The Political Thread

[Professor Bear]

Sharky, austerity measures have killed 120k people in the UK, and those measures were relatively restrained (so we're told).  Will Brexit result in a literal Thunderbirds-style catastrophe full of pyrotechnics?  Probably not, but there will be people who will face disruption to their needs, and it won't take much for them to suffer a disaster of some sort, be it a lack of funds to buy food or a sudden urge to walk under the wheels of a truck so they can stop letting their family down.
Society is maintained in a delicate balance of multiple moving parts and I would expect an anarchist to understand that.  Any disruption to its mechanisms can have knock-on effects that could affect thousands - if not millions.

[Funt Solo]

every aspect of Britain will either rot, crumble to dust or burst into flames

Nobody said that.  They said this:

1. Remain - economy will tick along - things are pretty difficult as they are due to austerity measures.
2. May's deal - economy will suffer - things will be worse to some degree.
3. No deal - economy will suffer more - things will be worse to a larger degree.

[The Legendary Shark]

Thanks, Radiator. I'll start with this, chosen at random, for now.

[IndigoPrime]

Specifically on fruit/veg in the event of no deal:

https://www.lbc.co.uk/radio/presenters/james-obrien/supermarket-fruit-buyer-no-deal-brexit/

[Funt Solo]

The insulin scare was fact checked by Channel 4 News to be not as scary as first thought.  Like, we won't run out.  (But only because the government has stockpiled enough to see us through any initial border crisis.)

[CalHab]

Welcome to Brexit Britain:

It is something Iraqi-Kurds in the barbers up the road have heard a lot since the referendum. "I was in a nightclub and these two English lads were pretty drunk," said one barber, who asked not to be named. "They were saying: 'We're coming out of Europe  and then we can get rid of you.' I told them: 'I'm a British citizen.' I got citizenship 20 years ago after fleeing from Iraq. But they said: 'It doesn't matter, you've got dark skin.' My 11-year-old daughter has heard this too."

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jan/30/it-is-terrible-but-i-still-want-it-crewe-voters-size-up-no-deal-brexit?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Othery

[Tjm86]

I don't quite follow why people are so against second votes, within reason. 

This is actually a fair point.  Let's face it, we voted in a Tory government in 1979 (or a Labour government in 1997), why bother having another election a few years later?  The British people had their say.  That's it, it's set in stone.  Isn't another election a failure to respect the 'will of the people' (please properly intone a la 'Hot Fuzz').

[IndigoPrime]

Funt Solo: insulin doesn't store for long. So there's likely a cushion, but there are no subsequent guarantees if the problems last for many months. (Under no deal, they would, although medicines will be prioritised.)

[sheridan]

To refer back to bias; the most recent Brexit vote is, wall-to-wall, being described as a victory for Theresa May. Laura Kuenssberg using her objective, BBC hat, describes it as an 'Unconventional Win'.

Literally all that's happened is they've said go back and get a deal. It's only a win against the Conservative party itself. We're still exactly where we always were with the EU, and really exactly where we always were in Parliament.

For all those people who cry out for an Opposition thats worth talking about, I think the real issue is that this is how monumentally shit the Conservatives can be and still be described as winning.

Tell me about it - one report I heard on radio news compared the latest votes to the 432 to 202 defeat and the way they reported yesterday's vote made it sound like the exact same issue had been voted on with May's government winning 317 to 301...  I genuinely thought I'd completely missed news about the vote being re-run.

[Hawkmumbler]

The Daily Fail are heralding it as "Theresa's Triumph!".

Boot lickers.

[sheridan]

So, sensibly, there must be a middle ground on re-voting stuff.  The argument being used currently for a second referendum (either for Brexit or Scottish independence) is that time has passed and things have changed.  Like science, politics should be allowed to advance with new knowledge. 

Though with science, if it was found that the test conditions were falsified and that there was a secret source of funding from an interested party (cigarette companies, car manufacturers, etc), the results would no longer be considered valid.

[sheridan]

Leaving was going to leave the UK with all the benefits of Switzerland and Norway.  Nope.  There'd be an extra 350 million available for the NHS. A lie owned up to the very day after the referendum.

Owned up to?  I remember the Fromage interview where he denied he'd ever endorsed the idea - in my book a denial isn't the same as taking ownership of a lie :-(

Bendy bananas, fishing rights, blah blah blah: all bollocks.

A second,  informed referendum makes democratic sense to me.  If you still want to fuck yourselves over the second time around,  knock yourselves out.

Unfortunately Johnson's made-up bendy bananas lie is still believed by far too many people.  Information is placed in front of them and they wilfully ignore it so that they don't have to face up to their mistakes.

[Professor Bear]

I recall in the last election, when Amber Rudd lost her seat, she burst into tears and then demanded repeated recounts until they told her she'd won - not just one recount "just to be sure", but at least two going by reports (and scuttlebutt at the time was that the actual number of recounts was 8).  Not so keen on do-overs now.

[Funt Solo]

The bendy bananas euro-myth was around decades ago (1994, probably), slapped on the front of tabloids for people to feed their Euro-rage.  What a load of bollocks.

Of course, I'm willfully ignoring the plight of poor, honest, hard-working cockney market traders who were all rounded up and imprisoned by the jackbooted Euro Police for trying to sell improperly shaped bananas.

[radiator]

Comprehensive list of EU myths/hysteria/bullshit:

https://blogs.ec.europa.eu/ECintheUK/euromyths-a-z-index/

For the life of me I cannot fathom the mentality of someone who:

a) makes this shit up

or

b) falls for it/cares about it

I barely even gave the EU any thought at all tbh. I like Europe, and I like not having wars.