Brexit discussion thread XII (Please read OP before posting)

Igotadose

Michel Barnier diagnosed with Covid-19

Leonard Hofstadter

Sterling's made quite a recovery today, although still low by historical standards. But it's now 92.8p per euro, overnight it went to 94.9p.

Sam Russell

Leonard Hofstadter wrote: »

Sterling's made quite a recovery today, although still low by historical standards. But it's now 92.8p per euro, overnight it went to 94.9p.

That is just a correction - probably profit taking or closing positions. It has lost over 10% in the last month - the correction is slight in those terms.

The only recovery we should hope for is Michel Barnier. We need him.

Sam Russell

Sam Russell wrote: »

That is just a correction - probably profit taking or closing positions. It has lost over 10% in the last month - the correction is slight in those terms.

The only recovery we should hope for is Michel Barnier. We need him.

If this virus is as bad as many expect it to be, there will be major changes in both teams over the next few months

J Mysterio

Igotadose wrote: »

Michel Barnier diagnosed with Covid-19

Disaster

Infini

J Mysterio wrote: »

Disaster

An Inconvenience so long as it doesnt do any serious harm to him, THAT would be a disaster tho. Lucky the fatality rate for this is low and not something like ebola.

Infini

Infini wrote: »

An Inconvenience so long as it doesnt do any serious harm to him, THAT would be a disaster tho. Lucky the fatality rate for this is low and not something like ebola.

Depends on age, the older you are the high the fatality rate!

RobMc59

Igotadose wrote: »

Michel Barnier diagnosed with Covid-19

Hopefully a speedy recovery,he comes across as a decent bloke and is certainly an asset to the EU in negotiations-the UK team don't have anyone remotely in his class.

Leonard Hofstadter

Sam Russell wrote: »

That is just a correction - probably profit taking or closing positions. It has lost over 10% in the last month - the correction is slight in those terms.

The only recovery we should hope for is Michel Barnier. We need him.

Agreed on Michel Barnier.

The reason the Euro went down so much is because the ECB announced a €750 billion Quantitative Easing programme overnight, at one stage today it was down to 91.4p, now it's at 92.35p, so it is recovering relative to yesterday, but still a bit of a drop.

RobMc59

The world is locked in a life or death struggle with coronavirus and the Express is still spouting sh*te
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1257563/eu-fishing-brexit-news-faroe-islands-denmark-uk-common-fisheries-policy-spt

RobMc59

RobMc59 wrote: »

The world is locked in a life or death struggle with coronavirus and the Express is still spouting sh*te
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1257563/eu-fishing-brexit-news-faroe-islands-denmark-uk-common-fisheries-policy-spt

I doubt that anyone really cares about Brexit at the moment, I would imagine that most readers will simply skip over that page.

Capt'n Midnight

Deleted User wrote: »

I doubt that anyone really cares about Brexit at the moment, I would imagine that most readers will simply skip over that page.

I did when I noticed it ignored the UK's complete capitulation to one of it's smallest trading partners.

It also ignored the fact that the UK lost three Cod wars with Iceland.



Faroese exports are 98% seafood. The UK exports £6m of machinery to them in return for buying a third of their exports.

Given it's dominant position the UK, of course, allows Faroese boats to fish in Scottish waters while Scottish boats aren't allowed into their waters.


UK fishing is mostly big business. A lot of it is done by foreign owned companies with foreign crews landing fish in foreign ports.

BonnieSituation

RobMc59 wrote: »

The world is locked in a life or death struggle with coronavirus and the Express is still spouting sh*te
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1257563/eu-fishing-brexit-news-faroe-islands-denmark-uk-common-fisheries-policy-spt

I'm sure the British people are capable of seeing through the lies and not believing everything from their gutter press...

Seth Brundle

Only seeing this now but this surely is embarrasing for the PM (although it is buried under the COVID news)...
Et toi, Papa? Boris Johnson’s dad seeks to become a French citizen

The prime minister’s father is to become a French citizen to maintain his family’s close ties with Europe after his son led the UK out of the EU. Stanley Johnson, 79, can apply because his mother, Irene, was born in France.

His citizenship application is revealed in his daughter Rachel’s new book, published last week.

serfboard

Seth Brundle wrote: »

Only seeing this now but this surely is embarrasing for the PM (although it is buried under the COVID news)...
Et toi, Papa? Boris Johnson’s dad seeks to become a French citizen

Hilarious.

The last bit of the article that I can read says:

A source close to the family believes Stanley has applied so that his grandchildren can live and work in the

EU presumably.

So after his son's Brexit strategy tanks the UK, his grandchildren will have a life-raft.

And sod everyone else.

johnnyskeleton

serfboard wrote: »

Hilarious.

The last bit of the article that I can read says:
EU presumably.

So after his son's Brexit strategy tanks the UK, his grandchildren will have a life-raft.

And sod everyone else.

The English have a long history of a clear ethnic and cultural divide between their people and their rulers. The Normans and Plantaganets all spoke French and some of whom hardly set foot in England (granted, Normandy, Anjou and Aquittaine were all part of the same polity at various times back then). The Tudors were the first English/Welsh house in charge, and they changed the court language from Norman French to Medieval/Modern English.

They were then supplanted by the Stewarts (Scottish), House of Orange (Dutch), briefly back to the Scots, before finally resting with the Germans who they still, arguably, have to this day (Havoerians, Saxe Coburg). The current House of Windsor is often half jokingly referred to as being German, although to be fair the last 3/4 Generations have been English speaking and generally Anglophile.

The point being that the English* are historically accustomed to being ruled by persons they consider to be, well non-English. You can see the subtle but important difference when you compare the way Irish and English commentators deal with "the elites".

In Ireland, Fintan O'Toole etc are always making the point that the elites rule the country, politicians, bankers, lawyers etc, and the subtext is clear - we don't want the elites to be ruling us. This creates an existential difficulty for a lot of politicians, who start off with their "plain people of Ireland" attitude and end up telling the nation how hard it is to maintain 3 households at the same time.

In England, by contrast, the commentary on the elites is not that there is an elite class or that they want to get rid of them - the English people are fine with this and accept that their elite are culturally and even ethnically different to them - but that at key occasions the elite will have to bow to their will.

That is the true spirit of Magna Carta. It seems strange to non-English people how a document that basically cemented the rights of rich landlords over their vassals could be seen as a civil or human rights triumph, but it is a shibboleth for the idea that the people can, at times, take the ruling class to task.

This is all very long and rambling, so I'll get to the point:

The English do not care that Boris was a US citizen until recently, or that he is posh, or that he lives a jet set lifestyle or that his father is looking to secure EU Treaty Rights for them or any of those things that would cause consternation in other countries. They don't care who or what he does personally, so long as he gives them one Brexit



*I'm not using this as a casual synonym for the British, I'm making the point that Brexit is a largely English/Welsh concept, which doesn't have majority support in Scotland or NI

Sam Russell

I cannot ever grasp why the working class English vote for a Tory candidate. Under no circumstances can Tories be any advantage to those who would naturally be Labour voters.

I just think it must be the belief that voting for a toff makes them a bit toffee. Something to chew on, I suppose.

pixelburp

Seth Brundle wrote: »

Only seeing this now but this surely is embarrasing for the PM (although it is buried under the COVID news)...
Et toi, Papa? Boris Johnson’s dad seeks to become a French citizen

That Stanley's mother was apparently born in Versailles of all places feels entirely, hilariously apt. The sheer brass neck of the Brexit royalty never fails to be less than galling; but that's the horizons they're reaching for. For Me But Not For Thee.

Roanmore

Not standing up for his father but he did take a very pro Remain stance during the referendum. All the family did except Boris.

Roanmore

Roanmore wrote: »

Not standing up for his father but he did take a very pro Remain stance during the referendum. All the family did except Boris.

Yes, their family was split by Brexit, as were many other families up and down the country.

ancapailldorcha

johnnyskeleton wrote: »

The English have a long history of a clear ethnic and cultural divide between their people and their rulers. The Normans and Plantaganets all spoke French and some of whom hardly set foot in England (granted, Normandy, Anjou and Aquittaine were all part of the same polity at various times back then). The Tudors were the first English/Welsh house in charge, and they changed the court language from Norman French to Medieval/Modern English.

They were then supplanted by the Stewarts (Scottish), House of Orange (Dutch), briefly back to the Scots, before finally resting with the Germans who they still, arguably, have to this day (Havoerians, Saxe Coburg). The current House of Windsor is often half jokingly referred to as being German, although to be fair the last 3/4 Generations have been English speaking and generally Anglophile.

A minor correction here but over the course of centuries of Plantagenet rule from the mid-twelfth century to 1399, the view of the English language changed. Originally, it was seen as gutteral, barbaric and low compared to the relatively sophisticated and noble French of the Normans. However, the last two Kings of the direct Plantagenet line, Edward III and his grandson (Edward, Edward III's son, aka the Black Prince contracted a serious illness during a foolish campaign to plant Pedro the cruel on the Castilian throne which eventually killed him) Richard II both spoke English and the former reigned for 50 years so between the two, they would have most of the fourteenth century covered.

That said, if you'd asked me 5 years ago what Hannover was, I'd have told you that it is a district in East Brighton and that's because I was living there at the time. I can't imagine much of the populace know what Saxe-Coburg could possibly be unless they paid very close attention to Netflix's The Crown.

johnnyskeleton wrote: »

The point being that the English* are historically accustomed to being ruled by persons they consider to be, well non-English. You can see the subtle but important difference when you compare the way Irish and English commentators deal with "the elites".

In Ireland, Fintan O'Toole etc are always making the point that the elites rule the country, politicians, bankers, lawyers etc, and the subtext is clear - we don't want the elites to be ruling us. This creates an existential difficulty for a lot of politicians, who start off with their "plain people of Ireland" attitude and end up telling the nation how hard it is to maintain 3 households at the same time.

In England, by contrast, the commentary on the elites is not that there is an elite class or that they want to get rid of them - the English people are fine with this and accept that their elite are culturally and even ethnically different to them - but that at key occasions the elite will have to bow to their will.

I think you're using the outdated version of the term “elite”. Now the term has broadly two different meanings depending on one's perspective. For the left, it's the wealthy capitalists, the landed gentry and politicians. For the right, it's academics, left wing activists and corporations who adopted identity political issues as marketing like the LGBT flag.

johnnyskeleton wrote: »

That is the true spirit of Magna Carta. It seems strange to non-English people how a document that basically cemented the rights of rich landlords over their vassals could be seen as a civil or human rights triumph, but it is a shibboleth for the idea that the people can, at times, take the ruling class to task.

None of this is wrong. However, what you've missed is that Magna Carta for the first time enshrined the principle in England that there was no such thing as absolute power. John, who signed it lost most of the Angevin empire's holdings in France, that is to say Brittany, Maine, Touraine, Anjou, Angouleme, Poitou and Normandy. He reformed the justice system to squeeze every shilling out of his English subjects to finance a grand continental coalition to defeat Philip Augustus, the Capetian King of France who grew his Kingdom from a small stretch of land from Rheims to Berry to encompassing most of John's holdings except for Gascony in the southwest. John failed and spectacularly at that with the writing appearing on the wall at his nephew, Holy Roman Emperor Otto IV's catastrophic defeat to Philip at Bouvines in 1214.

John's lords and barons mutinied culminating in the 1215 signing of Magna Carta at Runnymede. Magna Carta contained constraints on the monarch's power with regards to taxation and imprisonment. It was annulled by John's overlord, Pope Innocent III (John had offered Innocent vassalage to stave off French invasion) but it became a rallying cry for that point onward. The nexts Plantagenets, Henry III and Edward I promised to reissue it various times. The term “Parliament” (based on the French parlement, “speaking”) appears in records of Henry III's time. Parliament would assemble a few times a year to air grievances from the shires to the King and hear the King's appeal for a tax which would require the approval of the Parliament.

I think I got off topic but I wanted to explain why Magna Carta was important even though it was discarded as quickly as it took an envoy to make the return trip to Rome.

johnnyskeleton wrote: »

*I'm not using this as a casual synonym for the British, I'm making the point that Brexit is a largely English/Welsh concept, which doesn't have majority support in Scotland or NI

No argument here.

Sam Russell wrote: »

I cannot ever grasp why the working class English vote for a Tory candidate. Under no circumstances can Tories be any advantage to those who would naturally be Labour voters.

I just think it must be the belief that voting for a toff makes them a bit toffee. Something to chew on, I suppose.

See Johnnyskeleton's point below:

The English do not care that Boris was a US citizen until recently, or that he is posh, or that he lives a jet set lifestyle or that his father is looking to secure EU Treaty Rights for them or any of those things that would cause consternation in other countries. They don't care who or what he does personally, so long as he gives them one Brexit.

To elaborate though, the socialist left in the UK never recovered from Thatcherism. Their overriding goal seems to be the reversal of it. Nowadays, the gig economy is employing more people than were ever covered by trade unions and more people than ever own their own businesses. The former might be easily persuadable but the latter definitely are not. Labour need to get used to how things are and then propose change based on the status quo and not decades ago. Hopefully, someone younger than Corbyn will be able to help in this regard.

The Conservatives, the Brexiters and the press have masterfully changed the boundaries of British political debate to their advantage. To the upper classes, the Tories offer tax cuts. To the lower classes they offer crumbs. They've cultivated a reputation as being good with money and the economy. I'm aware of the giant Brexit oxymoron but I am not typical of most voters as I saw in December.

Labour have a mountain to climb and we still have no idea what Brexit will look like. Unless they shape up soon, 2025 will be Johnson's to lose.

serfboard

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

The Conservatives, the Brexiters and the press have masterfully changed the boundaries of British political debate to their advantage.

Nothing particularly masterful about it.

When you hammer people for decades with unrelenting propaganda from billionaire media owners, you can probably achieve any result you want.

reslfj

I think your English history is a bit off.

johnnyskeleton wrote: »

... The Tudors were the first English/Welsh house in charge, and they changed the court language from Norman French to Medieval/Modern English.

"Starting in August 1417, Henry V promoted the use of the English language in government and his reign marks the appearance of Chancery Standard English as well as the adoption of English as the language of record within government. He was the first king to use English in his personal correspondence since the Norman conquest 350 years earlier." /- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_V_of_England

The first Tudor King was Henry VII (1485-) some 60 years after Henry V.

johnnyskeleton wrote: »

The current House of Windsor is often half jokingly referred to as being German, although to be fair the last 3/4 Generations have been English speaking and generally Anglophile.

Many more than 3-4 generations since George III (King from 1760) who "was born in Great Britain, spoke English as his first language and never visited Hanover." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_III_of_the_United_Kingdom

Yes the 'house of' naming was changing - but primarily due to using the house name of her husband and not of Victoria and England wanting to use the name 'House of Winsor' around 100 years ago.

Lars

ancapailldorcha

serfboard wrote: »

Nothing particularly masterful about it.

When you hammer people for decades with unrelenting propaganda from billionaire media owners, you can probably achieve any result you want.

They've successfully shaped the debate to their liking. I hate it but they've done a thorough job. People go on about being called racist despite never being called racist, the idea that what people voted for in 2016 isn't what happened afterwards has been shut down and people seemed to have stopped caring about Brexit once we got into February.

farmchoice

Sam Russell wrote: »

I cannot ever grasp why the working class English vote for a Tory candidate. Under no circumstances can Tories be any advantage to those who would naturally be Labour voters.

I just think it must be the belief that voting for a toff makes them a bit toffee. Something to chew on, I suppose.

Frank Skinner tells an interesting story about this. Frank comes from a working class family in Birmingham. His family were not political and very rarely discussed politics.

One day however the subject came up and Frank discovered his father voted Tory. Frank was truly shocked as he had always assume his dad, a working class man, a factory worker and a union man would have voted Labour.

so he asked him Why? his dad replied, ''ah those people are there to rule, they know about that sort of thing, not the likes of us, leave it to them''.

serfboard

farmchoice wrote: »

his dad replied, ''ah those people are there to rule, they know about that sort of thing, not the likes of us, leave it to them''.

And those who go to Eton and Sandhurst think "we are here to rule, we know about this sort of thing, leave it to us".

farmchoice

farmchoice wrote: »

his dad replied, ''ah those people are there to rule, they know about that sort of thing, not the likes of us, leave it to them''.

It's worth remembering that school education for the general public was basic and very much about teaching you where you were in the pecking order and who was in charge.
So it should come as no surprise that so many "working class" voted Tory or Liberal before 1945.

Sam Russell

Deleted User wrote: »

It's worth remembering that school education for the general public was basic and very much about teaching you where you were in the pecking order and who was in charge.
So it should come as no surprise that so many "working class" voted Tory or Liberal before 1945.

The education system prior to the 1980s was stratified so the wealthy went to Public Schools (like Eton and Harrow) - which were not the least bit public but extremely private and expensive. The next level was the Grammar School which required the pupil to pass the 11+ exam, which would lead onto university, for the gifted, but other high paid managerial or similar jobs. The rest went to a Secondary Modern school which did not lead to university but to early departure from school and on to dead end jobs, with the lucky ones getting apprenticeships. Those in areas with local big works, like mines, factories, or ship building would take up the type of job their fathers had.

That was how the class system was maintained. Thatcher tried to suppress voting by working class voters by attacking the unions, (putting Labour voters out of work or on lower wages) and by the Poll Tax (you only got on the register if you paid the tax. The tax was structured to be higher in Labour areas). Plus other schemes like selling off state assets to friends of the Tories at half price. (You had to have the cash to avail of the largess).

I still cannot understand how anyone of a working class background would vote Tory.

Sam Russell

Sam Russell wrote: »

The education system prior to the 1980s was stratified so the wealthy went to Public Schools (like Eton and Harrow) - which were not the least bit public but extremely private and expensive. The next level was the Grammar School which required the pupil to pass the 11+ exam, which would lead onto university, for the gifted, but other high paid managerial or similar jobs. The rest went to a Secondary Modern school which did not lead to university but to early departure from school and on to dead end jobs, with the lucky ones getting apprenticeships. Those in areas with local big works, like mines, factories, or ship building would take up the type of job their fathers had.

That was how the class system was maintained. Thatcher tried to suppress voting by working class voters by attacking the unions, (putting Labour voters out of work or on lower wages) and by the Poll Tax (you only got on the register if you paid the tax. The tax was structured to be higher in Labour areas). Plus other schemes like selling off state assets to friends of the Tories at half price. (You had to have the cash to avail of the largess).
I still cannot understand how anyone of a working class background would vote Tory.

Looking back via the rear view mirror, will give you a completely different viewpoint to that looking out the windscreen.
By the 1970s many in the UK were totally dismayed by Labour's handling of the economy, so many strikes that it was almost not newsworthy any more.

Many of the workers were fed up with constantly losing income due to others striking.

Thatcher promised they could buy their council houses cheaply. That was a trap as mortgage payers were at great risk of being made homeless if they went on strike.

It's easy to see why so many switched.

Reg education: 1980s, I was thinking more like 1930s and earlier, anyway, things like the 11+ were mostly gone by the 1970s

serfboard

Deleted User wrote: »

Looking back via the rear view mirror, will give you a completely different viewpoint to that looking out the windscreen.
By the 1970s many in the UK were totally dismayed by Labour's handling of the economy, so many strikes that it was almost not newsworthy any more.

Many of the workers were fed up with constantly losing income due to others striking.

A big reason for the Tories success in 1979 - the unions in some instances behaved disgracefully, and Labour were beholden to them so they couldn't do anything.

Deleted User wrote: »

Thatcher promised they could buy their council houses cheaply. That was a trap as mortgage payers were at great risk of being made homeless if they went on strike.

There was another great benefit to selling state assets to people - one thing that makes people switch from Labour to Tory is owning property. Once you become a property owner you look at things differently.