Current Politics in the United Kingdom

[otokonomidori]

Originally Posted by scoundrel

rage and indignation in Mrs Sturgeon's voice when she made her public statement today; you would think we English had just shot her pet dog.
.

The would be English mutt assassin would struggle to tell the difference between her and the f**king dog.

[haroldeye]

Differance?

For God's sake man, I'm a dog lover.

[Puhbear69]

Originally Posted by scoundrel

You can potentially use this argument whenever a decision is enacted which you disagree with. What will happen next that Scotland mislikes and which the SNP chooses to regard as a deal-breaker. I certainly noted the sanctimonious tone of rage and indignation in Mrs Sturgeon's voice when she made her public statement today; you would think we English had just shot her pet dog. She can so fuck off it's unreal.

Wendigo is on the money. Often in our history Scotland had decided the general election and we English have voted Tory and be governed by Labour. It was/is no foul: the Union as a body sets the government, not the regions/kingdoms individually. We English do not bitch if Scotland swings the difference. Neither should the people of Scotland complain if it works the oppsite way; nothing unreasonable or unfair has occurred. I wont apologise for the fact that the people of Scotland disagree with the people of England. Scottish people never apologise for inflicting Wilson/Callaghan and Blair on us, and why should they? It was a whole nation vote, just as this referendum was. There has been absolutely no change in the Union; it is our relationship with outside powers which has changed.

If Scotland wants to ally amd align herself with outside powers instead of with England and Wales, then the Union is finished anyway. Being in a Union requires mutual loyalty.

With the turnout of the British referendum the "guaranteed attributes" , the "contractual base" of the Scottish referendum are not fulfilled any more. It is as simple as that.
Scotland is breaking not the deal, Great Britain (and there only the English part) does.

They can go "back to where they are started" if they want. Independent of Mrs. Sturgeon (who I don't know) and her dog. That "English trick", to let the Scottish citizens vote before the GB votes wouldn't help them (the English part) at all.
It could being seen as to let the Scottish citizens run into an open English knife (oh, sorry that wouldn't has been wanted.) if you think of a political worse doing.
(it was the intention of the PM to let things run like that in other words).

[Devius]

Originally Posted by vinceprince

Not sure anyone really thought it would be good for the economy. There was no real Brexit plan, strategy, manifesto or vision so not sure how they can say it would. That's why I couldn't vote for it.
Most people just seem to vote for it because they didn't like the EU and/or there are too many immigrants.

Given the lack of any real forward plan, just mission 'to leave' I suspect that's all that will be delivered in name only and we'll still have all the trade rules, most of the immigrants and no extra cash for the NHS.

Not sure that leave voters could complain as there was no other pledge apart from 'leaving'

As some of our fellow VEF members stated, there is nothing financial markets hate more than uncertainty, and we - both the UK and the EU - will be in for period of uncertainty while our "divorce sttlement" is sorted out over the expected ltwo year period.
This impacts Europe as well - everyone will now have to fully digest the impact of the UK (the World's fifth largest economy) leaving the EU, and the impetus that a successful Brexit vote will give to like-minded Eurosceptics in France, Italy, Sweden, etc.

We should also consider ithe possible impact on the UK if companies and banks decide to move or (more likely) scale down their British operations.

[Mr 1980s]

I've been drinking again so I just know I'm gonna regret this but bollocks... here we go!!

The thing that really turned me against the EU was when the Germans moaned about an aging population/ workforce due to not enough Germans having kids, saying the EU is about all Europeans coming together for the good of Europe, then inviting a million muslim in from the middle east (without consulting any other EU member state btw). While all this is going on, there was a sizable percentage of young Spanish/Italians who were unemployed and had no job prospects in the near future*, so the question for me is (and still unanswered BTW) why on earth didn't Fuhrer Merkle invite those young Spaniards/Italians to work in Germany???

Another unanswered question is why did Merkle the start shovelling these arabs off onto almost every other Eu member state? Was Orban, in telling his men to put up the razor wire fences the only EU leader to show signs of having a working brain? :P

None of this made any sense to me and was a sizable part of pushing me into the Leave camp in the referendum, is there anything out there explaining this insanity and I've just missed it? Enquiring minds need to know!

* I'd link to the article I saw about the unemployment in Spain/Italy but I can't remember where I saw it.

[deepsepia]

Originally Posted by Mr 1980s

so the question for me is (and still unanswered BTW) why on earth didn't {snip} Merkle invite those young Spaniards/Italians to work in Germany???

Is a good question . . . one might add, why not invite the Greeks to come work in Germany?

Greece's youth unemployment rate is apparently %51 ! That's a lot of people already in Europe who could use a job.

Instead, "Europe" seems to mean that you turn the screws on Greece, and welcome Afghans.

Doesn't make a lot of sense.

[seany65]

Originally Posted by palo5

I can sympathize with that view, but also read that gazillions of people woke up with an "are you effing kidding me?" feeling, and they didn't vote because they assumed most people had more sense in their heads and were not imbeciles. They were wrong and want a redress

Palo, those who didn't vote have no right whatsoever to complain.

They had no right to complain about others 'not having more sense in their heads' or to complain about them being 'imbeciles'.

Because they themselves did not have the "sense" to vote for the outcome they wanted. They expected the outcome they wanted without actually putting any effort in to getting that outcome. In short, they acted like imbeciles.


Anyway, I find it disgusting that that there is a petition for a 2nd in/out referendum. Apprarently, they're claiming that there should be 2nd one because the majority was less than 60% of a 75% turnout.

There was NEVER any statement about having to have any sort of specific majority of a specific turnout, so on that/those count/s alone they have NO CASE to put.

I also wonder:

If the numbers and percentages were the same but the result was for 'Remain', would they still be asking for a 2nd referendum?

No, they %^&*$#~>< wouldn't.

Would they accept that there was case for a 2nd one?

No, they :><@#~&*^%$ wouldn't.


Edit: Removed a repeat of the last line.

[snowy25]

One thing I found funny was reading online it seems a lot of people voted out because that is what they wanted but did so thinking it wouldn't matter as remain would win. However their votes did matter because in the end leave won. I think therefore these people were also the same people that flooded social media and other sites with their regretful messages about how they wish they could change their vote.

[penfold007]

Originally Posted by Mr 1980s

so the question for me is (and still unanswered BTW) why on earth didn't Fuhrer Merkle invite those young Spaniards/Italians to work in Germany???

No invitation is needed, any EU citizen can go to Germany to work, they don't need a personal invitation from the German head of state to do so.



On the more general subject of the referendum, there is an interesting thing still to happen. Article 50 needs to be triggered to start the divorce process. David Cameron has stated he is leaving it to his successor as he fought to remain in the EU and should not be involved in the negotiations to leave it. Now, the Conservative party is split on Europe as everyone knows. There is no guarantee that the next leader they elect will want to leave the EU. If they also do not trigger article 50, then what happens? The referendum result was not legally binding on the government, they rarely are (the AV voting system one was an exception) as it is convention that the will of parliament is supreme in our constitution.

So, times could be more even interesting than had previously been considered.

[CARLTON BROWN]

There have been some rather sad, generally ill-informed comments on this thread made by members living outside the UK, who really need to be on the ground in Britain to have an accurate sense of public opinion. Relying on poor quality TV news reports will have provided nothing of real value.

Ordinary people - not followers of the far-right, far-left or Little Englanders have become increasingly concerned about continued rule by unknown people overseas imposing endless regulations and restrictions. Then there have been the lies told by many British politicians and top of the list are major worries about immigration. This remains a very sensitive topic and continues to be handled with kid gloves by the media and politicians. Some truth and honesty would clearly be going too far.

Qualified people who can make a contribution to British society have always been very welcome, and I personally hope it remains that way. But it appears that many immigrants are simply coming to the UK for everything they can get. The government will try to tell you otherwise, but this is the public's perception. Many see the crisis in our health service, the lack of school places, the thousands of immigrants in prison, the lack of housing and the 1.75 million unemployed as proof of all this.

Second, there is the continuing arrival of immigrants with very different cultural and religious beliefs, already filling Mainland Europe and bringing serious problems with them. Many have no intention of ever integrating into Western society and amongst them, there are potentially very dangerous individuals who have allegiances to what our prime minister recently described as a "death cult."

This is not a race thing, or a hatred against foreigners as some EU enthusiasts now like to claim. It is genuine concerns about large groups of people coming into our midst and following a path through life that appear very alien and backward thinking to many members of British society. It is also apparent that these communities have no intention of ever integrating.

In the case of Merkel's bizarre and potentially very dangerous open-door immigration policy, this simply generated astonishment and major concerns outside Germany. Indeed, a very good point made previously commented on why the Germans hadn't first offered employment and help to the citizens of EU countries having serious economic issues.

Nobody is saying that people fleeing tyranny and war shouldn't be helped in every way possible, but when common sense goes out the window, problems are not far behind. I do not think there is any real doubt that Merkel's decision to open the flood gates was one of the factors that strongly influenced Brits in the way they voted.

In my own region of England there were over sixty percent in favour of leaving. Perhaps some outsiders believe there was an equal spread of people across the country voting for or against continued membership of the EU? Certainly some of the remarks about pro-Brexit voters being old or stupid are insulting at best. I would simply repeat - don't believe too much of the nonsense on TV news. The media has certainly been a waste of time in recent months, doing little more than confusing the public.

According to the charts, those areas mainly in favour of remaining were Scotland (over sixy percent against leaving), plus Northern Ireland and the high immigrant locations. Those wanting to leave the EU, were in most parts of England and Wales.

I don't know anyone who dislikes our cousins in the other parts of Europe. Quite the contrary, its simply the EU system that is seen as increasingly out of control, run by the wrong people, making terrible decisions and the whole thing is of no real benefit to the UK.

Personally, I'm quite happy for Scotland to do their own thing and separate, if that's the wish of the people up there, then so be it, assuming they think they can make a go of things. This is how democracy is supposed to work, isn't it? The same goes for Northern Ireland, which still seems like a foreign country to many living in Mainland Britain.

What we now have, is a good chance to shape our future and if we make a mess of things, it will be the fault of the British people, nobody else.