Brexit 5

yet productivity in the Uk is dismally low looking at recent figures. No amount of bigging up a few welcome small deals will paper over the huge deficit in the balance of payments and the eye watering estimate of the cost of Brexit - can't remember the exact figure -was it £200m?or billion?

Billion.

The whole excercise is beginning to look more and more like economic suicide with a few right wing raggle taggles trying to make out they know what they are doing.

The Daily Express managed a headline claiming £32 million, possibly billion, bonus from Brexit this week. The very same newspaper/rag claiming Syrian refugees were responsible for rapes, child abuse and death threats last week. So much for misinformation. Brexit isn't about democracy, it's about a power struggle with the likes of Rupert Murdoch, the Barclay brothers (who own the Ritz and the Daily Telegraph), Aaron Banks who spent £7.5 million on the Leave campaign, Richard Tice, a property developer and Leave campaign promoter, others who stand to gain big time from Brexit and various Eurosceptic Tories keen on Brexit. We are but pawns in their game and it's us ordinary folk who pay the price.

Well, we'll be all right now Blair's on the case...

We are not 'pawns' at all, over 17 million voted to leave the EU because we thought it would be better to be shot of it.Our decision, our vote.

Not pawns at all? Not being sacrificed for an ideology?

I thought we lived in a democratic society - obviously that only suits some when the vote goes their way.

We had but one vote each. The likes of Murdoch, the Barclays, Aaron Banks, etc, poured £Millions into persuading others to vote their way in order to secure their own financial gains. Do you really think they were thinking of you when they poured their money into the campaign?

Did Boris and co really care about you and the families of this country and not their own selfish political gains?

Every single one of us will pay the price. The eye watering sum of £2trillion of borrowing P Hammond casually dropped in last Wednesday's budget, will of course have to be paid back by our children and grandchildren.

We need to rethink the propaganda that as the country didn't collapse after the vote,though the currency did, that everything is going to be just fine. Do people really not to realise the difference between the referendum and the reality of Brexit?

Democracy is found in the judgement of the High Court which ruled the executive of 3 MP’s cannot trigger Article 50, only Parliament can.

I think it's quite terrifying to realise that there were no post Brexit plans because the referendum was a ploy to deal with internal Tory party strife and the result was expected to be a no to leaving. It's hardly acceptable behaviour but who can blame Cameron for walking away, he knew perfectly well what the future held. When two former PMs, never mind many others, are coming out in public and just asking if this is wise, I think that is an indication of the level of concern we should be feeling.

I'd be happier if I thought there was any real indication of solid prospects for the future but we have daily speculation around agreements we might make (usually denied by the government of proposed new partners in trade), the government paying companies to stay here and people in the leave camp extolling us to be brave, patriotic and positive on the basis of absolutely no real knowledge of the inside story - and the latter is a good reason for never having held the referendum in the first place. Running a country is not like running a household, not least because international politics regularly gets in the way.

Did anyone see the story released the other day about Thatcher's cabinet wanting to privatise healthcare? According to Geoffrey Howe, it caused a riot in the cabinet but the plans were concrete and she was determined to push it through but failed. That's the kind of thing that goes on that none of us knows about and it's the kind of thing that is part of the reality of politics - playing to the entrenched interests of powerful but hidden players. Prime minister's rhetoric about looking after the JAMS is just chicken feed intended to keep the masses off the street!

www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/nov/25/margaret-thatcher-pushed-for-breakup-of-welfare-state-despite-nhs-pledge

Is this the article you mean, Azie?

Or of course it could have been this one, as so many more people apparently read the DM than the Guardian...

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2699145/Thatcher-tried-sell-NHS-I-blocked-Ken-Clarke-says-rejected-plan-dreadful-American-health-system.html

That doesn't say much for your political knowledge, Ana, if you do not know the difference between Geoffrey Howe and Ken Clarke.

Couldn't care less!

In the debate on the Second reading of the Referendum Bill (voted through by a landslide of most MPs except the Scottish Nationalists), there was a golden opportunity for MPS to insist that plans were in place whatever the Referendum outcome. As far as I can see, nobody did. I find it hard to take criticism now for voting Leave from MPs that voted for a Referendum and did not take the obvious possibility of a Leave vote into consideration.

Euroscepiticsim is not, as some seem to suggest, something new. It probably started in 1960 with Hugh Gaitskill, the Labour leader, and has ebbed and flowed ever since. Its early roots, and major part now, were about sovereignty. Successive governments have passed more and more powers to the EU without referring to the public. When they have asked the public, the majority said Leave.

When the UK voted to Remain in 1975, 33% of the voting public were disappointed but accepted the judgement of the majority. How times change.

i2.wp.com/voxpoliticalonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/161127-Leave-Turkeys-voted-for-Christmas.jpg?resize=768%2C689

In 1975 two thirds of the people who voted voted to remain in the EU. This was a very clear majority, unlike the 48%/52% split in June of this year.

A considerable number of that 33% did not accept the judgement of the large majority and spent the next 40 years working to reverse the decision; despite the fact that the UK did pretty well out of the EU.

And they've probably won now, Maizie. I wonder how many of the 33% ever changed their minds because they realised that we did pretty well out of the EU.

And I've just read this, which supports what what you say.

www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2016/11/25/its-anti-democratic-to-say-that-brexit-has-been-decided-upon-once-and-for-all/

From one of the responses.

'Your point is proven by the simple fact (yes, fact) that the UK having voted in a referendum to join the EU (or common market as it then was) all those decades ago, those who disagreed with this outcome – mostly but not exclusively Tories and those on the right – never stopped arguing and agitating for us to leave. Clearly then they never accepted the result of that referendum so why should the situation be any different for those who voted remain this time around.

If anything can be said to be anti-democratic it is the role being played by the right wing press in seeking to suppress debate on possible interpretations, options and outcomes of Brexit, and alternatives, should the costs (economic, social, cultural, etc) and negative impacts of that course of action on the majority of the citizens of the UK be shown to be, or become, too great.'

'A considerable number of that 33% did not accept the judgement of the large majority and spent the next 40 years working to reverse the decision; despite the fact that the UK did pretty well out of the EU.'

Fact: The Leave campaign in 1975 was largely, but not entirely, led by the Left and the Unions. Tony Benn was prominent and Jeremy Corbyn voted Leave. The Referendum was introduced to the UK by Harold Wilson, Labour PM, to quell unrest in his own party. Mrs Thatcher campaigned to Remain in the EEC in 1975.

'I wonder how many of the 33% ever changed their minds because they realised that we did pretty well out of the EU.'

Some will have but many thought a vote to Remain in the EEC in 1975 was only about joining a Common Market, not about loss of sovereignty and the ultimate aim of 'an ever closer Union'. Some who voted Remain in 1975 say now that they would have voted Leave had they realised the full story. Some over 59 years old voted Leave in 2016 who voted Remain in 1975.

I think too little is understood about the history and strength of Euroscepticism in the UK Electorate because it has been expressed by a relatively small number of MPS. For what they are worth, opinion polls have often shown more scepticism in the country than in Parliament.

A vote to Leave was not about just now but also about the future where the EU is headed for a close political and economic union, if it survives that long. Are Remainers happy to give up more of our ability to govern ourselves to the EU? This is an important issue.

None of us can see the future but we can at least be factual about the past.

I think I read the article about Thatcher and the plan to privatise the NHS in The Times as it happens.

I hate to be pedantic, Cunco but these days, and perhaps always, facts are not set in stone but relate to what is available in the public domain, who has time to research them and research often turns up facts related to the question you asked, i.e. the perspective of the researcher/research organisation!

One of the points made throughout the referendum campaign was that it was about our ability to govern ourselves as opposed to being ruled by the EU. In fact, our Parliament has to debate and agree to every EU regulation that has legal jurisdiction in this country which is why we have vetoed various measures and made ourselves rather unpopular in the EU itself. What laws are there exactly which have been imposed upon us? Actually that's a rhetorical question of course, because there are none.

This is three minutes of a very well argued exchange re the EU and UK law

www.youtube.com/shared?ci=GZyvh0DY69M

Errrmmm, just a point of order, cunco...statistically at least half of those who voted in 1975 are now dead. I was one of the youngest eligible to vote at the time.

PS. I'm very happy to give up the same amount of ability to govern ourselves as we have in the past! So what have we given up, cunco? I remember a load of stuff in 1975 about not being able to buy British sausages any more...or was it bendy sausages?

Thanks for clearing that up, Azie.
That video is brilliant. James O'Brien is just so good at demolishing an argument, by asking the right questions. I watched all seven minutes of it. Definitely worth it.

At what point in the future will all remainers accept the inevitable, that we are leaving the EU, and stop wittering on about percentages.
That is a rhetorical question, as the answer is....never.
The best thing for the country would be to get behind it and support it, we may stay in the single market or not, but whatever happens it will simply be a different way of trading.We are not leaving the continent of Europe, will still have ties there, family, and go for holidays there , but are just leaving a bureaucratic mess which is just as likely to implode in a few years.