Britain is leaving the EU

[Traitorfish]

So he is suggesting that the UK exchanges its membership for a vassal status? I doubt that is going to be popular in the UK.

It's likely that there's any outcome that's going to be popular in the UK. We voted for Brexit without ever bothering to defining what it was, or even what we thought it was. Everyone went in with their own expectations, and everyone is going to find those expectations dashed against the jagged granite of realpolitik. The best the British government can hope for is the settlement which offends the least number of people to these least degree.

It's what the UK's just made Northern Ireland do.

That is to say, it's what the UK has reaffirmed in regards to Northern Ireland, for the eleventh or twelfth time since 1169.

 

[Arwon]

conceding residence (colonisation settlement) rights to the EU nationals already in the UK

This is an especially grotesque analogy for someone from England to make, no matter how drunk on self pity they are.

 

[Takhisis]

That is to say, it's what the UK has reaffirmed in regards to Northern Ireland, for the eleventh or twelfth time since 1169.

I haven't kept count, but yes. I'd say the entire island, even today, given the amounts of people who cross the border every day, either them or the goods they trade across it.

 

[innonimatu]

This is an especially grotesque analogy for someone from England to make, no matter how drunk on self pity they are.

Is it? Funny, there was a time when the "left" stood for national liberation, self-determination for each people (understood as the natives of the territory). And called for the "settlers", many of whom born in those territories, to be forcibly and violently removed from said territories upon independence.

Now the "left", we are told, is supposed to stand for the end of national independence and indeed "forced colonization": an obligation to take in foreigners without any limits. This is crap and people recognize it as such. That is why you get brexit. That is why Labour in the UK is failing: because they cannot sort out their internal divisions and eject the "citizens of nowhere" from the party. May is cleaning up the Tories. Labour needs a clean-up also.

Even today the contradiction within discourses is glaring. The SNP demands independence for Scotland, under the principle of... what? National self-determination? That means the people of Scotland should have sovereignty over the territory of Scotland - which excludes pacts such as the EU, and requires a clear definition of who is part of the "people of Scotland". Or perhaps it is just a "we're better of economically as [independent, part of the EU] (which is it?). Even so, who is "we"? The SNP won't tell you. So they're sinking in their own contradictions.

Labour's leadership (nor all its MP...) calls for new economic polices. But everyone knows those polices would not be "allowed" under EU rules that limit state aid (or would be allowed only as they are for Germany and France: they're "special"...). But because it is too divisive to say "either the EU changes or we support leaving" they're unable to campaign, they can't put forth a credible and coherent programme! This is folly.

 

[FriendlyFire]

Not deporting people who already live here is "colonisation"? Jesus Christ.

Clearly the EU forced all the Polish onto the UK
Then the EU forced Poland to clean UK toilets

 

[Arwon]

Is it? Funny, there was a time when the "left" stood for national liberation, self-determination for each people (understood as the natives of the territory). And called for the "settlers", many of whom born in those territories, to be forcibly and violently removed from said territories upon independence.

Now the "left", we are told, is supposed to stand for the end of national independence and indeed "forced colonization": an obligation to take in foreigners without any limits. This is crap and people recognize it as such. That is why you get brexit. That is why Labour in the UK is failing: because they cannot sort out their internal divisions and eject the "citizens of nowhere" from the party. May is cleaning up the Tories. Labour needs a clean-up also.

Even today the contradiction within discourses is glaring. The SNP demands independence for Scotland, under the principle of... what? National self-determination? That means the people of Scotland should have sovereignty over the territory of Scotland - which excludes pacts such as the EU, and requires a clear definition of who is part of the "people of Scotland". Or perhaps it is just a "we're better of economically as [independent, part of the EU] (which is it?). Even so, who is "we"? The SNP won't tell you. So they're sinking in their own contradictions.

Labour's leadership (nor all its MP...) calls for new economic polices. But everyone knows those polices would not be "allowed" under EU rules that limit state aid (or would be allowed only as they are for Germany and France: they're "special"...). But because it is too divisive to say "either the EU changes or we support leaving" they're unable to campaign, they can't put forth a credible and coherent programme! This is folly.

Migration into the UK under UK policy isn't "colonisation of the UK". That's just an extremely childish, ridiculous take.

Also the foreign-born population of the UK isn't even very high. It's like 10%. And of course a bunch/possibly most will be UK citizens (it looks like this is only true of non-EU nationals, which makes perfect sense). People there are being crazy sensitive about a few accents and bits of darker skin around the place.

 

[Arwon]

Also, I'm pretty sure Labour does best in the areas with lots of migrants (ie, London) and worst in the areas with hardly any (ie, the countryside)? Like I could be wrong but isn't it the empty boring bits of England that vote Tory and Kipper, and the big cities which don't?

Which if migration was really "colonisation imposed by rootless cosmopolitans" or whatever, and if Labour's troubles were really explained by a nativist revolt against their conspiracy to impose swarthy/accented domination, would be an odd pattern to emerge. Surely if this were the case, the people most exposed to the terrible threat of a Raj run by Polish cleaners, Pakistani taxi drivers and Australian bar staff would be the ones voting against their dastardly would-be colonial masters.

The whole thing just reminds me of a girl in at my high school in the small, conservative-voting town where I grew. She told me, after I got a place in a university in Sydney, that she could never live in Sydney because there's too many Chinese people. Folks who aren't actually exposed to migrants often seem to be the most against 'em and to vote accordingly.

 

[Kyriakos]

Also, I'm pretty sure Labour does best in the areas with lots of migrants (ie, London) and worst in the areas with hardly any (ie, the countryside)? Like I could be wrong but isn't it the empty boring bits of England that vote Tory and Kipper, and the big cities which don't?

Which if migration was really "colonisation imposed by rootless cosmopolitans" or whatever, and if Labour's troubles were really explained by a nativist revolt against their conspiracy to impose swarthy/accented domination, would be an odd pattern to emerge. Surely if this were the case, the people most exposed to the terrible threat of a Raj run by Polish cleaners, Pakistani taxi drivers and Australian bar staff would be the ones voting against their dastardly would-be colonial masters.

The whole thing just reminds me of a girl in at my high school in the small, conservative-voting town where I grew. She told me, after I got a place in a university in Sydney, that she could never live in Sydney because there's too many Chinese people. Folks who aren't actually exposed to migrants often seem to be the most against 'em and to vote accordingly.

London isn't entirely some bastion of "progressive" values, though. I mean it elected BoJo. BoJo...!

 

[EnglishEdward]

Migration into the UK under UK policy isn't "colonisation of the UK".

There is typically a distinction between migration and colonisation.

But when foreign countries seek to impose migration targets or require unlimited migration and/or impose their laws, it is very close to colonisation.

Like what Australia was colonised by people from these islands.

 

[Silurian]

There is typically a distinction between migration and colonisation.

But when foreign countries seek to impose migration targets or require unlimited migration and/or impose their laws, it is very close to colonisation.

Like what Australia was colonised by people from these islands.

I was not aware of migration targets.
What is the target figure for sending British pensioners to Spain.

I was not aware of a requirement for unlimited migration.
You may recall that the French were deporting Roma who were not working in recent years.

Imposing their laws.
Do you include the laws that were drafted in the UK.

 

[Arakhor]

But when foreign countries seek to impose migration targets or require unlimited migration and/or impose their laws, it is very close to colonisation.

Please list all EU "migration targets" for the UK at any time in the last 40 years. Hell, list any "migration target" imposed by the EU.

 

[Arwon]

There is typically a distinction between migration and colonisation.

But when foreign countries seek to impose migration targets or require unlimited migration and/or impose their laws, it is very close to colonisation.

Like what Australia was colonised by people from these islands.

That's an insane and offensive comparison.

Polish cleaners and Pakistani taxi drivers aren't stealing all the land, declaring their own state with them in charge, butchering tens of thousands of people in a decades-long war of annihilation to enforce that state's claims, confining the survivors to camps, trying to destroy their culture, stealing their children, and then blaming you for the social struggles that your people are left with.

This is doddering, dribbling, self-obsessed ignorance of the highest order. It calls into question basic cognition, not just things like perspective and self-awareness.

 

[Verbose]

I thought EEA was their go-to solution in the first place, so I'm not seeing what exactly is he recommending here that is new or beneficial for the UK.

Norwegians are likely to nix that, and besides, in the EEA you get to implement the EU rules and regulation in order to benefit from the internal market, and you pay a fee more or less what the UK already paid as a member. You just have not vote or say. You don't HAVE to, in some grand existential sense, just if you want to access the EU market.

The Swiss solution might be better for the UK. Except the Swiss have a 40 year process of negotiations and gradual alignment under their belt, and the UK starts from scratch (or seemingly wants to).

 

[innonimatu]

The swiss were forced into giving in to the EU in a series of issues because they're entirely surrounded by it. The UK has options, its situation is more similar to Norway. That will become a moot point anyway in a few years...

 

[uppi]

The Swiss solution might be better for the UK.

No, for two reasons. First, the result is effectively the same. Although the Swiss do not have to do whatever the EU wants, they do so anyway to not lose access to parts of the common market. Second, the solution was supposed to be transitionary and both, Switzerland and the EU, know that it is a mess that has to be resolved sooner or later. The EU will not offer the UK the Swiss solution in order to prevent a second mess.

 

[Verbose]

No, I agree, the EU will not offer that — except it might be what the UK demands. It seems up for negotiation.

 

[Arakhor]

Given the sheer amount of populism related to Brexit so far, popular opinion towards it in the UK can only drop, given that we are absolutely not going to get the land of milk and honey promised by various aspects of the Leave campaign. Even if it wasn't abundantly obvious anyway, that was all the more clear when May and her cabinet wriggled like hagfish to avoid any sort of Parliamentary or legal oversight of the process, despite Parliamentary sovereignty being one of the many avowed goals of the Leavers.

 

[Kozmos]

Success of Brexit will be judged on the basis of the price of a Freddo:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/01/13/freddo-chocolate-bar-price-rise-30p/

 

[Takhisis]

Please list all EU "migration targets" for the UK at any time in the last 40 years. Hell, list any "migration target" imposed by the EU.

The UK actually opened its gates when everybody else told them it was too soon. And they then complain about there being too many poles takin' er jerbs.

 

[Kyriakos]

I always loved you, Freddo...