I mean the crushing general election win for the hardcore brexit party seems significant. We lost. Two of them. And the referendum.
TBH I am not really so bothered about Brexit. Like I am, and it's fucking shit, but I already knew that. There's a lot of other things that need doing and I don't really feel like it'd be good for the Labour Party to harp on about going back to the discussion.
I do not think it was purely a vote about Brexit, no. I'm sure there were some anti-Brexit types who voted for the Conservatives for whatever godforsaken reason.
Labour, Corbyn, and the majority of the Tories are all directly responsible for Brexit, along with UKIP and Leave.EU. They all contributed various lies to people who trusted them to tell the truth.
No they didn't. Noone believes a word they tell them unless it already aligns with their world view. This place is a pro-remain echo chamber, the majority of voters are perfectly happy with where we are now, if they give a toss at all.
Labour, Corbyn, and the majority of the Tories are all directly responsible for Brexit, along with UKIP and Leave.EU. They all contributed various lies to people who trusted them to tell the truth.
No they didn't. Noone believes a word they tell them unless it already aligns with their world view. This place is a pro-remain echo chamber, the majority of voters are perfectly happy with where we are now, if they give a toss at all.
Polling suggests otherwise, they've consistently shown that most people think voting to leave was the wrong decision, albeit at a similar margin to the original brexit vote
We're only really now starting to see the fallout, with food exporters starting to be hit with the realisation that many of their businesses aren't viable without frictionless access to EU markets. Whether opinion well shift further will probably depend on how effectively the Tories manage to spin those outcomes as EU belligerence
Personally I'm inclined to give Labour a harder time over their brexit stance than other posters might be, because in Scotland it isn't generally necessary to tactically vote Labour to keep the Tories out, and obviously Scotland has more options to mitigate Tory policy (subject to impending legal action with regard to devolved competency)
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BethrynUnhappiness is MandatoryRegistered Userregular
Labour, Corbyn, and the majority of the Tories are all directly responsible for Brexit, along with UKIP and Leave.EU. They all contributed various lies to people who trusted them to tell the truth.
No they didn't. Noone believes a word they tell them unless it already aligns with their world view. This place is a pro-remain echo chamber, the majority of voters are perfectly happy with where we are now, if they give a toss at all.
The Brexiteers, who comprise UKIP, Leave.EU, and many mostly from the ERG and Tory party, have spent the last 30 years disseminating that worldview to others through the media.
To argue that this is neither lying nor their fault is simply refusing to acknowledge what both of those words mean.
And while I think most people here are pro-remain and that does affect our opinions, it's also objectively the case that Brexit is bad for the UK. The real world does actually exist, it does actually have facts within it we can analyse, and we can come to a sane conclusion. We aren't living on some Cartesian solipsist island, we are living in a country where our political systems have failed to prevent the effects of a long period of idealogical propaganda from enabling a fairly small group of people from making a disastrous decision for our country.
I definitely see the value in not wanting to talk about going back on parts of Brexit, especially only a week after Brexit has officially happened.
But I just wish someone would try to appeal to all the reamainers out there, considering how many of us there are.
The Tories have succeeded in pulling off a right wing hard Brexit that makes large groups of people's lives worse.
Labour are now essentially washing their hands of it which is rather annoying.
Brexit won the referendum by a tiny margin, for the main opposition to tell a huge portion of the population that they're not going to try and restore some of the rights lost is infuriating.
I'm as big a remainer as you'll ever meet, I despise the tories and what they and their cronies have gotten away with but the first thing Labour need to do is get back into power, which we won't have seen for nigh on 15 years come the next election. Campaigning on Brexit isn't going to get them there.
I'm as big a remainer as you'll ever meet, I despise the tories and what they and their cronies have gotten away with but the first thing Labour need to do is get back into power, which we won't have seen for nigh on 15 years come the next election. Campaigning on Brexit isn't going to get them there.
I don't think they're going to be able to avoid it
Brexit and brexit related issues are going to be pain points for huge parts of the country for years. Some of those are theoretically remediable through the negotiating frameworks set up by the trade deal, or addressable when it comes up for renegotiation in five years
Edit: also the other point that has just occurred to me is that publicly signalling that there will be no attempt from Labour to push to rejoin seems like an poor tactical decision with an election in May
Now that I think about, as much as I loathe to admit it, going on about rejoining the EU now is the wrong move.
If Labour make any positive noises about the EU now the local elections will be full of the Tories shouting "Labour want to cancel Brexit11!1!".
We've not really seen the full effects of Brexit. The border stuff is going to get worse as the Gove has admitted earlier, no one has seen the increased costs and faff of going on holiday and the government has Covid as a cover for now.
By not talking about rejoining the EU Labour is leaving the Brexit spotlight entirely on the Tories. The Tories need to own this and the chaos it'll cause, Labour talking about rejoining the EU etc only gives the Tories cover.
I'm pretty much in the same place as Japan here, I'm not held hostage by the realities of FPTP in England, so I have the luxury of being shitty about Labour surrendering another important ideological battleground to the Tories. Again.
Yeah, the only thing a responsible party can do at this point is accept that it's happened, and try to find the least shitty way to deal with it.
In five or ten years, there may be enough pressure to look into rejoining, but I think that spite would ensure that it'd look like a shitty deal to rejoin anyway. Like, could anyone see the EU offering to let us back in with the old terms and just forget it ever happened? Sure, have this veto and masses of influence over our decisions while blaming us for everything your voters don't like?
The UK will never recover a position as good as it had as an EU member under the previous terms, that ship has sailed
It can definitely be in a better position than it is in now, however, on a spectrum from greater integration through sectoral agreements up to rejoining
In my view, other than the Tories/UKIP who voted for Brexit because they're terrible people/and or nutters (and therefore are just expected to do this kind of nonsense) - the main blame as far as rational people go lies with the SNP. Corbyn and Swanson after that.
Labour and the Lib Dems could have been on track to get a 2nd Ref whilst Boris dealt with a tiny minority government that was unable to do anything. Boris couldn't even call for a general election without the support of another party and only the SNP had anything to gain (hence why the others only backed the election after the SNP said they were going to). Sturgeon sold out the rest of the UK in order to cement a reason for Scottish Independence - I mean even if I had the choice, that's the way I'd vote for now. But still, rest of the UK was sacrificed for an accelerationist independence cause.
If Corbyn and Swanson (from diametrically opposed sides of their respective parties) had managed to agree to a non-compete agreement then perhaps things could have gone another way, or at least kept the majority thin, but I think that probably wouldn't have worked with the way the Brexit party vote ended up working out. Boris would have had a smaller majority, but would have still won.
Corbyn could have probably delayed declaring of Article 50, which would have been the only other opportunity - but I think that would have also ended up with an early election called after we went through the same rounds of not agreeing what the eventual goal of Brexit was - with the pro-Brexit group being a lot more motivated and people tired of labour infighting and Corbyn's dithering (so where we are now, really). Whilst I think this stage probably had the greatest chance of people getting bored, and things moving on - we'd be more likely to end up where we are now than in a second referendum and Remain.
God knows what the Lib Dems were after once the election was declared in November though. They had basically lost all the cards unless all the polling was wrong and everyone hated Brexit and Corbyn, putting them as Kingmakers back in Coalition again. No idea why they were so opposed to the non-compete agreement since they could have torpedoed it as soon as the referendum was done (assuming that wasn't even the original agreement!). I just don't think that would have worked anyway.
I'm sorry but it takes a lot of mental gymnastics to place Brexit at the SNP's door. If you think Corbyn could have saved us from Brexit even if he'd had infinite time then you weren't paying a lot of attention to his actions as leader. He didn't resist Brexit because he didn't want to.
I'm sorry but it takes a lot of mental gymnastics to place Brexit at the SNP's door. If you think Corbyn could have saved us from Brexit even if he'd had infinite time then you weren't paying a lot of attention to his actions as leader. He didn't resist Brexit because he didn't want to.
Not Brexit, but the way it ended up. Corbyn didn't have enough control over his party to make it pro-Brexit as we saw from the conference votes, he might have been lean Brexit but his base wasn't.
As I said, in hindsight I reckon that if Corbyn had opposed Brexit then May would have resoundingly won her election and we'd perhaps be where we are now a little earlier (it's not like Brexit bulldog David Davies was all that effective) but perhaps 5% less shit? She did randomly pulled out of Euroatom for no reason at all, so without a doubt it wouldn't have been anything close to Norway.
December election vs May referendum I think was the only time we had a real path out of the mess, after the ranked choice voting in parliament ended with no clear winner. And the SNP sunk that - it wasn't their decision to start Brexit, and if Corbyn wasn't leader then we're talking an entirely different world (one without an EU referendum in the first place in all likelyhood!). But when it came down to the last chance to stop it, the SNP picked Scottish Independence over the UK remaining in the EU. Otherwise we'd have a game of chicken between Boris the powerless PM and Labour/Lib Dem pushing for a referendum, that was leaning Remain, and would have been the obvious launching pad for a June GE which Boris would probably have lost (but given us a Labour/Lib Dem coalition, or Labour minority Gov).
The SNP did it because they knew it would put them in a stronger position for their long term goal. I mean, expecting them not to in order to preserve the rest of the United Kingdom is pretty much the reason they want independence in the first place. But still...we wouldn't be seeing the polling we are for Scottish Independence with a Labour Government looking to win them back.
Tastyfish on
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Powerpuppiesdrinking coffee in themountain cabinRegistered Userregular
You're thinking the SNP allowed the election thinking Boris would gain seats, and wanting that to happen?
This is part of the danger of this kind of leadership. Here in the US I'm struggling to think of a solution as well. How do you rebuild the bridges burnt, and convince the other parties that come next election they wont be burnt again?
As much as Brexit hurt the UK's standing with Europe, I think trying to go back in so quickly might be worse. Like having a major nation flip flop on such important issues so rapidly does not inspire confidence.
Maybe there was a period shortly after the referendum where Brexit could of been stopped, but I doubt the EU will want to let the UK back in until it is clear they intended to stay.
What Stammer is saying comes across as harsh, but true.
1) the UK is not defined by EU membership and we can actually do alright out of it, we probably need to renegotiate a deal at some point mind you, but it is not the end of the world. Would we be better off in it? Absolutely. But we can improve the country despite that.
2) The way we are going to do that is by bringing in domestic policies that invest in our extremely underfunded outer regions, public services, reduce income inequality, poverty etc. In order to do that we need to get a Labour government.
I am not really happy with us being outside the EU but it's not all doom and despair if we can get a Labour gov and enact some progressive policies which are then baked in deep into the economy. I am perfectly fine with Starmer saying that Brexit is done and we aren't changing the relationship for number 2.
You're thinking the SNP allowed the election thinking Boris would gain seats, and wanting that to happen?
I'm sure they thought they would gain seats too, but I don't think they were concerned about Boris gaining a much larger majority and what that would mean for Brexit.
They picked a greater chance for Scottish Independence and a hard Brexit for the rest of the UK. It's clear there was going to be an election within six months, the only question was whether there was a referendum first.
We had the 2019 election because Sturgeon wanted it then.
Corbyn and Swinson also voted for it. Sturgeon's the one whose party actually gained from doing so. For the other two leaders it was a bad move. Swinson's insistence on voting for it was baffling, but Corbyn had little choice after demanding an election for the previous year or so.
They were against it until Sturgeon said the SNP would be voting for it, and then Tories + SNP would be enough to get past the Fixed Term Parliament Act.
After the SNP said they were for the election, it was a done thing and the other party leaders didn't really have a choice - they'd be fighting an election having voted not to have one and continue with the current messed up state of things.
They pissed away their time after that, I'll give you that though.
I guess it would have been theoretically possible for the opposition leaders to agree amongst themselves to not back the snap election, but that would have required more cooperation than they wanted.
Do we have any Londoners here? Our best friends live there, and I have to say that I'm starting to worry about them, even though they're not in any of the risk groups and their behaviour has been exemplary.
My sister and her fiancé live there, in a shitty small apartment that’s way too expensive that they were thinking of leaving at some point to find work elsewhere. Instead both of their jobs have work from home, which is great, but it basically means they’re stuck working and living in the same small place 24/7 and the rent is making the whole thing pointless. Theyre beyond sick of london and can’t wait to leave as soon as they can. I’m very worried for just their mental health mainly.
The only silver lining is they are saving a decent amount of money on travel costs too and from work, which is also in its own way a glaring indictment of london.
Do we have any Londoners here? Our best friends live there, and I have to say that I'm starting to worry about them, even though they're not in any of the risk groups and their behaviour has been exemplary.
My sister and her fiancé live there, in a shitty small apartment that’s way too expensive that they were thinking of leaving at some point to find work elsewhere. Instead both of their jobs have work from home, which is great, but it basically means they’re stuck working and living in the same small place 24/7 and the rent is making the whole thing pointless. Theyre beyond sick of london and can’t wait to leave as soon as they can. I’m very worried for just their mental health mainly.
The only silver lining is they are saving a decent amount of money on transport costs too and from work, which is also in its own way a glaring indictment of london.
It's mad - my family have saved ~£400 a month due to not having to buy travelcards. My sister and her partner have a similar issue of a small living space and both needing to be remote. If the remote working trend continues post-covid I can see the property market perhaps reacting.
In this moment, I am euphoric. Not because of any phony god’s blessing. But because, I am enlightened by my intelligence.
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surrealitychecklonely, but not unloveddreaming of faulty keys and latchesRegistered Userregular
So awesome
i feel like people are slightly overreacting to the starmer brexit thing because, realistically, its purely positioning. its a signal to say "labour is not anti-brexit" when it is at its most meaningless - i would be astonished, given starmer is perfectly well aware of how the current deal necessitates eternal renegotiation, if their position remained the same by next election.
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BethrynUnhappiness is MandatoryRegistered Userregular
I'm not sure this qualifies as being a time when it's at its most meaningless, since the news reports on what we've sown are starting to come in?
...and of course, as always, Kill Hitler.
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surrealitychecklonely, but not unloveddreaming of faulty keys and latchesRegistered Userregular
So awesome
well i just mean meaningless in the sense of affecting concrete policy but yes it does require responsiveness to the public mood over the next few weeks/months!
It's an entirely moot point for me since Labour made themselves politically irrelevant in Scotland, but for what it's worth if I were in England this wouldn't be enough to stop me voting for a Labour candidate. I disagree with it, and it would make me even more resentful of having to vote for them than I already am but this is just the state of UK politics. If Corbyns Labour should teach us one lesson over all it's the importance of not letting perfect be the enemy of the least worst option.
Labour suck. They are not a good or particularly competent political party, but if you're waiting for someone to come along who agrees with you on every single issue of importance and can immediately sweep up 51% of the electorate... you'll be waiting a very long time. Politics is a slow march, immediate seismic change almost never happens and when it does it's more often than not for the worse. You vote for the people who can make things a little bit better, and you keep doing it every time until one day, if you're lucky, your grandkids get to grow up in the world you wish you had.
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PolarisI am powerless against the sky.Registered Userregular
[hollow screaming intensifies]
Brexit happened due to completely irresponsible political leadership in the UK. The seeds were sown by Thatcher, grew when Howard demonised foreigners in the 2005 campaign, and reaped in the referendum.
The Tories are mostly to blame, no doubt, but Corbin was at the very least accountable through negligence. If Blair or Brown were still Labour leaders, even in opposition, they had the political clout and acumen to head off the worst of the Boris/Gove/Farage garbage.
Entire thing was a shit show "people are fed up of listening to experts" is the pinnacle of the irresponsibility, but also the fact that a) it wasn't immediately struck down and b) Gove wasn't immediately humiliated and is still somehow politically relevant is the flip side of the irresponsibility.
All you can do it laugh, but it's not funny obviously.
I won't hold Corbyn responsible through negligence; he was pretty clear that he didn't oppose it, and despite the name of the Opposition it's not actually the Labour party's job to be the Bizarro-Tories and just support anything the Tories don't.
The fact was that neither of the two parties were explicitly pro or anti EU. The prevailing pro-EU arguments I heard were also coming from the Tories, they just did a shit-poor job of presenting reality in opposition to Boris and Nigel's fictions.
I mostly blame Cameron for setting it up thinking it'd be an easy win, and those two for knocking it down. In reality I don't think Labour had any memorable presence on either side of the argument.
A Dutch TV network has filmed border officials confiscating ham sandwiches and other foods from drivers arriving in the Netherlands from the UK, under post-Brexit rules.
The officials were shown explaining import regulations imposed since the UK formalised its separation from the EU.
Under EU rules, travellers from outside the bloc are banned from bringing in meat and dairy products.
The rules appeared to bemuse one driver.
"Since Brexit, you are no longer allowed to bring certain foods to Europe, like meat, fruit, vegetables, fish, that kind of stuff," a Dutch border official told the driver in footage broadcast by TV network NPO 1.
In one scene, a border official asked the driver whether several of his tin-foil wrapped sandwiches had meat in them.
When the driver said they did, the border official said: "Okay, so we take them all."
Surprised, the driver then asked the officials if he could keep the bread, to which one replied: "No, everything will be confiscated - welcome to the Brexit, sir. I'm sorry."
"Welcome to the Brexit. I'm sorry." That's just the perfect sentence.
It always makes me laugh when I see those sniffer dogs when you go into Australia. Got to be the easiest training in the world - "I need you to train these dogs to go up to people they think have food".
This is just going to result in the rate of smuggling going off the charts. Secret air-tight compartments being built into lorry cabs to conceal their precious illicit cargo of ham sandwiches.
People have crunched the numbers and estimate that the food supplies at retail prices come out at around £5 - so people relying on free school meals are £25 worse off
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TBH I am not really so bothered about Brexit. Like I am, and it's fucking shit, but I already knew that. There's a lot of other things that need doing and I don't really feel like it'd be good for the Labour Party to harp on about going back to the discussion.
I do not think it was purely a vote about Brexit, no. I'm sure there were some anti-Brexit types who voted for the Conservatives for whatever godforsaken reason.
No they didn't. Noone believes a word they tell them unless it already aligns with their world view. This place is a pro-remain echo chamber, the majority of voters are perfectly happy with where we are now, if they give a toss at all.
Polling suggests otherwise, they've consistently shown that most people think voting to leave was the wrong decision, albeit at a similar margin to the original brexit vote
We're only really now starting to see the fallout, with food exporters starting to be hit with the realisation that many of their businesses aren't viable without frictionless access to EU markets. Whether opinion well shift further will probably depend on how effectively the Tories manage to spin those outcomes as EU belligerence
Personally I'm inclined to give Labour a harder time over their brexit stance than other posters might be, because in Scotland it isn't generally necessary to tactically vote Labour to keep the Tories out, and obviously Scotland has more options to mitigate Tory policy (subject to impending legal action with regard to devolved competency)
To argue that this is neither lying nor their fault is simply refusing to acknowledge what both of those words mean.
And while I think most people here are pro-remain and that does affect our opinions, it's also objectively the case that Brexit is bad for the UK. The real world does actually exist, it does actually have facts within it we can analyse, and we can come to a sane conclusion. We aren't living on some Cartesian solipsist island, we are living in a country where our political systems have failed to prevent the effects of a long period of idealogical propaganda from enabling a fairly small group of people from making a disastrous decision for our country.
But I just wish someone would try to appeal to all the reamainers out there, considering how many of us there are.
The Tories have succeeded in pulling off a right wing hard Brexit that makes large groups of people's lives worse.
Labour are now essentially washing their hands of it which is rather annoying.
Brexit won the referendum by a tiny margin, for the main opposition to tell a huge portion of the population that they're not going to try and restore some of the rights lost is infuriating.
Unfortunately for all of us, that's not how it turned out.
I don't think they're going to be able to avoid it
Brexit and brexit related issues are going to be pain points for huge parts of the country for years. Some of those are theoretically remediable through the negotiating frameworks set up by the trade deal, or addressable when it comes up for renegotiation in five years
Edit: also the other point that has just occurred to me is that publicly signalling that there will be no attempt from Labour to push to rejoin seems like an poor tactical decision with an election in May
If Labour make any positive noises about the EU now the local elections will be full of the Tories shouting "Labour want to cancel Brexit11!1!".
We've not really seen the full effects of Brexit. The border stuff is going to get worse as the Gove has admitted earlier, no one has seen the increased costs and faff of going on holiday and the government has Covid as a cover for now.
By not talking about rejoining the EU Labour is leaving the Brexit spotlight entirely on the Tories. The Tories need to own this and the chaos it'll cause, Labour talking about rejoining the EU etc only gives the Tories cover.
And if public opinion turns against it, they will I am sure move their position as well
In five or ten years, there may be enough pressure to look into rejoining, but I think that spite would ensure that it'd look like a shitty deal to rejoin anyway. Like, could anyone see the EU offering to let us back in with the old terms and just forget it ever happened? Sure, have this veto and masses of influence over our decisions while blaming us for everything your voters don't like?
At the moment a lot of my long term political thought assumes as a default that Scotland will be independent within a few years anyway
It can definitely be in a better position than it is in now, however, on a spectrum from greater integration through sectoral agreements up to rejoining
Labour and the Lib Dems could have been on track to get a 2nd Ref whilst Boris dealt with a tiny minority government that was unable to do anything. Boris couldn't even call for a general election without the support of another party and only the SNP had anything to gain (hence why the others only backed the election after the SNP said they were going to). Sturgeon sold out the rest of the UK in order to cement a reason for Scottish Independence - I mean even if I had the choice, that's the way I'd vote for now. But still, rest of the UK was sacrificed for an accelerationist independence cause.
If Corbyn and Swanson (from diametrically opposed sides of their respective parties) had managed to agree to a non-compete agreement then perhaps things could have gone another way, or at least kept the majority thin, but I think that probably wouldn't have worked with the way the Brexit party vote ended up working out. Boris would have had a smaller majority, but would have still won.
Corbyn could have probably delayed declaring of Article 50, which would have been the only other opportunity - but I think that would have also ended up with an early election called after we went through the same rounds of not agreeing what the eventual goal of Brexit was - with the pro-Brexit group being a lot more motivated and people tired of labour infighting and Corbyn's dithering (so where we are now, really). Whilst I think this stage probably had the greatest chance of people getting bored, and things moving on - we'd be more likely to end up where we are now than in a second referendum and Remain.
God knows what the Lib Dems were after once the election was declared in November though. They had basically lost all the cards unless all the polling was wrong and everyone hated Brexit and Corbyn, putting them as Kingmakers back in Coalition again. No idea why they were so opposed to the non-compete agreement since they could have torpedoed it as soon as the referendum was done (assuming that wasn't even the original agreement!). I just don't think that would have worked anyway.
Not Brexit, but the way it ended up. Corbyn didn't have enough control over his party to make it pro-Brexit as we saw from the conference votes, he might have been lean Brexit but his base wasn't.
As I said, in hindsight I reckon that if Corbyn had opposed Brexit then May would have resoundingly won her election and we'd perhaps be where we are now a little earlier (it's not like Brexit bulldog David Davies was all that effective) but perhaps 5% less shit? She did randomly pulled out of Euroatom for no reason at all, so without a doubt it wouldn't have been anything close to Norway.
December election vs May referendum I think was the only time we had a real path out of the mess, after the ranked choice voting in parliament ended with no clear winner. And the SNP sunk that - it wasn't their decision to start Brexit, and if Corbyn wasn't leader then we're talking an entirely different world (one without an EU referendum in the first place in all likelyhood!). But when it came down to the last chance to stop it, the SNP picked Scottish Independence over the UK remaining in the EU. Otherwise we'd have a game of chicken between Boris the powerless PM and Labour/Lib Dem pushing for a referendum, that was leaning Remain, and would have been the obvious launching pad for a June GE which Boris would probably have lost (but given us a Labour/Lib Dem coalition, or Labour minority Gov).
The SNP did it because they knew it would put them in a stronger position for their long term goal. I mean, expecting them not to in order to preserve the rest of the United Kingdom is pretty much the reason they want independence in the first place. But still...we wouldn't be seeing the polling we are for Scottish Independence with a Labour Government looking to win them back.
As much as Brexit hurt the UK's standing with Europe, I think trying to go back in so quickly might be worse. Like having a major nation flip flop on such important issues so rapidly does not inspire confidence.
Maybe there was a period shortly after the referendum where Brexit could of been stopped, but I doubt the EU will want to let the UK back in until it is clear they intended to stay.
What Stammer is saying comes across as harsh, but true.
2) The way we are going to do that is by bringing in domestic policies that invest in our extremely underfunded outer regions, public services, reduce income inequality, poverty etc. In order to do that we need to get a Labour government.
I am not really happy with us being outside the EU but it's not all doom and despair if we can get a Labour gov and enact some progressive policies which are then baked in deep into the economy. I am perfectly fine with Starmer saying that Brexit is done and we aren't changing the relationship for number 2.
I'm sure they thought they would gain seats too, but I don't think they were concerned about Boris gaining a much larger majority and what that would mean for Brexit.
They picked a greater chance for Scottish Independence and a hard Brexit for the rest of the UK. It's clear there was going to be an election within six months, the only question was whether there was a referendum first.
We had the 2019 election because Sturgeon wanted it then.
Choose Your Own Chat 1 Choose Your Own Chat 2 Choose Your Own Chat 3
After the SNP said they were for the election, it was a done thing and the other party leaders didn't really have a choice - they'd be fighting an election having voted not to have one and continue with the current messed up state of things.
They pissed away their time after that, I'll give you that though.
Choose Your Own Chat 1 Choose Your Own Chat 2 Choose Your Own Chat 3
My sister and her fiancé live there, in a shitty small apartment that’s way too expensive that they were thinking of leaving at some point to find work elsewhere. Instead both of their jobs have work from home, which is great, but it basically means they’re stuck working and living in the same small place 24/7 and the rent is making the whole thing pointless. Theyre beyond sick of london and can’t wait to leave as soon as they can. I’m very worried for just their mental health mainly.
The only silver lining is they are saving a decent amount of money on travel costs too and from work, which is also in its own way a glaring indictment of london.
It's mad - my family have saved ~£400 a month due to not having to buy travelcards. My sister and her partner have a similar issue of a small living space and both needing to be remote. If the remote working trend continues post-covid I can see the property market perhaps reacting.
Labour suck. They are not a good or particularly competent political party, but if you're waiting for someone to come along who agrees with you on every single issue of importance and can immediately sweep up 51% of the electorate... you'll be waiting a very long time. Politics is a slow march, immediate seismic change almost never happens and when it does it's more often than not for the worse. You vote for the people who can make things a little bit better, and you keep doing it every time until one day, if you're lucky, your grandkids get to grow up in the world you wish you had.
The Tories are mostly to blame, no doubt, but Corbin was at the very least accountable through negligence. If Blair or Brown were still Labour leaders, even in opposition, they had the political clout and acumen to head off the worst of the Boris/Gove/Farage garbage.
Entire thing was a shit show "people are fed up of listening to experts" is the pinnacle of the irresponsibility, but also the fact that a) it wasn't immediately struck down and b) Gove wasn't immediately humiliated and is still somehow politically relevant is the flip side of the irresponsibility.
All you can do it laugh, but it's not funny obviously.
The fact was that neither of the two parties were explicitly pro or anti EU. The prevailing pro-EU arguments I heard were also coming from the Tories, they just did a shit-poor job of presenting reality in opposition to Boris and Nigel's fictions.
I mostly blame Cameron for setting it up thinking it'd be an easy win, and those two for knocking it down. In reality I don't think Labour had any memorable presence on either side of the argument.
Which I guess is just eating them in the queue
Taken from this Twitter feed of a recipient, with other examples in the thread:
People have crunched the numbers and estimate that the food supplies at retail prices come out at around £5 - so people relying on free school meals are £25 worse off