UK Politics Thread - read the rules before posting!

[Lynch04]

@RedWhippet

There was evidence that many people voted simply to “stick one to the man”. I.e. a protest vote against austerity that they had little idea what the consequences were.

There probably was. I will not try and argue against that.
My concern with your comment - and I accept this without any research for facts - is that it is cheap and false statement, one that has been almost accepted as true.

I will not adopt the naive, bordering on ignorant approach of a large proportion of Remain voters I have communicated with.
If people wanted to stick one to the man, it wasn’t against Austerity measures, otherwise, Leave voters would be mainly Labour voters.
People from both sides can argue that the opposite didn’t know what they were voting for and the stronger argument is that Leavers didn’t know what they were voting for. But isn’t that a no shit Sherlock moment? ignoring their reasons for voting, to Leave the EU was an unknown which could only ever be speculated - admittedly exaggerated at times, but on the other hand can someone tell me the positives of the remain campaign?

I voted to Leave, I didn’t do it off a grudge or a stick it to them, I tried my best to inform myself by listening to both sides of the argument. I voted the way I did because I believed it was a great opportunity for the Country to engage in a new era, with positivity.
Do you know the one thing no one informed me about, the one thing I didn’t know what I was voting for… it is the whole judgement/stereotyping/guilt tripping from a large portion of Remain voters.
What I find sad is that after 10 years there are people who still actively want Brexit to fail just so they can say ‘I told you so’. Why let it define you.

I will be honest and open. In 2016, I was suffering from depression and ended up moving back in with my parents. I am not proud of this but i am also not embarrassed.
10 years later, i have my own house, no credit cards or loans, a long term partner and a child on the way, a nice car and earn good money.
Most importantly I have my health, my mind, and good family and friends.

I accept not all people may be blessed with the same opportunities and support network that I had but my point is that the Brexit Vote/Tory Austerity/Covid/Ukraine War didn’t define me as a person, I got on with my life.
Maybe, the most negative fall out from Brexit is that it has given people, including the Government an excuse for their own failures/under achievement.

[Lynch04]

@LondonRich

Healy pledges growth….. how many times have we heard that from the last 10 Chancellors.

Healey says he’s also looking at national policy to create the right conditions for the private sector to flourish.

He says the UK has had one of lowest rates of investment in the G7 “for the last decade and a half” but that “real progress” has been made in last two years. “But we need to do more,” he says.

Because you put a tax on jobs, made employment laws crazy and generally thought profit was evil.

Obviously there was the standard lip service applied. The standard, rewording of a previous statement.
However, in Healy he at least sounds reassuring. I think he is a good appointment, although admittedly I haven’t had time to read through and question his CV

[LondonRich]

@Flobs

It’s not that profit is evil however that money going into the economy whether by development, job creation, investing and generally helping the economy is much better than it ‘stagnating’ as profit. At least for the country and the economy.

I was not suggesting sitting on it. Profit leads to investment. It leads to jobs. It leads to dividends that can help grow pension portfolios.

Of course it also leads to bonuses etc.

[Lynch04]

@RedWhippet

@Dane

There have been lots of well attended protests, but have the made any difference to the behaviour of Israel or treatment of Palestinians?

I don’t know whether it would provide an answer to this, but Alexei Sayle has recently published a book about his history of street demonstrations:

How I’ve Tried to Change the World by Alexei Sayle review – does protest make a difference? | Alexei Sayle | The Guardian

I have heard him talking about the Gaza protests. He has mentioned that he, and other Jewish protesters, have made a point of being visible at the front of these. Partly, this is to show solidarity, but also to make the point that the protests are not antisemitic in nature. (Although whether they still attract antisemitic elements is another matter).

A good read, I fondly remember him from the Young Ones. I actually had a job in Bristol not so long ago and went to see the house used for external filming.

The problem with protests is that there is an increasing minority that protest on pure hatred, rather than an actual point of view and additionally, the counter protests are guilty of the same. This is not singled to an ethnicity, faith, political party, environmentalist or even a union, it is the way society is sadly.

[Mascot]

@Lynch04

Do you know the one thing no one informed me about, the one thing I didn’t know what I was voting for… it is the whole judgement/stereotyping/guilt tripping from a large portion of Remain voters.

Well, I agree with the sentiment that you blame the conman and not the conned.

I think it’s undeniable that the vast majority of people who voted leave didn’t fully understand the impact leaving the EU would have. Is that a fairer way of putting it? Or they believed the porkies the leave campaign told them in the run up.

For example do you think people in general honestly understood that…

1. The peace deal in Northern Ireland was dependent on regulatory alignment between the EU (Republic of Ireland) and the UK (Northern Ireland)

2. The removal of frictionless trade between UK and EU would cost the economy billions a year and cause many small businesses to close.

3. The withdrawal from the Dublin Accord would mean an increase in irregular immigration and the creation of the ‘small boats problem’.

4. The loss of access to the European Crime Database would make it near impossible to identify criminals entering the UK.

5. The loss of free movement would lead to labour shortages in key industries.

6. That GDP would fall by about 6-8%

I’ll be honest with you. I didn’t understand all that stuff, and I couldn’t have told you those issues would follow as a logical consequence of leaving the EU. I don’t think most remain voters would. But I think I’m smart enough to recognise what I don’t know, and listen to the people who do. And the experts were all broadly in agreement that leaving the EU would be really bad news.

Personally I don’t think Brexit should have been put to the people in the terms it was. I agree with Thatcher when she argued that referendums were a really flawed way of governing. It was too complicated and had far too many downstream unforeseen issues.

There were hundreds of potential Brexits that people voted for, some far more reasonable sounding than others, so I think we can say with confidence that even if people knew what they were voting for, they definitely didn’t get what they thought they were voting for. YouGov thinks that only 35% of the UK would now vote to leave the EU, with 20% of leave voters having now changed their mind completely.

[Flobs]

Dividends is one of the problems it’s stagnant profit.
Then there’s what type of investment.
If a company is well run there shouldn’t be profits it all goes back into the economy, also bonuses, so that it’s not taxed.
Expansion, development, retooling, employing … These are the types of investment that are positive imo.
I know we are at different ends if the spectrum. Also that my view is scorned upon by the business and financial world however if you make profits use it constructively don’t let it stagnate in dividends, property investment where you sit on empty flats until the right price is reached …

[Limiescouse]

@Lynch04

If people wanted to stick one to the man, it wasn’t against Austerity measures, otherwise, Leave voters would be mainly Labour voters.

Any political theory is going to come up short if it requires voters voting in a way that aligns with the things they actually want and doing so in an informed manner.

[JU97ICE]

@Lynch04

Did the majority of electorate vote to reduce Britains wealth and standard of living in favour of Brexit? Or did they just vote for Brexit?

The “I didn’t know pulling out the boat bungs in shark-infested waters would mean I’d get eaten by sharks” argument.

An absolute classic.

[Lynch04]

@Mascot

There were hundreds of potential Brexits that people voted for, some far more reasonable sounding than others, so I think we can say with confidence that even if people knew what they were voting for, they definitely didn’t get what they thought they were voting for. YouGov thinks that only 35% of the UK would now vote to leave the EU, with 20% of leave voters having now changed their mind completely.

No, I do not believe people fully understood the implications of the vote. As I stated, the Leave campaign was speculative on what could happen, however, Remain did not provide a strong enough reason to vote stay.

In fact, how did Remain lose the referendum given that EU is this bastion of Economic Growth?

People don’t like change. Yet, the older generation, who have lived 20/30/40 years plus with the UK being part of the EU, a consistent way of life, still felt compelled to vote Leave.
Are they old and stupid or have they just had more exposure to the EU?

Some Cameron b/s about securing a good deal with the EU. Why did he feel obliged to go and negotiate a better deal? Was it because we were getting a crap deal in the first place? Oh the EU were more than compelling to engage positively!
Maybe the massive failure of Brexit was the UK government not going to the EU and saying, look lads we are leaving rather than play hardball give us a good deal that we can sell.

Tell me how many Remain sold the positives of staying in the EU? Or shall we just list the impacts of leaving, as a Country we would be condemned to International Isolation, was there some talk about an emergency budget?

Who was the Conman? Remain/Leave/Cameron the EU?
I was conned, I was conned into thinking that my vote would be treated with respect. That it would be honoured and that Parliament would work together to ensure that the UK got a good deal. That the EU would honour the agreement in good faith rather than try and screw the Country over, it could be argued that they tried to hinder and then muscle in on our Financial/service sector. I mean France were straight in on the UK’s Financial/Services sector offering Tax based incentives for people to relocate.

If history tells you anything, it is not to pay too much attention to YouGov. That complacency caught you out before. Whilst Reform hold a strong support with the electorate you can instantly dismiss the suggested 35%.
to in people who proclaim to have morale views, are 10 years in still resentful rather than move on, still blame demographics for the outcome.

[Lynch04]

@Limiescouse

Any political theory is going to come up short if it requires voters voting in a way that aligns with the things they actually want and doing so in an informed manner.

Is this a riddle

[Lynch04]

@JU97ICE

The “I didn’t know pulling out the boat bungs in shark-infested waters would mean I’d get eaten by sharks” argument.

An absolute classic.

lol, almost as classic as you quoting a small part of my post which completely removes the context of my response to another poster.
In fact I fail to understand how your response relates.

[Lynch04]

@JU97ICE

The “I didn’t know pulling out the boat bungs in shark-infested waters would mean I’d get eaten by sharks” argument.

An absolute classic.

To counter your statement and I really don’t know why I am getting drawn in. Maybe, I would like the decision to pull out the bungs in my boat, in shark infested waters to be my own. Instead of the decision being made by someone who knows nothing about my perilous situation…

[Arminius]

@Lynch04

I still disagree with the vote being purely on an economic basis. If you believed Osbourne, the UK would require an emergency budget, there would be a recession, etc. The leave party didn’t have a mandate and any terms had to be negotiated with the EU and voted through Parliament.

Labour Day weekend here, so not much access to answer this. I wasn’t suggesting that the universal motivation for voting to Leave (or Remain) was economic. People had many different reasons for their votes, some better than others, some more economic than others. But the near-term economic costs were an absolute certainty, the questions around the economics were how long it would take for Brexit to produce any benefit that would begin to offset those costs.

The best analogy I have heard is that the vote was a vote whether or not to go out into a rainstorm. Some people were convinced a short walk in the rain would lead to a sunnier day in greener fields, some people think the walk was in the wrong direction as it turned out. The one thing that no Leave voter can say though it that they did not vote to get wet.

As for France and Germany’s respective bond markets, all bond markets are seeing the same fundamental discomfort that is resulting in upward pressure on yields - it is just a question of how big that number is, which is turn a function of how a country’s finances are perceived. Germany’s yields are up about 40 basis points since early summer because a high degree of trust in the fiscal/economic structure. France has seen a 75 basis point move in about the same time frame.

That is actually worse than gilt has seen (35 points or so), but the critical point is that France remains well below gilt at around 4.25% - the UK was below France until Truss, and no UK government since has been able to repair that damage.

[Mascot]

@Lynch04

No, I do not believe people fully understood the implications of the vote. As I stated, the Leave campaign was speculative on what could happen, however, Remain did not provide a strong enough reason to vote stay.

In fact, how did Remain lose the referendum given that EU is this bastion of Economic Growth?

The remain campaign was complacent, lazy and poorly planned. It also fundamentally misunderstood the resentment in the nation that had been allowed to foster about the EU on the back of decades of mostly untruthful reporting in newspapers, and didn’t seem to release the advantage vote leave would have by simply lying its way through the campaign.

And, crucially, the political leaders of the remain campaign, being posh, closeted half-wits had no clue what thirty years of neoliberal economics had done to huge swathes of the country. So when offered a meaningful vote on leaving something that they had been told was the root cause of their hardship, of course they took it.

Basically Cameron called the referendum to try and lance the Eurosceptic boil in his own party, and thought it would be a doddle to win. He has a lot to answer for.

I obviously voted to remain, but that doesn’t mean I’ll defend the remain campaign which was staggeringly incompetent.

@Lynch04

That the EU would honour the agreement in good faith rather than try and screw the Country over, it could be argued that they tried to hinder and then muscle in on our Financial/service sector. I mean France were straight in on the UK’s Financial/Services sector offering Tax based incentives for people to relocate.

I’ve seen this line of argument before, and I just don’t know what you expected to happen. We were exiting the EU, and EU were negotiating the best deal for their member states. People seemed genuinely baffled that the EU would not be prioritising our interests in those negotiations. It’s like stopping your Netflix subscription and then wondering why you can’t watch Stranger Things anymore.

As soon as we voted to leave, and especially as it became apparent that we would be pursuing a hard exit, the EUs duty is to its members. We voted to go it alone.

Why shouldn’t France offer incentives to the financial industry to relocate? A major selling point in our offer to the financial services industry is that we are a gateway to Europe, and we voluntarily severed that connection. Ireland were doing exactly the same thing.

@Lynch04

If history tells you anything, it is not to pay too much attention to YouGov. That complacency caught you out before. Whilst Reform hold a strong support with the electorate you can instantly dismiss the suggested 35%.
to in people who proclaim to have morale views, are 10 years in still resentful rather than move on, still blame demographics for the outcome.

Reform hold the support of around 23% of the public. That does not contradict the idea that support for being outside the EU has collapsed to 35%.

[Mascot]

@Arminius

But the near-term economic costs were an absolute certainty, the questions around the economics were how long it would take for Brexit to produce any benefit that would begin to offset those costs.

However, I can say for absolutely certainty that those economic realities were dismissed by the Leave Campaign as ‘project fear’, and we were absolutely promised that there would be no economic downsides to leaving the EU. It was notable how many prominent leave voices immediately pivoted from ‘glorious sunny uplands with no downsides’ to ‘obviously there will some economic pain we’ll have to endure’ overnight. Almost as if they were lying or something.

I’m sure this is going to stretch your analogy to breaking point, but we were deciding whether to go for a walk the rain, while a bunch of posh boys, who had bet heavily on us getting really really wet and bought a load of umbrellas for themselves, were telling us “don’t worry about it - it wouldn’t dare rain on us - we’re British”

[Arminius]

Probably does stretch the analogy a bit, because I think much of British politics post-2016 has really been about the distribution of the resulting costs - which is where many voters have been faced with a rude awakening.

[Dane]

At least we’re allowed curved bananas now

[Lynch04]

@Mascot

The remain campaign was complacent, lazy and poorly planned. It also fundamentally misunderstood the resentment in the nation that had been allowed to foster about the EU on the back of decades of mostly untruthful reporting in newspapers, and didn’t seem to release the advantage vote leave would have by simply lying its way through the campaign.

I accept Vote Leave exaggerated on some of the advantages of Brexit and at times lied. It is not worth going through it again because it has happened.
But in the same sense you need to accept that Remain exaggerated some of the pitfalls of leaving and at times lied.
Further more, the EU exaggerated on potential consequences and at times lied.
Why is it so hard to understand and accept that all parties tried to influence the vote by all kind of methods.
So this resentment was fostered mostly by untruthful reporting in the Newspapers over previous decades. Is this an opinion or can you factually support this statement.
Have you ever contemplated that resentment may have fostered through other channels? Additionally, why do you have to define it as resentment? You continuously try to label, define peoples reasons for voting leave.

I wasn’t angry, bitter or believed I had been treated unfairly by the EU, as I have said before being part of the EU or not does not define me.

@Mascot

As soon as we voted to leave, and especially as it became apparent that we would be pursuing a hard exit, the EUs duty is to its members. We voted to go it alone.

Why shouldn’t France offer incentives to the financial industry to relocate? A major selling point in our offer to the financial services industry is that we are a gateway to Europe, and we voluntarily severed that connection. Ireland were doing exactly the same thing.

We were pursuing a hard Brexit? Why do you look at that as a negative and then justify the EU’s tough stance?
The UK’s Government’s duty is to its people and getting a good deal and yet it had to satisfy the back benchers first.
The EU’s duty is to its coffers, pure and simple. If its duty was to its members it wouldn’t dictate and almost bully the smaller countries to fall inline. Look at the bailouts? The interest imposed? France is currently breaking the EU’s financial rules but it’s okay.
We never voted to go it alone, we voted to leave the EU by invoking article 52 which was our legal right as part of a democratic agreement, yet it was hardly democratic. How dare we decide to make our own decisions, you will be punished for this.
If the EU really wanted to look after its members it would understand the importance of the spending of the British public.

Ireland were offering cheap Tax rules something you are happy to criticise when it suits your agenda. Allowing big companies to avoid paying the UK a true value.
Post Brexit shows that the UK has not severed its financial gateway to Europe. Even with incentives offered by other Countries, London still competes and trades places with New York.

Hang on, I am sure Vote Remain had a completely different forecast for us post Brexit….

@Mascot

Reform hold the support of around 23% of the public. That does not contradict the idea that support for being outside the EU has collapsed to 35%.

23% represents the latest “Poll Tracking” how did that workout in 2016?
Going by a similar search it is suggested that;

71% of reform voters oppose rejoining the EU, Tories 60%, Labour 15% and Greens 15%.

Irrelevant of the suggested percentage, it is quite clear that there is still a strong opposition to rejoining the EU.

To conclude, I only want what is best for the UK and its people. If there was another referendum vote tomorrow and there was a narrow rejoin win I would just get on with my life as usual. As long as I wake up every morning I am doing alright.
I certainly wouldn’t be wasting 10 years of my life being bitter.

[Lynch04]

@Dane

At least we’re allowed curved bananas now

Fuck, can I change my vote please

[RedWhippet]

I just noticed a series of stories on my Facebook feed about the RNLI. There’s nothing unusual about this. My brother has raised money for them and often posts photographs about their work on the Wirral coast.

However, it related to this:

Abuse of RNLI volunteers 'wholly unacceptable', chief says

Apparently, “protesters” are now blocking access to ports for the RNLI. It’s a clear violation of the Emergency Workers (Obstruction) Act, and given the online abuse, probably a violation of the Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Act as well.

I can’t see that there have been any arrests, and presumably the use of balaclavas prevents the use of video footage. It seems pretty pointless bringing in specific offences when they are not even prosecuted when the crimes are actually committed.