The Politics Thread 2019

[G STAR RAM]

7 minutes ago, Montgolfier said:

I was called a traitor, just last night. The person who said it also reckons that Corbyn, in voting to not allow Johnson a free ride to an October 15 election, is guilty of Treason and should be locked up in the Tower of London. 

This is where we are now. No compromise, no surrender. People are going to die.

I'll be honest, I've never heard of anyone dying from being called names.

[GboroRam]

3 minutes ago, Montgolfier said:

I was called a traitor, just last night. The person who said it also reckons that Corbyn, in voting to not allow Johnson a free ride to an October 15 election, is guilty of Treason and should be locked up in the Tower of London. 

This is where we are now. No compromise, no surrender. People are going to die.

I still cling to the belief that most of the threats of civil disobedience and rioting are by the pensionable aged outraged, colloquially called "gammons" but I gather that's seen as a racist term nowadays. Will they really get their zimmer frames out on the streets?

[AndyinLiverpool]

28 minutes ago, G STAR RAM said:

Back to seriousness, are you saying people are leaving the NHS based on something that hasn't happened and may never happen?

I've heard people telling other people to go back to their own country for the last 40 years, not really sure what that has to do with Brexit?

People are leaving all over the place. We have lost 3 or 4 people over the last year or so who cited the national atmosphere, uncertainty about the future etc. Brexit doesn't need to have happened before people make decisions about their future taking Brexit into consideration. In fact you'd be foolish to ignore it, wouldn't you? Especially if you ignore it based on all the 'sunlit uplands' crap.

[G STAR RAM]

8 minutes ago, AndyinLiverpool said:

People are leaving all over the place. We have lost 3 or 4 people over the last year or so who cited the national atmosphere, uncertainty about the future etc. Brexit doesn't need to have happened before people make decisions about their future taking Brexit into consideration. In fact you'd be foolish to ignore it, wouldn't you? Especially if you ignore it based on all the 'sunlit uplands' crap.

Seems to me that Brexit is being used to blame everything bad on.

People citing the national atmosphere, are not citing Brexit, they are citing the behaviour of people, and as far as I can see the behaviour of Remainers is as bad as anything that Leavers are doing.

[cstand]

1 hour ago, McRamFan said:

Nope, I don't know all the facts, and that is why I do not trust what is happening.  I do know, for a fact, that the government has gagged the NHS from making pubic, information on both soft and hard brexit. 

I am in daily contact with a number of NHS trusts, and have heard the fears and concerns from the front line staff.  I have seen the departure of health care professionals, some I have known for years, from both Europe and the ROTW, since brexit reared its ugly head, I have heard patients tell HCP's to go back to their own country, even when they have been born here.  I expect I will hear more today, because I heard it yesterday, the day before, last week, last month and the last 3 years.

Please feel free to ignore me, after all ignorance is bliss.

No foreign nationals in my office have packed their bags and gone home I expect none next week, month, year. 

People are still risking their lives to get to your racist Brexit Britain net migration end 2018 was 270k if Brexit is so damaging to the economy why are people still people still planning to live and work here?? 

The most ignorant people in this country are the remainers who believe in mob rule and not majority rule.

 

[LE_Ram]

It's not letting me quote your post for some reason, but I'll try and address all the points anyway -

13 hours ago, G STAR RAM said:

 

Not having a withdrawal deal will save us a lot of money. Do you not think a trade deal will be negotiated after we have left?

Yes - not having a withdrawal deal means we won't pay the 'divorce bill' of (I think) £39bn. However, it will mean we are forced to trade on WTO terms and implement tariffs, and this is forecast to reduce real incomes per head massively - this one report says 2.6% per year (https://ukandeu.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/No-Deal-The-WTO-Option-Fact-sheet-1.pdf). Tariffs are different for different sectors - e.g. on cars it is 10% - do we expect Toyota to maintain its current level of production in Derby if it has to pay that level of tariff? Of course there's the potential that companies wouldn't absorb all of this, in which case it's passed on to the consumer and prices for all of us go up. So that saving of £39bn is offset by a recession post no-deal (https://www.ft.com/content/afd7084e-ce4f-11e9-b018-ca4456540ea6) and long term fall in GDP (https://ukandeu.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Cost-of-No-Deal-Revisted.pdf)

 

Interested to know what facts have substantially changed?

As for which facts have substantially changed, it's the form of Brexit which was unclear in 2016. Pretty much everyone on the Leave campaign lied when they said that a withdrawal agreement and subsequent trade deal with the EU would be easy. In fact, on the actual Vote Leave website (http://www.voteleavetakecontrol.org/briefing_newdeal.html) they state that "The heart of what we all want is the continuation of tariff-free trade with minimal bureaucracy." i.e. - a deal. So people (not all of them, but a lot of people I know) voted leave on the assumption that we would get a deal which would free us from the political institutions of the EU while allowing us to continue to trade tariff-free, as was suggested by the leave campaign. This hasn't happened, it's looking increasingly likely that we won't get a deal at all. If this had been known in 2016, a lot of people wouldn't have voted leave - therefore if a change in information known/circumstances is enough to alter someones opinion, it shows that the facts have substantially changed and a second referendum is appropriate.

 

As stated above, No Deal is a snapshot in time, it means we leave without a deal and dont pay for the privilege of leaving. It gives no indication whatsoever of what may be negotiated going forward.

I agree that the withdrawal agreement is not the future relationship we will have with the EU, but it does affect it significantly. May's deal keeps us much more aligned with the regulations of the EU than a no deal scenario, so any subsequent trade deal would be much quicker and easier if we exit with a deal compared to without a deal. Also, the EU-Canada agreement took 10 years to complete, so it's not as if we will Brexit on 31st October and then immediately have a deal in place - as you state we will negotiate a deal after we leave. It's therefore important that we have a deal in place so that the gap between leaving and the implementation of a new deal is as smooth as possible. This is what makes the withdrawal agreement so vital to everything.

 

If Leave is an ambiguous term then so was Remain. Was it Remain in the EU as it is now? Remain in the EU with new countries joining? Remain in the EU and become part of an EU army? Remain in the EU and have contributions increased? Remain in the EU and bail out country after country?

People voted Leave full stop.

I disagree that Remain is an ambiguous term - it means stay in the EU in its current form with the option to leave in the future if anything changes to the degree that the people want to leave.

The point about new countries joining - what's the problem with this? We've had it in the past.

We will not be forced to join an EU army - the UK has a veto on military policy, similar to how we keep the £ (https://fullfact.org/online/EU-army-conscription/)

The UK's contribution to the EU budget is insignificant - £8.9bn in 2018, or approx. 0.15% of government spending. Even a steady increase would not lead to these contributions being a significant part of government spending.

The UK will not pay for any future Eurozone bailouts - this has been agreed with the EU (pre-referendum) (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-36456277)

When people voted leave, there was no consensus on what 'Leave' actually meant, as discussed before.

 

The options were crystal clear. Leave or Remain. What is not clear about that?

The form that Leave would take. Stay in customs union? No deal? Leave customs union but maintain regulatory alignment. It wasn't specified.

 

So you want Remain to get a bye through to the final vote? Sounds reasonable.

What I said was that the way it is done is up for debate, perhaps some preferential system of voting would be better.

 

Not implementing the result of a democratic vote is not undemocratic?

Voting again now that the actual shape of our future relationship with the EU is more precisely known is pretty much the opposite of undemocratic. Undemocratic would be unilaterally deciding that everyone who voted leave advocated for a no-deal Brexit, and then implementing this.

 

I will ask again, what facts have changed since the Referendum?

See above.

[cstand]

19 minutes ago, GboroRam said:

I still cling to the belief that most of the threats of civil disobedience and rioting are by the pensionable aged outraged, colloquially called "gammons" but I gather that's seen as a racist term nowadays. Will they really get their zimmer frames out on the streets?

You mean the pensioners who worked their fingers to the bone to put this country back on its feet after the Second World War, the ones who voted to join the common market not the EU.  

You are the leader of euthanasia UK and I claim prize of death by injection at the your predetermined age on which old people are not allowed to vote. 

[G STAR RAM]

16 minutes ago, LE_Ram said:

It's not letting me quote your post for some reason, but I'll try and address all the points anyway -

Not having a withdrawal deal will save us a lot of money. Do you not think a trade deal will be negotiated after we have left?

Yes - not having a withdrawal deal means we won't pay the 'divorce bill' of (I think) £39bn. However, it will mean we are forced to trade on WTO terms and implement tariffs, and this is forecast to reduce real incomes per head massively - this one report says 2.6% per year (https://ukandeu.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/No-Deal-The-WTO-Option-Fact-sheet-1.pdf). Tariffs are different for different sectors - e.g. on cars it is 10% - do we expect Toyota to maintain its current level of production in Derby if it has to pay that level of tariff? Of course there's the potential that companies wouldn't absorb all of this, in which case it's passed on to the consumer and prices for all of us go up. So that saving of £39bn is offset by a recession post no-deal (https://www.ft.com/content/afd7084e-ce4f-11e9-b018-ca4456540ea6) and long term fall in GDP (https://ukandeu.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Cost-of-No-Deal-Revisted.pdf)

 

Interested to know what facts have substantially changed?

As for which facts have substantially changed, it's the form of Brexit which was unclear in 2016. Pretty much everyone on the Leave campaign lied when they said that a withdrawal agreement and subsequent trade deal with the EU would be easy. In fact, on the actual Vote Leave website (http://www.voteleavetakecontrol.org/briefing_newdeal.html) they state that "The heart of what we all want is the continuation of tariff-free trade with minimal bureaucracy." i.e. - a deal. So people (not all of them, but a lot of people I know) voted leave on the assumption that we would get a deal which would free us from the political institutions of the EU while allowing us to continue to trade tariff-free, as was suggested by the leave campaign. This hasn't happened, it's looking increasingly likely that we won't get a deal at all. If this had been known in 2016, a lot of people wouldn't have voted leave - therefore if a change in information known/circumstances is enough to alter someones opinion, it shows that the facts have substantially changed and a second referendum is appropriate.

 

As stated above, No Deal is a snapshot in time, it means we leave without a deal and dont pay for the privilege of leaving. It gives no indication whatsoever of what may be negotiated going forward.

I agree that the withdrawal agreement is not the future relationship we will have with the EU, but it does affect it significantly. May's deal keeps us much more aligned with the regulations of the EU than a no deal scenario, so any subsequent trade deal would be much quicker and easier if we exit with a deal compared to without a deal. Also, the EU-Canada agreement took 10 years to complete, so it's not as if we will Brexit on 31st October and then immediately have a deal in place - as you state we will negotiate a deal after we leave. It's therefore important that we have a deal in place so that the gap between leaving and the implementation of a new deal is as smooth as possible. This is what makes the withdrawal agreement so vital to everything.

 

If Leave is an ambiguous term then so was Remain. Was it Remain in the EU as it is now? Remain in the EU with new countries joining? Remain in the EU and become part of an EU army? Remain in the EU and have contributions increased? Remain in the EU and bail out country after country?

People voted Leave full stop.

I disagree that Remain is an ambiguous term - it means stay in the EU in its current form with the option to leave in the future if anything changes to the degree that the people want to leave.

The point about new countries joining - what's the problem with this? We've had it in the past.

We will not be forced to join an EU army - the UK has a veto on military policy, similar to how we keep the £ (https://fullfact.org/online/EU-army-conscription/)

The UK's contribution to the EU budget is insignificant - £8.9bn in 2018, or approx. 0.15% of government spending. Even a steady increase would not lead to these contributions being a significant part of government spending.

The UK will not pay for any future Eurozone bailouts - this has been agreed with the EU (pre-referendum) (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-36456277)

When people voted leave, there was no consensus on what 'Leave' actually meant, as discussed before.

 

The options were crystal clear. Leave or Remain. What is not clear about that?

The form that Leave would take. Stay in customs union? No deal? Leave customs union but maintain regulatory alignment. It wasn't specified.

 

So you want Remain to get a bye through to the final vote? Sounds reasonable.

What I said was that the way it is done is up for debate, perhaps some preferential system of voting would be better.

 

Not implementing the result of a democratic vote is not undemocratic?

Voting again now that the actual shape of our future relationship with the EU is more precisely known is pretty much the opposite of undemocratic. Undemocratic would be unilaterally deciding that everyone who voted leave advocated for a no-deal Brexit, and then implementing this.

 

I will ask again, what facts have changed since the Referendum?

See above.

Cheers for the response.

Although I take on board your concerns, I still dont see any FACTS that have changed since the Referendum.

All I see is more stories and predictions, that are not facts, have come out. Everything else you have stated was known at the time of the Referendum. The only point I concede was not discussed is the Irish backstop, but there again that did not exist until Theresa May accepted it in the withdrawal agreement. 

[Stive Pesley]

36 minutes ago, Van Wolfie said:

Proof please. Seeing as that's what you expect of others.

Prove to me that Austerity, rather than the official version:  An attempt to get the country living within its means, following years of overspend and the fallout from financial crisis, is a deliberate right wing policy to enrich the already rich and enslave the poor.

Obviously there is no hard proof or admission of this - as that would be something no one in power will ever admit, but as conspiracy theories go...

The fact that it hasn't worked, borrowing has increased, the national debt has increased, yet we're left with much worse / less of / totally removed public services - whilst observing a huge transfer of wealth to private companies, noting that these very same private companies have lobbied / donated hard to the political party running the "austerity" program is kind of damning enough for me

[Norman]

1 minute ago, SchtivePesley said:

Obviously there is no hard proof or admission of this - as that would be something no one in power will ever admit, but as conspiracy theories.

Legard admitted that austerity wouldn't work in the EU but backed strict austerity anyway. 

Wonder how that would benefit the EU?

[GboroRam]

5 minutes ago, cstand said:

You mean the pensioners who worked their fingers to the bone to put this country back on its feet after the Second World War, the ones who voted to join the common market not the EU.  

You are the leader of euthanasia UK and I claim prize of death by injection at the your predetermined age on which old people are not allowed to vote. 

Yes, those ones. The ones with spitfires on their Facebook profiles, saying "we won the war" (er, you were born in 1950, years after it finished) and "fight the traitors on the streets (er, you're 69, it's more Dad's Army than insurrection).

Please read my words. What did I say about euthanasia? Did I say anything about not being allowed to vote?

I just said the ones shouting about violent resisting the traitors are generally old and senile. Hardly likely to be killing people in the streets.

[cstand]

10 minutes ago, GboroRam said:

Yes, those ones. The ones with spitfires on their Facebook profiles, saying "we won the war" (er, you were born in 1950, years after it finished) and "fight the traitors on the streets (er, you're 69, it's more Dad's Army than insurrection).

Please read my words. What did I say about euthanasia? Did I say anything about not being allowed to vote?

I just said the ones shouting about violent resisting the traitors are generally old and senile. Hardly likely to be killing people in the streets.

Who has got spitfires on their FB page????

Rationing finished in 1954.

Paid off 21billion pound debt from the war in 2006.

Farming had to change years after the war to make sure we would be self sufficient if any other war broke out. 

My euthanasia comment was a joke about your ageism which you find acceptable.

Strange how you missed my point that older people wanted to join the common market not the EU. 

 

 

[Stive Pesley]

7 minutes ago, Norman said:

Legard admitted that austerity wouldn't work in the EU but backed strict austerity anyway. 

Wonder how that would benefit the EU?

Absolutely the same. That's why I sometimes struggle to  understand people who quote the political corruption of the EU as a reason to leave, yet refuse to acknowledge that our own government is no better - if not worse. The idea of "taking back control" in that context becomes slightly more obvious as to what they meant.

[Wolfie]

4 minutes ago, SchtivePesley said:

Obviously there is no hard proof or admission of this - as that would be something no one in power will ever admit, but as conspiracy theories go...

The fact that it hasn't worked, borrowing has increased, the national debt has increased, yet we're left with much worse / less of / totally removed public services - whilst observing a huge transfer of wealth to private companies, noting that these very same private companies have lobbied / donated hard to the political party running the "austerity" program is kind of damning enough for me

That's an opinion.

One fact is that, if the objective was to stop borrowing altogether, then it has failed. However, the current borrowing rate is around 2% of GDP - which means that with an inlfation rate & target of 2%, the amount of national debt isn't increasing in real terms. I'd call that staying within our means. Close enough for me anyway.

Borrowing hasn't increased, as you claim but of course the national debt has, because you can't stop borrowing the amounts we were, post-crash, overnight. It amuses me when the left attack austerity and at the same time attack for increased national debt. Presumably they would prefer to increase spending further instead and aim for high inflation - dealing with the debt in that way. Oh, and wiping out everyone's savings at the same time.

We are in a much better state as a country (financially) now than we were 6-7 years ago and future governments will be able to spend a bit more freely.

[LE_Ram]

18 minutes ago, G STAR RAM said:

Cheers for the response.

Although I take on board your concerns, I still dont see any FACTS that have changed since the Referendum.

All I see is more stories and predictions, that are not facts, have come out. Everything else you have stated was known at the time of the Referendum. The only point I concede was not discussed is the Irish backstop, but there again that did not exist until Theresa May accepted it in the withdrawal agreement. 

I understand your point and accept why people voted to leave, and why they continue to want to leave. Think everyone is more than entitled to their opinion.

Personally, everything I’ve seen over the last 3 years has led me to change my mind on the matter and I would change what I originally would’ve voted for. That’s why I want a second referendum. If people haven’t changed their minds, I totally get why they wouldn’t want one. As ever, it’s a matter of personal preference.

As a separate point, it’s nice to have a reasoned debate with someone who holds a different point of view, rather than as so often it does descending into personal comments. 

[AndyinLiverpool]

44 minutes ago, G STAR RAM said:

Seems to me that Brexit is being used to blame everything bad on.

People citing the national atmosphere, are not citing Brexit, they are citing the behaviour of people, and as far as I can see the behaviour of Remainers is as bad as anything that Leavers are doing.

Remainders are not shouting at people to go back to their own countries or intimidating them on social media or actually physically attacking them. All of this has happened to colleagues or clients of ours in the last 3 years. 

It’s happening. Now. Because you don’t believe it does not mean it doesn’t exist. 

[Stive Pesley]

8 minutes ago, Van Wolfie said:

We are in a much better state as a country (financially) now than we were 6-7 years ago

That's also an opinion. I think there are plenty of people who would disagree with you. Those using food banks, sleeping on the streets, waiting for NHS operations, unable to get Doctors appointments, unable to afford to buy a house, watching food/utilities bills continually increase, struggling to navigate their way through Universal Credit, PIP etc...I could go on

Personally I'm in a far worse position financially, no pay rise for 5 years, and annual bonuses scrapped, so I'm earning a lot less in the same job - both in real terms and even worse when you consider the cost of living increases over that time

 

[Norman]

11 minutes ago, SchtivePesley said:

Absolutely the same. That's why I sometimes struggle to  understand people who quote the political corruption of the EU as a reason to leave, yet refuse to acknowledge that our own government is no better - if not worse. The idea of "taking back control" in that context becomes slightly more obvious as to what they meant.

But you can vote for different parties here. You can't vote out a person elected on an 8 year term by heads of governments who may not even be in power anymore. How many have we had in 8 years?

We will be forced to take the currency. Maybe not for another 20 or 30 years. And that will be worse than any form of Brexit. Imo.

[GboroRam]

35 minutes ago, cstand said:

Rationing finished in 1954.

Paid off 21billion pound debt from the war in 2006.

Farming had to change years after the war to make sure we would be self sufficient if any other war broke out. 

All of which are a far cry from fighting on the beaches, now, aren't they? Yet they are proudly proclaiming they won the war. They may have picked up the pieces afterwards, but they weren't the ones fighting. And won't be again, if they are from that age demographic.

[Stive Pesley]

16 minutes ago, Norman said:

We will be forced to take the currency. Maybe not for another 20 or 30 years. And that will be worse than any form of Brexit. Imo.

But in actual fact - if that ever came to pass (being forced to take the Euro when we've always been able to veto that - and also schengen) - they would be issues actually worthy of a referendum!