In the course of my life I have developed five little democratic questions. If one meets a powerful person–Adolf Hitler, Joe Stalin or Bill Gates–ask them five questions: “What power have you got? Where did you get it from? In whose interests do you exercise it? To whom are you accountable? And how can we get rid of you?” If you cannot get rid of the people who govern you, you do not live in a democratic system.
Should the Tories win, who will form his govt - well, probably those that he campaigned with. I.e. the more right-wing factions of the Tory party. Boris, Gove etc. All of whom don’t have a great track record of looking after the people, and who many of them have spoken about their desire to dismantle the NHS.
Is that last bit truth? I srs don’t listen much to politicians, but I can’t really picture them saying omg, you know what I’d really like to do? Dismante the NHS. You’d think they would be more sneaky than that.
Like forcing junior doctors into a contract none of them want, forcing them to fight it through strike action and in the process showing Joe Public what a bunch of asshats they are for your cancelled operation?
This is why I don’t get the EU as a crusading protector of people’s rights.
We’ve had a more right wing government than Thatcher. The EU has done close to fuck all to curtail it. The only immediate change if we Remain is that we’ll enforce a benefit cut on migrants.
The UN has done more to damn the Tory-led governments than the EU has done.
But that’s the thing isn’t it KRG? If workers rights are eroded then the (Tory) Governemnt loses out at the next GE and the incoming (Labour) Government then restores the said rights! This is something that we, the people, can control unlike any laws that the EU Commission proposes and are then passed down to the lackeys to rubber stamp.
You mean the people that are chosen by our representatives, or the people that we directly vote for.
The first can be removed, the second we can remove at elections.
Aye, and it is the people that we can’t remove that make the laws that the people we do vote for rubber stamp.
And there was me thinking we also had elections for Euro MPs. Must have been down the polling station for some other reason two years back.
One of the biggest misconceptions seems to be that faceless politicians from other countries are solely responsible for imposing unjust laws on us poor Brits.
Pap… your defence for your own POV seems to be SHOUT REALLY LOUD that if someone suggests they are voting remian because they have concens about tee right, that somehow we are all calling you a facist and ,…and …and a defender of right wing extremism… Jeez, we KNOW THAT IS NOT TRUE… but just because its not true, does not mean that others,me included cant VOTE remain because we consider this a worse thing than your perspective on centralised Government,
Its like you are saying we are not allowe to hold this POV because it suggests you are a facist for not agreeing… which is frankly a rather ‘draconian’ attitude.at best… you seem to parked yourself in to a particular corner and are now defending it with all you can throw at it. I suggest this stance is precisly because you ALSO feel uncomfortable that there are those cunts voting the same way as you but for different reasons…
Pap: Voting Leave because he believes the EU is unlected, unaccountable etc founded on ideas of decentralised more localised and more democratic principles (from hi perspective Opinion)
Gay: Voting Remain because of the isue of immigration controls that are being supported and cahmpioned by UKIP and others which IMHO is the one I cant reconcile.
People really need to look up the definition of fascism, particularly before it became a de facto synonym for Nazism.
There is a difference between not being able to get past something, and enforcing that view on others. Throughout this (and other) debate, I’ve seen nothing but a series of approaches that anyone that has spent any time on forums will recognise.
You’ll forgive me if I point out the false dichotomies, the ad hominem attacks by association, the presentation of exceptions as representative. I plead special forgiveness for those times when, exasperated with the same old fayre, chuck up sarcastic bile as a reflex action.
Oh get over yourself Pap… this is a web forum, not a debating chamber. You’re are beginning to sound like a patronizing twat. You yourself have been only too happy to fuck about with terminology and definitions as well as accusations… but right now you sound a bit like a juvenile who is a bit ‘tired and emotional’
PS. Gave you a FIRST from me down vote for post above for spitting the dummy out.
Blimey GA. Not fussed about the downvote but attempt to get some measure of my frustration here.
I’ve attempted to provide lef-wing voices championing the Brexit argument. These are ignored.
Farage? Why, he’s perpetually important despite having eight times less Westminster representation than the Democratic Unionist Party.
I genuinely thought we’d cleared the “Leave doesn’t make you Farage” hurdle a long time ago. I’ve not tried to make out that anyone is anything for their political opinion. I’m getting blooming weary of the same discounted point of the item coming up for sale again.
Workers rights this, immigrants that. You people are such utter cunts. Those leaving, those remaining are all the same. We live in a world where the wealthy will make sure they’re ok no matter what and we will still have the shit end of the stick. Pointless waste of everyone’s time and the amount of time some of you have out into this ridiculous debate makes it seem like you don’t understand that the elite are the elite, inside the EU or outside of it. We’re all fucked!
Julian Assange is backing Brexit. He’s not a fan of the European Arrest Warrant, obviously.
Mr Assange said the UK is responsible for having “pushed” some of the “worst elements coming out of the EU”.
He said: “The UK is bad for the EU but also the EU is bad for the UK because it permits a lack of democratic accountability in this country by permitting successive governments in this country to simply say ‘oh, we are forced into doing things because of EU legislation’ when it is precisely these governments that have been behind the EU legislation in the first place.”
The Remainers want us to believe that this is the most divisive, violent election ever. Have they forgotten the Troubles? The bombs, the shootings, the murder of innocents on both sides? The Remainers say that a vote for the EU is a vote in favour of the free movement of peoples. It’s not: the EU erects high barriers to migrants from outside its continent. Refugees are picked up in Greece and dumped in Turkey, with the effect that many take the treacherous route from North Africa to Europe instead. Remainers say that a vote for the EU is a vote for tolerance. Yet if we stay within the EU it is only a matter of time before we’re in a political union with genuine fascists such as Le Pen and Wilders, who understand that the longer the EU’s growth and errors go unchecked then the better they will do at the polls. The Remainers say that the EU has brought peace to Europe. What kind of half-baked history is that? It was the bomb that brought an uneasy peace to Europe until 1989. In the 1990s there was the bloodbath of Yugoslavia, which the EU did nothing about. And now the EU flirts with Ukraine and talks about creating its own army. This is dangerous fantasy, like children playing with matches.
My point is that I – as a historian – don’t really want people to vote on the basis of some grand narrative or entirely false choice between sovereignty vs racial harmony, which has been invented only in the heat of this campaign. I’d rather they cleared their minds of all that junk. Get back to the basics. What does the EU offer? Does it deliver?
Remainers say we should give up some of our democratic accountability in exchange for access to the single market and, they claim, greater economic stability. Leavers say the deal is a bad one. We lose too much democracy in exchange for access to a declining market and a political union that is fraught with risk.
Let’s not talk about the past but the future: the EU is planning to create a unitary state. Its leaders have said as much – higher taxes, an army, greater authority for the bank are all on the table. The EU has decided that only faster integration will see it through the present crisis. They might be correct: what the EU wants to be it can only be if it is effectively one country. But that is not in Britain’s national interest, something we’ve signalled by remaining outside the Eurozone.
We are shaped by history but need not be imprisoned by it. And one thing I find most exciting about Brexit is it gives us the chance to start over again, to write a new chapter in our country’s history. Brexit isn’t nostalgia. It’s ambition.
The most disturbing bit for me is when I see people on Facebook proudly declaring which way they are voting but then explaining themselves with stuff that is untrue.
This has the potential to be the worst election in history for people on both sides failing to grasp the simplest issues and voting for the craziest of reasons.
we may vote in and then watch as within a few years the french have voted out or the germans the rest of europe is watching and a close vote may make other countries want the vote.
A close vote and potential refs in other leading EU coutries can be the instigator of reform… we could drive it and have a clear mandate to do so through a close remain vote. Our problem in Europe is we have never been taken seriously because we have never taken IT seriously. Its like saying a car is shit, when you dont know how to drive…
