Brexit, for once some facts.

[daveboy]

I’m just looking t the election results for my local council. We were a leave area in the referendum. In several of the wards, a UKIP (Make Brexit Happen) candidate stood. They received very few votes. I thought that was interesting because it is somewhere you can put your cross knowing that you are definitely registering a vote to leave, and not many people did it. Could this indicate a shift towards remain?

The other main party boxes were a vote for the unknown. Unlike the UKIP option, there was nowhere to definitely register a remain vote, so that may have distorted things.

UKIP are finished, The only way to judge would have been if the Brexit party had stood,
The EU elections will be a better guide. I noticed in one of my local wards the number
of spoiled ballots would have tipped the balance of the result.

 

[Woosh]

I’m just looking t the election results for my local council. We were a leave area in the referendum. In several of the wards, a UKIP (Make Brexit Happen) candidate stood. They received very few votes. I thought that was interesting because it is somewhere you can put your cross knowing that you are definitely registering a vote to leave, and not many people did it. Could this indicate a shift towards remain?

The other main party boxes were a vote for the unknown. Unlike the UKIP option, there was nowhere to definitely register a remain vote, so that may have distorted things.

there were two clearly pro-remain choices: Green and LibDems. I also suspect that most of the independent successful candidates came from the conservatives and Labour.

 

[oyster]

there were two clearly pro-remain choices: Green and LibDems. I also suspect that most of the independent successful candidates came from the conservatives and Labour.

And the tories and labour seem insistent that their failure means they need to deliver brexit and move on (quoting goodness knows how many politicians). Not that delivering remain could actually be why so many voted lid dem and green.

Everyone, on every side, is sick of the whole thing. That, I think, is a given.

 

[50Hertz]

there were two clearly pro-remain choices: Green and LibDems. I also suspect that most of the independent successful candidates came from the conservatives and Labour.

I disagree there. Neither know their backside’s from their elbows and the LibDem leader has handed in his notice. None are dead certain remain.

 

[Woosh]

the LibDem leader has handed in his notice.

VC will stay on at least to the end of the month. If we have GE or second referendum, he'll wait until it's done.

And the tories and labour seem insistent that their failure means they need to deliver brexit and move on (quoting goodness knows how many politicians). Not that delivering remain could actually be why so many voted lid dem and green.

diversion tactics. Both TM and JC are losers last Thursday, but TM lost nearly 20 times more councillors than JC.
You could say that JC has won tactically.
If there was GE next month, Labour will be likely to form a new coalition government.

 

[flecc]

None are dead certain remain.

The Greens definitely are and I cannot see the LibDems changing their position. EU membership fits both their agendas in ways that leaving the EU certainly doesn't, quite the opposite. That's why both have so determinedly stated their position.

Change UK are also a reliable bet, since more than half who left their parties to form that independent group did so because of their Remain positions.
.

 

[oldgroaner]

I think you've lost it mate!

BTW, Cheshire Constabulary have opened a case file on the incidents ( IML 390092). Let's see who get's prosecuted.

It will as usual come to nothing the police know it's all like a professional wrestling match, a load of ham acting for the camera

 

[Zlatan]

If anybody wants a good read can highly recommend Clarkson's "If you'd just let me finish".
It runs from April 2015 to December 2017,sort of biased, witty comments on what was going on. Love him or loathe he is a genius. Many will be surprised at his stance, he is a devout remainer but understands leavers thinking, feelings. First few chapters not up to his usual but stick with it. He is a very funny, interesting bloke. Had a few pints with him in Mail Coach in Rotherham when he worked on Advertiser years ago. He wasnt so pithy then.

 

[oldgroaner]

If anybody wants a good read can highly recommend Clarkson's "If you'd just let me finish".
It runs from April 2015 to December 2017,sort of biased, witty comments on what was going on. Love him or loathe he is a genius. Many will be surprised at his stance, he is a devout remainer but understands leavers thinking, feelings. First few chapters not up to his usual but stick with it. He is a very funny, interesting bloke. Had a few pints with him in Mail Coach in Rotherham when he worked on Advertiser years ago. He wasnt so pithy then.

Since then he has added "Artist" to "pithy"

 

[flecc]

If anybody wants a good read can highly recommend Clarkson's "If you'd just let me finish".

Link to Clarkson's numerous literary outputs
.

 

[flecc]

Since then he has added "Artist" to "pithy"

I don't have a pedelecs funny icon any more, so you'll have to make do with an Agree.
.

 

[Woosh]

Everyone, on every side, is sick of the whole thing. That, I think, is a given.

I am not. Brexit fascinates me. On one side of the ring, you have brexiters who insist that they can be having cake and eating it. On the opposite side, you have remainers who insist that the EU is where our future must be. Both sides defy common sense and yet, anyone in the middle is going to be crushed.

 

[flecc]

On the opposite side, you have remainers who insist that the EU is where our future must be.

In what way does that defy common sense? Surely in a world increasingly of giants, being an integral part of one of the largest and most important and benefitting from their trade agreement negotiating strengths and potential military strength makes perfect sense?

Especially so when the EU and its courts have such a strong record of standing up for the ordinary individual's rights.

On the last alone I'd be bonkers to vote to go back to being solely at the mercy of UK governments, given their shocking record of abuse of the individual.
.

 

[Nev]

I am not. Brexit fascinates me.

Me too, when and if Brexit gets resolved one way or another, politics is going to be back to being fairly boring and I will probably lose interest.

 

[Woosh]

In what way does that defy common sense? Surely in a world increasingly of giants, being an integral part of one of the largest and most important and benefitting from their trade agreement negotiating strengths and potential military strength makes perfect sense?

Especially so when the EU and its courts have such a strong record of standing up for the ordinary individual's rights.

On the last alone I'd be bonkers to vote to go back to being solely at the mercy of UK governments, given their shocking record of abuse of the individual.
.

it's about where our future must be. You either believe in the US of E or you don't.
since both Margaret Thatcher and Jacques Delors (president of the EC's commission 1985-1995) spelt it out in the late 80s, you either choose the short term view or long term view, not both.
I am not disputing that we are heading to a planetary government when you consider the possibility of extra-terrestrial civilisations, but in my lifespan, it's not going to happen. That's logic against common sense.

short term view:
" it must be in a way which preserves the different traditions, parliamentary powers and sense of national pride in one's own country: for these have been the source of Europe's vitality through the centuries.” - MT, 1988

Long term view:

In ten years, 80 per cent of the laws affecting the economy and social policy would be passed at a European and not a national level… We are not going to manage to take all the decisions needed between now and 1995 unless we see the beginnings of a European government.” - Jacques Delors, 1985.

 

[flecc]

Long term view:

In ten years, 80 per cent of the laws affecting the economy and social policy would be passed at a European and not a national level… We are not going to manage to take all the decisions needed between now and 1995 unless we see the beginnings of a European government.” - Jacques Delors, 1985.

Of course my post showed I do believe in the US of E, as I said, an integral part of a giant, though it wouldn't be called US of E.

Mine is very much the long term view. Thatcher's quaint view is what causes so much of the world's troubles. She referred to national pride being the source of vitality over the centuries.

Vitality is a strange way to spell war, which is the reality of what nationalism created in Europe over the centuries. We need to lose nationalism for good, it is ultimately only ever a force for evil.
.

 

[oldgroaner]

I am not. Brexit fascinates me. On one side of the ring, you have brexiters who insist that they can be having cake and eating it. On the opposite side, you have remainers who insist that the EU is where our future must be. Both sides defy common sense and yet, anyone in the middle is going to be crushed.

Oh Dear, the future is obviously leading to larger and larger social groupings, leaving the EU is the equivalent of doing what spawning salmon do, except against Niagara Falls.

 

[oldgroaner]

Of course my post showed I do believe in the US of E, as I said, an integral part of a giant, though it wouldn't be called US of E.

Mine is very much the long term view. Thatcher's quaint view is what causes so much of the world's troubles. She referred to national pride being the source of vitality over the centuries.

Vitality is a strange way to spell war, which is the reality of what nationalism created in Europe over the centuries. We need to lose nationalism for good, it is ultimately only ever a force for evil.
.

Agreed! the refuge of villainy.

 

[oldgroaner]

Me too, when and if Brexit gets resolved one way or another, politics is going to be back to being fairly boring and I will probably lose interest.

If Brexit actually goes ahead politics may become more interesting than you have bargained for!

 

[Woosh]

Agreed! the refuge of villainy.

Vitality is a strange way to spell war, which is the reality of what nationalism created in Europe over the centuries. We need to lose nationalism for good, it is ultimately only ever a force for evil.
.

we are still a long way from eliminating tariffs and regulatory wars which got brexit stuck, leave alone real wars, famine, diseases and old age.

I watched Click on News 24 this morning. Spencer Kelly presented the issue of Huawei very well. We need a 5G antenna every 100M or so and Huawei is way ahead of the competitors. Huawei has 130,000 employees in Shenzhen, about the same as Microsoft has worldwide. The way China invests in IT, it won't take them more than a decade to overtake the USA and the EU, with or without the UK.
I think you need a bigger fortress than the EU to compete with China in a generation.