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

if only there were comparable sized northern european countries that were independent to compare to.

Spitsbergen isn't independent mate!!

I think we can all agree, regardless of disagreements and shithousing from certain people itt aside, that this:

pom, I know it seems weird, but you have to remember: He is a complete moron. The blocker works beautifully.

is total bullshit and needs to stay the fuck out of this thread. Contributes absolutely nothing. Xyzzzzz is capable of interesting posts!

― gyac, Monday, 16 September 2019 16:36 (two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

weird, i didn't see that message in the thread....

I think that anyone who wasn’t a total blow-in to this thread would know the difference between someone actually being mad or just posting calmly as they normally do.

Speaking of people completely out of touch

"With @joswinson as our Prime Minister we will revive our reputation on the world stage" @ChukaUmunna at #LDConf pic.twitter.com/PRj4StIdwD

— Liberal Democrats (@LibDems) September 16, 2019

Nominating calz for mvp of this thread

I thought Ben Elton had lived in Australia for years? That's even further away than Denmark.

i would read this thread even if it was only posts where calzino reminds us of damning evidence that some obscure backbencher is a total cunt

If i need a catchup I basically just scan for those (skip anything with a spectator link)

putting in a good word for fred b here because yknow what we'll all want prayers someday

(TLDR: pom but arsier)

So 'aside' from the aforementioned freedom of movement, the single market, the symbolic weight of a united postwar Europe and a few additional perks

perks to include more workers rights legislation than any UK government of the last 40 years has produced.

There was some shiteing on here a few months ago about "the EU can't be so good if austerity happened on their watch", like the EU isn't a gate that the Tories (and New Labour) haven't been pressing up against for decades. It would probably be good if they did more, but what would also be good if austerity had made the Tories completely unelectable. Like, I'm sorry that the EU can't save the UK from itself, but I can't get angrier at the EU than the UK about this situation.

Which is also why I'm being arsey about the election - a government (coalition or not) needs 320 MPs, and the increasing evidence is that 30% of the UK are total cunts. And it's the cunts that vote!

xp what is the good word?

(also pom for PM)

putting in a good word for fred b here because yknow what we'll all want prayers someday

― provisional ilx (darraghmac), Monday, 16 September 2019 bookmarkflaglink

*hammer and sickle emoji*

AF profoundly otm.

like the EU isn't a gate that the Tories (and New Labour) haven't been pressing up against for decades

It will be interesting to see who or what the new villain will be when the UK can't blame the EU anymore.

(scratch that, it will be furnurs and it will be a nightmare)

putting in a good word for fred b here because yknow what we'll all want prayers someday

Maybe I haven't been here long enough, but I can't recall (and this will no doubt be cited against me) a single instance of Fred all-out trolling (even though we have yet to establish this concept's quiddity, as is well known).

The Catholics.(xp)

AF: hear, hear!

Quick question for any passing Americans: do you know who the Lib Dems are?

the grass is always greener of course but afaict they're the party an actually semifunctioning parliamentary system is allowing your addled bourgie dweebs and donor fronts to drain into instead of being locked into the major parties gumming up the works like they are over here

The answer to 'Is ilx a better or worse place because of Fred being here' I can, still, only answer it's better.

The Catholics.(xp)

― Let them eat Pfifferlinge an Schneckensauce (Tom D.), Monday, September 16, 2019 7:03 PM (one minute ago) bookmarkflaglink

This is probably true.

America should form The Clinton Party already amirite

Me praying for Fred:

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/89/c5/b0/89c5b0cc7be5627ebfa4294d882ca20c.jpg

putting in a good word for fred b here because yknow what we'll all want prayers someday

xxxxps, the EU explicitly endorses austerity type programs all the time. The 'common sense' approach of european liberal economics bared its teeth in ireland/greece after 2008 but it is a consensus position w.in the main powers and the basis of its fiscal approach. This was not always the case, but it has been so since the 1980s for various reasons (which the UK did have a lot to do with). 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.

My nana went to every pilgrimage site in Europe and I was her favourite grandchild, I think im grand thanks
― gyac, Monday, 16 September 2019 17:07 (thirty seconds ago) bookmarkflaglink

didnu just na na na at my lack of nana privilege

mine told me not to come to her funeral but even tho there were witnesses to this i was still made

It will be interesting to see who or what the new villain will be when the UK can't blame the EU anymore.

yeah but i assume nobody in ireland has ever had their funeral wishes granted ever

"uhuh, no religious ceremony. okay...." *dials mcgrath's funeral home*

Thanks to my phone making me sound like an even more racist Richard Dawkins there.

Hot take: a funeral isn't for the deceased, Max Brod was right to publish Kafka's stuff, and Deems was ever so right, too.

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

Hollande meekly attempted this; now imagine if instead of Cameron the UK had elected a proper left-leaning Labour PM and they'd had a go at it together contra Merkel.

Not saying Deems is Max Brod, mind. Yet.

gyac: I suspect the Irish might get a look in there....

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

I demand that when I’m dead and gone the mods delete all posts but mine

I am fully aware of the lib dems because this thread is my lifeline

Xxxxxxxxxxp

xxxp the point is not so much "contra merkel" and this is the way in which the anti-eu fantasists have actually latched onto something real, which is that the governing processes of the eu are (and this is intentional) technocratic rather than democratic. Foucault sortof writes about this in the birth of biopolitics as the attempt to govern without governing, an attempt to make bureaucratic/technocratic mechanisms that operate around a construction of the market as ultimately sovereign and which require certain mandates that must be adminstered to *outside of the will of any individual/state.* There is a great clip of an irish journalist heckling the troika when they visited ireland and trying to force them to admit that post-2008 austerity in ireland as a way of paying back for the bad debts of european banks is ultimately a political decision, and a fairly arbitrary one at that.

In a 'TS: Brexit vs Trump as POTUS' kind of way?

xp

That's fair ico, but membership at the very least gives you a shot at rewriting the algorithm.

true and this is why i said remain and reform. but part of the way in which the eu imagines itself as a post-wwii never again institution leads to it undermining the agonistic basis of political argument and makes these other elements more important. This makes it incredibly intransigent around certain things (though its history of fudges shows that it can be incredibly flexible as well). I suspect a rewriting of the economic rulebook that disfavours neoclassical approaches is not going to happen without a very creative pushback.

basically what i'm saying is that the EU is appalling and I hate the suggestion that we have to pretend otherwise just bc its the better option.

its like hilary

basically i think of it as like hilary

ok I’ve been working... what did I miss

Wouldn't go that far tbh.

xp

eu imagines itself as a post-wwii never again institution

You avert the ultimate catastrophe and now what? People and whole countries are still being trampled upon. Its not much of a victory.

Yeah, whatever is wrong with xyzzzz, gyac, et al, I don't think it can be blamed on ilx.

― Frederik B, Tuesday, 20 August 2019 14:52 (three weeks ago) bookmarkflaglink

Great contribution, manages to be ignorant (and ableist?)

― gyac, Tuesday, 20 August 2019 14:59 (three weeks ago) bookmarkflaglink

Js, a chara...

fs I do some work for the afternoon and get relegated to an et al by fredo b

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

― provisional ilx (darraghmac), Monday, September 16, 2019 7:14 PM (five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Au contraire! Even if I didn't know/remember Fatima Mansions was where you lived at the time, you took me on a grand and welcoming tour in sparse time. And I'd love to see where you now reside (which, hopefully, isn't Ballybough, because my one shot to fame in Ireland with this published piece pretty much makes it a no-go area for me, reading the comments, which are probably harsh but fair)