Translation: cut off from civilisation (tea, cricket etc) i.e. here... a small, seafaring island kingdom that once ruled the largest empire in the entire history of such... that on occasion has to reluctantly venture into continental Europe to defeat assorted baddies. Essentially.
[addendum]
Maybe a wonky historical interpretation of the future will claim we did it again... went into Europe in order to subsequently leave, thereby precipitating and/or presaging its ultimate demise. Contiguous supranational entity == bad. Disparate empire == good.
[/addendum]
I'm not being that tongue-in-cheek. National stereotypes and mythos tend to [re]assert themselves from time to time. Russia is a good example. Putin is popular because he is re-establishing the brutal rule that predominated from the Czars through Communism.
Slice/dice/grind 100 brits and the distilled essence of ~52 of them, on Europe, will be as I wrote.
I noted in the Trump thread that Trump is weirdly still fighting his election campaign, as if he failed to realise that he actually won the Presidency.
Watching the Brexiteers on Question Time and elsewhere, they also seem to be doing much the same thing. They're still running the referendum campaign, trying to convince us all, despite that they actually won.
They're disturbed by "Remoaners" - much like my own self - who still happily maintain that, sorry, the British people voted the wrong way. I mean, that was the result and we will carry it out, because the democratic process itself outweighs any individual decision - rightly or wrongly - that is made democratically. As if we start to have leaders pick and choose which election results they'll bother respecting, that would be the beginning of tyranny.
But, well, that's the weird thing. I keep hearing Brexiteers demanding that Brexit is carried out, as if there was anyone of any influence and import suggesting otherwise. For fuck's sake, we have a PM who vote Remain, who's now dragging us into Hard Brexit with gay abandon. How serious Jezza ever was about Remain in the first place, he brought in the three-line whip to demand that Brexit is carried out. There was a Parliamentary vote and Brexit won that too.
It's irrelevant, really, whether the Lords does or doesn't back the EU bill, in that the Commons can ultimately invoke the Parliament Act on their arse, in the event of contradiction, and assert their primacy. Them's the rules. In the event of a tie break, the Commons gets the casting vote.
So all the Lords can do is, at most, delay things so that May misses her arbitrary deadline of triggering Article 50 in March, but they can't stop it. And, indeed, if they have any understanding of how the system works, they would only seek to amend, not to block, the bill. Because in the event of blocking it, the Commons will ultimately win because they have primacy, so the Lords will be overruled and they'll have zero influence on what happens. If they rather ask for some reasonable amendments here and there, then the Commons might well compromise to hit that deadline. Sure, go on, then, we'll let a few of these amendments through, if you then agree to let this pass.
(This is, after all, the whole purpose of having a bicameral system in the first place. It forces scrutiny. It forces compromise. It makes tyranny rather impossible to carry out. That's why it's there and, as always, it's doing that job perfectly well. In the event of controversy, it SHOULD prove to be hard for any government to get what it wants. It's a check and balance. It's there to force that scrutiny. To force the odd bit of necessary compromise. It's meant to make things difficult. That's the whole bloody point. To act as the "double check" that we're doing it correctly.)
I'm brought to the question of asking "who is it that they're really trying to convince here?". Because I feel that it's themselves. They aren't sure that they got it right and all this demanding that everyone tell them they're right, even though they won already, is guilt and doubt talking. They need people to approve them. As they're really deeply insecure about the whole thing.
"Words ought to be a little wild - for they are assaults of thought on the unthinking."
- John Maynard Keynes
Think of it as a "pinch me" phase. They can't accept being winners as they identified with the underdogs tag and slowly coming to the realisation that it isn't as simple as a vote or a quickie divorce.
There's also the issue that they will no longer have the EU to blame for forgetting about people. And yes they'll have to take responsibility not something they actually like (Trump is good at that as everyone else is to blame for things going wrong)
Yes Brexit won the vote but that was but a battle (important one ) and the war will now drag on (excuse the military analogy but can't think of another)
"England is funny, but sometimes she scares me"
Tony Wakeford
And not a single "British job for British workers" was created. And no Muslim woman wearing a hijab in the streets was forced to stop doing so. Languages besides English are still being spoken on the train, much to Farage's disgust.
The NHS continues to collapse due to government mismanagement and underfunding, purposefully running it into the ground for ideological reasons, as "immigration" was always a red herring (working age migrants paying their taxes will help fund an ageing population that demographically can't do it itself and the NHS simply couldn't function without migrants, as there's just not enough home-grown medical professionals in this country).
You get the gist. All this pain and hurt, and it benefits no-one. Nothing is magically fixed nor improved by deporting these people. Indeed, immigration is a net gain for the country, in fact, so it will cost us economically do so, even before Brexit further ruins us, and that's not to mention the moral cost to our very souls, as we abandon our humanity... for what?
Well, that's my point here. For absolutely nothing useful nor significant. Indeed, all this will undoubtedly make shit worse.
It's not migrants stealing "our" jobs. It's automation and it's globalisation, with customer service going to Indian call centres and manufacturing going to China and so forth. They don't even have to come here to steal your job. Not anymore.
It's zero hour contracts and the "corporate welfare" of the government having to subsidise shit pay with working tax credits. It's the decades of neglect leaving this country with a truly ridiculous housing crisis - and there are still developers deliberately sitting on land, not building anything, because they're making immense profit from purposefully strangling off the supply.
It's not brown people. It's never been brown people. It's the self-destructive short-sighted greedy cunts hounding down an extra buck fifty per unit, at the cost of their eternal souls.
"Words ought to be a little wild - for they are assaults of thought on the unthinking."
- John Maynard Keynes
zip accident wrote:I thought you didn't like religion?
I don't. I was just being poetic.
There is, of course, no such thing as a "soul". But that old Biblical quotation "what does it profit a man to gain the whole world but lose his eternal soul?" - which you noticed that I was referencing - does concisely capture the essence of the irrationality. Figuratively speaking, of course.
"Words ought to be a little wild - for they are assaults of thought on the unthinking."
- John Maynard Keynes
zip accident wrote:I thought you didn't like religion?
I don't. I was just being poetic.
There is, of course, no such thing as a "soul". But that old Biblical quotation "what does it profit a man to gain the whole world but lose his eternal soul?" - which you noticed that I was referencing - does concisely capture the essence of the irrationality. Figuratively speaking, of course.
That's it NO MORE NOTHING NON BRITISH, NO MORE pizza, NO MORE Prosecco, NO MORE Ferrero Roches, NO MORE Nutella, NO MORE FANCY SMANCY IMPORTED FOODS, NO MORE CURRY, from now all ALL AND ONLY BRITISH .. you have to go back to meat, water, LARD and gruel , oats maybe only on sunday when it's good time, potatoes and cabbage.
Occasionally maybe hot dogs and military ratios coming from USA IF Trump will allow you, you can eat and drink only what and when Theresa is going to tell you and soon as she'll implement the UK Juche to make the country "stronger and better than ever again a beam and a reference for anyone else in Europe and the rest of the world" (*)
All that thanks to the special relationship you have with that toupee guy that says "America FIRST" which, of course, have special interests in UK.
(*) in that she partially succeeded everyone is watching thinking "Holy Crap look what they done with that Brexit" .. and learning NOT to do the same
gilesgoat wrote:You DO NOT GET automatically UK citizen by MARRYING a UK man ?
She never applied for a UK passport, she is still technically a Singapore citizen, and the country doesn't allow dual citizenship apparently. So she had to choose one or the other, and due to having to go back to Singapore to care for her parents in periods prior to them dying, she decided holding onto her Singapore passport was the easier thing to do I guess. I imagine being a Singapore citizen allowed her access to things in the country otherwise while there too.
gilesgoat wrote:You DO NOT GET automatically UK citizen by MARRYING a UK man ?
She never applied for a UK passport, she is still technically a Singapore citizen, and the country doesn't allow dual citizenship apparently. So she had to choose one or the other, and due to having to go back to Singapore to care for her parents in periods prior to them dying, she decided holding onto her Singapore passport was the easier thing to do I guess. I imagine being a Singapore citizen allowed her access to things in the country otherwise while there too.
Ok but where was the problem then ? In Singapore or UK ?
A quick read seems that UK allows dual citizenship ( unless it was Singapore that does NOT allow ), the other thing a quick read tells me, really did not know that, is that even if you marry a UK citizen you DO NOT become UK citizen unless you apply for citizenship.
Which to me sounds a bit odd I took some stuff was supposed to "automatically happen".
Another quick look at things shows me that to get an UK citizenship is quite a bit of a complex process.
