Rayvin

In fairness to UKIP they did get 4 million votes in the previous to last GE. That's a lot. More than the Liberals as I recall. And the people who voted for them still hold the same views, they just needed to vote Tory for Brexit instead. Giving people a platform or not in this day and age is irrelevant. They get heard anyway. What matters is challenging them. The whole right wing side of the culture war relies on the notion that they are somehow looking at truths and facts that the MSM refuses to. To beat them, the MSM needs to address the same issues from a centrist perspective rather than shying away. And yes this does mean admitting some inconvenient truths (working class multicultural integration has been a failure in many areas through no fault of either side, for one).

I ceased following Sargon ages back, largely because of his anti-EU stance, and his joining of UKIP really cemented it for me Doesn't change the fact that he makes some good arguments sometimes though.

He should say it's a political statement and criticism of saudi Arabia and that he is depicting the Prince. The box is actually the dismembered body parts of a journalist.

I'll be honest, I stopped paying attention to Brexit a few months back and just assumed that we were heading for the worst outcome possible. You're talking as if May has a deal ready to go which everyone will be happy about. Is this true? I was vaguely under the impression that the deal was going to suck, but that if any deal was to be achieved, it was going to be something like 'No Deal + Northern Ireland doesn't go back to war with itself' rather than just 'No Deal'. If the former, I don't understand why any British businesses would celebrate this. The EU maybe, since they'll be shot of us, but that's it. Happy to concede I could be wrong though.

Agreed - it's in the digital arena that we can land some blows. And even then, it's hardly likely to be anything solid enough to force the man from an investment he values at £400m. Having said that, what is the intended outcome of the protest? If it's awareness raising, with whom are we raising awareness? Or are we raging against the storm because it's cathartic? I mean what is the point to any of this really.

There is absolutely no way that Labour will fear 'going down in history as the party that caused no deal'. That's fucking ludicrous. Only one party caused no deal, the one that decided to move away from perfectly feasible if rather pointless Norway style options and embrace utter lunacy. Labour might be remembered for generally doing fuck all about any of this, but not for actively making it happen.

Not wanting to get into a wider argument on this but I'm always curious when people say that the EU is failing. Failing at what? How is that being measured? I hear it a lot from the talking heads on the right wing side of the culture war and it is never backed up with a shred of evidence.

I dont think that was really a serious argumentative contention from her, the identity politics bit. She just gave him enough rope to hang himself. Not like her world view came out on top, it was just that his stupid attempts to protect the right wing end up trapping him. It's annoying when he departs from reason for politics but I'm used to seeing it from all sides so while disappointing it's no real surprise. You've latched on to her being a social democrat as an identifying label but how much do you really agree with from what she said? I'm going to watch more tomorrow and then we can spar about it I thought she lost the patriarchy thing comfortably though. What about the point where she introduces the idea of partriarchies that are dominated by women and he's challenges her on whether that would still be a patriarchy at all? And she says yes, and then loses the argument on the basis that all hierarchical structures are patriarchal on her opinion. Which basically means that the patriarchy is a system of order, by her definition. So what, she wants a feminist anarchy? Then she moves to the piece by piece examples of oppression of women and sure, he has to concede that there are examples of this but counters with many gender specific issues that affected men. Wars for instance. And men were also owned for much of history, by the rich. It fascinates me how people let the rich off as an identity group. Probably because we're all aspirational and want to be rich, even the feminists. Anyway that was only 20 mins of review so i need to watch more. Hope it's clear i dont agree with everything he says at face value though, he has become far too embroiled in the weaponising of culture issue.

Also thought the 'good luck with that' comment was a put down rather than a conceding of ground but will rematch to check. He looked shaky on some bits for sure though. The identity politics bit was just silly. Tribalism is a form of identity politics, he's just characterizing it as different so that he can draw a distinction between the right and the left. Both sides fuck around with identity politics so i disagree with him there.

Did you not think the bit where he asks her why she won't abandon her own privilege, since it comes from, as she defines it, a patriarchal tyranny, is sort of a game ended for her patriarchy argument? She acknowledges that she personally has done well out if the system but refuses to make any personal sacrifice towards 'balancing the system' through her own actions. She suggests progressive taxation which, sure, is fine. But doesn't consider it reasonable to abandon her many advantages as a well educated, white, middle class woman. So why does she expect anyone else to do the same? He didn't nail her on that but he fucking should've. It's all fine calling for the patriarchy to be torn down unless she herself has to sacrifice something, at which point she's where she is because of competence and not privilege. I'm only 20 mins in but while she handles herself better than Newman and Peterson is a bit all over the place, that was a huge own goal from my point of view. I think he won the patriarchy argument on the strength of that alone.

Interesting, I'll watch it. Which bits stuck out for you?

@NJS But 100,000 killed themselves? That's a staggering proportion even of 4.5m If that's true it should be massive news in the US. It's what, something like 2% of them? If they've allowed that to happen it's an absolute disgrace.

100,000 people in the US or... 100k ex soldiers? No way the latter, surely. Or 100k Afghans?

Had that exact sentiment myself.

This is a bit of a worry since she's been the last adult in the room for some time, as far as international politics goes

The left should have ridden this wave of anti-establishment sentiment. Unfortunately the left sucks and spends all of its time being bogged down in non-issues.

Here's my prediction: The government will achieve hard Brexit with a couple of minor deviations from the Canada model which will be hailed as a great success because the Tories' future depends on people believing this. The EU will regard the negotiations as a success for them because they probably will be, and CT will state that he was right because all sides are claiming victory and asserting that they have achieved their desired aims. All will be lying, even the EU probably, but it will allow CT to say he was right.

Well yeah but there's a constant backlash there anyway. Agree on your final sentence.

There won't be.

What the fuck, CT. That was less than two months before the vote. What in fuck changed in the 6 weeks between that comment and the vote?

Well i voted remain on the basis that people who did understand such things said that leaving would be a disaster. I accepted my ignorance and made an informed opinion based on the words of experts. As wise a choice as I feel i could have made. It should never have been put to a vote of course.

Has it made any visible difference so far?

False flag. /Parky Actually, there's an outside chance it is Parky...

Nice, thanks for this. Worth reading @Christmas Tree

No but, if we agree a customs union with the EU and agree to their regulatory requirements, why does that prevent us from agreeing to different regulatory requirements with anyone else. I get the point if you're building a car and some components come from non-EU sources - if that car is going to be sold into the EU then all parts need to comply. So car manufacturers continue abiding by the same regulatory requirements when sourcing parts. But industries that don't export into the EU, do they really have a headache here? What's stopping the government from just applying a liberal regulatory framework giving companies the option of continuing to abide by EU regulations or opting not to do so. I get the point about JIT manufacturing, but only for companies that make components for EU factories, surely? Our product manufacturers will have the more liberal framework of customs options, so we won't need to be border checking anything coming from the EU. So importing for JIT should be fine, no? Exporting is where the problem is. That's the only place you would need border checks, surely? And it would be the EU carrying that out, as they're the ones with the more stringent regulatory requirements. Granted, it would be a fatal blow to UK based JIT exporters into Europe. I'm not saying all of this is a good idea btw, it's clearly fucking stupid, but I can't quite get my head around why the customs union actively stops us from just agreeing to the EU line and then agreeing different terms elsewhere. I do accept that it would mean companies bear the cost of compliance with EU regulation themselves though, but likely as not they'd pass this on to their suppliers anyway. And again, it's only going to affect companies supplying into Europe, and they'll already be sourcing compliant parts, surely?