General election 2019: Why this UK vote is a huge deal

yes,, my devilish plan is succeeding on all fronts

If labor party loses big and that is a big If that will impact Sanders and Warren too

Who is in the lead in the polls?

[quote] Are they seriously, consciously going to hand over the keys to that blond turd?

You can't be taken seriously when you don't know that Boris is already Prime Minister.

Proof there there are no people at all of worth in British politics. Name one.

I hope Johnson will be thrown out. That would be heaven.

Is this the official thread?

[quote]I hope Johnson will be thrown out. That would be heaven

Heaven according to R6: Tossing out one bigoted cunt to replace him with an even bigger, more vicious bigoted cunt.

reply 5

Yes, Tom Watson.

Good luck UK friends.

r4 What? You do know how Boris became PM, right? Hint: he didn't win a general election.

Seriously, what is it with people not getting their basic facts right before "actually-ing" others? They are the most annoying cunts in existence. And now also on my ignore list.

r7 Yes, the other one got paywalled because too few (non-paying) posters chatted too much.

So when do the results come out?

Boris dislikes Islam. That's a big enough reason hoping for him to win.

Who cares about Islam or Judaism when the economic future is at stake? And now Trump has torpedoed the WTO courts, so the UK will be at the mercy of the EU.

Reject Brexit, for fuck's sake!

My election wishlist

1) Jo Swinson and Ian Blackford lose their seats.

2(Owen Jones, Ash Sarkar, Femi and James O'Brien have a meltdown on twitter/TV

Vote count starts at 10 PM British time which 04: 30 PM EST

R12, It take alt east 5-8 Hours to get final result depending on how tight race is so you will probably get full result by 6 AM British time or around 1 AM EST

It it is a conservative blowout then you may get result by 10 PM EST tonight

Boris! Boris! Boris!

Hopefully someone posts a link to their electoral commission or something like that. Bracing myself for the worst, which is Boris' victorious mug.

[quote] [R4] What? You do know how Boris became PM, right? Hint: he didn't win a general election.

While that is true, r11, it is also true that he already has “the keys.”

Hence the "consciously" in my sentence. Can people truly not read anymore?

[quote]You seem a bit thin-skinned for DL.

Thanks, I'm doing just fine, dear.

I've never been more depressed about an election. I think the best I can hope for is another hung Parliament and a change of Labour leadership.

I could never, ever bring myself to vote Conservative. They stand for everything I find abhorrent in the world; greed, selfishness, and the horrible "I'm alright Jack" attitude.

I will be voting Labour but without much enthusiasm, mainly because the other parties are so bloody awful. I'm in a rock solid Labour seat anyway, so my vote is pretty much irrelevant. The UK really needs to adopt proportional representation.

[quote]A long queue of students voting has been reported at one of the University of Exeter’s Cornish campus in the relatively marginal constituency Falmouth and Truro.

Yes, student turnout, come through! Good news.

Wishing all my UK friends all the best today.

R24 - it's tomorrow we'll all be feeling depressed. I honestly don't know how I'll have the will to live through 5 more years of Tory rule.

Corbyn is ruining Labour by hanging on. Just give way to someone younger already. I'm certain people would be prepared to vote even for a more socialist manifesto than the current one... if only he weren't the face of the party.

[quote]5 more years of Tory rule

Christ, when you put it like that... 😩

R25 I've been living with Tory rule here in Norway for the past 6 years. Not fun. They've managed to fuck up this country in more ways than I can count. Child poverty is through the roof, massive cuts in health services, they privatized the railway so our state-owned rail company is so small it's basically nonexistent now. Then there's the county reform, municipality reform, centralizing EVERYTHING so there isn't anything left of small towns and villages. Just like their brilliant idea to cut the post delivery down to three times a week, from five. Then there's the failed police reform that would according to them lead to more police in the streets, but there's now less. Lol. Just like they promised privatizing our rail would lead to cheaper tickets, while in reality they're more expensive than ever before. Fuck them. I am so pissed off and I don't want to live anymore if the socialists don't win the next election in two years.

[quote]Polling official: "I've been doing this for 30 years and this is the first time I've seen it like this. It's amazing!"

Young people, please save us all!

[quote]Just like their brilliant idea to cut the post delivery down to three times a week, from five.

r27 Omg, what? That's crazy. Aren't you loaded? Why all these cuts? 🤔

R28 Ask them, they also FORCE sick people to work instead of getting benefits, people too sick to work under 25 lost 60 % of their benefits because the fuckers thought making them poor would make a different. Cuts, cuts and more cuts.... everywhere. That's the Tory rule for ya. They literally take from the poor to give to the rich. Fuck them. I want to move if the Tories win in two years. They've already done a ton of damage in 6 years, I can't imagine another 6 years with them. I'd rather die.

Found this live elections results tracker page. Seems intuitive enough.

^^

[quote]Polls close at 10pm and the first seats to declare are usually in the north-east of England, at about 11.30pm. In the past these seats have tended to declare for Labour, so an early lead for the party may not be particularly telling.

[quote]The bulk of seats announce their results between 2am and 5am. Recounts can push the announcement back in individual seats until late on Friday.

In other words, we'll wake up to the horrible news tomorrow.

Brits, when do the polls close and when will results start being posted?

I had read that the Tories were favored to win in the polls. Has that changed at the last minute?

Sorry looks like I missed that post quoted in r31

Look at it this way, r25. Boris is Winston Churchill compared to Trump. Trump was tweeting mockery of Greta Thunberg this morning.

[quote]The bulk of seats announce their results between 2am and 5am.

So that's between 9pm and 12am ET, if I'm not mistaken.

R34 BJ is still a brute deep inside. His OCD with regards to Brexit is completely insane. He is part of the 1 percent trying to undermine the 99 percent of the British public. Not to mention that Labour has a knob that is pro Brexit to boot. Britain is cutting off its nose to spite its face.

[quote]20 min queue to get into polling station. South London Millenials unite!

You actually think people are going to vote for the part headed by that antisemetic, terrorist-loving shithead Jeremy Corbyn??! Corbyn couldn’t even get a win during Theresa May’s reign and she was polling single digits. Labour is a fringe party made up of the worst people in the world.

[quote] I had read that the Tories were favored to win in the polls. Has that changed at the last minute?

Nope.

Corbyn is pro-Brexit. Has been for decades. Next.

[quote] If labor party loses big and that is a big If that will impact Sanders and Warren too

Good. Get rid of all of em.

What time will we know who won? Hour-by-hour election night guide

Imagine voting for a leader who refused repeatedly to make a stance on the biggest issue regarding this election.

Go Boris you deserve to win!

[quote] it's tomorrow we'll all be feeling depressed. I honestly don't know how I'll have the will to live through 5 more years of Tory rule.

It would be helpful if people could be more detailed in indicating what in particular their concerns are. Are there specific bills or issues or spending priorities that are the concern?

R38 We have the same problem here in Norway, not the antisemitic part, but a party run by a really unlikable leader preventing people from voting for it. It's really sad. Labour in Norway is run by a rich guy and people see it as an insult to a party made up by the working class. Not only that, he's also seen as arrogant and not down to earth. It's sad, but he might be the reason Labour won't win in two years. They are dependent on the other socialist parties doing well so they can make up a majority coalition government. Thankfully, the Center Party (originally for farmers, now a socialist/environment party) is doing very well, as a result of the Tories stupid centralization reforms. There will be nothing left in the countryside if they get their wish, and people living there are understandably upset. Actually, they have won a lot of votes from people all over the country, not just the farmers and others living in the countryside. They're seen as the opposite of the Tories' many failed reforms. No wonder they get a shit ton of support and are now almost as big as Labour.

Any info on counts yet?

Exit poll results three hours from now, early results four hous from now.

It's not a big deal. Nobody gives a shit -- that's how we get crappy leaders like Trump and Johnson.

[quote]Boris is Winston Churchill compared to Trump.

Lowest bar possibly imaginable. Also, Churchill lost the election having prevailed in WWII.

Boris is expected to win a small majority, but will be forcefully volubly loathed by millions.

He's been very lucky not to have an able youngish Labour leader in place to slice him up regularly. But luck doesn't last forever. He's fairly likely to overreach catastrophically.

Fuckers can't even get their basic slogan right. 🤦‍♂️

[quote]headed by that antisemetic, terrorist-loving shithead Jeremy Corbyn

Ah, so you Brits have Deplorables too.

Twenty minutes until the exit poll comes out.

[quote]The polls close in just under an hour, at 10pm, and at that point broadcasters will announce the results of the combined BBC/ITV/Sky exit poll. We will then have to wait a few more hours to find out if the results are confirming the exit poll predictions but, over the last four elections, it has twice predicted the size of the eventual majority with 100% accuracy, once been out by four seats, and once wrong by 22 seats (in 2015). Generally it is a much more robust, and accurate, exercise than a standard opinion poll.

[quote] Boris is Winston Churchill compared to Trump.

LOL. Winston Churchill was an unbridled [bold]white supremacist[/bold] who made excuses for Black slavery and ideologically supported the forced displacement of Native Americans into camps & reservations. He notoriously said the following to a Royal Commission:

[quote] Churchill: "I do NOT admit for instance, that a ‘great wrong’ has been done to the RED Indians of America or the BLACK people of Australia. [bold]I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a HIGHER-GRADE RACE, a more worldly wise race, to put it that way, [white Europeans, including the British Empire] has come in and taken their place."

r53 Never fucking forget:

[quote]Boris Johnson, the mayor of London, has claimed that shortly after becoming president, Barack Obama removed a bust of Winston Churchill from the Oval Office. Writing on Friday for the Sun, a right-leaning British tabloid, Johnson “the part-Kenyan president’s ancestral dislike of the British empire” in an article urging Britons to leave the European Union when given the choice in a referendum to be held in June.

Polls have closed, exit poll is projecting Tory majority. Well, shit.

Conservatives: 368

Labour: 191

Conservative majority: 86

Basically a Tory landslide.

Goodbye EU, goodbye standards, goodbye NHS, hello China and the US.

That London attack came at just the right moment for the Tories.

Yup. But you know what, at least the Brexit saga is over, finally.

A massive turn out at the polls today... it's going to be an interesting day for many people tommorow!

So what does this mean for BREXIT? With the majority will they just crash out?

r60 They'll ram through that deal now that they have the votes, I think.

Will Corbyn finally resign now? There's no coming back from this, surely?

They're saying this would be the worst result for Labour since the 1920s. 😬

But will it be acceptable to the EU, r61?

*1924, to be exact.

He can't NOT resign now, surely?

r64 Oh, right, I forgot that deal fell through. I was still thinking about May's deal. You're right, No Deal Brexit it is.

It is crazy to think how much poorer the UK is going to become over the next decade thanks to today's election. Start planning your vacations!

I can't stand the Tories. Why do ignorant UKers keep voting for them?

Also Corbyn needs to GO already.

Shockingly Labour has lost the support of the working class of the UK who now see it as a party of ultra left-wing extremists and supporters of Muslim agendas, not the needs of the ordinary working people.

So they're brainwashed, basically.

I blame Owen Jones!

The British people were brainwashed for years until they saw democracy dismantled over the Brexit result and the way they were insulted and ignored by Parliment. They have just woken up!

Well Boris can get out from hiding in the fridge now.

Can't wait to see Owen Jones getting his nappy in a twist.

Boris will get forward with Brexit but it won’t be as easy as his supporters want.

Yeah, my only consolation is that little Owen will be weeping into his soy latte.

"Brexit just smashed us."

Forecast of 13 for Lib Dems. LOL. I imagine their leader now wishes she could take back her strident anti-democratic, anti-Brexit platform.

Labour just lost Blyth Valley. A former mining constituency they've held since 1950. In theory it's one of those areas where voting Tory should get you lynched. If that's not a sign of how bad this is going to get then nothing is.

[quote] Shockingly Labour has lost the support of the working class of the UK who now see it as a party of ultra left-wing extremists and supporters of Muslim agendas, not the needs of the ordinary working people.

At least they view the state of the party accurately. That’s something the party can work with if it decides to reform itself.

[quote] Shockingly Labour has lost the support of the working class of the UK who now see it as a party of ultra left-wing extremists and supporters of Muslim agendas, not the needs of the ordinary working people.

This is how many Americans see the democrats too. I don’t know about labour but it’s bullshit claiming that most democrats are that way on this side of the ocean. But the wokesters have infuriated most people and we democrats have been tarred by their posturing.

Well, now the UK can Brexit and then everything will be fine!

Now the effect of Brexit can be assessed from what actually occurs afterward, instead of people just speculating what the effect will be. People can put aside their tarot cards and animal entrails and we’ll see the real result after a period of time.

[quote]I can't stand the Tories. Why do ignorant UKers keep voting for them? Also Corbyn needs to GO already.

Looks like you answered your own question.

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Labour ignored Brexit and forced its life blood to vote Conservative in order to get Democracy back on the agenda!

The world sucks. Blocs of voters swayed by transparent propaganda and electing the phony populists who will make the tax sheltered 1% even more obscenely wealthy so they can laugh all the way to their off-shore banks.

How could Corbyn and Labour lose? The People's Princess and Datalounge icon AOC endorsed them, and she [bold]always[/bold] chooses a winner!

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Congratulations to the British people for voting against anti-Semitism. That’s a positive.

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Consecutive Conservative majorities -- what do the average UK citizens have that is affordable and better than the National Health Service, how does leaving the EU benefit the majority, do the majority of UK voters believe the national budget is fair?

I'm asking because every election I mostly encounter Labour voters crying in their beer. I don't read anything about get out the votes, or anyone tweeting pro-Tory policies or pro-Brexit agitprop. And no, I don't gaze at the online Guardian only.

YEAH! Looks like a big win for Boris! Fuck Labour!

Labour was once the party of the people, then it turned against its own people with wild political agendas and told Brits if they questioned anything they didn't agree with they were racist. Once the truth becomes racist, its all over.

"The pound soars against the dollar"

I thought with Brexit it's going to be all doom and gloom?

I see the racists are here to try to turn the election in a race war. Don't worry, racists. You're still horrible people who type fat and will never have sex that isn't paid for.

There'll be yet another extension of the Brexit deadline at the end of January.

Welcome to Datalounge, Titania McGrath!

Is they Labour going to drop Corbyn now? Not holding my breath.

This guy can not win a general election.

The same is going to happen in the US if Warren or Sanders are the nominees. Most people are centrist.

Corbyn is like Sanders and Trump. A cult keeps them afloat.

R100: The US is not the UK and Corbyn is neither Sanders nor Warren.

Brexit has been the best thing ever to happen in the UK as for years we thought the politicians were liars and crooks and after the referendum, we KNEW they were all liars and crooks. It was a reality check and indeed a wake-up call for the country with the so-called Mother of Parliaments.

I like Corbyn.

[quote] Corbyn is neither Sanders nor Warren.

Corbyn = Sanders

someone asked: Will the Labour Party drop Corbyn now?

There'd have to be someone ready to replace him. I guess, like in Canada, there's a leadership review when the Opposition stays the Opposition or slinks into third party status after an election loss. He's survived several leadership reviews. We're not UK voters though, we only guess it takes a mess of Thatcherian proportions to turf out the Tories.

Sums up the Corbyn lot brilliantly.

Labor better replace their leader with a moderate.

𝐁𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐬 𝐉𝐨𝐡𝐧𝐬𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐭𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐤𝐬 𝐚𝐟𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐬𝐞𝐧𝐬𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐞𝐱𝐢𝐭 𝐩𝐨𝐥𝐥 𝐬𝐡𝐨𝐰𝐬 𝐓𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐰𝐢𝐧𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐡𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐜 𝐁𝐫𝐞𝐱𝐢𝐭 𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐧𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐦𝐚𝐣𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐨𝐟 𝐄𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓𝐘 𝐒𝐈𝐗 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐋𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐬𝐭 𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐮𝐥𝐭 𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝟏𝟗𝟑𝟓 𝐚𝐬 '𝐫𝐞𝐝 𝐰𝐚𝐥𝐥' 𝐜𝐫𝐮𝐦𝐛𝐥𝐞𝐬

Boris Johnson hailed his new blue-collar Tory army today as it emerged he is on track to secure a staggering landslide in the election battle - with Labour's 'red wall' of Brexit-backing strongholds imploding.

A dramatic exit poll shows voters handing the Tories a massive 368 seats in the first December election for nearly a century, with Labour languishing on 191 - down 71 on 2017.

The bombshell numbers would give a huge Commons majority of 86, the biggest since Margaret Thatcher's triumph in 1987, and are equivalent to a 10-point lead in the popular vote.

By contrast Jeremy Corbyn looks to have stewarded the party to its worst performance since 1935 - despite his allies claiming earlier that high turnout might have helped him pull off a surprise.

Early results bore out the extraordinary findings, with the Tories overturning an 8,000 majority to rip the former mining area of Blythe Valley from Labour's grip for the first time ever. The party's candidate won by 700 votes after securing an incredible 10.2 per cent swing.

There were also enormous movements from Labour to the Conservatives in Houghton & Sunderland South, Sunderland Central, and Newcastle Upon-Tyne Central - although the party held on.

The exit poll sparked scenes of jubilation in CCHQ, with staff singing and dancing following a month of brutal political struggle as Mr Corbyn tried desperately to sell his hard-Left agenda to the UK public.

That's what you get for betraying your voters. Send the immigrants back!

Foreshadowing Trump.

as an outsider, I just have to assume at some point Britain is done with squirming and scrounging and wishing it would all go away and just saying, fuck it, we're here, do it!

Oh please with the "Far left agenda" and "now a moderate" crap and posting articles from right-wing UK sites like the Telegraph (which are part of the problem).

There's a few points of contention that need to be addressed, and they are not necessarily "far left". They're more authoritarian than anything. It needs to be removed from all the parties, not just Labour.

Enjoy losing more elections, r113.

I peeked at Owen Jones' twitter and just as I expected - the bitch is a mess!!

How should we celebrate this historic win for the UK?

Corbyn is too old and too old school. Labour needs another suave charmer like Tony Blair if they want to win an election.

Labour needs an Idea. I say this as a yank, but even I could see, no idea, whatsoever. Boris is an asshole, but he had an idea. Lets get this shit over with. Labour had no idea other than, let's dick around forever.

R116: Well, should we begin the countdown for when Scotland votes to leave the UK or the countdown for when Northern Ireland votes to become an autonomous province of the Republic of Ireland? Or should it be the countdown to when the Welsh nationalist movement takes off and votes for Devolution Max for Wales? Which countdown would you like to begin tonight as the biggest pig imaginable ruts in at Downing Street for 5 awful years. They'll get their Brexit, and then they'll spend the remaining 4 years and 10 months bitching and moaning and screaming and HATING this pig and his government. The job approvals will be underwater by Spring.

Right now the knives are out for Jeremy Corbyn as the Labor Party is set to suffer its worst result ever.

They are losing long held seats, some they have held for 50 years, some of the safest Labor seats. It seems Labor voters are voting Conservative just to get on with the Brexit deal once and for all

So these Labor voters who are switching their vote are doing for one reason only, to get Brexit done once and for all.

sounds like jeremy corbyn should go. may be a great guy, but apparently everyone hates him.

'So these Labor voters who are switching their vote are doing for one reason only, to get Brexit done once and for all'

Brexit is going to take a decade. Once Brits have waited for hours in the non EU line for their passports to be processed in Spain and Greece, instead of breezing through, they will all regret this.

It starts.

There seems to be a lesson that when the people make a final, immutable decision in a referendum, they will hold you accountable if you try to thwart the result of that referendum.

[quote]There seems to be a lesson that when the people make a final, immutable decision in a referendum, they will hold you accountable if you try to thwart the result of that referendum.

...except it wasn't. It was a non-binding referendum on a simple majority. Nobody expected it to pass.

Democracy is over-rated.

Corbyn needs to go. Tomorrow.

[quote]Once Brits have waited for hours in the non EU line for their passports to be processed in Spain and Greece, instead of breezing through, they will all regret this.

Yes, the amount of time in a passport control queue is much more important than national sovereignty and self-determination.

BNO News @BNONews BREAKING: Jeremy Corbyn says he will step down as Labour Party leader before the next election

Also, hahaha:

BNO News @BNONews · 14m BREAKING: Liberal Democrats leader Jo Swinson loses her seat in parliament by just 149 votes

Jo Swinson and her "there is no biological sex" nonsense.

[quote]Jo Swinson and her "there is no biological sex" nonsense.

She deserved to lose just for that alone.

All because an aging, mildewy population is afraid of young, dark-skinned immigrants.

[quote]All because an aging, mildewy population is afraid of young, dark-skinned immigrants.

You know that smear tactic just lost, right?

"All because an aging, mildewy population is afraid of young, dark-skinned immigrants."

Don't be such a simp, that is not the reason why.

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They're not ill-informed and ignorant. They are informed but with the wrong information.

He's such an asshole.

[quote]All because an aging, mildewy population is afraid of young, dark-skinned immigrants.

You never will learn.

I think voters knew they had to send a big message to Corbyn otherwise they knew he'd stay on as leader. I'm curious how long he stays, no doubt he'll try to get one of his followers as leader.

Pound SURGES to its highest level against the euro since 2016 just after the Brexit referendum and hits $1.35 as Boris Johnson sweeps to victory

As a Canadian, this is the first time I've been envious of England. We're still stuck with the woketard Trudeau.

R135 For once I agree with Piers. And this is coming from someone opposed to Brexit. The thing is there was already a referrendum. They need to listen to the people. It was a democratic decision to leave and they need to respect that. I honestly think people just got tired of the bullshit and not knowing what might happen. At least now Brexit is a done deal.

R124 Nailed it.

r141 Hahahahahaha Trudeau is awesome.

They must be in a tizzy at The Guardian.

R122 What are you talking about? I'm Norwegian and Norway isn't in the EU. I have no trouble visiting EU countries.

[quote] How should we celebrate this historic win for the UK?

By pointing and laughing when it becomes apparent just what a disaster Boris Johnson and Brexit are.

Are Emma Thompson & Hugh Grant on suicide watch?

[quote]How should we celebrate this historic win for the UK?

Throw out German beer and french fries.

R141 = Andrew Scheer, crying after stepping down as Conservative leader today.

Except r142, Labour's policy is to leave the EU and Corbyn has spent his life opposing the EU. I didn't vote Labour precisely because Corbyn is a Brexiter and he would have pulled us out of the EU anyway.

R146, I'm surprised you don't know about your own country, but Norway is in the European Economic Area, which means you have freedom of movement throughout the EEA/EU and is also in the Schengen zone, which means border-free travel.

Britain is leaving the EU because we supposedly don't want to have the same privileges to travel and live and work throughout the EU/EEA as you do.

It's a shame how much damage Corbyn has caused to the Labour Party. A better leader might have beaten Boris.

Now the UK is stuck with its own Trump for 4 more years.

Yes r139. It's actually better that Labour lost so badly because otherwise it would have been far more difficult to get the message through to Corbyn and his acolytes that he needs to go and their policies need to be dumped.

^ 5 years actually

Yeah, I suppose that's one redeeming thing about the Labour loss -- it makes it easier to get rid of Corbyn and have a better shot of winning next time.

The People have spoken.

Thoughts and prayers for Owen Jones.

Globalization was a positive force in the beginning, but like anything left unchecked, became destructive over time. That day has come and gone. No going back now.

Labour deserted the working classes and has been decimated because of it and for turning its back on Brexit and Democracy.

Labour voters voted Conservative in massive numbers because of one thing. Being ignored over Brexit.

As a remainer myself, at what point did they think it was right to dismiss the referendum results, insulting voters by saying people didn’t know what they were voting for and asking for a redo, and blocking the Brexit deal just because it was delivered by Boris? Now we’ll get an even harder Brexit thanks to idiots like Tony Blair who should have been in jail.

The Conservative landslide can be credited to one person Tony Blair, whos undemocratic open door policy flooded the UK with economic migrants and made the British people feel like strangers in their own country.

All this mess started with war criminal Tony Fucking Bliar.

I think it's wrong to conflate this election as a referendum on Brexit - to me, it's more a referendum on Corbyn, who's immensely unpopular. He was not a Remainer either.....and very controversial because of the naked anti-semitism, etc. I think this vote was designed as people said above, on sending a message to Labour to get rid of Corbyn and to come up with a viable set of policies which could actually improve the lot of the working class in Britain. But since the ultimate goal of the Conservatives is destruction of the security net for workers in Britain, there will be a backlash, as there was after Maggie Thatcher. When people see their health care, and their housing, and the "dole", and inexpensive higher education eliminated, they will remember, belatedly, that Tories are not the friends of working people. In the meantime, as others have said, I'm going to start planning some vacations in Britain, because the economy WILL tank even further, and why not visit when the dollar is on a par with the pound as it soon will be?

Corbyn hated Jews and gays.

Corbyn is leader and voters totally rejected him, there's no reason to make it more complicated than that. Bringing up Tony Blair is stupid

Labour voters were forced to vote Conservative because Labour ignored Brexit.

So much for the theory that Brexiters are white nationalists.

Tony Blair should be applauded. He single handedly created Brexit and destroyed the once powerful Labour party.

R166 and loves Muslims.

R125 The Cameron government promised to respect the result of the referendum.

Hmm, I felt like Brexit was one of the few clear signs that "predicted" Trump before the 2016 election. Maybe they're not really that closely correlated, but this makes me even more uneasy about 2020.

[quote] When people see their health care, and their housing, and the "dole", and inexpensive higher education eliminated, they will remember, belatedly, that Tories are not the friends of working people.

[quote] In the meantime, as others have said, I'm going to start planning some vacations in Britain, because the economy WILL tank even further, and why not visit when the dollar is on a par with the pound as it soon will be?

The NHS and “housing” has [italic]already[/italic] been partially “eliminated” in practice, R165. The NHS is in a HUGE DEFICIT (despite the government increasing the NHS budget every fiscal year). People are being treated in [italic]corridors[/italic] as there aren’t enough patient rooms (space) for everyone anymore. Waiting times have also surged to 4-6+ hours to see a doctor “urgently” sometimes. London’s population became unsustainable - the infrastructure is NOT coping well.

Why? Because instead of getting educated immigrant-visa nurses (from all across the wider world - Japan, Cuba, the US, etc), we’re getting a barrage of mostly EU MANUAL workers from Romania and Poland. But who’s going to treat all those manual workers? The Slovakians are generally sending us fewer doctors and more manual workers - who themselves need to be medically cared after whenever they suffer an injury at work or retire.

I was travelling to Heathrow from Central London recently - all trains were stopped because a person was accidentally crowd-pushed ON THE TRACKS. Why? Because small platforms + overload of people.

Have “fun” planning your “vacation” - the Tube (subway) is cramped like a tin of sardines. Traffic jams got worse. Central London feels like Time Square - you walk in a stampede of people.

As for “housing” - we’ve been in a housing crisis for a long time now. They even wanted to move the Grenfell Tower victims up north to Manchester - because London’s housing is hitting peak overload.

Well, London is a victim of its own success - not from immigrants, but because it was, until the past 2 years, the financial capital of the world and offered the best chance of financial success to workers from all parts of the UK. It is now hemorrhaging financial sector workers like crazy, and, in all likelihood, that will continue, so population pressures should be gradually decreasing.

R173

Me too.

When Brexit won, I suddenly gave Donald Trump a much higher chance of winning the election.

This landslide for the Tories is probably causing major heartburn in Brussels.

Voters will vote for a neo-fascist over a neo-communist if those are the only options on the menu. This should be a very powerful lesson for Democrats flirting with Warren or Sanders.

All these twits trying to say that Labour lost because they opposed Brexit and ignored the working class are forgetting (probably because they are trolls) that the vast majority of Labour voters are remainers, yet despite that the party's actual policy was to leave the EU, and that Jeremy Corbyn is a lifelong opponent of the EU who is in thrall to the (mythical) working class and his whole political ideology is about class warfare.

R178 And yet he refused to choose a side when he was interrogated by Andrew Neil. That's enough for a lot of people. Many seats that were historically Labour went to Tory because people want to get Brexit done.

[quote] Corbyn hated Jews and gays.

You are so full of shit.

53% voted to stay or to have another referendum, but they're still leaving. That's your first-past- the-post democracy in action!

Yes r179, Corbyn, the supposed man of principle, couldn't even take a position on the biggest issue of the day. Don't forget, though, that he only came round to "supporting" a referendum a couple of months ago. But as Corbyn himself said, he was going to secure a great deal that would be even better than EU membership...

He's so full of shit. At least his bullshit "ambiguous" strategy failed, so we can lay the blame for this defeat where it belongs, with him.

The Left is horrible at politics and getting worse

[quote] 53% voted to stay or to have another referendum, but they're still leaving. That's your first-past- the-post democracy in action!

You can’t just dump people’s votes. That’s like having a do-over presidential election during the Obama era. It’s done.

Furthermore, Brexit would be voted FOR again.

[quote] Well, London is a victim of its own success - not from immigrants, but because it was, until the past 2 years, the financial capital of the world and offered the best chance of financial success to workers from all parts of the UK.

You mean Arabs along with acid attacks and knife crimes.

Jo swinson should be an example to US democrats that leading your campaign on a crusade for tranny acceptance is a sure way to lose. People are starving to death and she was more concerned with allowing men into women’s locker rooms.

3 years after Trump's election, and exit polls seem to be just as unreliable. CNN was predicting a Labor victory.

Well, they elected him and it's a disaster, but it's what they want. Labour has GOT to get rid immediately of Jeremy Corbyn, who has been dragging them down for years.

R53, FDR had to convince Churchill to free the colonies. He was against colonialism as practiced by the British.

What a disaster for Great (and less so all the time) Britain. R190, yes he was opposed to the holdings of the Empire, but not the American holdings in the South Pacific and Caribbean- FDR was a bit of a hypocrite in that respect.

[quote] During this early period in his administration, Roosevelt scored his greatest foreign policy success through his "good neighbor" policy towards Latin America and countries of the Western Hemisphere. In actuality, Hoover began the "Good Neighbor" initiative and Roosevelt merely followed his predecessor's course. But under FDR's watch, the last American troops withdrew from the Caribbean, and the United States abrogated the Platt Amendment, wherein the government of Cuba had pledged to recognize the right of the United States to intervene in its country. Moreover, the United States supported the 1933 Pan-American Conference resolution which stipulated that no country had the right to intervene in the internal or foreign affairs of another country. FDR even accepted Mexico's 1938 nationalization of its oil industry—which expropriated American assets—rejecting calls for intervention and ordering the State Department to work out a compensation plan instead.

Well that kinda destroyed the myth that UKers wouldn’t vote for Brexit again. I fear it is an indication of how 2020 US elections will go. While NYers can’t imagine anyone would vote for Trump again, the “average American” will have no problem continuing with the destruction of our country.

The left trying to paint nationalism as something akin to Nazism has backfired. Today's economic nationalism has little in common with Hitler's expansionism.

[quote] Well, London is a victim of its own success - not from immigrants, but because it was, until the past 2 years, the financial capital of the world and offered the best chance of financial success to workers from all parts of the UK.

Not just "from all parts of the UK" - but "from all of the poorest parts of Southern and Eastern Europe", R175. The EU [italic]once used to be[/italic] more or less coherent - a collection of Western European states with somewhat comparable (middle to high) economic levels of development. Now [italic]that[/italic] was a more or less sustainable, organic "Union". The EU started out with 6 key member-states and grew a bit. But then, in the spirit of some bizarre megalomania, it bloated up to 28 random states and counting. And during this [italic]mismanaged[/italic] bloating up, the EU lost its general cohesion. In 2004, poor countries like Slovakia, Slovenia (Hello from “Verst Ladee”, Melania :), Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, etc all became part of the EU. In 2007, even poorer countries like Bulgaria and Romania joined in. In 2013, Croatia joined.

So now the EU has a stark, problematic East-West economic divide: poor, quite conservative Eastern members and richer, more liberal Western members. It’s a very unbalanced “union”. The Eastern members joined in the hope of getting $$$ from more well-to-do Western members - but Western members now have their own problems (still recovering from the financial crisis of 2008-9) and can’t afford to bankroll Hungary, etc for 15+ years and in perpetuity.

In the EU’s “visa-free, no-checks-at-all relocation model”, many Eastern Europeans are obviously tempted by this sudden economic opportunity and want to get the hell out of their home villages (very cold climate, long winters, lower wages, etc) and relocate visa-free to the West (milder climate, higher wages, etc). As the English language is the “lingua franca” (and one of the easiest to learn), most want to move to London as their first choice. They can earn in a week what they would earn in a month back home.

But it’s not a sustainable “union” dynamic. The white Eastern-European Polish have now overtaken even the Indians as the biggest “minority” in London. But with them moving to London - they need housing, they need healthcare, their offspring need school places - things which are [italic]already[/italic] in deficit in London. And most of these people didn’t leave behind their home towns to go freeze in a small, bleak Scottish town up north - they mostly want to squeeze into London or nearby.

And countries like Romania are now suffering from so many of their citizens leaving for “greener pastures” in London, etc. Romania, as a country, will never develop if their backbone workforce emigrates in droves. Under EU’s model, the temptation for poor people to leave Romania, etc behind is just too strong.

It’s a very unbalanced union and it leads to an unbalanced result. It’s like if too many people on the starboard side of a ship suddenly move to the port side of the ship - which makes the whole ship keel over under the double-weight on the starboard side.

[quote] I fear it is an indication of how 2020 US elections will go.

This is what the Washington Post said in a sub-headline today-

[quote] The shock waves from the victory for British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Conservatives are being felt far beyond the United Kingdom. Though the analogies are imperfect, what happened there has implications elsewhere, including the United States as it heads toward the 2020 election.

Biden feeling good today?

*port side, that is.

Also, Western European members accepted the Eastern members in the vain hope of changing their Eastern mentality into a more Western mentality. But it’s been 15 years now and the situation has proved to be a quagmire because the Eastern (Slavic, etc) members are largely stubbornly conservative as heck (and some, like Hungary and Poland, are even becoming more ultra-conservative by voting in very right-wing leaders). They don’t seem to want to change that much, they just want free $$$ from Britain, France and Germany without any conditions or caveats.

This week, the EU declared it wants to adopt “greener policies” across the board. But the Eastern countries e.g. Poland, etc, declared they’re “too poor” and therefore won’t comply. Before this, the EU wanted to pass more gay-friendly legislation - Hungary balked and said they won’t comply, and Poland backed them up. Lol, what kind of “union” has this [italic]become[/italic]? There’s nothing “united” or harmonious about this unmanageable "new" EU - it became a walking contradiction and a shadow of what it once used to be.

R197, isn't Greece the biggest freeloader in the EU?

CHAOS: Far Left #ElectionResults2019 protesters are FIGHTING with police according to this video from

[quote] Lol, what kind of “union” has this become? There’s nothing “united” or harmonious about this unmanageable "new" EU

Like the UNITED states?

The United States are far more manageable than the EU countries, which are drastically different from each other in the ways the states are not.

I think you're right that the EU has a tougher time keeping countries together because the differences are greater than in America. Even so, Alabama feels a bit like Poland to us. It still feels like the differences are great enough to make us question just how united we are.

R202, but all of the people in America--well, most of them--identify as Americans first before being Illinoisans, Floridians, Texans, etc. The US has successfully managed to create a national identity that members of its fifty states can rally behind. The EU hasn't managed to do this yet.

The US of A at least has shared history and an inter-connectedness of culture. What do Britain and Slovakia have in common? Or Belgium and Romania? The historic and cultural differences are too divergent.

It also doesn't help matters that most Eastern European countries are predominantly quite ethnically homogenous / not very diverse :). Being "white" countries, they don't even want to accept immigrants themselves (contrary to the EU's policy of accepting asylum-seekers from the African continent and the Arab peninsula and hoping to allocate them evenly between member-states). So why should Western European members accept white immigrants from Eastern European member-states - if even the latter themselves don't want to follow similar rules?

R204, many of these EU countries probably HATE each other deep down. I mean, how many wars did the European nations have with each other over the centuries? That degree of rabid hatred isn't there today, but it takes surprisingly little to ignite tensions that are festering deep down. This is why The EU still hasn't managed to create a unified entity.

The Eastern EU states remind me of the deep-southern states here--they are backwaters. But hey, at least they have nicer architecture than Alabama, right?

[quote] 3 years after Trump's election, and exit polls seem to be just as unreliable. CNN was predicting a Labor victory.

YouGov predicted both correctly.

Yes, R198, Greece is a freeloader. Portugal is struggling as well. An economic union can more or less survive with a few freeloaders or "economically struggling" states. But if you increase that number to nearly half of the entire union - that's creating a stark problem. It's then becoming a bit of a grand-scale charity project. But the taxpayers of the richer countries (some of which are struggling themselves now) didn't sign up for a mass-scale charity project in perpetuity when they joined the (original) EU.

R207, exactly. Germany is covering a lot of these freeloading states.

[quote] YouGov predicted both correctly.

Two days ago from CNBC

Pound shaken as UK election poll puts Johnson outright win in doubt

Sterling took a dip on Wednesday as a voter poll raised the prospect of a hung parliament – in which no one party has a governing majority – at Thursday’s general election in the U.K.

The pound weakened against the dollar, weakening to $1.3107 earlier on Wednesday before rebounding to $1.3151,

The YouGov MRP poll showed the Tories could win 339 seats (22 more than they took in 2017) and a vote share of 43%. The MRP poll is one of very few surveys that roughly predicted the result of the 2017 election.

Its latest findings estimate that the Conservative’s predicted majority has been cut down to 28 seats from 68 seats two weeks ago, with Labour closing the gap on the Tories.

This came after a new YouGov MRP poll showed that the number of seats the ruling Conservative Party are expected to win had declined.

--------------

Just like MSNBC, CNBC is full of shit. The fish rots from the head.

[quote] But hey, at least they have nicer architecture than Alabama, right?

Lol, yes, absolutely. E.g. Budapest has lovely architecture. Slovenia (Melania's homeland) is very picturesque too. It's a pity that many Eastern European member-states, including Hungarians, are by and large such obstinate homophobes. The EU tried to soften them up by plying them with cash and loans - Hungary took the cash ... and expressed its gratitude by giving the EU the proverbial finger and becoming even more stubbornly homophobic. It's a real shame because the country is beautiful.

[quote] "According to a new [2019] survey by the Eurobarometer, most Hungarians are extremely dismissive of LBGTI people, and the rate has greatly [italic]increased[/italic] over the last few years. This attitude is consistent across most issues connected with LGBTI rights, and it is in line with Fidesz's policy."

[quote] "Hungary and Poland have come out as the EU capitals of homophobia by boycotting a gay rights declaration. Hungary's employment minister and Poland's "family minister" were the only ones who declined to back the text in Brussels on Thursday (6 December [2018]), which urged the creation of a "safe" environment on the internet for young "LGBTIQ persons" and other minorities."

R210, that's fucked up. It is the same thing with Russia--they were actually LESS homophobic than they are now. I think it is the same with Poland. Right-wing nationalism is bad in Western Europe and America but far worse in Eastern Europe.

Antigay sentiment is a global rallying cry and unified among different antiwestern forces, from Islamists to PanAfricans, to Eastern Europeans, to Russians, to religious conservatives.

Eurobarometer 2019 poll results for % of people in each country who "total agree" with the statement that "Gay, lesbian and bisexual people should have the same rights as heterosexual people." The range is from Slovakia (31%) to Sweden (98%). I don't think there is that much of variance in the USA, even in states like Alabama (I think the numbers are closer to the mid or upper 40s in Alabama, could be wrong though).

Why is Slovakia so conservative?

Czechia is not exactly progay

There is no correlation between what happened in the UK and what will happen in the US. Anyone claiming so is a lazy, intellectually bankrupt asshole. *waves at Captain Bareback Sullivan*

R214, because Slovakia has always historically been moderately poor and provincial. Poor and provincial places generally tend to be "traditionalist" = conservative.

I'm so happy for the british. I hope they send the black apes back to Africa aka the greatest shithole in human history.

Personally I think that UK should kick immigrants, but starting with the Eatern Eurpean ones. They can go back to their homophobic cesspools of countries.

Brexit was ironically more about white immigrants. I remember there was a scandal about a bus in London with the phrase "Bulgarians, go home" or something to that effect. Bulgarians are white (think Nina Dobrev from the "Vampire Diaries"). As are Poles. As are Slovakians. As are most visa-free migrants to Britain from the EU.

Come on, r165. The vote was above all about Brexit. Both Corbyn and Boris were equally imperfect as candidates for various reasons. The worst both parties have ever had, and they had them at the same time. Labour and the Lib Dems were seen as the only hope of staying in the EU and both got routed.

Some American conservatives are "happy" with the results, but not entirely happy with the results.

This is from the National Review which I won't link to because DL sensitivities.

[quote] Congrats Boris, R.I.P Fiscal Conservatism

[quote] In order to win his majority, Johnson had to vigorously contest seats in traditional Labour constituencies whose distaste for the Tory party is deeply ingrained. Perhaps free-spending promises were the only way to win those voters over, and thus to guarantee five years of Conservative government and achieve Brexit. But we should be clear about the cost: In order to win, he abandoned a core conservative principle and locked himself into an unrealistic economic platform.

[quote] Though the liberal government Johnson heads is vastly preferable to Corbynista rule, the parameters of British economics just took a large step to the left. If a nominally conservative party lacks either the courage or the communications skills to sell conservative economics when it can boast of having reduced unemployment to a 44-year-low and when its opponent promises to implement unreconstructed socialism, it bodes ill for those on either side of the Atlantic who wonder whether any party will ever even gesture in the direction of sane fiscal policy again.

[quote] Well, guess what. Labour’s “radical” manifesto of 2019 achieved precisely nothing. Not one proposal in it will be implemented, not one pound in it will be spent. It is worthless. And if judged not by the academic standard of “expanding the discourse”, but by the hard, practical measure of improving actual people’s actual lives, those hate figures of Corbynism – Tony Blair and Gordon Brown – achieved more in four hours than Corbyn achieved in four years. Why? Because they did what it took to win power.

[quote] That’s what a political party is for. It’s not a hobby; it’s not a pressure group that exists to open the Overton window a little wider; it’s not an association for making friends or hosting stimulating conversations and seminars; it’s not “a 30-year project”. Its purpose is to win and exercise power in the here and now. It is either a plausible vehicle for government or it is nothing.

R223, these Corbyn lovers care more about "purity" than they do about political strategy or winning elections. And when they lose elections, their response is like that of Alan Greenspan when the 2008 crash happened (to paraphrase): " I had no idea that this would happen--I am shocked and confused!". Well, that's what happens when you close yourself off from all the other people in your territory who think differently from you.

What is the UK's economy based on? Do they produce anything good? I enjoy British Airways. Quite decent airline and Heathrow Airport is very efficient in my experience.

Who were the people propping Corbyn up? Angry young bitches who announce their pronouns before they shout at you?

R225, they export fake British teeth for major Hollywood films such as "Deliverance",

[quote] What is the UK's economy based on?

Stashing & converting (into shares, financial products, real estate and trusts) all the shady cash from multi-millionaires & multi-billionaires from across the whole globe. Just like Switzerland.

The Republic of Ireland does the same - just as a #1 tax-haven for companies.

As long as there are billionaires in the world looking for a safe place to park their money - Britain will be fine.

R228, aside from London's central location, I think that is a big reason London has (I should say "had") replaced NYC as the global financial capital, all these foreign billionaires LOVE to move to London because they will not be "penalized" the way foreign billionaires would be in America.

Brexit will affect the corporate side of banking - which did move to NYC to an extent. But in terms of private wealth management and hedge funds - London and Geneva will always be the classic go-to destinations. The ultra-rich Saudis, Qataris, Lebanese, Russians, Nigerians, Chinese, etc don't care that much about Brexit. They send their kids to private boarding schools in Britain, they shop in Knightsbridge, they enjoy buying mansions in Surrey.

All these "nouveau riche" types choose London / Britain because its historical heritage gives them an air of "vieux riche / old-money" respectability. NYC simply won't do in that respect.

In 2020 Nancy will be like Jeremy, Donald will be Boris.

I'm telling you now so I don't have to tell you then.

R231 thinks Pelosi is running for President.

Yeah, it's like this dizzy queen is desperate just to spread doom and gloom and make herself seem like an intellectual for drawing comparisons between yesterday's vote and 2020.

R231: Pelosi is not running against Trump. I'm calling you a retard now so I can call you one later.

I also sensed a Trump win after the Bexit vote in the UK. No one believed me. I sense it again this time.

Boris is like Trump without all the baggage.

Chump is truly corrupt and incompetent while Boris pretends to be a baffon, it's his thing

Why will it take five years to get rid of Boris/the Conservatives?

r238 That's the next scheduled election unless Boris calls an election which he wouldn't since he has a strong majority.

Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, Ed Milliband, Jeremy Corbyn. It doesn't get any better than this. Seriously, that's the best that Labour has to offer. It's time to dissolve the party and replace it with something more moderate.

Tony Blair's wretched "third way" pushed "New" Labour way past moderation into centre-right pro-privatization and anti-union policies, as well as into Iraq.

"New Labour" is the same as "Neo Liberalism" in the US. Corporate-friendly and generally awful for the people.

Thought this was an interesting article on the failure of left-wing journalism:

(Owen J. is cute but I also want to slap him viciously).

There is no question the "Left" needs to regroup and develop new strategies and messages. Unfortunately, the coming environmental disaster will also generate profound economic displacements which may sold "the Left problem"... dictatorship of the proletariat might be running parallel to total dystopia. Trump may well be re-elected, but his vision of autocratic nativism won't survive. What replaces it is unknown, but likely totalitarian either from the Right or the Left. Maybe a nice cottage close to the coast, a few miles north of Vancouver would be a safe place...……..

Why don't they bring that other bimbo Boris back. Boris Yeltsin. Oh he's dead. Too bad we could have a trifecta of dunces running the world in 2020 if Trump wins.

r245 we already have Putin in Russia who is looting the country and slowly turning it into an authoritarian state like China, with himself as the emperor for life, the way Xi Jinping is in China, now.

The only good thing about Russia is that the populace is so distrustful and manipulative and sneaky that no one wants to be in a partnership with them.

[quote]Over the last few weeks, Left-wing outlets have published multiple variants of the “I am voting Corbyn because of [emotive personal reason]” column. Individually compelling as every single one of them may be, all they are is the story of one person’s ballot. They don’t dig into what’s happening in the country, and they rarely explain why anyone who doesn’t share [emotive personal reason] should make the same choice. Nor is there much effort to understand why people would vote differently, beyond bad-faith accusations of privilege and racism that seem unlikely to sway the uncertain.

From the UnHerd article, this also exactly describes DLers who have only expressed a party preference based on [emotive personal reason]. You could scan the threads and only rarely find any anti-Tory or pro-Labour supporter who made a case based on the current issues or legislative proposals. Boris had "Get Brexit Done" and Trump had "Build the Wall: Both very focused and specific. You can't convince other people to vote your way by just sharing your emotion. You have to have something specific that you want to achieve legislatively.

[quote] "New Labour" is the same as "Neo Liberalism" in the US. Corporate-friendly and generally awful for the people.

Oh, please. New Labour made Britain prosperous. If Blair hadn’t fallen for Bush’s bs, he would have gone down as one of the greatest PMs in history.

[quote] Unfortunately, the coming environmental disaster

Keep dreaming, hon. That ain’t happening.

Fewer immigrants, more overall misery. That is the tradeoff that Britain has chosen. I guess they had their reasons.

R247 A certain bullshit quotient there. Seems like wise analysis, but with no real data to confirm it. Civil rights was [emotive personal reason} as was "I don't want to fight and die in Vietnam" and those were powerful political drivers. "I hate the elite coastal liberals who disparage me as a deplorable" was an [emotive personal reason] that elected a dictator.

R250 Not Britain, England. Scotland and Northern Ireland didn't elect tory members. Scotland will be independent of England and return to the EU within a year or two. Scotexit from UK.

Scotland doesn't just get to do that r252. But it will make for an interesting fight next year.

r251, you missed the central point that there are personal reasons, like the ones you described, which don't make a case to convince others to vote your way.

R252 Dumb ass they won't give Scotland another referendum.

R255 It's already in the planning. Scotland already has autonomy from the "them" that you seem to think has unassailable authority.

^^ planning for a vote for independence, not reuniting with EU. Independence is the first step.

I wonder if it will be actual war. Will Mel Gibson show up? It's kind of weird, but what if Scotland actually, truly secedes? What happens then?

The United Kingdom should provide incentives to get English people to move to Scotland. That's the way to dilute the rebellion.

R256 Well they certainly can try. But they will be out of the EU BEFORE they can have another referendum which they won't get. It will also take years for them to rejoin the EU assuming they could get one and no country vetoed them.

They had a referendum in 2014 and 55% voted NO. It's funny how people live in a democratic country but have no respect of democracy. It's the same with people calling for a second Brexit referendum.

If Scotland forges ahead, look for it to go like Catalonia with the troops being called in and Sturgeon being charged with sedition.

yeah, that might happen r261. I wonder what happens next though. Right now, she is this very conventional politician with a party. Would it be just hey okay if she were actually arrested and thrown in jail as some kind of subversive? I suspect not. And America takes Britain so much more seriously than we take Spain. Would we be okay with that? I suspect not.

Trump would TOTALLY be on board with Boris jailing his enemies.

Trump would. Trump is going to stretch this old constitution we have to the actual limit. Trump thinks he is king. We need to decide if he is.

[quote] Scotland will be independent of England and return to the EU within a year or two.

No it will not. Not only can it not survive without Britain, only parliament (Boris) can grant them a referendum and they have said NO. Scotland ain’t going anywhere.

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Nicola is a nationalist who wants independence while wanting to join the EU, thus giving up independence. She’s an idiot.

They want all the asylum seekers gone, and I don’t blame them. They’re ruining the UK.

"I just don't get it, we've spent the last 3 and a half years calling working class people fascist scum, Nazi pigs, Little Englanders, Brexshitters and morons and then when you ask for their vote, the bastards vote against us!"

only the asylum seekers, r268? Or every immigrant? Be honest.

R270 Muslim immigrants specifically.

R266 Did anyone spot Hugh Grant and/or Emma Thompson?

They could drag the river to find Hugh.

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So funny. The Green Party woman who kept her seat in Brighton was claiming that Boris getting in will basically, ruin the planet.

"we need to ask ourselves how this has happened"

How do you think it happened, you moron?

She goes on...

"the scientists have warned that the next 18 months are critical if we're to avoid runaway climate chaos"

She's a fucking riot.

Spiggie says:

[quote]My feelings exactly! Devastated today and my [bold]only comfort is that we still have Caroline.[/bold]

Richard says:

[quote]Chin up!

[quote]My God, this woman stands tall against the charlatans we have just elected.

More from Caroline.

R275 Poor baby. Democracy is such a bitch!

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Here's what the polling in r199 twitter link revealed:

"NEW Opinium poll

The main reasons people did not vote Labour — The leadership (43%) — Brexit (17%) — Their economic policies (12%)

Pretty much what I said very early in this thread. This was not a Brexit vote so much as a personal repudiation of Corbyn.

Corbyn was the personification of terrible policies and positions that the voters repudiated. As the face of those policies, it's no wonder he has taken the blame.

To Jeremy Corbyn's credit he has accepted responsibility for the loss very quickly.

Unlike Australian Labor Party leader Bill Shorten who was ahead in the polls for 3 YEARS and everyone expected to win only to see the Conservatives lead by happy-clappy Scott Morrison win. And 6 months later Bill Shorten still can barely accept blame or responsibility and the Labor Party lost in Australia mainly because people simply didn't like and more importantly TRUST Bill Shorten.

Not that people trusted Scott Morrison but at least with ScoMo - what you see is what you get. Bill Shorten was all about his own ego.

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Gay snog @ link

(I'll link it @ R287 due to Independent DL issues).

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[quote] New opinion poll: The main reasons people did not vote Labour — The leadership (43%) — Brexit (17%) — Their economic policies (12%)

[quote] Corbyn was the personification of terrible policies and positions that the voters repudiated

But that new poll suggests it wasn't as much about Corbyn's "policies", but about his "leadership". I guess that's about him allowing his party to fracture - however, a very similar thing happened to the Tories. Or perhaps about him not taking a clear position on Brexit.

I do, however, question that opinion poll. I think Corbyn's more far-left nationalisation ideas were too much for corporate interests & private corporate employees and played a bigger role than the mere "12%-role" the poll suggests. Also, people who dared to say they supported Brexit were often vilified as 'xenophobes' over the past few years - so people now give alternative, more 'polite-society' reasons for their vote. But dig a little deeper and a different picture may emerge.

Where "leadership" is concerned, Corbyn is no great orator for sure and is a bit of a wet rag when it comes to personality (only slightly better than Gordon Brown). But did people really vote for the organgutan-looking cro-magnon Johnson mainly because of "leadership"? I mean Alexander 'Boris' Johnson does have the gift of the gab - but most of it is transparent waffling pronounced in an offputtingly upper-class, ultra-posh accent. Britons [italic]know[/italic] upper-class people and know they're usually full of fluff. Johnson has been failing upwards his whole life. He often looks like's he's missing a few IQ points and was an utter incompetent embarrassment as Foreign Secretary.

[quote]in an offputtingly upper-class, ultra-posh accent.

Which class accent would you prefer?

YOUR class? Which class is that?

Would you prefer it if he spoke like THIS? >

This is a LUUUVELY accent.

[quote]I mean Alexander 'Boris' Johnson does have the gift of the gab - but most of it is transparent waffling pronounced in an offputtingly [bold]upper-class, ultra-posh accent. Britons know upper-class people[/bold] and know they're usually full of fluff.

Typical class obsessed Brit.

I would love to put Owen J. over my knee and give him a sound spanking.

Tne Conservative election landslide can be attributed to Tony Blair who opened the floodgates to Migrants "secretly" and allowed whole sections of the UK to be settled by opposing ethnic groups who were allowed NOT to integrate into British society and who were given priority on Housing, Health Care and Education. When the British people discovered they had to wait for 3 to 4 weeks to see a Doctor, could not get a Council House, Could not get their children into local schools and when they did discover 30 different languages were being spoken so their children were not getting a proper education they started to ask questions. Then they were branded bigots and racists for having the audacity to ask "What is going on and why were we not asked if we wanted unlimited third world migration". London is full of ethnic gangs, Black on Black murder is through the roof, ordinary Britsh people have moved out of London in droves as even hearing English spoken in some areas is rare. The police are handcuffed by political correctness, government honesty, and press honesty on terrorist threats in the UK is suppressed. All this mess lands at the feet of Tony Blair who did admit a few years ago that he didn't realize the impact uncontrolled immigration would have in the UK...Realy? Well, Thanks, Tony for forcing Brexit upon us when your Eutopian experiment failed and for creating ethnic tensions that will echo for years in the future in the UK.

R293 It might help to remember that Blair has been paid handsomely by the UAE and the Sauds. It might also help to remember the trillions of pounds invested in real estate, politics and media by various Gulf regimes.

R292 I suspect he may just love that.

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

R289/290, I would prefer someone who doesn't speak like Alexander 'Boris' de Pfeffel Johnson - like a vinyl record that got stuck: "I - I -I - think - think - think - and - and - and". He often talks like he's flustered and confused / flabbergasted. He doesn't have a stammer - but he mimics it for some bizarre reason. It takes him a whole minute to get through one simple sentence because he repeats every other word 3 times. And his accent is over-the-top. He puts it on heavy - because he's in love with the pompous sound of his own voice. David Cameron was posh as well - but even he didn't put on such an over-the-top accent.

R291, I'm not the one who invented the British class system. In a system where you have aristocratic 'royals' reminding you everyday that there is a class system, it's hard to ignore it.

I also think his ultra-posh (not just posh but OTT-posh) accent is partially fake. He's using it to dodge questions and waffle:

Owen Jones needs to be the face and voice of Labour. He’ll be able to resonate with and bring back the working class laborers.

Why do working class people always vote against their self interest?

Are they afraid the wealthy won't be able to feed and clothe their families?

To the poster above the Tories lost seats in Scotland, a considerable number, but held on to six. Labour has only one.

[quote] Why do working class people always vote against their self interest?

Working class people vote in favor of their self interest. Elites and other non-working class people tell the working class what their interests should be and the working class, who know best what their self-interest is, disagree. We just saw that play out in the UK election.

Elections are bad for democracy.

[quote]We just saw that play out in the UK election.

What we saw is people who decided they didn't want a monster for a Prime Minister. It's not complicated.

R157 yes they have, Boris rules!!!

[quote] Why do working class people always vote against their self interest?

Because BOTH main parties have big policies that hurt the working class. The working class was put between a rock and a hard place and had to decide which of 2 bad options might be the 'least bad'. Not a very enviable position.

Labour supports completely unvetted, uncontrolled, unchecked "free movement" of poor white immigrants (mostly manual labourers) from various parts of the EU to Britain. That's bad for many in the working class - because that's direct competition to them. Let's say you have a mom&pop food stall / pie-shop in Greater Manchester - then 10 Slovenians move in and open up 10 pie-shops on the same street as you. Your revenue will generally go down because of the sudden increased competition. Slovenians are used to living on a shoe-string budget (and are sometimes desperate enough to even ignore their own health & safety and work in risky conditions), so they can price undercut you and push down wages.

For other (non-EU) countries (e.g. Thai, Chinese) - there's a general quota / limit for how many of such economic migrants can come in and open stores (so as to offer some protection for domestic workers and their wages). But for e.g. Slovenians - there's no quota. Slovenia is a country of 2 million people - if they decide to, they can ALL up and move to Manchester. There's literally nothing stopping them under the "free movement" principle. And that is an economic problem for blue-collar people in certain areas who work as Über-type cabbies, sole traders, little-shop owners.

The Tories were always the party for corporate, anti-union interests - which can also hurt the working class.

So basically, at the moment, there's no party that fully listens to the economic worries of the domestic working class. But they're angrier at Labour because Labour was [italic]supposed[/italic] to represent & protect the interests of [italic]domestic[/italic] workers as a priority, not foreign, non-voting economic workers.

R269 And absolutely nothing has happened since 2014... like England dragging Scotland out of the EU. Scotland voted 62% remain in the Brexit election. So "respect for democracy" mean what? But, oh, Scotland is part of GB so it's vote doesn't count and it can't exit UK. Democracy, by definition, is a structure that captures the changing opinions of the populace. Trump was elected in 2016 (by the electoral college) so we need to respect democracy and not vote again.

Corbyn's three sons defend their dad...

One of his sons looks Jewish. Weird

If Scotland prefers to be in a "union" with e.g. former Yugoslavia rather than England - then so be it. But the "new, updated" EU is now comprised of many members that Scotland doesn't even know that much about. What does it really know about Slovakia or Slovenia? Can a regular Scot even find it on a map? Do the Scots feel more "unity" with Cyprus & Lithuania than the English & Welsh?

It will be interesting to see how much the EU will expect Scotland to contribute in terms of budget to all these developing member-states. Will Scotland be happy to be a "net contributor" to the EU budget while Greece & Poland remain as "net recipients"?

R310 Brexiteer logic, ha. Yeah, why would Scotland want any connection to Ireland or the Netherlands, you are so right.

But that's what Remainers forget, R311. You're not just "connected" to the RoI or the Dutch - you're ALSO saddled with monetary obligations to funnel money to the poor "new" members of the EU - the Slavs. The EU's membership has changed drastically in 2004, 2007 and 2013. It's unlikely Turkey will join in the near future - but after Erdogan is gone, they might also join and expect monetary handouts. Do the Scots like the idea of keeping a "connection" to Ireland and the Dutch [italic]on condition[/italic] of giving their taxpayers' money to the Slavs?

Poland’s president Andrzej Duda has lambasted the EU as an “imaginary community".

My MP, Ian Murray, is the last Labour MP left in Scotland. I remember back in 1997, it seemed astonishing when the Tories lost all of their seats in Scotland. Now they have five more than Labour.

r302, you're an idiot. You need to read Thomas Frank's book, "What's the matter with Kansas" in which he goes into great detail showing exactly how in one nuts and bolts instance after another the working class of that state voted against its own interests by getting sucked into propaganda which convinced them that people advocating for their interests (better schools, better health care, better wages, cleaner air and water) were elitists who were after their guns and decried their religion. This was a long-term plan executed by the Koch brothers, with their billions. (Not working class people by any stretch of the imagination, but they have managed to convince millions across America that what's good for THEM is good for the poor).

However, I won't deny that the political situation in Britain is not completely analagous to that of the US. First of all, large segments of Labour have been AGAINST unfettered immigration. Many in Labour were as anti-EU as any of the Tories. I think people both in the US and in Britain are somehow now equating Conservative with Brexit and Labour with Remain, but in fact probably equal numbers of politicians in both parties were either Brexiteers or Remainers. I think Owen (in the clip above) lays out a pretty convincing case that the policies of Labour would have been better for the working class of England than whatever Conservatives promise them, but confusion and propaganda have been hard at work making the case for Labour hard to articulate. And Jeremy Corbyn was ineffective in messaging and had some real weaknesses as a party leader.

TBH the EU should shed off the deplorable states (ie all of Eastern Europe with the exception of the Czech Republic). They would be much more better off economically and socially.

[quote]Now ex-council flats in parts of London sell for over a million pounds.

Wow, the poor people who bought them originally must have made a fortune.

Mrs. Thatcher encouraged the council tenants to buy the properties as many of them had paid 3 times the actual values of the properties over the years in rents. She also encouraged homeownership amongst the working classes as she knew a mortgage meant people had an incentive to work for a living and improve their lifestyle rather than sponge of the state and stay trapped in a socialist utopia where self-improvement and aspiration were seen as a negative.

I think there are too many countries in the EU and like the posters said up thread...they only want money and not do jack shit.

Leftists are entitled to their views, but Democrats and Labor should say no to their demands to remake our parties into radical, unelectable parties.

R318 Right, all those horrible socialist sinkholes like Denmark and Sweden where no one ever is aspirational (Nobel prizes) nor achieves anything (Denmark consistently the happiest country on earth). Austerity economics has been pretty thoroughly discredited, though it still drive many governments' "centralized control" of economies.

Denmark and Sweden aren’t Socialist.

Corbyn's article for the Guardian:

[quote] Progress does not come in a simple straight line. Even though we lost seats heavily on Thursday, I believe the manifesto of 2019 and the movement behind it will be seen as historically important – a real attempt at building a force powerful enough to transform society for the many, not the few. For the first time in decades, many people have had hope for a better future.

FFS!

[quote] That experience, shared by hundreds of thousands of people, cannot be erased. Our task as a movement, and a party that has more than doubled in size, is not over: it now has the urgent task of defending the communities that will come under sustained assault from Boris Johnson’s government and the toxic deal he wants with Donald Trump.

If you'd listened to these communities in the first place, we wouldn't be in this mess.

Delusional til the bitter end.

[quote] Delusional til the bitter end.

But not so bad he goes around blaming the Russians

Corbyn reminds me of Elizabeth Warren. So Unlikable

I am a furious Labour voter from the North. Londoncentric people have ruined our party. Corbyn/McDonell/Abbot/Milne are responsible for this shit show. They need to own up to this mess.

Great opinion piece here. I agree that a huge reason why Boris won a massive majority was because people wanted certainty after after six years that included two referendums (Scotland and Brexit) and three general elections. Labour had an unpopular leader which was then exacerbated by it's by appearing to obstruct Brexit and then trying to block an election. By doing this, the allowed the Conservatives that Labour was obstructing the will of the people. The SNP swept Scotland not out of a re-energized desire for another independence referendum, but because the SNP were really the only electable party. Had Ruth Davidson still been the Conservative leader in Scotland, I think the SNP wouldn't have performed as strong.

Jeremy Corbyn killed the Labour Party. Now we must fight to revive it.

Yvette Cooper was saying for years people hate Corbyn. Yvette would have been a geat prime minister, or Hilary Benn or Fabian Hamilton.....but no the loons in London kept on calling us names and fighting labour voters when they should have fought Tories,,

Wonder if Corbyn is a KGB plant?

Wonder if Johnson is a hedge fund, tax haven plant?

[quote]Jeremy Corbyn killed the Labour Party. Now we must fight to revive it.

Why? Wouldn't euthanasia be more merciful?

Corbyn didn't kill Labour. Labour was killed by its bigoted, bankrupt membership who staunchly supported him.

[quote]Jeremy Corbyn killed the Labour Party

No honey, that was Tony Blair who killed the Labour Party.

Blair the war criminal and Mosad agent!

Labour's Jess Phillips Reacts to General Election Exit Poll - "It's Totally Devastating"

I think she is a bit drunk

Any party in which Hugh Grant and elite university students feel at home cannot also be a party for working class people. The down-to-earth, realistic views of working class people are incompatible with the utopian fantasies of actors and academics.

Thank god we’ll never have to hear those insufferable people whine about a second referendum. It was NEVER going to happen. And Brexit will finally be delivered. As it always should have been.

There will be a second referendum. The Scottish one.

Gina Miller can go fuck herself now. She LOST. Move on, bitch.

R340, Maybe.....it depends how the SNP do in their local elections in 2021.

R197, Hungary and Poland have gay rights legislation precisely because they are members of the EU and it's a condition of membership. The EU never, however, tried to pass "gay-friendly legislation" that was blocked by Hungary or Poland because that's not how EU law is passed on social issues. In any case, individual EU member states can pass whatever gay-friendly legislation they want.

So much ignorance of what the EU is and how it works.

"elite university students" - you mean the Tory party, r338?

R205, the Eastern European states are far more progressive than the deep-southern states.

[quote] Hungary and Poland have gay rights legislation

R343, Hungary: right to marry? No. Right to jointly adopt? No. And the rest is a sham because it's often not upheld in practice anyway. The only consistent "gay right" in Hungary is not being jailed for gay sex - but that was abolished throughout Europe around the 60s, so irrespective of Hungary joining the EU in 2004.

[quote] Nov. 2019: "Hungary will not participate in next year’s Eurovision [2020] song contest, amid speculation the decision was taken because the competition is “too gay” for the taste of the country’s far-right government and public media bosses. While no official reason has been given for the withdrawal, the move comes amid an increase in homophobic rhetoric in Hungary ... Earlier this year, the SPEAKER of the Hungarian Parliament compared same-sex adoption to Paedophilia".

[quote] The EU never, however, tried to pass "gay-friendly legislation" that was blocked by Hungary or Poland because that's not how EU law is passed on social issues. In any case, individual EU member states can pass whatever gay-friendly legislation they want.

They can also pass certain anti-gay-friendly legislation. Which is what Hungary did when it passed a new Constitution, confirming that it restricts marriage to opposite-sex couples.

As for the other matter - it was an agreement by the EU Council (one of the EU bodies) calling on the European Commission (another EU body) to tackle homophobic discrimination and promote measures to advance minority equality - and it was blocked by Hungary. The EU Parliament (another in the trifecta of EU bodies) then pushed for sanctions against Hungary - but this was blocked by Poland.

Fuck me, this thread is a shitshow. So much vitriol and word-slinging. And you wonder why the country's in such a state. Sad! x

Former Labour MP Caroline Flint alleges that Emily Thornberry stated to a Labour MP whose constituents voted to leave the EU: "I'm glad my constituents aren't as stupid as yours." Thornberry is denying this, but I totally believe Caroline. I have enormous respect for Caroline Flint and was gutted to see her lose her seat. She has been one of the few Labour MPs over the past three years to continually get it right. She saw this coming thanks to Corbyn and the party's Brexit stance, but was totally ignored. Labour has effectively abandoned its work-class roots and will be out of power for a lot longer than five years if it doesn't start listening to members like Caroline.

Labour are aiming to have a new leader elected by the end of March, which means Corbyn will do PMQs for three months. That'll be awkward.

I wonder how the voters will feel once NHS is privatized and they have to start choosing between paying exorbitant costs out of pocket or sacrificing basic healthcare.

Should be fun to witness.

Even if the allegation against Thornberry is untrue, it's believable because she's got form for saying shit like that.

The NHS is already "fun to witness", R351. Crumbling & not coping under the weight of an aging domestic population and migrants from poorer countries (where people have shorter life expectancy due to health problems from manual labour and mass smoking, and therefore eventually need free hospitalisation & treatment for various health problems). As well as due to mass-scale administrative mismanagement of the NHS: reportedly, millions lost in "unrecoverable debts" when non-EU 'tourists' use the NHS to get expensive emergency treatment e.g. to give birth - and then skip town and fly back abroad, without settling the medical bills.

At this rate it might need to get partially privatised anyway. Or the whole system needs to be overhauled. Because it's just slipping further & further into a gaping deficit hole.

I went to an NHS hospital with a semi-urgent, painful problem some time ago - was told the waiting time was up to 6 hours in a long queue. So the "fun" already started a while ago.

R353 This is the mythology of macro-economics (Samuelson, Laffer, austerity). In what universe would "privatizing" solve the problem of too high costs for too many people? Protecting the trends of accruing more capital to those who are already wealthy? Yes, Better health care for more people? No. Talking to some people about data showing "the market" does not solve problems in the modern economies is like talking to evangelicals about "personal salvation by accepting the Lord Jesus Christ."

[quote]"elite university students" - you mean the Tory party,

Right. Because no one in Labour ever attended a public school. What tosh.

R354, the NHS is already partly using privatisation, it's becoming a hybrid system - they're sometimes outsourcing to private clinics because the state branch can't cope with the barrage of people.

The uncovered mismanagement by state employees was staggering: turns out on many occasions they didn't even try to chase debts, simply writing them off because it was "too much hassle" getting payment from non-UK-resident patients. They didn't report it to immigration authorities, nothing. With such a bureaucratic attitude (state employees weren't "buvvered" because they had a guaranteed state salary anyway) - no wonder the NHS is in a deep financial hole.

r354, thank you for articulating the obvious, which others are trying to obfuscate here. Once the government "universalizes" things, they aren't going to work the same as private business models. If a private business was in charge of road building, it would toll every road, and every road would only lead to certain destinations because others would have too little traffic to be profitable. . If a private business was in charge of postal service. large swaths wouldn't get service at all, and even a letter or post card would be charged by distance, rather than a flat rate. If a private business was in charge of public education, all children below a certain IQ would be sent home, and people would have to pay dearly for their books, slides, and rent computers by the hour for their children. There are costs associated with universal health care, but the country has decided to cover those costs. If the basic taxes that cover the NHS in order to keep it solvent must be raised, they must be raised, that's all there is to it. If you want to see people in the UK squawk, try getting rid of the NHS and replace it with private insurance. There's a video on another thread where people in the UK are confronted with what Americans pay for health care, many of those costs they have to cover AFTER INSURANCE. They are uniformly appalled.

[quote] There are costs associated with universal health care, but the country has decided to cover those costs. If the basic taxes that cover the NHS in order to keep it solvent must be raised, they must be raised, that's all there is to it

The country never e.g. agreed to cover costs for people who are not even UK permanent-visa-holders. But the NHS decided to cover it anyway - without an informed mandate from the taxpayers - on a treat-first, pay-later basis. Which is different from some other EU universal healthcare approaches. Then this approach imploded because too many patients decided they won't pay.

As for raising taxes, before punishing every taxpayer for the NHS administration's and the government's own systematic & policy mistakes, how about they first sort out NHS eligibility guidelines.

R353 The NHS budget is over £2.5 Billion (£2,500 million/$3,300 million) per week, £30 million is the equivalent to you dropping a cent down the drain.

It would/will cost recover this 'lost' money than it is worth.

^^^ cost more ^^

My impression is that the problems of the NHS are not all due to overuse and misuse by foreigners. In fact, most policy analysts agree that the real problems result from the NHS tariff, which wasn't raised for almost a decade, while costs were increasing. This forced hospitals and providers to "EAT" the missing income. Then, the NHS began demanding that the NHS cut costs for each and every patient on top of that. That is not a recipe for success. That is an austerity type of thinking, in which you keep starving the entity until it dies, and then you crow about all the money you saved.

[quote]I wonder how the voters will feel once NHS is privatized and they have to start choosing between paying exorbitant costs out of pocket or sacrificing basic healthcare.

Quality costs more.

[quote] It would/will cost recover this 'lost' money than it is worth.

R360, this was the unsatisfactory reason cited why the whole issue was swept under the rug AND continued to go on (without any administrative changes) for years. When you have some patients treated in corridors, instead of hospital beds, due to a deficit - every million counts, every extra million can help save a life.

The second link gives an updated estimate of not £30 million per that one year (2015-2016), but £280 million every year. Most of this information was only revealed thanks to a Freedom of Information Act request - so the NHS administration didn't even intend to voluntarily talk about it openly, which raises questions about costs transparency and administrative accountability.

[quote] Katherine Murphy, chief executive of the Patients Association, said: "The NHS is in a critical state due to lack of resources, so any abuse from health tourism should be stopped."

*allowed to go on

The NHS is so fundamental to UK society if there were any kind of action to get rid of it there would be civil unrest on a level we've never seen before. Is it perfect? No. But we do have probably the best healthcare system that's free at point of access on the planet. I'm very happy for my taxes to support a service that means if someone gets sick they won't be bankrupted.

[quote] But we do have probably the best healthcare system that's free at point of access on the planet.

Questionable. The UK reportedly has the worst cancer outcomes of any rich country.

[quote] most policy analysts agree that the real problems result from the NHS tariff, which wasn't raised for almost a decade, while costs were increasing. This forced hospitals and providers to "EAT" the missing income.

I'm not sure about the national tariff dynamic, but budgets rose by 1.5% each year on average in the 10 years between 2009/10 to 2018/19. The NHS did warn that wasn't enough, but 2009 was the year of the financial crisis, followed by austerity to recover. As the financial industry is a big part of Britain's GDP - Britain was hit hard by the 2009 crisis. Raising taxes could have made many financiers & entrepreneurs emigrate.

R363 Current reckoning is closer to one Billion pounds a year, it's still not worth chasing as it's only 0.8% of the total NHS budget. It would take 1000's of people to recover the money.

Hospital departments are given a fixed budget irrespective of how many patients they treat and don't have any kind of 'per person 'billing system' , so calculating what they are owed is kind of a 'best guess' scenario.

I've never heard of a case reaching court, I doubt they'd be able to provide sufficient evidence to support the claim.

[quote]I'm very happy for my taxes to support a service that means if someone gets sick they won't be bankrupted.

Are there other inane bumper stickers that also make you happy?

[quote] I'm very happy for my taxes to support a service that means if someone gets sick they won't be bankrupted.

That's a start, but it doesn't solve the real problems at all. We would need you to say-

[quote] I'm very happy for my taxes to go UP to support a service that means if someone gets sick they won't be bankrupted.

[quote] "Hungary will not participate in next year’s Eurovision [2020] song contest, amid speculation the decision was taken because the competition is “too gay”

Where would they ever get such a notion.

[quote] Current reckoning is closer to one Billion pounds a year, it's still not worth chasing as it's only 0.8% of the total NHS budget. It would take 1000's of people to recover the money.

R368, of course it's nearly impossible chasing when they already skipped town and merrily flew off to another continent, without as much as a single hindrance. It's not about that - it's about the NHS not learning anything from its mistakes, not dealing with this in any way, suppressing this information internally and carrying on haemorrhaging UK taxpayers' money. If they're so "oh, who cares" about this - they're just as "oh, who cares" about many other things - which all adds up in the end.

I guess I can start up a business inviting 8-month-pregnant ladies from e.g. Belarus to go fly to the UK on a budget flight and have quadruplets and expensive post-natal care in the UK, since it will all be generously covered by British taxpayers anyway, no questions asked.

I also reckon that if I don't pay my taxes - that's even less than 0.8% of the state's budget, so they shouldn't chase me either :).

R372, there are many women who does this in the USA, so their kids can be US citizens. Mostly from China.

R373, yes, but the effect of that on the US healthcare system (and the US, a robust country with a population 5 times the size of the UK) vs. the effect of that on the UK's budgeted universal healthcare system, which is in the worst crisis in its history (and the UK, a far smaller island-country population) is quite different.

*5 times that of the UK, that is

The costs of establishing and running a detailed per person billing system within the NHS would be far in excess of one Billion pounds a year (probably around £3 Billion a year).

Given that the NHS can't fill the 100,000 job vacancies that it currently has where would the clerks. managers and office staff come from?

The NHS abounds with bureaucracy as it is, Doctors and Nurses would quit in droves if they were forced to account for every swab and dressing. It won't happen.

The internationalist tried to suppress the vote of the citizens but finally the voters saw through it and set it straight.

[quote] The NHS abounds with bureaucracy as it is

Yes we worked that quite well didn't we

Nobody really knows what deal Boris has decided he wants yet? And with such a large majority it can be as 'Hard' or 'Soft' a Brexit as he likes. All of the checks and balances have been removed.

Be careful what you wish for.

I think Brexit will be good for the UK in the end. The EU will not exist in ten years.

The UK has the opportunity to be the start of competition with the EU. It could help break the monopoly of Europe. Boris needs to work on economic reforms to make the UK more attractive than the EU to do business in.

[quote] The costs of establishing and running a detailed per person billing system within the NHS would be far in excess ... It won't happen.

What do you mean it "won't happen", R376? There's already such a billing system and many of the patients either [italic]received[/italic] the bills or the NHS claims it sent them to their stated UK address. They just didn't pay up - and border control simply let them leave the country with all their luggage & cash after swindling the taxpayers.

Caroline Flint's interview.

Corbyn is exposing his most prominent similarity to Bernie Sanders-both don’t want to get off the fucking stage after the audience is about to throw rotted fruit at them.

r383 Caroline lost, no one cares what she has to say.

R385 You should care what she has to say if you actually want Labour to win an election sometime in the next 10 years.

r386 I don't care im, not english

R387 well shut the fuck up then.

Mystery solved. Here's the REAL reason Boris won!

Certain factions of the left really have lost their marbles in recent years. Bear in mind this is one of the world's top scientific journals.

[quote] In our view, ‘supremacy’ has overtones of violence, neocolonialism and racism through its association with ‘white supremacy’. Inherently violent language has crept into other branches of science as well — in human and robotic spaceflight, for example, terms such as ‘conquest’, ‘colonization’ and ‘settlement’ evoke the terra nullius arguments of settler colonialism and must be contextualized against ongoing issues of neocolonialism.

R390, that reads like a piece from The Onion.

R382 There isn't an NHS billing system, all that the debt recovery teams have to go on is the patient notes, it's a best guess. It also wouldn't include any care deemed to be an emergency (the NHS doesn't bill for that).

The reason that they don't pursue the debts in court is that the cases would collapse under the flimsiest cross-examination.

[quote] that reads like a piece from The Onion.

It's impossible to out-parody the everyday self-hate and guilt of the woke intelligentsia

From Reddit:

[quote]Brexit is basically just trying to fit Margaret Thatcher's dead body through a cat flap

Delighted Thatcher didn't live long enough to see the Brexit she would have loved. Not that she understood anything towards the end, but the basic principle holds.

Thatcher didn’t want to leave the EU. She wanted to prevent it from becoming what it is.

Thatcher wanted to work with Europe, not be dictated by it.

'Ditch Corbyn's agenda or we're finished': Tony Blair slams modern Labour as a hard-Left 'comedy cult' and warns the party could DIE as he FINALLY admits that Brexit will happen telling Remainers: 'We've lost'

Neo-con war monger like Miss Tony Blair should shut

Neo-con war monger like Miss Tony Blair should shut

Blair has million$ of reason$ to hate Corbyn.

The people now piling on Corbyn aren't wrong but where have they been these years his party willingly followed down that anti-Semitic pro-terrorist path.

To them Corbyn's only sin is he was too poor a politician to sell these positions to enough UK voters.

[quote]The people now piling on Corbyn aren't wrong but where have they been these years his party willingly followed down that anti-Semitic pro-terrorist path.

Are you on crack??! Labour voters have been screaming about Corbyn from day one. It's the reason why Labour lost in 2017. How many documentaries do you need to be produced by left-leaning voters about the antisemitism in Labour under Corbyn? Even Tracey Ullman, a lifelong Labour supporter, announced that she was leaving the party due to the Corbyn and did one sketch after the next outing his terrorist-sympathizer and antisemetic past. The only people left in Labour were the Corbyn cult.

Have a holly jolly BREXIT...

Owen Jones twitter feed was a big asset for BREXIT and conservative party

God i just hope they kick out these dirty niggers. They belong in Africa, not in the western world. These apes don't deserve the first world.

Let’s estimate the number of Datalounge lizards still curled up in bed because Brexit is now inevitable!

I say 8,377, Bob!

David Merritt is still having a meltdown