Brexit, for once some facts.
- Thread starter flecc
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well the bigger picture - more and more media and websites exposing the racism, lies and xenophobic destruction at the heart of the brexit movement - certainly is informative. If he wasnt such a repulsive right wing roach, and jo cox's death wasnt so tragic, i'd almost want to thank thomas mair for that.
I understand why the Brexit campaign has been conducted the way it has, and also why the Brexiters have expressed themselves with such anger and frustration.
And I don't just understand, I also sympathise with them, despite being strongly for Remain.
For 44 long years those opposed to our EU membership have been denied a voice in our political system, kept out by a two party system which blocks every minority view from participation.
That is just plain wrong.
The only answer is for our system of voting to be changed to one of true proportional representation. That will enable the minority parties to have fair representation in parliament, in turn truly representing the balance of public views.
If we don't do that, the bitterness and hatred so evident now will not merely continue, it will grow stronger.
It's time for fairness.
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And I don't just understand, I also sympathise with them, despite being strongly for Remain.
For 44 long years those opposed to our EU membership have been denied a voice in our political system, kept out by a two party system which blocks every minority view from participation.
That is just plain wrong.
The only answer is for our system of voting to be changed to one of true proportional representation. That will enable the minority parties to have fair representation in parliament, in turn truly representing the balance of public views.
If we don't do that, the bitterness and hatred so evident now will not merely continue, it will grow stronger.
It's time for fairness.
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The poster depicts a large number of people on the move, presumably from one country to another. The message is numbers, not race, not religion, not skin colour or any other trait you care to invent.
Numbers = strain on services and infrastructure. That is the message. Numbers, where is the racism in numbers?
Your sort, loosely slinging the racist card around do more harm to race relations than any other group of people. You are in fact, disgusting.
I totally agree with you on every point made.
This referendum is causing a lot of damage. It's so evident even in this Off Topic thread in a relatively small forum. People who normally get along are at each other's throats. That's worrying.
I don't think the referendum outcome will settle anything, whichever way it goes. That's also rather troubling.
that may be part of what is happening. equally anotehr part is the aftermath of teh 2008 financial crisis and the rise of right wing extremism across europe (pretl in germany, le pen in france, farage here). It mirrors something of the 1933 depression and rise of nazi germany, in both cases a very significant aspect is teh way immigrants are blamed. It's worth bearing in mind UK and USA banks and corrupt financial system gave us the 2008 recession. Not the euro, or migrants. I'm all for proportional representation, but not at all sure it will fix teh way populist right wing extremists exploit financial crises.
I applaud your desire for fairness in governance, but don't agree that proportional representation is the way forward. It's a recipe for non governance and permanent coalition, which strangles leadership and progress.
Just like the eu really
But I openly admit I don't know of the better solution than we have now, but am thankful that we are not yet in the situation of most European countries which I think are in worse situation politically and therefore economically than we are
That is really not the model to mimic or join
do go on, become insulting and perosnal, as you always do. what do you do you sually do next, become violent?
Parliaments in democracies don't completely fix anything of course, they can only produce compromises. But a fair system of representation which gives a voice to everyone does remove the frustration of not being heard at all.
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but it hasnt stopped le pen in france from achieving much more than farage here (and with much more overt racism). i think mostly peopel are very disengaged from parliamentary politics, across the west. unfortunately it leaves it wide open for teh lieks of trump or farage or other populists to exploit the situation.
France is more eurosceptic and polarized than the UK. I always thought that the EU elite (I don't mean eurocrates, I mean people who enjoy being European, are happy to be EU citizens and wider world citizens) get a far better deal than the lower income classes.
yes, but take Greece too for example, and golden dawn (racist right wing) becomoe a worrying force afetr the finaicial crisis. i can see proprotional represnetation should give everyone a voice. but in practcie it often goes with significant instability and frequent change of governments, as a non political scietist describes here
http://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/15/why-is-the-french-democracy-not-using-proportional-representation-for-election-o
i'm not sure it shoudl all be carrot (ie lets give teh right wing extremists a voice, they will calm down), i believe there needs to be some stick (laws, limits on hate speech, exposing of intolerance etc)
But this is the essence of democracy, for all voices to be heard, however much some dislike the more extreme views. Coalitions tend to guard against the extreme gaining full power.
To rail against it is to say that we must do away with true democracy, replacing it with dictatorship or the sham democracy of our first past the post system which equally breeds extremism.
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like i say, im all for proprotional represenattion - i.e. im not saying one shoudl do away with it - but i dont think it will fix teh problem. i dont think the agenda of teh militant right wing is, IMHO, to be heard - i think it is often to oppress. in countries with complete proprotional represnetation (such as greece) there is simialr problems with a militant right wing. I'm not sure that there is a parliamentary solution. perhaps, to pour soome oil on this water, being where we are, in teh UK, with a (sometimes) aggressively challenginig free press despite the very flawed first past the post system, and increasingly informed public shortly before a very important referendum isnt so bad. i have a russian colleague - whom i disagree with - but who would argue, vehemently, for a socialist system in which complete equality of each indiivdual is (theoretically at least)not a right, but a decree.
Just a point that during the second world war this country was ruled by coalition government, and it did well enough to ensure our survival and eventual victory by working with Allies NOT alone.
There's a message in that surely?
So it it worked then rather well,why not have proportional coalition Government as a working system?
Then everyone gets a say.
French system is based on two-round runoff system.
It seems to deliver the right result. The downside is higher cost.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-round_system
It seems to deliver the right result. The downside is higher cost.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-round_system
Who made any threat of violence? You are imagining things again, just like you imagine racism every time someone says something which you don't agree with.
Are you using hallucinogenic drugs, because there seems to be a lot of things taking place inside your nut that don't correlate in any way with reality.
ok, I'm biting.
If they were looking to depict numbers being a problem, why not use a picture of a packed waiting room, or a crowded M25, or a queue at Alton Towers.
If you're seriously suggesting they've not used a picture of refugees to stir up the incorrect belief that people from over the water have a negative impact on our society then you're just deluded.
Also... how would leaving the EU even change the number of refugees we take in? and it won't reduce the number of immigrants we take in from outside the EU at all.
it a nonsense argument appealing to the lowest common denominator and its a direct result of this horrible form of nationalism that a vulnerable mentally unstable man has committed a horrible crime up just a few miles from our office up here in West Yorkshire because he seriously believes he was being a patriot. An innocent mother is now dead because of this attitude, and it needs stopping!
Like you, I don't know if the people depicted are asylum seekers refugees or economic migrants. What was it that made you assume that the people in the picture where refugees? Was it because the word refugee is more emotive than the word immigrant? Were you deliberately trying to blur the line in the hope that you could claim that Farage wants to turn his back on those in genuine need? Was that it?
My interpretation is that the picture was used to illustrate the fact that there are currently large numbers of people on the move from one country to another. When people move in the numbers that we are currently seeing, it does not allow the countries who receive them to grow their population naturally through a steady increase in birthrate. This inevitably puts an un-natural and on un-planned pressure on services and infrastructure. I think we are seeing this pressure in doctors waiting rooms, school classroom sizes, and social service type activities being unable to cope with a rapidly rising work load. This I would call a route to breaking point unless some form of population control is implemented.
We cannot take in every single person that wants to come to this country. The fairest way to put in place controls to allow people to move here based on merit. That may be skills based, genuine asylum or other specified factor. In a nutshell, what I am saying is that controls need to be put in place and the current chaotic system ended.
I don't know if leaving the EU will achieve this, but as things stand today continued membership doesn't seem to offer much hope. I can't see the logic in continuing along a path that has failed to deliver. Whenever I meet a problem in life, I try something else. If that doesn't work I'll try a different approach and I think that is what the EU referendum offers, a chance to try something else.
Immigration is a big concern to a karge section of the population, many of who are recent immigrants into the UK. I know that a similar number of people share the opposite view, but that does not mean that it is racist or wrong to hold these concerns.
David Cameron, rightly or wrongly, pledged to reduce immigration to the tens of thousands. That was popular. Hiwever, he has failed in the most spectacular and high profile of ways. People see this and believe that he has failed because of the EU.
In simple numbers terms, we are trying to put 6 Litres into a 5 Litre can. It doesn't fit. People will tell us that other countries have taken more immigrants and refugees per head of population than the UK, but countries like Germany and France have a 10 Litre cans and bigger, but I suspect they are still experiencing similar strains on their services and infrastructure to us.
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