I declared this blog an EU referendum free zone a few months ago. In the last couple of days I chanced to be in Edinburgh, Perth, Dundee, Banchory and Edzell on quite other business, and can report the remarkable fact that I did not see a single house or flat exhibiting a Leave or Remain poster. It is not just this blog, the entire country is an EU referendum free zone.
Personally I remain an EU enthusiast, but I am horrified by the arguments being put forward by the Remain campaign, and even more by the personalities associated with it. I could never display a Remain poster in case people felt I agreed with David Cameron. I strongly suspect that explains the mass public apathy, which friends tell me is no different down south. Whatever their views on the EU, people do not want in any way to be associated with George Osborne, David Cameron, Nick Clegg, Tony Blair or Peter Mandelson on one side, or with Ian Duncan Smith, Nigel Farage, Boris Johnson et al on the other.
There is a fascination in watching Tories pulling each others heads off. The level of intra-Tory hatred is really ramping up now. The Leave Tories have just worked out the Remain Tories are all liars. The Remain Tories have just worked out the leave Tories are all liars. The rest of us knew all the Tories are liars for years.
http://www.leftleave.org/the-truth-about-the-eu/
t’s a big business club
The EU and its forerunners (the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community) were designed to rebuild the big capitalist corporations in Western Europe after World War Two, behind a tariff wall and with no internal barriers to trade and takeovers.
The Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) insists upon a single internal market with the ‘free movement of goods, persons, services and capital’ (Article 26) — the cornerstone of the original Treaty of Rome (1957) establishing the EEC. Thus business corporations can freely move capital and labour around Europe in order to maximise profit.
The TFEU also declares that ‘all restrictions on the movement of capital between Member States and between Member States and third countries shall be prohibited’ (Article 63). The EU leads the drive in the World Trade Organisation to open up other countries to penetration by European monopoly capital.
Within Europe, EU directives have promoted the fragmentation, ‘marketisation’ and ‘liberalisation’ of nationalised utilities and public services, preparing the ground for privatisation of electricity, the railways and postal services. EU-funded bailouts have demanded sweeping privatisations as a condition of loans to member states in debt to German, French and British banks.
Big business corporations relentlessly lobby the EU Commission and EU Parliament, shaping EU policy on many issues through the European Round Table of Industrialists and the European Financial Services Round Table.
It’s anti-working class
But of course, Craig is hardly working class, is he?
There should be a referendum on leaving NATO.
Remember these words, as the first aircraft go down over Estonia; the tanks and special forces of the NATO rapid reaction force get put into Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia; and Russian nuclear-armed Iskander missiles go into Kaliningrad.
Remember the next ones too: a NATO force in the Baltic states that is sufficient to prevent a fast Russian takeover would also, other things being equal, enable a fast NATO takeover of Kaliningrad. For that reason, it cannot possibly be allowed by the Kremlin. As soon as the NATO “adequate defence” force goes into the Baltic states, Russian will put nuclear weapons in Kaliningrad. NATO are escalating towards a military confrontation.
If the USSR had given (by then Russian-speaking) Kaliningrad to Lithuania in 1954, rather than (Russian-speaking) Crimea to Ukraine, we would probably already be at war.
So…will people try to get Britain out of NATO, or will they bend down and kiss their arses goodbye?
Flower-pot-men, Tories bad-mouthing Tories., Puppets with risible, visible strings operating them.
That’s nothing compared to Syria. We have on the one side a tiny clan of non-Muslims, ( the Druidic = God knows what they believed in either ) Alawites who are supported by a deviant sect of Islam, the Shi’a, who wanted the religion of Islam to be run by male lineage succession instead of by the most knowledgeable of God’s Qur’an and teachings of the prophet , may God’s blessings and mercy be upon him.
And on the other side we have a tiny clan of apostate Turkish criminal freemasons, who are also probably Alawites from Southern Turkey like Erdogan, backed by a deviant sect of Islam, the family of Saud, whose leading Islamic scholars want removed from power because they know nothing about Islam ( if their heads haven’t been pre-chopped) . The Saudis , like the Shi’a, have made male-lineage-succession the self-appointed rulers of Islam by calling themselves amir al Mu’mineen on account of their family male blood line.
So can anybody tell me the difference between the 2 enemies in this shameful war? It is an internal family fight for power inside the Alawites who pretend to be Muslims, Assad and Erdogan, backed by 2 powerful traditions who both choose patriarchal lineage succession as the criterion for ruling the religion.
Non-Muslims and deviant sects, nothing to do with Islam, nor the Sunna/ways of our prophet SAW.
But I think little weed might know something about it, USUKISrael.
Bobop Bill. Bobop Ben. Bobop little weed.
Bobop. Bobop.
This is why the Tories were so scared of the Indyref. It was (and still is) a grass roots movement.
The push for Brexit comes from the City of London. They are trying to stop the EU moving away from the light touch regulation of New Labour and the absolute free-for-all under the Tories. The EU is in the process of doing so, although the MSM makes very sure that we don’t hear anything much about it.
I am beginning to suspect that the puerile posturings, claims and counter-claims of both the Brexit and the Remain Campaigns are designed to foster a very low turn-out. The validity of the vote would then be in question, especially if the vote is close as currently looks the case.
If anyone thinks the vote will be the end of the matter, the are going to be very disappointed.
Most people who tend to vote conservative are in agreement with total withdrawl from the hated E.U.
Many labour voters are in favour of withdrawl
hardly any liberals are in agreement with withdrawl
hardly any greens are in favour of withdrawl
most SNP voters are not in agreement with withdrawl.
The deciding voters will be the newly arrived in the U.K.
Asians more likely to vote for withdrawl
Europeans more likely to vote remain.
It seems quite sectarian to me
which will not be good for the future of the U.K. which ever way it goes.
The City will vote with it’s head and not it’s heart and vote firmly to remain.
Watching the US democracy cock-up, in which voters have no say and political elites take no notice of the President, is not a good advertisement for the ever increasing central control of the EU.
In fact you could say, if you were to know them by their fruit, that the incessant war and destruction visited by the over-powerful US on its Southern neighbours, on Japan,Vietnam and soon China, and on the Muslim world in recent times is a compelling argument either TO or NOT TO have a stronger European Union.
TO, if you want the EU to meddle, wreck and bleed to death the nations at its periphery and beyond, like Greece and Syria while you sit in affluent ignorance.
NOT TO, if you want to create an equal world.
Most Brits think it’s their patriotic duty to establish our own supremacy by fair means or foul.
There are very obvious benefits to the members of belonging to a freemasonry, but you will be counted by the worst extremities of the leaders of that organisation which you enabled seeking power for yourself.
I don’t personally have that vision. The UK, together with its less corrupted Celtic components, should stand against European corruption, state terror, and false fiscal power to destroy its neighbours and competitors.
Quite simply Craig is right in his vision of Europe , but plainly wrong if he thinks that the EU is not a bigger, nastier and more blood-sucking version of everything he hates about Britain.
Speaking of blood-sucking:
We Have Entered The Looting Stage Of Capitalism — Paul Craig Roberts
The way Germany sees it, the IMF is supposed to lend Greece the money with which to repay the private German banks. Then the IMF is to be repaid by forcing Greece to reduce or abolish old age pensions, reduce public services and employment, and use the revenues saved to repay the IMF.
As these amounts will be insufficient, additional austerity measures are imposed that require Greece to sell its national assets, such as public water companies and ports and protected Greek islands to foreign investors, principallly the banks themselves or their major clients.
So far the so-called “creditors” have only pledged to some form of debt relief, not yet decided, beginning in 2 years. By then the younger part of the Greek population will have emigrated and will have been replaced by immigrants fleeing Washington’s Middle Eastern and African wars who will have loaded up Greece’s unfunded welfare system.
In other words, Greece is being destroyed by the EU that it so foolishly joined and trusted…….
http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2016/05/25/we-have-entered-the-looting-stage-of-capitalism-paul-craig-roberts/
The EU is an ongoing disaster for this country, as well as the the rest of it’s membership. It is an undemocratic, unrepresentative, destructive burden imposed without consent on upon an entire continent.
An insidious tool for the implementation of a one world government, dictatorial rule by globalist corporate interests and their central bankers.
It has become blindingly obvious that the ‘establishment’ are desperate for us to vote to remain, which makes it equally obvious that the only way to protect our interests is to leave, which might not initially be ‘easy’, but the path to salvation seldom is.
What I’m saying might not make much sense to some of you now, but if we still remain withing the EU, ten years down the line it will become unanimous that we should have left when we had the chance.
Too many are caught up in the illusion of ‘choice’, namely the political ‘left’ ‘right’ paradigm which blinds them to the truth of how the world really works, to where real power resides.
Fredi
very well put.
I too think this will be the last chance for the United Kingdom to escape
unless the E.U. collapses in on its self,
which it may soon do
but far better to make our own choice to fuck right off out of it.
It is a corpse drowning those shackled to it.
Regime change:
https://youtu.be/9pnt_uT5YzQ
(The video, uploaded to YouTube by John Smith, overlays the commentary of the BBC’s Korea correspondent Stephen Evans from a march in Pyongyang onto footage of the annual Trooping of the Colour, which coincides with the Queen’s birthday, at Buckingham Palace.)
Peter Oborne, very much to the point, on the Remain campaign (and its parallels with Mr Blair’s innovative approach to the facts)
http://www.spectator.co.uk/2016/05/why-osbornes-dodgy-dossiers-are-even-worse-than-blairs/
Like Tony Blair and Alastair Campbell in 2003, David Cameron and George Osborne seem not to believe that their arguments, honestly expressed, are strong enough to win the day. They are so determined to win the vote that they are preparing to do so on the back of a series of fictions: that the economy will submerge into recession; that World War III might break out; that family incomes will be slashed etc.
Cameron and Osborne
are out of touch with the public but also out of touch with most people in their own party.
They will soon both be history.
“monumentally misleading propaganda”
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/eu-referendum-conservative-rifts-deepen-as-mps-call-for-david-cameron-to-quit-a7055481.html
It’s just a re-run of the Scottish referendum. We know what will happen if we remain in Europe, things will stay as they are. We don’t know what will happen if we leave, the country could be bankrupt next year but power would be grabbed from Brussels and them Romanians could be told to go back where they came from and some people think that would make it worth it.
We heard the yells of “scare mongering” from the Nationalists but the price of oil fell through the floor and they were proved wrong. The promises of a land of milk and honey from the Leave Campaign are just the same as the promises of milk and honey from the SNP, just so much hot air.
Call me Dave has put his head above the parapet
members of his own party now want the idiot Dave removed
Go forth & multiply: Turkey President Erdogan warns Muslims against using birth control
https://www.rt.com/news/344843-erdogan-muslim-birth-control/
This is the sort of thing we will have to put up with if we stay in the E.U.
Devout Muslim families ought to thrive without considering population planning and birth control, says Turkey’s president. Recep Tayyip Erdogan is known for previously equating birth control to treason and harshly opposing gender equality.
“We will multiply our descendants. They talk about population planning, birth control. No Muslim family can have such an approach,” Reuters cited Erdogan as saying in a live-broadcast speech in Istanbul on Monday. “Nobody can interfere in God’s work. The first duty here belongs to mothers.”
Russia’s Defense Ministry says the Turkish government continues to supply al-Qaeda-linked al-Nusra Front terrorists fighting in Syria with weapons in a bid to undermine the Syrian army in its fight against foreign-backed Takfiri militants.
“The flow of heavy-duty trucks with weapons and ammunition, which cross the Turkish-Syrian border every day, does not stop from Turkey,” Sergei Rudskoy, the head of Russia’s General Staff’s main operations command, said at a news conference on Friday.
http://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2016/05/27/467670/Russia-Turkey-Syria-Daesh-Takfiri-Nusra
so plenty of reasons to get away from the E.U.
Cameron loves Turkey, he wants them in, currently he is loved up with the mayor of London
Afghan migrant killed by lorry in Calais
http://www.thelocal.fr/20160528/afghan-migrant-killed-by-lorry-in-calais
A 25-year-old Afghan migrant was killed by a lorry on a motorway near the French port city of Calais in the early hours of Saturday, according to officials.
The man, who lived in the city’s ramshackle “Jungle” camp used by migrants, is one of at least 26 people killed attempting to reach Britain since June 2015.
Between 4,000 and 5,000 migrants are living in the Jungle in the hope of smuggling themselves to the UK aboard lorries crossing the Channel.
“The victim was part of a group of about 50 people who placed tree branches on the A16 (motorway)” hoping to slow passing trucks allowing them to stowaway with the goal of reaching England, a statement from the local prefecture said.
This is the sort of thing we will have to put up with if we stay in the E.U.
That at any rate is pure fearmongering. Erdoğan’s leaning so hard in the direction of Turkish religious conservatism that he’s in direct conflict with the Europeanisers. And currently winning. Turkey’s too much of a hot potato for Europe to eat. And Europe’s too much of a hot potato for Turkey. Much more likely in the foreseeable future are Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia and Albania, already on their way in. Not as frighteningly alien (to those who know fuck-all about it) as the Turks, but economic basket cases too – already sending illegal economic migrants our way.
o/t, Taking it out on little girls, that anti Palestinian blogger synonymous for the filth he writes Edgar Davidson, who once lauded EDL founder Robinson as ‘simply an English patriot’, has had concerns over a Palestinian girls winning entry in the regional Jack Petchey ‘speaking out challenge’ called ‘birds not bombs’.
She was disqualified and can’t enter the next stage of the contest. Despicable that apparent charity organisations play up to filth like Davidson.
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20160530-british-palestinian-schoolgirl-expelled-from-public-speaking-competition/
The Tories are all liars? Really? – just them?
Leaving the E.U. is necessary but by no means sufficient. Leaving the E.U. doesn’t mean much if we remain in N.A.T.O., but it would be better than nothing. Leaving the E.U. and continuing to vote for Blairs, Camerons and Cleggs won’t do much good either. But if you want to be able to hire and fire the people who create the legal and macro-economic context in which we all operate, then vote ‘Leave’. The E.U. seems to be structured deliberately to make sure that no pesky voters can chuck a spanner in the works.
However, if you’re so far gone that you enjoy the spectacle of an elected British Prime Minister being told what he can and cannot do with British taxpayers’ money by a Polish Prime Minister, then vote remain. Ditto if you take the O.E.C.D. or Barak O’Bomber seriously (Bless!) or if you think after British independence (unlikely – I don’t think they’ve got the interest or the guts) the moon will turn blood red, there will be a plague of frogs and locusts, blood and pus will rain from the sky, your seed will be cursed, yea unto the umpteenth generation, world wars three and four will break out simultaneously and take place outside your kitchen window, the girls will lose a cup size and your knee-caps will drop off.
If you don’t give a stuff provided the Christmas sales are all right and Match of the Day isn’t cancelled, don’t vote at all.
It is generally true about apathy, though – which pretty much says all that needs to be said about the country we’ve created. I have only seen one poster in my area (and I get about a bit) and that was for ‘Leave’. Interestingly (or perhaps not) it was at the end of what looked like a drive to a farm. Oh, well, at least somebody apart from me doesn’t fall for the bollocks.
I’ve never heard of this scam before
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-36411536
UK pays £5.5m to defunct European defence organisation
Is this the forerunner of an E.U. army?
Can Cameron get any more nauseating?
David Cameron has hailed Labour’s Sadiq Khan as “a proud Muslim” and “a proud Brit” as he shared a platform with the London Mayor at an EU Remain rally.
They were launching a Britain Stronger In Europe battle bus and pledge card.
But Vote Leave said the PM’s criticisms of Mr Khan during the mayoral contest less than a month ago showed he could not be trusted.
UKIP MP Douglas Carswell said the PM had accused Mr Khan of being a “terrorist sympathiser”.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-36410749
You are a great amplifier of what others are saying Michael, well done mate. Is that your campaigning done for the day?
Must be hot down in the boiler room for you boys! You’re working on all fronts, keep up the good work lads!
Can Cameron get any more nauseating? I’m sure he’ll give it a try. For my part I thought his comments were the worst kind of snobbery, all the more so for trying to appear not to be.
What Khan’s game is I don’t know. I’ve seen him on “Question Time”-type programmes and not been overly impressed, but that’s not unusual; I can’t think of any of them off-hand who do impress. But I liked the way he dealt with Trumps ‘exemption’ statement and thought that it was more or less what I would have said under the circumstances. It showed a degree of independence that I admire. So why he’s pro-E.U. I’ve no idea.
Breaking News
Paris mayor announces plans to open first refugee camp in Paris
Paris launches drive to lure visitors as tourism plummets
http://www.france24.com/en/20160530-france-paris-launches-bid-lure-frightened-tourists-november-13-2015-strikes-protests
I would not think setting up a refuge for asylum seekers in Paris will boost paying tourists?
Today’s Washington Post has an article on how a second independence referendum in Scotland will result if Britain votes for Brexit. A British vote to leave the E.U. could shatter the United Kingdom.
looks like in the last few weeks things are starting to turn to BREXIT
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/may/31/uk-voters-leaning-towards-brexit-guardian-poll-reveals
If you look at the state of Greece, Spain, Ireland, Portugal, Italy
and the shocking collapse of France, it is not surprising the scales are falling from the voters eyes.
Linking to the Guardian now Michael? No agenda at all regarding Brexit have we?
Well if the Guardian ( vote remain)
thinks things are tipping towards BREXIT they have Call Me Dave to thank, for acting outrageously.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-36416034
Migrant crisis: ‘Document forgers’ held in Greece and Czech Republic
I don’t take too much notice of opinion polls, they say what they want them to say.
Bookies are giving four to one on for stay, three to one against for leave.
The Washington Post should know better than to listen to an irrelevant has been with an ego the size of Belgian.
Was it in the SNP manifesto in May? No? Then they don’t have a mandate.
Chaos at the heart of the E.U.
http://www.euronews.com/2016/05/31/public-sector-strike-heightens-industrial-strife-in-belgium/
Public sector strike heightens industrial strife in Belgium
Hidalgo cited as a model a migrant camp made up of modular cabins housing about 2,500 people in Grand-Synthe on the northern French coast. Opened in March, that camp is run by the charity Medecins Sans Frontieres.
“We cannot accept any longer the humanitarian situation, the sanitary situation that migrants have to put up with,” Hidalgo told reporters, without elaborating.
It would be the first refugee camp in the Paris area. BUT IT WONT BE THE LAST.
http://www.france24.com/en/20160531-france-mayor-hidalgo-announces-plans-open-first-refugee-camp-paris
A recent study carried out by the Municipality of Athens shows that the rate of homelessness has soared in recent years. The main reason cited by respondents for being homeless was unemployment, with 70.6% stating that they lost their job within the past five years.
http://www.tovima.gr/en/article/?aid=803980
The E.U. is collapsing in on itself.
People all over the E.U. are enraged by the austerity
What has the E.U. ever done for the ordinary person,
it certainly is not offering Democracy.
Francois Hollande has said he will not stand for re-election as President of FRANCE if he hasn’t got unemployment down to single figures
BYE-BYE
FRANCE is on its knees
EU bureaucrats LET France break budget rules ‘BECAUSE IT’S FRANCE’, Juncker admits
BRUSSELS bigwigs have turned a blind eye to French budget infractions “because it is France”,
Jean-Claude Juncker has bizarrely claimed.
http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/675779/EU-French-budget-Jean-Claude-Juncker
In what will come as a blow to other thrifty euro zone states, the EU executive admitted the European Commission has given France leeway on fiscal rules.
The eurozone’s second largest economy is fast being crippled by ongoing strike disruptions, with petrol stations running out of fuel and strikes by air traffic controllers over controversial labour reforms.
The economy was already stagnant, with unemployment stuck at 10 per cent, and a pitiful growth of just three per cent since the financial crisis in 2008 compared to six per cent for Germany, eight per cent for the UK and 10 per cent for the US. .
Asked why the Commission, on several occasions, had turned a blind eye to French infractions, Juncker said “because it is FRANCE”.
GERMANY calling
Nearly a third of Germans would like nothing better than to leave the European Union according to a poll published in the Handelsblatt newspaper. Although Germany is traditionally pro-EU, the survey shows the growing discontent in the bloc’s largest member.
Anti-EU skepticism has recently been growing in Germany due to Berlin’s refugee policies, which saw over a million migrants arrive in 2015, with hundreds of thousands more expected during the course of this year.
https://www.rt.com/news/345083-germany-eu-leave-poll/
I expect many citozens of the E.U. will be clamouring for OUT.
They All Slag Me Off – My Wife and Daughter – As If The World is About To Blow – and My Wife’s Friend – who Kept Calling Me a Cnt – in the nicest possible way last Saturday Night when it Was Madrid Vs Madrid…
None of that was my Fault…I just Refer you to The Evidence from The Russians..
This stuff needs to be taken seriously..they are not joking.
http://cluborlov.blogspot.co.uk/2016/05/a-russian-warning.html
We are possibly talking about the end of the human race when over 50% of you are watching TV and the rest of you don’t give a shiit.
Tony
Abandon ‘utopian dreams’, says EU head
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-36429331
Mr Tusk warned of “dramatic consequences” if BRITAIN left the EU.
He urged Europe’s leaders to match the energy and endeavours of those who wanted to break up the E.U.
Bring it on.
Czech police have released a video of a raid which took place at the end of May said to be targeting an international criminal network of migrant smugglers and document forgers.
It was part of a coordinated operation in both the Czech Republic and Greece supported by the European police agency Europol.
Ten suspects were arrested in the Czech Republic, where one group would send stolen or lost travel documents to Athens.
More arrests were made in Greece where two groups which were run by Bangladeshi and Sudanese nationals, would forge passports, national ID cards, Schengen visas, driving licences, asylum seekers’ registration cards and residence permits, according to police.
http://www.euronews.com/2016/06/01/czech-and-greek-police-break-up-forgery-network/
Greek police spokesman Theodoros Chronopoulos explained that the criminal network contained two organisations, working at the same time, creating a labyrinth network for the illegal transport of migrants, based primarily on the use of forged and stolen travel documents including plane tickets. It had been in operation over a period of two years.
The fees for the forged documents ranged from 100 euros to 3,000 per piece depending on the quality, type and country of issue.
The police operation reveals a growth in criminal gangs profiting by praying on vulnerable people as the migrant crisis in Europe continues.
Time to LEAVE
Three Syrian men have been arrested in Germany over an alleged plan to launch a suicide attack there for the Islamic State jihadist group, federal prosecutors said Thursday.
According to the suspects’ plan, two attackers were to detonate suicide vests while the others were to kill passersby with guns and explosives in the western city of Duesseldorf, prosecutors said in a statement.
The suspects were identified as 27-year-old Hamza C., 25-year-old Mahood B., and Abd Arahman A. K., 31, who were arrested in the states of Brandenburg near Berlin, North Rhine-Westphalia and Baden-Wurttemberg.
A fourth Syrian man, Saleh A., 25, had been in custody in France since turning himself in February, they said, and Germany had now requested his extradition.
“According to current investigations, the four accused were planning to commit an attack in Germany for the foreign terrorist organisation Islamic State,” said the prosecutors.
http://www.france24.com/en/20160602-germany-arrests-three-syrians-suspected-attack-plot
another good reason for us to leave
This is a corker – E.U. domination to take on POLAND
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jun/01/the-eus-warning-to-poland-over-the-rule-of-law-comes-with-risks
In delivering a formal warning to Poland’s government about jeopardising “the rule of law”, the European commission (EC) has set up a showdown with Warsaw that it cannot be entirely sure of winning.
In recent weeks, Poland’s ruling Law and Justice party (PiS) – and in particular its hardline, behind-the-scenes leader, Jarosław Kaczyński – has dug in its heels over the issue at the heart of the dispute: political interference in the independence and authority of the country’s constitutional court.
Meanwhile, the commission’s power over Warsaw is limited. The “or else” hovering behind EC vice-president Frans Timmermans’ admonishments is the eventual invocation of article 7 of the EU treaty and the withdrawal of Poland’s voting rights. That would be a serious step, but it would require the agreement of every other EU member. Warsaw would be able to count on the support of Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz government in Hungary, which has also been threatened with article 7 punishment, to block such a move.
FRAUD
Polling cards were wrongly sent to at least 3,462 EU citizens who are not allowed to vote in the EU referendum, the Electoral Commission has announced.
A software “issue” meant polling cards and some postal votes were sent out to some “non eligible” voters.
They are still awaiting responses from six councils so the number could rise.
Leave campaigners Iain Duncan Smith and Bernard Jenkin have expressed “serious concerns” about the “conduct of the EU referendum and its franchise”.
They have written to the prime minister complaining of “many and varied” examples of EU nationals being sent polling cards.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-36446521
My solution to this agonising choice, for those who are undecided.
1. Count up all the absolute arseholes supporting Leave.
2. Count up all the absolute arseholes supporting Remain.
3. Vote for the option with fewest absolute arseholes.
I think that should yield the right result.
That’s vote ‘Leave’, then.
After all: – Cameron, Osborne, Clegg, Mandelson, Campbell, Postman Pat, Theresa May, Harriet Harman, Sturgeon, O’Bomber, Jamie Dimon, other architects of the crash of ’08, a collection of social parasites and rent-a-gobs, anybody who’s on the gravy train, the big-wigs in Europe including that drunken piece of piss-poor protoplasm Junker …
In a couple of weeks we’ll have the chance to vote for independence. Let’s go for it; to nick somebody else’s slogan, we have nothing to lose but our chains.
One of the most nauseating spectacles in this whole episode is watching the class of people who normally swoon over the use of violence by independence movements – provided that they are in parts of the world sufficiently removed from Britain to be safe – are all for the continuation of rule from Brussels. In order to declare independence we don’t have to kill anybody; we don’t have to take up arms or risk life and limb. All we have to do is put a cross in the right place on a piece of paper and then stand on our own two feet. What’s difficult about that? We’ve been doing it for most of our history anyway. Listening to the remainiacs one would wonder how we ever managed to get by without the E.U.
You forgot Blair, Becket, Miliband* Kinnock and Brown. Though I suppose the gravy-train and rentagob references cover them. Quote of the decade:
as those who have led Labour, we understand our party’s values and its people.
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jun/03/kinnock-beckett-blair-brown-harman-and-miliband-labour-partys-purpose-is-aligned-with-europe
*Both Milibands, in fact. David, is practising his devotion to Europe, on a hefty wage for something not-too-specific in New York, so he can’t be with us just now.
That said, although the numbers clearly have it, there’s still some manifest crooks on t’other side.
That disgusting snout in the E.U. trough Kinnock
has the gall to tell us to vote for the E.U.
Is that the same E.U. which has enriched his whole family of Welsh Idiots?
Yes, I forgot Jack Straw and his doped-up my-dad’s-a-trougher-and-it’s-my-birthright-to-be-one-too sprog as well. You might think that given their mutual history that might give C.M. some pause for thought, but apparently not.
Straw is nicely counterbalanced by Liam (Where’s Werritty) Fox, I imagine…nil all.
Nice one again, Craig, about the Tories. Isn’t it true that the voters have been presented with a Hobson’s choice of monumental irrelevance? In the absence of a couple of spare planets and a time machine to perform a controlled experiment, most thinking people would probably realise they’re being conned if they stay, and conned if they leave. The disaster isn’t just the EU but the world-wide neoliberal, corporatist, globalised, environmentally destructive and psychopathic economic system the whole planet lives under. No-one yet has proposed a referendum on leaving the planet, though it might be educative to see what proportion of the public thought it was a good idea. We are at a time that so nearly parallels the first years of the 20th Century that it’s terrifying. It’s the toxic combination of the rising flood of inexorable revolution in society and science threatening the dam of fossilised and failing institutions jockeying for position in a changing world, supported by an uncaring, uncomprehending and frightened elite. I’ve been pointing this out for some years now, and you could say the parallels are now converging at a frightening rate.
Now Call Me Dave is saying if you dare to vote leave we will increase your mortgage by £1,000 / year
He will say anything to frighten the Bejesus out of the electorate.
Where is his positive explanation of the European Empire?
Thousands of UK-bound migrants were yesterday flooding into a giant ‘staging post’ shanty town that has suddenly sprung up close to the Eurostar hub in Paris.
It follows the announcement by Paris’s socialist mayor Anne Hidalgo that the city’s first-ever international refugee camp will be built in the French capital later this summer.
Migrants from all over Europe, including many who were previously camped out in Calais, were yesterday heading for a city park that has become their temporary home.
The Jardins d’Eole have already turned into a lawless, rubbish-strewn mess, full of around 2,500 people, mainly young men, planning their journeys to Britain.
From the Daily Mail
I really hope we vote to leave this madness
Are we voting about Eurostar?
For a few weeks I’ve been wondering if I am living in some kind of bubble. Opinion polls have been reported as being pro-Remain and the pro-Independence voters have suffered from all the usual innuendo from the impartial B.B.C., the envy of the world. But everyone I know – including me – is going to vote for independence.
Then I went up to Leeds yesterday to see a friend. She is far more sociable than me and has a wider circle of friends and ex-colleagues etc. She says she only knows one person who is going to vote remain. Unlike when Craig wrote this piece a few days ago I’m now starting to see ‘Leave’ posters go up. I only counted three on the motorway, but they were all for leave. Are the opinion polls just concentrating on London, are they rigged by the gravy-trainers and troughers who are doing quite nicely out of the status quo or are London and Scotland really going to swing it for the remainiacs?
One way or another I want out of this imperial project – which is, thanks to dodgy Dave’s insincere buggering about on offer and do-able, and out of N.A.T.O. which isn’t, but which could also drag us into an bloody and pointless war even if we are nominally independent.
Forget the opinion polls and forget anecdotal evidence. Before the Scottish referendum people here thought there wasn’t a No voter in Scotland and because one poll out of a hundred just showed Yes a fraction ahead that made a win for the Nationalists a certainty.
Bookies odds are the only reliable guide.
http://www.oddschecker.com/politics/british-politics/eu-referendum/referendum-on-eu-membership-result
Looking at the unpleasant personalities on both sides, I’d say the choice is betweenthe EU and the USA. Failing the citizens going to the barricades, we’re going to get global capitalism either way. The US version is completely amoral: the EU version, with all its many faults, is rather more controlled and humane. The US model, incidentally, is just as relaxed about importing cheap labour to maximise its profits as the EU one – it doesn’t have to come from Europe – and just as relaxed about outsourcing indigenous jobs. Hell, it invented the flexible workforce.
If I felt that leaving the EU would improve the democratic accountability of politicians, and reduce the corruption and lobbying which means that politicians are effectively subordinate to the demands of global speculators, I’d vote Leave like a shot. Realistically, I don’t feel any such thing. Also, I don’t think the claimed gains for national sovereignty would benefit the majority of people in the slightest. The State would be even more paranoid and controlling than Europe allows it to be. And the populist issue of immigration would evaporate immediately after a Leave vote. Immigration would be spun,as it is now, as being ‘good for the economy’, and the likes of Farage would be bought off with sinecures.
And no-one in power would be so disobliging as to ask if ‘the economy’, as it would continue to be configured, is good for anyone except the rich.
Now, hands up who believes that the savings we make by not paying our subscriptiion to the club will be spent on the NHS. Really? Johnson*, Gove**, Redwood***, Fox****….?
* http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/9cae5cd8-1a88-11e5-8201-cbdb03d71480.html
** http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/jeremy-hunt-privatise-nhs-tories-privatising-private-insurance-market-replacement-direct-democracy-a6865306.html (Gove contributed to this)
*** http://www.peoplesnhs.org/john-redwood-mp/
**** http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/bbc-question-times-angry-exeter-man-brands-liam-fox-a-traitor-over-junior-doctors-strike_uk_5719d75ae4b018a884dc98ff
So do think carefully, folks…
No, I don’t believe for a moment that money not paid to the E.U. will be spent on the N.H.S. etc. But I still don’t understand why we are paying subscription to somebody else’s empire, a kind of modern-day Danegeld, and would like to see it stopped as soon as possible.
The first thing that should happen to the N.H.S. is that it should become a British health service and not an international one. My cousin is a doctor and works in London and as far as I can see, the N.H.S. there is little more than a birthing agency for the third world. Many working people, already deprived to whatever extent possible of a reasonable education for their children, now have to send them to over-crowded, multi-lingual schools. Anyone tempted to remark how wonderful this is should note first and then ponder upon the absence from such schools of the children of those implementing the policies which resulted in this mess.
And I’m not a big fan of the excesses of capitalism, American or European. With every day that passes, our chances of independence diminish. If there is a vote for ‘Leave’ shortly and if Dodgy Dave and the Troughers don’t manage to dodge it and fudge it – even more unlikely! – then that is only a beginning.
Independence from what? Independence from the EU does not give us free rein, whether or not the Atlanticists have their way. The UK doesn’t produce much, and it’s dependent on tricky financial dealing and service industries. It’s very far from self-sufficient even in food. To obtain the degree of autonomy coupled with social justice I would understand as independence (and I imagine you would) requires a complete and painful revolution in thinking, if not on the street. All we’re voting for in this referendum is the smell of the shit we have to eat.
Schools and hospitals, point taken, long ago. The policies are to the practical advantage of ‘those implementing the policies’, which is why they are implemented, regardless of what you or I may feel. The shittier state education becomes, the more money there is to be made (largely from the taxpayer, who will not only be paying fees but contributing to state subsidies) from private education. The more the NHS is overwhelmed by numbers, the more sense it makes to take out private health insurance, and the more the healthcos, so many of whose directors and campaign beneficiaries are MP’s, prosper. That doesn’t change whether we’re independent, in the EU, or the 51st State of the USA. It’s global.
There’s very little of that I would disagree with.
But when I say ‘independence’ I mean the ability to get rid of the people who create the socio-economic and legal context in which we all must operate. Britain is in a very, very bad way for reasons you describe and others. It hasn’t got into this mess overnight and it will be a long time getting out. But if policy is made by a cadre of theorists on mainland Europe whose jobs are designed to be impervious to cancellation by any electorate or constituency which suffers the consequences of their decisions, then there is no way out, and that’s that.
On the other hand, no empire lasts forever, and it is always worth remembering that the E.U. is first and foremost an imperial project. Voting ‘Leave’ this month could shorten the life of this experiment and that can only be good.
Not wanting to labour the point, but the problem is global. It’s the result of a consensus of opinion among speculators, moneylenders, businessmen, politicians and media, and it took 30+ years to implement, by gradually shifting public opinion and incrementally changing the basis of democracy. I’ll say it again – leaving Europe will make no difference. Policy isn’t made by ‘a cadre of theorists’, in Europe or anywhere else. It’s made by businessmen and bankers, via lobbyists and the press, for their benefit, and no-one else’s. Let’s take that as a starting point.
The modern capitalist’s ideal is to make the people the servants of the economy – whether this is national, local or global. Whereas most people would rather that the economy is the servant of the people. It will, as you say, take a long time to readjust our priorities to this. Some things are lacking before we even start:
1/ A clear statement of intent regarding a broadly acceptable common purpose.
2/ Solidarity and cohesion, both within and outside national boundaries. This is global.
3/ Input into the educational system.
4/ Effective input into the media.
5/ Credibility.
Oh, and do check out Nigel Farage’s historical thoughts on funding the NHS.
PS:
https://youtu.be/q7R3ePHKdiE?t=64
PPS
http://uk.businessinsider.com/google-job-hires-raise-concerns-about-political-influence-in-europe-2016-6
Yes, the problem is global and I have very little confidence in the ability or willingness of our politicians to counter it. So leaving the E.U. is necessary but not sufficient. If we leave the E.U. there is very little hope. If we don’t leave the E.U. there is none.
On the other hand, the situation you describe is not sustainable, thus it will not sustain. Its end is a matter of when, not if. The same applies to the E.U. Like many other things it contains within itself the seeds of its own destruction. A large vote for ‘Brexit’ would do it the world of good.
Sure, it isn’t sustainable. And who has the power to adapt when the shit hits the fan? The money? The remaining resources? Clue: not the majority. I could almost agree with you, if the UK were solvent and governed by ecologists, but it isn’t, and isn’t ever likely to be.
This piece addresses the UK’s problem.
http://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/brexit-can-t-restore-our-sovereignty-thatcher-and-her-heirs-sold-it-1796062683
But cheer up. Since it makes not a scintilla of difference which way I jump, I’m just as likely to vote Leave as Remain…
An excellent three minute video on EU Referendum. Only for those who care enough to vote.
https://youtu.be/j0pwXLtvt2w
i do not want any more people entering our country.
I do not want any trade deals, at least for the time being.
I want an instantaneous break from everything E.U.
Fuck the lot of the snounts in the trough brigade, disgusting scum that they are
and yes I meean THE LIKES OF the KINNOCK family,
awful hipos.
The Truth About #Brexit
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNJ05NfM-4Y#t=157
Principally on environmental issues, this executive summary of a far larger academic report may be of interest in the debate:
http://ukandeu.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Executive-summary-EU-referendum-UK-environment.pdf
Call Me Dave looked like an idiot on TV last evening
There’s a man who’s true to himself, eh? 🙂
I don’t think the Referendum can get more bizarre
than the lunatic performance on last evening Question Time
by Eddie Izzard
it makes you wonder what plank decided Eddie could impart rational meaning to our most important referendum?
No single market access for UK after Brexit, Wolfgang Schäuble says
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jun/10/no-single-market-access-for-uk-after-brexit-wolfgang-schauble-says
my the Eurocratic elite are getting rattled.
Greediest snouts in the EU trough: Not sure how to vote?
Read about the stinking wealth and hypocrisy of those Brussels fat cats the Kinnocks and it may help you decide
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3636143/Greediest-snouts-EU-trough-Not-sure-vote-Read-stinking-wealth-hypocrisy-Brussels-fat-cats-Kinnocks-help-decide.html#ixzz4BGg51Eco
This week you might be forgiven for thinking that a well-known political dynasty was all that stood between Britain and disaster. You simply could not escape them, or their alarmist rhetoric. If we vote to leave the EU, they argue, we will have chosen ‘devastation and destruction’.
Now that really is embarrassing!
A family who have amassed tremendous wealth via snouting in the E.U. tell the British Electorate to vote for more E.U. snouting?
test
Cameron now threatens pensioners.
I we dare to vote leave on June 23 there will be a forty billion pound black hole in our finances and Cameron and Osborne will be unable to fill it, then they will have to restrict pensions, the NHS and the armed forces.
Hang on a minute
if there is a vote for BREXIT
that pair of chumps will be gone by the first of July.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-36509931
End of EU rule FINALLY in sight: Leave camp take 19-POINT lead as Britons flock to Brexit
A NEW poll has given those wishing to leave the EU a remarkable 19-POINT lead over Remain.
http://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/679104/End-EU-rule-FINALLY-Leave-camp-take-19-POINT-lead-Britons-flock-Brexit
That’s astounding
I bet the elite will rig the vote to make us stay.
A BRITISH diplomat suggested visa-free travel for some TURKISH nationals should be extended to the UK,
documents leaked to the Sunday Times show.
She suggested the move be considered for TURKISH “special passport” holders, who are mainly civil servants.
Justice Secretary Michael Gove said it showed the UK was “actively working” towards Turkey’s EU entry.
Cameron loves the TURKS
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-36510009
George Osborne’s authority has been directly challenged by 65 pro-Brexit Tory MPs, who have signed a letter saying they will not back the “emergency” tax raising budget he said would be necessary if the country voted to leave the EU.
The backbench MPs called the chancellor’s measure a “punishment budget”.
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jun/15/revolt-of-65-tory-mps-over-osborne-tax-rises
I’d like to see George spat at in the streets.
Varoufakis’s recent book And the Weak Suffer What They Must?: Europe’s Crisis and America’s Economic Future does not make the EU look good.
Now Switzerland WITHDRAWS its application to join the hated EU just a week before British vote
http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/680342/Switzerland-withdraws-application-join-European-Union-Brexit-Britain-vote-EU
The vote came from the Government’s lower house as the Swiss foreign minister Didier Burkhalter told the bloc to “consider the application as withdrawn”.
Mr Burkhalter said the motion is “unnecessary” because Switzerland does not intend to join and should be considered an “independent sovereign nation”.
Good for the Swiss.
If the killing of the woman M.P. yesterday was in some deluded way about our Referendum,
it will be very sad.
However whatever the motives of the assassin, our Referendum must not be thwarted or Democracy will get even more nasty
maybe as it has in Greece / France.
EU referendum campaigns suspended after shock killing of British lawmaker
http://www.france24.com/en/20160617-shock-killing-british-mp-halts-referendum-campaign
“What’s happened is beyond appalling. We are here in silent memory of her loss,” Corbyn said as rain began to fall.
Britain was reeling Friday from the murder of a lawmaker on a village street that froze campaigning at its frantic peak a week from a referendum on European Union membership.
But how long can they not talk about the most important decision the British electorate are asked to make,
ever, in our lifetimes, this Referendum is fantastically relevant – NOW
Even ‘depressed Eurocrat JUNCKER is LOSING FAITH in the EU ahead of British referendum’
http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/680741/jean-claude-juncker-european-union-referendum-migrant-crisis-eu-brussels-david-cameron
This comes as other top Brussels brass have started to break ranks about the president’s absence from the day-to-day workings of the Commission.
I expect the twat is drinking.
Prime Minister David Cameron will shortly face questions from a studio audience on his bid to keep the UK in the EU.
The special edition of Question Time will be hosted by David Dimbleby in Milton Keynes from 18:45 BST.
I will not be watching, I detest him.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-36570766
Am I the only Voter who thinks our Members of Parliament are only in it for themselves
and most of them do not give a shit about the Ordinary Voter or their concerns?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3648701/MPs-ignore-petition-signed-230-000-readers-called-end-government-s-0-7-foreign-aid-budget.html
M.P.s ignore petition signed by more than 230,000 who called for end of government’s 0.7% foreign aid budget.
So why are they ripping us off to waste money abroad, if we were to have a referendum on
“Do you want to be ripped off by the government to have your hard earned money wasted abroad”
I wonder which way the Electorate would vote?
http://www.euronews.com/2016/06/21/eu-releases-greek-bailout-funds-as-juncker-praises-athens-reforms/
Blimey Greece gets its unpteenth bail-out
so the E.U. is working?
Oh hang on a minute
Most of the new bailout money will be used to pay debts to the International Monetary Fund and European Central Bank, with the rest going towards paying off state arrears.
Most U.S. foreign aid is given with strings attached, so that the money has to be spent on military supplies and equipment bought from U.S. firms, who then in turn kick back a portion of the money they get to politicians as “campaign contributions”.
So the people who benefit are: the military of the recipient country, who get the military toys;the politicians in office in the recipient country, who are kept in power by their military;military-industrial firms in the U.S.; and U.S. politicians, who get the disguised bribes, and are thereby enabled to stay in office. Certainly not the general population in the recipient country.
I would be surprised if it doesn’t work the same way with foreign aid from the UK.
If we remain and it proves to be a disaster could a 2nd referendum take place?
Mrs May will promise to reunite the Conservative Party and set out plans for a new government department to take charge of negotiating Britain’s exit from the EU – to be headed by a senior minister who campaigned for Leave.
And in an article for the Times today, she clearly separates her style of leadership from that of Mr Johnson.
The Home Secretary writes: “We need a bold, new, positive vision for the future of our country – a vision of a country that works not for a privileged few but for everyone, regardless of who they are and regardless of where they’re from.”
I think the old girl just might win it.
Johnson pulls out of Tory leader race
EU opens new phase in Turkey membership bid talks
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-36672242
Not till the year 3,000
quote David Cameron
BREXIT ROW: Germans very angry at claim it should pay UK’s share of ‘bloated’ EU budget
GERMAN officials are terrified the country will be forced to pay Britain’s contributions to the EU budget following Brexit.
http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/684923/Brexit-Germany-Angela-Merkel-EU-referendum-Brussels
How amusing
Brexit opens door for stronger Russia-UK trade ties
that’s a good idea, get in before the Germans and the French
https://www.rt.com/business/349140-russia-uk-brexit-prospects/
the E.U. can go and boil its head.