Tory UK EU Exit Referendum

[Sasaferrato]

A case in point regarding Livingstone doing a good job: Prior to the 2008 Mayoral election, he'd set aside a fairly large sum of money for feasibility studies regarding making London Underground and London Overground more accessible to those of us who don't have perfect health; use wheelchairs or have small children in buggies. Boris axed it and, despite strong and consistent lobbying, has done the sum of fuck-all, given that the bus companies had already signed up to all new stock being of the accessible variety.

It couldn't possibly be that (now, I'm not a Londoner, I did live in Woolwich for 18 months, so don't bite my head off if I'm wrong.) with buses going everywhere the tube did, the money was better spent elsewhere? There was a lot of money spent trying to stop cyclists getting killed IRRC.

 

[William of Walworth]

I find the EU a massive snorebore, and most Tories/Kippers who are really, really fascinated (aka obsessed) with it essentially demented. Am I a bad person?

My instinct is to want to remain for the above reasons , but I am aware that there's plenty of TU/left/anti-TTIP arguments for an 'out' vote too. Trouble to me though, who would it be who would really benefit from a Leave majority? Not at all sure it would stop TTIP for instance.


I suppose I should take some interest and research more ... but get stuck into all this for the next four months?

Two questions from me for the time being :

1. How much will the Tories' and UKIP's ultra-obsession with the whole thing put how many people off voting no?
2. How influential is Boris really? I tend to suspect he isn't nearly as popular with non-Tories, nor even with a lot of apoliticals, as he's presented as being. Am I wrong?

Apols for getting into this thread so late. No doubt I've missed lots of stuff to answer my questions, but see sentence one at the top.

 

[Sasaferrato]

Watching Boris blustering and bumbling his way through Mayor's Question Time is just fucking embarrassing.

It isn't on You Tube is it?

 

[ViolentPanda]

Is he another NAZI?

According to Sass, he's an anti-Semite.
The fact that most non-Establishment Jews I know (that's most of the Jews I know!) thought while Livingstone's "concentration camp guard" comment was out of order, it very obviously wasn't anti-Semitic, but rather a comment on the mindless "I was only doing my job" mentality of a journalist who was hounding him.
Sass, a practicing Christian child of a Jew, insists he knows better than everyone else, though.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Scottish Nazi Party -> over 50% of the vote

If they were a true Nazi Party,they'd have got 33-34%, damn them!

 

[stethoscope]

It isn't on You Tube is it?

You can usually catch it on Parliament channel.

 

[Lord Camomile]

Uh huh, however, perhaps not with the most thumping of margins, Boris won.

One of the reasons I detest the far left is their inability to combine under one banner, write a hymn sheet and sing from it.

Many of the ideas of the 'far left' are far from loony. An emphasis on building affordable housing, proper payment in employment, a real effort against the tax dodgers amongst other things. Why can't the FL combine? Genuine question. Surely you can see that 1 x 1000 is more effective that 10 x 50? Greater mass, pooled resources...

Pfft, damned if I know! Ill-informed pub theory: one of the reasons is the left's actions are generally based on qualitative and nebulous concepts, 'principles' that shall not bend, whereas the right is more quantitative and far more willing to hold their nose and join forces if they think it'll .

The left care about how they win, the right just care that they win. Which is why I, from the left, wouldn't see it as cause for detestation, more despair. "Uniting under one banner" is only of interest if all you care about is winning - that's not the only/primary concern of many.

Also, I think the right is an easier and more seductive sell - "work hard and you can achieve anything!".

Of course, left/right is a load of reductionist old pony anyway, but I did say this was a pub theory

 

[brogdale]

Irony passes like a flighting grouse...

Sometimes it's hard for a simple Marxist cunt to discern irony from ill-informed, contradictory tory bullshit.
My bad.

 

[William of Walworth]

One thing to remember about Boris and London, Sasaferrato , is that London was pretty much the only place where there was a widespread pro-Labour/anti-Tory swing in the GE last year. Not just the inner city areas either. Not all from the Lib Dems either.

I don't know, but Boris's popularity, such as it was (in London specifically anyway), may have declined a fair bit more recently.

 

[killer b]

1. How much will the Tories' and UKIP's ultra-obsession with the whole thing put how many people off voting no?

you know that the tories are voting 'yes' don't you?

 

[ViolentPanda]

Not a great deal you can do about it. You need a majority of the elected politicians to pass legislation, and that isn't going to happen any time soon.

It's a democracy. You don't like some of the things your government does, but unless you have majority support, it isn't going to change. The fact that a hell of a lot of the population doesn't know the difference between the ECHR and the European Court of Justice doesn't help either. I heard a muppet on the TV just a few moments ago, citing the ECHR as the reason he wants the UK to leave the EU.

I do not like the EU one little bit, however, if we leave, I really don't see a lot changing. If you want to trade in the EU, you have to demonstrate that you meet their requirements, which is the same shit, but without even the whisper of a voice we have now. I also don't think that trading with EU post exit, would be quite as cosy an arrangement as the 'Out' campaign are peddling. There would be nothing to stop the EU slapping whopping iomport levies on our goods and services. I doubt if the City would do well either, it could easily be replaced with Paris and Frankfurt. If it became more expensive to trade in London, the money would leave.

There is also the point that practically fuck all of British industry (such as it is) is British owned. Without unfettered access to the EU markets, how long would Nissan or Honda, for example, stay here?

I could kill Cameron for this*. He had no need to promise a referendum. We are now headed hell-wards on the proverbial handcart.

*Metaphorically.

Fuck metaphor.
Interestingly, you insist that "we're a democracy", yet every comment and observation you make about the state says "no we're not".
You see, in a real democracy, we'd actually have legislated methods beyond elections through which to curb our politicians of their fondness for taking our freedoms and lining their own pockets. Currently we have no such methods.
We live in a pseudo-democracy, plain and simple. The sooner people acknowledge this, and agitate against it, the sooner metaphor can become reality, and Parliament can be given a more noble employment - perhaps as a piggery.

 

[Sasaferrato]

I find the EU a massive snorebore, and most Tories/Kippers who are really, really fascinated (aka obsessed) with it essentially demented. Am I a bad person?

My instinct is to want to remain for the above reasons , but I am aware that there's plenty of TU/left/anti-TTIP arguments for an 'out' vote too. Trouble to me though, who would it be who would really benefit from a Leave majority? Not at all sure it would stop TTIP for instance.


I suppose I should take some interest and research more ... but get stuck into all this for the next four months?

Two questions from me for the time being :

1. How much will the Tories' and UKIP's ultra-obsession with the whole thing put how many people off voting no?
2. How influential is Boris really? I tend to suspect he isn't nearly as popular with non-Tories, nor even with a lot of apoliticals, as he's presented as being. Am I wrong?

Apols for getting into this thread so late. No doubt I've missed lots of stuff to answer my questions, but see sentence one at the top.

I think you are right about Boris, he'll be a 'nine days wonder', then submerge.

It isn't just Tories/UKIP who are getting aerated about this. Apoliticals are becoming involved too. Both In and Out camps have political bedfellows, from which the stuff of madness is made. Consider this; Sturgeon, Cameron and Hilary Benn, all on the same side.

 

[ViolentPanda]

You really love him, deep down?

(I have this vision of you physically foaming at the mouth. You feel about Boris what I feel about the SNSP.)

I dislike laziness. Boris's worked exemplifies laziness. His one skill is getting other people to do the heavy lifting for him. He doesn't make me foam at the mouth. He makes me shake my head sorrowfully at how easily-gulled some people are.

 

[ViolentPanda]

I have. I'm not in the habit of opposing things I haven't read.

The Charter chapters themselves are one thing, the judges interpretation is something else. Some of the judgements have been absolutely perverse.

Were it possible, I would ditch the court, but keep the Charter, but enforced by our Supreme Court.

That's what already happens unless the interpretation given by our court eludes all established precedent.

 

[danny la rouge]

Sasaferrato's enemies - doctors, the SNP, Labour

What have I missed? Did he leave the Labour Party now?

Hey, Sasaferrato, have you left Labour? You're only 30 odd years behind me. Keep going. You'll be an anarchist before long.

 

[redsquirrel]

Pfft, damned if I know! Ill-informed pub theory: one of the reasons is the left's actions are generally based on qualitative and nebulous concepts, 'principles' that shall not bend, whereas the right is more quantitative and far more willing to hold their nose and join forces if they think it'll .

The left care about how they win, the right just care that they win. Which is why I, from the left, wouldn't see it as cause for detestation, more despair. "Uniting under one banner" is only of interest if all you care about is winning - that's not the only/primary concern of many.

Yes absolute unity on the right currently. We aren't in a middle of an event where significant divisions in the major right-wing party are emerging. (Leaving aside for the moment the long history of infighting in the far right).

 

[stethoscope]

Latest scores on the doors.

Number of Conservative MPs backing 'Brexit' reaches 120

131 Conservative MPs support remaining in the EU
120 have said they will back "Brexit"
79 are still undeclared

 

[gosub]

n

Latest scores on the doors.

Number of Conservative MPs backing 'Brexit' reaches 120

In/Out - Google Sheets

 

[William of Walworth]

you know that the tories are voting 'yes' don't you?

I lot of them want to vote 'Leave' -- I should have phrased that question much better though (was in pre-X Files rush). I meant how offputting would all the splits and obsessiveness be.

 

[ViolentPanda]

It couldn't possibly be that (now, I'm not a Londoner, I did live in Woolwich for 18 months, so don't bite my head off if I'm wrong.) with buses going everywhere the tube did, the money was better spent elsewhere? There was a lot of money spent trying to stop cyclists getting killed IRRC.

Nope, the money wasn't "better spent elsewhere", not by TfL. Buses don't "go everywhere the tube did", and changing buses is a lot more problematic in many cases than changing platforms at an accessible station. There's some crazy figure going round(and has been going round since 2008) that it'd cost £50 million to put a single lift in a single tube station, more on the deep lines. Thing is, most of the deep lines have escalator service, plus "emergency" lifts, so you're not really having to consider doing much there.
Apparently, the method that Berlin successfully used (using staged lifts) on their deeper stations costs about 2 million Euros per station, so I'm inclined to believe that the only issue in play is a lack of political will, not a lack of money or need .

 

[William of Walworth]

OK then, just a minor tweak to my first question from yesterday :

1. How much will the Tories' and UKIP's ultra-obsession with the whole thing put how many people off voting at all?

There's got to be a lot of people for whom the prospect of four months 'banging on about Europe' is duller than ditchwater. And I can't say I blame them much.

 

[Fuchs66]

As far as I can see the only people who benefit from EU membership are the bosses and the landlords of this world. I know which way I'm voting and nothing in this 'deal' will persuade me otherwise.

And as for taking child benefit and WTC off families? The only people that ultimately hurts are the children. And it creates second class citizens, which, historically, has *never* ended well.

Well I certainly have benefitted from the EU over the last 30 years or so and I've witnessed and experienced the changes that have made me feel more and more European every year.

 

[weltweit]

Well I certainly have benefitted from the EU over the last 30 years or so and I've witnessed and experienced the changes that have made me feel more and more European every year.

I agree, I spent a very nice time working in Germany and would certainly consider working in France or Germany or Spain in the future, but this might be less likely if the UK left the EU. And what about all those Brits who are already living on the continent, and all the continentals who are currently living and working in the UK?

 

[Fuchs66]

I agree, I spent a very nice time working in Germany and would certainly consider working in France or Germany or Spain in the future, but this might be less likely if the UK left the EU. And what about all those Brits who are already living on the continent, and all the continentals who are currently living and working in the UK?

Yep I originally settled in Germany in 1992 when things weren't quite so easy and have watched the whole experience of living in other EU countries become so much easier and "normal". I'm now based in the Netherlands, own a house in Bulgaria, my girlfriend is Latvian (where I spend a lot of time too). I have taken full advantage of the freedom of movement and have found it to be a very good thing, to lose it would be crap. The main reason, apart from my personal situation, that I want the UK to remain in the EU is I have yet to see a realistic alternative being offered by the Leave group, apart from lots of rhetoric, there is nothing of substance visible.

 

[LeslieB]

But for those of us who have no desire to trek halfway across Europe for work and want a job and a home near where we grew up it's all downside.

 

[Fuchs66]

But for those of us who have no desire to trek halfway across Europe for work and want a job and a home near where we grew up it's all downside.

And you think that would change if we left the EU? I personally doubt it, I think most of the UK's problems are caused in London rather than Brussels!

 

[LeslieB]

And you think that would change if we left the EU? I personally doubt it,

To be honest I'm pessimistic about whether it will change even in the event of Brexit but I know nothing will change while we stay in the EU

This emergency brake isn't worth a damn and the only people who will lose out are children.

 

[weltweit]

But for those of us who have no desire to trek halfway across Europe for work and want a job and a home near where we grew up it's all downside.

We have to get away from this incorrect use of the word "Europe". Britain is a European country, if you live in Britain you live in Europe and that will not change even if Britain exits the EU. It is membership of the EU that is up for debate. If you are unable to use the word Europe correctly then think of the continent. Britain is not on the continent, so it is ok to talk about people living on the continent. But people living in Huddersfield are living in Europe!

 

[Fuchs66]

To be honest I'm pessimistic about whether it will change even in the event of Brexit but I know nothing will change while we stay in the EU.

The main point being where you lay the blame for your problems. You seem to indicate that you believe that Brussels is to blame I disagree and place the blame in London. I agree there will probably be changes after a "Brexit", however I don't think they will be for the better.
As far as restrictions on benefits are concerned I'm a bit split on this, when I originally settled in Germany in 92 I had to live, work AND pay taxes there for 5 years before I was entitled to the majority of benefits.I didn't find it a particularly bad thing, more a motivator to get my arse into gear!

 

[kabbes]

We have to get away from this incorrect use of the word "Europe". Britain is a European country, if you live in Britain you live in Europe and that will not change even if Britain exits the EU. It is membership of the EU that is up for debate. If you are unable to use the word Europe correctly then think of the continent. Britain is not on the continent, so it is ok to talk about people living on the continent. But people living in Huddersfield are living in Europe!

It really doesn't matter. Everybody understands what people mean when they talk about things "in Europe". So the meaning is being communicated, which is the job of the language.