BS: 51% will vote to leave EU

Subject: RE: BS: 51% will vote to leave EU
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 19 Sep 15 - 06:57 AM

The turnout for that referendum was tiny. That large majority for keeping the system we've got was only a fraction of the electorate. It shouldn't be seen as a bar to having another look at the arguments for changing the sustem we've got.

They never had any referendum on extending the electorate. The real barrier to change is that many MPs, particularly in "safe seats" recognise that their continued employment as MPs would be likely to be at risk.

Subject: RE: BS: 51% will vote to leave EU
From: DMcG
Date: 19 Sep 15 - 06:49 AM

I should say that there will certainly be something called the EU: the difficulties of disentangling the currencies alone will ensure that. The question is how close will that something be to what the EU is now?

Subject: RE: BS: 51% will vote to leave EU
From: DMcG
Date: 19 Sep 15 - 06:38 AM

It is no longer out of the question that there will not be a EU to vote ourselves out of, or at least we may be heading much more rapidly to one changed beyond recognition than we are towards the UK vote on the matter. The migrant/refugee crisis is fundamentally changing the EU even without the discussing the rights and wrongs of the people themselves: what it has done is wreck the always rather fragile level of trust between the countries themselves. The Schengen agreement fundamentally relies on each country trusting the others to be as effective at enforcing the borders as they are: lose that trust and all the internal borders come back, which affects not only migrants but all the free flow of people and goods that is in the founding charter of the EU, with a concomitant cost to businesses etc getting through these borders. We have already had the water cannon and tear gas; where does that go if ever larger groups of desperate people keep breaking down fences? And should one country - or more accurately one country's soldiers on the ground and in the unenviable position of having to make snap decisions - resort to actually firing on these people, how will the rest of the EU react? Then throw in the Greek crisis and how that has amplified internal divisions (fallen out of the daily news, but not forgotten, I assure everyone).

What will the EU be after that lot?

Subject: RE: BS: 51% will vote to leave EU
From: akenaton
Date: 19 Sep 15 - 06:26 AM

GUEST....
"But the people voted against fixing it. Either you believe in democracy & believe them when they say they want it left; or you are a tyrannical antidemocrat who insists it needs changing because you say so"

It is becoming apparent to all thinking people (right and left), that the present wasteful economic system is unsustainable.
All present political Parties and all of the media support the retention of our present economic system.
The media and partisan politics effect dramatically the results of any "democratic" election in this country, so is our form of "democracy" effective or beneficial?

Or am I simply a tyrannical anti democrat?

Subject: RE: BS: 51% will vote to leave EU
From: akenaton
Date: 19 Sep 15 - 06:14 AM

"Ultimate blame is the sizeable minority of people who voted her into power, and kept her in power ( never anywhere like a majority, though people always talk as if it was), and an electoral system that means that can happen - and invarably does in fact. "

So when we realised what was happening, a sizable majority voted in a Labour government which took us into a stupid and very costly war and arguably did more damage to socialism than Mrs Thatcher.

The answer does not lie in the UK voting system.
It lies in education(political), media control and time( which is rapidly running out)

Subject: RE: BS: 51% will vote to leave EU
From: GUEST,Apol-again
Date: 19 Sep 15 - 05:47 AM

But the people voted against fixing it. Either you believe in democracy & believe them when they say they want it left; or you are a tyrannical antidemocrat who insists it needs changing because you say so. Can't have it both ways. & all very well for that guy 3 back saying they should have done it differently. Why? To get the result he happens to want?

Subject: RE: BS: 51% will vote to leave EU
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 19 Sep 15 - 03:31 AM

"It was as much of a majority as anyone ever gets under our system though"
Fine, of course, until someone claims that an election result is indicative of the will of "the majority of the people" - which happens a lot, particularly in these arguments.
The situation seems to be that "the majority", certainly in Britain, have become disillusioned with politics and politicians and in practical terms, have been disenfranchised by their appalling behaviour - which doesn't seem to be improving.
Maybe the system is broke and does need fixing.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: 51% will vote to leave EU
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 18 Sep 15 - 02:24 PM

That was my point, it always happens. A system of representative government that invariably means minority rule is not a system of representative government.

We used to have a system under which only a few people were able to vote. It would have been logical to answer complaints about the kind of governments that were elected by saying "This is what always happens with our system of government", without recognising that that was the reason it needed to be changed.

I'm sure many people thought arguing for universal suffrage, or votes for women was boring because it had been said so often before.

Subject: RE: BS: 51% will vote to leave EU
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 18 Sep 15 - 02:21 PM

You spoil your point somewhat with your second post. That referendum on AV was an almighty cock-up of, er, liberal proportions, to say the least. Not the kind of PR that we should have been talking about.

Subject: RE: BS: 51% will vote to leave EU
From: GUEST,Apologist again
Date: 18 Sep 15 - 02:18 PM

...especially as the whole electorate was invited, by referendum, to say if they wanted to change the system very recently, and decisively voted to keep things as they are

Subject: RE: BS: 51% will vote to leave EU
From: GUEST,An Argumentative Apologist
Date: 18 Sep 15 - 02:14 PM

It was as much of a majority as anyone ever gets under our system though, Mr McGrath. The constituency, first past the post, practice that we work by doesn't produce absolute majorities. Do we have to go into all that again?

Subject: RE: BS: 51% will vote to leave EU
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 18 Sep 15 - 12:28 PM

Battering Mrs Thatcher is pointless, always was. She acts as a lightning rod, takes the heat off a lot of other people without whom she'd just have bene just another angry person complaining how the world was all wrong, like a lot of us here.

If you engage a demolition expert you don't complain when they smash things up, that's what they were engaged to do.

Ultimate blame is the sizeable minority of people who voted her into power, and kept her in power ( never anywhere like a majority, though people always talk as if it was), and an electoral system that means that can happen - and invarably does in fact.

Subject: RE: BS: 51% will vote to leave EU
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 18 Sep 15 - 12:10 PM

"Tell me Jim if British Steel was the "best in the world" how come nobody bought it? 1967 "
Because it wasn't marketed - more profit in buying poorer quality cheap - a successful nationalised industry would have been an embarrassment
Are you continuing to suggest British Steel was crap?
And they claim the left are anti-British!!!
Comparison with European countries is no indication of how well Britain is doing in the unemployment stakes - right-wing policies have produced a whole series of economic crises which have shoved up unemployment.
Right-wing governments of all persuasions have massaged those figures by withdrawing benefits to force people to take jobs at crap wages, boot camps... and various other schemes.
Despite this, unemployment remains around that at the time of the Great depression.
Thatcher inherited an unemployment figure of 1.4m during her reign it reached over three million during the Thatcher regime it topped 3 million
THE THATCHER YEARS
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: 51% will vote to leave EU
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 18 Sep 15 - 05:46 AM

The Tories were elected on a "Labour Isn't Working" platform in1979. Within a short time after Thatcher's election, unemployment rocketed. She never got it back down to the 1979 election day level for the whole of her tenure. In fact, she contrived to hide unemployment under the guise of incapacity benefit for hundreds of thousands of workers thrown out of their industries as the unregulated yuppies took over. Government by spiv for spivs. The next time unemployment got back down to 1979 levels, Tony Blair had been in charge for years. There, I've saved Jim having to mention it.

Subject: RE: BS: 51% will vote to leave EU
From: The Sandman
Date: 18 Sep 15 - 05:43 AM

the problem with sheffield steel and british steel was that it was good the material lasted too long, it is the nature of capitaism ,that things should be replaced so that production of short lasting materials continues , so that a few people can make money.
Then the capitalist press can go shock horror when a bridge collapses because of inadequate material, they sell a few more newspapers at the mock outrage. The capitalist system at the present moment encourages shoddy workmanship, built in obeselence, poor working conditions and bigger profits for the owners, that kind of thing is not for the good of the majority of the community.

Subject: RE: BS: 51% will vote to leave EU
From: Teribus
Date: 18 Sep 15 - 05:28 AM

Tell me Jim if British Steel was the "best in the world" how come nobody bought it? 1967 eh, two years before North Sea Oil really got underway and about six years before major oilfields came on line - yet what did British Steel offer the industry in terms of pipe for the pipelines? Spiral welded pipe that industry had told British Steel that it would never use - hence all the steel pipe used in the North Sea came from abroad - commercial and technical decision - nothing to do with any Government.

The rise in unemployment figures under Thatcher were immediately followed by a fall in unemployment figures - but you won't get Jim mentioning that. Our Employment/unemployment figures are a damned sight better than those of Europe and have been consistently so for quite some time now harking back to the Thatcher era when the ground work was done to make Britain more competitive.

Subject: RE: BS: 51% will vote to leave EU
From: akenaton
Date: 18 Sep 15 - 04:31 AM

Battering Mrs Thatcher has become a sport for some on this forum who still support the capitalist system in principle....financial aspiration and all that.

Don't you realise that our days as a mass manufacturing nation had gone and that capital investments were going to other more profitable sources. China was on the cusp of flooding the West with very cheap manufactured products......Mrs Thatcher was a believer in capitalism and personal aspiration.....a bold politician, who in her view had no option but to demolish UK manufacturing and concentrate on financial services and service industries...her "right to buy" scheme made financial aspiration "flavour of the month" even amongst those who thought they would never be allowed to aspire to anything.
A political masterstroke..
Her policies were continued and "improved" by our very own Tony Blair, but proved in the end to be based on a fraud when the financial bubble burst.

The EU project is simply another attempt to get a few more years out of a clapped out system which is ruining our society and destroying the environment......the analogy of a twenty year old car chugging along billowing smoke and fumes is pertinent.

However, even the most politically unaware "liberals" amongst us, must see that the problems created by "free movement" and our military adventures in search of "democracy and freedom" in nations which do not want or even understand the concept, have assisted in the complete downfall of the ill considered enterprise.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad tidings, but all we have left is lower less wasteful living standards, less "freedom", fewer personal "rights", more contribution, more sacrifice, to ensure a future for our great grand children....Ake

Subject: RE: BS: 51% will vote to leave EU
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 17 Sep 15 - 07:15 PM

The truth is there really is very little manufactured in the UK, and still less that gets exported. There are a few assembly plants putting together cars from kits supplied by Japan, if that counts as manufacturing. In which case I'm a furniture manufacturer on the basis of Ikea flatpacks i've put together.

And of course if we leave the EU the assembly plants will get moved to countries still inside, most likely.

Maggie and her successors, from all parties, have really done a pretty thorough job dismantling manufacturing here.
.................

The flaw to the suggestion that this referendum means giving people a choice is that if Cameron comes back with some deal under which the existing treaty is messed around with by messing up the Social Chapter, noone is going to be able to vote to scrap his "reforms" and keep the things the Tories hate. It will be take it or leave it.

Subject: RE: BS: 51% will vote to leave EU
From: akenaton
Date: 17 Sep 15 - 07:09 PM

It is surely obvious that the EU project is imploding...why do you continue to obfuscate?

Teribus is factually correct, but his underlying reasons are wrong, Britain plc failed because of the cyclical nature of capitalism not lazy workers or domineering Unions, tho' I'm sure both existed.
Mrs Thatcher did what had to be done to extend the viability of the system, not to punish the poor. No politician does unpopular things unless they have a bloody good reason, She was an extraordinary politician....just wish the left had someone with her guts and conviction.

What amuses me is that you soft lefties don't want to make that "heretical" connection.....shameless frauds.

Subject: RE: BS: 51% will vote to leave EU
From: The Sandman
Date: 17 Sep 15 - 04:57 PM

excellent post , Jim

Subject: RE: BS: 51% will vote to leave EU
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 17 Sep 15 - 04:04 PM

"British Steel was crap"
That is a total distortion of the position Britissh steel was the best in the world until the Tories started to reverse steel nationalisation
A summing up of what happened to the Steel industry in Britain -
"nationalisation was reversed by the Conservative government after 1952. The industry was again nationalised in 1967 under another Labour government. But by then twenty years of political manipulation had left companies such as British Steel with serious problems: a complacency with existing equipment, plants operating below full capacity (hence with low efficiency), poor-quality assets, outdated technology, government price controls, higher coal and oil costs, lack of funds for capital improvement, and increasing competition in the world market."
British Steel was sabotaged by the Conservatives because there was more investment profit in buying abroad.
The same went for the Coal industry - cheaper to buy Polish coal than to continue mining our own.
The "inferiority" of the product was a blatant lie put about by the Thatcher regime - they also argued at one stage that pits were being closed out of concern for the miners' health
You really have swallowed the Tory gospel, haven't you?
The trades Unions never attempted to "run the country" - another piece of Thatcher dogma - they did their job in protecting their members.
The rise in unemployment figures under Thatcher, directly effercted by her systematic destruction og British industry - for profit - vindicates the steps the Unions took in offsetting Tory vandalism - "Labour isn't working" - whoops - one million plus on the dole.
She was a right wing thus who would have echoed the actions of her friend Pinochet if she though she could have got away with it.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: 51% will vote to leave EU
From: Teribus
Date: 17 Sep 15 - 11:24 AM

As I said Steve you do not realise how much stuff we still actually do make and export - suggest you go and look it up, as you most certainly would never take my word for it, or credit any source I might put up - you are more interested as someone else observed in arguing for the sake of argument - so I am not going to get pulled into that.

By the way what stuff did we make pre-Maggie that anyone in their right mind wanted to buy? British Steel was crap, our coal was the most expensive in the world, our motor industry geared for the mass market made crap cars - using British Steel's crap product which meant that if you bought a brand new Morris Marina, Austin Maxi or Allegro on a damp still evening you could walk out of your house and listen to the damn thing corroding away. Our shipyards were incapable of making the size and types of ship the world's customers wanted and just to sign a contract with a British yard guaranteed lengthy delays on delivery times and massive cost hikes.

The pre-Maggie days of the three day week with Trades Unions attempting to run the country and force direction on the elected Government, when they clearly demonstrated that they couldn't even run themselves. Where hospital porters decided whether or not you could be admitted to hospital, or whether or not you could be buried - the good old days that she thankfully put an end to - I remember them well.

Isolationist Britain? It never has been in its entire history, but there again you aren't too well up on historical fact be it political, social or economic. Our links with the rest of the world are second to none, for around the last two years about 60% of our trade has been with the rest of the world - not with Europe and the Eurozone which is in a complete and utter mess with absolutely no end of its problems being in sight.

Subject: RE: BS: 51% will vote to leave EU
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 16 Sep 15 - 07:45 PM

Ye gods, man, you're harking back to pre-Maggie now! As I said, just look at the size of us next to those blocs you'd be wanting us to be big hitters alongside. We really don't matter very much at all, in fact, we really only matter now because we're in the EU. Thanks to Maggie wrecking our industrial base for extremely short-term ideological reasons, we now sell insurance and dodgy City financial "products". Germany actually makes stuff to such an extent that they knock us into a manufacturing cocked hat. Cheers for that, Maggie, and all because you were so desperate to crush Arthur. As for doing business with the rest of the world, these days even the US president has to be given a gentle nudge from an advisor in order to recall the name of our PM. They don't need us, do they, Bill. Not really. Maybe it was different in the days of pre-Maggie yore when we actually made stuff...

Subject: RE: BS: 51% will vote to leave EU
From: Teribus
Date: 16 Sep 15 - 07:22 PM

"But a little country like us, getting all isolationist in a world consisting of the US, China, India and the EU, well that's just scary."

Why precisely does leaving the EU necessarily equate with getting "all isolationist"? The UK did business with the rest of the world before the advent of the Common Market and the EEC and the EU - in fact it still does business with the rest of the world - places where the economy has not stagnated like in the EU. And Steve we make a damn sight more than you seem to think.

Subject: RE: BS: 51% will vote to leave EU
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 16 Sep 15 - 12:28 PM

And here's me thinking I was talking behind Michael's back after he'd gone on his holidays. Let me know when you've definitely gone so that I can backbite with impunity to my heart's content, Michael!

Subject: RE: BS: 51% will vote to leave EU
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 16 Sep 15 - 11:22 AM

Stanron: "Had someone suggested to me in my early years that I would take on a job that didn't pay, that would offer me little choice of what I would actually do and that I could never retire, I would not have been keen.
And then I became a musician."

God Bless You!!!

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: 51% will vote to leave EU
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 16 Sep 15 - 08:22 AM

More-than-somewhat temperate (and alliterative) tirade [just before I go] ---

You're sadly sometimes a silly sausage Steve...

                      ☠

Subject: RE: BS: 51% will vote to leave EU
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 16 Sep 15 - 08:14 AM

There have been three brief posts responding to Michael's somewhat intemperate tirade. In no way do the contents or sentiments of those posts amount to ganging up, Keith. You're always trying to up the ante. Well maybe we won't let you do that. Individually, of course. Moving swiftly on...

Subject: RE: BS: 51% will vote to leave EU
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 16 Sep 15 - 06:52 AM

You do not like being referred to as a gang, but see how you all gang up on any outsider who crosses one of you.
I was hoping you would take a longer holiday Rag.

Any day all the Muskets will be home from his holiday too.

Subject: RE: BS: 51% will vote to leave EU
From: Raggytash
Date: 16 Sep 15 - 04:27 AM

I would consider that he promotes my opinion very well indeed.

Subject: RE: BS: 51% will vote to leave EU
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 16 Sep 15 - 03:51 AM

"Jackanapes."
Doesn't that give you a nice, warm feeling to be called that - beats an OBE anyday!
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: 51% will vote to leave EU
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 16 Sep 15 - 02:37 AM

I should start your retreat with a nice little lie down if I were you, Michael. :-)

Subject: RE: BS: 51% will vote to leave EU
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 16 Sep 15 - 01:01 AM

"Michael I don't care who you are or what you claim to have achieved" sez Raggybuttox.

Of course he doesn't, nasty abusive little fool that he is. Far too self-satisfied and vain. And far too intent on making sure nobody knows who he is or what he claims to have achieved.

So persist in your evasiveness, hiding your real identity behind that absurd sobriquet instead of coming out to argue in your own person, you pathetic, contemptible buffoon.

Don't trouble to rejoin, unless you wish to waste your efforts on the desert air. I am done with this thread. Time, in fact, for one of my month-or-so breaks from the Cat, which I do when the atmosphere gets too fœtid with the stinking presence of such as the untrimmed-whiskery-one.

And, yes, that was 'rude', wasn't it! I am rude when I mean to be. And boy did I ever mean to be, to that nasty pompous complacent puffed-up arrogant little swine. Who the hell does he think he is, to address me in such terms! Jackanapes...

≈M≈

See you all in a month of so -- maybe.

Subject: RE: BS: 51% will vote to leave EU
From: Rapparee
Date: 15 Sep 15 - 07:37 PM

If 51% vote (presumably with their feet) to leave the EU, don't send 'em here! The US and Canada have enough problems!

Subject: RE: BS: 51% will vote to leave EU
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 15 Sep 15 - 06:56 PM

If Scotland goes independent, that doesn't just mean that they would be leaving the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, it would mean that that country, the country which had joined the EU, no longer existed. One of its constituents, Great Britain, would have reverted to being merely a geographical rather than a political union, the name of an island.

Yes a new country could be set up, perhaps the United Kingdom of Southern Britain and Northern Ireland. And presumably if Scotland was required to reapply to join the EU, so would that new country.

Subject: RE: BS: 51% will vote to leave EU
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 15 Sep 15 - 06:37 PM

Well actually I agree with you that the last thing the EU would want is for the UK to leave. Whilst I disagree with Cameron's making himself a hostage to fortune by promising the forthcoming silly referendum, nothing more than a ploy to derail UKIP before the last election, his trump card in renegotiations is exactly that. I do not agree that the SNP tried to peddle a lie to the Scottish people in the manner you describe, and I think you are utterly up a gum tree in wishing to see us out of the EU. We did absolutely the right thing in not joining the Euro, which was a thoroughly bad concept from the word go. But a little country like us, getting all isolationist in a world consisting of the US, China, India and the EU, well that's just scary. We don't make stuff any more, remember, thanks to your heroine, and we're 60 million among seven billion, so they don't need us as much as you think.

Subject: RE: BS: 51% will vote to leave EU
From: Teribus
Date: 15 Sep 15 - 05:06 PM

"I think if I was in a lot of member countries, and I had a vote on whether to keep the UK, or at any rate, England, in the Union, I'd vote for dispensing with its presence."

Well actually Kevin England is not a member of the EU - the United Kingdom on the other hand is - a fact that completely escaped the notice of the SNP in last year's independence referendum. For Sturgeon to say that if the people of the UK voted for the UK to leave the EU, irrespective of what Scotland did it would still find itself having to apply for EU membership and signing up for the Euro as its currency - first lie uncovered in the SNPs independence campaign in 2014.

As to dispensing with the presence of the UK in Europe by other EU states - highly unlikely - you don't waltz into a restaurant in a company of 28 then kick out one of the five that actually pays for the meal. The UK is Germany's best customer in the EU so you can bet your bottom dollar that the state described as being the economic powerhouse of Europe would most definitely NOT be too happy to see us depart. Our economy is actually growing that of the Eurozone countries is stagnating - our future is not and should not be tied to Europe - we actually do most of our trade with the rest of the world (Particularly if you correctly attribute the trade through Rotterdam but destined for places outside the EU as "foreign trade).

Subject: RE: BS: 51% will vote to leave EU
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 15 Sep 15 - 02:44 PM

Being in the EU is like most things, a mixture of pros and cons. At present the balance is on the pro side. If the pseudo negotiations Cameron is carying out end up with his having got rid of some of the things he hates, I can see myself voting to get out, because most of those things would be the very things I value.

I think if I was in a lot of member countries, and I had a vote on whether to keep the UK, or at any rate, England, in the Union, I'd vote for dispensing with its presence.

Subject: RE: BS: 51% will vote to leave EU
From: Teribus
Date: 15 Sep 15 - 12:54 PM

A great deal of rubbish talked about on this thread about "free movement of labour" within the EU and Norway. Anyone wants to try and hop on a plane to Norway as an EU Citizen to find work believing what has been stated here is in for one hell of a shock. You have to have the job BEFORE you land, a Norwegian employer has to have sponsored you - and your employer has got argue long and hard that he has to bring you in to do the job as no Norwegian is available to do the work.

Now taking it as read that you have your job in Norway as an ex-pat Brit, you pay less in NI contributions than your Norwegian colleagues for the first four years you are over there because you are actually paying into the UK NI scheme (After four years you join the full Norwegian system and pay full whack) - While you are paying less you you have no call on any "benefits" paid to Norwegian citizens - out of work then you are out of the country. Norway has used thousands and thousands of "visiting" workers this way and their employers all pay the 14% gross salary employment tax to the Norwegian Government - it is this money that forms part of the Norwegian's sovereign wealth fund that is designated for domestic investment in Norwegian jobs and in Norwegian companies. That 14% levy for all those thousands of ex-pat employees are collected knowing full well that not one bit of it will ever have to be paid out to those ex-pats in the form of a pension or in benefits.

I'm with Stanron back in the 1970s I was asked if I wished to remain in the EEC - a commercial trading block/community - it has long since ceased to be that. If a referendum comes up asking if we should be in or out - my vote is for out.

Subject: RE: BS: 51% will vote to leave EU
From: akenaton
Date: 15 Sep 15 - 12:25 PM

I know for a fact and by reading his posts, that Keith is no "racist".

You two are despicable using such tactics to attempt to intimidate another member, just address the issues.

Subject: RE: BS: 51% will vote to leave EU
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 15 Sep 15 - 10:15 AM

Left it
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: 51% will vote to leave EU
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 15 Sep 15 - 09:13 AM

Leave it, Jim... ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: 51% will vote to leave EU
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 15 Sep 15 - 09:05 AM

You think it OK to accuse me of being deluded about a race of people, but not for me to repudiate the slander.
A decent person, if they really did not intend to smear, would clarify their intention and meaning.
You choose to ignore.
Despicable.

Subject: RE: BS: 51% will vote to leave EU
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 15 Sep 15 - 05:49 AM

Methinks, the lady doth protest too much
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: 51% will vote to leave EU
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 15 Sep 15 - 05:31 AM

Your attitude is very tiresome. Just drop it. I've said what I said I meant. If you mention it again I'll just ignore you.

Subject: RE: BS: 51% will vote to leave EU
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 15 Sep 15 - 04:17 AM

Last time I looked, deluded and racist had two completely different meanings.

They do, but to say I am deluded about an ethnic group is accusing me of racism.
What else could it mean?

Now drop it, there's a good chap.

You accused me of racism.
I wish you had not.
I am entitled to deny your false accusation.
You chose to make it.

Subject: RE: BS: 51% will vote to leave EU
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 15 Sep 15 - 02:05 AM

And the Self-Servatives and their slavering dogs in the press should be beaten very hard by every NICs-payer for making 'Benefits' a dirty word.

Subject: RE: BS: 51% will vote to leave EU
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 14 Sep 15 - 07:32 PM

All benefits are entitlements in a decent society. My disabled daughter hasn't paid in for what she gets in benefits, because she could never work, but she has every right to get it. Every bit as much right as I have, after having paid in for it. I paid in for it because I was fortunate enough to be able to do so, and it was my privilege as well as my duty to do so. And both sets of payments are indeed the benefits of living in a society that still has some decent aspects.

From each according to their ability, to each according to their need really is the basic principle we need to accept and live by.

Subject: RE: BS: 51% will vote to leave EU
From: akenaton
Date: 14 Sep 15 - 05:54 PM

Don't underestimate the strength of the New Labour myth Mr McGrath, socialism is an unknown quantity to all generations after ourselves.
Jeremy was elected by the converted.

I think it will take many decades for the message to be received and understood.....and the New Labour dummies are sharpening their knives, I'm sure there will be an attempted coup within a couple of years.......The democratic lie will be exposed.

Subject: RE: BS: 51% will vote to leave EU
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 14 Sep 15 - 04:46 PM

All kinds of reasons people voted for UKIP. At our local hustings the UKIP candidate didn't even mention either Europe or immigration. Just went on about how everyone was lovely and ought to help each other and so forth. He was a great big avuncular Yank, doing a sort of Ronald Reagan impression.

Came in third place with a healthy 7,000 votes. I doubt if most of those were particularly racist - more bored with lookalike politics I suspect.

I've seen surveys suggesting former Labour voters who went for UKIP are more likely to move back to Labour with Jeremy Corbyn than they would have with Old New Labour apparatchiks running the party.