Uk Referendum on The EU Announced for 23rd June.

[Zaune]

Well the pundits were saying during the Labour leadership contest that choosing Corbyn was the perfect way to fuck themselves over, because Corbyn was "Unelectable" to voters.

Self-fulfilling prophecy much?

[jwl]

Jeremy ... has someone been a naughty boy?

Corbyn office 'sabotaged' EU Remain campaign - sources

The prime minister's resigned. No-one knows who the next occupant of No 10 will be.

And today, some of the most senior figures in the Labour Party are trying to push their leader out too. There have been concerns about Jeremy Corbyn's performance for months and months. But it was his role, or lack of role, in the campaign to keep the UK in the EU, and his sacking of Hilary Benn in the middle of the night, that has given members of the shadow cabinet the final reasons to quit. Several have already gone; as many as half will be gone by the end of the day, I understand.

And documents passed to the BBC suggest Jeremy Corbyn's office sought to delay and water down the Labour Remain campaign. Sources suggest that they are evidence of "deliberate sabotage".

One email from the leader's office suggests that Mr Corbyn's director of strategy and communications, Seumas Milne, was behind Mr Corbyn's reluctance to take a prominent role in Labour's campaign to keep the UK in the EU. One email, discussing one of the leader's speeches, said it was because of the "hand of Seumas. If he can't kill it, he will water it down so much to hope nobody notices it".

A series of messages dating back to December seen by the BBC shows correspondence between the party leader's office, the Labour Remain campaign and Labour HQ, discussing the European campaign. It shows how a sentence talking about immigration was removed on one occasion and how Mr Milne refused to sign off a letter signed by 200 MPs after it had already been approved.

The documents show concern in Labour HQ and the Labour Remain campaign about Mr Corbyn's commitment to the campaign - one email says: "What is going on here?" Another email from Labour Remain sources to the leader's office complains "there is no EU content here - we agreed to have Europe content in it". Sources say they show the leader's office was reluctant to give full support to the EU campaign and how difficult it was to get Mr Corbyn to take a prominent role.

Mr Corbyn has insisted publicly that he campaigned hard to keep the country in the EU and that he made a number of speeches around the country, and attended many campaigning events. But many shadow cabinet ministers believe his performance in the campaign has shown that he is simply not capable of leading the party. One senior figure told me: "People have just had enough and are embarrassed to be part of it." Jeremy Corbyn's team are adamant that he will stand again for the leadership, and they believe the party's members would back him again.

He has had persuasive and vehement backing from the party's members who he energised last summer. But as the Labour Party reels from Thursday's result, it is not clear that support will be as solid as it was. MPs report that some of their members are contacting them to say they've changed their minds about Mr Corbyn. We'll see. It's possible that within days, both of our two main political parties will be looking for a new leader.

A spokesman for the Labour party said: "The leaks of these emails within the Labour Party are self-evidently politically motivated. This is the action of people who want to de-stabilise the leadership by attempting to demonstrate negative activity in the leader's office.

"The leaks themselves show no such thing, simply demonstrating the views of those whose emails are quoted.

"On the process of letter writing, of course it is normal practice in politics that drafts are amended. Any communications in the name of the Leader of the Labour Party are authorised by the leader's communications team and ultimately by the leader himself .

"Both Jeremy and his team worked hard to deliver his message of remain and reform. Given that the Labour Party was the only party that delivered a majority vote for the remain campaign among its own supporters, the criticisms of Jeremy Corbyn make little sense."

For those of you outside of the UK allow me to present a little context; Jeremy Corbyn is the leader of the Labour Party. He was 'foisted' upon the Labour Leadership by the unions and their foot soldier proletariat after the last election and they hate his guts and are trying to oust him. However, during the Brexit debate Jeremy was curiously absent. I just thought they were doing that because they didn't want to make Tory voters run towards the Leave campaign in droves simply because the one thing I'll say about Corbyn is that he really cannot appeal to a Tory voter. After the Leave Campaign won, and won by basically hoovering up all of Labour's strongholds in North England I assumed that Corbyn's absence either cost them the referendum or he isn't the darling of the unions anymore.

But the above from the BBC indicates that Corbyn was actually sabotaging the Remain Campaign to get a Leave win. Curious.

He was not "foisted" on the labour party by the unions. http://www.labour.org.uk/blog/entry/res ... p-election
The union guys are "affiliated supporters", as you can see, he also won among both the registered supporters (£3 sign-ups) and the members. At most, you could say the unions gave him campaign funding and helped keep him in the news.

[jwl]

Anyway, the Labour Leave guys were saying throughout the campaign that Corbyn was a Eurosceptic really, and only said he wasn't to get the support of europhiles within the labour party. Maybe they were right if these rumours are legit.

[Crown]

For those of you outside of the UK allow me to present a little context; Jeremy Corbyn is the leader of the Labour Party. He was 'foisted' upon the Labour Leadership by the unions and their foot soldier proletariat after the last election and they hate his guts and are trying to oust him. <snip>

He was not "foisted" on the labour party by the unions. http://www.labour.org.uk/blog/entry/res ... p-election
The union guys are "affiliated supporters", as you can see, he also won among both the registered supporters (£3 sign-ups) and the members. At most, you could say the unions gave him campaign funding and helped keep him in the news.

Maybe I didn't make it clear but I was differentiating between the "Labour Party" and the "Labour Leadership", i.e. the Labour professional politicians who all came out in droves denouncing him as Satan incarnate when polls showed he was about to get elected to head of the Labour Party.

[jwl]

For those of you outside of the UK allow me to present a little context; Jeremy Corbyn is the leader of the Labour Party. He was 'foisted' upon the Labour Leadership by the unions and their foot soldier proletariat after the last election and they hate his guts and are trying to oust him. <snip>

He was not "foisted" on the labour party by the unions. http://www.labour.org.uk/blog/entry/res ... p-election
The union guys are "affiliated supporters", as you can see, he also won among both the registered supporters (£3 sign-ups) and the members. At most, you could say the unions gave him campaign funding and helped keep him in the news.

Maybe I didn't make it clear but I was differentiating between the "Labour Party" and the "Labour Leadership", i.e. the Labour professional politicians who all came out in droves denouncing him as Satan incarnate when polls showed he was about to get elected to head of the Labour Party.

Well wouldn't it be more accurate, then, to say he was foisted on them by the membership? Because really, he would still have won if the unions didn't exist, if you discount he role of campaign funding at least.

[Crown]

Maybe I didn't make it clear but I was differentiating between the "Labour Party" and the "Labour Leadership", i.e. the Labour professional politicians who all came out in droves denouncing him as Satan incarnate when polls showed he was about to get elected to head of the Labour Party.

Well wouldn't it be more accurate, then, to say he was foisted on them by the membership? Because really, he would still have won if the unions didn't exist, if you discount he role of campaign funding at least.

Well I'm a good old cynic when it comes to political process and quite frankly there is no way this man charmed himself to be elected as Leader, as I mentioned in my original post; "He was 'foisted' upon the Labour Leadership by the unions and their foot soldier proletariat..."

I'm taring the registered supporters as part of a union plot to get him in. Without a shred of evidence, I'll concede, but *winkwinknudgenudge*

[EnterpriseSovereign]

I'd say Corbyn was trying to avoid the same fate as the Scottish Labour party.

People very much see things in black and white most of the time, the last Scottish Referendum ended up being the SNP vs everybody else, and to a lot of Labour voters that translated into their party turning traitor and working with the Tory's regardless of what their feelings were on independence. Thus when the elections rolled around the anti tory voter instead of voting labour voted SNP as it was seen as the 'pure' party.

The same thing could have been the outcome of this referendum, maybe stay would have won but again Labour would have been seen as betraying their principles by working with the conservatives and their voters might have left them for that reason.

Not sensible, but generally speaking humans aren't.

Well the Lib Dems in forming the coalition with the Tories got wiped out in the next election for exactly that reason. Poor Nick Clegg

[Crazedwraith]

Just looking at just one year of Tory majority rule has done. I wonder if the libdems were an underappreciated moderating factor.

[jwl]

Maybe I didn't make it clear but I was differentiating between the "Labour Party" and the "Labour Leadership", i.e. the Labour professional politicians who all came out in droves denouncing him as Satan incarnate when polls showed he was about to get elected to head of the Labour Party.

Well wouldn't it be more accurate, then, to say he was foisted on them by the membership? Because really, he would still have won if the unions didn't exist, if you discount he role of campaign funding at least.

Well I'm a good old cynic when it comes to political process and quite frankly there is no way this man charmed himself to be elected as Leader, as I mentioned in my original post; "He was 'foisted' upon the Labour Leadership by the unions and their foot soldier proletariat..."

I'm taring the registered supporters as part of a union plot to get him in. Without a shred of evidence, I'll concede, but *winkwinknudgenudge*

But he also won amongst the members, so if you were to tar the registered supporters with the same brush it wouldn't make any difference, he's still have won regardless.
He was actually winning in newspaper polls before the leadership campaign even formally started, so it's not as if his support came out of nowhere. It's just nobody believed these polls until it got closer to the day. At the time I was seeing something like 50/1 odds on him in the bookies and, although I myself didn't entrely believe the polls, I thought the odds he were being given were ridiculous. It seems a shame I didn't bet on it now.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

Just looking at just one year of Tory majority rule has done. I wonder if the libdems were an underappreciated moderating factor.

To be fair to him, Clegg did claim exactly that when asked. I forget his exact words but the gist of it is that Lib Dems did block some of the things the Tories wanted to do. Had they made more effort to emphasise this it might have prevented them getting hammered at the next election cycle.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

Well wouldn't it be more accurate, then, to say he was foisted on them by the membership? Because really, he would still have won if the unions didn't exist, if you discount he role of campaign funding at least.

Well I'm a good old cynic when it comes to political process and quite frankly there is no way this man charmed himself to be elected as Leader, as I mentioned in my original post; "He was 'foisted' upon the Labour Leadership by the unions and their foot soldier proletariat..."

I'm taring the registered supporters as part of a union plot to get him in. Without a shred of evidence, I'll concede, but *winkwinknudgenudge*

But he also won amongst the members, so if you were to tar the registered supporters with the same brush it wouldn't make any difference, he's still have won regardless.
He was actually winning in newspaper polls before the leadership campaign even formally started, so it's not as if his support came out of nowhere. It's just nobody believed these polls until it got closer to the day. At the time I was seeing something like 50/1 odds on him in the bookies and, although I myself didn't entrely believe the polls, I thought the odds he were being given were ridiculous. It seems a shame I didn't bet on it now.

It was pointed out that all it took to become a registered supporter was a nominal fee+registration online in order to get a vote, so in theory many of the registered voters were secretly Tory infiltrators I don't know of any exact figures. Apparently the page also had a field asking you why you wanted to join, supposedly to deter this exact thing and enable some applications to be ignored.

[Crazedwraith]

Just looking at just one year of Tory majority rule has done. I wonder if the libdems were an underappreciated moderating factor.

To be fair to him, Clegg did claim exactly that when asked. I forget his exact words but the gist of it is that Lib Dems did block some of the things the Tories wanted to do. Had they made more effort to emphasise this it might have prevented them getting hammered at the next election cycle.

True. Unfortunately they went back on one of their biggest and most pooular promises. So everyone's opinions became 'student loans!! Nuff said'

[Tribble]

Btw, I do find it rather amusing that there are now serious discussions about the various ways Brexit won't happen even though the majority voted to leave. I distinctly recall saying on threads earlier on that the Remain camp would resort to said tactics if necessary and everyone telling me how stupid that idea was. Funny how things change when the expected winners lose, eh?

[mr friendly guy]

http://www.news.com.au/finance/economy/ ... 28448a3c5f

Scotland is now warning it could block the move, threatening to withhold “legislative consent”. Its leader, popular First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, has suggested Scotland’s only other option would be to remove itself from the UK.
Initially foreshadowing a second referendum that could see Scotland cut its ties from Britain, she said Scottish politicians might be able to derail the move.
“If the Scottish Parliament was judging this on the basis of what’s right for Scotland, then the option of saying ‘We’re not going to vote for something that is against Scotland’s interests’, of course, that is on the table,” she said of the possibility of withholding consent.
Ms Sturgeon said she believed Scotland’s approval was required for the move but conceded the British government would likely take “a very different view”.

In Northern Ireland, which also is part of the UK, Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness said his priority was forging “special arrangements” to enable Northern Ireland to maintain its EU ties. Some Brexit opponents have also talked of trying to use Northern Ireland’s Assembly to try to block Britain’s departure. Northern Ireland voters also expressed a preference for keeping Britain in the EU.

Can some Brit explain this to me? Your system is set up such that Scotland or Northern Ireland can veto such a decision. WTF? Although if they don't like it, there is always the option of getting out, then everyone is happy. Well ok, not everyone.

[Dominus Atheos]

I don't know for sure, but the obvious answer is that devolution says that Scotland has to approve all treaties that it would be subject to.

[Gandalf]

I don't know for sure, but the obvious answer is that devolution says that Scotland has to approve all treaties that it would be subject to.

According to ABC News, this is correct.

[The Romulan Republic]

Yeah, Brexit totally wasn't about bigotry...

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/ho ... 04191.html

More than a hundred incidents of racial abuse and hate crime have been reported since the UK voted to leave the European Union.

Many of the alleged perpetrators cited the decision to leave the EU explicitly.

One video, purportedly filmed in Hackney on the morning after the referendum, shows a man arguing with someone in a car before yelling: “Go back to your country.”

READ MORE
Brexit campaigner admits he set up second EU referendum petition
Why did people really vote for Brexit? If we don't face the psychological reasons, we'll never bring Britain together
An open letter to Europe, on behalf of the 48 per cent who voted to remain
A Facebook album entitled "Worrying Signs" has been created to document alleged incidents in which people have been targeted with xenophobic comments.

One Twitter post by Kirsty Allan reports one Italian person being assaulted simply for asking someone how they voted in the EU referendum.


Abuse has been documented against those from within the EU - but also those from outside the union and those born in the UK.

Agata Brzezniak came to the UK on a scholarship from Poland when she was 17. She is now studying for a PhD in chemistry.

She has lived in the UK for eight years and told The Independent: "I have made the UK my home, it is where I have felt safe and appreciated


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5 things we learned from a night that shook Europe
"[Like] many Polish people in the country I feared the EU referendum result would cause an increase in intolerance, discrimination and racism, but I didn’t think it would become so aggressive and be so immediate."

A few hours after the announcement of the referendum, she says she was approached by a woman who asked her if she was Polish. When she said she was, she said the woman told her to be "scared" and that she must get a visa if she wanted to stay in "her" country.

"The vicious smile and the way she looked at me brought me to tears," said Ms Brzezniak.


In Huntington, Cambridgeshire, there have been reports of signs saying “Leave the EU, no more Polish vermin” posted through the letter boxes of Polish families on the day of the referendum result.

Local media reported the cards were also distributed outside primary schools. One Polish student said he “felt really sad” when he discovered the sign carrying the xenophobic message.

Brexit reactions - in pictures
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The cards were distributed in both English and Polish.

Cambridgeshire Police urged people to come forward if they know anything about the source of the notices.

In west London, the Polish and Social Cultural Association was vandalised with suspected racist graffiti on Sunday morning.

The Metropolitan Police are investigating what it has called "racially motivated criminal damage".


The alleged hate crimes occur just as Conservative Party chairwoman, Baroness Warsi, comes out against the "divisive and xenophobic" Brexit campaign.

Ms Warsi, who stopped backing Leave in favour of Remain because of the "lies and hate" spread the Brexit movement, said the campaign had left behind hostility and intolerance.

"I've spent most of the weekend talking to organisations, individuals and activists who work in the area of race hate crime, who monitor hate crime, and they have shown some really disturbing early results from people being stopped in the street and saying look, we voted Leave, it's time for you to leave.

"And they are saying this to individuals and families who have been here for three, four, five generations. The atmosphere on the street is not good."

Labour MP Jess Phillips said she would put forward a question to Parliament to find out how many incidents of racial hatred have been reported over the weekend compared to before the referendum.


Sarah Childs is one of the creators of the Facebook page documenting alleged incidents.

She told The Independent: "We have a lot of people asking us to just move on from the referendum result, but the people affected by these incidents can't move on while this is happening."

[Simon_Jester]

OK, TRR, now, you have a valid thesis here and a stupid thesis and you chose to represent the stupid one.

The valid thesis is "racist incidents have gone up." If there have been "over a hundred" such incidents in the three days since the referendum, that is probably an escalation compared to the normal background rate... though you need to go back and prove that. If there are usually about 90 incidents of xenophobic abuse and hate crime in the entire nation of Britain during a three day period, and there were 110 in this three day period, you don't have much of a case.

The stupid thesis, which you seem to have leaped to, is "therefore, Brexit is racist."

Others have already explained why it is wrong and dumb to assert that conclusion, so I will say no more.

[The Romulan Republic]

OK, TRR, now, you have a valid thesis here and a stupid thesis and you chose to represent the stupid one.

The valid thesis is "racist incidents have gone up." If there have been "over a hundred" such incidents in the three days since the referendum, that is probably an escalation compared to the normal background rate... though you need to go back and prove that. If there are usually about 90 incidents of xenophobic abuse and hate crime in the entire nation of Britain during a three day period, and there were 110 in this three day period, you don't have much of a case.

The stupid thesis, which you seem to have leaped to, is "therefore, Brexit is racist."

Others have already explained why it is wrong and dumb to assert that conclusion, so I will say no more.

It doesn't require all or most Brexit supporters to be racists or have racist motives for Brexit to have highly predictable consequences that benefit racism and racist groups, and to therefore argue that Brexit is racist.

I have already clarified that I am not arguing the former. I will stand by the latter.

At the end of the day, I don't really care why people supported Brexit. The result is the same- a surge in intolerance and the far Right, on top of destabilizing the economy and sacrificing Britain's global reputation and political unity.

While the full ramifications are yet to be felt, I think that it will likely be fit to be ranked among the three most blatantly, bafflingly obviously stupid and destructive political decisions of the last thirty years- the others including the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and the selection of Donald Trump as Republican nominee. That is the level of face-palming stupid that this vote occupies.

[Simon_Jester]

If you are not arguing "Brexit is literally nothing but a big slab of racism," then saying "Brexit is racist" is dishonest.

And Brexit is not a big slab of racism, it is a mix of many things.

The fact that you think Brexit is a bad thing and will have bad consequences, including consequences that enable racism, does not give you a license to tell lies.

[The Romulan Republic]

If you are not arguing "Brexit is literally nothing but a big slab of racism," then saying "Brexit is racist" is dishonest.

Oh, what semantical nonsense.

If I said, for example, "the American judicial system is racist" (not at all an uncommon position on the Left), does that mean that I am saying literally every law, court, judge, lawyer, and police officer is racist? Of course not.

If I said "our society is sexist", does that mean I am saying every single person in our society and everything they do is sexist? Of course not.

And Brexit is not a big slab of racism, it is a mix of many things.

Which I already said.

The fact that you think Brexit is a bad thing and will have bad consequences, including consequences that enable racism, does not give you a license to tell lies.

I am not lying. I mean what I say, weather you agree with it or not.

It is possible that I was unclear, though I think that I have made my feelings about Brexit (that not all or most Brexit supporters were motivated by simple bigotry, but that bigotry was a major driving force behind the campaign and a major beneficiary of its result) quite clear, despite repeated attempts from people like yourself to straw man my position.

And you are accusing me of dishonesty on very tenuous grounds (see above reg. semantical nitpicking). Yet despite that, I have not called you a liar, because I am, for the time being, willing to give you the benefit of the doubt that you are a sincere idiot.

Or to put it another way, that you disagree with me, or, alternatively, may think of me as an easy target for false accusations and dishonesty, does not give you a right to level false accusations against me. You should retract that accusation and apologize, though I do not expect you to have the integrity to do so.

Edited for accuracy.

[His Divine Shadow]

Anyway, the Labour Leave guys were saying throughout the campaign that Corbyn was a Eurosceptic really, and only said he wasn't to get the support of europhiles within the labour party. Maybe they were right if these rumours are legit.

Makes sense, a true leftist would be a eurosceptic since the EU is funded on market fundamentalism and is thus diseased from the inside out.

[Alexander]

The massive numbers of Muslim migrants that are coming to Europe, that are being accepted by leftist politicians. There are already far too many Muslims in Europe as it is, at this rate Europe will ultimately become a Muslim caliphate. Although, maybe that is what the globalists and leftists running the EU want.

I have heard about this, but no one has actually put numbers. Can you actually give us
a. Numbers of Muslims in Europe vs number of non Muslims
b. Define how much is "too many Muslims."
c. Show some maths to how they will become a majority using growth rates

Thanks.

A. Currently the population of non-Muslims in Europe is higher.
B. The current amount is already too much.
C. I would not say that they will become a majority any time in the next couple decades, but will become a very large minority. The European birth rates are going down while millions of Muslims arrive (I believe the number of Muslims arriving in Europe is 1.3 million per year, though I don't remember which article I got that from).

[Simon_Jester]

The massive numbers of Muslim migrants that are coming to Europe, that are being accepted by leftist politicians. There are already far too many Muslims in Europe as it is, at this rate Europe will ultimately become a Muslim caliphate. Although, maybe that is what the globalists and leftists running the EU want.

I have heard about this, but no one has actually put numbers. Can you actually give us
a. Numbers of Muslims in Europe vs number of non Muslims
b. Define how much is "too many Muslims."
c. Show some maths to how they will become a majority using growth rates

Thanks.

A. Currently the population of non-Muslims in Europe is higher.
B. The current amount is already too much.
C. I would not say that they will become a majority any time in the next couple decades, but will become a very large minority. The European birth rates are going down while millions of Muslims arrive (I believe the number of Muslims arriving in Europe is 1.3 million per year, though I don't remember which article I got that from).

B is not a real definition. It is an assertion without evidence. For all I know, you think there are "too many" Muslims because you're insecure about them having bigger beards than you, or something dumb like that.

C does not use math. You need to use math, since you made an assertion that is not believable without Muslims becoming a majority.

[Simon_Jester]

If you are not arguing "Brexit is literally nothing but a big slab of racism," then saying "Brexit is racist" is dishonest.

Oh, what semantical nonsense.

If I said, for example, "the American judicial system is racist" (not at all an uncommon position on the Left), does that mean that I am saying literally every law, court, judge, lawyer, and police officer is racist? Of course not.

If I said "our society is sexist", does that mean I am saying every single person in our society and everything they do is sexist? Of course not.

To show convincingly that something is sexist or racist, you must show either discriminatory intent or discriminatory results. We can do the latter to prove "Western society" or "the American judiciary" are discriminatory.

99% of the results of Brexit haven't happened yet, and the intents of Brexit cannot be shown to be composed of enough racism to prove your point. So you do not have grounds to call Brexit "racist" as such. You can reasonably argue that racists have been encouraged by Brexit, or that the racists who supported Brexit now have more power and confidence than they otherwise would. But you cannot generalize those into "Brexit is racist" on the strength of the evidence you've cited so far.

And Brexit is not a big slab of racism, it is a mix of many things.

Which I already said.

It matters little what you've already said, given that you keep trying to deny X in your disclaimers while saying things that basically amount to X in the rest of your text.

The fact that you think Brexit is a bad thing and will have bad consequences, including consequences that enable racism, does not give you a license to tell lies.

I am not lying. I mean what I say, weather you agree with it or not.

It is possible that I was unclear, though I think that I have made my feelings about Brexit (that not all or most Brexit supporters were motivated by simple bigotry, but that bigotry was a major driving force behind the campaign and a major beneficiary of its result) quite clear, despite repeated attempts from people like yourself to straw man my position.

And you are accusing me of dishonesty on very tenuous grounds (see above reg. semantical nitpicking). Yet despite that, I have not called you a liar, because I am, for the time being, willing to give you the benefit of the doubt that you are a sincere idiot.

Or to put it another way, that you disagree with me, or, alternatively, may think of me as an easy target for false accusations and dishonesty, does not give you a right to level false accusations against me. You should retract that accusation and apologize, though I do not expect you to have the integrity to do so.

I keep forgetting that some people don't think it's lying to make sweeping, misleading generalizations on the basis of bad reasoning.

I regret that you were offended by my use of 'lying' as shorthand for that.

Nevertheless, I maintain that you were making sweeping, misleading generalizations on the basis of bad reasoning.