Psychoactive Substances: Rolling UK Politics in The Neo-Con Era

Though you're right that England might vote to leave the EU, the UK might vote to stay. Which would be hilarious.

England is being used quite commonly in vox pops. because that's what it boils down to, English nationalism (ok the welsh are really keen and vote for ukip in decent numbers but i have no idea what the welsh are all about tbh)

i have no idea what the welsh are all about tbh

They don't seem to know themselves.

I have never knowingly known a welsh person

Didn't use 'England' in a vox pop way but yeah, Europeans tend to see this as about England debating to leave the EU, not UK. Idk why.

Because the other nations aren't considered to be of any importance, I imagine.

Also Scotland failing to qualify for Euro 2016, of course.

Having gone to casualty recently I have no idea what state the NHS would be in if it weren't for new immigrants and 1st, 2nd and 3rd generation children of immigrants.

Did you watch QT? Eddie Izzard is such a nob.

to think he harbored ambitions of being mayor of london

Excruciating, made a complete arse of himself. By the way, in case anyone is not sure of the nomenclature, QT stands for the Nigel Farage Show.

I didn't actually catch it but was chatting to a friend about it just there, he claimed that a brexiter - I guess from the audience - actually said the sentence "we're being diluted".

I wish I hadn't caught it. Everything about it was fucking awful.

It's horrifying to watch.

"We are getting diluted" was actually the parting shot and final words of the "debate"

agent Izzard has served us well tonight [demonic Tory cackling]

Leave odds now, at the time of posting, 2/1 and shortening.

"Cameron defends campaign in face of Nigel Farage attacks"

Don't really know how we have got to the stage where the headline is this way round.

Not that I would expect Cameron to go on the offensive against Farage's racism but y'know.

I feel confident that people's natural conservatism will win through. Like in the Scottish referendum. The 'silent majority' aren't radical, people will choose the status quo.

I really really want that to be true (for once)

Yes. I had caught myself thinking "People voted to change the status quo when we joined the Common Market" but of course they didn't: it was a referendum on staying in, where the status quo had already had a chance to bed in for two years.

Loss aversion theory seems to be the key to all this, which is why campaigners for the status quo do the Project Fear thing.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loss_aversion

I've been banking on a lot of secret status quo voting all the way through, but now I very much have a bad feeling that that's not enough

even if Remain wins, now there's precedent for a referendum and since such a result would presumably be quite close, is there any way out of people calling for a referendum again (and again, if necessary) until we do leave?

(I suppose most "mainstream" politicians would be extra careful not to promise one again. Would Boris get into power on his "lol Brexit" gambit and then, assuming he is secretly pro-Remain, keep up some lol-wotta-ledge bumbling as to why he's not rushing for another referendum? Or am I just clutching at straws? Admittedly kind of hilarious but probably imaginary straws. Whole Boris being PM thing not hilarious but poss inevitable, obv.)

...also somewhat resentful that if we leave, and things go horribly wrong economically, nobody who voted Leave will think maybe they shouldn't have, just think "well, things are only going badly because pesky foreigners messed it up for us with their not letting us get everything we wanted for free, therefore we were right to vote against the foreigners". so I can't even take comfort in the idea of being able to say "I told you so"

sorry for incoherent thoughts

The situation in the (likely) event of a narrow Remain win wouldn't be dissimilar to the aftermath of the Indyref. Calls for a second referendum getting louder and louder, Sturgeon knows full well that a second defeat really would take it off the agenda for a generation, and I'd expect Boris or whoever ends up as the de facto non-Farage face of the Leave camp to take much the same stance, ostensibly at least.

In the event of a Leave vote the divisions within both main parties will erupt into outright fury and recrimination. Cameron will be gone almost immediately and Corbyn may not be far behind. He isn't to blame for the performance of other Labour figures, but he's not really done much to dispel the notion that he isn't really that bothered about it. And his MPs will of course take any excuse to try and get rid of him, and this is a big one.

Yes, Corbyn won't last much longer than Cameron if Leave wins. I'm still fairly sure Remain will win.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ck0_qHRWUAAmA74.jpg

I'm perversely looking forward to Boris having to try to pick a functional cabinet from the Peter Bones and Karl McCartneys if it does all go sideways.

I'm hoping that's not a genuine poster?

Yes, though they have deleted the tweet now.

I'm almost more offended by the fact they used 'before' twice in the one sentence tbh.

Hah!

the leave.eu twitter feed has also recently featured the work of Batshit Rightwing Cartoon thread favourite Ben Garrison:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ckwk-BvWsAEAzES.jpg

https://twitter.com/LeaveEUOfficial/status/742008689494626306

Who's the most senior Tory keeping their head down right now? In the event of Leave winning, the chances are they're going to be the next PM.

That would be *spit* Theresa May.

Theresa May has been pretty quiet but Boris wil probablyl ride in on a wave of grassroots gratitude if leave wins.

Xp

She's virtually been living in an underground bunker for the duration.

xps Ship's wheel not even in the right place

That Garrison cartoon is like the antithesis of what will happen

...also somewhat resentful that if we leave, and things go horribly wrong economically, nobody who voted Leave will think maybe they shouldn't have, just think "well, things are only going badly because pesky foreigners messed it up for us with their not letting us get everything we wanted for free, therefore we were right to vote against the foreigners". so I can't even take comfort in the idea of being able to say "I told you so"

otm - and they're going to continue blaming immigrants and it's going to get really fucking horrible

Saw this argument that crunched the numbers:

In terms of population, we’d end up with 1.85m fewer people living in our country after the 10 years. That sounds like a lot of people, which it is. But we’re a big country – 64.6m in total at the moment (2). So even under these very extreme assumptions the difference is only 2.8%. Less than 1 in 35.

Would you notice the difference if there were 34 instead of 35 people in your doctors’ waiting room? If there were 34 instead of 35 cars ahead of you in the traffic jam? Would your child’s education suffer in a class of 35 instead of 34? I doubt it.

Source of footnote 2: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationestimates

That is, should we leave the EU, it's not like there'll be any really visible drop in the number of non-white/non-british/non-native-English-speaking people in the country, the anti-immigrant crowd will not be pacified or sated by a result where we leave

or leave could win and everything might turn out okay

xp

lol

Would you notice the difference if there were 34 instead of 35 people in your doctors’ waiting room? If there were 34 instead of 35 cars ahead of you in the traffic jam? Would your child’s education suffer in a class of 35 instead of 34? I doubt it.

this ignores the extra hundreds of millions that UKIP or Boris Johnson's Conservatives would be able to plough back into the welfare state as a result of not paying EU membership.

we should have more threads where everybody is frightened of parliamentary democracy

sorry parliamentary democracy

Theresa May has been pretty quiet but Boris wil probablyl ride in on a wave of grassroots gratitude if leave wins.

I can't remember how Tory leadership campaigns work but could there be enough anyone-but-Boris votes among MPs to block him out of the wider party vote altogether? Either way you'd expect May to be the main recipient of those votes and potentially able to beat Boris even if it goes to the wider party. Experienced, able to vary her game between fake touchy-feely and brutalise-all-criminals, bit of Thatcheresque presence, comes across as the serious candidate vs Boris's lightweight batz, probably secretly pro-Brexit but not enough to rock the boat.

There would be a pretty huge backlash if they blocked him out and they'd need to find someone suitably popular and suitably pro-Brexit to compete with May if they tried. I don't think that would be Gove.

Maybe, thing about being the obvious successor is that people have time to build coalitions against you - I can see this turning into a Major situation, maybe even a Corbyn one.

What about Liam Fox, the hunky doctor himself?

They are light on alternatives tbh. Looking at the odds, after May, Gove, Johnson and Osborne you are in to the likes of Stephen Crabb, Priti Patel and Phil Hammond. It is not a deep pool of talent to draw from. May vs Johnson looks plausible but idk how well May polls these days.

Fox is a likely stalking horse but 28/1 for a reason.