GrahamH wrote:

fisherman wrote:

Beatsong wrote:

I hope we come through this in the best possible shape, given where we are now.
I understand the enmity towards Johnson and Co. but if he will now push for staying in the EEA and free movement, or as close to what we have as possible, then that's a good thing and it's better not to cheer on the lynch mob.

It's "a good thing" in the sense that voting to stay in the EU would have been a good thing. But it raises the important question of why we've wasted so much fucking time and effort and grief, and given vent to forces of bigotry and hatred that would really be better left under wraps, when we're only going to be more or less where we were anyway and even the people who voted for Leave aren't going to get any of what they thought they were voting for.

Is there any basis for thinking it is better for the fractures in society to be kept under wraps? Isn’t it always better to know what the social divisions are front and center, warts and all? I thought, mistakenly perhaps, that the referendum had become a megaphone call for help by the castaways who’ve missed out on the globalisation/neo-liberal boat. The inequality and injustices this forum has been banging on about for years, yet successive governments have failed to address.

Maybe I am being naïve in thinking the issues now have a better chance of being identified and addressed than had the referendum not in fact happened.

Some fractures may be best covered up. It may be that most people are a little bit racist, but making that known probably doesn't help anyone while encouraging the real racists to vent openly. Problems that can be addressed are probably best exposed, but the intractable ones might be best left in the dark to wither, or tackled discretely.

As fisherman said, the real grievances of very many people are economic rather than racist, and this result has brought them dramatically into view.

Andrea Leadsom here. What the flying fuck.

Free trade with the EU will be in all our interests. But essential we agree free movement no longer applies to UK. Confident we can do this

So how does this go if a plan is put together, prior to Article 50 notice, and the people vote on it and reject it? They want Brexit, but not like that. Does that ballot have three option - yes (excute this plan), no (We don't like this plan), remain in EU (we give up, let's just stay in)?

How do people who really want to stay design an exit that will satisfy Leave voters?
Ho is any of this possible if we can't negotiate terms until Article 50 notice is given?

What a mess.

ronmcd wrote:Andrea Leadsom here. What the flying fuck.

Free trade with the EU will be in all our interests. But essential we agree free movement no longer applies to UK. Confident we can do this

What's that on her wall, a diploma from the Noel Edmunds school of Cosmic Ordering?

GrahamH wrote:

ronmcd wrote:Andrea Leadsom here. What the flying fuck.

Free trade with the EU will be in all our interests. But essential we agree free movement no longer applies to UK. Confident we can do this

What's that on her wall, a diploma from the Noel Edmunds school of Cosmic Ordering?

No, she's just someone who seems to have seized upon the fact that denying reality got the Leave campaign this far, and thinks it can take them all the way.

I'm thinking this entire spectacle is a rather good example of democracy in action. On Thursday most of the country voted peacefully, and ever since the metaphorical warfare has been uninhibited, with both major parties unseating their leaders, or trying to. Only one person's been shot so far, and everyone agreed it was a tragedy enacted by a nutter, and held off for 24 hours.

zoon wrote:I'm thinking this entire spectacle is a rather good example of democracy in action. On Thursday most of the country voted peacefully, and ever since the metaphorical warfare has been uninhibited, with both major parties unseating their leaders, or trying to. Only one person's been shot so far, and everyone agreed it was a tragedy enacted by a nutter, and held off for 24 hours.

This is a good example of lying politicians causing (if we're lucky) a short term meltdown through a combination of incompetence and self interest.

And somebody fucking died.

Matt_B wrote:

GrahamH wrote:

ronmcd wrote:Andrea Leadsom here. What the flying fuck.

Free trade with the EU will be in all our interests. But essential we agree free movement no longer applies to UK. Confident we can do this

What's that on her wall, a diploma from the Noel Edmunds school of Cosmic Ordering?

No, she's just someone who seems to have seized upon the fact that denying reality got the Leave campaign this far, and thinks it can take them all the way.

Too obscure? Sorry. reality denial was the point of my joke.

ronmcd wrote:

zoon wrote:I'm thinking this entire spectacle is a rather good example of democracy in action. On Thursday most of the country voted peacefully, and ever since the metaphorical warfare has been uninhibited, with both major parties unseating their leaders, or trying to. Only one person's been shot so far, and everyone agreed it was a tragedy enacted by a nutter, and held off for 24 hours.

This is a good example of lying politicians causing (if we're lucky) a short term meltdown through a combination of incompetence and self interest.

And somebody fucking died.

Certainly, I didn't mean to downplay the tragedy.

People lying for political reasons is something which I suspect strongly has been going on since before language evolved (see various books on the shenanigans of chimpanzee politics), language merely improves the efficiency, we're not going to see the end of it. Managing to have furious arguments about the fundamentals of government across an entire country without armed insurgency is more than would be probable in many countries even now.

GrahamH wrote:

Matt_B wrote:

GrahamH wrote:

ronmcd wrote:Andrea Leadsom here. What the flying fuck.

What's that on her wall, a diploma from the Noel Edmunds school of Cosmic Ordering?

No, she's just someone who seems to have seized upon the fact that denying reality got the Leave campaign this far, and thinks it can take them all the way.

Too obscure? Sorry. reality denial was the point of my joke.

Fair enough.

zoon wrote:

ronmcd wrote:

zoon wrote:I'm thinking this entire spectacle is a rather good example of democracy in action. On Thursday most of the country voted peacefully, and ever since the metaphorical warfare has been uninhibited, with both major parties unseating their leaders, or trying to. Only one person's been shot so far, and everyone agreed it was a tragedy enacted by a nutter, and held off for 24 hours.

This is a good example of lying politicians causing (if we're lucky) a short term meltdown through a combination of incompetence and self interest.

And somebody fucking died.

Certainly, I didn't mean to downplay the tragedy.

People lying for political reasons is something which I suspect strongly has been going on since before language evolved (see various books on the shenanigans of chimpanzee politics), language merely improves the efficiency, we're not going to see the end of it. Managing to have furious arguments about the fundamentals of government across an entire country without armed insurgency is more than would be probable in many countries even now.

Sure, I wasn't having a go at you. On lying, of course, but this is an epic clusterfuck, a confluence of incompetence dishonesty and self serving politics by some who lied about what would happen, and some who didnt even want the outcome and are shitting it now.

A clusterfuck. I'd love to see the Thick of It team dramatise the actual events, with the Thick of It actors. Just as it's happened. Award winning satire.

ronmcd wrote:Andrea Leadsom here. What the flying fuck.

Free trade with the EU will be in all our interests. But essential we agree free movement no longer applies to UK. Confident we can do this

I'm not sure of the intent of the statement, is she posturing in regard to the leadership elections or a cabinet position, rather than necessarily proposing a negotiating stance?

fisherman wrote:

ronmcd wrote:Andrea Leadsom here. What the flying fuck.

Free trade with the EU will be in all our interests. But essential we agree free movement no longer applies to UK. Confident we can do this

I'm not sure of the intent of the statement, is she posturing in regard to the leadership elections or a cabinet position, rather than necessarily proposing a negotiating stance?

Those two things aren't going to be possible. She's shitting herself, like Boris.

Not sure if this has been posted before but here's a link to House Of Lords EU Committee report on The process of withdrawing from the European Union.

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201516/ldselect/ldeucom/138/138.pdf

ronmcd wrote:

fisherman wrote:

ronmcd wrote:Andrea Leadsom here. What the flying fuck.

Free trade with the EU will be in all our interests. But essential we agree free movement no longer applies to UK. Confident we can do this

I'm not sure of the intent of the statement, is she posturing in regard to the leadership elections or a cabinet position, rather than necessarily proposing a negotiating stance?

Those two things aren't going to be possible. She's shitting herself, like Boris.

I agree, which is why I doubt it is a negotiating stance. They may be shitting it, but not enough to stop them, in Boris' case going for PM, or for the "rising star" in your quote chasing a cabinet post.

mrjonno wrote:There can only be one 'person of the year' this year and unfortunately its Nigel Farage, probably done more damage to the world than Hitler and Stalin combined

While I do understand the notion of blaming others for own failures, its 21st century and people can check validity of information presented to them. I would even say its their responsibility to check various sources, compare them, make semi-educated guesses and form own opinions. If it was I dunno 15th century were what people were told in Church was true I would be speaking differently.

However, since you mentioned it. Person of the year could be people of the UK as they certainly stir the shit up ;)

The referendum result tells us very little. It's a mandate, but for what? It merely asked if we should leave the EU or remain in the EU. That's it. Whatever bollox Gove or Johnson or Farage came out with there is no mandate for any of it. The ballot tells us nothing about attitudes to those issues. They had no authority to make pledges, no power to and no plans to deliver anything, and it's now plain they didn't intend anything they said to be taken as a pledge.

It Is impossible to give the people what they want because they haven't been asked what they want, and the one thing they did ask for doesn't give them what we suspect they may want.

Do MPs vote to deliver that one thing in whatever farcical form it can be delivered (as close to status quo as possible), and to hell with people's expectations?

The PM and MPs who approved the question, and the Electoral Commission who assessed the question seem to have given no thought to whether the question gives sufficient measure of voters' wishes that could mandate any actions to deliver those wishes.

None of the key issues of the Leave campaign automatically follow from leaving the EU. Is that a basis for a second referendum to ask the people what they actually want government to DO?

Matt_B wrote:

Thommo wrote:

Matt_B wrote:Absolutely, but if the best that British negotiators can come up with is that the country ends up internationally isolated and you can't so much as go for a winter sun holiday in Ibiza without an 18 month wait for a visa, and/or you've got to pay a £5000 import charge for your new Volkswagen, people might start to think that going ahead with it isn't such a smart idea; and for the government to blindly forge ahead thinking they've got to fulfil the referendum to the letter might indeed not be the best idea if they want to get re-elected.

Won't happen, we've already a mere couple of days on had more conciliatory statements from the chancellor of Germany than this. Incidentally Germany won't levy charges on us buying Volkswagens under any circumstance - trade tariffs are set by governments on imports, not their own exports (since the governments don't tend to like immediate riots). Any reciprocal tariff on imports imposed by the UK government is likely to match what people already pay on a Nissan or Daewoo.

Taking a less extreme variant of this circumstance (which is highly speculative), it's quite improbable that there will be a rerun of the referendum even so, there's a Tory majority and no reason aside from wishful thinking (which I can sympathise with) and a petition with the signatures of ~400,000 eligible voters to oppose it.

Yes, my examples were hyperbolic if that wasn't clear. Still, the point is really that, with UK relations with the other member states having been defined by the EU for the past forty years, there could be some very nasty surprises lurking if it's all got to be re-negotiated from scratch; and that's a possibility that's worth bearing in mind given the way that the EU is structured and the limited powers that the European Commission has to negotiate on behalf of the member states.

Anyway, I'm not expecting a re-run of the referendum in case that's not already clear. Rather, I'm just expressing the opinion that the mandate from it might run out of steam fairly quickly if negotiations hit such a major snag. The way I see it, people voted out to stick two fingers up at the EU and on the promise of a brighter future; if it turns out that the country is actually headed for oblivion - not that I'd necessarily see that happening - it really shouldn't take another public vote to put the brakes on the process.

That could well be right, but I think that's where the hyperbole clouds the issue and why I wanted to clarify that part of it. Oblivion (in this sense that it would surely cause a rethink on leaving the EU) is probably a very, very different thing than seeing any plausible level of tariffs on car imports from Germany and similar products.

Probably the most likely path to "oblivion" would be unemployment from new investment being directed elsewhere and businesses (chiefly those banks and the financial sector that a lot on the left want taxed into oblivion anyway) relocating staff and business to the EU to remain compliant with EU law (which requires banks to have headquarters in their area of primary operation as we may recall from the RBS furore in the Scotland referendum) and to retain full access to the free market.

Matt_B wrote:Absolutely, but if the best that British negotiators can come up with is that the country ends up internationally isolated and you can't so much as go for a winter sun holiday in Ibiza without an 18 month wait for a visa, and/or you've got to pay a £5000 import charge for your new Volkswagen, people might start to think that going ahead with it isn't such a smart idea; and for the government to blindly forge ahead thinking they've got to fulfil the referendum to the letter might indeed not be the best idea if they want to get re-elected.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and speculate that the majority of Leave voters are not so concerned about the price of new Volkswagens (or Porches). Surely they will all buy British.

zoon wrote:I think a poll has indicated 1.1 million people already regret voting leave, though I gather that wouldn't be enough to overturn the result.

Sounds hugely dubious, I found an indy article referring to this figure (and their coverage has been pretty damn biased to be honest), and even that acknowledged that this figure is an extrapolation from a typical poll sample size, on which basis around 700,000 also would be regretting their remain vote. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/po ... 05116.html

Extrapolation from a single poll of a few thousand is so much less meaningful than an actual referendum that saw more than 33 million people vote and needs to be taken with more than a pinch of salt.