The Political Thread

[JayzusB.Christ]

It's almost as if they're real humans.

I was chatting to my old flatmate (a Polish woman) the other day, about how the grey squirrels have largely taken over from the red ones.  She pointed out that the same thing is happening to white people. 
I told her I totally disagreed and that I prefer a mix of races in my country anyway, which is true. She said 'we don't mix'.  I told her she doesn't mix.  Then I changed the subject, because my blood was boiling and I didn't want to say anything I regretted.

For fuck's sake.  We're hardly an endangered species, us white people.  Well, unless you count what we're doing to ourselves with pollution.

[Professor Bear]

I've always thought it was a shame that heterosexual white men didn't have their own cultural holiday.  Truly we are the only minority it's okay to oppress.

[TordelBack]

Heh! It does mystify me, this desire for sameness. I'm a pretty conservative very boring sort of spode, currently scrabbling around the bottom of the financial pile, and I really, genuinely, enjoy the (limited) diversity that we've managed to acquire. I can also declare that no black kid, Eastern European kid or middle-eastern kid has ever randomly punched me, started a massive ruck, or stolen my hat off my head on the tram on the way home, all of which happens fairly regularly with the delightful offspring of local whitey.

[Satanist]

Tordels, I had the exact same argument with a mate who now lives in London who complained about the increase of foreigners in Glasgow. I stated that as I still live here it makes the place a hell of a lot more interesting and that every single time I've ran into trouble it has been a fellow Glaswegian acting like a twat!

[Satanist]

I've always thought it was a shame that heterosexual white men didn't have their own cultural holiday.  Truly we are the only minority it's okay to oppress.

Isn't that steak n blowjob day?

[Hawkmumbler]

I've always thought it was a shame that heterosexual white men didn't have their own cultural holiday.  Truly we are the only minority it's okay to oppress.

Isn't that steak n blowjob day?

Wasn't that a joke racist/mysogynistic white guys started that got out of hand?

[JayzusB.Christ]

I've always thought it was a shame that heterosexual white men didn't have their own cultural holiday.  Truly we are the only minority it's okay to oppress.

Who asked you, you milk-drinking snow jockey?

[Satanist]

I've always thought it was a shame that heterosexual white men didn't have their own cultural holiday.  Truly we are the only minority it's okay to oppress.

Isn't that steak n blowjob day?

Wasn't that a joke racist/mysogynistic white guys started that got out of hand?

Just like Christmas I don't really know about the origins but only what I get from it.

Disappointment.

[The Enigmatic Dr X]

So, this European Union referendum caper.

I don't get it. I don't understand why we're having one.

I mean, yes, I understand how it came about: it was Tory policy for years and they got elected and they're doing it (although they seem happy to renege on other manifesto pledges, such as not screwing over pensions even more). But, rather, why?

It seems the whole thing is just blinkered opinion with no attempt to justify a position.

The "ins" just say how terrible it would be to be "out". The "outs" say how terrible it would be to be "in".

This is a tenable position to adopt when discussing the belly-button, but not my future and that of my kids.

I feel grossly ill-informed about the consequences of what feels like a pretty big decision. Am I the only one? And where can I go to get informed, as the campaigners don't seem to give a fig about facts.

My gut tells me that this whole thing has exploded out of Tory back-bench back-stabbing. If some right wingers want out of Europe then my gut also tells me that it's probably best to vote against that. But inverted snobbery is not necessarily the best basis for a big decision.

[The Legendary Shark]

Why? To reinforce the illusion of the people's democratic control over the future.

[Professor Bear]

You don't have to vote.  You can just draw cocks on the ballot if you want, I imagine it doesn't feel like a real vote until ballot-counters have seen a couple of dozen of those.

We lose a lot of rights and protections if we leave the EU, though we'll probably lose them in the EU, as well, as TTIP's not going away (we only found out about it by accident and we won't see the next one coming) and it enshrines the right of corporations to erode workers' legal protections even if the law already says different.  We're fucked if we stay and fucked if we go, so why not just take the day off work, have a pint and enjoy the fleeting pleasure of the walk in the sunshine to the polling booth, then draw cocks on the ballot paper and douse it in your impotent tears.

[IndigoPrime]

I don't get it. I don't understand why we're having one.

My take is it was a Tory ruse to bolster the right-wing vote, which threatened to go to UK*P. I suspect, given that every single pollster was predicting a hung parliament, the Tories imagined they would again be stuck with the Lib Dems, albeit with the junior coalition partner reduced in numbers. Clegg would veto the referendum as a coalition condition. The Tories would grumble, and the whole thing would be kicked down the road five years. (See also: the laughable idea of a British Bill of Rights and a bill to state the sovereignty of parliament, which is already sovereign.) I don't believe many strategists and senior Tories actually thought this would happen, which is in part why it's now such as massive clusterfuck.

As for feeling grossly ill-informed, current polling suggests you're not alone. In fact, it looks like the majority have little idea what's going on, and the mud-slinging by both sides does not help. I'm very much on the 'in' side, despite not really caring that much for the EU itself. My take is that no-one on the Brexit side is able to offer anything remotely concrete not only about what would happen, but regarding specifically how they see Britain's position post-Brexit. There's a lot of vague bullshit and sentimentality about being able to stand on our own, being 'free' from the EU, and such like, but no detail. Whenever anyone tries to inject some facts (such as Mark Carney's comments that Brexit is a bigger domestic risk than remaining in the EU), they are immediately accused of bias, which in that case was beyond ridiculous.

The EU is a mess. It is in desperate need of democratic reform. And yet it remains our biggest trading partner by far, we are the 'bridge' to the EU as far as the US and China are concerned (both countries having said they don't really care about the UK as an individual entity to anywhere near the same level), and it affords British people a great many rides that Conservatives may well strip from us in their attempts to transform the UK into a GoP-style state. But then I'm a leftie liberal, so I would say that.

What should be more concerning to those voting Brexit is that even those in the out camp admit leaving would not be much fun. We're looking at a minimum of two years of economic stagnation as the UK decouples itself from the EU, with the UK being outside of the initial negotiations. After that point, we'll have to renegotiate with the EU — the bloc we just said "fuck you" too — and everyone else we wish to trade with. The UK's still a big economic power, but a declining one, and one overly reliant on finance, which could have problems after Brexit, given that it's currently in part reliant on being within the EU. (Another option might be to turn the UK into a giant version of Monaco — a tax-haven state with a population of 70 million. That doesn't really bear thinking about, given what would have to occur to make that happen.) As the Swiss have noted, these things can take anything up to a decade to sort. During that time, we'd at best have a shaky economy, but could end up in a decade of recession. And all this is before considering the costs in terms of time and money of reworking the huge amount of legislation that's currently intertwined with EU law.

I also find it odd that although some Brexit people are perhaps wisely saying the UK would not follow another country's example regarding the relationship with the EU, you still have people arguing in favour of a Norway-style model (despite Norway enacting a lot of EU law, having freedom of movement with the EU, paying into the EU kitty, and having no say in EU legislation) or a Swiss one (despite that, according to Swiss businesses, essentially amounting to a five per cent or more handicap, for little obvious gain).

Within the EU, we have the status quo. We retain the rights the EU affords, including freedom of movement (which works both ways — something Brexit people fail to realise), maternity pay, public holidays, limited enforced working hours, environmental quality, and so on.

I'm sure there are Brexit people here who'll happily counter some of the above. But I'd really like to hear something concrete from that lot, and not just bombast that seems better placed in the aftermath of winning a World War. If we do leave, I'm waiting for the shock realisation from the Daily Mail that Brits no longer have the right to retire to Spain, and booze cruises to France are a thing of the past (along with the UK's deal with the French regarding immigration).

[Old Tankie]

You've touched on it very briefly in your post. I will be voting to leave the EU because the EU is undemocratic. Even if all the UK MEPs voted the same way, it would only amount to 8% of MEPs and they could, therefore, be easily out voted by people I did not have the opportunity to vote for.

[Jim_Campbell]

You've touched on it very briefly in your post. I will be voting to leave the EU because the EU is undemocratic. Even if all the UK MEPs voted the same way, it would only amount to 8% of MEPs and they could, therefore, be easily out voted by people I did not have the opportunity to vote for.

Presumably, Westminster is also undemocratic, since regardless of your MP's opinion, he could be outvoted by the 649 you had no opportunity to vote for. In fact, your MP represents only 0.15% of the MPs in Westminster.

Out of the UK now! Freedom for Tooting!

Jim

[IndigoPrime]

Old Tankie: That's a fair enough reason to leave (although I do like Jim's take as well). I just hope you're as vehemently in favour of massive reform to the UK's anti-democratic systems for everything from the Lords and Commons down to local government.