That odious slug Nick Ferrari getting his arse handed to him over Brexit by Marina Purkiss, I thought she was going to say “Are you **** joking” at one point

Went on live TV…

Talked about Brexit being shite

Talked about how we need a grown-up conversation about rejoining

And yet somehow…

Despite Brexit being an unmitigated disaster

Nick Ferrari can’t quite believe his ears…pic.twitter.com/AZRFmRSsF9

— Marina Purkiss (@MarinaPurkiss) March 22, 2023

Is going to get easier and easier to shoot these idiots down as each year passes and the EU fares much better than us.

Not one surprise in that list.

Not one surprise in that list.

The only big surprise was Steve ‘Hardman of Brexit’ Baker not on the list. Amazing what a ministerial job does for your principals.

And in an epic volte face referred to Boris as ‘a Poundland Farage’

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-64596453

Gene-edited food can now be developed commercially in England following a change in the law.

Yay, Brexit.

^^ In fairness, I’m not totally opposed to gene edited food, there could be some huge benefits globally… BUT I get where you are coming from.

Even if you start growing feathers?

Caher
Full Member
Even if you start growing feathers?

Got that already from the dose of avian flu I had.😉

bentleys brexit ballache

If only somebody, anybody had raised concerns about this potentially happening

"In the long run [Brexit] reduces our overall output by around 4%"

OBR Chair Richard Hughes says leaving the EU is a "shock to the UK economy of the order of magnitude of other shocks we've seen" such as the Covid pandemic#BBCLauraK https://t.co/plyUdFLsaM pic.twitter.com/W8BYpkPVSz

— BBC Politics (@BBCPolitics) March 26, 2023

Told a couple of Brexit evangelist biking mates this morning but they don’t care. Final salary pensions, couple of houses bought and rented out and 90 day holidays in Spain.

Why should they care,sounds like they can scrape together the proof of income/savings of €33.5k for a couple to get a residency to retire here if they so wish.

Up slightly from the pre-Brexit €11k(tbh could be less for a couple was €5,538 an individual as to the not a member club membership fee of €27k) 🙁

Freedom of Movement for the rich was never at risk.

Freedom of Movement for the rich was never at risk.

A bit like whenever I see Pro-Life comments, I normally reply with “rich women can always get safe abortions”.

Let’s hope Labour have seen this poll:

https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/blogs/ec_consoc_20230321.html

No shit sherlock 🙂

Trouble is Starmer has made his pitch and its “make brexit work”  He cannot change course now

He has time. If this sentiment continues he’ll have no choice to change tack will he?

He has successfully ignored that sentiment and indeed any sensible position on the EU for years already

His job is to follow the research (to obtain the maximum possible votes) not act like a biased remainer.

Which has been obvious remain is a vote winner for years that he chose to ignore.

Which has been obvious remain is a vote winner for years that he chose to ignore.

Based on your extensive polling and research?

No – other peoples that made it quite clear.  How long have I been saying this?

Starmers fear of racists in his party and in the red wall seats led him to be an enthusiastic brexiteer and its clearly been a huge mistake as has been obvious for a long time

How long have I been saying this?

Ages, and you still haven’t got it 🙂

Freedom of Movement for the rich was never at risk.

Actually, not fully true. A pair of very wealthy ultra-gammons who have a place in our village in Austria and campaigned vociferously for Brexit recently tried to get their residency there to get around the 90 day limit. Apparently they were 95% of the way there but couldn’t get health insurance because of their age.
They wrote to an Austrian newspaper complaining how it was unfair.
I had a lovely time winding them up on Facebook.

^^ I’m a bad, bad person but that did make me smile.😁

I understand your argument molgrips and the line followed by Starmer – and the reasons for it.  I do not agree and that poll bears me out

His job is to follow the research (to obtain the maximum possible votes)

I thought his job was to lead the Labour Party “for the many, not for the few” etc etc.

Winning elections is part of that job, but winning for the sake of winning with no vision as to what the winning is for, is most certainly not what it’s supposed to be about.

TJ, I have some sympathy for your position, but we do not live in a democracy. FPTP means that for Labour to succeed, they need votes from a relatively small number of people in a few seats who are “Brexit-supporting, older (but not retired), economically precarious, socially conservative, white, not in big cities and without higher education.” Your strategy would lose those people, and the election along with them. You persist in ignoring this fact.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/mar/29/red-wall-brexiters-hero-voters-election-partisan

I thought his job was to lead the Labour Party “for the many, not for the few” etc etc.

Right, and that party’s primary aim is to get into government yes, like all major political parties in an FPTP system.

Winning elections is part of that job, but winning for the sake of winning with no vision as to what the winning is for, is most certainly not what it’s supposed to be about.

As has been said – governments do lots and lots of things, but voters don’t understand them all. Voters mostly vote on sentiment not rational analysis. So you need to appeal to voters, but be vague on the details so that you can do what you actually want or need to without being seen to have lied. The slogans are vague so that you can read into them what you want to read.

Grumpy remainers on here seem to think that Starmer should be their hero and bring us back into the EU the day after election. And whilst I would love nothing more than that, it just isn’t going to happen. So the grumpy remainers now assume that Starmer has somehow become a Brexiteer. I am absolutely sure he hasn’t – any more than you all have – but he’s positioning the party so that it can do the subtle things needed to bring us gradually closer without destroying the big lead he’s been gifted.

We’ve got a couple of years now and I’m sure that during that time, they will respond to changing opinion, and I’m sure they’re primed ready to do that when it’s deemed appropriate. After all, Brexit is clearly a Tory thing so the less favourable it becomes the more they will try to highlight that and create distance from it.

It’s just a slogan, not a manifesto. You’re assuming that ‘make Brexit work’ means ‘we love Brexit’ but it can just as easily mean ‘we’ll get as close to the EU as possible without rejoining’.

So you need to appeal to voters, but be vague on the details so that you can do what you actually want or need to without being seen to have lied. The slogans are vague so that you can read into them what you want to read.

The criticism of Starmer is that this is definitely not what he has done.

He left himself no wriggle room to move towards the SM/CU/EU by categorically ruling out all three (as well as FOM).

Any move he makes to do so after the election will justifiably be seen as a betrayal and further erode faith in the democratic process and fuel the, ‘They’re all the same anyway’ argument.

I know you’re trying to suggest that those of us who don’t support this approach are naïve and simply don’t understand how FPTP works but in this case I think you’re assuming Starmer is playing some 4D chess game when in actual fact all he has done is unnecessarily pin himself into a corner while running scared from red wall racists.

Idiotic cowardly move that he is ultimately going to regret.

We aren’t joining the SM and CU “after the election”. People still don’t get it… we have decades of rebuilding relationships and improving agreements ahead… Brexit can’t be undone in a few parliamentary terms… this is precisely why we needed a “measure twice, cut once” vote on tearing everything up… Brexit wasn’t switching a switch that can be just switched back… it was ripping out the cables before burning down the house.

People still don’t get it… we have decades of rebuilding relationships and improving agreements ahead…

Well, certainly the longer you leave it the longer it will take. By that, I mean every year you’re out will probably be an extra two years to get back in.

That’s why ruling out any movement towards SM/CU/EU/FOM for an entire parliament cycle is so stupid.

Depends what you do in those years… aggressive divergence or agreeing to cooperate and align.

Anyway, the USA are signing a series of mini-deals aimed at green energy transformation with the EU & Japan.

We’d be a key player in that without Brexit.

UK car and renewables industries getting slowly screwed again.

A reminded that Brexit has weakened our position in the world, not just in Europe.

Looking at it from the purely practical point of view: any incoming Labour administration is going to have an complete and utter shambles to sort out. There simply isn’t the bandwidth to sort out the mess this country is in and also start massively complex negotiations about re-entry to the customs union and single market

One of the reasons the UK is in the state that its in is because Brexit has sucked up all available parliamentary time for years while the party allegedly in government eats itself over the issue. All while far more pressing issues were ignored. Why would a new government bog itself down in the same quagmire?

The EU knows that there will be a totally different attitude from a Labour government towards co-operation and the ramping down of the rhetoric, but formal negotiations to get us back into the EU are going to have to wait for another day, some way down the line.

They’ve got bigger fish to fry, quite frankly

aggressive divergence or agreeing to cooperate and align.

Alignment is generally easier if you haven’t ruled out alignment beforehand.

He left himself no wriggle room to move towards the SM/CU/EU by categorically ruling out all three (as well as FOM).

No, he’s ruled out rejoining (for now) but he hasn’t rules out moving closer. There’s a big difference.

running scared from red wall racists

Running scared? How else are you meant to get people to vote for you other than telling them what they want to hear? Force them somehow? Not quite sure how you think ‘standing up to them’ would go…?

Running scared? How else are you meant to get people to vote for you other than telling them what they want to hear?

Any other things people want to hear he should try while he’s at it? Bring back hanging? Make cyclists pay road tax?

How about we try the crazy notion of sticking to what he said he was going to do during the leadership contest? How about, “Of course: bring back, argue for, challenge.”

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/jan/31/keir-starmer-labour-should-argue-for-return-of-free-movement-brexit

If you don’t want to be called a cowardly liar then don’t abandon every single thing you said to get people to vote for you in the first place.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/may/31/boris-johnson-dishonesty-keir-starmer-labour-abandoned-pledges

Defend him all you want but don’t come crying to me next time someone tells you, ‘they’re all the same, though, so what difference does it make.’

But whatever happens next, ask yourself truthfully: if you care about Johnson’s dishonesty but dismiss Starmer’s, then do you really care about dishonesty at all, or do you just resent being on the receiving end of it? And when you answer – unlike Britain’s two leading politicians – try to be honest.

No, he’s ruled out rejoining (for now) but he hasn’t rules out moving closer. There’s a big difference.

He ruled out any sort of alignment. What does “moving closer” mean in practical terms?