droid

Well-known member
Another Tory crunch and no doubt another botched compromise that will last a few weeks until the next one.

There was someone on Twitter self assuredly claiming that both Brexit and Trump will be history by June. Not holding my breath but it does seem like the endgame is approaching in both cases.
 

droid

Well-known member
So Aaron Banks just admitted to 'low level' Russian collusion with the Brexit leave campaign.
 

DannyL

Wild Horses
The thing I'm wondering is where is the political leadership that's going to make capital from these revelations, though? May seems to be ignoring it like a bad fart no one will own up to. And Corbyn - derailing Brexit and criticising Russia in one fell swoop? No way. Hopefully this is going to get so big it can't get shoved under the carpet though.
 

DannyL

Wild Horses
It's pretty massive though. I'm looking at Carole Caldwalla's tweet now. My first thought is - if this is what he's prepared to admit, under minimal pressure - what's the real story?
 

droid

Well-known member
They were about to get rumbled so they pulled a Don Jr. and decided to admit everything first.
 

droid

Well-known member
This seems reasonable:

In the real world (outside the pages of fiction) only two types of conspiracy generally take place: cover-up and collusion. A cover-up generally happens when several people or groups stand to lose money or be politically embarrassed if an uncomfortable truth becomes public knowledge. See, for example, the Home Office shredding of historical records relating to the Windrush scandal lest they embarrass the Prime Minister, who was the Home Office minister who brought in the hostile environment immigration policy. And collusion generally takes place when a group of individuals or organizations stand to benefit from a course of action.

Brexit was a classic example of a collusion conspiracy. Many of the named politicians and businessmen above stand to gain millions of pounds from a hard Brexit that causes the British stock market to fall. Others stand to make millions from juicy investment opportunities they were offered in Russia. We cannot know for certain what the quid pro quo for those investment deals were at this time, but I strongly suspect that support for Brexit (and more general socially-authoritarian right-wing policies) was part of it.

And now we're seeing a rival collusion conspiracy surface. Not all billionaires stand to profit from seeing the remains of British industry sink beneath the waves, and not all of them are in the pocket of the Kremlin's financial backers. There are a bunch of very rich, rather reclusive men (and a handful of women) who probably thought, "well, let's sit back and see where this thing leads, for now" about 18 months ago. And now they can see it leading right over a cliff, and they are unhappy, and they have made their displeasure known on the golf course and in the smoke-filled rooms, and the quiet whispering campaign has finally turned heads at the top of the media empires.

If I'm right, then over the next four to eight weeks the wrath of the British press is going to fall on the heads of the Brexit lobby with a force and a fury we haven't seen in a generation. There may be arrests and criminal prosecutions before this sorry tale is done: I'd be unsurprised to see money-laundering investigations, and possibly prosecutions under the Bribery Act (2010), launched within this time frame that will rumble on for years to come.

Even if the momentum behind Brexit proves un-stoppable at this point, the Remain faction—in the shape of the corporate and political power groups who stand to lose their fortunes as a result—will seek revenge.

http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2018/06/the-pivot.html
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Yeah, not a bad piece - I assume the author is the same Charlie 'Robert E. Howard in a Lolcats T-shirt' Stross? - but this jumped out at me:

Brexit requires no introduction at this point. Nor, I think, do the main UK media players. With the exception of two newspapers (The Daily Mirror and The Guardian) the national papers have been uniformly pro-Brexit to the extent of attacking national institutions seen as being soft on Brexit.

I think The Times is broadly anti-Brexit, isn't it? Though not nearly as fervently as The Sun is pro-, of course.

I could never quite get my head around these two papers taking opposing sides on this issue.
 

sufi

lala
Anyone marching today?

Personally i think a 2nd referendum is as daft an idea as the first

I went to eid on the square a couple of years ago to sample the worlds most expensive egyptian street food

So i'n not going this year... updates please
 

hucks

Your Message Here
Anyone marching today?

Personally i think a 2nd referendum is as daft an idea as the first

I went to eid on the square a couple of years ago to sample the worlds most expensive egyptian street food

So i'n not going this year... updates please

I went! It was very busy, which was great. One thing I noticed was there were a lot of older people, retired age people. That's interesting cos one of the Brexiteer stereotypes is of a retired person who Wants Their Country Back. I wonder if these retirees were extra keen to show that it' Not All Older People.

I think the 2nd referendum is a daft idea but it's the least worst option. You can't undo Brexit through parliamentary means, that will lead to an even worse level of faith in politics than the one we've got now. Only the people can undo the will of the people. It's so fucked whichever way you look at it.
 

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
Why do people think the idea of a second referendum is daft btw? Having a first referendum on one of the biggest issues of all where misinformation and lies were allowed....that was daft. Surely better to accept the ignominy of admitting that the whole thing was a farce than go through with something that is epic(al)ly stupid out of embarrassment and 'the show must go on' mentality, like something from a lost John Cleese screenplay?
 

john eden

male pale and stale
A second referendum will sound a lot like "keep voting until you get the right answer" to a lot of people. All the data suggests that people have little enthusiasm for it and that there is no guarantee there would be a different result.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Why do people think the idea of a second referendum is daft btw? Having a first referendum on one of the biggest issues of all where misinformation and lies were allowed....that was daft. Surely better to accept the ignominy of admitting that the whole thing was a farce than go through with something that is epic(al)ly stupid out of embarrassment and 'the show must go on' mentality, like something from a lost John Cleese screenplay?

Of course anything that could stop Brexit would, as far as that goes, be a good thing, but I'm worried that simply cancelling it (even if as the result of a second referendum) could be a massive gift to the far right. And I don't even mean UKIP - which seems to have more or less run its course in getting the referendum to happen in the first place - but groups significantly nastier even than that. I mean, when you consider that confidence in establishment politics is at an all-time low, and many people voted to leave as a 'fuck you' to the political class in general, as much as for any other reason.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
You're totally on point about the lies and misinformation, of course, and my feeling about the whole 'will of the people' principle is that a choice is only meaningful if it's an informed choice. I think many people who voted Leave are just as rational and intelligent as the average Remain voter, but were acting on false information, have since realized how they've been hoodwinked and would vote differently if there were to be another referendum.

But weigh that against hardcore Leavers who are more sure than ever that it's the right thing to do, plus people who didn't vote first time around because they thought it wouldn't make any difference but who have strong anti-EU sentiments anyway and will have been emboldened by the first result - as you say, it could go the same way as the first referendum (maybe even by a bigger margin) and you'd soon have Tory backbenchers demanding that we lay mines in the Channel...
 

droid

Well-known member
All referenda should be banned as its clear the UK has simply no idea of how to do them.
 
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