Brexit - UK negotiates a deal

[Fierce_LiNk]

1 hour ago, Grazza said:

 

 

The past three or so years have been rubbish, but the memes have been absolutely top tier. That was amazing.

[Ganepark32]

It's all just a bloody mess and an election is hardly what the country needs to resolve this but egos need to be stroked and people are grasping for chances at power. It's shameful watching all this unfold at Westminster and the media really has fanned the flame to create probably the biggest political divide ever in this country.

The leave vote will no doubt be split between the Conservatives and the Brexit Party while remain will be split across Labour, the Lib Dems and the SNP up here (which will be a fantastic voting choice for Scotland once again if they more or less unanimously elect SNP MPs as it's been shown they can't have any impact in Westminster so it's a wasted vote but trying to tell people that up here is like trying to get blood from stone), with some maybe across Plaid Cymru and the Greens. No one will be an outright winner with enough for a majority that's for sure.

Personally, I can't vote for Labour under Corbyn. He's sat on the bloody fence all this time and positioned himself along the line that only an election will be good enough for him. He's a leaver but doesn't want to outright say it to lose votes and it could come back to bite him in an election as I don't think he'll make the gains he expects (I know it was the EU elections but they showed a heavy move away from Labour). I also see voting SNP a worthwhile vote up here in the grand scheme of things so it would have to be Lib Dems but again, I don't know if they've got what it takes under Jo Swinson.

It's going to be interesting to see what unfolds but really, I just wish I could wake up from the nightmare that is Brexit and have it all gone. A stupid idea that had no bearing whatsoever and has only helped to divide the country and bring the worst out in all corners of the political sphere.

[Goafer]

Leaked footage from Boris Johnson's private quarters:

[Kav]

The “Remain Alliance” are going to gift Tories seats and scupper the thing they’re after (Twitter thread)...

 

[Pestneb]

On 11/7/2019 at 5:30 PM, Kav said:

The “Remain Alliance” are going to gift Tories seats and scupper the thing they’re after (Twitter thread)...

 

going by that particular example, I don't think any coalition would help particularly. if Labour green and LD join togethergot 40.8% of the vote (was my maths right?) they would collectively need to gain about an extra 25% of votes.

 

Tbh right now I really don't know who to vote for, either I dislike the party leader or candidate standing in my area, so I guess it's a tough call on which combination I dislike the least

[Ashley]

There is the argument that taking the 2017 election only shows part of the picture because of what has changed since, but yes that particular example does seem rather pointless.

I am in a very safe Labour seat (and in fairness my MP has been strongly anti-Brexit throughout Labour's stupid trajectory), they got 69% (nice) of the vote share last time.

I have voted Green just to bump them a bit in the past and just looking it seems the local candidate from the last election has been replaced by the co-leader of the Greens this time! With apparent support from the Lib Dems but I don't see them winning here.

[Dog-amoto]

So less than a week till this inevitable shit show arrives...and there’s barely any media coverage of it. All been buried by news of Harry and whatshername and viruses in China, meanwhile, news of worker rights eroding, such as the right to strike and loss of your EU average overtime pay for holidays have been deftly brushed under the carpet. I notice that reports of anti-semitism have fallen by 5000% as well now that the media bigwigs have got what they wanted. 

Pretty disgusting really. 

[Glen-i]

9 minutes ago, Dog-amoto said:

So less than a week till this inevitable shit show arrives...and there’s barely any media coverage of it. All been buried by news of Harry and whatshername and viruses in China, meanwhile, news of worker rights eroding, such as the right to strike and loss of your EU average overtime pay for holidays have been deftly brushed under the carpet. I notice that reports of anti-semitism have fallen by 5000% as well now that the media bigwigs have got what they wanted. 

Pretty disgusting really. 

I mean, it's gone through and the Tories have a majority, most of the media don't need to fight their corner any more.

Oh, and Brexit ain't happening in less than a week, we've only just started.

[Dog-amoto]

Makes you realise just how much the media controls what we think and who we vote for. 

[killthenet]

The commemorative 50p was the only reason people voted for it.

[Jimbob]

As the Withdrawal deal has gone through and signed by both parties, there's not a lot for the media to go for.  Pretty much after the GE, things went quiet.  Did hear the first Parliamentary vote went in Tory favour, but after that pretty quiet.  I had to dig a little to find out how the Lords voted and the signing of the Withdrawal deal.  The real battle happens after January 31st when the UK starts sorting it's deals out with everyone including the EU, so expect media coverage to strike up between then and January 1st 2021. 

[bob]

I reckon that the reason the media has gone quiet is because the government are trying to divert everyone's attention away from it, and hopefully just try and make Brexit a non-issue once we've left. They'll crow about how great it is that we've left, and leavers will be happy, and then we won't hear anything else about it.

[Cube]

5 hours ago, bob said:

I reckon that the reason the media has gone quiet is because the government are trying to divert everyone's attention away from it, and hopefully just try and make Brexit a non-issue once we've left. They'll crow about how great it is that we've left, and leavers will be happy, and then we won't hear anything else about it.

Yeah, the government wand their voters to think that it's "done". The 50p coin is a clear example of the propaganda. We won't have even properly left, we'll still be in it, just have zero say in anything.

It's kind of amusing that after all this time, the main thing they've achieved is making their lies about "they make laws for us with no say from us" an actual reality.

[Jimbob]

The deals been ratified by the EU just a few minutes ago, news just popped up on an alert.

[Fierce_LiNk]

Time for the Government and for the Brexiteers to now stand up and deliver. I will certainly look forward to seeing them being held to account and scrutinised over the many decision making processes that will take place over the coming years. 

There are certainly many divisions that are felt across the UK and it's going to become very clear that the EU is actually not the cause of many of these. I am still waiting to see how leaving the EU is going to solve these problems. 

[Dog-amoto]

The thing that concerns me the most about all this is the inevitable profiteering that will occur, regardless of whether Brexit has an impact or not. Want to raise your prices? Blame Brexit. Want to lower or freeze wages? Want to make a few people redundant? We’ve got you covered there. 

And how is the average person going to be able to prove that Brexit has nothing to do with people's greed?

Yet another way the wealth divide will widen. 

[Sméagol]

So @S.C.G, since you're in charge, when are you going to ban all the British from the site? I feel they no longer belong here.

[S.C.G]

45 minutes ago, Sméagol said:

So @S.C.G, since you're in charge, when are you going to ban all the British from the site? I feel they no longer belong here.

No one is getting banned... N-Europe forum membership isn't what it used to be, we need all the members we can get.

In all seriousness though, my thoughts are much the same as they were over three and a half years ago...

On 24/06/2016 at 10:54 AM, S.C.G said:

I always took the Europe in N-E to be a reflection of the way in which games have been released in different territories for years... USA - Japan - Europe (Including the U.K) and Australia so I would have thought that we won't have to change the site name at least.

Besides, we have an excellent community here on the forums which I hope isn't suddenly going to change as a result of this vote.

My feelings on the matter is that whichever way the vote happened to go, it wouldn't change how I feel about the site and the members of our forum; personally I love this site along with everyone here who makes the place what it is.

Nothing political or otherwise will change this and I just hope that this outcome will turn out to be a positive one for everyone in time.

Admittedly, quite a lot (or not a lot depending on how you view it) has changed since then but both the forums and N-Europe are still the same great places.

[sumo73]

10 hours ago, S.C.G said:

No one is getting banned... N-Europe forum membership isn't what it used to be, we need all the members we can get.

In all seriousness though, my thoughts are much the same as they were over three and a half years ago...

Admittedly, quite a lot (or not a lot depending on how you view it) has changed since then but both the forums and N-Europe are still the same great places.

A great place sure but it's moving towards an echo chamber in some places. Sorry to say.

[Fierce_LiNk]

A little bit of a thread bump here...

So, the UK has finally negotiated a deal to leave the EU. Thoughts?

My thoughts are...we've spent four years actively working to get less than what we already had as members of the EU. I'm still waiting to see what the benefits are of this.

[Will]

18 hours ago, Fierce_LiNk said:

My thoughts are...we've spent four years actively working to get less than what we already had as members of the EU. I'm still waiting to see what the benefits are of this.

This is what we* wanted** though, less access for more control.

*We being the slim majority that pushed us into this.
**Wanted being a loose catch-all because nobody had a clue what they were voting for.

Jokes aside I do think that was generally what people were going for, trading our access to the market for control over our country. We don’t need Europe because we are so great and all they do is come and steal our jobs and our fish.

This deal? To me it seems like we have to follow the same rules as before, have less access to the market, and have our free movement curtailed massively. In return we get control of fishing rights in UK waters... in five years time.

I haven’t read the whole thing, just the summaries from various sources but it seems they’ve done the worst deal possible. My preference was always to stay in, but if we’re coming out then we have to be out and make something new work. Going with this middle ground option of we follow the rules but don’t have a seat at the table where they’re made is total madness.

I hope at some point soon we get a real shake-up of the political system in the UK, at the moment it really doesn’t seem to be helping anyone apart from the rich to take more advantage of everyone and screw the terrible outcomes from it all.

Edited December 27, 2020 by Will

[Rummy]

Not tackled the doument yet apparently its like ~1250pages and the time they had a whole deal text before a few years back it was far too mundane - apparently this is still quite vague and has a number of conditional arbitration committees and councils etc all written into - basically its a piece of paper saying we've got a few basic rules but we're now going to spend our future constantly in negotiations on every little issue. Likely the EU will batter us as they will be united and - as we have been for all of this - we will be the ones divided and unable to make up our minds(because our domestic politics and house is so split; even the govt and their backbenchers - and this is all part of the huge price the UK must pay for chancing its stupidity on the political idealogy of populism and identity over real terms benefits).

[Pestneb]

I don't think the system needs massive tweaking.

But the parties need to get their act together. My area is strong Tory, has been all my life and it's not even close. But looking at the labour and lib dem candidates, I couldn't inflict that on the country. If the lib dems/Labour want to stand even a slim chance they need to get better quality candidates. I like the idea of having a shadow mp, where they get minimum wage, with that money coming out from what the main mp would have gotten. Maybe have it so a shadow mp needs to get 66% of the number of  votes the winner got and have secured 2nd position. Maybe they don't get to vote (or give them a 1/4 vote in the house of commons??) but they can still be present and give an alternative view from the main mp on constituency issues?

Just thinking it may encourage the main opposition of actually fielding viable candidates.

 

 

Edited December 27, 2020 by Pestneb

[bob]

I don't think the system needs massive tweaking.
But the parties need to get their act together. My area is strong Tory, has been all my life and it's not even close. But looking at the labour and lib dem candidates, I couldn't inflict that on the country. If the lib dems/Labour want to stand even a slim chance they need to get better quality candidates. I like the idea of having a shadow mp, where they get minimum wage, with that money coming out from what the main mp would have gotten. Maybe have it so a shadow mp needs to get 66% of the number of  votes the winner got and have secured 2nd position. Maybe they don't get to vote (or give them a 1/4 vote in the house of commons??) but they can still be present and give an alternative view from the main mp on constituency issues?
Just thinking it may encourage the main opposition of actually fielding viable candidates.
 
 

Presumably it's not worth fielding good candidates in a constituency that they have no chance in though, which is an issue with the system. Implement proportional representation and you might get better people challenging.

[Pestneb]

On 12/27/2020 at 12:15 PM, bob said:

Presumably it's not worth fielding good candidates in a constituency that they have no chance in though, which is an issue with the system. Implement proportional representation and you might get better people challenging.

Maybe but I think they don't actually have these mythical good candidates. Look at the conservatives up North, they won strong labour seats, so even "strong" seats can be won. I just think they have so few viable candidates that they put them in stronger areas to make sure they get the seats, then they don't have any left for the trickier seats. Frankly the thought that the candidates fielded for lib dems and labour in my area are within the top 600 or so candidates fielded is a tiny bit depressing. If they have better candidates get them here and have them improve their vote share, one election to get a lot closer, next election win the seat. Basically both parties are rubbish or too unambitious is the conclusion I have to draw. I'd be unsurprised to find the same is true for the conservatives in many areas in the country.

The PR system is hugely flawed as well - all systems have weaknesses, I recall the lib dems I think pushed for a vote on a change in the system when Clegg was deputy PM, I don't think it failed just because it was the wrong system, but because any change I have seen breaks things that are "right" with the current system as much (or occasionally more) as they  fix things that are "wrong".

With our current system the MP is meant to be our voice in parliament. Most people seem to try to vote for the government which isn't what our system is about. PR changes more to voting for the government but from the implementations I have seen explained, they tend to remove or severely weaken or at worst completely ignore the local voice and tbh potentially disenfranchises certain voters in a more aggressive way imo. I am not saying that the current system is even close to perfect, but it does have strengths that are often over looked, which means they are under played.

When I vote I look at the voice the candidates are going to be giving my area, and vote for the one closest to my own, which meant I didn't take the time to vote at the last election. Part of that voice is the prime minister they are supporting, but it isn't the entirety of the voice. How they are going to support their constituents, which in many ways includes the sub groupings they are in and the influence that gives them. A single MP standing against a topic is unlikely to have great influence, a small group of 10 has greater influence, 50 starts becoming a force to be reckoned with etc.) That's just what I do I appreciate no one way is correct but taking Brexit as a recent democratic example, I feel a vast majority of votes on both sides were misinformed (actually I would argue 100% of us were) by both sides and very few people had the information requisite to make a balanced and fair decision. I certainly didn't feel either side had won the argument and dearly wished there had been a status quo option so we could ditch Camerons disastrous alterations.

Anyway, voting in an informed way takes time and understanding, as a consequence a number of individuals simply look at the party, or a headline with no substance etc. This is the biggest fault in any system imo because it is more about who manipulates more effectively rather than who has the best ideas or even at least intentions.

At the end of the day most people consider the best system to be the one that gives your favoured candidate/party the most power, and I think this is the greatest underlying motivation in any desire for electoral reform.

The most honest "reform" would be using the education system to explain openly, clearly and plainly how our system works to secondary level students and for the local media to give a thorough but understandable breakdown of local candidates, as well as unbiased coverage of all parties rather than just the biggest 5/6. But I can't see that happening!