Meet the Other Phone. Only the apps you allow.

Meet the Other Phone.
Only the apps you allow.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

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.

OP posts:
Thread gallery
12
TuckersBadLuck · 20/01/2017 11:57

Thanks, however would we be able to translate "Guid to see ye. Hoo ur ye daein?" without that?

ChestnutsRoastingOnAnOpenFire · 20/01/2017 12:00

I think Brexit is a terrible idea and May is a provincial, not too bright headteacher who is an awful leader and making us look like tits.

I do though think we need to be careful about flogging a rose tinted vision of the EU and Obama. Juncker, Merkel etc have doggedly pursued their flawed ideology against the best interests of the people they are there to serve. They could have stopped Brexit by climbing down on the mess that is free movement. And chose not to. Juncker and Hollande and others are just as bad as our lot at throwing around insults and threats.

Obama has presided over 2 terms and has left a situation where people in poor areas are still bloody poor far beyond what would be acceptable in this country. The homelessness and substandard housing problems there positively dwarf ours.

They are all flawed, some more than others I accept.

woman12345 · 20/01/2017 12:05

"we can't have a rally against Brexit or against TM version of Brexit?"
Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994, when right to protest curtailed following success of Poll Tax demonstration.

Trespassory assemblies.

In Part II of the M1Public Order Act 1986 (processions and assemblies), after section 14, there shall be inserted the following sections—
“14A Prohibiting trespassory assemblies.

(1)If at any time the chief officer of police reasonably believes that an assembly is intended to be held in any district at a place on land to which the public has no right of access or only a limited right of access and that the assembly—
(a)is likely to be held without the permission of the occupier of the land or to conduct itself in such a way as to exceed the limits of any permission of his or the limits of the public’s right of access, and
(b)may result—
(i)in serious disruption to the life of the community, or
(ii)where the land, or a building or monument on it, is of historical, architectural, archaeological or scientific importance, in significant damage to the land, building or monument,.

lurkinghusband · 20/01/2017 12:10

I do though think we need to be careful about flogging a rose tinted vision of the EU

The one Hmm remarkable consistency - before and after June 23rd - on the part of the remainers is a complete acknowledgement that the EU as currently exists is not perfect. If Leavers claim this is what any remainers are saying, then it's a straw man.

I am under no illusions that the EU is in need of reform. But I also wanted the UK to be in the EU driving that reform.

PattyPenguin · 20/01/2017 12:14

Re. inequality in the US. There was an interesting article in the Grauniad about a study on comparative attitudes to inequality in the US and Scandinavia
www.theguardian.com/us-news/economics-blog/2017/jan/11/are-americans-more-ready-to-accept-inequality-donald-trump

Peregrina · 20/01/2017 12:34

DIL has also noted the declining influence of the Catholic Church on her generation.

No, it may not have been an easy peace but it was so much better than what went before, that to risk throwing this away casually as the Govt has done, is to me bordering on the criminal. I blame the Tories for this entirely.

whatwouldrondo · 20/01/2017 12:37

Chestnuts The US has always been a third world country beyond the affluent cities and suburbs. Turn left out of LAX and you could literally be in a third world country, pot holed roads, broken down electricity pilons. There has always been a very visible difference in the limits of the state whatever party was in power. That inequality has always been a mark of the difference between the UK and US. However at least Obama, hobbled though he was by a Republican Congress, was aiming, and has achieved a lot, to address inequality.

woman12345 · 20/01/2017 12:40

I also find it could be useful for me to cut out, containing as it does some good ideas, and keep for my own political activies, so thanks for it me too Peregrina she looks like a great candidate.
And great work on 3 million Lico and Smurf thanks for posting and they're doing brilliant work.

ChestnutsRoastingOnAnOpenFire · 20/01/2017 12:45

Yes and the US is still in a mess, after all his years and promises. Rich getting richer etc. So you can't blame those people for falling for something 'new', even if it's unlikely to be good for them. Minimising and making excuses is how we ended up in this situation.

Peregrina · 20/01/2017 12:46

But I also wanted the UK to be in the EU driving that reform.

I did too, and still hope that this shitstorm can be averted in time for the younger more outward looking people to work their way into positions of influence.

I don't buy the idea that we have had 43 years and we haven't been able to reform it. As far as the UK goes, we have had 43 years whining and whining for special terms, and usually getting them. Unlike Theresa May who has cravenly caved in to the Tory right wing, the rest of the EU's stance at the moment seems to be "OK, you have wanted special terms, we have given them, it's still not good enough, and you want to go, so leave then." Whereas May's stance is 'how can I appease the right wingers more? Oh, and when it goes tits up I can babble that "it's the will of the people" and pass the buck'.

But..... it may not go according to her dialogue.

RedToothBrush · 20/01/2017 12:50

When you talk about Obama and his failure to tackle inequality you can not make the argument without taking into account the 2008 crisis.

The crash happened BEFORE Obama took office. He was left to deal with unemployment that sky rocketed. It is an achievement in its own right that he has brought it down to the levels that it now is at. He leaves office with at a lower level than he arrived. Unlike his predecessor.

His starting point was an incredibly difficult one.

Maybe he could have done more. We'll see how good Trump is soon enough.

OP posts:
HashiAsLarry · 20/01/2017 13:00

I don't buy the idea that we have had 43 years and we haven't been able to reform it. As far as the UK goes, we have had 43 years whining and whining for special terms, and usually getting them.

We've had 43 years where we consistently failed to engage with it. I had really hoped that had remain been the result of the referendum we wouldn't have carried on the way we were. That people would have learned more about the EU and didn't send knobheads like Farage out there.

RedToothBrush · 20/01/2017 13:04

David Allen Green's potted history of the EU.

Westministers: Boris and May give us the Brexit Leeming Plan.
OP posts:
Peregrina · 20/01/2017 13:11

David Allen Green sums it up perfectly.

I was struck by a writer in the London Review of Books shortly after the result, who said that we would spend 5 years trying to Leave and five trying to get back in. I am waiting to see if that comes true, and I have a suspicion it might. It will be a much chastened GB?/UK?/E&W which tries to go back in - there will at last be a full realisation that the Empire really has gone. So perhaps the French should have held out with their Non for a few more years until we had finally sorted out our position re the Empire.

Or we might just be clamouring to be the 51st state of the US.

ChestnutsRoastingOnAnOpenFire · 20/01/2017 13:11

Sure. And Trump will likely be awful, I get that. But we have low unemployment here too and people still feel poor. And see that their roads are unmended and their health service on its knees. And people being imported to do jobs (I include my own job here) on low wages. Of course this is all protests against austerity. And people have voted for people/solutions which are probably going to make things even worse. But we shouldn't pretend that everything was great with the shower we had- because it wasn't. And the alternatives didn't make themselves heard. This to me feels like a prelude to the real revolution that's needed. I don't know whether that will emerge. We are conditioned to believe politics is only for a certain group of people and that needs to change.

WifeofDarth · 20/01/2017 13:11

Thank you Lico Star FlowersStar

RedToothBrush · 20/01/2017 13:11

Anyway, when people say its wrong to be invoking Godwin at the moment, a timely reminder of those Trump supporters who like to do Nazi salutes.

www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/deploraball-donald-trump-supporters-nazi-salutes-banned-presidential-inaugaration-us-anti-trump-a7536716.html
DeploraBall: Donald Trump supporters 'banned from making Nazi salutes' at event celebrating his inauguration

Will this happen at the inauguration ceremony at all?

I bloody hope not.

OP posts:
RedToothBrush · 20/01/2017 13:15

Ian Dunt ‏*@IanDunt*

George Soros predictably has a strong sense of how next few years will go in Brexitland
www.theguardian.com/business/2017/jan/20/george-soros-theresa-may-wont-last-and-donald-trump-is-would-be-dictator?CMP=fb_gu
It's not about now: it's about positioning yourself when shit stars hitting the fan in 2018-19.
What you're seeing now are basically herd movements. Most ppl, & certainly most commentators, don't base their views on data or principle.
They base it on watching where others are in a debate & making sure there are ppl on either side of em, like a flock of birds.
The press have a supportive view of hard Brexit, with some exceptions. Broadcast media take their cue from them.
so now a policy which would be seen as insane a year or two ago is considered obvious & necessary. But the underlying dynamics don't change.
Inflation, currency, food prices, structural disadvantage of A50, time trade deals require, effects of sudden tariffss, non-tariff barriers & loss of financial services - those things are real & will impact. That's why Labour MPs soul-searching over how to vote on A50 are right.
Q for rest of us is: How to stop them blaming the effects on EU punishment, or traitorous Remainers or whatever other excuse they dream up.

THIS THIS THIS

OP posts:
RedToothBrush · 20/01/2017 13:18

Stewart Jackson MP @Stewart4Pboro
@IanDunt Desperate.pitiful.straw.clutching.from.Dunt

Matthew Hughes ‏*@matthewhughes*

@Stewart4Pboro @IanDunt Your space bar is broken.

Ian Dunt ‏***@IanDunt*

Definitive proof of my rightness.

OP posts:
ManonLescaut · 20/01/2017 13:19

Yes and the US is still in a mess, after all his years and promises. Rich getting richer etc. So you can't blame those people for falling for something 'new', even if it's unlikely to be good for them.

It's extraordinarily naïve to think that Obama could materially shift wealth US inequality in 2 terms, after the financial crash. He's done surprisingly well given h

The US as a country would need an sea-change on welfare, employment protection, higher education fees and health insurance, quite apart from job creation and training for unskilled and semiskilled workers, a shakeup of primary and secondary education and gender and racial issues, to have any hope of addressing the vast inequality in the US.

You can blame people for falling for bollocks. Particularly if the 'something new' is idiotic.

lurkinghusband · 20/01/2017 13:22

from the Soros article:

May, speaking earlier at the forum, said Britain had voted with “determination and quiet resolve”

Absolute bollocks. How can she use 4 words, 3 of which are wrong ? Also, isn't that a tautology ? The only way to positively describe Brexit is with synonyms ?

ManonLescaut · 20/01/2017 13:24

*He's done surprisingly well given his limitations with a Republican majority.

Peregrina · 20/01/2017 13:26

it's a bit sad when the only correct word is 'and'

When if ever will she stop babbling soundbites and start listening. When will she realise her limitations and put someone in place to do things she's not capable of?

lurkinghusband · 20/01/2017 13:27

Does anyone remember Ben Eltons "Man from Auntie" ? Specifically the "On an escalator with ... Margaret Thatcher" ?

ChestnutsRoastingOnAnOpenFire · 20/01/2017 13:28

8 years of food banks and you'd be falling for any old bollocks alternative. As opposed to handwringing about how hard it been for Obama.

I'm a staunch remained, anti Trump but I get why people voted as they did.