@polseoglompa.bsky.social
Sadly soo predictable. The idea that people who found Poles a bit foreign would welcome immigration from further afield was nuts.

Yet the leave campaign was able to appeal to both closet racists and non EU diasporas... and it wasn't called out!
December 13, 2025 at 9:53 PM
The Christmas is getting cancelled tweets come earlier every year!
December 13, 2025 at 1:35 PM
Why? What are the causes?
December 12, 2025 at 9:16 PM
Suspect a lot of different people are projecting what they want onto Farage.

They see a charismatic, straight talking, public school boy who isn't status quo and fill the gaps with all the things they hate about the status quo!

Arguably the same thing happened with the brexit referendum!
December 11, 2025 at 8:57 AM
No
December 10, 2025 at 8:20 PM
A "no deal" would have been economic and political chaos!

A "EEA style" brexit would have resulted in lots of angry and radicalised brexiters shouting betrayal!

Fundamentally the referendum was a terrible idea and poorly executed to boot. This all sits with Cameron!
December 9, 2025 at 11:09 PM
Brexit was always going to be lousy (and I'm an ardent rejoiner). But cynically I suspect the brexit we got was about the best brexit we could have got politically.

It delivered a lot of the anti rules, anti freedom of movement stuff. The economic damage was largely deferred!
December 9, 2025 at 11:04 PM
The leave campaign were saying all sorts of contradictory stuff. Single market without immigration. Not following EU rules but trading relationship staying the same! It was just madness! Sadly It radicalised the people who voted for it!
December 9, 2025 at 10:56 PM
Yes it was hard brexit but in fairness to Theresa May, suspect her options were hard brexit or second referendum!

I really struggle to see how anything else on the Barnier ladder was going to work politically!
December 9, 2025 at 10:50 PM
Fundamentally this was all Cameron's fault. There was literally no plan for a brexit vote. There was no war gaming the implications of the vote. There was nobody who was accountable for delivering it!
December 9, 2025 at 10:45 PM
I suspect there was (in practice) no realistic soft brexit landing zone. Too many leave voters had been radicalised by a campaign that sold them the moon on the stick. Delivering a brexit where everything stayed the same but the UK gave up a commissioner would have landed worse than what we got!
December 9, 2025 at 10:42 PM
I'm kind of reminded of the Max Planck quote "science advances one funeral at a time"

Seems to accurate (and cynically) capture how human progress works!
December 9, 2025 at 10:34 PM
So her hacking crime was in 2008. So a lot depends on what she means by renewed. Did she renew just before the early 2000s, in which case she may have had a valid passport in 2008.

So many interesting questions for a keen journalist to ask!
December 8, 2025 at 11:27 PM
People on the nationalist right often seem to be surprised at who their fellow travellers are!
December 8, 2025 at 11:16 PM
Wonder if she still had her Nigerian citizenship at that point!
December 8, 2025 at 11:09 PM
... and yet he was/is considered a "serious" commentator on the pro brexit side.

On many political debates there are serious arguments for both sides. With brexit, I'm yet to see the serious arguments for it... mainly because most brexiters didn't want to acknowledge the costs to the economy!
December 8, 2025 at 8:58 AM
But Iain Martin said the London nightlife would save the financial services and therefore brexit would have no major impacts!
December 8, 2025 at 6:47 AM
I did say "used to be" agree they've gone badly off the rails chasing reform/ukip voters!
December 7, 2025 at 9:10 PM
I think there is a distinction between harm done to the country and harm to individuals. Tories have a different philosophy on tax and spend but they used to be pragmatic patriots.

Not sure the same can be said for reform with their dodgy Russian money and dubious worldviews!
December 7, 2025 at 8:56 PM
Norway isn't in the customs Union. It is however in most of the single market (with some exceptions on agriculture). Point is it is complex and not something the UK can (or should) just copy!

UK should focus on a closer EU-UK relationship based on the TCA (ideally IMO heading to rejoin)!
December 6, 2025 at 9:56 PM
I don't think there is a significant liberal right these days. I'm not sure there ever really was... just the liberal right were very influential on the tories and the patriotic (but not racist) right had nowhere else to go!
December 5, 2025 at 10:24 PM
Not sure shaky economics will be a huge problem (although it should be).

Any belief that the general public can follow economic arguments should have been put to bed by the brexit referendum. (The "350m a week" argument showed how people get confused by big numbers)
December 5, 2025 at 10:21 PM
Indeed the campaign could then become better services and lower tax with labour. Increasing taxes and worse public services with reform....

Essentially are you prepared to pay for your xenophobia.... which is what the brexit campaign, if it had been honest, should have been!
December 5, 2025 at 10:24 AM