the EU & the UK

[MyNameIsTerry]

Recently we have read about EU nationals (non UK citizens) living in the UK who may have been unable to vote in the EP elections. There are also UK citizens living in other EU states that wanted to vote in UK EP elections as opposed to the state they are currently residing in. Some EU non UK citizens living in the UK may have voted in their home state too but we do not understand this.

This led me to wonder how they could influence our voting considering the UK is one of the lower turnouts but also considering the volumes that are over here. The figures from the ONS are going to include those ineligible to vote (e.g. children, prisoners, etc) but is interesting to consider because we know there are around 3m of them in the UK and compared to the 15m turnout that's a substantial number.

To consider the impact I have simply looked at the top 5 per the ONS and applied some %'s to allow for a) voter turnout in home state, b) the potentially 75% missing quoted by The Guardian and c) taken the remaining 25% and re-applied the turnout in home state to it to consider voter apathy where The Guardian is flawed.

It should be noted The Guardian took that 75% from a study by one MP of their area so it's highly debatable. It also only considered certain populations.

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It would seem unlikely they would vote TBP. They may vote in line with the other parties and in line with the views of the parties that align in their own states. It's impossible to understand the numbers but it does make you wonder how much they could sway a vote towards such as the Lib Dems and Greens, especially if they are frustrated by the whole Brexit thing and impacts onto them. It only makes sense they would want to retain FOM.

[MyNameIsTerry]

Thanks to Have I Got News For You last night, now we know what 'McGuffin' (Labour's Brexit policy) actually is; it's "Constructive ambiguity."

The Labour Party was recently described 'At death's door' - and Jeremy Corbyn is the very man to help pull them through... This old Monkhousean joke equally applies to the Conservatives, but obviously not with Jeremy Corbyn! As far as Change UK is concerned, last rites have already been administered (Soubry and Allen certainly did all the pulling-through required...).

It's a self sabotaging strategy misconstrued from a certain Roman emperor, in this case "divide & confuse".

Change UK have been a total flop. Will they now just fold into the Lib Dems?

[MyNameIsTerry]

A quick whizz through some of your most recent comments, factoids, figures and observations, Terry:-

Farage/TBP must keep up the haranguing pressure. Nigel ‘I’m-back’ Farage will by nature, but as for the newbies…

If the Brexit Party becomes centrist, it’ll die. The dead zone (aka the middle ground) is the domain of the grey men and women of politics, and they’ll just wrap the Brexit Party in grey gunge and leave it to rot. The trick for TBP is to command both right and left wingers without driving into that massive pothole in the middle-of-the-road. I think it can be done, but it’ll take the sort of politicking we haven’t seen in Britain in recent times.

Boris-the-berk uniting the Conservatives? He’ll do that alright – they’ll all get together in a great big boat one night and quietly sail away, leaving him scratching his tousled hair and wondering where on earth they’ve all gone (yes, I know: in the original version of this story the boat sinks and…).

Why don’t the Conservatives turn the leadership malarkey into a beauty contest? All the contenders could flounce about on a catwalk for a few minutes and tell us where they hope to be in five years from know, and how much they enjoy doing charity work and travelling abroad (but not in the EU, if they know what’s good for them!).

Are there two (or more) Labour Parties? None of the Labourites I know are either Remainers or ‘champagne socialists’ (an old derogatory term not often used these days, but probably as applicable now as ever).

Last minute polling decision in the Euro-election. Like Mr Paxman in the ref? Randomists? A bit like some folks do the pools – pull a number out of a hat and stick an ‘X’ next to it. Get eight right in a row and win a prize!

Bregretters – do you know of any, Terry? I know some folks who are thoroughly dismayed at the numerous turns for the worse the Brexit process has taken, when they thought it was just a matter of signing Article 50 and waving goodbye.

Oh come on, Terry! You must realise anything more than a 0.01% increase is classed as a ‘surge’ if it can be spun to remainers advantage. (Conversely, even if a percentage increase were to be say 10% in favour of leavers arguments, it would be decried as trifling and indicative of nothing by those same remainers.)

True. I just find it hard to visualise a single policy party with such a broad church creating a manifesto unless those some in the party just support it because there is one ultimate goal underneath it (sounds reminiscent of Corbynites turning blind eyes? ). I suppose them being there in the first place shows it can be done but once Brexit is done I can't see TBP going any further.

Boris getting in might play well for a TBP coalition given his No Deal stance. If TBP make gains and the Tories hold something it may end up this way if Labour & co don't sort themselves out.

A beauty contest? Do you really want to see Gove if some bizarre catwalk creation involving dock leaves and little else? Now, I may be more willing when Esther McVey and Penny Mordaunt walk on

With Labour I guess much depends on where you live. If you are in Islington perhaps those types are the norm? In Liverpool socialism seems important but I expect it's les forgiving of the Emily Thornberry types who tend to annoy the working class hero. For my own area it's more a working man's party so big on unions. Your typical working man isn't going to be too interested in FOM, outside of watching Au Wiedersehen Pet, but would be very annoying at wage suppression from cheaper labour flooding in. I would also say more traditional Labour types around here are not fond of pushing ethnic minority rights at the cost of all other issues. That is one reason Corbyn becomes unpopular.

Never heard of a Bregretter outside of the internet and the media. It's pretty obvious looking at the EP elections all those Leave areas aren't changing. It would be interesting to see how the Lib Dems did in those areas in more detail with vote shares. I suspect the Lib Dem vote might be skewed towards certain areas in the same way the old UKIP vote was which meant they didn't get very far. I wonder whether this is partly why they are surging in some polls and drifting in others? There are certainly a huge amount of people of the mind "just get on with it".

Yep, just imagine a 2nd referendum where Remain win by 1 voter. Expect all those people who complained about a few % to do an about turn

[MyNameIsTerry]

CHUK have fallen apart. They can say they are supporting each other but if as an actual party it counts for naught it certainly won't count for diddly as an even looser group. The regukar parties will tread them under now. Chukka has made noises about joining the Lib Dems which should evoke the same reaction...





Soubry is now leader of CHUK so perhaps they will drift a bit further to the right? That might work better as the Tories have moved further right and the left had the Lib Dems anyway and if Labour swung back they would destroy them. But I can't see CHUK doing anything other than flushing itself down the toilet now and it's funny to see the splitters considering how they grovel their way back in after one of the biggest virtue signals in recent times

Can it even go on since they seemed to name it after Chukka anyway?

I can't see Leadsom getting anywhere. She always feels like a bit of a non entity.

The SNP only want independence. Both First Ministers have avoided so many issues with a defence they seem to level at Brexit - it will all be fine, we will sort out things like a currency later on. And they will be leaving the EU no matter what happens as they are not even members in their own right. The EU themselves have confirmed this. Maybe they will fast track them back in, they may even join the EEA so they can have SM access as a third party and arrange a CU too, but it will still take years and they won't be above the EU's deficit criteria...but the EU can fudge that as they fudged Greece.

Scotland will present more issues though as we are even more entwined. Some believe they could take services from London but I think that's a long road as London is well established worldwide.

I wonder how the EU will approach the issue of their oil? Better get back in the EEA quick though or the yanks might come calling...with their bombers

For the hard border to be averted it seems we need to replicate the CTA, CU or have a technological solution (the Tory "Max Fax"). It's interesting that there nations that achieve this through technology such as one I posted earlier in this thread that crosses from Russia. I saw it on the BBC. The exporter puts a label on the train container and it passes through a big scanner. Job done. The customs official the BBC were talking too seemed a bit meh over why anyone was asking why this was such a marvel?

Obviously you can't do that with NI/ROI quite the same as there are so many ways over that border but it's a start for the major routes surely? Those who have land that straddles the border or have to travel over it to work, there are countries out there that do that too and one even exists in the EU (Liechtenstein). What about the Channel Islands?

Like you say, Pain, there are some solutions out there if people want them. I'm not sure they are enough all in one go other than full replication of the CU itself? But there is even the possibility of regulation of suppliers who are legally expected to do xyz to cover the flow of goods without stops e.g. customs labelling.

[Noivous]

Why do they call it CHUK instead of it's proper acronym CUK? Neither one is very encouraging.

Don't these politicians think at all before they name something?

[MyNameIsTerry]

Why do they call it CHUK instead of it's proper acronym CUK? Neither one is very encouraging.

Don't these politicians think at all before they name something?

They should have named it FUKUP.

I'm guessing because one of the senior members was Chukka Imunna who is famous for wanting to top jobs and not quite putting himself forward for them. A career politician.

I doubt they will exist much longer. A new party will get trod under very quickly by the big players unless they have massive support and they just haven't.

[MyNameIsTerry]

A good example why outsourcing your operations only leads to weakness. It happens in the private sector as they centralise too. I saw it first hand in my own group of companies, I even ended up having to learn roles that had been lost where the company didn't know what to do. That took some careful questioning of the regulatory bodies as well as trying to give confidence I was trying to rectify it: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-48547813 So much for all those civil servants we always hear about, eh?

[MyNameIsTerry]

Boris-The-Johnson (perhaps more one our American friends would get?) has successfully won his appeal against the misleading Brexit Bus issue that a certain breed of Remainer just can't let drop. To be honest I saw it as less about him and more about a way to justify further inroads to A50 revocation through the Leave lying issue. Of course it was politically motivated. If not, I expect to see many more publically funded cases against probably every MP on the books

What the UK Statistics Authority was telling us in the run up to the referendum:

https://www.statisticsauthority.gov....uropean-union/

Is the main issue that they put a gross figure on the side of the bus (and I'm not talking about Boris Johnson in spandex) rather than one after adjustments are applied i.e. the rebate?

So, lets change it then to the actual figure after the rebate:

https://fullfact.org/europe/our-eu-m...ee-55-million/

According to FullFact in 2017 the net contribution was £9b. This is after the rebate which would have made it £18.6b and any funding back from the EU (you know, when they give us our own money back

So, shove "lets spend that £9b on the NHS" and "we send £176,923,077 to the EU every week". Is that better? So would all those misled Leave voters now reply "oh, that's alright then, it's only £177m and much less than I would have thought".

If Boris extracted £2m a year out of expenses to pay for hair styling the public would go mad. But then we found out it was only £1m a year and we all of a sudden think it's acceptable and change our minds and no longer want that money spent elsewhere?

[MyNameIsTerry]

When I was writing about the oozlem bird, I couldn’t stop my mind wandering to ‘Burslem bird’ – which might be more your cup-of-tea, Terry (or not – I wouldn’t presume to know!). Terry Scott certainly seems to have been inflicted with the former, though

Isn't the Burslem bird a creature known to outdrink most men and seen fighting outside the local pub?

To many around here it would be Boslem bird though.

Burslem is too close to Port Vale football ground for me

[mezzaninedoor]

Boris-The-Johnson (perhaps more one our American friends would get?) has successfully won his appeal against the misleading Brexit Bus issue that a certain breed of Remainer just can't let drop. To be honest I saw it as less about him and more about a way to justify further inroads to A50 revocation through the Leave lying issue. Of course it was politically motivated. If not, I expect to see many more publically funded cases against probably every MP on the books

What the UK Statistics Authority was telling us in the run up to the referendum:

https://www.statisticsauthority.gov....uropean-union/

Is the main issue that they put a gross figure on the side of the bus (and I'm not talking about Boris Johnson in spandex) rather than one after adjustments are applied i.e. the rebate?

So, lets change it then to the actual figure after the rebate:

https://fullfact.org/europe/our-eu-m...ee-55-million/

According to FullFact in 2017 the net contribution was £9b. This is after the rebate which would have made it £18.6b and any funding back from the EU (you know, when they give us our own money back

So, shove "lets spend that £9b on the NHS" and "we send £176,923,077 to the EU every week". Is that better? So would all those misled Leave voters now reply "oh, that's alright then, it's only £177m and much less than I would have thought".

If Boris extracted £2m a year out of expenses to pay for hair styling the public would go mad. But then we found out it was only £1m a year and we all of a sudden think it's acceptable and change our minds and no longer want that money spent elsewhere?

You are right Terry.
Its still collosal so why lie / exaggerate. I think its the principle that matters. You know the 'if this then what else?' question that we apply in Corporate Business a lot to problems. You always ask, if the opposition, others, businesses will do such and such then what else might they do. I think Boris will be PM and in a way i think thats sad as I don't know that he has a lot of integrity about him but at least the Brexiteers get a Brexit PM however this isn't just about the 52 %, it is also about the 48%, we need Government to chart a course that works for the country hence me being anti No Deal whilst accepting the result of the referendum.