Britain outside the EU

[Mad Max]

Originally Posted by ianch99

You mean 37% of the electorate did not buy the Remain campaign? And there is lies the only point that matters here: yes, Leave lied on an industrial scale, yes, they broke the law, yes, they had the majority of the MSM behind them pumping out decades of false propaganda as a backdrop to the voting decision, but here lies the rub: any decision that changes the macro economic & political destiny of a country for generations to come can not be made on the basis on a vote of just over a 1/3 of the electorate.

Just because it was legal does not make it democratic. No-one on the political right side of this forum except you are willing to address & discuss the mistakes that led us to this debacle.

Again just to be clear here: the Leave campaign made promises that could never be kept and history has and will demonstrate this. This is now a case of damage limitation. It was not Boris that betrayed the magic Brexit fantasy, it was never there in the first place.

Gravity is everything in world trade and we have chosen to establish a punitive trade barrier with the EU, as was forecast, and so all else follows from this. We are a trading nation, it's obvious. The snake oil salemen who sell the sunlit uplands based on deals on the other side of the world are fantasists. With climate change, transport costs will sky rocket and so closer deals made more economic sense.

That isn't the fault of those who voted to leave surely, the ones that didn't vote and who could obviously have made a difference to the outcome are the ones to blame.

We have never dallied with compulsory voting in this country because we believe in the right of an individual to abstain - and an abstention must always mean abstention; it cannot and must not be co-opted as tacit support for one side or another.

This is the point at which it’s safe to just stop listening to any remainer who wishes to deliver lectures about democracy whilst attempting to steal the support of those who exercised their right not to vote.

[Mad Max]

Originally Posted by Chris

We have never dallied with compulsory voting in this country because we believe in the right of an individual to abstain - and an abstention must always mean abstention; it cannot and must not be co-opted as tacit support for one side or another.

This is the point at which it’s safe to just stop listening to any remainer who wishes to deliver lectures about democracy whilst attempting to steal the support of those who exercised their right not to vote.

Well said.

[roughbeast]

Originally Posted by Sephiroth

Before giving my opinion (for what it's worth) on the un-snipped part of your post, I'd just like to take you up on the selected paragraph and sentence.

The so-called "status quo" was the big issue. With the EU, there is no "status quo". Each successive Commission President has vowed to extend the Commission's competences (or at least try to do that). In the case of VdL, she set her sights on competence over foreign policy. Bit by bit, the EU is trying to federalise - and where would that have left the EU? Sure, they'd want our money, so we'd be on the outside, perhaps with a few other nations. Obviously I can see a path where the UK's veto could prevent all this, but could I guarantee that our PM would exercise such a veto? Indeed, I'm convinced that Cameron was pro-Remain because he wanted to stay at the European top table - the big man. Add to that the supremacy of the ECR, the supporters of Leave had no doubt as to how they should vote.

The EEA possibility had merit in trade terms though less so in terms taking rules from the EU. You're right, this and other Leave alternatives were not proposed in the Referendum. But the complexity of such a referendum, and the series of referendums that the method would spawn could only lead to a Remain decision, imo.

Has Cameron & co been smart enough, the might have been able to engineer this. But public opinion could have erupted, egged on by an ever more popular Farage (a great man, btw) - so a binary referendum it was.

It now falls to business to forge ahead.

You raised numerous issues with few words, some well rehearsed and refutable, but others mistaken and laughable. Forgive me.

1. Yes, there were a minority of voices, some influential, who were federalist, but every single one of the 27 EU nations, including the homelands of those voices, were and are against the proposition of a United States of Europe. It would have taken generations for all those veto wielding 27 nations and their populations to convert to the idea of an EU state. Effectively, this was part of Leave's very own Project Fear, as was the unlikely accession of Turkey, an EU army, a German NAZI-style takeover and the infamous Tipping Point poster summatively encapsulating the threat of brown Kalashnikov-bearing hordes invading our civilisation in order to rape our women and girls! Yes! Farage, the 'Great Man' stooped that low!

2) Great men never use crude stereotypical photo-shopped images of brown, male refugees to trigger homegrown racists. Diminutive losers with toothbrush moustaches, a side parting and a massive chip on their shoulders do. Neither do great men entice the gullible with cuddly fantasies, such as an EEA Brexit, when they themselves have their sights on a much harsher reality. Here is a plausible Farage, the genius communicator, lying through his teeth to entrap the Leave waverers. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtNr...ab_channel=LBC

3) Knowledge is good, Complexity is good, if it results in more choices. Time to reflect is good, if you want people to engage their intellect, rather than their emotions, in a big generational decision. All this is good. If the referendum had featured these things I would not be complaining so much, whatever the outcome. But it didn't. I find it very telling that you believe that extended choices, enhanced knowledge, opportunity to engage our intellects and time to reflect would have resulted in a Remain decision.

4) Yes, business will attempt to forge ahead. Rees-Mogg believes it will take up to 50 years for business to reap all the benefits of Brexit and for all the human cost, pain and damage caused by the transition to be deemed worthwhile. He won't care whether this happens or not, because he and his class are immune from the fallout, as are the billionaire owners of the Tory rags that conspired against the EU and conspired to misinform us all. In 50 years Mogg and I will be dead, my children dead or elderly and my grandchildren middle aged. I hope you can wait for the results of that shabby referendum to come to pass.

[Sephiroth]

Originally Posted by roughbeast

<snip>
I hope you can wait for the results of that shabby referendum to come to pass.

We've both said our pieces so I won't ping-pong with as some people (!) do.

But "shabby referendum"? You've explained your viewpoint in some detail and, indeed, there's logic to it if we lived under different democratic rules. Your remark is nothing more than a Remainer's whinge. Sorry.

[roughbeast]

Originally Posted by Sephiroth

We've both said our pieces so I won't ping-pong with as some people (!) do.

But "shabby referendum"? You've explained your viewpoint in some detail and, indeed, there's logic to it if we lived under different democratic rules. Your remark is nothing more than a Remainer's whinge. Sorry.

I'm disappointed in your response Seph. Dismissing my contribution as a Remainer's whinge is a cop out. I use true fact as rationally as I can, and in some detail, because this subject doesn't deserve the intellectual laziness you just now deployed. Patriots cannot stand by and watch our country go down without comment and recommendations for the future.

[pip08456]

I would not be complaining (whinging). Oooops.

[roughbeast]

Originally Posted by pip08456

I would not be complaining (whinging). Oooops.

Complain: express dissatisfaction or annoyance about something.

Whinge: complain persistently and in a peevish or irritating way.

I would like to think that my complaining has been persistent only because the subject of my complaints is perennial and only those who disagree with me might find it irritating. Peevish? I am incandescent!

[Jaymoss]

Originally Posted by roughbeast

I'm disappointed in your response Seph. Dismissing my contribution as a Remainer's whinge is a cop out. I use true fact as rationally as I can, and in some detail, because this subject doesn't deserve the intellectual laziness you just now deployed. Patriots cannot stand by and watch our country go down without comment and recommendations for the future.

Are you an activist? do you go out and protest your beliefs? Or do you think as a Patriot you do enough by discussing your beliefs on a technical based forum? If it is how I suspect and you do just express yourself in type then you are sitting by doing almost nothing

[papa smurf]

5 1/2 + years of it isn't a complaint, it's definitely whinging.

[Sephiroth]

Originally Posted by roughbeast

I'm disappointed in your response Seph. Dismissing my contribution as a Remainer's whinge is a cop out. I use true fact as rationally as I can, and in some detail, because this subject doesn't deserve the intellectual laziness you just now deployed. Patriots cannot stand by and watch our country go down without comment and recommendations for the future.

Yes - you do use facts rationally - until you apply terms like "shabby referendum" to reinforce the facts.

---------- Post added at 12:01 ---------- Previous post was at 12:00 ----------

Originally Posted by roughbeast

Complain: express dissatisfaction or annoyance about something.

Whinge: complain persistently and in a peevish or irritating way.

I would like to think that my complaining has been persistent only because the subject of my complaints is perennial and only those who disagree with me might find it irritating. Peevish? I am incandescent!

Phew!

[pip08456]

Originally Posted by roughbeast

Complain: express dissatisfaction or annoyance about something.

Whinge: complain persistently and in a peevish or irritating way.

I would like to think that my complaining has been persistent only because the subject of my complaints is perennial and only those who disagree with me might find it irritating. Peevish? I am incandescent!

OK I have no problem with you complaining about something but when you persitently complain in a peevish or irritating way (as you do) then it is whinging.

[roughbeast]

Originally Posted by Jaymoss

Are you an activist? do you go out and protest your beliefs? Or do you think as a Patriot you do enough by discussing your beliefs on a technical based forum? If it is how I suspect and you do just express yourself in type then you are sitting by doing almost nothing

I used to be a Labour Party activist, campaigning for my local MP and acting as an agent for them and local councillor candidates. From 2015 I campaigned actively for Remain and went on most of the big London marches after the referendum. My particular angle was for honouring the referendum, albeit flawed, but to negotiate a customs union deal.

Since Starmer has made it clear that he is Tory-lite, and has used gross dishonesty to marginalise the left, I have left the Labour Party. I was likely to be kicked anyway, for protesting about the treatment of Corbyn. The party is doomed as a socialist force. I have joined the Greens, so now campaign for them in local elections but regularly go door-knocking with Zarah Sultana, our local Labour MP. I support her because she promotes the Green New Deal and she is is a committed socialist. I was out in the rain door-knocking with her yesterday.

Over the last 18 months I have been on protests against the current policing bill in that it attacks your right and my right right to protest peacefully and I have been on marches demanding real commitment from COP 26 members.

Generally, my politics is policy based, rather than tribal.



Any more ill-informed speculations about me?

Next!

---------- Post added at 14:29 ---------- Previous post was at 14:21 ----------

Originally Posted by Sephiroth

Yes - you do use facts rationally - until you apply terms like "shabby referendum" to reinforce the facts.

---------- Post added at 12:01 ---------- Previous post was at 12:00 ----------



Phew!

I am allowed to use some emotive language within the context of the subject, am I not? I thought shabby was a pretty good substitute for ill-thought-out, and you do get a sense of my feelings. At least I attack the issue and behaviors rather than label or demean the person. (That isn't an attack on you.)

Thank you for acknowledging my persistence.

---------- Post added at 14:32 ---------- Previous post was at 14:29 ----------

Originally Posted by pip08456

OK I have no problem with you complaining about something but when you persitently complain in a peevish or irritating way (as you do) then it is whinging.

As I say, those who disagree with me do find me irritating, mostly because my attention to detail, persistence and rationality unsettles them and their standpoint.

Peevish? That's an understatement. I'm frigging furious!!

[OLD BOY]

Originally Posted by roughbeast

Since Starmer has made it clear that he is Tory-lite, and has used gross dishonesty to marginalise the left, I have left the Labour Party. I was likely to be kicked anyway, for protesting about the treatment of Corbyn. The party is doomed as a socialist force.

Well, thank God for that!

Well, at least you have set out where you have come from, roughbeast. I would simply say that if a staunch follower of Jeremy Corbyn considers that he would be good at running the country then goes on to say that he thinks we should have remained in the EU, we Brexiteers must have got something right!

---------- Post added at 14:58 ---------- Previous post was at 14:46 ----------

Originally Posted by roughbeast

Over the last 18 months I have been on protests against the current policing bill in that it attacks your right and my right right to protest peacefully and I have been on marches demanding real commitment from COP 26 members.

Just for the record, the Policing Bill does no such thing. What it does do is clamp down on disruptive protests, such as the ones we saw where Insulate Britain brought motorways to a halt. Peaceful protests that still allow people to carry on with their business will not be restricted under this legislation.

Most people were angry about these protesters making people late for work, to attend medical appointments, etc, and want to see this kind of disruption stopped. The government has listened to the people and introduced this Bill.

Just as the government listened when people said they wanted to be out of the EU. I think I’ve spotted a pattern here that indicates your attitude towards democracy. Am I right or am I right?

[ianch99]

Originally Posted by Chris

We have never dallied with compulsory voting in this country because we believe in the right of an individual to abstain - and an abstention must always mean abstention; it cannot and must not be co-opted as tacit support for one side or another.

This is the point at which it’s safe to just stop listening to any remainer who wishes to deliver lectures about democracy whilst attempting to steal the support of those who exercised their right not to vote.

Says the person who literally is unable to understand the point being made. Here's some bedside reading for you: https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Supermajority

A supermajority, supra-majority, qualified majority, or special majority is a requirement for a proposal to gain a specified level of support which is greater than the threshold of more than one-half used for a simple majority. Supermajority rules in a democracy can help to prevent a majority from eroding fundamental rights of a minority. Changes to constitutions, especially those with entrenched clauses, commonly require supermajority support in a legislature. Parliamentary procedure requires that any action of a deliberative assembly that may alter the rights of a minority have a supermajority requirement, such as a two-thirds vote.

Of course, you don't need a qualified majority when you change the country but, it seems you do need one if you are a union member:

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/t...ustrial-action

From today, fresh ballots will have to achieve at least a 50% turnout of eligible union members, with a majority voting in favour of strike action. In important public services - including in the health, education and transport sectors - an additional threshold of 40% of support from all eligible members must be met for action to be legal.

Sort of sums it up really