Carte de sejour Nigella's dad and I are applying!

I thought you were active on FB as well. Plenty of ‘news’ on there.

not massively on Facebook, mainly for dogs business. I tend to not get too involved on Facebook if i can help it.

Plus much of the “news” on there is scare mongering and just not researched enough.

At least on here the news is normally news worthy.

I get what you’re saying Harry…I didn’t vote either way a) because I was in the process of moving here and b) I’ve yet to be convinced that voting makes any difference…I don’t watch mainstream tv and only read online MSM to validate my conclusions that it’s all bought and paid for by huge conglomerate interests that don’t give a fuck about the people…I now and again type Theresa May into gargoyle and am met with everything Brexit and nothing about the suffering of the people under austerity…I think it’s a huge distraction to keep people arguing amongst themselves…attacking each other when it’s more urgent than ever that we should be coming together and saying NO…

Surely a major part of the problem since Referendum Day is that we have a government that is not fully committed to exiting the EU. Rather than an ‘in house’ replacement of Mr Cameron by Mrs May, perhaps we should have had a General Election to elect a government that more accurately reflected the will of the people.

I’m fairly sure that the UK had a general election since the referendum. It must be so hard for any government to represent the will of the people when so much of the data that politicians use says that the people are wrong.

there was a election and conservatives won.

Indeed, of course there has been an election since the referendum, but my point is that the election did not take place immediately after the referendum. My view is that given the proportion of senior government ministers who supported the remain campaign, Mr Cameron should have announced the resignation of the entire government of the day rather than just his own leadership of the party.
Regarding your second point, I think that it’s rather unfortunate that in what is supposed to be a system of representative democracy, politicians have for decades adopted a view that they know best instead of staying in greater touch with the views of constituency electorates and actually voting on issues in a way that reflects the view of the majority of people in their own constituency.

It is not that the government is “not fully committed to exiting the EU” but that no-one agrees what relationship we want with the EU. If we do not know what outcome we want it is rather hard to negotiate.

The election did not help - which party, as someone who believes we should stop this farce1 would I have or should I vote for?

I’m a bit fed up with being told that “it is the will of the people” when the referendum was so flawed, the will of the sheeple might be closer2 - I am also fed up with being told that 80% of the vote in the last election went to a party whose policy was to pursue Brexit so there is a mandate for it; it wasn’t as if there was exactly a choice - vote for a party committed to Brexit, or don’t vote (I voted LibDem3, pretty much on the Brexit issue but even they have pulled back from a policy of halting Brexit).

This issue has broken British politics, government and parliament and it will take years to fix - I never thought it possible but we could be entering an era where Italy has a stronger and more stable government than the UK.

1] I believe we are better off in the EU but recognise that, as a nation, we have fairly cold feet regarding closer EU integration - ultimately that might mean loosening our ties with the EU but the way we are going about it is suicide.

2] Sorry for being derogatory - many people who voted leave were rightly angry about a lot of stuff that has happened over the last decade (and longer) much of which had nothing to do with the EU and even that which did could be said to be more about poor UK government policy choices. The leave campaign tapped into and manipulated this vein of discontent mercilessly; I think even they were ultimately shocked about how effective they had been.

3] If Brexit were the only thing driving voting choice across the nation Cable would now be PM but historical party loyalties (and the view that only the Tories or Labour matter) play a much bigger role in that choice, I can’t see the LibDems ever breaking free from the sidelines without PR which will never happen.

1 Like

I rather thought that the result was a draw. Is that not the reason for the current “Confidence and Supply” agreement between the Conservatives and the DUP ?

See my post above - it was a draw because the two main parties are no longer aligned along the big dividing issue in British politics at the moment, the split in public opinion is deep, unfixable, and crosses the traditional party lines.

Voting Labour in won’t help - they are just as divided on the issue.

I don’t think, having said that, that people are really rationalising the Tory or Labour position on Brexit but mostly still voting on history loyalties.

1 Like

Do you really believe that the will of an uninformed general public is the most important factor in decision making at international level?

If we are to have a true democracy, then yes I do believe that the general public should have the last say in regards to the direction of the nation as a whole. If the general public are regarded as being ‘uninformed’, then that of itself is a problem created by the politicians who in such a democracy have a duty to report back to their electorate in a truthful way.
What we need is a government that acts according to the people’s wishes, rather than one made up of individuals and parties whose main concern seems solely to be the furtherance of their own careers and power bases.

1 Like

Perhaps a cross-party government of national unity formed from politicians who actually support Brexit might help ? At least they might be more determined to make it work.

There is a big difference between having the last say and the Brexit referendum. Are you suggesting another referendum once the real cost of Britain’s withdrawal becomes apparent. Personally I would be happy if parliament was able to accept or reject the final deal.
Hopefully England will win the World Cup, the nation will be reinstated to its proper position on the World stage and everybody will live happily ever after.

No, I’m not in favour of another referendum. I don’t have any problem with Parliament voting on the proposed final deal. Presumably the question would put as to whether to leave with the proposed deal, or to leave without it.

Even if everything pointed to leaving being an obvious disaster? It sounds to me that you believe that the voice of an uninformed public is more important than economic and political facts.

Unfortunately even if you “believe in Brexit” there are multiple flavours of Brexit in which you might believe, and the “harder” forms are incompatible with the Good Friday Agreement.

Therein lies the rub.

Also, given that I thought we were a democracy (laughable, I know) it pisses me off that the views of the 48% who do not wish to leave the EU are effectively being ignored when it comes to our future relationship with the EU.

more than half of the people who voted out had not a clue to what they were voting for and care very little if not at all about the end result. So how can we look for democracy in this situation.

1 Like

I agree but you might as well say the same about a general election.

For all its flaws its how the democratic process works.

But in a general election - should I not vote for the party that gets into power I can still look to the opposition to provide some representation and to hold the government in check - there isn’t a functioning opposition at present, certainly not to Brexit.

that’s a bit of a wild generalisation Barbara.

2 Likes