Rayvin

You're right, my bad. Makes him seem benign.

I do understand that, and honestly it's helped no one that the attitude exists concerning Leave voters. I think the truth is that the left has a lot of cultural power (ceded to it by the right in exchange for financial and political power IMO) and so tends to be able to weaponise things like this. From our side though, leavers should perhaps understand that we have been totally ignored throughout this whole process. 16 million of us voted to Remain, and now we're faced with the hardest possible iteration of Brexit. That isn't democratic, at least not to me - not while perfectly good compromise options exist. If May's deal had gone through, and many Remain MPs voted for it, then leavers would have got something like a 90% pure Brexit. It was worlds away from a compromise that I would have accepted. At no point in this process has anyone given a damn about what people like me think. Even Labour has routinely ignored the Remain wing of the membership (85%) in favour of trying to find a compromise position that by the looks of it was about 85% pure Brexit, a stance that ultimately forced me to resign membership earlier in the year because they expected me to take one for the team with hard Brexit, and then vote them in anyway. I've spent a lot of time thinking about how to better discuss the issues in a less inflammatory way and I really think that rebranding the whole schism as globalism vs anti-globalism gets us away from all the negative labels and into the territory of a useful discussion where everyone can make salient points - especially because the two concepts span the entire political spectrum. There are left wingers as fervently opposed to globalism as right wingers are. And vice versa. No one should feel shouted down or silenced in their political opinions (EDIT - necessary clarification - as long as those views aren't inciting violence), and some of the ways people of left wing persuasions handle themselves in such discussions is borderline tyrannical. I myself have the badge of honour of being called out as a Nazi (on here at least) on several occasions. Elsewhere I'm a commie bastard apparently, but in truth I tend to get more abuse from the left than I do from the right. I consider myself moderate left for what it's worth. Economically left wing, socially centrist (which I broadly define as not giving a fuck as long as things are fair).

I know what you mean. I also think that given the increasing push to the hard right across Europe in general, the EU needed to take people's concerns with respect of resistance to globalisation a bit more seriously. Either more work needed to be done on making it 'work' for everyone, or some compromises needed to be made concerning immigration which would at least offer a short term statement that the powers that be were indeed listening. I say both these things as an immigration approving globalist myself. Having said this, so much misinformation has been applied by the right wing press about this issue (may be true from the 'left wing press' too I suppose, although whenever I try to imagine that I only manage to come up with The Guardian, which I have seen publish Anti-EU articles in the past, and the Express, which I don't read - and it's unclear how much of an impact either have compared to the Mail and the Sun) that one of the other big issues we were always going to have was that any such moves by the EU simply wouldn't be reported on. Has the Daily Mail ever said anything positive about the EU? I doubt it. On that basis, people who solely read it for their information on current affairs apparently now think the EU is a second Nazi regime that is force-feeding us immigrants and overruling our laws left and right. It's hard to combat that level of misinformation if you're a reasonable institution, as the EU broadly is. So if the EU had indeed given us anything, I think that the best we could have expected from the Daily Mail and other right wing press outlets would have been "Britain, Kings of Europe after Cameron brings EU negotiating team to their knees" or "Britain defeats Germany for a third time without even firing a shot" - the kind of thing that doesn't at all reflect the reality of what is going on, and simply seeks to draw lines between us and them. It simply kicks the can down the road and means that the next time a Tory leader needs a quick poll boost, the EU have to hand over even more special treatment. Eventually you have to stop handing out freebies or everyone else starts to feel that it's unfair - as they did. Compounded by the fact that successive British governments have used the EU as a convenient scapegoat for all kinds of policy failures, it's easy to see why people who tend to the right (and indeed the hard left) were quick to jump on the opportunity to give them a kicking. The EU simply doesn't have as much influence on our lives as people are making out - the UK Government has always had far, far more. And yet people wave away the misery inflicted under austerity without a second thought, the lack of proper policy initiatives surrounding integration of immigrants into British life, poor investment in education and vocational skills training, falling police numbers, and so on - voting back in the very people who were delivering it, so that they can get rid of a political institution that is responsible for about almost nothing that affects people's lives in a meaningful (negative) sense.

Yeah, not going to disagree on this. The EU wasn't exactly super helpful in the run up to this, including Merkel's 1 million Syrian refugees 3 months before the vote, but on the other side, we did have the best deal in Europe out of any other country in there already...

Nice to see Leavers weighing in here though btw, the standard of discussion has improved as a result.

Just going to add to Gem's post - what is it that leavers even think a good deal would be. I genuinely don't think anyone has a clue. The EU has given us all deal options it can agree to, and they mirror the arrangements with various other countries. They have also made clear that they can't give us special treatment as it would be in breach of their other agreements. So at any point the UK could go to them and ask for Canada or Norway and we'd get it. No Deal isn't needed for that. What exactly do leavers think he is going to achieve? That somehow, with the threat of No Deal, they will agree to give us single market access without FOM? This will never, ever happen. The idea of a good deal that can somehow be negotiated is a fallacy. All he would do is come back with something very similar to May's deal with a few words moved around and hail it as a victory.

Goodnight man but do feel free to let me know your reservations on Corbyn at some point, I'm curious. And I'm not going to just shout you down as I hope you know

Why? I read his whole manifesto and it looked solid to me. I'm fairly well educated on economics to my mind at least, and also can see that Tory austerity has literally ripped the country apart (as I still believe it to be the primary cause of Brexit). Corbyn would have some job on his hands not to improve on that.

I think if Boris can't get No Deal over the line before October, and then we have an election, JC will be PM. The Brexit Party will finish off Boris.

Yeah but probably because if they did it now there's a very real chance it would make people's lives a lot worse.

I don't think tonight counts at all. It's in his interests to have a GE at the time of maximum advantage, and on Boris' timetable is not it. After all the shit Remainers have had to put up with in terms of tactical bastardry from the other side, it's nice to see Corbyn finally step up on that front.

Yes but a general election tonight ran the risk of Boris just throwing us out without a deal.. I mean would you trust Boris?

Corbyn also hasn't covered himself in glory as we know. It is quite dismal.

I mean i agree but seriously mate, the Tories are the ones who have done this. And I'm not partisan on this issue, if the conservatives did an about face tomorrow and said they'd back remain, I'd vote for them. They've been arrogant and they've overreacted, alienating everyone who isn't a hard Brexit supporter. That's nobodies fault but their own.

Labour hasn't changed. They want to do their own deal and don't want anything the Tories are offering, but there is literally no chance for them to enact their deal. They can't do anything except stop the Tories from hitting us with no deal. And having a second referendum, which I believe is now their policy, isn't becoming a remain party unless you believe that a second referendum will almost certainly result in Brexit being killed. If you do believe that, the surely you must also accept that this is now the will of the people at a point when the people have a far better understanding of what Brexit is. As for not triggering article 50, that probably would have been denying the will of the people. But they did all expect that there would be cross party talks about the matter since May was intensely vulnerable and the country needed to unify. She opted not to do this. How is that their fault? She waded into her own version of reality which was rejected by all sides of the house, and left the government in the hands of the extremists. How can you possibly think that the Remain MPs are being the devious ones here. I know you voted leave and that the risk of losing it would be deeply annoying to you, but its not the Remainers fault. They've been given a choice of the most extreme version of this, or standing up for what they believe is right, even if they lose their seats or membership of their parties.

None of the people voted for no deal at least though. We know this because literally no one from the leave campaign said it was on the table pre referendum. And I think all the main parties who voted for article 50 were fairly clear that they wouldn't back no deal. Seriously, this actually is a right wing coup. It just is. Had May just fucking compromised instead of being stubborn and dictatorial, we would 100% be having a Brexit. Not as hard as no deal, but harder than I would have liked for sure. By going all in on the hardest possible version of this, the ERG have it all to lose. I remember back in March, Nick Boles voted for Mays deal. As a remainer. And he told the ERG that if they didnt vote for it, then he and many others would give up on a deal and start resisting Brexit full stop because anything further to the right of her deal was too harmful to accept. They were warned and they did it anyway. Only. Themselves. To. Blame. You should be angry with the people in charge of the Tories currently because they've risked the whole thing for a pure Brexit that a 48:52 split does not legitimise.

Speaking of insane amounts of time, Boris has managed to get the Tory Lords to table over 100 amendments to Benn in order to filibuster it indefinitely. The price for them not doing this is a GE, apparently.

On this I agree. The whole thing has gone on for a truly insane amount of time.

Tactically speaking though, as a remainer, the Tories present a possible open goal for putting this to bed once and for all, and it would be stupid for us not to go for the whole thing. That's not our fault, it's theirs for being so fucking intransigent.

It's not about that. Like it or not, the original referendum was so poorly conceived that it was in effect open to interpretation in any way at all. If May had come out and said ok, we'll have soft Brexit which will reflect the closeness of the vote while minimising the harm to the UK, I would have accepted it. As would almost all Remainers, and it would have been straight through Parliament. But she didn't. She wanted the hard right wet dream Brexit. There was never any mandate for this. No one can prove there was. The Tories have tried to maintain that there is somehow, but there just isn't. They've refused to compromise the whole way through, letting themselves be pulled farther and farther to the right, until we get here. I will say unequivocally - if we have another vote, with No Deal on the ticket, and No Deal wins, fine. There's the mandate for it. Stupid as I think it is, as much as it fucks up my life, fine. But while the only mandate remains entirely imaginary, this must be resisted at all costs. I really don't understand how leavers don't appreciate this. No one voted for no deal. No majority voted for Hard Brexit. It's clear as fucking day.

If you're referring to the extension, this one would settle it. We get clear of No Deal, have a GE, the Tories have had more than enough rope to hang themselves now, and we finally put this back to a people's vote and kill the bastard once and for all.

Still doesn't mean he'll bring the rest of Labour with him.

I can't quite believe it's true. Surely if the government did this, there'd be hell on. Maybe the MPs really are that fucking hopeless. Also, fuck every Labour MP who voted for this.

The amendment in the name of Stephen Kinnock didn’t have a vote as the Government didn’t provide tellers to count. This meant the amendment went through although the No Lobby was full. This wasn’t an accident you can be assured there’s some skullduggery going on

In which case 48% of the public clearly have no idea what Corbyn wants to do in power, or what No Deal entails What is it about the functioning and generally happy, mixed economy scandinavian countries that terrifies your average Joe so much? I mean I know the answer to that, it's the Daily Mail's Venezuela based fear mongering that terrifies them, not that they really understand any of it. But it's still not Corbyn's policy to turn us into Venezuela so these people are cretins. Having said that, it's still a frustrating point - Corbyn is a barrier still to this being resolved favourably.