Brexit matters

[21C101]

Seeing very little to dissaude me from the view that the primary goal of the remainers was to bind the hands of the Wicked Tories and the primary purpose of EU membership was as a vehicle to achieve this.

 

[37424]

Seeing very little to dissaude me from the view that the primary goal of the remainers was to bind the hands of the Wicked Tories and the primary purpose of EU membership was as a vehicle to achieve this.

Well given that particularly the right wing of of the Tory party would be quite happy to turn the UK into the sweat shop of Europe is it surprising, for more competitive read reduction in workers rights and conditions.

 

[dgl]

Why did we wait so long to do this? The EU is banning it too, but we were allowed to implement it whenever we wanted - which could have been a long time ago. Why didn't we?

Likewise, the 'tampon tax'. The EU is doing that too, but some member states went ahead and did it already - before we did. Ireland for one. I think perhaps also Germany. Oh, it seems our Government voted against it previously. Which Government? Oh, the Tories.

It's almost as if the UK Government deliberately waited until the Brexit deadline so as to look like we did something that wasn't possible as members of the EU.

Suposedly we only had the tampon tax because the Conservative government at the time decided not to class it as a medical goods or something similar, medical goods having 0% VAT across the EU.

We did something that not only did we create in the first place but voted against later on, how bleedin' ridiculous, and it's the people who voted against removing the tax that are being the most vocal about it now being withdrawn, make me mad!!!

 

[Journeyman]

Seeing very little to dissaude me from the view that the primary goal of the remainers was to bind the hands of the Wicked Tories and the primary purpose of EU membership was as a vehicle to achieve this.

Yeah. I don't actually have a problem with that.

 

[Starmill]

Seeing very little to dissaude me from the view that the primary goal of the remainers was to bind the hands of the Wicked Tories and the primary purpose of EU membership was as a vehicle to achieve this.

Presumably this is why a Conservative Prime Minister and a significant number of Conservative ministers campaigned to Remain, archived some significant improvements to our membership terms, and never recommended leaving.

Worth noting that Cameron's Conservativism wasn't really bound at all by EU membership, it was only the Bill Cashs and Mark Francois of the world who created it into a problem.

 

[JamesT]

Why did we wait so long to do this? The EU is banning it too, but we were allowed to implement it whenever we wanted - which could have been a long time ago. Why didn't we?

Likewise, the 'tampon tax'. The EU is doing that too, but some member states went ahead and did it already - before we did. Ireland for one. I think perhaps also Germany. Oh, it seems our Government voted against it previously. Which Government? Oh, the Tories.

It's almost as if the UK Government deliberately waited until the Brexit deadline so as to look like we did something that wasn't possible as members of the EU.

And now Grant Shapps is proudly boasting we don't need an International Drivers Licence. We didn't need one last week either. Or the week before that. Or...

Ireland never levied VAT on sanitary items, so their exception was grandfathered in. Germany reduced their VAT from their standard rate to the reduced rate last year. The UK dropped down to the reduced 5% rate in 2000.
EU countries cannot unilaterally remove or exempt items from VAT, it requires unanimity as it goes against the general principle that VAT should be homogeneous across the single market.
The Tories did not vote against removing the tax previously, they voted against a motion that they should open negotiations with the EU towards removing the tax. But that had no guarantees that the other nations would agree to it.

 

[edwin_m]

I'm not convinced Prop rep would really be much better or more representative

We had Mays government paralysed over Brexit because she didn't have the numbers, so then we got a huge protest vote for the Brexit party in the Euro elections which the Tories tuck as a que for a Hard Brexit. Under prop rep you can still get a situation where the largest party can be frozen out of government by a collection of the smaller parties, along with weeks of negotiating as to who forms the next government, and falling out when they don't agree.

If we went down this route the Tory party would either split or some of them would join the Brexit party, would the joys of a Tory/Brexit Government be any better Ok some might say we have that already with the ERG. On the Left I would expect Labour to split between the moderates and the Corbynites we could end with some Left/Centre Government made up of any concoction of the 2 Labour Parties, Lib Dems, Greens, SNP etc.

Would it really be a whole lot better especially in terms of actually getting things done or really be even that much more representative?

If the system is truly proportional then the coalition of smaller parties would actually represent a majority of the popular vote in that situation, so it's probably the more democratic option to do so. If public opinion is truly divided in that way, then it's not really appropriate for one party to trample over everyone else as routinely happens in the UK.

The electoral system in the UK (and the USA) essentially cements power between two large parties. Each one knows that if it splits, it will split its own vote and be annihilated, so it has to try to accommodate people with a wide range of views including many that are contradictory. Farage and co got Brexit onto the agenda in the first place by creating a new party that never had any chance of securing power but threatened to drain votes from the Tories unless they adopted its only policy. This is exactly the sort of behaviour that people attribute to small parties under PR systems.

The Tories did not vote against removing the tax previously, they voted against a motion that they should open negotiations with the EU towards removing the tax. But that had no guarantees that the other nations would agree to it.

Either course of action would ensure that nothing changed.

 

[Starmill]

The Tories did not vote against removing the tax previously, they voted against a motion that they should open negotiations with the EU towards removing the tax. But that had no guarantees that the other nations would agree to it.

Quite. However, it would have been particularly difficult for this to be resisted. The UK was in 2015 a voice persuasive enough that it couldn't be just ignored. Indeed, it was the case that France, Germany and UK alone being in support of a measure would make it all but unassailable. The European Parliament would not have tried to halt such a measure either, indeed they had already begun the process of making the rule change for themselves. The Commission were also already on side.

Now, the real complaint here is that the Conservatives expect some kind of credit for making the change now, despite having earlier been an impediment to progress. The vote in 2015 was quite narrow, and only a handful of Conservative MPs switching to support it would have been necessary to change the outcome. It was also almost five years ago, during which no effort has been made by those in the party to achieve any positive change until yesterday. Indeed, the Conservatives have actually charged people who buy period products 5% VAT for longer in order that they can now claim that the victory is due to Brexit, something which I strongly criticise them for.

Finally, if the Conservative government had made an effort then, as they were asked to by the Opposition and campaigners, we could have by now changed the rules for hundreds of millions of people across almost all of Europe, rather than in the UK alone. Indeed, we have a proud and patriotic history of doing much of the same in other areas of regulation and standards. I want my country to go out into the world trying to improve things for everyone, rather than focusing ethnocentrically on me and here. Sadly the Conservative party doesn't seem to share my patriotic ambition.

 

[Sad Sprinter]

Quite. However, it would have been particularly difficult for this to be resisted. The UK was in 2015 a voice persuasive enough that it couldn't be just ignored. Indeed, it was the case that France, Germany and UK alone being in support of a measure would make it all but unassailable. The European Parliament would not have tried to halt such a measure either, indeed they had already begun the process of making the rule change for themselves.

Now, the real complaint here is that the Conservatives expect some kind of credit for making the change now, despite having earlier been an impediment to progress. The vote in 2015 was quite narrow, and only a handful of Conservative MPs switching to support it would have been necessary to change the outcome. It was also almost five years ago, during which no effort has been made by those in the party to achieve any positive change until yesterday. Indeed, the Conservatives have actually charged people who buy period products 5% VAT for longer in order that they can now claim that the victory is due to Brexit, something which I strongly criticise them for.

Finally, if the Conservative government had made an effort then, as they were asked to by the Opposition and campaigners, we could have by now changed the rules for hundreds of millions of people across almost all of Europe, rather than in the UK alone. Indeed, we have a proud and patriotic history of doing much of the same in other areas of regulation and standards. I want my country to go out into the world trying to improve things for everyone, rather than focusing ethnocentrically on me and here. Sadly the Conservative party doesn't seem to share my patriotic ambition.

That's because that's a Liberal ambition not a Conservative one

 

[Starmill]

That's because that's a Liberal ambition not a Conservative one

The finer details of that can be thoroughly debated in a new thread if necessary, but I was expressing the point because the Conservative party manifesto uses what I said a justification for Brexit, as part of their so-called Global Britain agenda. It's also something that the Prime Minister regularly espouses in his speeches.

 

[najaB]

That's because that's a Liberal ambition not a Conservative one

It would, however, be compatible with a conservative (small c) viewpoint.

 

[Sad Sprinter]

It would, however, be compatible with a conservative (small c) viewpoint.

True-the "Liberals" are mostly one-nation Tories anyway.

The finer details of that can be thoroughly debated in a new thread if necessary, but I was expressing the point because the Conservative party manifesto uses what I said a justification for Brexit, as part of their so-called Global Britain agenda. It's also something that the Prime Minister regularly espouses in his speeches.

No I know what you mean, I think Global Britain is a red herring because I don't think its an embrace of internationalism and globalism. More so neo-expansionism. Probably why they don't share the same sentiment as you do, its closet nationalism!

 

[21C101]

True-the "Liberals" are mostly one-nation Tories anyway

Quite literally. The Conservative and [Liberal] Unionist Party absorbed the majority of the Liberal Party in the 20th Century.

Firstly the Liberal Unionists after the Liberal Party split at the turn of the century over Irish Home Rule.

Then again in the 1920s when the Liberals split again over Ramsay McDonalds National Government.

National Liberal MPs remained until the 1960s, taking the Tory Whip before the Tories finally absorbed them. Heseltine first stood as a National Liberal and Thatcher was essentially an "Orange Book" liberal.

It remains to be seen whether Starmers Labour can retain Metropolitan seats or whether places like Exeter, Putney and Cambridge will drift to the Libdems.

 

[matacaster]

You're really scraping the bottom of the barrel here. Have you any idea how unpopular the current government is?

I assume they are unpopular with you, many trade unionists and lefties and some others no doubt, but to suggest you know how unpopular /popular they are over the whole country is revealing, perhaps your circle of friends is like minded? Opinion polls are remarkably unreliable and often biased. Anyway most governments are pretty unpopular at some time or other Blair, Brown, Thatcher, Heath, Major, May etc.

 

[Journeyman]

I assume they are unpopular with you, many trade unionists and lefties and some others no doubt, but to suggest you know how unpopular /popular they are over the whole country is revealing, perhaps your circle of friends is like minded? Opinion polls are remarkably unreliable and often biased. Anyway most governments are pretty unpopular at some time or other Blair, Brown, Thatcher, Heath, Major, May etc.

Disapproval of the current government is currently about 60% on YouGov, a site supposedly biased in favour of the Tories.

 

[matacaster]

If the system is truly proportional then the coalition of smaller parties would actually represent a majority of the popular vote in that situation, so it's probably the more democratic option to do so. If public opinion is truly divided in that way, then it's not really appropriate for one party to trample over everyone else as routinely happens in the UK.

The electoral system in the UK (and the USA) essentially cements power between two large parties. Each one knows that if it splits, it will split its own vote and be annihilated, so it has to try to accommodate people with a wide range of views including many that are contradictory. Farage and co got Brexit onto the agenda in the first place by creating a new party that never had any chance of securing power but threatened to drain votes from the Tories unless they adopted its only policy. This is exactly the sort of behaviour that people attribute to small parties under PR systems.

Either course of action would ensure that nothing changed.

Or indeed what corbynites achieved in the Labour Party. There were brownies and blairites etc. No broad church party will succeed unless their views are largely centrist in terms of the whole populations views, not what you or I or 'commentators' think of as centrist. However, centrist policies are largely uninspiring and tend to inhibit new ideas. The concept of we must always keep what we have and anything else must be an ADDITIONAL is misplaced. Eg tungsten lamps were environmentally poor, but light was good. Ccfl efficient bulbs were absolutely crap and they were as far as I know generally hated. Led lights are very good in my opinion and the rush to Ccfl was a poor decision.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 2 Jan 2021 ==

Presumably this is why a Conservative Prime Minister and a significant number of Conservative ministers campaigned to Remain, archived some significant improvements to our membership terms, and never recommended leaving.

Worth noting that Cameron's Conservativism wasn't really bound at all by EU membership, it was only the Bill Cashs and Mark Francois of the world who created it into a problem.

I doubt that Mark francois or Bill cash could strong arm a sizeable chunk of the Conservative party - how could they achieve that? Just like Labour, Tories have a broad church left, centre and right, but generally the bounds of those terms are to the right of Labour as a whole. Prime ministers tend to form cabinets of like minded individuals just as company boards or trade unions do - I am not aware of large numbers of right wing trade unionists for example. Teresa May and John Major both hoped to appease voters by getting EU concessions-they didn't really get anything as the EU new they were desperate to stay in EU at any cost - they were the equivalent of neville chamberlain. The EU refused to budge and wanted to move to a federal Europe with more centralisation of power. The British public never voted for an EU superstate, Heath sold it to them as a free trade organisation. If everybody got most of what they wanted by friendly negotiations, why do the unions go on strike so often?

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 2 Jan 2021 ==

Disapproval of the current government is currently about 60% on YouGov, a site supposedly biased in favour of the Tories.

The pollsters haven't got a great track record recently. Browns government wasn't particularly popular either. Worth remembering that the govt has had covid to deal with as well and no, I don't think they have handled cv well at all as I'm sure you'd agree. However, the science is constantly changing and there is also disparity of views. Epidemiologists and health care types will try to minimise loss of life at pretty much any cost. However other lives are lost / ruined through job loss, cancer, other non covid conditions. The average age of covid death is around the average life expectancy and though loss of a dear one is tragic, nearly all we're statistically likely to die from something, even common flu, in the relatively near future.

 

[Typhoon]

The tories (and many hospitals) wanted the National Insurance cover to be means tested with those on higher incomes expected to make their own private insurance arrangements

Easy to defend at first. Start with 45% tax payers as 'higher incomes', then merge that rate with 40% and class those as 'higher incomes', then spread it to all income tax payers, then only allow those on limited benefits to have NI cover for treatment.
Pandemic - not feeling well, but if I contact health care services, my insurance might go up so I continue going in to work, shopping, travelling on public transport, spreading disease wherever I go. Hopefully the more clear headed will prevent this train of events (and at least we have got Trump out of the way) but I have no confidence that our Prime Minister would not cave in to pressure and permit it. After all, his deals have been a success for fishermen, Northern Ireland, exporters, just about everybody; he writes to that effect almost weekly (and people believe him, he might even have convinced himself).

 

[edwin_m]

Or indeed what corbynites achieved in the Labour Party. There were brownies and blairites etc. No broad church party will succeed unless their views are largely centrist in terms of the whole populations views, not what you or I or 'commentators' think of as centrist.
...
I doubt that Mark francois or Bill cash could strong arm a sizeable chunk of the Conservative party - how could they achieve that? Just like Labour, Tories have a broad church left, centre and right, but generally the bounds of those terms are to the right of Labour as a whole.

The move of Labour to the left under Corbyn was different in that it was driven by the party membership who were, pretty much by definition, more extreme than that part of the electorate that might vote for the party. The Tories had the same issue with the membership but had pretty much perfected the technique of presenting a more moderate face to the wider electorate - until Farage came along with the leverage of an external party to split its vote and the opinions of Francois or Cash suddenly become mainstream Conservative policy. Critically both those things happened at the same time - if Labour had been more centreist it would have won in 2017 or 2019.

The pollsters haven't got a great track record recently. Browns government wasn't particularly popular either. Worth remembering that the govt has had covid to deal with as well and no, I don't think they have handled cv well at all as I'm sure you'd agree. However, the science is constantly changing and there is also disparity of views. Epidemiologists and health care types will try to minimise loss of life at pretty much any cost. However other lives are lost / ruined through job loss, cancer, other non covid conditions. The average age of covid death is around the average life expectancy and though loss of a dear one is tragic, nearly all we're statistically likely to die from something, even common flu, in the relatively near future.

Irrelevant to this thread and no doubt being discussed elsewhere, but I'll point out that most of the sensible Tories realised Brexit was a bad move and left or were chucked out. The incompetent ideologists that remain, along with a handful who've swallowed their principles, are the ones that are making such a mess of running things.

 

[matacaster]

The move of Labour to the left under Corbyn was different in that it was driven by the party membership who were, pretty much by definition, more extreme than that part of the electorate that might vote for the party. The Tories had the same issue with the membership but had pretty much perfected the technique of presenting a more moderate face to the wider electorate - until Farage came along with the leverage of an external party to split its vote and the opinions of Francois or Cash suddenly become mainstream Conservative policy. Critically both those things happened at the same time - if Labour had been more centreist it would have won in 2017 or 2019.

Irrelevant to this thread and no doubt being discussed elsewhere, but I'll point out that most of the sensible Tories realised Brexit was a bad move and left or were chucked out. The incompetent ideologists that remain, along with a handful who've swallowed their principles, are the ones that are making such a mess of running things.

They seem have a large majority in parliament though in fairness.

 

[najaB]

Critically both those things happened at the same time - if Labour had been more centreist it would have won in 2017 or 2019.

In 2019 anybody should have been able to win, I remind you that they were running against Boris Johnson!

They seem have a large majority in parliament though in fairness.

Because of first past the post!

 

[Journeyman]

In 2019 anybody should have been able to win, I remind you that they were running against Boris Johnson!

Boris Johnson is, bizarrely, extremely popular as an individual, or at least was this time last year. I think it's a big reason for the Tories' landslide. Corbyn was even more dreadful than most people thought, and he only came close to winning in 2017 because Theresa May had all the charm and appeal of a horde of zombies.

 

[matacaster]

Boris Johnson is, bizarrely, extremely popular as an individual, or at least was this time last year. I think it's a big reason for the Tories' landslide. Corbyn was even more dreadful than most people thought, and he only came close to winning in 2017 because Theresa May had all the charm and appeal of a horde of zombies.

True!

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 2 Jan 2021 ==

In 2019 anybody should have been able to win, I remind you that they were running against Boris Johnson!
Because of first past the post!

Labour and Tories both have had lots of opportunity to change voting system. Neither has because when you have just won first past post election, you assume you've got a good chance next time. PR just muddies the waters and you get govt by committee, no one able to do anything decisive or inventive as that would rock the boat.

 

[jon0844]

Boris Johnson is, bizarrely, extremely popular as an individual, or at least was this time last year. I think it's a big reason for the Tories' landslide. Corbyn was even more dreadful than most people thought, and he only came close to winning in 2017 because Theresa May had all the charm and appeal of a horde of zombies.

He has something about him that a lot of people like, and the way he ruffles his hair before any appearance means he knows how to play to the crowd who think of him as the bumbling comedian from HIGNFY. Heck, people like Nigel Farage because he 'tells it like it is'.

Are people awful judges of character, or have they been conditioned over the years (thanks in part to reality TV and the like) into thinking that these celebrities are better than old and boring career politicians.

These days, you can see only too well how people in Government are monitoring social media 24/7 to see how they're 'performing' and keep adapting as if it's a reality TV show. Trump even more so - and that's why he also has a cult following.

There was a time politicians, like them or not, stuck to their principles and you knew what to expect.

Corbyn didn't entertain the media, but nor did anyone seem to know what his principles were. While Brexit was going pear shaped, he'd be in another part of the country talking about the importance of rural bus services (arguably important, but there was a time and a place).

Anyway, rant over.

 

[najaB]

PR just muddies the waters and you get govt by committee, no one able to do anything decisive or inventive as that would rock the boat.

It's a shame that all the other countries in the world that use PR are completely moribund, with governments unable to make any decisions at all.

Corbyn was even more dreadful than most people thought, and he only came close to winning in 2017 because Theresa May had all the charm and appeal of a horde of zombies.

Indeed. Labour managed to not only find one of the few people less suited than Boris to win a general election, but also made him the leader!

 

[Typhoon]

Boris Johnson is, bizarrely, extremely popular as an individual, or at least was this time last year.

Sadly, I don't think it was bizarre, he offered something different. This affable chap who offered to solve all our problems, a complete opposite to the charmless May, the uncompromising Corbyn and the invisible Swinson. The only person who could have dented his image was Farage (in many ways similar) but he chickened out. In offering something different he was just like Cameron, Blair, Thatcher (possibly even Major), Wilson. He is still trying the 'Good Old Boris' routine with the dog, Wilfred and the fitness routine - I would add the speeches but I can't remember the last one which was better than mediocre.

 

[Starmill]

I doubt that Mark francois or Bill cash could strong arm a sizeable chunk of the Conservative party - how could they achieve that?

Have you been watching what's happened in the past five years??? This is exactly what they did.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 3 Jan 2021 ==

Just like Labour, Tories have a broad church left, centre and right

Correct - in 2015, they did. No longer!

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 3 Jan 2021 ==

Opinion polls are remarkably unreliable and often biased.

The final Opinium and Ipsos Mori polls before the 2019 General Election were almost exactly the same as the final results. The BBC's aggregated polls also showed a near-perfect prediction, though the Brexit Party had been very slightly overestimated and the Conservative party slightly underestimated. The election exit poll was also near perfect.

So your claim in general that an opinion poll isn't worth anything is clearly wrong.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

..... tuck as a que for a Hard Brexit.

Apologies for not fully comprehending the wording used above....can someone clarify what is being said above, please.

 

[RT4038]

Disapproval of the current government is currently about 60% on YouGov, a site supposedly biased in favour of the Tories.

A little bit of perspective required here....

The current government has enacted a referendum result that nearly half of the voters were against plus an unprecedented pandemic that attracts views on how to deal with it ranging from 'carry on normally and order lots more coffins' to 'lock everyone up in their houses' and everywhere in between.

And the disapproval rate is only 60%...... Is that all? Sounds pretty good to me.

 

[21C101]

Vietnam Confirm support for UK joining CPTPP (see below), joinging Japan, Singapore, Aus, NZ and Canada

Other sources indicate that the formal UK application will be made within weeks.

The UK Department for Trade's chief negotiator Crawford Falconer helped lead the New Zealand negotiations for the predecessor TPP.

Things seem to be moving very fast.

Vietnam Issues Preferential Tariffs, Rules of Origin Guidelines for UKVFTA

Vietnam recently issued rules of origin guidelines and preferential tariffs for the implementation of the UK-Vietnam free trade agreement

www.vietnam-briefing.com

 

[arbeia]

Can the Scottish/Welsh/Northern Ireland assemblies not change their voting system to proportional representation?