"Lobbyists "
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Indeed. I wonder are the exports to belgium services of some form or other
Probably. Know how maybe 
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No mention of Canada - odd?
We feed Britain and send pharma to europe through belgium
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THe bleedin’ obvious is often the axe handle with which you cut a new and better axe handle. While living in England in the 1990s, I sometimes ran across proto Brexiteers such as Daniel Hannan et al. They are bonkers. Although they cannot now come out and say it, they are very much of the ‘We are Brits and we once ran an empire’ strain. They are, to this extent, beyond reasoned argument — as FO’D noted.
The other factor is that Michael Gove, Boris Johnson et al did not believe for a second the Brexit referendum would succeed (Cameron made the same mistake from the opposite side). Gove and Johnson and that basket believed the issue would be settled — ‘The people have spoken and, alas, did not want to leave the EU’ — and therefore removed (key point) as an issue for Tory leadership campaigns. As it transpired, someone as transparently thick as Andrea Leadsom was within sight of that leadership, due to her ability to parrot Brexit platitudes on television, but for an idiotic remark designed to fluff her supporters in the Tory’s ‘Christian’ wing.
There has been wall to wall coverage of Brexit for nearly 24 months. Yet one dog of the theme rarely barks in newsprint. Given the proportion of people under 50 who voted Remain, Brexit contains a demographic timebomb. Factor in all those young UK citizens, underage in 2016, who will be of voting age when the Brexit deal is up for some sort of ratification and you have a right tangle. The demographic structure of that vote in June 2016 is its own undoing. But it will be a really painful undoing.
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That is true enough but who is going to lead the charge?
Unfortunately, the pro brexit bitter little troupe running the show have offered a parliamentary ratification which will be either pro whatever deal they can get, or hard brexit.
There seems to be no process currently available by which brexit can be unwound.
It is a clusterfuck of epic proportions.
May is an idiot, again called early by Fagan. She is interested solely in being pm. She has zero interest in the welfare of the citizens. Her and her clique have used a poorly conceived opinion poll to seize power. She would deal with the daesh if she had to, to cling on. She has neither intelligence nor courage, merely a pig like cunning. She will ram this thing through unless she is levered, barnacle like, off the deck. She will do whatever it takes to cling on, and time is running out. The only chance Britain has of preventing this catastrophe, is the tory remainers siding with Labour, and toppling the govt, which I simply cannot see them doing unless Corbyn weeds the hard left out of his shadow cabinet, and even then it’s a stretch.
Scotland will be interesting though.
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It comes back to how such opinions are formed. If one forms opinions not on facts but on attitudes, these opinions are then impervious to being changed by fact-based arguments.
That is what Brexit, Trump, Le Pen and all the other bonkers political ideas of our time are based on.
Attitude-based beliefs are generally reactions to something, usually nostalgia for an imagined great past, unhappiness over a perceived loss of former status. The way humans identify as groups tends to promote ideas that human progress or status is a zero sum game, that if a previously oppressed group sees a rise in its status, that a previously hegemonic group must have lost its previous status.
Trump is a reaction to the rise of ethnic minorities in the US. Brexit is a reaction to the perceived decline of Britain as a great power with elements of unhappiness at the rise of ethnic minorities. Both are reactions to a perceived loss of largely imagined certainties, where the white Americans and white British of today imagined that their forebearers felt secure of their place in society, and the perceived loss of the primacy of the groups of people they identify with. They are fearful reactions to change. That’s exactly what the DUP is, that’s what the batshit crazy opposition to gay and transgender rights is.
The modern media environment has played a huge part, particularly in English-speaking societies. Everybody has an opinion, there’s too much opinion, too much information, people can’t take it all in because humans aren’t equipped to do that, their concentration spans disintegrate, and the most simplistic, loudest, most “certain of themselves” opinions predominate.
What we’re going through is also a reaction to the global financial crash, before which, dissenting opinion was silenced.
To varying degrees, political ideas which are shaped by simplistic, loud, “certain” opinions, and which become sacred cows, almost always result in catastrophe.
That applies to fascism, communism, nationalism, the primacy of a particular religion, neo-liberalism, an economy based on house prices, and even blind belief in democracy.
That’s what Britain is going through now.
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Come home mate
We live in populist times. To me, Brexit was mainly about attitudes to immigration. Only 6% approx of the Brits are muslim. You’d swear it was 66%.
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Trump , Le Pen and Brexit are consequences of the 2008 financial crash . A huge amount of people feel utterly alienated by established parties .
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Trump and the Brexiteers’ policies are not a reaction to the financial crash. They are not just cut from the same cloth as the most damaging policies that led to the crash, they are a far more extreme version of them.
The kernel of the success of both is how they have shifted the perception of blame away from where it really lies, and onto a simplistic, convenient, imagined “other” - immigrants and ethnic minorities.
This is the type of thing that in the past has led to civil wars and world wars. It’s the politics of simplistic fantasy.
That terror incident yesterday was two lads having a scrap on the platform.
At least it kept Tossy off the streets for a while.
I am not talking about policies I am talking about why people vote for Trump , MLP and Brexit.
There is an anger and these guys ruthlessly exploited this . A lot of people felt the status quo wasn’t good and sought an alternative .
No one likes us and we don’t care .
That’s exactly my point. The main reason people voted for Trump and Brexit was not because of policies, it was because of attitudes.
Any basic fact-based examination of Trump’s policies or what Brexit would entail would have enabled anybody to see that they were only promising more of the same things that caused the financial crash, except much worse.
But both won because they able to successfully motivate support based on manufactured, imagined grievances against an “other” who was not to blame for the financial crash or any other difficulties Trump/Brexit supporters face. Le Pen did this too.
The politics of hatred, in other words.
Two world wars and one world cup…,
Don’t think Russia have won a world cup
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