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Brexit

Westministenders: Its WAR. Huh!? What is that good for? Negotiations apparently

996 replies

RedToothBrush · 05/05/2017 22:39

Theresa May has declared war on the EU. She is going to be a ‘bloody difficult woman’ after she got caught out by a highly predictable leak.

Apparently, the EU are trying to rig an election she seems almost dead cert to win. They deliberately timed the leak to interfere with an election May decided the timing of. May was not supposed to be at the dinner, but after she announced the election she decided that she had to get in on the act for some reason. Wildly speculating here, but could this be because she wanted the political mileage herself?

No it wasn't a preplanned strategy. Don't be stupid. That would suggest they had the foggiest clue and a plan. Nope, the war declaration was an opportunist damage limitation exercise, used to maximise political capital.

She has now even further alienated the EU. It seems difficult to conceive how any deal will be done. Instead it looks like the election is trying to set us up to crash out. Whether the ‘No deal is better than a bad deal’ happens to make the 3 page Tory Manifesto remains to be seen.

This would leave EU nationals and British national aboard in legal and social limbo.

There is also a feud building over the Brexit leaving bill, which is steadily climbing. We can not progress to the second stage of Brexit without resolving this. Again, this seems unlikely.

Thirdly, a settlement with Ireland is a top priority for the EU, and plans are being drawn up to make allowances for any potential United Ireland. This is a subject that is still to be talked about on any level really. May has been much more interested in the fate of Scotland and battling with Nicola Sturgeon.

That’s the thing. May is like the playground bully who goes around going “Do you wanna scrap ?, Do ya? DO YA?” and generally throws their weight around and most of the time gets their own way as a result. The trouble with the strategy is when the bigger kid comes along and thumps the bully, for being a cocky little shit and doesn’t like their kid brother getting picked on.

The trouble is that May is setting it up, to try and make it look like the poor little Britain has been picked on to her parents, so they go around accusing the big kid of all sorts rather than admitting their little darling is a nasty little shit.

It’s not going to end well is it? You can’t help but feel that at some point they’ll all end up in the Headmasters office and the WTO/UN/International Courts will rule against us for being a bunch of dickheads. No doubt May, will stick to character, hold a grudge and demand to leave them or say they have no authority over the UK.

That or we really will end up declaring war on Spain over Gibraltar. By accident of course. Probably to keep the ConKip party together and avoid a split.

Rule Britannia. Britannia rules. Erm, not a lot these days.

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BigChocFrenzy · 06/05/2017 17:14

No, Glory I think it's the Corbyn Factor

Faced with a hard right Tory govt and a feverish jingoistic mood in the country, who do the Official Oppositon present to present an alternative ?
Corbyn .
Corbyn ??!!

As for the GE ... if it were a boxing match, the ref would stop it.

I saw Labour slaughtered in 1983 under Michael Foot, who was a respected and talented Parliamentarian, competent at the nuts and bolts of leading a party:
his policies were just too far left for the biters

Corbyn is far far worse:
A chaotic incompetent, with some very dodgy friends and a horrendous history in the 1989s and 1990s especially.
The Tories / media could publish details of his attending IRA events and include films of his cringeworthy interviews after IRA atrocities, refusing to condemn them.

BigChocFrenzy · 06/05/2017 17:15

biters ? voters ! < my iPad always autocorrects to biters Confused >

MsHooliesCardigan · 06/05/2017 17:16

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.ibtimes.co.uk/hospitality-sector-faces-staff-shortages-if-uk-stops-eus-freedom-labour-movement-1567879

Sapphire I totally agree and I actually feel quite murderous today. I'm in London and it's really quite unusual to be served in a cafe or coffee shop or food outlet by a white British person. I think London will really change if dictator May keeps going down this path - and not in a good way. One of the many things I love about London is that Londoners don't just 'tolerate' those from different countries or cultures- they welcome them with open arms. I felt so proud during the 2012 Olympics, it feels like a bygone era now. Why couldn't TM stick to running a Parish council which is about all she's fit for?

RedToothBrush · 06/05/2017 17:20

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/may/06/brexit-britain-theresa-may-election-victory?CMP=share_btn_tw
Brexit Britain has three kinds of voter: disconnected, deceived and dismayed

Lib dems really didn't do that well on Thursday did they?
No. But they also didn't do as badly as other suggest either. They were up 7% on vote share to 18%. Trouble was it's not translated into seat gains.

That said they have done ok in key battle grounds that they want to target at the GE.

I think it will take longer to convince people they can be a force but this general election just came a little too soon to make head way. I suspect it's more about preparing the ground for 2020 and trying to get popular vote share and keep Tory majorities down to keep minds focused....

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SapphireStrange · 06/05/2017 17:23

I think London will really change if dictator May keeps going down this path - and not in a good way. One of the many things I love about London is that Londoners don't just 'tolerate' those from different countries or cultures- they welcome them with open arms. I felt so proud during the 2012 Olympics, it feels like a bygone era now.

Oh God, you've made me cry. Sad

I am in London too and I love it for exactly this reason –and have exactly the same fears as you do. I too hate the word 'tolerate' –as if one group of people only grudgingly puts up with another group!

I watched some of the Olympics opening ceremony recently and it choked me up all over again, except that the first time round it made me proud and now it makes me ashamed and terrified for what we're throwing away.

woman12345 · 06/05/2017 17:23

Do you ever come across this sectarian crap in your area

Sectarian crap was alive and well in 1960s-70s Glasgow, segregated schools and segregated access to wealth. I went to a presbyterian school and was perplexed by the anti English and anti Catholic prejudice as a child, when some of my family was both. I learnt what racism was like in practice.

A lot of current Scottish voters will have grown up with this shit. Labour kept a lid on it in my opinion, and now it's out again. The SNP was never a Catholic or socialist organisation.

squoosh · 06/05/2017 17:30

The orange order did cross my mind when I heard of Tory gains in the East End of Glasgow yesterday. Some of those votes must have been a working class, Protestant, unionist, fuck you to the SNP. There is a section of Glaswegians who think in very tribal football terms, whatever way that Tim (Catholic/Celtic supporter) thinks I the Hun (Protestant/Rangers fan) I must do the opposite. And vice versa.

I'm frequently woken on Saturday mornings throughout the summer by the sound of Orange marches banging their drums and playing their flutes. The biggie is on the weekend of the 5th of July when the city centre grinds to a halt to let these knuckle draggers march through the streets but there are many other mini marches too. I can't tell you how much it makes my blood boil. Such a stain on a great city.

In fact I think my first letter to my new Tory councillor will be on this very subject. How can Glasgow City Council in 2017 justify facilitating this bigotry?

TatianaLarina · 06/05/2017 17:32

On the other hand London could take to the barricades and smoke dem out.

Badders123 · 06/05/2017 17:33

I said the same to Dh yesterday...2012 seems a lifetime ago, doesn't it?
😞😞😞😞😞

RedToothBrush · 06/05/2017 17:33

David Allen Green @davidallengreen
"Britain does not dream of some cosy, isolated existence on the fringes of the European Community."

A Remoaner, 1988.

Guess who....

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RedToothBrush · 06/05/2017 17:37

In fact read the whole speech it came from.

Here is some of it:
www.margaretthatcher.org/document/107332

We British are as much heirs to the legacy of European culture as any other nation. Our links to the rest of Europe, the continent of Europe, have been the dominant factor in our history.

For three hundred years, we were part of the Roman Empire and our maps still trace the straight lines of the roads the Romans built.

Our ancestors—Celts, Saxons, Danes—came from the Continent.

Our nation was—in that favourite Community word—"restructured" under the Norman and Angevin rule in the eleventh and twelfth centuries.

This year, we celebrate the three hundredth anniversary of the glorious revolution in which the British crown passed to Prince William of Orange and Queen Mary .

Visit the great churches and cathedrals of Britain, read our literature and listen to our language: all bear witness to the cultural riches which we have drawn from Europe and other Europeans from us.

We in Britain are rightly proud of the way in which, since Magna Carta in the year 1215, we have pioneered and developed representative institutions to stand as bastions of freedom.

And proud too of the way in which for centuries Britain was a home for people from the rest of Europe who sought sanctuary from tyranny.

But we know that without the European legacy of political ideas we could not have achieved as much as we did.

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mathanxiety · 06/05/2017 18:00

I gather the Scottish Tories have been wooing the repulsive sectarian Orange Order for years, in Scotland.

The Order represent Protestant domination over defeated Catholics ..... centuries ago.
They have links with NI Protestant terrorists who murdered Catholic civilians during the Troubles

Links? The DUP and the protestant paramilitaries have much more than links. They all tend to cozy up to white supremacists in South Africa too.

The Order and the Tories are hand in glove too in Scotland, just as they always were in NI, with their NI political wing the DUP staunchly Leave and opposed to any talk of a united Ireland, and before that any talk of civil rights for Catholics in NI.

Not for nothing is the Tories' official name the Conservative and Unionist Party.

The Orange vote is out and proud in Glasgow for sure.

woman12345 · 06/05/2017 18:04

Shock Thatch had some good speech writers.
She hated the working class and trades unions, but I can't think of any racist statements from her. Britain was a racist old country, but racism was also really unfashionable in the 1980s.

Bowie flirted with the NF and was criticised. The cool bands were the ska, two tone and punk movement who were deliberately and actively anti racist.

May has crossed the Rubicon into a racist swamp. But what's worse, is that it is so ill informed, deliberately, of course.

MsHooliesCardigan · 06/05/2017 18:11

Sapphire Sorry if I made you cry (to quote Roxy Music). It's fucking shit isn't it? Sad

woman12345 · 06/05/2017 18:12

^A Conservative party candidate has reportedly claimed she healed a deaf man with her bare hands by channelling the power of prayer.

Kristy Adams, who is standing to be MP for Hove and Portslade, said she healed the man by placing her hands over his ears and saying: “Be healed in Jesus' name.”^

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/conservative-mp-candidate-kristy-adams-christian-healed-deaf-man-prayer-a7721621.html

Confused
GrommitsEarsHurt · 06/05/2017 18:18

I have decided that Labour being annihilated in the GE could actually be a positive thing.

If a GE hadn't been called, we would have been stuck with Corbyn's ineffectual opposition throughout the Brexit process. At least a resounding defeat might lead to a new leader who can hold the government to account, and actually temper the worst excesses of a hard Brexit.

Well, that's what I'm telling myself at least.

I don't know whether I'm being too emotionally invested in this, but it does feel that since the Brexit vote, it isn't possible to feel truly happy. There's always a backdrop of gloom that wasn't there before.

HesterThrale · 06/05/2017 18:19

MsHoolies and Sapphire, I nearly blubbed too.

I keep thinking back to those innocent days of 2012 and the Olympics. A BBC commentator said then we were a 'multiracial country at ease with itself'. (Clearly some people weren't.)

Even this time last year seems like halcyon days. If only we could turn back the clock.

GrommitsEarsHurt · 06/05/2017 18:19

I forgot to say MsHoolie, you are exactly what this country needs more of Flowers

Arborea · 06/05/2017 18:25

On the subject of the Orange Order, we saw the Apprentice Boys et al marching towards central Manchester today. It's been a long time since I saw anything like that!

CopperRose · 06/05/2017 18:45

"Britain does not dream of some cosy, isolated existence on the fringes of the European Community."*
*
A Remoaner, 1988.*

Guess who....*

Same person, 1992:

"...This Conservative government, like its predecessors, should have as its main priority the maintenance of our constitutional freedoms, our democratic institutions, and the accountability of Parliament to the people. Because I believe in these principles so deeply I cannot support the ratification of the Maastricht treaty...What has happened makes it all the more difficult to see why this treaty, which establishes a European Union (political, social and economic) is being pursued...The treaty will hand over more powers to unelected bureaucrats, and erode the freedoms of ordinary men and women in this country...Britain needs to regain the confidence that we can manage our own affairs successfully once more..."

annandale · 06/05/2017 18:49

Well... Mrs Thatcher talked of the uk being swamped with immigrants and was what you might call highly attuned to Conservative voting patterns on race.

BigChocFrenzy · 06/05/2017 18:49

squoosh Horrid that you have to put up with the Orange Order so much.

I knew about NI Unionism, but we always regard Ni as totally different to rUK,
I hadn't realised before that the mainland suffers too from Orange Order in-your-face triumphalism and sectarianism.

How unpicky Scottish Tory Unionism is
Doesn't RuthD care about the attitudes the Orange Order have about gay people ?
I suppose anything can be covered up, so long as they vote Tory

I wonder what the Orange order will demand - and receive - from the Tories Hmm

woman12345 · 06/05/2017 19:01

Upcoming marches.
www.bandparades.co.uk/calendar/category/england/list

May is invisible, but she's got the thugs out during the election campaign.

Could be useful, or could be that some see these alt right and Russian affiliates as white patriots.

As this is going to get sectarian quickly, I wonder how polling preferences play across Protestant and Catholic lines.

www.heraldscotland.com/news/15102357.Shady_world_of_extremist_Scot_who_tops___39_dirty_dozen__39__list_of_far_right_activists/

^Militant Scottish anti-abortion campaigner Jim Dowson in spotlight as Britain's most influential far-right activist

As his activities came under scrutiny, the Sunday Herald revealed his past involvement in hard-line Loyalist groups in the West of Scotland, as a former organiser of flute band which produced a tape of music in tribute to Loyalist Michael Stone, who murdered three Catholics in 1988^

wingsoverscotland.com/the-unpalatable-harvest/
Orange Order, initially weren't part of Better Together campaign.

More on Jim Dowson
www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/mar/20/jim-dowson-back-scottish-independence-patriotic-news-agency-far-right

Dowson’s social media group pumped out pro-Trump “news” during the latter stages of the US presidential campaign, including several conspiracy theories about Hillary Clinton. The ex-Orange Order member, who along with his family is based in Northern Ireland but spends considerable time running the rightwing agency in eastern Europe, claims his networks have a global reach of 50 million online viewers, 17 million of whom live in Britain.

OlennasWimple · 06/05/2017 19:05

Don't forget that the Tories' full name is the Conservative and Unionist Party - the clue is there in plain view

BigChocFrenzy · 06/05/2017 19:15

woman I've heard it suggested a few times that one reason the UK has never warmed to the EU is because of the influence in the EU of Catholic social responsibility, clashing with the AngloAmerican Protestant tradition of hard work & frugality (for the poor)

In particular, there is a fundamental philosophical and ethical differerence between the CDU and the Tories