You'd expect Labour to oppose anything that threatened jobs, investment and public services. Corbyn's Labour party has the position that although Brexit will damage public services, harm investment and threaten jobs it must happen anyway. If it wasn't for the current cultism of 'my deeply held political belief is whatever Corbyn says' then there'd be a lot anger on the left. At least there should be.
Brexited | the worst threads live the longest
- Thread starter Silva
- Start date
Mr Sensible
Stanley would be proud of that kind of obfuscation.
This concept of negotiation is what is the problem in the UK. I don't believe the UK as a whole, that includes Brexiters, Remainers, Labour, Tory, Liberals, journalists or whoever have understood that you cannot negotiate with the EU to change the rules. This is not negotiable.
What is negotiable is what is the price (not just money) to pay for access to certain things. Until that is understood, the so-called negotiations will not go anywhere and the UK have only three or four months left.
What is negotiable is what is the price (not just money) to pay for access to certain things. Until that is understood, the so-called negotiations will not go anywhere and the UK have only three or four months left.
Yes, we're trying to negotiate certain aspects of our relationship with the EU when the EU have already stated - many times - that the rules we want to pick and choose come as a package. Somehow people still seem to be ignoring this.
I don't think that they are ignoring it per se. I think that there is two problems first some people think that EU members are only playing a game in order to get more out of the UK and a second part think that the EU members are a multinational like IBM or Dell, they see the UK has a big client that should have special perks. What is lost in this is that for most EU countries the EU is essential, it's a way of living and surviving together. In a way, this is an example of why brexit is now a reality, a part of the UK has never been in a EU state of mind.
The state of that.
I think fundamentally, a lot of people don't understand what the EU is. They think it's a gentleman's agreement where it can just change rules at a canter.They don't understand the EU is a combination of laws.
The fact that labour is too weak to argue the merits of free movements and the overwhelming benefitial trade off, is off putting to be honest.
Labour are doing the same thing we've spent the last 24 months bashing the Tories for.
The fact that labour is too weak to argue the merits of free movements and the overwhelming benefitial trade off, is off putting to be honest.
Labour are doing the same thing we've spent the last 24 months bashing the Tories for.
It's even making me angry. We have not yet started taking brexit seriously. We should be having a national debate about the price we are willing to pay for the access we want.
We are still having pre referendum debates ffs.
We are still having pre referendum debates ffs.
Fixed that for you...
It's the worst time for the two main political parties to be overrun by zealots and ideologues who don't care what damage is inflicted on the country so long as they 'win'.
Aaron Banks it turns out apparently had 3 meetings with the Russian ambassador, not just the one coincidental drinking lunch he claimed, also passed the Russians contact details for Trump administration figures. This is about to get interesting.
I also didn’t know his wife is Russian and they’ve visited there many times in the past.
I also didn’t know his wife is Russian and they’ve visited there many times in the past.
So the government could be midway through implementing the outcome of a referendum that might have been heavily influenced by Russian money and therefore could, if an inquiry was called for, to be found not to be free and fair?
I'm sure if we had an opposition, whoever was in charge of that would be furious.
Unlike America, there is no political will to get to the bottom of this.
Turns out she's been holding on to documents for months.
He's spot on, as ever.
He hasn’t had an original thought in his life. Should get somebody who knows what they’re talking about on his show for a change
So because you don't agree with him he's never had an original thought in his life?
Have you ever had an original thought in your life? How would you even know? Did you get the feelings you have about the EU and Brexit through your own exhaustive research or did it come from the people around you, the things you read, the things you heard, the things you watched?
With regards to Brexit and Russia. We all know that Putin's game plan since he was a young, aspiring KGB officer was to destroy the West's influence and power base from the inside out and he's been doing it for as long as he's been in power. With the advent of social media, with internet connectivity at the touch of a button on a phone/tablet/computer and 24/7 news fed to us through the lens of the money men in ownership of the outlets, it means you can spread propaganda and messages non stop. There are more than enough gullible people and more than enough malleable people that don't have a clue how they really feel about anything and won't do any research and they swing elections quite easily by being bombarded by messages telling them to do one thing or another. Sewing discord and whipping up a frenzy to convince a bunch of people to do something without them ever knowing it is as easy as pie nowadays. Perhaps it always was but it's easier now given the way we live our lives. How do you explain people who never see an immigrant in their lives and never interact with or understand them and their lives getting in uproar about immigration policies and subscribing to the notion that Brexit gives us back control that we seemingly never had before? How do you explain them thinking there's been a plan all along and everything was gonna change for the better despite nobody in power ever detailing how we were going to tackle Brexit from day one?
We bit the bullet with Brexit. America bit the bullet with Trump. France and the Netherlands avoided it with Le Pen and Wilders and hopefully there'll be more than enough pressure on people to understand who was behind everything. There's ample evidence out there that it's ill gotten Russian money funding it.
Or do you think that's all nonsense and Russia never did anything and you couldn't possibly be influenced?
Facebook finds no substantial evidence of Russian meddling in EU referendum
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/mar/01/facebook-evidence-russian-meddling-eu-referendum
Twitter has admitted Russian trolls targeted the Brexit vote (a little bit)
http://www.wired.co.uk/article/twitter-russia-brexit-fake-news-facebook-russia
Yes, because Facebook and Twitter have been so very transparent, truthful and proactive with making sure their platforms haven't been abused after the fact.
I wouldn't trust either of them to make a truthful statement about the extent of what's happened if their collective lives depended on it.
What your evidence then ?
Obviously it'd be silly to blame everything on Putin, and obviously he isn't solely - or primary - responsible for the current mess of a situation we find ourselves in. Eurosceptism was present long before he was in power, on both sides of the political spectrum. The EU's long been made a scapegoat for British failings.
But at the same time, I don't think it's wise to dismiss out of hand that Putin is rabidly anti-Western, that he's known for using online trolls to try and alter online discourse, and that he's funded causes which he feels benefit him in the West, ie Le Pen in France. He wouldn't have been operating on some grand master plan during Brexit, but I'm sure if the opportunity was available for him to interfere then he'd have been more than happy to grasp the chance, and Banks association with Russian interests here certainly seems suspect. And it should be deeply concerning to consider that a country working against our interests may have influenced a vote that's constantly being defended on the basis of its democratic nature. That's...not good.
So, yeah. We shouldn't blame Putin for everything and use him as some omnipresent bogeyman for when things go wrong. But some people seem way too determined to suggest Russian interference wouldn't have been involved at all when it's highly probable they'd have been trying to aid Brexit online etc.
But at the same time, I don't think it's wise to dismiss out of hand that Putin is rabidly anti-Western, that he's known for using online trolls to try and alter online discourse, and that he's funded causes which he feels benefit him in the West, ie Le Pen in France. He wouldn't have been operating on some grand master plan during Brexit, but I'm sure if the opportunity was available for him to interfere then he'd have been more than happy to grasp the chance, and Banks association with Russian interests here certainly seems suspect. And it should be deeply concerning to consider that a country working against our interests may have influenced a vote that's constantly being defended on the basis of its democratic nature. That's...not good.
So, yeah. We shouldn't blame Putin for everything and use him as some omnipresent bogeyman for when things go wrong. But some people seem way too determined to suggest Russian interference wouldn't have been involved at all when it's highly probable they'd have been trying to aid Brexit online etc.
Surely Putin can be regarded as important alongside those factors though? Putin may not have invented UKIP, but Russian online trolls in recent years will have been helpful to UKIP's general message. And it certainly wouldn't be shocking if there's been plenty of dirty money funneled to political groups like UKIP from Russia over the years.
Brexit (as a specific example) was an incredibly close vote. You don't need to be influencing even 10-15% of the electorate to be swinging the vote. Often it only takes a small portion of the electorate for that to be the case, especially if you're targeting certain areas.
An example.
Go to any page on Facebook to do with any kind of news whether it's a major news site or anything else, any kind of political thing, any kind of....actually anything. Same with Twitter.
Have a look through the comment sections of both.
Analyse their comment styles, their phraseology, etc.
Then look at how their profiles are laid out (do they have profile pictures, do they have matching cover photos, do they have any detail whatsoever made public (whilst not a 100% foolproof way of checking, the vast majority of actual people have far too much personal information available to anyone so it's a good indicator) and then look at how they post, how many times, when they post, etc.
Twitter has a very easy indicator by the fact that nigh on every Russian fake profile has a long 8 digit number following a randomly selected name that's been cut off due to handle character limits (for example, a 'David Smith' would have a handle like 'DavidSmi82039400').
There are plenty of twitter profiles for instance dedicated to outing troll farms and 'bots' (they should be called something else because they're real people peddling fake profiles) by analysing the time of day they post, how frequently they post, what they post about and so on and it's enlightening to watch that directed hive mind spread.
How many of those comments are actually coming from real people who are who they say they are on their profile and how many are coming from dedicated troll farms (that we know exist) that comment and tweet from 8am to 8am Moscow time, every day for years on end? We know full well they exist and we know exactly what they do.
Now imagine how often those comments show up whilst people are idly browsing. You take them in subconsciously and then eventually they cement in your head.
Add in the echo chamber that everybody surrounds themselves in, only sharing and liking stuff that they know they'll get positive reinforcement from. We don't like thinking for ourselves too deeply but we'll take in just enough so that it feels solid in our heads and so we can converse about it because we sure as hell don't like being on our own with anything that we might consider our own thoughts.
Add in real people (friends, family, coworkers, acquaintances) actively sharing content (memes, links, videos, etc) that has been curated to garner a reaction and be shared repeatedly, ad nauseum and the propaganda spreads and spreads.
Those messages being seen over and over again, comments being liked and made so that you fit in like a true sheep, then discussed outside of the internet with people close to you to further reaffirm the echo chamber and then suddenly you've got a political agenda that you never thought about. You've been swept up in the hysteria when previously you had no idea whatsoever and no feeling one way or another about it.
Think about all the young people who were never previously interested in politics and how many of them did their research or just agreed with their mates and voted a certain way, how many listened to their parents and voted the same way. How many old people who have lived their lives in an echo chamber and have no hope of changing the way they see the world have had their minds warped and directed to think certain things automatically over years and years?
You might never have given a toss about immigrants for example, might never have met one so you've got no feelings one way or another, you might not work in a job (and there are actually very few) where you're at risk of being undercut by immigrant workers so that aspect of the hatred towards them has no effect on you at all. A personal example is my dad who has probably never met a Muslim in his life save from going on holiday to Abu Dhabi and Dubai once with my mum but he despises Muslims and he's convinced they're taking over Britain despite no factual basis. I've asked him why and he can't tell me. He said today when I remarked about the picture of all the G7 politicians surrounding Trump that Trump was a genius and Merkel is a Nazi. He's got nothing to back it up with but I know full well he's been fed these beliefs on a steady diet for decades. It just happens to people without them ever being aware of it.
Suddenly you're bombarded with messages from online, messages from TV, messages from radio, messages from people around you, messages from everywhere and so you vote Brexit despite having done no research into our sovereign rights whilst in the EU, who decides our immigration policies, where the immigrants generally settle, what jobs they get, what benefits they get and how that might all be changed (or not) due to Brexit and how that in turn affects you and your life and your ambitions and what you're entitled to.
We're very easily manipulated and it happens on all sides. It just so happens that Russia's side won in 2016 because everything since has played perfectly into their hands and their plans. None of this is innocent, it's all a game and we're pawns because we've got no real power. Our only power is voting and that gets hijacked by people with much more to gain or lose doing everything they can to direct our minds to do what they want.
The idea behind it all is why propaganda works and it's exactly the same as advertising. You analyse what people want to see and think they want and appeal to it, even if they have no actual quite what they want to see and what they want, which most people don't.
Brexit was a great example because neither side had a clue what Brexit would look like because it had never happened so they sold it on buzzwords and phrases to appeal to you and get masses of people whipped up in one way or another.
/tinfoiltruth
Last edited:
Firstly where's the evidence for Russia playing a role ? We've seen the tabloid racism for decades, we've know for years the EU debate is actually more about in fighting in the Tory party, it's been known for a long time that there's been a far right racist anti EU voters build up in the UK(The BNP got nearly million votes in 2009)these things are actually visible and concrete. At the moment we don't even have evidence for what(If any) role Russia played in the referendum, is it possible of course it but at the same time it's just as possible to say that shitty right youtubers had effect on the outcome. And secondly if Russia has such a powerful grip over the UK then why in the last election did a vocally anti Putin Conservative Party and a Left Wing Labour Party both get 40% ?
There was over a million votes in the difference.
The Putin/Russia blaming is some of the most lazy political analysis around and simply gives a pass to the actual political events that have caused the situation we are in today.
We know troll farms exist, we know they have a specific modus operandi.
We know Russian money is everywhere in London.
We know people like Arron Banks who was a massive financial backer of anti-EU campaigns are heavily involved with Russian interests, as noted in the James O"Brian tweet above.
Of course, but what circles do the people who own the tabloids run in and what are their objectives? I'd wager many of the big newspaper and other media owners have links to Russia. I'd also wager that they're an issue separate to Russia and another part of the pie.
On a purely political, Westminster focused spectrum yes. However ask the people who voted for Brexit and those who voted against if they know anything at all about Tory infighting and how it links to whether we should be in the EU or not.
Of course there are racists, a massive amount. Where did they get those thoughts to begin with though? Who's directing them (and who are they in bed with?). You aren't born racist so how do you become racist? How do massive groups form? Analyse that and you have a perfect tool to utilise for your own ends. We know Farage is up to his neck in shady dealings and there are huge suspicions that Johnson is another. If we did have a proper inquiry into the major players and what they had to gain/lose from the referendum what would we find?
We don't have an inquiry like the Mueller investigation but just by judging that investigation we know that Russian troll forms exist and why do they exist? To spread the messages to sow discord and disrupt the West.
The BBC did a brief article on it here about how they function
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-43093390
We know that Putin wants to break up the EU and have us fighting amongst ourselves because he's spelt it out for years and many people vastly more knowledgeable than you or I have written books and articles about him and his game plan for the West. Is it a stretch to imagine he instructed a mass attack on the UK population using modern media to whip up the fury that got us to vote for Brexit? Is it feck. We just don't have the political will or public will in this country to care about whether they did or not, it's one thing I'm jealous of the Americans for because they're actually trying to tackle it even if it's a losing battle.
Because in the grand scheme of things a local general election is tiny compared to a referendum on our status in the world and the reasons behind why we vote the way we vote in those elections are completely separate to anything to do with Russia. Vast swathes of the country will always vote Tory, vast swathes will always vote Labour, vast swathes won't bother voting at all and none of that is to do with Russia. However, Russia might have a view on whether they wanted May or Corbyn and again their wonderful little troll farms could've worked their magic. You're right in being sceptical and questioning it but there's ample evidence out there of what Russia does and pointing to it without being lazy as you say here:
and simply painting Putin as the boogeyman.
52-48 isn't a lot and could easily be swung the other way.
You gest, but Dr. Strangelove is a brilliant film and exceptionally relevant to modern times.
The biggest newspaper to support Leave were - The Sun and The Daily Mail. The Sun is owned by Rupert Murdoch who is a Australian right wing media mogul who main goal isn't to work for Putin but to make himself richer, The Daily Mail is owned by Daily Mail and General Trust plc(A media group)and chaired by Jonathan Harmsworth, 4th Viscount Rothermere(Yes that's his real name)they also have no links to Putin.
I can only suggest to you to read or look up Noam Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent because your actually partly right but quickly veering off into conspiracy talk.
So now Putin don't give a shit about elections now ? If so then why did a Russian Bank which has link to the Kremlin lend Le Penn €11m in loans in 2014 ? You can't say every time a liberal loses that it's a Russian conspiracy and every time a liberal wins that well the Russian just didn't bother.
Again you can't just say this without backing it up with some evidence. But ok lets say your right who's side was Putin on ?
I'm sceptical of the Russian links with Brexit because of the lack of evidence(The only evidence you've gave is you looking at the comments on twitter).
But I don't think we are going to agree which is fine. Still thanks for taking the time to response to my posts.
Whilst I fully agree that Murdoch only really cares about getting rich, Murdoch owned/had a controlling interest in News Outdoor Russia, an advertising firm located there, he would've been on Putin's radar for doing business there, let alone the fact he's as well known as they come. One of his other companies has also been investigated by the FBI for bribing officials in Russia for various news stories too. Think they would've operated like this and Putin wouldn't have been interested?
More over, he's close friends with Trump which, if what a serious amount of us believe to be true, means he's probably close to Putin too. Interesting little tidbit - Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump are quite close to Roman Abramovich's wife Dasha Zhukova, who introduced Zhukova to Kushner and Trump? Murdoch's ex-wife, Wendy. If there's not more to that relationship and how Murdochs then wife was introducing Russians to the Trump family (and the potential for her doing that alone without Rupert involved) then I'll buy you a beer. Abramovich is of course, very close to Putin.
Jonathan Harmsworth, wonderful official title and all (god I want a Viscount biscuit now) has/had a residence in Russia. Forbes reported on it here.
https://www.forbes.com/business/lists/2006/10/TYUE.html
Rich people in Russia are invariably linked to the oligarchs so by extension, Putin.
DMGT, as you mentioned, sold the Evening Standard to Alexander Lebedev in 2009. Lebedev is a huge spokesperson for Putin and an oligarch. Why are Russians trying to buy English publications? And would it be a stretch to imagine higher ups in DMGT, like Harmsworth having connections to said Russians like Lebedev beyond simply selling them a paper?
Call me a conspiracy theorist if you like but it all falls back to being rich and Russia and that only means one thing, every single time: Vladimir Putin.
Both tenuous links I'll admit but from everything we know about how things operate in Russia. Rich outsiders, hell rich Russians only get things done, whatever those things are, by working with the oligarchs. The oligarchs are all linked to, by means of direct control, Putin. He oversees everything and has ultimate say over everything. The man is a mafia don who controls everything with an iron fist, Russia is basically a mafia state. He's the most influential, powerful and richest man on the planet.
I will actually look at Chomsky's stuff, if only because I enjoy reading and hearing what he has to say.
Putin does give a shit about elections, of course he does. He wants favourable people in positions of power, hence Le Pen, hence Trump, etc. (bet he pumped some money Wilders way too as a hunch).
I said that the people don't take in as much for general elections as they would've/should've done for Brexit so therefore it'd be harder for bot networks to do what they do and influence a big majority. For general elections people are stuck in their ways and they're a very 'local' thing. The general messages and reasoning for voting is the same every time and there's not much to gain from trying to influence it unless someone turns up who is radically different and suddenly popular. Very few votes in the UK actually matter when you realise how absolutely confirmed most of the country is for Labour or Conservative. We have our own swing states like the US do and that's where any targeted propaganda would take place.
http://uk.businessinsider.com/twitt...xit-bot-network-were-russian-2018-1?r=US&IR=T
As I've intimated, I don't believe Twitter are being truthful nor are they truly aware of the scope of the problem on their platform so even if they were trying to be truthful, they couldn't be. They talk about a certain section of bots and try and see if it's the IRA in Russia which is but one of many troll farm organisations. This to me highlights that they're not taking a serious look at it but trying to assuage people's suspicions with minimum fuss.
Fact is, enough 'bots' can and will influence an awful lot of people and without going into every tweet about Brexit and analysing every profile that tweeted it I can't on my own provide the evidence you're probably going to be satisfied with.
I agree on this and thanks for your responses too, if nothing else it feels good to have a rant every once in a while and be forced to justify your beliefs. We could do a lot better by having to back up why we think and feel the way we do and it should always be challenged.
Last edited:
I'm surprised that the bloke who became the biggest political donor in UK history - 12 million quid's worth of services at the last count - having multiple meetings with various Russian officials at the same time isn't of any interest whatsoever to the Brexit mob. Especially given the evidence of their fiddling in the US election.
Putin went back in time and made a decent portion of Brits racist and then purposely altered all party manifestos from the last 30 years to take out the bits supporting the working poor who would ultimate vote to leave the EU. He's the Gary Sparrow of politics.
Of course not, but he has a declared interesting in destabilising western politics and Russian influence is becoming more and more uncovered in relation to two of the most destabilising issues in recent history, Trump and Brexit. No one believes Putin masterminded brexit but Russia 'stirred the pot' through online influence and funding.
They did not need a large influence anyway. Some people were always going to vote remain, and others were always going to vote leave. By data mining Facebook they looked to target the middle ground. I saw nothing on Facebook at the time, as I would of been a staunch remainer, my mother however who barely uses Facebook kept bringing up random obviously false stories that kept appearing whenever she logged on.
https://www.theguardian.com/politic...for-customs-checks-at-dover-in-no-deal-brexit
How far away from reality is this idiot?
How far away from reality is this idiot?
I think he's wumming at this point. He know no one takes him seriously.
But Brexiters do take him seriously, they take anyone seriously who says what they want to hear.
All EU countries will insist on checks. Rotterdam and Antwerp are equipped for container freight , not for massive lorry traffic. Only Dover and the Channel tunnel in the UK are equipped for massive lorry traffic.
In any case under WTO rules there has to be a hard border and checks.
https://ec.europa.eu/commission/sit...al_note_on_temporary_customs_arrangements.pdf
EU comments on UK proposed Backstop.
Well there's a surprise.
EU comments on UK proposed Backstop.
Well there's a surprise.