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

Westminster: Brexit is the hard right's weapon of mass distraction

999 replies

BigChocFrenzy · 07/03/2017 07:21

The fervour and divisions over Brexit have suspended normal party politics.

The staggering incompetence & unsuitability of Corbyn as a leader, together with the resulting impotence of Labour has removed the normal checks & balances in UK politics.
There is a vaccum where the Official Opposition should be, so Theresa May is under pressure only from her right.

I fear Thereas May and the Tory rightwing are taking advantage of Brexit to complete the destruction of the post-WW2 social contract and the welfare state.

Meanwhile, the constraints of civilised discourse have been loosened and those with racist or social Darwinist views now feel free to spout their poison openly.

Putin is pouring petrol on all the fires and Arron Banks is lurking < sinister emoticons required >

Zoe Williams:
"Behind a smokescreen of bogus patriotism, ideologically driven cuts to the NHS and all our public services are unpicking the bonds of nationhood"

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/mar/05/brexit-theresa-may-falklands-war-nhs-cuts

"We should be marching against the crisis in adult social care, the closure of care homes, the systematic exploitation of carers, the £4.6bn cut from social care budgets this decade.
We should be .... asking:

“What exactly is the plan, if we’ve decided we can no longer afford to care for the elderly and the disabled?
What do we do with them instead?”

"We should be marching against cuts in education funding"

"Every morning we wake up to someone on the radio explaining, despairingly, that you can’t fix the hospital bed crisis until social care is fixed, and you can’t fix that until council tax brings in more, and it can’t bring in more because wages are too low."

"But when everything breaks at the same time, that is not a coincidence: it is a plan.

As surely as Margaret Thatcher had an economic plan on employment, rights, industry and wages,
this century’s Conservatives have a plan on public services, which is to smash them beyond all recognition."

OP posts:
Thread gallery
5
HashiAsLarry · 07/03/2017 16:24

From Chukka Umunna:

^It is disgraceful that the government today voted to betray its commitments to unaccompanied refugee children it had promised to help.
Councils across the UK have said they have room to house more children, but today the government ignored them to appease far-right populism.
We must do more to help house unaccompanied child refugees. The work that Lord Dubs has been doing on this has been exceptional.^

RedAndYellowPeppers · 07/03/2017 16:27

www.france24.com/en/20170307-focus-ireland-northern-ireland-brexit-vote-border-unification-eu
What will happen with Ireland and NI, a french perspective (in English!)

and the. English perspective
www.independent.co.uk/voices/northern-ireland-stormont-crisis-sinn-fein-dup-united-ireland-credible-inevitable-a7615756.html

Is that the end of the United Kingdom as we know it?
(Note in the french interview, the very candid comment about how Britain has never care for those 'in the North' like them. I've never heard that in an interview here)

RedAndYellowPeppers · 07/03/2017 16:38

www.independent.co.uk/voices/vince-cable-theresa-may-home-secretary-immigration-students-a7615996.html

Also the stance of being tough on immigration isn't new for TM. She was denying the economic effects already when she was at the Home Office...
Maybe that wasnthw time when all those issues should have been raised, all those points made and people convinced about how much richer they all were thanks to immigration.....

unicornsIlovethem · 07/03/2017 16:46

Latin is great :-) particularly the historians harking back to a mythical golden age where everybody lived in harmony with each other and the natural world (similar to the blitz spirit!) combined with utterly vicious politics. At least at the moment the news is fake, rather than creating starvation and riots for personal gain.

Kaija · 07/03/2017 16:48

Are we definitely sure riots and starvation aren't being manufactured for personal gain?

(Only half joking)

Badders123 · 07/03/2017 17:07

Unicorn...was it Juvenal that did that? Hated women too iirc?...

Thegruffalowswife · 07/03/2017 17:08

This might throw a spanner in the works for the snp

www.google.co.uk/amp/www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/03/07/former-snp-deputy-leader-jim-sillars-wont-back-independence/amp/

I wonder what effect this will have on yes voters. .. will they back the snp any more? I didn't have the more hardline scottish nationalists down as champions of free movement.

Perhaps the scottish nationalists will back a more left wing party, which the whole uk can get behind...

How will that play out for the tories? Will the tories be able to continue with their more right wing stance if the opposition gets a boost from scottish votes in 2020?

Peregrina · 07/03/2017 17:09

Just reading Juvenal tells us that Romans had an equally low opinion of politicians and lawyers we do.

How long was this before the Roman Empire fell apart?

LurkingHusband · 07/03/2017 17:14

How long was this before the Roman Empire fell apart?

At the risk of sounding arsey, that's a whole thread (if not forum) in itself.

If we take the ultimate fall of Rome as being 24/8/410, then Juvenal (c. 1st/2nd century CE) was a couple of hundred years before.

Of course, you might say fall of Rome began with Constantine (the Great).

Speaking of "the Great", I wonder what King Alfred would make of Brexit ?

Peregrina · 07/03/2017 17:18

I was taking the sack of Rome as being the ultimate falling apart. So it will be with the British Empire - historians looking back will see key dates as 1947 when India and Pakistan gained Independence, 1956 with Suez and 2016 with the Referendum called primarily to contain a right wing faction in the Tory party. They will look back with incredulity.

Peregrina · 07/03/2017 17:21

Jim Sillars is talking about a lot of ifs there - if Theresa May gets some sort of EFTA deal. Supposing Theresa May doesn't get an EFTA deal?

NinonDeLanclos · 07/03/2017 17:22

They will look back with incredulity

Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!

LurkingHusband · 07/03/2017 17:22

So the sack of Rome, then ? 24th August 410 ?

Badders123 · 07/03/2017 17:25

And this is that leavers do to those they disagree with;

Especially if it happens to be an educated
Woman...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-39197756?nsmchannel=social&nsscampaign=bbcbreaking&nsssource=twitter&nslinkname=newss_central

Christ. Threats of rape and mutilation
Just for insisting on the rule of UK law

Badders123 · 07/03/2017 17:25

I will say that again...

UK law

Thegruffalowswife · 07/03/2017 17:26

But will yes voters become disenfranchised with the snp, due to their pro european stance. 400,000 brexit votes out of 1000,000 they reckon came from scottish nationalists. That is quite a considerable share of the votes.

Thegruffalowswife · 07/03/2017 17:28

Gosh that's terrible

Thegruffalowswife · 07/03/2017 17:30

"And this is that leavers do to those they disagree with;"

Are "leavers" one group then. Do they all do that? Bloody hell I hope not!

Badders123 · 07/03/2017 17:32

Not all leavers
But let's not forget jo cox
It Could happen again
It really could
😞😞

Badders123 · 07/03/2017 17:33

Such vitriol
For insisting on the rule of UK law

UK LAW

nothing to do with the bloody EU!

LurkingHusband · 07/03/2017 17:33

Are "leavers" one group then. Do they all do that? Bloody hell I hope not!

There is no very little scope for nuanced meanings when the question asked was "yes/no".

Thanks, Dave ....

Thegruffalowswife · 07/03/2017 17:34

Let's hope that it never happens to another political figure again.

Shocking... was the guy that did that a leaver then? I thought he was some sort of far right extremist.

Badders123 · 07/03/2017 17:36

Nuance????
Ha!

whatwouldrondo · 07/03/2017 17:36

Peregrina I would actually root the decline as starting in the 30s when facism was on the rise in Europe, remember that the government did not just appease Hitler, the elites took tea with him, and blackshirts marched through the East End. At the same time a consciousness that the colonial Masters were not invulnerable, together with a flourishing of ideas about good governance and a growing awareness that they had the moral cause from China to India and, a little later Africa. But then I am one of those Historians who doesn't believe in turnstone dates just trends that manifest themselves in key events. Putin, Brexit, Trump accelerating the shift of prosperity East....

NinonDeLanclos · 07/03/2017 17:37

Miller is not a political figure, she's a member of the public.