EU-BREXIT - Page 273 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

Wandering the information superhighway, he came upon the last refuge of civilization, PoFo, the only forum on the internet ...

Political issues and parties in Europe's nation states, the E.U. & Russia.

Moderator: PoFo Europe Mods

Forum rules: No one line posts please. This is an international political discussion forum, so please post in English only.
User avatar
By Nonsense
#15040793
Kirillov wrote:This, combined with the fact that Scotland has been an electoral graveyard for the Tories since Thatcher. I am sure a good few members of the Conservative Party would be quite glad to get rid of Scotland in exchange for eternal control over the English-Welsh rump.


As with the Tories, so too with Labour, all things being equal.

I think that the SNP believe that they could have a 'free lunch' at the expense of the 'Big' country, things never quite work out how one imagine's that they should. ;)
User avatar
By Nonsense
#15040794
Potemkin wrote:Precisely. Brexit has been a God-send to the Little Englanders. It has given them the opportunity to finally rid themselves once and for all of all those Paddies and Jocks. I notice that Nonsense is already laying his post-Brexit plans to finally drive the non-English nations out of the UK by 'punishing' them for their lack of enthusiasm for Brexit. And he won't be the only one, I'm sure. :lol:


8) ;)
By Presvias
#15040796
^ Well that's...Rubbish ;). N sea gas & oil fuelled the boom years of Thatcher and even Blair.

Really, that money should have been used to transform folks' lives in Glasgow, south Scotland etc.

It's the other way round...the wee sassenach bastages (incl. moi) owe them much more than a free lunch...
User avatar
By Nonsense
#15040798
Rugoz wrote:Another Kingdom gone. :up:


I would second that,unfortunately, all the 'alternatives' are just as bad, if not worse, Russia had it's revolution, as did France, it's just that the outcomes are not at all predictable, as the 'Arab Spring' illustrates.
By Atlantis
#15040820
Nonsense wrote:I would second that,unfortunately, all the 'alternatives' are just as bad, if not worse, Russia had it's revolution, as did France, it's just that the outcomes are not at all predictable, as the 'Arab Spring' illustrates.


Oh come on Nonsense, Brits don't do revolution, everybody knows that.

The only way to reform the UK is by introducing proportional representation. That'll lead to a multi-party system and coalition governments that'll wean you off imperialism in no time at all.

Since Westminster isn't going to introduce proportional representation, the UK's constituent parts have to do it, each on its own. After all, Farage always wanted to break up the Union, we just didn't understand him. He didn't mean the EU, he meant the UK.

Edit grammar
User avatar
By Nonsense
#15040838
Atlantis wrote:Oh come on Nonsense, Brits don't do revolution, everybody knows that.

The only way to reform the UK is by introducing proportional representation. That'll lead to a multi-party system and coalition governments that'll wean you off imperialism in no time at all.

Since Westminster isn't going to introduce proportional representation, the UK's constituent parts have to do it, each on its own. After all, Farage always wanted to break up the Union, we just didn't understand him. He didn't mean the EU, he meant the UK.

Edit grammar


Oh well, I suppose that, if Brexit doesn't happen, that will mean we don't do 'revolutions', but, if we do, what then for your thesis,because they are not necessarily physical by nature & our history is replete with revolutionary changes.

I'm afraid that political or democratic utopia's do not come about through PR, we have a 'multi-party' political system, comprising of over 400 such parties.

Maybe, if the people supported these alternatives in elections, the main parties might modify their ideological political dogmas, bearing in mind that 'popularity' spells difficulties of an existential kind to minority parties,such is the nature of Darwinian principles of selection & survival of such parties.

One effect of course, would be that of 'coalitions', that is not good politics, either from the view of policies or governance, they encourage 'Third Way' conspiratorial power-play, that is anathema to real democracy, leaves many people either side of that unrepresented & thus disenfranchised.

The effect that you assume that FARAGE is objectively seeking, is that of, 'divide & rule', in that order, the existence of 'main' parties, or their dominance,acts against weak governance,but also facilitates opportunities for smaller parties to exploit when they are in situations such as we currently are.
User avatar
By Nonsense
#15040846
Presvias wrote:^ Well that's...Rubbish ;). N sea gas & oil fuelled the boom years of Thatcher and even Blair.

Really, that money should have been used to transform folks' lives in Glasgow, south Scotland etc.

It's the other way round...the wee sassenach bastages (incl. moi) owe them much more than a free lunch...


What really fuelled the Thatcher era,along with oil from the North Sea, was privatisation & reductions in welfare spending.

That continued under BLAIR & under Gordon BROWN the nation's gold reserves were sold, debt was increased through financing projects in the N.H.S for example, with PFI, 'Light Touch Regulation' in the financial sector, which created the bubble that burst in 2008 with the financial crash, more welfare cuts, introduction of tax 'credits' etc.

That eventually resulted in the bank 'bailouts', which BROWN promised would actually make a 'profit' for the taxpayers(LIAR), when Labour lost power in 2010 , one of their Ministers, Liam BYRNE,who was the second highest ranking minister in finance to that government, left a note for his successor, which read, "Dear Chief Secretary, I'm afraid there is no money. Kind regards - and good luck!".

Then, along came CAMERON-OSBORNE, the latter, of which, wielded the axe to welfare, the public, civil service employees & retired civil servants such as myself.

On top of that, V.A.T was increased from 15% under Labour, to 20% under the Tories,along with various other taxes, including Council, Stealth, reduced funding for Local government, freezing welfare payments for three years, dishonestly 'adjusting' national statistics by altering the way that the RPI-CPI were calculated in order to reduce annual upratings of pensions & benefits.

All of which were given credence to, by Liam BYRNE's admission in his note, despite Labour's opposition to austerity, they actually supported the Tories policy on austerity, even more, with the higher level of V.A.T now embedded into our system of taxation, they declared that they would keep it at that level-period,such hypocrites they are.
By Presvias
#15040847
You're completely right (Byrne's note was a mildly amusing joke though, to be fair), but I would still say that the Scots deserved a much larger slice of their own natural resources. If you look at revenues from such vs investment in scotland (and I have, previously, on 'that other forum' that we've both been members of lol), rhen there is an enormous disparity.

I would point out, for balance, that a lot of N sea gas/oil is technically in English sea, but a lot also isn't. So it's complex, but ultimately imho Scots have lost out..
By Atlantis
#15040854
@Nonsense, Brexit isn't a real revolution. You know that. You also know that you basically have a two-party system. You would get a multi-party system with proportional representation.

The two-party system was necessary for the empire. Without the empire it wrecks havoc domestically. Without the empire, you don't need the two-party system. The two-party system is the price you had to pay for the empire. The empire held the union together. Without the empire, the two-party system divides the country. That's why you are in the mess you are.
User avatar
By Hindsite
#15040926
Atlantis wrote:@Nonsense, Brexit isn't a real revolution. You know that. You also know that you basically have a two-party system. You would get a multi-party system with proportional representation.

The two-party system was necessary for the empire. Without the empire it wrecks havoc domestically. Without the empire, you don't need the two-party system. The two-party system is the price you had to pay for the empire. The empire held the union together. Without the empire, the two-party system divides the country. That's why you are in the mess you are.

Thank God for the British Empire. Without it, there may have never been a United States of America, Canada, and Australia.
Praise the Lord.
By Atlantis
#15040935
The curse of the empire, or the chickens are coming home to roost.

Brexit’s legacy for England will be politics as sectarian as Northern Ireland’s

How people vote in a forthcoming UK election will depend almost entirely on whether they favour leave or remain

You could call it Ireland’s sweet revenge, and both the timing and the irony would be historically exquisite. It would come just as Boris Johnson’s reckless government tries to bully Dublin on future Irish customs arrangements and as large parts of the Tory party salivate for a no-deal Brexit that will cast the Irish peace process casually aside. But if the 2019 general election that Johnson craves takes place, it may not be long before, politically speaking, Brexit Britain comes to resemble Northern Ireland.

To understand that this possible Ulsterisation of British politics is a genuinely serious prospect, step back a bit and consider the way that electoral behaviour has been evolving in Britain. Ever since 1964, political scientists, mainly based at Nuffield College, Oxford, have worked on the British Election Study (BES). For more than half a century they have tracked the decline of the old industrial-based two-party system in which general elections were fought between the Conservatives and Labour, who battled for the floating voters in the middle ground across the land.

Today’s electoral politics are fundamentally different. A long-term trend of dealignment from the two big parties means that voters are no longer loyal battalions of partisans. Millions of individual voters are now happy to switch between an increasing array of parties. In 2015, 43% of them voted for a different party from the one they had supported in 2010. In 2017, 33% switched from their 2015 vote. In 2019, a similar kaleidoscopic change seems certain. Tellingly, a BES study of these two recent elections, due for publication in December, will be titled Electoral Shocks: the Volatile Voter in a Turbulent World.

Electoral volatility was already a growing trend in the late 20th century. But Jane Green, one of the study’s authors, says electoral shocks, which have come thick and fast in the 21st century, have accelerated the process. She cites five big ones: immigration and the rise of Ukip after 2004; the 2008 financial crisis and the subsequent recession; the Liberal Democrats’ decision to go into coalition in 2010; Scotland’s independence referendum in 2014; and, finally, the Brexit vote in 2016. Each has reshaped politics and added to the impact of volatility.

The Brexit vote is the mother and father of these shocks, not only in itself but in its prolonged duration. Even today, more than three years on, it is still creating big aftershocks. Failure to leave the EU by the original 29 March deadline helped trigger the Brexit party’s success in the EU elections, and in turn brought down Theresa May. Another such shock is likely when parliament reconvenes on 19 October after next week’s EU summit, and on 31 October, when Britain will again either leave or stay longer in the EU. What happens on the end of the month deadline will rearrange the board.

Few are foolish enough to predict with certainty how a 2019 election will play out. The 2017 election saw a swing back to two-party politics but a significant reshuffling of the two parties’ electoral bases. Two years on that picture has fractured afresh, with the rise of the Brexit party and the revival of the Lib Dems. Today’s unknowns, as Donald Rumsfeld might have said, are still unknown. Tellingly, the most authoritative voice of caution comes from the dean and doyen of British political scientists, David Butler, 95 next week, who told a BES event on Tuesday that in 70 years of studying elections, “I have never felt more totally confused and uncertain” about the outcome. When Butler says that, it is like David Attenborough telling you there is a climate crisis.

Nevertheless, there is now a real possibility that in the next election Brexit will become in England and Wales what the union has become in Scotland: the decisive divide in electoral behaviour. Brexit is important, salient and highly divisive. Overwhelmingly, people are in one camp or the other. This would not mean that other issues, including economic divides, no longer apply at all. But these other issues would tend to be refracted through the prism of Brexit.

That is certainly the view of Johnson and his strategists. They want a Brexit election. So do the Brexit party, the Lib Dems, the Greens and the SNP. Only the Labour party acts as if the election will be about more traditional issues. For some voters, that will be true. But Labour could find its votes shaped by Brexit in spite of its own best efforts because 68% of its 2017 voters are remainers.

But if Brexit is reshaping the electoral battle, it is in reality two separate battles. The Tories and the Brexit party are battling for leave voters, while Labour, the Lib Dems, Greens and nationalists battle for remainers. Very few voters sit in the middle of the road on Brexit or the cultural issues that are so closely associated with it.

Remind you of anything? It should. Northern Ireland has had two electorates for decades. Parties battle in one or the other, leaving slim pickings for those who try to reach across the divide. As Geoffrey Evans, another BES author, put it this week: “British politics is no longer about the battle for the middle ground. It’s become like the Northern Ireland system.” And Evans adds a sobering further thought, that in Northern Ireland the winners are the parties that voters trust not to give in to the other side. “Could the Liberal Democrats be the Sinn Féin of all this,” he wonders.

Northern Ireland’s divides are rooted in centuries of religious divide. The Brexit divide in Britain is far more recent. But it is rooted in identities and anger, too. If Brexit does become the defining issue in mid-21st-century British politics, the hope of a country coming back together could be as fragile as the dream of Irish peace now is, and just as fraught.


It is telling that most Brits seem to consider the LibDems greatest sin to be that they entered a coalition government. With proportional representation, coalition governments are the rule not the exception.
By Rich
#15040942
SolarCross wrote:https://twitter.com/DarrenPlymouth2/status/1182191362839601152

Let's not forget that women voted to Remain. 80% of women between 18 and 24 voted to Remain. Amongst southern middle class women of the same age cohorts the figure is even higher. This video is another filthy lie from the Brexiteers. The number of young women hard Leavers, with a southern middle class accent with a hard Remainer boyfriend I suspect is vanishingly small.
User avatar
By Nonsense
#15041020
Presvias wrote:You're completely right (Byrne's note was a mildly amusing joke though, to be fair), but I would still say that the Scots deserved a much larger slice of their own natural resources. If you look at revenues from such vs investment in scotland (and I have, previously, on 'that other forum' that we've both been members of lol), rhen there is an enormous disparity.

I would point out, for balance, that a lot of N sea gas/oil is technically in English sea, but a lot also isn't. So it's complex, but ultimately imho Scots have lost out..


I simply look at Scotland,as with the others, in that one doesn't bite the hand that feeds them, IMHO, that in effect is what they are doing & any reductions in the nation's wealth arising from our leaving europe, should apply equally throughout the U.K no matter how any particular area voted.

That people support their elected representatives, who are bad-mouthing(not always without reason)our parliament, are throwing stones, whilst pretending to live in a glass house.

I take your point about oil, BP was one such big investor that created thousands of jobs which benefited Scotland & the industry lifted that country out of it's post-war doldrums.
Revenues accrued to London, then were disbursed to Scotland through the Barnett Formula according to capita.

In the early 1960's, I was at sea, working the Arctic Circle, Norway-Russia,as well as the Atlantic, I remember the first oil rig sinking off Norfolk, at that time(Sea Gem), the Americans were a driving force in the industry, I was partial to their 'T' Bone steaks on occasion's,it was a time of opportunity to make some very good money.
The 'other' forum to which you refer, I have noticed that some of this one's users have similar 'handle's' to posters on there,if that is the site you refer to, which has been updated to 'MK2'?
User avatar
By Nonsense
#15041021
Hindsite wrote:Thank God for the British Empire. Without it, there may have never been a United States of America, Canada, and Australia.
Praise the Lord.


You hit the nail on the head there Hindsite. :lol: :lol:
User avatar
By Nonsense
#15041023
Atlantis wrote:

It is telling that most Brits seem to consider the Lib Dems greatest sin to be that they entered a coalition government. With proportional representation, coalition governments are the rule not the exception.


The 'sin', was not them entering a coalition,of which they were the junior 'partner', or, as some would say, 'political fodder' for the Tories, it was that, the very 'sin' they accuse BoJo of(Trust), is the very one that caused them relatively, great political loss in the following elections.

Of that, I am thinking of their support for austerity, student fees, oh heck!, where does it end,but, I am sure you can understand that Atlantis.

There is only one democratic system, it's the one that referendums use, one person-one vote & each vote counts.

How you convert that into being 'representative', as well as truly accountable, is not a difficult excercise in which to create a real democracy.
User avatar
By Nonsense
#15041025
Rich wrote:Let's not forget that women voted to Remain. 80% of women between 18 and 24 voted to Remain. Amongst southern middle class women of the same age cohorts the figure is even higher. This video is another filthy lie from the Brexiteers. The number of young women hard Leavers, with a southern middle class accent with a hard Remainer boyfriend I suspect is vanishingly small.


Since when have you been patronising women Rich?

Reading your post with what looks like innuendo, appears to give the impression that southern ladies are not attractive to the majority of males :p it's funny how the mind plays tricks when interpeting the literary genius of folks like yourself. :lol: :lol: :lol:
User avatar
By Nonsense
#15041050
BeesKnee5 wrote:So BoJo and Varadkar think there might be a deal and rumours of a UK compromise.

Likely?
Seems all a bit late in the day.


Though late in the day,I never really doubted that there was a 'rabbit' lurking there somewhere,as always with the E.U, a case of 'right up to the wire'.
Whatever the outcome, ending the uncertainty is what matters.

If I were BoJo,in whom I have more confidence than most people, I would have asked Varadkar, whether the Irish in the republic are prepared to eat grass in the event of them sabotaging their chance of avoiding 'no-deal' with the U.K? :evil:

To myself, not agreeing a 'soft border' between the two halves of Ireland is ridiculous, because the alternative would be a 'hard' border that's not conducive to the GFA or the republic itself, as the E.U would have a 'basket case' on their hands in no time at all in the republic.

The E.U forgets that there are just two sides that matter, this side has available 'weapons' in it's economic arsenal that could hurt the republic & the E.U itself that would have to support the republic.

Also, with a 'hard' border, you can count on the Irish to circumvent any Customs post on the island,such as the trade in 'green' diesel that has proved lucrative as a smuggling business over decades past.
  • 1
  • 271
  • 272
  • 273
  • 274
  • 275
  • 328

There were formidable defense lines in the Donbas[…]

World War II Day by Day

March 28, Thursday No separate peace deal with G[…]

Israel-Palestinian War 2023

The Settlement program is an example of slow ethn[…]

Russia-Ukraine War 2022

Meanwhile, your opponents argue that everyone e[…]