Posts by Rich of Observationz
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Speaker: A Disorderly Brexit, in reply to John Palethorpe,
2015 general election:
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_and_Sunderland_West_(UK_Parliament_constituency)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Houghton_and_Sunderland_South_(UK_Parliament_constituency)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunderland_Central_(UK_Parliament_constituency)UKIP were 30 odd percent behind Labour, even where they came second. And once the redundancy notices start going out from Nissan, I think they’ll be even less popular.
Not that Labour should be complacent, but I think a strong lead based on staying in European and reforming it to support working people might let them hold onto their base.
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Speaker: A Disorderly Brexit, in reply to John Palethorpe,
UKIP would have trouble unseating Labour in safe northern seats:
- they’re basically disgruntled Tories. The UK votes largely on class lines
- they don’t have any organisation
- they’d cannibalise the Tory vote first
- British (south) Asians would never vote for themI think they’d struggle to get a hundred seats
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Also, Britain produces a lot of milk. Given they won't have EU access, EU subsidies or EU quotas it's likely that they'll want to protect their own farmers ahead of importing anything.
And it's not like the UK makes anything we can offer to buy in return - their car and civil aircraft industries will be shutting down and in any case since NZ's starting offer is full market access to all comers, we don't actually have any negotiating chips.
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Speaker: A Disorderly Brexit, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
An interesting process question - membership of the EU is implemented by the European Communities Act, which will have to be repealed.
Does this have to be done before the UK gives notice to quit? And is the EU entitled to demand that, since the UK's constitution requires a vote of parliament, that such a vote take place?
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Which is why the “Ha ha, death throes of neoliberalism” response annoys me.
Well the UK has had three flavours of "social market" rule in the last 20 years: Blairite Labour, Tory/Liberal and Tory. None of those have been notably successful in addressing peoples needs (and the same thing has happened in the rest of the EU).
Isn't it time for the Left to work something out? (well, electing Corbyn was a start. I hope he holds on, even if it means that most of the PLP get cast adrift - the story of the SDP indicates they would be MPs for the next three years at the most).
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Speaker: A Disorderly Brexit, in reply to BenWilson,
Well, any attempt to intervene could well end in whichever fragments of the UK remained declaring themselves a republic, so I doubt she would. (Not to mention that the Battle of Bosworth Field pretty much established the monarchy's subordination to parliament, if not the people).
Besides, if all else fails, she'll still be queen of NZ. We'd need to build palaces of they move down here though. Fuck knows how we'll afford that at current prices.
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Speaker: A Disorderly Brexit, in reply to Lucy Telfar Barnard,
Otherwise, oye. I’ve never felt so ashamed of my UK passport
I'm wondering if I can get NZ elocution lessons so I don't sound stupid in public.
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The other alternative is that the forward looking and productive parts of the UK detach themselves. Scotland obviously, Northern Ireland ironically are headed for leaving.
But London, also, has a clear majority to remain and could have be a fully sustainable future as a city-state within the EU – it would have the second highest GDP per capita, the 10th biggest economy and the 15th biggest population.
(Not to mention that it would have a ready source of cheap, non-citizen labour from the rump of England to perform menial tasks. A bit like apartheid without the overt racism).
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I'd suggest that, since the vast majority in Labour and a large number of Conservative MPs (as well as the Lib Dems, who may return from obsolecense) oppose an exit, they force a General Election and campaign on a joint Remain ticket.
Unlike a referendum, it takes maybe 36% of votes to elect a government - if a reasonable percentage of the Remain voters, plus a few regretful Leave voters, supported this ticket, they'd get back in with a mandate (as much as any FPP government has a mandate, but British voters are also to blame for that) to stop Brexit.
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There are still charts? Poptastic!