all contributed to this situation.

[DCI Harry Batt]

both grew up in a big house

Sorry, I now see, they are indeed one and the same person.

[Diable Rouge]

Paddy Ashdown has died.

[Tubby Isaacs]

I’ll pose the question again and I’m not expecting a realistic answer from anyone on this planet, even though I would dearly love one.

How do you tell 52% of Leave voters that they were wrong and then ignore them? And how do you do that from a position of being in Opposition, facing a hostile media and still expect to win power?

The big majority of that 52% aren't voting for Corbyn whatever happens. But the EEA option respects the referendum result just as much as leaving the EEA does. You'd have Flint and a few others complaining, but they'd at least be put on the spot and have to defend prioritizing keeping out Poles over cacking on the exporters employing lots of their constituents.

[DCI Harry Batt]

Paddy Ashdown has died.

I saw that. I was trying to think of a hilarious pun, but I failed. Sorry.

[Tubby Isaacs]

And by the way, if the answer is “being honest” then how about Campbell, Mandelson, Straw Jr etc be honest about the austerity, the income gaps, the deliberate ignoring of their traditional heartlands, the reasons why immigration matters and the kowtowing to the Murdochs and Dacres and evisceration of the BBC post-Iraq which all contributed to this situation.

I'm not proposing any of them take over the Labour Party.

How do you think things would look in traditional heartlands had the unholy anti-EU alliance of Tony Benn and Bill Cash got us out of the EU yonks ago?

[Gerontophile]

Paddy Ashdown died.

[DCI Harry Batt]

Again?

[Gerontophile]

Again?

Didn't see his stand-up routine.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

I’ll pose the question again and I’m not expecting a realistic answer from anyone on this planet, even though I would dearly love one.

How do you tell 52% of Leave voters that they were wrong and then ignore them? And how do you do that from a position of being in Opposition, facing a hostile media and still expect to win power?

Point out that they were lied to. It's been going on for long enough that people can see the broad outlines of it. Brexit was supposed to be easy. It clearly isn't. Brexit was supposed to be about taking back control, but it has been an endless cycle of humiliation for the UK Govt. So far Brexit is paying the EU what they are owed, Brexit is about doing what the EU says about migrants resident in the Uk, and Brexit is about not being able to strike trade deals, because you have to stay in the customs union, to stop Northern Ireland from effectively becoming a different country in a number of key respects. Point out that Brexit is only going to make Jacob Rees Mogg better off, while making everyone else worse off, and if you thought Austerity was bad, imagine what it's going to be like when all large scale manufacturing, and Export services jobs fuck off, taking their tax base, and their wage packets with them. Enough of this is currently happening for people to make a strong case.

Oh and all that stuff that they were constantly told about migrants was never true. It might "feel" true, but it wasn't and the cost of sticking to this nonsense is the destruction of everything else.

[Walt Flanagans Dog]

I saw that. I was trying to think of a hilarious pun, but I failed. Sorry.

Ashdown to Ashes, obv.

[Tubby Isaacs]

More Brexit news. It's not good. Trade deficit is dreadful, despite the low pound.



So is business investment. Third quarter it's fallen in a row.

[San Bernardhinault]

How do you tell 52% of Leave voters that they were wrong and then ignore them? And how do you do that from a position of being in Opposition, facing a hostile media and still expect to win power?

Do you think it's reasonable for a party that lost an election to adopt the policies of the party the won the election because "how do you tell the majority they're wrong"?

How do you tell the 48% that they were wrong, and then ignore them? How do you tell them that you're pandering to the racists and idiots because you're taking the non-racists for granted? You don't need to convince 52%, you need to convince 2% and you have the majority (not that you need a majority to win a UK election, of course).

[Tubby Isaacs]

And there's more- household saving. What could go wrong, eh?

[Tubby Isaacs]

Credit Jo Michell for these charts.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Do you think it's reasonable for a party that lost an election to adopt the policies of the party the won the election because "how do you tell the majority they're wrong"?

How do you tell the 48% that they were wrong, and then ignore them? How do you tell them that you're pandering to the racists and idiots because you're taking the non-racists for granted? You don't need to convince 52%, you need to convince 2% and you have the majority (not that you need a majority to win a UK election, of course).

A general election is going to be about other issues too, not least immigration. There are some positive signs from Labour on that, a welcome improvement on Miliband. But won't that piss off the same voters Labour is running scared of on EU immigration? Where's the electoral sense in this, I don't get it?

[San Bernardhinault]

The idea that "because 52% voted for it, we should not point out why it's fucking ridiculous" clearly looks stupid if "voted for it" is "voting Tory" or "voting BNP" or whatever it happens to be. So why is it not valid for Brexit. Why shouldn't the opposition oppose something that's fucking stupid even if a tiny majority at one point voted for it?

[San Bernardhinault]

To labour the point - If 52% had voted for a culling of the first born, I would hope that the opposition wouldn't say "Well, we've got to adhere to the wishes of the 52%, and we can't explain to them why it's a bad idea". I hope they wouldn't say "We've got to cull the first born in the least painful way, but we have to understand that the majority wanted to first born sons all dead and we certainly can't oppose their demise". You'd hope they wouldn't say "There's not really any point in opposing this obviously unpopular policy because it has got the government in chaos - hopefully the government will collapse and hopefully we'll get elected. But it's expedient to not oppose the idea that killing of first born even if that allows it to appear as if the policy has widespread support and that no major party has any intention of ending it."

[Nefertiti2]

This thread is rather good IMO

https://twitter.com/nicholasguyatt/status/1076531533173923843?s=21

In answet to SB and others Because reversing something that has been chosen by a majority-albeit a small one- is not a good look. Using inappropriate analogies seem more about trying to misrepresent your opponent‘s position than arguing your case.

[Nefertiti2]

A couple of points from further down the thread.

https://twitter.com/nicholasguyatt/status/1076531545706586112?s=21

The bad faith in British politics makes debate more or less impossible

[Satchmo Distel]

Paddy Ashdown has died.

So farewell, then, Paddy Pants Down
At least you weren't a total clown
Unlike your successors