holystove

Conservatives got 358 on 43.6% of the vote. Labour and Lib Dems got 214 on 43.8% of the vote.
Labour + LibDem + SNP + Greens + Plaid Cymru + Sinn Fein + SDLP + Alliance = 52,2% of the vote.  A majority of people voted for parties which opposed the Brexit deal and were pledging to put it back to the people in a second referendum.
etc.  etc. 😉

I think the GE is a mistake for the Tories. Ultimately Labour and Lib Dems can lose but still win and form a Govt.  
Tories have no partners in Parliament now that they stabbed the DUP in the back. There are going to be lots of independents and smaller parties winning seats than normal (in my opinion) and the Lib Dems are likely to perform very well given their very clear stance on Brexit. They may even take my vote depending on their other policies. 
Whilst the polls are in their favour, I just can't see Johnson convincing enough people to vote for him given that he is a duplicitous twat and the front benches are full of similar sorts. 

https://www.indy100.com/article/brexit-latest-belgium-sign-display-french-flemish-language-9171391?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook&fbclid=IwAR3vdPCtRJ7DsgS5ie-uGU4Aj8NZoAe56GvkGsS_a7g2s9L92T_wsdfRQf8#Echobox=1572166017
 

On what happened in Greece they are certainly unconnected.  What happened in Greece was the fault of Greece. How it was handled afterwards is the fault of the Troika (which includes the IMF), the inherent weakness of the euro-structure and the Eurozone ministers playing hardball.
I'm not trying to make the point everything the EU does is by definition good (farming subsidies being one example).  My point is that, overall, regarding economic growth, protection of consumers and civil liberties, it has been beneficial to every member state to increase international cooperation and the EU is, and has proven to be, the most effective vehicle to achieve this.

On what happened in Greece they are certainly unconnected.  What happened in Greece was the fault of Greece. How it was handled afterwards is the fault of the Troika (which includes the IMF), the inherent weakness of the euro-structure and the Eurozone ministers playing hardball.
I'm not trying to make the point everything the EU does is by definition good (farming subsidies being one example).  My point is that, overall, regarding economic growth, protection of consumers and civil liberties, it has been beneficial to every member state to increase international cooperation and the EU is, and has proven to be, the most effective vehicle to achieve this.

On what happened in Greece they are certainly unconnected.  What happened in Greece was the fault of Greece. How it was handled afterwards is the fault of the Troika (which includes the IMF), the inherent weakness of the euro-structure and the Eurozone ministers playing hardball.
I'm not trying to make the point everything the EU does is by definition good (farming subsidies being one example).  My point is that, overall, regarding economic growth, protection of consumers and civil liberties, it has been beneficial to every member state to increase international cooperation and the EU is, and has proven to be, the most effective vehicle to achieve this.

On what happened in Greece they are certainly unconnected.  What happened in Greece was the fault of Greece. How it was handled afterwards is the fault of the Troika (which includes the IMF), the inherent weakness of the euro-structure and the Eurozone ministers playing hardball.
I'm not trying to make the point everything the EU does is by definition good (farming subsidies being one example).  My point is that, overall, regarding economic growth, protection of consumers and civil liberties, it has been beneficial to every member state to increase international cooperation and the EU is, and has proven to be, the most effective vehicle to achieve this.

I tend to ignore your posts as most of what you write is just trolling unworthy of response.  But once again, when you finally do give a source for your various claims, it falls wide of the mark.   Here is the actual judgement https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:61999CJ0274&from=NL   Your source is a comment piece by an anti-European (Ambrose Pritchard Evans) in a newspaper whose opinion-section has been a joke on matters EU for many decades now.  You'd be a lot better informed if you looked at the primary sources rather than what you get from the Express, Leave.eu and the Telegraph.
"Pro-Europe but anti-EU" is another one of those ...   The EU is the polticial, legal and institutional manifestation of the deepest cooperation among European states and their peoples.  That's what you are against.   So what are you pro?  The alps?

Just like every other EU member state, southern EU has benefited massively from EU membership, massively.  Not just economically, but in their struggle to transform from autocracies into modern liberal democracies (look up the data on Spain in particular, it's spectacular).  I think you are confusing EU membership with eurozone membership, which is more tailored to the rich eurozone members and has not been a success for the southern states from the 2008 financial crisis onwards and has resulted in high (youth) unemployement.  
"Shackled by the EU and their stipulations"?  How can you be shackled by a harmonized rule?  Trade, in general, is more free between EU member states than it is between States of the USA!  Again, I think you are confusing  EU and the Euro (which does come with strict rules).
As an economic partnership, the EU is an unparalleled success.   For most eastern European nation, it has however also been the liberal values (rule of law, human rights, ..) that made them aspire membership.  It may seem self evident in our rich Western European world, but Spain, Greece, Romania, Estonia etc all have very recent experiences with autocratic rule.  The EU acts as an important barrier to a return of those times; this is a big reason so many Eastern European nations that are not yet a member desperately want to join.
Noone knows how the EU will evolve.  The last treaty (Lisbon) actually reinforced certain intergouvernmental areas, which you seem to favour, as an answer to the Dutch and French rejecting the (integrationist) Constitutional Treaty.  Each crisis point has guided the EU in a particular direction and noone can predict the next turn but as a concept it has definitely not failed, to the contrary, it is being mirrored all over the planet (African Union, ASEAN, MERCOSUR, ... ).
Apologies for the long post, but I saw your last couple of posts and the upvotes some of them got so I wanted to clarify some fundamental misunderstandings which were stated as facts.  There is a big difference between being a member of the EU and of the eurozone.  The EU has benefited all members.  The eurozone has, after 2008, primarily benefited the rich members.   The euro as a way of taking away a barrier to trade (different, fluctuating currencies) has been a success, it has however not been effective as a fiscal tool because too many competences remained with the members, rather than being centralized.  Advocating a deconstruction of the EU would create similar problems. 
To make it more concrete, I think you'd struggle to identify the EU rule that is a constraint on member states and which would be better handled in 28 different ways. 

Just like every other EU member state, southern EU has benefited massively from EU membership, massively.  Not just economically, but in their struggle to transform from autocracies into modern liberal democracies (look up the data on Spain in particular, it's spectacular).  I think you are confusing EU membership with eurozone membership, which is more tailored to the rich eurozone members and has not been a success for the southern states from the 2008 financial crisis onwards and has resulted in high (youth) unemployement.  
"Shackled by the EU and their stipulations"?  How can you be shackled by a harmonized rule?  Trade, in general, is more free between EU member states than it is between States of the USA!  Again, I think you are confusing  EU and the Euro (which does come with strict rules).
As an economic partnership, the EU is an unparalleled success.   For most eastern European nation, it has however also been the liberal values (rule of law, human rights, ..) that made them aspire membership.  It may seem self evident in our rich Western European world, but Spain, Greece, Romania, Estonia etc all have very recent experiences with autocratic rule.  The EU acts as an important barrier to a return of those times; this is a big reason so many Eastern European nations that are not yet a member desperately want to join.
Noone knows how the EU will evolve.  The last treaty (Lisbon) actually reinforced certain intergouvernmental areas, which you seem to favour, as an answer to the Dutch and French rejecting the (integrationist) Constitutional Treaty.  Each crisis point has guided the EU in a particular direction and noone can predict the next turn but as a concept it has definitely not failed, to the contrary, it is being mirrored all over the planet (African Union, ASEAN, MERCOSUR, ... ).
Apologies for the long post, but I saw your last couple of posts and the upvotes some of them got so I wanted to clarify some fundamental misunderstandings which were stated as facts.  There is a big difference between being a member of the EU and of the eurozone.  The EU has benefited all members.  The eurozone has, after 2008, primarily benefited the rich members.   The euro as a way of taking away a barrier to trade (different, fluctuating currencies) has been a success, it has however not been effective as a fiscal tool because too many competences remained with the members, rather than being centralized.  Advocating a deconstruction of the EU would create similar problems. 
To make it more concrete, I think you'd struggle to identify the EU rule that is a constraint on member states and which would be better handled in 28 different ways. 

Just like every other EU member state, southern EU has benefited massively from EU membership, massively.  Not just economically, but in their struggle to transform from autocracies into modern liberal democracies (look up the data on Spain in particular, it's spectacular).  I think you are confusing EU membership with eurozone membership, which is more tailored to the rich eurozone members and has not been a success for the southern states from the 2008 financial crisis onwards and has resulted in high (youth) unemployement.  
"Shackled by the EU and their stipulations"?  How can you be shackled by a harmonized rule?  Trade, in general, is more free between EU member states than it is between States of the USA!  Again, I think you are confusing  EU and the Euro (which does come with strict rules).
As an economic partnership, the EU is an unparalleled success.   For most eastern European nation, it has however also been the liberal values (rule of law, human rights, ..) that made them aspire membership.  It may seem self evident in our rich Western European world, but Spain, Greece, Romania, Estonia etc all have very recent experiences with autocratic rule.  The EU acts as an important barrier to a return of those times; this is a big reason so many Eastern European nations that are not yet a member desperately want to join.
Noone knows how the EU will evolve.  The last treaty (Lisbon) actually reinforced certain intergouvernmental areas, which you seem to favour, as an answer to the Dutch and French rejecting the (integrationist) Constitutional Treaty.  Each crisis point has guided the EU in a particular direction and noone can predict the next turn but as a concept it has definitely not failed, to the contrary, it is being mirrored all over the planet (African Union, ASEAN, MERCOSUR, ... ).
Apologies for the long post, but I saw your last couple of posts and the upvotes some of them got so I wanted to clarify some fundamental misunderstandings which were stated as facts.  There is a big difference between being a member of the EU and of the eurozone.  The EU has benefited all members.  The eurozone has, after 2008, primarily benefited the rich members.   The euro as a way of taking away a barrier to trade (different, fluctuating currencies) has been a success, it has however not been effective as a fiscal tool because too many competences remained with the members, rather than being centralized.  Advocating a deconstruction of the EU would create similar problems. 
To make it more concrete, I think you'd struggle to identify the EU rule that is a constraint on member states and which would be better handled in 28 different ways. 

But to cooperate you need compromise and coming together in the way you suggest (which already exists) is a union. A European Union if you will 

Maybe I’m the only leave voter to do the research Mike. Never been a fan of burying my head in the ground, even if it was the result I wanted back then. 

Conservative party is looking for an intern to support its MEPs in the European Parliament. Starting November 1st, for 6 months. 
http://www.w4mpjobs.org/JobDetails.aspx?jobid=72853
Yeah, definitely leaving on October 31st 😂
Good to know length of extension is already decided.  'Definitely leaving on April 30th 2020', it is.

Conservative party is looking for an intern to support its MEPs in the European Parliament. Starting November 1st, for 6 months. 
http://www.w4mpjobs.org/JobDetails.aspx?jobid=72853
Yeah, definitely leaving on October 31st 😂
Good to know length of extension is already decided.  'Definitely leaving on April 30th 2020', it is.

Conservative party is looking for an intern to support its MEPs in the European Parliament. Starting November 1st, for 6 months. 
http://www.w4mpjobs.org/JobDetails.aspx?jobid=72853
Yeah, definitely leaving on October 31st 😂
Good to know length of extension is already decided.  'Definitely leaving on April 30th 2020', it is.

This is wholly incorrect John.  Parliament has the constitutional duty to hold government to account.  What the UK Supreme Court did was to hand power stolen by the executive back to parliament.  They took no stance on Brexit; they only, unanimously, asserted the rule of law and separation of powers.   To frame this in terms of unelected remainers is irresponsible and very damaging to the liberal values that made the UK so great.

This is wholly incorrect John.  Parliament has the constitutional duty to hold government to account.  What the UK Supreme Court did was to hand power stolen by the executive back to parliament.  They took no stance on Brexit; they only, unanimously, asserted the rule of law and separation of powers.   To frame this in terms of unelected remainers is irresponsible and very damaging to the liberal values that made the UK so great.

This is wholly incorrect John.  Parliament has the constitutional duty to hold government to account.  What the UK Supreme Court did was to hand power stolen by the executive back to parliament.  They took no stance on Brexit; they only, unanimously, asserted the rule of law and separation of powers.   To frame this in terms of unelected remainers is irresponsible and very damaging to the liberal values that made the UK so great.

holy crap. 😲
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-49810261
It is now a fact that a prime minister with no electoral mandate or majority tried to unlawfully suspend parliament.  
(and yes this in the right thread)

The Prime Minister broke the law, lied to the queen and has been held to account for it, the means by which it came to court are immaterial. Are you suggesting the PM should be allowed to be above the law in pursuit of his purpose, whatever that might be (putting Brexit aside for a moment)?
The UK is a Parliamentary Democracy. An attempt by Johnson to bypass Parliament was ruled unlawful, a fantastic day for anyone who believes in our democratic system of government and the rule of law.

So, a member of the public, with absolutely no authority or mandate but with deep pockets, hires a bunch of lawyers to overturn a decision of the government of the day.  Remainer guys on here - I know it suits your agenda but do you not realise the implications of this?   
Mike, 'a fantastic day for democracy'?    I honestly don't believe you posted that.   Remind me which of the lawyers you voted for.

holy crap. 😲
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-49810261
It is now a fact that a prime minister with no electoral mandate or majority tried to unlawfully suspend parliament.  
(and yes this in the right thread)

holy crap. 😲
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-49810261
It is now a fact that a prime minister with no electoral mandate or majority tried to unlawfully suspend parliament.  
(and yes this in the right thread)