Brexit mega thread part 11: is fucktastrophy a word?

[mirages08]

Part 11 of this mega thread

Couldn't see a new one?

Hope you don't mind a newbie starting it!

I think our first proposals to go metric were made in the 19th Century, so long long before anyone thought about an EU.

I am in my seventies now and I can no longer think of temperatures in Fahrenheit. I do still think in miles but that's about it.

I do distance in minutes as km never stuck and British miles and Swedish miles are very different and therefore make my brain hurt.

Distance in terms of time is a very American thing too, and possibly German. A DC was recently on the Aran Islands and was asked how much further he had to go by a German tourist puffing up the little track to the megalithic remains on a bike. The answer was a good 20 minutes and the tourist understood perfectly. I know people who advise their university-bound children to only consider places within a two hour drive (stretched a bit for U of Illinois, though to be fair this could be done in two hours with a lead foot). For me, units of weight are imperial as I learned cooking from cookbooks my mother had. In the US I use volume measurements. Distance is all metric in my head, but in practice I measure geographical distance in terms of time, and height or room dimensions in cms. Temps are in Fahrenheit thanks to living in the US, but my scientist friends use centigrade at work. It's a true hotch potch.

And as I have repeatedly noted, if we are to bring back useless measures, why aren't we clamouring for Lsd ? Decimalisation was a much more seismic shift away from Britishness.

I remember being taught about 'the new money' in school in Ireland at an age where I had never actually handled money and LSD was a load of gobbledygook. It was finally 'our money' and not a hangover from the days of being part of the British world. The system made so much more sense than the old LS&D. My mum kept a little jar of coins after the switchover all the same, for sentimental reasons.

Even the American use of pounds makes more sense than stones, etc. It's basically conceptualised in terms of hundreds (as in "My 600 Pound Life")

Yes. There's your answer.

@LouiseCollins28
Your quotes

24/09/2023 22:54
I can't vote to remove an MEP elected in France, a French voter couldn't vote out one elected in the UK. For me, that was always an unacceptable position.

Yesterday 18:35
I didn't, and don't, think I should have been able to vote out French MEPs.

24/09/2023 23:07
At the European Elections we voted for multi member constiutencies with candidates off a closed list.
The best you could possibly say (unless you were a party member who somehow had a direct role in determining who was on the lists) is that a candidate listed by the party you voted for, won. If you're happy with that, fair enough, I wasn't.

Yesterday 18:35
PR no part of my reasoning for voting to Leave.

You've said all along that you don't want people in the EU making our laws (including it seems if those laws are proposed and written by the British). How do you feel about the fact that EU lawmakers be setting our standards now and (unlike before Brexit) we really will have no say or ability to vote them out?

You voted "leave" because you had no real clue about what you were voting for.

That is the "reality" here.

Its just amazing that you even try to rationalise this based on some truly "out there" simplistic reasoning.

People like yourself need to accept that you were manipulated for political ends.

Is that really so hard to accept?

So an EU law proposed by the UK has to be scrapped. Presumably the UK, thinking it was a good law, has to reintroduce the same legislation to pass the same law again, but this time rebadged, so it's OK for the Brexiters.

Bl**dy silly.

Don't you dare call them stupid!

They all knew what they were voting for!

As @Kendodd s quotes of my posts neatly demonstrate. "Voted Leave because she doesn't like PR and wants FPTP" is not something I ever said, nor anything like it. We were talking about who'd got voted in under various systems and my point, as was very clear, was that I disliked that I was voting for a party, not an individual. In no way does that = "Voted Leave because she doesn't like PR"

back to @TheThinkingGoblin No I don't accept this. Not for one minute, and you telling me I need to really doesn't help. What did you possibly expect to achieve by doing that?

I've tried to simplify my reasoning to reduce the likelihood that my words get twisted by other posters. Clearly I've failed to achieve that, since people are still determinedly doing it.

I've tried to articulate some basic concepts about countries offering the meaningful, legitimate boundaries that determine a democratic society. I've tried to show how and supra-national structures such as the EU don't do that, as they break the link between the governed and their representatives. This is because a rep elected in one part exercises ruling power over those elsewhere who weren't enfranchised to elect them, and they aren't part of the same demos because they aren't part of the same country.

Feel free to criticize that position however you like, but understand 2 things. 1) That matters to me and I was, and am, sure there is no way that continued EU membership could satisfy it & 2) Please don't call me stupid on the basis of what I value, even if it's not the same as what you value.

If you still geniunely think I had "no real clue what I was voting for" then I'm going to conclude you're either mudslinging, on a 'wind up' or uninterested in any further conversation. That makes me sad because I've been on these threads for quite a few years now but I'm getting pretty fed up with the responses to virtually anything I post being so laced with insults and condesension.

This is because a rep elected in one part exercises ruling power over those elsewhere who weren't enfranchised to elect them, and they aren't part of the same demos because they aren't part of the same country.

I would infer then that when Theresa May stitched up a deal with the DUP, which as I said, no-one in Great Britain was able to vote for, you would argue that she ought to have held another election? You haven't quite argued this yet, only citing earlier Governments, which I suspect was before you were able to vote, so you are taking a theoretical stance. But I was able to vote in the 1970s and can tell you that the electorate can get mighty fed up with a PM who keeps calling elections.

As for 'we vote for person'. Technically yes, but unless they then all sat as independents, in practice we don't. Hence at the next elections you will see debates about vote swapping or people saying they will put a peg on their nose to vote for XXX party to get YYY party out.

Northern Ireland, part of the same demos as any other part of the UK, since her MPs may sit at Westminster and most of them do. That said, May's deal stitched up with the DUP was wrong and yes, from my POV another election should have been held.

I wasn't able to vote in the 1970s so I can't really comment on that time but I'm sure you're right that 2 elections in 1974 must have tested people's patience. Odd though, if people were so fed up with the repeat, that the same party "won" both of them and Labour then goverened until 1979.

Odd though, if people were so fed up with the repeat, that the same party "won" both of them and Labour then governed until 1979.

I suggest you re-read your history. Heath won in February, and Wilson won in October.

In fact, no one won in February 1974; it was a hung Parliament. As the incumbent PM Heath tried to form a Government and failed, so Labour under Wilson formed a minority Government. This caused him to go to the Country again, but resulted in a slim majority of 4 seats - so it was always a precarious Government.

But I recall the mid seventies as being a good time. E.g, equal pay legislation came in. Or was it just a good time because I was young then?

"We hold all the cards"

https://www.politico.eu/article/rishi-sunak-narendra-modi-uk-india-trade-deal-worker-environment-pledges/

and no mention of numbers for visas, as anticipated. Now I don't mind. But if anyone was wondering when their Brexit is going to see a lightening of the average shade of Britain (using the P.Patel colour scale) then they are going to be puzzled as to when it's going to start.

Sovereignity without power

Meanwhile Rish! is being given a kicking in Europe because all he wants to talk about is immigration, and they want to change the tune.

And it needs to be borne in mind - even by Louise - that the UK most certainly doesn't get to tell Europe what to do.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/09/27/britain-spain-row-rishi-sunak-demand-illegal-migration

If only we had more like these rather than the obsequious Client Journalists we get around Westminster...

Whilst we're rinsing - Suella and migration attacks thoroughly owned last night - unusually not interrupted by Fiona
Lisa Nandy QT

Just chatting to a brexshitter of my acquaintance...

He and his dw off to live in Ireland when he retires next year

Alright for some

They must be very brave.

He did say "I won't mention I voted for brexit"
🤷
Tbh Ireland have benefitted massively from brexshit. I imagine they rather like brexshitters

Wanna be in the QT audience ?

https://eu.castitreach.com/ag/mentorn/questiontime/welcome.html

Now make sure you answer the question about how you voted in 2016 honestly. It would be a terrible shame (but seriously ironic) if a load of people lied to the BBC about Brexit in order to subvert a programme.

#justsayin'