Brexit 2020+

Yep , no party with who wants to sit at the table is going to be putting freedom of movement on the table when you have Farage stirring it up 24/7.

Farage is the single most successful UK politician of the last 15 years.

And we, the electorate, enabled this to happen.

Off-topic, but the cost of domestic post staggers me. What’s a regular first-class letter now, £1.85? I can order slave labour electronics from China and get free postage so long as I’m not in a hurry.

You did not get free postage, what you got was postage bundled into the cost of the purchased item.

“Free postage” = Marketing

Although I understand why people cite public opinion on Brexit, theres a difference between what people say is important, and what they actually vote for/do in their lives.

Not a great comparable, but public concern about the environment is something that’s been cited before on this forum.

In Spring 2024, 80% of people said they were very or fairly concerned about climate change, with 37% very concerned (Figure 1.2). In total, 18% of people said they were not very or not at all concerned, although very few (5%) said they were not at all concerned.

From here https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/desnz-public-attitudes-tracker-spring-2024/desnz-public-attitudes-tracker-net-zero-and-climate-change-spring-2024-uk

If you can remind me where the Green party ended up at the last UK election? And the environment isnt new news, this is decades in now.

I dont have the willpower to dig through the 2024 existing statistics but some airport (groups) are seeing records.

https://www.insidermedia.com/news/national/record-passenger-numbers-boost-mag-one-in-five-uk-air-passengers-flew-through-its-airports

Manchester Airport welcomed 17.8 million passengers in the first half of the year, with its rolling annual total hitting 30 million in September for the first time in its history.

And then there is the rocket fuel to Farage. I get where people are coming from, but dont expect people to “vote” in their own interests (as you perceive it) because of opinion polls and it making sense to you on a personal level.

Starmer voted for the current deal, he even whipped his party to support it. It would be hard to be more culpable. The current situation is the predictable consequences of his actions. And those of others, of course – there is plenty of blame to go round

And the alternative was No Deal – stop trying to change history.

I agree that merely focussing on the blame alone isn’t particularly helpful, but pretending that Starmer is part of the solution rather than part of the problem is wishful thinking at best. It’s not just that he was at fault back then, but that he has promised to persist with the fault indefinitely into the future.

And the alternative is what exactly?

And you’d have done WHAT in his place?

Captain – how did you vote in 2016 and 2019, or do we need to go thru the original thread to find out?

You did not get free postage, what you got was postage bundled into the cost of the purchased item.

“Free postage” = Marketing

Within the UK I’d largely agree with you. But I’m not talking about big ticket items. Eg,

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1930374811.html

That’s a microcontroller sensor I can have delivered from China in a week, for less than a quid all-in. How much of that is postage?

If you can remind me where the Green party ended up at the last UK election? And the environment isnt new news, this is decades in now.

British politics – politics in general even? – suffers badly from inertia. People vote for Party X because they’ve always voted for Party X. There’s no point in voting for Party Y because they’ve no chance of winning, it’d be a wasted vote.

What the solution to this is I don’t know short of dissolving both Team Red and Team Blue and starting again. Say what you like about Rygel but he’s very adept at reinventing himself. Despite being UKIP with a different coloured rosette, Reform UK will gain traction because they’re “new.” Hey, Marketing again!

Hell, look at GB News. It’s GREAT and it’s BRITISH and it’s NEWS, it’s machined to directly appeal to the sorts of people Al Murray has been satirising for years. They know their audience in a way that the Left are still failing to grasp.

Farage is the single most successful UK politician of the last 15 years.

And we, the electorate, enabled this to happen.

I agree but tbh, it’s not wholly the electorates fault

Despite being an MP for just five months, Farage is the joint sixth-most platformed panellist on BBC Question Time, appearing 38 times and averaging 1.6 appearances per year. Yet host Fiona Bruce introduced him by saying “making his second appearance as a panellist since 2019”.

He was getting a lot more air/media  time than he deserved,he’s been very lucky with his media and news positioning which has given him a bigger platform than he should have.

He’s now got a mouth piece on CBeebies to keep spreading disinformation without fact checking.

He’s  just more media savvy than Starmer and has more charisima and has no baggage, as he succeeded in getting the U.K. out of the E.U. Which is easier than sorting out the mess left which is now his new battle cry of ‘Brexit wasn’t done properly’.

It’s probably better to be riding the unicorn than having the day to day job of cleaning up its sh… 🙂

That’s a microcontroller sensor I can have delivered from China in a week, for less than a quid all-in. How much of that is postage?

It’s weight/mass probably makes it stupidly cheap to ship and it’s not like China isn’t known for subsidising stuff 🙂

People vote for Party X because they’ve always voted for Party X

Reform just spat coffee all over its keyboard