To be fed up of comparisons with 1930s Germany in U.K. politics?

[jessica29054]

Surely a better and far less potentially offensive comparison is the 1980s?

Labour in disarray, therefore weak opposition, and a female PM of course.

Comparisons with the rise of the extreme far right in Germany have little place. The BNP are the equivalent to Hitler and his party and thankfully have little mainstream support.

Really? I'd go and check out the Henry the VIII which have been proposed to be used in the Reform bill, that and using royal prerogative to push through article 50.

All of those seem to be quite dictatorial to me bullseye.

"disenfranchising large numbers of voters because they've failed to vote in the right way"

All of the actions taken so far are disenfranchising the 48% of those who voted, and all of the EU immigrants in this country.

And in September their analysis is 'increase in reporting and raised tensions' since the referendum, now easing off, but still higher than last year.

But back to pre-referendum levels for 2016. news.npcc.police.uk/releases/tackling-hate-crime-remains-a-priority

“We have seen continued decreases in reports of hate crimes to forces and these reports have now returned to formerly seen levels for 2016. For this reason, we will return to our previous reporting procedures and will no longer be requiring weekly updates from forces.

Which basically means that the police didn't believe there was a hate crime crisis so were easing off on the monitoring.

Also technically Stalin's regime wasn't left wing, merely it paid it lip service, it was actually state capitalist.

Well this is the old left wing get out of jail for free card isn't it? Whenever they screw something up they claim it was never left wing at all but actually it was right wing all along! Very similar to saying New Labour were Red Tories.

But then that does make you wonder about the effectiveness of the left altogether. If every time they get a sniff of power it's 'Whoops! Accidentally became right wingers, how did that happen?' And they never notice at the time, it just suddenly occurs to them afterwards when they want to blame someone else.

then I don't think you're capable of putting together a credible argument.

Ah, the smallfox method of insulting anyone who disagrees with her/him. You've done that very effectively on the EU referendum threads and seen off all the opposition.

No, I think that particular argument wasn't credible.

Also, I don't think you or anyone else can discuss insulting others on this or many other threads, its a one way street it seems.

The disenfranchised will not get less disenfranchised once we have exited the EU, on the contrary.

All of the actions taken so far are disenfranchising the 48% of those who voted, and all of the EU immigrants in this country.

Seeing as neither of you seem to understand what disenfranchised means I will explain to you: it means depriving of the right to vote.

Voting for something and not getting the result you want is not disenfranchisement. It's losing.

However what we saw after the referendum - cries of a vote shouldn't have been allowed because the plebs couldn't be trusted to vote for the right thing, calls for weighting votes to give the left an advantage by giving young people two votes or introducing and educational qualification, by raising the threshold of the vote required so 'remain' only required 25% of votes to win. Basically any reason to disallow or disregard the votes of the majority of the country that voted out. THAT is disenfranchisement. People who haven't got the result they want are not disenfranchised. They had every right to vote and make their voices heard and they did but they still lost.

And their response was 'Well if we can't win fairly let's disenfranchise the opposition and move the goalposts so we do win'. That is absolutely the sort of thing which you expect to happen in totalitarian states and dictatorships with rigged show elections.

I don't think New Labour were Red Tories at all, progressives yes, moderate yes, not right wing.

Isn't the blame game something every political party does, in fact the Tories are still doing it 6 years in!

BillSykesDog - what are you taking, girl? I haven't seen anyone produce so many words about every single word or concept that could possibly be twisted.

There is a lack of respect for diversity of opinion on this thread. If you disagree, state your case instead of shreiking. Apart from one or two steady, measured debaters, what on earth is the matter with you all?

Didn't the Ashcroft survey turn that belief on its head? Rather than the Brexit voters being elderly and from the North, Ashcroft's analysis apparently showed that it was the middle class, semi-pro from the South (but not London) who made up the majority Brexit vote. I have not looked into it so cannot comment further.

bullseye, it isn't a case of winning or losing, its the fact that 48% of the population are being disenfranchised by the fact that how Brexit occurs is not going to be debated by Parliament and the likelihood that many of the changes that are to come will be put through using the Henry VIII clauses, effectiely removing their ablility to debate or oppose these changes. Frankly by not listening to the views of remainers on this they are being disenfranchised.

But please seek to patronise me some more.

I can well imagine how we are being portrayed and painted overseas for their own political gain

What political gain??

This is the kind of them-and-us narrative you hear in countries like Russia. Hopefully the UK is not heading towards nationalistic paranoia.

so do your neighbours never walk past any newsagents either, where several tabloids frontpages keep screaming xenophobic shit?

Do you honestly think East Europeans and Poles give a shit what tabloids say. The people I know and have known for 7 years leave for work early in the morning and get home quite late. The news they watch is satellite from their own countries. They have said - life goes on, no difference; the Poles actually would like their own Brexit if it were not for the financial benefits the country receives. The time is not yet right for them.

My Polish DIL is worried, as are her friends, all highly educated professionals living in London. None of them would back Poland leaving the EU.

Anyway, being a member of the metropolitan elite I'm of to a North London dinner party.

Brexit won't be on the menu.

Hopefully the UK is not heading towards nationalistic paranoia.

I take it you don't think anything at all that has happened since June is indicative of an atmosphere of nationalistic paranoia?

Ohtoblazes - I have subsequently been advised on here that actually the feeling in other EU countries (well Germany, Spain and France) appears to be it's not newsworthy enough so I stand corrected on my first point.

A them and us situation has unfortunately been created, how we deal with it remains to be seen.

There is a lack of respect for diversity of opinion on this thread. If you disagree, state your case instead of shreiking. Apart from one or two steady, measured debaters, what on earth is the matter with you all?

My apologies if I have shrieked or not been measured or contributed to a lack of diversity - I imagine that you wouldn't consider it shrieking to describe a thread as totalitarian, yes?

MargoReadbetter I agree with your last post.

Yes, I do think some of this thread smacks of totalitarianism. If you re-read your posts you will see the difference between posting an opposing view, and shrieking. I try to be polite and state an opinion or observation. But coming at any poster with snorts of derision and sarcasm is shrieking imo.

When i say "you", I do not mean one individual.
I'm off now to make dinner for my Latvian builders.

But coming at any poster with snorts of derision and sarcasm is shrieking imo.

Well, I fear that if you consider me guilty of the above then we will have to agree to disagree on several of your definitions including totalitarianism, snorting, derision, sarcasm and shrieking. Would you consent to consulting a dictionary to resolve our differences?

it isn't a case of winning or losing, its the fact that 48% of the population are being disenfranchised by the fact that how Brexit occurs is not going to be debated by Parliament

The referendum itself was voted for by parliament. The argument that voters would be disenfranchised by parliament doesn't hold. Because the intention of asking for a debate and vote itself is to disenfranchise leave voters by setting aside their votes and deliberately ignoring the will of the majority of the country. You can't say it disenfranchises anybody because the HoC and the referendum had the same electorate so nobody has been disenfranchised. Rather, to attempt to put it to a vote of MPs in the hope they will vote against it is the disenfranchising move as it's intent is to set aside the vote.

As far as voting on the Brexit deal - clearly if a vote was to be offered this would simply create a win/win situation for the EU. They would offer us a very poor deal because either that would bully us back in. Plus because they had such a good incentive to offer a poor deal we would have to offer huge concessions for tiny ones on their part. And the UK would also have put itself in a position where it had completely weakened it's negotiating hand because they had done it from a position where the EU had everything to gain from offering the worst possible deal but nothing in particular to gain from offering a good one. Nobody with any sense at all would offer a vote on the outcome at this stage of the negotiations.

All the whinging about 'behaving like a Tudor monarch' is not done out of concern for democracy or representation. It's an attempt by remainers to engineer a situation where the EU can offer such a poor deal it can only ever be rejected thus meaning we stay in and the minority remainers get their way.

So 52% of voters are ignored by fixing the negotiations to give the outcome the 48% want. Now that would be disenfranchising, manipulating the political process to conciously bring about a result which is the opposite from that which the majority voted for.

There is a lack of respect for diversity of opinion on this thread. If you disagree, state your case instead of shreiking

Yep. See Margo's nasty little post above. It's a case of 'if you can't think of a coherent argument just throw insults'.

I take it you don't think anything at all that has happened since June is indicative of an atmosphere of nationalistic paranoia?

Yes, because saying one of the most diverse countries in the world which has some of the best legal protection for minorities and groups at risk of discrimation is like 1930s Germany isn't paranoid at all is it?

Demanding list of foreigners. Telling doctors they will be replaced by natives. Telling academics they'll be banned from working on certain topics due to security risks. Having this as government policy, not just a rabid random fucker in the pub. That's worrying. I'm going out tonight so I'll let the Tory propaganda machine dissect and destroy my post. Have fun, my lovelies. I know I will.

Ah Bil lnice try, but again using the term "majority" when the difference was 3% does that mean that its OK to ignore the fact that this was a small majority vote and to not have any parliamentary debate on the direction it should take? That is rather dictatorial.

Also parliament agreed to an advisory referendum, in the case that it is such a small majority win surely this should mean that the nature of the mandate that the referendum results gives the government.

Removing this right to have their views listened to, and by removing the possibility that parliament would debate how brexit goes ahead does disenfranchise the leave side.

We are leaving it doesn't matter about that now, but how we leave needs to be debated by the elected representatives. After all, many individual cities and countries voted to remain, should their concerns not be aired or listened to? To do so is to disenfranchise them.

Your points about whinging about being Tudor monarchs? I firmly believe changes to legislation should be debated in parliament, to remove this is an undemocratic move.

You can talk of winners and losers all you like. But for the nature that brexit takes not to be debated does disenfranchise a large amount of the population.