Is Brexit actually going to happen?

[Supine]

Thats got to be fake.

Maybe Baldrick had a cunning plan

 

[Wilf]

All these melodramatic descriptions of crumbling edifices, the establishment in meltdown, tories tearing themselves apart... that's not what I see; I see the political institutions continuing to do their stuff, just wasting an immense amount of time trying to square the circle. Whatever the Brexit outcome I don't see any plausible reason to believe that the houses of parliament will be in ruins or that a revolutionary government will be installed. I don't even know why people think the Tory party will be in pieces. No-one seems to be able to describe a believable chain of events that leads to us having anything substantially different a few years from now. Just waffly talk about 'spaces for more radical ideas' and so on. What does that actually mean in practice?

I - gasp - agree with this.

We don't know what the impact of this will be on politics. Blair's lies on Iraq had consequences and tarnished him/the political class. If anything, the message coming out of this is the impotence of the political class, at least in a certain kind of international scenario. But yeah, there's no automatic link to radical shifts in direction.

 

[Patteran]

Right on cue.

View attachment 154833

That really made me laugh (we've a house full of those books).

 

[SpackleFrog]

All these melodramatic descriptions of crumbling edifices, the establishment in meltdown, tories tearing themselves apart... that's not what I see; I see the political institutions continuing to do their stuff, just wasting an immense amount of time trying to square the circle. Whatever the Brexit outcome I don't see any plausible reason to believe that the houses of parliament will be in ruins or that a revolutionary government will be installed. I don't even know why people think the Tory party will be in pieces. No-one seems to be able to describe a believable chain of events that leads to us having anything substantially different a few years from now. Just waffly talk about 'spaces for more radical ideas' and so on. What does that actually mean in practice?

I think what's crumbling isn't the system but it's legitimacy. And yeah, I know, what legitimacy, but British capitalism functions because it convinces enough people it is legitimate or at least that it isn't explicitly illegitimate. That's what's important about what's happening - the veneer of democracy is being shown to be just that to mass numbers of people.

 

[MickiQ]

Schrodinger's Brexit

Yet another of your quotes I will shamelessly steal and pass off as mine

 

[pocketscience]

Right on cue.

View attachment 154833

What the fuck's that supposed to imply? that only those who understand the inner mechanisms of the neoliberal global finance industry are grown up enough to understand what brexit means? You're part of the reason Brexit is happening - not the solution.

 

[extra dry]

Why? Blue tick and everything.

I m not convinced, I would need to hear him utter such statements.

 

[Pickman's model]

Bloody hell, Tony Robinson has full-on centrist dad rage doesn't he?

For a moment I read that as Tommy Robinson

 

[redsquirrel]

What the fuck's that supposed to imply?

That you, and rest of us that voted leave, are racists - or at least enabling racists. Of course this is coming from the pricks that are purposefully blind to the EU's fortress Europe.

Unlike Kaka Tim, this prick is one of those liberal wankers that is willing to defend the EU, that is utterly clueless to the damage that has occurred to our society, that wants to go back to the 90s/00s

EDIT: And let's be absolute clear here, the same bloke that is calling people racists is someone who is willing to defend racial abuse.

In fact we have the same "logic" present in both cases
- I like the EU and I'm not a racist so their immigration policies cannot be racist
- I support Liverpool and I'm not a racist so there cannot have been any racial abuse
An excellent example of the racist liberal anti-racism that the EU typifies.

 

[teuchter]

I think what's crumbling isn't the system but it's legitimacy. And yeah, I know, what legitimacy, but British capitalism functions because it convinces enough people it is legitimate or at least that it isn't explicitly illegitimate. That's what's important about what's happening - the veneer of democracy is being shown to be just that to mass numbers of people.

I think you wildly overestimate the extent which it looks like that to most people. Most people will just be watching westminster do its stuff and doing a bit of rolleyes, not questioning the legitimacy of our democracy.

 

[likesfish]

The EU maybe shit but upending everything for an Ayn rand inspired dystopia really isnt going to improve things

 

[eatmorecheese]

A bit of an emotive headline but just proof postive (as if we didn't already know) what a fucking evil shit Priti Patel is

Tory MP suggests using threat of 'no-deal' food shortages in Ireland to drop the backstop

Not much to add to the debate here regarding MPs but fucking hell the lack of awreness of Ireland and it's history from leaders of the Tories is to be expected but food shortages as a bargining chip, thats fucking emotive and stupid.

This has made me angrier the more I dwell on it. Just fucking disgusting. Total scum.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

I - gasp - agree with this.

We don't know what the impact of this will be on politics. Blair's lies on Iraq had consequences and tarnished him/the political class. If anything, the message coming out of this is the impotence of the political class, at least in a certain kind of international scenario. But yeah, there's no automatic link to radical shifts in direction.

Well this might be a good lesson to learn. It's been true for a while now that political 'leaders' around the world are in reality nothing but office managers with virtually no room to manouevre, hemmed in on all sides by the power of the financial forces that can be unleashed on them if they step out of line. The brexit fiasco lays that bare as well as anything. There was a moment with the financial crash when they could have asserted themselves. Instead most of them chose to, um, give a ton of money to bankers. Just about the only European country to get its reaction to that even nearly right was Iceland. We, on the other hand, have had a decade of 'austerity'.

These kinds of challenges are not spoken of by anybody at all, including Labour. We still have a hopeless vacuum of ideas at the top of British politics. For all the promise Corbyn initially offered, he appears extraordinarily timid to me now.

 

[Pickman's model]

Well this might be a good lesson to learn. It's been true for a while now that political 'leaders' around the world are in reality nothing but office managers with virtually no room to manouevre, hemmed in on all sides by the power of the financial forces that can be unleashed on them if they step out of line. The brexit fiasco lays that bare as well as anything. There was a moment with the financial crash when they could have asserted themselves. Instead most of them chose to, um, give a ton of money to bankers. Just about the only European country to get its reaction to that even nearly right was Iceland. We, on the other hand, have had a decade of 'austerity'.

These kinds of challenges are not spoken of by anybody at all, including Labour. We still have a hopeless vacuum of ideas at the top of British politics. For all the promise Corbyn initially offered, he appears extraordinarily timid to me now.

One of the reasons there is a growing illiberalism in Europe is that many people saw liberal economies as faring worse than illiberal ones over the past decade. See for example see boyle's 'the coming illiberal order' in survival 58:2 (2016)

 

[SpackleFrog]

I think you wildly overestimate the extent which it looks like that to most people. Most people will just be watching westminster do its stuff and doing a bit of rolleyes, not questioning the legitimacy of our democracy.

Maybe I do. But I don't think you can deny that we're seeing a lot more discussion about how parliament, referendums and all this democracy stuff should work, instead of just who people vote for.

There's also the question of what happens next, particularly if the ruling class want to avoid an election. The system will continue to be laid bare by these events.

 

[yield]

Well this might be a good lesson to learn. It's been true for a while now that political 'leaders' around the world are in reality nothing but office managers with virtually no room to manouevre, hemmed in on all sides by the power of the financial forces that can be unleashed on them if they step out of line. The brexit fiasco lays that bare as well as anything. There was a moment with the financial crash when they could have asserted themselves. Instead most of them chose to, um, give a ton of money to bankers.

Obama Tells Wall Street to Thank him for Making Them so Much Money
November 29, 2018

In one of the most eyebrow-raising moments of the night, Obama pushed back against Wall Street executives who have criticized him. He told the bankers who crashed the global economy in 2008, and who were then bailed out by the US government, that they should have been grateful, because they still made money.

“Sometimes you go to Wall Street, and folks will be grumbling about, ‘Anti-business…'” Obama said. “And I say, ‘Have you checked where your stocks were when I came in office, and where they are now?’ What what are you talking, what are you complaining about?”

“Just say thank you, please,” Obama told the bankers. “Because I want to raise your taxes a couple percent to make sure kids have a chance to go to school?”

The Politicians did assert themselves in their own class interest.

 

[sleaterkinney]

That you, and rest of us that voted leave, are racists - or at least enabling racists. Of course this is coming from the pricks that are purposefully blind to the EU's fortress Europe.

Unlike Kaka Tim, this prick is one of those liberal wankers that is willing to defend the EU, that is utterly clueless to the damage that has occurred to our society, that wants to go back to the 90s/00s

No, I don't think that people voted leave are racists and I have given my take on that vote on this thread which you have chosen to ignore. The unicorn was a dig at lexit.

EDIT: And let's be absolute clear here, the same bloke that is calling people racists is someone who is willing to defend racial abuse.

In fact we have the same "logic" present in both cases
- I like the EU and I'm not a racist so their immigration policies cannot be racist
- I support Liverpool and I'm not a racist so there cannot have been any racial abuse
An excellent example of the racist liberal anti-racism that the EU typifies.

I have never called anyone racist. You are a fucking idiot trot though.

The Suarez thing was a mistake on my part.

 

[sleaterkinney]

And today a Leave MP called for the Irish to be threatened with starvation so as to get a better deal. That's the politics the Leave vote brought us.

 

[Wookey]

And today a Leave MP called for the Irish to be threatened with starvation so as to get a better deal. That's the politics the Leave vote brought us.

If I was a non-racist, liberal Leave voter, I'd be looking at the pond-life I've gotten into bed with and wondering where life went so wrong.

 

[pocketscience]

If I was a non-racist, liberal Leave voter, I'd be looking at the pond-life I've gotten into bed with and wondering where life went so wrong.

As a liberal remainer what's it been like watching the pond life in your bed for the last 10 years while it continues to cause this ?:

More appropriate indicator to illustrate the worsening of the living
standards of children is the one calculated based on a poverty line
anchored at a fixed point in time, such as 2007, by weighting the
incomes as to their differences in the purchasing power. As shown in
Figure 2, based on the poverty line of 2007 (2008 survey) the child
poverty rate declines from 22.6% in 2008 to 20.7% in 2009. Next though
it increases rapidly amounting to the critical level of 55.1% in 2014 (2015
survey). This means that in 2014 the 55.1% of the children in the country
had similar living conditions as the ones of the 20.7% of the children in
2009. These figures reveal the devastating implications on the living
standard of the households with children during the first 5 years of the
economic crisis and of the implementation of austerity policies in the
country.

 

[sunnysidedown]

If I was a non-racist, liberal Leave voter, I'd be looking at the pond-life I've gotten into bed with and wondering where life went so wrong.

I doubt there are many liberal leave voters. Those wet-arses tend to be remainers.

 

[Wookey]

As a liberal remainer what's it been like watching the pond life in your bed for the last 10 years while it continues to cause this ?:
View attachment 154862

My mum said she voted Brexit because of 'what they did to Greece'.

Of course she doesn't understand one jot what has happened to Greece, she's just repeating something she heard as a retrospective justification for the idiocy of her vote.

In fact, we both know she reads the Daily Mail and is racist. I suspect many other people who suddenly have a deep and abiding need to protect Greek people are also lying about their motivations.

 

[two sheds]

I don't think we'll find many of them on here though.

 

[Wookey]

I doubt there are many liberal leave voters. Those wet-arses tend to be remainers.

I doubt it too.

As a liberal remainer what's it been like watching the pond life in your bed for the last 10 years while it continues to cause this ?:
View attachment 154862

And as for my opinion, I know the EU isn't perfect, it needs reform badly, not something we can achieve from outside the EU if course.

I'm not blindly pro-EU...it's just clearly and provably a lot better than the shitfest the Brexit morons are now plunging us into.

 

[sunnysidedown]

My mum said she voted Brexit because of 'what they did to Greece'.

Of course she doesn't understand one jot what has happened to Greece, she's just repeating something she heard as a retrospective justification for the idiocy of her vote.

In fact, we both know she reads the Daily Mail and is racist. I suspect many other people who suddenly have a deep and abiding need to protect Greek people are also lying about their motivations.

I’d rather have a pint with your mum than have one with you.

 

[The Fornicator]

As a liberal remainer what's it been like watching the pond life in your bed for the last 10 years while it continues to cause this ?:

You're not on-message; the Germans didn't waterboard Greece for a decade, it wasn't the *fault* of the Empire of Virtue, it was those dreadful Greeks.

The Empire of Virtue on its usual form : Half a Titanic - the price of EU's let them drown policy

 

[pocketscience]

I doubt it too.
And as for my opinion, I know the EU isn't perfect, it needs reform badly, not something we can achieve from outside the EU if course.

come on then, point us to all the posts you've made with your suggestions for reforming the eu. The poverty caused by eu's austerity has been going on for over a decade now, so you've had plenty of time to come up with solutions. What and where are they?

I'm not blindly pro-EU...it's just clearly and provably a lot better than the shitfest the Brexit morons are now plunging us into.

that's still hyperthetical and conditional on tories being in power for any period of time which i personally see as debatable.
However, the real shitfest is the one the eu has been causing for millions of poverty stricken south europeans, tens of thousands of drowned refugees. These things are actually happening. They're happening as we speek.
What exactly do you suggest we do?
How do you suggest to reform a continent thats shifting towards becoming an ever more radical right wing block?

 

[Wookey]

I’d rather have a pint with your mum than have one with you.

You don't know either of us from Adam, so I can only assume that's an attempt to offend me in some way! You'll have to work much harder than that if such is your goal.

 

[The Fornicator]

Would you like the thread to be about you because it does seem that way?

 

[Wookey]

What do you suggest we do?
How do you suggest to reform a continent thats shifting towards and ever more radical right wing block?

Staying inside it would be an obvious start, as our influence isn't going to get greater once we've left. A left-wing and internationalist UK government would be a start, not Corbyn obviously.