General Election predictions

[Simster]

[MENTION=4019]Triggaaar[/MENTION], let's put it another way. You don't think it is possible to put a plan in place. However, [MENTION=36]Titanic[/MENTION] said this about the Tories:

they have laid out clearly what the intend to do

Can either of you explain what Titanic means by this? To me it's the sort of nonsense you'd expect from Soulman.

 

[larus]

The terrorist atrocities were a game-changer for Theresa May. She was on the ropes over the dementia tax but then fate dealt her a trump card - security, the chance to put soldiers and police armed to the teeth on our streets, to talk up Corbyn's IRA sympathies and record of voting against every bit of anti-terror legislation proposed. And, of course, it thrust the Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott into the spotlight and into eventual meltdown.

The cautious optimism around the time of May's no-show in the leadership debate has now gone. There is an inevitability about the result of this GE and it is intensely depressing. With police numbers so low the terrorists appear to have an open door, while a year after the referendum I've yet to hear of ANY semblance of a Brexit plan from this government.

And I wouldn't want to hear of their plans. Why should we? If the EU don't know what our aims/requirements are, they won't know what our real ambitions are from the negotiations. I know you're an intelligent guy, but surely you can see the logic to the government keeping it's plans private. I don't equate not divulging their plans with not having a plan, but it appears that your unhappiness at Brexit and loathing of Tories is leading to your views.

 

[Triggaaar]

You want Pavillionaire to provide a plan (on an internet message board, today, seemingly) and when he started formulating a plan you decided a plan was impossible to give.

Double standards. And it really isn't impossible at all anyway.

You've got completely confused.

Firstly, he didn't start formulating a plan, he just raised some issues (which I disagree with, but that's besides the point for what we're discussing).
Secondly, I didn't say it was impossible to give a plan, I said it would be a bad idea to do so (which has always been my stance on this).

On the point of double standards, and why I say you're confused:

Pavillionaire is criticising the government for not telling us their plan.
I'm sure that telling us their plan would be a bad idea, as it would weaken our position in negotiations. I've stated this before, but to illustrate why, I've asked Pav for an example plan, so that I can then point out why sharing that plan would backfire.
He said he'd give me a plan, but he hasn't.

 

[Triggaaar]

[MENTION=4019]Triggaaar[/MENTION], let's put it another way. You don't think it is possible to put a plan in place. However, [MENTION=36]Titanic[/MENTION] said this about the Tories:

As above, I've said it's a bad idea (not impossible) to tell us the plan. I disagree with Titanic.

 

[Insel affe]

Who cares, whoever wins we get shafted

Tories or Labour...

Big Business or the Unions...

 

[Simster]

I've asked Pav for an example plan, so that I can then point out why sharing that plan would backfire.

So you're not interested in his plan then. Why didn't you just say that from the start rather than wasting his time insisting divulged his plan?



Ok chaps, [MENTION=240]larus[/MENTION], [MENTION=36]Titanic[/MENTION] and [MENTION=4019]Triggaaar[/MENTION], I can accept that showing the opposition all your cards would be a BAD idea.

So with that in mind, shouldn't we the electorate, have a mandate on whether to accept the negotiated deal? Or are you happy to let the government negotiate then make their negotiated agreements become law before being held to account by the population?

 

[Pavilionaire]

I didn't ask for a list of issues that he or you think haven't been thought through (a point I disagree with). He said that he hadn't seen a plan, and I asked for an example of a plan. He hasn't given one.

The point is that you can't just detail your plan before negotiations, as it would weaken your position.

It would be like a prosecution or defence telling the other side what their plan was. You don't do it.

I asked him for a plan, he hasn't given one. I disagree with his concerns.

We have different political opinions, I don't expect you to agree with me. Accusing me of being a lost cause and having my fingers in my ears is just a bit pathetic, I could say the same of you.

Theresa May's whole election strategy is based on the British electorate showing a complete blind act of faith on her, backed up by a heavy critique of her opponent. No need for plans, costings or appearances on TV debates, just ape Maggie Thatcher, call Corbyn a cvnt and it's job done.

 

[Titanic]

I spluttered on reading this, but then thought "no, maybe he's right and I should look at their manifesto to see what they intend to do"

Here is their manifesto:

https://s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/manifesto2017/Manifesto2017.pdf

Brexit is mentioned 15 times, nearly always in the context "we will deliver a secure a smooth, orderly Brexit". There is literally NOTHING else remotely informative about how they intend on achieving that (as if no other party wants to deliver the same thing).

LEAVING THE EUROPEAN UNION
Following the historic referendum on 23rd June 2016, the United Kingdom is leaving
the European Union. Only the Conservative Party, under Theresa May’s strong and stable
leadership, can negotiate the best possible deal for our country. In her Lancaster House
Speech, the prime minister laid out the twelve principles she intends to follow in seeking
a new deep and special partnership with the European Union.

We have explained our approach in the White Paper on the United Kingdom’s Exit from, and a new relationship
with, the European Union, during the passage of the European Union (Notification of
Withdrawal) Act, in the prime minister’s letter to the president of the European Council
invoking Article 50, and in the Great Repeal Bill White Paper.

We want to agree a deep and special partnership with the European Union. This
partnership will benefit both the European Union and the United Kingdom: while we
are leaving the European Union, we are not leaving Europe, and we want to remain
committed partners and allies to our friends across the continent.
The negotiations will undoubtedly be tough, and there will be give and take on both
sides, but we continue to believe that no deal is better than a bad deal for the UK. But
we will enter the negotiations in a spirit of sincere cooperation and committed to
getting the best deal for Britain.

We will make sure we have certainty and clarity over
our future, control of our own laws, and a more unified, strengthened United Kingdom.

We will control immigration and secure the entitlements of EU nationals in Britain and
British nationals in the EU.

We will maintain the Common Travel Area and maintain
as frictionless a border as possible for people, goods and services between Northern
Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.

Workers’ rights conferred on British citizens from
our membership of the EU will remain.

We will pursue free trade with European markets,
and secure new trade agreements with other countries.

We want to work together in the
fight against crime and terrorism, collaborate in science and innovation – and secure
a smooth, orderly Brexit. And we will protect the democratic freedom of the people of
Gibraltar and our overseas territories to remain British, for as long as that is their wish.

The final agreement will be subject to a vote in both houses of parliament.

As we leave the European Union, we will no longer be members of the single market or
customs union but we will seek a deep and special partnership including a comprehensive
free trade and customs agreement.

There may be specific European programmes in which we might want to participate and if so, it will be reasonable that we make a
contribution. We will determine a fair settlement of the UK’s rights and obligations
as a departing member state, in accordance with the law and in the spirit of the UK’s
continuing partnership with the EU. The principle, however, is clear: the days of Britain
making vast annual contributions to the European Union will end.

We want fair, orderly negotiations, minimising disruption and giving as much certainty
as possible – so both sides benefit. We believe it is necessary to agree the terms of our
future partnership alongside our withdrawal, reaching agreement on both within the
two years allowed by Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union.

 

[carteater]

Head says that it's going to be a Tory majority of over 50 seats.

Got a bit bored so I used a predictor to predict the outcome:

47% Conservatives 376 (+45)
34% Labour 204 (-28)
8% Liberal Democrats 4 (-4)
Scottish National Party 46 (-10)
Green Party 1 (±0)
Plaid Cymru 1 (-2)
Northern Ireland Parties 18

I think the prediction below is the best case scenario anyone who doesn't want them to win can hope for:

Hung Parliament:

42% Labour 288 (+56)
37% Conservatives 280 (-51)
11% Liberal Democrats 12 (+4)
Scottish National Party 49 (-7)
Green Party 1 (±0)
Plaid Cymru 2 (-1)
Northern Ireland Parties 18

And that is based on a very high turnout of usual non-voters and young voters like myself and a slightly lower turnout of complacent older voters. It's the stuff of fantasy really.

 

[larus]

OK, I will:

1. Don't play politics with the EU nationals that are already here - we need their labour, they are obviously going to be allowed to stay anyway.
2. Give some indication of how you think the EU might give us a free trade deal when it appears completely counter-intuitive to their rules for them to do so. If they could sell the argument "they need us more than we need them", explaining why it would be a disaster for the EU to lose free trade with the UK then I might begin to see their point.

The evidence I see is that any economic loss they might suffer by not selling the odd Mercedes or case of wine to the UK will be more than offset by the business they can cherry-pick from us that will leave these shores to remain in the EU. And, of course, the EU are looking to get a better deal with China, Trump wants a better deal with the EU too so they're in a good place for other partners.

The UK has already offered to get this issue sorted early but this has been declined by the EU. So, the EU which you love so much is the party screwing with peoples lives.

 

[Simster]

Sorry [MENTION=36]Titanic[/MENTION], that reads like a wish list that every single political party would happily put in it's manifesto - I get no sense of their priorities reading that.

If I'd told you that was lifted from the Labour manifesto, you probably wouldn't even think it was worth checking out to make sure. It's bland meaningless waffle.

 

[Pavilionaire]

The UK has already offered to get this issue sorted early but this has been declined by the EU. So, the EU which you love so much is the party screwing with peoples lives.

I think you're wrong. The onus is on the UK - we've voted to leave, it is we and not them who are screwing with people's lives. The UK could unilaterally make this call, I believe it would be the the correct and humane thing to do. I believe that having made that call the EU would reciprocate and that would be one less thing to resolve after June 19th.

 

[larus]

So you're not interested in his plan then. Why didn't you just say that from the start rather than wasting his time insisting divulged his plan?



Ok chaps, [MENTION=240]larus[/MENTION], [MENTION=36]Titanic[/MENTION] and [MENTION=4019]Triggaaar[/MENTION], I can accept that showing the opposition all your cards would be a BAD idea.

So with that in mind, shouldn't we the electorate, have a mandate on whether to accept the negotiated deal? Or are you happy to let the government negotiate then make their negotiated agreements become law before being held to account by the population?

It really is a tough call on this.

In principle I agree that the country should have some form of say. I would agree that the referendum was not clear as to what was entailed by Brexit. To me it was leaving the control of the EU, stopping free movement (but not the same as stopping immigration) and eliminating the ECJ from controlling our laws. If we can keep some form of access to the single market then that's great - even for a modest payment), but not at the expense of free movement.

However, my only concern about having another referendum is would this embolden the EU to be utter c*nts (even more so than Tuck/Juncker have been so far), as they would make the terms so bad to try to force us to change our minds.

 

[Titanic]

Sorry [MENTION=36]Titanic[/MENTION], that reads like a wish list that every single political party would happily put in it's manifesto - I get no sense of their priorities reading that.

If I'd told you that was lifted from the Labour manifesto, you probably wouldn't even think it was worth checking out to make sure. It's bland meaningless waffle.

Labour accepts the referendum
result and a Labour government
will put the national interest first.
We will prioritise jobs and living
standards, build a close new
relationship with the EU, protect
workers’ rights and environmental
standards, provide certainty
to EU nationals and give
a meaningful role to Parliament
throughout negotiations.
We will end Theresa May’s reckless
approach to Brexit, and seek to unite
the country around a Brexit deal that
works for every community in Britain.
We will scrap the Conservatives’
Brexit White Paper and replace it
with fresh negotiating priorities that
have a strong emphasis on retaining
the benefits of the Single Market
and the Customs Union – which
are essential for maintaining
industries, jobs and businesses in
Britain. Labour will always put jobs
and the economy first.
A Labour government will blah blah blah...

 

[larus]

I think you're wrong. The onus is on the UK - we've voted to leave, it is we and not them who are screwing with people's lives. The UK could unilaterally make this call, I believe it would be the the correct and humane thing to do. I believe that having made that call the EU would reciprocate and that would be one less thing to resolve after June 19th.

We'll have to agree to disagree then. In the context of the overall negotiations this should not be a major issue. The EU/UK could have come to an "agreed, published understanding", subject to final negotiation to take that worry away from all individuals, but the EU chose not to. They are the ones (IMO) who are playing hard-ball with peoples lives.

 

[Simster]

Labour accepts the referendum
result and a Labour government
will put the national interest first.
We will prioritise jobs and living
standards, build a close new
relationship with the EU, protect
workers’ rights and environmental
standards, provide certainty
to EU nationals and give
a meaningful role to Parliament
throughout negotiations.
We will end Theresa May’s reckless
approach to Brexit, and seek to unite
the country around a Brexit deal that
works for every community in Britain.
We will scrap the Conservatives’
Brexit White Paper and replace it
with fresh negotiating priorities that
have a strong emphasis on retaining
the benefits of the Single Market
and the Customs Union – which
are essential for maintaining
industries, jobs and businesses in
Britain. Labour will always put jobs
and the economy first.
A Labour government will blah blah blah...

But I'm not arguing that Labour have a clear plan. I'm taking issue with YOUR laughable point that the Tories "have laid out clearly what they intend to do". As you just highlighted, they haven't done so any more than Labour.

 

[Triggaaar]

Obviously the government are not going to publish a detailed blue print of their battle plan, and nobody is expecting that

Ok good, we're in some agreement. Can you give some examples of the sort of level of detail they could give us, that would be part of the plan?

but we don't know ANYTHING about what they intend to reveal over the negotiating table, and that year of "information vacuum" has done great harm to the EU nationals that are here, and has reduced numbers of job applicants such as nurses, doctors, farm workers.

But you said "they are obviously going to be allowed to stay anyway." If that's obvious, then why are they not applying for jobs, as they know they'll be able to stay?

I certainly want them to stay, but I don't see why our government should guarantee that without the EU doing the same. Remainers don't want our government playing politics with this, but seem happy for the EU to do so. But this is getting away from our main discussion about what the plan is.

I believe not only do we need the immigrants that are here but we also need the EU immigrants that have stopped applying for jobs. There's no evidence that the Tories have planned for a significant exodus / drop-off in this labour market.

Maybe they don't expect a significant exodus etc.

There's no evidence they've costed the short and medium term impact of Brexit on our economy

We were told we'd go into recession following the vote to leave. It didn't happen. We were told the recession would be when article 50 was triggered, but that didn't happen either. The impact on our economy will depend on the deal that's done. My hope (although I'm not too optimistic) is that we still have a free trade and free movement agreement, and our economy won't be badly hit. There's too much we don't yet know for me to be able to guess what will happen. We have two years to negotiate though, and as the government start to get a sense of the likely deal that will/won't be struck, they'll be able to plan for the future.

if they could demonstrate that a short term hit would be replaced by longer term benefits then the EU might believe we have a viable alternative to them, but they don't believe that.

You don't know what they believe, and hopefully your point will be part of our negotiation strategy. The government have talked up our potential to trade with the wider world, so I think they are working along the lines you suggest.

The plan should include an indication of which partners we've identified to begin post-Brexit trade talks with. Surely as we are only 21 months away from leaving the EU we need to be booking those meetings in with India, China, Japan, USA now and announcing that to the British public?

We have had talks with those countries, and we will continue to.

Not only are we under-prepared for Brexit

The government campaigned against Brexit, so there wasn't a plan a year ago. They will have been preparing for it since then. There's no evidence to suggest they're not doing so, and it's a bit ludicrous to think they're not. I doubt Labour have been preparing for it though (and I'm not blaming them, just pointing out the fact), they weren't expecting an election and aren't expecting to be in power.

I'd argue we're under-prepared for the trade talks we'll need to replace Brexit. Where is the plan for "Global" Britain?

I see no evidence that we've not been preparing for the last year. The EU demanded that we (and Remainers on here said we'd have to) trigger article 50 straight after the referendum, but we didn't, we gave ourselves extra time to prepare for Brexit.

 

[cheshunt seagull]

Obviously the government are not going to publish a detailed blue print of their battle plan, and nobody is expecting that, but we don't know ANYTHING about what they intend to reveal over the negotiating table, and that year of "information vacuum" has done great harm to the EU nationals that are here, and has reduced numbers of job applicants such as nurses, doctors, farm workers.

I believe not only do we need the immigrants that are here but we also need the EU immigrants that have stopped applying for jobs. There's no evidence that the Tories have planned for a significant exodus / drop-off in this labour market. There's no evidence they've costed the short and medium term impact of Brexit on our economy - again, if they could demonstrate that a short term hit would be replaced by longer term benefits then the EU might believe we have a viable alternative to them, but they don't believe that.

The plan should include an indication of which partners we've identified to begin post-Brexit trade talks with. Surely as we are only 21 months away from leaving the EU we need to be booking those meetings in with India, China, Japan, USA now and announcing that to the British public?

Not only are we under-prepared for Brexit, I'd argue we're under-prepared for the trade talks we'll need to replace Brexit. Where is the plan for "Global" Britain?

We would not expect a detailed public list of negotiating positions but after 12 months you would expect a plan which itemises the issues to be addressed during the change process and the approaches to be applied to do this.

An example of this is research project funding which impacts on the area in which I am involved. The uncertainty and vacuum of information means that we are not being invited to participate in projects and the EU nationals that we employ are leaving. Regardless of the eventual decision we are already experiencing financial impacts and some confidence in the existence of a process for making it would at least give us some confidence. Pointing this out does not mean that we are moaning but trying to act responsibly.

 

[Titanic]

But I'm not arguing that Labour have a clear plan. I'm taking issue with YOUR laughable point that the Tories "have laid out clearly what they intend to do". As you just highlighted, they haven't done so any more than Labour.

We will just have to disagree on that - I think the highlighted are statements of intent of the outcome they will pursue during the negotiations... and that is all that can reasonably be said at this stage.

 

[atomised]

I thought I'd clicked on the election predictions thread