The Reconciliation Cafe

[QueerVictoria]

Hello! Shall we try to do this? A place where Leavers and Remainers come in peace and attempt to find a way forward where we drink lager & sancerre and chianti and think of what unites instead of what divides? Terribly idealistic? How about showing our best side?

Ok, that's interesting. Apparently Bonnie Greer said somewhere recently (Question Time I think) that the GFA is a truce. The importance of words - of course it is. And that's what this thread is trying to be in its own small way (not knocking small, small grows into large, mighty oaks from little acorns etc).
A truce. What do we need to encourage a truce? What are the conditions that bring it about?
And here, for all you fellow leaf-lovers out there, are three of my acers in situ. Taken in the summer.

There will need to be a truce but it seems too early.
We haven't left, we don't know what that leaving will look like.
We have no vision of the future to group round.
I would suggest at the very least to have a truce you would need an idea of what the leave and remain visions for the UK would be.
I'm not sure we have either yet. There is a total lack of vision about what the UK is supposed to be turning into.

But creating a truce is a process. Part of that process must be both sides having the opportunity to explain their vision, articulate it. Not shout it at the other side like everyone's been doing, but be afforded the right to have the space to articulate it without having the opposite side pile straight in. I suppose all 'peace and reconciliation' processes have mediators. People who 'hold' the form of the process to stop it deteriorating into more fighting.

It would be lovely to hear from some sort of Mass Observation type survey of Leave voters explaining what they want and how they see the world, as opposed to the views of Farage and the ERG.

Lemsip please

This picture was taken last year after the first frost

Once Brexit has been resolved then the country needs to mend

• its broken electoral system
• its lack of a written constitution
• its overly centralised legislative framework

as those three things created the mess and mending them will help us move forwards (as has been the case in other countries that have had massive upheavals)

Oh, ListeningQuietly I love your acer! I've got one of the small hummocky ones but it's a darker red, never does that!

Does lemsip indicate you're not well? I'm sorry to hear that.

I've had a bad throat for about a week so its lemsip in the daytime and these in the evening

The Acer is about 40 years old and turns that colour every year

Your evening medicinal tipple looks nice. I had a couple of whisky macs last night with no sore throat excuse - not that I need one! But I don't really drink much nowadays and I found myself still up at gone 3 in the morning, painting pictures and crying to old Joni Mitchell songs. I mean I paint pictures most days but I painted seven yesterday which was a real burst. Thank you whisky!

Can we congregate around tackling climate change?

54321 you need to go and do some wider work research into the impact the eu and Blair working rights had on local councils and communities. You need to get real about the dangerous state our already crippled hospitals were in.
You need to understand how white van man was unable to pay his mortgage due to being undercut by cheap ee labour flooding into the UK in millions due to Blair who showed allegiance to the eu project and not his own people. It's those people now using food banks.
Then do some wider reading on the people who have lost thier lives due to people from the eu allowed into the UK with violent criminal backgrounds and went into kill UK citizens?
Then please delve into the criminal gangs putting beggars on the streets, please read about outbreak of modern day slavery... Vulnerable men kept as slaves in rotting caravans for gang masters, sex slaves and child explotation.

Please read about your wondeful eu and how they ignored desperate urgent calls to stop dangerous weapons being smuggled across the eu, the same automatic weapons that ended up massacring those people in the battaclan.

Or does your sympathy only extend to the yourself and your own problems?

Again, @Imnotthrowingawaymyshot, why don't you start your own thread about the EU rather than spoiling this one. 54321go is one of the most knowledgable posters about the EU, they just haven't been on the threads for a while, so don't teach your grandfather to suck eggs.

myshot
Why is the EU to blame for the UKs labour laws?
Each EU country has its own employment regulations. If you do not like the UK's ones, maybe you should move to France.

Why is the EU to blame for the use of food banks?
The Tory Government brought in austerity and Universal credit.
Those will get worse after Brexit, not better.

@Imnotthrowingawaymyshot

All of those things are the fault of our own government. We’ve always had control. It has just suited some politicians to blame the EU.

We never lost control. We GAINED access to services and trade agreements.

The kind that made holidays cheaper and easier. The kind that made food cheaper and made it easier to do business abroad.

The kind that made it easier to broker The Good Friday agreement.

If by ‘do some reading’ you mean ‘have followed politics, the news and current affairs for the last twenty years in detail’ then I already have! Have you?

And it has to be hoped that once Brexit ceases to be the issue
we get politicians willing to tackle the true problems that blight the UK

• climate change
• underfunding of public services
• inequality

as then we have a chance to reconcile

Loving the autumn leaves.

Remember, Leave means Leave!

imnot it’s leavers like you who have caused the problem here.

Your knowledge is taken entirely from Daily Mail headlines.

Hmmm. This is a 2, possibly 3 margherita problem.🤔

Line em up Queer.🍸

I think, (and yes, it's IMO, and, given that 'middle ground' Brexiters admit it could take 50 years for Britain to reap the benefits of Brexit), I don't think it's that ridiculous:

Let's stay. Let's revoke A50 but on the understanding that government will tackle the issues the Leave vote revealed. With a time scale. And a grownup Referendum. And with the EU's understanding that evolving and dynamic reflection should be an ongoing exercise.

Yes, I recognise that far too many poor Eastern countries were waved in, and given the same rights as the boring, economically, politically solid western members of 40 years. Mistake. But they border Russia.

The Euro wasn't a great idea. Failing economies should be allowed to devalue their currency. Or Germany should be forced to step in, like a bank covering its weaker, then failing, investments. Cake and eating it?

The EU Parliament should remain in one place. Like Washington. Physically in, and of, but not in EU Europe. Quit that circus. Minimal MEP attendance should be mandated. Nigel.

Leaving should be possible, in a pre organised, but yes, not preferential way. You leave because you believe you can strike better deals, internationally, out. And have done that maths. With a national referendum with x participation, and y majority.

Yes, as a Remainer, I want 'education' as to what regulation the EU 'forced' on us, how it negatively impacted on us...(and how much of it our own MEPs drafted themselves!), what the EU isn't responsible for. And a recognition of what good they did do.

I want FPTP reviewed (however, sorry, but in contravention of the spirit of reconciliation of this thread- but how many gave a toss about PR when the LibDems raised it?? Hmm?).

How about a written constitution so the likes of Bozo Cumjob cannot legally (I know, I know) pull prorogation stunts?

How about we make big international business pay their taxes?

How about we seriously, properly finance non-uni FE? And incentivise it?

How about we stop people using their house as a money box to force others to rent?

How about we force a national
Living wage? And make it clear if we want great health care, social care, and education, everyone has to pay for it?

How about we make positive, tax-incentivised moves to decentralise London as the be all and end all? (Germany has no Uber-city!).

Now I will stop.

Apart from reiterating l: let's revoke A50 on the basis we have a national rethink as to what, really, caused so many disenfranchised people to vote for Leave?

Clue: it wasn't the EU.

Sorry, what's a 3 margarita problem...oh wait, I don't actually care, I'll just drink them.

I'd like a written constitution but a teacher told me I was stupid for wanting that.

listening but without the cash, tax-take-,or international, say EU- cooperation that smooths this, post Brexit...

I do feel like a priority now is getting everyone talking because we will all need to come together to solve problems afterwards and I fear without attempts at reprochement there will just be a massive blame game with no end: 'It's Leaver's fault' 'It would have all been OK if Remainers hadn't wrecked the chance of a good deal' etc until the cows come home.

The basic problems will remain or, IMO, be worsened post Brexit:

• Huge inequality, and concomitant increasing numbers of people, including those in low-paid work, who can't make an economic contribution because they are struggling just to pay for rent, heat and food
• Corporations not paying taxes
• Unaffordable housing
• NHS collapsing under strain of ageing and ill population

Those are what we need to come together about and honestly, the vast majority of people, if you take those issues in isolation from the parties they are associated with, agree that all of these need sorting. No one likes inequality, no one likes corporations not paying tax, no one like unaffordable housing and everyone wants a free, successful NHS. Both sides of the Brexit debate will in general agree on those.