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    Originally posted by Simon G View Post

    My in-laws are Foresters and are stuck with Mark Harper. I have Laurence Robertson - been MP for Tewkesbury since 1997. Whenever I've had the misfortune to hear him on Radio Gloucestershire he comes across as the stereotypical Tory. A quick scan of his Wiki page confirms that he is everything you come to expect of the stereotypical Tory MP, including but not limited to:

    - Criticising plans to overhaul MP's expenses
    - Voting against Equal Pay Transparency
    - Opposing the Good Friday agreement

    And so on.

    In 2017 this guy's majority actually increased!
    Sounds about par. Cheltenham's got off relatively lightly with a May-loyalist ex-Hammersmith and Fulham councillor. I reckon he could be in a fair bit of trouble next time.

    Comment


      He's only just scraped home in the last two.

      I love living in Gloucestershire, but politically it's bloody depressing (and I am far from overly political).

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        Robertson's majority is depressingly impressive, when you look at the places in the constituency. Ought to be a fair few non-Tory votes in Brockworth, Innsworth, Bishop's Cleeve, Ashchurch etc. Maybe some "citizens of nowhere" who can't afford Cheltenham will show up and make a dent in that 22,000.

        Comment


          Originally posted by Simon G View Post
          He's only just scraped home in the last two.

          I love living in Gloucestershire, but politically it's bloody depressing (and I am far from overly political).
          My home county. Had 3 non Tory MPs until 2010.

          Comment


            Glad you love the county.

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              Well I was born here and have never lived anywhere else (I have lived in all of the places you mention in your previous post - or at least very near, I'm in Northway now which is in the parish of Ashchurch for example).

              I would call Bishops Cleeve a Tory area myself, but agree with the others. Sadly, the areas I've lived and grown up in, never seemed to get the voters out in force. Not only that, whilst the areas you mention don't scream Tory, the likes of Badgworth, Churchdown, Twyning, Winchcombe and Prestbury definitely do.

              Comment


                From Wales' NHS

                http://www.wales.nhs.uk/sitesplus/do...xecSum_Eng.pdf

                Comment


                  Originally posted by Simon G View Post
                  Well I was born here and have never lived anywhere else (I have lived in all of the places you mention in your previous post - or at least very near, I'm in Northway now which is in the parish of Ashchurch for example).

                  I would call Bishops Cleeve a Tory area myself, but agree with the others. Sadly, the areas I've lived and grown up in, never seemed to get the voters out in force. Not only that, whilst the areas you mention don't scream Tory, the likes of Badgworth, Churchdown, Twyning, Winchcombe and Prestbury definitely do.
                  Bishops Cleeve seems to have doubled in size every time I pass through. I would have thought there'd be a lot of "young couples" there, and that age group went massively for Labour in 2017. Winchcombe ought to be lifted into the Cotswolds seat.

                  Comment


                    Went to hear Fintan O Toole speaking tonight with Misha Glenny chaired by Jon Snow. Very entertaining some good analysis with Glenny well informed on how things are see . . In terms of where we go from here more difficult. O'Toole saying two contradictory things, one that there was no return to the status quo and it was crucial to acknowledge the anger that had caused Brexit and find a way for the campaign to transform it. He also dismissed the Labour party I would say that the only people capable of doing that mass campaigning in England is the labour party. They also the only ones capable with an alternative media. And it was the labour party by at last raising left wing and anti-austerity issues that have managed to pause Brexit, at least.

                    Comment


                      Originally posted by Aitch View Post

                      You see birth notices in the papers here saying things like, "We are pleased to announce the arrival of Jacobus Johannus Maria Ludovicus Smit, we are going to call him 'Billy'."
                      Intriguing. I might quiz Bruce on his full name and see if he's hiding any little secrets.

                      Comment


                        Originally posted by Nefertiti2 View Post
                        ... it was crucial to acknowledge the anger that had caused Brexit and find a way for the campaign to transform it.
                        This is something that really annoys me. 52% voted Brexit. Probably 40% of them would have voted Brexit at any time in history. A vast majority of the Brexit voting population overlap with the Conservative/UKIP voting population, and it's not "anger" from them; it's tiresome old imperialist nationalist dogshit.

                        The anger about actual change does/did exist in some working class communities, to some degree, but it's massively overplayed. We should maybe acknowledge it, but we should not pander to it.

                        He also dismissed the Labour party I would say that the only people capable of doing that mass campaigning in England is the labour party. They also the only ones capable with an alternative media. And it was the labour party by at last raising left wing and anti-austerity issues that have managed to pause Brexit, at least.
                        I completely agree with you on this. But this is why I'm upset that Labour hasn't been more strongly making that case for remaining in the EU, or at least for keeping actual freedom for people to live where they want. Labour is the only organisation with the media reach to tell people how Brexit will fuck them and destroy human rights and why it's important to make sure that we have the least Brexity Brexit possible. And Labour have largely been silent on this.

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                          That Verhofstadt speech about EU armies, is merely him flagging up something that has been gradually happening anyway. For instance the Dutch Army and the German army are very highly integrated, with about a third of the German army assigned to a joint German Dutch military group. It was a very attractive project when both Germany and holland cut back on their military size at the end of the cold war. It's very important to tease out the issues involved because it's quite complicated. The Main issue behind the 45% of american budget, 15% of the capability effectively comes down to massive duplication. Duplication within the Armies themselves, but also massive duplication in the development of competing weapons, But also scale. Some things are better organized on a supranational level like logistics, some things are better organized on a national level, and somethings at a regional level. It's kind of like the rationale for setting up the single market.

                          For instance Nato Tanks are basically all the same. They all weigh around 60 tonnes, they all have a 120mm gun that fires standard Nato ammunition (except for the UK who have a rifled barrel for some reason) They all have an engine between 1200-1500 hp. They all do between 40 and 50 mph. They all have basically the same level of armour. However there are four different types of these tanks. Most countries in europe have leopard II tanks, bought from the German Govt, when they radically shrank the size of their army at the end of the cold war. However the UK developed and operates the Challenger II tank, France operates the Le Clerc tank, and Italy operates the Ariete tank. Each of these was designed around the same time, each cost a fucking fortune to develop, and so few of them were built, that the average cost of each tank is absolutely fucking enormous. and they are extremely expensive to operate. (and that's before you get to the EU-12, who operate former soviet Equipment, with the Poles producing their own modified version of the t-72.)

                          Things are a bit better when it comes to Airplanes. You can see from the example of Airbus, that the Aviation industry is a bit more consolidated, with the various member countries pooling their resources to develop one range of civilian jets, which can compete for scale with Boeing, (though the other countries bought out BAE back in 2000) rather than have each european country trying to develop its own jet airliner. Back in the sixties the UK, Germany and Italy co-operated to develop the Panavia Tornado, which became the primary airplane of the RAF from the late seventies to the middle of the last decade. Then in the Eighties everyone got together to develop the Euro Fighter, but the French fucked off fairly early on, and developed their own, largely identical airplane, at substantial expense.

                          The real limitation though is to do with logistics. Most european armies are ultimately designed to operate within reach of their barracks. Doing anything much beyond that is pretty much beyond them, because the transport aircraft and helicopters required to move units anywhere at even a snails pace is far beyond the capabilities of any one european country to support. However between 27 countries that's a lot more manageable.

                          So what you get is a load of countries spending a lot of money, to have 27 different armies all doing the same limited set of things, and ultimately it is largely a waste of everyone's time and money and it leaves Europe entirely at the mercy of whatever lunatic is in the White house. What it is likely to pan out as is the creation of regional commands where the armies of adjacent countries pool their central commands, rationalize the purchase of equipment, with a much more centralized approach to training, transport and logistics, enabling the creation of a multinational corps capable of turning up if necessary. A French Soldier will still be part of the French army, it's just that he might be in an area under the command of a Belgian, and getting transported around by a Spaniard.

                          The big issue ultimately is that the EU has been staring very hard at the US since the gingrich revolution, and aside from the Iraq adventures under GW Bush, to the current occupant, who seems to be doing a very good impression of someone controlled by moscow. This trend is not good, and it is best to start preparing ahead of time for the time when eventually America goes fully fascist, and The EU and the US go their separate ways over Nato. There may come a time when we simply don't want several American Armoured brigades on European soil. And we have to be ready for that. It's worth noting that Within about a year of the gingrich revolution, the EU started work on their own network of GPS satellites, so they wouldn't be reliant on the Americans.
                          Last edited by The Awesome Berbaslug!!!; 24-01-2019, 00:51.

                          Comment


                            Originally posted by Flynnie View Post
                            I think Aaron Bastani gets a bit of a raw deal here, even if I don’t agree with everything he says. In a related development, I quit Twitter several months ago.

                            But Christ, he came out with a whopper on one of Novara’s shows last night. When discussing the Stephen Bush piece on backbencher Tories alerting their local parties that a GE might be coming, he said Labour’s manifesto commitment should be to negotiate a better Brexit deal and then put it to a referendum.... vs “Go back and renegotiate”. Not Remain, not even no deal. Just go back to the bargaining table. All on the basis of moving beyond Brexit.

                            I can certainly accept the idea a People’s Vote is a metropolitan middle-class fantasy with not a great deal of support outside of London and university towns, and people should just accept the option of Norway/EEA as the best they can get for now. I can certainly accept that honouring the referendum would be good for democracy, although let’s be blunt, if the vox pops are reliable it seems a lot of people who would be betrayed to nothing by the UK revoking A50 aren’t Labour voters anyway.

                            But not having the confidence to back that up by saying “here’s our position, we will vote this through Parliament and amscray if you don’t like it” and putting it to a public vote seems insane. Of COURSE the “EU till I die” crowd will vote No, and the “no deal till I die” crowd will vote No too. We’d just subject ourselves to even more of this shit. Blimey.
                            Why do you think Barstani gets a hard time? He a massive gobshite, and he's a dangerous idiot who basically is just getting in the way. I mean what he's saying there is lunatic nonsense and the noise he is making is a barrier to moving the Labour party to backing a second referendum.

                            Also I don't get this idea of a second referendum as a middle class fantasy. This is literally the only fucking way out of this mess, without incurring a society=destroying. life-crushing amount of long term economic damage. It's also the only way out of the current mess that everyone is in. What it does need however is people to explain why this is necessary, and at the moment there's not enough people doing that. At this point what other option is there to avoid a hard brexit?

                            Comment


                              Originally posted by Ginger Yellow View Post
                              Yup. It requires a unanimous decision in Council. Bear in mind the government has fiercely fought any attempt to keep extension as an option from the UK side.The whole point was to impose a fixed timeframe so they could ram through an unpopular withdrawal agreement.
                              So an extension on the UK side will only happen if there's a massive Tory rebellion against this strategy, plus a unanimous EU vote. Ergo, I think the hopes of this happening are very optimistic. The only realistic outcomes, I infer, are May's Deal or No Deal because that's her game and she can only be stopped by her own party.

                              Comment


                                Sir Ivan Rogers Brexit lecture - text and video

                                Comment


                                  https://twitter.com/joncstone/status/1088388814429700098

                                  Comment


                                    Originally posted by Nefertiti2 View Post
                                    Went to hear Fintan O Toole speaking tonight with Misha Glenny chaired by Jon Snow. Very entertaining some good analysis with Glenny well informed on how things are see . . In terms of where we go from here more difficult. O'Toole saying two contradictory things, one that there was no return to the status quo and it was crucial to acknowledge the anger that had caused Brexit and find a way for the campaign to transform it. He also dismissed the Labour party I would say that the only people capable of doing that mass campaigning in England is the labour party. They also the only ones capable with an alternative media. And it was the labour party by at last raising left wing and anti-austerity issues that have managed to pause Brexit, at least.
                                    That's not a contradictory thing. It's Possible to think that the UK needs to change, and to believe on the basis of the last couple of years that the Labour party are utterly fucking useless.

                                    Comment


                                      Richard Harrington, the business minister, said this morning he was “delighted” when he read the boss of Airbus branding the UK government’s handling of Brexit a “disgrace”. Speaking to an audience of German industrialists, he said that no deal must be stopped and he was prepared to be sacked for saying so.

                                      Comment


                                        Still undecided meself on a second referendum, and how the fuck we get there given the various tensions and factions within and outside of parliament, and how the subsequent referendum campaign might be run - ie nowhere near as shit as the last one, though it does help that Cameron and Osborne are now out of the way. Went to an "another Europe is possible" meeting last night, at which the two speakers were female activists from Poland and Greece, which at least gives me hope that in some corner of the campaign migrants will be talked about as Actual Humans rather than the Units Of Economic Value (or not), which is all we heard from both campaigns last time.

                                        Comment


                                          The latest unionist "solution" to the backstop - a "British Isles Customs Area" - as if it made economic sense to put tariffs on our trade with the EU for the sake of UK:

                                          https://www.newsletter.co.uk/news/br...rder-1-8781413

                                          Comment


                                            https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...t-blame-labour

                                            Comment


                                              Pretty pathetic from Hammond.

                                              Hey, we have to do this disastrous thing I don't agree with but I refuse to resign about, so it's on you to make the case for mitigating it, even though that won't happen and I also won' t resign over it.

                                              Comment


                                                wrong thread
                                                Last edited by The Awesome Berbaslug!!!; 24-01-2019, 15:56.

                                                Comment


                                                  Originally posted by The Awesome Berbaslug!!! View Post

                                                  That's not a contradictory thing. It's Possible to think that the UK needs to change, and to believe on the basis of the last couple of years that the Labour party are utterly fucking useless.
                                                  Except that without the current iteration of the Labour Party they wouldn’t be capable of making change have any desire to make change and not would anyone believe anything they said.

                                                  There is nw a left wing Labour Party with a mass membership. “Fucking useless “ are the spd in Germany the Labour Party in Ireland the Socialist Party in france of the left in Italy. The Labour Party In Britain is thriving and full of excellent anti austerity Policies.meanwhile Tony Blair is doing Photoops with Bolsanaro in Davos.

                                                  Comment


                                                    Ha ha.

                                                    https://twitter.com/jdportes/status/1088421833752432640

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