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

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.

Had to remind myself of why Liam Fox resigned from the cabinet in the first place.

Heh - yesterday I had to remind my father-in-law why Liam Fox resigned, when he started referring to him as the 'principled' voice of the Leave campaign ...

Leave.EU have reposted the ISIS thing they took down this afternoon and followed up with this:

https://twitter.com/LeaveEUOfficial/status/742393655181344768

They really are very stupid.

Taken down again!

Do the hokey cokey.

Ed Balls: "We need to press Europe to restore proper borders and put new controls on economic migration.

Trying to think of another time that the Labour and the Tory parties were simultaneously so weak. It feels like we have a political vacuum.

I imagine him saying that to himself on the toilet

xpost

Trying to think of another time that the Labour and the Tory parties were simultaneously so weak. It feels like we have a political vacuum.

This was supposed to be the story of last year's election, but the first past the post system handed the Tories an overall majority (albeit a slim one) and everyone seems to have had their memory wiped and acts as if they romped home on a massive wave of popularity.

To those of you worried about the 6 point leave lead in today's poll a reminder that 6 points is how far out the galvanising 51% lead for yes was a week prior to the Scottish referendum.

does it mean anything/nothing that all the major bookmakers are giving good odds on 'Remain' and bad on 'Leave'?

oh and from the cover of the S*n which hits the stands in a few hours..

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ck3TpLxXIAAd5OE.jpg

Define good and bad odds.

i mean the bookies seem convinced based on forecasts not The Polls that it will go the Remain way.

This was supposed to be the story of last year's election, but the first past the post system handed the Tories an overall majority (albeit a slim one) and everyone seems to have had their memory wiped and acts as if they romped home on a massive wave of popularity.

OK, maybe I should have used the word "divided" rather than "weak". At least at election time there was some semblance of the parties being united, rather than in open internal warfare.

not only united but barely distinguishable from one another

The odds are barely more than evens now. I'm running out of hope.

For anyone still fence-sitting this is a long, but excellent, piece on why the Leave side's arguments aren't strong enough to risk voting out:

http://barristerblogger.com/2016/06/13/must-remain-eu-peace-prosperity/

don't think the Leave side is over-burdened with people who read long, excellent pieces

Hah!

Or write them.

Interesting article about the legal obligations following a 'Leave' win:

http://blogs.ft.com/david-allen-green/2016/06/14/can-the-united-kingdom-government-legally-disregard-a-vote-for-brexit/

^ paywalled

click first result https://www.google.com/search?q=can+the+uk+government+legally+disregard+brexit

thanks.

would've been a lot easier for him to just renege on his election promise for a referendum

Strikes me as largely irrelevant - any government that tried to go against the result of the referendum (or prolong it for ages) would be torn down and replaced with one that wouldn't.

FWIW I think the effect of these polls will be to drive a lot of Remainers straight to the ballot box.

There was a very spurious stat in the Telegraph today about like 30% of Leavers not even knowing when the referendum date was, or thinking it was on a different day.

I'm not very good with future dates myself. Until this week and it being "Thursday Week" I'd struggled to get the date into my head.

Also I think the freak-outable undecided vote is bigger than is being reflected in these polls, and will probably fall on the Remain side when push comes to shove.

I'm not very good with future dates myself. Until this week and it being "Thursday Week" I'd struggled to get the date into my head.

surprised you're voting brexit

too many eu-regulated extra days in the week

cool that Ed Balls has waded in for Remain but calling for an end to freedom of movement

https://cdn.meme.am/instances/500x/65641341.jpg

gah

https://cdn.meme.am/instances/500x/65641341.jpg

Kind of appropriate that my attempt to ridicule Ed Balls should flounder due to a computer cock up

can't understand why Remain isn't gaining traction, another week's hectoring from middle class Blairite ultras should rescue the situation tho

The Footsie has now shed 378 points since the start of trading on Thursday, when Brexit fears began to mount.

That means a staggering £98bn has been wiped off the value of Britain’s biggest companies in four trading days.

Might concentrate a few minds if they can start communicating the link between economic risk and personal finances more effectively. Cameron seems to have given up though.

Hard realisation for him that he's actually a really inept campaigner when not carried by fascist newspaper magnates

Comments from former cabinet secretary Lord Butler on a post-Brexit vote.

"I am not a member of any political party but I think British politics might be a great deal healthier if the Conservatives, and Labour, did split into pro and anti-European parties. You could just possibly see a realignment of the political institutions. The Conservative Party would split: let us say, the Brexiteers join UKIP and say we are going to maintain our campaign, and leave a pro-EU Conservative Party. Similarly you could have Labour sceptics joining an anti-EU conglomeration.

https://www.politicshome.com/news/uk/government-and-public-sector/house/76094/lord-butler-if-david-cameron-loses-he-has-go-%E2%80%93-and

That sounds horrible.

Got my always independently minded MP Kate Hoey's Brexit propaganda today, all bogus statistics and flag waving. Apparently all British workers' rights were won by British trade unions and are enshrined in British law.

http://images1.persgroep.net/rcs/xZNu4O2n8fSuzJj3WQdGMTICjJk/diocontent/67281332/_crop/0/0/1081/1553/_fitwidth/694/?appId=21791a8992982cd8da851550a453bd7f&quality=0.9

Cover of one of the biggest Dutch newspapers tomorrow. Tag line says: "Because they can be difficult at times. But we can't and don't want to go without them."