Is Brexit actually going to happen?

[SpackleFrog]

You favour a tribal, barter-based economy ?
Lots of hungry people though - unless we dig up every square yard of ground.

What do you think?

 

[gentlegreen]

 

[NoXion]

View attachment 163186

So what exactly did you mean when you brought up barter in response to someone saying "fuck the WTO"? Is that not itself a strawman? Or are misrepresentations only bad someone else does it?

 

[gentlegreen]

In the case of the Brexit dreamers it's more like :-

 

[billy_bob]

I guess it's easier to just take the piss, rather than to question the role that organisations like the WTO play on the world stage.

I'm not taking the piss, I completely agreed with your point. We should leave the WTO. Fuck the WTO.

I don't want a referendum on it, that is taking the piss a bit. But if we did have one I'd vote to leave.

Ditto. I'm taking the piss because currently it's hard not to feel we've descended into black farce. But absolutely the WTO is entirely consistent with the neoliberal paradigm that underlies the EU, so it's a problem for pretty much the same reasons. (I did not vote leave, but mainly out of extreme pessimism about our politicians' ability to manage it positively.)

 

[SpackleFrog]

So what exactly did you mean when you brought up barter in response to someone saying "fuck the WTO"? Is that not itself a strawman? Or are misrepresentations only bad someone else does it?

I don't think the picture represents a straw man, he just didn't know what to say.

 

[gentlegreen]

Rather too much turnip in that photo ...

 

[SpackleFrog]

In the case of the Brexit dreamers it's more like :-

View attachment 163187

There we go! Eejit status confirmed.

 

[SpookyFrank]

You favour a tribal, barter-based economy ?
Lots of hungry people though - unless we dig up every square yard of ground.

Money actually predates the WTO, shocking as that may seem.

 

[NoXion]

In the case of the Brexit dreamers it's more like :-

View attachment 163187

So you're doubling down on There Is No Alternative? Because that's what I'm taking from your posting a cartoon of a mythical creature. Correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[NoXion]

Money actually predates the WTO, shocking as that may seem.

Don't tell him that international trade predates capitalism, even. The shock might seriously disturb him.

 

[SpackleFrog]

In the beginning, there was the WTO...

 

[Supine]

In the beginning, there was the WTO...

So what do you suggest instead,absolutely no trade with other countries?

 

[elbows]

I see various votes are happening now and the Labour front bench amendment has already been defeated.

MPs voting on amendments

 

[SpineyNorman]

Essentially, once we're a 'third country' why should we expect the EU to offer us special treatment - are you are saying that they should just trust us because it's in our own interests to continue a similar level of controls? Do they offer a similar exemption for other 'third countries' where the relevant pests are not endemic?

I'm not saying they should or shouldn't do anything. Well be operating under wto rules so it's going to happen regardless.

There will be a deal that avoids this eventually, if it's no deal that just won't be in place on 29 March.

 

[SpineyNorman]

So what do you suggest instead,absolutely no trade with other countries?

Yes. Those are the two choices.

 

[DexterTCN]

 

[teuchter]

So what do you suggest instead,absolutely no trade with other countries?

I think this needs its own thread.

Should the UK leave the WTO?

 

[SpackleFrog]

So what do you suggest instead,absolutely no trade with other countries?

Have you not read the last page? We've already ridiculed the moron that thought the only option is a binary choice between primitive barter economies and the WTO. You could have learnt from their experience and not just made yourself look a tit.

 

[Supine]

Have you not read the last page? We've already ridiculed the moron that thought the only option is a binary choice between primitive barter economies and the WTO. You could have learnt from their experience and not just made yourself look a tit.

I look like a tit for asking you a question? How very dare me. Fuck you.

 

[NoXion]

I look like a tit for asking you a question? How very dare me. Fuck you.

No. You look like a tit for asking a shit question in bad faith. Or is it genuinely your position that the only way to manage international trade is by barter, or in the specific way it is done by the WTO?

 

[Supine]

I'm asking for any ideas on an alternative. I don't know what's wrong with the wto but it seems to work. If you want to leave i'd be genuinely interested in an alternative.

 

[NoXion]

I'm asking for any ideas on an alternative. I don't know what's wrong with the wto but it seems to work. If you want to leave i'd be genuinely interested in an alternative.

The alternative to the WTO is any organisation that serves the interests of people, not profit. It's an instrument of global capital, that's what's wrong with it. Or do you think it's a complete coincidence that since the Seattle protests, the WTO has faded into the background in a world in which increasingly obscene concentrations of wealth are found in the hands of cunts willing to rip off entire cities to the tune of billions?

What exactly makes you think that any of that "works"? For who? To what end?

 

[redsquirrel]

You favour a tribal, barter-based economy ?
Lots of hungry people though - unless we dig up every square yard of ground.

So what do you suggest instead,absolutely no trade with other countries?

I'm asking for any ideas on an alternative. I don't know what's wrong with the wto but it seems to work.

We have increasing poverty, wages declining in real terms, a Gini coefficient the same as in Victorian times (and rising), no statistical social mobility, labour conditions worsening and you think things are "working".

Economics is the method, the aim is to change the soul.

 

[Supine]

I was talking about trade which seems to work. That has nothing to do with the things you mention which are uk results from UK political decisions.

 

[redsquirrel]

Of course "trade" (and specifically both the EU and WTO) has to do with the increasing poverty and inequality. The fact that you can't, or rather won't, see this shows hows prescient Thatcher's quote was.

 

[Wolveryeti]

We have increasing poverty, wages declining in real terms, a Gini coefficient the same as in Victorian times (and rising), no statistical social mobility, labour conditions worsening and you think things are "working".

Economics is the method, the aim is to change the soul.

So let's rip up our existing trade deals and start from a blank piece of paper - that'll definitely fix things

Nothing says socialist utopia like turning motorways into lorry parks.

 

[Sprocket.]

If we learned one thing from Chairman Mao. It’s that you have to accept a few million have to starve to achieve your political ideology.

 

[Supine]

Motorways won't even be needed if red gets his / her way

 

[gentlegreen]

I was so confident at the time that voting to stay in was the correct vote, I never paid any attention to the news about it or online propaganda. I haven't actually watched or listened to broadcast news in years and only recently started using facebook - after the event - to tell my Tory relatives to fuck off.
It suddenly struck me yesterday, just how it must have seen to a lot of people when it was two-faced bait and switch Cameron telling them after years of "bent bananas" and "Up Yours Delors" that the EU was a good thing - so an "election" became the usual way to stick two fingers up at the government.
In my street, I'm the one with the EU flag in the window, while a neighbour 10 yards away is Labour Central - I'm pretty certain I'm not thought of as a Tory ...