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

like - we know people voted for brexit, but what brexit? how can we ever agree about that?

http://lordashcroftpolls.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Ill-vs-Good-768x757.jpg

Hell the nuttier Tories can shoot it down because whatever deal reached does deny the voters their wishes

well, exactly. it's going to be chaos. guess you'd have to worry about brexit sustaining a long and bureaucratic conceptual defeat and some more virulent hatred rising in general elections as a result. like how do you satisfy the people who voted for this? cos now they've waved their miniature union jacks around, the next year or two of legal wrangling and political bullshit sure ain't going to be satisfying.

One of my Facebook "friends" (I don't actually know him) has announced he's deleting his account because of the vitriol he's received from the "remain" camp (none of it from me- like I said, I don't actually know him). Good. Go back to skulking in the corners, you prolicidal fuck.

like how do you satisfy the people who voted for this? cos now they've waved their miniature union jacks around, the next year or two of legal wrangling and political bullshit sure ain't going to be satisfying.

licence to be more openly racist will give succour to some

This is A+ trolling. The Sun, after relentlessly begging their readers to vote leave, now tells them how much worse they'll be off financially.

bomb the sun

any politician who says 'hey the sun, hey the mail, hey the express, fuck you forever, put my face on any vegetable you like, run smear campaigns, wank yourself stupid with hate, the people can see through your horseshit now' has my vote regardless of anything else

biggest evil in our society

One of the 'working class' areas that voted for Remain was Liverpool - where they don't read the Sun...

Talk from Europe getting tougher.

What is clear, though, is that the Leave camp, which isn't exactly formed of the best and brightest to begin with, have absolutely no idea what they are going to do next. The calls to avoid hasty decisions are because they haven't got a strategy beyond 'leave the EU' not necessarily because they are having second thoughts.

and also, "leaving the eu" in actual legal fact seems to be a p wildly protracted political process rather than an action. it is fascinating bureaucracy, if you can put aside the horror.

― Bein' Sean Bean (LocalGarda), Saturday, 25 June 2016 10:11 (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

LG I think we work in vaguely similar fields and with big sweeping calls/promises I tend to ignore the rhetoric - as in, I've literally no idea what Cameron's even said most of the time - and just think about the mechanisms, flow of funding, and legal processes, because I know from painful experience it usually comes down to this kind of 'detail' which often ends up quietly delivering something different from the promised headlines. Which does mean I'm often clueless about the political/strategical side of things. This whole thing has been surreal to me precisely because of the 'what Brexit are we voting for?' question, which I haven't really seen answered anywhere beforehand, and the sheer scale of actually implementing it/anything. All the statutory instruments that'd need looking at!

otm, especially the scale of it
was trying to get head round it at work yesterday
I mean trade tariffs alone - look at this thing:
https://www.gov.uk/trade-tariff

"The Labour leader is being blamed by some of his own MPs for not campaigning hard enough to keep Britain in the EU."

Most of them have been too busy sharpening their knives to do any better themselves. I can't think of one labour MP who has campaigned with any conviction for remain. Chuka probably possesses the PR skills that some on here wish Corbyn had and he is a nauseating twat who probably sent more voters towards Leave than even when Blair/Brown/Darling did.

Otmfm

xp I used to work in you guys' broad field as well. The yawning gap between the claims and the frantic figuring out what it might all mean behind the scenes (and the struggle to actually make it mean something) were a big shock when I joined. I must have been very naive.

not that Leave voters would care about their job prospects in Europe, but only EU citizens are permitted to hold civil service positions in France (except for faculty in higher education, happily in my case). there'll be more than a few English teachers in France out of their (permanent) jobs after this. and there are no exceptions. being a non-EU citizen here has made a lot of things pretty hard, only eased by my being a civil servant. & I doubt French law is very different than the law in other European countries in this regard.

This is A+ trolling. The Sun, after relentlessly begging their readers to vote leave, now tells them how much worse they'll be off financially.

― Le Bateau Ivre, Saturday, 25 June 2016 11:39 Bookmark

"Will it affect the cost of my holiday?" genuinely appears to be every leaver's second question ime

Having had some time to think about it, I think I'm going to start volunteering time for the labour party some how. Does anyone else do anything? I'm a bit unsure where to start, do i just go and be like "hiya diane abbott sure i'll put the kettle on and sort mail"? Is there a good website that details how to help?

Im bored of things being shit but not doing anything about it. Get off yr arse Sam etc.

Likewise, though in my 72%-Remain area I don't want to preach to the choir either. Does seem to me like the post-industrial areas left to die are the most pressing problem for Labour. (And the country)

can cameron really last until october? don't see it happening. also: is george osborne really thinking he can ride this one out?

I'd love Brexit to somehow not happen, but maybe millions of (the non-regretful) Leave voters feeling cheated and angry is an even more terrifying prospect for Britain.

I think he can. Key thing is that the majority of the parliamentary parties and their leaderships all want to remain. It seems like everyone is angling for the classic Yes Minister "let's do it when the time is right" approach. (Same as we did with joining the euro, as Tom E pointed out)

Another problem is that tactic will depend on patience from Scotland and the EU, neither of which seem inclined to have any. Though an indyref II is another good way to postpone Article 50.

xp yes but in cold terms they're as powerless as they were and in warm terms it's damn overdue that something made people notice them and take account of them.

(Am meaning there the Leave voters who voted Leave not because of actual anti-EU sentiment but because they've had the shit end of the last 30 years and things are only getting worse. I think the true directly anti-EU sentiment is the fringe it always was, especially when people understand what they get from it).

I've read that the EU technically have no way to force the UK to trigger article 50 - are there indirect ways that they can pressure the UK to do this though, aside from rhetorically? what leverage do they have? will there be pressure from the markets to invoke article 50 to try and reduce uncertainty?

xp I used to work in you guys' broad field as well. The yawning gap between the claims and the frantic figuring out what it might all mean behind the scenes (and the struggle to actually make it mean something) were a big shock when I joined. I must have been very naive.

― ljubljana, Saturday, 25 June 2016 11:59 (40 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

right? Me too. Although at times I'm almost too far the other way now, something gets announced, I think 'pfft' because I know we don't have the data or whatever to do it, or because it seems like a total u-turn and then it happens anyway. I've been trying to tell the Leavers in my family about 'behind the scenes' but they are the ones who think 'just getting people to add things to policy' is free.
Actually, same with a previous job in a law firm relating to a high-profile new act that was passed. I think that was when I figured out that as soon as you see something you know about being discussed in the press you realise the press just talks bollocks. Poss slightly different now because now we have blogs and zany memes, woo

there's possibility that the referendum result itself could be seen as triggering it, or that combined with representations of the govt during/after the neogtiations prior to the referednum. the text of article 50 gives no method or means of notification. few legal academics like green and maugham mostly seem to dismiss this. there are probably better ways to pressure politically rather than legally.

if the referendum was ever going to trigger it then there must have been pre-identified conditions like thresholds for turnout and majority. or am I totally mad to think that.

Yeah the referendum has no legal weight - it was an advisory. The EU can't in a sane way use that as notification.

Am assuming the EU don't truly want Britain out, but maybe they do?

nothing to do with its legal validity within the uk (it has none, unlike the av referendum) but that in the absence of stipulated means of activating article 50, it could be seen as automatically triggering within eu law. doesn't seem very plausible but the european court of justice have made some sophistic judgments under political pressure before.

xps right, suspect that making this happen this would soak up most of the resources of a lot of departments. If it goes ahead, staggeringly expensive + fuck all else is going to get done.

Doesn't seem remotely plausible imo. Would be like a poll result triggering leave. The U.K. State has to notify under Article 50. An advisory poll does not have the authority to speak for that state. xp

I'd love Brexit to somehow not happen, but maybe millions of (the non-regretful) Leave voters feeling cheated and angry is an even more terrifying prospect for Britain.

there's no way they won't feel cheated i reckon. it can't "happen" in any way that will sate, pacify, or unite the people who voted for it. nothing will happen.

that's why it would have to be combined with some other argument based on notice of what cameron et al already said. given this, which is all very tenuous, it's best to assume there are no legal means. but beyond this it's all really vague, most importantly, the revocability of an article 50 notification is unclear. different legal people arguing exactly opposite on this from cursory reading.

people cant face it. same way it seemed very muted for people to accept that jo coxs killer was motivated by the ugliness of nationalism, racism, etc (even if these were symptoms of larger problems).

the only reason youre getting all these reports of regretful voters is that the insular metropolitan complacency of media remainers cant get their head around the vote.

TBH the vote doesnt make logical sense to most labour voters/members/remainers. 'how did anyone voting leave think this would make their prospects better? how did they think farage, boris, gove, would care about their futures?' im not sure the leavers really thought they did.

IMO its a bit like the london riots. made no sense - looting expensive goods as a cry for help/howl of frustration? - but it wasnt about what it was, it was just about the reasons for those events and that behaviour.

ive missed a lot of the thread since yesterday so sorry if this has been repeated ad infintum.

the only reason youre getting all these reports of regretful voters is that the insular metropolitan complacency of media remainers cant get their head around the vote.

As someone said elsewhere, we are debating in a different world to that of most of those who voted to leave.

It is not impossible to imagine that the Article 50 notification will never be made, and that the possibility that it may one day be made will become another routine feature of UK politics – a sort of embedded threat which comes and goes out of focus. The notification will be made one day, politicians and pundits will say, but not yet.

And whilst it is not made, then other ways of solving the problem created by the referendum result may present themselves: another referendum, perhaps, so that UK voters can give the “correct” result, or a general election where EU membership is a manifesto issue, or some other thing.

http://jackofkent.com/2016/06/why-the-article-50-notification-is-important/

among all the stupid polling questions, one a few weeks before the referendum 'found' that two thirds of people would accept no loss of income in order to control immigration. apart from the tired regretful voter trope, which might have some facticity but is mostly a morality fable, two or three months of bad economic news would create plenty of them.

not actually leaving the eu after all suggests that this whole thing has been an elaborate plot to ensure that nobody in england outside of london ever has the temerity/will to vote ever again

xp you mean 2/3 would not accept any loss of income in order to control immigration?

yeah

broadly speaking i'm seeing a split between two reactions to the vote. the people who are saying "wait, it doesn't have to be this way", and people who suspect that "leave" voters have an incomplete and inadequate grasp of human suffering, and are eager that those voters be made to learn quickly, as an example to the rest of the world. i think both reactions are necessary.

I'd not really considered this till you guys bought it up. "100% anger 0% plans to deal with issues or make peoples lives better" is just going to make everyone more resentful and angry and go fucking cray cray, isnt it?

Kenneth Armstrong, professor of European Law at Cambridge University said: “There is no mechanism to compel a state to withdraw from the European Union. Article 50 is there to allow withdrawal, but no other party has the right to invoke article 50, no other state or institution. While delay is highly undesirable politically, legally there is nothing that can compel a state to withdraw.”

The only card the EU does hold is another article of the Lisbon Treaty - but it’s a big card, an ace. Under Article 7, the EU could suspend a member if it deems it to be in breach of basic principles of freedom, democracy, equality and rule of law.

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jun/25/article-50-brexit-debate-britain-eu

"people cant face it. same way it seemed very muted for people to accept that jo coxs killer was motivated by the ugliness of nationalism, racism, etc (even if these were symptoms of larger problems)."

Or maybe, as in my case, I've actually done some EU lawyering at the actual EU and know have some idea of how this shit works. Oh, and classy to conflate my knowledge of the law and reticence to take Farage and Johnson and Cameron at their fucking word for excusing Jo Cox's racist killers and the scum who inspired him to do it.

The EU don't want Britain out. The moderate conservative leadership at the EU may -- imagine this! -- have have actually communicated with their party cousins in the UK and have some reason to believe that the referendum was a bit of a bluff and has more symbolic than actual weight. A different question could have been written -- this one, the one with no dates and no directions and the word "should" -- is the one that we are dealing with.

Most reassuring post of the day that

"Euroskeptic" far right morons are going to realize they've been screwed at some point and will react stupidly and violently when they do -- the question is whether you want them to be driving the bus when it happens.

LG I think we work in vaguely similar fields and with big sweeping calls/promises I tend to ignore the rhetoric - as in, I've literally no idea what Cameron's even said most of the time - and just think about the mechanisms, flow of funding, and legal processes, because I know from painful experience it usually comes down to this kind of 'detail' which often ends up quietly delivering something different from the promised headlines. Which does mean I'm often clueless about the political/strategical side of things. This whole thing has been surreal to me precisely because of the 'what Brexit are we voting for?' question, which I haven't really seen answered anywhere beforehand, and the sheer scale of actually implementing it/anything. All the statutory instruments that'd need looking at!

I was thinking about it this morning, like a lot of my job is turning legislation into actionable instructions for people who need to do something, and so a lot of the time I find myself thinking about the unreality of legislative language or bureaucracy, like maybe the source document will talk about a capitalised scheme as the subject of a sentence, rather than talking to the person who needs to do something with that. I feel a bit like I'm dealing with content of that nature when I try to think about "what is brexit". What would it mean? How would it be done? It's incredibly conceptual.

and as well as the bureaucratic level on which the meaning of brexit is unknown, there's also the fact that if you asked 100 people who voted to leave the EU what their definition of leaving the EU is, you probably wouldn't get the same answer twice. Or if you did, maybe it'd solely be about immigration and have little to do with the machinations of how to end/change the UK's relationship with the EU.

Since 2000, a majority of EU member states who have had a referendum on EU-related issues have voted against the pro-EU position: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Referendums_related_to_the_European_Union