[Politics] How long will Brexit continue to dominate British Politics ?

[RexCathedra]

Anyone who thinks the Tories are the party of fiscal prudence has done literally zero historical research into our country.

It's a common failing. The GOP are 'the party of fiscal prudence' in the US, even though the only balanced budgets in my lifetime -- I'm 65 -- were five in number, one under LBJ (1969), and under Clinton four times. Both Democrats.

Everyone who remembers Eisenhower has to die off before that even begins to change.

"Fiscal prudence" actually means "minimal or no social provision", or in other words, "F•ck off, I've got mine".

This is why in the poll I plumped for '50 years'.

 

[sussex_guy2k2]

Personally, I believe that a FPTP system is a political abomination (something myself and @Harry Wilson's tackle disagree fervently on) and I've never considered myself a labour 'supporter'. However, me and H both recognise that if your country is in an economic suicide pact with a cabal of the most dishonest, corrupt, self serving Politicians ever, then we'll happily get together and address that issue first.

You need to learn to prioritise

Absolutely but all prioritising does is keep the status quo. They’re all the same and I think a lot of people are beginning to see that. It’s just different shades of the same grey.

I’m still voting Labour at the next election mind. Any change is good change at this stage.

 

[Weststander]

I agree with your perspective. Labour won't touch Brexit with a barge pole until it has shown, and can persuade the nation, it not only has the wider best interest at heart but also can show some competence. We are a very long way for that (because it will take time).

Here is a question for you. During Blair's first two terms, I think he did what we want Starmer to do now, but he did not 'kick on' and got increasingly embedded in PPF to show he was not red in tooth and claw, to no useful end. So, do you think that there is no point at which the nation might view Labour as a party that is intrinsically going to look after our finances?

It used to be the case that the tories were always regarded as the party to trust in this regard. I am still not persuaded that the tories have tanked this in the minds of the majority, and that they will still be regarded as the party of financial competence even after all the bollocks we have been subjected to in the last 13 years. If so it make's Starmer's job even tougher as no slack will be cut and the 'nation' will 'demand' instant turnaround. Do you agree, or am I just a pessimistic old twat?

Blair also got involved in a behind the scenes battle with Team Brown.

A good question. Firstly Brown, despite rose-tinted specs in this pasture, made some major gaffs. Slyly raiding ordinary folks future pension monies with the removal of tax credits on dividends received. Unintended consequences, with the Millennium tech stocks crash this set in chain for actuarial reasons the abandonment of final salary pension schemes. Then he cosied up with The City with soft touch regulation, leading to this country’s financial collapse from 2007. It really wasn’t all due to the US. Because he then came up with a resurrection of an old tool QE, he’s seen by some here as a hero.

The best chancellors we had in my lifetime were Ken Clarke and then Gordon Brown the first few years. So a Labour chancellor can be trusted.

Rachel Reeves on paper has the grey matter. Needs to be honest that there is no blank cheque for nationalising all and sundry, huge public sector pay rises. Concentrating on minimising the annual deficit in this part of the cycle, whilst targeting spending on housing, waiting lists, falling to bits infrastructure (potholes an obscure but indicative example), social stuff eg respite care for carers. To summarise, realistic about what can achieved. The global markets will go with that. The spending the hard left will bitch about would lead to a run on the pound, credit agencies would downgrade us a a borrower, higher interest rates than competitors.

Some Labour front benchers have matured over the last year. “Scum” comments and table thumping rhetoric is a huge turn off for most people.

Optimistic.

What do you think on financial aspects?

 

[sussex_guy2k2]

It's a common failing. The GOP are 'the party of fiscal prudence' in the US, even though the only balanced budgets in my lifetime -- I'm 65 -- were five in number, one under LBJ (1969), and under Clinton four times. Both Democrats.

Everyone who remembers Eisenhower has to die off before that even begins to change.

"Fiscal prudence" actually means "minimal or no social provision", or in other words, "F•ck off, I've got mine".

This is why in the poll I plumped for '50 years'.

Exactly. Fiscal prudence means “cut everything so the poorest in society get nada”. It’s mind blowingly short sighted and peddled mainly by a media owned by the highest earning 0.0001%.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

Blair also got involved in a behind the scenes battle with Team Brown.

A good question. Firstly Brown, despite rose-tinted specs in this pasture, made some major gaffs. Slyly raiding ordinary folks future pension monies with the removal of tax credits on dividends received. Unintended consequences, with the Millennium tech stocks crash this set in chain for actuarial reasons the abandonment of final salary pension schemes. Then he cosied up with The City with soft touch regulation, leading to this country’s financial collapse from 2007. It really wasn’t all due to the US. Because he then came up with a resurrection of an old tool QE, he’s seen by some here as a hero.

The best chancellors we had in my lifetime were Ken Clarke and then Gordon Brown the first few years. So a Labour chancellor can be trusted.

Rachel Reeves on paper has the grey matter. Needs to be honest that there is no blank cheque for nationalising all and sundry, huge public sector pay rises. Concentrating on minimising the annual deficit in this part of the cycle, whilst targeting spending on housing, waiting lists, falling to bits infrastructure (potholes an obscure but indicative example), social stuff eg respite care for carers. To summarise, realistic about what can achieved. The global markets will go with that. The spending the hard left will bitch about would lead to a run on the pound, credit agencies would downgrade us a a borrower, higher interest rates than competitors.

Some Labour front benchers have matured over the last year. “Scum” comments and table thumping rhetoric is a huge turn off for most people.

Optimistic.

What do you think on financial aspects?

Cheers. Yes, that resonates with me.

To be honest I have no idea what Labour will do with respect to finances. I don't see, however, a mad five minute tanking of the economy a la thick lizzie, but if they have a secret miracle up their sleeve I'll be surprised.

I'm mainly looking forward to the possibility of adult government and the extinction of politics by gaslight....the economy is in a bad place and it will take time for a turnaround.

Incidentally, of course UK policy made us vulnerable to the effects of the crash, but Brown did act, and the trope that the whole crash was due to him grinds my gears (because....it's a lie!).

 

[Weststander]

Exactly. Fiscal prudence means “cut everything so the poorest in society get nada”. It’s mind blowingly short sighted and peddled mainly by a media owned by the highest earning 0.0001%.

Gordon Brown, in his own words, spent the first few years of his control preaching fiscal prudence. He meant not embarking on a spending spree with far increased public borrowing.

Did he leave the poor with nothing?

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

Personally, I believe that a FPTP system is a political abomination (something myself and @Harry Wilson's tackle disagree fervently on) and I've never considered myself a labour 'supporter'. However, me and H both recognise that if your country is in an economic suicide pact with a cabal of the most dishonest, corrupt, self serving Politicians ever, then we'll happily get together and address that issue first.

You need to learn to prioritise

Yep

 

[A1X]

Or is it really that Leavers were willing to sacrifice 4% of the economy just to be out of the club?

I think half the problem remains that Leavers simply never agreed what they wanted, other than to be “out”. Some wanted the UK to stay in every EU institution apart from the Parliament. Others wanted to nuke Brussels. And everything in between. The only way it could ever be deemed a success in full would have been with a clearly set out end point, not the vague “utopia” they pushed.

But as Dominic Cummings, architect of the Leave campaign, has admitted, this was deliberate. They didn’t tell us what Brexit involved, so everyone who didn’t like the EU in some way, shape or form could hang their hat on it and knew their vision was what would happen. If they specified it beyond the vaguest concept it would never have won in 2016.

Were they “willing” to do it? No, I suspect deep down many weren’t. But for many it became something they “won” and became paranoid it would be somehow taken away from them. For others again it was an article of faith and “it’ll be fine in the end”, because everything is written by Disney apparently.

 

[WATFORD zero]

Blair also got involved in a behind the scenes battle with Team Brown.

A good question. Firstly Brown, despite rose-tinted specs in this pasture, made some major gaffs. Slyly raiding ordinary folks future pension monies with the removal of tax credits on dividends received. Unintended consequences, with the Millennium tech stocks crash this set in chain for actuarial reasons the abandonment of final salary pension schemes. Then he cosied up with The City with soft touch regulation, leading to this country’s financial collapse from 2007. It really wasn’t all due to the US. Because he then came up with a resurrection of an old tool QE, he’s seen by some here as a hero.

The best chancellors we had in my lifetime were Ken Clarke and then Gordon Brown the first few years. So a Labour chancellor can be trusted.

Rachel Reeves on paper has the grey matter. Needs to be honest that there is no blank cheque for nationalising all and sundry, huge public sector pay rises. Concentrating on minimising the annual deficit in this part of the cycle, whilst targeting spending on housing, waiting lists, falling to bits infrastructure (potholes an obscure but indicative example), social stuff eg respite care for carers. To summarise, realistic about what can achieved. The global markets will go with that. The spending the hard left will bitch about would lead to a run on the pound, credit agencies would downgrade us a a borrower, higher interest rates than competitors.

Some Labour front benchers have matured over the last year. “Scum” comments and table thumping rhetoric is a huge turn off for most people.

Optimistic.

What do you think on financial aspects?

A couple of points, A lot of what Blair did was on the back of huge economic growth which 'soft touch regulation' was a significant part of long before he or Brown came to power. Brown allowed it to continue, but then was left holding the baby when it all went to shit. He certainly didn't introduce 'soft touch'

If ever you get the chance to read what went on in the boardrooms of the major banks together with the politicians of the time (being kept in those boardrooms until decisions were made), it's really fascinating what happens when 'people of power' are put under pressure under very short time limits. And it is out there if you look and ask the right people.

The reason Blair and Thatcher are remembered is because they arrived at economically good times (Thatcher with the money from oil, public utilities and social housing), Blair with that 'soft touch' financial growth and both were able to implement their political ideologies in an economic environment to support it.

With what the British electorate have managed to do to themselves over the last few years, I've got a horrible feeling Starmer is f***ed. Simply turning around our current direction would be a seriously major achievement.

Toute nation a le gouvernement qu'elle mérite
And that's certainly where we sit right now

 

[Eric the meek]

How long will Brexit continue to dominate British politics?

My considered opinion is that this will continue all the time Jacob Rees-Mogg has got a hole in his bottom.

 

[nicko31]

Why don’t you think the Schengen Agreement will last?

Too many right wing populist governments emerging.

 

[nicko31]

Personally, I believe that a FPTP system is a political abomination (something myself and @Harry Wilson's tackle disagree fervently on) and I've never considered myself a labour 'supporter'. However, me and H both recognise that if your country is in an economic suicide pact with a cabal of the most dishonest, corrupt, self serving Politicians ever, then we'll happily get together and address that issue first.

You need to learn to prioritise

If FPTP goes we’re back in the EU sooner
. So I’m not praying for a Labour landslide I want a Lib Lab coalition. If we sort out our voting system we can finally get a more representative government.

It’s ludicrous 60 percent don’t vote for Johnson yet they got a huge majority. Little wonder people are so disillusioned with politics

 

[sparkie]

OP will go on Ignore so the thread - like the Brexit one - disappears in a puff of smoke.

Last comment before the zap : until we rejoin the Single Market the country is stuffed. Anything else Labour/the Tories/whoever offer in their manifestos is just fiddling while Rome(EU) burns.

Lol.

 

[WATFORD zero]

How long will Brexit continue to dominate British politics?

My considered opinion is that this will continue all the time Jacob Rees-Mogg has got a hole in his bottom.

If JRM had a hole in his bottom then shirley he wouldn't be so full of shit

 

[WATFORD zero]

OP will go on Ignore so the thread - like the Brexit one - disappears in a puff of smoke.

Last comment before the zap : until we rejoin the Single Market the country is stuffed. Anything else Labour/the Tories/whoever offer in their manifestos is just fiddling while Rome(EU) burns.

Lol.

I'll put you down in the I don't want to talk about it anymore group

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

I think half the problem remains that Leavers simply never agreed what they wanted, other than to be “out”. Some wanted the UK to stay in every EU institution apart from the Parliament. Others wanted to nuke Brussels. And everything in between. The only way it could ever be deemed a success in full would have been with a clearly set out end point, not the vague “utopia” they pushed.

But as Dominic Cummings, architect of the Leave campaign, has admitted, this was deliberate. They didn’t tell us what Brexit involved, so everyone who didn’t like the EU in some way, shape or form could hang their hat on it and knew their vision was what would happen. If they specified it beyond the vaguest concept it would never have won in 2016.

Were they “willing” to do it? No, I suspect deep down many weren’t. But for many it became something they “won” and became paranoid it would be somehow taken away from them. For others again it was an article of faith and “it’ll be fine in the end”, because everything is written by Disney apparently.

I have long since given up trying to work out what Brexiteers wanted. Most of them seem to think they have now got it, so it is probably best that the remainers quietly jog on. I have.

If, at some point, folk start begging to rejoin I will gently raise one eyebrow.

But I can't see this happening any more than I can see true blue tories regarding the last 13 years as being anything other than a rip-roaring ring-a-ding success. Bosh.

 

[Weststander]

A couple of points, A lot of what Blair did was on the back of huge economic growth which 'soft touch regulation' was a significant part of long before he or Brown came to power. Brown allowed it to continue, but then was left holding the baby when it all went to shit. He certainly didn't introduce 'soft touch'

If ever you get the chance to read what went on in the boardrooms of the major banks together with the politicians of the time (being kept in those boardrooms until decisions were made), it's really fascinating what happens when 'people of power' are put under pressure under very short time limits. And it is out there if you look and ask the right people.

The reason Blair and Thatcher are remembered is because they arrived at economically good times (Thatcher with the money from oil, public utilities and social housing), Blair with that 'soft touch' financial growth and both were able to implement their political ideologies in an economic environment to support it.

With what the British electorate have managed to do to themselves over the last few years, I've got a horrible feeling Starmer is f***ed. Simply turning around our current direction would be a seriously major achievement.

Toute nation a le gouvernement qu'elle mérite
And that's certainly where we sit right now

That’s not true about The City. Gordon Brown deregulated the sector after lobbying. He later admitted it was a mistake. He didn’t simply leave as it was in May 97. Take your pick from dozens of Guardian and Independent articles on this.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...s-mistakes-on-banking-regulation-1944147.html

Very detailed overview here.
https://journals.openedition.org/osb/1136

 

[GT49er]

They didn’t tell us what Brexit involved, so everyone who didn’t like the EU in some way, shape or form could hang their hat on.

TBF, the remain campaign didn't tell us, in what shape or form, we could hang our hat on to remain either. Or what new integration would take place without anybody (except pro-EU MPs) having a vote on.

For others again it was an article of faith and “it’ll be fine in the end”, because everything is written by Disney apparently.

Ironic. Remainers cannot seem to grasp the idea that 'remain' was just as much an 'article of faith' as was 'leave' to leavers. To remainers, remaining in the EU it was also sunshine and smiles, economic heaven and sunny uplands all round, without much substance - but everybody would be happy and everything wonderful. Yep, Disney could have scripted that too.
I'm bowing out of this 'debate' again now (because the massive bulk of opinion on NSC, as opposed to much of the rest of the UK, is hugely remainer territory) because it is not so much a debate here as an echo chamber of chaps revelling in confirmation bias. Fair do's - enjoy yourselves.
I will just leave with the thought that thank f*** our government (probably more through luck than judgement - they're all either stupid or corrupt, aren't they, or have I misread NSC?) had the sense (unwittingly) and the balls to say, 'Sod off to joining the Euro' - post Brexit that really would have enabled the EU to make things difficult.

 

[A1X]

TBF, the remain campaign didn't tell us, in what shape or form, we could hang our hat on to remain either. Or what new integration would take place without anybody (except pro-EU MPs) having a vote on.

Remain didn’t need to. It was a vote for the status quo. Generally those who want change are expected to spell out what the change is.

 

[Bodian]

TBF, the remain campaign didn't tell us, in what shape or form, we could hang our hat on to remain either. Or what new integration would take place without anybody (except pro-EU MPs) having a vote on.

Ironic. Remainers cannot seem to grasp the idea that 'remain' was just as much an 'article of faith' as was 'leave' to leavers. To remainers, remaining in the EU it was also sunshine and smiles, economic heaven and sunny uplands all round, without much substance - but everybody would be happy and everything wonderful. Yep, Disney could have scripted that too.
I'm bowing out of this 'debate' again now (because the massive bulk of opinion on NSC, as opposed to much of the rest of the UK, is hugely remainer territory) because it is not so much a debate here as an echo chamber of chaps revelling in confirmation bias. Fair do's - enjoy yourselves.
I will just leave with the thought that thank f*** our government (probably more through luck than judgement - they're all either stupid or corrupt, aren't they, or have I misread NSC?) had the sense (unwittingly) and the balls to say, 'Sod off to joining the Euro' - post Brexit that really would have enabled the EU to make things difficult.

Not that different to the rest of the UK really - the latest survey does indicate a quite large majority (58 v 32) who think we should have stayed.

Brexit poll 2024 | Statista

The share of people who regret Brexit has increased since the UK left the EU. Recent polls show a growing majority think it was the wrong decision.

www.statista.com