Westminstenders: War and Weirdos

[RedToothBrush]

With weirdos set to run No10 and Trump seemingly having started a new war in the Middle East, 2020 already looks set to be a cracking year.

To start off your year, it turns out that chinese curse about interesting times is actually a fallacy...

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_you_live_in_interesting_times

Happy New Year.

May we make 2030...

In spite of this, Members of Parliament who still favour Remain are trying to engineer a situation where we "Leave" but keep this, and this, and this, and this.....

Actually I believe it's Leavers who want to do that. They've always wanted to be able to cherry pick and keep all the bits that are benefcial to the UK whilst avoiding the bits they don't want.
I truly hope they will not get that.

@LouiseCollins28, youre rught. Its having to british parents that makes you truly british.
Having just one british parents dosnt make you truly british as my dcs have learnt. Nor does getting the british citizenship :(

Im wondering what has happened to 'giving the job to the best person for the job'? Maybe just burried under the national sentiment that sees british jobs should be given to british people?

In a personal relationship, I might well do, though I do naturally rather shy away from such things.

For a whole country? More difficult IMO. I'm sure what Layla Moran and co are doing plays well with their voters but at some point a decision has been reached, surely?

Ask yourself this, what have Parliamentarians opposed to Brexit changed in their statements and positioning since Dec 13th?

Losing an election doesn't mean that a wrong course of action now becomes right, so why should parties or MPs change their statements and positioning? OK calling for a 'People's vote' is now pointless, because this election was effectively a 'People's vote'. Holding the Government to account to tell us where these wonderful benefits of Brexit are is still something worth fighting for.

Making Boris Johnson and cronies own Brexit is worth fighting for - no more blaming the EU for Westminster's failings, or blaming the last Labour Government, or Corbyn in opposition, or the LibDems when they were in coalition. This is yours chum, and if it works, you can take all the credit. Yesterday we had a discussion about railways and just how many Beeching cuts could be reversed by £500 million*. If the £5 billion investment money appears from somewhere then, well done Boris Johnson. If it doesn't, we should be asking why not?

Similarly the 50,000 nurses and the 40 new hospitals.....

• Worth about 50 miles of track - so the two recently completed projects, the Waverley line, and the line from Marylebone taken through to Oxford would have blown that budget out of the water.

LouiseCollins, I don't understand this part of your earlier post:
"Brexit will not be "Done", we're just the EU political institutions".

The argument really comes back to what people were voting for in the referendum.
Was it made clear that Brexit included leaving not only Erasmus but also Horizon?
That it would penalise higher education and academic research, which are both key to the UK economy?

Is that what people were choosing?
Or did they choose something nebulous that is now being brandished as a kind of carte blanche for the gvmt?
Since there was no reference to this in the Leave campaign, how can anyone claim it what people voted for?

This is why it is perfectly legitimate for people to criticise what is happening.

Also, can people keep on claiming both the referendum and the GE were "mandates for [a hard] Brexit" while the gvmt are sitting on the report into Russian interference in the UK's elections?

And while the Tories lost the popular vote at the GE whereas Leave is enforced on the basis of a referendum with a simple (marginal) majority.

I myself was not born here either and I had the devil of a job to prove my British citizenship, despite both parents being British.
I understand they've changed the rules since but, at the time, being born on a British army camp abroad was not proof of British citizenship.

I know that BJ has British parents: my point was that that he had dual citizenship until recently, not that he was not British.

@louisecollins28 - why should those opposed to brexit change what they want? I want membership of the umpteen institutions - that won't change after 31/1

However perhaps now that a withdrawal is going through perhaps you and the leave brigade could actually now identify which eu institutions you want us to negotiate membership of?

The typo probably didn't help. "just leaving the EU political institutions" that should have said. My proper answer however would be:

In 2016 a majority of those who voted cast their votes for Leave, in 2019 they have elected a Conservative majority government.

There are 2 ways to interpret the latter vote I think, first as a vote in favour of the Johnson withdrawal "deal" and/or as one to "get Brexit done" i.e. on the terms the Government chooses to negotiate with the EU about our future relationship. Neither the WA nor the terms f any future relationship were voted on explicitly in 2016, when voters were just asked "Remain or Leave".

@Frankiestein402 I don't believe people should change what they want, even if they could. IMO people should always be free to advocate for changes they wish to see, so long as they do so entirely peacefully.

However, our political representatives are not in place to deliver what they want, their job is deliver for the electorate on what the electorate wants.

What the electorate wants, as expressed through the return of a majority government is now clear. I have seen very little evidence that pro-Remain Parliamentarians, who may or may not now be in a minority overall are now reflecting that change.

You now need to define what you want by 'getting Brexit done'. In Johnson's terms it's just not talking about it. In practice though just because something isn't talked about doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

Trade deals won't mysteriously write themselves, and the 'they need us more than we need them' has so far proved hollow. Johnson 're-negotiated' by throwing the DUP under the bus, but this does not mean that issues with N Ireland suddenly disappear.

Brexit was is and always will be a bad idea

There are 2 ways to interpret the latter vote

There's actually a few million ways to interpret the 2019 GE vote. Unless you are suggesting that millions of voters voted for exactly the same thing ?

We know some votes were simply "to keep Corbyn out", for example, with little if fuck all to do with Brexit.

"What the electorate wants, as expressed through the return of a majority government is now clear.
I have seen very little evidence that pro-Remain Parliamentarians, who may or may not now be in a minority overall are now reflecting that change."

louise WHat you seem to want is not how our Parliamentary system is supposed to worrk

After a GE, the Opposition don't normally give up their policies and support govt ones.
Otherwise there wouldn't be much point in parties having any guiding principles, if everyone has to support the policies that won the last time.

An Opposition is supposed to oppose and put forward their own policies until their turn comes to win a GE

Labour won't suddenly switch to supporting UC or benefits cuts
The Tories didn't switch to supporting Labour policies and time during Blair's 3 GE victories

The Tories didn't switch to supporting Labour policies at any time during Blair's 3 GE victories

The form of any post-Brexit trade deal is wide open, with different Brexiters suggesting a wide variation in closeness to the EU afterwards

So it's perfectly legitimate for the Opposition or anyone else to put forward what they want to see in a future deal

iirc, during the referendum no politician on the Leave side raised any objection to Erasmus continuing

louise What you seem to want is not how our Parliamentary system is supposed to work

which has been an ongoing theme of these threads, as I recall. Which quite frankly borders on religious fanaticism. A little like expecting/requiring defeated pagans to convert to Christianity. Or indeed defeated Christians to convert to Islam.

The Tories didn't switch to supporting Labour policies at any time during Blair's 3 GE victories

Although, by implication they supported the ones they didn't repeal 2010-2019 ...

"UK tax payers, the overwhelming majority of whom will derive no such benefit themselves of course, will be expected to pay £6 billion to continue."

Taxpayers and council tax-payers finance many things for a minority of people
e.g. transplants, ICU, grammar schools and super-grammars

Only about 35% of taxpayers are actually net contributors - they (incl me when I lived in the UK) keep paying for the other 65% and their families

iirc, during the referendum no politician on the Leave side raised any objection to Erasmus continuing

No, and no one was talking about leaving the Single Market - there was a commitment to it in the 2015 Tory manifesto. I think the Brexiters genuinely believed that they could cherry pick the bits they wanted to keep but not have to pay, and they had their bluff called.

The sad part for me for Parliaments since 2015 is that the Opposition haven't until recently been prepared to hold the Govt to account. I don't think Corbyn is the bogey man he was made out to be, but I am glad he's going - they really need a much more robust leader who can really hold Johnson to account - in the way that John Smith looked like a leader in waiting when Major's Government was flailing around.

Many wealthy Brexiters have moved themselves and / or their assets abroad since the ref
Leaving 67 million less mobile / wealthy Brits to face the consequences of brexit

To be blunt, we voted for it and then voted in a hard right hard brexit Govt, when there were clear alternatives, we've only ourselves to blame or rather the over 50s grrrrrr!

Its not just Erasmus, its the issues with uni student funding, EU students on my DDs course (who would go into our NHS) are v worried whether they will still get the funding they currently get over the next 2 years, even if they do, will they want to stay in the UK? No.

I think we are going to go from a outward Britain, to one of privilege for the few and an insular Britain for the rest of us, so like the 70s!!
My DD was only just telling me that when she finishes Uni (2021) she wants to go and work in Spain during the summer season, we talked about visa's, applying for work from the UK etc etc etc its just not going to happen is it?

Theres something a little Brexity about the Harry and Meghan threads. The pile ons, the anger, the perceived injustice...

iirc, during the referendum no politician on the Leave side raised any objection to Erasmus continuing

Which is an irrelevance since 12/12/2019.

Theres something a little Brexity about the Harry and Meghan threads. The pile ons, the anger, the perceived injustice...

And the not-so-subtle whiff of xenophobia

Not all of us over 50s please.