The Politics Thread 2019

[ariotofmyown]

2 minutes ago, maxjam said:

I repeat, the tories didn't have to like the IRA to talk to them and I'm more than capable of juggling multiple viewpoints.

But yeah, probably a good time to end, it is the politics/brexit thread anyway.

I don't think it's time to stop the politics/brexit thread as loads of good stuff on here. Probably worth dropping the tommy robinson/muslim never ending chat as it's got nothing to do with the brexit stuff.

(Well, apart from the likes of Johnson/Farage capitalising on islamic terrorism to get the brexit vote!)

To change the subject, here is an interesting article I read on the weekend about austerity in the south east.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/apr/07/theresa-may-berks-bucks-thames-valley-tory-austerity

[Mostyn6]

58 minutes ago, maxjam said:

I've done a fair bit of research into Tommy Robinson and I think thats a bit unfair tbh, there is more to him than is spoken about in the media.  I'd challenge you to do your own research into him but anyone dismissively calling him Yaxley-Lennon has already had their mind made up for them by the media.

I'd agree that he is full of bluster and rough around the edges and thats exactly why I would give him a platform and speak to him.  You can't disarm him or his followers if you ignore or silence them, you address concerns and show people for what they are by engaging with them in public.  Otherwise you add to their notoriety and reinforce their beliefs.

* FYI I am not a Tommy fan I just always do my own research.

if you look into where his cash came from before "followers" decided to make him rich, you will answer your question.

It's perhaps part sinister, part fool on his part. He's not as important as what he thinks he it (from above), but he's seen as more important than he really is (from below/behind). If it wasn't him, it would've been someone else doing exactly the same.

 

[BaaLocks]

Interesting video here on some of the tactics used by the Leave campaign. It does get a little 'conspiracy theory' at times and the looming music takes away some of the credibility but it is quite an interesting watch - which I don't offer to try and convert you to a certain way of thinking but does raise some rather challenging perspectives  https://www.zdf.de/politik/frontal-21/drahtzieher-des-brexits-english-version-100.html

[SSD]

You'd think the government would have hired the best business negotiators in the UK to try and make Brexit a success, for the sake of the British public's vote. It's such a sorry state of affairs. If the ordinary working person was told by their boss to perform a task and tried everything in their power not to, they'd be sacked. Politicians just don't understand the general public's basic frustrations . I've listened to countless politician interviews and they're on another planet. Rees-Mogg, Watson, Cable, Johnson, Cooper etc. Their political ideology is least concerning to us ordinary folk. We just want to see this mess cleaned up and make sure our families are fed and watered. This has been overcomplicated to the point where I don't think MP's understand what is going on.

I can't see how a no deal can dramatically affect the country in the long term. Otherwise Cameron would have never allowed such a vote to happen, especially as a remain MP.       

[McRamFan]

Assessment of Tories handling of brexit.

Check out @JimMFelton’s Tweet:

 

[maxjam]

27 minutes ago, Moist One said:

if you look into where his cash came from before "followers" decided to make him rich, you will answer your question.

It's perhaps part sinister, part fool on his part. He's not as important as what he thinks he it (from above), but he's seen as more important than he really is (from below/behind). If it wasn't him, it would've been someone else doing exactly the same.

Yeah the highlighted parts are kinda what I'm talking about, Tommy Robinson is the figurehead of the moment but it could easily be someone else in the future.  He gained notoriety for his views on Islam but he has also marched on Brexit.  Regardless of who is financing him and regardless of their motives Brexit might have been avoided altogether if large swathes of the country hadn't felt ignored and abandoned in the preceding years.

By silencing Tommy Robinson and calling leave voters thick racists people are being rallied to his cause.  My argument has always been you call people out and debate them - good ideas gain traction, bad ones are exposed for what they are.  Nothing good ever comes from censorship, even if that means people you don't necessarily agree with are allowed a platform.

[maxjam]

47 minutes ago, ariotofmyown said:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/apr/07/theresa-may-berks-bucks-thames-valley-tory-austerity

Thats actually a very good article, it can probably be interpreted in different ways by different people but ultimately no matter what the end outcome of Brexit is we'll still be living in a broken and divided country that needs (imo) a new generation of politics and politicians to fix.

[GboroRam]

11 minutes ago, maxjam said:

Yeah the highlighted parts are kinda what I'm talking about, Tommy Robinson is the figurehead of the moment but it could easily be someone else in the future.  He gained notoriety for his views on Islam but he has also marched on Brexit.  Regardless of who is financing him and regardless of their motives Brexit might have been avoided altogether if large swathes of the country hadn't felt ignored and abandoned in the preceding years.

By silencing Tommy Robinson and calling leave voters thick racists people are being rallied to his cause.  My argument has always been you call people out and debate them - good ideas gain traction, bad ones are exposed for what they are.  Nothing good ever comes from censorship, even if that means people you don't necessarily agree with are allowed a platform.

My problem with Yaxley-Lennon (if calling him by his name means I've got some ulterior motive, so be it) is that he is very one dimensional and he's pulled up for his lack of balance in anything he's saying or doing; he attacks Muslims but has nothing to say for non Muslims doing exactly the same things. The other problem is the opening up of the discussion just manages to attract the thick, racist types you resent the guilt by association with, and I see no benefit in giving oxygen to them. I've always been clear that I don't agree with censorship from the government and that's why he's not banned from speaking. If I ran a newspaper I wouldn't want anything to do with his views, but that's not censorship. I oppose everything he does and everything he stands for, but I'm not naïve enough to say there's not issues that need discussing. I just don't believe he or his followers are interested in a honest discussion; they just want to inflame the anti Muslim public opinion. It's a dangerous game and one he knows fully what he's playing with. 

[SSD]

28 minutes ago, GboroRam said:

My problem with Yaxley-Lennon (if calling him by his name means I've got some ulterior motive, so be it) is that he is very one dimensional and he's pulled up for his lack of balance in anything he's saying or doing; he attacks Muslims but has nothing to say for non Muslims doing exactly the same things. The other problem is the opening up of the discussion just manages to attract the thick, racist types you resent the guilt by association with, and I see no benefit in giving oxygen to them. I've always been clear that I don't agree with censorship from the government and that's why he's not banned from speaking. If I ran a newspaper I wouldn't want anything to do with his views, but that's not censorship. I oppose everything he does and everything he stands for, but I'm not naïve enough to say there's not issues that need discussing. I just don't believe he or his followers are interested in a honest discussion; they just want to inflame the anti Muslim public opinion. It's a dangerous game and one he knows fully what he's playing with. 

I watched Tommy Robinson's Oxford talk last year and I felt the British media (particularly the BBC) have not represented him correctly for years. They have edited many of his interviews to make him more of a far right racist, without giving his explanation on his views. They are to blame for giving the man more public attention in my opinion. I disagree with many of his opinions on Muslims, I believe his views are due to his bad experience growing up amongst mass migration in Luton, making him feel isolated from his local community. His mates were attacked by Muslim gangs and again that has added fuelled his hate. He says he only dislikes right-wing conservative Muslims which I don't believe to be true. He hates the majority of them.

He does deserve the right to view his opinion, as long as he is not breaking the law. Social media are wrong to ban him off their platforms, I've followed his accounts out of curiosity. Yes his views are racist, however when I see a Maddie McCann joke, I don't see people screaming at social media sites to ban them. Double standards. 

[maxjam]

31 minutes ago, GboroRam said:

My problem with Yaxley-Lennon (if calling him by his name means I've got some ulterior motive, so be it) is that he is very one dimensional and he's pulled up for his lack of balance in anything he's saying or doing; he attacks Muslims but has nothing to say for non Muslims doing exactly the same things.

I'm not defending Tommy Robinson nor his actions, simply arguing that he is what you get when people are scared to talk about a seemingly two tier system with regards to Islam.  You can talk openly about being anti-Christian or the Catholic sex scandal (which happened to be one of the most widely reported stories of its time) so why would he need to?  He may lack balance but one party activists generally do! 

He and his family have also received several Osman warnings, whatever the reason he chooses to change his name thats as good as any for me personally (and the media imho) to not use his real name.

 

31 minutes ago, GboroRam said:

The other problem is the opening up of the discussion just manages to attract the thick, racist types you resent the guilt by association with, and I see no benefit in giving oxygen to them. I've always been clear that I don't agree with censorship from the government and that's why he's not banned from speaking. If I ran a newspaper I wouldn't want anything to do with his views, but that's not censorship. I oppose everything he does and everything he stands for, but I'm not naïve enough to say there's not issues that need discussing. I just don't believe he or his followers are interested in a honest discussion; they just want to inflame the anti Muslim public opinion. It's a dangerous game and one he knows fully what he's playing with. 

We'll have to agree to disagree on this.  The people that gravitate towards him aren't going to disappear if you unperson Tommy, they will either go elsewhere or gather under the radar and radicalize further.  My argument has always been to call people out and debate them - good ideas gain traction, bad ones are exposed for what they are.

But thats enough on Tommy Robinson (and people like him) from me.  Its more about tackling issues head on for me, not defending certain individuals - which I guess kinda ties in with Brexit.

[Stive Pesley]

1 hour ago, SouthStandDan said:

Social media are wrong to ban him off their platforms

Disagree - these are commercial businesses. They can remove whomever and whatever they want. None of us have a right to use these free platforms with impunity. They don't want to be blamed for giving a platform to people who will facilitate the spread of hate. When nutters read that stuff and drive themselves into a murderous fury that ends in them shooting up mosques, murdering MPs and ploughing down people outside a mosque, understandably the technology companies don't want any of that to stick to them.

TR might be canny and stay the right side of the law in what he says on those platforms, but if you've ever looked at any of his pages it's just full of the absolute dregs of the worst openly racist morons egging each other on

What sort of society would force a business to accept customers that it didn't want?

[McRamFan]

Good piece from C4.

Check out @C4Dispatches’s Tweet: https://twitter.com/C4Dispatches/status/1114954083511808006?s=09

[maxjam]

25 minutes ago, StivePesley said:

Disagree - these are commercial businesses. They can remove whomever and whatever they want. None of us have a right to use these free platforms with impunity. They don't want to be blamed for giving a platform to people who will facilitate the spread of hate. When nutters read that stuff and drive themselves into a murderous fury that ends in them shooting up mosques, murdering MPs and ploughing down people outside a mosque, understandably the technology companies don't want any of that to stick to them.

TR might be canny and stay the right side of the law in what he says on those platforms, but if you've ever looked at any of his pages it's just full of the absolute dregs of the worst openly racist morons egging each other on

What sort of society would force a business to accept customers that it didn't want?

In some ways I'm inclined to agree, others I'd disagree.  TBH I'm not sure I understand myself yet how to police the internet. 

A bigger concern however is who should police the internet.  Almost all of the social media giants are based in progressive left California and the vast majority of people banned hold conservative views - whilst a lot of extreme left opinions go uncensored.  Antifa for example have recently been labelled as domestic terrorists in the US but have multiple active twitter/facebook etc accounts.

With article 11 and 13 recently being passed and the UK clamping down on everything; https://news.sky.com/story/websites-face-being-blocked-in-uk-by-new-online-harms-regulator-11687713 we won't be able to talk about or share anything soon anyway ?

[BaaLocks]

2 hours ago, GboroRam said:

My problem with Yaxley-Lennon (if calling him by his name means I've got some ulterior motive, so be it) is that he is very one dimensional and he's pulled up for his lack of balance in anything he's saying or doing; he attacks Muslims but has nothing to say for non Muslims doing exactly the same things. The other problem is the opening up of the discussion just manages to attract the thick, racist types you resent the guilt by association with, and I see no benefit in giving oxygen to them. I've always been clear that I don't agree with censorship from the government and that's why he's not banned from speaking. If I ran a newspaper I wouldn't want anything to do with his views, but that's not censorship. I oppose everything he does and everything he stands for, but I'm not naïve enough to say there's not issues that need discussing. I just don't believe he or his followers are interested in a honest discussion; they just want to inflame the anti Muslim public opinion. It's a dangerous game and one he knows fully what he's playing with. 

And these are the sort of people who will get animated by him - to be honest I'm quite glad that he isn't better than he is. There is a vacuum here that could so easily be filled by someone who is a bit more than a thug with a microphone. 

 

[Stive Pesley]

12 minutes ago, maxjam said:

A bigger concern however is who should police the internet.  Almost all of the social media giants are based in progressive left California and the vast majority of people banned hold conservative views - whilst a lot of extreme left opinions go uncensored.  Antifa for example have recently been labelled as domestic terrorists in the US but have multiple active twitter/facebook etc accounts.

With article 11 and 13 recently being passed and the UK clamping down on everything; https://news.sky.com/story/websites-face-being-blocked-in-uk-by-new-online-harms-regulator-11687713 we won't be able to talk about or share anything soon anyway ?

Definitely agree - that's the fundamental challenge for our age. We may never even manage to get that genie back in the bottle..

I think we're actually undergoing an unprecedented shift in power from governments to the technology giants. I'm not sure how political their agenda is, but we shall see. Article 13 is a good example because Google hate it and went to enormous lengths to try and block it. They spewed enormous amounts of misinformation, propagated via untold amounts of astroturfing accounts and deliberately altered search rankings.

[Gee SCREAMER !!]

I see we are reverting back to the everyone who want's to leave is a thick racist thread .   If you have a thought out and considered opinion regarding a leave vote,  don't put it on here as you will be shouted down as a gammon faced neo Nazi. 

[Comrade 86]

20 minutes ago, BaaLocks said:

And these are the sort of people who will get animated by him - to be honest I'm quite glad that he isn't better than he is. There is a vacuum here that could so easily be filled by someone who is a bit more than a thug with a microphone. 

 

Love how none of these sovereignty craving patriots know the words to Land of Hope and Glory. Says it all really! 

[Comrade 86]

1 minute ago, Gee SCREAMER !! said:

I see we are reverting back to the everyone who want's to leave is a thick racist thread .   If you have a thought out and considered opinion regarding a leave vote,  don't put it on here as you will be shouted down as a gammon faced neo Nazi. 

Don't think that's the case at all. Frankly, I've lost count of the slurs chucked my way for voting remain so let's please not play the victim card here as we are all, bar the very 'fortunsye' few, being put to the sword in one way or t'other.

[BaaLocks]

7 minutes ago, Gee SCREAMER !! said:

I see we are reverting back to the everyone who want's to leave is a thick racist thread .   If you have a thought out and considered opinion regarding a leave vote,  don't put it on here as you will be shouted down as a gammon faced neo Nazi. 

My point was not at all Brexit related - which was why I didn't reply to a Brexit mail. I was replying to the consideration of whether or not followers of Tommy Robinson are interested in an open and honest discussion. I don't believe they are and I posted that video to demonstrate just how disconnected they are from the things they claim to believe in. 

To address your comment, I actually don't think everyone who wants to leave is a thick racist and I think this has been a key flaw of the remain camaign since the referendum. They have failed to address the issues that the Leave campaign raised - and ones that Brussels have only served to cement with their intransigence and dogmatism in the three years since. But I will echo Will Self's obeservation - which I think is a pretty good take on it - not all people who voted for Leave are racists and xenophobes but I would strongly suggest that all racists and xenophobes did vote Leave. Anyway, probably not helpful but never the less I guess I make the point as it does form the grounding of many peoples views on the Leave community.

[maxjam]

A good general chat about Brexit and the possibility of a 2nd referendum on Good Morning Britain.

Given that the country seems massively divided and parliament seems intent on ignoring the result of the first referendum and removing no deal from the table as a leaver myself I'd be happy for a second vote if the choice was Leave/Remain with a follow up question for only those that voted leave to the first question as to whether you want Mays deal or no deal.  Thats another chance to vote remain and a decisive direction if its leave again, anything else would inevitably water down the results and split the leave vote.