There are way to many foreign interests in our decision
Aaron Banks (maybe)
Russia
The Eu
George Soros
The list goes on, however they all have one thing in common - putting their own interests over that of the UK population
1 Like
True, but it comes down to the covert or open nature of the interference for me.
You talk about that as if it is a potential passive outcome of Brexit.
For many no deal Brexit supporters a low tax, low legislation economy anchored off mainland Europe with links to the US is the whole point of the exercise.
2 Likes
Donāt get me wrong - if Banks has done what it is alleged then he should be hung drawn and quartered
1 Like
I personally think youāre dancing on the tip of a very large iceberg, bletch, without really knowing how big the bugger is.
The line that you suggest drawing is utterly meaningless in practice. Are you genuinely suggesting that Obama or Trumpās stated agenda was the one they were following? That theyāre not following any covert agenda? Are you also suggesting that it is only non-Western states that might interfere? Iāve known you for almost a decade now, and those might be two of the most naive things Iāve ever seen you write.
Have you also compared recent news reports with your proclamations on their characteristics? The British press, is pretty much in lockstep with what appear to be utterly fabricated, evidence free cases. This is after seven years of most of them marching, again, pretty much in lockstep, with a largely uncritical line on government policy, while services have been slashed, and people are dying in their thousands as a result. Why should I have to wait for Mark Thomas to tell me that a fifth of all cancer cases are being diagnosed in A&E? Why isnāt this headline news every damn night?
Finally, I find the whole damn thing ridiculous, and it should be for anyone that has any knowledge of these supposedly neutral bodies, spending taxpayer cash to promote a political situation in which weād be forever beholden to foreign interests.
Think about all the academics, all on a big earner from the EU, telling us how life would be an unmitigated disaster. Or the CBI, again on a big EU earner, telling us the same things. These people are held up as neutrals, when in reality, theyāre either foreign funded or British taxpayer funded organisations pretending to be otherwise.
The last time a country had major designs on Europe, it either killed or imprisoned the intellectuals.
The EU just bought ours, and what surprises me is how bloominā thick our so called intellectual class is, and how fucking cheaply theyāre bought.
Foreign meddling appears to be fair game if the US or its allies do it. (see also Venezuela, Thailand, Syria, Libya, Nicaragua etc etc.
https://twitter.com/TonyCartalucci/status/1023902379983302656
Iāve kept out of this debate because TRUTH was the big loser in the referendum and there is now nothing I can do about it. No amount of campaigning by ME will make ANYONE change their mind.
The shit that was pumped into the masses during the run-up was both mind-boggling and depressing. The mis-information seemed obvious to me and facing it on friends social media accounts was futile. They had read something that fed their preconceptions and they werenāt prepared to have those preconceptions challenged by an impartial factual interpretation.
Faced with obvious (to me) distortions all I could do to argue those was to continually post links to fact checker sites like Full Facts .org but neither side was interested in getting the unbiased facts.
2 Likes
Yeah, the debate is drifting here and Iām sensing a sort of ātheyāre all at it so itās all okā line from you. Whereas my line is ātheyāre all at it so theyāre all wrongā. Please correct if Iām wrong.
No. Iām not suggesting that only non-western states might interfere.
My naivety is part of my charm, as is being able to concede ground in a debate. I see a lot of grey where others see black and white or at least ignore the grey.
I think itās also important to consider that youāve concluded that Iām naive based on your interpretation of events.
Your interpretation is not a fact. Weāre just trading opinions.
You seeing my naivety on this, is just another opinion based on you seeing the same facts and reaching a different conclusion.
You might share the facts youāve used to conclude Iām naive, and I might review those facts and agree or disagree.
For many, their world view opinion seems to quickly become fact in their minds. Itās not. Just wanted to be clear on that. Itās a subtle but important distinction.
An example of this in action is that you seemed to have assumed that I was suggesting that only non-Western states might interfere.
As Iāve said that is not my position.
But this apparent assumption on your part seemed to power your conclusion that me holding that view (which I donāt) was one of the two most naive things youād seen me write in the decade or so weāve known each other.
But we now know that that is not my position.
You see how dangerous it can be?
BTW, Iād happily concede that you might be right and I might be being naive on the other point.
I probably am.
Iām not sure what the first sentence means, but I think itās a general point about the state of the legislated press.
I see big problems with the way our press operates which is why I offered that even with the restrictions on the press, we still get editorially biased news. The implication being that if we know itās news and we know the broadcaster, we can take an appropriate pinch of salt.
Ads dressed up as news are dangerous - no matter who pays for them.
Ads dressed up as news in the middle of an election or referendum and not less dangerous.
Funnily enough, I saw Rees Mogg this morning on YouTuble making exactly this point about the CBI.
It was in a compilation of his best put-downs. It was quite entertaining actually, and try as I might I really canāt hate the bloke.
Anyway, heād made the point about the CBI being funded by the EU and a caller to a radio station phone-in, which for some reason was hosted by JRM, made the point that just 0.6% of the CBI budget came from the EU. The caller than strangled himself in JRMās intellect by trying to make the distinction that 0.6% is not a lot. Rees Mogg dined out on the caller saying āThank you for confirming that, as Iād already said, the CBI is funded by the EUā.
So, Iām not sure if that 0.6% figure is correct, but it wasnāt challenged by JRM, but Iām also not sure if that makes them a big earner from the EU.
Does that change the point your making? A little, but not massively so I should address it.
Iām not sure that anyone in this debate can be neutral. So Iām also not sure if anyone actually sees anyone as neutral. Theyād have to be pretty naive to believe that.
I get to the end of your post, and I still canāt shake the feeling that your position on Brexit is holding you back on your condemnation of this interference.
Then again, Iāll concede that it might just me that sees this as a big a deal.
I think the main positive from the referendum is that we now know what can go wrong. Thatās not a partisan Brexit/Remain point - more a point on the process and what has gone wrong for both camps post-result.
I believe Switzerland has referenda quite frequently and as such they must understand how to frame the question and plan for either result as if each is equally likely.
Just like with the Iraq war, weāve learned that if our leaders in the future try to take us to war we need to study any expert testimony closely, and ask āwhat is the plan after āvictoryā?ā
So for future referenda we need prepare in advance for the implications of both results.
2 Likes
In CH, Bletch they require a 60 or 65% of the vote to pass something via referendaā¦ to ensure a stronger mandate and avoid the kind of fractiousness we see here
2 Likes
Itās not that I donāt care. As stated before, I care quite passionately about it. I share Tariq Aiiās rather grim 2014 assessment, that the United Kingdom has become a military vassal of the US and an economic vassal of Berlin and the EU.
If anything, I guess my question is why do people only care about foreign influence now?
It has been fifty years since our last meaningful break with US foreign policy. Iām sure the completists and Thatcher lovers will bring up the Falklands, and I wouldnāt exclude that entirely, but our last major break was over Vietnam. The US went in. We did not, to our eternal national credit.
It has been over forty years since we had the full economic agency that most states in the world possess. We entered the common market in 1971, immediately ceding control of our food and fish to unelected bodies.
The whole debate is about whether foreign legislators get to impose UK legislation, so I find the mere mention of this in a Remain context both utterly hypocritical and seemingly completely indifferent to the nature of what it is we decided on June 23rd 2016.
And Iām not having a go at you. Youāll be completely unsurprised to learn that Sotonians is the tip of the iceberg when it comes to my writing on the EU. Do you want to know what the really sad thing is? You are the only person that has decided to debate me. The rest is just abusive nonsense, so I am really not having a go at you.
However, in a debate which is entirely about foreign influence, the wider Remain side of this argument has just offered a blinkered, self-serving and extremely selective viewpoint which only really works if one adopts a viewpoint which pretends the central tenets of the debate donāt exist.
1 Like
To avoid anything changing, more like.
Do you know what, Iād be fine with that threshold, if it was consistently applied. The problem is that it is not.
We were taken into this ācommunityā without a vote from the public. Weāve never been asked if we wanted to join this body.
If even a 50% margin was required in a hypothetical 1971 referendum was required, folk would have voted not to join.
If your suggested threshold was in place, there is no way a yes have ever gotten 65% in 1971, and even less now. While ardent Remainers refuse to see any fault in an increasingly unhinged EU negotiating process, the rest of the country has seen a rather different side to the EU than the cuddly friends and neighbours they portrayed themselves as, pre-poll.
You also need to realise that the status quo is that weāre leaving. Do you really fancy your chances of 66% or whatever?
If a week is a long time in politics, two years must seem like an eternity. In that particular limbo, voters have seen Theresa May to be both feckless and hopeless, and the EUās mask has slipped.
I think youāll be lucky to get 40%.
And I come back to the original POV. In the 70s, joining the Common Market was part of the manifesto so folks DID have a choice based on their election choicesā¦ we pay and vote for politicians to make these decisions precisely because of their complexity and to avoid decisions being made that are reactionary or reflective of the short term situation as opposed to long term goodā¦ the Brexit vote is a classic having been timed brilliantly by the Euro sceptics in the Tory party during a time of austerity and real povertyā¦ fear of refugee invasions (the real project fear) - If I was a conspiracy theorist, it would not be that big a leap to suggest the tory twats engineered the situation post Global financial crisis in 2006 to ensure we would get that perfect stormā¦ The reason for the 65% threshold in CH is to AVOID reactionary decision makingā¦ its bit churlish to bring up the 71 decision now, as a rational for accepting 50%ā¦ two wrongs and all that and its a pretty poor argument to use your guess work on what folks might have voted for or not nearly 50 years ago under dramatically different global circumstancesā¦
I am also finding it amusing that you seem to being drawn into an ever increasing spiral of presenting opinions as fact and assuming you know what the ārest of the countryā is thinking - A dramatic rise in your own hyperbole and sweeping generalisationsā¦ its subtle and clever technique used by marketing and advertising agenciesā¦ best simple example is those that are against porn always suggesting they are against it because its offensive to women - suggesting its offensive to ALL women, when truth is that some women find it offensive - but not allā¦ its an important distinction and sadly you seem happy to follow suit whether by design or ignorance ā¦
I am also not surprised our EU neighbours have become hostile given the ridiculous fuckwittage of a negation presented by UK PLCā¦ are you?
1 Like
Minor point of order.
There was a REFERENDUM on joining the Common Market. Donāt think many beech trees would vote against that today even.
What nobody voted for was mission creep. Like 2016 it may well have been implied back then but never explained.
Blair, Lisbon & Maastricht were times of great misgivings amongst many, there was no referendum then but I bet you could find calls for them. Heāll even the French came close to voting no until they were bribed.
Brexit vote was as much a result of complacency and arrogance by Cameron Rusk & Juncker
Clusterfuck.
Not you AG, the whole thing.
Meanwhile. Well played @saintbletch like me he has seen the mess and is making plans (unlike this government).
I will be an EU resident before March. I will have to pay taxes despite living in Dubai.
I donāt have to moan. It is shit, but modern politicians only look after their own interests. Sadly I have to only worry about my family, because I wonāt be sitting in London trying to apply for a visa to visit my wife next year or vice versa.
Debate away. Plan to look after yourselves & family first then friends then the world. Nobody else will
1 Like
Hallelujah!! And that applies to both sides, those that say weāre fucked and those that say the grass will be greener and the roses will smell sweeterā¦
2 Likes
Only sensible choice on predicting futures unknowns, are quite obviously the bookies.
They have a history of profit in this field.
Iām still amazed how @pap avoids all talk about the subject mater of this thread. Yes the RAMIFICATIONS, rather than the evil of the group weāve agreed to leave.
Whatās your view on our future, given whoās in power @pap?
You are not allowed to talk about possible alternate universes, where Corbyn will be in power just in time. Iād appreciate you staying in the here and now.
To be sure, to be sure.
2 Likes
Bejeezus, you too?
Weāll have to set up Sotonians(Eire).com if/when Brexit happensā¦
You donāt understand my people.
You raped our land and gave us nothing but the Colorado beetle.
Feck.
2 Likes