Wes Tender

Do you believe that that he can't spell Baron and that he really intended to confer an aristocratic title on his son because of some delusion of grandeur, like Nat King Cole, Count Basie, Queen Latifah, Duke Ellington, Prince, etc? No, a little research reveals that it is nothing of the sort. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/03/21/the-amazing-story-of-donald-trumps-old-spokesman-john-barron-who-was-actually-donald-trump-himself/

Every study into anything that involves the opinions and decisions of the electorate must necessarily be open to some dispute, as the conclusions reached are based on surveys and the demographic statistics of the voting patterns of the electorate. I have read several articles recently since Brexit and many of the same conclusions are reached as to what has brought about this upsurge of public dissent resulting in the major political upsets like Brexit and the election of Trump. Already a short time after Brexit, several commentators were predicting that there could potentially be repercussions along similar lines in the Presidential elections that would increase Trump's chances of being elected. They were largely dismissed at the time, but events have now brought about an acceptance among many that there are some solid foundations for suspecting that this groundswell of dissent towards the established order could well manifest itself elsewhere in Europe. Several European Countries have elections next year, such as Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hungary, Liechtenstein, Holland and Norway and others. It will be fascinating to see whether there might be similar upsets elsewhere and what the implications will be for us if the EU project is visibly crumbling because of factors like immigration and unemployment.

https://research.hks.harvard.edu/publications/getFile.aspx?Id=1401 Some interesting research here into the reasons behind why the British and American electorates voted the way they did for Brexit and Trump

One man's rabid social justice warriors is another man's swivel-eyed loonies, me old mucker. I agree with the gist of Hypo's post, as do many observers who have attempted to apply an objective analysis as to the reasons why our electorate voted for Brexit and America's voted for Trump. Many have arrived at those same conclusions. Do you dispute them?

This isn't very intelligent thinking to conclude that if somebody despises Clinton, they must support Trump.

it seems there were enough of them to make the BBC news, mate. Was it all in their mind?

I see that you were once again not really very good at forecasting election results, following on from your predictions of the outcome of the Labour leadership elections. Regarding your assertion that we won't be at the front of the queue for a bilateral trade deal with Trump as President, this article paints an altogether more optimistic scenario on this subject. https://www.thelawyer.com/issues/online-october-2016/president-trump-will-uk-business-back-queue/

Brilliant:lol:

Very droll

I agree that there should have been a 60% threshold of voters to trigger a change. And that should have applied to all of the Treaties subsequent to the original one we signed to join the Common Market. All these arguments about the democratic process in connection to our EU membership are totally undermined by the lack of democracy accorded to the electorate by successive governments who allowed these substantial changes which gradually turned a trading bloc towards a Federal United States of Europe without their approval.

The usual arrogance, I see. Only the Remainians have any grasp of what or how our democracy works and only they are capable of understanding the realities of the situation. And you have the gall to label the Brexiteers as feeling superior. The High Court ruling was the considered legal opinion of three Judges, one of whom clearly had a conflict of interest because of his connections to the European Law Insitute, which has the goal of enhancing European legal integration. Other legal eagles take a different view on the legalities of the situation:- http://www.lawyersforbritain.org/referendum-article-50-case.shtml Perhaps you would care to comment on this apparent contradiction. Or do these particular legal experts have little grasp of the legal aspects of the Parliamentary democratic process? Perhaps the Supreme Court will arrive at a different conclusion to the High Court. If not, then time to call a General Election on the Brexit issue, which the Conservatives will win convincingly.

What is your next book going to be about?

I think that the appropriate statistic should be based on the percentage of the electorate, not the population, unless of course you wish to include babies/children and others not entitled to vote. On that basis, my calculations are that 37.4% of the electorate voted to leave, 34.7% to remain, 27% didn't bother to vote and 25000 spoilt their ballot papers. I suspect that the winning margin would have been greater, had the Government not spent over £9 million of taxpayers money on pro-remain propaganda and if our public broadcasting service had not been so heavily biased towards the remain side themselves. Regardless of how you wish to see it, the 17,410,742 votes to leave the EU was the biggest electoral mandate in British political history.

A fairly dire first half and we didn't look up for it, with wayward passing and no sense of urgency during some passages of play. Our defending was poor also on occasions and could have been punished had Inter been better. Their goal was not unexpected and was poorly defended. Having won a fairly soft penalty, Tadic's was a very poor effort. Having seen the match highlights just now, the argy bargy between the teams is clarified. Candreva was unsportingly chivvying up the penalty spot, a yellow card offence. McQueen spotted it and remonstrated against him, whereupon Candreva elbowed him. To his great credit, Mcqueen didn't fall to the ground clutching his head like an Italian football would have, but Candreva shouldn't have remained on the pitch. I suspect that Puel read the team the riot act during the break, because they came out and began playing far more purposely, more competitively, with better passing and quicker movement off the ball. The substitutions were once again spot on from Puel, replacing a largely ineffective Rodriguez with Austin and adding the additional grit and endeavour of Davis. From then on, the match swung strongly in our favour and Inter couldn't live with us and it was only a matter of time before we would score. It was lovely to see MOTM Van Dijk score and intense pressure produced the second with an own goal. From then on, the result was never in doubt. This was the archetypal game of two halves. When it looked at half time that we would get nothing, it finished with us looking value for more than the two goals. The crowd was great tonight, the refereeing often a joke. Thankfully walking away from the stadium, it had turned into a night to remember, the first half almost forgotten in the euphoria of a famous victory. Even from several hundred yards away, the stadium was rocking with the chants of the many who had stayed to celebrate.

Just how out of touch with reality can some of these academics be? And how naive to believe that MPs should vote according to their convictions and that by doing so, would carry the genuine majority of the country with them, having ignored the wishes of so many of their constituents. Some of them truly live in an Utopian dream world.

No doubt you will be happy to quote the relevant passages in his works that define the democratic hierarchy between the decisions made by our elected representatives and those made by the people in a referendum. Oh, sorry, Referenda didn't exist then, so although your mention of him will help your narcissistic need to feel superior, its relevance to this particular set of circumstances is pretty well non-existent, me old mucker.

It seems that some of you Remoaners don't understand the finer points of this and are confusing the issues of Parliamentary sovereignty and democracy. Of course like all of the Brexiteers I wanted our Parliament to be sovereign over the EU, as they are elected by us to Govern on our behalf, whereas the EU is not. I have highlighted the important bit. The Government made a manifesto commitment to hold a referendum and then having won the General Election, it was debated in Parliament and a very clear majority voted to hold the Referendum and to accept the result as binding. The Prime Minister even stated that Article 50 would be triggered immediately in the event of a majority vote to leave the EU. Following the largest electoral mandate in British electoral history, we now have a decision made by the judiciary that the government cannot trigger Article 50 without Parliamentary consent. Where is the hypocrisy? Parliamentary sovereignty might have been upheld, but at the expense of democracy. There is nothing to celebrate here. With luck, the Supreme Court will overturn the decision.

Oh well, wait for the result of the appeal and if not reversing this decision, time to call a General Election with the opportunity for the electorate to ascertain whether their MPs are prepared to either represent their wishes or face deselection. In the meantime, I can see the potential for some mass demonstrations which will help concentrate their minds. The demonstrations of those who wished to remain will look like a picnic compared to the ones from those who wished to leave and see the possibility of their wishes being thwarted.

An excellent post.

Does it become a hive of philosophers stoned?

I'll try it one more time Shorluck. Some people who have recently become known as Brexiteers might have in the past opposed state intervention and industrial policy. If at the time they were opposed to the direction that the European project was headed post-Maastricht, they were known as Eurosceptics. Although many Eurosceptics have subsequently become Brexiteers, many have not and wish to remain in the EU, therefore Brexiteers and Eurosceptics are not the same thing. As you're going back to the original post I challenged, I also note that you haven't defended your assertion that Nissan has made it clear that the UK is valuable only insofar as its trading relationship with the EU is preserved. There are no other reasons, eh? I asked at the time whether the fact that Sunderland is one of their most productive and innovative plants and that they sell more to the UK than to any other EU country might have had any bearing on their decision? What do you think?

Stop it! Before I split my sides. Go on, be a sport, pretty please. Explain once more how Eurosceptics and Brexiteers are the same thing. Read the dictionary definitions once again. It really wasn't that complicated to see the differences between them. I'm absolutely fine, thanks for your concern. I sense you're getting a bit perplexed though, massaging your hurt ego by claiming to have won the argument.

What's fun Shorluck, is watching you wriggle when you make a mistake and the more you try and excuse your faulty reasoning, the funnier it gets. I used shorthand, blah, blah, everybody understands, blah, blah, smoke and mirrors, childish insult, blah, blah.:lol: Think a little harder, I'm sure that you can get there if you try. Of course one can be a Eurosceptic who then becomes a Brexiteer. But if you cared to read John B's correct assessment, there are Eurosceptics who do not wish to leave the EU, so the two groupings are not interchangeable. It really isn't that difficult to understand.

Dear me, I didn't expect you to be stumbling over the distinction between them. It really is quite simple and anybody who has followed the politics of the European project since Maastricht would know precisely what the difference was, apart from the considerable time span between the two groupings. https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/eurosceptic https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/brexiteer John B knows the difference between them and I suspect most others on here do too, apart from you and Shorluck it seems.

These sorts of errors are easy enough to make Shorluck as you should know, stumbling over the difference between Brexiteers and Eurosceptics