(June 27, 2016 at 7:43 am)Pandæmonium Wrote: Corbyn is weak, and a liability to the Labour Party. There is no far left support' in the UK, it's a myth.

You know, when Blair fought claws and teeth to prevent Corbin, I thought he would be an ideal candidate. New labour is just Tory light, as far as I am concerned.

Well, I stand corrected. Not on the new labour part but Corbin actually moving something. Other than in the wrong direction. Speaking as an outsider, so a caveat included.

(June 27, 2016 at 7:44 am)SofaKingHigh Wrote:

(June 27, 2016 at 7:35 am)Constable Dorfl Wrote: Twas a farce not too dissimilar to to plebiscites in non democratic countries. Both sides lied, with the honourable exception of Jeremy Corbyn. The only difference was that the vote was free and fair, but the running of it was ridiculous.

Honestly??  Jeremy Corbyn is looking like he openly lied.  Back in the late 70's and 80's he was an open opponent to the EEC/EU, but found himself, as leader of the Labour party having to back it.  An amazingly lack-lustre campaign from him and leaked emails are showing that he wasn't quite as strong a supporter of the EU as he made out in public, but to be fair, it doesn't really matter.

As for the rest of it....politicians lying to further their own ends??

Say it ain't so.

He's the only party leader to stump properly during the campaign. Just because the media say he was shit doesn't mean he actually was. 63% of Labour voters voted remain. Less than 50% of Tory voters did so.

Oh and about his previous opposition, people are allowed to change their minds you konw. Otherwise I'd still be catholic. Corbyn stated a number of times why he now is pro-EU with a strong desire for reform, and based on his track record, I've no reason to doubt his sincerity.

(June 27, 2016 at 7:48 am)Constable Dorfl Wrote: Oh and about his previous opposition, people are allowed to change their minds you konw. Otherwise I'd still be catholic. Corbyn stated a number of times why he now is pro-EU with a strong desire for reform, and based on his track record, I've no reason to doubt his sincerity.

You know what I really liked to see. All these people on the ass end of the globalised economy coming together to push for European reforms. Not to see them rally behind snake oil vendors, who's only strategy is divide and conquer.

(June 27, 2016 at 7:48 am)Constable Dorfl Wrote:

(June 27, 2016 at 7:44 am)SofaKingHigh Wrote: Honestly??  Jeremy Corbyn is looking like he openly lied.  Back in the late 70's and 80's he was an open opponent to the EEC/EU, but found himself, as leader of the Labour party having to back it.  An amazingly lack-lustre campaign from him and leaked emails are showing that he wasn't quite as strong a supporter of the EU as he made out in public, but to be fair, it doesn't really matter.

As for the rest of it....politicians lying to further their own ends??

Say it ain't so.

He's the only party leader to stump properly during the campaign. Just because the media say he was shit doesn't mean he actually was. 63% of Labour voters voted remain. Less than 50% of Tory voters did so.

Oh and about his previous opposition, people are allowed to change their minds you konw. Otherwise I'd still be catholic. Corbyn stated a number of times why he now is pro-EU with a strong desire for reform, and based on his track record, I've no reason to doubt his sincerity.

The emails he sent during the campaign say otherwise, hence his party exploding around him.

I quite like Corbyn, I'm not a fan of many of his policies, but as a man he always struck me as principled.  Not so sure after this episode.

(June 27, 2016 at 7:47 am)abaris Wrote:

(June 27, 2016 at 7:43 am)Pandæmonium Wrote: Corbyn is weak, and a liability to the Labour Party. There is no far left support' in the UK, it's a myth.

You know, when Blair fought claws and teeth to prevent Corbin, I thought he would be an ideal candidate. New labour is just Tory light, as far as I am concerned.

Well, I stand corrected. Not on the new labour part but Corbin actually moving something. Other than in the wrong direction. Speaking as an outsider, so a caveat included.

Corb's biggest contribution to international relations to date has been to appear on RT and the Iranian state propaganda news channels extolling the virtues of Putin and the Ayatollahs (I'm not even making that up). Progressive for sure.

(June 27, 2016 at 7:47 am)abaris Wrote:

(June 27, 2016 at 7:43 am)Pandæmonium Wrote: Corbyn is weak, and a liability to the Labour Party. There is no far left support' in the UK, it's a myth.

You know, when Blair fought claws and teeth to prevent Corbin, I thought he would be an ideal candidate. New labour is just Tory light, as far as I am concerned.

Well, I stand corrected. Not on the new labour part but Corbin actually moving something. Other than in the wrong direction. Speaking as an outsider, so a caveat included.

The biggest problem with UK politics, there is no left and right anymore, just who can hold the centre ground the longest.

Corbyn looked like he may have been able to do something about that, but since he's come in it has been one huge gaff after another.

(June 27, 2016 at 7:57 am)SofaKingHigh Wrote: The biggest problem with UK politics, there is no left and right anymore, just who can hold the centre ground the longest.

Again, not exclusively a UK problem. There is no real choice anymore. Other than voting green, in my case. They are at least principled and don't endorse politics to puke over. Not that easy in a majority system, I know. When I cast a vote, I at least know it will be represented in parliament.

(June 27, 2016 at 8:01 am)abaris Wrote:

(June 27, 2016 at 7:57 am)SofaKingHigh Wrote: The biggest problem with UK politics, there is no left and right anymore, just who can hold the centre ground the longest.

Again, not exclusively a UK problem. There is no real choice anymore. Other than voting green, in my case. They are at least principled and don't endorse politics to puke over. Not that easy in a majority system, I know. When I cast a vote, I at least know it will be represented in parliament.

Well, I'm a liberal voter here, which after the coalition, means my vote is a waste of time.

(June 27, 2016 at 8:03 am)SofaKingHigh Wrote: Well, I'm a liberal voter here, which after the coalition, means my vote is a waste of time.

Well, we have a liberal party again. The so called Neos, which managed to get a few seats in parliament. They are socially liberal to some extent, but they're leaning to far into the laissez fair capitalism direction for my liking. I would rather call them libertarian instead of liberal.

(June 27, 2016 at 6:38 am)Constable Dorfl Wrote:

(June 25, 2016 at 1:51 pm)Emjay Wrote: Right, I see. You're missing out... Yes Minister's (and Yes Prime Minister) brilliant and you can learn a lot about British politics from it - I think Thatcher said it was a very accurate portrayal of government. There's a clip from it earlier in this thread which I've just found for you http://atheistforums.org/thread-43710-po...pid1312963. Humphrey Appleby's the one on the left... and btw that's why I call Hammy Humpy... cos of his run-on sentences (which you'll understand if you see it) 

Cool. Sorry about pretty much ignoring you first time round... I was angry at the time and not inclined to read what looked like a very technical pro-leave argument... but I'm calm now and I'll read it properly at some point. So sorry about that.

Madog's whole case is an egregiously stupid "I vape therefore the EU is teh evuuuuuuls". Half of what he links to doesn't say what he wants it to say, the other half does, but is bad science. And what he himself says is all too often meaningless jargon.

Well, I'm not particularly interested in the vaping argument because that looks like it's open to interpretation and more to the point it's not immediately relevant, for me, to what's going on right now. But what's much more concerning is the fact that the EU is not bound by the ECHR... that's the main thing I took from madog's posts. And I have since learnt that the EU has been given a 'legal identity' so it could actually be treated like a nation in the sense of being able to join the Council of Europe in its own right and therefore be bound by the ECHR... forming a kind of feedback loop with the Council that created it... but where it is - at the moment... and apparently been putting off joining for 42 years - outside that loop; so you have to have ratified the ECHR to join the Council of Europe, and you have to be a member of the Council of Europe to join the EU but there are 47 members of the Council of Europe and 28 members of the EU so you can be in the Council of Europe without being in the EU. So, outside the loop it means that EU directives that conflict with the ECHR can put Council of Europe members in a lose-lose situation where they can't please both sides and therefore face sanctions from one side or the other.

Whether that's actually happening, and if so on a large enough scale for it to be a serious problem, I have no idea, but the potential is there in principle and that is a concern. So it appears madog's preferred solution is to leave the EU and therefore cut them out of the loop and thus end the conflict of interests - rather than wait for them to accede - while expecting the UK to remain a member of the Council of Europe and thus keep the ECHR. But I fear that leaving the EU will just be one step on the slippery slope towards leaving the Council of Europe and thus becoming completely isolationist. So if the Tories want to leave the Council of Europe, fighting them will be my next priority, if we end up stuck with this decision to leave the EU. But looking at the Council of Europe website, Winston Churchill was one of it's founders so would they want to leave something with such a heritage? I don't know, but I hope madog is right in his optimism (for other reasons) that they wouldn't.