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Post by mrsonde on Mar 23, 2019 17:04:38 GMT 1
I stand by this. I believe in democracy. Anyone who opposes leaving the EU should have the minimal honour of stating openly that they do not.
Anyone who says we should have another referendum on the grounds that people didn't know what they were voting for, I say: neither did you, any more than you do now. All you're saying is: what you believe is more trustworthy and justified than what everyone who disagrees with you believe. That may or may not be so, but you're obliged to prove it. Prognostications of what you believe will happen in the future are not proof, they're not even evidence to buttress your case. And that case better be iron-solid and gold-plated for you to so brazenly subvert the principle of democracy.
Anyone who says May's deal is leaving the EU either does not understand the provisions of that legal treaty, or they're lying.
Anyone who says leaving the EU without a deal will be a catastrophe that they have a duty to prevent at all costs should state openly that they do not believe in democracy.
Then, from that basic starting point, we can have an honest argument.
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Post by alancalverd on Mar 27, 2019 1:26:10 GMT 1
It was pretty obvious what we were voting for. All that was on offer at the time of the referendum was continuing membership of the EU, or WTO trade rules and no EU oversight of UK legislation and justice. Nobody offered anything else, and the government had no mandate to negotiate anything else.
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Post by mrsonde on Mar 28, 2019 6:02:17 GMT 1
It was pretty obvious what we were voting for. All that was on offer at the time of the referendum was continuing membership of the EU, or WTO trade rules and no EU oversight of UK legislation and justice. Nobody offered anything else, and the government had no mandate to negotiate anything else. To be precise, what was on offer was continuing membership of the EU, or the cessation of it. In or Out. Obviously, if the vote were to be for Out, then the UK would negotiate with the EU for a trade deal - and join the WTO so that trade could continue and be renegotiated with the rest pf the world. Yes? We are agreed that at no point was it said, by anyone, that a vote to Leave would only be honoured provided the UK could negotiate a deal we liked? If that was what had been on offer, I presume the Leave vote would have been a landslide. Those are the facts of the matter - the promises made to the electorate at the time of the referendum (the only "promises" made, or could be made) which Parliament has now reneged on, and which every MP who has opposed leaving with "no deal" has utterly betrayed. Starting with Theresa May, who has quite incredibly tried to get this country to sign a binding International Treaty that would only allow us to leave if we could negotiate a trade deal that satisfies the EU, and leaves us in it, trapped in an indefinite "transition period", if it does not. I am very disappointed with Jacob, who until yesterday showed every sign that he fully understood this crucial latter point. Nothing has changed that negates or even ameliorates it, as Cox - to his great credit - made absolutely clear. He says he would now rather vote for May's deal rather than not leave the EU at all. But this contradicts everything he has previously argued - and very well argued. May's deal does not allow us to leave the EU - not even with an option equivalent to Article 50! We will, by law - superior to any law Parliament might pass - have to remain until the EU agrees to let us, and our ongoing fees, but without any vote or veto or very probably any rebate, to go our own way. Barnier and Ollie Robbins must have laughed themselves silly when they pulled that trick out of the hat. I have to say at this point that it is unclear to me whether May understood what they'd done, or even - after her own Attorney General has spelled it out to her - whether she even understands it now. She keeps saying that her deal guarantees both that we leave the EU and preserves the integrity of the UK, so either she doesn't understand it or she's lying through her teeth. The only way it can do both things is if the EU gets us to agree to a trade deal that they want, and says we can then leave. Otherwise we will have to say goodbye to N.Ireland as part of the sovereign UK - or, I suppose, the N.Irish could vote to say goodbye to the UK. I imagine that will happen sooner or later. merely as a demographic inevitability - this legal trap Barnier and Robbins (with the connivance of May - and most MPs - whether she fully grasps it or not) have cobbled together to fool the British public technically (that is to say, in reality) stays in force until 20XX - the end of the 21st century. By then Ireland will be unfied, I have no doubt - and we can go. But by then - will there be a Government in power that will choose to? Maybe, probably not - there'd doubtless be another referendum.
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Post by Progenitor A on Mar 28, 2019 10:48:30 GMT 1
A STRONG CASE FOR A 2ND REFERENDUM!! Remainers be careful with your wishes! As this Dominic Cummings article says, a 2nd referendum will only be marginally about the EU - it will be a exhaust funnel for the anger of the British people at the duplicity of the establishment, the incompetence of our MPs, the contempt shown to democracy. The article argues that the establishment and Remain will be demolished in a 2nd referendum I found it uncomfortable reading Judge for yourself blogs.spectator.co.uk/2019/03/the-erg-are-remains-useful-idiots/
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Post by jonjel on Mar 28, 2019 16:05:42 GMT 1
My lottery numbers did not come up so I am starting an on-line petition to have it re-drawn. .................
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Post by mrsonde on Mar 28, 2019 17:10:50 GMT 1
A STRONG CASE FOR A 2ND REFERENDUM!! Every campaigner for a second referendum that I've heard has made it ( sotto voce) clear that what they want is a binary choice between May's deal (or whatever cobbled together compromise might replace it) and Remain. An option for Leave on WTO terms ("managed", of course!) should not be on the paper, because, when pressed to invent a reason, "it would be catastrophic for the country, and Parliament has already ruled it out as a possibility". I agree that should there be a another plebiscite with a choice between Remain and Leave on WTO terms, or a multiple-choice ballot with a Leave on WTO terms on it, Leave on WTO terms would win very comfortably. This is largely because it's the most rational option, but also because it "will only be marginally about the EU - it will be a exhaust funnel for the anger of the British people at the duplicity of the establishment, the incompetence of our MPs, the contempt shown to democracy." This is why the Establishment, through the sock puppet of the Electoral Commission, will never allow it. I think between the lines it's clear that Cummings understands this. He doesn't really anticipate rallying forces to fight such a campaign. What he's anticipating is the shifting of the tectonic plates of the whole political substructure in this country. I agree - I think it is now too late for trust in the current system and both political parties (if the Tories have shot themselves in both feet, Labour have trumped them by including both arms) to be restored. But not faith in democracy - that is in our bones, which is why no amount of double-talking newspeak by the likes of Theresa May, Jeremy Corbyn or Alistair Campbell can conceal their contemptuous betrayal of it: the wound can't be plastered over or tut-tutted away, it's a savage and agonising amputation.
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Post by mrsonde on Mar 28, 2019 18:11:34 GMT 1
I see "the Baron option", leaving now with no deal, received only three Labour votes (along with 157 backbench Tories.) Mann, Skinner, and one other totally unwhippable rebel, I presume. The "Fysh option" (the Malthouse Compromise) - leave now but immediately negotiate a free trade agreement - only got three Labour votes too! Given that this was far and away the most rational choice, honouring both the referendum result and causing no conceivable damage to the economy or workers' rights or the integrity of the UK (as clearly indicated by the fact that the DUP supported it), this is quite astonishing.
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Post by alancalverd on Mar 30, 2019 8:57:15 GMT 1
As the Republic evolves from a theocracy, Northern Ireland becomes an evermore expensive and anachronistic embarrassment to the Tories, and the possibility of a meaningful Brexit disappears into the fog of Westminster, I can foresee a not-too-distant time when a democratic referendum unites Ireland as an independent republic within the Commonwealth, with 20th century laws and professional cricket. Having effortlessly changed its currency (twice in less than a century) road signage (once) and allegiance to the EU three times (twice in one parliamentary session, when the EU objected to an overwheming popular decision and told them to vote again)) the Republic has shown that pragmatism can indeed rule, so the absorption of a corrupt and incompetent neighbour should be no more of a problem than it was for West Germany.
At that point, the so-called "problem" of the border will disappear (not that it ever existed), our civilised neighbours can join the worldwide trading bloc that rescued Europe from destruction twice in a lifetime, and we can leave the EU to suppurate once again.
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Post by mrsonde on Mar 30, 2019 17:07:08 GMT 1
The Irish will never stand for professional cricket. It's not violent enough.
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Post by mrsonde on Mar 30, 2019 17:29:32 GMT 1
Interesting to see the protests on the border today, moaning hysterically about the "catastrophic" threat from no deal and no backstop, after recent revelations from both the Government and the EU have shown them to be completely unfounded. It quite definitively reveals the whole backstop issue was always nothing but a conjuror's misdirection of attention. When March 29th was still a feasible prospect, the Govt. announced that it would adopt a Free Trade Area in Ireland, indefinitely, until a EU wide free trade deal would one day arrive - the policy (though a somewhat more clumsy and impractical version, naturally) I suggested years ago should have been announced from the start. At about the same time Brussels and Dublin published their no deal plans which made it indisputable that no border controls would be imposed from their side either. The "backstop" notion is therefore definitively redundant - it is unnecessary, and it always was.
And yet the Irish are still protesting. So what on earth is it really about? Listen carefully to their moans and the answer is revealed at last - what they're really worried about are one, their potential loss of EU subsidies, and two, the perceived threat to their protected businesses from the loss of the common external tariff: "we don't want to be flooded with cheap foreign beef."
This rationale must be the solution to the deep mystery as to why MPs are so eager to support the Clarke option for joining the Customs Union, over the far more rational Fysh option of a Free Trade deal (which, according to a number of inside sources, including David Davis, was offered by Barnier at the start of the negotiations, and unilaterally out-of-hand rejected by May - why, ffs?!!).
By my memory, not a single Remainer or even opponent of May's deal has ever had the honesty or integrity to openly admit that this is the real reason for their intransigent opposition to the referendum result. Ever. Never heard this objection, openly and frankly stated. Has anyone else?
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Post by mrsonde on Mar 30, 2019 17:33:13 GMT 1
There are fascinating implications to this admission, finally being reluctantly brought out into the open - tbc.
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Post by mrsonde on Mar 31, 2019 2:18:03 GMT 1
The first question it raises is why the Remain side have been so silent about this underlying reason for their opposition - both to the referendum result, and May's deal. This is why I could never get a single answer out of Aqua as to why he was so fiercely against us leaving the EU. And why even now not a single MP - not even Clarke - openly admits this is their rationale, even now.
The obvious answer is that this rationale is indefensible, and were it to have ever been openly advanced it would easily have been defeated in even a short debate. Not only is it easily defeated - though to be sure it's a complicated issue - it would have also revealed to the populace exactly why the Remain case was being so stubbornly and destructively adhered to. And it's no prettier a picture now than it was back in the 1840s, during the Irish famine, when the question was definitively settled - albeit at the cost of tearing the Tory party apart, mass civil unrest, and a major political resettlement. The fundamental issue is the same as it was over the Corn Laws: its supporters in control of the Establishment and the levers of power, with the bulk of the country's wealth in their hands, greatly profiting from a protectionist system that kept those profits flowing thanks to the poor staying poor and their access to democratic influence as curtailed as possible.
And they're using the same fallacious reasoning to defend their power, wealth and privilege today! If we do away with the protections to our profits by opening us up to competition, we won't be able to afford to employ so many people and the poor will lose their jobs. They might be starving now, but at least they can work, thanks to us. And: if we can't sell our wheat and barley at a predictable profit, why would we bother planting crops and building our businesses? We won't risk it with such uncertainty, and the country will go to rack and ruin.
The decidedly emetic irony is that today the forces of organised labour are not rallying to overthrow this pernicious system, but doing everything they can to ensure it stays in place. In this country, at least. How has this "false consciousness" come about? One, the workers have been successfully bought off, with an ever-growing welfare system. They don't starve any longer, or get thrown out of their homes. (I warned you it was an emetic.) Two, these forces are organised, but it's not labour any longer that they represent. The majority of Labour voters are adamantly for Leave - with No Deal, if such that it must be. Not because they're stupid, racist, nationalist xenophobes. Because they're not stupid: their eyes are open, and they understand full well they're being screwed. The forces organised by "Labour" these days are the clerics. State employees, Unite and NUT members, middle class pseudo-intellectual Momentum activists. Now as then they have no interest in changing the system that has given them their power, wealth and privilege; in reducing the extent of the State; in giving working people greater spending power and choice; in undoing the rules and regulations that keep their house prices balooning and their positions guaranteed; in allowing natural socio-economically productive pressures for higher wages and working conditions from a "labour shortage" to ever develop - they're protected, thanks to this overarching labyrinthine State control, and the fact that their wealth is guaranteed to always be extracted from those that work.
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Post by alancalverd on Mar 31, 2019 14:18:09 GMT 1
The Irish will never stand for professional cricket. It's not violent enough. On the contrary, the All-Ireland team have thrashed Pakistan in a World Cup, to much rejoicing and streets flowing with Guinness. They have ICC Test and ODI rankings and some serious games to play this summer.
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Post by mrsonde on Mar 31, 2019 14:31:12 GMT 1
Anglo-Protestant gentry, I expect. The real Irish box in the street without gloves, or rules, play some version of hockey where you score points by cracking skulls and kneecaps, play a type of football with ambulances behind the goals (several of them, in case they lose their sense of direction) and undertakers come on at half-time to measure up, and rugby is considered too effete for real men to stoop to. They don't have playgrounds on their council estates, they have rodeos.
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Post by alancalverd on Mar 31, 2019 21:18:25 GMT 1
And: if we can't sell our wheat and barley at a predictable profit, why would we bother planting crops and building our businesses? We won't risk it with such uncertainty, and the country will go to rack and ruin. Reminds me of a farmer I heard a few years ago on "Farming Today" (Radio 4, half-past-sparrowfart or somewhere around dawn). Serious East Anglian mega-hectare "barley baron", explaining that he wasn't going to grow any arable stuff this year as the EU set-aside payments covered all his household bills and school fees "so why should I buy seed and hire labour and machines when a week of thunderstorms could wipe out all the profit?"
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