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Brexit / British politics thread 🤡


Apples388

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1 hour ago, horn said:

What do they expect? still get the same treatment like the rest of the EU countries after they exit the EU? You reap what you sow.

And guess what? more shit coming their way. :demonic:

They thought that being English is some kind of special treatment. Hence the narrative that the problem in borders is because of France and now the burocraric mess is due to the spiteful EU. 

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5 minutes ago, karbatal said:

Oh but according to The Telegraph Biden loves GB because his ancestors left Ireland during the famine :rotfl:

Being dumb as fuck (or pretending to be) almost seems like a prerequisite in public life these days.

Ted Cruz and his Paris Agreement zinger being another example from yesterday.

I give up.

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16 minutes ago, Kim said:

Being dumb as fuck (or pretending to be) almost seems like a prerequisite in public life these days.

Ted Cruz and his Paris Agreement zinger being another example from yesterday.

I give up.

At first I thought that Ted Cruz tweet was fake. How can anybody be so stupid and get votes?

 

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7 minutes ago, promise to try said:

yes, it would be great for everybody...but can you justify that to the english students? people like Boris Johnson will start saying that there´s racism against them or something like that

England could get in the program too if they pay the expenses and abide by the conditions. Boris Johnson decided to scrap Erasmus during the negotiations. English voters can choose what they want for their children.

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My heart breaks for our precious union 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

union.jpg

 

Meanwhile rampant Tory corruption continues unabated. Now up to half a billion given away to Tory donors and friends. Are people actually going to get ANGRY about this at any point?

 

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50 minutes ago, Kim said:

Meanwhile rampant Tory corruption continues unabated. Now up to half a billion given away to Tory donors and friends. Are people actually going to get ANGRY about this at any point?

I think it’s become such par for the course that everyone’s just numbed by it all now “Oh there go those Tories again and their rampant corruption”.  

Maybe Dido Harding can lead an anti-corruption investigation?

On a separate note, I’m considering subscribing to Byline Times, it feels like they’re the only news outlet actually holding the government to account. Shame they have little influence.

The union is fucked, I swear that under the Tories we’ll see a dissolution of the UK as well as Brexit.  I mean, it doesn’t really bother me, I’ve always been Welsh, none of that “British” stuff for me diolch yn fawr.

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21 minutes ago, funkydita said:

I think it’s become such par for the course that everyone’s just numbed by it all now “Oh there go those Tories again and their rampant corruption”.  

Maybe Dido Harding can lead an anti-corruption investigation?

On a separate note, I’m considering subscribing to Byline Times, it feels like they’re the only news outlet actually holding the government to account. Shame they have little influence.

The union is fucked, I swear that under the Tories we’ll see a dissolution of the UK as well as Brexit.  I mean, it doesn’t really bother me, I’ve always been Welsh, none of that “British” stuff for me diolch yn fawr.

Yeah I think you're right about the numbing aspect  Even the 20k odd dead of Covid in January alone gets little more than a *shrug* now.

I was reading yesterday about the cheap shit malware infected laptops given to kids for home schooling, and whaddya know, £200 million tender awarded to Tory donor. It bloody stinks.

Well, who knew you were a 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 lad!?  I've definitely seen more indy sentiment rising in Wales recently.

Fuck the union. As well as the polls, just my own anecdotal evidence tells me it's definitely coming up here.  

 

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1 hour ago, Kim said:

My heart breaks for our precious union 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

union.jpg

 

Meanwhile rampant Tory corruption continues unabated. Now up to half a billion given away to Tory donors and friends. Are people actually going to get ANGRY about this at any point?

 

They are too busy blaming the French for everything. Or Merkel.

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It's weird that some people don't understand that countries where different nations are united are bound to fail if one nation claims to be the ruler by divine grace. In Spain it happens with Castilla, who swallowed the rest of the nations in a pig fest. 

And those who centuries ago ruled and brought pain and misery are nowadays the same elite. 

For long I was anti independence. But I know when I've been mistaken (that's one of my few good things :lol: ). If the situation is clear, if all is well prepared and there's not smoke and mirrors (as Brexit) I'm all for independence now. Sadly my region has never been into independence and wouldn't join Catalonia to bring back our former country.

I clap and cheer to all who are tired of those elites ruining economies and being bigots for centuries. I want Scotland free and in the EU!

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24 minutes ago, Kim said:

Well, who knew you were a 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 lad!?  I've definitely seen more indy sentiment rising in Wales recently.

Yep, it’s heartening the rest of the country is catching up. I grew up in a really Welsh area, educated in Welsh and my dad still puts his stamps on upside down (and is a big fan of telling everyone there hasn’t been a real Prince of Wales in 700 years). 

That said, many of them still sadly voted for Brexit, not realising to what extent they were subsidised.

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8 minutes ago, funkydita said:

Yep, it’s heartening the rest of the country is catching up. I grew up in a really Welsh area, educated in Welsh and my dad still puts his stamps on upside down (and is a big fan of telling everyone there hasn’t been a real Prince of Wales in 700 years). 

That said, many of them still sadly voted for Brexit, not realising to what extent they were subsidised.

Oh my, is that you I imagine whispering unspeakable thing in my ear in Welsh? I think it is! :wow:

First thing Wales needs do is stop voting useless Labour in the Senedd. If Plaid Cymru can get in and show themselves as a decent/competent party of governance, that's the first step to more people seeing indy differently. Worked for the SNP!

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59 minutes ago, karbatal said:

It's weird that some people don't understand that countries where different nations are united are bound to fail if one nation claims to be the ruler by divine grace. In Spain it happens with Castilla, who swallowed the rest of the nations in a pig fest. 

And those who centuries ago ruled and brought pain and misery are nowadays the same elite. 

For long I was anti independence. But I know when I've been mistaken (that's one of my few good things :lol: ). If the situation is clear, if all is well prepared and there's not smoke and mirrors (as Brexit) I'm all for independence now. Sadly my region has never been into independence and wouldn't join Catalonia to bring back our former country.

I clap and cheer to all who are tired of those elites ruining economies and being bigots for centuries. I want Scotland free and in the EU!

Interesting! If you have the time, have a read of this (slightly dated) piece I nicked from The Washington Post and encapsulates most of my thoughts on this, especially the difference between civic and ethnic nationalism and the last paragraph in particular.

Scotland’s post-national nationalism

I’ve just spent several days among a pretty diverse array of Scottish nationalists — people who, whether by formal partisan affiliation or simply by political sentiment, believe Scotland should detach itself from the United Kingdom. The question I pestered them with was this: Why does a substantial minority of Scots, indeed perhaps a majority, want independence from London but union with Europe? Why, in other words, does Scottish “nationalism” — the desire to secede from an English-speaking nation with which Scots have been conjoined for centuries — usually also include a desire to pool sovereignty with a top-heavy and undemocratic league of 28 nations?

Scottish independence lost by 55 percent to 44 percent in 2014, but in the two years since, the clamor for independence has become louder. In June, Britain as a whole voted to leave the European Union, but in that same vote Scots voted 62 percent to 38 percent to remain — thus heightening the sense of ideological contradistinction and all but guaranteeing another independence referendum. And since the vast majority of pro-independence Scots wish to remain in Europe, the next “independence” referendum could be undertaken specifically to withdraw from one union (the U.K.) and join another (the E.U.).

Sovereignty, then — the right to rule independently of an external entity — must not be what animates Scottish nationalism. Then what is?

The answer begins with identity. Scots have always seen themselves as more egalitarian and democratic than the English — often justifiably so. The Scots’ established church was Presbyterian and so locally administered, not a centrally run hierarchy like England’s, and Scottish universities were never the training grounds for children of aristocrats that Oxford and Cambridge were. That self-definition intensified at two points during the 20th century — first with the collapse of Glasgow’s ship-building industry and Scotland’s economy after World War I, second with the rise of Thatcherism in the 1980s. Many Scots viewed the first as a betrayal of the Scottish working class that built England’s empire; that, combined with the nation’s egalitarian history and self-understanding, set Scotland on a leftward course that hasn’t let up for nearly a century. Margaret Thatcher’s reforms, which most Scots saw as the ascendency of amoral English individualism, deepened the division.

Scottish nationalism achieved a major victory with the devolution referendum of 1997. An overwhelming “yes” vote gave Scotland the power to form its own devolved parliament.  For years, the pro-Unionist (anti-independence) Scottish Labour party held a decisive plurality in the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh, and occupied nearly all of the London Parliament’s 59 seats. But the party’s hegemony in Scotland began to unravel in 2010 for one fundamental reason: London’s Labour elite took Scotland for granted. The Scottish National Party (SNP), which a decade ago amounted to little more than a ragtag cadre of socialists, now dominates Scottish politics. The SNP holds almost a majority in a Parliament of five parties and holds 56 of 59 Scottish seats in London. The SNP isn’t quite the ideological monolith it used to be. Its members tend toward democratic socialism for sure, but some hold socially conservative views. The party’s one unifying principle: independence from Britain.

There are differences in outlook between Scots and the English, clearly. But aren’t these better thought of as regional differences that don’t demand political separation? Not at all, a high-ranking member of the Scottish Parliament tells me. The problem, he says, is that under the Act of Union (the 1707 act joining Scotland’s and England’s parliaments) Scotland exists in an “incorporating” union with England, not in a federal or confederal one.

“In an incorporating union of unequal size it’s likely that the larger partner will dominate the smaller. That’s what has happened without any recourse to law or an appeal body,” he said.

In a confederal relationship like the E.U., by contrast, each member is an equal partner and has an equal voice. Larger members can influence and cajole smaller ones, but cannot ignore them.

Okay, but if self-determination is the goal, why not leave Britain and the E.U.? There are a few nationalists who would do that, but only a few. Most, if I read them correctly, don’t think sovereignty is the issue at all.

“The E.U. is far from perfect,” an SNP political staffer told me. “But there are undeniable benefits.” She points out that if you need admission to a hospital in France, you’re seen immediately and the hospital is reimbursed by Britain’s National Health Service. Similarly, “if you want to set up a branch office of your company in Amsterdam, you can do it without the nightmare of regulation and paperwork that used to be a matter of course.”

She acknowledges that independence will be tough at first, economically and politically, but insists that the alternative — “successive Labour and Tory governments in Westminster that totally ignore Scotland’s interests” — would be far worse.

These arguments are honorable and cogent, and it seems altogether likely that Scots will eventually achieve independence and E.U. membership on the strength of them. Scotland’s first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, is a clever and tough politician, and she is determined that Scotland will have both.

What strikes me about today’s Scottish nationalism is that it’s entirely political and not in any substantial way cultural. It’s concerned preponderantly with laws and government structure. It’s about policy directives and the allocation of public resources — tax rates, social welfare programs, fishing regulations — and only has to do with home rule insofar as home rule means social democracy and soft diplomacy rather than economic liberalism and the use of military force.

Nationalism can emancipate or enslave; it can break the back of an empire or move the masses to great evil; it can liberate or oppress. Yet today’s Scottish nationalism can do neither. It’s not murderous like the IRA or racist like fascism; not remotely. But neither does it desire political and cultural autonomy for its own sake, as for instance the Czechs did under the Habsburg empire or as Ukrainian nationalists do now. Scotland’s is a post-national nationalism — one that cares far less about who governs than about what that governance looks like in practice. It is peaceable and beautiful in its way, but no one would die for it.

 

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wow @Kim what an interesting read. I understand clearly that situation of "incorporation". What I didn't grasp until I read the article is that it's not a question of going back to romantic ideas of cultural past but a better way to rule a society. 

It's incredibly interesting.

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51 minutes ago, karbatal said:

wow @Kim what an interesting read. I understand clearly that situation of "incorporation". What I didn't grasp until I read the article is that it's not a question of going back to romantic ideas of cultural past but a better way to rule a society. 

It's incredibly interesting.

Yes! Let's take a working example - the school meals we were talking about a few days ago. The UK govt farms out a contract to one of its political donors. Of an allocated £30 per household, the contractor provides £6 worth of shit inadequate food and pockets £24 every 2 weeks. Grateful contractor continues to donate to the Tories.

Scotland simply deposits £25 every 2 weeks into the parent's bank account to buy/choose their own food for kids lunches.

Commentators in England scream that the money could be used for drugs and prostitutes and alcohol, we say we trust parents to buy their own kids some food. Being disadvantaged doesn't make them animals.

What kind of society do you want to be a part of?

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1 hour ago, Kim said:

Yes! Let's take a working example - the school meals we were talking about a few days ago. The UK govt farms out a contract to one of its political donors. Of an allocated £30 per household, the contractor provides £6 worth of shit inadequate food and pockets £24 every 2 weeks. Grateful contractor continues to donate to the Tories.

Scotland simply deposits £25 every 2 weeks into the parent's bank account to buy/choose their own food for kids lunches.

Commentators in England scream that the money could be used for drugs and prostitutes and alcohol, we say we trust parents to buy their own kids some food. Being disadvantaged doesn't make them animals.

What kind of society do you want to be a part of?

Typical elite conservative mind: poor people can't be trusted. This idea is the basis for xenophobia, for example. 

 

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Just the fact that they went at first for the herd immunity and accepted 400.000 deaths as result was absolutely despicable. They and the Swedish government.

One of the most horrible moments of recent history. To accept as normal thousands and thousands of deaths to protect the economy... Unforgivable. They should go on trial.

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1 hour ago, karbatal said:

One of the most horrible moments of recent history. To accept as normal thousands and thousands of deaths to protect the economy... Unforgivable. They should go on trial.

Now it's 100K dead AND a fucked economy. Of course the original intention was to use the virus to gain economic advantage over other suffering nations because Superman Britain wouldn't be affected by it...or something.

 

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2 hours ago, Jazzy Jan said:

How the UK voted in droves for this imbecile is chillingly frightening. He did not do any political debates, is well known as a liar and comes across as being a bumbling idiot. 

But he has funny untamed blonde hair Jan. 

And he comes across as so cuddly and... different. Like he could be one of us...

Seriously, loads of Brits fell for this friendly bumpkin act. He came across to many as likeable and relatable when the exact opposite was the case. I despaired when he was elected PM.

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3 hours ago, Jazzy Jan said:

How the UK voted in droves for this imbecile is chillingly frightening. He did not do any political debates, is well known as a liar and comes across as being a bumbling idiot. 

These any good, Jan?

tenor.gif

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