He'll be OK till 2017. When he decides the "new deal" from the EU is enough to recommend staying in at the referendum, the Euroseptics will want to spit-roast him. They may (politically at least) well succeed in doing so.

We'll see.

The Chinese influence is everywhere these days - they are even re-naming bits of Scotland. I rather like some of their suggestions:

http://www.scotsman.com/news/odd/chinese-give-mandarin-names-to-scottish-landmarks-1-3691240


The art installation, located off the M8 at The Helix parkland near Falkirk, has been renamed “Kai Po Ju Ma” in Mandarin, meaning “Glorious armoured giant horses”, while Loch Lomond & the Trossachs National Park has been given the moniker of “Shan Hu Huai Bao Zui Meng Xiang”, translating as “Mountain Lakes Get You Drunk on Dreams”.

Nicola Sturgeon today condemned David Cameron's 'appalling' plan to scrap the Human Rights Act, warning the Scottish Government will oppose the Conservative policy.

The Tory manifesto pledged to scrap the Human Rights Act, and introduce a British Bill of Rights.

A row erupted between London and Edinburgh after new Tory Scottish Secretary David Mundell insisted the move would apply to Scotland.


The expression "a British Bill of Rights" reminded me of Henry VIII's use of the ancient Statute of Praemunire:



In English history, praemunire or praemunire facias was a law which prohibited the assertion or maintenance of papal jurisdiction, imperial or foreign, or some other alien jurisdiction or claim of supremacy in England, against the supremacy of the monarch. This law was enforced by the Writ of Praemunire facias, a writ of summons from which the law takes its name.


The Human Rights Act 1998 (also known as the Act or the HRA) came into force in the United Kingdom in October 2000. It is composed of a series of sections that have the effect of codifying the protections in the European Convention on Human Rights into UK law.

All public bodies (such as courts, police, local governments, hospitals, publicly funded schools, and others) and other bodies carrying out public functions have to comply with the Convention rights.

This means, among other things, that individuals can take human rights cases in domestic courts; they no longer have to go to Strasbourg to argue their case in the European Court of Human Rights.



If the Human Rights Act is repealed, could an appeal still be made to the European Court of Human Rights? Has the Statute of Praemunire ever been repealed? If it has not, would such an appeal to Strasbourg actually be an illegal - a treasonable - act? The relevant wording from the old statute is:

"...that if any purchase or pursue, or cause to be purchased or pursued in the court of Rome, or elsewhere, any such translations, processes, and sentences of excommunications, bulls, instruments or any other things whatsoever ... he and his notaries, abettors and counsellors" shall be put out of the king's protection, and their lands escheat."

This is a serious question: I really would like to know if the Statute of Praemunire has been repealed. If not, all decisions made by any European court would surely be invalid in the UK? It must have been repealed...




EDIT:

It was. I've found out the answer to my own question: the ancient (obsolete?) Statute was repealed in 1967, interestingly the same year that the European Community was established - five years before the UK joined. The following site is unfortunately rather UKIPish and therefore biased, but it does give some history:


http://www.th-eu-nit.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=5064:the-law-of-praemunire&catid=43:your-letters&Itemid=40



What few realise is that this ancient law was quietly repealed in the 1967 Criminal Law Act, in order to allow EU laws to rule our nation. It was quietly buried in Schedule 4, where it was classed as archaic legislation. This safeguard and bulwark against foreign influence has been removed, and laws have been passed that allows the EU to control all our major institutions.

Thanks for the information, Temperance.  Having worked as a legal secretary (and I think I've said before I still do some legal typing from home) I am mindful of some people that had a nasty surprise regarding some ancient legislation that hadn't been repealed and suddenly found themselves responsible for contributing towards repairs for the local (CofE) church.  As well as the local and environmental and water searches a lot of firms were advising clients to do a chancel search to ascertain whether they were potentially at risk for being clobbered with such a bill.  I believe the law is going to be changed if it has not already been altered but people were also taking out chancel repair insurances if they lie within an area where they could perhaps be hit by a chancel repair bill - fortunately the insurances were not prohibitively expensive.

Yes, there's been a lot of discussion - and understandable extremely bad feeling - about the dear old C of E having the right to demand money from folk for the upkeep of the parish church. I am liable where I live: if I try to sell my house, potential buyers' solicitors always throw this one up - good money to be made for the insurance sellers and the house price consequently knocked down.

I'm sorry if I bore everyone to death with stuff like above post about the Statute of Praemunire: I was interested because it's the ancient statute Henry VIII used to bring down Wolsey. I had lovely visions of all our MPs in the European Parliament being done for treason.

Referendum Part II

Thursday, 23rd June 2016, will see another referendum take place as the UK decides on whether to remain in the European Union or leave.

EU Vote

Personally, I have not yet decided. Has anyone else made their mind up or have any strong views either way?. What do our non-UK members think? Does it matter?

I'll probably vote to stay in - but reluctantly. It seems the only way to get even half-way decent environmentally-sound policies implemented - but TTIP looks like it is going to be a complete disaster for all the Eurosuckers who sign up to it.

Triceratops wrote:

What do our non-UK members think?

Miffed? As a UK citizen who has been living and working in another EU country for the past 15 years (but still paid UK tax on all my affairs in Britain) ... and whose whole legal status, business, savings, pension rights, etc. are all influenced by the UK's membership of the EU ... it's very, very important to me ....

..... But I don't get a vote!

I possible will get crucified by some of the forum members but my opinion is that the vote should be in favour of the UK remaining a member of the EU thus it should be IN.

Well we've got our own problems to be going on with in Greece, what with both the financial and refugee crisis so Camoron's little ploy seems inconsequential to us here. But for what it is worth, I haven't seen a decent argument yet as to why leaving would be a good idea or even a believable plan as to what a post EU UK could look like. On the contrary all the facts seem to point to it being an unmitigated disaster for the UK if it did leave, so I hope common sense prevails.

Meles meles wrote:

Triceratops wrote:

What do our non-UK members think?

Miffed? As a UK citizen who has been living and working in another EU country for the past 15 years (but still paid UK tax on all my affairs in Britain) ... and whose whole legal status, business, savings, pension rights, etc. are all influenced by the UK's membership of the EU ... it's very, very important to me ....

..... But I don't get a vote!

I seem remember seeing an article somewhere that the government were going to or thinking of allowing expats to vote? Those UK citizens living across the EU would definitely want to stay so I thought Cameron would be looking for all the yes votes he can get.

Yes there's a cut-off point .... if you've been registered as "overseas" for 15 years or more, then you don't qualify for a vote in this referendum. I accept that one has to have a cut-off point, but nevertheless I don't like my hard-earned UK pension funds being at the whim of Gaz 'n Shaz from Essex who think Brussels is the capital of Germany ... or sumfink loik vat, I dunno, but oo f**king cares, they're all just f**king forinnners anyway.

There again it's probably a case of swings-and-roundabouts: perhaps my dis-enfranchised non-vote will be compensated for by the votes of Stanislav, Zbigniew, and Yuliya ... who arrived in the UK just a couple of years ago, liked the place, and have made it their home, and they now (quite correctly and understandably) all have the vote and all other UK citizens' rights.

Frankly, since I'm not allowed any vote in this referendum, I can only wish you all good luck with whatever you decide on my behalf. If really necessary I'll just have to renounce my British citizenship and become officially French.

What of duel nationality, MM? Handling that was an incidental bane of my life abroad. People could often produce a wodge of passports as if playing rummy - and real ones at that. I knew the law inside out where I was and how to apply it - better than new folk from the UK FO, in fact. I never got the hang of USA and duel nationality - a grey area, I was told - whatever that means but many people have both.I do not know how it works in France - or Europe come to that.Others know so much about how to  'work the system' where we do not. I sympathise with your feelings about not having a vote when one pays UK taxes on UK holdings. That used to bug me too. Many who live here who get to vote do not pay anything apart from incidental taxes such as VAT and such. no even playing field, is there? - no tackling either!

The actual article seems to have been withdrawn.

I tried to remove this post but was not successful.

Can the monitor/administrator assist in deleting this posting.

Thanks

Done

The "pulling out of Europe" debate is not actually unique to the UK, despite how the thing is being presented as a "peculiarly British solution to a peculiarly British problem". In fact all signatories of all EU treaties right back to the beginning sign in the process a reversal procedure should it be required. Each level of complexity that has been added in EU structure and function carries an equally more complex reversal procedure if it should be invoked.

At least three countries that I can think of offhand have tested this reversal procedure, France at a very early stage, Portugal in light of recent economic downturn, and one of the Eastern Bloc countries (I think it was Poland) soon after joining. In each case the intention was mainly to check the legalities of the procedure, and how binding they were. In each case no major loophole or workaround was revealed to be available.

However you would never know any of this if you were limited to learning about the EU via British media and politicians. Policy and funding negotiations (which all members partake in) are presented locally to the British public as "negotiating our deal with Europe", and this has been true right back to Thatcher's efforts to renege on subsidy level agreements. She largely failed, though again this was never presented as such to the British public either, where adjustments in payment schedules and interest tariffs were hailed as "victories" in lowering the UK's contribution. Cameron's recent "negotiations" follow much the same logic and process, I have noticed.

The bottom line is that if the UK elects to withdraw membership there is a set series of procedures it will be forced to adopt. This leaves the UK in the end as a non-member, and faced with a very simple choice with regard to future dealings with the EU bloc - either join with others who negotiate as a group because of their affiliation to the EEA and EFTA (only one of which Britain is currently affiliated with so there's a whole new referendum just there) or else go it completely alone, with the prospect of having to continually negotiate and re-negotiate permissions to trade with its ex-European partners.

The only bright side to leaving the EU is that the UK, as one of the world's leading financial services industries, will find itself unrestricted by European Law imposed on EU members when it comes to accounting for the profits this industry yields. This will align the London financial markets and services much more with Far Eastern versions of the same, including most of the sharp practices employed in these areas which the UK is currently liable to be exposed for if the same practices break EU regulations.

However for anyone not a stockbroker, funds manager or similar, and who lives outside the City, I am not sure at all that there is one single benefit to be gained - short term or long term - in pursuing a policy of enforced economic isolation. Manufacturing, the service industries apart from financial, and (not least) the country's infrastructure itself will be horribly vulnerable after such a split.

What depresses me about the level of debate is that the decision is being presented, both by UK politicians and by most of the UK media too, as simply a matter of balancing the financial benefits of being in or out. No-one mentions any, dare I say it, loftier ideals. The whole European edifice was created in the wake of WW2 to make individual countries so tied to one another that war would be impossible, and in the future, together, to strive "for ever closer union". All the Brexiters harp on about only joining the European Economic Community, EEC, and having never been asked in 1974 about joining a Political Union. But all the details were there at the time. I didn't have a vote in that referendum either, being too young, but I certainly knew what the political implications were: we had a school debate and discussed it extensively in O level history (we were actually studying British and European social and political history 1815-1914, but it was all relevant).

But as I say the level of information and debate in the UK at present seems to be only on financial terms, like some lickspittle accountant tallying up the accounts, and presenting the benefit (or otherwise) only in terms of the bottom line cash balance. I sincerely believe people in France, Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany (the only nationalities that I have had in depth discussions with) view the EU in a much broader and more nuanced way than just, "are we getting out more money than we put in", which seems to be the rather selfish British view.

Unfortunatly the current refugee/migrant crises has also give the Brexit debate a rather nasty xenophobic whiff ... but most immigrants to the UK arrive, not via Calais, but onboard scheduled aircraft into Heathrow, and most of those that are intending to bring ther families and stay in Britain long term are not from other EU countries, but from the British Commonwealth. However, in the face of the current large migrations, rather than pulling up the drawbridge at Dover, I'd have thought it would be a better plan to be more involved with neighbouring countries and work even closer with other EU states, no?

There is no clariity, MM is right. Companies are taking it upon themselves to point out how they would fare if Britain withdrew...... not well. When it was suggested that an independent Scotland would have a nightmare path of negotiation to join in their own right - details were published, a similar one in reverse is nowhere readily shown.

As for the public....mmmmm........I think - perhaps wrongly, but from press directed umbrage many confuse the Human Rights Court with the EU. In fact that Court is hearing a case brought by the recent mass  shooting murderer in Norway who thinks he is being badly treated by being kept in isolation. 

Grievance over law issues are ones that many dislike and were strongly pointed out as a possiblity at the time of Maastricht Treaty signing. Gloomy predictions  on this issue mentioned at the time have in part come to pass.

We have a close sense of Sovereignty born of our island condition and history that when we are doing well takes over; when it is not then the EU becomes acceptable and as much as a little independent flag wave of bye bye may appeal it could well prove a hollow and expensive and possibly outdated gesture.  Better to stay in and keep on nagging for reform. Badger, badger, badger.... (the meles effect) might pay off better. That's what I think this week, anyway!

Meles meles wrote:

What depresses me about the level of debate is that the decision is being presented, both by UK politicians and by most of the UK media too, as simply a matter of balancing the financial benefits of being in or out. No-one mentions any, dare I say it, loftier ideals. The whole European edifice was created in the wake of WW2 to make individual countries so tied to one another that war would be impossible, and in the future, together, to strive "for ever closer union". All the Brexiters harp on about only joining the European Economic Community, EEC, and having never been asked in 1974 about joining a Political Union. But all the details were there at the time. I didn't have a vote in that referendum either, being too young, but I certainly knew what the political implications were: we had a school debate and discussed it extensively in O level history (we were actually studying British and European social and political history 1815-1914, but it was all relevant).

But as I say the level of information and debate in the UK at present seems to be only on financial terms, like some lickspittle accountant tallying up the accounts, and presenting the benefit (or otherwise) only in terms of the bottom line cash balance. I sincerely believe people in France, Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany (the only nationalities that I have had in depth discussions with) view the EU in a much broader and more nuanced way than just, "are we getting out more money than we put in", which seems to be the rather selfish British view.

Unfortunatly the current refugee/migrant crises has also give the Brexit debate a rather nasty xenophobic whiff ... but most immigrants to the UK arrive, not via Calais, but onboard scheduled aircraft into Heathrow, and most of those that are intending to bring ther families and stay in Britain long term are not from other EU countries, but from the British Commonwealth. However, in the face of the current large migrations, rather than pulling up the drawbridge at Dover, I'd have thought it would be a better plan to be more involved with neighbouring countries and work even closer with other EU states, no?

Meles meles,

that's completely to the point... again the time of nationalism from between the two WW...the old ideals of common deploiement are gone again...each region for its own, Flanders in Belgium, Scotland in the UK, Catalunia in Spain...but they are not aware that in working together and creating wealth for the whole community will always be the best long term solution...and yes that are some of the nasty excesses of free liberalist ideas too...if the rich can become richer that's a sad thing for the poor...but in the eyes of the rich those poor have to "fight" to become rich too...and yes you have always populists who sing the song of national pride...

Kind regards, Paul.

Brexiteers are putting forward yet another wily argument: the weather.

According to the Sunday Times, this is something that has been strangely overlooked in the debate so far. It is a fact that the UK weather has been much worse since we became members of the EU. Met Office figures show that there has been more rain since 1973, compared with the same period before we joined.

The Times urges us: "Ditch the brolly - vote leave."

Temperance wrote:

Brexiteers are putting forward yet another wily argument: the weather.

According to the Sunday Times, this is something that has been strangely overlooked in the debate so far. It is a fact that the UK weather has been much worse since we became members of the EU. Met Office figures show that there has been more rain since 1973, compared with the same period before we joined.

The Times urges us: "Ditch the brolly - vote leave."

About as convincing as most of the other arguments (on both sides).

I think it was meant to be a joke.    

Temperance wrote:

I think it was meant to be a joke.    

Most of the arguments on both sides are - inadvertently in some cases.

So … just a few days now until the referendum.

Are we seeing history in the making? I rather think we are. Whatever the result the damage has been done, in or out, Britain’s place in the world will never be the same, and neither will British politics. As is usual with referenda it is probably going to be very close, and so inevitably whatever the result, there are going to be a lot of very bitter, disappointed, worried people in the UK come Friday morning. And that’s not mentioning all those elsewhere in the world who didn’t even get a say.

But it seems to me one thing we can be sure of, regardless of the result, is that history will remember David Cameron as the PM who put party politics above his country, to the long-term detriment of both.

And has the level of debate improved since our last comments in March? Alas, I don’t think so. The earlier whiff of xenophobia has become a nauseating stench, and where earlier in the campaign people were understandably asking for facts and figures to help them decide, now both sides in the debate have, unless it suits their agenda, openly ridiculed much informed input. Carefully considered opinions from the Bank of England, the Treasury, the London School of Economics, the International Monetary Fund, the EU Finance Committee, the US Federal Reserve Bank, the Council of Europe, lawyers specialising in international treaty law, foreign heads of state and treaty partners etc … are now openly called "lies", or just dismissed with, "well they would say that, wouldn’t they". Given all the legal and financial complexities, such a level of debate is worryingly close to Hermann Goering in 1938 shutting down all discussion by saying: "When I hear the word 'intellectual' I reach for my revolver".

Perhaps the only good thing to come out of this whole idiotic shambles is that it looks like record numbers of people will actually vote!

Read your message with great interest, Meles meles.

I didn't follow the whole thing in depth and here on the continent, what dripps through via the local papers is perhaps as deformed as one reads directly the British press...
Yes, that's is a brave stance from you, putting all in the right perspective...

One observation, and it has nothing to do with the present mood in Britain, about the Brexit attitude...
From my encounters over the years, with all kind of British people, and that were not as many, as with French and German ones, I have the impression, and you can call it a "populist" approach, that the man in the street, is still impregnated with the glorious past, and has as such still an attitude of "We the British and the rest are all "the others"...Am I wrong...?

Kind regards, Paul.

I think you are right to mention Goering, MM. The mood in the country is uglier now than I have ever known. Cameron got a real grilling on a Question Time Special last night. Ironically, one Brexit gentleman suggested Cameron is the new Chamberlain, enthusiastically waving his bit of paper - "EU Reforms" - in the air.

But people are indeed determined to have their say, and I do rather fear we shall wake up on Friday morning to find ourselves "adrift in the Atlantic". We may even - as some have suggested - sink beneath the waves we once ruled.

As Private Eye put it, "quoting" the US president: "England will disappear off the world map and your ridiculous little island will never be heard of again." That sort of thing, of course, brings out the worst in us silly little islanders.

We shall see. One interesting reaction last night was to Cameron's reference to the "experts" and how we should listen to their advice and warnings. Everyone fell about laughing. I think it's now, "When I hear the word 'banker', I reach for my revolver."

But I'm voting stay - although I am tempted not to vote at all -  maybe just leave it to the young ones. It's their world - and their England - now. But of course I will be there, poll card in hand, probably as soon as the village hall opens.

It's so deeply dispiriting, we are presented with a choice of We know it's not great but the alternative is the apocalypse and Let's all go back to some imagined golden age and all to sort out internecine warfare among the Tories and Cameron's ruse to fight off UKIP at the last election. I'm sure that the theory that, if he thought he would have won a majority, he would never have proposed this unnecessary grief. Even Bush understood The Vision Thing, something that the Remain campaign seem to have abandoned in favour of dubious statistics and overblown threats.

I really don't see this ending well - if UK votes Out and Scotland votes Remain then there will be a lot of resentment here and some calls for Indyref 2. That won't happen however unless there's a guaranteed majority for Yes, Nicola's too fly for that, and I don't feel there's enough support at the moment. And we're all a bit referendummed out but when the Gove/Bojo/IDS government get going, it won't be very long.

If however UK votes Remain narrowly on the back of the Scottish vote then that won't endear us to a portion of the populace either.

That is, of course, assuming that we to go for Remain, and there's a section who will undoubtedly not and that's hard to quantify, so if it's Leave up here I'm emigrating. MM, do you need a seasonal worker to help out? I'm not much for cleaning but I could run digs in your garden to entertain the guests - well, doggy-dog, the wild boars and I could make lots of lovely holes.

I've been following the ref debate closely over the last few weeks and I must admit that the arguments for Brexit don't make a lot of sense from out here. There are so many fallacies in their case that one can only despair at the complete lack of information made available to the public so they may reach an informed rather than nationalistic or emotional decision. As is the case in Greece, mainstream political parties have let the public down severely and the void is being filled by opportunistic numbskulls.

My fingers and toes are crossed for you all whatever the result. Despite what I've read in some UK papers, the British are still very popular on the continent and most people to would like to see you remain.

"Leaving" the EU is a complex exercise involving at the very least an exit strategy with which the population can be made familiar before being asked to decide in a referendum if it is something to be adopted. This has not been done. In fact it has not even apparently been missed by the "remain" campaigners either.

The whole thing points to a country woefully unrehearsed in actual democracy, how it works, what it entails, and crucially what it means as a citizen to take responsibility for policy. Britain's few attempts at referendums in the past didn't augur well for this one either with regard to comprehension of process and intelligent analysis of consequence, and so it is proving to be this time too. This would be merely tragic if it wasn't also so dangerous for the people concerned, trained as they are to think like subjects and now rather suddenly being expected to behave like citizens. I feel sorry for all those who have been plunged into the process by their so-called political "leaders" and await with somewhat morbid curiosity to see how a Britain potentially independent of the EU comes to administer its one land border. The absence of any meaningful reference to this glaring flaw in the "brexit" logic (for want of a better term) is simply one rather obvious indication that very few people actually understand what they're doing, what they're expected to do, or even how to begin to analyse the consequences of their decisions in this issue.

An interesting article here about the UK's historical relationship with Europe:

The Guardian - Europhobia: a very British problem


... and with some very good quotes too, eg:

"I could not consent to the introduction into our national life of a device so alien to all our traditions as the referendum, which has only too often been the instrument of Nazism and fascism," (Clement Attlee in 1945) ... a view echoed by Margaret Thatcher in 1972 when she said, "The late Lord Attlee was right when he said that the referendum was a device of dictators and demagogues."

And Karl Deutsch's  rather sour definition of a nation as, "a group of people united by a mistaken view about the past and a hatred of their neighbours".

I also liked Gerhard Schröder's comment on the so-called British-American "special relationship", which he said was,  "so special that only the English know it exists".

On a lighter note, in one of the episodes of The Windsors - which did occasionally have some funny lines - Prince William wants a referendum to be held which will give the British people the opportunity to get rid of the monarchy. William wants to run the abolish campaign because he doesn't want to be king: he would much prefer to spend his time zooming around his helicopter all day. The Prime Minister agrees saying, "It's been a few weeks since we last had one (a referendum) and people do seem to enjoy them so much."

Last big debate on it all tonight - at Wembley Arena - BBC1 8.00. Clashes with Croatia v. Spain.

Ruth Davidson was very good last night. These Scottish women certainly know their own minds!

But how cunning Boris is. You can tell he did Classics at Balliol.

"Every man with a bellyful of the classics is an enemy to the human race" - Henry Miller.  Discuss.

Well, that's it. Will we wake up on Friday in Poundland or Euroland? I hope MM will have a suitable dish for us on 24th June 2016 - whichever way it goes.

Interesting isn't it, the current domination of women in Scottish politics? Even Kezia Dugdale who is perhaps the least impressive of the three main party leaders did well in the TV debate with Jim Sillars and creepy Michael Forsyth. You probably don't know Joanna Cherry but she is a most effective speaker as well.

Not just that, the preponderance of our party leaders as well as our sole Tory MP and UKIP MEP are gay or bi-sexual. John Knox must be birling in his box like a peerie

If you didn't laugh, you'd weep........

Very good ferval!

I liked the expression, "as British as a monocled badger that lives in a shepherd's pie" 

Temperance wrote:

Last big debate on it all tonight - at Wembley Arena - BBC1 8.00. Clashes with Croatia v. Spain.

I watched The Invaders [ Horror Channel, Freeview channel 70] a Quinn Martin production. It was the final episode. The War of the Worlds TV Series is on in its' place tonight, it's not very good, not very good at all.

Triceratops wrote:

.. a Quinn Martin production.

Ah, "a Quinn Martin production". That brings back memories. When I was a student, I shared a big house with several other young innocents. One had a completely mad boyfriend (who made my plankter-owning beloved seem quite sane). This young man would stand on the communal landing at about 3.00am of a Saturday night/Sunday morning and yell out The Fugitive - a Quinn Martin production! at the top of his voice, imitating the sonorous style of the original (listen to clip below). He would then disappear until the following Saturday.

Here is the clip from YouTube - except the programme narrator says QM, not Quinn Martin. Just giving the initials isn't as effective - Quinn Martin sounds far more dramatic than the truncated version.





Oh, drat, they've disabled the video. Here's the link.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8OQ9pZsn60

I remember The Fugitive, turns out it was the one-armed man after all !!!!!!!

The opening sequence for The Invaders;



all of which has nothing to do with the referendum...............not to worry, on Friday, according to the Leavers, without Brexit, an alien invasion will take place , while the Remainers, say that with Brexit, Godzilla will launch an attack.

Ooops, sorry - edited my post and sort of double sent it. Could the Boss please remove this. Thank you.

Oh, that clip is great, Trike! The Invaders opening is much better than the clip from The Fugitive.

I should have liked to have done a Brexit Referendum political broadcast featuring that superb scary music. In fact, the whole opening sequence could have been used: Boris driving his car down a dark lane - or Boris on his bike rather -  Angela Merkel and François Hollande landing out of nowhere in their space capsule. Scary voice: "The Invaders! Alien beings from a dying continent! Their destination? England! Their purpose? To make the Sceptred Isle their world! Boris has seen them! He realises the nightmare has already begun! We will no longer be allowed to buy our bananas by the pound, all British sausages must now be fried in garlic oil, and every British male will soon be forced to drive a Volkswagen Up!"

The list of "guest stars appearing tonight" could be really impressive too - that clever Mr Dyson for one. (I didn't know until last night's debate that Dyson vacuum cleaners are the only thing that have stopped the Germans from achieving world domination. Thank God for our British DC 50 Big Balls.)


But it's all too late now - well nearly - iacta alea est, as Menander didn't say.

In the wake of the referendum, London's position as a major financial centre was suddenly undermined;

A fine, sunny day here. The local Polling Station was quite busy this morning.

Being a temporary Icelander, I have already left the EU.

Bild offers to concede* that Hurst's goal in 1966 crossed the line if the UK votes Remain;

Bild 1966

*I certainly won't

I think the elephant's just done one massive dump

I wonder if the powers-that-be in Bruxelles [read: the bureaucracy] see this as a wake-up call or wipe the result off as a political failure?

It's definitely woken several people up to just how dumb society is getting, though in truth it will always inevitably be the dumb ones who are too dumb to realise how dumb they are, so maybe not. A high tolerance of low intelligence always sounds good in theory but rarely produces anything less than catastrophic in the long run.

So last night wasn't a bad dream, shit. The damage that that poisonous spiv Farage, Flash Dave the gambler and bloody BoJo have done will haunt us now for years and in ways that the herd (I was watching a programme about Nietzsche last night) just doesn't even begin to appreciate. I hope that those who voted 'No' in the Indyref on the back of the promise that that was the way to ensure continued membership of the EU are reflecting soberly.

God, I'm scunnered.

ferval wrote:

So last night wasn't a bad dream, shit. The damage that that poisonous spiv Farage, Flash Dave the gambler and bloody BoJo have done will haunt us now for years and in ways that the herd (I was watching a programme about Nietzsche last night) just doesn't even begin to appreciate. I hope that those who voted 'No' in the Indyref on the back of the promise that that was the way to ensure continued membership of the EU are reflecting soberly.

God, I'm scunnered.

IndyRef II is now "very likely"

Politics Scotland

Now that DC has announced his resignation, I suppose we can expect this Muppet to take over ruining running the country;

"I didn't think my vote would matter"

Leavers who wished they'd voted Remain

More constitutional upheaval ?

Referendum on United Ireland

Perhaps not quite as possible;

Petition for Independent London

Triceratops wrote:

Now that DC has announced his resignation, I suppose we can expect this Muppet to take over ruining running the country;

But at this morning's uncharacteristically sober press conference, considering that he and his colleagues had actually won, Boris rather looked like someone who had just soiled his trousers. I don't think he wants the job, at least not now and not in these circumstances.
 
I rather get the feeling that Boris thought all this Brexit thingey was a spiffing good wheeze: a jolly jape with fun photo oportunities like kissing a British North Sea cod, drinking an Imperial pint, waving a bent banana ... stabbing your mates in the back, and lying through your teeth. I think that, like most of his parliamentary chums, he basically believed the country would never really vote leave ... but nevertheless thought that playing along with Brexit might be a way to make him Conservative party leader and Cameron's successor ... maybe by the next general election. But the majority have voted in favour of Brexit, Cameron has resigned, and people understandably are now looking directly at him, and Farage, and Gove for leadership. And thicko Boris ain't got a clue what to do, other than being damn sure he doesn't want to be the one with the thankless task of desperately renegociating everything that has been built up over decades, while simultaneously presiding over the UK's political and financial meltdown. Indeed the day isn't even over and already he's frantically back-pedalling and whimpering about there really being no rush to leave the EU afterall.