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@dazh you still haven’t told me what I’m supposed to be making the best of.
Think you’re mistaking me for someone who thinks brexit is a good thing.
you’ve made it up because it suits your agenda.
My only agenda is getting on with life. If you want to spend the rest of your days regretting what might have been carry on. It’s utterly pointless.
We’re still on the downward slide whilst others are starting the rebuilding process that we cannot even consider starting until after the next election
Absolutely right. Glad you acknowledge that it’s our useless current govt and that things could/should/will get better when we finally get rid of them.
I'm well aware of what your agenda is. You let it slip on the original brexit thread.
How are those brexit benefits looking, come up with any yet?
You're really bad at flouncing, aren't you. "I'm leaving. Hey, I'm leaving! LOOK AT ME I'M LEAVING!! Are you all deaf?! I'll keep posting until you pay me some attention!" The key feature of flouncing is to just **** off, because no-one cares.
My only agenda is getting on with life.
Except your not because all you do is talk about people talking about Brexit
If you want to spend the rest of your days regretting what might have been carry on. It’s utterly pointless.
I don't quite know what this means. Regretting something is an emotion, not something you actively do. I don't sit here regretting brexit instead of mowing the lawn, or doing dishes or something. We're all getting on with life, of course we are - what choice do we have?
If you're asking us to forget all about it - I don't think that's going to happen. It'll become part of history, and it will be discussed and analysed as such like Thatcher is now, or Suez or something.
Yet that’s all you talk about.
[ checks posters’ contributions to other threads ]
You’re bullshitting, and trolling, and obvious with it.
Think you’re mistaking me for someone who thinks brexit is a good thing.
No, I'm identifying you as someone has said that in the past. Since you can't identify a tangible benefit to this nonsense (which is what the actual question was) perhaps you can tell us how to make the best of it as you have so often done in the past.
things could/should/will get better
Heard that one before
Still as tangible now as it was then. Coulda shoulda woulda didn't work out in the end.
Its does amuse this desire from some on the left to forget about brexit. Its not over and done with - the most damaging parts are yet to come and no matter how much you wish it labour are going to have to account for their pusillanimous brexiteer position. Pretending its not happened doesn't make it go away. pretend you can "make brexit work" is a lie
Absolutely right. Glad you acknowledge that it’s our useless current govt and that things could/should/will get better when we finally get rid of them.
It's parts of this useless government and the ones before it since 2014 or so that enabled Brexit and made multiple other ****ups along the way, the two are inseparable. Until we get a government that acknowledged that mistakes have been made and we need to do whatever it takes to undo them (this includes Brexit, our immigration policy, our right to protest, the state of the NHS, the destruction of the whole public sector system in general and our right-wing press' hold over the electorate amongst lot sof other things).
Brexit and it's failure is everything right now. It is the ticket that got us the governments we have had for the last 6 years, the government that has screwed up our country during the pandemic, the government that has alienated us from most of Europe, that has soured our relationship with the US, that has debased society so far that it'll take multiple generations to fix.
Let me reiterate that: Brexit is at the core of everything, directly and indirectly. Until you understand this and stop pretending things are magically going to get better then there is no discussion to have with you.
I normally don't bite for trolls but this is such a fundamental issue for this country right now that I have to say the above. There is no way forward for us until we start undoing the damage that Brexit has done, that includes changing our ruling party amongst many other things but it is the core issue as the government has been elected on that basis. Ignoring that is stupid and dangerous.
"Brexit is at the core of everything, directly and indirectly. Until you understand this and stop pretending things are magically going to get better then there is no discussion to have with you."
I thought I had all bases covered but I'm adding narcissism for dummies to the starter pack.
Let me reiterate that: Brexit is at the core of everything, directly and indirectly. Until you understand this and stop pretending things are magically going to get better then there is no discussion to have with you.
Is true - there is a fundamental deceit we see from some of the leftists posters
1) pretending brexit is over and sorted
2) pretending that labor can make brexit work
3) pretending that labour will not be held to account for their brexiteers stance at the next GE
Brexit is core and central to our issues, pretending will not cure anything
I thought I had all bases covered but I’m adding narcissism for dummies to the starter pack.
There's no narcissism in there at all. To fix anything you have to understand the underlying issues. If the Brexit vote had gone the other way we would have stayed in, Cameron would not have resigned, the right wing of the Conservative Party would have been kept quiet for a few years (the vote was to shut them up, no-one thought they would actually win) and we would have been on a completely different trajectory as a country. To fix the country you have to go back to that point and identify the various stages where things went wrong and act accordingly to repair things, not undo them but change the course of decisions for the better. Once that has been actioned you can then start to build on better foundations, leaving things in a better state for future generations.
Still waiting for a list of those blatantly obvious future benefits he’s already told us about, too.
Glad I didn’t hold my breath; I’ve got nobody here who could resuscitate me…
Brexit is at the core of everything, directly and indirectly.
Hmm. I'll disagree. Brexit is a symptom of even deeper problems.
stop pretending things are magically going to get better
Things probably will get better - not magically, but eventually we will end up with better politicians than we have now. They won't be all the way good, we probably still won't be back in the EU for decades, but things will probably be better in many areas than they are now at some point in the not too distant future.
, but things will probably be better in many areas than they are now at some point in the not too distant future.
I admire your unfailing optimism. shame that neither labour nor the tories are actually suggesting anything to improve things.
What issues do we face that brexit is not central to?
Things probably will get better – not magically, but eventually we will end up with better politicians than we have now
Why, how? When was the 'golden era' of MPs and how would we get back to that now, i.e. not as much blatant lying/making stuff up, resigning when they have done wrong etc,. not in it for themselves quite as much, an electorate who actually care what the MPs is up to rather tea just voting for whatever MP represents the party they want in power.
While the main platform of both major parties is quite plainly built on a lie, it's inevitable that the only politicians we will get are those who are either thick as mince or quite happy to lie blatantly and pursue policies that they know to be extremely harmful to the country, in order to advance their careers. I know politicians have always tended to varnish the truth and say what they think people want to hear, but recent years have elevated this to an entirely different plane. Both tory and labour have quite openly and obviously purged those on the relatively sane wings of the party.
There are those who still like to believe that Starmer is a clever man playing the long game, but I don't buy it. Years spent in a bubble of invincible ignorance, repeatedly telling the same lies, can't pass without leaving a mark.
Brexit isn't an opportunity any more than a hole in the head is an opportunity to have some emergency surgery. If "making the best of it" means anything, it means fixing the problems to the fullest extent possible, as soon as possible. Which means minimising its injurious effects.
The vote was one thing, the botched implementation was another entirely.
Molly - you believe they've "botched" it? How quaint.
Let me take you back to my quote "Brexit isn't the destination, it's the vehicle" - do you not understand yet what is going on?
There are those who still like to believe that Starmer is a clever man playing the long game, but I don’t buy it.
Disagree, he's playing the "long game" because he knows that only once they're in power can they do anything - remember under UK's First Past The Post system you only need a majority of 1 to be the 'dictator' for the next 5 years.
Oh, so what Machiavellian plot do you think he's planning with this majority of 1 then?
Lols.
Cougar
i fell for the 350 million to the nhs thing, hook line and sinker.
To be fair Ton, that’s not uncommon. The Brexit Bus tipped the vote over the line.
I still don't get the £350 million thing... this was a very easy to check non subjective fact and a very obvious lie rather than "promises" of trade deals or such.
I guess people believed curved bananas and stuff?
Did he ever say it?
On TV the day after the referendum, if I recall correctly.
My memory is he said "THEY shouldn't have said that". I don't think he actually said that BEFORE, I'm just saying as far as I know he just let it be said and said nothing until the day after.
Reluctantjumper
I’m scared for the next few years as the rest of Europe gets on with recovering from everything that’s happened in the last few years while we as a country are stifled by the effects of Brexit with no tangible benefits whatsoever.
One thing you can be sure of is when the EU moves to protect its members and improve the economic situation it will be classed as "punishing the UK for leaving".
do you not understand yet what is going on?
I do, I think, fairly well. If you want to see how the Tories botched it, look at the polls. Both Westminster intention and the rejoin/bad idea ones.
What issues do we face that brexit is not central to?
- A big competence deficit in politics
- Anti-intellectualism in society
- Poor quality public discourse, caused by social media and biased media outlets, related to the diminshing of the BBC
- Under-funding in education and the trashing of education as a desirable profession
- Under-funding everything including health
- Not having PR
- Regional inequality
When was the ‘golden era’ of MPs and how would we get back to that now,
I'm not saying there was ever a golden age. I'm saying that things are now significantly worse than the baseline level of shitness that we've experienced since WW2, and before long we will return to that baseline which would represent an improvement. It would not be a wonderful solution to our problems but we might start to fix a few of them, a bit.
NOne of those things are anywhere near as critical as brexit -
Stop trying to hide from brexit - I know its labour policy to hide and pretend its not happening but its stupid
the troies did not botch brexit - they got exactly what they wanted from it including the pusillanimous response from Labour which has totally let the tories of the hook for the blame
Brexit is 100% central to the vast majority of issues we face - from healthcare recruitment to destruction of industry and cannot be fixed without reversing brexit - this is the reality you and the labour party need to face
The Telegraph has a solution to Britains woes having had its favoured government in power for 12 years....
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/08/17/under-50-time-jump-ship-leave-britain/
In fairness that approach was one followed by the owners of the telegraph a long time ago (although since Lloyds called in the loan not sure the Barclays are still the owners).
The brexiteer elite have always been fond of showing their patriotic love of the UK by living elsewhere.
If you’re under 50, it’s time to jump ship – get out of Britain while you can
The UK seems incapable of solving its own issues, and things are set to get worse
If our national policy was set by listening to the under 50, then the country would be in a better state for them. Brexit being only the most obvious example. And I say that as someone with only a few weeks to go before that excludes me. Of course, the ultimately irony about that Telegraph piece is that you now need to be far more wealthy to get out and into a whole load of countries than you did before... you know what.
My sister and her family and my mum and dad have all left the UK in the last year for Ireland as a direct result of Brexit. They seem utterly smitten with their decision. Broke my kid's hearts seeing their cousins and grandparents go.
I will never, ever, forgive the xenophobic halfwits who brought this on. That telegraph article totally riles me.
I still don’t get the £350 million thing… this was a very easy to check non subjective fact and a very obvious lie rather than “promises” of trade deals or such.
I guess people believed curved bananas and stuff?
You've just answered your own question. I'm increasingly of the mind that no-one fact-checks anything that they want to be true.
I've seen it first-hand on an anti-brexit Facebook group. They post some brexie lie about bendy bananas or whatever, fall over themselves to look up the truth with a side order of "gullible idiots, it's seconds' work to google." Then someone will post utter nonsense which agrees with the group narrative and no-one blinks, they just accept it. Both sides are as bad as each other.
Once someone has made up their mind about something, most people seek validation and blindly reject anything that might be in danger of challenging it. Folk believed the bus lie because why wouldn't they, it's on a bus. And the uncomfortable truth is as I said at the start, they wanted it to be true.
It’s going to be a very short thread!
lolz
NOne of those things are anywhere near as critical as brexit
I disagree. Many of them are the things that led to it. Brexit didn't fall out of the sky one afternoon, did it?
Stop trying to hide from brexit
You ****ing what?!
Am I not a vocal and persistent Brexit critic? Have I not excoriated it many times over the years? On this very thread a few pages back I explain why it is not something that can be moved on from.
Brexit is 100% central to the vast majority of issues we face – from healthcare recruitment to destruction of industry and cannot be fixed without reversing brexit
But why do we have Brexit? A seed needs fertile ground in which to grow. Brexit did not start in 2015.
You **** what?!
Am I not a vocal and persistent Brexit critic? Have I not excoriated it many times over the years? On this very thread a few pages back I explain why it is not something that can be moved on from.
Why then do you persist with the myths that
1) Its irreversible
2) that labour need to take a pro brexit decision
3) refute that the very first thing we need to do to combat the decline is reverse brexit
No brexit did not come from the blue but until its reversed the UK will continue to decline and the things you want to see improved are much much harder. Brexit came from manipulation of the voters by a small cabal for their own purposes
Until the UK political establishment start telling the truth about brexit then it will remain as the single biggest thing damaging the UK. Its totally corrupted public life for example
Brexit is not irreversible TJ, but for folk our age it probably is.
I’m hoping my sons get it live in a more open and inclusive world than we do - much as we might wish we did now.
However, Brexit was pretty much a non-issue a during the last Labour administration, and peak Brexit popularity was in 2014. It was waning by 2016 and just squeaked in. So I may be overestimating how long it will take.
The time to be part of a free Europe again is some time in the future. The time to start fighting for it was 2016, and failing that, now.
Yes there are other issues, but Brexit contributes to several of them and solves none. In a democratic country we get to change our minds, and that’s a decision worth changing our minds about.
Brexit is not irreversible TJ, but for folk our age it probably is.
Why? If labour had been putting the blame on the tories where it should be and repudiating brexit strongly pointing out all the ill consequences how much more would the public mood have turned? its now 2:1 rejoin.
Labour are now a bigger obstacle to rejoin than the tories. their position holds no logic nor sense and by blatantly lying as they are they pollute political discourse.
Why then do you persist with the myths that
1) Its irreversible
2) that labour need to take a pro brexit decision3) refute that the very first thing we need to do to combat the decline is reverse brexit
Ok first of all - you go straight in with referring to my points as 'myths' as if that's in any way a provable fact. That is passive-agressive behaviour, please don't do this. You're being egregious again.
So I'll try to engage more nicely 🙂
1) I don't think it's irreversable.
2) Labour don't need to be pro Brexit, and I don't believe they are. They just need to move on from the whole toxic debate, for the time being. Remember, their core vote was split down the middle, and it would be a disaster for that to happen again. It's not about ideology or policy here, it's just about getting votes. You m may not like that, but it's the reality of democracy.
3) It's not politically possible here in the UK to reverse the decision immediately. Most of the electorate would go 'oh **** no not this shit again' and be very unhappy. There are (or were) polls that said that whilst a lot of people thought it had been a bad idea, they thought that we should just get on with it for now. This is all about the question being asked: Being in favour of something hypothetically is not the same as wanting to do it right now instead of other things.
The biggest issue we face right now are ending austerity and funding services properly. And I'm far more concerned with Starmer's stance on that than I am regarding the EU because whilst as you know I am passionately pro-EU, I accept the political reality that Starmer faces. Remember that whilst you love political shit-slinging, most people hate it and he knows that he needs people's support not antipathy.
I think the upshot of molgrip's post is that someone somewhere has to put forward definite policies the "re-engage" with Europe in order to mitigate the damage inflicted by Brexit given that there is little chance of rejoining the EU in the foreseeable future.
Play nicely 🙂
AllI want is an honest policy on brexit from labour and again you put the myths as facts - those are not just your or opinions - they are myths
There is no reason why labour could not be going wholeheartedly for rapproachment with the EU. Thats a myth that they cannot
Labour are pro brexit - they have become a brexiteer party. Thats just a simple statement of fact. They have adopted a hard brexit position.
I think the upshot of molgrip’s post is that someone somewhere has to put forward definite policies the “re-engage” with Europe in order to mitigate the damage inflicted by Brexit given that there is little chance of rejoining the EU in the foreseeable future.
Why is there little chance? Labour are not doing that anyway. SNP are. Rejoin ASAP is firm policy and despite all their troubles are still going to be the largest party in Scotland after the next GE.
No one will explain why this myth that we cannot rejoin in the foreseeable is reality - there is no reason at all bar political couwardice
AllI want is an honest policy on brexit from labour and again you put the myths as facts – those are not just your or opinions – they are myths
What's the difference between my opinion of a situation and a myth?
Using that word does not count as 'playing nicely'.
No one will explain why this myth that we cannot rejoin in the foreseeable is reality
I'm trying to. You call it political cowardice, I call it prudence. You can't just do whatever YOU want as a political leader - because you need millions of people to vote for you. You would end up brave but out of power.
The polls that say 'we would like to rejoin' are not enough. There are way more factors than that. There is more to running a country than being in or out of the EU, and there is more to winning votes than picking a single issue, especially a highly contentious one.
We CAN theoretically rejoin immediately. But I think that any UK-wide party that puts this at the top of their manifesto would lose a lot of votes. SKS agrees with me.
Farage admitted the £350 mil thing was not true on QT before the vote. I remember clearly.
Thats not what the polls show Molgrips - the polls show a policy of rapproachement would be a clear vote winner. 2:1 rejoin and a policy of rapproacment would mean giving all the blame for the mess to the tories rather than taking some of it themselves. I understand why Starmer chose that path - and its all due to political cowardice. He backed the wrong horse in his acceptance of brexit, caused even more damage to the country as a result, gave the Tories a free ride onit and went against the interests and wishes of the majority of labour voters. Where is the leadership?
Why are they myths? Because they have become accepted wisdom without anything to backit up. Thats what myth is
Brexit is at the core of everything, directly and indirectly.
Hmm. I’ll disagree. Brexit is a symptom of even deeper problems.
Point of order here, these two notions are not incompatible.
Brexit was fuelled by those "deeper problems" but the issue really is that it was presented as a boil-in-the-bag solution to all our ills before any questions were asked. It's my perpetual PC fiddler uncle ringing up asking me how to reinstall Windows when the actual problem is that his printer has run out of yellow ink. Sure, I can talk you through a rebuild but no-one's stopped to ask why you want to do a reinstall and at the end of the day you'll still be out of ink.
But why do we have Brexit? A seed needs fertile ground in which to grow. Brexit did not start in 2015.
Ooh, ooh, hold my beer, I have an actual brexit benefit!
All those racists that we thought had gone away in our more progressive times but were actually hiding in plain sight? They've felt empowered to speak up, we know who they are now.
There are (or were) polls that said that whilst a lot of people thought it had been a bad idea, they thought that we should just get on with it for now.
Yeah, no. The thing you need to understand, the thing that even now the Remain voters are only just beginning to realise, is that whilst many (not all, Daz) Leave voters were useful idiots, the campaign itself was really clever. It was a masterclass in deception. It utterly demolished the Remain argument because we were trying to appeal to the head rather than the heart, naively believing that people care about things like "facts" in the face of MPs crowing that we've all had enough of experts.
But.
It persists.
It's been sewn into the heads of the proletariat that, perversely, changing our minds would be undemocratic. We had a vote, right? Will of the people. Why do you hate democracy? Etc etc.
Not only have we been sold a unicorn which turned out wholly predictably to be a zebra with an ice cream cone Araldited to its forehead, we've been brainwashed into thinking it cannot be questioned/challenged/reviewed and then attempted to be bullied into silence. How many times have we heard narratives along the lines of "accepting the result" or "shut up and get on with it" or "we won you lost"?
These bawbags don't care. In the red corner we have those believing that it has to be this way because Democracy/Sovereignty, in the blue corner we see the "leave means leave" brigade who just wanted out, period. I reckon if we'd run a media propaganda campaign in September 2016 going "yeah, we've left now" 90% of the brexity populace would have gone "oh good" and all of this would have gone away. Yet instead we have this bizarre situation where... it's like, you know the hypothetical "five monkeys" experiment?
Whoever it was who said earlier that brexit is a journey is bang on. If you think that their skulldugerous machinations have stopped because the last overstuffed sofa in DFS "got it done," you're a fool.
Why are they myths? Because they have become accepted wisdom without anything to backit up. Thats what myth is
I am not quoting accepted wisdom, it's simply my opinion of what I see. Others may agree.
There are few facts in any of this.
Whoever it was who said earlier that brexit is a journey is bang on. If you think that their skulldugerous machinations have stopped
There was skullduggery by right wing ****s long before Brexit and there will be long afterwards.
Why is there little chance? Labour are not doing that anyway. SNP are.
Well bully for Scotland. They will need independence fist but good luck to them on both counts. I appreciate the polls suggest a majority in favour of rejoining but then again the feeling pre-Brexit was that only idiots would vote for it. Polls eh?
2:1 in favour of rejoin and growing all the time
Its perfectly possible for a party to make rejoin a key pledge.