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Re: The United Kingdom General Election, 2nd May 2024
Labour are having a bad day today.
Aye but Republicans & Democrats are weird names too. I've always thought, sure, aren't all yanks republicans & democrats (small case) by default?! Isn't that like the whole point of the country??
- Randall Flagg
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Re: The United Kingdom General Election, 2nd May 2024
I've seen the following popping up a bit, it was originally posted in the Guardian comments section by a known anti Brexit blogger and it makes interesting reading. Part speculation and guess work of course, on what next and the political manoeuvring that may follow but I think it makes some fair assumptions. As Divney said these are politically fascinating times, I just wish they weren't mine.
Cameron effectively annulled the referendum result, and simultaneously destroyed the political careers of Boris Johnson, Michael Gove and leading Brexiters who cost him so much anguish, not to mention his premiership.
The Conservative party election that Cameron triggered will now have one question looming over it: will you, if elected as party leader, trigger the notice under Article 50?
Who will want to have the responsibility of all those ramifications and consequences on his/her head and shoulders?
Boris Johnson knew this yesterday, when he emerged subdued from his home and was even more subdued at the press conference. He has been out-maneouvered and check-mated.
If he runs for leadership of the party, and then fails to follow through on triggering Article 50, then he is finished. If he does not run and effectively abandons the field, then he is finished. If he runs, wins and pulls the UK out of the EU, then it will all be over - Scotland will break away, there will be upheaval in Ireland, a recession ... broken trade agreements. Then he is also finished. Boris Johnson knows all of this.
The Brexit leaders now have a result that they cannot use. For them, leadership of the Tory party has become a poison chalice.
When Boris Johnson said there was no need to trigger Article 50 straight away, what he really meant to say was “never”. When Michael Gove went on and on about “informal negotiations” ... why? why not the formal ones straight away? ... he also meant not triggering the formal departure. They both know what a formal demarche would mean: an irreversible step that neither of them is prepared to take.
All that remains is for someone to have the guts to stand up and say that Brexit is unachievable in reality without an enormous amount of pain and destruction, that cannot be borne. And David Cameron has put the onus of making that statement on the heads of the people who led the Brexit campaign.
Perhaps wishful thinking but it makes some interesting points.
It was a crafty move from Cameron (what was it he said let someone else sort out the shit or something?).
This certainly has gained some traction, even if it is somewhat wishful thinking.
Boris & Gove were certainly sheepish - their subdued behaviour certainly wasn't that typical of winners, & their immediate reluctance to push the button does give space for the wishful thinking & hope to prosper.
But I would be wary of underestimating the desire certain people have or will have for wanting to trigger article 50. Between now & the Tory conference the spin doctors will be working to sell it. & personal ambition may trump whatever negative implications being the man or woman to trigger article 50. We're looking at it from the point of view of dropping a bomb but others might view it as.. Well as dropping a bomb. Some people think it's a good thing! Ian Duncan Smith is like a pig in shit. But there's nothing new there I guess.
I'm just not sold on this notion that it means political hari kari, especially if they can spin it between now & October. I mean, in reality it clearly does, it is a poisoned chalice, but if this referendum has taught us anything it's that they can manipulate the story to suit their own short term interests.
Say if between now & the leadership decision they change the story as effectively as they have done this past 6 months, people will be demanding someone trigger it, and that has to be attractive to these people in the short term. I don't think they'll fear this article 50 too much to shy away from it, I can see them embracing it sadly.
Hopefully by tomorrow the brexiters will have finally created some semblance of a plan, so we can get some clarity on their position. Cause atm they've gone awol.
Re: The United Kingdom General Election, 2nd May 2024
I'm sure plenty of opportunists will see the tactics that proved successful here & try and mimic them for their own personal gains i.e. blame the EU for problems their own governments created.
We're in a bad way. The west is in upheaval. We've let the rich divide and conquer.
History, if we make it that far, will judge us poorly.
Re: The United Kingdom General Election, 2nd May 2024
Iain Duncan Smith backtracks on leave side's £350m NHS claim
Tory Brexit campaigner says he never made EU referendum pledge that appeared on official battlebus
Leading Brexit campaigner Iain Duncan Smith has distanced himself from a pledge by the official leave campaign to spend £350m “sent to the EU every week” on the NHS, saying he had never made the claim.
During the referendum campaign, Vote Leave issued posters reading: “Let’s give our NHS the £350m the EU takes every week.” The campaign’s battlebus, outside which the former work and pensions secretary was frequently photographed, featured the slogan: “We send the EU £350 million a week – let’s fund our NHS instead.”
But asked about the statement on Sunday morning, Duncan Smith said he had never made the claim during the campaign.
Speaking to the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show, he said: “I never said that during the course of the election. The £350m was an extrapolation of the £19.1bn – that’s the total amount of money we gave across to the European Union. What we actually said was a significant amount of it would go to the NHS. It’s essentially down to the government, but I believe that is what was pledged and that’s what should happen. There was talk about it going to the NHS, but there are other bits and pieces like agriculture, which is part of the process. That is the divide up. It was never the total.”
He denied that his comments constituted a broken promise, saying: “The lion’s share of that money, the government is now able to spend. So people can say that there is more money available now for the NHS – categorically more, which is what’s required and that’s the key point.”
The repeated claim by the leave campaign that the UK could save £350m a week by leaving the EU was criticised in the run-up to the referendum, with the independent Institute for Fiscal Studies describing the figure as “clearly absurd” and estimating that Britain’s net contributions were closer to £175m a week.
Sir Andrew Dilnot, the chair of the UK Statistics Authority, twice reprimanded the campaign for using the figure, while Conservative MP Dr Sarah Wollaston said the claim that all of the money saved would go towards the health service meant she no longer felt comfortable being part of the Vote Leave campaign.
Speaking hours after the result of Thursday’s referendum was announced, the Ukip leader, Nigel Farage, said he could not promise money spent on the EU would instead go to the NHS. “I would never have made that claim, and it was one of the mistakes that the leave campaign made,” he said. “You must understand, I was ostracised by the official leave campaign and I did – as I always do – my own thing.”
A week before the referendum, pollsters working for Britain Stronger in Europe admitted that they were getting extremely worried about Vote Leave’s suggestion that £350m sent to the EU could be diverted to British priorities such as the NHS. Guardian focus groups in Brighton and Knowsley suggested many voters saw the message and believed it.
One woman in Merseyside told the group: “Just think, we could get £20bn back a year and make the country great again.”
Source: http://www.theguardian.com/politics/201 … -smith-nhs
Re: The United Kingdom General Election, 2nd May 2024
Great posts everybody and I like seeing it from this POV instead of a US news perspective but this.....
If Boris Johnson looked downbeat yesterday, that is because he realises that he has lost.
Perhaps many Brexiters do not realise it yet, but they have actually lost, and it is all down to one man: David Cameron.
With one fell swoop yesterday at 9:15 am, Cameron effectively annulled the referendum result, and simultaneously destroyed the political careers of Boris Johnson, Michael Gove and leading Brexiters who cost him so much anguish, not to mention his premiership.
How?
Throughout the campaign, Cameron had repeatedly said that a vote for leave would lead to triggering Article 50 straight away. Whether implicitly or explicitly, the image was clear: he would be giving that notice under Article 50 the morning after a vote to leave. Whether that was scaremongering or not is a bit moot now but, in the midst of the sentimental nautical references of his speech yesterday, he quietly abandoned that position and handed the responsibility over to his successor.
And as the day wore on, the enormity of that step started to sink in: the markets, Sterling, Scotland, the Irish border, the Gibraltar border, the frontier at Calais, the need to continue compliance with all EU regulations for a free market, re-issuing passports, Brits abroad, EU citizens in Britain, the mountain of legistlation to be torn up and rewritten ... the list grew and grew.
The referendum result is not binding. It is advisory. Parliament is not bound to commit itself in that same direction.
The Conservative party election that Cameron triggered will now have one question looming over it: will you, if elected as party leader, trigger the notice under Article 50?
Who will want to have the responsibility of all those ramifications and consequences on his/her head and shoulders?
Boris Johnson knew this yesterday, when he emerged subdued from his home and was even more subdued at the press conference. He has been out-maneouvered and check-mated.
If he runs for leadership of the party, and then fails to follow through on triggering Article 50, then he is finished. If he does not run and effectively abandons the field, then he is finished. If he runs, wins and pulls the UK out of the EU, then it will all be over - Scotland will break away, there will be upheaval in Ireland, a recession ... broken trade agreements. Then he is also finished. Boris Johnson knows all of this. When he acts like the dumb blond it is just that: an act.
The Brexit leaders now have a result that they cannot use. For them, leadership of the Tory party has become a poison chalice.
When Boris Johnson said there was no need to trigger Article 50 straight away, what he really meant to say was “never”. When Michael Gove went on and on about “informal negotiations” ... why? why not the formal ones straight away? ... he also meant not triggering the formal departure. They both know what a formal demarche would mean: an irreversible step that neither of them is prepared to take.
All that remains is for someone to have the guts to stand up and say that Brexit is unachievable in reality without an enormous amount of pain and destruction, that cannot be borne. And David Cameron has put the onus of making that statement on the heads of the people who led the Brexit campaign.
What the fuck?!? 
I don't think anyone on that side of the pond thought this thing through before pulling the trigger, including(especially) those who wanted it in the first place! What a clusterfuck.
I mocked the possibility of more referendums but maybe that's what needs to be done. God we live in a strange world.
Voters in this country better be paying attention. This could be similar to Trump. He wins, then has no fucking idea what he should do.
Re: The United Kingdom General Election, 2nd May 2024
There's a TV show that got filmed here with the help of EU funding, in return for boosting tourism...
I'm sure no one here watches it though 
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Re: The United Kingdom General Election, 2nd May 2024
You're exactly right, James, and you took the words right out of my mouth that I was about to type. People need to stop fucking believing slogans and hearsay. You would think that another referendum is counter to democracy, and while it's true, on a huge situation like this, it's also better to be safe than sorry. I don't know where that line is drawn, but it's obvious leave is falling apart at the seams under pressure, had no idea what was actually going to happen in the first place and is totally fucked. Like you said, just like Trump. It seems anti-democracy but if a country fucks up and does something stupid, if they don't have the ability to right that stupidity, it also isn't very democratic.
Noel Gallagher said it best on the subject, he said why let the people vote? 99% of them are thick as pig shit. Let the politicians make the decision. I believe this was the right way to do it, sans Cameron's destruction of competition. Vote in the guy who has the plans and promises that says EXACTLY what leaving is going to do and let him do it. If he says "People of UK, $350 million goes to NHS and we leave EU", then you at least have a promise. Not saying it'd be true. Now they're leaving and starting from square one. They have no plan. They just hoodwinked 17 million (dare I say) imbeciles.
This is just clusterfuckery of fantabulous proportions.
Re: The United Kingdom General Election, 2nd May 2024
They've created a scenario were certain people will be rioting on the streets if there was a second referendum.
Media has started pushing the hacked Vatican votes on the petition story, ignoring the 3.5 million people that did sign it from the UK. Meaning they're pushing the story that it's invalid.
Still looking like whoever pushes that LEAVE button is screwed, but doesn't look like their's anyway back.
