Oh Britain, what have you done (part ∞+25)?

[Colin Barron]

You voted to leave the deal we’ve got and want a deal that is worse than what we’ve got, but complain that we’re not getting a better deal and believe it’s the EU that’s to blame for us not getting a better deal than we have???

There is no deal to leave the EU, the only deal is Mays deal which is not leaving, why would the EU give a deal? The only leave option on offer is no deal.

 

[Tony L]

I’d like to know who has created this new government role? Who approved it? How much are we paying for the role?

There was no implication it was a government role, my guess is likely some right-wing lobby group. Mann is the very worst type of Labour MP IMO (and there are a number of them), pigshit thick and more than a bit nationalist, so no huge surprise he’d grab such an opportunity.

 

[ks.234]

There is no deal to leave the EU, the only deal is Mays deal which is not leaving, why would the EU give a deal? The only leave option on offer is no deal.

With so many different versions of Leave, which one did people vote for in 2016?

 

[ks.234]

There was no implication it was a government role, my guess is likely some right-wing lobby group. Mann is the very worst type of Labour MP IMO (and there are a number of them), pigshit thick and more than a bit nationalist, so no huge surprise he’d grab such an opportunity.

I read somewhere that he was taking up the post of ‘government anti semitism tsar’

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/...ecome-government-anti-semitism-tsar-hlrwb66z5

 

[Tony L]

I read somewhere that he was taking up the post of ‘government anti semitism tsar’

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/...ecome-government-anti-semitism-tsar-hlrwb66z5

Wow, I knew he was thick, but I had no idea he was so easily bought.

 

[richardg]

I’m sure Lord Mullet of Weatherspoon will be able to recoup the 20p once EU employment rights go out of the window and he can get bar staff on ‘workfare’.

Don't understand this point. Zero contract hours is where the company is probably already at. The EU has not banned this practice. Most countries in the EU have banned it anyway without needing EU law. Corbyn will likely ban it after the next election without needing input from the EU.

 

[PsB]

The name may have changed but the goal was the same, a federal Europe. Look at the you tube videos of Foot, Powell and Heath. Foot and Powell were warning of the undemocratic, centralised Federal Europe dictating laws to member states.

So no specific examples from you on what is different between the EEC and the EU as currently experienced by the UK? If you can’t give any examples, it sort of validates my point.

About the undemocratic bit: who elected Dominic Cummings? Who elected Boris Johnson as PM? How can these “unelected officials” simply decide to suspend Parliament because they want to push through massive changes that will affect all UK nationals against the expressed wishes of a majority of MPs?

 

[ks.234]

Wow, I knew he was thick, but I had no idea he was so easily bought.

I expect he was sold at the title, ‘Tsar’

 

[Enfield boy]

I expect he was sold at the title, "Job". I would've hoped his CLP are preparing his P45.

 

[ff1d1l]

All the better to concoct from. I see Lord Mullet of Wetherspoon is taking 20p off a pint to demonstrate the type of savings that will arise for the ordinary drinking man when we are become leadersinglobalfreetrade. Could you perhaps knock something off a case?

20p even?

 

[Sue Pertwee-Tyr]

Fair enough. In your estimation, what percentage of the population would constitute 'many of us'?

Apologies for late response, spent yesterday taking Aged Parents to Darkest Wales for A Grand Day Out.

To answer, and it is no more than a gut feeling supported by similar responses on here and elsewhere, I’d say probably around a quarter to a third of people expect ever closer union to result in the sort of integration we’re discussing, including an EU army. And I believe the great majority of those would support that. Of the rest, I’d guess that a further 10% or so might be ambivalent and unsurprised by it.

That’s just opinion and gut feeling, which I know is what you were after but I say this to stave off demands for evidence from elsewhere. But it hopefully gives you a little insight into my position, and why I come from where I do.

 

[eternumviti]

So no specific examples from you on what is different between the EEC and the EU as currently experienced by the UK? If you can’t give any examples, it sort of validates my point.

The reply to that would surely be a run through of Maastricht, and the effects that it had on the UK's perception of the EU project. An interesting take on it here from Anand Menon. Professor of European Politics and Foreign Affairs at King's College, London.

https://ukandeu.ac.uk/unhappy-anniversary-maastricht-25-years-on/

 

[droodzilla]

Wow, I knew he was thick, but I had no idea he was so easily bought.

Yup, he's now working for committed anti-racist, Boris Johnson. Dickhead.

 

[Sue Pertwee-Tyr]

Those benefits you mention are all real, yes, but they aren't likely to be vote winners among the population existing on the bones of their arse, having been kicked about by tory austerity since 2010. What I'm looking for are benefits of EU membership that should have been sold to local populations around the UK, for example, projects funded by the EU that it could be reasonably argued would never have been funded by UK central govt, let alone a Tory govt. That kind of thing rather than the likes of "we predict everyone will be worse off because the economy will grow by 4% less over 10 years than we predict it would have done as members of the EU", or "I'm going to have to queue at the airport" etc etc. It's important if we ever get a second referendum. If another "remain campaign" continues as it left of, adding the words "racist", "knuckle-dragger", "little-englander" etc as I read here on a daily basis, leave will win again, imo.

Finally, if there has been virtually no significant change between the EEC of the 70s and the EU now, I wonder why Scotland voted decisively against the EEC but is decisively in favour of remaining in the EU now, when the UK overall was earlier in favour of EEC membership? Something must have changed, my friend.

Honestly, Brian, you think the UK government (which set itself as the pro-Remain campaign) was ever likely to campaign on the basis of 'good stuff the EU has done for you lot, that we'd never have done'? Especially after 30-odd years of blaming the EU for the bad times, while taking credit for the good stuff. Seriously? You think that could ever have happened?

On your second paragraph, my expectation is that the change of mood in Scotland might well have been down to a discovery that, despite all the anti-EU rhetoric, the reality was nothing like as problematic as what was posited during the campaign, and indeed, actually, it was quite nice in here, thank you for asking.

 

[Sue Pertwee-Tyr]

I’d like to know who has created this new government role? Who approved it? How much are we paying for the role?

FOI Act, section 1. You have a right to know.

 

[droodzilla]

Meanwhile, in Maidenhead:

https://www.mix96.co.uk/news/nation...rYstkXhjctmOHL57WI16_0U0OGiBV3NcVXikNQYCKdwgo

Nice to see her doing something useful.

 

[richardg]

Meanwhile, in Maidenhead:

https://www.mix96.co.uk/news/nation...rYstkXhjctmOHL57WI16_0U0OGiBV3NcVXikNQYCKdwgo

Nice to see her doing something useful.

No doubt in the background the diaries are being worked on right now by a publisher. Not sure she has much of a future as an after dinner speaker, so it will need to do plenty of naming and shaming.

 

[TheDecameron]

So no specific examples from you on what is different between the EEC and the EU as currently experienced by the UK? If you can’t give any examples, it sort of validates my point.

About the undemocratic bit: who elected Dominic Cummings? Who elected Boris Johnson as PM? How can these “unelected officials” simply decide to suspend Parliament because they want to push through massive changes that will affect all UK nationals against the expressed wishes of a majority of MPs?

I find it astonishing that Cummings, found in contempt of Parliament, can enter its premises at will and (allegedly) physically approach and harangue the leader of the opposition.

via Imgflip Meme Generator
That thing should have an exclusion order placed on him for most public spaces.

 

[Brian]

With so many different versions of Leave, which one did people vote for in 2016?

At the time of the referendum there was only 1 version of leave. There wasn't much discussion of "a deal" as people understand by "a deal" 3 years down the line. Discussions of "deals" were mainly around the potential for future trade deals. There was barely any discussion of a customs union as far as I recall and it was made clear that leaving the EU meant leaving the single market. I'd say people who voted leave expected the UK to simply leave and start doing trade deals with other countries in the world as well as the EU.

That we know the leave campaign lied and we know the remain campaign was hopeless, exaggerating to the point of also lying is besides the point, though I do expect people to want to head off down that route in denial of my first paragraph.

So no specific examples from you on what is different between the EEC and the EU as currently experienced by the UK? If you can’t give any examples, it sort of validates my point.

About the undemocratic bit: who elected Dominic Cummings? Who elected Boris Johnson as PM? How can these “unelected officials” simply decide to suspend Parliament because they want to push through massive changes that will affect all UK nationals against the expressed wishes of a majority of MPs?

It's a fair point about Cummings and we know it's not great that a party can change leader mid-term so we end with a change of PM. It's a flaw and it needs changing.

If the electorate of the UK dislike the policies of a govt we get the chance to make a change every 5 years, and with that changes comes a different direction if an alternative party wins a majority of the democratic vote. If people dislike the direction of travel of the EU there is no alternative other than to accept it or leave the EU. It's a significant difference.

 

[Tony L]

At the time of the referendum there was only 1 version of leave. There wasn't much discussion of "a deal" as people understand by "a deal" 3 years down the line. Discussions of "deals" were mainly around the potential for future trade deals. There was barely any discussion of a customs union as far as I recall and it was made clear that leaving the EU meant leaving the single market. I'd say people who voted leave expected the UK to simply leave and start doing trade deals with other countries in the world as well as the EU.

That we know the leave campaign lied and we know the remain campaign was hopeless, exaggerating to the point of also lying is besides the point, though I do expect people to want to head off down that route in denial of my first paragraph.

At the time of the referendum those who organised it never believed for a minute the masses would be thick enough to vote for it. Cameron facilitated the idiocy in a misjudged attempt to ‘win’ against a minority of nutters in his own party and the popularist racism and xenophobia of Farage etc.

Everything the remain campaign predicted (crashing currency, mass manufacturing job losses, no workable solution to NI, rise of the far-right etc) has all come true and we haven’t even left yet! There was no ‘project fear’, only reality, one the Brexit nutters to this day attempt to deny in the face of all evidence.