Westminstenders Contines. Boris outmaneovered everyone?! Now War and Peace?

[RedToothBrush]

THE BREXIT FALLOUT CONTINUES - THREAD TEN

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This set of threads started out asking if Boris had been outmanoeuvred by Cameron handing him a poison chalice. Fate made it seem as if Boris lost the battle but May has confounded everyone and handed him a second chance. Or so it might seem.

May now has a new Cabinet after a sweeping cull of Cameron's lot. It is more right wing than in a generation. A number of appointments have raised eyebrows. There are plenty of poison chalices and plenty of Brexiteers. Will this create peace in the Tory ranks? Or is it just the calm before the storm

Labour are tearing themselves apart what now seems to be all out civil war. Talk of gerrymandering, violence, disenfranchisement, deselection and intimidation are rife. The seems to be no end in sight, and no prospect of a solution apparent. The question perhaps seems to be when and how, rather than if the party will split, and who will retain the name and party funds.

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So the sad face of British politics in the last two days can be summed up in a single image. Boris and a brick.

Depressed?

I think we have a while to go yet before we hit the bottom.

Excuse me with the intros as I'm starting to struggle to keep up with things myself

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/eu_referendum_2016_/2684990-The-Westminster-Hunger-Games-Contines-May-Day-May-Day Previous Thread Nine

[BigChocFrenzy]

Germany and the Euro (reply to upthread)

Germany wanted to keep its DMark, but was forced to agree to the Euro by France:
France had a cunning plan - which worked about as well as Baldrick's cunning plans - to keep a united Germany from becoming too powerful and dominating the EU economy

Somehow they overlooked basic economics:
having a common currency tends to increase differences between strong & weaker economies, because weaker countries can no longer devalue to compete.

I love being in Germany, mainly:

• The higher taxes pay for brilliant public services and transport infrastructure
  
• Far less social inequality, far more social mobility
  
• A sound economy, based on the powerhouse of manufacturing throughout Germany - not like the UK which is dependent on the casino capitalism of the City of London and on people selling services to each other.
  
• Powerful trade unions and mandatory Works Councils where unions and employers cooperate together
  
• Millions of permanent well-paid jobs, genuine 35 or 40 hrs, not working unpaid all hours.
  
• No housing spiral, most folk rent because you can stay securely for 50+ years, decorate to your own taste, have your own kitchen & bathroom installed.

[BigChocFrenzy]

The reasons Turkey has been kept out of the EU for so many years are:

a) Cyprus - Greece kept lobbyng to keep them out, but didn't need to because of b)
b) Democratic & human rights deficit - Turkey has never come close to satisfying the EU minimum and is further away than ever. Damn right they shouldn't join.

Not discriminatory at all:
The EU didn't allow Greece, Spain, Portugal to join while they were fascist dictatorships, but welcomed them once they became democracies
The EU also welcomed the E European countries once they became free of communist dictatorship.

[RedToothBrush]

Buzzfeed's Inside Story of Momentum's Structure
www.buzzfeed.com/jamesball/inside-the-complex-snarl-of-companies-which-control-the-pro?bftwuk&utm_term=.sbl8PdL79#.nqJLKmD4e

[DoinItFine]

There are lots of reasons for Turkey not joining the EU that are not xenophobic.

[RedToothBrush]

Janice Turner Verified account @VictoriaPeckham (Times Columnist)
I just bumped into Angela Eagle. She says police have advised her not to do her constituency surgeries for her own safety. What a disgrace.

[RedToothBrush]

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/eu_referendum_2016_/2690632-Westminstenders-Continues-Boris-is-having-a-bad-week-Corbyn-resists-Its-gonna-be-a-long-summer?watched=1
Westminstenders Thread Eleven

[RedToothBrush]

www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2016/07/21/china-gop-convention/87380604/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter
To add to the crazy Brexit world, US - China relations have hit a low due to Trump and the Republicans...

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jul/21/jousting-reasons-to-love-brexit-britain?CMP=twt_gu
What should be brought back in Brexit Britain. Includes jousting.

Off topic but on the subject of greed, so thought I'd post whilst we were talking about it
www.independent.co.uk/news/science/altruism-selfishness-evolution-mathematics-princeton-bath-university-a7148471.html
Not being greedy is evolutionary better for you.

Boris is having another bad day. First of all he had to tell MPs that a Mexican diplomat abused a child and then walked free and its also come out today that a Saudi diplomat brought a slave into the Uk and escaped due to diplomatic immunity toowww.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/saudi-official-allegedly-brought-slave-to-london-foreign-office-diplomatic-immunity-figures-reveal_uk_5790d051e4b05c99a7095a8b

Thread 11 on the way.

[howabout]

Lest I misspoke from my own experience I looked at the Brexit result for Leicester, which has a 50% non-white population. The vote there was 51.1 / 48.9 Remain / Leave. If it were correct to say that only whites backed Brexit then in keeping with other white Leave areas the white 50% would have voted about 40% Remain contributing 20% to the Remain total. When added to the 50% non-white population this should have given a 70% Remain vote. (In fact as Leicester is a cosmopolitan urban area like London it is far more likely that the white Remain vote was much higher than this).

I agree with Pretty's son. The distancing from Turkey the Remain side did during the campaign sickened me and as was discussed on The Daily Politics DC's posturing has left us with very little credibility. I went to Uni 30 years ago with a Turkish girl studying EU Law in preparation for Turkey joining the EU. If the EU had ever had anything other than xenophobic intentions towards Turkey then they would have joined a very long time ago.

[Peregrina]

Hitler was of course a magnetic and powerful speaker, which is why so many fell under his spell.

[RedToothBrush]

www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/ukip-leadership-election-bill-etheridge-11641430
www.shropshirestar.com/news/politics/2016/07/15/ukip-leadership-election-midlands-mep-bill-etheridge-launches-bid-to-replace-nigel-farage/

Another UKIP leadership candidate I've missed. Though I'm not convinced this has made national press.

Bill Etheridge. MEP for the Midlands.
He's standing on a cheap beer, justice for fathers and bringing back the death penalty ticket. I kid you not.

He was kicked out of the Conservatives in 2011, when he and his wife were photographed posing with knitted Golliwogs on their Facebook profile pages, as part of the Campaign Against Political Correctness.

In August 2014 Etheridge sparked controversy by praising Hitler during a public speaking seminar he gave to members of the UKIP youth wing. He described the genocidal dictator as "the most magnetic and forceful public speaker possibly in history" who "achieved a great deal".

He is an associate of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).

He was married to Star, who was also a Kipper, but he had an affair with another party member Lorraine Chew and got caught.


www.express.co.uk/news/politics/689942/ukip-leadership-councillor-lisa-duffy-nigel-farage

And another: Cambridgeshire councillor Lisa Duffy

She apparently has the nickname 'Scruffy Duffy'. I can't find much out about her at all, apart from a website with something of a grudge about her from about 5 years ago and this article in the Independent from 3 years ago:
www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/as-the-uk-gears-up-for-the-polls-what-is-life-like-in-britains-only-ukip-controlled-town-8599144.html

[Peregrina]

But still resentment that white Canadian, Australian and NZ citizens of the commonewealth couldn't get in, rather than more Indians and Africans.

[Chalalala]

I just assumed it was a way of applying a thin faux-concern veneer onto the substance of, essentially, anti-immigrant arguments.

that too, yes - but also resentment that the EU was being prioritized over the Commonwealth. Probably an argument that appealed more to traditional Tories than to working-class Rotherham voters.

[nauticant]

I was also bemused to read that the inequities in the discriminatory arrangements against non-EU migrants definitely fuelled the LEAVE vote.

It was something I heard occasionally from the more cerebral on the Leave side but I just assumed it was a way of applying a thin faux-concern veneer onto the substance of, essentially, anti-immigrant arguments. I can't imagine the Leave voters in Rotherham, Hartlepool, Stoke, etc were that upset about restrictions on non-EU immigration being too tight.

[Chalalala]

BigChoc actually I have seen the "unfair on non-EU immigrants" argument many, many times on Mumsnet - but you're quite right that they certainly weren't thinking of non white or (god forbid) muslim immigrants. They were thinking of all those nice, white, English-speaking Australians kept out of the UK by Polish plumbers.

I have stayed well away from the terrorist attack threads, and from what you're reporting, that was a good move. I am seething just from reading your post.

[BigChocFrenzy]

Fees were brought in and increased because the Blair governemnt massively increased the number of students.
When I was at uni, only 6% of the population went to Uni.
So, it was affordable to pay our fees and give us maintenance grants.
Hence, we didn't start our careers with debt.

Unfortunately, Blair didn't increase the number of graduate jobs by anything like enough.
They increased Supply of graduates, not the Demand for them by employers

[BigChocFrenzy]

Howabout The Leave vote was certainly NOT because of a wish to increase the number of non-EU immigrants
(except for a minority of Asian voters whom Leave conned into thinking their relatives could come more easily)

Leavers who want to reduce EU immigration also want to reduce "non-white" immigration to be blunt - often even more so.
Leave Leaders repeatedly claimed it would be easier to reduce non-EU immigration too if the UK could "take back control" of its laws & borders.

If you check the Mumsnet threads about recent terrorist attacks, you can read Leave posters saying the attacks show they were right and how the UK & EU must stop Muslim immigration etc etc ....
Leavers keep saying we can't "shut them down any more" about Muslim immigrants. They seem to think their win entitles them to post things about Muslims and their religion that they wouldn't have dared to before.

Farage's dreadful "Breaking Point" poster did not show a queue of Polish plumbers, because they aren't scary like Muslims.
The recent vile abuse by racists demanding that people "leave" has often been against Muslims, including those born here.

[prettybird]

RedToothBrush - the relative coverage of "Western" deaths to "other" deaths makes my 15 year old ds soooo angry .

He's become very anti "American" - and Western involvement in the Middle East as a result.

[Chalalala]

thanks Red, that was a good article on Merkel (for someone like me who knows very little about her, anyway)

[DoinItFine]

The posotive case for immigration is made more frequently than any criticism of immigration is allowed.

The problem is that immigration without investment in infrastructure does create massive problems for those least able to deal with it.

You can keep pretending that immigration is great for everyone, but if people's experience is otherwise, because they are at the tough end of failing infrastructure, then they will know you are lying.

We need immigration in the context of increased investment.

But we have had 6 months of an ideologically driven attemot to roll back the welfare state.

In that context, people who depend on that welfare state are right that hundreds of thousands of new arrivals competing wity them for resources will make their lives even less pleasant.

[SwedishEdith]

Greed is at the root of everything stating the obvious, I know.

Going back to the Overton window thing - I'm very disturbed by how often people are talking about the death penalty now . We think it's confined to the loons atm... Drip, drip, drip. EU membership at least put that to bed.

[Chalalala]

the household/national economy analogy drives me nuts

mostly because it sounds so reasonable, even though it's actually really not.

woofles it comes down to political cowardice, it's just not what the electorate wants to hear. And good luck trying to change their minds with facts and figures - as we all know by now, that's not how it works

[RedToothBrush]

The root of so much of our society is based on a certain level of racism. The way our media report on deaths, based on geographical location for example. How many deaths do you need to make the headlines and how many deaths to provoke public sympathy? The way that refugees have been dehumanised by the use of particular words is another good example. I do think at some point we have to face up to this, or we will be forced to.

www.independent.co.uk/news/people/jeremy-corbyn-owen-smith-labour-party-leadership-contest-angela-eagle-a7148146.html Corbyn v Smith

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jul/21/theresa-may-beware-angela-merkel?CMP=twt_gu
To Merkeln

www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jul/21/eu-future-post-brexit-germany-split-european-government
The European Government

[wooflesgoestotown]

I mean refusing to make a positive case for immigration, to the point that we now find ourselves potentially about to jump off an economic cliff due to that refusal, looks like it could be based in racism.

Or is it just simply a fear of risking racist voters not voting for them?

[DoinItFine]

No, racism isn't why we don't invest in infrastructure.

Greed is.

The country is worse off, but the very wealthiest are better off as a result of "living within our means".

[wooflesgoestotown]

Doinitfine yes I guess I know that's the reason but it actually makes no sense because the economy would be stronger and they'd be richer if they changed policy.

Which makes me think at root it is all just based on racism.