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Politics, politics, politics (so long and thanks for all the fish)

With all due respect, that sounds a little bit like backtracking, moving the goalposts...which was pretty much my point.

I've said this before and I'll say it again, the real tragedy of Brexit - whether it happens or not - will be if the main issues that drove it continue to be ignored. And sadly, that is the course I fear we may be on.

Yes Brexit was missold there is no doubt. Not least because an exited UK would need a more RoW migrants than we get now. And the majority of our net migration is from RoW now. In other words something the EU have never influenced. Plus EU work migrants tend to go home RoW ones tend to stay.
 
In general I agree with you, and my gut feeling suspicion is that this extends to a very large portion of the activist remain movement in the UK too.

@SpurMeUp makes a lot of sense with his 'remain and reform' argument - the problem is that, in reality, it simply wouldn't happen.

A fair point. It depends what it is you wish to change. Ultimatley, if it is something that is popular accross all the 28 nations then you will have traction. Free movement has been an issue in the EU, mainly around illegal immigrants. No easy solutions tho. The EU already pays Turkey to take some of these people and stop them entering the Euro-zone. I think they might be doing something similar in N. Africa. Its controversial. Seen as palming off the issue.
 
Do you think we, as a nation, are blaming the EU for these British peoples actions? For example, the UK not doing what Germany and France did, and opting out of free movement for the new EU nations for the first 5 years or so? Which must have had the effect of funneling more people into the UK.

NO I think the people will channel that to the right people, we are not thick.

Someone mentioned on here the other day about racial tension since Brexit but is this all a one way thing? David Lammy in my opinion is hugely divisive and creates more tension in society when it is not always there, Diana Abacus would in some way be the same. The Extreme right is a major player in this no doubt but are there people like Lammy, Abbott and Khan who are making the split bigger than it is for political point scoring?

Like I said yesterday I live in South London and the major issue here is not interracial tension its same race crime which is going through the roof. I see the stats in London which reports the same across the borough which the aforementioned seem to never discuss, they seem to want to discuss and promote this racial tension.

I am not saying more does not need to be done in the respect of race relations, racism is a filthy business, but again are the politicians fanning the flames to a problem that is not as bad as they say and in the process making it worse?

You can't keep jabbing at the honest white man with broad stroke of the racist stick and expect them to not get sick to death and some what disillusioned when young 14 year old black kids are killing each other in knife attacks.
 
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2019/09/13/eu-pale-stale-illiberal/

Presenting her EU Commission nominees to reporters, president-elect Ursula von der Leyen said: “This is the team, as diverse as Europe, as strong as Europe.” Every single one of them was white.

Didier Reynders, tipped for justice commissioner, has been known to black up as part of the Noirauds festival in Brussels. When asked about it in 2015, he explained that the tradition dated back to 1876 and he couldn’t understand the fuss. Ms von der Leyen was almost as tone deaf when she decided to create a portfolio named “Protecting our European Way of Life”. Was the specific European quality she was looking for “dog-whistle racism?”

The EU has often failed to pin down European identity. It doesn’t include Christianity: that was excluded from the Lisbon Treaty. It doesn’t have much to do with democracy: Ms von der Leyen didn’t even campaign publicly for her position; she was nominated by the European Council. Let’s not pretend the EU is about the free market either.

Within the community there is a single, if highly regulated, market but it still sits behind a tariff wall. Given that Brussels is currently threatening Britain with a trade war if we don’t get a withdrawal agreement, it seems the European brotherhood extends only to those who are part of the club. Nations that dare to look to the wider world for trade and security are traitors.

Such paranoia is entirely to be expected of a project in decline. Guy Verhofstadt opined that the future would be dominated by “empires” – China, India, America – and thus the only way for Europe to survive was by clubbing together, which is not a million miles from the kind of apocalyptic “death of the West” nonsense published at the beginning of the 20th century. It’s an outlook completely lacking in innovation, curiosity and generosity. It also begs the question: what do so many British Remainers see in the EU?

They are the first people to claim that Brexit is taking Britain back to the Fifties, and yet the UK is genuinely, comfortably diverse, as the Conservative cabinet shows. If Donald Trump had appointed a cabinet member for preserving the American way of life, many Remainers would howl that it was proof positive of his racism – so where is the outrage at Ms von der Leyen’s Commission? The EU project is draped in hypocrisy. It poses as liberal; in reality, it is introspective and stuck in a different century.

So the EU is not politically correct. And? The EU doesn't have a strong concept of European identy. So? The EU is about a free market that protects its own businesses and people. What's the problem? Is this article trying to sell the EU to leavers?
 
The EU was a free market. Now it's a protectionist state with a heavy trend towards socialism.

It also restricts and balances markets so the real dire members like Italy and co don't get left behind by other member state who would otherwise leave it in their wake.

I suppose in the spirit of being a good sport we should be all for it but I would prefer those member states that have the opportunity to move forward further to do so and leave the weak behind.
 
Lib Dem leader Jo Swinson believes she can become Prime Minister and scupper Brexit – despite having just 3% of MPs.

With a general election expected before Christmas, the party chief claimed she could oust Boris Johnsonand beat Jeremy Corbyn to No10, before torpedoing EU withdrawal.

She leads just 17 MPs, five of whom defected after being elected for other parties.

Speculation is rife another – possibly ex-Tory Heidi Allen - could defect to the Lib Dems and be unveiled at tomorrow night's opening rally.

Ms Swinson insisted the unprecedented political chaos could propel her into Downing Street.

Speaking exclusively to the Mirror as her party gathers in Bournemouth for its annual conference, she said: “Our polling suggests there are hundreds of seats where Liberal Democrats are in contention now.

“We are looking at an entirely different type of election to any previous circumstance and that's why our level of ambition is on a different scale.

“It's just incomparable to how we have faced previous elections.”

Asked if she thought she could become PM, she said: “Absolutely – and what's more, I think I would be a better Prime Minister than either Boris Johnson or Jeremy Corbyn.

“I say that with complete confidence because I don't think either of them is up to the job.”

The Lib Dems returned their highest ever total of MPs in 2005 when, led by Charles Kennedy, they won 62 seats.

Ten years later, they sank to just eight.

But Ms Swinson denied she was setting herself up to fail with her target to become PM.

“I could set myself a little target and say, 'I want us to get 40 or 50 MPs and if we do that I'll be happy',” she said.

“But if we do that and we come out of the EU and we don't keep the UK together then I won't be happy.

“So I'd rather say, 'This is what I actually want to achieve and let's try and do that, and let's not worry about the possibility of failure'.

“Let's believe that we can do this and let's go for it – because if we don't do that, and if the Liberal Democrats don't do that, then nobody else is going to and then we are just giving up.”

She added: “I'm not naïve, I recognise that this is ambitious – but I do think the seismic change in politics makes it possible.”

Ms Swinson refused to say whether she would prop up the Conservatives or Labour in another hung Parliament – nor would she reveal the price of her support.

“At the moment, both Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn want to deliver Brexit – Brexit is fundamentally contrary to the values we stand for,” she said.

“It is therefore inconceivable to understand how you could reach an accommodation.”

Ms Swinson succeeded Sir Vince Cable as party leader in July and has been in charge during what she describes as a “pretty intense time in politics”.

The 39-year-old was the “baby of the House” - the youngest MP – when she was first elected in 2005, aged just 25.

She served as Business Minister in the Tory-Lib Dem coalition but lost her East Dunbartonshire seat in the 2015 Lib Dem bloodbath, before winning it back two years later.

“We obviously made mistakes,” she said of the alliance with the Conservatives, citing the Bedroom Tax and the tuition fees' betrayal.

“We made a promise and we shouldn't have broken it.”

But the ongoing Brexit fiasco has triggered a Lib Dem revival, with 120,000 members signed-up and the party coming second in May's European elections with 20.3% of votes.

Her targeting of Remain supporters worries some senior Labour figures who fear she will strip key backing from Mr Corbyn's party.

He is unable to say whether he would campaign for Remain or a Labour-negotiated Brexit deal at a second referendum.

A Labour source said of Ms Swinson: “She’s comes across as really reasonable, I think it will resonate.”

While she demands a second Brexit referendum three years after the first, the Glaswegian would deny Scots a second vote on separation.

Supporting another EU ballot, she said: “At what point did this idea take root that democracy is a fixed point in time and only a snapshot on a particular day is what matters?
“People do change their minds on things when they get more information.”

But ruling out another Scottish border poll, she said: “I don't support a second independence referendum in Scotland. I want to see Scotland in the United Kingdom.”

Denying a contradiction, she added: “I am doing what I think is right for our country.”

Mum-of-two Ms Swinson has majority of only 5,339 and, despite her claim the Lib Dems are competing in hundreds of constituencies, she admitted she did not “take anything for granted”.

She added: “I know what it is like to lose my seat – and to fight to win it back.”

But she believes all is to play for as another general election – the third in just over four years – looms.

“We are basically facing a question about who we are as a country and, when you have got the Conservative and Labour parties unable to really engage with that and divided, I think that is a fundamental reason why people have not just been moving as voters and as members and activists of parties, but at MP level as well,” she said.

“We are more ambitious than we have ever been before and that all bodes well.

“There is a lot to do so I am very aware of the scale of the challenge we face and absolutely determined to meet it.”
 
Yes Brexit was missold there is no doubt. Not least because an exited UK would need a more RoW migrants than we get now. And the majority of our net migration is from RoW now. In other words something the EU have never influenced. Plus EU work migrants tend to go home RoW ones tend to stay.

Only if we continue to operate like an EU member and bend over for the corporations.
 
It also restricts and balances markets so the real dire members like Italy and co don't get left behind by other member state who would otherwise leave it in their wake.

I suppose in the spirit of being a good sport we should be all for it but I would prefer those member states that have the opportunity to move forward further to do so and leave the weak behind.
Where's the incentive to reform and improve if we just prop up the broken states?
 
Nah I'm not woke to that. What a load of hipster bull brick.
You don't think it's odd that in brexit the Tories have become champions of the working classes and the state, while labour are promoting the interests of big business? A complete reversal of traditional assumptions
 
You don't think it's odd that in brexit the Tories have become champions of the working classes and the state, while labour are promoting the interests of big business? A complete reversal of traditional assumptions
The working classes? LOL. Saying fudge business doesn't really mean that.
 
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