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

Fair point.

Also this

every me and every EU

should've been

EU don't care about us

extremely good how we have basically had no government for two years. what direction is the country even heading

straight to hell baby

Daniel - Greece had its elected government fucked over by the EU and it was the biggest example. Yes I know it was all linked with much of southern Europe.

It's not as if Pom or Fred cared (lol did you know that a bank bailout was the difference here, and that's why Orban is cool -- make sure your debts are paid but refugees might as well be pennies) and Darragh was like it's all good in Ireland now why go over the past.

ah fuck’s sake it’s not even 9 yet can we n o t

I, for one, am in no mood for a rehash.

comrade gyac-a-mole otm

i reject your projection of bovine victimhood upon nations throughout several cycles of entirely democratically elected national governments tbh

Also not sure this

just wanna say that ireland isnt perfect but its still good yknow, even if only showing LBI fatima mansions and the nortsoide probably wont have him agreeing

xp 9am bell guys get in or get out the way

Also not sure this

just wanna say that ireland isnt perfect but its still good yknow, even if only showing LBI fatima mansions and the nortsoide probably wont have him agreeing

Was meant as an endorsement of post-troika Ireland in quite the way it’s been interpreted.
― gyac, Tuesday, 17 September 2019 08:00 (three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

yeah!

now it was a soft refutation of plax' somewhat dystopian fintanish description but obv not to say everything is wonderful

can still get good early birds in most of the better restaurants in town tho

Xp quiet man turning up the volume

xp you know one of the bad things about living here is the no existence of early birds, that and the overall lower quality of a sliced pan

I am up for a rehash because I was busy being happy yesterday evening but now I'm in work. But I will try to be good.

But I will just single out:

Obviously recent evidence that the IMF had started to crack on this but stimulous approaches are not loved in the way the "sensible spending" approaches that have left say Ireland in the state it is in: a tax haven, with incredible wealth hoarding, a high cost of living and a massive housing crisis, no socialised healthcare system, cuts to the minimum wage but one of the lowest corporate tax rates in europe untouched. etc etc.

Because how dare you, these are fundamental Irish values and the suggestion that we'd be lagging behind on them without the help of Brussels is beyond the pale.

I mean obviously "the EU is like this because of the nations in it" vs "the nations are like this because of the EU" is difficult to call, particularly since Ireland has been in the EU (and benefited greatly from it) for nearly half its life.

(similarly "there's been now war because of the EU" vs the other way around, though we may be seeing the counterfactual some time soon)

More otms for pomenutil on how reform would look differently with an actively engaged Labour government than the "will this do, can I get back home now?" shite they got from Cameron. The EU gets a kicking for not being better than its best state (or the best imaginable version of any of its states). I think it's fair to say that it's better than its average state - but in order for that to feel like a benefit, you have to feel European, which (gestures around the UK).

but obv not to say everything is wonderful

Wasn't interpreted that way either tbh

tbh that's only a gesture to those who dont work as hard as me, i dont want to be insensitive

everything *is* wonderful

because if the thread consistently has to operate at the level dictated by the nonsense attacks of those with the highest commitment to posting cant then the only value to be extracted is in playing those roles for amusement nest pass

Argh seriously stfu everyone.

Dedicated EU thread or get tae france.

to hell or to cpmté

Can you really not find another thread to have this tediously circular argument on? None of us are wacky blue-facepaint types here, we don't need to be told the EU isn't a perfect institution and people don't need to keep bringing up Orban and Greece as if they're especially relevant to Brexit or domestic politics.

None of us are wacky blue-facepaint types here

Speak for yourself, I copiously genuflect before the EU flag whilst humming the turquerie bars of Beethoven's 9th every morning.

"I tried to raise a serious concern in writing with the leader, the deputy leader, the chief whip — no response. Then I tried to raise an official complaint — that was referred back to the chief whip. Then I tried to come here and they still haven't organised the meeting they promised."

Finnecy dismissed Swinson's defence that the Lib Dem leadership had done all it could to make sure new MPs shared the party's values.

"They're lying about doing due diligence, they didn't consult properly with the LGBT+ community and they failed to address this head-on, so now they're just trying to sideline the issue," she said.

Catherine Finnecy, the libdem councillor who heckled Swinson at the conference not happy about the vetting process and letting tory bigots into the party. They are using May's script from 2017 as well "Magic Money Tree" and "difficult decisions" keeps cropping up.

I have an EU fridge magnet and I demand more myth-busting and sceptcism, two of the proudest European traditions

This is very much "posting tweets itt is not endorsement", but from a friend of friends, someone who comes to mind occasionally as he and his wife are both "have been food-rationing poor" and "absolutely committed Lib Dems"

I have never known a party leader make so many previously-supportive members feel so betrayed so quickly as Swinson has, and I'm someone who voted for Tim Farron.

— Andrew Hickey Finally Dropped his Halloween Name (@HickeyWriter) September 16, 2019

This is very much "posting tweets itt is not endorsement", but from a friend of friends, someone who comes to mind occasionally as he and his wife are both "have been food-rationing poor" and "absolutely committed Lib Dems"

I have never known a party leader make so many previously-supportive members feel so betrayed so quickly as Swinson has, and I'm someone who voted for Tim Farron.

— Andrew Hickey Finally Dropped his Halloween Name (@HickeyWriter) September 16, 2019

Swinson seems almost entirely tactical with no strategic sense whatsoever. Either that or she's deluded enough to believe she could actually become PM.

i suspect it’s both

Scotland ftw

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/sep/17/eu-citizens-feel-safer-in-scotland-than-in-england-report-says

FWIW I don't think it's remotely "undemocratic" if a party wins a majority on an explicit pledge to nullify a previous referendum result, but that pledge is in itself one of hundreds of reasons why they won't win a majority.

This is plaxico's post:

I am v remain but omg if you think the EU is at all a benign institution you are basically deluded and I don't know what to say for u. I think the remain and reform position needs a strong emphasis on reform and I do think that the keynsian approach of corbynomics is anathema to ecb doctrine and I would expect a big pushback from lagarde if the uk did somehow stay in. Obviously recent evidence that the IMF had started to crack on this but stimulous approaches are not loved in the way the "sensible spending" approaches that have left say Ireland in the state it is in: a tax haven, with incredible wealth hoarding, a high cost of living and a massive housing crisis, no socialised healthcare system, cuts to the minimum wage but one of the lowest corporate tax rates in europe untouched. etc etc.

― plax (ico), Monday, September 16, 2019 bookmarkflaglink

I mean its ridiculous to have darragh describing this description as a dystopia.

Andrew's post isn't much better:

I mean obviously "the EU is like this because of the nations in it" vs "the nations are like this because of the EU" is difficult to call, particularly since Ireland has been in the EU (and benefited greatly from it) for nearly half its life.

Oh look at this difficult to call to business. Often the EU gives grants to poor regions (very much true in the UK) to provide some relief so that the appalling state of affairs plax describes can take place. When the UK voted to leave there were a one or two pieces visiting places that had lots of EU funding going 'why have they given us a kicking?'. A lot of it was immigration but on this you have the EUs bullshit being called.

Swinson seems like every HR lady who ever had me put on a 'disciplinary' or sacked in my early 20's

FWIW the UK is outside the Eurozone and not bound by their batshit deficit rules, a Labour government would have much more freedom than almost any other EU state.

xxxxp I mean, this is probably as good a time as any to mention that we're moving up next year.

I've yet to see much of a case made for the EU per se as bringer of peace, altho I know of argts against this view. the clear main cause of recent relative european peace (still ~150k deaths) is the second world war, which is also the clear main cause of the EU. beyond being a focus and ideal of peace & reconstruction, the main claims made abt the EU as an actual driver of peace were w/ the initial forming of the european coal & steel community, on the basis that these were the two essential commodities for warfare (but no suggestion of what this might have actually thwarted), and the more general argument about economic prosperity ensuring peace, which has more truth to it but no one really says about any other economic institution (and we're p rich now as it's starting to creak). NATO seems a more obvious candidate for peacekeeper.

From Patrick Maguire’s NS Mail this morning:

What should we expect to hear in Jo Swinson's first leader's speech to Liberal Democrat conference? In short, that she doesn't like Brexit, that she doesn't Boris Johnson, that she doesn't like Jeremy Corbyn, that she doesn't like Nigel Farage, that she doesn't like the SNP, and that she wants to be prime minister.

That's the overriding theme of the extracts trailed ahead of her star turn in Bournemouth this afternoon, and no wonder: Swinson really doesn't like any of those things - not least Corbyn, who she will effectively blame for Brexit this afternoon - and neither do the voters in the predominantly Conservative seats her party will have designs on come a general election.

In the week David Cameron’s memoirs will say Brexit is his fault, and that his government should’ve gone in harder with austerity cuts, she wants to blame Brexit on the person who is the reason we haven’t left the EU yet?

My understanding is that the integration of the steel industry in Europe would make it impossible for one European nation to remobilize their military on the scale needed for European war without other European nations being implicated. This was intended in particular to keep France and Germany in line. It did not prevent French colonial war, but that was never on the scale needed to, say, invade Germany.

Differing attitudes between the UK and the core EEC nations on debt were what led de Gaulle to oppose the UK's admission to the EEC iirc.

that's the claim, but 1. all big european wars have had multiple european nations implicated on each side and 2. there's not much reason to think there would have been a big war without it

the state aid rules seem ungood and also to be getting worse w/ the likes of this fourth rail package, which if it had been cooked up by tories wld be dubbed the dismantling of publicly-owned railways and privatisation by stealth

Ok, it's 6:00am and I am checking this isn't a joke

The FT L: #Yellowhammer only reported mild(ish) disruption because vast numbers of cars etc would be turned away for lack of documentationhttps://t.co/onMZw8tsA4

And the queues might be 150KM LONG... from Dover to GUILDFORD pic.twitter.com/OvmnP4qYvS

— Giles Wilkes (@Gilesyb) September 17, 2019

but our soverignty tho

Georges Bataille: 'Sovereignty is NOTHING.'

Daniel - Greece had its elected government fucked over by the EU and it was the biggest example. Yes I know it was all linked with much of southern Europe.

Yeah, well, the fact that Greece was a) the most dramatic example and therefore b) the one where the EU acted the harshest imo makes it the least representative of how the EU actually operates and as such looking at how things went down in states where its pressures were more subtle and/or propped up by compliant govts (or, in Portugal's case, wanting to "go further" than what the troika was suggesting) makes a much stronger case for euroskeptics.

she doesn't like the SNP

They're having her seat at the next election, so you bet she doesn't.

I love talking about Greece, projection of bovine victimhood or gtfo xp

The EU may have done bad things to various countries.

Has it done anything bad to the UK?

Not that I can think of.

[belongs on another thread]

As usual, on politics, I agree with Suzy.

xxp what happens if/when Swinson loses her seat? Do they make someone in a safe seat resign and parachute her in?

It's only the Lib Dems, they go through leaders like Watford go through managers.

cheers guys i've just gone in studs up on Andrew Hickey

xp
sorry I forgot to add i meant this scenario to be after the Libdems have gained 200+ seats and pm elect Swinson loses her seat, and I'm getting into my flying limousine that is made out of chocolate.