It runs until the end of November, and any petition which gets more than 100,000 signatures is considered for a Parliamentary debate. Even the most highly supported petitions rarely get more than a few hundred thousand signatures. This one outstrips all of them by a long way. A very long way.
The European Union Referendum Act received Royal Assent in December 2015, receiving overwhelming support from Parliament. The Act did not set a threshold for the result or for minimum turnout.
The EU Referendum Act received Royal Assent in December 2015. The Act was scrutinised and debated in Parliament during its passage and agreed by both the House of Commons and the House of Lords. The Act set out the terms under which the referendum would take place, including provisions for setting the date, franchise and the question that would appear on the ballot paper. The Act did not set a threshold for the result or for minimum turnout.
As the Prime Minister made clear in his statement to the House of Commons on 27 June, the referendum was one of the biggest democratic exercises in British history with over 33 million people having their say. The Prime Minister and Government have been clear that this was a once in a generation vote and, as the Prime Minister has said, the decision must be respected. We must now prepare for the process to exit the EU and the Government is committed to ensuring the best possible outcome for the British people in the negotiations.
Foreign and Commonwealth Office
The media is behaving as if this is the end of it, when in fact all that has happened is that the government has restated its original position. Let’s face it, after having repeatedly quoted Cameron – who it represents after all – in categorically stating there would not be another referendum, the FCO was hardly likely to do a complete U-turn and say there would be one after all.
At the bottom of the email, there is this non-FCO text:
This petition has over 100,000 signatures. The Petitions Committee will consider it for a debate. They can also gather further evidence and press the government for action.
The Committee is made up of 11 MPs, from political parties in government and in opposition. It is entirely independent of the Government.
So, all that has really happened is that the government has dug in its heels as the scales of public opinion have continued to swing heavily – to the tune of 4.1 million signatures and counting – against it. The biased media has not seen fit to clarify this, in an attempt to prevent any opposition to Brexit gaining ground.
There’s a certain irony in the origins of the petition. Apparently, William Oliver Healey set it up when he expected the outcome of the referendum to be a narrow vote to remain in the EU. The petition argues quite logically that a tiny majority wanting to stay would be unfair on a slightly smaller number wanting to leave. At that point, it had 22 signatures.
Now, I’m sure Mr Healey would agree that if 51.9% of the population voting to stay would have been unfair on the 48.1% voting to leave (if it had gone that way), then it is equally unfair now given that the result was the other way round. Actually, I’m pretty sure Mr Healey doesn’t agree with that at all, and he must have choked on his muesli when he got up on 24 June and saw the result. However, he probably choked on it a lot more in the two weeks since, as he couldn’t have foreseen that his petition would subsequently have been taken over by almost 200,000 times more people than had agreed with him prior to the referendum.
Cameron has f___ed this country up big time with his idiotic referendum. By refusing to try and rectify the wholly wrong result – a result which which he, along with William Oliver Healey, didn’t expect in his wildest dreams – he is f___ing it up even more.
I wish some of the prats who voted to leave the EU could tell me when the good stuff starts. Because so far, all that has happened is bad.
Brexit has screwed up the Labour party; it’s in the process of screwing up the Conservatives by forcing a wholly unsuitable new Prime Minister on us (but officially, we will have to pretend the new PM is brilliant solely because it will be a woman); it’s screwed up the £ against pretty much every currency on the planet; it’s already sent the cost of certain consumer goods up and we are warned this will extend to everything else over the next year; British company shares have fallen significantly; and Scottish independence from the rest of the UK has been virtually guaranteed.
One of the partners Tata was in talks with was Thyssenkrupp – a German steel company. Thyssenkrupp has responded to Tata’s latest concerns by saying:
…that it believed a consolidation of the European steel industry was necessary, but that it still remained “open” as to when such a step would take place and who it would take it with.
Work it out…
Scenario #1: Britain part of the EU, therefore considered favourably in any “European steel industry” consolidation plans.
Scenario #2: Britain tells EU to f__k off, thanks to a bunch of retards who only understand pictures in The Sun and yet who were given the chance to vote in a referendum. EU responds by telling the remainder of Britain (minus Scotland) to shove its steel industry up its arse, since it isn’t going to screw Germany or any other remaining EU member.
Well done, Brexiters. You may just have destroyed the steel industry for good, but at least some of you got to spray paint some racial obscenities on local Polish businesses and nail some pretty flags up on your council houses, eh?
Dell and OnePlus are raising UK prices as a direct result of the idiotic result of the EU Referendum. Intro2020, a major importer and distributor of optical and camera equipment, is to follow having said that it had been:
…”punched in the stomach very hard” by sterling’s drop after the Brexit referendum.
Price rises are being predicted across the board by financial experts.
Since the result on 24 June, the pound has fallen 12% against the dollar, but it has fallen even more against Asian currencies – and most technology imports come from Asia. Dell has apparently applied a 10% increase in costs to UK retailers because its products are priced in US dollars. OnePlus has slapped a 6.5% increase on the price of its latest smartphone. Intro2020 is likely to increase its prices by at least 10%.
Sigma, which makes lenses, has said it will also have to raise prices because:
…the dramatic fall in the value of sterling as a result of [the] vote to leave the EU is far too great to be absorbed [by the usual price buffer]
It expects “volatility” in the pound for at least 9 months. And a retail expert has said:
For some markets, such as clothing and footwear, this will see a return to inflation after a period of deflation.
I wonder if those pricks who voted “leave”, and who are still expecting to see bonfires made out of immigrants as we ethnically cleanse this sceptr’d isle so it’s how they want it, are happy with what they’ve done.
This is the beginning of the reality. Price rises, followed by job losses and inflation. Someone has got to do something soon and reverse the idiotic decision to leave the EU.
Take a look at this chart. It shows the value of the GBP (£) against the USB ($) over the period 20 June to 6 July 2016.
At point A (immediately before the EU Referendum), everyone expected a vote to remain and the GBP rose to its highest level against USD since December 2015. In actual fact, between 15 June and 23 June, it rose from 1.41 to 1.49 (almost 6%) on the strength of confidence that we’d remain EU members.
Once the catastrophically wrong referendum result was announced, it fell to its lowest level for 31 years (a fall of around 10%). It recovered slightly – which prompted the nationalist press (i.e. The Sun) to announce that the scaremongering was over and the future was rosy. Again, in fact, it was still at its lowest for decades.
Following a weekend lull, it fell again This time, it stabilised at the level it had fallen to immediately after the result. A day later, it fell again and stabilised 2% lower than its previous lowest at 1.31 (B). For several days, and partly as a result of speeches from various people trying to calm the market, it climbed back to between 1.32 and 1.35 (C), and that’s where The Sun claimed everything was now all right once more. After another weekend lull, it set off downwards again, and today it stands at 1.29.
The Bank of England has repeatedly warned that Brexit will hit the markets and currency badly. Ranged against this you have… The Sun, whose counter arguments seems to boil down to “oh, no it won’t” and “it’s all those foreigners taking our jobs and scrounging off the state who are to blame”. Frighteningly, there are still people who read The Sun who genuinely believe this – these are the ones who swung the result of the referendum in the first place.
The Sun also favours quoting the FTSE 100, and has said several times that it “has recovered to pre-Brexit levels”. The FTSE 100 does not accurately reflect what is happening in the UK market – it is the FTSE 250 which does that. Today, for example, the FTSE 250 is down by almost twice as much as the FTSE 100 directly due to the Bank of England’s warning that the effects of Brexit are beginning to “crystallise”. Tesco and Morrisons – better indicators of the state of the UK market than, say, Vodafone – are down by 6%.
How much longer has this got to go on before someone wises up and admits that they made a mistake in allowing retards to vote on EU membership, and the that result was disastrously wrong?
One of the main reasons for the marginal – and let’s not forget that it was very marginal – vote to leave the EU was because the Leave campaigners had convinced themselves that if we left, all those filthy foreigners would have to go home or risk being burnt at the stake.
The Huff poses the question “which of the 28 countries in the European Union has the most citizens living abroad as immigrants?”
During campaigning, the Leave camp certainly implied very strongly that it was the Poles and other Eastern Europeans who had allegedly parasitized the UK who held this honour. Of course, they couldn’t campaign directly on the subject since it would have automatically been racist – they therefore had to leave it to The Sun and The Daily Mail, both of which already existed in the cloaca of British society, and whose readership was happy to live down there with them as they pushed their lies and prejudices concerning EU membership and the benefits of leaving.
In actual fact, Britain has the highest number of people living outside its boundaries, but within the EU’s. Furthermore, it is only 14th out of 28 in the list of EU countries in terms of the number of non-UK nationals per capita.
This is not quite what “Leave” and the gutter press were telling everyone running up to the referendum, is it?
The article then proceeds to discuss the difference in meaning between the word “expatriate” (or “expat”) – as Britons like to refer to themselves when they move overseas – and “immigrant” – which they like to call everyone else who does the same. Take a look at these two definitions:
expatriate
noun
1. a person who lives outside their native country.
immigrant
noun
1. a person who comes to live permanently in a foreign country.
The article points out that in general usage, the term “immigrant” applies to those who move from a poorer country to a richer one seeking a better life, whereas “expat” is applied to those from rich countries who work abroad.
I’m sure that any Brexiters reading this will already be formulating their weasel replies, but anticipating their thought processes – which isn’t difficult when you’re dealing with racists – that distinction between “immigrant” and “expat” is very accurate, and that word “permanently” is spurious. There are many Africans and Asians who are only over here to either study or work, and yet who are freely regarded as “immigrants”, in spite of the fact that once they’ve completed their studies or whatever are likely to move either back home or to another country (I’ve taught several trainee doctors from those continents who had every intention of going back home to practice once they’d qualified). Likewise, many British “expats” will never – and have no intention of ever – returning to the UK while they are alive.
…public opinion about immigration has become a deciding factor in some of the most important geopolitical events in the world.
Views on immigration have shaped the world’s response to the refugee crisis, our policies on the war on terror, and this year’s U.S. presidential race. Yet, the basic facts about immigration almost never come up at all in the debate.
He then shows how the UK population believes the number of immigrants to be double what it really is (all countries overestimate this figure, some more than others). Perhaps even more worryingly, the UK population overestimates the number of Muslims it carries by a factor of more than four!
Without doubt, immigration and an underlying trend towards racism swung the result of the EU Referendum by just enough for “Leave” to scrape victory. It’s scary when you consider that stupidity and a deeply disturbing desire not to recognise facts about immigration were at the root. But it was a victory that was so frighteningly and obviously wrong that you wonder why someone isn’t doing more to pull a second referendum at the earliest opportunity.
But then again, perhaps the idiots who voted to leave the EU need to see some shit hitting the fan before that happens.
The vote to leave the EU was wrong. Totally and absolutely wrong.
The vast majority of MPs can see this, and it is what is coming across in the media. It is why over 4 million have signed the petition for a 2nd referendum. Unfortunately, in their pathetic attempts to maintain neutrality, they (BBC, in particular, take note) are insisting on printing a counter argument to every argument. Before the referendum – when everything was merely guesswork – this stupid behaviour caused confusion among the great unwashed masses. But now, in the face of harsh realities, these counter arguments are just coming across as childish and naive.
“Leave” Lies
The “Leave” campaign pretty much stated prior to the referendum that it would stop immigration completely, and give £350,000,000 to the NHS. These promises struck a major chord with the less intelligent people in our society, and undoubtedly won many votes. However, “Leave” reneged on both promises as soon as it became clear that it had won. Quite simply, immigration cannot be controlled in anything like the way “Leave” said, or in the way that dumb, nationalist people would like. And the NHS will not get £350m for the simple reason that “Leave” lied – absolutely and definitely lied – about the amount of money being paid to Brussels, and which it claimed could be given to the NHS instead.
Break up of The Union
As soon as we knew that Scotland had voted to remain, but England had voted to leave, the destruction of The Union was assured. Scotland held a referendum in 2014 on whether to remain a part of the United Kingdom. It chose future security over flag-waving and voted to stay, though the admittedly narrow margin of the “stay in the UK” vote has been the subject of much discussion ever since, and further referendums were always on the cards. Scotland’s future security flew out of the window on the morning of 24 June 2016, and within a day it was announced that a second vote on independence was definitely on the cards. Separate talks to keep Scotland in the EU have already begun.
Furthermore, Northern Ireland’s independence and Ireland’s valid claim to sovereignty on geographic grounds if nothing else has always been bubbling away under the surface. Northern Ireland also voted to remain in the EU, and it isn’t hard to see how the independence argument could bubble up again. The only problem there is that, unlike Scotland, Northern Ireland is likely to fall back into civil war as the Loyalists and Republicans are almost certainly not going to agree with each other. Just saying the words “Northern Ireland might seek independence” misses the realities of the situation by a million miles.
And if Scotland and/or Northern Ireland go, what will Wales – which has also talked of independence in the past – want to do?
Remember: before the referendum, no one predicted what has happened since. But what has happened since should provide a big enough warning of what could now happen moving forward. And it won’t involve blue skies and rainbows – more like black clouds and lightning.
Nationalism
The day the result was announced, I noticed a dramatic increase in the number of houses with flags hanging outside – many on dwellings such as the scummy one I mentioned before on Wigman Road in Bilborough – which had already been displaying “Leave” posters. As I pointed out to several pupils, these were not all due to England being in the Euro 2016 football competition – many were the response of a bunch of chimpanzees jumping up and down with glee at the exit vote. Although most were George Crosses, some were Union Jacks (one appeared on a flagpole on an exclusive property on Town Street in Bramcote).
This made me laugh, because there will be a new Union Jack within a couple of years – one with all the blue missing. A few years after that, Britain’s flag will just consist of the George Cross, and we’ll be called “England”. There will be no British Isles, since there will be no Britain.
It’s hard to fathom how the tiny minds of some people work. They’ve been going on and on for the last 70-odd years about how “great” Britain defeated Hitler and right-wing extremism, and yet they have now voted in such a way that they have destroyed the very mechanism by which that happened.
Fascism
That leads nicely on to the issue of racism – I’ll come to fascism in a moment. Within hours of the referendum result, acts of overt racism were already being reported. In Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, carefully produced laminated cards were being left at properties believed to be owned by Polish people. In actual fact, they were being left in the wrong places, but we already know that most “Leave” supporters were a little short on brains.
In a way, this illustrates the deeply ingrained racist beliefs held by the older generation in this country, and which has been passed on to generation after generation of their offspring. They are incapable of understanding that someone who was born in the UK, and whose ancestors – that would be great-great grandparents – emigrated here are just as British as they are. To believe that they aren’t… well, I’ll come to that shortly.
I want to go back to the Second World War for a moment, and the 70-plus years we’ve had to endure the message that we saved the world from a right-wing monster; the repetitive snide comments about Germany or Germans who do anything we don’t like (such as win sports events, or be involved in global politics); the snide comments about France for being occupied and having to be rescued; the snide comments about anyone smaller than us, or with a less illustrious history; and the “fact” that we singlehandedly saved them all from Hitler and fascism.
When you take all of that into consideration – and believe me, you could write a book on the subject – who would ever have thought that right-wing seeds should so readily sprout in the British Isles? You know, the country that defeated extremism again and again for almost a century (longer if you want to consider Britain’s imperial past)?
The vote to leave the EU has unleashed this right-wing bile by the bucket load, and not being part of Europe guarantees that it will fester and grow as we try to pretend we can become “great” again. The worrying thing is that we already were – but now we’re not.
Don’t try to convince yourself that it is “only a minority” of people who are racist. Anyone who voted to leave the EU solely because of immigration is already part of that same group of Neanderthals to a greater or lesser extent. Immigration was a problem for the whole of Europe and the whole World. It still is. Except we’ll have to deal with it alone from now on.
Economy
And that leads me on to the the economy. The shockwaves created by the referendum result have surprised everyone except for those who were too stupid to understand what they were doing by voting to leave. The GBP (£) immediately fell to its lowest value since the depression of the late 70s and early 80s. Shares in any company which relies on international trade plummeted, with trading even being suspended in some cases. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has warned that the country will be poorer as a result of the vote, and has also warned that taxes will have to rise by 2-3%, while spending will have to be cut (and let’s remind ourselves that a vote to leave was going to give an extra £350 million to the NHS, whereas it looks now as though it will actually end up with less than it was already getting). There are plans to increase duty on fuel and alcohol, as well as an increase in inheritance tax.
Don’t be misled by stories that the markets have “stabilised”. Global markets might have – temporarily. But UK companies are still almost 10% down on pre-referendum figures. The propaganda tells us that the GBP (£) is “up” to 1.35, yet it was 1.50 this time last week. Since it fell to a low of 1.32 or thereabouts, it is actually only “up” by 0.03 – whereas in reality, it is down by 0.15 as a direct result of the decision to leave the EU.
Referring back to the Chancellor’s comments, you have to laugh over that inheritance tax thing. There was one prat called “Graham”, who wrote a comment at the bottom of a recent BBC article (all in capitals, as is typical of his kind). He said he had voted “leave” for the sake of his children and grandchildren. I wonder what he thinks now? Well done, Graham. I hope waving your St George’s Cross goes some way to making you happy – but f__k everyone else, eh?
Forty years of net prosperity, growth, and success has been wiped out overnight, and replaced with uncertainty – a bunch of aged idiots, white van men from council estates, and f brainless football supporters all waving flags and rattling on about “making Britain great again” (those words have been written more than once by more than one “leave” voter).
We already were “great”. Now we’re not, and there’s no sign that we will be during the lifetimes of anyone now living.
The Referendum
It should never have been held. A decision like this should not have been made by idiots. It should have been made by economists and academics.
As I said at the start, this decision was wrong. It is obviously not working, and it obviously cannot and will not work in the future. Ever.
The government knows the result was wrong. It needs to stop prattling on about “democracy” and overturn the result quickly before Europe kicks us out. Then, it really will be too late.
It’s funny when you consider that in the run up to the EU Referendum certain sections of the media were claiming that big business supported the “leave” campaign. It’s funny because of this story, now that we apparently are leaving.
“We can’t sugar-coat this – many of our members are feeling anxious,” said Simon Walker, director-general of the IoD.
“A majority of business leaders think the vote for Brexit is bad for them, and as a result plans for investment and hiring are being put on hold or scaled back.”
According to “Leave”, the parallel universe which Britain was going to exist in – on it’s own – was going to be a much brighter place. The dickhead companies who supported leaving the EU were therefore signalling their belief in this deluded idea. And yet we now find that many of them are going to put a freeze on recruitment, with many more likely to follow, as a result of the unimagined financial uncertainty that has descended on our new parallel dimension.
A freeze on recruitment means that unemployment will not fall – in fact, with new people leaving school and university (it’s that time of year, too) it is likely to rise. Furthermore, such a freeze is often a precursor to redundancies, which are all the more likely with the fall in the value of the pound and company stock prices.
Any sort of security seems to rest with the EU granting the UK privileges which it has no right to if it is not a member- the “single market” being a prime example. HSBC is planning to move 1,000 jobs from the London to Paris if the single market is lost. Likewise, Morgan Stanley will move 2,000 jobs to Dublin or Frankfurt, and others could follow suit.
I’d love some of the cretins who voted to leave to explain to me how this is good – indeed, how anything that has happened, or is likely to happen as a result of that – is good. The problem is, their concern was only ever about those nasty immigrants with non-white skin and funny accents. They wouldn’t understand. And they wouldn’t care.
What is becoming very, very clear is that everyone is starting to realise the vote to leave was totally and utterly wrong. It was decided by idiots whose only skill appears to have been that they know how to erect a flagpole and nail posters to the sides of their houses. And it is being rued by those who should have made the decision to stay instead of giving these morons the vote in the first place.
Britain should be a part of Europe. Walking away, waving flags, and standing with your chest out chanting “we can make Britain great again” won’t f___king work. Ever. Not unless there’s a big market for flagpoles and posters these days.
There has been a 250% increase in searches on “what happens if we leave the EU”. I stress that this occurred AFTER the comedians doing the searching had voted.
Londoners have shown an increased interest in moving to Gibraltar, whilst there has been an increase in those seeking to obtain an Irish passport.
The guy from the first link has the same opinion as me – that there should never have been a referendum in the first place because understanding the issues and implications was beyond the wit of 95% of the electorate.
Arguably too complex for the average citizen. Referendums are a brute-force political engine, a numbers game designed to spit out a yes or no answer on a simple question. Something as complicated and multi-faceted as Britain’s membership of the EU, on the other hand, should not have been decided by referendum, instead weighed up by independent experts versed in the thousands of ways the UK interacts with the biggest economic power on Earth.
It was funny hearing Boris Johnson trying to be gracious in victory by declaring that David Cameron will go down as “one of the great prime ministers”.
Sorry, Boris, but if you were wrong about Brexit not being damaging to the UK, you’re a hundred times more wrong over that.
Cameron has become the man who has broken up the Union. The man who handed Scotland independence on a plate, even after they had voted narrowly against it. The man who has sown the seeds for Northern Ireland and Wales to go the same way. The man who has resurrected Spain’s geographically legitimate claim on Gibraltar (which will almost certainly set the Argentinians off on one again). The man who called a referendum that should never have been called for the purposes of winning a general election. The man who then had that referendum turn on him and disembowel him. And the man who has ensured austerity for at least a generation to come – right after we’d dug ourselves out of a recession. God knows what else will appear on the list, but you can be sure it won’t be good.
There’s a certain irony in all this, since Cameron is also a man who has spent the better part of a decade blaming everything from the recession to outbreaks of scrofula on Gordon Brown and the last Labour government, when in fact Brown (and Labour) had nothing to do with any of that. Gordon Brown was actually a half decent (or half indifferent, depending on how you look at it) prime minister.
In Cameron’s case, on the other hand, all the accusations will almost certainly turn out to be demonstrably true. I have to admit though that – as a person – I feel quite sorry for him. I bet he didn’t see this coming.
Now, what odds can I get on BoJo being in the running as his replacement?
See how quickly things change? BoJo was right up there, favourite to become PM. Then he was stabbed in the back by Gove.
Not surprisingly, the tragic result of the EU Referendum early this morning has been a topic of discussion with my pupils today. As I mentioned recently, none of those I had spoken with on the run up to voting had been in favour of leaving the EU.
Before I continue, an observation from yesterday evening. After my last lesson I went into Asda to do some shopping. Now, the West Bridgford store has a Bureau de Change, and in all the years I have been shopping there I don’t think I have ever seen anyone use it – probably because I shop so late. However, last night there was a queue (all idiots, since they were queuing across the entrance doorways). I wondered vaguely for a moment what was happening as I passed between them, assumed it must just be down to the holiday season, and then promptly forgot about it.
When my first pupil got into the car this morning, we exchanged the usual pleasantries, and when she asked how I was I replied: “Fine thanks – apart from that result last night.” She, too, was unhappy with the result, and in the subsequent discussion she mentioned a friend of hers who had voted to leave, but who was already regretting it because she was going on holiday next week and the sudden decimation of GBP (£) versus USD ($) and EURO (€) meant she would get a lot less spending money.
That was when it hit me about the queue in Asda last night. You see, I stayed up late watching the first results coming in, and watching the markets. Before the polls closed at 10pm there was speculation that there would be a narrow “remain” outcome, and as a result the value of GBP went up.
And THAT’S why they were queuing in Asda!
Although my local Asda is in Rushcliffe – and Rushcliffe was one of the few areas in England to vote “remain” – these vultures, many of whom probably voted to leave anyway, were cashing in on the early financial turmoil.
Something else that just caught my eye was on Sky News just now. They noted that of all the English wards to vote “remain”, the vast majority represented communities where at least 1 person in 3 had a degree or other higher qualification.
This confirms my own belief that you needed to have the IQ of fungus to want to vote “leave” – as evidenced by that filthy house on Wigman Road, which still has a huge poster nailed to the wall outside, and which has now added a number of England flags. Indeed, I pointed out to a pupil this morning that the number of English flags now draped outside of houses in Bilborough is dramatically higher than it was yesterday.
