UKC

AKA Tony Blair. I'm not a fan but you have to admire his communication skills. In a 2 minute interview he has skewered the central Brexit issue, that enough people might regret their vote once they see the full frightfulnes of the deal available, that we the public really should be asked again.
He also got the issue that it's not Euro business who will be doing the negotiating, it'll be the hissy-fit politicians.

And before I'm accused of snowflake-ism that's not a whinge, it's just a natural Scottish aversion to being sold a pig in a poke.
(Now waits for trolls and war criminal apologia)

In reply to colinakmc:
Nope sorry no second chance. That bed has now been made and we all must lie in it. The t*rd that's in it won't start to really stink for a few months yet.

In reply to colinakmc:

Boring

In reply to colinakmc:

The present lot may not be as bad as him, but nor are they anywhere near his conpetance. Hope wears strange clothes.

In reply to ian caton:

Obscure but true. Part of the motivation for e post was, why can't anyone in Labour currently (who isn't a probable war criminal) get the message across as well as TB did?

In reply to colinakmc:
>And before I'm accused of snowflake-ism that's not >a whinge, it's just a natural Scottish aversion to >being sold a pig in a poke.

Completely different or the same as the promise of independence from the SNP then? Y'know after the welfare tit is all dried up when you try and join the Euro.

Its brilliant entertainment to watch the completely underwhelming DisMay totally ignore Brexit, but like a fart in bivvy bag at some put you have to stick your neck out.

Conservative party have to deliver this. She has to deliver Brexit. Not a chance.

D

In reply to colinakmc:


Well I'm not a momentum member but the BBC hasn't let up on the leader since he was elected.

D

In reply to colinakmc:




^ Nicola Sturgeon is the biggest pig in the poke on planet earth.

In reply to Jim 1003:

Why such unpleasantness?

In reply to Pete Pozman:


Ah, bless.

Haven't you worked out why people have voted Leave yet?
Just to help you, they're all pissed off.
People like you are like our glorious political leaders, totally out of touch with the reality of being a regular scumbag person in this country.

In reply to colinakmc:
Hopefully this is the start of a fightback. There's millions of EU citizens living in the UK and their families and hundreds of thousands of businesses which trade with the EU which could be persuaded to back a credible person.

One obvious thing would be to raise money to fund EU citizens in the UK to apply to become UK citizens so they get a vote in the next election or a second referendum.

In reply to Lusk:

I do get that people are unhappy. Stagnant wages, rising prices, pensions, ISIS, maybe even too many darkies moving in to the neighbourhood. A lot to be unhappy about if these are issues for you.

What I don't get is why Brussels, Poles, people from Bong Bongo Land, or Merkel, are considered the cause of the problem.

A great many rationales for voting Brexit seem no more informed or intelligent than votes for Trump. You only have to look at the Nissan thread to see the level of short-sightedness.

In reply to colinakmc:

Because the message from the referendum for most politicians in Westminster (the result being a landslide on a constituency basis) is that there are votes in Brexiteering. It's just a question of how to do it and maintain some veneer of respectability.

In reply to Jim 1003:

No, she is the most effective opposition politician.

She only looks daft with a low oil price and the oil price is volatile.

In reply to tom_in_edinburgh:

And if a second referendum is held and the vote is remain do you think the leave voters will happily accept the result?
Given that, according to some, leavers are swivel eyed, xenophobic racists I fear that a reversal of the out vote could have very unpleasant ramifications.

In reply to baron:

If it's 60:40 ish one way or the other, game over.

In reply to tom_in_edinburgh:

Will you send me the money by paypal or bank transfer?

In reply to ian caton:
If only this were true.
The genie is out of the bottle.
Remainers will always want to be in the EU - until it goes belly up anyway.
Leavers will feel cheated if the vote is reversed - unless the EU becomes a far different organisation to what it is today.
I feel this issue, one way or another, will run and run.

In reply to tom_in_edinburgh:


An unexpected proportion of whom apparently (I'm relying on polls and the press) voted leave in order to keep the competition from new immigrants at bay. Be careful what you wish for!!

In reply to Pete Pozman:


Because like so many others he is incapable of framing a criticism of Nicola Sturgeon that doesn't descend to insults. Which tells you something about them and also about her.

In reply to baron:


... as if the first vote hasn't had some very unpleasant ramifications ...

In reply to baron:

I named my price. At what vote split would you call it game over?

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:
Without wishing to sound melodramatic I think a vote reversal would lead to much greater unpleasantness possibly on a scale not seen for many years in the UK.

In reply to ian caton:
I call it game over now - but many people won't be happy with, or accepting of, any result that is different to the one they voted for.
Remainers want to stay, leavers want to leave. Can these two positions be reconciled? If not then a large percentage of the population iwill be maicontented.

In reply to BnB:


A dangerous reliance

In reply to baron:

Game over it certainly isn't. If it was the Express would have moved on to other subjects.

For reconciliation a significant number of people need to change their opinion.

If that doesn't do it, the democratic experiment has run its course.

In reply to DaveHK:


I don't think saying Surgeon is a pig in a poke is insulting, it's an expression which was used in the thread to which I was replying. I find her obsessed with Independence, she's demanding a second Referendum despite a clear result in the first. Why she would want Scotland to leave the UK but remain governed by Europe I really do not understand. She comes over to many as somebody who has a petty and obsessional dislike of England and the English, and this was unfortunately a facet of the Yes campaign. My father, a Gaelic speaking Highlander, who fought in the second world war, often said, 'If the SNP ever come into power, I'll emigrate.'

In reply to baron:

How can it be game over, when we have only just entered the quagmire and the endgame is utterly unclear? The referendum asked much too simple a question. It is not a simple question of in or out (Remain or Leave) since we will always be trading and dealing with Europe of which we remain a geographic part. Like Hotel California, you can check out any time you like but you can never leave.

In reply to baron:

Of course they can be reconciled, certainly in the most part. The E.U. provides a convenient scapegoat for bad governance and poor democracy in the U.K. Lots of people who voted out see many more of different ethnic fellows on the streets and also their standard of living falling along with the standard of public services bellying out and put two and two together.

We should have been given a vote over Maastricht but the Tories were desperate. Strange that came rumbling back a quarter of century later to bite everyone in the arse.

D

In reply to Jim 1003:
I find the Brexiteers obsessed with leaving the EU, they demanded a second Referendum despite a clear result in the first. Why they would want the UK to leave the EU but remain governed by Europe I really do not understand. They come over as people who have a petty and obsessional dislike of the EU and the Europeans, and this was unfortunately a facet of the Leave campaign.

Not perfect but you get my point.

In reply to Jim 1003:

She does? Funny, as an English person who lived in Scotland for a number of years and even experienced the odd bit of real anti English abuse, I don't get that impression of Sturgeon in the slightest.

In reply to BnB:


The EU citizens didn't get a vote but Commonwealth citizens in the UK did. Which is totally unfair. EU citizens in the UK should have been allowed to vote, as they were in the Scottish Independence referendum and in elections to the Scottish Parliament. If they had been the result might well have been different.

As you say there were people from commonwealth countries voting for the UK to leave the EU because they didn't want EU citizens competing for their jobs or immigration from the EU to take the place of immigration from their countries. It is almost amusing that the UKIP supporting Brexiters are likely to see more immigration from muslim countries if the UK leaves the EU.

In reply to TobyA:


^ Well I'm Scottish as are my family and friends and they all think the same, but I suppose you could be the only English person in the world who thinks Sturgeon likes the English...

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:


Pointing the finger on UKC being one of them.

In reply to Jim 1003:


One of the problems is that the English media is completely biased against Sturgeon, the SNP and Scotland in general because it suits the agenda of its proprietors. Anti-SNP, everything is falling apart in Scotland stories - like anti-EU, everything is falling apart in the Eurozone stories - are safe click bait for the English audience.

In reply to Jim 1003:


Count me as a second English born long term resident of Scotland who doesn't think Nicola dislikes me.

In reply to elsewhere:

She's nice to the ones who live in Scotland and think they're Scottish...

In reply to Jim 1003:

My apologies, I misread your post and did not engage my brain before posting. Pig in a poke is indeed an expression and not an insult.

However, I don't find Sturgeon to be petty and I certainly haven't picked up on a dislike of the English from her. As for the demands for a second referendum, did you think they were just going to walk away? They said after the last one that they accepted the result and would not call for another unless there was major constitutional change so really, the SNP are just sticking to their promise. You say you can't understand why she would want Scotland to leave the UK but remain governed by Europe but 62% of Scottish voters wanted to stay in the EU so she's got a mandate for that part at least. Put that together with the fact that staying in Europe was a major factor in many voting to remain in the UK and indyref2 seems much more reasonable and certainly not obsessional or just being bad losers.

In reply to colinakmc:


I think Toxic Tony needs reminding that the question on the referendum ballot paper was "Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union?"
not
"Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or spend 2 years negotiating with the European Union (pissing 27 countries off in the process) to see if we can get an exit deal we quite like the look of but if we don't we'll all just pretend it never happened and see if they'll let us back in the club if we ask nicely without them taking the opportunity to totally screw us over for all the hassle we've caused?"

In reply to pec:


I think the Brexiter's need reminding the question wasn't

In reply to tom_in_edinburgh:
We Brexiter's don't need reminding what we voted for.
While we can argue what Brexit means we voted to leave the EU.
We didn't vote to leave because of Fox, Johnson, etc, in fact many voted to leave despite them.
Unfortunately due to the nature of our political system we're stuck with them, for a while anyway.
Don't in any way imagine that we have given carte blanche to anybody.

In reply to tom_in_edinburgh:



Well that was always a possibilty when people put their cross in the leave box but they still did because they prefered it to the alternative.

In reply to elsewhere:


can I be the first long term resident Englishman who thinks Nicola and all of her ilk hate the English with a passion beyond xenophobia.

In reply to graeme jackson:


Can you explain how you came to that conclusion?

In reply to baron:


Theresa May keeps telling us different, her view is Brexit is whatever she says it is and nobody gets a chance to change their mind if they don't like what she comes up with.

There is no 'we Brexiters' because there was no coherent definition of what Brexit was. Some Brexiters wanted to stay in the EEA, some wanted a crazy neo-liberal free-trade utopia, some were immigrants who wanted the UK to pull itself away from Europe and be closer to Asia/Africa, some were UKIP xenophobes and some people were just pissed off that their public services were cut. As soon as Brexit gets defined the Brexit alliance falls apart.

In reply to tom_in_edinburgh:


I think one of the problems is the media, English or otherwise, like to report negative, things are falling apart stories. I think lots of people in England rate Sturgeon quite highly and rather wish the Westminster parliament had rather more people of her caliber. Can't say she comes across as anti-english from down here.

In reply to colinakmc:

In his R4 interview I noted he mentioned that last week he had had a meeting with the French president.
In what capacity I wonder. Quisling perhaps?

In reply to baron:


What mechanism do you envisage that will give you any control over the process?

In reply to Jim 1003:

If you live in Scotland I'm surprised that you confuse Nicola Sturgeon with the wider independence movement. Which is an emphatically liberal, progressive and internationalist coalition of political parties and community groups. And in my experience not in the least bit anti English. I've never heard Nicola Sturgeon say anything that even remotely sounds like the things you accuse her of. It sounds more like the misogynistic bile published by the Daily Express in Scotland. Not nice.

In reply to alastairmac:

I don't read newspapers, but I work in Scotland and England and this seems to be the way she comes over to most English people who have expressed an opinion to me. I think the fact she wants to split the country and won't accept the referendum result is quite puzzling to most English people. They don't know why she would want to split from England and be governed by Brussels. Bizarre, the logic is hard to explain, it comes over like, anybody is better than the English.
Considering we came through 2 world wars and a few minor ones together, it's odd that she should want at any cost to split the Union and choose Brussels instead of Westminster.
She reminds me of a demented Cranky shouting, Independence, Independence.....

In reply to Jim 1003:

I sense you have a problem by your frequent references to being "governed by Brussels". At the moment, by the same logic, Scots are being 'governed by London' so I'm not sure why switching to Brussels would be any worse. More fundamentally though, being part of the EU gives any country a voice and in most cases also a veto power in important decisions, meaning that rather than being governed the EU member country is genuinely part of the decision making process. Could the same be said for Scotland's current role within the UK?

In reply to john arran:

It seems to be hard to argue that Scotland is not currently part of the UK decision making process by virtue of the MP's it sends to Westminster.

In reply to ian caton:


Which is a symptom of EU citizens being possibly the only large legal immigrant community in the UK which does not get to vote in Westminster elections. If the EU citizens got to vote MPs in constituencies with lots of immigration from the EU would have to weigh up the immigrant votes against the anti-immigration votes just like MPs in communities with lots of muslim immigration.

In reply to Dr.S at work:

True. But they potentially would have a similar elected representatives' voice in the EU, along with a veto on key decisions. In what way can this be seen as being more governed from elsewhere than it already is?

In reply to john arran:

I don't think it can be.

In reply to Jim 1003: Whether or not you agree with some of the things which Nicolas Sturgeon believes, to say that she is like a "demented cranky" is just base and unpleasant. Not the kind of view that I'm used to hearing in Scotland. Even those that have different views generally regard her as an assured conviction politician.

At least 45% of voters in Scotland at the last count had lost faith in Westminster and think a Scottish government elected by Scottish voters will make a better job of running our own affairs. As an independent country with strong trade links to both England and the EU. And at the moment Brussels seems to be more in tune with the political, economic and social aspirations of Scots. So if there is another referendum in Scotland it's because Scottish voters want it. Not because of Nicola Sturgeon. And because we want something other than "Brexit UK".

In reply to Jim 1003:

It's no wonder your English friends don't understand that because that's not what the SNP want. They want self governance within Europe. I think you're letting your own anti euro feeling colour your impression of what the SNP want. Also, I've met loads of English people who admire Sturgeon so your feeling that she is disliked is not the whole story.


You've really misunderstood what the independence movement is about. Yes, there are people in Scotland who want independence because they hate the English but I believe they're a minority and I'm not aware of any who are serious politicians.


See before when I accused you of resorting to insults when you hadn't...

In reply to Dr.S at work:


That only works when Scottish politics is broadly the same as English politics and both countries are playing to shift power between Tories and Labour. When Scottish politics diverges too far from English politics our MPs are irrelevant.

Some kind of federal system is needed and it would be simpler to do it at the EU level with Scotland and England separate states within the EU.

In reply to Mark Edwards:

That is quite an offensive comparison. I assume you don't know who Quisling was.

In reply to graeme jackson:

Does that pretty extreme accusation extend to any and all Scots that believe Scotland should make its own decisions? What possible justification do you have for saying such a thing?

In reply to pec:
And the previous time the question was

"Do you think the UK should stay in the European Community?"

Wonder what it will be next time.

I wish folk would stop talking about a second referendum, it would be the third.

In reply to BnB:


How ironic then that the free trade regime proposed will open them up to competition just as damaging if not more so.

In reply to ian caton:



The previous time was in 1975 and the UK joined in 1973. That's a whole different context: everybody understood what not staying in the EU would mean.

In reply to David Martin:
I'm giving you a like on the basis of using the words "darkies" and "bongo bongo land" without getting the post removed..... obviously MY "African" is more offensive.... go figure.

In reply to tom_in_edinburgh:

So why did we have to have another, and having had another, why not three?

I remember last time Tony Benn saying something to the effect of "that's it, the people have spoken, it's done". If only.

In reply to ian caton:


My point was a simple in/out question made sense for a referendum in 1975 two years after joining the EU because it was clear what leaving would mean - going back to the way things were two years previously. In 2016 it is not a reasonable referendum question unless there is an official government proposal for what leaving will mean (as was the case in the Scottish Independence Referendum).

So I don't think we should have had the second referendum, I think it was flawed and once it is clear what Brexit means there should be a vote in parliament or a third referendum on the specific proposal.

In reply to tom_in_edinburgh:


Not so, 'having a say' and 'getting your way' are not the same thing. The SNP have managed to modify/derail some Tory plans in this parliament, and are well represented on select committees. To a certain extent you could argue that having a substantially different political voice from Scotland has increased representation as compared to having 40 odd labour drones.



I'd agree with federalism, not sure it's easier at an EU level, are other member states up for that? If so it would appear to support the views of some Brexit types who are concerned about ever closer union.

In reply to ian caton:


Because the EEC (as it was back then) has changed beyond all recognition in a manner which the the wider public could never have imagined when they voted in 1975 and because quite clearly the mood of the public towards the EU has swung dramatically such that its been a major issue in British politics for more than a decade now.

Just as the Scots were given a referendum because an independance party won a national election there, when an independance party won a national election in the UK (UKIP in the last European elections), an event without historical precedent, the issue could not simply be ignored forever in a democracy because it was inconveniant to to the ruling elite, the boil had to be lanced so to speak.

In reply to pec:
I don't disagree with you hugely. My point being more that when the Brexiteers say there shouldn't be a "second" referendum they are ignoring the inconvenient truth that there have already been two, and therefore a third can't be ruled out.

It doesn't feel like the boil is lanced as yet. If there is some sort of vote on the outcome of negotiations that will do for me.

In reply to pec:


You make it sound as though successive elected UK governments had nothing to do with this.

In reply to ian caton:


After the 1st referendum those who lost had to learn to live with the result and we only had a 2nd after the situation re Europe changed dramatically, hence a 40 year gap.
If in another 40 years the situation has changed dramatically again or the mood of the nation is such that Europe has become an issue which can no longer be ignored then it would be perfectly reasonable to hold a 3rd referendum. What is not acceptable is to have a 3rd referendum so soon after the second because a highly vocal minority didn't like the result of the last one.


The boil has been lanced for the foreseeable future, what we're seeing at the moment, from the incessant whinging of the militant remainers, is the puss oozing out.
A large majority now believe that we must accept the referendum result and leave, 69% to 22%. Indeed, even amoungst leave voters, more think the result should be respected than don't, 49% to 45%. See 2nd paragraph here
https://yougov.co.uk/news/2016/08/18/majority-people-think-freedom-movement...

The fact is that despite not knowing what Brexit might actually look like and despite the fact that a hard Brexit was always a possibility more people still chose that option than remain. Any exit terms better than that are a bonus.

In reply to Dave Garnett:


That is of course part of the problem. One of the reasons why some people treated the referendum as an anti establishment vote is precisely because such fundamental change has been forced upon us without any consent from the British people.
If we'd been given a vote on the Maastricht treaty which is when the dramatic changes from the EEC to the EU date from, then we'd have either accepted it or rejected it but either way had to accept that was the direction the public wanted to move in. It was precisely the failure to consult the public which lead to the birth of UKIP and the growth of Euroscepticism into a mainstream political movement.

In reply to pec:

From the same document, just after the paras you quoted: "There is little support for a so-called “hard Brexit” - even among Leave voters."

So if May ends up deciding on a hard Brexit, which it appears very few people in the UK would support, would you still be happy for her to ignore the wishes of the people and of parliament without putting the matter to either?

In reply to colinakmc:

You might enjoy this piece telling it how it is:

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2016/10/uk-choice-hard-soft-brexit...

In reply to ian caton:
One person's opinion.
No more, no less.

In reply to pec:
I think the main difference between the first and second referendum was that Britain was bust, at the time of the first, and needed the EEC (uk Bailed out by IMf the same year I think).

Whereas now we are bust and a lot of people think that being out will sort things out.

In reply to john arran:


We can all extract small snippets from the report to suit our purposes but the broad thrust is very much towards Brexit of some sort. Hard Brexit may not be the first preference amoungst leavers but neither is remaining.


I don't belive there's any reason to suggest May will actively decide on a hard Brexit, a trade deal such as has been agreed with Canada is far more likely. But if she's pushed in that direction by the other EU states behaving like spoilt brats wanting revenge (not beyond the bounds of possibilty but certainly not in their best ineterests given their trade surplus with us), then so be it.

It would not be ignoring the wishes of the people as I've explained in my posts above and parliament handed over the decision to the people by voting to give us a referendum. Furthermore, at that point the chances of us being welcomed back to the fold under the terms we've previously enjoyed (no Euro, no Schengen and rebate intact) would be approximately zero, it would be their golden opportunity to shaft us in a manner which would be far less acceptable than a hard Brexit.

Anyway, I'm off for a week now so can't respond further. Argue amoungst yourselves whilst I'm away

In reply to ian caton:



Interesting piece with a lot of good corroboration and context but this was evident before the rerendum. Makes it more difficult to defend the reality of theEU but what folk miss is that the EU and its outcomes are much bigger, and much longer term, than any individual player on its stage, whether that be Junker, May, or even Thatcher.

In reply to BnB:



I find this factoid interesting, as EU citizens were not allowed to vote in this referendum (unless they were also British citizens). Where did you hear it?

In reply to Lusk:




Apparently

In reply to pec:


Shhh, don't let the cat out of the scab.

In reply to Jim 1003:

"The leader of SNP in wanting independence shocker"

In reply to alastairmac:

Well said Alastair - Agree 100%

In reply to Jim 1003:

I don't trust Westminster, but I'm from Yorkshire. How I wonder can this trust be engendered? I am sick to death of being lied to by incompetent fools hell bent on progressing their personal life journeys. If I lived in Scotland I would vote out of the UK.