Brexit now leading by 10 points

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-36656980

Spain and France are both opposing the Scottish Parliament's attempt to avoid Brexit.

This whole thing really has turned a lot of people into hateful sods. It has always been there I guess, but this has made them feel like they've got a legitimate cause to voice it.

You really, really don't understand what's going on here. This concerns Scotland negotiating a stay in the EU (a) while remaining in the UK and (b) without going through the general admission process. Even I am against this, even though I am strongly in favour of Scotland joining the EU on their own if the UK does leave (which I still kind of hope it doesn't, although that hope is now small).

The EU can't do that or they green light every breakaway region to vote for their current nation to exit the EU, breaking up both the EU and the European nation state.

Again, this is ludicrously illogical and completely misses chronological and causal consequence.

Uh no. It's 100% logical.

If a breakaway region can only join the EU by breaking away, and since the breakaway region gets a very large vote on whether the country they want to break away from leaves the EU, any recognition of Scotland gives a huge boost to all breakaway regions to vote for their home country to leave the EU. Scotland and Ireland could have trivially decided the outcome of the Brexit vote, in either direction. If you let Scotland join the EU then you're dramatically changing the logic in every breakaway region, such that those who favor the EU will actually vote to leave the EU so that they can both divorce themselves from their home country and join the EU as a proud, sovereign state whose leaders are the local assholes who get the people fired up for revolution.

The problem with leftists and right-wing elites is that they cannot see more than two moves ahead. They should not assume that everyone else is as dumb as they are, given that all those "dumb" people can follow convoluted plot lines through a briar patch to get to the goal.

That totally ignores the fact that pretty much the only reason this is being talked about is because Scotland voted by a large majority to stay in the EU.



You wouldn't see anything like that for a Welsh representative right now.

But the Welsh aren't going to vote to stay in the EU or to exit the UK. They are not a break away region. Look around Europe and see all the frustrated, disrespected, marginalized local wannabees that know how to connect with their particular minority that is nursing centuries old grievances. Letting Scotland in will give them clarity on the path forward, convoluted as that path sounds to outsiders. Vote for their much despised home country to leave the EU, then turn around and vote for their own region to rejoin the EU. If you can follow Game of Thrones, you can follow that, as can everybody who can change a car's oil for a living. It can put disrespected minorities not only on an equal footing to their home country, but a superior footing. They will be in the EU while their oppressors are social outcasts, all just by pulling the right lever and the right time.

People with a lot of money on the line will see this, and try to sway the votes accordingly.

Do you mean they aren't going to have a vote, or that the vote would be to stay in the UK?

Because if the former, there are already moves afoot:

http://www.theguardian.com/politics...-put-welsh-independence-on-agenda-leanne-wood

My Mum ships me and Leanne Wood. I met her a few years back and the PR photo has her gazing intently at me. I was explaining genomics.

Not so.

Nonsense, because cause and effect come in that order, not reversed. Breakaways don't become possible because a nation leaves the EU. That's why Scotland already had one such referendum earlier, while Catalonia didn't.

That does not follow in any way from leaving the EU.

aaaand Johnson is out!



"I broke it, you fix it!"

Watching the BBC and Sky, how could so many people actually believe 'I voted Leave because I wanted my voice to be heard, but I'd never thought we'ed actually, well, leave'

That's just stunning.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/0d47965e-3e13-11e6-9f2c-36b487ebd80a.html#axzz4CwmJAoL2

Looks like there has been quite a bit of high stake gambling going on for the sake of position and power. I don't know why I'm shocked at depth of the twattery, but I am.

Someone needs to run him over when he's on his bike. Twat.

Who's it going to be then? Theresa May?

Seems like nobody but Farage wants to send that letter. I'm confident that Johnson cowardly fleeing his own mess is a good sign. There are more and more signs that this won't happen after all. I wonder what's the worse of two bad, BAD choices. We'll never know but one thing is certain: Britain will not get out of this without losing face, money and special privileges.

If they choose to stay after all, the other 27 will end all the special deals Britain has had over the years. If the UK leaves (and maybe even breaks up), there will be no special treatment.

It's what you get for following populists. I hope this is a warning for all the people who think about voting for those people.

Partly the consequence of years of experience with First-Past-The-Post voting in elections, rather than direct majority... Brits are used to their vote "not counting" and thus feel safe to "protest vote" by voting against the assumed winner - it takes big shifts in most UK elections to flip a constituency.

Plus, most of my countrymen are twats.

So sayeth many of his former conquests.

Remnants of the campaign of fear. Next thing they'll be showing Corbyn giving them wafers for their absolution.

Almost certainly....and frankly she's the most capable and sensible of the candidates anyway.

She seems to be.
Hmmmm Theresa in No.10, Hillary in the WH. That'll make for some Scanner like head explosions.

She's the best of a bad bunch but her views on human rights are appalling. A big part of the reason I voted Remain was so the ECHR would be able to pull the reins on folk like her.

Apparently telling 52% of the nation they're a bunch of nasty, racist xenophobes had the entirely predictable outcome of allowing the small percentage of the nation who are genuinely nasty, racist xenophobes to think they're in the majority and proceed to act like they had public support.

Another raging success for the Remain's campaign of relentless negativity there, truly a gift that'll be giving for a while yet, unfortunately.

Yeah, I've heard some spectacularly stupid reasons for voting either way. This is why we don't have referendums often, vox populus has a little too many tones of vox fuckwitus for Athenian democracy to work sadly, as it would be my preferred way of running things, but I encounter enough people to know it would be a very, very bad idea until the education system focusses more on thinking than doing.

Gove's not bad, but his time at Education tarnished him. When you look like Pob and rely on wifey and Twitter accounts to act as an attack force on 'The Blob', then no matter how right you are, you're still a dick.

Shame, as if he pushed his upbringing to the fore he'd connect well with the public. And, as we've seen with his desire for prison reform, actually a decent human being underneath.

May though? Her record with intelligence gathering would give the Stasi erections. She's smart, and capable of handling brickbats.

Either way, I suspect whoever wins will only be there for one term. I'm expecting a GE in either autumn or spring, and the Labour Party to get trounced with that self-serving twat doing a Downfall, possibly to the point the Lib Dems will look like Lazarus himself. After a very bloody pogrom I'd expect them to bounce back and take the next GE, assuming they don't get another Milibrain or Corbyn.

When I heard he'd pulled out, my immediate comment to the office was "I bet wife wished he'd done that with the mistress..."

Yes, I agree entirely. I can't remember who it was up thread and I can't find it now (Chup maybe?) who said that the highest percentage of leavers for a council had been Boston & New Holland, which also had the highest number of immigrants and therefore it was plain old xenophobia.

It's really not the case, this is a much more balanced view - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-36258541 (sorry forgotten how to do links). It shows that although the effect of immigration has been great for Britain overall, the rate of immigration in those areas has caused a widening of the haves and have-nots, strains on services and infrastructure and artificially high pricing for housing (it costs more to rent in Boston than it does Nottingham and yet the wages are lower there than the national average). This is replicated over the country in varying degrees. Had this been managed and investment poured into those areas before the influx, I don't think you would be having so many people demanding the borders be shut. Except for language issues, I don't think it matters where the volume of people came from, it could have been up the road and the outcry would have been the same.

I'd still really like to see the worst affected areas helped out. I don't think it's necessarily too late to turn the tide of bad feeling.

Maybe he's simply going to Texas?

It's why there's been such a divide, areas like London have benefited from imported cheap labour, the more outlying ones have seen an influx of competition and decades of South-Eastern looking investment have left them unable to compete. We needed a Northern Powerhouse in the 90's, along with a boost to the South West. Instead they got to see Londoners buying up their houses as second homes and seeing their kids priced out of the market. They've seen traditional jobs disappear (fishing is still sore over the EU) and little in the way of new ones coming in. Northern cities have been left to stew in their own juices, so you have Metropolitian-but-Grimey Manchester, and you also have a thriving mass of backwards attitudes in Bradford (white and asian. Working there was a joy I've avoided repeating.)

The bigger cities like Leeds and Manchester have a localized effect like London has on the whole nation, but are really unable to do much to help, they simply haven't the power, although the new Mayor system may change that.

It wasn't the only EU that could've avoided this situation. Much as I love London, I can understand the hatred it acquires from the rest of the country, and governments galore have failed to do anything about it.

The ones who have benefited can't see things from the view of those who've suffered, and vice versa, and I'm not sure there's any way of tackling that any time soon.

A combination of years Londoncentricity, negative EU stories, and an utter failure to invest in the social systems where there has been high immigration or to get the long term unemployed off their arses has made a toxic mix, and there are no quick fixes.