So why are you not pushing for the British public to have the chance to clarify and confirm it? Are you trying to tell us Norway are in the EU or not?
because we already had a vote on it.....and the result was to leave fgs !!! You can't keep having vote after vote....do you expect the Government to keep coming back to the electorate every time they get an agreement on something from Mr Barnier.....and then going back to him telling him..."sorry, but 50.1% have just said that they want to remain in the CU but don't want jurisdiction by the ECJ....can we start again".
I hate the way the negotiations are going & if I had my way there would be a vote of no confidence in T May or let Jacob Rees Mog be part of the negotiations....with Farage there as well.
but that ain't going to happen. In my view the best thing would be that we leave with no deal.....just walk away & start from scratch. The UK and the EU are too big for nothing to happen. On 30th March 2019 the politicians would THEN have to take it seriously.....and not be just point scoring. Theres nothing like a dose of reality to make you come to your senses.
Under your plan ( walk away) how would you take back control of the UK borders on the 1st April 2019 ( less than a year away) particularly the land border on the island of Ireland?
So why are you not pushing for the British public to have the chance to clarify and confirm it? Are you trying to tell us Norway are in the EU or not?
because we already had a vote on it.....and the result was to leave fgs !!! You can't keep having vote after vote....do you expect the Government to keep coming back to the electorate every time they get an agreement on something from Mr Barnier.....and then going back to him telling him..."sorry, but 50.1% have just said that they want to remain in the CU but don't want jurisdiction by the ECJ....can we start again".
I hate the way the negotiations are going & if I had my way there would be a vote of no confidence in T May or let Jacob Rees Mog be part of the negotiations....with Farage there as well.
but that ain't going to happen. In my view the best thing would be that we leave with no deal.....just walk away & start from scratch. The UK and the EU are too big for nothing to happen. On 30th March 2019 the politicians would THEN have to take it seriously.....and not be just point scoring. Theres nothing like a dose of reality to make you come to your senses.
"Let Jacob Rees Mog be part of the negotiations...."
Funniest line on Charlton Life. Ever.
I mean, the EU negotiators are just going to buckle immediately when that long streak of piss starts sneering at them, aren't they? Here's a tip mate, snooty fuckers like Rees-Mogg may well intimidate some of the great unwashed in England but the EU don't give a fuck if the UK sends, Rees-Mogg, Russell Grant or Pete Beale from East Enders, they have 27 votes and the UK has 1.
No surprise of course, yesterday we had the humiliation of hearing the Foreign Secretary complaining that we should have Donald Trump in there negotiating for us.
That's right people, we have reached the stage where Her Majesty's Government has no more ideas other than turning our entire future over to a fucking New York real-estate salesman.
why am I not surprised that Rees-Mog is put down because of the way he talks....would you be saying the same thing if he talked like del-boy.
The guys got more brains than you've had hot dinners sunny-jim.
I think it is very difficult to judge his brain power from his media persona. How do you manage it?
The Today programme on Radio 4 comes in for a lot of flack, mostly well-deserved. But when sneering Iain Dale had a pop on Twitter, he got the perfect response from Nick Robinson.
So why are you not pushing for the British public to have the chance to clarify and confirm it? Are you trying to tell us Norway are in the EU or not?
because we already had a vote on it.....and the result was to leave fgs !!! You can't keep having vote after vote....do you expect the Government to keep coming back to the electorate every time they get an agreement on something from Mr Barnier.....and then going back to him telling him..."sorry, but 50.1% have just said that they want to remain in the CU but don't want jurisdiction by the ECJ....can we start again".
I hate the way the negotiations are going & if I had my way there would be a vote of no confidence in T May or let Jacob Rees Mog be part of the negotiations....with Farage there as well.
but that ain't going to happen. In my view the best thing would be that we leave with no deal.....just walk away & start from scratch. The UK and the EU are too big for nothing to happen. On 30th March 2019 the politicians would THEN have to take it seriously.....and not be just point scoring. Theres nothing like a dose of reality to make you come to your senses.
"Let Jacob Rees Mog be part of the negotiations...."
Funniest line on Charlton Life. Ever.
I mean, the EU negotiators are just going to buckle immediately when that long streak of piss starts sneering at them, aren't they? Here's a tip mate, snooty fuckers like Rees-Mogg may well intimidate some of the great unwashed in England but the EU don't give a fuck if the UK sends, Rees-Mogg, Russell Grant or Pete Beale from East Enders, they have 27 votes and the UK has 1.
No surprise of course, yesterday we had the humiliation of hearing the Foreign Secretary complaining that we should have Donald Trump in there negotiating for us.
That's right people, we have reached the stage where Her Majesty's Government has no more ideas other than turning our entire future over to a fucking New York real-estate salesman.
why am I not surprised that Rees-Mog is put down because of the way he talks....would you be saying the same thing if he talked like del-boy.
The guys got more brains than you've had hot dinners sunny-jim.
Like I say, it never ceases to amaze me when working class people are so easily taken in by the upper class nasal tones.
I guess it must be the unbridled genius of Rees-Mogg and his fellow born to rule lot that Britain is in the fantastic position it is right now.
I can't stand Iain Dale - LBC need somebody interesting and intelligent in it's drivetime slot!
Wet spam twat. One of these days I will get on his show re the Olympic Stadium and then let's see what a tough guy he is, faced with a barrage of facts.
So why are you not pushing for the British public to have the chance to clarify and confirm it? Are you trying to tell us Norway are in the EU or not?
because we already had a vote on it.....and the result was to leave fgs !!! You can't keep having vote after vote....do you expect the Government to keep coming back to the electorate every time they get an agreement on something from Mr Barnier.....and then going back to him telling him..."sorry, but 50.1% have just said that they want to remain in the CU but don't want jurisdiction by the ECJ....can we start again".
I hate the way the negotiations are going & if I had my way there would be a vote of no confidence in T May or let Jacob Rees Mog be part of the negotiations....with Farage there as well.
but that ain't going to happen. In my view the best thing would be that we leave with no deal.....just walk away & start from scratch. The UK and the EU are too big for nothing to happen. On 30th March 2019 the politicians would THEN have to take it seriously.....and not be just point scoring. Theres nothing like a dose of reality to make you come to your senses.
"Let Jacob Rees Mog be part of the negotiations...."
Funniest line on Charlton Life. Ever.
I mean, the EU negotiators are just going to buckle immediately when that long streak of piss starts sneering at them, aren't they? Here's a tip mate, snooty fuckers like Rees-Mogg may well intimidate some of the great unwashed in England but the EU don't give a fuck if the UK sends, Rees-Mogg, Russell Grant or Pete Beale from East Enders, they have 27 votes and the UK has 1.
No surprise of course, yesterday we had the humiliation of hearing the Foreign Secretary complaining that we should have Donald Trump in there negotiating for us.
That's right people, we have reached the stage where Her Majesty's Government has no more ideas other than turning our entire future over to a fucking New York real-estate salesman.
why am I not surprised that Rees-Mog is put down because of the way he talks....would you be saying the same thing if he talked like del-boy.
The guys got more brains than you've had hot dinners sunny-jim.
Like I say, it never ceases to amaze me when working class people are so easily taken in by the upper class nasal tones.
I guess it must be the unbridled genius of Rees-Mogg and his fellow born to rule lot that Britain is in the fantastic position it is right now.
I've never said this on a forum......but why don't you feck off !! It has nothing to do with his accent....quite the opposite. If he spoke sarf london I expect he'd be PM by now.....its his accent that is holding him back because twats like you can't see past it.
He is erudite, succinct & best of all doesn't sink to the willy waving & name calling that most politicians do.
So why are you not pushing for the British public to have the chance to clarify and confirm it? Are you trying to tell us Norway are in the EU or not?
because we already had a vote on it.....and the result was to leave fgs !!! You can't keep having vote after vote....do you expect the Government to keep coming back to the electorate every time they get an agreement on something from Mr Barnier.....and then going back to him telling him..."sorry, but 50.1% have just said that they want to remain in the CU but don't want jurisdiction by the ECJ....can we start again".
I hate the way the negotiations are going & if I had my way there would be a vote of no confidence in T May or let Jacob Rees Mog be part of the negotiations....with Farage there as well.
but that ain't going to happen. In my view the best thing would be that we leave with no deal.....just walk away & start from scratch. The UK and the EU are too big for nothing to happen. On 30th March 2019 the politicians would THEN have to take it seriously.....and not be just point scoring. Theres nothing like a dose of reality to make you come to your senses.
"Let Jacob Rees Mog be part of the negotiations...."
Funniest line on Charlton Life. Ever.
I mean, the EU negotiators are just going to buckle immediately when that long streak of piss starts sneering at them, aren't they? Here's a tip mate, snooty fuckers like Rees-Mogg may well intimidate some of the great unwashed in England but the EU don't give a fuck if the UK sends, Rees-Mogg, Russell Grant or Pete Beale from East Enders, they have 27 votes and the UK has 1.
No surprise of course, yesterday we had the humiliation of hearing the Foreign Secretary complaining that we should have Donald Trump in there negotiating for us.
That's right people, we have reached the stage where Her Majesty's Government has no more ideas other than turning our entire future over to a fucking New York real-estate salesman.
why am I not surprised that Rees-Mog is put down because of the way he talks....would you be saying the same thing if he talked like del-boy.
The guys got more brains than you've had hot dinners sunny-jim.
Like I say, it never ceases to amaze me when working class people are so easily taken in by the upper class nasal tones.
I guess it must be the unbridled genius of Rees-Mogg and his fellow born to rule lot that Britain is in the fantastic position it is right now.
I've never said this on a forum......but why don't you feck off !! It has nothing to do with his accent....quite the opposite. If he spoke sarf london I expect he'd be PM by now.....its his accent that is holding him back because twats like you can't see past it.
He is erudite, succinct & best of all doesn't sink to the willy waving & name calling that most politicians do.
If he is erudite and succinct in what way does that make him brainy. Being articulate is something an idiot could be in describing their idiocy.
The Today programme on Radio 4 comes in for a lot of flack, mostly well-deserved. But when sneering Iain Dale had a pop on Twitter, he got the perfect response from Nick Robinson.
James O'Brien has been gunning at his own station over the Fag packet fascist interviewing another fag packet fascist
Ress-Mogg is pro hard Brexit for one reason and one reason only. If we get out of the EU before new financial regulations come in next year he will personally trouser £23million.
His recent comments about the border in Ireland show that he is either stupid or intellectually dishonest, neither being a trait I would want in a possible future PM.
Ress-Mogg is pro hard Brexit for one reason and one reason only. If we get out of the EU before new financial regulations come in next year he will personally trouser £23million.
His recent comments about the border in Ireland show that he is either stupid or intellectually dishonest, neither being a trait I would want in a possible future PM.
I can't stand Iain Dale - LBC need somebody interesting and intelligent in it's drivetime slot!
Wet spam twat. One of these days I will get on his show re the Olympic Stadium and then let's see what a tough guy he is, faced with a barrage of facts.
It is time for the decent Tories to reclaim their party. This man is one of them but there are a few others!
But Mutts...you ignore the fact that Tory Party has always been riven by strife over Europe. Remember John Major and the "Bastards" ? And not just the MPs, but the wider party, the core electoral support. It's not reclaimable. Increasingly looks like Labour isn't reclaimable either. The UK is crying out for a centrist party.
It is time for the decent Tories to reclaim their party. This man is one of them but there are a few others!
But Mutts...you ignore the fact that Tory Party has always been riven by strife over Europe. Remember John Major and the "Bastards" ? And not just the MPs, but the wider party, the core electoral support. It's not reclaimable. Increasingly looks like Labour isn't reclaimable either. The UK is crying out for a centrist party.
And with impeccable timing, Owen Jones reinforces my point above re Labour.
It is time for the decent Tories to reclaim their party. This man is one of them but there are a few others!
But Mutts...you ignore the fact that Tory Party has always been riven by strife over Europe. Remember John Major and the "Bastards" ? And not just the MPs, but the wider party, the core electoral support. It's not reclaimable. Increasingly looks like Labour isn't reclaimable either. The UK is crying out for a centrist party.
And with impeccable timing, Owen Jones reinforces my point above re Labour.
It is time for the decent Tories to reclaim their party. This man is one of them but there are a few others!
But Mutts...you ignore the fact that Tory Party has always been riven by strife over Europe. Remember John Major and the "Bastards" ? And not just the MPs, but the wider party, the core electoral support. It's not reclaimable. Increasingly looks like Labour isn't reclaimable either. The UK is crying out for a centrist party.
And with impeccable timing, Owen Jones reinforces my point above re Labour.
It is true. Austerity doesn't work and the EU has adopted this policy due to the influence of Germany. That isn't hard socialist, it is an anti austerity comment.
It is time for the decent Tories to reclaim their party. This man is one of them but there are a few others!
But Mutts...you ignore the fact that Tory Party has always been riven by strife over Europe. Remember John Major and the "Bastards" ? And not just the MPs, but the wider party, the core electoral support. It's not reclaimable. Increasingly looks like Labour isn't reclaimable either. The UK is crying out for a centrist party.
And with impeccable timing, Owen Jones reinforces my point above re Labour.
Fintan O'Toole's latest Irish Times offering, from behind the paywall.
Brexit traps the DUP inside the Wicker Man
Boris Johnson’s outburst reminds us that Brexit is an English nationalist project – it cannot allow the English bulldog to be wagged by an Irish tail.
What’s the best cinematic version of Brexit? I’ve previously suggested the final sequence of The Italian Job, where the truck is suspended half way over a ravine and the crew can’t get at their great pile of gold bars without tipping themselves into the abyss. But from an Irish point of view, we probably need a double bill in which it is shown alongside another British classic from the same era, The Wicker Man. Some horror fans have already noted the prescience of Summerisle, where most of the film is set. It is an Atlantic island that has cut itself off from the mainland and adopted a crazy cult. The cult is led by Lord Summerisle, a man with a self-consciously orotund vocabulary, mad hair and a great line in sacrificing the young generation for his bonkers beliefs – Christopher Lee as Boris Johnson, in other words.
But the most interesting parallel is the arrival on Summerisle of Edward Woodward’s Sergeant Neil Howie, innocently intent on doing his duty of investigating a suspected murder. He thinks of himself as embodying the majesty of the British state. He is upright. He is judgmental. He is righteous. And he is very devoutly Presbyterian, possibly even of the Wee Free variety. He is, of course, the Democratic Unionist Party. Howie becomes increasingly aware that he has no idea where he really is, that he has taken a one-way trip to a place with its own fatal laws. Lord Summerisle eventually summons him to his horrible death: “We confer upon you a rare gift, these days – a martyr’s death. You will not only have life eternal, but you will sit with the saints among the elect. Come!”
A 500km-long border barrier with turnstiles that open when we brush our passports against the 'gizmo'?
It is true that Lord Boris did not say these words in that private dinner with Tory diehards last week. But what he says on the recording leaked to Buzzfeed places Irish unionism right inside the giant Wicker Man with the torches just about to touch the kindling. It is not so much the idiocy of Johnson’s repeated belief that an international border is just like moving around London, though having previously compared the Irish frontier to passing from one London borough to another, he now compared it to travelling on the Tube: “You know, when I was mayor of London … I could tell where you all were just when you swiped your Oyster card over a Tube terminal, a Tube gizmo. The idea that we can’t track movement of goods, it’s just nonsense.”
‘This folly’ Fatuous as these comparisons are (a 500km-long border barrier with turnstiles that open when we brush our passports against the “gizmo”?), the real point is what came next, the hissy fit about this whole bloody Irish border business: “It’s so small and there are so few firms that actually use that Border regularly, it’s just beyond belief that we’re allowing the tail to wag the dog in this way. We’re allowing the whole of our agenda to be dictated by this folly.” Infantile as this is, it expresses a kind of truth – one that is not yet spoken in public but soon will be. The truth is that the Brexiteers don’t give a flying frig for Ireland, North or South – and that includes Irish unionism and the DUP.
The DUP has gone one further than poor Sergeant Howie and helped to construct the wicker cage in which unionism will be torched.
Johnson and his chums ignored Northern Ireland in their Brexit campaign. That seemed to be the ultimate height of irresponsibility but they have now gone further – they are exploiting it. Their current strategy is to use the EU’s offer of a special deal for Northern Ireland, preserving many of the advantages of the single market even while leaving it, as an opening through which they can force the EU to concede the same have cake/eat cake privileges to Britain. They are trying to turn the sympathy that comes from a horrible conflict, in which nearly 2 per cent of the population was killed or injured, into a way of getting one over on Michel Barnier. This is political depravity.
The Brexit balloon But it won’t work and when it doesn’t, the rage that Johnson uttered in private will become more open and explicit. The Brexit balloon is supposed to soar into the skies when it cuts the ropes that bind it to Brussels. But its occupants are realising that there is another rope that keeps them earthbound – the one that ties them to Newry and Strabane. To salvage their fantasies, they will cut that rope too. Brexit is an English nationalist project – it cannot allow the English bulldog to be wagged by an Irish tail. If the tail has to be cut off – sorry but pass the shears old man.
The DUP thinks it’s the dog of course, but it’s not. To the Brexit believers, we are all part of the same Irish “folly”. The DUP has gone one further than poor Sergeant Howie and helped to construct the wicker cage in which unionism will be torched to appease the gods of Brexit. It could still save itself by voting with the opposition when the EU Withdrawal Bill returns to the House of Commons today. Or it can murmur ecstatically Kipling’s Ulster 1912: “We are the sacrifice.”
It is time for the decent Tories to reclaim their party. This man is one of them but there are a few others!
But Mutts...you ignore the fact that Tory Party has always been riven by strife over Europe. Remember John Major and the "Bastards" ? And not just the MPs, but the wider party, the core electoral support. It's not reclaimable. Increasingly looks like Labour isn't reclaimable either. The UK is crying out for a centrist party.
And with impeccable timing, Owen Jones reinforces my point above re Labour.
It is true. Austerity doesn't work and the EU has adopted this policy due to the influence of Germany. That isn't hard socialist, it is an anti austerity comment.
It's bullshit. As I have previously pointed out numerous times, if "the EU had adopted this policy" all EU 28 economies would have suffered equally from this alleged 'policy'. They didn't. Poland didn't even slip into recession. Slovakia slipped and then quickly got back to strong growth. If you read Varoufakis book you will see that the Slovak Finance Minister was one of the toughest advocates of not bailing out the Greeks. Their argument is that they spent years whacking themselves into post -communist shape through hard work and they were damned if they were going to tell their citizens they have to pay more in taxes to bail out the Greeks, whose endemic corruption and fecklessness Varoufakis has no remedy for.
It's fact free UKIP bullshit from an economically illiterate gobshite.
Possibly, but he is right in what he says in that tweet. Germany had massive debt after the war and the major reason it was allowed to recover was that the debt was forgiven. It appealed for this and now finds itself in the lead of imposing austerity on member countries who have made similar appeals. Forgiving the debt allowed Germany to recover, but it is happy to force a brutal austerity on Greece it can never recover from.
Not saying there are not other factors, but the position of countries, like Spain, Portugal etc.. is that they have been harmed by Eurozone policies. Austerity is not the way to get out of a crisis - it makes things worse. Keynes said that Debt is the enemy of growth.........in the long run.......but in the long run we will all be dead! In the the short run, policies that encouraged growth were needed and the world is waking up to that now. The period of Austerity was and is very damaging.
It is time for the decent Tories to reclaim their party. This man is one of them but there are a few others!
But Mutts...you ignore the fact that Tory Party has always been riven by strife over Europe. Remember John Major and the "Bastards" ? And not just the MPs, but the wider party, the core electoral support. It's not reclaimable. Increasingly looks like Labour isn't reclaimable either. The UK is crying out for a centrist party.
And with impeccable timing, Owen Jones reinforces my point above re Labour.
It is true. Austerity doesn't work and the EU has adopted this policy due to the influence of Germany. That isn't hard socialist, it is an anti austerity comment.
It's bullshit. As I have previously pointed out numerous times, if "the EU had adopted this policy" all EU 28 economies would have suffered equally from this alleged 'policy'. They didn't. Poland didn't even slip into recession. Slovakia slipped and then quickly got back to strong growth. If you read Varoufakis book you will see that the Slovak Finance Minister was one of the toughest advocates of not bailing out the Greeks. Their argument is that they spent years whacking themselves into post -communist shape through hard work and they were damned if they were going to tell their citizens they have to pay more in taxes to bail out the Greeks, whose endemic corruption and fecklessness Varoufakis has no remedy for.
It's fact free UKIP bullshit from an economically illiterate gobshite.
Thanks for pointing it out but I have pointed out that it isn't numerous times too.
So why are you not pushing for the British public to have the chance to clarify and confirm it? Are you trying to tell us Norway are in the EU or not?
because we already had a vote on it.....and the result was to leave fgs !!! You can't keep having vote after vote....do you expect the Government to keep coming back to the electorate every time they get an agreement on something from Mr Barnier.....and then going back to him telling him..."sorry, but 50.1% have just said that they want to remain in the CU but don't want jurisdiction by the ECJ....can we start again".
I hate the way the negotiations are going & if I had my way there would be a vote of no confidence in T May or let Jacob Rees Mog be part of the negotiations....with Farage there as well.
but that ain't going to happen. In my view the best thing would be that we leave with no deal.....just walk away & start from scratch. The UK and the EU are too big for nothing to happen. On 30th March 2019 the politicians would THEN have to take it seriously.....and not be just point scoring. Theres nothing like a dose of reality to make you come to your senses.
"Let Jacob Rees Mog be part of the negotiations...."
Funniest line on Charlton Life. Ever.
I mean, the EU negotiators are just going to buckle immediately when that long streak of piss starts sneering at them, aren't they? Here's a tip mate, snooty fuckers like Rees-Mogg may well intimidate some of the great unwashed in England but the EU don't give a fuck if the UK sends, Rees-Mogg, Russell Grant or Pete Beale from East Enders, they have 27 votes and the UK has 1.
No surprise of course, yesterday we had the humiliation of hearing the Foreign Secretary complaining that we should have Donald Trump in there negotiating for us.
That's right people, we have reached the stage where Her Majesty's Government has no more ideas other than turning our entire future over to a fucking New York real-estate salesman.
why am I not surprised that Rees-Mog is put down because of the way he talks....would you be saying the same thing if he talked like del-boy.
The guys got more brains than you've had hot dinners sunny-jim.
Like I say, it never ceases to amaze me when working class people are so easily taken in by the upper class nasal tones.
I guess it must be the unbridled genius of Rees-Mogg and his fellow born to rule lot that Britain is in the fantastic position it is right now.
I've never said this on a forum......but why don't you feck off !! It has nothing to do with his accent....quite the opposite. If he spoke sarf london I expect he'd be PM by now.....its his accent that is holding him back because twats like you can't see past it.
He is erudite, succinct & best of all doesn't sink to the willy waving & name calling that most politicians do.
He’s a lemon. He would be as much a disaster for this country as you think Corbyn would. He could set us back centuries which is quite ironic given that he called his child sixtus and references agincourt at his workshops/talks
It is time for the decent Tories to reclaim their party. This man is one of them but there are a few others!
But Mutts...you ignore the fact that Tory Party has always been riven by strife over Europe. Remember John Major and the "Bastards" ? And not just the MPs, but the wider party, the core electoral support. It's not reclaimable. Increasingly looks like Labour isn't reclaimable either. The UK is crying out for a centrist party.
And with impeccable timing, Owen Jones reinforces my point above re Labour.
It is true. Austerity doesn't work and the EU has adopted this policy due to the influence of Germany. That isn't hard socialist, it is an anti austerity comment.
It's bullshit. As I have previously pointed out numerous times, if "the EU had adopted this policy" all EU 28 economies would have suffered equally from this alleged 'policy'. They didn't. Poland didn't even slip into recession. Slovakia slipped and then quickly got back to strong growth. If you read Varoufakis book you will see that the Slovak Finance Minister was one of the toughest advocates of not bailing out the Greeks. Their argument is that they spent years whacking themselves into post -communist shape through hard work and they were damned if they were going to tell their citizens they have to pay more in taxes to bail out the Greeks, whose endemic corruption and fecklessness Varoufakis has no remedy for.
It's fact free UKIP bullshit from an economically illiterate gobshite.
Thanks for pointing it out but I have pointed out that it isn't numerous times too.
You continue to assert - as Jones does - that "austerity" was a policy invented in Germany and enforced upon the eurozone - and somehow countries outside the eurozone too - by the EU. Quite how you think the European Central Bank made the UK adopt its zealous austerity programme is beyond me. Are you claiming that George Osborne was a secret German agent? What do you think the "I" in IMF stands for ? When and hwo will you explain to me the respective performance of Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic compared to Greece Spain or Italy post 2008 if all of them were equally under Angela Merkel's cosh as you claim?
We could agree on the merits or lack of it of the austerity policies. That's not the issue. Sadly I am not surprised that you readily agree with Jones, because you express the most anti-European views of any Remain voter I have ever "met". You often make me think this is what Captain Mainwaring would sound like if he was corralled into giving a Remain speech:-) But that's OK. We are just punters on a footie forum. Owen Jones for better or for worse is an opinion former and he is helping shape opinions which are divisive small- minded and dangerously nationalist. Plenty of people on Twitter are giving him both barrels for it.
Comments
How do you manage it?
I guess it must be the unbridled genius of Rees-Mogg and his fellow born to rule lot that Britain is in the fantastic position it is right now.
He is erudite, succinct & best of all doesn't sink to the willy waving & name calling that most politicians do.
His recent comments about the border in Ireland show that he is either stupid or intellectually dishonest, neither being a trait I would want in a possible future PM.
Platinum grade hard socialist fantasist twat.
Brexit: The undefined being negotiated by the unprepared in order to get the unspecified for the uninformed.
I'm sure this has been doing the rounds for some time.
Brexit traps the DUP inside the Wicker Man
Boris Johnson’s outburst reminds us that Brexit is an English nationalist project – it cannot allow the English bulldog to be wagged by an Irish tail.
What’s the best cinematic version of Brexit? I’ve previously suggested the final sequence of The Italian Job, where the truck is suspended half way over a ravine and the crew can’t get at their great pile of gold bars without tipping themselves into the abyss. But from an Irish point of view, we probably need a double bill in which it is shown alongside another British classic from the same era, The Wicker Man. Some horror fans have already noted the prescience of Summerisle, where most of the film is set. It is an Atlantic island that has cut itself off from the mainland and adopted a crazy cult. The cult is led by Lord Summerisle, a man with a self-consciously orotund vocabulary, mad hair and a great line in sacrificing the young generation for his bonkers beliefs – Christopher Lee as Boris Johnson, in other words.
But the most interesting parallel is the arrival on Summerisle of Edward Woodward’s Sergeant Neil Howie, innocently intent on doing his duty of investigating a suspected murder. He thinks of himself as embodying the majesty of the British state. He is upright. He is judgmental. He is righteous. And he is very devoutly Presbyterian, possibly even of the Wee Free variety. He is, of course, the Democratic Unionist Party. Howie becomes increasingly aware that he has no idea where he really is, that he has taken a one-way trip to a place with its own fatal laws. Lord Summerisle eventually summons him to his horrible death: “We confer upon you a rare gift, these days – a martyr’s death. You will not only have life eternal, but you will sit with the saints among the elect. Come!”
A 500km-long border barrier with turnstiles that open when we brush our passports against the 'gizmo'?
It is true that Lord Boris did not say these words in that private dinner with Tory diehards last week. But what he says on the recording leaked to Buzzfeed places Irish unionism right inside the giant Wicker Man with the torches just about to touch the kindling. It is not so much the idiocy of Johnson’s repeated belief that an international border is just like moving around London, though having previously compared the Irish frontier to passing from one London borough to another, he now compared it to travelling on the Tube: “You know, when I was mayor of London … I could tell where you all were just when you swiped your Oyster card over a Tube terminal, a Tube gizmo. The idea that we can’t track movement of goods, it’s just nonsense.”
‘This folly’
Fatuous as these comparisons are (a 500km-long border barrier with turnstiles that open when we brush our passports against the “gizmo”?), the real point is what came next, the hissy fit about this whole bloody Irish border business: “It’s so small and there are so few firms that actually use that Border regularly, it’s just beyond belief that we’re allowing the tail to wag the dog in this way. We’re allowing the whole of our agenda to be dictated by this folly.” Infantile as this is, it expresses a kind of truth – one that is not yet spoken in public but soon will be. The truth is that the Brexiteers don’t give a flying frig for Ireland, North or South – and that includes Irish unionism and the DUP.
The DUP has gone one further than poor Sergeant Howie and helped to construct the wicker cage in which unionism will be torched.
Johnson and his chums ignored Northern Ireland in their Brexit campaign. That seemed to be the ultimate height of irresponsibility but they have now gone further – they are exploiting it. Their current strategy is to use the EU’s offer of a special deal for Northern Ireland, preserving many of the advantages of the single market even while leaving it, as an opening through which they can force the EU to concede the same have cake/eat cake privileges to Britain. They are trying to turn the sympathy that comes from a horrible conflict, in which nearly 2 per cent of the population was killed or injured, into a way of getting one over on Michel Barnier. This is political depravity.
The Brexit balloon
But it won’t work and when it doesn’t, the rage that Johnson uttered in private will become more open and explicit. The Brexit balloon is supposed to soar into the skies when it cuts the ropes that bind it to Brussels. But its occupants are realising that there is another rope that keeps them earthbound – the one that ties them to Newry and Strabane. To salvage their fantasies, they will cut that rope too. Brexit is an English nationalist project – it cannot allow the English bulldog to be wagged by an Irish tail. If the tail has to be cut off – sorry but pass the shears old man.
The DUP thinks it’s the dog of course, but it’s not. To the Brexit believers, we are all part of the same Irish “folly”. The DUP has gone one further than poor Sergeant Howie and helped to construct the wicker cage in which unionism will be torched to appease the gods of Brexit. It could still save itself by voting with the opposition when the EU Withdrawal Bill returns to the House of Commons today. Or it can murmur ecstatically Kipling’s Ulster 1912: “We are the sacrifice.”
It's fact free UKIP bullshit from an economically illiterate gobshite.
Not saying there are not other factors, but the position of countries, like Spain, Portugal etc.. is that they have been harmed by Eurozone policies. Austerity is not the way to get out of a crisis - it makes things worse. Keynes said that Debt is the enemy of growth.........in the long run.......but in the long run we will all be dead! In the the short run, policies that encouraged growth were needed and the world is waking up to that now. The period of Austerity was and is very damaging.
We could agree on the merits or lack of it of the austerity policies. That's not the issue. Sadly I am not surprised that you readily agree with Jones, because you express the most anti-European views of any Remain voter I have ever "met". You often make me think this is what Captain Mainwaring would sound like if he was corralled into giving a Remain speech:-) But that's OK. We are just punters on a footie forum. Owen Jones for better or for worse is an opinion former and he is helping shape opinions which are divisive small- minded and dangerously nationalist. Plenty of people on Twitter are giving him both barrels for it.