Politics Thread (encompassing Brexit) - 21 June 2017 onwards

[Heathrow fox]

4 hours ago, MattP said:

Just leave Merkel in charge of Germany with a European Commission enforcing migration and monetary policy on the poorer nations and it will happen naturally, no need for Bannon at all.

Another reason to leave the basket case EU.What would happen if the majority of the continent swung massively to the right.Another downturn when we havernt even got over the last one?Another wave of refugees.

 

A walk down your average small town high street today will show how great being in the EU really is.

 

For example,Bookies,Greggs,3 boarded up shops.Closed down Pound World,Lidl,Brighthouse furniture loan service.Another pawn shop.Going slightly upmarket here,Costa.Pound World+ but its having a closing down sale.3 more boarded up shops.

 

Cheap Weatherspoons style pub,with about twenty men and women too young to be retired drinking anything that’s £1.75.

 

How lucky we are to be in this great Union.

Edited 22 July 2018 by Heathrow fox
Unfinished

[Carl the Llama]

3 hours ago, Heathrow fox said:

Another reason to leave the basket case EU.What would happen if the majority of the continent swung massively to the right.Another downturn when we havernt even got over the last one?Another wave of refugees.

 

A walk down your average small town high street today will show how great being in the EU really is.

 

For example,Bookies,Greggs,3 boarded up shops.Closed down Pound World,Lidl,Brighthouse furniture loan service.Another pawn shop.Going slightly upmarket here,Costa.Pound World+ but its having a closing down sale.3 more boarded up shops.

 

Cheap Weatherspoons style pub,with about twenty men and women too young to be retired drinking anything that’s £1.75.

 

How lucky we are to be in this great Union.

 

You do understand the difference between the EU and the internet, right?

[Guest]

6 hours ago, Heathrow fox said:

Another reason to leave the basket case EU.What would happen if the majority of the continent swung massively to the right.Another downturn when we havernt even got over the last one?Another wave of refugees.

 

A walk down your average small town high street today will show how great being in the EU really is.

 

For example,Bookies,Greggs,3 boarded up shops.Closed down Pound World,Lidl,Brighthouse furniture loan service.Another pawn shop.Going slightly upmarket here,Costa.Pound World+ but its having a closing down sale.3 more boarded up shops.

 

Cheap Weatherspoons style pub,with about twenty men and women too young to be retired drinking anything that’s £1.75.

 

How lucky we are to be in this great Union.

 

Nothing to do with the EU and everything to do with our own politics.

[Guest MattP]

10 hours ago, leicsmac said:

Maybe so, but he'll certainly do his best to accelerate the process.

 

Honestly though, I can't get my head round the mentality of anyone who would want that kind of endgame. It means at the best quite serious social upheaval and at the worst a death count in the hundreds of thousands to millions (the likely outcome is probably somewhere between the two).

They probably don't see war as the endgame, if anything those prepared to vote for it see war as the endgame when Europe has such a divided culture.

 

I'd imagine most people are stuck in the middle, they don't want a completely monocultural white Europe but also don't millions upon millions of people from the rest of the World descending upon it.

[Heathrow fox]

29 minutes ago, toddybad said:

Nothing to do with the EU and everything to do with our own politics.

Yes that’s right austerity the EUs god.

[Heathrow fox]

10 hours ago, leicsmac said:

Maybe so, but he'll certainly do his best to accelerate the process.

 

Honestly though, I can't get my head round the mentality of anyone who would want that kind of endgame. It means at the best quite serious social upheaval and at the worst a death count in the hundreds of thousands to millions (the likely outcome is probably somewhere between the two).

I agree regarding the U.K. We have always swayed away from extremes.Mainland Europe though is very different,especially Eastern and Southern Europe where this make Germany wealthy scheme isn’t going so great.

[leicsmac]

1 hour ago, MattP said:

They probably don't see war as the endgame, if anything those prepared to vote for it see war as the endgame when Europe has such a divided culture.

 

I'd imagine most people are stuck in the middle, they don't want a completely monocultural white Europe but also don't millions upon millions of people from the rest of the World descending upon it.

I'm pretty sure the extreme nationalists (backed by Bannon) do - like I said, that's the only way they really get what they want (unless they just stick to enforcing an ethnostate with violence and no one tries to stop them) and their whole philosophy is based on proving that their race is the strongest/toughest/most deserving of survival, and such violent means are the natural extension of that.

 

Isolated monocultures (whether contained within states, tribes or whatever) have, during European (and world) history, almost always led to warfare - when you believe you are "different" from those humans over there, it's a short step to "special" and another short step to "superior" (whether those steps are intended or not intended), and human history as a whole is pretty clear on what comes next there. Division leads to mistrust, lack of communication and eventual conflict - I'm not sure how those who advocate for it can say otherwise with a straight face when history has shown them to be incorrect again and again.

 

I'd agree that most people are stuck in the middle, it has always been the very vocal minority pushing to this kind of extremes; however, again history shows that those in the middle have merely to do nothing for them to succeed.

 

54 minutes ago, Heathrow fox said:

I agree regarding the U.K. We have always swayed away from extremes.Mainland Europe though is very different,especially Eastern and Southern Europe where this make Germany wealthy scheme isn’t going so great.

I'd like to think the UK has been better than most at keeping views in extremis from the door, but that doesn't mean the UK shouldn't be vigiliant nor that if mainland Europe were to undergo those kind of drastic changes that it wouldn't affect us. The world is interconnected.

Edited 22 July 2018 by leicsmac

[Guest MattP]

6 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

Isolated monocultures (whether contained within states, tribes or whatever) have, during European (and world) history, almost always led to warfare - when you believe you are "different" from those humans over there, it's a short step to "special" and another short step to "superior" (whether those steps are intended or not intended), and human history as a whole is pretty clear on what comes next there. Division leads to mistrust, lack of communication and eventual conflict - I'm not sure how those who advocate for it can say otherwise with a straight face when history has shown them to be incorrect again and again.

 

I'd agree that most people are stuck in the middle, it has always been the very vocal minority pushing to this kind of extremes; however, again history shows that those in the middle have merely to do nothing for them to succeed.

 

Not sure that is true at all, from the history I've read most multicultural places throughout our time have had the most war divided on religious lines across the Middle East and Africa. 

 

I'm not sure it makes much difference to be honest.

[Guest MattP]

Sunday Times poll shows 38% of Brits would vote for a new party on the right that was committed to Brexit. 33% would back a centrist party committed to Brexit. 24% a far-right, anti-immigration, anti-Islam party.

[leicsmac]

12 minutes ago, MattP said:

Not sure that is true at all, from the history I've read most multicultural places throughout our time have had the most war divided on religious lines across the Middle East and Africa. 

 

I'm not sure it makes much difference to be honest.

Wars that were started by those living within a multiculture who wanted a monoculture - Christian, Islamic, Aryan, whatever. Almost every ideological war has been fought on the basis that we are somehow superior to them.

 

I think that this is naturally inclined to happen less when cultures are not isolated from one another and so can communicate easily with and learn from each other (that just seems like common sense to me) but who knows? Id have to do some more digging to prove that.

 

You might be right in that it makes little difference if cultures are separated on whether they fall out or not, but if that's the case then perhaps it's time to look at the cultures themselves and examine why most of them are inclined to be vicious cvnts to each other (and no, "what that one did years ago" isn't a justification when something has been going on for so long that the other side can say the same thing and you just go round and round, that's stupidity).

[leicsmac]

16 minutes ago, MattP said:

Sunday Times poll shows 38% of Brits would vote for a new party on the right that was committed to Brexit. 33% would back a centrist party committed to Brexit. 24% a far-right, anti-immigration, anti-Islam party.

 

This is what I mean. That 24% is easily enough to shape things as they desire if others do nothing.

[Guest MattP]

2 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

This is what I mean. That 24% is easily enough to shape things as they desire if others do nothing.

Or if others just carrying on doing what they are, we've already seen Germany end up with the hard right in opposition because the politicians went against what a considerable amount of the people in the country wanted.

[Heathrow fox]

Our political system makes it difficult for extremists to make headway.If Brexit was cancelled tomorrow there would be outrage lasting about a month.It would soon be moved of the main headlines though.

 

A lot of people simply wouldn’t vote again.Ukip would probably make a resurgence ,possibly under a new name and become the third party.However they would never be able to get enough MPs voted in to actually do anything.

 

The BNP and NF party’s would also increase there share but again nowhere near enough to make a difference.It depends how it goes with Mr Corbyn as to how the left would go.

 

[Sharpe's Fox]

The EU prefers neo-fascists to leftists because they don’t upset the economic order dictated to them by Capital. That’s why it will eventually fail. In 15 years 1 in 5 jobs we have now will not exist. The decision for the Commission then will be does it embrace the opportunities in terms of how the working class can free themselves from their labour or does it use fascist methods of population control and forced labour in some sort of warped rightist ideology? The EU’s pandering to the right and subjugation of the left will mean it makes the wrong decision. 

[davieG]

'RIP IT UP and START AGAIN!' Davis breaks silence with STUNNING Brexit advice for May - https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/992427/brexit-news-david-davis-theresa-may-chequer-white-paper-no-deal

 

 

'RIP IT UP and START AGAIN!' Davis breaks silence with STUNNING Brexit advice for May
DAVID DAVIS has urged the Prime Minister to tear up her Brexit White Paper and “start again” in an explosive interview in which he lays bare the inside story of Britain’s fraught negotiations with the EU.
By CAMILLA TOMINEY, POLITICAL EDITOR
PUBLISHED: 00:01, Sun, Jul 22, 2018 | UPDATED: 08:29, Sun, Jul 22, 2018
      
    
    
 
In his first newspaper interview since standing down as EU exit secretary, the Tory veteran reassures Sunday Express readers that it is not too late to save Brexit.

He calls on Theresa May to accelerate no-deal preparations, insisting leaving on World Trade Organisation terms is “not the end of the world”. With unprecedented candour, the former leadership contender lays bare the details of his short telephone conversation with the Prime Minister after his resignation and reveals how Doreen, his wife of 45 years, persuaded him to leave. Describing the Chequers compromise as “trapping Britain’s fingers in the mangle”, he claims the EU will agree to a better deal as it comes under increasing pressure from the other 27 member states in the autumn.

Unleashing an attack on the Treasury for orchestrating “Project Fear Mark III”, he lays into the Whitehall establishment, accusing it of believing in “nonsensical forecasts” and “patronising” voters.

Vowing to “fight very hard from the outside” for the Brexit 17.4 million people wanted, the former SAS-trained soldier believes the UK would vote 60-40 to leave if there was a second referendum tomorrow.

He also boasts that Dominic Raab, his successor at the Department for Exiting the European Union (Dexeu), is in constant contact, describing him as “my boy”.

In this political interview of the year, he reveals in his own words the inside story of Brexit and what really happened at that dramatic Chequers meeting.

Is the Brexit White Paper “dead”?

We’re going to have to do a reset and come back and look at it all again. What we mustn’t do is leave everything on the table and offer something else on top.

One of the traditional tactics of the EU is to say: “OK, but not enough” and pocket what they’ve already been given. We can’t allow that. We’ll have to say: “Sorry, if that deal’s not enough then it’s no longer available.”

I think when we get to the autumn, if we are in the situation where we don’t have any degree of agreement, we’re going to have to start again.

What should the Prime Minister do next?

I want the Prime Minister to publish a particular project. This was always in my mind as a reserve parachute, what we do if we don’t get a deal.

And basically what we do is take all of the deals that the European Union has struck with Canada, South Korea, South Africa, Switzerland, New Zealand – a whole series of them – and composite the best bits. From both sides, by the way, not just our side.

We produce a 40-page document but then get international lawyers to turn it into a treaty so it would go from 40 pages to hundreds and hundreds of pages, if not thousands.

So that’s on the shelf, come the autumn and if the current arrangements don’t work out, we say: “OK, we’ll retreat from that, we’re asking for a bit less, this is what we’re asking for, every single line of this has been given to somebody else in some treaty somewhere else in the world.”

So that’s what I would call Canada plus, plus, plus.

Because this is a thousand moving parts, it is impossible to tell you the individual way through, there will be half a dozen possibilities. People’s minds change in accordance with the pressure that’s put on them and the more high pressure the negotiation is, the more they’ll look around for other options.

Today, I wouldn’t expect the Government to be particularly welcoming of Canada plus, plus, plus – but I think, come the autumn, we’ll be in a different position.

Theresa May

David Davis calls on Theresa May to accelerate no-deal preparations (Image: GETTY)
It’s not too late but we’re going to have to fight very hard from outside to influence the way the Government goes

David Davis

Is it too late to save Brexit?

It’s not too late but we’re going to have to fight very hard from outside to influence the way the Government goes. Through September and October it’s going to be a very high intensity argument, I think. It’s a terribly self-serving comment but I am reminded of one letter I got from one of the whips commiserating, saying: “I’m very sorry you’re going, etc etc,” and lots of flattering stuff, but the last paragraph said: “But it strikes me you might be more powerful where you are than where you have been before.”

There’s a big hearts-and-minds exercise to do, both with the party in the House and other parties, the DUP, and the Labour members and so on.

At the end of the day, the most testing vote last week was in or out of the customs union and we won it on five votes, thanks to those Labour MPs – and that’s how tight the battle’s going to be.

One of the arguments put after my departure and Boris’s was, well they don’t have an alternative – which is sort of bonkers since we spent seven weeks creating the alternative.

I take the view that leaving on WTO terms will be uncomfortable in the short term but actually perfectly good in the long term – but all of the options, other than the Chequers one, are good in the long term and what we are arguing about is how much short-term discomfort you have.

Boris Johnson

Boris Johnson has resigned as Foreign Secretary (Image: GETTY)
Should we fear “no deal”?

It’s not the best outcome, although people get terribly frightened about it as if it’s the end of the world – it’s nothing like that.

You have the two extremes, you have the utopians and the dystopians. At one end you expect Mel Gibson to walk on stage, at the other it’s all fine, nothing will happen.

If we go to WTO it will be if the negotiations break down, so there will be a degree of hostility. You might see some quite deliberate problems but they won’t last for ever, they’re likely to last months rather than years. It could be weeks or months, who knows? But not very long is the answer.

Why do I say this? Well cast your mind back. What’s the indicator of the problem at Dover? It’s Operation Stack, lorries down the M20. The first thing that tells you is this is not a frictionless border – it gets problems for other reasons.

Sometimes the reasons have been quite long-lasting – 74 times in 20 years. So much for a frictionless border. The last big one was 2015 when there were 31 days of Operation Stack. Nobody liked it, no one would allow it to happen if you could avoid it but we managed to get past it. That’s the first thing to understand.

The people of Kent were quite properly in uproar but nevertheless, it didn’t bring the country to a halt.

Secondly, if this was done deliberately it would be a massive piece of self-harm because if you block the channel port one way, you block it both ways.

It’s a sort of continual circuit so from that point of view, it’s not likely to last very long because you are going to have French farmers in uproar.

The next thing to bear in mind, because people worry most about Dover, is that you can move up to 40 per cent of traffic to other ports. Zeebrugge, Antwerp, Rotterdam all want more trade and they are preparing for this already.

In this world of ours, people never seem to report Brexit good news. There was an NAO [National Audit Office] report recently that the customs software was all on target.

Chequers summit in pictures: Theresa May's big Brexit meeting
Fri, July 6, 2018
The Prime Minister gathered her cabinet together ahead of a crunch Brexit showdown at her country retreat at Chequers in Buckinghamshire
    
    
    
    

Are we prepared enough for no deal?

Not yet. They need to accelerate. In my view what is currently a “consult and cajole” operation has got to turn into a “command and control” system and I think you’ll see under Dominic [Raab] far more centralisation of control over the course of the summer with Dexeu taking the lead.

By the end of the summer it should be plain we are making proper preparations for this. Frankly if we get to October and it’s not looking good, we should accelerate again – more money, more resources and so on.

I think there’s a fair amount of fear of no deal around the EU. I’ve talked to the politicians in some of the major ports and they’re very concerned. Only this week, Xavier Bertrand, the man who runs Hauts-de-France, which includes Calais and Dunkirk, he said we have to get on with the bilateral planning and he’s saying to the [European] Commission: “You can’t stop us talking to the UK customs authorities any longer.”

So there’s pressure for that already. And I think if we get beyond October, other countries will start to really fear no deal. The Netherlands and Belgium and Ireland will all suffer really quite badly for different reasons. So they won’t want to do it, Sweden won’t want to do it, Spain won’t want to do it.

You go around and each of the member states have their own reasons and they are rational reasons, so I think the pressure on the negotiations will suddenly increase dramatically and the Commission will not be able to stick by its ideological lines.

So far, the Commission sticking by ideological lines hasn’t really cost them very much.

They think they’ve got their money, we think we’ve got our implementation period, we’ve got the citizenship issue sorted out but there’s been no threat to the countries.

If we get to the EU Council meeting and we haven’t got any progress, the threat of no deal will suddenly get very real and I think that’s the point where new ideas will play.

David Davis blasts EU for being 'slow and ineffective'
Play Video
Will the EU eventually do a deal with Britain?

Yes, eventually. But the countries will deal. The Commission will always be the hardliners in this exercise. We did an exercise in March where I did 18 countries in two weeks and it worked – it had an effect on the Council and you could see the results. I often tell the story – many years ago, when I was the Europe minister, there was one particular treaty change which nobody really liked, driven by the French and Germans.

I had the Spanish, Italian and the Danish foreign secretaries all saying to me: “David, you must veto this.” And I said: “Use your own bloody veto! Why should I veto it?” They all said: “You can stand up to the Franco-German axis, we can’t” and that used to be the issue, that France, Germany and the Commission were this sort of unbeatable trio.

We were the only people who would take them on. We’d use our veto and argue and people would sort of stand behind us. Now we’re not there to stand behind and some countries are beginning to become a bit more willing to talk about their own interests.

On the Northern Ireland border issue:

It’s not mythical but it’s certainly heavily misunderstood. The point that people forget is that there’s a border there already.

There’s a VAT border, there’s an excise border, there’s a currency border, there’s a legal border and it’s managed perfectly well as it stands by the Irish and the British customs and police authorities together.

One of the problems we have with the Commission is that they don’t trust anybody. It was one of the things that bridled with me early on when [EU negotiator Michel] Barnier said: “You have to earn trust.” And I thought, this country has been earning trust for a long time, it stands by its responsibilities more than most.

With a decent amount of interaction between our agencies and the Irish agencies, it’s manageable. The problem was that in December the Irish government insisted on this phrase “full alignment” and are now trying to use it as a lever.

Of course there are two understandings of full alignment. Our understanding is clear – it’s full alignment of outcomes. That doesn’t create a barrier down the Irish sea. What we can’t say suddenly is, “Oh, it’s going to be in the single market”. That’s an affront to the integrity to the Kingdom.

Dominic Raab

David Davis described Dominic Raab as "my boy" (Image: GETTY)
When did you decide to resign and what was the Prime Minister’s reaction?

She first told me about her plans on the Monday and I told her I didn’t think it was a good idea. I got a written copy about Wednesday lunchtime and fired off a letter back, going through why I thought it was not viable.

I don’t get angry. I’m not an emotional person on these things. I had won most of my arguments but this time I thought, “This can’t work. This can’t fly”.

Then we drafted my speech for Chequers, which started with the words, written across it in my handwriting: “I’m going to be the odd man out, Prime Minister”. I went through why it was wrong in my view, why it couldn’t work because of the phrase I use all the time: “It traps our fingers in the mangle.” And they’ll keep turning the mangle and we’ll never get out, we’ll never get away.

I’ve famously resigned twice, which is obviously excessive, but when I make a big decision I always put two days’ cooling off period in my own mind. So I slept on it for two nights. When I resigned over the civil liberties, the 42 days, I spent a whole weekend sitting in the drawing room of my house in Yorkshire, playing Mozart and drawing out all the possible outcomes, you know, like logic trees on a big piece of paper.

There was nothing quite so complicated needed for this. I didn’t do logic trees for this, it wasn’t necessary. The big things in my mind were: “One: can I stand at the despatch box and say this? And tell the truth?” And the answer’s no. Another thing was: “Other people are depending on my judgment on this.”

I talked it over with my wife and her advice was: “Leave.” Mind you, she’s had to put up with the workload and the absence really.

I don’t talk politics at home much but I did about this. I talked to her, I talked to my chairman on the phone because he was abroad and I talked to my president. I spent an hour with him going through the permutations and he just said: “I’m surprised you waited this long.”

I spoke to the Prime Minister late on Sunday night. She said she was disappointed. She said that twice. It was quite a short conversation really, there was no point stringing it out.

Philip Hammond

Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond (Image: GETTY)
Were you relieved?

No, no, no. Although there was a series of internal battles about things, I stuck with it for so long because it’s an incredibly important task.

Who was the biggest thorn in your side, civil servant Olly Robbins or Chancellor Philip Hammond?

Well I don’t think of it that way. You’ve got a Whitehall establishment which putting it mildly, is not an enthusiast for the project. And certainly at the Treasury, which believes all these nonsensical forecasts. Project Fear Mark III, I think it is now.

The Treasury in total believes this stuff and I don’t. I simply think this is mathematical mumbo jumbo.

These are the forecasts which didn’t foresee the banking crisis, that got completely wrong the effect of the referendum.

If you believe the forecasts you tend to get rather frightened of this or that outcome. I think they’re too mechanistic and don’t take into account the way people behave.

You hear a lot of businesses complaining. Fair enough, they’ve got their issues to defend, but a lot are saying: “Where are the opportunities in this, where are we going? Where’s our next export market?” And you can’t model that. You can’t even guess it, frankly.

So you’ve got inevitably a civil service and some of the ministers as well whose primary instinct is to defend what we have. But if we’d spent the last 10 centuries of our history defending what we have, we’d be a very much poorer country if that precludes things that can make us into a great country. We’re going to have a massive growth in services, we are one of the world’s lead service exporters.

Under the Chequers proposal, the rules for those things are going to be written in Brussels. How can you have the rules for your best industries, your future, your champions, written somewhere else?

And how will they write those rules? Well go ask James Dyson. They wrote the rules deliberately to disadvantage him.

Or go and ask the somebody who has got a diesel car that’s not worth very much now because they rigged the rules to suit the German car industry.

Michel Barnier: We need to be prepared for Brexit no deal
Play Video
Do you want to be the next PM?

I’ve just given up my job, I don’t want another one! We’ve got to get through the next six months, we don’t have time for a leadership contest.

You were accused of being “asleep at the wheel”, “not across the detail” and “lazy”:

Ha! They should talk to my wife!

On Dominic Raab, his successor as Brexit Secretary:

We’ve obviously had conversations. Bear in mind I recruited him into politics in the first place. He’s my boy, as it were and he’s doing the right things.

He’s very clever but he’s also very tough. He’s the best possible replacement for me.

On the PM:

Much more than her predecessor, she takes Cabinet government really seriously – but we’ve got a Cabinet that’s three-quarters Remain.

I actually think she’s a good Prime Minister, she’s well intentioned. When we’ve got a decision or an issue to deal with, she takes her time over it, she reads all the papers, she takes all of the views, consults with everybody and then makes a decision.

The problem with this issue is it’s so complex you’re going to have to trust somebody’s judgment and she chose to trust somebody’s judgment other than mine.

Theresa May meets Angela Merkel at Western Balkans Summit
Tue, July 10, 2018
Theresa May laughed with Angela Merkel after meeting the German chancellor only hours after Brexit chaos resignations
    
    
    
    

On Boris:

He uses more flowery language than me but he makes the same point. I’ve no idea [if I could back him again]. I did last time. He was the person who I gave my first support for and I was very disappointed when he didn’t run. With a bit of luck, it will be after I’m gone. I intend to stand at the next election, but who knows?

On Michael Gove’s theory that he can “rescue” Brexit in March:

I think it misses the fundamental point which is the Union always uses the agreements it has to expand, not reduce, its power.

If you are a subscriber to “get it done, then fix it later”, what you are really subscribing to is fixing it in 20 years time when the amount of trade we do with Europe is so small it won’t matter any more.

In 20 years we’ll be down to 20 per cent trade with Europe but I didn’t sign up to this to create a 20-year timetable of exit. In a way it’s a self-deception – it’s people trying to rewrite their bit of history to make it sound better than it is.

Michael Gove

David Davis commented on Michael Gove’s theory that he can “rescue” Brexit in March (Image: GETTY)
On the Remain campaign to reverse the referendum result:

All that continued assault on the outcome is just bogus, patronising nonsense, it really is. And that’s why I think they’ve lost a chunk of the pragmatic Remainer vote.

About a month ago I went for a bicycle ride into Selby, not very far from me. There was a man running, doing his exercise. I stopped to check where I was and he said: “Are you who I think you are?” And I said: “Probably”. He said: “Well, good luck, I’m a Remainer and I cannot stand the way that some of the Remainers are behaving.

“London Remainers are so patronising about us, as though somehow we’ve got a lower IQ than them.”

If there was another referendum tomorrow, would Leave win?

I think they would. I think it would be about 60-40 and there are a number of reasons for it.

Number one, the behaviour of the Commission. One of the tactics I adopted was to be as reasonable as possible, just to make plain we’re not the ones causing trouble. That’s come across.

The second reason is the pragmatic Remainers who don’t like the behaviour of attempting to reverse the referendum. The third... a recent survey saying something like 51 per cent wanted a no deal. This is a sort of annoyance, a “Who do you think you are?” type response.

The trouble with having a second referendum is that it changes the negotiating dynamic, it makes the other side want to give us a harder deal so we’ll stay in.

[Alf Bentley]

8 hours ago, Heathrow fox said:

Another reason to leave the basket case EU.What would happen if the majority of the continent swung massively to the right.Another downturn when we havernt even got over the last one?Another wave of refugees.

 

A walk down your average small town high street today will show how great being in the EU really is.

 

For example,Bookies,Greggs,3 boarded up shops.Closed down Pound World,Lidl,Brighthouse furniture loan service.Another pawn shop.Going slightly upmarket here,Costa.Pound World+ but its having a closing down sale.3 more boarded up shops.

 

Cheap Weatherspoons style pub,with about twenty men and women too young to be retired drinking anything that’s £1.75.

 

How lucky we are to be in this great Union.

 

 

Does the EU control rents on the British high street? Does the EU control the development of out-of-town retail parks in the UK? Does the EU make people shop on Amazon?

 

Here's a report saying that, of the 36 OECD countries, the UK ranks 6th for income inequality. In Europe, after redistribution, the UK ranks 3rd for income inequality: 

http://uk.businessinsider.com/the-8-major-economies-with-most-inequality-2017-8/#8-lithuania-035-1

Inequality has increased in most countries, but is particularly high in the UK. Did the EU order us to do that? If so, why do most EU countries have less inequality (though still too much)?

 

One of the countries that ranks higher for inequality is the USA. Do you not think there are city centres like the ones you describe in the USA? Try this re. Detroit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decline_of_Detroit

 

Given that issues like income inequality, commercial rents and out-of-town planning are controlled more by the UK than the EU, I could be flippant and say that your conclusion should be: "Another reason to leave the basket case UK". 

 

But it's obvious that there are factors at play that are much bigger than the UK or the EU - even if the UK has had a national preference for inequality, high rental income for capital, under-investment in local development etc.

Factors range from the globalization of the capitalist economy through the shift of much manufacturing to countries with cheaper labour/land to Internet retail.

 

The question is what we do in response. Obviously we can get all nationalistic, say we can do better on our own and blame foreigners for our problems, be that the EU, immigrants or refugees. 

But that won't bring manufacturers or jobs back from E. Europe, Asia or wherever. Nor will it stop people buying stuff from Amazon.

Alternatively, maybe it would be a good idea to develop a political response to globalisation and to the shift to online retail. Alternative development of city centres and the proper taxation of internet retailers could be part of the response....though the latter would require international cooperation. The UK is too small to legislate for or bargain with global capital on its own. As for globalisation, the old industrial jobs aren't going to easily come back to the UK - indeed parts of the service sector are also now moving to lower-cost nations. Investing in the development of new skills and new high-tech industries might form part of a response. So might reducing inequality and redistributing wealth. So might policies to reduce the costs of buying/renting land or buildings - both for businesses and for the public....thereby allowing people to work fewer hours. But, of course, all that involves battling the power of big capital to some extent - and that's a lot harder to do as an island nation / middle-sized economy than as part of the world's most powerful bloc (albeit that the EU is far too in thrall to global capital - though not as much as the UK!).

 

But, hey, let's blame refugees! There cannot be "another wave of refugees" in the UK as there has only been the tiniest trickle so far. If you're in Germany, you might be able to talk of a "wave", but not here.

There has been a wave of economic migration, both from the EU and from outside - ongoing for at least 15 years now. There can be arguments about the pros and cons of that (and I accept the need for greater control over the terms of entry into the UK job market re. pay/conditions). But, as we have an aging population, a shortage of many skills and a shortage of people prepared to do unpleasant manual work, we might find that there are more pros to economic immigration than we thought....

[Heathrow fox]

Freedom of movement equals higher rent and lower wages.The race to the bottom,We all

end up shopping at Poundland.Which bit do you not understand.

[Buce]

7 minutes ago, Heathrow fox said:

Freedom of movement equals higher rent and lower wages.The race to the bottom,We all

end up shopping at Poundland.Which bit do you not understand.

4

 

Let's hope they're doing better than their competitors:

END of Poundworld! High St giant closing ALL stores by THIS date

THE once-great Brit High Street has just lost another big name – with Poundworld announcing it is now shutting all of its stores.

https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/717590/Poundworld-closures-closing-which-stores-full-list-retail-news-High-Street

Edited 22 July 2018 by Buce

[Alf Bentley]

16 minutes ago, Heathrow fox said:

Freedom of movement equals higher rent and lower wages.The race to the bottom,We all

end up shopping at Poundland.Which bit do you not understand.

 

Ah! A new theory of economics that does away with supply and demand! So the selling-off and non-replacement of council housing stock has had no impact on supply, and nor has historically low levels of house-building. Meanwhile, the widely publicised proliferation of single-person households has had no impact on demand. It's all down to them foreigners!  

 

Meanwhile, neither the impact of work shifting to low-cost economies nor outsourcing nor the decimation of unions nor zero-hours contracts have had any impact on wages.

 

Also, if it's all down to freedom of movement, how has that caused skyrocketing commercial rents? Is it all those Polish supermarkets pushing shop rents up? 

Then, of course, there's nothing that the UK Govt can do about any of this - despite it coming within their political remit. It's all down to those foreigners in Brussels!

 

Meanwhile, income inequality has grown massively, as has executive pay.....yet we're all going to be shopping at Poundland, apparently. Honestly, sir, you are a great comedian! 

 

Meanwhile, here are a few of my earlier questions that you chose to ignore....

 

22 minutes ago, Alf Bentley said:

 

Does the EU control rents on the British high street?

 

Does the EU control the development of out-of-town retail parks in the UK?

 

Does the EU make people shop on Amazon?

 

In Europe, the UK ranks 3rd for income inequality. Did the EU order us to do that? If so, why do most EU countries have less inequality (though still too much)?

 

One of the countries that ranks higher for inequality is the USA. Do you not think there are city centres like the ones you describe in the USA?

 

[purpleronnie]

I'm  bit behind the times, just read Tim Farron and Vince Cable didn't turn up to vote, would have made things interesting.

 

What a pair of wallies.

Edited 22 July 2018 by purpleronnie

[Webbo]

9 minutes ago, Alf Bentley said:

 

Ah! A new theory of economics that does away with supply and demand! So the selling-off and non-replacement of council housing stock has had no impact on supply, ..

 

 

As long as they are still houses, no.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Heathrow fox said:

Freedom of movement equals higher rent and lower wages.The race to the bottom,We all

end up shopping at Poundland.Which bit do you not understand.

Only because the government sold off social housing and underspent on infrastructure across 90% of the country. If capital spending had been fair across the nation economic migration would be seen as the positive it is. Your world view is far too simplistic.

[Guest]

It should be noted that vote leave campaigned to continue in EU science circles until 2020.

 

[Heathrow fox]

We have had 

49 minutes ago, Alf Bentley said:

 

Ah! A new theory of economics that does away with supply and demand! So the selling-off and non-replacement of council housing stock has had no impact on supply, and nor has historically low levels of house-building. Meanwhile, the widely publicised proliferation of single-person households has had no impact on demand. It's all down to them foreigners!  

 

Meanwhile, neither the impact of work shifting to low-cost economies nor outsourcing nor the decimation of unions nor zero-hours contracts have had any impact on wages.

 

Also, if it's all down to freedom of movement, how has that caused skyrocketing commercial rents? Is it all those Polish supermarkets pushing shop rents up? 

Then, of course, there's nothing that the UK Govt can do about any of this - despite it coming within their political remit. It's all down to those foreigners in Brussels!

 

Meanwhile, income inequality has grown massively, as has executive pay.....yet we're all going to be shopping at Poundland, apparently. Honestly, sir, you are a great comedian! 

 

Meanwhile, here are a few of my earlier questions that you chose to ignore....

 

 

We have had the best part of 40 years of pro neo liberal,pro globalisation,anti union anti working class government.All major principals of the EU.Why on earth would they want to

build cheap affordable housing.

 

So therefore we are stuck with the situation of more people higher rent.My high street point was to point out the utter bleakness of our society.Amazon about sums up everything that is wrong with the world.Amazon the EUs dream

 

The EU does nothing to help or protect the working class.The gap in pay is mostly down to our only industry these days.Moving make believe money around the markets.

[bovril]

6 minutes ago, Heathrow fox said:

We have had 

We have had the best part of 40 years of pro neo liberal,pro globalisation,anti union anti working class government.All major principals of the EU.Why on earth would they want to

build cheap affordable housing.

 

So therefore we are stuck with the situation of more people higher rent.My high street point was to point out the utter bleakness of our society.Amazon about sums up everything that is wrong with the world.Amazon the EUs dream

 

The EU does nothing to help or protect the working class.The gap in pay is mostly down to our only industry these days.Moving make believe money around the markets.

Hoping to end neo-liberal, pro-globalisation policies simply by voting out of the EU is like turning your tap off in the middle of a flood.