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

[limpid]

25 minutes ago, NurembergVillan said:

I had to do it when I moved to Germany, and again when I left.

Other than sitting in a boring waiting room it had zero impact on my life.

I'm pretty sure I had to do it in Brussels too.

[LakotaDakota]

25 minutes ago, PompeyVillan said:

I read somewhere that the majority of Labour supporters voted remain by a clear majority, but I can't back that up.

Might have been higher numbers of actual voters thanks mainly to London but this doesn't really mean anything if most of the votes are tied up in a few seats. 64% of constituencies held by Labour voted Leave

[chrisp65]

6 minutes ago, LakotaDakota said:

Might have been higher numbers of actual voters thanks mainly to London but this doesn't really mean anything if most of the votes are tied up in a few seats. 64% of constituencies held by Labour voted Leave

But that might be a junk statistic.

It could be that 100% of the losing Tory voters wanted Brexit and only 5% of the winning Labour voters wanted Brexit, so Labour remainers win an election and leavers win a referendum.

It’s just not measuring two similar things.

My constituency voted remain, the MP is staunchly leave, he refuses to represent us. 

[LakotaDakota]

The question in the short term is do people care more about brexit or who potentially runs the country.

Look at some of the safe seats in the north like St helens, Labour win elections by 20000+ votes yet leave won the vote there by 15000+

Now it is very unlikely that anyone there will vote for boris in any great numbers in a general election but would they vote for Farage?

There are many traditionally safe labour seats in the north that voted to leave by huge margins. How this translates into votes at a general election in the next month or two is anyones guess but i wouldn't be surprised to see the brexit party pick up a chunk of these seats

[Sid4ever]

1 hour ago, blandy said:

Because of first past the post and so many safe seats - for example where I live now has always been Tory. Huge majority of tory voters. It voted leave by 54% to 46%. Labour and Lib Dems tend to come second, alternating and usually each 10,000 or so votes behind the tory. The Tory MP in the past has been exposed by the papers for various "lifestyle" things - rent boys and drugs. Did it affect the majority?  - not one bit. 

I am guessing Ribble Valley with NE as your MP

[chrisp65]

Just now, LakotaDakota said:

The question in the short term is do people care more about brexit or who potentially runs the country.

Look at some of the safe seats in the north like St helens, Labour win elections by 20000+ votes yet leave won the vote there by 15000+

Now it is very unlikely that anyone there will vote for boris in any great numbers in a general election but would they vote for Farage?

There are many traditionally safe labour seats in the north that voted to leave by huge margins. How this translates into votes at a general election in the next month or two is anyones guess but i wouldn't be surprised to see the brexit party pick up a chunk of these seats

I don’t doubt that for a second.

By the same token, my Tory MP won by 2,500 votes. Every chance some tactical voting will mean he loses to Labour here.

In fact, for the first time in years Labour have had a known candidate here, already active on social media. 

It’s got the potential to be an absolute car crash of an election. The one thing I do know, you can safely ignore anyone that tells you they know how it will pan out. 

[LondonLax]

44 minutes ago, WhatAboutTheFinish said:

There is no legal requirement to do so and headlines of just this week suggesting that there were more than 100,000 voter registrations in 48 hours, suggests that not every person does.

Could it become compulsory, yes. Is that a good idea...?

You already do it for national insurance. When I moved to the UK as an immigrant I had to line up and register all my details with the government to receive a card with my national insurance number. 

It’s not much of an ideological stretch to apply the same system for the NHS that you already do for NI.

If you moved to Australia you’d have to register to receive a ‘Medicare’ card giving you access to the state subsidised healthcare. Everyone in Aus caries their Medicare card and shows it whenever they visit the doctor/hospital. 

[mjmooney]

32 minutes ago, tinker said:

That's obviously true because everyone and I mean everyone I talk to defends Brexit, deal or no deal. The majority of these people work in an industry that would be devastated by a no deal Brexit, they would lose their jobs within months. Their beliefs are intrenched, with leaving being their only aim, I wish I was joking .

Financial versions of  suicide bombers, they will be right until their standing their in pants without a pot to piss in but they will have their Brexit !

Can they give you any reason why? 

[tonyh29]

57 minutes ago, bickster said:

That was more about students registering at their term time address in case of a snap election

And then not bothering to go out and vote anyway  

[bickster]

1 minute ago, tonyh29 said:

And then not bothering to go out and vote anyway  

That wasn't as true in 2017 as it normally is. If my daughter and her friends are anything to go by, none of them are that interested in politics but they nearly all voted, those that didn't made the decision not to because both seats they were registered in were considered safe

[tonyh29]

1 minute ago, bickster said:

That wasn't as true in 2017 as it normally is. If my daughter and her friends are anything to go by, none of them are that interested in politics but they nearly all voted, those that didn't made the decision not to because both seats they were registered in were considered safe

Was she galvanised by the “aspiration” or just ABT ? 

Yeah the student vote has improved lately , I can vaguely recall the merriment on here when the students all went out to tactically topple Clegg and got there after the voting booths closed but even that isn’t probably strictly accurate just a VT meme 

[bickster]

11 minutes ago, tonyh29 said:

Was she galvanised by the “aspiration” or just ABT ? 

In her case just exercising her right both her seats were solidly safe Labour seats

[VillaJ100]

37 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

I don’t doubt that for a second.

By the same token, my Tory MP won by 2,500 votes. Every chance some tactical voting will mean he loses to Labour here.

In fact, for the first time in years Labour have had a known candidate here, already active on social media. 

It’s got the potential to be an absolute car crash of an election. The one thing I do know, you can safely ignore anyone that tells you they know how it will pan out. 

I know how it will pan out - hung parliament. 

[tinker]

33 minutes ago, mjmooney said:

Can they give you any reason why? 

They more or less quote right wing press version of events and or facts . Their all working class and live and or work in Birmingham. It's a depressing environment for someone who wants to remain, they know I do but respect me enough to not push it to much.

What people need to regonise is the deep feeling of injustice that brexiters feel. I hear it nearly every day and it's a real concern , most of my family sing from the same hymn sheet as the people I work with. 

When I watch parliament stopping brexit I feel relieved but I also feel a  deep feeling of dread as to where it will end with a large majority of people ( I know ) feeling cheated by an undemocratic parliament. How can anyone argue against that fact ? 

 

 

[villa4europe]

1 hour ago, NurembergVillan said:

I had to do it when I moved to Germany, and again when I left.

Other than sitting in a boring waiting room it had zero impact on my life.

Anmeldung! Yeah it's a ball ache, not a clue why they won't let you do it online, you have to do it every time you move, they print out a sticker to put on the back of your ID card 

And it is all linked, without Anmeldung you can't get a tax number or medical insurance, without those you can't get a job

Edited September 5, 2019 by villa4europe

[TheAuthority]

3 hours ago, tinker said:

The Brexit party would win any Election, surely that's clear ........the Tories can't pull Brexit off and the majority or the electorate want it. Labour doesn't stand for anything , leave or remain,  they will get destroyed.

 

10 minutes ago, tinker said:

They more or less quote right wing press version of events and or facts . Their all working class and live and or work in Birmingham. It's a depressing environment for someone who wants to remain, they know I do but respect me enough to not push it to much.

What people need to regonise is the deep feeling of injustice that brexiters feel. I hear it nearly every day and it's a real concern , most of my family sing from the same hymn sheet as the people I work with.

 

I wouldn't be as fast to dismiss your points as some on here. After the two major political earthquakes in the cradle of Western Democracy (Trump & Brexit) I could believe anything is possible. Even Farage becoming PM.

The injustice that people feel (mentioned in your 2nd quoted post) is a great motivator and sadly it can also be manipulated into anger & hatred. It's exactly what has happened here in the US.

[Genie]

11 minutes ago, tinker said:

 How can anyone argue against that fact ? 

I tend to think that love them or hate them, the MPs are privy to far more facts than Joe Public. They have a much better prediction of what the reality will be of each scenario.

Then overlay the fact that most of them think no deal will be an epic disaster, to the point that voicing it may cost them their job, reinforces my opinion that we should avoided it at all costs.

[ml1dch]

21 minutes ago, tinker said:

When I watch parliament stopping brexit I feel relieved but I also feel a  deep feeling of dread as to where it will end with a large majority of people ( I know ) feeling cheated by an undemocratic parliament. How can anyone argue against that fact ? 

Which bit? The cheated part? Sure. If they believe a load of charlatans who say that their troubles will magically disappear if Brussels wasn't there, then they will probably be upset when they learn that isn't true. 

If they choose to deal with that by getting angry with Brussels and the people that know it isn't true, what exactly can we do with that situation? You can only say what's true so many times. We can't magically make Johnson's twenty years of lies the truth.

The undemocratic part? This parliament was elected since the referendum to represent how the country wanted this to play out. Personally I am delighted with how my MP is representing my interest and she will get my vote and support through the campaign to come. 

Anyone who feels that they have been let down by their MP on this matter from any side of the argument should decide on whether they voted sensibly at the last election and if not, vote accordingly next time. Feel free to pass my suggestion on to your friends and family. 

That is how democracy works, after all.

Edited September 5, 2019 by ml1dch

[mjmooney]

28 minutes ago, tinker said:

They more or less quote right wing press version of events and or facts . Their all working class and live and or work in Birmingham. It's a depressing environment for someone who wants to remain, they know I do but respect me enough to not push it to much.

What people need to regonise is the deep feeling of injustice that brexiters feel. I hear it nearly every day and it's a real concern , most of my family sing from the same hymn sheet as the people I work with. 

But why do they blame the EU, rather than Tory austerity? Tabloid press, I assume. 

[peterms]

15 minutes ago, mjmooney said:

But why do they blame the EU, rather than Tory austerity? Tabloid press, I assume. 

It's not tory austerity.  That has made things worse but is not the root cause.  It goes back 45 years or more.

It's more about globalisation, and the way it manifests itself - declining or static real wages, insecure employment, rising personal debt, as a long term trend preceding the bankers crash and tory austerity.   These things are the product of ever more powerful multinationals who are each year less constrained by nation states.

People feel the impact on their lives, but the cause is not obvious.  They are generally aware that governments don't protect them as much as they used to,  but it's hard to point to specific examples unless it's something as blatant as raising the retirement age or ramping up student debt.

It's true that the EU has played a part in making this worse,  with its insistence on the free movement of capital, which strengthens multinationals vis a vis governments, and some in the EU want a supranational state which would be even more compliant with the depradations of multinationals.  Free movement of labour is a far smaller factor but is more locally visible, is anecdotally discussed, and therefore given more prominence. However the UK is partly insulated from the worst of the EU by not being in the madness that is the eurozone, and people mostly don't perceive or explain the failings of the EU in terms of its facilitation of capitalist exploitation.

The line of blaming the EU is pushed by important opinion shapers who don't want the finger pointed at the multinationals, except for fairly marginal issues like tax dodging.  In the absence of better explanations, and with no strong case being made for the EU, and with obvious evidence of dreadful behaviour by the EU in respect of peripheral countries, it's understandable that the line that the EU is somehow to blame for peoples' declining financial security can take root.  The simple truth that a tory-led brexit would create the conditions for even worse exploitation is not being strongly made, and when it is made, it's not reported, or is couched in terms of chlorinated chicken rather than something more systemic.

So yes, tabloid press to an extent, but also other press, other media, and failure to articulate how the balance of power has massively shifted from governments to unaccountable corporations over the last 40 years, and to challenge this.