131–140 of 345 posts
As if the pound needed more beating today. Oh well he was not at the level of Disraeli, Churchill or Thatcher. He made that mess and didn't even had the balls to pull the trigger of brexit himself. All hail Boris Johnson. Crazy hairdos on top of influential Anglo Saxon countries is bull market it seems. We will live in interesting times.
> Crazy hairdos on top of influential Anglo Saxon countries is bull market it seems. Let's hope NL will manage to avoid that. In a way the 'brexit' may be the strongest shot in the arm for the rest of European unity if the consequences are quick and harsh enough. That would be a real pity for the people in the UK, but it may still have some positive effect. And there is always a way back. For now, this is a pretty bl…
Recent polls suggest that the NL will not leave. I certainly hope not, and as a foreigner living, working, and paying taxes in the NL I'm really upset that I'd not be able to vote if such a referendum would come to pass.
http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2016/06/after-the-brit...
Maybe the EU as is should also resign and reappear in a better shape. Europe will stay Europe and I don't think everything will shatter now. On the contrary, isn't it a nice demonstration of democracy and treaties can be re-negotiated. I'm quite sure that many people are not happy with the current EU arrangement and would vote to leave (if they could and/or if they weren't so much bound by economic benefits as e.g. G…
You understand how this works, right? As part of the EU the UK has bartering clout. As an independent little island with a huge trade deficit and a weak £ it has nothing. So a trade deal with China, for instance, would end with China trading in the UK, and the UK waiting 15 years before trading in China.
There is hyperbole in what I'm saying, which is probably a result of the disappointing outcome of the referendum, but... the UK as a trading partner has nothing to offer anyone.
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> "Austerity" is not to blame for this. Austerity would be to blame for this - it contributed to people being more anti-immigrant, though indirectly. Him calling the referendum, the outcome - are related to his parties policies without isolation.
We haven't had austerity in the UK, we have had nothing like what Spain or Greece have had to deal with.
We've had an onslaught of austerity measures and public cuts too many to list in a sitting.
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It's highly unlikely that Jeremy Corbyn would remain as the leader of the Labour either since there seems to be an outrage amongst Labour MP's due to the overwhelming number of their core constituencies voting to leave. The low turnout in Scotland and the lack of major involvement from the SNP during the final weeks almost seems like both the SNP and the Labour at least partially just wanted to sit and watch the worl…
>> "It's highly unlikely that Jeremy Corbyn would remain as the leader of the Labour either since there seems to be an outrage amongst Labour MP's due to the overwhelming number of their core constituencies voting to leave." I was pretty happy with Corbyn so far but his complete lack of doing anything throughout this campaign is embarrassing. I'm guessing he didn't want to lose working-class votes but that makes him…
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I wouldn't call someone who needs a nationwide referendum to silence opposition within his own party a very good leader.
It wasn't just to silence opposition within his own party. It was also to stop the haemorrhaging of support from all mainstream parties towards UKIP. It was a reasonable gamble that failed.
What I don't get, and didn't get with the Scots referendum either, is why on earth they didn't require a super-majority? Surely with something as critical as this, you'd want a bit more convincing than a 2% margin?
It doesn't have to be a 3/4ths or even 2/3rds, but a 60.1/39.9 split would've been nicely convincing that one side is definitely in a minority. Instead we've just proven once again that the UK is fractured politically North/South/Scotland/NI/etc.
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Theresa May is one of the scariest contenders as far as I've seen. Very pro-surveillance and anti-open internet. She would be a (nother) disaster for UK tech. If there's anybody left who hasn't moved to Dublin/Berlin by October.
The problem we currently have in politics it demography. People get older and older, the baby boomers forgot to "produce" children. Elder people tend to be deeply conservative and anti-technology. And as they are the majority now, they vote for stuff that they think is right ("let's 100% control that freaking thing called internet") and totally strangle the younger generation with their bad taste and shortsightedness…
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You are not suggesting that the UK leaving the EU will be done on UK terms only, do you? Like "we get that funding chunk and then we leave" or "we attend that EU parliament session and then we leave" or "we don't say how or when, we'll just leave, whenever it suits us, and please don't disturb because I am too busy doing important things which you can not hope to comprehend". How long do you think the EU will wait fo…
The UK gets to decide when they trigger the process but the 'official' process can't start until the UK triggers it. The referendum isn't actually legally binding so in theory article 50 may never get triggered, though as the vote is a reaction against politicians, that would be political suicide. The final terms will be the result of negotiation and I don't think the UK actually has a good position. The referendum w…
Regarding the activation of article 50, sure the UK could delay it indefinitely, but there also would not be any requirement for the other states to start negotiating before it gets invoked. So I'm not sure if the "delay" strategy is going to work out very well for Britain.
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The problem we currently have in politics it demography. People get older and older, the baby boomers forgot to "produce" children. Elder people tend to be deeply conservative and anti-technology. And as they are the majority now, they vote for stuff that they think is right ("let's 100% control that freaking thing called internet") and totally strangle the younger generation with their bad taste and shortsightedness…
Blaming people (older people, immigrants, whatever) for our problems isn't productive. Let's figure out what's broken about the systems we're living in instead of alienating the people we should be working with to fix them.
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There is no process for the EU to suspend the UK or for the EU to trigger article 50
You are not suggesting that the UK leaving the EU will be done on UK terms only, do you? Like "we get that funding chunk and then we leave" or "we attend that EU parliament session and then we leave" or "we don't say how or when, we'll just leave, whenever it suits us, and please don't disturb because I am too busy doing important things which you can not hope to comprehend". How long do you think the EU will wait fo…