Europe --- In or Out

[Rayvin 4964]

1 hour ago, Christmas Tree said:

 

I get the impression you are more guided by the headline fairytale stuff that comes out of Corbyn etc. Pull back the curtain and read some of the stuff from the younger proper hard left ( @graceblekeley )  and it’s a much different picture.

 

TBF, A lot of what she says makes good sense, but at least she’s honest. EG Adamant that the only way a socialist government can truly succeed is outside the EU. ( Corbyns view to if only he had the integrity to say so).

 

I dont want a socialist government. I dont. I want a mixed economy that broadly looks like the Scandinavian models. I dont know how many times I've said this. Corbyn is a socialist, yes. But he's not going to even be alive long enough to make the UK a fully socialist country CT. At best he's going to pull us over on a number of issues and then probably get voted out for incompetence 5 years down the line, or replaced by a more standard Labour politician.

 

The manifesto they put out wasn't for a wholesale socialist society. And i read the whole thing. I actually read all sides of the cultural discourse which is why i am branded both a Nazi and a socialist on here. 

[ewerk 26352]

9 minutes ago, Christmas Tree said:

 

100% YES. We shouldn’t tax people to keep warm.

So we should also drop tax on food to make sure people aren't hungry? Drop VAT on clothes so people aren't running round naked?

[ewerk 26352]

13 minutes ago, Christmas Tree said:

 

Well that’s really upto any future Labour or Conservative Government. They would have the freedom to do what they thought was right. EG reducing VAT to 0 on domestic fuel.

So it's worth leaving the EU to give the government the freedom to do something that they aren't going to do anyway? 

[Renton 17784]

6 minutes ago, Rayvin said:

 

Oh come on man, we've been round the houses on this so many times that i'm actually certain you've agreed eith me previously on both the austerity point and on New Labour being neoliberal. 

 

I'm not saying that they were evil, but i am convinced, latterly, given the way the world went, that their inaction on a number of social fronts that would have been addressed by a more progressive left wing government - immigrant integration programs, more progressive taxation etc - that would have helped to fend off the nightmare we are currently living.

 

Having said that, maybe it would have made no difference. And i certainly thought at the time that New Labour was as close to perfect as I was ever going to see from a government. Which remains true to this day actually. But still, they weren't as socially focused as Scandinavian countries were they?

 

As for austerity, you're right about why Miliband did it but it's no fucking excuse. Not for what happened. It's unforgivable IMO. He was supposed to fight against stupid, ideologically driven financial drivel from the Tories and he enabled it almost to the extent Clegg did. I recall the Tories claiming Labour would have cut more, not that I remember how true that was. No one is going to convince me austerity was necessary because it wasn't. For all you can talk about Keynesian stimuli, did Labour say anything of the sort at the time?

I'm just pointing out that we exist in a neoberal framework (I mean all western countries) but that doesn't mean l parties are equal. The 2008 crash is what fucked everything up. Things were pretty hunky dory before then, there was no need for Corbynite socialism. Certainly no appetite for it, and there still isn't. In a democracy you have to take the people with you. 

[Rayvin 4964]

Just now, Renton said:

I'm just pointing out that we exist in a neoberal framework (I mean all western countries) but that doesn't mean l parties are equal. The 2008 crash is what fucked everything up. Things were pretty hunky dory before then, there was no need for Corbynite socialism. Certainly no appetite for it, and there still isn't. In a democracy you have to take the people with you. 

 

Agree there was no need for it then. But the world moved to the right after 2008 and it needs to move to the left again. New Labour went right with the Tories, that was their mistake not mine.

[Renton 17784]

2 minutes ago, Christmas Tree said:

 

100% YES. We shouldn’t tax people to keep warm.

 

Why not? How will you replace the lost revenues? What about moral hazard, considering the damage fuel does to the environment? 

[Rayvin 4964]

Honestly, the more time passes, the more it looks like Blair was probably the only real leader New Labour had. And probably the last great statesman of our era.

 

I'll never understand those fucking wars but he didn't do a lot else wrong in the context of the time, if that's what you want to hear. I'm really not saying they should have known, or were deceitful, or anything. I'm saying that history shows now that they had the opportunity to do some things better and didn't. Hindsight is 20:20, sure, but the lesson needs to be learned.

[Renton 17784]

5 minutes ago, Rayvin said:

why i am branded both a Nazi and a socialist on here. 

 

Well Hitler was a national socialist, after all. 

[Rayvin 4964]

7 minutes ago, Christmas Tree said:

 

100% YES. We shouldn’t tax people to keep warm.

 

Hugely socialist position this. I think CT has suffered from hard left entryism.

[Rayvin 4964]

1 minute ago, Renton said:

 

Well Hitler was a national socialist, after all. 

 

 

He was of course, not actually a socialist, as i recall. Although i see the Tommy Robinson types seem to have started throwing that one about to discredit the left these days so given a little while, that'll be revisioned too.

[Christmas Tree 3997]

8 minutes ago, ewerk said:

So we shpuld also drop tax on food to make sure people aren't hungry? Drop VAT on clothes so people aren't running round naked?

 

We don’t charge vat on most food

[Meenzer 14055]

1 minute ago, Rayvin said:

 

 

He was of course, not actually a socialist, as i recall. Although i see the Tommy Robinson types seem to have started throwing that one about to discredit the left these days so given a little while, that'll be revisioned too.

 

If you can't destroy that argument by reference to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, you don't deserve to be arguing in the first place.

[Renton 17784]

Just now, Christmas Tree said:

 

We don’t charge vat on most food

Maybe in your case we should. 

[ewerk 26352]

1 minute ago, Christmas Tree said:

 

We don’t charge vat on most food

And we can do this WHILE INSIDE THE EU?!?!

[Meenzer 14055]

12 minutes ago, ewerk said:

So it's worth leaving the EU to give the government the freedom to do something that they aren't going to do anyway? 

 

Aye. Reminds me of the line of argument about EU-funded projects in "the regions".

 

"The EU funded all these improvements around here!"

"Yeah, but it was our money in the first place, we could fund them without having to go through Europe"

"And you reckon a UK government would actually do that?"
"......"

 

 

[ewerk 26352]

But at least we're going to get our blue passports back, the EU technocrats can't stop us doing that once we're free.

[Christmas Tree 3997]

10 minutes ago, Renton said:

 

Why not? How will you replace the lost revenues? What about moral hazard, considering the damage fuel does to the environment? 

 

Theres nothing more immoral than people not being able to stay warm or eat.

 

Only a couple of billion so easy for a future government to find elsewhere.

[Meenzer 14055]

Just now, Christmas Tree said:

 

Theres nothing more immoral than people not being able to stay warm or eat.

 

BUT YOU'RE A TORY

[Christmas Tree 3997]

6 minutes ago, ewerk said:

And we can do this WHILE INSIDE THE EU?!?!

 

But we can’t on fuel

[Renton 17784]

4 minutes ago, Christmas Tree said:

Theres nothing more immoral than people not being able to stay warm or eat.

 

I'll pass your message on to the next homeless person I see who have popped up everywhere since the tories got in power. 

[Rayvin 4964]

3500 sleeping rough as a result of cuts to homeless services put forward by a government CT voted for.

 

Totally moral. They get fed by random strangers and their sleeping bags look warm after all.

[Christmas Tree 3997]

7 minutes ago, Meenzer said:

 

Aye. Reminds me of the line of argument about EU-funded projects in "the regions".

 

"The EU funded all these improvements around here!"

"Yeah, but it was our money in the first place, we could fund them without having to go through Europe"

"And you reckon a UK government would actually do that?"
"......"

 

 

 

See that’s what it boils down to. I would prefer a British government to spend that money. If we are not happy, vote them out.

[Renton 17784]

2 minutes ago, Christmas Tree said:

 

But we can’t on fuel

 

Do this is the point if Brexit. We will give up access to the biggest market in the world so we will be able to reduce VAT on fuel, even though we won't. 

 

Genius. 

[Renton 17784]

1 minute ago, Christmas Tree said:

 

See that’s what it boils down to. I would prefer a British government to spend that money. If we are not happy, vote them out.

 

Do you think your vote in Boldon counts for much? 

[Renton 17784]

So May"s bottled the vote, despite constant assurances she wouldn't. Coward.