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Politics, politics, politics (so long and thanks for all the fish)

Out of interest, what would you vote in a Johnson deal v remain referendum?
Given the circumstances I was in at the time (trying to sell my house very quickly with school applications looming) I'd vote remain again - reluctantly.

If it were an option now, I'd reluctantly vote for Johnson's deal but I still think he could have got more (or kept more back for the trade negotiations).
 
A bigger % of the population that voted to stay in which is what a poll is all about. Scrapping the barrel there mate. :rolleyes:

...while repeating the same old same old sounds like a parrot. Just over 25% of the UK population voted to leave. It is not something you hear, but it isn't a lie is it. Why is this scraping the barrel? The context was talking about whether MPs should represent our best interests - a representative democracy - or whether they should simply take instruction from people. An interesting question no?

Simply repeating the same old 'we won the vote and now implement it' over and over, doesn't seem to get us anywhere. Isn't it obvious now that such a simplistic approach has not and will not work? Because "it" was never defined. MPs job is to do right by the country. If it were as simple and easy as you thought then we'd have had brexit. The reality is it will run and run, and "brexit" whatever it looks like leaves all of us worse off. That is not my judgment - that is the current government's projections. They have all the relavent UK data, and we should take a moment to see what this government say will happen post brexit. Have a look: https://www.theguardian.com/politic...er-all-brexit-scenarios-official-forecast-gdp No, money aint everything, but at the crux of why brexit is on ice constantly is it causes serious problems to the UK economy and UK nations. We lose Ireland and maybe Scotland. We make people poorer, while we gain almost nothing in return. If you can appreciate some of that, I would be impressed.

I remember having a debate with you pre-vote, where you educated me about how negotiations work. You have personal experience - which I respect - and you said the UK would hold equal cards in a negotiation with the EU. It'd be a straight forward thing. It has not worked out that way. ....yes there are remainer MPs and remainer media who don't want brexit, but to blame them exclusively is to shift your eyes away from the truth. Which is brexit is an impossible thing to deliver without harming the UK. You don't want that do you?
 
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It's typical Yank anti Imperial brick. Didn't get past this.
”Ireland was cynically partitioned to ensure that Protestant settlers outnumber native Catholics in one part of the country.”
Those Protestant settlers have been there since before the first English settlement in the US I believe
 
Our Brexit minister doesn't know if Irish businesses will have to complete paperwork to 'export' goods to England and Scotland under the withdrawal bill. First, our Brexit Minister said Irish businesses wouldn't have to complete paperwork, then corrected himself - they would. Clearly there has not been due diligence! The people running this bill, do not even know the detail themselves :eek:. There is desperation to push the bill through regardless of whether there is any value or harm to the UK. Our government is trying to slip major permanent changes to the United Kingdom through, so much so that the minister in charge doesn't know the details. There should be alarm bells.

What we know so far is there will be more paperwork and red tape for trade with N Ireland - for that matter with the whole of Ireland and the EU. And it is permanent. We would be changing England's relationship with Ireland. Basically taking Ireland out of the UK, to become its own entity in the EU. The United Kingdom would effectively be down to 3 nations. That is until Scotland follows Ireland, and England and Wales are what is left of a once-great empire. People used to wonder at the third of the globe that the UK controlled. When European nations lost all their colonies, they retained global influence and reach by clubbing together in the EU. For better or worse, what we are looking at from Boris' Breixt now, is an England and Wales that is peripheral. History will view Brexit as the final nail in Great Britain's empire.

Does that matter? Not really. It's an emotional thing. But what does matter is the practical controls we lose and standing within the global community. We no longer have a pivotal say in how global trade works, how to shape global trade to help our companies, how to influence global standards to help England, how we influence global affairs - that will be diminished. Our reach - once so extensive in every corner of the globe - will be paired back to Wales o_O There isn't an emoji to express how futile all this is. I still can't fathom why we'd bother doing all this. As though we have not been successful in having free trade - first via our colonies and then via the EU - we now will put in place more friction and impediment to trade.

To me, Brexit signals the slow demise of an old power. Voted for by the elderly, it is a pull-up-the-draw-bridge, end of a great empire. Like an old stately home that has fallen on hard times, there is something sad about it for me. Godness knows when we'll get the postive good news that we were promised from Brexit, though all people seem to expect from Brexit is we get English free trade deals - sure that will feel awesome and be better than the trade deals the 500m population European Union negotiate :rolleyes: And we get to control our borders so the small amount of EU migrants who come and work doing jobs we don't want to do pizz off; while the massive amount more rest of the world migrants will likely increase. What's not to love?
 
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De-colonisation is a great thing and should be celebrated. Both Britain gaining independence from the EU and (united) Ireland pulling further from Greater England.

In all forms of human organisation smaller is better for everyone bar the powerful.
 
The irony of your posts - that the UK parliament pushed through this legislation while the N Irish parliament has been closed.


Sitting on my porcelain throne using glory-glory.co.uk mobile app

It was the undemocratic nature of the GFA (i.e. the DUP's veto) that was blocking it anyway. Sinn Fein, the SDLP, Alliance and Greens could have got it through on a majority vote if that had been allowed. In effect their no-show yesterday was that democratic consent.

On moral matters some things are also simply good vs evil. These two topics are in that category, the same as say corporal punishment and FGM.
 
No it is not.

On a psychological level humans can't operate in groups of more than 250 (150 being optimum). Anything larger has to be broken into smaller autonomous constituents to operate.

Large scale homogenisation just counters humanity and can only be sustained through a degree of coercion (rather than through cohesion).

An example - hospitals and schools with fewer than 250 patients/pupils operate far better than the industrial scale sausage factories we've ended up with through neo-liberalism. The scale of those only benefits the powerful (those with the money to avoid them), rather than the users
 
On a psychological level humans can't operate in groups of more than 250 (150 being optimum). Anything larger has to be broken into smaller autonomous constituents to operate.

Large scale homogenisation just counters humanity and can only be sustained through a degree of coercion (rather than through cohesion).

An example - hospitals and schools with fewer than 250 patients/pupils operate far better than the industrial scale sausage factories we've ended up with through neo-liberalism. The scale of those only benefits the powerful (those with the money to avoid them), rather than the users
You are conflating two wildly different concepts. Optimum numbers to perform a particular task with belonging to a wider clan. 150 may be the optimum level for a platoon or something of that nature but that is more a practical constraint. Humans have no problem psychologically belonging to large groups. In fact, it has been the story of homo sapiens to come together in larger and larger groups achieved primarily through fiction or myths. Our ability to think in the abstract that has allowed us to cooperate in huge numbers to become the dominant species. Government is an abstract concept. If we can get through this sticky patch, humans will eventually transcend the boundaries of planet Earth as one group.
 
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You are conflating two widely different concepts. Optimum numbers to perform a particular task with belonging to a wider clan. 150 may be the optimum level for a platoon or something of that nature but that is more a practical constraint. Humans have no problem psychologically belonging to large groups. In fact, it has been the story of homo sapiens to come together in larger and larger groups achieved primarily through fiction or myths. Our ability to think in the abstract that has allowed us to cooperate in huge numbers to become the dominant species. Government is an abstract concept. If we can get through this sticky patch, humans will eventually transcend the boundaries of planet Earth as one group.

People from Southampton and Portsmouth don't even speak to each other/do business with each other. I agree you can extend the tribe in a lose sense though myths (nationalism), but the small tribe is always the dominant reflex.
 
Downing Street now saying that if their motion on the 3-day timetable gets voted down, and if the EU agrees to an extension to end of January, they will pull the Withdrawal Agreement bill completely and go for a GE before Christmas.
 
Downing Street now saying that if their motion on the 3-day timetable gets voted down, and if the EU agrees to an extension to end of January, they will pull the Withdrawal Agreement bill completely and go for a GE before Christmas.

The GE won't happen though because Labour don't think they will win it. Instead Johnson will probably just tell the EU we are going for no deal on 31 Jan, to try and make them only approve an extension now if the withdrawal bill is approved first (making the meaningful vote a pure deal or no deal vote).

It sounds like the numbers are very tight on the timetable. I think the govt might have been purposely vague on workers rights/implementation extension protocol, to have something to bargain this afternoon with the 30 ex-Tory and 30 Labour floaters.
 
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