Shall we note what the Brexiteers were saying back in 2016 about leaving the EU? Try watching the video at the top here.
What they were saying was the EEA and a Norway style deal was the aim. None one was talking about leaving the single market.
There has been massive dissembling on the way to the demand for a hard Brexit.
Being reminded of that fact does no harm.
Try this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xGt3QmRSZY
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The article doesn’t seem to have the video any more, it might just be my browser. I found the video on youtube, it is here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xGt3QmRSZY
Now added
Brexiteers keep quoting the Osborne last minute forecast and saying it has been proven false. I get the impression they think the other forecasts were wrong as well.
I wonder if anyone can quote forecasts which are being substantiated?
Trading on WTO terms is a disaster to some and quite possible to others. ” We do most of our non-EU trade on that basis.” was quoted by one Conservative MP on one news broadcast
I am sure most people don’t know which to believe.
It looks like the future of our country is being decided by the under-informed.
If we assume most of those uninformed to be voters, as seems likely, it pinpoints the problem with the so-called ‘our democracy’. If people don’t understand the issues, how can they vote on them? If Brexit’s shone the necessary light on this shortcoming then at least there’s something about it we might be grateful for.
Interesting point.
Are the under informed operating in Parliament for example? Because this is the United Kingdom and that is where the power lies.
Personally I think it is more to do with cowardice than anything else. The cowardice of ‘That Place’ is unfathomable to me.
The politicians have made a real mess of this one. But then again did they take the vote seriously?
The country’s back in the age of the divine right of kings and queens to do whatever they want including dissembling as far as many ignorant voters are concerned especially in England and Wales. Truth be told many never left that age and mentality!
Ian Stevenson says:
“It looks like the future of our country is being decided by the under-informed.”
Ah, but “the [uninformed and misinformed] people have spoken.
Has there ever been such an abject statement of negation of responsibility by a political class in the history of parliamentary democracy !
Can I recommend “Heroic Failure” by Fintan O’Toole which I’m in the process of reading. He has a very interesting theory on the attitudes, mainly those of the English, which led to Brexit. Something to do with Britain as victim, a colonised state, a submissive and along the way he eviscerates the likes of Johnson for their mendacity, their delusions and fantasies both about the Eu and the future as an “independent” state.
I should get it fur Christmas reading…..
After a pile of railway books
Well, it describes a terrible train crash….
“After a pile of railway books”
Me too. Time spent brushing up my Mandarin will probably be well spent…… 🙂
Chris Cairns sums up the situation with his usual economy this morning, I thought.
https://wingsoverscotland.com/the-top-table/
Phil McGlass says:
“Me too. Time spent brushing up my Mandarin will probably be well spent……”
Indeed, Phil. I’m polishing my Satsumas for the Festive Season 🙂
@ Graham Hewitt
Few British people seem to recognise the imperialism that’s been imposed on others by the British abroad in the past but its continuance on themselves at home. A terrible disconnect or dissonance now wreaking havoc on the UK. Steering out of the “mayhem” requires moral compasses and the economic, monetary and political know-how to support their use.
We’ll all have to pawn our train sets soon or at least convert from Hornby Dublo. The point of history I think we’re repeating is 492 BCE and being captured by a Persian participative management technique called democracy, now wrapped in myths of Attic tragedy. Debate is not nebulous as Junkers said before his “kissing in the morning” ridicule of all the bureaucratic “respect” code, but fascist. Slogans are everywhere with May doing Leaderene and Labour turning out poor kwality clones under the general banner of “we could do the same thing better”. Ways forward anyone? I already have enough offers of expansion kits to run my trains over a cliff. Lemming Railways perhaps?
I have written to Lord Snooty and his pals explaining there were often will of the people votes overturned by the same people the next day in their beloved antiquity. Is may subtle enough to have been playing a long game on Labour and sucker enough of them into coalition with a few UDP lucky bags? No one really likes Corbyn and he has his bots doing the very ‘answer no questions directly’ mumble-glottal marking him as just another political goon. May v Corbyn 2 is still on the cards, perhaps especially as she has ruled herself out (and therefore, on form, in).
Give it up to a deliberative democracy of and for the people? Sortition and randomised selection? Hard to imagine then why we waste money on Westminster and its presstitutes, with the cheap off-the-peg Greek solutions.
archytas says:
“…..No one really likes Corbyn….”
That can’t be true, archytas. He was elected as party leader and then had to be re-elected because ….well because ‘nobody liked Corbyn’ and was resoundingly approved.
Kezia Dugdale hated Corbyn so much (god knows why) that she was encouraging Labour voters to vote Tory in 2017 (to unseat the SNP whom she hates even more virulently….I think perhaps she has a psychopathy which might respond to therapy)
The PLP hates Corbyn. Well a lot of them did and a significant number probably still do.
Corbyn’s difficulty is that he’s leading an opposition to a Brexiting government led by a ‘remainer’ while he is essentially in favour of ‘leaving’ the EU. He’s also inclined towards a progressive politics but working with a party indoctrinated by neoliberal orthodox mindset.
Lewis Carroll couldn’t have invented a better casting for this ‘wonderland’ scenario.
Actually, I rather like him so am a nobody! Have to despise the ‘red under the bed’ dog-whistle about him. You are, of course, correct.
Obviously, they never expected to be taken seriously to begin with and the BREXIT vote seems to have emboldened them to new levels of unprincipled and unthinking behaviour.
I would call this phenomenon ‘ideological tumescence’.
The late great Robin Williams said that the problem with men (and BREXIT seems to be dominated by men)
was that God gave them a brain and willy but only enough blood to run one at a time!!
Hmmm…………….
🙂
Pilgrim Slight Return says:
“I would call this phenomenon ‘ideological tumescence’.”
I hate to disagree with you Pilgrim [he lied], but this looks more like a sad case of political ‘brewers droop’ to me. 🙂
I failed to add (Pilgrim) that May (ironically) seems to be the only one still ‘standing’.
Strong and stable to the last. Hmmm ?… stable ?….hung like a donkey. Very apposite for the seasonal nativity scene. She certainly should be ‘bloody-well hung’. (out to dry)
Andy
I respectfully point out that the ‘stiff’ resistance that the BREXITers are displaying rather shows that they are erm…….. ‘up’ for it so to speak so no chance of brewers droop there I’m afraid.
However, it is our fragile economy where a certain about of erm…’flacidity’ will no doubt follow on after the ‘beast with two backs’ that is BREXIT is over.
One can only hope that the viagra of a Green or People’s QE as prescribed by a certain Dr Murphy can be administered somehow so that we can all have a… erm…… ‘happy ending’ so to speak.
Anyhow, join us again next week where we will indulge in rude and suggestive asides about various male dysfunctions in relation to the trauma that is BREXIT. And why not? Hard / Soft – its all the same!
BTW Andy – what’s this putting your own smileys on yer’ posts? I thought that Richard was the Smiley Meister around here?
Play by rules please! What are you – a bleedin’ Neo-liberal or summat?
If we’re playing by the rules I’m not Dr Murphy…..
Although some are suggesting I should be going for it….
It’s just time
@Pilgrim Slight Return
🙂
(And If I could devise a smiley putting it’s tongue out, you’d get one of those. 🙂 )
Hi Richard,
Weirdly the only people talking about the dangers of leaving the single market were on the remain side like David Cameron. The remain side were talking up the hard brexit threat whilst the leave side were trying to make things seem as easy and safe as possible by stressing the softest of exits.
I never like to say it, but maybe in this instance (just this one) David Cameron was right….
Having said that I feel a bit ashamed now!
Neil Robertson says (ashamedly):
“I never like to say it, but maybe in this instance (just this one) David Cameron was right…. ”
Seems unlikely, and anyway we seemed to have achieved a consensus here many months ago that David Cameron is a ‘Twat’. 🙂
@Andy
That’s a good point well made – happy to bow to the “twat” hypothesis on this occasion 🙂
Brexit fallout includes Labor vs Big 4?
https://www.ft.com/content/89305db0-fed6-11e8-ac00-57a2a826423e
Comment soon….
Richard
You have a expert clinician’s perspective of the economy – hence calling you ‘Dr’. You know what the patient – our stumbling political economy, our environment – needs. I firmly believe that.
Why an earth do you think I continue to come here when I seldom have enough time? You once told me to write a book. You must be joking.
As for the doctorate – yes – go for it if you can. I think you deserve an honorary one now anyway given that so many receive one for doing – well – very little?
And I do have over 1,300 academic citations….
And you should bloody well do so too given the tosh they still teach in our universities about these issues.
“And I do have over 1,300 academic citations….”
I’m sure one of the English Universities would sell you a doctorate.
I thought that was the whole point of marketising higher education 🙂