INFORMATION

This website uses cookies to store information on your computer. Some of these cookies are essential to make our site work and others help us to improve by giving us some insight into how the site is being used.

For further information, see our Privacy Policy.

Continuing to use this website is acceptance of these cookies.

We are not accepting any new registrations.

In or out?

...on serious topics that don't fit anywhere else at present.
Post Reply
Message
Author
User avatar
Alan H
Posts: 24067
Joined: July 3rd, 2007, 10:26 pm

Re: In or out?

#181 Post by Alan H » June 30th, 2016, 1:14 pm

Latest post of the previous page:

Now Boris isn't standing for leader of the Tories, someone quipped that Private Eye staff have been told to take six months off.

If anyone isn't following any of this... here's what someone else posted:
So. let me get this straight... the leader of the opposition campaigned to stay but secretly wanted to leave. so his party held a non-binding vote to shame him into resigning so someone else could lead the campaign to ignore the result of the non-binding referendum which many people now think wasjust angry people tryingto shame politicians into seeing they'd all done nothing to help them.

Meanwhile. the man who campaigned to leave because he hoped losing would help him win the leadership of his party accidentally won and ruined any chance of leading because the man who thought he couldn't lose. did - but resigned before actually doing the thing the vote had been about. The man who'd always thought he'd lead next. campaigned so badly that everyone thought he was lying when he said the economy would crash - and he was. but it did. but he's not resigned. but. like the man who lost and the man who won. also now can't become leader. Which means the woman who quietly campaigned to stay but always said she wanted to leave is likely to become leader instead.

Which means she holds the same view as the leader of the opposition but for opposite reasons. but her party's view of this view is the opposite of the opposition‘s. And the opposition aren't yet opposinganything because the leader isn't listening to his party. who aren't listening to the country. who aren't listeningto experts or possibly payingthat much attention at all. However. none of their opponents actually want to be the one to do the thing that the vote was about. so there's not yet anything actually on the table to oppose anyway. And if no one ever does do the thingthat most people asked them to do. it will be undemocratic and if any one ever does do it. it will be awful.

Clear?
Alan Henness

There are three fundamental questions for anyone advocating Brexit:

1. What, precisely, are the significant and tangible benefits of leaving the EU?
2. What damage to the UK and its citizens is an acceptable price to pay for those benefits?
3. Which ruling of the ECJ is most persuasive of the need to leave its jurisdiction?

stevenw888
Posts: 694
Joined: July 16th, 2010, 12:48 pm

Re: In or out?

#182 Post by stevenw888 » June 30th, 2016, 2:22 pm

Clear as mud to me - sounds like the guy who posted the "Poisoned Chalice" comment about Boris in the Guardian knew what he was talking about!

I have a solution. David Miliband returns from America. He stands as a candidate in the Batley and Spen by election. Once elected (unopposed) he throws his hat into the leadership ring. Ed meekly promises to keep out of it this time. David wins the leadership election and resoundly beats Theresa May in the January election. Peace is restored as David unobtrusively cancels article 50 and quietly goes about organising our re-entry into the EU. Simples!
"There are old pilots and there are bold pilots, but there are no old, bold pilots." - From the film "Top Gun"

User avatar
Alan H
Posts: 24067
Joined: July 3rd, 2007, 10:26 pm

Re: In or out?

#183 Post by Alan H » June 30th, 2016, 5:14 pm

stevenw888 wrote:Clear as mud to me - sounds like the guy who posted the "Poisoned Chalice" comment about Boris in the Guardian knew what he was talking about!

I have a solution. David Miliband returns from America. He stands as a candidate in the Batley and Spen by election. Once elected (unopposed) he throws his hat into the leadership ring. Ed meekly promises to keep out of it this time. David wins the leadership election and resoundly beats Theresa May in the January election. Peace is restored as David unobtrusively cancels article 50 and quietly goes about organising our re-entry into the EU. Simples!
A plan at least... but we've not left yet, so no need to re-enter!
Alan Henness

There are three fundamental questions for anyone advocating Brexit:

1. What, precisely, are the significant and tangible benefits of leaving the EU?
2. What damage to the UK and its citizens is an acceptable price to pay for those benefits?
3. Which ruling of the ECJ is most persuasive of the need to leave its jurisdiction?

User avatar
Dave B
Posts: 17809
Joined: May 17th, 2010, 9:15 pm

Re: In or out?

#184 Post by Dave B » June 30th, 2016, 5:46 pm

Have just heard the news, I am in a quandry - do I cheer that the Buffoon is not standing or do I cry at the utter despicability of the politicians involved.

Given tbe choice between Gove the Backstabber and May I would hafe to go for the latter. She may not sparkle with wit (which could be a plus point if it means less personal sarcastic sniping) but she has managed to hold the job of Home Sec. longer than any other. She seems steady, fairly honest, interested in civil rights, gay marriage etc and seemingly invokes loyalty in her staff, the sort of qualities we need.
"Look forward; yesterday was a lesson, if you did not learn from it you wasted it."
Me, 2015

stevenw888
Posts: 694
Joined: July 16th, 2010, 12:48 pm

Re: In or out?

#185 Post by stevenw888 » June 30th, 2016, 6:00 pm

However her father is a vicar and she makes a point of regularly attending church on a Sunday (according to wikipedia). Not that that makes her a bad person...
"There are old pilots and there are bold pilots, but there are no old, bold pilots." - From the film "Top Gun"

User avatar
Alan H
Posts: 24067
Joined: July 3rd, 2007, 10:26 pm

Re: In or out?

#186 Post by Alan H » June 30th, 2016, 6:10 pm

Interesting ideas:
An Open Letter to David Cameron

David Sanders
Regius Professor of Political Science
University of Essex

Dear Mr Cameron
As you know, you are responsible for the most disastrous development in the UK’s political and economic history since 1945. Your error has been far more serious than Eden’s at Suez. His foray into latter-day gunboat diplomacy failed to achieve its own objectives and accelerated the loss of Empire, but it did not pose the existential threat to the UK’s future that your Brexit does. Your error has been much more egregious. Eden failed in 1956 to understand how Britain’s strategic position had changed, but you were much better informed. You understood the strategic position very well. You knew that Britain had vital interests in each of Churchill’s ‘three circles’: in the Commonwealth and the third world; in the special relationship with the United States; and, especially, in Europe. You also knew that for over forty years our European strategy had been predicated on our membership of the EU – and that our continued membership of the EU was clearly the best way of maximising Britain’s economic and political interests in Europe and the world.

You gambled that a referendum on EU membership would produce a Remain outcome, when any competent political analyst could have told you (and perhaps some did) that UK public support for the EU was moved strongly by external ‘shocks’ like Maastricht or the 2007/8 credit crunch. Those analysts would also have told you that it was sheer folly to call a referendum, when the EU itself was suffering from the continuing effects of the Euro crisis and the world’s worst refugee crisis since World War II. They would have pointed out that things have changed a lot since Harold Wilson won his EU referendum in 1975: leading politicians (including you on occasion) have been bad-mouthing the EU for more than 30 years; and for much of that time most of the popular press, having been pro-EU in 1975, has been vehemently anti EU. You should have realised that the probability of losing the referendum was much higher in 2016 than it had been in 1975 – and that far, far more was at stake.

I will resist the temptation to ask you what on earth you thought you were doing. I know that you were following through on a manifesto commitment (designed to preserve Conservative Party unity) to hold a referendum on Britain’s EU membership before the end of 2017. I appreciate that it’s possible you thought you would never have to deliver on that commitment because you believed the outcome of the 2015 general election would be a second Conservative/Lib-Dem coalition government, which would in turn allow you to jettison your manifesto referendum commitment. I also understand why you felt obliged, as a good democrat responding to the will of the people, to follow through on a manifesto commitment once elected. And I also know that your experience with the AV and Scottish referendums suggested that ‘common sense would prevail’ in 2016 just as it had in 2011 and 2014.

But the potential costs of Brexit were so huge, it is difficult to see how you could possibly have thought the gamble of an EU referendum was worthwhile. (This is especially so, given that a number of Brexiteers now seem to be having doubts about how far Brexit will allow immigration to be reduced – ironically, the one idea that motivated many of those who voted Leave). We are now starting fully to appreciate just what those costs are:

• the need to contrive a totally new European strategy outside the EU, when no-one has any clear idea what it might look like or how it might (now) be negotiated;

• the potential dissolution of the UK, as the Scottish government manoeuvres to remain inside the EU as the rest of the UK leaves it;

• the serious re-opening of old wounds in Northern Ireland, as debate grows around the need for a United Ireland inside the EU;

• the possibility of having to erect hard borders between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic, and between Scotland and England;

• the endless changes to the UK’s domestic legislative framework that will be required to accommodate Brexit;

• the short-to-medium term economic costs of the loss of economic confidence that has already taken place;

• the medium-to-long term costs of reduced trade with Europe and perhaps even with the rest of the world as we search to find new markets and strike new trade deals;

• the dangerously damaging loss of Foreign Direct Investment into Britain, particularly if foreign investors start to regard Edinburgh and Dublin as the key English-language gateways to the Single European Market;

• the closing of educational and employment of younger generations of Britons and the consequent reduction in their life chances and realistic ambitions.

Oh, Mr Cameron, what have you done – and what should you do? If you want to rescue your place in history, it is not enough to have ‘done the decent thing’ by indicating that you will hand over to a new leader by October 2016. That new leader, as things stand, will be a Leaver who will simply follow through with Brexit, which will almost inevitably incur all the costs (and many others) outlined above.
How can these costs, or at least some of the more serious long-term ones, be avoided? One approach is that we negotiate a deal in the two years after triggering Article 50 and then test its acceptability in the form of a second referendum in 2018. This suggestion is intelligent but fraught with risk. It relies on the whims and prejudices of the 27 EU partners, some of whom, as we all know, will be keen to punish our Brexit pour decourager les autres. The concomitant danger is that any deal that retains the bulk of our EU connections would be rejected by Brexiteers in the second referendum.

The only solution is easy for me to say and difficult for you to do. You need to put the nation’s interests above those of the party and split the party. You need to do some serious politicking inside the Conservative Party to engineer a divorce from the Eurosceptics. You need to use your residual power and authority as Prime Minister to approach the (genuinely) pro-EU anti-Corbyn group in the Parliamentary Labour Party (Hilary Benn and Tristram Hunt would be a good starting point) with a view to forming a new Democratic Centre Party, the core aim of which is to prevent the UK from leaving the EU. You could expect strong support if not direct involvement from the Liberal Democrats. You should then look to create the conditions for an early, single issue, general election. The DCP would stand on a Remain-in-EU platform and put all other differences aside. An alliance of UKIP and Tory Brexiteers could fight it out with the rump Corbynisti for the remainder of the vote share. I, for one, would enjoy watching that. For its part, the DCP would know that it could hammer out a common policy platform after an election victory very quickly, just as you did with the Liberal Democrats in 2010. The DCP could even constitute itself as a Temporary Crisis Coalition, constructed with the expectation that it might be dissolved at some future point, once the crisis had been averted.

If elected – which, given the chaos the Brexit referendum vote has engendered, would be extremely likely – the DCP government would assert that the popular will had been reversed through recourse to the usual British constitutional device – a general election – and announce that the UK was not leaving the EU. The SNP would find it very difficult to oppose any DCP motion calling for the UK to remain in the EU without losing all political credibility.
There are two possibilities for getting an early election called. I assume that the mechanism in either case, under the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011, would be two successive motions of No Confidence in HMG.

• Option 1, which would be preferable, is to create the DCP and engineer the No Confidence motions before October/November 2016 – before Article 50 is invoked. This would clearly be a very tight timescale, but the stakes could not possibly be higher.

• Option 2 is to wait until after we have new pro-Brexit Prime Minister in office and the triggering of Article 51, simply because ‘it takes time’ to configure a party realignment. This is more complicated because you would no longer be PM, but the creation of the DCP, even at this later stage, could still be used to effect the necessary votes of No Confidence because the DCP and SNP together would have a clear majority of Commons votes.

Labour is ripe for a split. The Conservatives are ripe for a split. A bold politician who wishes to make reparation to the nation for his egregious political error needs to act decisively when the nation’s vital interests are at stake. You know that this is the case now. A disaster for the Conservative Party or the Labour Party (both of which may be imminent anyway) is of nothing compared to the disaster that Brexit presents to the nation. Please, Mr Cameron: be brave and be bold. You have been before. In the interests of the United Kingdom, please do the right thing now. Put all your political weight behind the creation of a new centre party that keeps Britain in the EU (and thereby avoids all the costs of Brexit) and rejuvenates the centre of gravity of British politics.

David Sanders
Regius Professor of Political Science
University of Essex
28/6/16
Alan Henness

There are three fundamental questions for anyone advocating Brexit:

1. What, precisely, are the significant and tangible benefits of leaving the EU?
2. What damage to the UK and its citizens is an acceptable price to pay for those benefits?
3. Which ruling of the ECJ is most persuasive of the need to leave its jurisdiction?

User avatar
Dave B
Posts: 17809
Joined: May 17th, 2010, 9:15 pm

Re: In or out?

#187 Post by Dave B » June 30th, 2016, 6:52 pm

stevenw888 wrote:However her father is a vicar and she makes a point of regularly attending church on a Sunday (according to wikipedia). Not that that makes her a bad person...
There is that, but thinking of Two Faced (or is it Two Arsed?) Gove being in charge of the country makes me shudder.

At least May seems honest and steady, not normal qualities for a politician.
"Look forward; yesterday was a lesson, if you did not learn from it you wasted it."
Me, 2015

User avatar
Alan H
Posts: 24067
Joined: July 3rd, 2007, 10:26 pm

Re: In or out?

#188 Post by Alan H » June 30th, 2016, 8:53 pm

Dave B wrote:At least May seems honest and steady, not normal qualities for a politician.
But ignorant of how the Internet works (see the Snoopers' Charter), she wants to replace the Human Rights Act and responsible for the Psychoactive Substances Act.
Alan Henness

There are three fundamental questions for anyone advocating Brexit:

1. What, precisely, are the significant and tangible benefits of leaving the EU?
2. What damage to the UK and its citizens is an acceptable price to pay for those benefits?
3. Which ruling of the ECJ is most persuasive of the need to leave its jurisdiction?

User avatar
Alan H
Posts: 24067
Joined: July 3rd, 2007, 10:26 pm

Re: In or out?

#189 Post by Alan H » June 30th, 2016, 9:43 pm

Panic over! There is a Brexit plan after all: Roadmap Plan for UK Departure of the EU
Alan Henness

There are three fundamental questions for anyone advocating Brexit:

1. What, precisely, are the significant and tangible benefits of leaving the EU?
2. What damage to the UK and its citizens is an acceptable price to pay for those benefits?
3. Which ruling of the ECJ is most persuasive of the need to leave its jurisdiction?

User avatar
Dave B
Posts: 17809
Joined: May 17th, 2010, 9:15 pm

Re: In or out?

#190 Post by Dave B » June 30th, 2016, 9:56 pm

Alan H wrote:
Dave B wrote:At least May seems honest and steady, not normal qualities for a politician.
But ignorant of how the Internet works (see the Snoopers' Charter), she wants to replace the Human Rights Act and responsible for the Psychoactive Substances Act.
Yeah, there are those, but Gove?
"Look forward; yesterday was a lesson, if you did not learn from it you wasted it."
Me, 2015

User avatar
Alan H
Posts: 24067
Joined: July 3rd, 2007, 10:26 pm

Re: In or out?

#191 Post by Alan H » June 30th, 2016, 10:18 pm

Dave B wrote:Yeah, there are those, but Gove?
Indeed. No experts necessary to tell us what he'd do for the country.
Alan Henness

There are three fundamental questions for anyone advocating Brexit:

1. What, precisely, are the significant and tangible benefits of leaving the EU?
2. What damage to the UK and its citizens is an acceptable price to pay for those benefits?
3. Which ruling of the ECJ is most persuasive of the need to leave its jurisdiction?

User avatar
Alan H
Posts: 24067
Joined: July 3rd, 2007, 10:26 pm

Re: In or out?

#192 Post by Alan H » June 30th, 2016, 10:31 pm

This may help decide who would be best:
2016-06-30_22h30_56.png
2016-06-30_22h30_56.png (287.5 KiB) Viewed 2450 times
Alan Henness

There are three fundamental questions for anyone advocating Brexit:

1. What, precisely, are the significant and tangible benefits of leaving the EU?
2. What damage to the UK and its citizens is an acceptable price to pay for those benefits?
3. Which ruling of the ECJ is most persuasive of the need to leave its jurisdiction?

User avatar
Dave B
Posts: 17809
Joined: May 17th, 2010, 9:15 pm

Re: In or out?

#193 Post by Dave B » July 1st, 2016, 9:23 am

Alan H wrote:This may help decide who would be best:
2016-06-30_22h30_56.png
Change the "Leave" to "Remain" and it reverses the May/Gove score difference to one of my liking :D
"Look forward; yesterday was a lesson, if you did not learn from it you wasted it."
Me, 2015

User avatar
Tetenterre
Posts: 3244
Joined: March 13th, 2011, 11:36 am

Re: In or out?

#194 Post by Tetenterre » July 1st, 2016, 9:38 am

Alan H wrote:Interesting ideas:
DCP = SDP v2 ?
Steve

Quantum Theory: The branch of science with which people who know absolutely sod all about quantum theory can explain anything.

User avatar
Alan H
Posts: 24067
Joined: July 3rd, 2007, 10:26 pm

Re: In or out?

#195 Post by Alan H » July 1st, 2016, 10:28 am

Tetenterre wrote:
Alan H wrote:Interesting ideas:
DCP = SDP v2 ?
Quite possibly.
Alan Henness

There are three fundamental questions for anyone advocating Brexit:

1. What, precisely, are the significant and tangible benefits of leaving the EU?
2. What damage to the UK and its citizens is an acceptable price to pay for those benefits?
3. Which ruling of the ECJ is most persuasive of the need to leave its jurisdiction?

Gottard
Posts: 1306
Joined: October 3rd, 2008, 3:11 pm

Re: In or out?

#196 Post by Gottard » July 1st, 2016, 4:14 pm

:hilarity: However, I wish Boris - as a punishment - should have been 'commanded' to lead the new gov. :finger:
The only thing I fear of death is regret if I couldn’t complete my learning experience

User avatar
Alan H
Posts: 24067
Joined: July 3rd, 2007, 10:26 pm

Re: In or out?

#197 Post by Alan H » July 1st, 2016, 10:15 pm

Alan Henness

There are three fundamental questions for anyone advocating Brexit:

1. What, precisely, are the significant and tangible benefits of leaving the EU?
2. What damage to the UK and its citizens is an acceptable price to pay for those benefits?
3. Which ruling of the ECJ is most persuasive of the need to leave its jurisdiction?

User avatar
Alan H
Posts: 24067
Joined: July 3rd, 2007, 10:26 pm

Re: In or out?

#198 Post by Alan H » July 1st, 2016, 10:21 pm

Alan Henness

There are three fundamental questions for anyone advocating Brexit:

1. What, precisely, are the significant and tangible benefits of leaving the EU?
2. What damage to the UK and its citizens is an acceptable price to pay for those benefits?
3. Which ruling of the ECJ is most persuasive of the need to leave its jurisdiction?

Gottard
Posts: 1306
Joined: October 3rd, 2008, 3:11 pm

Re: In or out?

#199 Post by Gottard » July 2nd, 2016, 8:50 am

:thumbsup:
The only thing I fear of death is regret if I couldn’t complete my learning experience

User avatar
Alan H
Posts: 24067
Joined: July 3rd, 2007, 10:26 pm

Re: In or out?

#200 Post by Alan H » July 2nd, 2016, 10:06 am

Gottard wrote::thumbsup:
Pft. Experts? Who needs them...
Alan Henness

There are three fundamental questions for anyone advocating Brexit:

1. What, precisely, are the significant and tangible benefits of leaving the EU?
2. What damage to the UK and its citizens is an acceptable price to pay for those benefits?
3. Which ruling of the ECJ is most persuasive of the need to leave its jurisdiction?

User avatar
Dave B
Posts: 17809
Joined: May 17th, 2010, 9:15 pm

Re: In or out?

#201 Post by Dave B » July 2nd, 2016, 10:43 am

Alan H wrote:
Gottard wrote::thumbsup:
Pft. Experts? Who needs them...
Expert, pronounce "ex-spurt": a hasbeen drip under pressure.
"Look forward; yesterday was a lesson, if you did not learn from it you wasted it."
Me, 2015

Post Reply