- Thread starter
- #181
Oh well. Never mind. That ship has sailed. I doubt anyone will remember all that. I don't even remember what the final day referendum policy was. And I was a very keen remainer.
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[Politics] Lee Anderson goes full Oswald Mosely
- Thread starter Harry Wilson's tackle
- Start date
London Irish
Well-known member
The Remainiac obsession with using the courts to defy the will of the people, which all politicians pledged to respect in 2016, was the main reason why the 2019 General Election became the second referendum on Brexit, instead of concentrating on the real issues facing Britain — collapsing public services, an economy working only for rich speculators, a declining NHS, no bloody chance to buy a house unless you are left money and few decent well paid jobs for young people
- Thread starter
- #183
So Johnson became PM because of . . . what? May couldn't get her own party (the government) to back any of her plans. So Johnson was selected and he managed to get his party to vote for a 'plan' that his party had previously rejected.
So who were the self-absorbed clowns? I hope you are not suggesting labour types. Labour haven't been in charge for 14 years. The last 14 years have been entirely a tory shit show. Assisted by 'oh' Jeremy Corbyn, of course, helping them stay in power.
- Thread starter
- #184
He was. Then he did a lukewarm 7/10 in favour of remain in a flippant interview that won no remain votes. The twat.
- Thread starter
- #185
Oh, do f*** off. It has been a long time coming but you're going on ignore. You're a raving idiot.
Thunder Bolt
Silly old bat
The will of the people! The exact same phrase the Tories have been using, and funnily enough, the Nazis too.
Yes, let’s all break the law when it’s the will of the people.
The problem was post-2016 the Tory party, rather than deciding to find a solution which worked for everyone (or at least one most people could stomach, which was probably EFTA), went full batshit nativist (at least the fringe did) and ended up demanding a ridiculous scenario of walking away without any deal in place. I remain convinced a large part of the pushback came because of that, and for every “idiot waving an EU flag” there was someone who wanted to park a gunboat off Calais to get our way.
It’s not helped by the fact we have a Government which regards negotiation as a bad thing. Even now we see it with striking doctors and the like, it’s “do what we want else we’re going home and taking our ball with us”.
Papa Lazarou
Living in a De Zerbi wonderland
For someone who claims to have voted remain, using terms such as Remainiac really does sound very much like Leave rhetoric. Are you sure you voted Remain or are you just a bit of a WUM?
clapham_gull
Legacy Fan
- Aug 20, 2003
- 25,339
All apparently fixed by leaving the EU according to a number of 1970s donkey jacket wearing throwbacks.
What really pissed Corbyn and his ilk off (and I bet it really really pissed them off) is that the EU very often worked in workers favour and a counter balance to extreme market forces. You know it (*)
(*) taking a leaf out of your book and simply assuming what other people think before constructing a counter argument.
- Apr 13, 2015
- 3,471
Some (a lot) might say good.
Energy giant shareholders. To name but a few.
- Oct 20, 2022
- 4,885
Unlawful campaign spending by Vote Leave for a referendum with no legal enforcement regulated by an Electoral Commission fuzzy on the Law in an attempt to implement an unpopular policy by a Tory government being held over a barrel by a few Tory backbenchers scared of losing their seats to UKIP - because ‘’ collapsing public services, an economy only working for rich spectators, a declining NHS, no bloody chance to buy a house unless you are left money and a few decent well paid jobs for young people‘’ .. was the only legacy of 6 years of a Tory Government which was pissing off most of the electorate.
You gotta admire the past 13 and a half years of Tory rule - in how single-handedly they have royally fcuked up the entire Country by forcing a referendum decision on a policy which the majority of the electorate now want reversed or at least regret, by driving the NHS, public transport and small businesses ( and large businesses) into the ground, alienated Muslims, immigrants, seasonal foreign agricultural workers; wasted billions of pounds on a new rail network that doesn’t even exist nor ever will, wasted £10 billion on PPE that was unusable, undelivered or above market price; taken Britain back to the ‘70s with an economy and Government focussing on road investment contrary to all their own environmental policy targets;
breathe …
set the standard of living for most people on a downward trajectory for decades to come and created a generation of children with mental health problems that far exceeds any peacetime generation; enabled racism, misogyny and bullying in cultures of over-worked and under paid public sector workers and sucked the joy out of living as more and more people are left with the bare essentials unable to afford entertainment, holidays or pursuing sporting interests…
This is the Circle Line to Westminster - All change please.
London Irish
Well-known member
The actual facts are Corbyn destroyed the Tory majority in the 2017 General Election with the biggest rise in the Labour vote since 1945. The Brexit issue was settled in the Labour Party during that campaign, which is a customs union, the softest possible Brexit - everyone was happy, Labour led in the polls for a year afterwards.
Then the clowns went to work, both inside the Labour Party and outside, and turned Labour into a second referendum party that totally destroyed Labour's voting alliance of both Remain and Leave voters. By falling into Cummings/Johnson's trap of making Brexit the only issue to be discussed instead of all the actual real issues of economic investment and rebuilding public services, Labour became tagged as too Remainy for its Leave voters and not Remainy enough all the oddball Remainiacs. The Labour Right spent the entire time sabotaging the party's election chances, the likes of Peter Mandelson was totally open about it, he was quoted saying that every day he worked for the defeat of Corbyn. The 2019 General Election was ONLY a second Brexit referendum, Starmer ensured that - and he knew Corbyn's defeat was the only way the likes of him and his mates could get power back in the Labour party. Yes a Tory shit show but entirely enabled by Corbyn's enemies - many of whom were in the Labour Party.
London Irish
Well-known member
Donkey jacket throwbacks. You only speak in Tory tabloid cliches. It's embarrassing how much political centrists borrow wholescale their language from the Right, due to an absence of any ideas of their own
London Irish
Well-known member
I will credit you here for attempting to articulate a positive argument that can be factually critiqued. It makes a refreshing change from slippery, evasive one-liners.
But the massive problem is your attempt at an history of the Labour Left and its attitude to the EU here is entirely cartoonish and misleading, you know very little about the Labour Left because you have little/no engagement with primary sources but instead rely on the lazy groupthink of anti-left British media. Let's go through what REALLY happened historically, I was a bit part player but I remember it well.
In the 1970s and 1980s, the Labour Left were indeed anti-EU. These were the years after the 1975 referendum when the possibility of leaving the EU was still a live subject of debate - but as the 1980s wore on, this became less and less the case. Trade unions in particular saw some value in the Social Chapter aspect of the EU and their influence tempered the Labour Left's view of the EU, to a degree that the issue of leaving the EU died as any kind of priority at all. While Benn remained an adamant Leaver, new figures like Ken Livingstone advocated working with the EU (as indeed he would when he later became London mayor for eight years). Corbyn was somewhere halfway between these two figures but in all the left meetings I went to in the Nineties and the Noughties, I never heard leaving the EU mentioned as any kind of plan, criticism of the EU as an undemocratic bloc more devoted to freedom of capital than to workers' interests, yes, but leaving - nope. It may be hard to imagine now, but the notion of leaving the EU back then was widely regarded as genuinely impossible. No one could dream that we would ever have a prime minister like David Cameron who would in the most massive act of political incompetence since Suez, decided to hand Farage and co. their chance because he couldn't control the rightwing Tory grassroots.
So when 2015 came around and all that generation of washed-up New Labour politicians were soundly rejected by Labour's membership, Corbyn even before coming Labour leader in 2015 was making it clear to everyone that he was happy to work within the EU and reform its shortcomings. This wasn't because of some generalised waffling opposition to socialism that you refer to, it was for soundly pragmatic reasons -- EU rules would block any UK government attempts to rebuild its industries by state-led investment. Corbyn envisaged working with other left governments within the EU to reform these rules and make the EU less of an Establishment cartel but more responsive to the wider needs of its citizens. He put those ideas forward in 2015 and was elected Labour leader. So there was no overnight "self-preservation" act that you refer to, but a long evolution of his views on the EU since the 1980s, influenced by trade unions, of which he used to work for before entering Parliament.
Now this curious notion you have of young people and the EU. Yes, young people are more Remainy than other age groups, but that doesn't make them any more blind to the faults of the EU than others, they can see like anyone else that the EU is full of remote, unelected bureacrats who, for example, stand idly by when huge numbers of lives are lost in the Mediterranean every year because of "Fortress Europe" hostility to humanity in need. Young people are idealistic, they care about stuff like this and Corbyn's criticism of the EU on stuff like this chime with them very strongly. Does it chime with you? Perhaps not so much. The "young people" idea you have in your head, that's actually you and your opinions of the EU, not young people's.
Now someone earlier in this thread said, Thunder Bolt I think, said nobody believes the EU is perfect. I think that's mostly true, as I point out above regarding the EU and young people. But actually there is a small sliver of people who think the EU is fine as it is, they like technocratic rule with as little democracy as possible, just so-called "competent" administrators to keep the status quo more or less intact, no veering off to the Right and god help us certainly no attempts to rebalance power in Europe between its current domination by corporate interests and more towards the needs of ordinary working people. I think you are one of those who believe in benign technocracy, and that's why you so strongly dislike radical redistributive democrats like Jeremy Corbyn (and are perfectly relaxed about misrepresenting his politics. After all, doesn't everyone do that and get away with it?)
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- Thread starter
- #196
Some (a lot) would say enjoy the Horlicks while your kids flounder.
dsr-burnley
Well-known member
- Aug 15, 2014
- 2,194
Just to pick up on one tiny point - even the head of the Civil Service union has said that civil servants (I presume he only means those with desk jobs) could cut their hours by 20% with no effect on efficiency. Argue for underpaid if you like, but not for overworked.
- Thread starter
- #198
Good luck, attempting a conversation with the cat. I have thrown him out, to hunt for mice, or starve. No more scratching my sofa. My sofa is a nice sofa.
- Thread starter
- #199
That applies to most professions. There is always a lull. And there is always a way of finding a better way to work. I would imagine the 20% civil service savings would come from elimination of an amount of pointless paper shuffling that is now part of what management requires. Same in my job (uni lecturer).
London Irish
Well-known member
It's funny how some people can't bear to have their ideas challenged, it's genuinely unsettling for them