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Andrew Saxon
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Posted: 07 September 2019 at 11:11am | IP Logged | 1 post reply

I'm minded of the old Irwin Allen TV show, "The Time Tunnel." This time, Doug and Tony travel to November of 2016 and have to correct the vote. Of course, that could never happen in reality- oh, DAMN!

Couldn't happen in The Time Tunnel either as history was fixed in that series so Tony and Doug were unable to change known history. You need Dr. Sam Beckett to Quantum Leap into David Cameron and stop him calling the referendum

PS - I still say Macron is the one who will decide Brexit by nor allowing the UK an extension.
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Steven Brake
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Posted: 07 September 2019 at 11:19am | IP Logged | 2 post reply

But what if the Evil Leaper returns and leaps into Teresa May?

:)
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Matthew Wilkie
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Posted: 08 September 2019 at 5:04am | IP Logged | 3 post reply

No, neither Johnson nor Corbyn impress! But I don't understand why some Corbyn supporters claim that he's "played a blinder" recently. He's just been apathetic, and allowed Johnson to score a series of own goals (as he did with Teresa May).

Polls are notoriously unreliable, and events in the UK and US have demonstrated that they can often be worthless, but Labour are consistently seen to be haemorrhaging support, and Jo Swinson, the new Liberal Democrat leader, has said that she won't form a coalition with Corbyn. I think - and fear - that, somehow, Johnson WILL find a way to wangle an election, form some sort of pact with The Brexit Party to prevent a split in the vote, and win the majority - perhaps even sweeping majority - that May presumed she'd get back in 2017.

If that happens, and Labour lose yet another General Election, I don't realistically see how Corbyn can stay on as leader, but, equally, I don't see him tendering his resignation. 

***

I agree with pretty much everything you have said, Steven, but question whether Johnson can get a (sweeping) majority or not. We have finally seen the Remain parties who, along with Labour, have started working together the potential delay of a GE should see this strengthen. I genuinely think that parties will work together and not oppose seats where there is an obvious candidate that can beat the Tories.
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Leigh DJ Hunt
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Posted: 08 September 2019 at 5:29am | IP Logged | 4 post reply

A coalition between the Remain parties (plus Labour who aren't really Remain) is the only thing that will stop some sort of Tory/Brexit party winning with a big majority I fear. And I just don't see it happening. I keep thinking that surely people will come to their senses but if anything they are becoming more hardened in their views. 

I foresee a GE with a hard right government coming to power. Brexit will then happen without a deal and that will just be the start of the troubles.
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John Byrne
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Posted: 08 September 2019 at 6:14am | IP Logged | 5 post reply

You need Dr. Sam Beckett to Quantum Leap into David Cameron and stop him calling the referendum

••

Or at least remind everyone that the referendum was on whether or not to vot to leave. The referendum was not itself that vote.

In terms of American politics, it was like choosing the President based only on the Primaries.

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James Woodcock
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Posted: 08 September 2019 at 9:31am | IP Logged | 6 post reply

Sorry JB, but the referendum was not on whether to hold a vote to leave. The referendum WAS the vote.

The question asked was 'Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union?'

The responses were:
Remain a member of the European Union
Leave the European Union

There was no indication that a second vote would take place. Now, was it legally binding? No. But all parties had said they would abide by the result.

The issue is the question did not ask 'how' we should leave, and no one can agree on that.

Your analogy with the primaries is more akin to the discussions regarding whether or not we should have held the referendum in the first place I think.


Edited by James Woodcock on 08 September 2019 at 9:54am
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Steven Brake
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Posted: 08 September 2019 at 9:34am | IP Logged | 7 post reply

@Matthew Wilkie:

Virtually all the polls I've seen - and yes, I appreciate the point that I've made about them! :) - gives Johnson and the Tories a significant lead over Corbyn and Labour. If Johnson does do some kind of deal with Farage, it looks to me that a Conservative victory is pretty much unavoidable.

If the SNP repeat their election success of 2015, we're almost certainly going to have another referendum on Scottish Independence, and the probable break up of the UK.
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Koroush Ghazi
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Posted: 08 September 2019 at 7:21pm | IP Logged | 8 post reply

 James Woodcock wrote:
The referendum WAS the vote... There was no indication that a second vote would take place. Now, was it legally binding? No. But all parties had said they would abide by the result.


Yes, unfortunately, this is the new form of "leadership". To pull yet another quote from Yes, Minister: "It's the people's will. I am their leader. I must follow them.".

Shortly after the UK referendum, our moronic "leaders" in Australia had the same idea - let's hold a non-binding referendum on whether same-sex marriage should be legalized... at a cost of nearly $100m, and even more division among the community. Just like Brexit, we had absurd lies being peddled during the public debate, like this woeful TV advertisement by the Australian Christian Lobby.

Imagine if Abraham Lincoln had said "I don't know, it's a risky move... maybe we should ask the people whether slavery should be abolished?"

If you ask an ignorant populace who are showered with lies to make important decisions, this is what happens.
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James Woodcock
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Posted: 08 September 2019 at 8:32pm | IP Logged | 9 post reply

& that’s the big issue with referendums.

During the Brexit debate, thousands of hours of tv & radio coverage occurred, probably thousands of pages of press coverage occurred. Most of that did not address wide issues but focussed on the same, narrow spectrum. There were so many questions that should have been asked but we only started to ask those questions they day after the result.

Was the Irish border discussed? No
Were European arrest warrants discussed? No
Was sharing of intelligence discussed? No

& let’s not even get into the bus & its £350 million a day for the NHS claim that was dismissed by the leave campaign the second (almost literally the second) the leave vote won.

An ill informed public, answering a flawed question, within a flawed process (1 vote either way would have resulted in that side winning, but no one actually knew the end point - what would remain look like, what would leave look like? No one knew, no one had discussed, hard Brexit, soft Brexit - those hadn’t even been contemplated. Would remain had been as was or would it have been under modified conditions? No one had discussed these questions so no side actually had a consensus/agreement on how the result would be implemented (& you could bet your bottom dollar that had the margin been this close the other way we would have been facing just as much chaos with demands for a renegotiation & a ‘soft’ remain).

So we have a result to leave, but no one agrees HOW we should leave & that just gives us chaos.

The lesson here is to learn that you @ least need some form of plan before you set off on the journey. Even now, less than two months away, having had multiple extensions, no one can tell us how a border between Ireland/Northern Ireland would look/work. They talk of existing technologies to allow free trade movement, but no one can name one of these mysterious technologies, & no one talks about people movement across that border post Brexit, they only talk of trade.

& anytime I mention this to people face to face who want Brexit, they just say we should embrace the pain. 

I cannot fathom how anyone with any modicum of intelligence thinks this is a good idea, was a good idea, or doesn’t need a complete rethink.


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Leigh DJ Hunt
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Posted: 09 September 2019 at 6:32am | IP Logged | 10 post reply

Agree with all of that James. For most people, it seems, they don't even care about such details. They just want out*. It's like they've been brainwashed - which in a way they were. Decades of lies in the right-wing compounded by a brilliant Leave campaign. Brilliant in the sense that they knew the establishment running the Remain campaign could not lie in the same way they could. So they did and people swallowed it.

Have you watched the drama starring Benedict Cumberbatch about it? Fascinating and disturbing in equal measure.

*to illustrate this, the only person outside of my own personal circle that I've recently overheard talk about Brexit said "We've just got to get it done. Got to stop these foreigners coming in". :((
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John Byrne
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Posted: 09 September 2019 at 6:50am | IP Logged | 11 post reply

The referendum WAS the vote... There was no indication that a second vote would take place.

••

That's not how it was reported in the global press at the time.

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Koroush Ghazi
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Posted: 09 September 2019 at 7:22am | IP Logged | 12 post reply

This was never about discussing the issues or formulating logical plans, or anything resembling a logical strategy. This was, and still is, about opportunistic populists like Farage and Boris, furthering their careers on the back of rampant xenophobia.

That's why Boris knows he can just defy Parliament, shutting it down now and forging ahead with his moronic "no deal Brexit" - because he knows he has the will of the mob behind him. And in the end, "Rome is the mob" as they saying goes.
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