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Brexit

Westministers: Boris and May give us the Brexit Leeming Plan.

995 replies

RedToothBrush · 17/01/2017 15:17

Theresa May has made a speech.

It’s a wish list for hard core Brexiteers. It’s a large corporate executive’s wet dream for exploitation.

Even requests for a white paper as recommended by the Brexit Committee have been ignored. Thus meaning there is no chance for proper scrutiny. Plus whilst on the one hand parliament have been told they will have a vote on the end deal, this is merely slight of hand, with Davis stating that if parliament vote against this, then we will leave the EU without a deal in a chaotic exit. Thus making the vote an exercise with a gun to parliament's head.

Workers Rights and the Welfare State die with Brexit. Even the precious NHS. Especially the precious NHS once its been stole off to the highest American bidder.

May is being lobbied by her hard right and to save her next she listens only to them. She has no interest in listening to anyone else. The demographic and voting patterns favour her to head this direction. There is nothing to be gained for her personally by doing anything else.

She is already laughing her head off in glee at the collapse of the NI assembly. It plays right to her agenda.

Under the wheels of the bus go the JAMs, under go the disenfranchised who rarely vote but came out in force for the referendum, under go single mothers, under go the disabled, under go those with mental health concerns who struggle with already bureaucratic systems set up to ‘catch them out’, under go the EU immigrants especially those who have families here and may not have equal rights in future, under go British Citizens living abroad who might find themselves without healthcare or pensions, under go our Human Rights and any chance of challenging the state’s authority and interference in our every day lives, under go small business who will drown in red tape, under go Scotland and NI.

Yet this is ‘for the children’ or ‘the grandchildren’. Its spineless and cynical and offers nothing for those currently able to vote but under the age of 40. Won't you think of the children? Its fine if you are already retired and have a nice little pension isn't it?

The National Interest? This is a foreign concept. Probably an EU one.

The Baby Boomers are net beneficiaries of the welfare state. The young are unlikely to have a welfare state in a few years and are already net contributors. They have now been robbed of the choice over their future and in patronising tones effectively told they are irrelevant.

And of course Uncle Donald is a fan. You can almost see his vampire fangs reading to get his teeth into the UK and suck the life blood out of it.

It is a horror show.

Its all about selling Theresa May to the Express and the Mail and they love it. Her speech is to set the scene of how committed she is and to lay the blame at anyone who challenges her. It attacks the EU and paints them as the aggressor who are there to prevent poor little Britain from getting what it wants. If Brexit goes wrong, it was all an anti-British plot. Not a collective self inflicted brain haemorrhage. She's gone full on Farage and out Farages Farage.

This all comes perhaps a week before the Supreme Court Ruling.

Funny timing eh? No not really.

It’s a pre-emptive strike.

What on earth will they say? Will this merely allow May to dismantle our current legal system by gathering support for a General Election Manifesto that outlines its demise? Thus extending the mandate for Brexit even further. Probably.

I fear that the courts may only serve to strengthen May in the long run due to the lack of opposition and a Labour party that is imploding, with dozens of its MPs being rumoured to be looking for employment elsewhere. I fear that without a media able to effectively hold May to account in the face of her media baron supporters.

Our only hope really lies within the Conservative party itself and whether May is able to keep a lid on the various on going power struggles. The only trouble is that one of those challengers is a certain Brutus in the form of Mr Gove. I struggle to work out who would be worse; Gove or May. And of course this only highlights the issue that who else is there with in the Conservatives who isn’t a reptile? Even Arron Banks commentated that during the referendum he found Labour MPs nice people and the Conservatives unpleasant almost to a man. High praise indeed.

Meanwhile in America, NATO is obsolete and so Europe will have to consider an EU Army and Russia is firmly getting its claws in. And yeah, just Donald Trump. That Project Fear thing was just fake scaremongering wasn't it? Right? Right?

sigh

What on earth can possible stop this insanity? Not necessarily stop Brexit, but at least stop the PURE INSANITY.

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woman12345 · 17/01/2017 23:13

leaving UK me too RTB

RedToothBrush · 17/01/2017 23:18

I think you are very glass half empty, you have no actual evidence of your statements but you are entitled to them so hope the doom and gloom makes you feel better

Perhaps. Yet you don't have any more evidence than me. I think you need more than just optimism for some thing of this magnitude. You can only make impulsive decisions to a point in business. Beyond that it's about risk management and offsetting risk. Large businesses don't work like that and a country is more like that than a new start up entrepreneur who only has himself to think of and not that of hundreds of employees.

May's strategy is high risk and extremely aggressive. It's also not offset against any thing. She's said it's all or nothing.

You might not have a problem with a gamble like that. I'm risk adverse and don't appreciate that being done with my life without full consultantation. The ref was only step one. It's not been followed up by government and its approach has made people feel more insecure rather than less. There are plenty of ways this could have been tackled better just by considering language.

The difference approaches to life are fine. Do please appreciate how that affects some though and much that makes them anxious and how they need reassurance as a result or they will resist the situation that they are deeply uncomfortable with.

I think poor handling has lost confidence and trust even further than the damage done by Cameron and co and by leave campaigners. The lack of accountability makes me deeply suspicious and I find the language used troubling. Things like 'the flow' is in itself dehumanising.

May did not need to appeal against the high court. This made me question her competence. Her track record and ethics I find morally questionable.

How can I be half full in my approach against that background?

I would like to be proven wrong precisely because that frees me from the doom and gloom. I don't win by being proved right and I think that's something so leavers fail to appreciate. For my future to look good I have to be proved wrong. Where is the incentive in that?

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HashiAsLarry · 17/01/2017 23:30

I would like to be proven wrong precisely because that frees me from the doom and gloom. I don't win by being proved right and I think that's something so leavers fail to appreciate.

Very well said

Peregrina · 17/01/2017 23:31

I'm sure in a case of NHS v EU the NHS would win hands down.
Yes, I think it would. But May immediately made it clear that she wasn't interested in providing more money for the NHS - well, she tries to fudge the figures. So far, all she has done is blame as many groups as possible as she can. First it's junior doctors, then it's GPs, then it's too many immigrants. I half wish that all the immigrants working in the NHS would down tools for a day. Only half wish because I know that patients would suffer.

Most medical professionals who have treated me over the past 20 years have been foreign. Including dentists, there has been one Scot, otherwise it's been Indians, an East African (particularly good), South Africans, a Dane, someone from Finland and a Frenchman.

RedToothBrush · 17/01/2017 23:33

Sean Robertson
@nickreeves9876 @AndrewStoneman Germany exports twice as much to USA as we do, 4x more to China. EU membership not holding them back

Why don't we export as much as the Germans? Key question if we are talking about capitalising on trade deals outside the EU. Why are we not competing more with Germany. The answer has nothing to do with the EU.

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BigChocFrenzy · 17/01/2017 23:36

Come join us in the brain drain Smile

Seriously, red and anyone else considering this:
If you can, then it's time to leave May's Little England .... it's getting nasty and the lights are going out.

You have the right until at least 2019 to live & work in the rEU, so use your right

Germany in particular has put out the welcome mat for us - total contrast to how the UK treats EU immigrants.
Scientists and engineers especially welcome, but anyone with useful skills
I'm just one of many British scientists already working in Germany and more are coming.

BigChocFrenzy · 17/01/2017 23:44

Germany produces high quality goods that people want to buy. They chose back in the 1950s to prioritise high-end manufacturing, to invest in factories, R&D and their workers.

The Uk chose in the 1980s to prioritise vulture capitalism, which loots firms and the pensions of their workers.

whatwouldrondo · 17/01/2017 23:46

Smum You really do not get business.Those businesses who make a profit in the current environment i.e. The UK in the EU. who derive their competitive advantage from it, ie financial services, science and tech will move. They have a mobile workforce who will prefer not to live In a right wing isolationist regime anyway. What else are we going to sell to the world that it wants to buy? BTW I don't expect an answer, six months and not had one yet apart from Jam... Plus if you were worried about UK business dictating the political agenda, just wait until it is US business, or Chinese,because we end up with these amazing shit one sided because we are desperate and have no negotiating power trading deals ....

Peregrina · 17/01/2017 23:53

I agree with your post of 23:18 Red. There is a real difference in being pessimistic which is what you are being accused of and being cautious. There's a cliff coming up, full stop, is pessimism. Do we slow down and change course, to find another route, or do we try to abseil down, or is it not as steep as we thought so jumping will be OK? This latter is a constructive approach. Or there's the stupid approach - their's a cliff, let's jump off it. May doesn't seem sure which she wants to go for. IMO her main aim is securing her own position, secondly it's appeasing the UKIP tendency in her party. Somewhere a long way down the list is what is good for the country.

I immediately felt that May was the wrong person to be PM when she started to make her pitch for the PM's job. She spent much of her time slagging Johnson off, only to find that he'd withdrawn. But worse, was her first PMQ's with her hectoring haranguing tone - I thought at the time that what the country desperately needs now is a healer and a reconciler. Well, May doens't seem to know those words. 7 months on from the Referendum she has only stirred up more trouble. 65 million people are behind her she says; she will find that no, we damn well aren't.

SwedishEdith · 17/01/2017 23:53

"Also, why is Theresa on the front page of the Times in a pair of Boden men's pyjamas? Is this a policy statement?"

That photo has been very carefully selected. Grin

mathanxiety · 17/01/2017 23:55

Lico - that was a very interesting article on the previous thread about Franco-American relationships in the postwar period.

Red, a great summing up.

RedToothBrush · 17/01/2017 23:58

BigChoc I'm sold on leaving. It's DH who isn't. He is the breadwinner and can transfer fairly easily to anywhere in Europe despite language barriers. I, on the other hand, don't have any of those skills and my German is... Sehr schlect. To put it mildly (I don't know any other languages at all and I'm amazed I remember that phrase to be honest!)

I'm working on it. DH wants to get a current goal under his belt for his CV and then said he would consider it. He wanted to fight brexit but we had a long heart to heart over the weekend about what that entails.

We can already see our opportunities here shrinking. It's not the life we want.

I don't know. I don't want to give up here but at the same time I think the only way for England to learn is the hard way sadly.

Moving abroad offers DS things he won't get here and he's still young enough for it.

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Peregrina · 17/01/2017 23:58

They chose back in the 1950s to prioritise high-end manufacturing, to invest in factories, R&D and their workers.

Yes, but in part, with Germany being divided and on the front line of the East West struggle, the Americans chose to help the W German economy because it suited their Cold War rhetoric. The UK was pretty much bankrupt but the Americans pulled the plug on aid for us. At the same time, the colonies on which we had depended for our wealth were increasingly seeking Independence. I do agree that subsequently we have chosen to prioritise short-termism and vulture capital. We have also squandered our North Sea oil wealth, whereas the Norwegians invested theirs.

SwedishEdith · 17/01/2017 23:59

" I thought at the time that what the country desperately needs now is a healer and a reconciler."

She always seems very nervous to me. Not comfortable at all. But, there was no-one else - they all ran away.

RedToothBrush · 18/01/2017 00:06

We needed a leader. May is being led. Corbyn is being led by May.

Before that Cameron wasn't a leader. Nor was Miliband. Nor was Brown.

Blair fitted the bill regardless of what you think of him.

We have a lack of leaders. That's why we got Brexit.

We have had an absence of leaders in politics for a while. Including in opposition and outside Westminster in the form of activism.

It just represents a lack of goals and something to achieve.

The fact every ran after Brexit tells you much too.

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NumberOneTricky · 18/01/2017 00:08

Bit different to the Express or Mail front page I'm guessing!

Westministers: Boris and May give us the Brexit Leeming Plan.
mathanxiety · 18/01/2017 00:14

From the previous thread [Woman12345]:
Solzhenitsyn warned the British not to be complacent about their predisposition to totalitarianism.

A discussion of his address in Harvard in 1978 and thoughts on freedom, the press, revolution, Russian identity, American ambition and the Vendee uprising -
www.catholicworldreport.com/Blog/4012/revisiting_aleksandr_solzhenitsyns_warnings_to_the_west.aspx

The revolutionary ardour, rejection of reality, and the keenness to embrace the future in May's speech are very unsettling. So is the implication that those with qualms about Brexit are not willing to act in the interests of the country. This was a circling of the wagons speech.

SwedishEdith · 18/01/2017 00:23

Not had time to read it properly yet but Richard's Leaver North's latest blog.

www.eureferendum.com/blogview.aspx?blogno=86348

"There has been much speculation as to whether we would be exposed to a car-crash or a train-wreck Brexit. But what Theresa May appears to be giving us with yesterday's speech is a Jumbo-jet crash (perhaps an Airbus A-380) on top of Whitehall."

prettybird · 18/01/2017 00:28

Been trying to catch up on the Westministenders threads - so much in a day not surprisingly, given the day

I may have exclaimed, "Fuck off" at the TV when she started going on about the Union being precious HmmAngry

When Leavers complain about Remain's Project Fear campaign (and I actually agree with them to an extent: there were/are many positive things about the EU that were never highlighted except in Scotland as they were contrary to right wing Tory thinking and Labour was MIA) I recall the main planks of the Project Fear campaign in the Indyref: that the only way Scotland could guarantee remaining part of the EU was if it voted No and that the electorate would be stupid to vote for years of financial uncertainty.....Hmm

RedToothBrush · 18/01/2017 00:32

www.villagevoice.com/arts/stop-making-sense-or-how-to-write-in-the-age-of-trump-9575300
Stop Making Sense, or How to Write in the Age of Trump

Trying to imagine the reality of the unimaginable and the disconnect in your head.

DH says to me it won't happen. It won't be that bad. I am struggling with his optimism.

No one ever thought my town would be bombed until it happened.

It's always something that happens to someone else until it happens to you.

That's my mentality and why I get the article above so well and why I can't just dismiss the nagging doubts in my head and the voices that say this doesn't end well.

The idea that everything will just be fine is the haven of the innocent and the naive. It is a luxury. I envy those who still have it. It left me age 14. You never see the world the same, and I know thats why I don't see the world the same as friends who have lived in safe little protected bubbles.

I can't explain it any other way. Just. Yeah.

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GraceGrape · 18/01/2017 00:34

I am a long-time lurker on these threads but don't usually comment. Does anyone get the feeling that in the country there are a small group of ardent pro-Remainers and the same of ardent pro-leavers, but the vast majority of the population are content to just sit back with a cup of tea and assume everything will just sort itself out in the end? MN is a bit of a microcosm - the pro-remainers here and the leavers on the pub thread but most MNers just hanging about in AIBU discussing wedding invitations.

I have been thoroughly depressed since the referendum. I have contacted my MP several times, written to the Lords, written to 10 Downing Street and intend to go on the next protest march. However, most of my friends and acquaintances were also strongly pro-Remain but although they do a lot of whinging and grumbling, nobody seems prepared to go out of their way to actively protest. I would be interested to hear if that is just my experience.

I think May will get away with whatever sort of "plan" she decides to follow simply because for a lot of people, the referendum was the end of the Brexit debate, whether they liked the result or not. There seems to be this ever-optimistic feeling that "it'll all come out in the wash".

SwedishEdith · 18/01/2017 00:35

Skimmed it.

"This is almost akin to the Pope revealing that he has no "preconceived position" on Catholicism, mainly because he doesn't really understand it. And if Mrs May is out on her own, where the hell have her advisors been, feeding her this tosh?"

Imagine if she's been set up?

RedToothBrush · 18/01/2017 00:39

Grace I think most people are apathetic yes. It's about the sum of it.

A great many people on this thread have a vested interest in the outcome too. There are a sizeable number of EU citizens here who are more immediately exposed to the effects of the referendum.

For most people, I just think they are disconnected to it. It's not their reality so why think about it?

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GraceGrape · 18/01/2017 00:43

Depressing. I think a GE will be the only way to show any real opposition. And unless JC, for whom I had high hopes in the beginning, undergoes a drastic personality change I can't see anything other than a Tory majority until at least 2025 when it will be too late to do anything about all this mess.

SwedishEdith · 18/01/2017 00:44

Same experience for me GraceGrape. But, outwardly, I probably look like I'm getting on with it so I assume I can't always tell. I live in a Remain area (but work with lots of leavers, I think) so that does make me feel slightly better.