The Politics Thread

[RonnieTodger]

boring hell

[Guest]

5 minutes ago, Mark_w said:

Two months of begrudgingly deciding between the Lib Dems and Labour followed by a miserable election. Great.

That is why She called it. There is no strong Labour or Lib dem candidate......And lets face it, who wants to have to negotiate brexit and possible war with NK ?

[foxy boxing]

If Labour had any sort of Leader, they would capitalize. But they don't so they won't. the SNP will become the official opoosition!

[ramboacdc]

13 minutes ago, Jon the Hat said:

Will be interesting to see how the SNP does.

they won all but 1 seat in scotland last time didn't they? 

[Jon the Hat]

Hey if the opposition cannot get themselves organised enough to have a credible leader, they don't deserve to have that title.  I would happily see a new partly emerge from the ashes of Labour and takeover that centre left ground.

[bovril]

23 Apr & 7 May - French presidential elections; 8 June - UK elections; 11 & 18 June - French parliamentary elections; 24 September - German parliamentary elections.

 

Should keep us entertained over the close season with no World Cup on.

[Jon the Hat]

Corbyn will allow a free vote on the bill tomorrow I guess, so this is not a done deal yet.

[EastAnglianFox]

 

[Harry - LCFC]

7 minutes ago, ramboacdc said:

can this have its own thread now? 

I agree!

[Alf Bentley]

46 minutes ago, Buce said:

Corbyn must want to go - agreeing to this is political suicide for the Labour Party.

 

Labour's 1983 manifesto was famously described as "the longest suicide note in history".

Corbyn's vote in favour of a snap election could be the shortest suicide note in history.

 

I always thought an early election had an obvious logic to it, in terms of narrow political advantage.

 

The only way I can see May NOT increasing her majority is if major events intervene - a massively adverse economic reaction or something.

I presume that the Tories will lose a few seats to the Lib Dems in strong Remain areas, but will win a lot more Labour marginals in the North and Midlands.

UKIP will probably do badly with the Tories implementing Brexit and that plank Nuttall in charge - and the SNP has no scope to win more seats, having all but 3 already. 

 

42 minutes ago, Buce said:

 

I'm guessing this is about a Hard Brexit - her majority is too slim as things stand.

 

Whatever, this is a disaster for the country - nothing good ever comes of a huge Tory majority.

 

Someone on News 24 made an interesting point about this - that a larger majority could actually help May to resist the real Hard Brexit ultras.

If she has her own mandate and a larger parliamentary majority, hardliners would have less power and she'd be able to compromise more with the EU.....depends on the attitudes of the new intake of MPs, I suppose 

[Izzy]

Can someone on here explain the difference between a soft Bexit and a hard Brexit in plain English to me please? Serious question. Thanks 

[Jon the Hat]

5 minutes ago, Izzy Muzzett said:

Can someone on here explain the difference between a soft Bexit and a hard Brexit in plain English to me please? Serious question. Thanks 

Easy, the so called soft brexit is in fact not apparently leaving, but pretending to.  Hard brexit is actually leaving the EU, but isn't hard because clearly we will continue to trade and have close ties with the EU, and anyone who doesn't agree this is necessary and a good thing really is a racist twat.

[Izzy]

9 minutes ago, Jon the Hat said:

Easy, the so called soft brexit is in fact not apparently leaving, but pretending to.  Hard brexit is actually leaving the EU, but isn't hard because clearly we will continue to trade and have close ties with the EU, and anyone who doesn't agree this is necessary and a good thing really is a racist twat.

Top man - I knew I could rely on you for a straight forward answer Jon. Cheers bud 

[Nick]

15 minutes ago, Jon the Hat said:

Easy, the so called soft brexit is in fact not apparently leaving, but pretending to.  Hard brexit is actually leaving the EU, but isn't hard because clearly we will continue to trade and have close ties with the EU, and anyone who doesn't agree this is necessary and a good thing really is a racist twat.

 

Hard Brexit produces a lot of known unknowns and as a result a lot of unknown unknowns. Its a risk. It might be brilliant. it might be catastrophic!

 

Hard Brexiteers I have no problem with - Hard Brexiteers who think its going to solve all immigration issues and involve hard core repatriation on some kind of mass scale and have voted for leave on the basis of this alone are deluded.

 

Looking forward to Lib Dem's announcement tomorrow that says vote for us and we will retract article 50 and not leave Europe.... there's 50% of the electoral vote right there!

 

[Alf Bentley]

1 hour ago, Izzy Muzzett said:

Can someone on here explain the difference between a soft Bexit and a hard Brexit in plain English to me please? Serious question. Thanks 

 

"Soft Bexit": David Beckham ceases to find Victoria sexually appealing, his love lies limp and he is shamefacedly compelled to withdraw from the chamber. 

 

Soft Brexit: We leave the EU but compromise so as to maintain competitive access to the market with which we do almost half our trade, to maintain good relations with our main geopolitical allies (thereby retaining global influence), to retain a stake in international projects in education, science, environment etc. Such compromises might involve staying in the European Economic Area (EEA) via the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) or some other arrangement, so that we enjoy similar terms to Norway or Switzerland. This would probably mean continuing to pay some (but less) cash to the EU, having some (but a bit less) influence in Europe and accepting freedom of movement (maybe with some reform).

 

Hard Brexit: We leave the EU and face tariffs and mountains of red tape, but that will have no impact on our competitiveness because.....well, the Germans need to sell us cars and the Italians wine, and anyway they're lily-livered foreigners whereas we are proud British bulldogs. Plus, we'll go back to the Commonwealth countries to rack up dozens of trade deals - the Kiwis want to sell us lamb and the Indians don't really mean it when they say they want much easier immigration for Indians in exchange for a trade deal. Likewise, the Chinese and Japanese weren't serious when they laughed at this idea. Plus, being isolated in Europe won't matter as in global politics, we'll have new mates like Trump, Putin and the Saudis, who will put our interests above their own. Best of all, we'll have "control" over immigration. The Govt has now made clear that immigration will remain high as we need all the foreigners due to us being too unskilled to do lots of tricky jobs (or too skinflint to train people) or too lazy to slave for peanuts in the potato fields and care homes. That's fine, though, as there was no xenophobia in the Brexit vote - Brexit voters will be quite happy to have millions more Pakistanis and Bangladeshis arriving, they just wanted to have control over those millions.

[Carl the Llama]

22 minutes ago, Alf Bentley said:

 

Is that a hint of sarcasm I detect? 

 

+1 for Bexit  

[Strokes]

27 minutes ago, Alf Bentley said:

 

"Soft Bexit": David Beckham ceases to find Victoria sexually appealing, his love lies limp and he is shamefacedly compelled to withdraw from the chamber. 

 

Soft Brexit: We leave the EU but compromise so as to maintain competitive access to the market with which we do almost half our trade, to maintain good relations with our main geopolitical allies (thereby retaining global influence), to retain a stake in international projects in education, science, environment etc. Such compromises might involve staying in the European Economic Area (EEA) via the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) or some other arrangement, so that we enjoy similar terms to Norway or Switzerland. This would probably mean continuing to pay some (but less) cash to the EU, having some (but a bit less) influence in Europe and accepting freedom of movement (maybe with some reform).

 

Hard Brexit: We leave the EU and face tariffs and mountains of red tape, but that will have no impact on our competitiveness because.....well, the Germans need to sell us cars and the Italians wine, and anyway they're lily-livered foreigners whereas we are proud British bulldogs. Plus, we'll go back to the Commonwealth countries to rack up dozens of trade deals - the Kiwis want to sell us lamb and the Indians don't really mean it when they say they want much easier immigration for Indians in exchange for a trade deal. Likewise, the Chinese and Japanese weren't serious when they laughed at this idea. Plus, being isolated in Europe won't matter as in global politics, we'll have new mates like Trump, Putin and the Saudis, who will put our interests above their own. Best of all, we'll have "control" over immigration. The Govt has now made clear that immigration will remain high as we need all the foreigners due to us being too unskilled to do lots of tricky jobs (or too skinflint to train people) or too lazy to slave for peanuts in the potato fields and care homes. That's fine, though, as there was no xenophobia in the Brexit vote - Brexit voters will be quite happy to have millions more Pakistanis and Bangladeshis arriving, they just wanted to have control over those millions.

It's not the skilled workers we (most) have a problem with, it's unskilled labour that needs controls. I'd be happy to see an increase in immigration if the majority were well educated and were walking into a job.