Brexit

OrangeRakoon wrote:And it's all compared against the value of those three things sometime in 2013? So when amount spent is at ~102 that means it is 102% of what it was in that one month in 2013?

What I think I'm reading is that average store prices are cheaper than in 2013 while spending value and goods quantity is up?

I'd so much prefer to see the actual values for money spent/things bought/average price.

Pretty much

You can see the race to the bottom in the previous year and before like where we have seen the rise of new business models (poundshops/Lidl/Aldi vs the traditional big stores)

It's early days with respect to the trend of the last few months, i.e. Will they continue? You can see the last few months that sales have continuously dropped (amount spent is in steady decline, while you can see in the last month the quantity bought could be beginning to level off) you can also see that the prices have increased over the last few months with it appearing to be curving upwards

Is Blair really this clueless? As the guy who masterminded three general election victories I expected more comprehension. People voted Leave know exactly what the consequences were; the entire remain campaign put the message out loud and clear. It's just that a lot of them never gave a gooseberry fool to begin with.

If you want to understand the working class British perspective put yourself in this position:
Option A) You are getting shat on and you continue getting shat on.
Option B) You continue getting shat on, maybe even more, but those who gooseberry fool on you will suffer.

Now, rationally, A is the self-interested option but humans do not make decisions rationally, especially when it comes to politics. B looks very attractive from a human point of view if you are in that position. Psychological studies back this up. There is a famous experiment where you give one subject money and ask them to divide it between themselves and someone else. If the other person accepts the money offered they both keep their share but if not they both get nothing. The experiment showed that when someone offered too little the other person would often refuse the money, even though they should rationally accept it every time. The important lesson here is that human beings place their sense of justice above their own self-interest. They are more than willing to take an economic hit if it means sticking it someone who they think deserves it.

The Brexit vote was basically us running that experiment on a national level and most of the electorate being offered too little too often. This is why you hear talk about "sending a message" to the elite.

Meep wrote:People voted Leave know exactly what the consequences were; the entire remain campaign put the message out loud and clear.

No they didn't, every warning was written off by Boris, Farage and co as "project fear" and "scaremongering" all while they told everyone about all the money the NHS could have, how Turkey were about to join and how the EU controlled us like a dictatorship.

The average person had no idea what they were voting for.

The people shitting on those getting shat on will not feel the impact of brexit though, that's the iropnic thing.

If you lack education, and the biggest determiner of voting leave or not was education going by the polls, then you do not have the intellectual tools to examine contradictory claims by both sides critically. All you have to on is experience and the experience of the working class, and most of the middle-class for that matter, has been one of stagnant wages for about thirty or forty years. A lot of the people who voted leave probably don't know which arguments were valid or not. They do know that 'business as usual' means continuing to be screwed over so if there is any electoral choice between something different or business as usual it's hardly surprising they go for 'something different'. The fact that it was the people who had been in charge for the last few decades, Labour and the Conservatives, urging them to vote for the status quo pretty much sealed the deal.

I'm pretty sure if you crunched the numbers you would see the remain numbers fall every time Cameron gave a speech during the referendum. During the campaign I used to cringe every time he came on TV because even I was tempted to give him the middle-finger, so it was not hard to imagine plenty of others feeling the same way and acting on it.

Just watched the Blair speech. It was very good. He is not an ideal figurehead for this type of movement but I appauld him for trying to do something.

Moggy wrote:

Meep wrote:People voted Leave know exactly what the consequences were; the entire remain campaign put the message out loud and clear.

No they didn't, every warning was written off by Boris, Farage and co as "project fear" and "scaremongering" all while they told everyone about all the money the NHS could have, how Turkey were about to join and how the EU controlled us like a dictatorship.

The average person had no idea what they were voting for.

They voted on the false promise of more money for the NHS and fewer immigrants, neither of which are likely to happen.

A 'democratic' vote based on lies is not a democratic vote at all, hence a second referendum should be held once the lizard people government actually works out what Brexit will mean for the average person.

If it doesn't work out it will be Labour's fault, or immigrants, or 'remoaners' talking the country down. Any talk of 'the people' making the wrong choice will be dismissed as condescending.

I'm starting to think that we don't need another referendum, what we need is a GE with all parties completely basing their manifestos on their vision for Brexit. Want to go for hard Brexit, then you need a mandate from the public.

That would simply return a massive Tory majority at this point; those without strong views on Brexit would still go for them even if they were espousing a hard Brexit viewpoint since they're the only political party that currently show even the slightest level of basic competence required to run the country.

BBC News wrote:Former Labour minister Lord Mandelson has urged peers not to "throw in the towel" when they debate legislation paving the way for Brexit.

He said the Lords should amend a bill to protect the rights of EU citizens to ensure a "meaningful" vote on the final deal before Britain leaves the EU.
He urged fellow Labour peers to show "strength and clarity" over the issue.

Conservative Justice Secretary Liz Truss said Brexit opponents were "fighting yesterday's battles".

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-39020252

I agree with Mandleson in terms of protecting EU citizens, it's the one area I think they should and can get away with amending.

It should have been put to bed straight away, irrespective of what the EU are doing. If they want to make themselves look bad by sending Brits home then so be it, it doesn't mean we have to go down the same path.

Like I said before, the UK just coming out and saying regardless of anything we will guarantee the rights of EU citizens would garner a huge amount of sympathy and support from the people of other EU countries and would make their leaders take note. It'd make any blatant attempts to punish the UK go down badly with the people of the EU.

I actually agree with the government line on residents. If we have to completely renegotiate then there is no point in giving away things before the talks have even begun.

I know this sucks for all the foreign EU residents here and British people in other EU countries but this is just part of the crap we must put up with for the time being if people insist on going down the road of leaving.

If we must leave then at least negotiate seriously. We will get a worse deal than we had before but there's no reason to make it even worse than it has to be by giving away stuff without demanding reciprocity.

Rocsteady wrote:That would simply return a massive Tory majority at this point; those without strong views on Brexit would still go for them even if they were espousing a hard Brexit viewpoint since they're the only political party that currently show even the slightest level of basic competence required to run the country.

The inconvenient truth everyone ignores is the Tories ARE incompetent. The government already is a shambles. They get such a free pass it's ridiculous. It's the worst government in my lifetime.

DML wrote:

Rocsteady wrote:That would simply return a massive Tory majority at this point; those without strong views on Brexit would still go for them even if they were espousing a hard Brexit viewpoint since they're the only political party that currently show even the slightest level of basic competence required to run the country.

The inconvenient truth everyone ignores is the Tories ARE incompetent. The government already is a shambles. They get such a free pass it's ridiculous. It's the worst government in my lifetime.

100% true.

And yet they would still absolutely destroy Labour if a GE was called tomorrow.

DML wrote:

Rocsteady wrote:That would simply return a massive Tory majority at this point; those without strong views on Brexit would still go for them even if they were espousing a hard Brexit viewpoint since they're the only political party that currently show even the slightest level of basic competence required to run the country.

The inconvenient truth everyone ignores is the Tories ARE incompetent. The government already is a shambles. They get such a free pass it's ridiculous. It's the worst government in my lifetime.

They are extraordinarily good at spin, always have been. One of the reasons Blair succeeded was because he was even better at spin than most Tories. He beat them at their own game, so to speak. That and they have the support of about 80% of the media in this country.

Of course, the interesting thing now is that they seem to be failing even their own donors. You expect the public services to decline and be run down under a Conservative government but you at least expect them to look after their friends in high places. Unfortunately David Cameron's staggering incompetence ruined that with the Brexit fiasco.

I wonder if and when the bankers and hedge fund managers will come to the conclusion that they are much more trouble than they are worth? I imagine the business community and big wigs of the CBI are desperately regretting not putting their weight behind Labour under Miliband. It would have been better if they had settled for a smaller slice of the cake rather than see the cake smashed to pieces.

So what happens if the Lord's try to force amendments on this bill? Could we potentially miss this March deadline for triggering this?

Squinty wrote:So what happens if the Lord's try to force amendments on this bill? Could we potentially miss this March deadline for triggering this?

Technically speaking the Lords could hold it up for a year ( http://www.parliament.uk/about/how/laws/parliamentacts/ ) but I think it is unlikely that they will do so. The Tory's don't have a majority in the Lords though so who knows, a lot will depend on how the Labour Lords vote, will they rebel against Corbyn or toe the party line?

Rocsteady wrote:That would simply return a massive Tory majority at this point; those without strong views on Brexit would still go for them even if they were espousing a hard Brexit viewpoint since they're the only political party that currently show even the slightest level of basic competence required to run the country.

Maybe it might be the motivation Labour need to give Corbyn the push? Or it might cement their position on something they can all agree on - soft Brexit with continued membership of the single market. At this point, we're not going to get anything. The way it's panning out, any public interaction with this process will be boiled down to 'This is the deal, either accept it or we leave with no deal'. I honestly don't believe May has any other intentions. So a government with no mandate, no election victory and no manifesto to guide how they act is going to make the most important decision in recent British history?

Rex Kramer wrote:Maybe it might be the motivation Labour need to give Corbyn the push?

A GE would have the effect of getting rid of Corbyn but only because Labour would be annihilated. That would be a good thing though as we might have a chance of getting a decent opposition in.

So a government with no mandate, no election victory and no manifesto to guide how they act is going to make the most important decision in recent British history?

This doesn't make sense. They won the 2015 general election giving them a mandate based on a manifesto that included a promise for an in/out referendum on the EU. We do not directly elect Prime Ministers, it was wrong when Tory's called Gordon Brown "unelected", it is wrong to say the same about May.

There are lots of reason to oppose the governments actions on the referendum and Brexit, but that isn't one of them.