Article 50 trigger 29th March

Yes, we have had this before.....and it wasn't half of the 17 million Leave voters, but a poll of about 800 Leave voters if memory serves me well.So that's under half of that number, responding to a tick box survey.

I am sure someone will have mentioned this before but I hadn't come across it until the wonderfully funny Now Show mentioned it. This You Gov poll was published on what is ironically (at least I hope it is) Brexit Day.

Half of Leave voters want to bring back the death penalty after Brexit

Unfortunately DJ I think this Brexit will unleash many things which people had no idea about and did not want to happen. There are many side effects of the vote happening already but be too late by the time the penny drops.

I was reading a thread this morning on a European thread and Brits are really the laughing stock of Europe and they have realised how the situation will affect the travel of Brits to the EU for holidays etc - visas etc.

A different look at the sort of Brexit we want, clean or dirty.
"The UK is already the tailpipe of Europe."

www.opendemocracy.net/uk/brexitinc/brendan-montague/clean-brexit-dirty-brexit-is-this-last-exit-before-armageddon

Do we want to remain so?

I was dreading someone else would think similar thoughts to me!!! Just hoping maybe you thought he just had too much time and money! Mind you he has that too!

Banks, we should suspect, wants UK to be a low-taxation, low-regulation economy with few workers rights in which capitalism can let rip. I assume he fancies himself as the Moseley of the digital age and may aspire to the highest office. Stranger things have happened, with less planning, investment and forethought. It is safe to assume he is also a racist, unless the demonisation of immigrants is a purely cynical divide and rule strategy to bring about Brexit.
Racist or not, in Bank's post Brexit fascist economy there will be many third world immigrants who are more easy to exploit than Europeans migrating under the umbrella of EU protection for workers rights.

I am sure that all of us have important things to worry about -health, relationships, money, the meaning of life.

But none of this means that we do not care about the future of our country. The threat of brexit is a huge cloud hanging over us all. Those of us who worry about the future for the sake of our children and grandchildren must find a way of making our voices heard before it is too late.

But do you watch foreign news channels - the news is sometimes given a different slant.

Brexit is far from all I have to worry about in my life - it is far from being that small but it is an extra worry I could do without. You are lucky if it does not have you worried at all.

No need to be patronising - of course I watch the news and read some of the comments by EU nationals.

Am I correct in thinking you're an ex-pat, Weshwife?

i'm glad you've got nothing more important to worry about in your life than the effect Brexit will have on you...

Perhaps you would have some idea if you read some Foreign newspapers, watched news or read some of the websites where EU nationals are relating some of the things which have happened to them. Many are applying for jobs in other parts of the EU as they have no confidence in staying in UK and others have friends or family who no longer intend moving to UK. This is all due to the change as they see it in the atmosphere of the U.K. since last June.

Why on earth should they be anything but? What is this 'shame' some people feel about the vote to leave the EU and 'how we appear' to other EU countries?

I think the people on mainland Europe realise we do not all want Brexit Azie - they are still nice to us here in France - the referendum was just after the Euro Football tournament and the local bar/restaurant owner said to us when we went in -'England lose two times this week! '. We just agreed with him.

Lucky enough many of the MEPs realise too - you only need to watch them speaking in the Parliament to see that.
You come over if you feel likeit Azie people will be nothing but nice to you!

Has anyone sussed out what his end aim is? - presumably he has one.

I am another awake in the middle of the night worrier Azie

Yes whitewave it is a worry. Democracy is beginning to lose its meaning and sadly many simply don't realise or can't cope with grappling with the implications. I think the growth of these rich and clever people with no morals is alarming. I don't know enough about European politics to know whether there are similar lurking but it does seem that the UK and the US are a fertile breeding ground.

Worrying isn't it azie Democracy is the loser.

And I know some of you read the interview with Aaron Banks in last week's Observer but I keep going back to it because I can't believe what he said:

He's the biggest political donor in British political history. He poured £7m into the Leave campaign, more than any other donor. He donated his office space, computer equipment and senior staff. And now he and Farage and other cronies are aiming to 'dislodge' all bad MPs, meaning those who voted Remain. He is working with Steve Hilton, David Cameron's former head of strategy to come up with a points system which grades these MPs and from that he'll formulate a 'target list of the most hated people' and then fund the campaign to remove them.

He enjoys telling how he 'won' the Leave campaign - "as businessmen, we sat down with a clean sheet of paper and said 'how do we beat these people (i.e. the Remain campaign) and we figured out how the mainstream media works and we turned it back on them.....we spent £12-14m on the campaign. We calculated what our column inches and TV coverage was worth. It was over £150m."

Banks claims that he doesn't give a monkey about the Electoral Commission and any investigations they carry out, "we were cleverer than the regulators and the politicians, of course we were."

The article goes on to talk about the large scale collection and manipulation of personal data and the way in which this is totally changing the face of elections. In future it's going to be who has the money and power to control what gets published and seen. Some won't understand this, some will find it hard to believe. Perhaps I have a head start because my husband is working on the edges of this field.

Banks says "we know everything about everyone. We buy everything. The battle for data is where the next election will be fought." It's already happening with Brexit.

Wearily returning to see where this thread is going, some good points being made by the previous posters about the way the triggering of Article 50 is being handled. I agree! It's the same old sleight of hand, hiding that nothing is yet final and insisting that if you don't want to agree with Brexit then you are unpatriotic, hate your country and so on. Or that you are merely being negative if you are worried about the consequences, I am sometimes kept awake by worrying about it and have now resorted to only sometimes reading the news!

I can't help feeling bemused (in place of extreme irritation) at the way the BBC is being attacked for not being impartial in its coverage of the Referendum and Brexit. Meanwhile the DM and the tabloids publish lies and nonsense and nothing is done about it. And let's not get onto the way that appalling man Farage is behaving. I am beginning to think I'll never go to mainland Europe again because I am ashamed that anyone would think I shared the same nationality as that man.

The blog quoted by dj is not the only source of legal opinion about Article 50 NOT being irrevocable, but since the referendum most of the media, not just the right wing press, act as if it is.

How many times have you heard political journalists and TV presenters, treat that as a "fact"? They do not challenge the brexiteers. Often, they start a question by saying "we all know that we're leaving" or "the decision's been made" or "there's no going back", before moving on to some point of detail.

Theresa May has taken that to the most extreme position and the only real challenge is from the Liberal Democrats who are asking for the negotiated terms to be put to the people by means of a referendum or general election, but even Tim Farron feels obliged to say "we respect the will of the people". Those of us who don't accept the inevitability of brexit should taske a stronger line.

Other EU member states would be very happy I think if we did withdraw A 50.
Did you see QT last night? Once again we were being told how wonderful it will be and any dissent was greeted as being dumbing the country down. No one mentioned that the Medicines agency are now looking to move - about a dozen other cities in EU are wanting to host it.
We are worried about the NHS but no-one yet has mentioned that radiotherapy treatment could be disrupted depending on what happens when we leave Euratom.
I just find it astounding how no Brexiteers appear publicly to acknowledge that there might be problems in certain areas which will need addressing before we actually leave the EU and associated bodies.

How many government front benchers are lawyers?
How many does she listen to?

Yes agree, I thought when May stood up and said amongst other things that " there can be no turning back" that she was wrong or lying. Politically it would be difficult but certainly not impossible.

ukhumanrightsblog.com/2017/04/07/rosie-slowe-article-50-notice-and-implied-conditionality/

This is interesting. We can change our minds on leaving the EU.

"The international trade secretary, who will also visit Malaysia and Indonesia on his trip, said in an article published in local media that he wanted Britain to build a stronger relationship with the Philippines based on “a foundation of shared values and shared interests”.

As Fox visited the Philippines, Theresa May was in Saudi Arabia as part of a wider government effort to shore up the UK’s trading position after Brexit. Speaking to the BBC, she refused to criticise the government’s bombardment of Yemen, which is estimated to have killed more than 10,000 civilians and displaced more than 3 million people. "

Good to know with whom they want to build strong relationships. After all we have much more in common with them than with Europe.

Be patriotic, but do not allow that positive emotion to degenerate into nationalism, which is a destructive political force.

We should all be patriotic, and love our country,

Slightly worrying Varian. I think we all need to see the truth; it's no good kidding ourselves. That doesn't make us bad people or this country a bad country.