Oh Dear - he's gone and trumped them all!

[Max Power]

I voted out and would do the same again . We went into a mutually beneficial trading block ,It has changed beyond all recognition to the point where we are in danger of no longer being an independent nation .

 

[Inoffthered]

Not sure about post factual politics, we certainly have entered a very strange era in politics when people scream from the rooftops what they think they want and then when they get it, reject it out of hand.

I disagree, the people that are screaming from the rooftops are the people that voted for the losing side in the elections and they lack the maturity to accept a majority decision. It is a dangerous precedent to set that cannot be allowed to succeedt because therein lies the road to anarchy. If thats what you want......

 

[Mr_P]

But is it really democratic when the person with the most votes doesn't actually get elected? Arguably not, I'd say.

But those aren't the rules, The Donald would have held rallies/ advertised in uber safe Democrat states like California if it was the popular vote that counted.

Just like here, we have safe seats and iffy seats the money on campaigning goes to the winnable ones. Wonder how many many thousands of pence has been wasted in Oldham by the tories ? Jeez we had the Millionaire Hertfordshire born 110% Champagne Socialist Michael Meacher for 45 years. How many buy to let properties did he leave in his will ? The funny bit is the leader of the council took a massive pay cut to replace him thinking 2020 here I come and cabinet job for me, oops.

 

[Jacob]

Maybe we dont have an easy solution to exit the EU.

However neither did the UK sign up to become a federal Europe which is the ideal of European Parliament.

The Eurozone countries joined single currency without meeting the requirements and there are serious fundamental underlying issues with Greece, Spain, Portugal, Italy and soon France all with serious financial problems. Not to mention the Deutsche bank crisis.

The EU and especially the Single currency Eurozone needs reform.

The Remainers who believe it is all a mess and wont work need to consider the long term dangers of staying in a EU that wont want to reform, in or out I dont think there is an easy path.

Staying in and reforming from within would seem to be the sensible thing to do.
As to the loss of freedom/sovereignty etc - anybody who has any sort of contract or agreement with anybody else has sacrificed a bit of freedom for the sake of the advantages of the contract. Ditto with the EU - and if we don't like it we can pull out - as we are doing it seems, but it's becoming increasingly apparent that it might be better if we stayed in.

It's Cameron's poison chalice, he assumed we'd vote to stay, he made a promise to implement art50 immediately if it was no. This was a promise he couldn't possibly keep so the prat resigned and is now seen as one of the worst and most pointless PMs in british history.
No reason for us to follow his 'lead" - what if he'd promised to take us all to the moon?

 

[Mr_P]

Pretty sure the anti-mooners would have provided a decent economic arguement against such a plan. A trip to the moon for the weekend would be nice but the logistics of taking 65 million would be eye watering, make HS2 and third runaway look like a walk in the park. On the bright side he would have been laughed out politics a lot sooner.

Get over it Remoaners, we have voted. One side won and the other lost. It will take more than a bit of reductio absurdum to get a second ref.

 

[Jacob]

Pretty sure the anti-mooners would have provided a decent economic arguement against such a plan. A trip to the moon for the weekend would be nice but the logistics of taking 65 million would be eye watering, make HS2 and third runaway look like a walk in the park. On the bright side he would have been laughed out politics a lot sooner.

Get over it Remoaners, we have voted. One side won and the other lost. It will take more than a bit of reductio absurdum to get a second ref.

One side won an advisory commitment to an impossible plan.
Get over it whining brexiters - it was not a good idea from the beginning and nobody knows how to implement it, least of all the leading brexiteers - who are now either resigned or keeping a low profile. Hoist with their own petards, as the saying goes.
Time to move on and let common sense rule.
Blame Cameron, Gove, Johnson, Farage - that's fine and they are now history.

 

[Mr_P]

Isn't one of those the F.S ? for F.S I wouldn't have employed him. Guess watering the daisies outside the tent rather than in arguement applies.

Remoaners and remainers aren't all the same.

Sounds like you lost twice, Owen Smith was the the perfect candidate for Jeremy anyway.

 

[Random Orbital Bob]

Keep it civil folks pls.

 

[MIGNAL]

In the meantime prices continue to rise. Energy next.

 

[Jacob]

..
Sounds like you lost twice, Owen Smith was the the perfect candidate for Jeremy anyway.

I think Smith is being forgotten even faster than Cameron! They'll feature in pub quizzes soon - who were labour leadership contender and PM in 2015/16? Dunno never erd of eever of em!

 

[Cheshirechappie]

Returning to the subject of why Trump won, this is worth a listen to. It's from BBC Radio 4's The World This Weekend yesterday (13th November). Listen from 23-15 to the end.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08295yz#play

In summary, it's an American Liberal academic from Berkeley, California, who decided to 'cross the empathy divide' and find out why so many Americans were so mad with 'the establishment'. She used the metaphor of a line of people snaking up the hill to the American Dream, with those lower down - working hard and following the rules - seeing themselves being pushed further down the line, in part by 'globalisation', but also by queue-jumpers being given priority - women now taking jobs previously done by men, blacks taking jobs previously reserved for whites, immigrants doing the same. Whenever they tentatively raised their hands and asked whether they could have an even break too, somebody further up the line, usually white and well-educated, turned round to them and sneered. They were labelled rednecks, racists, misogynists and so on, whether they were or not. Not altogether surprisingly, after about 30 years of this, they're pretty hacked off.

There's a huge gulf in understanding between the 'haves' of American society and the 'have nots'. Bridging that gulf won't be easy, and I'm by no means sure that Trump has the answers. He may be able to alleviate some of the problems, but probably not all. We shall see.

 

[MIGNAL]

Why would Trump have the answers? If he's so concerned with American jobs how come many of his business interests are located abroad? remind me what that is termed. . . . outsourcing?
Donald, we have a bit of a problem. Something he shares with Farage, employing a German immigrant and being paid a salary for a job that he doesn't do, all £85,000 of it.
The electorate = done over.

 

[Cheshirechappie]

You have to love the irony of the leavers who claim their vote was in support of parliamentary sovereignty don't you?

The recent legal case unequivocally ruled that it is unlawful for anything other than parliamentary sovereignty (ie correct due process) to trigger A50.

So now, you literally couldn't ask for a more clear definition of precisely what that sovereignty means....but...nope....not good enough...scrap that...we want the will of the people to over-ride it. Not sure about post factual politics, we certainly have entered a very strange era in politics when people scream from the rooftops what they think they want and then when they get it, reject it out of hand.

Something I learned the other day is that the EU treaties (Maastricht, Lisbon etc) were signed by the UK government using the Royal Prerogative. It does seem a bit ironic that the same method can't be used to start the process of cancelling them, despite the democratic advice to government of the UK electorate. It also seems a bit bemusing that Judges get on their high horses when they effectively tell 17.4 million people that their votes don't really count, and the same people then make irritated noises about it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1msUxAoWKU - view from 2mins in.

I dare say it'll all work out in the end. Things usually do. At least now, we do know what the Silent Majority thinks about the UK's membership of the EU. It would be unwise of the establishment to ignore that and try to thwart it, I think. Forcing a general election over the matter (or another referendum) is likely to be a very salutary experience for the 'establishment'.

Since the referendum, I've been trying to understand both sides of the argument to some degree. Reading the Telegraph and the Guardian (haven't bothered with the tabloids - can't spend all day reading newspapers) reveals a huge gulf in world-view and understanding of the issues. It's rather similar to the US divide in some respects, but not all. I think it will take some time before that gulf is bridged, and both sides have some understanding of each other's thinking. Currently, very few seem to be trying (though Charles Moore in the Telegraph and Simon Jenkins in the Guardian seem to be making some effort).

(Edit to add link to YouTube video of BBC interview supporting the assertion that the Royal Prerogative was used to give UK sovereignty away.)

 

[Jacob]

.... It also seems a bit bemusing that Judges get on their high horses when they effectively tell 17.4 million people that their votes don't really count....

They were asked to adjudicate on the law as it stands. They had no opinion at all about the issues - it was only about the law - which says pretty clearly that ultimately Parliament decides. Thus we regain out sovereignty instead of allowing a minority of the voting population to force through their project.

... we do know what the Silent Majority thinks about the UK's membership of the EU.

No we don't. We know only what a voting majority thought in September. A much larger group were silent or against brexit

It would be unwise of the establishment to ignore that and try to thwart it, I think.

The wise thing to do is to sort out what's best for Britain and do it democratically via Parliament. Force doesn't come into it - it's an obligation - it's why we have Parliament and elections
The vaguely sinister threats coming from the Brexiters make it even more essential that Parliament decides, not the mob.

 

[RossJarvis]

Since the referendum, I've been trying to understand both sides of the argument to some degree.

I'm not sure if there is actually two sides to this argument. It is, like the voting public a lot more complex than that. I think there are probably many people with differing views from all sorts of directions who voted leave and the same for remain. It's maybe easy to assume that because a vote is presented with a simple yes or no answer that people will have a simple yes or no reason. I dare say that some people with similar views on many things could have voted either way and obviously people with vastly differing views may well have voted similarly.

I personally have a fairly poor view of the political industry and its practitioners, on the one hand because they have a fairly limited understanding of truth and on the other because few if any of them represent me and my views on how things should be. No Party represents me and probably never will.

A few years ago I'm sure more people felt it easy to align with either of the two big parties (or else smoked gorse flowers and wore Sandals so voted Liberal) but my feeling is more and more people feel unrepresented for lots of different reasons. It's only when a single, yes/no issue is massively beaten up and put to the people that it seems like there is a divide over a single issue and maybe it has been created by the process (thank the likes of the sub-toilet-paper rag The Mail for doing this).

Maybe the point behind the Brexit vote and The Donald Trumping everyone else is not because the people are divided on certain single issues, but because everyone is divided over thousands of issues and given one yes or no choice we end up effectively tossing a coin.

 

[thetyreman]

I don't like the brexit/trump comparison, it's a bad analogy, farage added to it all is making it very toxic, it's going to make trump even more unpopular with both english AND americans, and mexicans, proof he's completely out of touch with his own people and the UK, it's a bad move, and a terrible start to his career as president of the USA, I predit an uprising.

 

[RogerS]

.....It's only when a single, yes/no issue is massively beaten up and put to the people that it seems like there is a divide over a single issue and maybe it has been created by the process (thank the likes of the sub-toilet-paper rag The Mail for doing this).

Maybe the point behind the Brexit vote and The Donald Trumping everyone else is not because the people are divided on certain single issues, but because everyone is divided over thousands of issues and given one yes or no choice we end up effectively tossing a coin.

I think that the lack of ability or IQ of the average voter to actually do any analysis of the issues so as to make an informed decision might have something to do with the result. Both here and in the States.

 

[RossJarvis]

I think that the lack of ability or IQ of the average voter to actually do any analysis of the issues so as to make an informed decision might have something to do with the result. Both here and in the States.

You may well be right there, however I know quite a few people with phDs who are a bit thick when it comes to some issues :roll:

 

[Cheshirechappie]

Since the referendum, I've been trying to understand both sides of the argument to some degree.

I'm not sure if there is actually two sides to this argument. It is, like the voting public a lot more complex than that. I think there are probably many people with differing views from all sorts of directions who voted leave and the same for remain. It's maybe easy to assume that because a vote is presented with a simple yes or no answer that people will have a simple yes or no reason. I dare say that some people with similar views on many things could have voted either way and obviously people with vastly differing views may well have voted similarly.

I personally have a fairly poor view of the political industry and its practitioners, on the one hand because they have a fairly limited understanding of truth and on the other because few if any of them represent me and my views on how things should be. No Party represents me and probably never will.

A few years ago I'm sure more people felt it easy to align with either of the two big parties (or else smoked gorse flowers and wore Sandals so voted Liberal) but my feeling is more and more people feel unrepresented for lots of different reasons. It's only when a single, yes/no issue is massively beaten up and put to the people that it seems like there is a divide over a single issue and maybe it has been created by the process (thank the likes of the sub-toilet-paper rag The Mail for doing this).

Maybe the point behind the Brexit vote and The Donald Trumping everyone else is not because the people are divided on certain single issues, but because everyone is divided over thousands of issues and given one yes or no choice we end up effectively tossing a coin.

Ross, I'd agree that matters are not simple, and they certainly don't divide neatly in the old 'left' and 'right' political lines. However, both the US election and the EU referendum basically asked binary questions, to which anybody who cast a vote had to fit their hopes, fears, aspirations, vested interests, intellectual leanings and whatever else.

The world has changed - in some ways for the better. On page 6 of this thread, I posted a clip of Mark Blyth talking about whether democracy was being undermined (he thinks not - he argues that if anything, recent elections have been a reaction against technocracy and corporatism). A point he made in support of his argument was that in China, 400 million people have been lifted out of poverty by the effects of globalisation; I'm pretty sure most people would regard that as a thoroughly good thing. However, in parts of America and parts of the UK, the effects of globalisation have not been positive. How do we continue to allow the developing world to advance without disadvantaging quite a lot of people in the developed world?

There are other factors, such as the recent efforts of some to push 'social justice' for various minorities whilst demonising the more conservative (small 'c') social attitudes of many, for example.

I think a new politics is slowly emerging, but it may take some time for the establishment and the commentariat to understand it and come to terms with it. Brexit is one example, Trumpism another. Maybe Corbynism is another - it certainly chimes with a fair number of activists, though whether it will resonate with the wider electorate has yet to be tested.

Interesting times.....

 

[Cheshirechappie]

.....It's only when a single, yes/no issue is massively beaten up and put to the people that it seems like there is a divide over a single issue and maybe it has been created by the process (thank the likes of the sub-toilet-paper rag The Mail for doing this).

Maybe the point behind the Brexit vote and The Donald Trumping everyone else is not because the people are divided on certain single issues, but because everyone is divided over thousands of issues and given one yes or no choice we end up effectively tossing a coin.

I think that the lack of ability or IQ of the average voter to actually do any analysis of the issues so as to make an informed decision might have something to do with the result. Both here and in the States.

Something I've noticed in life is that even people who might struggle with academic qualifications still have a pretty fair idea about what is, and is not, in their best interests. I don't buy all this stuff about people being too thick to vote - it's just that their interests might not accord with the highly educated liberal elite's. If they can't vote, what other options do you leave them to express their opinions? Armed insurrection?