Brexit 5

LOL DJ No it obviously was not the correct link [grin}

Richmond voters give a clear message to this rubbish government.

We do not want a hard Brexit. We are fed up with intolerance and prejudice.

Azie: Being a man or a woman is not relevant to the Brexit debate, nor the need to educate and re-educate ourselves. I have been stimulated to learn from this discussion. The Full Fact website has, for me, underlined that sovereignty has been lost and that some statements, expressed here as fact, are not so.

whitewave: Richmond voters voted 70% Remain, according to the BBC, so it is hard to say that the result is representative of the country. I agree that some of us are fed up with intolerance an prejudice.

A thought occurred to me yesterday. If Germany and France take a lurch to the Right, and the EU is no longer perceived as Liberal, would that alter the views of Remain supporters about the EU? Of course, it's hypothetical. It could never happen, could it?

Strangely enough, Cunco, I think the exact opposite to you, and I have been using fullfact to back me up on here for years.

People are often quoting our Magna Carta as being of supreme importance to our governance, but only three clauses of the Magna Carta still stand, one to do with London, one to do with the church, and the third to do with anyone guilty of a crime to be tried by his/her peers.
That last one has been overturned by this government.

If that can happen to the Magna Carta, what chance does the ordinary person have once all EU laws have been repealed in the Great Repeal Act? I don't fancy Theresa May's legal team having charge over that.

The liberals campaigned on an anti-hard Brexit. That is was the people of Richmond voted for.

They also voted Tory in large numbers in the last election Cunco so this represents a mass vote against the hard-Brexit position of the government. Albeit from affluent people who probably, on average, take a keen interest in the economy and the factors that affect it.
It is also a reduction in a slim government majority.
It is also remarkable that Brexit trumped Heathrow in one of the boroughs most affected. I have relatives living there and there is a procession of aircraft approaching Heathrow at low altitudes, that starts at about 4.30 and keeps going until very late in the evening.
Regarding gender on GN - I reckon I can guess, within a minutes often, when a member is male. Don't know what it is, but men have a a different style of posting.

I don't think those who voted Remain and who are now concerned about the implications of Brexit are necessarily going to change their minds if France and Germany 'lurch right'. Our lives have been vastly improved by EU membership, a fact which has been hidden by the powers that be and the press. The potential cost to the country is going to be crippling, the need to employ thousands of civil servants and lawyers to disentangle 40 years of membership will well outweigh any benefits gained through not paying contributions to Brussels. Never mind bribing companies to stay, the details of which we will never know.

The possible 'lurch right' in France and Germany is led by the same bunch of dull minded, xenophobic, racist thugs who glory in committing hate crimes, as here. Our young people have been done a great misservice, the bright and able, two of mine included, are heading elsewhere. Interesting to see the Richmond result this morning, the Tories may have a poll lead at the moment but I'm not so sure they'd walk away with a victory if an election were held in the near future.

I don't think Brexiteers can tell me which EU laws they want repealed. I'd really like to know.

If sovereignty is thought to be such a good thing that we need to 'take ours back', why were we so keen to take it away from lots of other countries over the centuries?

Quite agree Durhamjen. Excellent questions with no good answers.

Cunco I didn't realise that you were a man, but I do think your posts are clear, logical and not at all personal.
The Lib Dem win in Richmond is a blip because of the high percentage of Remain voters in Richmond.Come a GE it will be another story.

It might not, roses, if every constituency makes it about Brexit and not any other problem. Now we know some of the difficulties that Brexit is going to cause, lots of voters might change their minds.
That's why Brexiteers are scared of another referendum.

If every constituency makes the next GE about Brexit, Ukip will wipe out Labour in much of the North and East Midlands :-( (if they have enough people capable of being an MP).

@Azie

No, I don't think the Conservatives would have an absolute majority. The LibDems might pick up a few of the seats they lost in the last election and Labour is in real danger of losing seats to Ukip. I'm assuming the SNP will hang on to its Scottish seats, but I don't know enough about Scottish politics to know. The Conservatives would probably be the biggest party with Ukip holding the balance of power - frightening thought.

I don't want to go over old ground but several things stated as fact in this thread are shown as not fact in Full Fact. It is a useful source and I thank you for pointing it out.

I am surprised that some view sovereignty as of little importance. I am not sure what our colonial past shows, other than we, like our European neighbours, put our commercial interests ahead of humanity. Countries do some good things and some bad. Taking others' sovereignty was, and is, bad in my view.

The good that we have had from EU membership has hardly been understated by politicians or some sections of the press, particularly during the Referendum campaign. What has been understated economically was finding and exploiting North Sea oil which gave the UK a much needed boost from the 1980's.

Azie says: 'The possible 'lurch right' in France and Germany is led by the same bunch of dull minded, xenophobic, racist thugs who glory in committing hate crimes, as here.' Really? I cannot speak for Germany or France but please name our leaders who glory in committing hate crimes.

Personally, I am not scared of another Referendum. I think it makes a nonsense of the first one and it might just produce the same result. Sadly, in matters of the EU, there is form of having a second Referendum when the people failed to give the right answer first time. I wonder if people in Ireland are now happy that they voted to join the Eurozone at the second time of asking.

What makes me very sad is the inability of people to discuss Brexit to understand the other point of view. Yah-boo politics seems to be the default position. I suppose I am lucky that I have family and friends who voted Remain so to insult the other side would be to insult the ones I love most.

Do you not think people in the North are capable of realising they have been conned, daphne?
What a low opinion you have of us.

The new UKIP leader wants his next referendum to be on capital punishment. We're not all heathens up here.

Leaders who glory in committing hate crime?
Nigel Farage.
Paul Nuttall.

Of course I don't think you're all heathens and not capable of thinking for yourselves, but look up the results of some of the most recent elections and by-elections and referendum result in some of the old industrial small/medium towns and even the suburbs of Manchester and Liverpool, etc. Listen to what the MPs from these places are saying. People aren't being swayed by facts, but by values and beliefs, some of which are based on myths and prejudice.

So what do you think 'sovereignty' means, cunco?

The new UKIP leader knows the voters , when he spoke on the death penalty it was in support of child murderers not all murderers

I had not heard about the proposed return of capital punishment by referendum. That says it all about the downward path I feel we are heading. I have no doubt that the masses, led by The Sun and The Daily Express, would love to see the return of capital punishment, not limited to child murderers.
So how do you define a child? How many retrials and unsafe convictions have there been in the last 50 years? Not enough to convince some that capital punishment is a dodgy, revengeful act. What about those women convicted of killing their children where it subsequently turned out to have been cot death? What about the recent questioning of shaken baby syndrome? I have been on jury service twice and I have seen the unreliability of ordinary citizens to decide beyond their prejudices. Likewise the honesty of the police force, sadly.
I am going away to lie down, beyond believe.

Cunco, do you know about this site?

ukandeu.ac.uk/analysis/

A lot of facts, from experts. Do you like experts, because some leavers don't.

ukandeu.ac.uk/explainers/a-three-minute-guide-to-democracy-and-sovereignty/

My big fat dictionary defines 'sovereignty as 'supreme and independent power'.

I know a little bit about the fallibility of experts, having once been a minor expert myself. In my experience, experts can sometimes tell you about the past and present but, quite often, little about the future. Few experts saw 'The Credit Crunch' coming and, as often as not, one expert will say one thing and another expert will say the opposite. The expert I take most seriously is the electrician who says that, if I put my finger in the socket and turn on the light, I will get a shock.

I do not ignore expert opinion but I have learnt not to accept everything an expert says as gospel. Back in the day, in 1873, Dr Edward Clarke, a Harvard Professor, wrote that it was unwise, even dangerous, to over-educate women because it would make them ill and, potentially, unable to bear children. He was an expert of his day.

I wasn't asking for a dictionary definition of sovereignty. I was asking for your definition in the context of the EU.

Nobody (I hope) expects experts to be infallible, but I cannot accept the contempt shown to anybody with any knowledge by some people. At least experts have the background to argue and discuss with insight.

If you suspect that an expert is wrong, the sensible thing to do is to inform yourself and argue from a position of knowledge. Have you, by any chance, found an 'alternative' Full Fact?

@Azie Support for the return of capital punishment has never gone away. Polls show almost half the population supports it and sometimes even more. Yes, it's frightening.

This is the only person who knows the future for Brexit, guided by God.

politicalscrapbook.net/2016/11/god-me-will-help-me-guide-brexit-theresa-may-says-in-interview/

The comments are worth reading, too.