Jump to content

The now-enacted will of (some of) the people


blandy

Recommended Posts

It's like the Scottish independence referendum - it's much easier for the "change" camp. Change is exciting, even if it's a bit risky. Much harder to make "Carry on doing the same old thing" seem sexy. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

17 minutes ago, snowychap said:

Is that genuine?

If so, that's an incredibly pathetic bit of campaigning from the remain lot.

I just assume that anybody even using the word "Brexit" with a straight face must be an absolute halfwit.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, V01 said:

How final would an in result actually be, if it became clear in 2, 5 or 10 years leaving would be best would we be able to then?

not final 

we can have a referendum every year if we fancy it

right up to the point we vote to leave, then that's fairly final

.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

11 hours ago, hycus-flange said:

Salmond is a prick, he doesn't want to be part of a united kingdom, but has no problems wanting to be a part of a united states of europe.

someone wants to ask him about "FREEDOM" for the jocks now that the price of oil has gone through the floor.

Nobody wants that, and it isn't on offer. 

Alex Salmond wants an independent Scotland to be part of the EU, but that's really quite far from what you've actually written there. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

18 hours ago, tonyh29 said:

... the deal on the table  is out or in based on Cameron's renegotiating isn't it ?

....the only true vote that will benefit Corbyn and Cameron etc is an out vote as then we truly have something to negotiate with 

yes and no.

i feel most people can see that cameron's renegotiated deal is essentially window dressing. He promised a fundamentally reformed EU. He didn't even ask for that. In that regard he lied, as politicians do. The question we are being asked is based on something slightly different from the current relationship, but barely so. 

Out is out, even Boris has now said so. Unless the result is a resounding stay, Cameron will (deservedly) be weakened,or have to step down. Corbyn is doomed regardless.

Going back to the lists of numpties on each side supporting in and out. I find it incredibly difficult to vote for anything that Cameron, Osborne, May et al (say they) support. For me though there are at least a larger number of the sane on the in side and also just basically if there hadn't been all this referendum stuff, I'd have been fine with that, so to me, people demanding change need to clearly and demonstrably prove why the changes they want will be better than what we have now. So far they are not doing anything like that. I suspect that is because their case is based around nostalgia for a non existent past, around obsolete notions of sovereignty, around a desire to pull up the drawbridge and retreat to some imagined nirvana. That's all fine, I suppose, but it doesn't make a real world, factually based, verifiable, persuasive case to leave. But that's what they are obliged to do, IMO.

 

 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 hours ago, HanoiVillan said:

Nobody wants that, and it isn't on offer. 

Alex Salmond wants an independent Scotland to be part of the EU, but that's really quite far from what you've actually written there. 

The point still stands though - Salmond and the SNP want Scotland to be independent because they don't like Westminster having a say in their affairs yet they want to be part of a union which takes some decisions away from national parliaments?

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 minutes ago, Mantis said:

The point still stands though - Salmond and the SNP want Scotland to be independent because they don't like Westminster having a say in their affairs yet they want to be part of a union which takes some decisions away from national parliaments?

Could you flip that, and wonder how 'the establishment' in England is so against Scotland gaining independence from Westminster, yet wants 'independence' from europe?

I fear this is not the place and is a bit of a diversion, picking over the bones of this one.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 minutes ago, Mantis said:

The point still stands though - Salmond and the SNP want Scotland to be independent because they don't like Westminster having a say in their affairs yet they want to be part of a union which takes some decisions away from national parliaments?

Apparently Sturgeon has called for another independence vote in the summer ?

i had to chuckle at the hypocrisy of her line about being ruled by Tories whilst their block vote last week helped defeat a policy that had zero bearing on Scotchland 

since we are doing personality votes I hope we all vote leave just so that we get rid of Salmond and Sturgeon who would almost certainly want to stay within the United States of Europe 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, blandy said:

Out is out, even Boris has now said so.

I meant from a perspective of our exit plan rather than Europe 2.0

those terms haven't been decided yet , the EU may go for the spite approach but as they are also going to be in the shot when we leave the negotiating may go a slightly different way ? 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I guess what would be helpful to me is having some idea why Mr Cameron would like to stay in and why Mr Johnson would like to stay out - they're talking an awful lot about the dangers of the other and spouting some lovely big soundbites about their own preference - but there's still absolutely no substance. 

They think it will make us financially more secure, or more influential, or whatever - how? what are the mechanics, where would this security come from, how would this influence be visible and what would we use it for, what does more secure mean, long term financial benefit or short term financial benefit, benefit for the people who live in the UK or for the banks based here, which parts of the economy will be affected - I'm hearing none of that.

I'm increasingly convinced that Cameron wants to stay in because he's promised the US that he'll push TTIP through and that Boris wants to come out because he's got a few mates with a Hedge fund who stand to make a pretty packet and will look after him if we're out.

It's a referendum without a debate, without any real information - now that might well be because we're asking the population of the country to vote on a matter that at its heart affects a few thousand bankers, industrialists, lobbyists and politicians - in which case there probably shouldn't be a referendum - or, it's because a decision has been made somewhere that if we understood what we were voting on, we'd vote the wrong way.

The first question I think that I'd like to see debated is what the EU is, and what it aims to be - considering we're voting on whether e want to remain a part of the EU, I don't think I've heard a single word in the media about what the EU is about.

 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

34 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

Could you flip that, and wonder how 'the establishment' in England is so against Scotland gaining independence from Westminster, yet wants 'independence' from europe?

I fear this is not the place and is a bit of a diversion, picking over the bones of this one.

I've heard that many times before but the argument you could make there is that Scotland is closer to the UK (not just geographically) and has a much deeper historical connection than it does with the EU.

To be fair though, most of the people in "the establishment" who were against Scotland becoming independent are for Britain remaining in the EU.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

49 minutes ago, Mantis said:

The point still stands though - Salmond and the SNP want Scotland to be independent because they don't like Westminster having a say in their affairs yet they want to be part of a union which takes some decisions away from national parliaments?

As Chrisp says, this probably isn't the place, and I'm not the SNP, but I would suppose here they talk a lot about how they'd have much more say on defence, fiscal policy, foreign policy etc etc as an independent country in the EU than as a 'submerged nation' in the UK. 

It doesn't really matter - the point I was responding to suggested the SNP are in favour of joining a thing called 'the United States of Europe', which isn't true and doesn't exist. That's the extent of my point, not that the SNP are right, internally consistent or that the sun shines out of their arses. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

19 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

I'm increasingly convinced that Cameron wants to stay in because he's promised the US that he'll push TTIP through and that Boris wants to come out because he's got a few mates with a Hedge fund who stand to make a pretty packet and will look after him if we're out.

And Corbyn ?

 

i just ask as its only ever the usual suspects that get named as doing it for their own personal agenda (I.e Tory bastards and Murdoch )

so is this the part where we learn that Corbyn is  doing because he's genuine  person with the interests of the U.K. at heart etc etc 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

10 minutes ago, tonyh29 said:

And Corbyn ?

i just ask as its only ever the usual suspects that get named as doing it for their own personal agenda (I.e Tory bastards and Murdoch )

so is this the part where we learn that Corbyn is  doing because he's genuine  person with the interests of the U.K. at heart etc etc 

I don't know - and not the point I was making - I wasn't picking those two out because they're Tories, I was picking those two out because this referendum is very quickly becoming about which one of the two of them you believe - it's not about the EU, or about anything else, in the papers it's Boris vs. Cameron about a thing with no information.

The point I was making was about how the complete lack of any kind of background or fact leads us inevitably to the situation that people have been talking about over the last few pages, where we're not talking about Europe, or the EU, or regulation or absolutely anything that allows us to further our understanding of the subject - we're talking about people and whether or not we like them, because that's what our politicians and media seem to believe is the best way to influence the vote in one way or the other.

I guess your taking it as a criticism of a party is a sort of demonstration of that - the point I'm trying to get across is in fact the opposite - I don't care what Corbyn thinks, or Cameron, or Boris Johnson - I want to know what it is we're being asked to vote on, what it means and what the result changes. To do that, I need to have some information on what the EU does today, what it wants to do, what its ideals are and indeed to some extent the same for the UK, we're not getting that, we're getting soundbites and "trust me not him." Without it, there's really no point to this referendum.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Don't get me wrong I agree and I've also been saying I'd like some info and a decent case made 

 my other gripe has been so many posts on VT has been about whose in / whose out so it seems in that respect we agree even if I didn't get your reasoning for your examples 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

33 minutes ago, tonyh29 said:

Don't get me wrong I agree and I've also been saying I'd like some info and a decent case made 

 my other gripe has been so many posts on VT has been about whose in / whose out so it seems in that respect we agree even if I didn't get your reasoning for your examples 

Well that's fair enough - I think in this case, what's become the two main protagonists in the media justifies their selection over others as the example - and I think we're seeing a de-facto Tory party leadership campaign in action - but I completely understand your point of view on the examples I then gave for them. It's difficult of course, because I despise both of them and wish them ill fortune and you don't.

But...

The point remains on the way this debate is being deliberately steered into becoming about who you like and who you don't - and I think we sort of agree on that point albeit with the caveat that if pushed on who we do and don't like, we'd give very different answers. :)

 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, OutByEaster? said:

in the papers it's Boris vs. Cameron about a thing with no information.

 

1 hour ago, tonyh29 said:

so many posts on VT has been about who's in / who's out

Perhaps there's an element of the two things being connected. Firstly the media love to frame stories in terms of people and personal ambitions/antipathies/party strife. So the (serious) media are to a large degree talking not about pros and cons, but about individuals. Then there is undoubtedly an element of some of the leading figures "positioning" themselves for their own personal/career ambitions.

In the absence of facts/information and with the focus on the "personalities" it's hardly surprising that there's a degree of talking about people on here, too, as Scott says.

1 hour ago, OutByEaster? said:

I want to know what it is we're being asked to vote on, what it means and what the result changes. To do that, I need to have some information on what the EU does today, what it wants to do, what its ideals are and indeed to some extent the same for the UK, we're not getting that, we're getting soundbites and "trust me not him." Without it, there's really no point to this referendum.

On this, I agree. I kind of think though that we "know" what In looks like. it looks like now. It looks like how each of us live and work and go on holiday and all that. It looks like booze cruises, visa free travel, lots of Polish people fixing our plumbing, and all the pros and cons of modern life. For me there's less of an onus on the in camp to explain what In looks like, because we all know already. What we don't know is what out looks like. Probably not massively different. I also think that whatever the long term benefits or losses, that no one can quantify or have any idea on (hence the lack of information on them), that in the short term, politicians and civil servants would be spending an inordinate amount of time and effort on negotiating trade deals, terms of leaving, which laws to keep and which to drop, which subsidies to move nationally - i.e. do we the UK, now pay Welsh farmers what they were getting from EU, or do we stop that money and Osborne use it to do whatever it is he fancies this week? and similar across all the sectors.

So for me the leaving case is far more of an unknown, but with obvious drawbacks. The In case, is clearer in terms of what it will be (is) like, and the drawbacks are things people personally view as problems - for some it's "sovereignty" for some it's "unaccountable people making rules" for some it's "cost" or whatever.

This is why the whole thing is a big load of arse. We're in the EU, it's not actually the ruin of us, it's not "holding us back", we're a prosperous nation, with major problems in terms of inequality, health service, education, broken political systems, an out of touch establishment and all the rest. I think I'd like those things addressed rather than endless banging on about brussels and beaurocrats.

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

×
×
  • Create New...
Â