Yay or nay - should Britain vote to leave the EU?

[Mugwump]

Since this topic has floated to the top of the tank, It gives me an opportunity to note that my comment above that Theresa May "might, just might, be up to the job" was suitably qualified. She might have been..... But clearly time has shown that she is not. There seem to be no good leaders in any major Western democracy, because the institutions that underlay great leadership have been so battered by interest groups and people without any educated historical memory. If Merkel comes closest, it's because Germany is perhaps the one country that must always remember where it came from, and knows instinctively the meaning of its history and the dangers of playing fast and loose with institutions for the sake of political opportunism. Britain, damaged by years of post modernist education and lacking a real Conservative Party, thinks it can tear down several supporting walls within its key trading relationship and its legal system, all within two years, because 52% said they wanted to leave the Eu on unspecified terms. It is a real shame.

[pietillidie]

^May's disinterest in responsible leadership was predictable because, much like an Abbott or a Trump, her record is straightforward: not the slightest hint of interest in the task of building a coherent society in the globalised 21st century.

And if her lack of interest in that wasn't clear already, the fact she primed immigration fears, even as Cameron and Osborne fanned austerity panic, and the Johnsons and Farages of the world promised 1950, surely closed the case.

That we can talk about, even if we disagree.

But then you break into detached internet talk which could have as little as zero basis in reality, and is beyond sensible discussion. No one even knows what "interest groups and people without any educated historical memory" are (and compared to whom and what), or how you would even go about defining and identifying them.

Nor does anyone know if Britain has been "damaged" (and by how much and compared to what and when), let alone whether something called a "postmodern education" is responsible for that purported damage.

That stuff is little more than internet meme.

[Mugwump]

^. Compare and contrast :

"No interest in building a coherent society in a globalised 21st century" ; "fanned austerity panic" with ....

"....Then you break into detached internet talk", "memes".

Oh, the irony..... discussions, like banks, are not worth the deposit unless they offer honest dealing.

[thesoretoothsayer]

Always love a good Morrissey tune:

https://www.instagram.com/p/BbWOB7UB69791nMSDHC9rNPZGdF-JR-ivhu_CQ0/

[David]

Surprised he didn’t just go with ‘National Front Disco’!

[David]

Things seem to be falling apart for the UK Conservatives – Brexit Secretary David Davis resigned a couple of days ago, and now Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson has stepped down too.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-44774702

Hard to think of a bigger own goal than that Brexit referendum (which, let's face it, if held three months either side, might well have returned the opposite result, given how close it was), the results of which now seem to have completely consumed British politics. Imagine if the main point of discussion right now was keeping the economy going and funding services, rather than the country attempting to extricate itself from a reasonably functional regional trading bloc with no clear desirable endgame in sight.

[Mugwump]

Yes, I think at this point it is clear that it’s a big own goal. As I have said before, Brexit is not necessarily right or wrong. There are reasonable arguments on both sides of this question. If someone suggested to .australia that a large proportion of its laws and its migration policy would be set by ASEAN, we would consider it absurd. But given where we were in the Uk, it was always going to take particular skill to unwind, and be fraught with horrible risk as we did so.

The problem is that Britain suffers from the same incredible shrinking politician problem as the rest of the Western world, and so the exit policy and tactics have been predictably mishandled and shambolic.

This could go in many unpredictable directions from here, with the favorite case still being a “Brexit light” of the kind now adopted by the PM. Under normal circumstances, losing the toilet Wall Cicero called Boris Johnson is not damage, it is probably a blessing : a little like Turnbull losing Abbott. The problem is that the situation is now so fervid that even throwing that blond dim sum out the car window is riskier than it should be. It didn’t need to be like this, but there was always a good chance it would be.

The British used to have a talent for politics and compromise and moderation. Unfortunately the country has been so degraded by multiculturalism and reflex libertarianism that it is no longer the beacon of political stability it used to be. Punk relativism, like corruption, kills even very healthy societies in the end.