UK General Election 2017 |OT2| No Government is better than a bad Government

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They cover that in that editorial. The Daily Mail and the Mail Online are, apparently, two completely separate entities with "different publishers, different readership and have completely different world views".

Also, we were all born on the 21/06/2017.
Wasn't the cartoon which so irked Dacre actually featured on the Guardian website, which, using my Dacre-eque powers of deduction, is a completely separate organisation and wholly unrelated to the newspaper of (coincidentally) the same name, ran from the same offices, by the same staff.

And please ignore the text at the bottom of the Daily Mail online site which literally says "Part of the Daily Mail, The Mail on Sunday & Metro Media Group"
 
When they say " looks to be safe " I very much doubt they just got the caretaker to give it the once over. The type of cladding used will be recorded on the detailed plans and specifications that the companies who carried out the refurishments worked to.

You don't know how shit the council are here 😂. He got asked the question again and he shrugged his shoulders and said "looks to be safe" again. The council here don't give a shit if you aren't a student. Student places getting put up everywhere, even student only bars. The poor here are in shit highrises just like Grenfell.
 
UKPoliGAF |OT| Heads I Lose, Tails You Win

Seems more appropriate.

Yep this is actually better.

I went to the boys one myself... wasn't a border though. There were some proper crayon eaters that were though. Generally a fucking horrible school imo though, fuck LRGS, FUCK IT SO HARD.

Sure we got good results and all that lark, but being told you're useless by teachers on a somewhat regular basis and the horrific amount of bullying that went on if you weren't Rich, Extremely Smart or Both. Granted this was back in the 90s, but still.

/rant

My other half works at an academy, and although some of the behaviour stories she tells me blow my freaking mind (what the hell happened to kids man?!) it generally seems pretty good and she loves it there. I'm glad the grammar school plan has been swept under the rug.

Fuck another Lancastrian here?! Yeah sounds similar to experiences some of my friends had there, some ended up quitting. I went to Our Ladys sooo we just had really poor kids bullying other poor kids for not pretending they weren't as poor. That and teachers fucking kids. Also in the 90s, it's apparently much better now.
 
You don't know how shit the council are here 😂. He got asked the question again and he shrugged his shoulders and said "looks to be safe" again. The council here don't give a shit if you aren't a student. Student places getting put up everywhere, even student only bars. The poor here are in shit highrises just like Grenfell.
About two second after I pressed post, I thought to myself " actually they probably did " .
I've worked for a council housing association , so it wouldn't surprise me .
 
The Government has been dealt a huge blow as the High Court ruled its benefit cap is unlawful and illegally discriminates against single parents with young children.

Conservative ministers are now likely to be forced to change or scrap one of their flagship welfare policies, which limits the total amount of benefits a household can receive to £23,000 a year in London and £20,000 elsewhere.

The ruling was made in response to a judicial review brought by four lone parent families who said the cap would have a severe and disproportionate impact on them.

200,000 children being made poorer through benefits cap

Ministers had attempted to have the case thrown out but were rejected by the court, which ruled earlier this year that the case must be heard as a matter of urgency. The Government said it was "disappointed" with the latest ruling and will appeal against the decision.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/u...lawsuit-court-case-judge-misery-a7802286.html

Uh-oh Tories fucked up
 
Pulling the list of buildings with cladding was the easy part. It's going to take a long time to work out which are safe and which need to be looked at.

All this expenditure because they tried to save £2 a square metre. Conservative austerity has been penny-wise and pound-foolish.

Similiar exameple: I was talking to a Greek surgeon and his hospital is - on government orders, not the EU - only allowed to buy the cheapest gloves tgabks to austerity. He said they need roughly five pairs of gloves per employee for each procedure because those low quality gloves tear easily and often. Not only is this really risky and unsafe, but they pay way more in the end than for a good pair of gloves.

Austerity is literally endangering and killing people.
 
Similiar exameple: I was talking to a Greek surgeon and his hospital is - on government orders, not the EU - only allowed to buy the cheapest gloves tgabks to austerity. He said they need roughly five pairs of gloves per employee for each procedure because those low quality gloves tear easily and often. Not only is this really risky and unsafe, but they pay way more in the end than for a good pair of gloves.

Austerity is literally endangering and killing people.
Greek surgeon in the UK right?

Because the Greek gov. is seized by the EU so that would be their responsibility.
 
Greek surgeon in the UK right?

Because the Greek gov. is seized by the EU so that would be their responsibility.


Germany. He was with us as a guest MD to learn different techniques from specialiased centres. A really nice dude with great German, if the Greeks in the UK speak English half as well as he did German after a few months the railing against "foreigners" in the NHS is even more shameful. And I'm sure most do.

He assured us it was not a directive from the EU but rather mismanagement as an indirect result of the constraints put in place by the EU, but I can only go by his word. If Schäuble is directly responsible for that he can rot even more in hell, no biggie. It was a bit weird, anway, we were apologising for our government, he was condemning his own. He had a grim view on Greece's future.
 
Uh, wouldn't that be the opposite? They're being consistent and not excusing one over the other purely based on party affiliation.

I find it hard to believe that anyone has never performed badly through lack of preparation (or being hit with questions on specific issues they weren't expecting).
 
I think what struck me about the Boris interview, particularly the main two minute clip that's gone around, was just how clever the questions were. It shouldn't be a surprise, it's Eddie Mair who is:
1) brilliant
2) More than willing to challenge Boris, previously calling him a 'nasty piece of work' and actually being able to back it up.

But they were clever questions, because it was putting the Conservatives to the test on the standards the Conservatives set. All of those issues were ones May pledged to deal with - and that same smartness over the things they dropped. It's not that Eddie was arguing 'oh look, look you did a u-turn, how strong and stable it was' - it was that people voted for these things, do those people not deserve those things to be done?

And as well as it being on their own standards, they were real, important issues that affect people. And too much political interviewing/coverage is about the cut and thrust and the 'game' of Westminster. Those questions for policies weren't about how you pay, tiny cuts, it's about making impacts to people lives.

Basically Eddie Mair is wonderful and cos PM doesn't have fancy video cameras like LBC he doesn't get the credit he deserves wider.
 
So just listening to lbc and it mentioned one of the EU higher ups using the song imagine to talk about the UK staying in the EU.

This is the second time now they have done this.

Taking that into consideration and the daily building of stats showing how worse we will be - critical drop in nurse applications and other industries, does anyone think it's possible to build to a point where it's ok to come out and say "we fucked up, it's clear it's a terrible decision and we are gonna stay"?

My gut says no because of hard-headed arseholes refusing to see sense but all it takes is a few percentage points change and it could be enough.
 
So just listening to lbc and it mentioned one of the EU higher ups using the song imagine to talk about the UK staying in the EU.

This is the second time now they have done this.

Taking that into consideration and the daily building of stats showing how worse we will be - critical drop in nurse applications and other industries, does anyone think it's possible to build to a point where it's ok to come out and say "we fucked up, it's clear it's a terrible decision and we are gonna stay"?

My gut says no because of hard-headed arseholes refusing to see sense but all it takes is a few percentage points change and it could be enough.

I honestly (and regrettably) don't see it happening.
Too many remainers are now on the 'let's get this over with' band wagon.
Not enough people are vocally pro remain. Nothing has changed in that regard.
 
I honestly (and regrettably) don't see it happening.
Too many remainers are now on the 'let's get this over with' band wagon.
Not enough people are vocally pro remain. Nothing has changed in that regard.

There's people out there that hope that reality will arrive at the door in a few months and people might start getting worried.
 
It is true that many remainers have accepted brexit but if the conversation of cancelling actually gets discussed with some seriousness maybe they might turn it around?

It's a slim chance but I'm willing to hurt myself with hope lol.
 
I reckon the chances of us not leaving are moving out towards 20% now.

Every day it just looks worse and worse.

Every day the politicians make it seem more about the jobs and less about the politics

Every day the Eurocrata say they want us back.

Put some money on it. Gotta be worth a punt of the pound.
 
I reckon the chances of us not leaving are moving out towards 20% now.

Every day it just looks worse and worse.

Every day the politicians make it seem more about the jobs and less about the politics

Every day the Eurocrata say they want us back.

Put some money on it. Gotta be worth a punt of the pound.

We could always have David Davis, swaggering out of Brussels saying "We're staying" and we've made them accept our Charter of Human Rights and hope none of the die hard Leavers realize what happened...
 
I reckon the chances of us not leaving are moving out towards 20% now.

Every day it just looks worse and worse.

Every day the politicians make it seem more about the jobs and less about the politics

Every day the Eurocrata say they want us back.

Put some money on it. Gotta be worth a punt of the pound.

I put it at 2%. Everyone seems to be willing to die on the hill of "respecting the will of the majority" no matter what the view is on.
 
I personally believe that one of two things needs to happen for Brexit to be reversed:

1. Brexit is apocalyptically bad.
2. One of the two main parties swings behind it being reversed.

The British public voted through Brexit twice - you'll get us Lib Dems waving the flag for those that feel hard done by, but that's not going to win us many votes and it's not going to cause policy shifts from the big two.
 
I put it at 2%. Everyone seems to be willing to die on the hill of "respecting the will of the majority" no matter what the view is on.
'Respecting the will of the majority' is such a stupid phrase. I wish they would stop using it, or at the very least started saying 'marginal' or 'small' majority.
 
I put it at 2%. Everyone seems to be willing to die on the hill of "respecting the will of the majority" no matter what the view is on.

Yeah, it's not getting reversed.

Can I see us back in in the next twenty years? Absolutely. If they'll take us that is.
 
I personally believe that one of two things needs to happen for Brexit to be reversed:

1. Brexit is apocalyptically bad.
2. One of the two main parties swings behind it being reversed.

The British public voted through Brexit twice - you'll get us Lib Dems waving the flag for those that feel hard done by, but that's not going to win us many votes and it's not going to cause policy shifts from the big two.

They voted it through once. The general election wasn't a either brexit or no brexit vote and you must understand that unfortunately the Lib Dems lost their chance of ever becoming a major party again by going into a coallition with the Tory party.
 
They voted it through once. The general election wasn't a either brexit or no brexit vote and you must understand that unfortunately the Lib Dems lost their chance of ever becoming a major party again by going into a coallition with the Tory party.

I made this argument a while back, but it's worth repeating: you have a party standing in almost every seat in the country on a platform of "hey let's offer a route out of this Brexit mess". And in the majority of seats, that party loses their deposit.

So if you're Labour right now, or the Tories, why do you decide to undo Brexit? There was no surge in support for the "party of the 48%".

It's done, it's settled. It could have been different, but if folks don't vote for something it doesn't happen. That's democracy.
 
So just listening to lbc and it mentioned one of the EU higher ups using the song imagine to talk about the UK staying in the EU.

This is the second time now they have done this.

Taking that into consideration and the daily building of stats showing how worse we will be - critical drop in nurse applications and other industries, does anyone think it's possible to build to a point where it's ok to come out and say "we fucked up, it's clear it's a terrible decision and we are gonna stay"?

My gut says no because of hard-headed arseholes refusing to see sense but all it takes is a few percentage points change and it could be enough.

I've noticed that too and the media, businesses, politicians are even starting to allude to it being a mess more than before. I don't know what it will take to reach for the olive branch but I think it's out there now. I think the EU not being horrible bastards as of yet in public about Brexit has maybe cooled things down and the reality of food prices going up and uncertainty makes people think with a clearer head that Brexit is perhaps stupid and a waste of time when more important things should be dealt with.

I'm sure some leavers will point to the EU wanting us to stay shows how we could go it alone, we are great etc. but it also means the UK can do what everyone else does and collaborate in the EU, not lose control!
 
I made this argument a while back, but it's worth repeating: you have a party standing in almost every seat in the country on a platform of "hey let's offer a route out of this Brexit mess". And in the majority of seats, that party loses their deposit.

So if you're Labour right now, or the Tories, why do you decide to undo Brexit? There was no surge in support for the "party of the 48%".

It's done, it's settled. It could have been different, but if folks don't vote for something it doesn't happen. That's democracy.
The Lib Dems did not offer ignoring the referendum and most people wouldn't have voted for that still admittedly. LD path is dumb and the second referendum idea could and probably still would simply yield a bad result on top of brexiteers being mistrustful that the LD were negotiating the deal in good faith.

Moreover people only get to vote for one party they don't vote for policies. Decisions on who to vote for will boil down to several factors, including personal priorities whether the party is trusted, local MPs tactical votes etc. People simply don't trust the LibDems anymore, Labour might have been more successful with a remain policy but oh well.
 
The Lib Dems did not offer ignoring the referendum and most people wouldn't have voted for that still admittedly. LD path is dumb and the second referendum idea could and probably still would simply yield a bad result on top of brexiteers being mistrustful that the LD were negotiating the deal in good faith.

Moreover people only get to vote for one party they don't vote for policies. Decisions on who to vote for will boil down to several factors, including personal priorities whether the party is trusted, local MPs tactical votes etc. People simply don't trust the LibDems anymore, Labour might have been more successful with a remain policy but oh well.

Let me repeat my core point here:

If you have a party that campaigns on a clear pro-EU basis, and it loses vote share, just like the SNP and the Greens did (who are also pro-EU) does that not, at some point, suggest the concept that the EU argument is lost?

We're leaving the EU, it was affirmed by this election. Voters were presented with choices, and they consistently and overwhelmingly voted for two parties that committed to "honouring the result of the referendum" and leaving the EU.

Labour are for leaving the EU.
The Tories are for leaving the EU.
They got 84% of the vote.

Folks can obfuscate this, but the core point is that the Remain voting block dissolved. Less than a quarter of Brits would overturn Brexit now, and of those large chunks rated stopping either the Red Team or the Blue Team entering Number 10 as more important.

In this circumstance, it is obvious to me that the strength of feeling in the UK is still towards leaving the EU, it is obvious to me that there is not enough strength of feeling even amongst hard Remain voters for most of them to vote for other parties than the big two, and as such I think it's absurd to think that Brexit won't happen. The Leave voting bloc would shriek at you and the Remain bloc doesn't care.

Look at Scotland, where the Labour-Tory voting bloc was over 50% in a strongly Remain area.

There is not a strength of feeling for Remain.
 
I made this argument a while back, but it's worth repeating: you have a party standing in almost every seat in the country on a platform of "hey let's offer a route out of this Brexit mess". And in the majority of seats, that party loses their deposit.

So if you're Labour right now, or the Tories, why do you decide to undo Brexit? There was no surge in support for the "party of the 48%".

It's done, it's settled. It could have been different, but if folks don't vote for something it doesn't happen. That's democracy.

Yeah we have been through this already, but I also think it bears repeating that for most people, the Lib Dems aren't really a credible party anymore even if they had been in the past, and the election was not actually focused on Brexit, it was about the failure of Theresa May to lead and the strength, outside of Brexit, of the Labour manifesto in terms of providing an actual progressive alternative to what the Tories are offering. I think Brexit was overshadowed in this campaign and that's why you saw a lack of strength for the Remainer parties. Or at least, this is my hope. There is some blind hope involved here, but it's better than despairing.

As is always pointed out, the majority for Brexit was quite slim. You had a lot of people who didn't understand what they were voting for, you have people who have changed their minds, and you have people who feel like they were duped or outright lied to about the prospects for the UK after Brexit. When you take all of that into account, along with what I would imagine is a very motivated Remain camp, I'd be very surprised if a vote held today did not result in a bigger majority for Remain than Leave won with.

It's all fine saying it's 'settled', but I really don't think that's a healthy attitude for democracy in general (people only vote sporadically because of necessity, not because it is the way it should be) and also not healthy at all for a decision like this which has the potential to significantly decrease the living standards of people in the UK and isolate it from other social democracies.

I think it looks extremely unlikely right now, but it looks more likely than it did a month ago that we will in fact not leave the EU, or if we do, in name only. I don't think it's worth giving up hope just yet.

I really wish Labour seemed like it might switch over to Remain sometime soon, but it doesn't unfortunately. It's really the only thing that stopped me voting Labour (i went SNP) a couple of weeks ago. My hope is that both the Tories and Labour start transitioning away from this, in my opinion, idiotic 'respect the will of the people' line, and take a risk for the sake of the national interest over political wisdom.

The fact Macron and now Tusk have publically said they hope for a 'miracle' or thereabouts regarding this is an encouraging sign. I don't think we're completely beyond the event horizon yet, or at least I hope not.
 
Huw is 100% correct here
If you ignore everything about how our electoral system works.

I support remain. I didn't vote based on that because this wasn't a referendum in remaining. If you want to pretend that 84% of the country wants to Leave then... I can only ask what you hope to achieve with that line of arguing.



And Lib Dems were not a vote for remain. They ruled out coalitions and chose to be a protest vote only. Their manifesto became irrelevant at that point.
 
Also I think another thing is, the Lib Dems and the SNP, being the two most prominent pro-EU parties, are also contaminated by other issues that might account for their fall in vote share just as much or more than the EU. SNP want(ed) another independence referendum, a lot of people didn't, so regardless of EU they may have prioritised that. Lib Dems, as has been pointed out many times, have lost credibility due to the coalition. So it might not be as simple as 'they were pro EU and lost votes because of that' - and take that in combination with everything I said in my previous post.
 
FWIW I would vote for a party saying 'we'll cancel Brexit' but FPTP makes it pointless to do so. I dunno how much of the Remain voting electorate made that same calculation, but I imagine it's not insignificant. I wasn't able to make that choice for a candidate that was going to win my seat on June 8th so it was about the next most important issue, ending austerity.

I have recently developed a smidgen of hope that it could be cancelled as a lot of rhetoric and reporting since the election has almost uniformly majored on the challenges and pitfalls of Brexit as it becomes more real. We do need some more public voices to keep making the point though. Lord Buckethead is not gonna manage it on his own!
 
If you ignore everything about how our electoral system works.

You had the choice of putting your vote next to any manifesto. 84% of voters put their vote for a party that said they respected the outcome of the referendum and would leave the EU.

You can spin that anyway you like - "this election was more about stopping X to me than Brexit", or "this election was not about Brexit", or "the Lib Dems/Greens/SNP/Plaid/etc suck so I didn't vote for them" or however you like.

But you had the strength of feeling that Leave voters have, you would have decided to punish the big two and put down some pro-EU protest vote, like how many put down UKIP as an anti-EU protest vote in the past.

And indeed in Scotland, where you had a strong nationalist pro-EU party, you saw them getting kicked in the teeth this election. Every constituency in Scotland you had a viable pro-EU voice, and folks decided in quite a lot of those constituencies that there was something more important to them than Brexit.

I actually think that the LD policy of a referendum on the final deal *harmed* us this election. We shouldn't have done it, and we only did it because we thought we'd not have to face a GE so soon, before Brexit had impacted the economy.

So again, why on Earth does anyone still think Brexit could be overturned, or there's secretly a majority of British people that want it to be overturned, or that any government would be able to get away with overturning it without being routed from office?

There's no evidence for this.

My point still stands - if folks had strongly cared about this, they would have voted for pro-EU parties. They did not. By-and-large, pro-EU voters chose instead to vote for Corbyn in England (it was a bit more complex elsewhere). Because it was acceptable that it was a Leave manifesto because of there being, in their opinion, more important things to worry about.

The notion of "credible choice" is fiction. You spend your vote how you see fit, and nobody is sitting there in the ballot box telling you "oh, so-and-so is a wasted vote".

Folks made their decisions. By doing so en masse, the voters of this country voted decisively for parties of Leave.
 
Huw, your argument only works if you assume people have no preference between Labour and the Tories. Otherwise, there is the entirely valid reasoning: I want to remain, but the Lib Dems have no chance on winning. With that being the case, I will vote for the pro Leave party I'd rather have in charge.
 
The notion of "credible choice" is fiction. You spend your vote how you see fit, and nobody is sitting there in the ballot box telling you "oh, so-and-so is a wasted vote".

Folks made their decisions. By doing so en masse, the voters of this country voted decisively for parties of Leave.

I wish I shared this opinion, I really do, but it's not a fiction is it? You know the system supports oppositional politics, and you know there are two frontrunners in basically every seat, so you know that putting your vote elsewhere will not affect the outcome.

There's obviously a strong argument that UKIP votes in 2015 led to the referendum in the first place, but I think that was uniquely about the Tory party split and desire to hold the party together as a result.

If a significant amount of Remain voters had voted LD instead of Labour last week we'd just have a majority Conservative government now and I unfortunately don't believe for an instant that that government would be considering all those votes as an indication to row back on their Brexit plans.
 

What was also demonstrated there though is that while you say 'credible choice' is fiction, it's fiction that voters believe in and therefore it is reality because it changes real votes from what they otherwise might have been.

I don't think it's correct to say if the EU wasn't your #1 issue this election, then you must be in favour or at least ambivalent about the UK leaving the EU. The point is, the will of the people for all we know has changed, I don't think it's clear from this election whether it has or it hasn't. In normal circumstances this amount of scrutiny might not be warranted over a referendum result, but considering the campaign that was run and also the fact this is fucking huge we might want to at least do some kind of check in with the public to ask 'you sure you think this is a good idea?'.
 
The point being, your argument only works if you assume the Lib Dems have a credible chance to win.

But that's just my point.

Look at it this way. I'm Bob Labour, and I'm trying to decide what colour to paint my fence. I decide on either orange or blue. I got to my ten neighbours. Five of them prefer blue, and will smash my windows in if I paint my fence orange. Five of them prefer orange, but none of them actually will lift a finger to stop me from painting my fence blue.

I, Bob, am going to paint my fence blue, because even though there is a split in opinion, I am not punished for making one choice and I will be badly punished for making another.

If none of your voters are going to leave you over a policy position, and a huge chunk of them are going to leave you if you take the opposing policy position, *why* do you expose yourself to undue harm? If all the parties who disagree with you on a policy are too small to be a threat to you, then you take the easy option.
 
With the snp it is simpler. They offered remaining via leaving the UK. Leaving the UK is not the popular opinion in Scotland. Staying in the EU is. But many pro EU Scots are also pro union. So there is problem.
 
So, dunno if this got posted, but um:
https://www.channel4.com/news/revealed-inside-the-secretive-tory-election-call-centre

The Conservative Party contracted a secretive call centre during the election campaign which may have broken data protection and election laws, a Channel 4 News investigation has found.

An undercover reporter working for Channel 4 News secured work at Blue Telecoms, a firm in Neath, South Wales.

...

The investigation has uncovered what appear to be underhand and potentially unlawful practices at the centre, in calls made on behalf of the Conservative Party. These allegations include:

● Paid canvassing on behalf of Conservative election candidates – banned under election law.

● Political cold calling to prohibited numbers

● Misleading calls claiming to be from an ‘independent market research company’ which does not apparently exist
 
You had the choice of putting your vote next to any manifesto. 84% of voters put their vote for a party that said they respected the outcome of the referendum and would leave the EU.

You can spin that anyway you like - "this election was more about stopping X to me than Brexit", or "this election was not about Brexit", or "the Lib Dems/Greens/SNP/Plaid/etc suck so I didn't vote for them" or however you like.

But you had the strength of feeling that Leave voters have, you would have decided to punish the big two and put down some pro-EU protest vote, like how many put down UKIP as an anti-EU protest vote in the past.

And indeed in Scotland, where you had a strong nationalist pro-EU party, you saw them getting kicked in the teeth this election. Every constituency in Scotland you had a viable pro-EU voice, and folks decided in quite a lot of those constituencies that there was something more important to them than Brexit.

I actually think that the LD policy of a referendum on the final deal *harmed* us this election. We shouldn't have done it, and we only did it because we thought we'd not have to face a GE so soon, before Brexit had impacted the economy.

So again, why on Earth does anyone still think Brexit could be overturned, or there's secretly a majority of British people that want it to be overturned, or that any government would be able to get away with overturning it without being routed from office?

There's no evidence for this.

My point still stands - if folks had strongly cared about this, they would have voted for pro-EU parties. They did not. By-and-large, pro-EU voters chose instead to vote for Corbyn in England (it was a bit more complex elsewhere). Because it was acceptable that it was a Leave manifesto because of there being, in their opinion, more important things to worry about.

The notion of "credible choice" is fiction. You spend your vote how you see fit, and nobody is sitting there in the ballot box telling you "oh, so-and-so is a wasted vote".

Folks made their decisions. By doing so en masse, the voters of this country voted decisively for parties of Leave.

As much as agree with you, it just doesn't work like that. No party is a single issue party.

In the US it's different. You can have a direct say in who is President, in the UK you vote for the party. Because of that you can't just vote on single issues, you have to take into account the other factors.

I wanted the UK to remain, but I voted labor in this election. Because they promised to reverse the cuts of the Public Services and made more sense than the Lb Dems financial plan.

An election in the UK is not as easy to pass off as the official decision on one issue.
 
With the snp it is simpler. They offered remaining via leaving the UK. Leaving the UK is not the popular opinion in Scotland. Staying in the EU is. But many pro EU Scots are also pro union. So there is problem.

Yup - there was something more important than Brexit to Scottish voters.

My conclusion if I was the Tory or Labour strategist in Scotland is that they can say whatever they like about Brexit, because there is a more important discussion to be had. People are not going to choose one way or the other. I think it was a similar situation south of the border - "who do you want in Number 10?" rather than "should Britain reverse track on Brexit?"
 
Oh god not this again

Not voting Lib Dem/SNP/Green in this election doesn't mean you support Leaving the EU, just as voting for anyone aside from UKIP in 2015 didn't mean you therefore supported Remain

For someone who knows a decent amount about politics and elections, you have to be intentionally obtuse to say things like that Huw


Broke the rules again and still couldn't get a majority 😂
 
Ah so Leave support was never above about 10%. Weird that we even had a referendum in the first place then.

I'm talking about it being an example of strength of feeling - where was the Remain version of the UKIP eurosceptic protest vote this election?

In 2015, before the referendum, there was such strength of feeling from eurosceptics that UKIP, a totally dysfunctional party, were able to get well over 10% of the vote.

Yet that was totally absent in 2017 for the Remain side.

My core thesis is simply this: there is not a strong feeling on the Remain side that was sufficient to beat the real questions of the campaign.

Folks voted for parties that wanted to leave the EU for other reasons. So if you endorse that policy as part of a manifesto package being promoted by the leader of the party and, usually, the local MP, then you're acquiescing to it.

But this is not just me saying this. This was backed up in the Ashcroft post-election polling, for example.

The British public, as a whole, was not required by law to back the parties it did - it did so, the two big parties were endorsed overwhelmingly, and their common policy - leaving the EU - is now going to happen. This is how democracy works.
 
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