Brexit

[Golden Princess]

Anyone would think you have sadly mistaken the elections for your democratically elected MEPs for a referendum on Brexit.

Not everything revolves around your ideology.

[Quizzical Bob]

Bob, repeating the same comments does not in fact strengthen your case, and you still have not answered the question that IF these leave winning polls actually existed why did none of the media organizations gain access to them. Further since any profits made by hedge funds have to be as a result of losses made elsewhere, which begs the question why were all hedge fund managers not aware of these polls, or could it in fact be that half were right and the other half wrong, resulting in some companies making profits at the expense of others.

Er... because they were private polls? Any others could not have been made public, by law. Of course they existed. This is common knowledge.

Hedge funds make money by playing and manipulating the currency markets. It's not a case of some hedge funds losing and some gaining, they don't play off against each other. The losers are all those who suffered worse exchange rates on account of the hedge fund currency transactions.

[Quizzical Bob]

So they say Ray.........
In 2016 Osborne predicted that in the event of voting to leave sterling would fall by 12%, unemployment would rise by 520,000, average wages would fall by 2.8% and house prices would be hit by 10%. (BBC May 2016)
This did not materialise, in some instances quite the opposite so you must understand why I, along with others, remain unconvinced by the arguments put out by the remainers. Living in areas of the country which sees little by way of benefit from our membership of the EU surely you can understand why we vote as we do. Fine for those who enjoy the benefits but not for the vast swathes, mostly in the north who do not.

Sterling has fallen by a lot more than 12%.

Real wage growth is abysmal.

You may not realise that you have benefited from EU membership but the extra tax revenues arising from the Single Market are around £20bn a year which help to pay for your public services.

[barney]

Anyone would think you have sadly mistaken the elections for your democratically elected MEPs for a referendum on Brexit.

Not everything revolves around your ideology.

That is clearly exactly was it was GP (unofficially of course)

I have said on numerous occasions that the unintended consequence of Parliament doing it's very best not to implement Brexit, would be a groundswell in rejection of the status quo.
They thought it could not happen, but once again, they were wrong.

So, whether you are pro Leaving or Pro Remaining in, the political landscape will look quite different in the future, in my opinion.

Labour has lost touch with it's millions of leave voters, as we have seen in Wales, Scotland and the former stronghold of the north of England.
Tories have lost touch with their millions of remain voters , in the home counties and elsewhere.

If you don't think that this was a defacto referendem on Brexit, take a look at the map of the UK on how the result actually went.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-48403131

Remove the Scottish Seperatist Party from the equation and you can draw your own conclusions.

The anti Brexit folk have every right to fight their corner until we are actually out (if that ever happens) but it's disingenuous to manipulate the figures to suit your arguement, as many have done.

If that's ok, then we must conclude that SNP have no mandate with 38% of the vote because the 62% who didn't support them are in the majority.
That way leads to madness

[towny44]

Bob, repeating the same comments does not in fact strengthen your case, and you still have not answered the question that IF these leave winning polls actually existed why did none of the media organizations gain access to them. Further since any profits made by hedge funds have to be as a result of losses made elsewhere, which begs the question why were all hedge fund managers not aware of these polls, or could it in fact be that half were right and the other half wrong, resulting in some companies making profits at the expense of others.

Er... because they were private polls? Any others could not have been made public, by law. Of course they existed. This is common knowledge.
Not in my neck of the woods, but then again I don't mix with rogues.
Hedge funds make money by playing and manipulating the currency markets. It's not a case of some hedge funds losing and some gaining, they don't play off against each other. The losers are all those who suffered worse exchange rates on account of the hedge fund currency transactions.

I was not implying that, just stating that for every gain there has to be a loser, but suggesting that if some polls said remain was going to win then maybe the hedge funds that financed them lost money on their transactions.

[towny44]

So they say Ray.........
In 2016 Osborne predicted that in the event of voting to leave sterling would fall by 12%, unemployment would rise by 520,000, average wages would fall by 2.8% and house prices would be hit by 10%. (BBC May 2016)
This did not materialise, in some instances quite the opposite so you must understand why I, along with others, remain unconvinced by the arguments put out by the remainers. Living in areas of the country which sees little by way of benefit from our membership of the EU surely you can understand why we vote as we do. Fine for those who enjoy the benefits but not for the vast swathes, mostly in the north who do not.

Sterling has fallen by a lot more than 12%.

Real wage growth is abysmal.

You may not realise that you have benefited from EU membership but the extra tax revenues arising from the Single Market are around £20bn a year which help to pay for your public services.

That's peanuts, it would hardly pay for an HS 0.01.

[towny44]

A little bit of interesting reading for you. But I would like to know how much each country pays in for customs and agricultural duties and sugar levies as well.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-48256318

[Gill W]

Anyone would think you have sadly mistaken the elections for your democratically elected MEPs for a referendum on Brexit.

Not everything revolves around your ideology.

That is clearly exactly was it was GP (unofficially of course)

I have said on numerous occasions that the unintended consequence of Parliament doing it's very best not to implement Brexit, would be a groundswell in rejection of the status quo.
They thought it could not happen, but once again, they were wrong.

So, whether you are pro Leaving or Pro Remaining in, the political landscape will look quite different in the future, in my opinion.

Labour has lost touch with it's millions of leave voters, as we have seen in Wales, Scotland and the former stronghold of the north of England.
Tories have lost touch with their millions of remain voters , in the home counties and elsewhere.

If you don't think that this was a defacto referendem on Brexit, take a look at the map of the UK on how the result actually went.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-48403131

Remove the Scottish Seperatist Party from the equation and you can draw your own conclusions.

The anti Brexit folk have every right to fight their corner until we are actually out (if that ever happens) but it's disingenuous to manipulate the figures to suit your arguement, as many have done.

If that's ok, then we must conclude that SNP have no mandate with 38% of the vote because the 62% who didn't support them are in the majority.
That way leads to madness

You are manipulating the figures to suit YOUR argument.

You are using a map of constituencies to support your contention that England and Wales are entirely Brexit supporting.

However, in the referendum, it didn't matter what constituency we lived in or what region we lived in. Our votes were tallied for the UK as a whole.

As I said on Sunday morning, the percentage share of votes for Remain supporting parties was more than for Brexit parties. If you are insisting on looking at this as defacto referendum, then the percentage share of votes is what you need to focus on. So it's not quite as rosy for Brexit as you want to believe.

[barney]

Folk complain against first past the post when results go against them, then complain about an alternative system when it goes against them.
What system would you prefer?

The positions were offered to candidates according to their proportion of votes.

Brexit Party returned 29.

Your complaint should be against the remain side that refused to work together, not the clear victors.

The Democrats whinged like little kids when they lost to Trump because he won even though they polled more votes.
I bet you that they won't complain if they next win under the same system.

I'd bet that if/when there is a third referendum, leave will narrowly win again if the same question is asked.

Given that the EU/May proposed agreement is now dead and buried, it could never be included in any future question.

[Gill W]

Folk complain against first past the post when results go against them, then complain about an alternative system when it goes against them.
What system would you prefer?

The positions were offered to candidates according to their proportion of votes.

Brexit Party returned 29.

Your complaint should be against the remain side that refused to work together, not the clear victors.

The Democrats whinged like little kids when they lost to Trump because he won even though they polled more votes.
I bet you that they won't complain if they next win under the same system.

I'd bet that if/when there is a third referendum, leave will narrowly win again if the same question is asked.

Given that the EU/May proposed agreement is now dead and buried, it could never be included in any future question.

I’m not complaining about anything.

I’m just highlighting that, if you want to use the EU elections as a de facto referendum, then you have to count the votes in the same way as the 2016 referendum. That is Remain or leave.

[barney]

OK. Great.
We'll take those who didn't vote as the anti democrats did on ref 2.

So, a massive majority for leaving

Cake and eat it.
Yummy.

[Gill W]

OK. Great.
We'll take those who didn't vote as the anti democrats did on ref 2.

So, a massive majority for leaving

Cake and eat it.
Yummy.

Forget it.

This is pointless.

[barney]

I recall our old friend Jack Staff and a couple of others saying that only 27% of the electorate voted for Brexit in 2016 so it was not a legitimate vote.
You can't have it both ways Gill.

You can only win or lose on the rules at the time.

Unless you blame the Russians as Alistair Campbell did, immediately after the results came in.

Who'd have thought there were so many stupid, racist xenophobes around.

[Golden Princess]

I do now having read these threads.

[Gill W]

I recall our old friend Jack Staff and a couple of others saying that only 27% of the electorate voted for Brexit in 2016 so it was not a legitimate vote.
You can't have it both ways Gill.

You can only win or lose on the rules at the time.

Unless you blame the Russians as Alistair Campbell did, immediately after the results came in.

Who'd have thought there were so many stupid, racist xenophobes around.

When I said it was pointless, I didn’t mean the subject matter we were talking about.

I’m sorry to say, I meant it’s pointless trying to have a conversation with you.

Even though it’s normal on this forum to litter the discourse with terms like ‘anti-democrat’, it’s not normal any where else.

I’ve come to realise you literally can’t stop yourself doing it, but I’m not going to spend anymore time talking to someone who repeatedly uses such dysfunctional language as a norm.

[barney]

What word would you use to describe a person who cannot and will not accept a democratic vote.

Anti literally means against.

So those who will not accept the result are by definition against democracy.

I get that you don't like the result but to attempt to overturn it smacks of some kind of Banana Republic.

If the remainers stood on an election manifesto of rejoining the EU, I'd have full respect for them.
If they won it, I'd accept the situation.

[barney]

Farage was chastised by a pundit for using the word betrayal in reference to our Parliament's failure.
Given that both major parties pledged to uphold the referendum result in 2017, I wonder what would be a better descriptive word.

At least the Libdems and greens have been open in their contempt of democracy.

[barney]

Will we see the first Brexit Party MP to sit in Parliament after today's Peterborough by election.

Seems a bit weird that someone can win a seat without any form of manifesto, but then we live in strange times don't we.

I said after the rejection of brexit by the losing side that it would change politics as we knew it.

This bizarre situation will give us a glimpse into our potential future.

[Manoverboard]

Will we see the first Brexit Party MP to sit in Parliament after today's Peterborough by election …

We have chums who live in a Peterborough Postcode and their thoughts are that the place is sadly not as it once was due to the very high influx of European workers … will the community vote for the Brexit Party en mass as a protest against that as well as a protest for the non implementation of Brexit itself ?

Will it be a landslide or a damp squid ?

[david63]

This bizarre situation will give us a glimpse into our potential future.

Not really. By elections are notorious for "protest" votes whereas a General Election is a different matter.

If Brexit ever goes through then the Brexit Party is dead in the water.

[barney]

The big question is If, David.

I wouldn't be surprised if we have a GE to sort it out one way or another.

Jezza will need to come off his fence and the Tories will most likely be decimated.

We could even end up with a minority government again.

[david63]

The big question is If, David.

I don't disagree.

My guess is that the result of the next GE will entail a coalition Government - the problem is I cannot see who will coalist (is there such a word?) with who!

[barney]

Nor I, David.

The stances are so far way from each other , as Change UK, the new saviours who claimed to speak for the majority, have found out.

I suppose the nearest in politics are probably Tories & Brexit.

A 'normal' Labour Party may have worked with LibDems, but not this bunch.

I expect that if Labour cannot win the next GE, Jezza will stand down and Momentum will select someone even more Left wing.

That is why I think that you comment about 'protest vote' is slightly wide of the mark.
What was, is not what will be.

As they say in finances, "past performance is no guarantee of the future"

I tried to explain to our old mate Jack staff, that in my opinion, that one single act of failing to leave the EU on March 29th, changes everything in British politics.

I'd be very surprised if any new Tory PM can get anything through this Parliament which leaves us with nothing but a General election, with all sides clearly stating their standpoint.
The time for ambiguity will be over.
If Labour become a party of Remain, they will lose millions of votes.
If they become a party of Leave, they will lose millions of votes.

The Libdems and Brexit will mop up, but to what level is the question.

Today's by election should indicate how near the Brexit Party is to holding the balance of power.

If they win or come very close to Labour, then the Tories have a huge decision to make.

[towny44]

The big question is If, David.

I don't disagree.

My guess is that the result of the next GE will entail a coalition Government - the problem is I cannot see who will coalist (is there such a word?) with who!

I guess the correct word is coalesce, but I cannot see there is any likelihood of that happening, especially if it needs more than 2 parties, possibly the Libdems, Scot Nats and Greens might just have enough common ground, but I think its unlikely they would get enough numbers.
However I am absolutely certain that the Labour party will move heaven and earth to cobble something together to get into power, but I hope to goodness they don't get the chance.
Remaining in the EU would be 100 times more preferable than that happening.

[barney]

Blooming heck.

I should do this prediction lark for a living .

Labour by 600 votes over Brexit.

Tories back in the pack.

Now the gloves come off.