Political relations between UK-EU

[Rascal]

I think both of these post while not unfair overestimate the threat of UKIP.

Farage and UKIP were not a legitimate threat to the tory power base. The first past the post system and historical structures virtually ensure a Labour Conservative government and opposition. In our electoral system the best you can hope for is to be kingmaker..... and then be blamed for all the countries failings. Step forward Lib Dems.

The performance of UKIP bears this out, despite the oceans of coverage they never made a dent in the commons. Their most effective communicator couldn't win the South Thanet seat or the seat of Bercow before that. UKIP was a one man band but even Galloway or Caroline Lucas was more electorally successful with far less coverage. Farage even tried to resign after that. The party was a land of broken toys with candidates that regularly embarrassed themselves on the national stage.

If Farage had of been a right wing Tory, fair enough he could have caused carnage for Cameron or any Conservative leader. The referendum in my opinion recharged him, the failure to take on and refute his arguments was a huge failing of the Conservative party.

It was Cameron who overestimated the threat of UKIP and that's why he called a referendum.

Cameron was worried that small % swings to UKIP in Tory marginals would mean Tory voters switching to UKIP and leaving the door open for the challenger party whether that be Labour or Lib Dem. UKIP were not a threat electorally but were a distinct threat in marginals.

 

[Ifwecouldjust.......]

Think about your use of the word pandering, why is an appeal to shared cultural values pandering, what's wrong with having shared cultural values? Surely that's what defines us as a people, as a nation?

Theresa May stated at the Tory Party conference in 2016....

"If you believe you are a citizen of the world, you are a citizen of nowhere"

And for once she had a point.

The Blair/Cameron mush of 1997 to 2016 led us to Brexit, with their brand of globalist, welcoming to the world, multicultural, economically conservative, socially liberal flimflam. Sadly for these yesterday men (and for all of us) this bollocks was at variance to where we were as a people.

Tick, tock, tick, tock....

And now Johnson and Farage have made hay with that variance.

We are not as economically conservative as Blalr/ Cameron believed we were, and we're not as socially liberal either. We might well be multi-ethnic but we're not multicultural, with all cultures given equal status. That's bullshit newspeak the left peddles, because of their post empire hangover, divide and rule, pillage and plunder, cultural imperialism and the white man's burden.

Ask yourself this.....Is what is taught at a Bradford Madrasa antithetical to what it is to be British?

The answer has to be no.

And it's no, not because of what is being taught, but because there is no longer a consensus on what it is to be British.

Previous generations would be aghast, yet who can deny that Britishness now exists in the realm of unfathomable.

Sadly the left has no answers to any of this. How where we live is increasingly delineated along ethnic and religious lines (they've always been delineated by class), how groups with distinctly "different" modes of behaviour and outlook exist in our larger towns and cities, coexisting, but only in the sense that they exist at the same time, but not in the same place and certainly not in harmony. And how does the left reconcile the fact that at best there's a grudging acceptance, particularly by the white working class, that things ain't what they used to be and that's just the way it is, but that the grudging acceptance was rooted in an unspoken angst (inadvertently given voice by Brexit) that it shouldn't have been allowed to be this way.

But you and I both know the left cannot address these issues because that would be racist, at odds with the equal status given to all cultures, under the all encompassing umbrella of multiculturalism. Besides, to address these issues would suggest there's a problem and that would require a recognition that certain ethnic minorities have a problem, which of course can never be recognised (unless buses and children get blown up). Better for the left to blame the racist white lumpen proletariat, which is all very well and good, unless you require them to vote for you, which increasingly they don't.

Look at how Starmer is scrabbling to find a Labour definition of patriotism he can flog to the unthinking masses (that's the white poor, you know, the new black) because focus groups tell him his party is seen as unpatriotic. Good luck with that, because he's doomed to fail, and he'll fail because he's straddling too much, too many incompatibles, so he'll end up with something so vague as to be meaningless.

Ask yourself.....Why is this so difficult for the left?

No doubt you love this country, I certainly do, but unless we can come to a definition of what it is we both love, then chances are we don't love the same thing (remember those shared cultural values) and we leave the field open to the likes of Johnson and Farage to define it for us. And if people vote for that definition I don't hold them in contempt, I hold the left in contempt for leaving the field open.

Take a look at the first half of this from 2012, when we were still basking in the Olympic afterglow of dancing NHS nurses, Churchill and Mo Farah. Will Self plays the typical lefty and Hitchens plays the pantomime villain. Everyone else shuffles their feet in embarrassment and avoids the question....




Of course, barely four years later, all this guff (with the possible exception of Hitchens, which tells you just how screwed we are) got blown away by UKIP and Brexit.

Shouldn't this post be on the Celtic Britons thread?

 

[bluethrunthru]

The Brexit deal was astonishingly bad, and every day the evidence piles up | Polly Toynbee

Trade has plummeted and red tape has blocked our borders, says Guardian columnist Polly Toynbee

www.theguardian.com

 

[BobKowalski]

‘One of NI’s biggest catering suppliers has told MPs that Brexit and the Irish Sea border means they will buy less from GB firms and more from the EU. Andrew Lynas, managing director of Lynas Foodservice, was giving evidence to the NI Affairs Committee.’

Irish Sea Border: Brexit 'forces' NI supplier to buy less from GB

Lynas Foodservice says it is "naturally being forced" to buy more from the European Union.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[bluethrunthru]

‘One of NI’s biggest catering suppliers has told MPs that Brexit and the Irish Sea border means they will buy less from GB firms and more from the EU. Andrew Lynas, managing director of Lynas Foodservice, was giving evidence to the NI Affairs Committee.’

Irish Sea Border: Brexit 'forces' NI supplier to buy less from GB

Lynas Foodservice says it is "naturally being forced" to buy more from the European Union.

www.bbc.co.uk

still winning eh? Johnson needs to find some more international laws to break

 

[smudgedj]

still winning eh? Johnson needs to find some more international laws to break

He can start by seizing production of vaccines and suspending intellectual property rights. Ah wait.

 

[BobKowalski]

He can start by seizing production of vaccines and suspending intellectual property rights. Ah wait.

No one, bar Italy, has done that. Europe has exported 41 million vaccines as per contracts, with 250k blocked by Italy. If Q2 production targets are not met then there will be a conversation about moving to a US/UK policy of domestic needs first.

I am sure as a man who believes in the rights of nations to look after themselves first you would support such a move by other European countries. It kind of works both ways :)

 

[BobKowalski]

BBC reporting on the joint US/Ireland meeting. Raab, who seems to have forgotten it was St Patrick’s day, took the opportunity to accuse the EU of trying to erect a customs border in the Irish Sea, that would be the border we agreed to put up in an International Treaty we just signed. Nice one, Raab, you absolute weapon.

‘Joint President Biden- Taoiseach Martin statement at St Patrick’s Day virtual meet calls for “good faith implementation of international agreements designed to address the unique circumstances on the island of Ireland” - clear ref to NI Protocol‘

Additionally, meeting held with NI First Ministers.

 

[BobKowalski]

Further comment from Belfast News Letter on Biden’s explicit support for the NI Protocols. I still find it remarkable how the DUP campaigned for Brexit, took the side of the ERG Tories against their own interests and ended up with the US President firmly in the nationalist camp. Brexit is pretty much the definition of stupid, but the DUP belong in a special category of stupid.

‘US President Joe Biden has made clear that he is taking sides in the dispute over the Irish Sea border – & is not on unionism’s side. Comments to the News Letter from a senior Biden official further isolate unionists seeking the new trade border's removal.

That highly unusual and significant statement places the US on the same side of the debate as Sinn Fein, the SDLP, Alliance, the Green Party, the Irish government and the EU – but directly opposing the position of all the unionist parties, who are campaigning to remove the protocol.’

 

[stonerblue]

Thought there'd be a few frothers on here this morning after reading the headlines.

 

[Vic]

He can start by seizing production of vaccines and suspending intellectual property rights. Ah wait.

Just a reminder, we've seen the contract between AZ and the EU in which AZ attest that there are no other contracts that would get in the way, but we haven't seen the contract which supposedly gives the UK first dibs even on AZ vaccines produced outside the UK (i.e. a contract that the AZ/EU contract implies does not exist). And Tory MPs still fastening onto the "best endeavours" clause which was about developing the vaccine not delivering it.

I'm not sure why AZ think it's worth the damage to their global reputation to favour one customer over all others.

 

[AlexWilliamsGloves]

Think about your use of the word pandering, why is an appeal to shared cultural values pandering, what's wrong with having shared cultural values? Surely that's what defines us as a people, as a nation?

Theresa May stated at the Tory Party conference in 2016....

"If you believe you are a citizen of the world, you are a citizen of nowhere"

And for once she had a point.

The Blair/Cameron mush of 1997 to 2016 led us to Brexit, with their brand of globalist, welcoming to the world, multicultural, economically conservative, socially liberal flimflam. Sadly for these yesterday men (and for all of us) this bollocks was at variance to where we were as a people.

Tick, tock, tick, tock....

And now Johnson and Farage have made hay with that variance.

We are not as economically conservative as Blalr/ Cameron believed we were, and we're not as socially liberal either. We might well be multi-ethnic but we're not multicultural, with all cultures given equal status. That's bullshit newspeak the left peddles, because of their post empire hangover, divide and rule, pillage and plunder, cultural imperialism and the white man's burden.

Ask yourself this.....Is what is taught at a Bradford Madrasa antithetical to what it is to be British?

The answer has to be no.

And it's no, not because of what is being taught, but because there is no longer a consensus on what it is to be British.

Previous generations would be aghast, yet who can deny that Britishness now exists in the realm of unfathomable.

Sadly the left has no answers to any of this. How where we live is increasingly delineated along ethnic and religious lines (they've always been delineated by class), how groups with distinctly "different" modes of behaviour and outlook exist in our larger towns and cities, coexisting, but only in the sense that they exist at the same time, but not in the same place and certainly not in harmony. And how does the left reconcile the fact that at best there's a grudging acceptance, particularly by the white working class, that things ain't what they used to be and that's just the way it is, but that the grudging acceptance was rooted in an unspoken angst (inadvertently given voice by Brexit) that it shouldn't have been allowed to be this way.

But you and I both know the left cannot address these issues because that would be racist, at odds with the equal status given to all cultures, under the all encompassing umbrella of multiculturalism. Besides, to address these issues would suggest there's a problem and that would require a recognition that certain ethnic minorities have a problem, which of course can never be recognised (unless buses and children get blown up). Better for the left to blame the racist white lumpen proletariat, which is all very well and good, unless you require them to vote for you, which increasingly they don't.

Look at how Starmer is scrabbling to find a Labour definition of patriotism he can flog to the unthinking masses (that's the white poor, you know, the new black) because focus groups tell him his party is seen as unpatriotic. Good luck with that, because he's doomed to fail, and he'll fail because he's straddling too much, too many incompatibles, so he'll end up with something so vague as to be meaningless.

Ask yourself.....Why is this so difficult for the left?

No doubt you love this country, I certainly do, but unless we can come to a definition of what it is we both love, then chances are we don't love the same thing (remember those shared cultural values) and we leave the field open to the likes of Johnson and Farage to define it for us. And if people vote for that definition I don't hold them in contempt, I hold the left in contempt for leaving the field open.

Take a look at the first half of this from 2012, when we were still basking in the Olympic afterglow of dancing NHS nurses, Churchill and Mo Farah. Will Self plays the typical lefty and Hitchens plays the pantomime villain. Everyone else shuffles their feet in embarrassment and avoids the question....




Of course, barely four years later, all this guff (with the possible exception of Hitchens, which tells you just how screwed we are) got blown away by UKIP and Brexit.

Why do we have to share cultural values?

Surely its more important to accept other cultural values rather than insisting on sharing them?

I am sure there are other middle aged, white, married blokes with whom i do not share cultural values with....just as there are probably black, lesbian, polyamorous women with whom i do!

By "insisting" on shared cultural values you are creating a them/us scenario.

 

[BlueAnorak]

I see UvdL's comments on seizing vaccine production have started a massive flight of capital from the EU.

Access Restricted

www.telegraph.co.uk

What a surprise (not).

 

[west didsblue]

I see UvdL's comments on seizing vaccine production have started a massive flight of capital from the EU.

Access Restricted

www.telegraph.co.uk

What a surprise (not).

The only surprise is that this story is nowhere to be found in any of the financial press and is a one off story authored by a rabid Brexiteer. I'd like to know if it is true and not just wishful thinking or a huge exaggeration.

 

[The perfect fumble]

Why do we have to share cultural values?

Because otherwise everything falls apart.

We need to talk definitions....

In order for a cultural value to be a cultural value it must be shared within a group, otherwise it's not much more than a opinion, a life style choice, random and arbitrary, humanity would be nothing more than whatever beliefs rattle around in the heads of disparate people, wandering about, with nothing in common other than their species.

Surely its more important to accept other cultural values rather than insisting on sharing them?

Apples and oranges.

A shared cultural value is a bridge between different cultures, a commonality, something we can all agree on, it binds us together as citizens, as a people, by reminding us of what we have in common.

At the basest level it stops us from killing each other.

Your idea that accepting cultural values is more important than sharing them sounds all very well and good, except when it's not, like female genital mutilation, polygamy, arranged marriages and slavery, and then wider behavioural patterns that are found in certain cultures, such as fatherless families, criminality, patriarchy, poor education for women and girls and so on

In order for a nation state to adhere, particularly a country that contains a multitude of different cultures, there has to be some form of commonality. Not a rigid orthodoxy, but touchstones, which despite our differences we all adhere to, otherwise it becomes a failed state.

The UK might already be on that journey.

I am sure there are other middle aged, white, married blokes with whom i do not share cultural values with....just as there are probably black, lesbian, polyamorous women with whom i do!

The existence of difference does not undermine the importance of shared cultural values, it makes them more important. In fact shared cultural values which cut across ethnic, religious and existing cultural differences are an essential safeguard, they are something, which despite our differences, we all have in common, they bind us.

think on this, the guy who blew himself up and killed all those innocents at the Manchester Arena did not share cultural values with the people he murdered, neither do American cops who disproportionately kill blacks, or the slave captains with their cargoes of misery. You might say that these problems were not a lack of shared cultural values, the problem was the exploiters did not accept cultural differences, but you'd be wrong, they did accept cultural differences, they believed their cultural was superior.

Shared cultural values are the mechanism societies use, not only to find common cause among differing groups in order to create a more harmonious society, but also defuse the argument about superiority/inferiority, by emphasising what we have in common over the things that we don't.

 

[PannickAtTheDisco]

Why do we have to share cultural values?

Surely its more important to accept other cultural values rather than insisting on sharing them?

I am sure there are other middle aged, white, married blokes with whom i do not share cultural values with....just as there are probably black, lesbian, polyamorous women with whom i do!

By "insisting" on shared cultural values you are creating a them/us scenario.

if you don't share them, you don't truly accept nor believe in them.There's no consensus on what is acceptable and what isn't and no basis upon which to progress society.

So we then reach a point where instead of having a basis upon which, whilst we may not all love it to the same degree, we agree is the foundations of living in this country and then build upon it, and remove the barriers which allow us to modernise as a culture, society and progress. Instead we have people continually undermine and ridicule the foundations of our culture and society, attack and try and tear down the structure and then put up new barriers which disenfranchise more people than they help, strip away our freedoms and leave us more divided and unable to reconcile and integrate than ever before.

You only have to look on here at certain posters to see the contempt they hold for basic British values, culture and heritage and the natural progression is what we see on the streets. Our institutions are in seeming terminal decline and we have a government who plays to the disenfranchised populace rather than govern the country.

 

[BlueAnorak]

The only surprise is that this story is nowhere to be found in any of the financial press and is a one off story authored by a rabid Brexiteer. I'd like to know if it is true and not just wishful thinking or a huge exaggeration.

It's true. Whether you don't want it to be or not.

 

[AlexWilliamsGloves]

if you don't share them, you don't truly accept nor believe in them.There's no consensus on what is acceptable and what isn't and no basis upon which to progress society.

So we then reach a point where instead of having a basis upon which, whilst we may not all love it to the same degree, we agree is the foundations of living in this country and then build upon it, and remove the barriers which allow us to modernise as a culture, society and progress. Instead we have people continually undermine and ridicule the foundations of our culture and society, attack and try and tear down the structure and then put up new barriers which disenfranchise more people than they help, strip away our freedoms and leave us more divided and unable to reconcile and integrate than ever before.

You only have to look on here at certain posters to see the contempt they hold for basic British values, culture and heritage and the natural progression is what we see on the streets. Our institutions are in seeming terminal decline and we have a government who plays to the disenfranchised populace rather than govern the country.

I get what you are saying...but i kinda disagree. Do we even know what "British Values" are (i dont want to go off on a tangent)...i would contend that basic, simple "good values" are instilled/the same in all cultures...therefore its not actual lack of "British Values" that's the issue....

...its about "different" people having to fit in with the perceptions of local people

I mean, im British and i have contempt for what is passed as British Heritage here in NI....i would argue that our ability (the population of NI) to accept each others differences is what has made this country much much better

 

[west didsblue]

It's true. Whether you don't want it to be or not.

I'd love it to be true and not an exaggeration. Are there any other links other than the Telegraph? Nothing comes up on Google.

 

[LGWIO]

Interesting conversation and whilst not religious at all, I think the old phrase...."do unto others..." applies so much and should be the basis for how we interact and think about our relationships.
Although whilst that is fine on a personal level it all goes awry when we start getting that lovely thing "national interest" involved.
I can't help thinking that this whole COVID thing has brought out the best in many and the worst in many.
We look at what a big part the COVID reaction was in relation to the US election and I think that many leaders aroudn the world have latched onto that. rather than looking to help as many as possible, it is all about their own electors and that then shapes how they interact with others.
..and now we seemingly/possibly have the start of a vaccine war with the EU