The UK Brexit vote to leave the EU

[Matthew]

Posted by greybeard (here)
This thread "Should I comment" by enfolded blue might be helpful.
Chris

https://projectavalon.net/forum4/show...=1#post1316547

Chris - when you post cut and pasted main stream lies, I am triggered each and every time! That's not your problem, why on earth should I post if I am triggered?

There's nothing wrong with kicking back against the main stream lies, someone has to Chris and it's not you so give me a break

[samildamach]

https://www.express.co.uk/news/polit...uropean-Empire
Brussels openly declares the end of nation states in favour of empire.
This short speech at the lib dem conference spells out were the eu is heading.
To great applauds we usher in the beginning plays of empire

[avid]

Express... the duplicitous tabloid equivalent for the last 40 years, a travesty of fake news and weather, fear-porn, totally untrustworthy.

[samildamach]

Posted by avid (here)
Express... the duplicitous tabloid equivalent for the last 40 years, a travesty of fake news and weather, fear-porn, totally untrustworthy.

Please watch the video before you comment.i could get you the same video from the official conference.
Yes it's longer lots of smooching but the words are exactly the same.
I watched the speech live so no it's not the express it's me

[greybeard]

Posted by YoYoYo (here)

Posted by greybeard (here)
This thread "Should I comment" by enfolded blue might be helpful.
Chris

https://projectavalon.net/forum4/show...=1#post1316547

Chris - when you post cut and pasted main stream lies, I am triggered each and every time! That's not your problem, why on earth should I post if I am triggered?

There's nothing wrong with kicking back against the main stream lies, someone has to Chris and it's not you so give me a break

Matthew
I have no desire to offend you or your decision to be for Brexit--leaving deal or no deal.
Your choice is your right.

Genuinely I am interested in truth and I accept that some of the articles I have posted are suspect but thats for people to discern--me too.
However there are too many questioning leaving without a deal and possible consequences for it just to be media hype.

If Boris comes up with a deal that is accepted I will be the first to applaud him.

Where we are in agreement is that farce has gone on far too long and we dont want another period of the same.

I just repeat that the Boris integrity- his reasons for his actions are commented on by His Sister, Brother, two ex PMs--ex Chancellor --other respected "high ups" in the Tory Party--surely they cant all be wrong.

Now the ways of Boris may be quite separate from the possible validity of leaving without a deal.

Chris

[greybeard]

Posted by samildamach (here)
https://www.express.co.uk/news/polit...uropean-Empire
Brussels openly declares the end of nation states in favour of empire.
This short speech at the lib dem conference spells out were the eu is heading.
To great applauds we usher in the beginning plays of empire

Here is a clip

Sorry I could not find a video of the talk
Please post the video that you have in mind
Chris

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=lJBjclcrh58

[Matthew]

Posted by greybeard (here)

Posted by YoYoYo (here)

Posted by greybeard (here)
This thread "Should I comment" by enfolded blue might be helpful.
Chris

https://projectavalon.net/forum4/show...=1#post1316547

Chris - when you post cut and pasted main stream lies, I am triggered each and every time! That's not your problem, why on earth should I post if I am triggered?

There's nothing wrong with kicking back against the main stream lies, someone has to Chris and it's not you so give me a break

Matthew
I have no desire to offend you or your decision to be for Brexit--leaving deal or no deal.
Your choice is your right.

Genuinely I am interested in truth and I accept that some of the articles I have posted are suspect but thats for people to discern--me too.
However there are too many questioning leaving without a deal and possible consequences for it just to be media hype.

If Boris comes up with a deal that is accepted I will be the first to applaud him.

Where we are in agreement is that farce has gone on far too long and we dont want another period of the same.

I just repeat that the Boris integrity- his reasons for his actions are commented on by His Sister, Brother, two ex PMs--ex Chancellor --other respected "high ups" in the Tory Party--surely they cant all be wrong.

Now the ways of Boris may be quite separate from the possible validity of leaving without a deal.

Chris

There's no easy way to say this: you post too much cut and pasted mainstream news on this thread! This is my opinion, and life goes on; nothing really is lost either way, but it's sad to see it passed as 'the truth' and there's too much to keep up, it's not just the mainstream content, it's also the frequency. Sure let it slide, but as others have said on this thread: the mainstream lies. Most of this thread is cut and pasted mainstream, as I've said I think it's a shame because it's easy to find already, hard to avoid. But as I've also said in this sentance: life goes on, I'm glad to bring this up again.

I may have gotten confused about the 'surrender act', and the 'surrender treaty' but the previous PM's reheated deal, created by May, but with a backstop tweak will still tie us in as badly as the first three times May tried to pass it. May's deal was a new constitution - Farage argues it's possibly worse than staying in

If we left without a deal, we would have to negotiate another deal based on things like the actual trade dynamic between the UK and the EU, rather than the empire building project the EU is desperately trying to fund, and the army it's trying to build etc

[greybeard]

Matthew I dont have a problem with you saying that I post too much--because its true.
Retired on my own--I have too much time to pass and the subject interests me--changing moment by moment, and I agree that this too will pass--my words--life goes on--and as nothing is permanent--the EU will come to an end too.

Best wishes
Chris

[Matthew]

For some reason that helps, thank you, I'm glad to have moaned about it - even if like I said I doubt it would matter either way

But I won't get mad, I'll get even by peddling my own repetition: Carl Benjamin ranting, I may have even posted it already... but Carl expresses it so well, with Geoffrey Cox's speech at the start

But this video is about a week old now, and big news today is Boris has shared his deal proposal.. I should post Nigel Farage, on LBC radio, giving his analysis of it and his analysis of Verhofstadt initial response, but I'll stick with a week old rant

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=mW9TuyIXs0g

[greybeard]

Its easy for me Matthew as I dont have an investment in the end result.
I am interested in the whole process --the spin--the manoeuvring.
However Im aware its not a game and I do prefer that there is an end to this uncertainty and a result that is beneficial to the great majority --realizing that nothing will benefit all.

One reason that I post a lot here and elsewhere is that it may save people time.
I had hoped tht there would be more posts with a variety of opinions.

I suppose there are not a lot of UK members on Avalon
If this was an American issue the thread would be crammed with opposing views.

Chris

[greybeard]

Nigel Farage Reacts to Boris Johnson’s Brexit Speech

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=Ox6iEYR-tTQ

[samildamach]

https://youtu.be/8v3xruukans
Empire reference starts from eight minutes

[Matthew]

Posted by samildamach (here)
https://www.express.co.uk/news/polit...uropean-Empire
Brussels openly declares the end of nation states in favour of empire.
This short speech at the lib dem conference spells out were the eu is heading.
To great applauds we usher in the beginning plays of empire

It makes a change that they are openly declaring it. Reminds me of the days when the European Commission said they weren't going to have a national anthem or an army. Give people the lies they want to hear then do what you want anyway... They think they are getting away with it, but places like this forum can shine a light on this behaviour - great to see this truth brought to light - samildamach

Take the Scottish National Party (SNP) - they are pro-remain, and yet the dissolving of national identity would seem to go against the idea of a 'National' party. And I don't think people quite understand the ambition of the European Commissions main players - they want national identity to go, for their benefit, and they're in a desperate hurry...

[greybeard]

Fact check: does the EU want a European super-army?


https://www.theweek.co.uk/98495/fact...ean-super-army

writes in The Daily Telegraph: “So chaotic has become the process of Brexit that one can sometimes forget why the British public voted to leave the European Union.”

But in the past month, a controversial French-led proposal to create an EU army has resurfaced - a prospect that many Brexiteers “loathe”, according to The Independent.

In November, French president Emmanuel Macron warned that Europeans cannot be protected without a “true, European army” to defend the EU from China, Russia and even the US.

Clark insists that such a proposal “shows we made the right decision” to leave the EU, while Nigel Farage told EU leaders that for the UK “leaving the European Union is now indeed a liberation” as it had become “an empire, a militarised European Union”.


There is more on the link.
Chris

[greybeard]

Sir John Redwood MP - Speech to The Bruges Group at Conservative Conference 2019


John Redwood has been described as the Greatest Chancellor of the Exchequer that the UK never had. His grasp of both broad economics and his detailed understanding of commerce and industry is extraordinary, as anyone who follows his regularly updated blog will testify.

In this passionate speech to the Bruges Group at the Conservative Conference he challenges some of the most cherished misrepresentations of the Remain campaigners. He says:

“We voted Leave because we wanted to leave the bureaucratic institution that is the European Union. We wanted to leave its Single Market and it’s Customs Union.”

“We do not like asymmetric and one-sided rules which have damaged our economy, undermined our fishing industry, done considerable bad-things to our farming industry and were always asymmetric because they deregulated industry, where they were strong, and they didn’t allow us the same access in services, where were strong..”

“So we knew exactly what we doing when we voted to Leave. And if Remain are in any doubt they should go back to their own statements because they told us, when we said we wished to leave, that it would mean leaving the Single Market and the Customs Union..”

“They thought that was a threat… and we took it as a promise!”

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=z8UPn18jjOY

[araucaria]

The other day’s little philosophical discussion I found time-consuming and energy-draining and somewhat futile: it didn’t really get anywhere. Our exchange would appear to mirror what has been going on in Brussels for years. No wonder they are coming round to Brexit there: they’ve had enough. Stepping back from the content to the mechanics of political interactions, I want to explore this paradoxical idea of what is going on in the mind of a pro-Remain thinker deciding that all things considered Leave is the better option, and conversely how a Leaver might change their mind in the opposite direction. After all, the purpose and usual outcome of debate over any undecided issue is that some people are going to change their mind. The problem of course is that one has to be open-minded to do that, and the closed-minded will tend to view it as a victory for them. If so, the new status quo will also be problematic from the outset.

Some preliminary remarks if I may. We need to resolve the deadlock without creating these problems further down the line. Being open-minded is not a weakness, it is a vital quality in all of us. So what we can say for certain is that enough people need to change their minds. As I suggested earlier, this happened way back in the 2017 election when practically the same electorate as the previous year produced an incompatible outcome. Compare what happens in France with a new incoming president: if he hasn’t got a working majority, he holds an election, gets a majority and then implements his campaign promises. May tried that, and it backfired. So, in the minds of the very same voters, the referendum result was not so clear after all. Note that Johnson is doing something different: he has been campaigning in Parliament for a deal that he hasn’t even negotiated, on the basis of a majority that he doesn’t possess, which can only be won through a now impossible election originally timed to validate no deal.

The difference with a forum thread is of course that, beyond philosophical discussions, the pragmatists in Brussels have a huge international community to run on modern, non-imperial lines, i.e. learning as they go along. (I have already addressed the issue of imperialism creeping in.) This question of scale is hugely important in my view: the larger it gets, the more clear-headed thinking and nuts-and-bolts pragmatism is required. On the smallest scale, I have seen a young couple muddle through life on a day-to-day basis, but when they tried to arrange their wedding for all the family with little or no serious organizational input from themselves, it was pretty disastrous. Now scale this up to a whole continent…

On current form – if it wasn’t clear before 2016 it certainly is now – I would say the UK – or should I say Westminster – definitely needs to downscale. The EU smorgasbord is just not its cup of tea. It is even apparent that a UK-wide scale is itself way too big, and southeast England alone is clearly the best fit. Which is why EU enlargement was probably the wrong way to go in the first place, for the people in Westminster that is. And it explains why the supposedly united kingdom is united no longer. Scotland, Wales and possibly Northern Ireland know what’s good for them; their union is holding strong – within the EU. The problem is northern England, which is caught between two stools: English in name, but geographically outside the area effectively governed from London.

This is where it gets complicated and the flipflopping occurs. Normally speaking, northern Englanders voting in their own interest ought to have sided with the Scots and voted Remain. For example, Sunderland, who voted 61% Leave, stands to lose most (7000 jobs) when Nissan pulls out. They didn’t realize that Japan was a part of Europe, and yet in the very big picture Japan is closely tied up with Europe. Just ask Nissan: they have a factory in Sunderland because and as long as it is a part of Europe. (Granted, there is also a leftwing case for Leave: e.g. in order to recover the right to nationalize certain industries. There again, that is something that from that standpoint would also be desirable in France and elsewhere, so really the issue needs to be resolved in Europe through pressure from the European left.)

Meanwhile, down in London, for the above-mentioned reasons (the need to downscale) they really should have been voting Leave. Why they did not probably boils down to the economic benefit notably from doing business with Europe, money that was not being evenly shared. Take the NHS figures I gave the other day: since they don’t add up, huge sums are apparently being creamed off somewhere along the line. So what seems to be happening is that the north has been thinking, “What is good for London (Remain) must be bad for us: let’s vote Leave”. Arguably a big mistake.

Now what has happened since the referendum was first announced is that Westminster has turned over to Leave. Johnson was pro-Remain until he became pro-Leave, May was pro-Remain until she became pro-Leave... Now all MPs are allegedly pledged to getting Brexit done. That is not true but it is how things are being presented. The lengthy holdup has been caused by this wholesale but discreet changing of sides. The only way this new position is going to get through Parliament is by keeping northern England onside. What they don’t want is for them to keep thinking “What is good for London must be bad for us”, because that would mean changing their minds too. Hence the mantra is Get Brexit done; it is not about taking care of the underprivileged north and others.

This issue of being able to change your mind has repercussions way beyond the UK and Brexit. It is how we operate all the time, constantly upgrading old ideas that were not necessarily wrong but are no longer valid. The word reactionary can be used to describe the attitude of someone whose ideas are not fluid enough to keep up; so as life speeds up this tendency is likely to increase.

Here is an example from a science-fiction novel by the astronomer Fred Hoyle. When an intelligent interstellar black cloud enters the solar system, a scientist tries to pick its brain and download some new knowledge, which contradicts just about everything he thought he knew. People once thought the Sun was a big ball of fire; now we “know” it is a giant nuclear power station; tomorrow that “knowledge” will be refined into something else; you get the idea. Too much foreign information coming in too quickly; he literally has no time to think, so he adopts a groundrule: systematically accept all the new extraterrestrial data and overwrite the old earthbound ideas. Still he cannot cope and it eventually kills him. This is a good analogy for what we are all experiencing today. The way to survive is neither to try and take everything in nor to refuse it all en bloc. We need to stem the information flow and work from a few principles. Principles are more stable, less ephemeral things and can be used to triage all kinds of detail flooding in. The principle here would be to remember that this is the process behind how we reach an opinion in the first place: you stick to your principles in a way you don’t stick to your opinions. Obviously our earthbound ideas are a mixed bag and require scrutiny, but again, there is far too much for any one person to filter, which is why democracy is not about everyone being at the top but about relying on trustworthy representatives.

Right now we have rather too many people playing prime minister. This is a natural consequence of people wising up, because democracy has benefited from more news and more analysis. As accountability increases, trustworthiness appears to decrease, which leads to higher standards until trust is restored on a higher level. As I see it, this seems to be working well, albeit uncomfortably so – that is what we mean by a crisis: a moment of danger but also of opportunity. Hence another principle would be to keep a watchful eye on things, without getting too involved or over-excited. There is a technical aspect to the whole business that calls for expert handling. We the public can only express overall desires. When you have a house built, you can dictate how you want it to look, but you need an architect to tell you if it is even possible and a builder to do the actual construction work. We definitely don’t want a DIY solution to this issue. Scrapping the backstop would be nice, but if it can’t be done it can’t be done. This is no more a matter of opinion than saying your walls need foundations.

This brings me back to Nissan in Sunderland. Japan-by-Europe is a counter-intuitive fact that will be presented as a lie. But try building on the fact, instead of building on the lie. Sunderland-in-Europe becomes an attractive place for Japan-by-Europe and probably other non-European countries as well, countries that are supposed to make up the alternative market. We then realize that people changing their mind on Brexit are not actually changing their mind at all: simply the referendum question has been reframed. For Nissan workers, the question they are answering has now become, “Do you prefer to stay in work or lose your job?” Those workers have not changed, they will continue to put their own interests first (understandably), only to find the have changed sides in this particular debate.

From the viewpoint of Leaver London, for whom Sunderland-in-or-out-of-Europe is a dump, the hedge funders and their beneficiaries can boast that they are steadfast in their opinions. But what has actually happened is exactly the same as above, only for them the question has not changed. It was and still is, “Do you prefer to win or lose an obscene amount of money?” and they will continue to put their own interests first. Just as there is no harm in changing one’s mind, there is sometimes no virtue in not doing so.

Where is this all heading? No psychic readings required, the logical outcome of this comes from the simple arithmetic behind the democratic, demographic process, i.e. sheer numbers. Many more people will be changing their minds/answering a different question than will be insisting on the previous result/answering the same question. Hence in the event of a second referendum, the overall result will likely show that the country has changed its collective mind. No chicanery involved, everyone just putting their own interests first as they always have done. Is anyone putting the collective interest first? Ultimately it doesn’t matter. Democracy would seem to be strong enough to withstand the most partisan leadership, which is cause for huge optimism – and don’t we just need some of that.

[greybeard]

araucaria thanks for this well thought out post.
I go with what you say.
The ethical and honest way is to put your own interests first.
Scotland does reasonably well out of the EU
I cant say for other parts.
Whatever--it will be as it is.
I suspect another referendum would overturn the results of the last one--as you state people change their minds particularly when faced with unemployment and thats not fear mongering.
Staying will suit some--leaving will suit others--that is not right or wrong just a basic fact.

Watched a program on BBC last night--one member --American-- pointed out the strong ties USA has with Ireland and that if there is a border of any kind between North and South any trade deal that UK hopes for after Brexit just will not happen--it will be blocked by Pro Ireland members.

The Irish (South)) have long memories and not England's best friend.

Chris

[greybeard]

Nigel Farage Talk of the Week #2 - Extension Rebellion

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=6SodBcsQDQI

[Matthew]

News is emerging that prime minister Boris Johnston is prepared to take his Brexit case to the supreme court
Jeff Taylor

Extract:

... What they don't seem to realise is that the public has seen, and understands the diametrically opposed ways that the, now politicised court, deal with these cases, depending on whether they are pro-brexit or anti-brexit. ...

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=8di3OCfCyoQ

[Bill Ryan]

Posted by YoYoYo (here)
News is emerging that prime minister Boris Johnston is prepared to take his Brexit case to the supreme court

Wow. He may be trusting the Supreme Court WAY too much.