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 Whirlwind wrote:

That's not really the point I was trying to make. Yes all governments do some bad and some good things (and a lot is dependent on an individuals approach to the world). What makes Blair stand apart is the 2nd Iraq war and for this he is generally reviled.

Perhaps generally. I'm afraid I suspect I'd dislike him just as much either way.

Wow just when I thought things couldn't get much worse for the remain camp here comes Blair to white knight us all

 Kilkrazy wrote:

 Ketara wrote:

Mr. Burning wrote:
It's amazing Blair was as popular as he was in '97. Every Labour supporter I currently know says they always knew he was rotten.

It's slightly before my time. But those I speak to recall bitterly how he seemed this fresh burst of air, who promised that if everyone paid a little bit more in taxes, everyone could be a winner. And for a while, it seemed like that was the case. Then the shambles of his second and third terms hit.

...

People who weren't around at the time don't understand how widely loathed the Conservative Party had become. Apart from all the damage that Thatcher did, Major's tenure saw the Black Monday disaster, with interest rates soaring to 15% overnight, and then a series of serious corruption scandals. By 1997 the nation was more than ready for a change. Blair seemed to promise that.

That was certainly my memory, the tories had been a fething disaster, and yet the home county and yuppie types kept voting for them, until finally at long last, they managed to feth themselves into a hole, and Tony and the gang romped home on a wave of optimism and hope. It had got to the stage where we genuinely believed that "things can only get better". And they did, for a while.

Now we're riding yet another wave of Tory feth-wittedness. Yet the unfortunate thing is that there is no other party ready to rescue us from the clutches of this dreary bunch of vicious arseholes. Its like watching Neil Kinnock struggle against Thatcher all over again. Yet again were going to be paying the price for tory ideology for the next few generations because we have an opposition that can't get its gak together.

The Tories are not Tories though, and haven't been for a long time.

What we've had since 1997, 20 years, is the poison of Blairism, which continued with Dave (a Blairite to his core) and now May.

May is about as much a Tory as I am, and my loathing for the Tories is well documented on these boards.

As a leader, Corbyn is pretty ineffectual, but what really annoys people about Corbyn IMO, is the fact that he says what he means:

i.e. he's an old fashioned socialist from the days when Britain had a genuine left/right ideological divide.

The non-Tories have their way for now, but people forget the UK's rich tradition for radical change: suffragettes, early labour party, the levellers, Chartists etc etc

and by God, that change is need more than ever to take us into the 21st century.

The non-Tories think that it's business as usual: send Liam Fox to the Middle East to secure a few dodgy trade deals and bung the Saudis a few crates of guns,

and all will be well for post-Brexit UK.

But it won't, the future is coming with all the problems of automation, genetics, surveillance, climate change etc etc , and new parties that are ready to tackle the 21st century's problems are needed to sweep away the zombies of the Conservatives and Labour.

I voted leave, everybody here knows that, but it makes me so mad to see the left and the liberals still fighting like it was June 23rd 2016, rather than move on, and try and put together their version of post-Brexit Britain.

Because an alternative plan, even though I may not agree with it, is badly needed.

https://skwawkbox.org/2017/02/17/exclusive-hillsborough-groups-tried-to-join-us-nuttall-has-never-been-in-touch/

UKIP lie once again about Hillsborough.

Classy !

meanwhile :

https://www.buzzfeed.com/jimwaterson/nigel-farage-doesnt-think-ukip-is-talking-about-immigration?utm_term=.dy6Zpp264d#.eeJQxxM5Wp

Nigel Farage is worried: He doesn’t think UKIP is spending enough time talking about immigration and fears new leader Paul Nuttall could miss out on a new wave of popularity by toning down the party’s anti-migrant rhetoric.
“I don’t think the debate about immigration has even begun,” Farage said at UKIP’s spring conference, held at Bolton Wanderers’ stadium in Greater Manchester. “The identity issue, the immigration issue is going to get bigger not smaller”.
Farage, who has no formal role within UKIP, was the nonetheless the star attraction at the event. He told BuzzFeed News that he is battling against a faction within the party, allegedly centred around its only MP Douglas Carswell, which he believes is wrongly trying to convince Nuttall to take the party in a more mainstream direction and focus on cost-of-living issues rather than migration.
“Ultimately it comes down to the leader to make a big decision. And I am ultimately pretty confident that Paul [Nuttall] will come down on my side of the argument.”
“I’m not putting any pressure on behind the scenes,” he said. “I’m not lobbying, I’m doing it on a public platform!”
Farage, who led the party through the Brexit referendum before eventually stepping aside in September, is now spending more time building his media profile with a show on LBC. But his friendship with the US President – and apparently growing belief that Donald Trump is the model for UKIP to follow – is causing consternation with the team around Nuttall.
“Talking about things in a Donald Trump way is not going to win over voters,” said UKIP MEP Patrick O’Flynn, a former Daily Express columnist who is now working as Nuttall’s main political advisor. Among other issues, he said this approach would not solve the party’s unpopularity with women.
“In 2015 we got 15% of male voters but 11% of women. If we’d have won 15% of women voters then Nigel Farage would now be MP for Thanet South.”
The event highlighted the extent to which UKIP enjoys both an enormous national profile but is still a relatively small, occasionally unprofessional, campaigning organisation which is still struggling to work out what role it will play after Brexit.

Nuttall himself was bundled out of the hall after his speech to avoid reporters asking questions about false claims he lost “close personal friends” in the Hillsborough disaster. However, he used his speech to announce policies designed to appeal to traditional Labour voters such as additional council housing and a cut in VAT on energy bills, rather than focussing on immigration.
Farage singled out Suzanne Evans, a longterm internal rival who is close to the new leadership team, as the sort of individual who wants to shift the party’s tone on immigration and say “the right thing” in order to “get invited to parties in London”.
Evans told BuzzFeed News this was not true: “Nigel does tend to put ideas in my head that are not there. Unfortunately, as much as I respect and admire him, he does seem to have an inability to stop telling me what I think.”
She said that under Nuttall’s leadership UKIP could learn discuss “radical” issues about immigration in a more measured manner: “You can be radical but you don’t need to keep screaming ‘immigration’ every five minutes to be radical. What I’m proudest about are some of things I’ve been most radical about is standing up for women in ethnic minority communities.”
Neil Hamilton, the party’s leader in Wales, said the party needed to professionalise if it wanted to survive as “after Brexit we will be fighting purely in a domestic context”. He also cast doubt on the former leader’s relationship with the US President: “I don’t know how close he is to Trump, I’ve seen a photograph of him in a lift. Donald Trump as President of the US is not going to have much time for minor political figures from abroad.”
Evans, who pointedly left the hall for Farage’s speech, was even more caustic about the former leader’s role: “It’s quite sad, he’s obviously in the process of leaving UKIP and he’s got his radio show. If he doesn’t want to be part of the party anymore that’s fine but don’t turn around and abuse those of us who are still in it.”

..is that what the UK wants/needs ... our own Trump ?

GoatboyBeta wrote:
Wow just when I thought things couldn't get much worse for the remain camp here comes Blair to white knight us all

That's not really what I am saying. The message is that you should take current/recent actions into account and not become 'enraged' about what people did in the past. People do change and do reflect on what they have done in the past. You can get people that just don't accept it is a mistake (which is a bad thing) or those that do recognise them and try to amend their world views accordingly.

Becoming 'blinded' by peoples mistakes of the past is an issue because their experience from those mistakes can actually bring forward better ideas (we all learn from our mistakes). It's recent/now actions of people that are important not those of the past. The Iraq 2nd war was a badly conceived, poorly implemented from a social perspective (too much we are going to be hailed as heroes) and too much reliance was placed on a single intelligence source (with an agenda) that was then used to mislead parliament and the public that SH was a greater threat than he really was to the UK. The argument would be the only thing we learn from the conflict was that politicians are now terrified of putting boots on the ground although we've still intervened militarily (and ended up with the fiascos of Libya and Syria). However we (as the populaces as a whole) are blinded that overall we haven't learnt anything simply because there is little/no cost to UK soldiers from these conflicts.

Additionally as has been pointed out the country was very tired of years of Tory government and Blair what appeared to be something new. Therefore there was a much greater expectation than any parliament had previously had for decades - the disadvantage being that in such situations there is always further to fall. Hence people feel betrayed because that feeling of higher expectation never met reality (and it was never going to). We don't expect the Tories to be anything but self interested *insert expletive* so it comes as no surprise when they actually act that way but as such as a population we feel much less betrayed when it happens.

As such I'd always recommend you always try and review peoples recent/current actions but not through tinted glasses of the past. For example I agree that the battle for the EU isn't really over in the UK. If Sentinel1 is correct in his surmising that a lot of pro-EU people didn't actually get out and vote on the day then the UK is quite possibly still pro-EU and the referendum was more of a, in terms of football, a smash and grab result. As such pro-EU people engaging such non voters may prevent the extremes of what is about to happen (or politicians may draw away from doing what the majority of all the populace don't want if this is the case). On the other hand I'd disagree that we should cosy up to Trump, he is a fascist and the UK populace could come out not being viewed highly in the long term if Trump continues his current route (after all he is now calling some of the press "Enemy of the American People" - this isn't a right wing Daily Fail article, this is the head of the free world saying it...




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

I voted leave, everybody here knows that, but it makes me so mad to see the left and the liberals still fighting like it was June 23rd 2016, rather than move on, and try and put together their version of post-Brexit Britain.

Why should they though. They are being dragged in a direction that they (and me) do not think is either a good idea or what they want. And it's not just that, it's in a manner that is so hard Brexit that it isn't taking into account any of the views of the 48% ish of the population that voted to Remain. To the point that even the Leave manifesto pledges have been completely ignored (such as staying in the free market, £350m for the NHS and so on) making it more and more apparent that the referendum was more akin to a 'British' right wing coup of politics than anything to do with the EU. So it's not just about Remainers being taken in a direction they like, but it's being stripped naked and dragged backwards through gorse! So you can appreciate that people are feeling a bit sore and willing to 'fight' metaphorically for what they believe in.

It is also slightly ironic that there is a view that now Leavers have got what they wanted Remainers should just get on with and make it a success; yet Leavers at the same time in the last 15-20 years or so were not willing to get on with working with the EU and make that a success. You can't expect Leavers to argue that Remainers should just get on with it when they themselves failed to do the same thing when we were in the EU. Therefore you are just going to have to accept that the pro-EU crowd will continue the battle to stay/rejoin the EU whether that takes 5 or 20 years just as was the case for Leavers. To expect anything different is in effect hypocritical of the situation we are in.

On top of this if Remainers did pull together and try and make it a success (assuming that they are in the majority young and educated and therefore the most likely to drive forward the economy) then that will be used by Leavers as evidence that leaving the EU was the right decision, so why would you expect Remainers to be willingly exploited in this way?

I was listening to radio 4 this morning, and at the end I caught an interview between a member of the house of Lords and a conservative member for brexit concerning the amendment to the bill going through the Lords regarding the status of current EU nationals.

The one thing that struck me was, how enormously petty, and morally wrong it is to hold the status of these people as some sort of bargaining chip because "of what some European countries may do to Brits abroad". I feel we absolutely should take the lead, and the moral high ground and allow those EU nationals already resident here, who chose to remain, to be allowed to gain permanent residency.

I'm genuinely struggling to see why May and the Govt feel that waiting until we have guarantees from the EU about British ex-pats is anything other than pandering to some ridiculous, and rather childish, nationalist ideal.

It's bad enough we have to listen to the bigoted nonsense of barely literate troglodytes maskerading as politicians and commentators, without having the lives of people who have contributed, worked for, and invested in Britain, who have families and lives here threatened by their slope browed ignorance.

Why should they though. They are being dragged in a direction that they (and me) do not think is either a good idea or what they want. And it's not just that, it's in a manner that is so hard Brexit that it isn't taking into account any of the views of the 48% ish of the population that voted to Remain. To the point that even the Leave manifesto pledges have been completely ignored (such as staying in the free market, £350m for the NHS and so on) making it more and more apparent that the referendum was more akin to a 'British' right wing coup of politics than anything to do with the EU. So it's not just about Remainers being taken in a direction they like, but it's being stripped naked and dragged backwards through gorse! So you can appreciate that people are feeling a bit sore and willing to 'fight' metaphorically for what they believe in.

It is also slightly ironic that there is a view that now Leavers have got what they wanted Remainers should just get on with and make it a success; yet Leavers at the same time in the last 15-20 years or so were not willing to get on with working with the EU and make that a success. You can't expect Leavers to argue that Remainers should just get on with it when they themselves failed to do the same thing when we were in the EU. Therefore you are just going to have to accept that the pro-EU crowd will continue the battle to stay/rejoin the EU whether that takes 5 or 20 years just as was the case for Leavers. To expect anything different is in effect hypocritical of the situation we are in.

On top of this if Remainers did pull together and try and make it a success (assuming that they are in the majority young and educated and therefore the most likely to drive forward the economy) then that will be used by Leavers as evidence that leaving the EU was the right decision, so why would you expect Remainers to be willingly exploited in this way?

Part of me does sympathise with Remainers, and as somebody who is angling for another Scottish independence referendum, it would be hypocritical of me to say that pro-remain people should never have a chance of getting another referendum. Bt they need a proRemain majority in parliament who are willing to agree to another referendum. That ship sailed.

None the less, I would look at this from a realpolitik stance.

We have burnt that many bridges with the EU, we have to leave and get the best deal for both sides. And even if they let us back in, it would be on THEIR terms. So all the British bonuses of yesteryear would not return.

The gap between the 1970s vote and the 2016 vote is roughly 45 years. If say, in 40 years time, there was another referendum concerning the EU (assuming it still existed) I would have no problem with that.

But this is my opinion and message to Remainers for what it's worth:

The momentum is clearly with Leave, the ship has sailed, and realpolitik says that Brexit is on, for better or for worse.

Focus your efforts on building a better Britain. There is nothing that says the Tories will be the permanent government.








Automatically Appended Next Post:

 r_squared wrote:
I was listening to radio 4 this morning, and at the end I caught an interview between a member of the house of Lords and a conservative member for brexit concerning the amendment to the bill going through the Lords regarding the status of current EU nationals.

The one thing that struck me was, how enormously petty, and morally wrong it is to hold the status of these people as some sort of bargaining chip because "of what some European countries may do to Brits abroad". I feel we absolutely should take the lead, and the moral high ground and allow those EU nationals already resident here, who chose to remain, to be allowed to gain permanent residency.

I'm genuinely struggling to see why May and the Govt feel that waiting until we have guarantees from the EU about British ex-pats is anything other than pandering to some ridiculous, and rather childish, nationalist ideal.

It's bad enough we have to listen to the bigoted nonsense of barely literate troglodytes maskerading as politicians and commentators, without having the lives of people who have contributed, worked for, and invested in Britain, who have families and lives here threatened by their slope browed ignorance.

The flip side of your argument could also apply to the EU;

Why aren't the EU taking the moral high ground and guaranteeing the rights of Brits in the EU?

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
Focus your efforts on building a better Britain.

They are. By trying to stop Brexit.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
Focus your efforts on building a better Britain.

They are. By trying to stop Brexit.

There was a time when the EU didn't exist. And in that time, Britain survived. It's hard to believe when you think about it

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
Focus your efforts on building a better Britain.

They are. By trying to stop Brexit.

There was a time when the EU didn't exist. And in that time, Britain survived. It's hard to believe when you think about it

And there was a time when we died by the droves because of smallpox. What's the point of your post? It's a non-statement.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
Focus your efforts on building a better Britain.

They are. By trying to stop Brexit.

There was a time when the EU didn't exist. And in that time, Britain survived. It's hard to believe when you think about it

And there was a time when we died by the droves because of smallpox. What's the point of your post? It's a non-statement.

The point of my post is to challenge the assumption that without the EU, Britain will shrivel up and die and we'll all be back in the workhouse serving evil Tory overlords.

1960s Britain, which predates our 1973 EEC membership, saw a wave of legislation that de-criminalised same sex relations, gave us workers rights, equality acts etc etc

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
Focus your efforts on building a better Britain.

They are. By trying to stop Brexit.

There was a time when the EU didn't exist. And in that time, Britain survived. It's hard to believe when you think about it

And there was a time when we died by the droves because of smallpox. What's the point of your post? It's a non-statement.

The point of my post is to challenge the assumption that without the EU, Britain will shrivel up and die and we'll all be back in the workhouse serving evil Tory overlords.

1960s Britain, which predates our 1973 EEC membership, saw a wave of legislation that de-criminalised same sex relations, gave us workers rights, equality acts etc etc

So it's a strawman then. Cool.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
Focus your efforts on building a better Britain.

They are. By trying to stop Brexit.

There was a time when the EU didn't exist. And in that time, Britain survived. It's hard to believe when you think about it

And there was a time when we died by the droves because of smallpox. What's the point of your post? It's a non-statement.

The point of my post is to challenge the assumption that without the EU, Britain will shrivel up and die and we'll all be back in the workhouse serving evil Tory overlords.

1960s Britain, which predates our 1973 EEC membership, saw a wave of legislation that de-criminalised same sex relations, gave us workers rights, equality acts etc etc

Exactly! Can't agree with you more! Life will go in and we will continue to prosper in a dynamic way depending on what the situation is post Brexit. The irony is that the central countries like to forget is that the UK was a major contributor to the run up of the EEC. If we hadn't gone to war and won it, Germany would still be broadcasting 'Deutsch Wochenschau'. We rebuilt Germanys industry and laid down the terms for better European co-operation, in fact by the late 50s the average living standard of West Germans was greater than our own. Our people joined the EEC primarily for free trade rights, freedom of movement was later thrown in, but it was no cause for concern back then, but now with such movements has caused concerns 'real and imagined'.

We have moved on so much in the last 100 years and by quitting a club, doesn't mean we are heading back to the Dark Ages, we are somewhat heading into unknown waters, but as mentioned we will pull through for the better. We all know where we would be if we stayed in, stagnation and little change. This is our 'last throw of the dice' for significant change in my opinion and I think with enough determination we will pull through. Hopefully looking back in 10 years and we will say 'we made quite a fuss back then, worrying over nothing'.

Just because Britain helped save continental Europe from the Hun in the early 1940s doesn't mean the EU is useless.

The problem with Brexit is that it offers a lot of very clear disadvantages, which require a lot of time and work and resources to try and address, while the advantages are much less easy to define and may not work out in practice.

Stopping immigration -- We aren't much good at stopping non-EU immigration now. How are we going to become much better at in the future? How will that be an advantage when we need immigrants for our economy?

 r_squared wrote:
I was listening to radio 4 this morning, and at the end I caught an interview between a member of the house of Lords and a conservative member for brexit concerning the amendment to the bill going through the Lords regarding the status of current EU nationals.

The one thing that struck me was, how enormously petty, and morally wrong it is to hold the status of these people as some sort of bargaining chip because "of what some European countries may do to Brits abroad". I feel we absolutely should take the lead, and the moral high ground and allow those EU nationals already resident here, who chose to remain, to be allowed to gain permanent residency.

100% agreed. If May took the moral high ground and said "We guarantee the rights of any EU citizens already in the UK", she would have accomplished three things:

1) It would have been the right thing to do. Clear conscience.
2) It would have benefited the UK's economy. I don't think much of the anti-immigration arguments from Brexiteers anyway, but even if their xenophobic scaremongering about waves of Eastern European migrants sponging off the benefit system were true, there's no denying that EU citizens in the UK make a net contribution to the UK economy. That's even leaving aside the chaos that would happen if many businesses lost big chunks of their workforce overnight. UKIP's favourite pint-and-a-pie combo would be unavailable as pubs, restaurants, hotels and coffee shops found they had to close because nobody was there to open the place in the morning...
3) Moral high ground for us means that EU politicians pretty much have to respond by guaranteeing UK citizens' rights in the UK too. Because nobody wants to look more evil than May.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
. Bt they need a proRemain majority in parliament who are willing to agree to another referendum. That ship sailed.

This wouldn't be a problem. The issue more is that they have no one to rally round. Corbyn is completely ineffective and that means that any Tory who is supportive of the EU would only be side lined for a long time if they voted against A50 or agreed an amendment to say, for example, give the populace another referendum once the choices are known and they can be properly debated.

The gap between the 1970s vote and the 2016 vote is roughly 45 years. If say, in 40 years time, there was another referendum concerning the EU (assuming it still existed) I would have no problem with that.

Why should it be 40 years. That's 1/2 generations that have never had a choice in the matter... I agree that we won't get the same deal with the EU as we have now because the likelihood is that our economy will be much weaker and that at this stage it might just be England rather than the UK as a whole.

The momentum is clearly with Leave, the ship has sailed, and realpolitik says that Brexit is on, for better or for worse.

Momentum is a tricky thing though, once the real impacts of leaving are felt, there are a few choppy waves at the moment, but ultimately that momentum may come rapidly to a halt. There's conversations now in the food isles of supermarkets about just how much cereal has increased in price (amongst other food). My parents had a conversation with one person that did night shifts saying he wasn't sure how he would be able to continue to buy the same food because of how much food prices have escalated for example. When it gets pointed out this is direct impact of Brexit and the falling £ a lot of the comments you get back are "I didn't realise this would be the effect". In some ways it's not the vocal supporters of either side, it's the largely silent group that made a decision one way or the other and my perception is that this is starting swing back towards remaining in the EU now the local effects are starting to come into play (especially for those where price increases actually do have an impact). It might also explain why some politicians want to force it through so quickly as the longer it takes the more likely support will wane as the economical impacts take hold.

Focus your efforts on building a better Britain. There is nothing that says the Tories will be the permanent government.

You still haven't really answered the question why they should though. It's just saying get on with it, something many Leavers never wanted to do with the EU to allow it to work; and for some actively worked to undermine it. Why should Remainers be any different and not actively undermine the activities of the country whilst outside the EU to encourage the populace to rejoin the EU in 10/20 years. You are expecting Remainers do something that a proportion of Leavers actively did not do. From my perspective 'building a better Britain' is to remain or rejoin the EU.

Perhaps the business rates increase is intended to close the pie and paint shops and throw all the immigrants out of a job so they decide to go back to wherever they came from.

I agree with your three points, though. It would be very difficult for the EU nations to refuse residency for British citizens abroad if we have already granted it to their nationals in the UK.

At a time when European leaders are taking a hard-line and talking about punishing Britain and making us pay for daring to leave to make an example of us, taking the 'moral high ground' is naive and foolish. Why should we? The EU regards British expats as a bargaining chip, and are threatening to send them back.

I don't want any expulsions of EU citizens, they came here legally and should have every right to remain here. They should be offered British citizenship, and/of indefinite leave to remain here on some sort of visa.

But ultimately I care more about British citizens, my own countrymen, the people whose interests our Government is suposed to serve first and foremost. If the EU begins expelling British expats and workers en masse, we need to show them that we're capable of being just as ruthless.

And IMO May has already taken the moral high ground. She offered to guarantee the future of EU citizens on the condition that the EU reciprocates.

Meanwhile, the EU is threatening to send Brits back en masse out of petty spite.

If you can't distinguish where the moral high ground is in those two positions, god help us.

3) Moral high ground for us means that EU politicians pretty much have to respond by guaranteeing UK citizens' rights in the UK too. Because nobody wants to look more evil than May.

That's putting a lot of faith in EU leaders. A faith I do not share. Say we do guarantee the rights of EU citizens, but the EU flat out refuses to reciprocate? What then?

And I don't think the EU cares about looking evil. Just take what they're doing to Greece for instance. They care more about preserving the European Project, than they do about protecting EU and British workers. Theyd quite happily sell out all the EU workers in Britain if they thought by making an example of us they could preserve the EU and deter other countries from leaving.

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
At a time when European leaders are taking a hard-line and talking about punishing Britain and making us pay for daring to leave to make an example of us, taking the 'moral high ground' is naive and foolish. Why should we? The EU regards British expats as a bargaining chip, and are threatening to send them back.

I don't want any expulsions of EU citizens, they came here legally and should have every right to remain here. They should be offered British citizenship, and/of indefinite leave to remain here on some sort of visa.

But ultimately I care more about British citizens, my own countrymen, the people whose interests our Government is suposed to serve first and foremost. If the EU begins expelling British expats and workers en masse, we need to show them that we're capable of being just as ruthless.

And IMO May has already taken the moral high ground. She offered to guarantee the future of EU citizens on the condition that the EU reciprocates.

Meanwhile, the EU is threatening to send Brits back en masse out of petty spite.

If you can't distinguish where the moral high ground is in those two positions, god help us.

I agree with this.

Any EU citizen, who was in Britain pre-A50 being activated, should have full rights granted to them. I have no problem with that. Those were the rules, and those people came here in good faith.

Sentinel1 wrote:
Exactly! Can't agree with you more! Life will go in and we will continue to prosper in a dynamic way depending on what the situation is post Brexit.

Or crash and burn. There's really no guarantee. One thing most sane economists will agree upon is that right now, leaving the EU was economically and financially moronic.

We have moved on so much in the last 100 years and by quitting a club, doesn't mean we are heading back to the Dark Ages, we are somewhat heading into unknown waters, but as mentioned we will pull through for the better.

Or not. The future is very much an unknown variable.

We all know where we would be if we stayed in, stagnation and little change.

Perhaps in terms of governance, but that's a separate issue to economics. The two shouldn't be conflated.

Ian Sturrock wrote:
100% agreed. If May took the moral high ground and said "We guarantee the rights of any EU citizens already in the UK", she would have accomplished three things...

I disagree that the EU would necessarily have followed suite. But you know something? I think she should have done it anyway. Why? Because it would have defanged a lot of the anti-Brexit rhetoric, and made a lot of people feel safe and happy. I actually don't care what happens to expats so much. They're immigrants who moved abroad, they knew the risk. I'm not saying we should toss them overboard, but the priority needs to be mainland Britain. Giving EU nationals permission to stay would have a positive headline across Europe, reassured everyone who lives here, been a mark against the xenophic aspect of Brexit, and generally closed it down as an issue and a beatstick for anti-Brexiters.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
At a time when European leaders are taking a hard-line and talking about punishing Britain and making us pay for daring to leave to make an example of us, taking the 'moral high ground' is naive and foolish. Why should we? The EU regards British expats as a bargaining chip, and are threatening to send them back.

I don't want any expulsions of EU citizens, they came here legally and should have every right to remain here. They should be offered British citizenship, and/of indefinite leave to remain here on some sort of visa.

But ultimately I care more about British citizens, my own countrymen, the people whose interests our Government is suposed to serve first and foremost. If the EU begins expelling British expats and workers en masse, we need to show them that we're capable of being just as ruthless.

And IMO May has already taken the moral high ground. She offered to guarantee the future of EU citizens on the condition that the EU reciprocates.

Meanwhile, the EU is threatening to send Brits back en masse out of petty spite.

If you can't distinguish where the moral high ground is in those two positions, god help us.

I agree with this.

Any EU citizen, who was in Britain pre-A50 being activated, should have full rights granted to them. I have no problem with that. Those were the rules, and those people came here in good faith.

As should UK workers in Europe.

May has already taken the high ground, by making the offer. Its up to the EU now to reciprocate. The ball is in their court.

You still haven't really answered the question why they should though. It's just saying get on with it, something many Leavers never wanted to do with the EU to allow it to work; and for some actively worked to undermine it. Why should Remainers be any different and not actively undermine the activities of the country whilst outside the EU to encourage the populace to rejoin the EU in 10/20 years. You are expecting Remainers do something that a proportion of Leavers actively did not do. From my perspective 'building a better Britain' is to remain or rejoin the EU.

I have no problem with Remainers peacefully campaigning for Britain to re-join the EU. That is their God given right in our democracy. I think 40 years between referendums is a fair number, as we have the precedent between the 1970s and 2016.

I would say to you though that the idea of a Leave 5th column, bringing down the EU from within, is nonsense IMO.

The EU have shot themselves in the foot many a time without Farage handing them the gun.

God almighty, Farage wasn't even there most of the time so he was hardly in a position to bring down the EU from within.

And at any rate, Remain had a golden opportunity last year to put the EU issue to bed once and for all.

The majority of the British public accepted the leave vote. They would have accepted a Remain vote (and despite being a leaver I would be defending a Remain victory)

Yes, a few leave fanatics would have sniped from the side-lines and banged on about another referendum, , but had the vote been Remain, we would be remaining

The Economist gives an interesting perspective on the Blair initiative.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/bagehot/2017/02/no-third-way?cid1=cust/ddnew/n/n/n/20170217n/owned/n/n/nwl/n/n/UK/email

 Sentinel1 wrote:


If we hadn't gone to war and won it, Germany would still be broadcasting 'Deutsch Wochenschau'.

It was the US and Soviet Union that won the war. A few more years of uboat attacks and we would have had no choice but to capitulate. It was Hitler's (and Japans mistake to attack Pearl Harbour too early) decision to open two fronts that cost them the war. A few more years of being patient and the economical/industrial/military would have been so much more powerful we wouldn't have been able to win and they would have controlled a significant fraction of Europe and Asia. That would have closed off one front (US wouldn't have had a base to start from). The UK got lucky, rather than win.

We rebuilt Germanys industry and laid down the terms for better European co-operation, in fact by the late 50s the average living standard of West Germans was greater than our own.

We didn't rebuild Germany. If anything it was the complete opposite; we spent the first 5-10 years dismantling German industry and taking home the spoils and turn the country into a pastoral/light industry nation (this changed due to the cold war). It was the Marshall Plan (billions of £s worth of loans from the US) that allowed UK/France/Germany to rebuild. We had no money to rebuild our own country never mind any other country!

Hopefully looking back in 10 years and we will say 'we made quite a fuss back then, worrying over nothing'.

It's more likely that our children will turn to us and ask us what the hell we thought we were doing?


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 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:


I have no problem with Remainers peacefully campaigning for Britain to re-join the EU. That is their God given right in our democracy. I think 40 years between referendums is a fair number, as we have the precedent between the 1970s and 2016.

Strictly speaking last time we had a democratic right to affect the EU was with the Lisbon Treaty wasn't it? Just because it wasn't direct democracy doesn't mean we didn't have a say (as we still voted for the Parliament that voted on the issue). Are you quite happy then that 1/2 generations just don't have a say despite the fact that it will likely impact them the most?

 Kilkrazy wrote:
The Economist gives an interesting perspective on the Blair initiative.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/bagehot/2017/02/no-third-way?cid1=cust/ddnew/n/n/n/20170217n/owned/n/n/nwl/n/n/UK/email

Even if he had the cure for cancer, Blair is tainted beyond redemption.

If people want links, I'll provide them, but take my word for this on this one:

When British troops were struggling to control South Iraq after the 2003 invasion, requests for extra troops and better equipment were denied.

Why? Because Blair had been telling a lickspittle British media that everything was going to plan. Sending more troops would have been an admission of failure and made Blair look bad.

The MOD did a very effective job of keeping a lid on the deteriorating situation in Basra and playing down troops requests.

So, for the sake of one man's pride, good men and women had to die...

Never forget that about Blair. Never forget it...

Edit: my source is a book: Ministry of Defeat, the British War in Iraq 2003-2009, by Richard North.

Worth a read IMO.

doubleposted for some reason, please delete.

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
At a time when European leaders are taking a hard-line and talking about punishing Britain and making us pay for daring to leave to make an example of us, taking the 'moral high ground' is naive and foolish. Why should we? The EU regards British expats as a bargaining chip, and are threatening to send them back.

What the EU is saying perfectly reasonable though. The UK can't expect the EU to let the UK out of the club and then given the UK access to all the bits of the club it likes and then not pay or take the bits it doesn't like. That's just selfish, we can't just cherry pick the bits we like. It is not a balanced approach to any of the other members that want to support the EU as a whole (even if that means taking the rough with the smooth). The EU is cagey because as the UK has not guaranteed what it means then it could easily be converted into we'll drop this unless you give us this (e.g. passporting rights, free trade on cars, or whatever).

I don't want any expulsions of EU citizens, they came here legally and should have every right to remain here. They should be offered British citizenship, and/of indefinite leave to remain here on some sort of visa.

I think the home office have already said this is impossible because there is no record of who has already entered the country.

But ultimately I care more about British citizens, my own countrymen, the people whose interests our Government is suposed to serve first and foremost. If the EU begins expelling British expats and workers en masse, we need to show them that we're capable of being just as ruthless.

It's more complicated than this. The EU works on giving all it's citizens the same rights as anyone else, that's one of it's fundamental ideals. If those citizens in the EU already here were granted amnesty to stay indefinitely that is unfair on other EU citizens. What happens if they go back to the EU for three months to look after a sick relative? Does that invalidate their right to remain? How does health work - there are a lot of elderly expats in Spain; should Spain pay for their increasing health care costs or the UK? There won't be any mass expulsions (that's just exaggerated thinking), but UK citizens may have to obtain visas just like any other citizen from a non-EU country for extended periods of stay. You have to remember that it is the UK that is leaving and must come up with proposals. Currently I think the best option is from the EU though - that UK citizens can pay to remain an EU citizen which gives them all the same rights as any other EU citizen.

And I don't think the EU cares about looking evil. Just take what they're doing to Greece for instance.

The EU are trying to save Greece. Greece is in the mess it is because it fudged its financial position (in collusion with banks) so they could join the EU and the Euro. That they are now having to pay for this is not a surprise (once they joined they could have started paying this back, but instead they continued as is). Greece assumed the good times would always role and that their debt could always be managed and that has led them to where they are today.


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 Ketara wrote:
doubleposted for some reason, please delete.

Weirdly it appears to have deleted both posts now...

Anyway the by the end of 1941 the UK was in rough shape. We were losing vastly more merchant shipping than we could afford. It wasn't until mid 1942 to early 1943 that things started turning around but that was way after the US had joined the fray. Hitler also broke the non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union in mid 1941.

*If* he hadn't broken the non-alliance pact (and Japan hadn't gone after pearl habour then all the resources could have been pumped into 'resolving' the Atlantic situation). They were still sinking more merchant shipping that we couldn't replace and we were seriously reliant on imported food and goods (even Churchill noted how serious the situation was). It then becomes a grinding game (just like the allies bombing campaign was later). Eventually the resources to protect and build new convoys would have dried up enough. Given a couple of years you would have had rocket attacks on the SE that couldn't have been retaliated against and that would have been curtains (if we hadn't surrendered from starvation by that point). There was a reason that Churchill wrote "I went to bed and slept the sleep of the saved and thankful" when he heard the news about Pearl Harbour.

The Greeks are in a situation which is also of the EU's devising.

The one size fits all policy regarding finance and banking is detrimental to countries such as Greece. Italy sits on the cliff edge. Portugal and Spain are or have been close.

The EU would be in a strong position had it decided to create a structure to absorb member states toxic assets. It decided that, for example, money into Greece should come straight out in the form of interest on their accumulated debts.

IN addition to servicing debts forever, Greece is told to become competitive.....


.

 Whirlwind wrote:
The UK can't expect the EU to let the UK out of the club and then given the UK access to all the bits of the club it likes and then not pay or take the bits it doesn't like. That's just selfish, we can't just cherry pick the bits we like.

I've never quite understood this sentiment. Cherry-picking is literally the basis of all trade agreements from the major to the minor. I want your Charizard, you want my Ltd Edition Pikachu, so we trade cards. Y'know?

Or on a more macro level, I want to the right to export financial services into your country, and you want tariffs on agricutural products removed. So we make a deal to do that. The more stuff there is to talk about, the bigger the deal gets. But there's no reason two parties can't both cherry pick what they want from the other. If one side regards a point as inviolable, you either strike it from the negotiations and move on, or up your counter-offer to try and sweeten the pot. Only an idiot throws the pot over the side of a bridge and screams 'THERE CAN BE NO DEAL!' if there's still other things both sides want and can negotiate over.


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 Whirlwind wrote:


*If* he hadn't broken the non-alliance pact (and Japan hadn't gone after pearl habour then all the resources could have been pumped into 'resolving' the Atlantic situation). They were still sinking more merchant shipping that we couldn't replace and we were seriously reliant on imported food and goods (even Churchill noted how serious the situation was). It then becomes a grinding game (just like the allies bombing campaign was later). Eventually the resources to protect and build new convoys would have dried up enough. Given a couple of years you would have had rocket attacks on the SE that couldn't have been retaliated against and that would have been curtains (if we hadn't surrendered from starvation by that point). There was a reason that Churchill wrote "I went to bed and slept the sleep of the saved and thankful" when he heard the news about Pearl Harbour.

I'm actually uncertain now of what you're asserting. Is this counter-scenario one where Russia and America both literally never went to war with Germany? Because even in that hypothetical, Germany couldn't have particularly increased U-boat production in '41 above what they did, and by '42 U-boats were gradually being made less and less effective by newer tech. We would never have starved. Given the drubbing the Luftwaffe took over the Battle of Britain, it is doubtful that campaign could have renewed with sufficient ferocity to dominate the British skies, and Sea Lion was a logistical impossibility regardless of Russia/the US.

The likely outcome of the US and Russia not getting militarily involved when they did is a stalemate through 41-43 followed by a peace treaty which more or less confirmed the status quo bar some minor territorial points.