Is Brexit actually going to happen?

[gentlegreen]

It's been quite a revelation over the past couple of years to learn what probably goes on inside the head of my estranged father - a lifetime Torygraph reader and party member who did the cryptic crossword every day and would pontificate from behind it.
I'd always reasoned that at least it wasn't the Fail ...

My poor mother never stopped talking about her experiences on the Bordeaux schools exchange whereas a Jersey honeymoon was the nearest she ever got to France after that because everything to my father was "foreign muck" (I never saw an uncooked onion until I left home)

Ironically, he helped me acquire a love of Ravel and Debussy, whereas he almost certainly looked down on any music that wasn't "British"...

 

[butchersapron]

Do you think that you're adding something to the thread with your recent run of posts gentlegreen?

 

[gentlegreen]

Do you think that you're adding something to the thread with your recent run of posts gentlegreen?

How many fucks do you suppose I give - oh great owner of the politics forum ?

 

[butchersapron]

How many fucks do you suppose I give - oh great owner of the politics forum ?

None. I'm quite sure that you're going to continue to drivel to yourself. Maybe posting an irrelevant video now and then. Low hanging fruit for the alt right is all you are and you don't even know it. Bring back the pallets.

 

[Buddy Bradley]

My brother just referred to Farage's Sunderland-to-London Brexit march as The Gammonball Run.

 

[Ranbay]

Do you think that you're adding something to the thread with your recent run of posts gentlegreen?

 

[andysays]

It's been quite a revelation over the past couple of years to learn what probably goes on inside the head of my estranged father - a lifetime Torygraph reader and party member who did the cryptic crossword every day and would pontificate from behind it.
I'd always reasoned that at least it wasn't the Fail ...

My poor mother never stopped talking about her experiences on the Bordeaux schools exchange whereas a Jersey honeymoon was the nearest she ever got to France after that because everything to my father was "foreign muck" (I never saw an uncooked onion until I left home)

Ironically, he helped me acquire a love of Ravel and Debussy, whereas he almost certainly looked down on any music that wasn't "British"...

Personally I've found it, if not necessarily a revelation, certainly something of an eye-opener the amount of banal and ignorant-of-how-things-actually-work nonsense that a small group of die-hard Remainers such as yourself have managed to come out with, repeatedly, over the course of the past couple of years, and how insistent you (collectively) appear to be in your ignorance, your wish to dismiss any opinions or even facts which don't fit your narrow world view, and your general all round belief that the world as we know it will end at 23.00 on 29th March.

A large part of it, for many including you, appears to involve some sort of adolescent rejection of what you see as your parents' belief system. Sorry to hear about your estrangement from your father, but maybe you'd do better if you didn't project your feelings about him on to those of us whose political opinions differ from yours (but quite clearly don't resemble his in any way).

 

[Ranbay]

None. I'm quite sure that you're going to continue to drivel to yourself. Maybe posting an irrelevant video now and then. Low hanging fruit for the alt right is all you are and you don't even know it. Bring back the pallets.

 

[SpookyFrank]

None. I'm quite sure that you're going to continue to drivel to yourself. Maybe posting an irrelevant video now and then. Low hanging fruit for the alt right is all you are and you don't even know it. Bring back the pallets.

Isn't telling someone that they're an enemy of the people if they don't agree with you quite a far-righty thing to do though?

I only ask because that seems to be your entire schtick.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Like a priest's sock.

I thought that a priest's sock was usually crusty?

 

[ViolentPanda]

James O'Brien.
Doubtless he's a "blue socialist" or summat ...

Former public schoolboy and faux-provocateur, rather than any kind of socialist.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Cuddly Keir was certainly trying to. But as you say, no need. He could have just kept saying he was still pushing for an election. He's just bottled it under the pressure.

You can never underestimate the depths that social democracy will sink to.

Well, anyone who knows the history of Germany's SPD knows there are NO depths social democracy won't sink to.

 

[Sunset Tree]

Personally I've found it, if not necessarily a revelation, certainly something of an eye-opener the amount of banal and ignorant-of-how-things-actually-work nonsense that a small group of die-hard Remainers such as yourself have managed to come out with, repeatedly, over the course of the past couple of years, and how insistent you (collectively) appear to be in your ignorance, your wish to dismiss any opinions or even facts which don't fit your narrow world view, and your general all round belief that the world as we know it will end at 23.00 on 29th March

Remainers have helped to switch me from undecided (I abstained) to reasonably pro-Brexit. If there are solid points to be made in defence of the EU they certainly aren't making them, all I see is scaremongering and classism. The smug glee over the prospect of medicine shortages is particularly strange.

 

[redsquirrel]

Isn't telling someone that they're an enemy of the people if they don't agree with you quite a far-righty thing to do though?

I know you don't like BA but he really isn't do that is he. You don't have to share any his political opinions to think that post after post of shit video/gifs without even a comment is crap. No one is asking for essays but having a bit less of the twitter crap would be good for P&P.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Compentors?

Too gnomic. It'd have to be "compventors", in order to give people freshly exposed to the word, some chance of deciphering it.

 

[pesh]

I know you don't like BA but he really isn't do that is he. You don't have to share any his political opinions to think that post after post of shit video/gifs without even a comment is crap. No one is asking for essays but having a bit less of the twitter crap would be good for P&P.

constant cryptic sneering is bollocks too tbf.

 

[Ranbay]

 

[Supine]

If there are solid points to be made in defence of the EU they certainly aren't making them, all I see is scaremongering and classism.

Would you be a remainder if the scaremongering stuff turned out to be true?

 

[Sunset Tree]

Would you be a remainder if the scaremongering stuff turned out to be true?

This is moot as I don't believe a word of it. It wouldn't make me a remainer, though, as the issue wouldn't be leaving the EU, but failing to effectively manage leaving the EU. Not a reason to overturn a democratic vote and not a compelling defence of the EU as an institution.

 

[Sunset Tree]

If the scaremongering stuff is true, and serious enough to overturn a democratic vote, that just tells us it is literally impossible to leave the EU, which is a horrible line of argument. I was willing to be convinced of the value of EU membership in its own right but haven't encountered any compelling arguments. The other common argument, that people were tricked, is also appalling.

 

[two sheds]

Am I right that the main difference between May and Corbyn's proposals are that Corbyn wants the Customs Union plus EU labour and environmental laws, while May wants to be able to make separate trade deals with US etc. ?

 

[Wilf]

Would you be a remainder if the scaremongering stuff turned out to be true?

I suspect things will be worse in the short term, due to the fucked up way Brexit is being done by the tories. I also suspect that neoliberal governments in the future will use our 'independence' from the EU to make things even more neoliberal. In those circumstances, I can respect people who think remain/EU neoliberalism is some awful least bad option, though I won't be joining them. Most of all though, we're back in SpineyNorman territory:

I don't see the point in supporting or opposing it. It's not my issue, both sides are my enemies and there's fuck all I can do to influence it.

Anybody wanting to back remain should take that as a starting point. The struggle against further deregulation is what it always was and involves the same forces that it always did. Seeing the EU as some kind of defender against neoliberalism is just odd. Instead, on this thread, we seem to have reverted to calling leave voters thickos in the last couple of pages.

 

[Sunset Tree]

The struggle against further deregulation is what it always was and involves the same forces that it always did. Seeing the EU as some kind of defender against neoliberalism is just odd

My original view was that it's the tories not the EU who are the problem. It's not the EU behind welfare cuts etc. What I've realised is the EU also offer no protective mechanisms against these sorts of cuts and are part of the same broader neoliberal project as the tories, so how much worse off could we be out? Are people claiming the austerity imposed this decade would have been harsher if we weren't in the EU?

The EU presents far stronger barriers against socialist policy than it does against neoliberalism.

 

[SpineyNorman]

Remainers have helped to switch me from undecided (I abstained) to reasonably pro-Brexit. If there are solid points to be made in defence of the EU they certainly aren't making them, all I see is scaremongering and classism. The smug glee over the prospect of medicine shortages is particularly strange.

Same here.

 

[danny la rouge]

Would you be a remainder if the scaremongering stuff turned out to be true?

There will no doubt be storms to ride out whether the UK leaves under May’s Plan Redux or under No Deal. But I think in either case the biggest effect will be lost opportunities. Jobs that might have been created that now won’t be. That sort of thing. These will be harder to visualise because they’re things we haven’t had yet that are being lost.

That said, this is if the UK sticks to the economic model it follows now: a heavily deindustrialised, heavily financialised economy. If you look at the modelling that’s been done for Brexit with deal or without, it all assumes that Brexit is the one thing that changes, and that the type of economic structure that the UK responds to it with does not change. That’s a key point, and one that is never picked up on by the reporting media: the UK need not keep the heavily financialised economy it has had for the past decades. It will, of course, but it needn’t.

This is part of what has been so disappointing in Labour’s response to Brexit. (The SNP’s has been similarly unimaginative, but at least there there’s a door that can be pushed at).

 

[CRI]

Do you think that you're adding something to the thread with your recent run of posts gentlegreen?

Better than yours!

*click*

 

[SpineyNorman]

Better than yours!

*click*

I know you are, you said you are so what am I?

That's basically the level of intellectual rigour that goes into everything you post isn't it?

 

[CRI]

Same here.

Ah bless, this must be the latest version of blokes who say they used to be sympathetic to feminism, until some women said something uppity they didn't like."

 

[CRI]

Lambs to the slaughter . . . literally.

No-deal Brexit threatens cull of 10m lambs

Millions of British lambs may have to be slaughtered and then buried or burnt, rather than eaten, in the event of a no-deal Brexit, government officials have told farmers. This is because UK lamb may be banned from sale to the EU from March 30 under meat hygiene rules applied to non-EU countries. If exports are allowed to continue, they would face tariffs of 45%.

Nearly half the 20m lambs born annually in Britain are sold to the EU. A no-deal Brexit could leave the UK with 9m unsold lambs, with farmers facing mounting feed and veterinary bills. The surplus will be made worse by imports. In a pre-Brexit deal, Britain has had to agree to take half the 220,000 tons of lamb sent to the EU from New Zealand each year.

Officials for Michael Gove, the environment secretary, have met farming leaders to discuss how to slaughter Britain’s looming lamb surplus, equivalent to about 90,000 tons of meat.

 

[Sunset Tree]

Ah bless, this must be the latest version of blokes who say they used to be sympathetic to feminism, until some women said something uppity they didn't like."

You are missing the point. Can you make a sound defence of the EU that will appeal to someone with socialist values? That fact that the pro-EU arguments are so weak has motivated me to think more about whether leaving is really that bad.