EU referendum, brexit and the aftermath

nationalize

One of JRM's banned words...

probably

Harland & Wolff are one of the great corporate phoenixes. They always seem to survive, somehow. I'm not up to speed with what is going on with them but thought their wind turbine business was doing well. What's going on?

Yes, it should, of course, be spelled with an 's' instead of a 'z'. :)

It was heartening to see loyalist ship workers chanting "Save our shipyard" in Irish along with the Irish protestors who taught them the words. If nothing else, Boris and Brexit are causing some small unity in opposition.

Or maybe it's giving a platform to that opposition. Too easy for the media to gloss over when it's out of sight.

So H&W had gotten renewable energy / oil platform maintenance work in, but that has dried up.

They'd been chasing it but got not enough in and the owner had out it up for sale. Two weeks ago the interested buyer withdrew...

Meanwhile the promise to build UK naval ships in the UK in 2017 has come to nothing as that project has to start first.

It's indeed good to see people standing side to side. The orange order has helped preserve Irish Gaelic in the past and you have to remember unionism used to see itself as Irish too.

Carson did not want "Rome rule" but had no hard feelings towards what is now ROI. The 1922 partition / 1936 hard border and the DUP / Troubles later and political unionism is a different beast.

(Political unionism however has been regressive for some time... The troubles could have maybe been prevented but local members of the UU ousted the then secretary of state over comprises he proposed)

But NI has a strong grassroots charities / political groups movement luckily and many people in those groups happily work with "themmuns"

Why are there no mass protests against the government’s No Deal plans? No one has voted for it, neither in the referendum nor the general election. As someone who has moved to the UK over 10 years ago, the only explanation for me is that many people do in fact continue to believe in a form of British exceptionalism, making them think that if there’s a country that can make a success of such an unprecedented act of economic and political self-harm it is the UK. I hope I am wrong and people put their differences aside and express their discontent sooner rather than later.

an extra 2.1 billion earmarked - utter madness

Exactly. Have they not heard the saying Good money after bad...

Or somebody's mate has secured one of the contracts for something related and they need to ringfence the money.

This circus has already cost the UK 66billion. If you're prepared to spunk that up the wall what's another 2.1?

It's like playing poker with someone who won't fold.

Just for my personal clarification, can someone point me in the direction of the data that proves the British will be worse off after Brexit?

This is nice.

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There have already been some protests, but it's too early in Johnson's 'premiership' to protest--you'd probably only signal that you're against him. He's obviously also making lots of spending promises, which are probably causing some people to pause for breath. Also, people are so tired of this and so fed up with it, and many are struggling to get by and can't afford the luxury of protests.

lots of spending promises

they are going big on it

Thank you, all valid points, especially regarding Brexit fatigue. It's also true that protests have to be timed right to have an impact. I am just concerned that if everyone was to wait until September or October, it might be too late. It doesn't look like Boris is looking to enter negotiations in good faith and he is running down the clock instead. Public support would probably also strengthen the resolve of Tory rebels and opposition to prevent No Deal.

I think also no one truly believes what experts (pah!) are saying about the impact of no-deal, 60% reduction in goods traffic etc etc. We just don't think that it can happen to us as a developed nation, or that there'll be some last minute deal to head off the disaster, again - it can't happen to us.

I am just concerned that if everyone was to wait until September or October, it might be too late

We don't exactly have a history of protests doing a lot in this country anyway. The last one was c.1m? which (given Iraq protests) seems to be about the high tide for 'very large protest'. I'm sure they could match those levels again today, tomorrow or in October. I'm not sure that much would happen.

There have already been some protests

I wouldn't trust Mr Johnson to successfully pursue a policy of exiting a paper bag. The sooner he is removed from power, the better. Unfortunately, as I've pointed out before, while Treeza May's 2017 election was obviously botched to the back of beyond, it did give the Tories two more years, slender non-majority or not. It is so very hard to get rid of a British government that Johnson might well hang on until 2022. I can't quite believe that, but it's not quite as inconceivable as pigs flying. We'll see if Parliament can do anything about him if indeed the prospect of 'no deal' (which is obviously a nonsensical concept, for the usual too-tedious-to-reiterate reasons) looms close enough. At any rate, he is obviously positioning himself so that he can't be saddled with the blame for not delivering 'Brexit'.

Protests in the streets are completely ineffectual today. The only strength protests ever had was that it was hard to estimate what strength of feeling was really behind them, or, indeed, if something like the Bastille was actually stormed. Nowadays, there is very accurate data on the strength of protests and what people at large really think. And, funnily enough, most people just want to get on with their lives ...

^^^ She has quite possibly not really thought that through ...

On the Tory 'majority' ...

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jul/29/boris-johnson-drops-investigation-mp-mark-field-manhandled-protester

Assorted weasel words:

A No 10 spokesman said: “Mark Field has now left the government. The current PM considers this issue was a matter for the previous PM concerning his conduct during his time as a minister under her appointment.”

It's not really just about whether or not be's a minister.

yeah risky slogan, boris would see that as a positive

Just for my personal clarification, can someone point me in the direction of the data that proves the British will be worse off after Brexit?

This is a joke right?

You can argue brexit for any number of reasons (nationalism, controlling immigration etc) but please don't keep trying to keep alive the lie that we will be better off after brexit. This just sustains the whole 'we've had enough of experts' crap that Vote Leave started. A whole raft of experts from the Treasury to BoE governor have presented various scenarios and have all shown the UK to be worse off to some degree after Brexit.