Boris, Farage and Gove re Brexit-“Never have so few done so much damage to so many with so little ability to execute what they lied about.”

[Gkei737djdh]

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-heseltine-farage-boris-johnson-uk-eu-b2994030.html

All so silent. They should hang their heads in shame, surely be publicly be made to take ownership for what they did and be held to account.Cowards, the lot of them.

And surely it’s time we tried to right the wrongs of Brexit.

Of course it is fair to pick up on this. The Singaporean reference was just a convenient shorthand for the type of outwardly looking, aspirational economy we had (and have) the ability to try to create.

Good(ish) education, helpful geography, English fluency are all benefits we have in common with Singapore. But Singapore is tiny, almost a city state and its own laws and politics have developed from its history. Indeed we have colossal natural advantages over Singapore.

So no I am not suggesting a slavish copying of Singapore (which would be ironic given its own history) but a broader recognition that having a huge public sector, and a turgid economy and a nervous defensive outlook on life risks impoverishing us all.

And that if we had more collective confidence then there are other more positive ways to lead ones life both at the personal and international level through innovation and not being afraid of changing.

I wouldn’t be so fast or blasé to throw away something so valuable.

The ECHR is undergoing reforms of its own (recently the Chisinau declaration for example), and can be reshaped into something which works in the age of irregular migration at scale. I’d rather reshape it from the inside than remove it, be subject to a far-right authoritarian government and not have the protections it affords for myself.

TBH, I don’t see the ECtHR rulings on immigration as that big a deal. The problem is more the accretion of supervisory power over states’ law-making and implementation generally.

It is a bit sad that many rabid anti-ECHR voices, including politicians who should know better, don’t make the broader case for withdrawal so that the subject can be properly debated.

I remember the author of the original article here, Michael Heseltine, saying that Boris looked for which direction he thought people were running and then ran to get ahead of them. Johnson was obviously a complete charlatan - at Oxford he was elected as a Social Democrat - he certainly never has any 'vision'.

ETA And his uni campaign manager was Michael Gove.

What struck me watching the BBC programme was the almost total absence of women . It was white men of a similar background. We had closed narrow thinking. Combined with arrogant mindsets.

By far the most convincing for Leave, at the time, to me was Gisela Stuart. Not only a long-term Labour MP, but also German.

Agree there were a few women but the leaders of both sides were all male and they featured heavily

They could have picked one. Any one. They could have gone for a singapore model or tried to establish some socialist manufacturing utopia. They could have put in a tax structure like Ireland and tried to make us a tech centre or put in place regulations like Luxembourg to make us a centre for investment management. They’ve chosen not to do any of these things because Starmer is so worried about upsetting some of the electorate he ends up doing nothing at all.

to clarify - i did not want brexit. But given we’re stuck with it now, it’s surely the job of the government to make the best of it which should not be just managed decline which is what we have now

I don't know about managed decline - I think if they were less afraid of their own shadows, decline could be entirely avoidable - but the alternative on the right for sure means accelerated decline.

I think the parties on the right and the left are both guilty of magical thinking. Not telling people the home truths of the UK's economic predicament has worked to get politicians elected.

It worked for Boris and it worked for Starmer. But it backfires when this bury your head in the sand is applied in elected office. Everyone starts hating you.

Then because you are hated - as in the last election and no doubt the same will happen next time - there is a huge swing away from the govt. Often to the next snake oil salesman who pretends they have a magical pain free solution.

But let's get this clear. This isn't a joke. It affects all of us and our families.

The UK economy is fucked along with household standards of living and benefits and everything else unless we get a grip and change.

We cannot keep spending and taxing without growth! Sooner or later it ends in economic collapse. That is not an opinion. It's just like physics. There are somethings you can't argue about.

We either decide to change how we do things in the UK now while we have a little time. Or we can go on swapping weak politicians who will blithely promise to protect the NHS, pay benefits, look after the public sector without having any long term plan as to how they do it sustainably.

If we just continue to do the latter, then sooner or later the international finance markets will realise that we are the equivalent of the emperor with no clothes and stop lending us more money.

At that stage we are in effect bankrupt and then the government simply will be unable to pay benefits, pensions etc. Obviously civil unrest follows etc etc.

So, if we want to avoid that, we as the electorate have to push our politicians to act rationally to deal with our public finances now - however unpopular it might be - because if we don't, longer term, the outcome will much much worse.

I think about this a lot. I think the NBER study is sensible with it's method. And trade frictions with the EU doesn't exactly help. But I see all these commentators and "economists" on twitter who say the NBER study is all BS and show some graphs and something. Idk.

@KateSixer we as the electorate have to push our politicians to act rationally

It would seem that we are hell-bent on doing the opposite. I think much of Brexit was a protest vote. Currently we have had the reaction from the local elections - the stepping down to crown the successor in Makerfield. I remember the kingmaker, Dominic Cummings, calling Boris a trolley because he careers around randomly from side to side. I hope we are not imitating him.

Agreed. I am not optimistic.

And the electorates trolley like behaviour is to some extent fuelled by the snake oil salesman politicians telling them that they have better snake oil than the last guy.

This could be exactly what late/end stage democracy looks like.

I voted Remain and still believe being in the EU, for all its faults, was an still is the best thing for the UK.

I could just about accept the decision to leave if the actual process of leaving hadn't been so unforgivably fucked up. It really was organised and enacted by some of the stupidest, laziest and most entitled people in UK politics.

I will never forgive them for that.

I will never forgive every politician who voted to have the referendum when this has not even been fully considered in Parliament. I believe they got carried away with excitement of something so momentous. The referendum never needed to happen and simply shouldn’t have

too many mp’s were totally out of touch, many I believe it was a protest vote or a simple vote of things have been terrible for me for many years so why not try an alternative

If the very MP’s who voted to have the referendum had little to no understanding of how the EU operates how is the public meant to

Given the gravity and impact of the decision to be made, the process was shoddily organized and executed.
I was surprised that it was deemed a simple majority however slim, would suffice.
if it had been made a minimum 60% it would have made more sense.

I blame the idiots who actually voted for Brexit more than I blame Farage et al.

Theirs wasn’t the only voice on the subject and they didn’t force anyone to credit them.

The individuals who were small minded and stupid enough to listen to him carry the shame.

@HRTQueen If the very MP’s who voted to have the referendum had little to no understanding of how the EU operates how is the public meant to

I still agree with this. I blame the Bullingdon Club primarily. There was an arrogance and rivalry there. I remember George Osborne threatening the public that if they vote Leave their house prices would go down. So many people would have thought that they might have then been able to afford a house!

If you can casually trash a restaurant .....

Completely agree with the Eton Bullingdon club mentality that prevailed around decision making . So many people from near identical backgrounds.
there was a very interesting article about this in Der Spiegel available in English - that referenced the immaturity allied with entitled arrogance and lack of experience

They saw it as an easy fix to a fundamental dispute within their party over whether the UK's interests were better served within a EU super state or not.

That dispute had lain unresolved for decades splitting the party. It's actually in reality still the debate we are having today. Do we want bigger government or smaller? Higher taxes or lower? Business growth first or benefits?

These are essentially the same issue. Where Cameron was criminal was, emboldened by "winning" the Scottish referendum, he took the country to the casino and held anothrr referendum betting that we'd stay in AND in so doing thereby resolve the tension in his own party.

It was unbelievably reckless to do this in that way to make his job as leader easier.

Now we have no advantage from being outside the EU and all those questions about the sort of country the UK should be are just as pressing (except that our options are narrowing as we head for bankruptcy).

@Unphased

Still waiting for an answer to my question

Exactly. Osborne's phrasing was so stupid. He should have made it clear it meant EVERYONE's purchasing power will go down except for a very few very rich bunch who would benefit and widen the wealth gap for everybody else.

Slow day on the Brexit board is it?