EU referendum are you in or out

[skab]

That big fucking loan we gave to Ireland years ago to save their economy - we want it back now were brexiting the fuck out, so we'll just pass on that debt to the EU thanx bye

See an ox waving a handbag.

[(o)(o)]

[KlaxonCow]

Dumb thing is, even if they hadn't faked that video, then what does it prove anyway?

That you can load up a boat with refugees and then sail over to England unopposed.

Right, so how does ending the legal free movement of people in the EU - by voting Leave - have any bearing on that?

This is a (hypothetical) criminal action, therefore they are breaking the law. Ergo, it's completely irrelevant what those laws say, as they're not abiding by them in any way.

The law can say whatever the fuck it likes - that those crossing the channel must wear purple hats and dance the Macarena - but the actual point here is that a law is only as good as its enforcement and what they actually showed, were it not faked, is that there's no enforcement, if you can just happily sail over the Channel unopposed.

What they're actually proving is that it's completely fucking irrelevant whether you vote Leave or Remain on this particular issue, as what matters is having sufficient police to enforce the law, or what the law says becomes irrelevant - particularly to criminals who, by definition, are choosing to completely disregard those laws anyway - as without opposition, checks, prosecution and so forth then nothing happens, one way or the other.

They're actually demonstrating the irrelevance of your referendum vote, unless the government commits to greater police numbers in order to enforce our laws. Otherwise, the law can say whatever it likes, but if no-one's being held to those laws at any point then it's completely irrelevant.

Like the concept of "a frictionless border". If there's absolutely no friction at all - no-one ever stops you and checks whether you're allowed to cross - then it's not a border, is it?

I remember a similar argument being made with ID cards. Advocates were claiming that you didn't have to worry about being constantly harassed by ID card checks all the time - as they didn't want to lose sympathy from ordinary folks, by stressing that ID cards would not prove to be any additional burden on them. But my simple response to that was, if no-one ever looks at your ID card to check it, then what's the point of having an ID card?

And, of course, let's say you're an illegal refugee without an ID card. If no-one ever checks whether you have an ID card, then the ID cards are not going to catch any illegal refugees, are they? No, if you're going to have ID cards, then you've got to stop people, ask for their ID cards and check them - otherwise, their existence cannot have any effect on anything.

You can't have your cake and eat it. Either we do constantly harass people for their ID cards all the time - and that's how we ensure that they actually do something useful - and accept that this will, indeed, prove inconvenient (but that's the price you pay), or we have convenience by never asking anyone to present their ID cards, in which case, there's zero point in having them and we might as well just save money by continuing to not bother with them.

One or the other, but not both. It doesn't make sense otherwise.

[gilesgoat]

*SNIP*

As far as I know "freedom of movement in EU" does NOT mean "you are not checked" it means "You don't need visas and other permits to enter an EU country or to work in or to start a business there" .. or .. better to say "you need less paperwork than before but you still need some of it".

So true.dat "if you have something that is never used" it makes no sense to have it, except ONE, they can make you pay for it "becuase you MUST have it" and that's the only reason it exists .. add the fact "it needs to be renewed every X time" and you have "money from thin air" .. another thing Italy is specialist for

Stopping freedom of movement SHOULD, in theory, mean "back to the world of more controls, visas and quotas" it means they can say "we can make enter in/out only who/how many we want" - legally.

Of course you are right any law makes no sense if it cannot be enforced.

But the fact is "stopping freedom of movement" has little to nothing to do with "migrants crossing the channel with boats", you are NOT going to stop of make anything change with that, unless you start to literally deport them back which 1. you can not if they are in danger of life/persecution, 2. how much/who's going to pay for all that movement ?

"Ending of free movement" is more going to impact business, investments and other things, not the immigration by itself, I suppose in theory is more a move to say "we can control certain prices/wages/etc. much more" IN THEORY, is this going to work who knows.

Anyway even in Italy ID cards are not used so much as they were used to .. things evolve, there are many different and more precise/secure ways of identification, in fact I seldom been asked for it nowadays, they were even thinking at some point to remove it and make a 'one size fits all' document but that was too complex internationally.

[tufty]

Not quite real.


Features heavily in the replies to Nigel's twitter feed, though.

https://twitter.com/Nigel_Farage/status ... 1261600771

[merman]

So the Euroepean Parliament elections are rapidly turning into a farce.

Brexit Party has Anne Widdecombe (perhaps one of the most out-of-touch Tories whose name doesn't end in Rees-Mogg) and Change UK announced Boris Johnson's sister Rachel as a candidate - before two of their candidates stepped down.

[PFVA]

So the Euroepean Parliament elections are rapidly turning into a farce.

Maybe it's their plan for the European Parliament

[Rubisco]

So the Euroepean Parliament elections are rapidly turning into a farce.

Brexit Party has Anne Widdecombe (perhaps one of the most out-of-touch Tories whose name doesn't end in Rees-Mogg) and Change UK announced Boris Johnson's sister Rachel as a candidate - before two of their candidates stepped down.

I winced too when I first encountered Rachel but I've since watched a lot of The Pledge and she actually comes across as a nice, intelligent, reasonable human being.

[merman]

The Brexit Party...

They are not going to publish a manifesto till after the election.
Farage has ultimate say on everything - he can't ev n be voted out or replaced as leader.

Doesn't sound very democratic to me Nige.

[tufty]

Doesn't sound very democratic to me Nige.

He's taken back control

[PFVA]

In the meantime in Spain, apparently the Socialist will have to have support not just of Podemos (like we have here in Portugal) but also of the Catalonia Independentists. The Popular Party apparently not even with the support of Ciudadanos and the Vox gets there.

And Vox gets representation in the Parliament.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-48081540

[KlaxonCow]

So the Tories have lost more than 1,300 councillors in the local (English & Northern Ireland) elections.

Labour has also lost 82 seats and UKIP has lost 145 seats.

Whereas, the only pro-EU party - the Liberal Democrats - have gained 703 seats and the Greens, who're also pro-EU, gained 194 seats. And then, most of all, "others" - all of the independents and minor parties - have gained 662 seats.

To this, Theresa May says that the voters are saying "get on with Brexit".

Except, umm, if that were the case, then why has UKIP lost 145 seats? And the biggest gains here - the Lib Dems and Greens - are the only overtly pro-EU parties?

I think she's reading this wrongly. There is, without doubt or question, definitely a sentiment of "for fuck's sake, sort this shit out already", of course.

But if it were a pro-Brexit version of that sentiment, wouldn't it have been UKIP - the pro-Brexit party, whose very name calls for Brexit - gaining those 703 seats, and not the Lib Dems - the one party that's stuck to its guns to be overtly pro-EU, regardless of whether that is or isn't popular?

People are pissed off with Brexit. But I think she's reading it wrongly, if she thinks the voters are saying "get on with Brexit" rather than "fuck Brexit, cancel it and get back to running the country again".

It's not just deeply frustrating that there's this insistence on calling a referendum result, that was only won by 52% to 48%, "the Will of the People". But now we have local election results clearly spelling out the message of punishing all the pro-Brexit parties and rewarding the parties who're overtly pro-EU (and, in the case of the Lib Dems, who had previously been non-existent in the most recent elections).

The pro-Brexiteers won't concede it, but these results suggest that a Second Referendum really ought to happen, as these results suggest "the Will of the People" has done a 180 turn, upon seeing what Brexit will actually mean and the incompetent omnishambles of those in charge of delivering it have wrought.

It needs to happen to confirm / deny whether an actual sea change of public opinion has happened in the interim, as these local elections results seem to be spelling out.

[zip accident]

So the Tories have lost more than 1,300 councillors in the local (English & Northern Ireland) elections.

Labour has also lost 82 seats and UKIP has lost 145 seats.

Whereas, the only pro-EU party - the Liberal Democrats - have gained 703 seats and the Greens, who're also pro-EU, gained 194 seats. And then, most of all, "others" - all of the independents and minor parties - have gained 662 seats.

Nice to see.

To this, Theresa May says that the voters are saying "get on with Brexit".

Interesting. Or maybe insane. Hm.

in the case of the Lib Dems, who had previously been non-existent in the most recent elections

They had been struggling uphill for a long time, there was a time in the '50s, '60s or '70s when the Liberals were down to three seats in parliament (Wikipedia says five seats in '57), then they made the stupid mistake of joining with the Tories in a coalition, a bounce back is probably somewhat expected. I'm not backing them, but a lot of people forgive more easily than I do, though there are some who don't.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_P ... al_revival (link doesn't work, coypu paste should fix it.)

these results suggest "the Will of the People" has done a 180 turn

180 degrees or 4%? The threats that have been shown thus far are probably enough to make that happen.

[KlaxonCow]

then they made the stupid mistake of joining with the Tories in a coalition, a bounce back is probably somewhat expected. I'm not backing them, but a lot of people forgive more easily than I do, though there are some who don't.

I forgave them that instantly.

Because they did go and talk to Labour first. That says a lot because the Parliamentary arithmetic at the time meant that "Lib Dems + Labour" still wouldn't have been a majority anyway - but they still went to court Labour first, as they're closer natural allies. It was Labour who said "no".

And the only other option was to turn the Tories down and leave them to a minority government - which would have just been the politics of spite.

With a coalition with the Tories, they had the opportunity to blunt the Tories and get some of their policies, even if only a handful as the Tories did still easily win the majority of the coalition over them, put into law.

And they did. Yes, tuition fees were not possible, as the Tories just wouldn't concede on that. But they did, for example, manage to raise the tax threshold, so that the point where the poorest start paying tax was lifted.

And I feel they were just outright swindled over proportional representation - the Tories gave them their promised referendum on that one, but then sneakily switched it to "Alternative Vote" (AV), knowing that that was the shittiest form of PR out there and no-one, including the Lib Dems, would really want to vote for that.

I'm thinking that the deal they struck was "we want a referendum on proportional representation" and the Tories said "yes" - then pulled this switcheroo swindle on them, in total bad faith, to do that politician thing of technically keeping your promise to the letter of what you said, but actually, in reality, fucking you over. Technically, the Tories did give the Lib Dems that promised referendum - they just did everything they possibly could to rig the result to be a guaranteed "no" beforehand.

I was actually impressed with the Lib Dems negotiating skills, because they got a damn sight more out of the Tories than the number of MPs they were contributing to the coalition justified, I reckon. From the position they were operating from, they actually did a good job.

Cameron, really, was damned clever in that he publicly presented it all to the public as "an equal partnership". But there was nothing equal in the numbers at all. Nowhere near it. And Nick Clegg was "a useful idiot" to have lapped it all up and felt more important than he was by this flattery - failing to work out that what Cameron was really doing was setting up the Lib Dems as their convenient scapegoat.

Bring in a "nasty party" policy or two, then sit back and watch the left attack the Lib Dems with "how could you support this?", basically letting the Tories off the hook of blame. Even though it was Tory policy, pushed by a majority Tory government, with the Lib Dems having really zero power to say otherwise.

Their only real alternative option - as the maths simply did not allow "Labour + Lib Dems" to be possible, without adding the SNP, Plaid Cymru, the Greens and a whole host of other parties to create the most "rainbow" of all rainbow coalitions (which, come on, would never have practically worked for more than five minutes) - was to back off and leave the Tories to an un-neutered minority government. So all the same shit would still have happened - but without those few good Lib Dems policies, like raising the tax threshold, ever happening.

It was the right strategy, from a logical perspective, and they did the best of a bad situation. Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea - which were the only actual options - they managed to get the Devil to be at least a tiny bit less devilish.

Bottom line: It was Labour who said "no".

[Cloudane]

Amazing isn't it... UKIP gets absolutely trashed, the Tories get absolutely trashed, pro-Brexit Labour take a hit as well... meanwhile Lib Dems and Greens, overtly pro-EU and on the side of revoking, get massive gains. And the Tory response is "hmm, I guess they're telling us we need to Get On With Brexit". It's complete an utter delusion on a level that that only May and the Tories are capable of.

Incidentally our Green candidate won by 8 votes, after 3 recounts. Food for the thought of anyone who says they're just one vote and don't make a real difference.