Haha, you'll be lucky mate. I'm still waiting on answers from him to about half-a-dozen questions.
I've given up trying to have a serious discussion, can't believe I managed to make it this far into 2017 still trying. Lord knows I am patient
[/quote]
theresa.exeA interesting situation either way, a party calling for a new election while still under investigation for fraud in the previous one.
In regards to this, the Tory party is divided between May's merry band of men versus Osborne's former clique of neocons who took campaigning law as guidelines to be bent. It was painful to see Remain's campaign budget be boosted by the government lmao, which illustrates why I would say it's not the Tory party calling the snap election - it's Theresa May calling the snap election, and it will be to the detriment of many Tory MPs. I imagine Theresa was getting jealous of Comrade Corbachev getting to do all the party purges
But, one wonders, will they have any time to spend on an election in the middle of Brexit negotiations?
[spoiler=Why, let's ask the woman of the hour herself.]
[...]
May said: "When the SNP government say that now is the time to start talking about a second independence referendum, I say that just at this point all of our energies should be focused on our negotiations with the European Union about our future relationship.
[...]
"MPs urged not to sabotage Brexit" - Seems Theresa May has decided it will be considerably easier to conduct Brexit negotiations having eliminated pro-EU MPs from within her ranks
Don't agree with her decision, but hey at least people will not be going on for decades talking about how an unelected Prime Minister pulled the UK out of the EU
At least we can count on the British media to give us an unbiased view of the proceedings
Deploy orbital sides launcher
Now taking bets as to when exactly the UK will become a de facto one-party state, given the performance of the opposition.
Tbh reported to the police for seditious thoughts, please report to your local job centre for reeducation
As for self-determination within the UK, in an ideal world it could happen, but in practice, I don't think it can. Theresa May has been clamouring on and on about how the country needs to pull together, but failed to inform the Scottish government precisely when she was going to trigger Article 50, despite apparently having discussed it with the Welsh government - who voted to Leave, as opposed to Scotland's Remain.
That would be because she was in Wales, talking with the Welsh government
She met the first minister of Wales in Monday morning to talk about the future of Swansea and in Monday afternoon the date set for triggering article 50 was broadcasted to the entire country through the BBC. What are the SNP getting angry about, they weren't kicked out of Westminster - I don't see how Michael Russell hearing the set date for article 50 being triggered a few hours later from the Welsh suggests the UK is doomed to certain balkanization.
The Majority of Scots oppose a second referendum while Nicola Sturgeon announced a second referendum without a mandate from the Scottish people, without informing Westminster ahead of time. This is why I think the obstacle to self-determination and Britain versus self-determination sans Britain is the SNP itself - it's creating a self-fulfilling prophecy by going on a warpath regardless of what its voters want. Seems cheeky that Michael can turn that into an insult, without considering what his party's actions look like to the rest of Britain
Seems a bit petty, and a little bit hypocritical after May's call for a grown-up relationship between the UK government and the devolved administrations. Further cheekiness from that, when she says she wants the relationships built on "cooperation and consensus" but just outright rejects Scotland's demands to remain a part of the common market as well as the UK. Also the whole "we need to focus on Brexit, you can't have your referendum. We're having a general election, by the way" thing, which essentially wastes two months of your two year negotiation process aimed at disentangling the UK from the past 40+ years of EU law and regulation.
There's nothing cheeky about rejecting the demand that Scotland remains a part of the single market and the UK, it's not a demand that can legally be satisfied:
There was further bad news for the SNP when Elmar Brok, a senior member of the European Parliament, also said there could be “no exceptions” to allow Scotland to remain in the single market.
The German MEP, chairman of the parliament’s foreign affairs committee, told BBC Radio Scotland: "We cannot have two agreements with the United Kingdom and with Scotland.
While it would be pretty awesome if the United Kingdom could simultaneously be an independent non-member of the European Union whilst a member of the European Union, it's not possible, nor do the European Union negotiators want to create such an exploitable precedence. In regards to EU law and regulation, the plan has been from the start to transfer EU law and regulation, thus causing no chaotic rush to disentangle 40 years of regulation; there is no issue there. The focus is very much regaining executive authority over how we run our country before deciding exactly what goals and how we run the country will be set
It seems that (at least the current) British government considers Scotland a petulant child that needs to be kept in line, but I'm also aware of my huge bias against the Tories and for Scotland.
Cameron's jellyfish crew gave off that tone, what with his whole infamous "pls don't destroy uk to piss off effin tories" speech, I don't see that in the current gov - who are stepping on eggshells since the SNP seems determined to turn anything into an insult with which to use against Britain. Despite the SNP always having a voice in Westminster, despite sending the Secretary of State for Scotland and other Ministers to discuss the future in Holyrood, the SNP then goes on saying it's a great insult to Scotland because Westminster didn't send David Davis - even though they invited him for March 16, the same day he was
due to appear in the House of Commons. It's this whole thing of giving Westminster impossible demands, jumping at non-insults and then delivering insults in return - the SNP are trying to convince the majority of Scots who oppose more referendums that the English are Tories, that the Tories hold Scotland in contempt, and that the Scots hold the reverse in kind. I'm concerned it's gonna work, when unity seems so tantalizingly possible. Separating ourselves from a generation old trading bloc we were only half-heartedly in, that doesn't scare investors nearly as much as the prospect of breaking up a 300 year old union between the most integrated economies on the isles both using the same currency. Holyrood could keep losing independence referendums and it would still fuck up London, God knows what that would do to the rest of the country, and there's nothing much we can do if the SNP have decided they have the right to keep calling referendums whenever they feel like it.
Simply put, if the SNP tells you the Tories hold you in contempt, and the Tories tell you they don't, the former's far more trustworthy than the foreign latter. I suppose what I'm getting at is what could the Westminster gov do that would not be deemed an insult to Scotland by the SNP? It's painful having to defend why one rejects a Scotland remaining in the EU and UK option when the EU is adamant that that is impossible, this is not a decision Westminster has any capability to allow
Or Reuters. Or Huffpo. Or... you can probably find it yourself, elsewhere.)
Of note is that all of this comes from
The Times quoting unnamed sources, which explains the tone. Trump wants to negotiate a trade deal with the EU, so the Times comes to the conclusion that this is a catastrophic setback for the UK. During the referendum
The Times officially supported Remain, while
The Sun officially supported Leave - both are owned by Murdoch, thus Murdoch was shoring off all possibilities and catering to all audiences' preferences. Personally I stopped taking much stock in Trump after I realized he liked talking up whoever he was talking to, whether it was Taiwan, Japan, UK or Germany, and I truly don't know how much cocaine he must be on to be able to U-turn so rapidly from "yeah gonna blow you up" to "wtf I like you now". My suspicions around the Times trying to spin this as the USA being incapable of conducting a trade deal with the UK and EU aside, I do wonder what the Whitehouse's official public statements will come to be. As it stands their official stance
remains that the USA and UK will conduct a bilateral trade agreement ASAP. Trump is a hard one to understand. Personally I am not placing too much credit to the anonymous sources, partly on account of the Times's partisanship, partly on account that I sincerely hope the most powerful man in the world didn't actually not know how the EU nations conducted trade deals. Before attempting to conduct trade deals with the EU nations. Ten times.
This is not unexpected. Donald Trump looks only after number one. TBH I think he was encouraging Brexit with the expectation of making the British easier to bully down the line.
Nah, seems much more likely he did it to court the Anglophile vote in the USA when Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama made very public interventions against the UK.
It is because... There is this very obvious undercurrent here... that is very blatant.
But because it is so obvious it kind of can't be commented on, but sidestepped around.
It is because... This thing that is so obvious... So easy to point out... I can't say anything about it... But it's there... I won't tell you though...
-Every Neonivek post
Once again... Thank you?
You seem to have this idea that the ideal situation was for her to bravely bust down the door and slap the religion out of them... for the sake of... tolerance?
Launching into physical assault =/= Having my secular leaders submit to religious authority
Yeah nah don't see an obvious middle ground here. It's either genocide or shariah law
Oh wait nah, I gave you an example. Marine Le Pen didn't assault anyone, she canceled the meeting. Look, such a simple gesture, and it demonstrates far more spine - she shows she will not compromise her values.
So what is the enemy here?
"an equal right to maintain its own identity, culture, language, religion and customs"
Almost every serious politician now recognises that Honeyford was correct to maintain both that multiculturalism is a recipe for the segregation of communities and that it would work against the development of a single set of basic values that could bind members of British society together. But while multiculturalism may have been abandoned as government policy, its legacy is everywhere.
You seem to be running under the dogmatic assumption that multiculturalism is an inherent good. We've had a few decades of neolibs who wanted diversity because they saw it as an inherent good, without need for any justification except its own self-reference or it being the current year. We're doing our best to get rid of them, because it turns out keeping the peace between communities is harder than with individuals. That and the neolibs turned out to be covering for slavers but that's another story tbh
I think I may have just lost my mind for a moment, but is Neo attacking his own argument right now?
I am truly, seriously lost here.
Don't question it. Just accept it
What I find depressing is that I could actually see this happening if Trump was handling negotiations directly.
I like the story that Trump's daughter managed to convince him to launch air strikes on Syria with pictures of sad children