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always going to be an argumentative subject a s seem two clear divides. those that want stay as a satellite. state of EU .( nearly half it seems) and rest whom want to become a self governing country again.
bearing in mind how many countries have fought for such freedoms such as India.USA etc it seems odd in way that since this is not a war but an economic and political issue that there is not straight forward common sense. resolution. however EU. to be fair did state that they need to make an example of anybody leaving EU so to put off any others considering ( such as Italy .greece) so in reality. we will get no concessions at all. hence May’s attitude to try and. not actually ‘leave’ except under ra label of leaving .. if you examine the white paper etc we can see that not much will change. fixing. grounds belong to UK remain under EU jurisdiction as does law making financial. rules. immigration and so on, in essence. we are not actually leaving other than minor surface changes such as having to get a visa ( which we did before joining and is no worry). not worth worrying about as leavers are going to get shortchanged anyway and retainers will in fact be remaining except technically for years and years..a steely try and overturn the
referendum at a later date( all parties have admitted to wanting that as politics is. far more important than democracy after all)For God’s sake, read the news, Gerry, and try not to let your strange brain distort the situation.
This coming from a self confessed paranoid, who views the world from within a paranoid prism (prison) and who has reacted accordingly on these boards for near on a decade. A decade.
Reading the old posts was interesting. You really have killed political debate on these boards you crooked old troll and it is just a sound board for you to spam your propoganda and suck from, feed from, gain energy from, the negative reactions it provokes in response. You’re a ghoul, you crooked old troll.
You carry on.
Thank you for your post, just H.
I’ve known that you, along with many (not all) who come to jc chat and boards want britain to leave the EU.
You also recognise that things are moving away from you, and fast. You still have a chance, but it’s a slim one.
You sincerely believe that Britain is a vassal of the EU. This is a point of vow which is very widely held – probably by the cast majority of the 36% of the electorate who voted to leave.
Do you agree that those of us who want to rejoin (40% according to a recent interesting poll by Yougov) donm’t see things in this way? We may be misguided, but we see it as a trading relationship in a two-speed Europe, the only sensible relationship you can have.
The Tory Right will fight to the death – they have Elizabethan fantasies of a buccaneering England following the example of Sir Francis Drake – not a fantasy created by them), but a fantasy.
But whatever our differences, just H, at least you put forward a reasoned case, free of the personal invective, and I welcome that. It can only clarify what is at stake.
A good article (for once) from Paul Mason on the Durham Miners Gala last week, coming from The New Statesman, attacking the reactionary myth of a ‘white working class’ united against foreigners, immigrants and the EU.
Paul has not been my favorite writer for a while, but his move towards a Norway style option is an indicator of the direction Corbyn is travelling.
I am more than happy with a Norway option as a stopping stage for people to think more about what they’re getting themselves into.
And it’s about time that someone pointed out that the working class, and the working class in the North-East, are not all pro-brexit. Most Labour voters opposed brexit. Gerry likes to distort this by pointing to the fact that the majority of Labour seats were Leave, and then move on to the lie that Labour’s voters are pro-Leave)
18 July 2018Labour’s task is to arm its working class supporters with a narrative of hope
By Paul MasonAt the “Big Meeting” people line the city’s medieval streets from 8am, cracking cans of lager and raiding trays of sausage rolls, while one former mining village after another marches past, headed by a brass bands, bagpipes and the ancient banners of the mining lodges.
At the end of it all, the panjandrums of the labour movement get to address a crowd double the size of Wembley. Because he spoke at both London and Durham, Jeremy Corbyn was given a unique, bird’s-eye view of the challenge facing progressive politics.
On the Friday he addressed a quarter of a million people in thriving London, most of whom hate Trump and want Britain to stay in Europe; the next day he addressed a similar number, but in a region whose traditional industries have been destroyed, and where all but one district voted Leave in 2016.
I barely need to list the demographic contrasts: London was diverse; Durham was mainly white; London was metropolitan; Durham revelled in the symbolism of village, work and Christianity. In London there was an entire women’s march; in Durham a contingent. Though women were there in equal numbers, they mingled with their families and communities.
But here’s what might surprise you, if you’ve read too much liberal academic bullshit about the “white working class”. Opposition to Brexit, and the xenophobia that’s come with it, was strong in Durham.
Many people were wearing “Bollocks to Brexit” stickers. A contingent of firefighters marched wearing the green scarves that’s become a tribute to the victims of Grenfell. A giant balloon calling for the Kurdish left leader Abdullah Ocalan to be freed from jail floated above the crowd.
This was mainly white, working class people refusing to adopt the reactionary identity of the “white working class”, invented by liberal pundits in response to Trump. Instead they were asserting the labour movement culture into which they were born. You only have to read the messages on the banners to understand how deeply the ideas of philanthropy and internationalism are rooted in that culture: “Do unto others…” “Suffer little children…” “All men are brothers…”
The men who first painted these slogans had fought a battle for decency in an industry where life was brutal and cheap. Even as their great-grandchildren become immersed in Love Island and Candy Crush Saga, they are never allowed to forget what came before.
The problem? As one activist put it to me at a Momentum meeting the next day: “we are swimming in a sea of racism”. In the pubs and clubs of small-town England, working class Labour activists have, since the rise of UKIP, been forced to fight a rearguard action against right-wing populism.
You know the language: “we want our country back”… “muslim Paedo gangs”… “fuck Europe and walk away” … “Corbyn’s a terrorist” … and the tabloid-fuelled identification of experts as effete “luvvies” who “think we’re all thick”.
Well the Durham Miners Gala was an assembly of 200,000 people who’ve had to suffer these sentiments, day in day out, and are now in a position to turn the tide. Because the fantasy of hard Brexit is over.
Millions of working class voters bought the idea of “taking back control”: that if only East European migration ended, wages would rise; that £350m a week could be switched effortlessly from Brussels to the NHS. People who spend their weekends at the rugby, football, cycling or martial arts know it’s best to do everything with commitment: hard and fast. And that’s how they expected the government to negotiate.
Instead it’s been slow, soft and catastrophic. The OBR confirms there will be no “Brexit dividend” for the NHS. In all circumstances short of a no-deal Brexit, Britain will actually lose control of its trade and regulations. May, meanwhile, is in a panic-stricken funk.
The immediate loss of four-points across all opinion polls is the headline result for the Conservatives. Some of that has gone to UKIP, and will fuel the betrayal narrative that the far right is trying to stoke up. But anyone who has canvassed a Leave-supporting area knows that’s not the end of the story.
If the politics of the salariat and the major cities has remained stable for the past two years, the politics of left-behind towns is volatile. Now hard Brexit is impossible, and the Tories are fighting like rats in a sack, what do we do now? That’s the conversation going on in thousands of pubs and workplaces.
Paul Mason looks like a young Alan sugar……(sorry Sir Alan) in my opinion….ooppsss i’m firedddd
LMAO RATF
He does, Mister q.
He’s not my favourite author, but I hope his call for a Norway option is taken up by Corbyn. labour can’t keep going as it is; it does need to decide its alternative.
I was watching a Tory MP yesterday saying that every family would be two to three thousand punds better off if we crash out of the EU without a deal.
What? Next they’ll be telling us that we’ll have a Brexit dividend of £350 million to put into the Health Service, or that 5.3 million Turkish immgrants are about to sweep into the country.
This right-wing strategy is about to land us all in genuine ruin. That’s not project fear. That’s project Fact. There’s already talk of a financial crash among surveyors working for estate agents, according to the FT.
Do the hard brexiteers care about that? Not on your nelly.
I find it laughable that any Government tells it’s people what’s best for them…..no offence but i don’t need any one else telling me how i should look after my self……ok taxes wise and power wise….that’s what Governments want…..
Look at it this way……if your next door neighbor became Prime Minister tomorrow…..would you vote for him/her?
We,, the government has to do what people told them, however badly those people were informed.
The government called the referendum, people voted to leave, the government then has to find the best way of leaving.
The trouble is that you can’t leave just like that – it’s a complex trading relationship.
The problems that have resulted are the consequence of that.
The problem with your posts on politics, q, is that they are profoundly anti-democratic. We elect a government to do stuff, and as they’re not composed of saints, politicians push and shove and double-deal in order to get it done or stop it being done.
We, even we on jc, have a responsibility as citizens to discuss it. We can’t not discuss something like this, because it affects all of us, our jobs, our homes, our family’s future.
That’s a liberal democracy.
If you refuse to discuss it because politics is just double-dealing is to leave politics to the politicians. You might as well take away the vote.
Given the tendency to turn this into ‘alternative facts’, and to say anything which appeals to people’s fears, and to attack the other person as a person rather than their views, have been carried to such an extreme by the alt.Right (we expect it in jc!) that to just turn your back on discussion is to endanger not merely democracy but our jobs, homes, families.
By all means distrust politicians. But that doesn’t mean we should not bother with a serious discussion. Learn to read the discussions and sift the facts and arguments form the abuse and lies.
The decisive move has been made.
Hardline Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab has been shoved aside from Brexit negotiations, and replaced by Theresa May herself, that is (Remoaner) Olly Robbins.
No surprise. The only alternative would have been the catastrophe of a no-deal Brexit. I’m fairly confident now that she’ll get a deal – Norway plus.
She’s moved against the Tory Right, and they’ll revolt in the autumn.Unless she can limit that revolt, or get enough Labour Members on her side, she’ll go – go to the country, or just go.
For the moment, she’s cracked the whip decisively, after a failed try a couple of weeks ago.
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