Brexit Vote

[James Rye]

Originally Posted by Anh_Minh

BoJo may not even be one of the final two candidates. (Not that it matters, really, who the next PM will be.)

Yeah, whoever sits next on the throne will sit there only shortly. No idea why those guys are beating each other to get killed off first.

Originally Posted by Guardian Enzo

If the LibDems can't achieve best-in-a-century results in a Boris-Corbyn GE as the largest pro-remain party, they truly are utterly hopeless.

They might do really well if Corbyn keeps up his "middle man" act of trying to unite leavers and remainers.

Originally Posted by Drake

Out of all "politicians" crawling out of the woodwork for the leadership bid, I really dread Bojo, Hunt and Gove taking the spot.

I picture these lot as giving less of a hoot about what effect Brexit will have on Northern Ireland than the current leadership.

Its why NI got 2 of its 3 seats to Pro-Eu parties, first time even I think.
Same for Scotland where SNP got three seats, something even they didn't expect to happen. If the Tories keep up their "shout after farage and brexit party" they might really risk breaking their Union apart after leaving the EU.

[Guardian Enzo]

Actually the numbers I see show the LDs at 20.3%

[SeijiSensei]

Yup. The UK counting was rather slow.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-48403131

I don't know if the 32% for the Brexit party is a strong result or not. Leave won with 52% of the vote. UKIP won the 2014 EU elections with 27% of the vote; they got just three percent this year. Given all the focus on Brexit and the ineptitude of the major parties in dealing with this crisis, 35% or so for Leave parties doesn't seem all that impressive.

[Dextro]

Were I a betting men I would bet that BoJo will actually run away again and avoid the top job just like I did the last two times. He strikes me as the kind of politician who talks a lot but when the push comes to shove lacks the backbone to actually do the job while still having enough sense to realize that he would only come out worse off after taking it up.

I'm just not sure he can actually escape this time, the Conservative party is kind of in shambles. If Labour hadn't been showing insane amounts of ineptitude with Corbyn at the wheel they would have easily been in the lead.

Honestly, it's almost as if having career politicians who went straight from college to politics without having any real life experience (even if a sheltered, high paying one) is a recipe for incompetent statespeople.

[Guardian Enzo]

Originally Posted by SeijiSensei

Yup. The UK counting was rather slow.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-48403131

I don't know if the 32% for the Brexit party is a strong result or not. Leave won with 52% of the vote. UKIP won the 2014 EU elections with 27% of the vote; they got just three percent this year. Given all the focus on Brexit and the ineptitude of the major parties in dealing with this crisis, 35% or so for Leave parties doesn't seem all that impressive.

Best estimates I've seen done by allocating the Labour vote 60-40 remain and Tory 80-20 leave are a total of 50-47 in favor of remain.

So, just to clarify - deny the holocaust, and Corbyn will game the system, delay as long as possible and try to avoid disciplining you altogether. Vote LibDem and admit it publicly because of Labour’s gutless prevarication on Brexit you get kicked out of the party in three days.

[Arabesque]

EU's Juncker says EU will not renegotiate Brexit withdrawal deal

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said on Tuesday that the European Union was not willing to renegotiate the withdrawal deal struck with the British government, but rejected three times by Britain’s parliament.

A number of the candidates to succeed Theresa May as British prime minister have said they believe the bloc should reopen negotiations.

“I will have a short meeting with Theresa May, but I was crystal clear. There will be no renegotiation,” Juncker said before a meeting of EU leaders in Brussels.

Brexit uncertainty deepens gloom in services sector

Anna Leach, deputy chief economist at the CBI, blamed Brexit for the prolonged weakness. “Brexit paralysis continues to take a toll on the UK’s services firms,” she said. “Politicians have wasted six critical weeks, allowing uncertainty to tighten its stranglehold on the British economy.”

Businesses gave a cautious welcome in April when Theresa May agreed with the EU to extend the date on which the UK is expected to finally leave the bloc by six months to October 31, allowing some breathing space and cutting the risk of leaving the bloc without a deal.

But with the onset of the Conservative party leadership campaign, companies are increasingly nervous about the renewed prospect of a no-deal Brexit under a new prime minister or an extended period of uncertainty as a new agreement is negotiated.

Striking a downbeat tone, businesses across the services sector remained extremely negative about the prospects for expansion over the year ahead, the CBI said.

It is to be expected given how the EU had solidified its position in regard to the agreement, but the response from the British businesses and service sector makes it all the more clear why the EU can't risk reopening the withdrawal agreement for another round of talks. It is simply far too time consuming to do so, not to mention would continue hurting everyone involved.

Originally Posted by Drake

Out of all "politicians" crawling out of the woodwork for the leadership bid, I really dread Bojo, Hunt and Gove taking the spot.

I picture these lot as giving less of a hoot about what effect Brexit will have on Northern Ireland than the current leadership.

It is honestly a nightmare scenario with any of these clowns in charge, but we are likely to get one of them for the interim period before a general election.

God, the thought of Gove as PM ...

Originally Posted by SeijiSensei

Yup. The UK counting was rather slow.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-48403131

I don't know if the 32% for the Brexit party is a strong result or not. Leave won with 52% of the vote. UKIP won the 2014 EU elections with 27% of the vote; they got just three percent this year. Given all the focus on Brexit and the ineptitude of the major parties in dealing with this crisis, 35% or so for Leave parties doesn't seem all that impressive.

I would say its reflective on how fractured the political and social views on Brexit within the UK are at the moment. There isn't a majority for either view on the topic, and there is no major party that is willing to go all in on either option outside of the LibDems (who are still in the process of recovery yet) and the fringe parties that promise the sky but know they wont have the power to enact what they promise.

I did see some commentary that UKIP voters had simply switched for the Brexit party, which makes sense given Farage's attempt at rebranding himself away from UKIP and the string of controversies that dogged UKIP candidates.

Originally Posted by Dextro

Were I a betting men I would bet that BoJo will actually run away again and avoid the top job just like I did the last two times. He strikes me as the kind of politician who talks a lot but when the push comes to shove lacks the backbone to actually do the job while still having enough sense to realize that he would only come out worse off after taking it up.

Its not a bet I would normally make, given BoJo did say he wanted the job this time, but then I remembered that Boris is a coward to a level that it had always interfered with his ambitions. So he might decide that it would be unwise for him to become PM of a sinking ship and continue on setting on the sidelines and yelling about how good of job he could do without actually going for the job. A total BoJo move.

Of course, this leaves the fuckers like Hunt and Gove with a path to the premiership, and neither would be better than BoJo.

Originally Posted by Guardian Enzo

So, just to clarify - deny the holocaust, and Corbyn will game the system, delay as long as possible and try to avoid disciplining you altogether. Vote LibDem and admit it publicly because of Labour’s gutless prevarication on Brexit you get kicked out of the party in three days.

I have little to no sympathy for the likes of men like Alastair Campbell.

I do agree 100% that it is condemning how Labour's response to him voting LibDem on the issue of Brexit led to him getting kicked out of the party so quickly, while the response to the rise of antisemitism in the party file and rank had been left ignored and leadership dragging their feet in responding to it.

Had Labour been semi-competent throughout all of this, they would already be the government. But no, I guess we gotta have the government in waiting also be a total shit show on the side as well, to fit in with the theme of the times.

[SeijiSensei]

Plaid Cymru, the Welsh nationalists, are trying to create an alliance of the Remain parties.



https://twitter.com/Adamprice/status...08920736337920

[Guardian Enzo]

Well, the LibDems were leading the YouGov poll of voting intentions, though we've been down that road before. And the Greens were on 12%. It's very hard to get political parties to set aside their own self-promotion for a greater cause (as the failure to ally for the EU election showed) but the idea of a LD/Green/Change UK/PC/SDP alliance for a general election makes a lot of sense.

If the Tories go with a hard Brexit PM who pushes for a no-deal Brexit, I think enough Tories will support a no-confidence vote that it will pass, and a GE would end up being the de facto 2nd referendum. The LDs would have the most to lose in an alliance, since they might have a real chance to be the largest party in a coalition government.

[SeijiSensei]

Lib-Con didn't work out that well for them as I recall. Lib-Lab seems more plausible but not, I think, if Corbyn remains Leader.

The bigger question, it seems to me, is whether British politics is in a period of realignment away from its traditional class roots to a new dimension that roughly corresponds to Leave vs Remain. Social scientists have talked about "post-industrial" politics for decades now. It might finally be happening.

[Guardian Enzo]

Originally Posted by SeijiSensei

Lib-Con didn't work out that well for them as I recall. Lib-Lab seems more plausible but not, I think, if Corbyn remains Leader.

The bigger question, it seems to me, is whether British politics is in a period of realignment away from its traditional class roots to a new dimension that roughly corresponds to Leave vs Remain. Social scientists have talked about "post-industrial" politics for decades now. It might finally be happening.

Tory-LD was always doomed to fail - they had much more in common with pre-Corbyn Labour. But there's no way they enter a coalition with a Corbyn-led Labour.

While they've teased in polls this far out before, with the fragmentation of party politics you'd have to say it's at least possible that the LDs could be the largest party in a coalition government. Certainly they won't win enough seats to govern alone.

[Sheba]

The UK situation of shifting from right vs left to leave vs remain seems to mirror what's happening in a lot of European countries. Its much less right vs left and more those who want to preserve the sovereign rights and national identity of individual countries vs the globalists who want to leave the borders open.

[Vallen Chaos Valiant]

Originally Posted by Sheba

The UK situation of shifting from right vs left to leave vs remain seems to mirror what's happening in a lot of European countries. Its much less right vs left and more those who want to preserve the sovereign rights and national identity of individual countries vs the globalists who want to leave the borders open.

Except in the case of Brexit, what you are arguing has nothing to do with what Brexit is ending up being. UK will gain no extra sovereign rights by leaving, it only felt like they will. All nice to pretend this is a fight for some greater cause, when all I can see is a bunch of desperate and angry people lashing out, directed by others with ulterior motives, leading to the country doing something completely stupid with no benefits and massive loses.

[SeijiSensei]

LibDems lead the field in yesterday's YouGov poll.

LD 24%
Brexit 22%
Conservative 19%
Labour 19%
Green. 8%
UKIP 2%

https://www.businessinsider.com/youg...vatives-2019-5

[James Rye]

But isn't the Brexit party making huge gains as well? Read on the guardian that now its the first choice of most people to vote for in a GE.

[Drake]

The thing that truly baffles me about the Brexit party growth during the EU elections, is that theoretically it should have seen a drop is support given the backlash from the blatant lies and shady PR funding that were exposed in aftermath of the Brexit vote. Especially when you have clowns like Farage making an absolute ass out of himself by admitting just hours after the vote that the Brexit bus slogan would pure nonsense.

People should be better informed about Brexit now than ever, and it should be a lot clearer now why it is a lose-lose scenario for almost everyone.

I'm honestly glad I'm emigrating to Europe in a couple of months...

[SeijiSensei]

Originally Posted by James Rye

But isn't the Brexit party making huge gains as well? Read on the guardian that now its the first choice of most people to vote for in a GE.

"Huge" gains? No, not really. In the EP elections, they ran a bit ahead of how UKIP polled in 2014. https://forums.animesuki.com/showthr...84#post6346984

And in the poll I cite above, LibDems run ahead of the Brexit Party by two points.

[Dextro]

Originally Posted by Drake

The thing that truly baffles me about the Brexit party growth during the EU elections, is that theoretically it should have seen a drop is support given the backlash from the blatant lies and shady PR funding that were exposed in aftermath of the Brexit vote. Especially when you have clowns like Farage making an absolute ass out of himself by admitting just hours after the vote that the Brexit bus slogan would pure nonsense.

People should be better informed about Brexit now than ever, and it should be a lot clearer now why it is a lose-lose scenario for almost everyone.

I'm honestly glad I'm emigrating to Europe in a couple of months...

I think the problem with all that is that this quote by Michael Gove basically sums it all up: "The British people are tired of experts"

Facts just don't work, people are driven by what they "feel" should be correct. It's a more overarching problem than just brexit and I honest to god don't understand how it came about and what might be done to fix it. It's a very complex societal problem we have nowadays that's poisoning our political discourse and undermining our democratic values.

It doesn't really matter that the facts were wrong, people want to lash out at their perceived injustices and the EU has been shown to them in that fashion for years. Unpopular bill at home? Just blame it on the EU despite your own government pushing it through in the council. Lack of low skilled jobs? Just blame those cheap EU migrants, not your failing education policies and social safety net system. Your fishing quotas are small? Blame the EU despite you being part of that particular committee and never showing up to the meetings (this one goes straight to one Mr. Farage).

The EU has a PR problem of its own making, all the governments liked using it as a scapegoat for their unpopular laws and now we're paying the price for it.

[judasmartel]

Originally Posted by Dextro

~snip~

The basics of populism, my friend. Determine the problem, find a scapegoat, blame that problem to that scapegoat, problem gets swept under the rug without actually having something done about it.

Profit.

[Vallen Chaos Valiant]

Originally Posted by judasmartel

The basics of populism, my friend. Determine the problem, find a scapegoat, blame that problem to that scapegoat, problem gets swept under the rug without actually having something done about it.

Profit.

Nations like China and North Korea actually take advantage of this. Basically realising that the population WANT to be lied to, so why not give them someone to blame and everyone wins?
(Except the population that get blamed of course...)

[Dextro]

Originally Posted by judasmartel

The basics of populism, my friend. Determine the problem, find a scapegoat, blame that problem to that scapegoat, problem gets swept under the rug without actually having something done about it.

Profit.

Right! But it feels like now we're completely beholden to populism. The communication mediums we have all thrive on stoking the flames of populism so the problem spirals out of control more and more.

Being sensible just doesn't sell, bring on the insanity! Let Rome burn!