Nigel Farage, in a blue-grey suit, and Eddie Izzard, in a pink beret, arguing the toss about immigration on “Question Time”. Grande hilaire.
I seem to quite like most of the people who want to stay in [apart from Dave] and quite dislike most of the people who want to get out. On that basis, I’m in. But I’m worried that 90 per cent of the voters taking part in this referendum probably don’t have a blind clue what they’re voting on and their decision will likely be about “foreigners taking our jobs, houses, schools places, hospital beds, etc”.
Judging by the ITV debate, the mantra “take back control” is working for Leave. It was brought out every other sentence.
QT does seem particularly fractious tonight. In fact, I don’t like the atmosphere that is creeping into the debate generally.
Yep, I’ve noticed that too. After weeks of apparently no-one giving much of a shit, it’s all got quite nasty. And “take back control” sounds worryingly winning. It will certainly appeal to a lot of the, how shall I say, less discerning voters out there.
I’m increasingly alarmed by how angry people already are about this – and how angry they will get if a) we don’t leave or b) we do vote leave and then find that we can’t actually leave in the way they want/expect. And as for the other side…. I knew Cameron was incompetent and unprincipled but the fucking mess this could cause will make the Iraq war look like a triumph.
Jesus, what an absolutely bloody awful country. No wonder the world pities and laughs at us.
Agree about Cameron. He promised this referendum as a vote-winner in the 2015 General Election. Now I fear our future will be decided by the masses who don’t have a fucking clue what the real arguments/facts/consequences are/will be. And I include myself in that.
Yup. This is my problem about the whole referendum in a nutshell. The nation did not demand it. This is a sop, thrown by an incompetent Prime Minister, to his own party, for the sake of unity, not to the nation as a whole. We pay our politicians to know what’s best for us and to take the appropriate action, so when it comes to trade deals with the EU etc, normal people have no idea what’s best. So this entire referendum is predicated on lies and propaganda from both sides. Because, frankly, who of the public has the time or the inclination to judge this properly?
And yes, I will be voting in, mainly because the politicians on that side are less aggravating than the ones on leave. Also because the lies being told by Leave (£350 million a week to be in! Rapist Turks are desperate to come in!) are just so egregious.
But indeed. We pay politicians to understand this stuff and they aren’t doing their fucking jobs. This is why I am angry.
The nation did not demand it, but they did vote in a party who were promising it.
The Coalition did not promise a Scottish referendum. And the Lib Dem side certainly did not promise to raise tuition fees. The current assault on the NHS wasn’t a promise either. Promises don’t mean shit, unless they are made to your own backbenchers, it seems.
The referendum promise was a deliberate ploy to minimise Tory voters’ defections to UKIP.
“No wonder the world pities and laughs at us.”
Nah.
They’re somewhat more bemused by us than usual, that’s all.
You appear to be suggesting (in the opening post) that there is a qualitative difference between voting on the basis of ‘quite liking’ some of the people on one side and voting on the basis of having opinions about issues.
You might not agree with the people who have these opinions; you might not even agree that the things they are concerned about are ‘real’ issues. But many of the people who hold those views believe them to be real issues; on that basis, they are, surely, engaged with the democratic process in a way that is more substantial than voting on the basis of ‘quite liking’ someone?
Quite. Head-scratcher of an OP.
You’re both right, of course. That was really the point I was making. I was being self-deprecating. I don’t really understand the complex issues involved [and suspect the vast majority of voters don’t either], so I shall go along with the people I “quite like” and who I “usually agree with”. It’s a worry, isn’t it?
That said, I don’t believe the ‘if Boris Johnson says something it’s got to be shite’ mantra will ever let you down.
His favourite Stones album is apparently ‘Goats Head Soup.’
(Not, of course, that he’d have a Scooby Doo about the early stuff.)
NEVER diss The Goat!!!
For myself, I feel that it is a bit more than simply disliking the main Leave campaigners.
Firstly there is a group who I don’t doubt are sincere, but I don’t think they have proved successful in anything else they have done – Duncan Smith, Grayling, Owen Patterson, etc.
Second, there is a group who I think are pure opportunists. This bunch includes Boris Johnson a sizeable bunch of junior ministers and, increasingly, Michael Gove, who appears to have completely reversed his views on immigration.
Thirdly, a group (John Redwood, Rees-mogg etc) where I disagree with practically everything else they have or will ever say, and I confess it is difficult to get past that. ( Actually, if he were still alive Bob Crow would have been in this group).
I suspect I am not alone in thinking that Sarah Wollaston was the most if not the only credible figure amongst them. And now she has jumped ship….
“No it isn’t”
“Yes it is”
“No it isn’t”
“Yes it is”
A sample of the quality of the debate there. Makes you proud.
(Clears throat).
Glad to see you’re thinking before you speak, Bri.
🙂
Nigel Farrage: “Wales is just as Eurosceptic as the rest of England.”
As was mentioned on Twitter not one of the Leave gang would make it to the end of Willy Wonka’s factory tour.
Whatever you feel about Brexit, it’s fairly clear, and has been for a while now, that the Remain camp are losing this debate.
I do wonder if some of this “there should never have been a referendum, people are too stupid to make these decisions” stuff isn’t emblematic of a wider issue. Nobody, it seems, has actually been willing to step forward and put the argument for Europe to the people. Instead, we’ve been treated to Cameron giving it his usual half-assed, will-this-do approach, Corbyn spending most of his energies trying to explain how, although (shock! horror!) he agrees with a Tory about something, he’s really far too good to soil himself by rolling up his sleeves and sharing a platform with him, and then most others precisely nowhere to be seen. It was hard not to watch last night’s debate and wonder how we’ve reached the stage where Angela flipping Eagle is meant to be convincing anyone of anything.
So, we are where we are. The British public appear poised to cast their collective vote for the promise that we may yet live in the proverbial “interesting times”. I do wonder if we might not look back on all this and marvel at the sheer recklessness of it all – a leap into the dark, ignoring the advice of the vast majority of “experts” (that deadly perjorative, here in the New Politics) and every living Prime Minister, past and present. What do they know, after all?
However, whatever the outcome I think we need to respect the will of the people. We all had an opportunity to debate this issue, and the Remain side (in which, I suppose, I must regretfully include myself) have royally, flubbed it. Partly due to lack of ability, partly due to lack of will to fight, and partly due to an inability to move past factional politics and properly grasp the nettle.
How on Earth Boris Johnson has been able to run rings round everyone, I will never know. This did make me laugh (or at least chuckle bleakly) yesterday.
https://tompride.wordpress.com/2016/05/28/the-great-eu-debate-boris-johnson-vs-boris-Johnson/
The really scary thing in all this is that here at the last knockings there’s precisely no one left in public life who has the gravitas to warn the British people against making what does appear to be, in the short term at least, a potentially quite costly mistake. The single scariest statement of the entire campaign arrived in midweek, when the PM had the accusation put to him that “experts built the titanic, didn’t they” – a line of argument which seemed to fox him completely. Experts may well have built the Titanic, but when you’re sick you still go see a doctor, do you not?
A reall worrying few months in the life of this fine nation, no matter what the outcome. Still, at least the Labour Party got to gawp at some red hot “blue on blue” action.
From what I’ve read, there could easily be total chaos if Leave win as a majority of cross party pro EU mps combined with The House Of Lords could easily and most probably will vote against the necessary Act Of Parliament needed to actually leave, which could trigger an early General Election because of the subsequent mess. Will Of The People ? I very much doubt it, or am just I being cynical ?…..
The corrupt, unelected, unaccountable apparatchiks at the head of the EU will simply demand that we run the referendum again until we provide them with the result they desire. They have past form in this regard.
Indeed.
How unlike our own beloved Scotia!
The SNP MSPs are unelected and unaccountable?
I think you know to what I refer, sir.
Neverendum? Not a fan, either.
Can I remind you what happened to Labour the last time they threw their energies in with the tories? They got completely wiped out in Scotland. I’m sorry but they cannot make the same mistake twice. That would be beyond idiotic. Even Corbyn ain’t that stupid.
This referendum is nothing more than an internal tory squabble. But it threatens to wipe out this country’s economy. That’s the scandal here. Cameron’s inability to manage his own party will wreck out prosperity.
If it’s an issue that’s going to “wipe out” our economy then I’d expect Labour to put their own partisan concerns to one side and get their shoulders to the wheel.
Besides which, there’s a fairly material difference between sharing common cause with the Tories in Scotland (where they’re despised) and across the entire UK (where they were elected into government).
The biggest political decision for a generation and the Labour Party nowhere to be seen. Utterly shameful.
The ‘despised’ Tories in Scotland now hold more seats in the Scottish Parliamebt than Labour.
The reasons for Labour’s implosion in Scotland are many and various and can not be laid wholly at the door of their sharing a platform in the independence referendum.
Corbin, himself, has hardly been the most ardent supporter of the EU over the past decades.
If Labour stand too close to the tories here, then they’ll be in severe danger of losing seats in the North East to UKIP. The referendum is different but the danger to heartland Labour is the same.
Is there such a thing as heartland Labour in Scotland these days?
Or….anywhere?
“… Jeremy Corbyn has met many people with whom he profoundly disagrees….
He believes it is essential to speak to people with whom there is disagreement, particularly when they have large-scale support or democratic mandates.
Simply talking to people who agree with you won’t help achieve justice or peace.”
– Jeremy Corbyn’s spokesman, May 2016.
If the Remain camp want him on the platform it would appear that all they need to do is commit to the destruction of Israel.
‘Threw in their energies with the Tories’. Which side is that, then? In or Out? The Tories are split, the more right wing being on the Out side. This is different to Scottish Independence. Even the SNP are In. Standing on an In platform is not standing close to Tories.
The thing about this is that no one really knows anything. There’s enough equivocation in all the expert opinion for the Leavers to brush it off as simply that – opinion. It may be that in the long term the UK (or England) will find a better place in the world outside the EU. I can’t see it myself, but, you know, I’ve got no more facts about how that would pan out than anyone else.
I’m pretty sure there will be two immediate reactions to Brexit – our economy will take a huge hit, and Cameron and Osborne will be heading for the door. So I wonder where the anti-austerity poster-wavers are on all this. Why aren’t they marching for Remain in every town in the country? They don’t usually need an excuse to grab the Guy Fawkes masks and inflatable pigs. And why doesn’t Corbyn put his precious principles aside for a moment and finish this here and now by getting on stage with Cameron, whose easily defeated small majority government is infinitely preferable to what we’d have if Johnson and Gove get into Downing Street?
Mr Cameron has put a momentous decision about this country into the hands of the populous, 99% of whom don’t have a clue, and will make their vote according to some half-assed idea that they agree with one person on one point, and vote accordingly. That’s the problem with this kind of thing, you’re putting the decision into the hands of the people least qualified to make that decision, i.e. the people. That’s what governments are for, for me.
It’s madness, I tell you.
I’m genuinely concerned that the vote will be “leave” (can you imagine what all forms of media will be like for months afterwards?) but as it’s such a momentous decision, why is a simple majority good enough? As it stands, 49.99% of votes cast could be to stay, but we leave. Hardly a revolt of the people? I guess them’s the rules and here we are?
The vitriol we’re increasingly getting now is concerning as well.
Wouldn’t it be ironic if we vote leave and England win Euro 2016? Mind that’s about as likely as Leicester winning the premiership…
A simple majority? Where would you set the bar? Generally, when it’s an issue I oppose, I like to demand a 99% vote in favour.
Basic question – if the vote is to leave, does this mean the British won’t be able to live and work in Europe without a visa etc?
Don’t know – probably. But what the ‘take back control’ gang haven’t twigged is that we won’t have any control at all over decisions like this one
Yes, I can hear seem echoes fromantic one or two of the more optimistic statements from the YES campaigners in the Scottish referendum. Not least the assumption that UK and particularly English politicians wouldn’t make decisions post a Yes vote that were predicated on political realities and the need to placate their own electorate, rather than making dispassionate case by case judgements. It seems unlikely to me that the EU would be any different in the event of a Leave vote. Why, for example, if you wanted to hold the remaining nations together, would you grant the UK a deal as favourable they have now ? And as more than one person has pointed out, it is the grouping with 450 million plus consumere that holds the whip hand, not the group with 50 million, irrespective of whether it is the 5th biggest economy in the world ( ie not actually much different from any other major western economy).
This has got “Disaster” written all over it, and I can’t help thinking that in years/decades to come, people will be looking back and thinking “How on Earth did was that bloody stupid thing allowed to happen?”
If the vote is for “Leave” (and I’m sorry to say I think it will be), the EU’s sole priority from June 24th onwards will be making sure that no other members think about doing the same, so they’re going to make it a hugely painful process for us on every possible front, which on top on the inevitable instant recession (pretty much everyone on both sides agrees that will happen, the only questions are how big & how long it will be), is going to make it at best a miserable few years, or at worst paint us into a corner where we’re forced to take a punitive trade deal that leaves us off worse than we are now, and with even less “control” (to use the Leave campaign’s favourite new word…)
The fundamental problem with the “Remain” campaign is that they’re asking people to vote for the status quo, which is dull, far from perfect and hard to sell, whereas the “Leave” campaign can make up whatever happy nonsense they like with no real factual backup whatsoever, and I do worry that those who vote to “Leave” genuinely think they’ll wake up on the 24th in a land of unicorns & pixies, with all foreigners sent back “home”, higher wages for all, and £350 million extra a week being spent on the NHS…
The status quo is the easiest sell of all. Most people fear change.
Status Quo aren’t changing. The same twelve bars for fifty years.
Status Quo aren’t changing. The same twelve bars for fifty years
You say that as if it is a bad thing.
I love a bit of Quo.
Oh don’t get me wrong. A cheap joke.
I’ve said this for years – if you don’t like their Down Down, you don’t like rock’n’roll.
I don’t think I can be moved on this.
Totally acknowledged ianess, but in a situation like this where an active decision (i.e. voting) is required, as opposed to passive acceptance, the “Leave” side *seems* far more motivated to get out and vote right now… I hope I’m wrong, but that’s the vibe I’m getting right now…
That’s an issue for Remain supporters to address. As for ‘happy nonsense’, I’m hearing bucket loads from both sides.
The Sun has correctly aligned itself with voting intentions for 40 years.
We’re fucked.
Their front page today is a laundry list of falsehoods and distortions but as ever they’re only aping the public mood and pretending to lead it. But they are good apers of the public mood.
I’m a real optimist about humans in general, but genuinely think that this and Trump and “trigger warnings” and “safe spaces” are – while seemingly unrelated – all symptomatic of a West that has no idea how good it has it, how far we’ve come and the sheer scope of our social progress in the last 70 years. It’s the sort of wilful self-destruction that can only come from a kind of decadence based on entitlement.
I worry – but hope I’m wrong – that we’re about to exit a golden age.
Hasn’t this whole matter turned into the equivalent of what’s going on in the US with Trump? The more the ‘establishment’ threatens the electorate with threats to everything from the NHS to House Prices to Pensions if we leave, the more the voters revolt. The leave camp don’t seem so high handed and can promise anything and everything when we ‘regain control’ So this turns into an opportunity for the neglected working and middle classes of the country to give the political class a sound thrashing, kick a good number of them out of office, and then deal with the consequences. Similarly with Trump’s rabble rousing and wall building. Whatever happens, things can’t be the same, by definition of we vote leave, but even if we vote to stay, its only going to be by a tiny majority by the look of it, so god knows what effect that will have on the future of most of our Politicians. And will the EU really allow us any of these so called renegotiations if we vote stay – I think it will be a matter of ‘ ok now you’ve had your fun, you decided to stay, so you’re in, let’s get back to where we were ‘