Brexit: give me a positive effect (2023 ‘Epic Fail’ box set edition)

[Colin L]

**** sake Dec....you're forgetting the world-leading blue passports?

 

[stevec67]

EV just needs to keep repeating this little irrelevance. Despite Turnip Island now being ‘sovereign’ once again, Johnson was able to commit gross misconduct in office starting with his unlawful closure of Parliament and lying to the Queen, for three full years. The public couldn’t rid themselves of him, that task fell to his reluctant MPs many of whom owed their existence to him, after he lied *to them* just once too often.

No, no, no, according to EV we can and did hold Boris accountable. Honestly, you couldn't make this sh*t up.

His party just kept finding a replacement, one of whom caused a run on U.K. Govt bonds and lasted just six weeks in office. They’ve permanently devalued the pound, wrecked the economy and public services and have failed to account for £billions in public money, some of which we know went to friends and family, yet they will live out their prescribed five year reign with no ability for the public to dismiss them while they lied, partied and had their hands in the till.

I tell you what, I wish that I were as "accountable". In my line of work I only have to look at someone funny or fart in the car park and I'm straight outta Dodge. Any of the above lies to authority, parties etc would be straight off site and hands in the till would be criminal charges. Which is the way it should be. Now then, if I can be and am held to account like this why the sh*tting F*** are our ELECTED PUBLIC SERVANTS allowed to do it with impunity?

Accountable.
Oh, and am I angry? F*ing right I am.

 

[stevec67]

**** sake Dec....you're forgetting the world-leading blue passports?

Oh Christ, sorry we were.
/thread. It's all worthwhile. Scratch everything I said and bring Boris back with Carrie as his £100k pa assistant.

 

[TheDecameron]

**** sake Dec....you're forgetting the world-leading blue passports?

Well the good ol’ EU one is worth something. A queue manager at border control arriving at CDG a couple of days ago asked to see my passport- I showed the cover while flapping it around open and she sent me to a very short line!

I’m doing my patriotic duty by spending another month in Paris. Fresh fruit doesn’t have the taste and texture of turnips, food quality and availability so much better everywhere and I don’t have to listen to Rishi Sunak and Co lying their sorry arses off in face everyday on TV.
Come to think of it, must raise a toast to Monsieur Delors at the weekend when friends arrive.

 

[eternumviti]

Not at all. It’s purely a question of perspective and priority. I fully understand why you are so desperate to hang on to this threadbare justification - after all there is nothing else.

Threadbare because if you were genuinely concerned with democracy and accountability you would have been far more focussed on the UK political and corporate lack of accountability including patronage, electoral gerrymandering, unelected chambers, safe seats permitting what are effectively political appointments and so on. Instead, you have been a consistent supporter of it and voter for it.

I'm extremely concerned about all of those matters, except in this thread I'm interested in the EU, because that's what its about.

For the record, I was slung off of the RW & Sunak threads a long while back. I continue to follow them with close interest, be assured.

The idea that the EU’s governance and structures were at the heart of the Leave campaign beyond a minority who were more concerned with obtaining more power for themselves, is just not true.

I don't recall claiming that they were, but the EU's governance and structures have been the source of vigorous debate for a great deal longer than the 2016 campaigns.

The apathy toward such matters among the UK population was regularly demonstrated with low turnouts for MEP elections, encouraged by the UK political classes and their friends in the British press, with a combination of outright lies such as Johnson’s ‘bendy bananas’ or a lack of informative coverage.

Low and decreasing turnouts for EU Parliamentary elections have been a thing across the EU countries for years, not just the UK, largely because people didn't know what they were voting for, and couldn't see what difference it made. They had reason.

Antipathy and hatred toward the EU had to be determinedly created over many years with misinformation and scaremongering, but never got anywhere near membership threatening levels until the financial crash and more crucially the migrant crisis. This of course proved pivotal as the extreme right wing saw their opportunity to attack immigration and link it entirely to freedom of movement. A perfect Trojan horse to remove restrictions to their excess and so it has proved.

Your amusing attempt to drag this into high-minded concern for the have-nots I put down to too much Sunday sherry, because it’s an entirely disingenuous re-write of what Brexit has been.

Nonsense. Antipathy towards the EU is neither something new or 'created', as much as you would undoubtedly like it to be. And it both existed and exists across the bloc. The UK wasn't even considered the most Eurosceptic nation prior to the referendum. Even Macron expressed relief that it hadn't taken place in France first.

 

[Tony L]

EV just needs to keep repeating this little irrelevance. Despite Turnip Island now being ‘sovereign’ once again, Johnson was able to commit gross misconduct in office starting with his unlawful closure of Parliament and lying to the Queen, for three full years. The public couldn’t rid themselves of him, that task fell to his reluctant MPs many of whom owed their existence to him, after he lied *to them* just once too often.

His party just kept finding a replacement, one of whom caused a run on U.K. Govt bonds and lasted just six weeks in office. They’ve permanently devalued the pound, wrecked the economy and public services and have failed to account for £billions in public money, some of which we know went to friends and family, yet they will live out their prescribed five year reign with no ability for the public to dismiss them while they lied, partied and had their hands in the till.

In fairness Johnson kept the oligarch money laundering channels and tax havens open, and that‘s exactly the “sovereignty“ the backers of Brexit paid for.

 

[SteveS1]

Nonsense. Antipathy towards the EU is neither something new or 'created', as much as you would undoubtedly like it to be. And it both existed and exists across the bloc. The UK wasn't even considered the most Eurosceptic nation prior to the referendum. Even Macron expressed relief that it hadn't taken place in France first.

It certainly isn’t nonsense - the truth of it is obvious to anyone. I totally get why you have no interest in what really happened. The focus was to be on anything EU rather than the people responsible for the state of the UK.

 

[Enfield boy]

EV just needs to keep repeating this little irrelevance. Despite Turnip Island now being ‘sovereign’ once again, Johnson was able to commit gross misconduct in office starting with his unlawful closure of Parliament and lying to the Queen, for three full years. The public couldn’t rid themselves of him, that task fell to his reluctant MPs many of whom owed their existence to him, after he lied *to them* just once too often.

His party just kept finding a replacement, one of whom caused a run on U.K. Govt bonds and lasted just six weeks in office. They’ve permanently devalued the pound, wrecked the economy and public services and have failed to account for £billions in public money, some of which we know went to friends and family, yet they will live out their prescribed five year reign with no ability for the public to dismiss them while they lied, partied and had their hands in the till.

Taken a firm grip of the HoL with all the retired and sacked PMs honours lists. Don't suppose we'll get an elected 2nd chamber as the new spiv crooks are potentially perfect Starmeroids.

 

[Nick_G]

EV just needs to keep repeating this little irrelevance. Despite Turnip Island now being ‘sovereign’ once again, Johnson was able to commit gross misconduct in office starting with his unlawful closure of Parliament and lying to the Queen, for three full years. The public couldn’t rid themselves of him, that task fell to his reluctant MPs many of whom owed their existence to him, after he lied *to them* just once too often.

His party just kept finding a replacement, one of whom caused a run on U.K. Govt bonds and lasted just six weeks in office. They’ve permanently devalued the pound, wrecked the economy and public services and have failed to account for £billions in public money, some of which we know went to friends and family, yet they will live out their prescribed five year reign with no ability for the public to dismiss them while they lied, partied and had their hands in the till.

EV's silence so far on this point is deafening...

 

[PsB]

Nonsense. Antipathy towards the EU is neither something new or 'created', as much as you would undoubtedly like it to be. And it both existed and exists across the bloc. The UK wasn't even considered the most Eurosceptic nation prior to the referendum. Even Macron expressed relief that it hadn't taken place in France first.

I agree it's ancient (going back at least to those bygone days when Boris Johnson was cutting his teeth as a young "journalist"), but definitely promoted for decades by a vast section of the British press including the bits owned by the Barclays and Murdochs.

Antipathy towards the EU exists across the Union, but it is in marked decline since Brexit gave everybody a case study about what a bad idea leaving really is.
Support for leaving EU falls significantly (2023 article with 2022 data
(EDIT: eyeballing that graph, it looks as if leaving was always very much a minority pursuit anyway. Now supported by a percentage of public opinion in the mid teens rather than the high 20s in 2016-2017.)
Even Le Pen, not known as the sharpest knife in the box, has kicked Frexit out of her programme.

So, on reflection, not nonsense.

 

[eternumviti]

I agree it's ancient (going back at least to those bygone days when Boris Johnson was cutting his teeth as a young "journalist"), but definitely promoted for decades by a vast section of the British press including the bits owned by the Barclays and Murdochs.

Antipathy towards the EU exists across the Union, but it is in marked decline since Brexit gave everybody a case study about what a bad idea leaving really is.
Support for leaving EU falls significantly (2023 article with 2022 data
(EDIT: eyeballing that graph, it looks as if leaving was always very much a minority pursuit anyway. Now supported by a percentage of public opinion in the mid teens rather than the high 20s in 2016-2017.)
Even Le Pen, not known as the sharpest knife in the box, has kicked Frexit out of her programme.

So, on reflection, not nonsense.

I'm perfectly well aware that antipathy towards the EU has sharply dropped since Brexit. One hardly needs to be a rocket scientist to figure that one out!

 

[eternumviti]

EV's silence so far on this point is deafening...

I refer the hon gentleman to my earlier reply.

Fwiw, I'm appalled. As I've said many times, I can't imagine that I'll ever be voting Conservative again. I'm in the same position as many here - I am completely unrepresented by any current political party.

However, and despite all of that, Westminster remains more democratic than the EU, and I think that the current political meltdown is a manifestation, however odd it may seem, of that. I have never seen our political masters so exposed, and I am cautiously optimistic that something good will come of it, though right now it's very hard to see what.

 

[Nick_G]

I refer the hon gentleman to my earlier reply.

Fwiw, I'm appalled. As I've said many times, I can't imagine that I'll ever be voting Conservative again. I'm in the same position as many here - I am completely unrepresented by any current political party.

However, and despite all of that, Westminster remains more democratic than the EU, and I think that the current political meltdown is a manifestation, however odd it may seem, of that. I have never seen our political masters so exposed, and I am cautiously optimistic that something good will come of it, though right now it's very hard to see what.

Thing is though, you were saying that Tory MPs are accountable, but they're not, are they? If they were Boris and a whole load of others would be doing jail time right now.

 

[MVV]

I'm sure that ET's modesty would not wish me to reveal this to you, but he is, in fact, Albanian. Having undertaken a hazardous sea crossing in 2016 he was working at Shiny Deluxe hand car wash in Wellingborough and when he saw a customer reading the Brexit thread on pfm he instinctively knew the quick fire cut and thrust would improve his English.
Originally his posts were wordy, laborious and impossible to read and now a mere 7 years later some are thankfully shorter; sometimes offering an almost culturally appropriate witticism.
He has now moved on and opened his own business; a wine merchant. I for one would like to welcome him into what I hope will be a long and successful career in the UK.

 

[TheDecameron]

I refer the hon gentleman to my earlier reply.

Fwiw, I'm appalled. As I've said many times, I can't imagine that I'll ever be voting Conservative again. I'm in the same position as many here - I am completely unrepresented by any current political party.

However, and despite all of that, Westminster remains more democratic than the EU, and I think that the current political meltdown is a manifestation, however odd it may seem, of that. I have never seen our political masters so exposed, and I am cautiously optimistic that something good will come of it, though right now it's very hard to see what.

You’ll vote for them again or it’ll be a Reform protest vote this time round. You positively reek of Tory, now be off.

 

[PsB]

I'm perfectly well aware that antipathy towards the EU has sharply dropped since Brexit. One hardly needs to be a rocket scientist to figure that one out!

In that case, why forget to mention it in your post? If your concern was brevity, you could have omitted this paragraph:

"it (antipathy to the EU) both existed and exists across the bloc. The UK wasn't even considered the most Eurosceptic nation prior to the referendum. Even Macron expressed relief that it hadn't taken place in France first"​

which does seem a tad disingenuous* and engineered to suggest the opposite.

Brexit was the result of a conscious campaign over decades by people determined to get the UK out of the EU who refused to "move on" after losing the argument. One of the main reasons it happened in the UK rather than elsewhere in Europe is simply that the Murdochs and Barclays ruled the roost in Britain. It is going to take decades of "not moving on" from Brexit to have a chance of reversing this disastrous decision.

*one of your favourite words

 

[wacko]

^ The UK will never again get the sweetheart exceptions/exemptions it had with the EU.
Therefore I don't see it ever joining again as a full member. Not even in decades.
The damage of leaving our largest trade bloc was both immediate and long term.
JRM was right that it will take until 2066 (neat echo of 1066 ?) for the next generation to see the full extent of the damage.

 

[ks.234]

I have never seen our political masters so exposed, and I am cautiously optimistic that something good will come of it, though right now it's very hard to see what.

Wish I could share your optimism. The problem is that while fifty years of failure is now exposed, what is waiting in the wings from Labour, is more of the same, but with the worst causal aspects of that failure written in tablets stone.

 

[PsB]

^ The UK will never again get the sweetheart exceptions/exemptions it had with the EU.
Therefore I don't see it ever joining again as a full member. Not even in decades.
The damage of leaving our largest trade bloc was both immediate and long term.
JRM was right that it will take until 2066 (neat echo of 1066 ?) for the next generation to see the full extent of the damage.

How many people thought, 30 years ago, that Brexit was a realistic option?This didn’t stop the believers from campaigning.
EDIT: also, I don't see why the non-availability of certain sweetheart exceptions and exemptions would necessarily scupper a future deal. A couple of decades is a long time in politics.

 

[stevec67]

Nonsense. Antipathy towards the EU is neither something new or 'created',

Perhaps you would prefer "stoked" or "stirred up" by a sustained press campaign lasting for decades.

. And it both existed and exists across the bloc.

Of course it *existed*. Everything exists. Flat Earth and Creationism exist, it's just that they haven't been promoted, here at least.

It certainly isn’t nonsense - the truth of it is obvious to anyone.

Of course it is. The press reviled the EU as the source of all idiocy for decades, over and over again, and the governments of the time hid behind it as a convenient scapegoat. They've found another though in the migrants, so don't worry, the Conservative MPs will see to it that they are not held reaponsible.

Brexit was the result of a conscious campaign over decades by people determined to get the UK out of the EU who refused to "move on" after losing the argument. One of the main reasons it happened in the UK rather than elsewhere in Europe is simply that the Murdochs and Barclays ruled the roost in Britain.

It was indeed. They kept plugging away for decades. Anyone who saw a right wing newspaper anytime from the 1980s onwards knows this to be true. It was a classic piece of propaganda on several fronts. Keep plugging away for long enough with the lies and eventually you'll get a significant number of people to believe that the sun rises in the west.