To think this is a new low even for Farage?

[LouiseBrooks]

www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/dec/20/nigel-farage-accuses-jo-cox-widower-brendan-cox-of-supporting-extremism

"Farage said: “Well, of course, he would know more about extremists than me, Mr Cox. He backs organisations like Hope Not Hate, who masquerade as being lovely and peaceful, but actually pursue violent and undemocratic means.”

I really hope that Hope not Hate sue him.

It's difficult to say that everyone on the right stated Leave and everyone on the left voted Remain. There is an element of people on the far left who are quite anti EU. It's probably only Liberals in the centre who are pretty much whole heartedly pro EU. As for far left politics, I would say that they have been pretty much marginalised in the UK for 30 years or more. The politics of new Labour were much more centrist.

User people from all parties voted all ways - highly likely corbyn, macdonald etc all voted leave as did frank field - gisella etc etc etc.

We know Cameron et all voted remain.

Given the high turnout compared with other elections, I'd guess that many Referendum voters had no loyalty or affiliation to any political party.

Highly likely Corbin macdonald etc all voted leave?

Where is your evidence that said it was 'highly likely' and who are the etc?

It looks like leave was supported by a cross section of political affiliations- which is why it's so odd that if you say anything against farage or leave on mumsnet you are constantly assumed to be a raving guardianista/leftie.

Birdy its stuff I read - cant remember his name now - but man high up in Labour had huge spread in The Times a while ago - detailing each person he thought would have voted leave in Labour and why, harking back to 70's etc. Of course we do not know - but he laid out pretty strong evidence pointing to it.

I agree - critic Farage and your raving Leftie - say one word to question whats being said about Farage though and your a right wing fanatic. Twas ever thus

I do think defending farage does point to being a right wing fanatic though!

Oh easier to find than I thought it was Alan Johnson

"REXIT

On Mr Corbyn's efforts during the referendum campaign, Mr Johnson said: "He was useless. We would put in speeches for him, ‘That’s why I’m campaigning for Britain to remain in the EU’, and they took it out every time. He would say, ‘That’s why Labour is campaigning to stay in the EU’."

Asked if he thinks Mr Corbyn voted Leave, he said: "I think he might have done. I wouldn’t be surprised but he was probably more neutral. The hard core of Seumas Milne [Mr Corbyn’s director of communications] and the people around him, they voted to leave, and John McDonnell I’m absolutely certain. In 1975 they thought the EU was a rich man’s club and that’s still what they think."

Rexit

'I think he might have done' is not highly probable. He has denied he did. He has many faults but I don't think he's a liar.

Have a read of this:

popbitch.com/home/2016/12/08/part-ii-return-of-the-gag/

Currently a well known millionaire's organisation is facing accusations of serious fraud. This can't be reported because he's argued that his children would be upset by it and it breaches his ECHR rights under article 8.

And that list, I'm not going through it article by article; because quite seriously any but an imbecile could quite clearly see that it guarantees no freedom of speech at all because it provides so many ambiguous and vague caveats it only allows freedom of speech within parameters set by the state on completely vague grounds. So, for example, anything can be banned on the grounds of morals. That could ban anything at all because morality is such a nebulous undefined concept. Freedom of speech which the state (or EU courts) have almost total free rein to curtail at will is no freedom at all. It's pointless and disingenuous to try and deny that. I don't think anybody with any serious knowledge of how that law has been applied would try and argue the ECHR protects free speech.

BillSykes

You quote a PopBitch article to justify your comments on law!

If you are referring to the PJS case in the Supreme Court here is the judgement www.supremecourt.uk/cases/docs/uksc-2016-0080-judgment.pdf

Explain how you think they got the law balancing freedom of speech and right to private and family life wrong?. Incidentally, it did not concern fraud - the article they wanted to print was about sexual encounters as they gently put it. If the article was about fraud the newspapers would have put the case very differently.

This idea that you can avoid caveats when dealing with issues of freedom of speech is ludicrous . No country in the world had unfettered freedom of speech if only for the "shouting fire in crowded theatre " situations.

Even in the US they have limits to freedom of speech (First amendment freedoms are effectively limited by laws on defamation, commercial confidentiality, intellectual property, discrimination, public order, obscenity to name a few).

Bill Sykes
BTW the cases under the ECHR including about freedom of speech are not determined in the EU courts so not sure why you mentioned them.

They are litigated n the European Court of Human Rights -under the Council of Europe -which is a totally different body - and includes every European state (even non EU like Russia ) except Belarus.

The Human Rights Act just assisted British people by allowing them to litigate ECHR issues in British courts by British judges - much quicker and cheaper for ordinary working people in my experience (though much better before legal aid cut back so much)

Bill Sykes

Sorry to keep on at you but this is a really interesting subject.

If you are really into total/almost unfettered freedom of speech, what is your view on very vocal public poppy burning (the Anjem Chowdry type stunt)? Is that freedom of speech or a public order offence?

Nigel Farage is rather wayward in his support for free speech (leftie demonstrators bad, his right to say nasty things about Romanians good) but I am unclear on your view?

Ive reread your comments re it giving unfettered powers to limit freedom pf speech to the state. By effectively allowing someone to challenge the state it does the precise opposite too what you say. You could not frame laws around freedom of expression any other way. It works in a very similar way to the US first amendment in that it sets out the basic principle but recognise that the executive (and society) could not function without some limits

If it was this Tunisian guy they are after, I don't see how it can even be suggested that this was ' merkels legacy' either, but hey, Nigel and his fans never let the facts get in the way of an argument.

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/12/22/europe-has-painful-lessons-learn-berlin-attack/

from other thread

"There are also questions for the EU as a whole to answer. Clearly Schengen’s open border policy is not sustainable, for Amri was able to cross from Italy to Germany freely. The EU justifies its integration as necessary for prosperity and security. But if agencies do not share data and the movements of suspects cannot be traced, what is the point of this naive project? Voters are bound to start demanding that individual nations police their own borders"

If you are really into total/almost unfettered freedom of speech, what is your view on very vocal public poppy burning (the Anjem Chowdry type stunt)? Is that freedom of speech or a public order offence?

IMO That is freedom of speech. I think that is exactly the point of freedom of speech, you don't get to cherry pick on the basis of which opinions you like and which are dominant at the moment and then select opinions in opposition to them and ban them. Because at most given times there is an ideology which believes that it is right and dominates within societies or establishments. In the past this may have been facism, feudalism or communism or whatever, and the unpopular opinions which couldn't be voiced were 'Don't put Jews in ghettos or gas chambers coz all the stuff you're accusing them of is made up', 'This serf business is a bit unfair and I want some wages' or 'Don't send people to gulags for 15 years because they've written a book you don't like'.

All perfectly reasonable views now, but at the time to the dominant philosophy would have been deemed wrong, dangerous and offensive and stopped it from being said. And obviously a lot of these philosophies turn out to be a bit shit with hindsight even though a lot of people thought they were great at the time. Which is why it's always a terrible idea to allow any school of thinking to dictate terms of what can and can't be publicly discussed and what they deem palatable and what they want censored. And thinking changes and shifts all the time. You can never tell when you'll end up with the shitty end of the stick if you support manipulating public debate to suit your own agenda. And yes that does include burning poppies.

Obviously there are limits, like actually calling for physical violence against people or saying things which are demonstrably untrue facts about things someone else has said or done.

But in general I think the right to offend is much more important than the rights of the offended. I can't bear people who get offended anyway. If your argument is so much more superior argue back. Don't clutch your pearls and demand nanny stops it!

It works in a very similar way to the US first amendment in that it sets out the basic principle but recognise that the executive (and society) could not function without some limits

You need limits to the limits though. Which is the problem with the ECHR act, the 'limits' are so vague virtually anything can be limited by it. Take the limit 'for the protection of health or morals'. You could essentially set up a sharia or Christian fundamentalist state and ban feminist publications or pro-choice speeches and have a fairly strong case that this was for the protection of 'morals' as you understood them.

A lot of people feel relaxed about it at the moment because they trust that states signed up to the ECHR won't exploit the vagueness of the law to prevent freedom of speech that they like. But what if populism does start to become really powerful in Europe and influences appointments to the ECHR? Would you really trust right wing governments with such vague sounding laws which are so elastic they can be manipulated to ban public discussion of almost anything? But then that also brings us back to cherry picking which opinions and schools of thoughts we like and privileging them over others. You can't really complain if vague laws are exploited by those whose opinions you don't like if you're perfectly happy for those you do like to have free rein with the same vague laws.

My rule of thumb is that if something is true and isn't going to put someone in physical danger then it should be free to be said.

BillSykes Dog

That is all very interesting (and a lot more consistent than the positions UKIP and Nigel Farage have taken)- I disagree about your analysis of the ECHR-it could be used to achieve your objective if you can show the court that the state have overstepped their reach. Interestingly a lot of the power to control discussion is no longer in the power of the state but big corporations (twitter, Facebook create the limits they allow on the platforms so forms of quasi-laws) but that a side discussion.

"health or moral"- as well as dealing with the sort of case you address (so anti genocide denial laws/ blasphemy etc) this provision effectively prevents fake health/product information and literature explaining methods of forcing child to have sex - both of which are also legislated on by the US (and which you may endorse).

Again, you will end up with interpretation arguments about what is "true" and what is "putting someone in physical danger" (and why not psychological?). So a journalist publishing the views of terrorists and then refusing to reveal their sources if they are terrorists- would they be protected? Don't know but know that your view about no caveats is unworkable.

As I say, the ECHR is very mainstream in terms of law in how it sets out a standard and then allows for caveats. If you disagree with the line taken by the state then you can argue before the courts that the particular restrictions are or do not:
prescribed by law;
necessary and proportionate; and
pursues a legitimate aim,

The Courts have shown themselves willing to defend freedom of expression on many occasions; and also dealing with the balancing act issues which circumstances requires (so for example when is defamation actually an opinion is a really tricky legal issue whether you agree or not). See www.echr.coe.int/LibraryDocs/DG2/HRFILES/DG2-EN-HRFILES-18(2007).pdf for a whole load of cases which are decided one way or another.

What you are essentially arguing is that the pendulum has swung too far in one direction rather than the mechanism for determination or challenge is wrong. Interesting in trying to rewrite the British human rights law the British govt are finding the same problem- that they dislike it in abstract without truly understanding the evolution and nuance of it. So it is bloody difficult to replace.

Wrong trouser, 9 areas in England voted overwhelmingly to leave by over 70%

Do you know the demographics of these areas? I don't. High unemployment? Many young people? Levels of immigration there? It would be interesting to know

winky

Several studies have shown that size of the immigrant population is not well correlated with the leave vote, but rate of immigration is.

These studies are worth looking at

www.resolutionfoundation.org/media/blog/why-did-we-vote-to-leave-what-an-analysis-of-place-can-tell-us-about-brexit/

natcen.ac.uk/media/1319222/natcen_brexplanations-report-final-web2.pdf

The first reckon they can explain most of the variation in vote with their various correlations (education, income, etc) and interestingly suggest that there isn't a "London" effect i.e. that once you look at all the other factors, the high London remain vote is explained. There is however a "Scotland" effect.

I've spent ages reading through these various studies and they are fascinating. But I think what gets lost in the discussion of the demographics is that the correlations only explain the variation in the vote. They don't explain the actual vote.

So to take two examples, from a lot of claims made about older leave voters selling the younger generation down the river, without looking at the stats people might think that almost all young people voted remain. But according to the second study, the leave vote for 18-34 year olds was 40%. Young people, like everyone else, are not a homogenous mass but I think this gets forgotten in the cartoonish portrayal of the vote. Similarly, 40% of Londoners who voted voted leave. The differences have been massively exxagerated. They are important and worth understanding, but they shouldn't be used to talk about people as homogenous blobs, whether that's remain or leave voters, or young people or whoever.

I've said this on other threads but it's still happening so I'm going to mention it again. Friends and acquaintances of mine, of a similar demographic to me, are still saying things which indicate it has not crossed their mind that I might not be a remain voter, devastated at the referendum result. Presumably because they are still (and these are intelligent, highly educated people) believing that "demographic x is correlated with remain" means "everyone in demographic x voted remain". It doesn't, it means "a higher % of demographic x voted remain than in the general population".

I think the Brexit vote itself was an angry and fearful one

I don't agree with this, mine certainly wasn't, it was a hopeful one.

Counter terrorism expert on ITV morning show - worked with Germany for two years said they are broken down into Federal areas with different policing in each one which makes things much harder - they don't have the same expertise as us at all. Its problematic not knowing who they let into the country last year and its problematic having open boarders because the terrorist could be sat in a totally different country right now.

I think the fact that the study says that areas of high unemployment and "deeper rooted economic differences " voted leave does show that actually Wrong.

Also its worth noting that the point on areas of high immigration voting to remain is still valid, because as it states: " Increasing the proportion of migrants in the population by 10ppt raises the leave vote by 3.9pp", now if you did this in the areas of high immigration that voted to remain you would have seen an enormous amount of people arriving. Do it in Boston and you add 6,400 people ( which is interestingly the number of peple from EU 8 countries) where as my London borough it would be 35,000 more people.

Further to this in my London borough just 18% of people claim white British Heritage, in Boston it is 85%, although Boston had a higher percentage point increase in immigration since 2001 it doesn't have higher immigration overall, so immigration in an area is a high indicator of voting to remain.

I still don't understand your assumptions on this, wrong trousers.

You have made up this convoluted 'people like us' theory, that friends look at your demographic and decide how you voted based on those statistics and then assume you voted remain.

There is a far, far more obvious reason your friends assume you voted remain: it's because they believe brexit is disastorous, Ill thought out and stupid.

She says ^^ as a terrorist has flitted through three countries casually on the run. He was stopped by chance apparently.

Ah you're another one who wants brexit because of terrorism?

Good luck with that.

There is a far, far more obvious reason your friends assume you voted remain: it's because they believe brexit is disastorous, Ill thought out and stupid

Are you saying it's good to keep hold of incorrect assumptions?

I don't understand what you are saying. My friends who assume I voted remain are presumably making the same assumption about other people, and they are wrong. Where I live the leave vote was above 70%. Whichever way you paint it, this assumption is wrong. I don't see how you can twist it to mean I am wrong and they are right