Be Excellent To Each Other

Did you see what Donald Tusk has been saying?



http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/201 ... /86139128/

Off the top of my head, there was a thing on Facebook with a big list of people that wanted us to vote "Remain" and a big list of people that wanted us to vote "Leave" - one of which was the leader of ISIS. Did they phone him up, do we think?

The really annoying thing about the big list was that it was plenty strong enough without including that.

What makes you think I'm a leaver? I might be playing devil's advocate, or just advancing a debate. But then I might not be. I like to keep things ambiguous. Heck, the only position I do hold is that anyone who doesn't cheer for the Dark Blues on Boat Race day is just plain wrong.

But, since you ask, the most convincing arguments I have against the EU relate to its distance and general lack of accountability, opaqueness, and transparency. I don't feel a connection to the Commission as the executive or view the Council, composed of the heads of the various governments, as a body I have influence over. Part of this is my/our general lack of interest in its operations, but part of it seems to stem from its origins as a technocratic project to keep the mass away. I knew about the Spitzenkandidat process, but very few of my friends did. I am also of the opinion that whilst a federal Europe is an entirely noble goal, I believe federations are inherently unstable without a demos - a people - and the trend has been to splinter into smaller states rather than combine and move powers upwards.

All this has to be weighed in my head against the fact that I think being in it and helping steer it is better for us and the EU, that the economy might tank and really hurt the poorest sectors in society, and the fact that I believe strongly in the free movement of goods and people (and think it should be widened).

I do, however, appreciate the argument that sometimes you have to sacrifice Good Things to preserve other Good Things that you value as more important. Whether I believe that EU has progressed to a situation where we have to say 'no' and face the consequences is for me to decide.

They spelt greenpeace wrong though, even though autocorrect had it highlighted as such in the doc with a red wiggly. That undermined their entire argument.

Apropos of nothing, it's slightly disappointing that as we approach the referendum we haven't had an allegorical episode of 'Doctor Who', unlike in 1972:


'The curse of Peladon'

You know what this thread needs? More bins.

In Merseyside, lash can be read as "throw really hard". So I misunderstood that post quite significantly

I've taken to facebook to put up a post extolling my Remain views that I hope will maybe sway anyone at all as Twitter seems full of like-minded people, and facebook is where all my racist vote leave friends seem to spout off.

I've done a bit of that, with public posts no less. Had some arguments with people I don't know which changed nothing. Wasn't a useful experience, all in all.

I can see why folks want to leave. I like the romance of controlling our own country, but it is not going to work that way.

Of course, we do control our own country, in every imaginable way.

BUT CABBAGE REGULATIONS?!

All these people saying that they "want their country back..." Who has got it exactly?

I was thinking that, especially after Boris said about Tomorrow being our Independence day!

If we were so beholden to the EU, how on earth did we support the US in Gulf War 2, against most of Europe's wishes?

The worst we suffered from that was getting rubbish scores in Euro-vision for the next decade!

Boris has now said that if we vote for Brexit and it triggers a recession, he'll apologise on live TV.

Thanks, Boris. I'm sure an apology will heal everything.

The more I see of these people the less I believe that they sincerely care about anything except themselves. Boris clearly thinks the whole thing is some jolly jape like he's back at Oxford or wherever trying to get one over on his cunt mates.

It worked for Nick Clegg that time.

politicians saying it as a get out. For years.

Nah, even Cavey blanked him recently, and Cavey has chatted with McDonnel.

I'm not convinced that our bad Eurovision scores are the worst thing to come out of our involvement in that war

Did anyone watch the TV debate last night? I meant to (I'm a great fan of Ruth Davidson and Giesla Stuart, and seem to be developing a huge political crush on Sadiq Khan) but I was poorly so went to bed instead.

Just had a long discussion with the Mexican immigrant guy in my team (horrible to describe him as such, but just adding it as a general descriptor) and he's voting leave because of how corrupt Europe is, and the Eurozone crisis, and the TTIP coming along.

My mind boggled.

I know that, but we brought that on ourselves (and the rest of the world)

For Non-EU immigrants, of course, voting leave is fairly sensible. From the point of view of immigration, at least. Won't help the 3-odd years of recession, but let's only deal with one issue at a time

My favourite thinktank has a piece written by my favourite constitutional and referendum expert about what Brexit might entail.

Key part is this:

Considering we currently have a lot of advantages that other member states don't have, due to previous concessions we've won from the EU, I think we can pretty much guarantee that the member states will be pretty punitive when it comes to negotiating post-brexit deals.

Nobody likes an apostate. Or even an apostate state.

Spellcasting V-O-L-T-A-I-R-E

It's a bit early for cocktails, mate.

Anyway:

A vote to Leave is a vote for England to fuck Kernow even more

You should probably tell the Cornish leave campaigners that.

Nationalism is bad.

I agree with this person.

Whoa.

I believe you've now used up your annual quota of people agreeing with you. You now have to return to your scheduled program of being wrong.

Most of the BREXIT stuff on my Facebook wall is from remainers, which is quite heartening, although this sort of stuff does turn up a fair amount too....

THE MUSLIM TURKS ARE COMING! VOTE LEAVE!

It's the "They're not letting us share it" bollocks that always makes me laugh. I love the idea that someone on Facebook is hard at work policing posts from morons and censoring their idiotic blather.

It's a slightly less obvious tactic than "I bet you won't share this!"

Well if the forum goes offline tonight and Grim... gets bundled away and forced to convert to Islamicism then we'll all know whose fault it was.

I almost want Leave to happen, purely to see the looks on Leave voters' faces when the French say "Well. We're no longer obligated by treaty to validate travel credentials on the south side of the Channel Tunnel, so open up those camp gates! Enjoy your new home in camps in Kent, migrants!"

Wait, visa free travel means I can move somewhere? Brilliant, I'm off to New Zealand for a couple of years. Why did no one tell me?

Currently watching the debate on Channel 4. I think live bear-baiting would be more enjoyable. Still, Katie Price is undecided so it hasn't been a completely wasted 30 minutes of my life.

Waiting for Paxman to loudly shout 'it's your time you're wasting'.

Worst. Jeremy Kyle Show. Ever.

It's a bit of a pain that the referendum vote has come at the same time as Glstonbury. I don't believe for one second that everyone who might otherwise have voted has arranged for postal or proxy votes.

Voted. I was the 7th elector in the line. Must try harder.

North-East Oxfordshire, this morning:

Here we go, voting now.
STILL say it's going to be a vote to stay, and by 10 clear points, too.

I'm gonna piss myself at Kermit, Thunderbirds and Mophead tomorrow.

I felt more confident for a remain vote this morning. At the polling station I immediately thought everyone but Russell and I were there to vite leave, apart from one woman with wet hair.

I wish the press would stop saying that everyone is arguing about this with colleagues and families at each others throats over it. Certainly hasn't been my experience. I have seen one poster in a window for Leave and another this morning for Remain. One gobshite colleague who talks shit about everything anyway had to declare he was voting Leave but other than that, nothing.

My brother is running an EU Referendum mock poll vote at the school he teaches at. It's a large academy in Brent https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ark_Academy so might be interesting.

The Guardian has a useful guide to the night's events.