European Union Referendum

[Abertawe]

Remain would probably sneak a second referendum

Remain would smash it. Think there are lots of #remorsers ready to join the #remainers fight and I want royalties on that term.

 

[Fompous Part]

Remain would smash it. Think there are lots of #remorsers ready to join the #remainers fight and I want royalties on that term.

Aye, but you thought Uncle Jeremy coming second in a General Election was ‘winning’, so you’re idea of ‘smashing it’ probably doesn’t correspond with mine. What do you have in mind? A 10+ point margin? Less?

BTW, Johnny Boy doesn’t sound very keen. Thoughts?

 

[Abertawe]

Aye, but you thought Uncle Jeremy coming second in a General Election was ‘winning’, so you’re idea of ‘smashing it’ probably doesn’t correspond with mine. What do you have in mind? A 10+ point margin? Less?

BTW, Johnny Boy doesn’t sound very keen. Thoughts?

You're playing loose with the definition of winning there especially when we think back to your personal reaction to the result. Remain by minimum of 8 points. Enough to put the issue to bed for the rest of your life which equals smashing it.

Unless Johnny Boy stops being anonymous with any detail about how a brexit led by him might look or operate he is irrelevant to any argument that we should leave and is no opposition against a second ref. He knows the EU aren't going to give an inch and we'll be thrust into legitimate crisis the very moment we'd declare we've left on a no deal. No one wants to be at the helm when that happens not even the bonkers ERG lot. All concerned are quite happy to sit it and let some other idiot destroy themselves. ERG might lodge legal proceedings to prevent parliament forcing a referendum but it'll be futile.

A second referendum will happen. The moment Jezza officially goes remain as OFFICIAL POLICY it's all over and there will be nothing any brexiter could do about it. No deal would be reliant on Rees-Mogg, Boris & Farage leading the charge. Rees-Mogg is easily SMASHED in debate because he's Rees-Mogg. Boris is toxic and is looked upon as a MESS. Farage is the only true daddy but his only fall back is "Trump is mah mate" which unless you're an EDL type isn't going to cut the mustard and Jezza will smash him in live debate also. (their only shot is going balls out on far right rhetoric and farage has always resisted doing that)

Jezza saying absolutely nothing right up until after parliament force a referendum is literally his ticket to number 10. He'll even have the mainstream doing the bidding which will be hilarious. Tories will be left with Hammond & Soubry

 

[Fompous Part]

Your rabble won the second highest number of seats, the second highest number of votes, and the second highest share of the popular vote. On every key metric, then, you finished second. That’s why you’re in opposition.

My reaction on election night was to swallow down my disappointment at losing the majority and congratulate Labour on their better than expected result (unlike various others I could mention, I know how to bear a political disappointment without regressing to irate toddler mode). Unfortunately this magnanimity was short-lived because you and various other over-excitable JC fanboys started claiming that you’d won, and I felt obliged to point out the basic verifiable fact that you hadn’t.

One of us is certainly 'playing loose' with definitions, but it sure as shit ain't me.

Nonetheless, I appreciate your more precise result prediction, as well as your other prophesies. Will be interesting to see how many come true.

P.S. Am I right in thinking you are now one of these #remorsers you speak of?

 

[Abertawe]

Your rabble won the second highest number of seats, the second highest number of votes, and the second highest share of the popular vote. On every key metric, then, you finished second. That’s why you’re in opposition.



My reaction on election night was to swallow down my disappointment at losing the majority and congratulate Labour on their better than expected result (unlike various others I could mention, I know how to bear a political disappointment without regressing to irate toddler mode). Unfortunately this magnanimity was short-lived because you and various other over-excitable JC fanboys started claiming that you’d won, and I felt obliged to point out the basic verifiable fact that you hadn’t.

One of us is certainly 'playing loose' with definitions, but it sure as shit ain't me.

Nonetheless, I appreciate your more precise result prediction, as well as your other prophesies. Will be interesting to see how many come true.

P.S. Am I right in thinking you are now one of these #remorsers you speak of?

I wasn't inferring you acted like a toddler in the wake of the result. My memories of the time and I apologise if I got this wrong - was you felt politicked out and your level of disillusionment over whether you'd get the brexit you yearned for was at an all time high which was part of the reason you took a break I thought.

Like this was a great call bro

England, Wales & Scotland (632 seats):
CON: 317
LAB: 255
SNP: 48
LDs: 8
PLC: 3
GRN: 1
UKIP: 0

Northern Ireland (18 seats):
Don't care.

Headline outcome:
Tories lose their majority (9 seats shy), and we have a hung parliament.

Likely consequences:
I cry, investigate emigrating to Canada, and never return to 1FF again.

See your likely consequences for why your prattling on about winners & losers is absurdity. You already called whats going to happen before the country went to the polls so you understand no deal won't get through our parliament even if ERG take it to the highest court in the land to prevent it and by your own admittance this morning remain will win. Failing to deliver will rule both this government and the ERG politically dead and even if the party overlords do prolong the torture till 2022 they're only delaying the inevitable. The only thing Jeremy has to do not to become PM is not die. Hence why your winning jibes are looser than Eric Pickles' worn out kegs.

Stop being so tribal calling people fan boys and shit.

I'm not a #remorser because these couple of years have been mint and it set off a massive chain reaction that is ultimately going to result in a real-labour government - the stuff of dreams and fuck it european food is nice and so are easy city breaks. #Remorser is a term for non fan boys, normal people I guess that have come to the conclusion what we have now like human rights, workers rights, free healthcare and other trivial things isn't so bad when compared to Bannon brokered corporate takeover fuelled by racial & religious dog whistling. Should you or anyone else concede to that so as to "win brexit" then get to fuck and enjoy your hell.

 

[Fompous Part]

This is silly. I only brought up the winning and losing thing with regards to GE2017 to point out that you have form when it comes to interpreting results in a rather eccentric way, which is why I asked you to clarify what ‘smashing it’ meant in numerical terms. And you did clarify, so it’s all good. We’ll see if you’re right.

I think ‘fanboy’ is a perfectly apposite term to use for people whose (understandable) admiration for Corbyn has clearly crossed over into the sort of mindless idolatry one usually finds in pre-pubescent girls at a Justin Bieber concert. I make no apology for using it whatsoever.

I’ve been disillusioned about Brexit for a while (and, yes, the pessimism, which is never far away, crept in before Mrs May made an absolute arse of that election campaign), but I honestly have no idea where we’re heading.

Even if I restrict my focus to Labour, I find the situation almost impossible to predict. I have no idea if Corbyn and McDonnell will do an opportunistic U-turn on the whole second referendum thing, and I have no idea if it would benefit them if they did. As I wrote at the time, I think that GE2017 result relied quite heavily on their fudging the issue and they can’t do that forever. So we’ll see. Conference should be interesting.

Your last paragraph made me laugh. Have a good weekend!

PS. I probably was ‘politicked out’ by 2017 (two massive referendums, two general elections, a Scottish Parliament election and a EP election in a 3-4 year period tends to have that effect when you’re busily involved in campaigning), but I left the forum because I was spending too much time online getting dragged into ‘debates’ with people who weren’t even pretending to argue in good faith. Not sure much has changed.

 

[Ebeneezer Goode]

I find it difficult to believe that Corbyn would ever adopt Remain as party policy, not least because the man clearly wants the UK to leave the European Union.

 

[Fompous Part]

Does he?

I think ultimately he cares a lot more about being in No. 10; or, failing that, remaining leader of the Labour Party. If the polling wonks tell him he can U-turn without losing more than he gains, that’s probably what he’ll do.

The litmus test of Corbyn’s EU-scepticism was the referendum, and he campaigned for Remain. Yes, he did it in a rather half-arsed and ineffective way, but a genuine EU-sceptic wouldn’t have touched the Remain campaign with a barge pole. Field, Hoey, Stringer, Hopkins, Skinner, Mann – those are genuine EU-sceptics in the Labour Party.

A U-turn at the party conference wouldn't surprise me. Whether it's a good idea or not, I don't know. Not sure what the electoral arithmetic on that is.

 

[Abertawe]

He just needs to say & do as little as possible but it's clear a second ref is happening so it'll serve no purpose to rule it out.

 

[Gassy]

Great news.....

"The prime minister is sticking by her Chequers plan for future co-operation despite European leaders attacking it. "

You couldn't make it up at times...

 

[Fompous Part]

Okay, I have a question. I’ve asked myself this one more times than I care to mention during the last 18-24 months, so I would like to hear what others think.

Anyone can answer, but I’m especially interested to hear from Remainers. Even people who think Brexit is a bloody terrible idea would, I hope, concede that the government could have handled the post-referendum process much better they have done. Impact analysis, contingency planning, clarity of vision, public communication, negotiation strategy, etc. – in all these important areas there is obvious room for improvement. Brexit is inescapably complex, but not all of the government’s problems stem from the inherent difficulty of the task. Right?

So, my question: is what we’re seeing just bog-standard incompetence and denialism, or are they deliberately botching it?

 

[Gassy]

Don’t you want to hear this from leavers, rather than remainers?

Because I’m sure most remainers will tell you it’s incompetence and could have been handled much better.

 

[PuB]

Complete incompetence, I was 50/50 on the vote, but what's happened since has been a fucking horror show.

 

[Ebeneezer Goode]

It's impossible to know without knowing what's going on behind the scenes. The EU can openly play hardball because they know the strength of our hand is dictated in large part by threats we can't publicly make. I don't know about deliberate sabotage but you have to imagine than May is about as enthusiastic about a Brexit deal as Corbyn was for a successful Remain campaign.

 

[AFCB_Mark]

It's just good old fashioned incompetence, nothing more cynical than that. Occam's razor.

I suspect the entire bubble of governmental / legal apparatus never once thought we'd actually vote for Brexit. As such it never occurred to plan for such an eventually, and when it happened, there was no idea what to do next. And in the lack of prior planning, the PM and Chancellor walked away leaving a bumfight of ministers each with their ideas.

Any hypothetical, deliberate intentional plan to botch Brexit, perhaps as a way of eventually remaining, that suggests a level of planning, intelligence and cunning of Machiavellian standard, that I do not think exists in our current Government (or it's opposition).

 

[Abertawe]

I'd say yes but the tories wouldn't be able to get anything through parliament unless the majority u-turned on their principles making an election inevitable. Would business really want a Corbyn government over leaving the EU? And if they do then what does that say for how bad an idea it'd be to leave on a no deal!

The tories are so fucked long term. David Cameron what have you done haha.

 

[Gassy]

So I subscribe to all the GOV emails about Brexit updates as they happen.

This one didn't half make me laugh:

After March 2019 if there’s no deal
If the UK leaves the EU in March 2019 with no agreement in place, UK and EU licensed airlines would lose the automatic right to operate air services between the UK and the EU without seeking advance permission. This would mean that airlines operating between the UK and the EU would need to seek individual permissions to operate. EU-licensed airlines would lose the ability to operate wholly within the UK (for example from Heathrow to Edinburgh) and UK-licensed airlines would lose the ability to operate intra-EU air services (for example from Milan to Paris).

 

[silkyman]

The government has no legally binding requirement to stop Brexit either, n’est-ce pas? It was advised by a majority to leave and it is doing so.

God forbid a government following its citizens’ wishes....

Yes, and the referendum wasn’t gerrymandered or fraudulent at all, somthat razor thin majority is clearly a mandate to do whatever the fuck they like.

 

[silkyman]

So the UK has created a ‘Minister for Food’ position in government on three occasions.

1914
1939
2018

This is all going REALLY fucking well, isn’t it.

 

[Jockney]

Yes, and the referendum wasn’t gerrymandered or fraudulent at all, somthat razor thin majority is clearly a mandate to do whatever the fuck they like.

Even most ardent FBPE bods aren’t saying this fella, come on.

 

[silkyman]

Where are you looking?

https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/vote-leave-guilty-fraud/

 

[Ebeneezer Goode]

The Lib Dems' remain campaign and Open Britain were both also fined by the electoral commission for breaching spending rules during the referendum.

 

[Laker]

Yes, and the referendum wasn’t gerrymandered or fraudulent at all, somthat razor thin majority is clearly a mandate to do whatever the fuck they like.

A succession of UK governments since the common market referendum in 1975 pursued closer ties with the EU on all sorts of matters not covered by that referendum. By that mark, you could argue we didn’t even need a referendum to leave if a government didn’t want one.

PS my understanding of gerrymandering refers to the “fixing” of geographical administrative boundaries to achieve a certain result. Administrative boundaries were/are pretty irrelevant in a referendum.

 

[silkyman]

While it's traditionally used for geographical boundaries, as a term to describe the general act of denying a vote to certain sectors with a big stake, while allowing it to others, it fits well enough. If you have a better word to describe that, I'll use that.

Anyway. Minister for Food eh?

 

[Fompous Part]

To clarify for Laker:

Fraud (noun)
The practice of spending more campaign money than permitted by electoral rules (though still millions less than your opponents) while under the impression that it’s fine because, err, you consulted the Electoral Commission and they told you it was fine.

Gerrymander (verb)
To not grant the vote to normally excluded groups of people (e.g. 16 year olds, non-citizens, etc.), thereby squandering the opportunity to make Silkyman’s preferred referendum outcome more likely.

Source: Silkyman (2018) The Essential English Dictionary for Remoaners, Oxford, Tedious Whingebag Publications.

 

[George Reilly's Hairpiece]

Minister for Food? About time too. Any country that relies on food banks should have one. A few years overdue.

 

[Laker]

To clarify for Laker:

Fraud (noun)
The practice of spending more campaign money than permitted by electoral rules (though still millions less than your opponents) while under the impression that it’s fine because, err, you consulted the Electoral Commission and they told you it was fine.

Gerrymander (verb)
To not grant the vote to normally excluded groups of people (e.g. 16 year olds, non-citizens, etc.), thereby squandering the opportunity to make Silkyman’s preferred referendum outcome more likely.

Source: Silkyman (2018) The Essential English Dictionary for Remoaners, Oxford, Tedious Whingebag Publications.

I try to take people at face value and not take the piss/rubbish posts even if they are at odds with what I believe or even with what seems logical. But I admit, sometimes it’s tough.

I don’t quite know what to say on the voting groups issue Silkyman has raised, it’s an argument you’ve covered perfectly well but it seems like fighting against someone who won’t accept facts. (The sky is blue, no it isn’t. Oh ok.... where do we go from here?)

But my point about gerrymandering was just to correct rather than take the piss as I felt the term was being used incorrectly. He can call it what he wants, I guess, but it isn’t gerrymandering.

 

[Fompous Part]

If we’re going to be joyless prescriptivists about it (and I’m usually up for that), gerrymandering is the deliberate manipulation of constituency boundaries for political gain; and, as you’ve pointed out, that is irrelevant in a national plebiscite because there are no constituency boundaries to manipulate.

But let’s not be nitpicky wankers about it. Let's say ‘gerrymandering’ can mean the basic practice of rigging electoral rules to give your side an unfair advantage, and let’s say that practice can take the form of excluding certain groups of people from voting. Even accepting that, there’s still a chasm-sized hole in his argument:

The terms of the referendum were set by a government that favoured Remain. The relevant legislation was approved (by a massive majority) by a parliament heavily comprised of people who favoured Remain. The way Silks goes on, you’d think the government wanted a Leave victory and cynically limited the franchise to secure that outcome, but the Leavers were never in charge of the process. Establishment Remainers were.

As far as I can see, his main gripe is that the government could have cynically extended the franchise to secure its (and his) favoured outcome, but didn’t. Put another way, he’s angry because the government didn’t 'gerrymander' as much for Remain as it could have.

 

[Super_horns]

Mrs May is going to make a speech about immigration post Brexit.

Suggestion is high skilled workers from the EU will be given more importance than low skilled workers who won't get any special treatment compared to migrants from other areas of the world.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-45714413

Well that is the plan anyway but her plans don't seem to work very well or get a lot of support!

 

[AFCB_Mark]

The likes of Mandelson, Burnham, Umunna, and the entire Lib Dem party have been calling for an extension to Article 50 recently.

Guy Verhofstadt made a speech yesterday stating Article 50 would not be extended past March 2019, speaking particularly to Boris it seems when saying:

"We will never accept an extension of this whole process. So, no, Boris Johnson, we will not extent Article 50 and prolong further uncertainty for citizens and businesses."