PMs change and lol we're all gonna die (but brexit will never end)

In 1953, when Winston Churchill was prime minister for the last time, 91 per cent of Irish exports went to the UK. Today, that figure is 11 per cent and falling. Far from being the poor, dependent outpost relying on British largesse — as depicted by Brexiters — the Republic of Ireland is an outward-looking, dynamic, trading entrepot. Today, Irish firms in the UK employ more people than UK firms in Ireland.

suck it you deluded fucks!

Look along with a moratorium on MLC “writing” can we please please agree to stop writing about people itt as somehow opposed to the EU when they merely have views on how shit the Remain campaign is, how the EU is bad for letting refugees drown en masse, and how EU post-crash austerity was damaging to loads of EU citizens? Thanks.

It's not the place that accounts for the majority of my discussion, but it's the majority of my discussion with people I (somewhat) agree with.

Btw this was a good piece on HS2: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/hs2-logistics-financial-benefit-controversy-a8937936.html

If I engage (read: squabble) more here it's because the idea that those that are pro-EU are implacably opposed to the "social ideal that puts the welfare of most people ahead of the wealth hoarding ability of a tiny elite of the super-rich" is just completely alien to anything I experience elsewhere.

Hear, hear. Not to mention the notion that Brussels is hegemonic enough to have a forcefully effective bearing on the neo-fascist and/or aggressively neo-liberal policies pursued by certain member states is… oddly optimistic? Germany is not Italy is not Hungary is not Spain is not Ireland is not…

Btw, this place does account for 99% of my exchanges about British politics. I haven't been in the UK for very long and am not close enough to the rare acquaintances I've made irl to shoot the shit on a regular basis.

Gyac OTM, it's amazing how people seem still to be of that opinion despite the fact that these threads have had both 'Brexit' and 'we're all gonna die' in the title for like a year.

Ah now come on, there's definitely a caricature of the pro-EU, FBPE, EU-flag facepaint thrown around here a lot. Which apart from the politics projected on to them, doesn't seem to ever reflect the chance that they are non-UK Europeans trapped in this hellscape.

you see it all the time in the media too where people (remainders) who think we should probably respect the result of referenda are caricatured as brexiteers or “pro” brexit

remainers*

in other news I have just heard “if there’s an NDB, it will all be ireland’s fault” in the wild

The short version of that is that Ireland won't be quite as fucked by No Deal as the UK thinks it will be.

― Matt DC, Wednesday, 21 August 2019 12:20 (forty-six minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

i mean over here anyone i see drumming for panic for anything except the border/GFA i start looking for their angle (y2k style)

we'll be fine

Ah now come on, there's definitely a caricature of the pro-EU, FBPE, EU-flag facepaint thrown around here a lot. and membership of the EU are not the same thing

The former are middling at wanting to score a goal but poor at scoring a goal

(middling because too much of it is identity politics and its counter-productive)

No one believes anyone here is one of those caricatures, we don't need to go all Not All Remainers here.

I'm sure Altidore wanted to score but who would want him in their team

Which apart from the politics projected on to them, doesn't seem to ever reflect the chance that they are non-UK Europeans trapped in this hellscape.

Poor Andrew and Pom they are not getting a fair hearing on this thread. So unfair.

Has it ever occurred to you... that you might be a bit of a bully?

For comrade alphabet to be a bully, he would first have to be generally taken seriously.

Is that a requirement for a bully? I see, interesting..

I am against HS2.

As has often been said by many, money could be spent on better transport on many existing lines across Britain. Add buses to that if you like.

HS2 will improve transport on existing lines, in that you won't have fast services and stopping services continually getting in each other's way, plus vastly improved capacity.

I'm fine with anything that dumps a tonne of money into transport infrastructure, but that kind of investment makes much more sense without shareholders to pay

Sorry for obvious point

Hold your breath for my riveting observations about how low investment shrinks economies and other Keynes 101 favourites

Sat on a clunky pacer train with a leaking septic tank, sputtering along between Morley and Batley really feeds one's visionary neo-vorticist inclinations. Nah.... Fuck ya HS2!

It's not like hs2 qualifies as a vanity project like a bridge nobody can use or a sixth airport for London.

Also, the UK needs more and better trail links. I realise this needs a much more nuanced cost benefit analysis but has anybody every been on the M25

Where it passes through the Tory shires I'd advocate breaking the budget to route it as to piss off as many rich nimbys as possible.

Add slurry spreaders as a sweetener for the farmers!

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.independent.ie/business/brexit/phil-hogan-launches-scathing-attack-on-boris-johnson-unelected-pm-gambling-with-the-peace-process-38422925.html

Irish politicians have been so polite for so long about England that these headlines feel weird. It was only a couple of years ago that dim aunties were feeling smug about how civilized everyone was about the queen coming.

Unfortunately there's no attack on Johnson re: Ireland that'll have any impact on his base, quite the opposite

Sure, but it really takes a lot to get the hackles of the Irish middle classes up about this nowadays, there has been a real effort to *put all that behind us,* so the recent radicalisation of fine gaelers has been some doing.

Like this is mobilising a real shift in sentiment.

xxp ikr? And under a blueshirt government too. It’s a long time since Leo talking about Love Actually in No 10.

"However, in the event of a no deal Brexit, the UK government’s only Churchilian legacy will be –‘never have so few done so much damage to so many’."

British tories just... aren't aware that fine gael, and their supporters, even exist. All Irish governments might just as well be sinn fein to them.

ikr? And under a blueshirt government too. It’s a long time since Leo talking about Love Actually in No 10.

― gyac, Wednesday, 21 August 2019 14:49 (four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

yeah, i mean idk if the lads know about how much fg love them but its important context historically

remember how giggly homer j bruton got about meeting the queen or am i jumbling memories together

xp its delicious context, on a local level. leo couldnt be much more

blairite, or does it map? soft tory? i dunno does it map.

anyway. FG <3 the brits. FF/SF would already have carried out black flag attacks imo

xp ikr, I’d enjoy the notion of the West Brits pandering to the SF vote but like...

Can’t say I remember the Bruton thing deems, bit before my time! Garret Fitzgerald wrote this atrocity of a letter to Thatcher back in the day

He went on to make to points on a purely personal note. “It is not for me to comment on the domestic politics of Britain, but I think I am entitled to say that for Ireland’s sake I hope you are returned to power.

“The other is that I very much hope our paths will cross again. The relationship which began when we stepped on board that motor launch in Cesme 12 years ago – and when you got soaked because of my Irish optimism about the behaviour of the Turkish sea! – has I believe been extraordinarily fruitful for both our countries, and our encounters have always been stimulating – whether calm, as they usually were, or heated, as they sometimes became. With all good wishes for the future.”

xp Leo’s auld fella was a Labour voter when he lived in the UK and was more upset about Leo being in young FG than being gay or wanting to skip transition year. Definitely Tory.

Fg are lib dems

Sindo readers who run boutique hotels that specialise in weddings

AU: 100 years after Brexit, where nearly everyone is Tories but the descendants of the ones that voted for the WA remain implacably opposed to the descendants those that voted against.

"entrepreneurs" that moved home to head the European operations of the multinational they worked for in the States

FG but taller?

*FF

Literally the only thing fg have going for them is not being FF

Fg are lib dems

TS: the big fella vs the long fella

They are lib Dems because they all look like Paul and Nicola from fair city

its an important balancing mechanism

imagine there was a makeweight alternative to the tories that ppl could actually vote for like

before my time

u did not just

in re tory/libdem/blue labour blairites i dunno FG is a broad church imo