[Politics] Brexit

[Bladders]

Some MP from Totnes nobody has ever heard of outside of her constituency,is gambling on a Remain vote to land her a big job after the vote by swapping sides.Good luck after the vote with your local party activists.

I was in Totnes last week, you ever been?

It's like the 1960's hippy movement never ended.

Weird place

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

I'm worried about Soulman. He seems to have disappeared since he was asked to justify this 'Vote remain and you're a Hitler apologist' contribution to the debate.

I guess he's either been banned, or is lying low as he realises he's been a complete and utter tit?

(Now expect that tiresome Bladders idiot to post, in his usual reverse rebuttal style as that's the only line he has, "I'm surprised you aren't lying low")

 

[Bladders]

I guess he's either been banned, or is lying low as he realises he's been a complete and utter tit?

(Now expect that tiresome Bladders idiot to post, in his usual reverse rebuttal style as that's the only line he has, "I'm surprised you aren't lying low")

I'm actually glad you're back! You skulked off last night like a cat on a hot tin roof.

You've been taking a lot of abuse on this thread, some deserved but I'm sure in the real world you're a thoroughly nice chap.

So, when you inviting me to Berlin to try one of their famous tasty looking burgers?

 

[LlcoolJ]

All Remain are doing is turning a very bad situation that we have zero control over, flipping it around and brushing it all over as scaremongering. Not having go at you, you didn't write the article, but honestly if you listened to Remain all the time all those boats turning up in the EU must all be in our imagination.

Not sure what this has to do with the fact that Johnson and co are lying about Turkey being imminently granted membership to the EU.

They aren't and if they ever were it would be when they'd fulfilled the 35 criteria of which they've currently managed 1.

It's simply not true, but they are continuing to say that it is. How is that not scaremongering?

As I've said before, I'm no fan of Cameron or Osborne and some of the crap that they've come out with is embarrassing but both campaigns are doing the same thing.

So it's right that Johnson is called out for lies and racism when he's lying and being a racist just as it's correct that Osborne is called out for financial illiteracy when he's spinning numbers as meaning one thing when they're actually another.

Nothing either side could say will influence my decision but it's quite pathetic that some people are saying "all this side are liars, all the other side are right" (not meaning you, other posters). Yeah ok.

Cameron never wanted a referendum but offered it to stay in power, Johnson switched sides to suit his career, Osborne is a lying scumbag and Farage is a horrible racist dick who tries to make out that he's not. For anyone to say they implicitly trust any of these people they must be blinkered to the point of stupidity.

 

[Gwylan]

All Remain are doing is turning a very bad situation that we have zero control over, flipping it around and brushing it all over as scaremongering. Not having go at you, you didn't write the article, but honestly if you listened to Remain all the time all those boats turning up in the EU must all be in our imagination.

You clearly didn't read the article. It was purely about the possibility of Turkey becoming a member of the EU and pointing out, quite correctly, that the zero chance of this happening for several decades. But, more pertinently. decrying Johnson and Gove for playing on these fears as the pair of them know full well that Turkey's accession to the union is impossible for some time to come.

And the FT is right, it's fundamentally dishonest and goes far beyond the fiddling with statistics that the Remain camp is doing.

 

[Jim in the West]

Why bother reading the FT-you've already put the article on here.Remainers slag off the tabloids for appealing to the lowest common denominator in the Leave camp.How is this tat any different, appealing to the same type in the Remain camp?

I thought it was worth reading, that's all. One reason is the FT is the only national paper which doesn't have a formal political view. If you read the Sun, Times, Telegraph, Mail or Express you know exactly what you're going to get. Similarly if you read the Guardian or the Mirror. With the FT it's different.

 

[Gwylan]

I thought it was worth reading, that's all. One reason is the FT is the only national paper which doesn't have a formal political view. If you read the Sun, Times, Telegraph, Mail or Express you know exactly what you're going to get. Similarly if you read the Guardian or the Mirror. With the FT it's different.

Don't agree with that. The FT is generally centre-right and firmly pro EU. It backed the Conservatives in the last two elections but has been very actively for Remain in the referendum

 

[lawros left foot]

1936 - Adolf Hitler uses the expression ‘United States of Europe’ to describe his plan for a united Europe
1940 - Reichsmarschall Herman Goering coins the name ‘European Economic Community’
1940 - Walther Funk submitted to Hitler plans for an ‘Economic Reorganisation of Europe’ and proposes a single European currency
1942 - Reinhard Heydrich published ‘The Reich Plan for the Domination of Europe’ which later became ‘The Treaty of Rome’
1943 - Thirteen countries are invited to join a European Federation working under German military control
1944 - A German conference is held in Strasbourg to discuss how Germany will dominate the peace when the war ends.
Strange, eh?
Yet our government would have us believe in the European project

Winston Churchill, a former army o cer, war reporter and British Prime Minister (1940-45 and 1951-55), was one of the rst to call for the creation of a ‘United States of Europe’. Following the Second World War, he was convinced that only a united Europe could guarantee peace. His aim was to eliminate the European ills of nationalism and war-mongering once and for all.Winston Churchill, a former army o cer, war reporter and British Prime Minister (1940-45 and 1951-55), was one of the rst to call for the creation of a ‘United States of Europe’. Following the Second World War, he was convinced that only a united Europe could guarantee peace. His aim was to eliminate the European ills of nationalism and war-mongering once and for all.Winston Churchill, a former army o cer, war reporter and British Prime Minister (1940-45 and 1951-55), was one of the rst to call for the creation of a ‘United States of Europe’. Following the Second World War, he was convinced that only a united Europe could guarantee peace. His aim was to eliminate the European ills of nationalism and war-mongering once and for all.

 

[heathgate]

Major and Blair again today..They've said Brexit could "threaten Northern Ireland's current stability", clearly implying Brexit could restart the troubles. Absolutely disgraceful. They know it's completely untrue but it's a great way to scare people.

Sent from my SM-G920F using Tapatalk

 

[Horton's halftime iceberg]

Major and Blair again today..They've said Brexit could "threaten Northern Ireland's current stability", clearly implying Brexit could restart the troubles. Absolutely disgraceful. They know it's completely untrue but it's a great way to scare people.

Sent from my SM-G920F using Tapatalk

Yes although it is our only solid border with Europe, talk of having to build check points again and lots of movements to get shopping petrol etc if prices spike other way. I was under the impression Northern Ireland is very pro Remain.

I didn't realise like the SNP wanting a referendum, Sinn Fein also want to call for another Ireland Unity vote if we leave, so Unionists are very behind remain.

 

[Bold Seagull]

Yes although it is our only solid border with Europe, talk of having to build check points again and lots of movements to get shopping petrol etc if prices spike other way. I was under the impression Northern Ireland is very pro Remain.

I didn't realise like the SNP wanting a referendum, Sinn Fein also want to call for another Ireland Unity vote if we leave, so Unionists are very behind remain.

The relationship between the two would have to change I presume, Ireland in the EU, NI would not be, you couldn't just carry on with the status quo. Might not destabilise the peace agreement, but might destabilise the economic relationship. Scotland appears to be a majority to remain, so if their vote is significantly remain, then a leave result would no doubt trigger another referendum for them. Not sure this is scaremongering, just looking at the reality of an exit.

 

[JC Footy Genius]

Major and Blair again today..They've said Brexit could "threaten Northern Ireland's current stability", clearly implying Brexit could restart the troubles. Absolutely disgraceful. They know it's completely untrue but it's a great way to scare people.

Sent from my SM-G920F using Tapatalk

As you say absolutely disgraceful, Remain really have left no stone unturned in scaring the living daylights out of the electorate.

I think this campaign will go down in history as a text book operation in how to manipulate the electorate to get the desired result in a referendum.

 

[pastafarian]

Hard-hitting article in today's FT - worth a read if you have a few minutes this lunchtime....

Flick through the campaign material of the Brexiters fighting Britain’s referendum and you will find a video of a brawl in the Ankara parliament. Next, a poster with an image of a UK passport declaring that “Turkey (population 76m) is joining the EU”. Then statistics about Turkey’s high birth rate; and a warning that Britain’s National Health Service will soon be swamped by expectant Turkish mothers. After this follows the assertion — unsubstantiated, of course — that Turkey has higher levels of criminality and gangsterism; and a map showing that Ankara’s supposedly imminent accession will extend Europe’s external frontier to war-ravaged Syria. None of this needs decoding. The dog whistle has made way for the klaxon. EU membership talks with Turkey, we are to understand, will soon see Britain overrun by millions of (Muslim) Turks — most of them thugs or welfare scroungers. In the US, the Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump says all Muslims must be treated as suspect. The Tory Brexit campaign led by Boris Johnson and Michael Gove has chosen to cast the entire Turkish nation as the enemy. Mr Trump plans to ban Muslims from entering the US. Britain’s response to the Turkish “threat”, the Brexiters say, should be to quit the EU and pull up the drawbridge across the Channel.

There was always a danger that the referendum campaign would bleed into xenophobia. The UK Independence party, led by Nigel Farage, has never bothered itself with policing the boundary between legitimate debate about immigration and straightforward racism. The surprising thing has been the enthusiasm of the Conservative-led Vote Leave campaign, which once presented itself as the reasoned face of Euroscepticism, in marching on to Ukip’s nativist territory. Mr Johnson is a former mayor of London, the most cosmopolitan of the world’s great cities, whose all-consuming ambition is to replace David Cameron as prime minister. Mr Gove is the minister responsible for oversight of the rule of law in Mr Cameron’s cabinet. Both had previously presented themselves as social liberals. Mr Johnson had even boasted of his family’s Turkish ancestry — his paternal great-grandfather went by the name Ali Kemal Bey — and not so long ago he was a vociferous supporter of Turkey’s EU entry.

Now, he represents the citizens of his ancestral home as a civilisational threat. As the Leave campaign puts it, “Murderers, terrorists and kidnappers from countries like Turkey could flock to Britain if it remains in the European Union”. As repugnant as they are, Mr Trump’s views on Islam are directly stated. Mr Johnson lets the Islamophobia hang in the air. The obvious riposte is that there is no prospect of Turkey joining the EU in the foreseeable future. Mr Cameron has made just this point. Ankara first applied to join during the 1960s and opened talks with Brussels in 2005. During the past decade only one of 35 accession chapters has been completed. Each of the existing EU states holds a veto and any decision would be subject to referendums in several that are overtly hostile to Turkey’s accession. Even if, inexplicably, all those hurdles were somehow surmounted, entry would be followed by lengthy transitional arrangements. We are talking, if it ever happens, several decades from now.


Yet none of this deters Messrs Johnson and Gove from insisting, absurdly, that Turkey could be a full EU member by 2020. The Brexiters operate outside anything as old-fashioned as a framework of truth. Fiercely anti-intellectual, and borrowing heavily from Mr Trump, they judge that rational argument is best met with shameless mendacity. They have exploited, it is fair to say, the cynicism of successive British governments in dealings with Turkey. Mr Cameron is not the first prime minister to seek commercial and political credit in Ankara by publicly backing EU entry in the certain knowledge that others will ensure it does not happen. Germany’s chancellor Angela Merkel has embraced the same unattractive realpolitik in striking a deal with Ankara to halt the flow of Syrian refugees.

The sharp authoritarian turn of president Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government has dismayed, meanwhile, the staunchest supporters of Turkey’s eventual EU accession. The avowed democrat of a decade or so ago now resides in a palace fit for Louis XIV and wants to dispense with all constraints on his personal power — another reason why EU entry has receded from view. The Outs, though, are not directing their fire at Mr Erdogan. Their target is the Turkish people. The crude calculation is that demonising Turks adds a useful xenophobic edge to a populist campaign against the Brussels-backing elites. The aim is to harden support for the anti-EU cause among working-class voters marginalised by globalisation. Marine Le Pen, the leader of the far-right National Front and an avowed supporter of Brexit, has done much the same in France.

The painful irony is that in “playing the Turkish card” the Outs debauch the democracy they say they want to rescue from the clutches of the EU. By stoking prejudice against Turks in particular and Muslims in general, they throw away the liberal tolerance that has long defined Britishness. Mr Johnson may think that this is the way to win the referendum and then claim the keys to 10 Downing Street. But at what price?

It’s just another daft article from a remain supporting journalist,but it is quite telling.

If you can get past the usual outdated accusations of xenophobia and racism and ignore the uneducated claim that Brexiters want to "pull up the drawbridge" (just one more plank to add to the list of people who simply cant understand the concept of controlled borders),then all you are left with is an article that agrees Turkey joining would be a bad idea.

The telling part is its one more person to add to the list of people who wont say Turkey will NEVER join, his own conclusions are that its decades away.

Whilst the young people im told are thinking only of the present and their own self interest,like cheap education in a hot EU resort,where you can get pissed and shag all day long perhaps someone could give them a shake and tell them to contemplate the future,yes even decades away,a vote now has far reaching consequences many years down the line. Its about time they realised that.

In conclusion Turkey Bad but WILL eventually join, accusations of racist ,xenophobic and Islamophobia ……..Big Yawn.

 

[Gwylan]

Winston Churchill, a former army o cer, war reporter and British Prime Minister (1940-45 and 1951-55), was one of the rst to call for the creation of a ‘United States of Europe’. Following the Second World War, he was convinced that only a united Europe could guarantee peace. His aim was to eliminate the European ills of nationalism and war-mongering once and for all.Winston Churchill, a former army o cer, war reporter and British Prime Minister (1940-45 and 1951-55), was one of the rst to call for the creation of a ‘United States of Europe’. Following the Second World War, he was convinced that only a united Europe could guarantee peace. His aim was to eliminate the European ills of nationalism and war-mongering once and for all.Winston Churchill, a former army o cer, war reporter and British Prime Minister (1940-45 and 1951-55), was one of the rst to call for the creation of a ‘United States of Europe’. Following the Second World War, he was convinced that only a united Europe could guarantee peace. His aim was to eliminate the European ills of nationalism and war-mongering once and for all.

While this is true, he was nowhere near one of the first. The idea of a United States of Europe had been around since the 18th century and various politicians and philosophers considered the concept. I believe the first person to use the actual phrase United States of Europe (Etat-unis d'Europe) was Victor Hugo of Les Mis fame but I'm not 100% certain of that

 

[Bold Seagull]

As you say absolutely disgraceful, Remain really have left no stone unturned in scaring the living daylights out of the electorate.

I think this campaign will go down in history as a text book operation in how to manipulate the electorate to get the desired result in a referendum.

Whereas Farage, Johnson and Gove have played it clean and by the book. A referendum mainly led by Tories on either side - what did you expect!?

 

[Two Professors]

I thought it was worth reading, that's all. One reason is the FT is the only national paper which doesn't have a formal political view. If you read the Sun, Times, Telegraph, Mail or Express you know exactly what you're going to get. Similarly if you read the Guardian or the Mirror. With the FT it's different.

Do you really not know who owns the FT?

 

[LlcoolJ]

Whereas Farage, Johnson and Gove have played it clean and by the book. A referendum mainly led by Tories on either side - what did you expect!?

Exactly. All a bunch of lying scum. However team Leave on here seem to still believe that the lies are one sided despite them being shown the facts. See pastafarian's myopic nonsense above.

 

[Soulman]

I'm worried about Soulman. He seems to have disappeared since he was asked to justify this 'Vote remain and you're a Hitler apologist' contribution to the debate.

I work, do not have time to spend on here in the day atm. I will justify if and when I want to, not on your command.

 

[pastafarian]

Exactly. All a bunch of lying scum. However team Leave on here seem to still believe that the lies are one sided despite them being shown the facts. See pastafarian's myopic nonsense above.

No nonsense above at all

people agree Turkey joining is a bad idea
no one says Turkey will NEVER join
Turkey will eventually join.

calls that brexiters are racist xenophobic and Islamophobic are simply accusations being thrown out of desperation

 

[JC Footy Genius]

Whereas Farage, Johnson and Gove have played it clean and by the book. A referendum mainly led by Tories on either side - what did you expect!?

Agree with you that Leave have tried to counter using similar tactics but the shear weight of the Government machine plus the opposition and most other parties ,Big Business, Banks, EU, European establishment numerous world leaders dwarfs anything I have ever seen.

Yes Tories certainly are efficiently ruthless.