Brexit...
- Thread starter Alex
- Start date
PeteHall
Moderator
aardgoose said:
Safe seats are generally 'safe' because of the apathy of the electorate, both in turning up to vote and also getting involved in politics/ standing for election if the choice of candidate is poor. Then, keeping engaged away from election time.
How many people are eligible to vote?
How many people do vote?
How many people are a member of a political party, allowing them to choose their candidate and influence the direction the party takes?
How many people actively campaigned ahead of the last general election?
How many people have written to their MP in the last month/ 6 months/ year?
That said, if I am not mistaken, every national ballot (general election/ local election/ referendum) since David Cameron first offered a Brexit vote in his 2015 manifesto has been in favour of Brexit, either directly, or indirectly via votes for parties who have committed to 'honour the referendum result'. The Lib Dems are the only major party to campaign for overturning the referendum result and look how popular that has proved...
Mark Wright
Active member
The 10 questions might be impossible to answer with any real degree of accuracy but that is the case with any major business decision, you have to take a reasonable guess based on experience and on the information available at the time.
Most businesses unfortunately can?t wait until 2024, let alone 2029. Most of the ones now struggling to compete with the rest of the EU will be making their decisions on how they might stay afloat in the next 6 weeks, before the end of this financial year.
For those who were fortunate enough to have received a government bounce back loan, or other such funding, and assuming they?ve got some of it left, the decisions they will be making over the next 6 weeks will be around where to invest it for the benefit of the business and the jobs that creates, in the UK or in the EU?
For UK company?s doing a big chunk of their trade in the EU, the business decision will likely be a simple one.
Mark
Most businesses unfortunately can?t wait until 2024, let alone 2029. Most of the ones now struggling to compete with the rest of the EU will be making their decisions on how they might stay afloat in the next 6 weeks, before the end of this financial year.
For those who were fortunate enough to have received a government bounce back loan, or other such funding, and assuming they?ve got some of it left, the decisions they will be making over the next 6 weeks will be around where to invest it for the benefit of the business and the jobs that creates, in the UK or in the EU?
For UK company?s doing a big chunk of their trade in the EU, the business decision will likely be a simple one.
Mark
aardgoose
Member
No, because of demographics of constituencies. Non of your questions have anything to do with the lack of equality of votes.
On the referendum, what was being voted for was unknown, supporters were left to project their own desires on to the outcome, deliberately. No major choice should have ever been made on those terms. It was deliberate deceit. No one was voting to leave was "well informed". And cries now that we should all pull together and make the best of it. No, I won't work with people who's aims I find abhorrent.
Speleofish
Active member
In response to Fulk, I agree (with reservations) about the House of Lords. If it had the power to do more than delay or suggest modifications to new laws, it would be unquestionably undemocratic. As it is, its effect of democracy is limited and it does, on occasion, act as a useful brake on the House of Commons. If you were to reform the House of Lords, what would you change it into?
If you abolish it (the simplest solution), there would be no checks on the House of Commons. Not sure this would be good idea.
If you replace it with a fully elected chamber, it would have democratic legitimacy and should therefore have law-making powers. How would you reconcile that with the current House of Commons? At the very least, it would provoke a constitutional problem (and it would probably require drawing up a formal constitution for Britain rather than our current unwritten one. Not necessarily a bad idea but sufficiently difficult that I can see why no political party has had the appetite to do it.
If you abolish it (the simplest solution), there would be no checks on the House of Commons. Not sure this would be good idea.
If you replace it with a fully elected chamber, it would have democratic legitimacy and should therefore have law-making powers. How would you reconcile that with the current House of Commons? At the very least, it would provoke a constitutional problem (and it would probably require drawing up a formal constitution for Britain rather than our current unwritten one. Not necessarily a bad idea but sufficiently difficult that I can see why no political party has had the appetite to do it.
PeteHall
Moderator
Crossed posts with Speleofish, but generally agree with what he's saying about the Lords acting as a brake.
I am uncomfortable with the idea of people being born into a life of privilege and holding a nationally important position because of who their parents were, however I really don't think the monarchy has any bearing at all on our democracy. The Queen has never interfered in the politics of the day, so to suggest that this undermines our democracy is bollocks, it doesn't.
As for the house of Lords, while a small minority are hereditary, the majority are appointed over time from different political persuasions and representing different areas of society. It's not a perfect system, however due to the nature of the peerages, the second house has a stabilising effect on our government. The Lords represents a longer timeframe than the Commons. A single issue party could not take over the Lords in a single election (as they could the Commons). I genuinely think that this is a real positive for our democracy and in the age of short term social media trends influencing long term national policies, I think this stabilising effect is all the more needed.
Fulk said:
I am uncomfortable with the idea of people being born into a life of privilege and holding a nationally important position because of who their parents were, however I really don't think the monarchy has any bearing at all on our democracy. The Queen has never interfered in the politics of the day, so to suggest that this undermines our democracy is bollocks, it doesn't.
As for the house of Lords, while a small minority are hereditary, the majority are appointed over time from different political persuasions and representing different areas of society. It's not a perfect system, however due to the nature of the peerages, the second house has a stabilising effect on our government. The Lords represents a longer timeframe than the Commons. A single issue party could not take over the Lords in a single election (as they could the Commons). I genuinely think that this is a real positive for our democracy and in the age of short term social media trends influencing long term national policies, I think this stabilising effect is all the more needed.
nickwilliams
Well-known member
Fjell said:
All of which is true, but might not have been if successive UK governments and idle fuckwits like Nigel Farage had actually engaged with the problem rather than behaving like petulant children.
For decades now our relationship with Europe has been defined by a bunch of mostly public schoolboys who love the sound of their own voice but are too idle or thick (or both) to realise that politics is hard work and requires you to actually engage with people and problems, not just shout slogans at them.
The UK ought to be where Germany now is in terms of economy and leadership in Europe. The fact that we are not is a damning indictment of the failings of the English political class.
And don't get me started on the wankers in the financial sector.....
pwhole
Well-known member
Everything the government does is run past the queen first for a heads-up, every week. The Prime Minister must meet the monarch weekly to inform them of their government's business. It may not happen in person in a pandemic but you can be sure it's happening in some other way. Why on earth would she need to know anything serious if her role is merely ceremonial? She should be hanging out with Eammon Holmes talking equity release, not Boris Johnson, if that were the case. 'Free up the bank of mum and dad!'. The whole royal thing is pure bollocks from top to bottom, and pretty nasty when it's challenged, as we've seen repeatedly. Just ask James Hewitt how he feels about things lately. And the rest of the system works downwards from that.
I remember my mum dragging me up the hill to watch the queen briefly drive past during the Rotherham Centenary in 1971 - we all got a plastic mug at school with a gold coat of arms on it. I was eight at the time, and caused the most almighty row as I didn't want to go, refused to wave and found the whole episode of grown adults with plastic flags rather disturbing, especially as the kids seemed ambivalent. All we saw was the arm out of the window, just like on The Goodies - who were more sometimes radical than they seemed then - although I notice the episode with Bill Oddie blacked-up and wearing an afro wig seems to have vanished from the archives! I'm quite proud of my stance then, it hasn't changed, and has only got more intense as the years roll on - hilariously my mum now mentions the incident more with pride than anger.
Don't get me started on the 1977 Jubilee event
I remember my mum dragging me up the hill to watch the queen briefly drive past during the Rotherham Centenary in 1971 - we all got a plastic mug at school with a gold coat of arms on it. I was eight at the time, and caused the most almighty row as I didn't want to go, refused to wave and found the whole episode of grown adults with plastic flags rather disturbing, especially as the kids seemed ambivalent. All we saw was the arm out of the window, just like on The Goodies - who were more sometimes radical than they seemed then - although I notice the episode with Bill Oddie blacked-up and wearing an afro wig seems to have vanished from the archives! I'm quite proud of my stance then, it hasn't changed, and has only got more intense as the years roll on - hilariously my mum now mentions the incident more with pride than anger.
Don't get me started on the 1977 Jubilee event
JoshW
Well-known member
Speleofish said:
Some would argue that there are 650 seats in parliament and therefore it should be able to check on itself, and if your "democratically" elected leaders need to be checked in on externally to make sure they're doing the right thing, then somethings gone seriously wrong.
I would argue that in the current set up of the commons (FPTP voting, mostly 2 party politics etc) that it would not be a good idea to leave it unchecked.
An argument that you need an unelected group to keep your elected group from not looking out for the interests of the majority is an admission that the system of election is broken.
pwhole
Well-known member
Here's another good one from John Harris about small companies trading with the EU - and yes, it is another Guardian article, but that's partly as they operate without a paywall, unlike the other 'quality' papers who do. I'm not a total ideologue. But I contribute financially to them as I use it so much. Not that I'd read anything other than The Times in that bracket, but I'll occasionally buy that on paper just for the good read, but it's awfully expensive. Anyway...
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/feb/15/covid-damaged-small-businesses-brexit-uk-eu-trading
If the government wants us to somehow buy and sell our way out of the Covid slump, it is going to need agile, inventive companies such as these. Given that they operate at the meeting point of business and popular culture, they also have a big part to play in how post-Brexit Britain might re-sell itself to the world. There was a time, perhaps, when leading Conservative politicians understood this kind of stuff as a matter of instinct. But just as Labour has become estranged from its old working-class heartlands, so the Conservatives? embrace of a parochial, introverted kind of populism means they can no longer claim to be the party of commerce. That is a seismic change, and it may sooner or later transform our politics.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/feb/15/covid-damaged-small-businesses-brexit-uk-eu-trading
If the government wants us to somehow buy and sell our way out of the Covid slump, it is going to need agile, inventive companies such as these. Given that they operate at the meeting point of business and popular culture, they also have a big part to play in how post-Brexit Britain might re-sell itself to the world. There was a time, perhaps, when leading Conservative politicians understood this kind of stuff as a matter of instinct. But just as Labour has become estranged from its old working-class heartlands, so the Conservatives? embrace of a parochial, introverted kind of populism means they can no longer claim to be the party of commerce. That is a seismic change, and it may sooner or later transform our politics.
Speleofish
Active member
JoshW, I'm not quite sure which side you're arguing for.. Your first sentence suggests the House of Commons should be able to operate without external checks, your second sentence suggests it needs it. Unless your real point is that with a system of proportional representation it would operate adequately but under first-past-the-post it's less democratic and so needs scrutiny?
If so, I agree.
If so, I agree.
One reason the Queen won't stand down is because she takes her responsibilities seriously, unlike the cabinet & she probably does have more of an idea what's going on in the country than they do as well. However, her main role is (in normal times) to keep the tourists rolling in.
Duck ditch
New member
The queen is appointed by god. She actually believes she was appointed by god. Can you believe it.
Or was it by some aquatic bint waving a sword from a pond
Or was it by some aquatic bint waving a sword from a pond
