Anarchy in the UK? When politicians ignore the electorate.

MaizieD you say ‘the Brits disapprove of’.....
Are you not a ‘Brit’ yourself then? This explains a lot.

No, we are not as militant ( hotheaded) as the French, but if
MP’s still go on ignoring the results of the referendum and their own constituences in many cases then they will pay the price.
The only civil unrest I can see will come from angry Remainers when we leave.

Nonnie I was responding to crystal tips question

" It is hard to know what the Brexit supporters who are claiming MPs are trying to thwart Brexit actually want?

But Lazigirl we are in this situation because we had a referendum.

POGS and what to Leave voting MPs want?

What do the Remain voting MP's want?

Some are for Remain full stop.

Some say they respect the Referendum ( hmm) but want a good deal.

Some say they want a Norway Deal

Some want a 2nd Referendum.

Some say they don't want a 2nd Referendum

On and on it goes.

The worse thing for a divided country, which ours was even before the referendum, is to have a referendum, which further polarises and entrenches views. In our type of representational democracy, we vote for MPs to do the decision making. If we don't like it we are able get rid of them. Imperfect it may be but this is parliament taking control. How "democratic" is it to waive this system because of in party fighting, and ask the people to decide, on such a complex question, that will have far reaching and possible detrimental effects on our country? It depends how you determine what is democracy, and what type of democracy we want.

It is hard to know what the Brexit supporters who are claiming MPs are trying to thwart Brexit actually want? Is it Theresa May’s deal? Norway style? Or just no deal? Leave voters are as split as anyone on this. There is no consensus. So what do they want MPs to do? Back May’s deal? Back Boris or whoever? There’s so many options no one is going to be happy. The government have been spectacularly weak on this so blaming parliament brings us into dangerous territory do they really want some kind of military coup/ civil war? This seems to be what the brextremists are threatening. What happened to the idea of parliamentary sovereignty?

Good post Maizie

It is all so depressing, however you voted.

We have a parliament in disarray at a time when a respectful intelligent and considered approach is needed. All parties are in a mess.

I wonder what David Cameron is doing today? - relaxing in luxury with his family? Sigh.

Sorry, first paragraph of extract from Cohen's article is unformatted.

Nick Cohen in the Observer today:

^he secret history of modern Britain is made in obscure corners between men and women taken seriously by no one but themselves. A good time to begin it would be in the winter of 2013/14 when the Institute of Economic Affairs, a rightist outfit that won’t reveal where its money comes from, offered a €100,000 prize to whoever could devise a means of leaving the European Union.

The reason why politicians are now stumbling towards disaster like prisoners marching to the scaffold ought to have been clear from that moment. Obviously, Britain can leave the EU, but only if it is willing to pay an extortionate price. Yet first the institute’s judges, led by Nigel Lawson and Gisela Stuart, then the Leave campaigns of Boris Johnson, Nigel Farage and Dominic Cummings and, finally, Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn, who even now cannot speak plainly, have refused to acknowledge the harsh truth.

As if to anticipate their failings, the winning entry came from a minor functionary in the British embassy in Manila by the name of Iain Mansfield. He brushed away the difficulties of leaving the EU and offered us our first helping of unicorn cake. Britain, he declared, could enjoy the free movement of capital and goods in the single market, he announced, but stop the free movement of labour.

His triumph marked an ominous moment. Until 2013, even rightwing politicians accepted that they could not have the best of all possible worlds. Britain was tied into an integrated European economy. No government could wrench it away in a couple of years. Britain would have to stay in the customs union, as Liam Fox said in 2012. The most significant thinker in the Brexit movement went further. Richard North, the advocate of “Flexcit”, warned that, as a sudden departure would wreck people’s lives, Britain would have to be like Norway and stay in the single market, “at least in the medium term”, as it dedicated many years, maybe more than a decade, to flexible negotiations about a future arrangement.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jan/26/brexiters-never-had-a-real-exit-plan-no-wonder-they-avoided-the-issue?CMP=share_btn_tw

If anyone read the Ivan Rogers lecture I started a thread on you will find that Cohen expands on one of his themes.

It's no use Leavers moaning about obstructive Remainers. The fact is that there is absolutely no easy way to disentangle the UK from the treaties and legal frameworks that comprise the EU. And the fact that the instigators of the Leave campaigns had absolutely no plan as to how leaving was going to be achieved. They just whipped up a frenzy of emotional negatives (a considerable number of them being untrue) about the EU and threw in a few airy fantasies, like 'we'll still be able to participate in the single market'. They didn't bother to explain how very complex leaving the EU would be. Could it be that they really hadn't given it a thought before raising completely unrealistic expectations in the minds of Leave voters?

There won't be "Anarchy in the UK" not while there are enough pubs, and supermarkets stock cheap booze. However if Brexit increases the price of alcohol or disrupts the supply WATCH OUT!!!!

I think that I'm fairly unusual (well I am if GN is anything to go by) in having friends on both sides of the Leave/Remain debate who are able to talk about their views and listen to the opposing view without rancour. Initially each side seemed fairly entrenched, but as time has gone on there seems to be a consensus that what was voted on was a concept and that it is reasonable now to return to the country with a strategic plan that the country can vote on.
Whatever the outcome of the present situation I do believe that there will continue to be undercurrents of civil unrest for some time to come.

If Brexit went through and then we had another referendum after two years there would still be a lot of vociferous people saying facts were scaremongering even though some companies and institutions have actually left Britain and moved headquarters and manufacturing abroad and more are planning such moves.
After two years should people realise they have made a huge mistake it would be too late to turn the clock back. Even if Brexit were stopped now immeasurable damage has already been done and will take years to repair some of the damage. Other countries would take a long time to ever trust the word of the U.K.

the S Times reports aggressive talk of the govt's apparent readiness to invoke martial law to quash possible civil unrest in the event of no deal.

Not much different from authoritarian dictatorships in countries whose governance the Brits disapprove of, then?

Parliament is split, the PM has had 2 years to resolve the impasse, the views of the leavers & remainers based on the referendum are incompatible, nobody knew the full truth of what Brexit meant & we still don’t. Which is why we go back to square one or alternatively a new vote explicitly based on true facts of knowing exactly what leaving will mean for future generations not for the likes of me at my time of life.

I have never felt so low as I do today about the state of the country. A letter in the "i" yesterday made the valid point that ministers who oppose a second referendum on the grounds that the nation has already decided now ask MPs to vote a second time on a deal that was far more comprehensively defeated two weeks ago. Today the S Times reports aggressive talk of the govt's apparent readiness to invoke martial law to quash possible civil unrest in the event of no deal.

Martial law! Is this really what Brexiteers are prepared to see happen rather than a general election?

Jane what if we had a vote based upon known outcomes and Leavers had a resounding win? I think that would stop the unrest and Remainers would accept it. At the moment we have a situation where about half the population is very unhappy and feel that the vote should have been null and void. I think the only way to solve it is to ask the electorate to vote on the facts.

I don't think another vote would be any more conclusive. I think Theresa's deal is the best compromise which is all we could hope for. Both sides not happy but at least we could then get on. There'll be problems to deal with but there always are.

I think it must be very difficult for our politicians if they take into account how close the vote was. So far I haven't seen much thought given to about half the population who didn't want to leave. The only way to prevent more bad feeling is to allow everyone to vote on the deal or stay.

Of course we won't go round in yellow vests, we would have to buy them I think French motorists are obliged to carry one in their car.

So true.

I think when it comes to taxation I rely on the facts and what ' brings in the most revenue '. What is tax for if not raising funds.!

There are of course two patterns of thought .

A). Tax the rich till they bleed , ba----s , we will get them.

B). Keep taxation as low as possible for all to encourage payment not avoidance.

The facts show that the latter method has a higher ' tax return ' and I do not care about class warfare I will go for the method that brings in the most money required for government spending.

As for the G J , indeed any demonstrations , they start out with passion but stand the risk of quickly being taken over by activists and anarchists who travel from country to country and will use any march/demo to cause destruction and civil unrest.

When a march/demonstration is about finance what is the sense in causing destruction and economic losses to prove a point?

In the UK we are not as passionate about protests and demonstrations as out French neighbours, there protests regularly get violent and out of hand.

I agree David. I do think our politicians are relying on the people to give up without a fight, to take the path of least resistance and accept that they knew what was best for us, and that the democratic will of the people was worthless.

The gap widens.

I

It was reported on BBC news this morning that the top 1% of earners pay 28% of all revenue collected by HMRC.

So calls of “tax the rich” are somewhat misplaced.

Everyone wants change as long as it does not affect them personally,
In the UK we are not as passionate about protests and demonstrations as out French neighbours, there protests regularly get violent and out of hand. Macron has been genuinely trying to create a more equal society and in trying to increase taxation so that more could be spent on social services, ran headlong into fuel price protests.
The reality is that to raise any significant taxation revenue it has to apply to the majority of tax payers not just the wealthy. The rich minority will not protest of course but they will find ways of avoiding tax and even live overseas if that suits them. We see this all the time in the UK where celebrities set themselves up as companies to avoid tax and top sports persons go and live in Monaco or some other haven. Capital taxation sounds popular but as soon as tax changes are made the value of the asset falls and you can only tax a wealthy property owner if he actually makes a profit on the sale.

As the weeks go by and the March deadline for Brexit grows ever closer, it seems that almost every day there is an MP doing his or her best to thwart the process and ensure the Government's hands are tied. It would appear they want us to remain in the EU, to continue paying billions for the dubious 'privilege' and for the UK to be part of a customs union with all that entails. Leave means Remain to many MPs.

When a Remainer PM is at the helm one has to wonder why she gave away do much of our negotiating power?

If they (politicians) miscalculated people’s position on the EU, then we have no guarantee that the gamble on the people’s willingness to remain compliant in the face of further broken promises and the dishonouring of a clear democratic instruction will go unanswered

Political failure has consequences about which the elite seems to have given no thought whatsoever

I can feel the anger building in friends, colleagues, and in any discussion where our MPs are discussed. They are losing the support of the public. I know of Remainers who are saying the obstacles put in place by our own MPs to hinder a smooth Brexit are becoming ridiculous. As our traitorous MPs cling to Brussels, their negotiators and diplomats can only be sneering at us. Are we happy to accept crumbs from their table in future? (Oh, and of course the taxpayer will pay for them, and they are seriously expensive crumbs, as we all know. Billions every year.)

Many of us have lost the will to live, regarding Brexit. It's become a farce. However, MPs should be watching their backs. The people tend not to forget - or do they, and is this what our politicians are banking on?