True but working to make this better does not include failing to accept what has happened, rehashing old arguments, clinging to the past. It involves dealing with the NOW – what IS in front of us not what we would like to be in front of us – so than we can shape the future.

Mol, Jambas is incorrectly using trade balances as a measure for determining whether we get a good deal or not. It’s the sort of trick Alex Salmond uses. Close enough to the truth to sound vaguely plausible but still flawed when examined properly.

True but working to make this better does not include failing to accept what has happened

Can you define ‘failing to accept’? I don’t think anyone here is doing that.

You just have! 😉

Wtf are you talkng about?

I am not keen on the failing to accept angle. I imagine brexit will happen, I am hopeful I can find out if there is a plan, but I am just as hopeful that Parliament will have oversight of what ever we decide to do, not just deals but econmnomic plans etc as that is how the country runs. At the moment May thinks the referendum has given her carte blanche to be a dictator.

At the moment May thinks the referendum has given her carte blanche to be a dictator.

Hyperbole – May has the smallest governing majority since Harold Wilson/James Callaghan in 1974

I see May has mistakenly offered Gove an exposed flank

even though a normal person might keep silent over the laughable hypocrisy of it he’s never one to miss an opportunity to inflict a wound in the back…

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/mar/04/brexit-campaigners-theresa-may-guarantee-eu-citizens-rights?CMP=fb_gu

Hyperbole – May has the smallest governing majority since Harold Wilson/James Callaghan in 1974

Well if you refuse to put anything to the vote, this is irrelevant.

Well if you refuse to put anything to the vote, this is irrelevant

But she hasn’t, there will be a vote on the “deal”, the Great Repeal Bill etc.

That is the deal or no deal, hardly democracy is it.

5+ your previous questions seem simeoneaht diesnegoenous since you are clearly firmly of one mindset and happy to simply stay in hyperbole land

What is the alternative you propose?

^^ indeed, butvthe no-deal is a viable and workable option. It’s the same option the US, China etc use to trade with the EU.

TMH I use trade balances as an approximation for the potential benefits. A lot of our trade is tariff free (or minimal) under WTO. If you look at those who pay substantial amounts into the budget they have big trade surpluses. We are the odd one out.

mrmo – Member

And if a large subset of native born are incapable of doing the work we need doing because they are too special. It is why the English keep on bringing in foreigners after all what do you propose?

Plenty of times i have heard people say would get out of bed to do his or that, they would rather sit around on the dole scrounging and blaming foreigners for taking jobs they refuse to do.

It’s moronic comments like that ^ which is partly the reason why I generally avoid commenting on this thread. Yesterday we had “Britain is racist and xenophobic” today we have “we lost the referendum to dole scroungers”……obviously half the electorate are dole scroungers.

“Britain is a nation of racist dole scroungers”……… It all has the intellectual qualities of Donald Trump and the Daily Mail.

Certain internet trolls posts here, bear a distinct resemblance to the 45th president of United States

It’s not a good approximation/proxy and our trade deficit is not caused by Membership of the EU. Leaving it will not help either. Many of our current WTO and other trade deals will also need to be renegotiated so trade will be more difficult, more uncertainand more costly.. None of this is a positive

We already have trade deals in plase with 90% of our trading partners and we are throwing some of this away. Very, very odd logic. Still chin up…..

teamhurtmore – Member
5+ your previous questions seem simeoneaht diesnegoenous since you are clearly firmly of one mindset and happy to simply stay in hyperbole land

What is the alternative you propose?

I am not of one mindset, I am truly on the fence, I am not armed with enough information to be able to say brexit or staying in the eu are good or bad ideas. There is masses of info on how the eu works for us, I can see its flaws, but I have yet to see any info on how brexit works for us, and I have not seen much democracy since then. 75% of tories were pro eu, the tory party were pro eu at the last GE, but now they are the opposite. This is confusing, the statistics around the opinion polls are confusing, it is all bloody confusing.
I am not sure what you want me to propose – I have nothing to propose on brexit for the afore mentioned reasons, I guess I could propose something about the process- transparency, a decent white paper outlining trade, immigration, patent law, human rights etc, and then 3 or 4 bills in parliament to approve the various changed processes, then invoke art 50. ie redesign the parachute before jumping.

Plus hyperbole? What have I exaggerated? Reading between the lines you seem to agree that the vote on the deal is just deal or no deal. What else?

it is all bloody confusing

Not really. Yes, MPs are pro EU, as are most people who realise it’s about more than the shape of bananas. But they are ingratiating themselves to the electorate and fighting each other to be the Brexit party. Which is a downside of democracy – you can’t do what you think is right, you have to do what the electorate wants, even if they don’t know what they are doing.

Democracy only works if the electorate understand the issues.

Which is a downside of democracy – you can’t do what you think is right, you have to do what the electorate wants, even if they don’t know what they are doing.

Yes I can see you would drop your principles if its single issue, but our membership of the eu is a massive group of issues, possibly the most important part of the political landscape.
2ndly, in a representative democracy I believe the MP’s role is to lead thought, not follow it. Otherwise we should just let the Sun run the country.

Dictatorship – a wee bit OTT don’t you think?

Our European friends would be lapping up your proposed A50 timetable – please excuse us for a few years while we decide what we are going to do, exciuse he uncertainly but well, we’re worth it. You don’t mind it we delay negotiations until 2025 do you?

There is nothing confusing in a government saying it will hold a vote, respect the result and execute it whatever the outcome. The confusion comes from the tactics now being used to deny this. Mol even pretends this is undemocratic. That is just odd.

Dictatorship – a wee bit OTT don’t you think?

No, her rhetoric is terrifying.

There is nothing confusing in a government saying it will hold a vote, respect the result and execute it whatever the outcome. The confusion comes from the tactics now being used to deny this. Mol even pretends this is undemocratic. That is just odd.

This is shifting the goalposts, I am not confused by the events, I am confused about how it will work or why it is a good idea. You know that, because that is what I have been asking.

PS I am sure the referendum bill said the ref was advisory.

butvthe no-deal is a viable and workable option

Living with some terrible illness or disability is ‘viable and workable’ but not necessarily desirable. I am glad to see Jamabalaya has acknowledged that ‘viable and workable’ is the best we can aspire to.

THM – the vote is being represented as a landslide for leave of course, whereas you and I (and even Jamba) know it was half and half on a vote where the leavers were always going to get more excited (and actually get out of bed) than the remainers.
Orwell would love some of the democracy we’re getting (actually as a socialist internationalist he probably wouldn’t, but he’d recognise the plot).

PS – not criticising folk for working out you actually have to vote to win a vote.

igm – Member
THM – the vote is being represented as a landslide for leave of course, whereas you and I (and even Jamba) know it was half and half on a vote where the leavers were always going to get more excited (and actually get out of bed) than the remainers.

Indeed, someone (I think J Hartley Brewer) said it was the biggest electoral mandate for 50 years which at 17 million is true, Blairs best was 13 million, but with 16.9 million voting against, it was also the biggest electoral non mandate…

Hyperbole – May has the smallest governing majority since Harold Wilson/James Callaghan in 1974 [/I]

Except she’s got both of the largest parties voting for it, and a weak official opposition leader who’s lost the plot.

“Britain is a nation of racist dole scroungers”……… It all has the intellectual qualities of Donald Trump and the Daily Mail.

Would you deny that 40years of DM headlines have poisoned the debate? Would you deny that demographically the old and the uneducated were more likely to vote out? Would you deny that those areas that will be hardest hit are now worrying about losing EU money? Or fishermen who were shafted by MR Farage voted Brexit?

Mol even pretends this is undemocratic.

I certainly don’t.

I’m saying democracy isn’t functioning well.

I met a very twitchy vet on the way back from the Alps. He was complaining the government hadn’t put together a case for leaving therefore he felt bullied into voting remain and therefore voted leave.
I think he had a large animal practice and had just worked out what Brexit was likely to mean for a) farm subsidies in the long term and b) NZ lamb and US beef import prices.
Not guaranteed of course, but more than possible.

Yes you heard that right. Voted leave because the remain supporting government hadn’t said enough positive things about leaving.

I wonder if he’ll be able to afford to ski in a year or two?

Agreed. Hence my call – largely rejected here – than we now ALL have a responsibility to try to make this work rather than stick our heads in the sand and/or stand crying its not fair,

No.

the vote is being represented as a landslide for leave of course, whereas you and I (and even Jamba) know it was half and half on a vote where the leavers were always going to get more excited (and actually get out of bed) than the remainers.

Oh for god’s sake this is absolute bollocks, it is commonly accepted that the status quo has a very significant advantage in referendums add to that the much greater resources available and used by the Government to influence the campaign and there is no doubt that Leave were significant underdogs.

I’m saying democracy isn’t functioning well.

Oh Whoopie Doo another redefinition of democracy because the vote didn’t go your way – have you mentioned you losing your rights on this page yet? Better get that in too.

igm – there’s nowt as thick as folk…

Oh Whoopie Doo another redefinition of democracy because the vote didn’t go your way

Now that’s bollocks.

You may like to imagine me as a petulant whiney remainer, but perhaps you should consider the arguments rather than simply raving slightly about me.

For what it’s worth (not much, I expect) but I’ve always said that democracy doesn’t function well. Even when we had government for which I voted. I’ve always said it because it’s blatantly obvious to anyone who thinks about it a bit.

I doubt you’d be as cocky if remain had won, or if we had a Green government or something.

Oh for god’s sake this is absolute bollocks, it is commonly accepted that the status quo has a very significant advantage in referendums add to that the much greater resources available and used by the Government to influence the campaign and there is no doubt that Leave were significant underdogs.

Both sides had access to greater resources as you put it, as both sides were from the ruling party. And as the ruling party they also had access(in the pockets of) to certain news corporations who have spent the last couple of decades poisoning the EU well.

El-Bent Remain had a massive rescource advantage, including the entire Civil Service which was explicitly prevented from answering Leavers questions or doing anything to help. Remain spent more money and that even excludes the £9m leaflet. Then you have all the global political interference from Obama to IMF, OECD etc.

TMH Not being in the EU won’t “fix” our trade deficit but it will help.

I’m new to this thread: anyone care to summarise the plot and main characters? 😉

Democracy functions fine, but people are finding the liberal democratic consensus is not quite as widely held as they thought. You will be pleased to know our Democracy Index (compiled by the Economist) improved during the year. So Brexit improves democracy, who would have thought it.

I doubt you’d be as cocky if remain had won, or if we had a Green government or something.

I would be much cockier I voted remain and frankly with a fair wind I should do very well in the unlikely event that the Green’s came to power – although I would never vote for it – every cloud and all that.

El-Bent Remain had a massive rescource advantage, including the entire Civil Service which was explicitly prevented from answering Leavers questions or doing anything to help. Remain spent more money and that even excludes the £9m leaflet. Then you have all the global political interference from Obama to IMF, OECD etc.

But leave had a bigger resource. The newspapers.

Democracy functions fine, but people are finding the liberal democratic consensus is not quite as widely held as they thought. You will be pleased to know our Democracy Index (compiled by the Economist) improved during the year. So Brexit improves democracy, who would have thought it.

As said further up the thread , democracy only works if the population have access to all the relevant information, that wasn’t going to happen when you have newspaper organisations like the ones this country has. Democracy has been perverted.

jambalaya – Member

El-Bent Remain had a massive rescource advantage, including the entire Civil Service which was explicitly prevented from answering Leavers questions or doing anything to help. Remain spent more money and that even excludes the £9m leaflet. Then you have all the global political interference from Obama to IMF, OECD etc.
I’ll show this to a mate of mine just to wind him up. He’ll have been one of those that was explicitly prevented from answering questions filtering the info, just for your info.
#Bullcrap

Democracy functions fine

So you think it’s fine that people with no idea about a particular subject are allowed a direct vote in what the country does regarding it?

Maybe I should set up a STW poll on whether or not I should use a finite state machine or simply temporal reasoning over events in this demo I’m working on. That would be democratic, wouldn’t it?

Democracy has been perverted.

It’s been like this for decades, if not forever.

But leave had a bigger resource. The newspapers.

TV is far more important than the newspapers which were split anyway – Telegraph, Express, Sun and Mail were Brexit. Mirror, Guardian, Independent, Times and FT were remain. The former have more readers, the latter drive TV’s news agenda more.

Leave definitely campaigned better.

So we ended up with the result that had the best campaigners, not the result that’s best for the country. Is that ‘functioning’ democracy? Yes and no….