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Author Topic: Brexit! Conversation Continued  (Read 193289 times)

ChairmanPoo

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Re: Brexit! Conversation Continued
« Reply #1320 on: March 15, 2017, 01:44:22 pm »

You're putting too much stock in what the Spanish PM says. I daresay you consider his words reliable in a "western-world head of goverment are reliable way", when for behavior modelling purposes, you're better off expecting him to act as a banana republic kleptocrat.
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misko27

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Re: Brexit! Conversation Continued
« Reply #1321 on: March 15, 2017, 05:30:32 pm »

Well as an American lecturing a Brit, and as a Serb, I would like to remind you that cultural ties have absolutely no intrinsic importance whatsoever. They matter precisely as soon as people want to imagine they matter, and cease to be relevant as soon as people wish to ignore them, and not one second longer. Forget that at your peril.

Personally I'd be happy if Scotland seceded just so I could avoid angry British people correcting me about "Great Britain vs The UK vs England vs Scotland vs The Crown vs whatever", and what precisely the difference is between British and English or British and Scottish (which is never consistent between individuals). What is England? Is it a country? A state? A kingdom? An island? An empire? An idea? A postage stamp? The world may never know. When something reappears on Wikipedia's lamest Edit-Wars as often as the Balkans, there is a problem.
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Is Scotland a Constituent country (linking to constituent country), or a Country within a country (linking to constituent country), or a Country (linking to constituent country), or Country (linking to country), or a Semi autonomous subdivision of the United Kingdom, or a Semi autonomous constituent subdivision of the United Kingdom, or a Semi autonomous subdivision of the United Kingdom, or a Home Nation, or a Nation, or a Kingdom, or a Part, or a Province, or a Region, or a combination of any of the above, or none of the above?

There have also been similar edit wars on pages about England, Northern Ireland and Wales. Following in the fine tradition of truly Lame edit wars, the conflict has spilt over into unlikely places – for example, cities twinned with Scottish cities have had flag icons repeatedly switched between the Union Jack and that of Scotland, with collateral damage seen on Colin McRae and Chris Hoy (whose page during the 2008 Olympics saw both the Union Jack being removed/added from nationality and switching between being British and Scottish).
Tis nonsense.
« Last Edit: March 15, 2017, 06:57:39 pm by misko27 »
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Starver

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Re: Brexit! Conversation Continued
« Reply #1322 on: March 15, 2017, 05:33:31 pm »

I feel that about half the UK will Regrexit and half the UK will be filled with Brexitement myself.
Don't forget the half who were Apathexit...
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Sheb

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Re: Brexit! Conversation Continued
« Reply #1323 on: March 16, 2017, 04:36:08 am »

I'm pretty sure that one of the biggest arguments for voting no on the Scottish independence referendum, back when it was run, was that if they went independent, they wouldn't be in the EU anymore. Now that England has shafted Scotland by voting to leave the EU, it seems only right that Scotland should be allowed to choose to remain in the EU as a separate entity.

And 'England has shafted Scotland'? You realise the Brexit vote was pretty much 60/40 in Scotland, right? It's not like Scotland is a united nation of strident Europhiles. If anything, the EU has shafted all of us. Do you really think Brexit would have passed if, all that time ago when Cameron went to them for some kind of deal he could present to the British public as a compromise, to persuade them not to vote for Brexit - do you think if they'd given him anything more than the laugh in the face that he received that we'd be in this position now? I mean, fuck, you know I'm glad we're leaving, but on that front I'm still genuinely annoyed on behalf of the EU-supporters, because they deserved better support than they got from people like Tusk, Juncker, Merkel, etc.


He, you can't run an union by encouraging people to hold referendum on leaviing to extract concessions. I mean, Cameron was an ass, he managed to antagonize pretty much every other EU leader, why would you expect the EU to make (yet) more special carves-out for Britain?
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Neonivek

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Re: Brexit! Conversation Continued
« Reply #1324 on: March 16, 2017, 06:50:54 am »

I feel that about half the UK will Regrexit and half the UK will be filled with Brexitement myself.
Don't forget the half who were Apathexit...

I am going to the store to buy a carton of Milexit.
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Loud Whispers

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Re: Brexit! Conversation Continued
« Reply #1325 on: March 16, 2017, 08:58:28 am »

As I recall the actual wording was 'once in a generation' anyway, which is roughly 5-10 years, so the timeline fits with her original statement.
Come on now you're having a giggle, the SNP were clearly not saying they were gonna hold a referendum every five years until the UK was ruins
Once in a lifetime, once in a generation, these are not terms we use to describe the passing lives of mayflies

A few thousand of the people who voted last time are dead now and a few thousand people have since turned 16. As I said before, the SNP get the right to hold one anytime they get the biggest share in Holyrood. Or to be more precise, anytime the majority of MSPs vote for it in Holyrood, because that's how representative democracies work.
If your legitimacy for calling as many independence referendums as you want comes from a few thousand people dying or the SNP MPs saying so when they've got no such mandate to do so I'm rather worried about the practicality of seeking compromise with the SNP. Scottish people voted against independence in a once in a lifetime referendum you'll need a bit more to have just cause. For starters Holyrood does not have the right to alter the constitution of Britain without agreement with Britain, hence why the last such referendum was an agreement between the government in Westminster and the government in Edinburgh. For seconds, the SNP is running under the assumption that the 60% who voted in the EU referendum are people who want to leave the UK and join the EU, which is an extraordinary claim to make. A claim, which they will need to justify with evidence - which will provide them with their mandate.
The idea that MPs have a right to command the will of their people without the consultation of their people is simply ludicrous. If the MPs in Westminster had their way, the majority of Britain who voted to leave the EU would have been ignored, because as it happens most MPs were pro-EU regardless of what their constituents actually wanted. Thus how am I supposed to take SNP politicians word for it that they represent Scotland's wishes when the majority of Scots oppose indyref2 electric boogaloo and even 34% of SNP voters wouldn't want Scotland to leave the UK and join the EU?

Ideally, we would have gotten this all done and dusted with a snap election. Then SNP could have been able to go forwards into the future with clear mandates, thus I'm suspicious of the SNP trying to push the second indyref campaign so soon, before the general election, during Brexit negotiations.
So how are we to respond? You can see why I talk of timing, of waiting until the next general election. It is not enough to say things have changed when in all honesty, it appears otherwise

But if the Indyref2 happens after Brexit then the entire purpose for doing it, which is for Scotland to avoid Brexit, stops being relevant, as Scotland would then have to apply for EU membership as a non-member, rather than as a sub-member.
Oh dear, I guess this seals it then - Scottish MPs have no right to override the rest of the country, least of all when the Scottish people would rather be in a UK without the EU, than in an EU without the UK. If we hold this referendum now whilst we're conducting negotiations, then the UK leadership will be dealing with a constitutional crisis, half the country threatening to break away while negotiating with the European Union at the same time. Our job market has returned to stellar performance with unemployment at its lowest in a decade coming at the cost of retarded wage growth. That stability regained, it all completely evaporates if Westminster agrees with the SNPs demands right now.

It was one of the official platforms of the NO campaign run by the Conservatives, New Labour and Lib Dems. I do not think it was on the pointless pledge the party leaders signed though, not that that went anywhere anyway.
I haven't found much to say about that, though I did find this:
Quote
t has been apparent for years that Scotland enjoys membership of the EU because of our membership of the UK and if we no longer are members of the UK then it follows that we are no longer are part of the EU.
We enjoy EU citizenship due to our UK citizenship. There is no Scottish flag flying outside the European Parliament.
Scotland is not named in any EU treaty.
If we are no longer part of the UK we are a candidate country - if the other members allow us to start that process.
And let us not forget that the EU is a political organisation that is run by politicians. The people who will discuss a separate Scotland’s applications all have to consider their own national interests. We will not just be waved through.
It may well be that the President of the European Commission, as a former Portuguese Prime Minister, is thinking about the politics of the Iberian peninsula when commenting on these questions just as the President of the Council ,Herman van Rompuy, a former Belgium PM make be influenced by his own experiences at home concerning Flanders.
I don’t believe that we will ever need these negotiations as I fully believe that the majority of Scots will look at the shambles being proposed by the separatists and will cast a positive vote to stay in the UK.
However, we cannot allow ourselves to be complacent. We must use the next two years to ensure that nationalism and separatism are defeated. If we don’t, we leave ourselves open to the fact that the nationalists will take us on a journey to a deeply uncertain future.
http://web.archive.org/web/20140914205737/http:/bettertogether.net/blog/entry/eu-cant-trust-them
Note, archived - the original webpage is taken down, presumably because bettertogether either ran out of money or are trying to hide that they warned Scots remaining in the UK was the only way to remain in the EU. There was also one Tory politician called Ruth Davidson who said the only way to stay in the EU was to remain in the UK.  Also on their twitter is this, I think the comments it received illustrate how no SNP voters bought the bullshit.

As is there's a chunk of YES voters who are more self determination focused than the rest, who are anti-EU and anti-UK and want to leave both, with the rest of the movement being focused on the more direct problems that come from UK politics not aligning with Scottish ones more than half the time over the past 40 or so years and feeling the less direct influence the EU has is not a problem, or feeling it's actually a benefit because of freedom of movement, trade, research grants and other funding it gives.
Kowtowing to a chunk who have no legitimacy to the damage of the entire country is not an attractive prospect tbh

Ignoring Scotland would be bankrupt already if it had independence, neither it nor R/of UK would emerge from indyref2 or independence alive. Thus it seems SNP must demand indyref 2, Westminster must deny it. Knowing Westminster must deny it, SNP must demand it nevertheless, thus ensuring that their campaign is alive and kicking into 2020. Thus it seems it doesn't matter who leans upon who, when it seems the goal is not to succeed, but to challenge.

I feel that about half the UK will Regrexit and half the UK will be filled with Brexitement myself.
Battle lines are drawn and nobody ever admits they were wrong either way these days.
That would be consistent with the way one half voted one way and the other half voted the other

pretty much 60/40 in Scotland, right? It's not like Scotland is a united nation of strident Europhiles. If anything, the EU has shafted all of us. Do you really think Brexit would have passed if, all that time ago when Cameron went to them for some kind of deal he could present to the British public as a compromise, to persuade them not to vote for Brexit - do you think if they'd given him anything more than the laugh in the face that he received that we'd be in this position now? I mean, fuck, you know I'm glad we're leaving, but on that front I'm still genuinely annoyed on behalf of the EU-supporters, because they deserved better support than they got from people like Tusk, Juncker, Merkel, etc.
To be fair, the EU shafting their most powerful ally in the UK was hilarious and a much needed gift to are based Nige

Remain campaign slogans. But the context is very obviously different, seeing as Scotland has been part of UK for much longer than UK has been a part of EU, and it has been much better integrated too, to boot.
Aye, and if the UK were like the EU, we'd have Greece'd Scotland, instead of subsidizing Scots far in excess of what the English receive. We don't even have any oil, the money comes out of our work and taxes, at a time when our infrastrucutre is fucking shite and our NHS at risk of collapsing, while the SNP say they're rich enough to secede therefore they don't need to contribue anything to the poor of the UK with all their vast wealth.
...
It's very painful trying to understand politicians. Still, there's a great deal more expense I reckon southerners would be willing to tolerate to keep the Union alive, a lot of history together, undoubtedly that fondness never dies

Well as an American lecturing a Brit, and as a Serb, I would like to remind you that cultural ties have absolutely no intrinsic importance whatsoever.
Things Americans say

They matter precisely as soon as people want to imagine they matter, and cease to be relevant as soon as people wish to ignore them, and not one second longer. Forget that at your peril.
Compare it to money, how as soon as people stop believing it has value, it stops have value. Culture is not like money, because culture is priceless.

Personally I'd be happy if Scotland seceded just so I could avoid angry British people correcting me about "Great Britain vs The UK vs England vs Scotland vs The Crown vs whatever", and what precisely the difference is between British and English or British and Scottish (which is never consistent between individuals).
It is awfully American to freedom' other nations over mistakes in geography :D

Starver

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Re: Brexit! Conversation Continued
« Reply #1326 on: March 16, 2017, 09:27:37 am »

and a much needed gift to are based Nige
I have really got to ask, because "are based Nige" comes up a lot in your scribblings. Is this a phonetic error? Or deliberate affectation, of that silly kind you otherwise make?

"Are" may be "Our", but "based" doesn't seem to match anything (except, vaguely, "biased", or "bastard" at a pinch, but not sure that's the opinion you want to convey).

Tried anagrams, too, but "blessed" or even "bare arsed" don't match, and "ease drab" doesn't mean anything that I think you support.  And transpositions ("evi fewih", "izm jiaml", or of course "ner onfrq") don't mean much.

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Loud Whispers

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Re: Brexit! Conversation Continued
« Reply #1327 on: March 16, 2017, 09:47:04 am »

I have really got to ask, because "are based Nige" comes up a lot in your scribblings. Is this a phonetic error? Or deliberate affectation, of that silly kind you otherwise make?
This'll do you a lot of fun

"Are" may be "Our", but "based" doesn't seem to match anything (except, vaguely, "biased", or "bastard" at a pinch, but not sure that's the opinion you want to convey).
"Based" is based but this kind of based, broadly speaking, well good

Tried anagrams, too, but "blessed" or even "bare arsed" don't match, and "ease drab" doesn't mean anything that I think you support.  And transpositions ("evi fewih", "izm jiaml", or of course "ner onfrq") don't mean much.
I gotta admit I'm thankful for the effort you put into deciphering the meaning

Starver

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Re: Brexit! Conversation Continued
« Reply #1328 on: March 16, 2017, 01:38:54 pm »

Between this and previous stuff you've said on the subject, I genuinely don't know whether you can't follow LW's meanings or if this is your own affectation, in some attempt to sound particularly, well, old, or out of touch.
I genuinely did not know.  There's an awful lot of 'in crowd' stuff in LW's spiel, and I've made several private protestations to that effect (the above was going to be composed here, but pasted into private...  but I forgot to do the latter bit).

I'm definitely older than I'd like (isn't everybody, except those who foolishly think they want to be older), but I don't think I'm quite so much out of touch as there is just too much "in touch" to go round.  Which potentially makes it a problem when someone uses language from one memesphere in a place where practically no-one else does

Not that I'm so innocent of obfuscative code-switching (more by accident but maybe, maybe, occasionally on porpoise),  and prior to the existence of the Web I was often in places where a given local patois was de rigour and I freely partook. But I tried (and try) not to do it elsewhere, just to be different.

I've long since put LW in the category of people who refuse to use punctuation, or more than one case, or avoid a certain key on their keyboard. Either a psychological need (occasionally a phydical problem), an affectation of a psychological need(/ditto) to play a role or else just being bloody-minded about it. I know enough people in the first part of the spectrum to know never to make crass assumptions, but have decreasing tolerance when its obvious it's just the latter.

I know that my 'thing' is a mixture of inherent verbosity and (attempted) grammatical rigour, and a smattering of now possibly archaic TLAs.  I do try to avoid glazed over eyes, though. Not always successfully.  And if I'm in any way Hipsterish about it, I'm definitely more the kind of Hipster from before it was mainstream(!)...


That's all.  For now, though, consider me marginally more enlightened.  (And more so once I check out that YouTube link, on a better link, perhaps. Unless it's just a RickRoll or similar.)
« Last Edit: March 16, 2017, 01:42:13 pm by Starver »
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Loud Whispers

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Re: Brexit! Conversation Continued
« Reply #1329 on: March 19, 2017, 09:35:42 am »

In this moment I am enlightened, not because of any phony linguist's blessing, but because of my superior irony

Loud Whispers

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Re: Brexit! Conversation Continued
« Reply #1330 on: March 19, 2017, 01:10:31 pm »

In this moment I am enlightened, not because of any phony linguist's blessing, but because of my superior irony
Would you say you're... euphoric?
*Tips trilby*

Sergarr

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Re: Brexit! Conversation Continued
« Reply #1331 on: March 20, 2017, 08:41:48 am »

The Brits have set the date of triggering Article 50 to 29 March, just 9 days away from today. With the amount of stuff in Union's queue, I wouldn't expect the negotiations to actually start at that day, though. Possibly not for several months afterwards, either.
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Starver

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Re: Brexit! Conversation Continued
« Reply #1332 on: March 20, 2017, 09:43:06 am »

http://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=GBP&to=USD&view=1Y
http://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=GBP&to=USD&view=1D

(Those will change as viewed later, of course. Screenshotted, but not yet cropped and uploaded to anywhere for image-linking. Maybe later, when I'm not travelling.)

(Right now, showing that we're not as low as (in Month display) the mid-March drop, but definite fall and (slower, lower) rebound straight after the announcement.  And on the yearly, obvious we've lost more against the dollar. Even the Trump effect on the dollar didn't help.)

Whether or not this is a bad thing, or a good thing, is almost philosophical.  I have some dollars to convert, though, so maybe now's as good time as any?  Having missed the prior dip.
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Azzuro

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Re: Brexit! Conversation Continued
« Reply #1333 on: March 20, 2017, 10:12:58 am »

I would post an ITSHAPPENING .gif, but this Article 50 thing has dragged on so long I honestly have no idea what's happening. So what's the timeline after March 29?
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Starver

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Re: Brexit! Conversation Continued
« Reply #1334 on: March 20, 2017, 10:51:21 am »

So what's the timeline after March 29?
March 30th then March 31st then April 1st. Twice, just to make sure we get the joke.

Spoiler: Or...? (click to show/hide)
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