UK Politics Thread V: Upon This Blasted Heath

[Ifreann]

Brexit campaigners in Britain reacted with anger to the idea, arguing that it would discriminate against Leave voters and that it was “an outrage”.

oh my god this is too fucking funny

this is what they actually believe

holy shit

What I want to know is how the EU would know an applicant voted leave in a secret ballot.

[The Nihilistic view]

May came first among MPs for both ballots before the others all dropped out or were eliminated. So yes she did win on two occasions. Both times she got a majority so she was chosen by the MPs.

weren't they deliberately trying to avoid a member's vote?

Some probably thought a swift selection would be best with Labour in a mess, some probably wanted a vote. As is usual with these things you don't get everybody agreeing.

[Dooom35796821595]

Isn't serious? The UK just got a leave victory and the country was in chaos, there was no strategy for Brexit. (Kinda like how there's isn't now) and he's made clear there will be NO negotiations until article 50, effectively putting a two year timer on it, again for the EUs advantage.

No, the UK voted for a majority conservative parliment, but when the government dissolved due to Cameron's cowardice I don't remember him appointing may as his replacement, her getting chosen by either the party or the party's MPs. She was more the last one left standing.

UK got a Leave victory like quarter of a year ago; as for back then I think it's rather reasonable to expect country to have a plan before rather publicly declaring to a course of action. If UK is committed, it can start negotiations at any point it want, as specified in the laws it approved of.

People still elected the parliament as is, and whoever commands the majority in parliament gets the mandate from the people's representatives - to suggest people didn't elect her is rather silly when they elected the parliament and parliament approved May according to all required procedures. Despite American influence in our politics, we still don't have a presidential system thus don't require mandate for a person.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-brita ... SKCN12K1JN

He said he expected May to brief the other 27 leaders later but has ruled out negotiations until May formally launches the Brexit process. Tusk rejected suggestions the new premier would face a hostile reception and said talks would remain cordial.

And no, the UK didn't have a leave plan because the government was pro remain.

Again, I was questioning her apparent lack of vote from either conservative MPs or the conservative membership.
Why does everyone assume that me questioning a mandate means I think they should win a public vote?

[Vassenor]

So apparently endorsing and supporting discrimination is in the public interest.

I... I am quite frankly running out of words here. We're into "I am so unspeakably outraged" territory here.

[Dooom35796821595]

Also, if May buggers up the country after Brexit what's are the chance she Parliment bans women from becoming PM?

"I'm sorry, but we've had two and they were both terrible."

[Souseiseki]

is it political nicknaming if we insist on referring to liam fox as disgraced former defence secretary liam fox

[Hydesland]

I can't see that proposal passing, however I'm hoping I might be able to be granted German (and therefore EU) citizenship through my Ashkenazai Jewish ancestry.

[Philjia]

So apparently endorsing and supporting discrimination is in the public interest.

I... I am quite frankly running out of words here. We're into "I am so unspeakably outraged" territory here.

"We fucked up hugely but we don't want to admit it so we'll claim it's not in the public interest."

[The Nihilistic view]

is it political nicknaming if we insist on referring to liam fox as disgraced former defence secretary liam fox

Probably, we just need an American to report you now.

[Imperializt Russia]

is it political nicknaming if we insist on referring to liam fox as disgraced former defence secretary liam fox

Well, it's technically correct.

The best kind of correct.

[Great Nepal]

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-brita ... SKCN12K1JN

He said he expected May to brief the other 27 leaders later but has ruled out negotiations until May formally launches the Brexit process. Tusk rejected suggestions the new premier would face a hostile reception and said talks would remain cordial.

He's refused to negotiate with a party which hasn't officially committed to the negotiations as set out in the agreement they agreed to; which is what I said. My point is if and when UK is serious about leaving the EU, it can start negotiations whenever it wants as dictated by the laws UK approved - ie. by giving official notice according to A50.

And no, the UK didn't have a leave plan because the government was pro remain.

One'd still sensibly expect the country to not go for a side with no plan; so say most sensibly expect leave campaign to have a plan, or alternatively for government to have a contingency plan.

Again, I was questioning her apparent lack of vote from either conservative MPs or the conservative membership.
Why does everyone assume that me questioning a mandate means I think they should win a public vote?

Probably because I had discussion on another forum about someone going on about her lack of mandate and they kept referring to fact that no one elected her.
Anyways she was technically unanimously elected by conservative MPs rendering subsequent membership election moot; but either way her mandate would be governed by her command of parliament rather than conservative party, which she has as much as Cameron until opposition proves otherwise.

[Fartsniffage]

is it political nicknaming if we insist on referring to liam fox as disgraced former defence secretary liam fox

Can't we just refer to him as Dr Fox to confuse any Americans who google him?

[Souseiseki]

is it political nicknaming if we insist on referring to liam fox as disgraced former defence secretary liam fox

Can't we just refer to him as Dr Fox to confuse any Americans who google him?

that makes him sound too much like a supervillian

[Fartsniffage]

Can't we just refer to him as Dr Fox to confuse any Americans who google him?

that makes him sound too much like a supervillian

I sometimes forget how young the people here are....

[Souseiseki]

Where Brexit struck first: The mushroom farms of Ireland


TIPPERARY, Ireland — Ireland’s farmers have become Brexit’s first victims.

Seated at her farmhouse kitchen table, Lavinia Walsh frowned over a payment ledger that sums up the grim fate of the Irish mushroom industry. Since Britain’s vote to leave the European Union, the pound has sunk and is hauling down the livelihood of thousands of Irish farmers with it.

“The night before Brexit, I thought ‘This will be fine, they’re not going to do it.’ And they did. I couldn’t believe it,” said Walsh, 54, nursing a cup of tea on the farm where she lives with her two children and husband Donal. “It has developed into a catastrophe. It is a catastrophe for us.”

Five Irish mushroom farms have gone out of business since the June 23 vote. More are expected to follow by Christmas.

Like many Irish mushroom farmers, the Walshes sell their entire crop to the British market for prices fixed months in advance in sterling. The currency’s 15 percent drop against the euro since the Brexit referendum has wiped out their operating margin and tipped the sector into a crisis that could spell trouble for all exporters to the U.K.

The Irish are not alone. Because the U.K. imports almost half of its food, the impact is widely felt.

Sterling’s plunge is “affecting all the growers in Spain,” the U.K.’s biggest supplier of fruit and vegetables, according to Jorge Brotons of exporters association Fepex. The Netherlands, the next-largest supplier of vegetables to the U.K., has set up a dedicated Brexit information desk to help companies concerned about the fallout. A survey of British retailers by Barclays found that 43 percent expected to reduce the number of products they source from the rest of Europe.

But nowhere is as exposed as Ireland. The country is the U.K.’s single biggest supplier of food and drink, an industry that provides about one in 12 Irish jobs. The U.K. buys 84 percent of Ireland’s poultry exports, 65 percent of its cheddar cheese exports and 80 percent of the entire Irish mushroom crop.

“The mushroom producers were the first casualties of Brexit,” said Pat Deering, a lawmaker in the ruling Fine Gael party.

In free fall

Donal McCarthy, head of mushroom producers’ organization CMP, said that 10 percent of the Irish mushroom industry could disappear in the next few months.

“The industry is in free fall,” McCarthy said. “We need help and we need it now, because we’re bleeding.”

Industry representatives last month sought government help to tide mushroom producers over until either sterling recovers or prices rise in Britain. But when the 2017 budget was announced last month, their proposals were not included. Deering suggested that the government could have been reluctant to set a precedent.

The size of the mushroom industry, which employs about 3,500 people and is worth roughly €180 million a year, may make it only a speck in the context of Ireland’s €26 billion agri-food industry, but its fate is ominous for bigger sectors.

“It isn’t the mushroom industry alone. In beef there are huge challenges as well. Whatever we’re exporting to England is going to face difficulty,” Deering said.

A walk through the Walsh farm, 12 mushroom tunnels set in the deep green landscape of central Ireland, illustrates the mushroom sector’s particular vulnerability.

To keep up a constant crop, Walsh must buy mushroom compost each week for €10,500, a price fixed in euros. She employs roughly 30 people — welcome jobs in rural Tipperary — and labor accounts for nearly half of her production costs. The mushrooms are on British supermarket shelves the day after they are picked. As mushrooms have a shelf life of just over a week, Walsh is largely a prisoner of her nearest market.

Farms like this were already operating on the tightest of margins due to a price war among British supermarkets, where incumbents such as Tesco are trying to stave off rise of German discounters such as Lidl. That cutthroat competition means retailers are highly reluctant to raise prices now, let alone renegotiate existing contracts that were agreed upon when one pound was worth €1.30, and not nearing parity.

Pastures new

The fear whispered among Irish mushroom farmers is that suppliers may turn to Poland, where the minimum wage is less than a third of Ireland’s and where producers blocked by sanctions from selling to Russia are looking for new markets.

While closures mean less competition, Walsh feels no pleasure in seeing mushroom farmers she knows personally go out of business. She fears the Irish mushroom industry may lose its bargaining power in the U.K. as a whole.

“What makes me angry, truly angry, is that they did nothing to deserve this. They were good growers,” Walsh said. It is by far the toughest time she has seen since she and Donal set up the farm in 1999. “We can only hope that we’ll be there at the end of this. We intend to be here because of the age of our children. We need to get them through college. And that means digging in and carrying on.”

Simon McKeever, head of the Irish Exporters Association, said companies were thinking of moving people or production to the U.K. “It’s the most acute challenge that the Irish economy is facing. Aside from the 2008 downturn, this is the biggest challenge we have seen.”

Uncertainty is a large part of the problem. Exporters to the U.K. do not know whether their produce will be subject to tariffs in three years time. Any eventual tariffs could “cripple” the Irish food industry, former Prime Minister Bertie Ahern told a U.K. parliament inquiry this week.

Communities living along the meandering border between Northern Ireland and Ireland — a divide that has caused decades of bloodshed — have been protesting the prospect of customs checks splitting the island.

Ultimately, the outcome is to a large extent out of Irish hands. In McKeever’s words, Ireland is stuck between an irate Brussels and “a faction of the U.K. Conservative party.”

“There is going to be a war of words and we are caught in the middle,” McKeever said. “It’s politics that are driving this, not economics.”

Walsh described going through every option available to cut costs. Delaying repairs. Extending credit lines. Keeping her cooler running on a “wing and a prayer.” She pushed the payments’ book away and sat back in her chair.

“What can I do? I can’t control the uncontrollable,” Walsh said.

She zigzagged her hand up and down to trace the volatile course of the sterling/euro exchange rate.

“It’s down to when Theresa May sneezes.”

http://www.politico.eu/article/where-br ... f-ireland/

it sounds funny say "lol first they came for the mushroom farms" but they really are quite fucked

[The Nihilistic view]

Relocating to the UK sounds like a good idea.......

[Imperializt Russia]

Relocating to the UK sounds like a good idea.......

Relocating Ireland to the UK. OK.

[Ifreann]

Where Brexit struck first: The mushroom farms of Ireland


TIPPERARY, Ireland — Ireland’s farmers have become Brexit’s first victims.

Seated at her farmhouse kitchen table, Lavinia Walsh frowned over a payment ledger that sums up the grim fate of the Irish mushroom industry. Since Britain’s vote to leave the European Union, the pound has sunk and is hauling down the livelihood of thousands of Irish farmers with it.

“The night before Brexit, I thought ‘This will be fine, they’re not going to do it.’ And they did. I couldn’t believe it,” said Walsh, 54, nursing a cup of tea on the farm where she lives with her two children and husband Donal. “It has developed into a catastrophe. It is a catastrophe for us.”

Five Irish mushroom farms have gone out of business since the June 23 vote. More are expected to follow by Christmas.

Like many Irish mushroom farmers, the Walshes sell their entire crop to the British market for prices fixed months in advance in sterling. The currency’s 15 percent drop against the euro since the Brexit referendum has wiped out their operating margin and tipped the sector into a crisis that could spell trouble for all exporters to the U.K.

The Irish are not alone. Because the U.K. imports almost half of its food, the impact is widely felt.

Sterling’s plunge is “affecting all the growers in Spain,” the U.K.’s biggest supplier of fruit and vegetables, according to Jorge Brotons of exporters association Fepex. The Netherlands, the next-largest supplier of vegetables to the U.K., has set up a dedicated Brexit information desk to help companies concerned about the fallout. A survey of British retailers by Barclays found that 43 percent expected to reduce the number of products they source from the rest of Europe.

But nowhere is as exposed as Ireland. The country is the U.K.’s single biggest supplier of food and drink, an industry that provides about one in 12 Irish jobs. The U.K. buys 84 percent of Ireland’s poultry exports, 65 percent of its cheddar cheese exports and 80 percent of the entire Irish mushroom crop.

“The mushroom producers were the first casualties of Brexit,” said Pat Deering, a lawmaker in the ruling Fine Gael party.

In free fall

Donal McCarthy, head of mushroom producers’ organization CMP, said that 10 percent of the Irish mushroom industry could disappear in the next few months.

“The industry is in free fall,” McCarthy said. “We need help and we need it now, because we’re bleeding.”

Industry representatives last month sought government help to tide mushroom producers over until either sterling recovers or prices rise in Britain. But when the 2017 budget was announced last month, their proposals were not included. Deering suggested that the government could have been reluctant to set a precedent.

The size of the mushroom industry, which employs about 3,500 people and is worth roughly €180 million a year, may make it only a speck in the context of Ireland’s €26 billion agri-food industry, but its fate is ominous for bigger sectors.

“It isn’t the mushroom industry alone. In beef there are huge challenges as well. Whatever we’re exporting to England is going to face difficulty,” Deering said.

A walk through the Walsh farm, 12 mushroom tunnels set in the deep green landscape of central Ireland, illustrates the mushroom sector’s particular vulnerability.

To keep up a constant crop, Walsh must buy mushroom compost each week for €10,500, a price fixed in euros. She employs roughly 30 people — welcome jobs in rural Tipperary — and labor accounts for nearly half of her production costs. The mushrooms are on British supermarket shelves the day after they are picked. As mushrooms have a shelf life of just over a week, Walsh is largely a prisoner of her nearest market.

Farms like this were already operating on the tightest of margins due to a price war among British supermarkets, where incumbents such as Tesco are trying to stave off rise of German discounters such as Lidl. That cutthroat competition means retailers are highly reluctant to raise prices now, let alone renegotiate existing contracts that were agreed upon when one pound was worth €1.30, and not nearing parity.

Pastures new

The fear whispered among Irish mushroom farmers is that suppliers may turn to Poland, where the minimum wage is less than a third of Ireland’s and where producers blocked by sanctions from selling to Russia are looking for new markets.

While closures mean less competition, Walsh feels no pleasure in seeing mushroom farmers she knows personally go out of business. She fears the Irish mushroom industry may lose its bargaining power in the U.K. as a whole.

“What makes me angry, truly angry, is that they did nothing to deserve this. They were good growers,” Walsh said. It is by far the toughest time she has seen since she and Donal set up the farm in 1999. “We can only hope that we’ll be there at the end of this. We intend to be here because of the age of our children. We need to get them through college. And that means digging in and carrying on.”

Simon McKeever, head of the Irish Exporters Association, said companies were thinking of moving people or production to the U.K. “It’s the most acute challenge that the Irish economy is facing. Aside from the 2008 downturn, this is the biggest challenge we have seen.”

Uncertainty is a large part of the problem. Exporters to the U.K. do not know whether their produce will be subject to tariffs in three years time. Any eventual tariffs could “cripple” the Irish food industry, former Prime Minister Bertie Ahern told a U.K. parliament inquiry this week.

Communities living along the meandering border between Northern Ireland and Ireland — a divide that has caused decades of bloodshed — have been protesting the prospect of customs checks splitting the island.

Ultimately, the outcome is to a large extent out of Irish hands. In McKeever’s words, Ireland is stuck between an irate Brussels and “a faction of the U.K. Conservative party.”

“There is going to be a war of words and we are caught in the middle,” McKeever said. “It’s politics that are driving this, not economics.”

Walsh described going through every option available to cut costs. Delaying repairs. Extending credit lines. Keeping her cooler running on a “wing and a prayer.” She pushed the payments’ book away and sat back in her chair.

“What can I do? I can’t control the uncontrollable,” Walsh said.

She zigzagged her hand up and down to trace the volatile course of the sterling/euro exchange rate.

“It’s down to when Theresa May sneezes.”

http://www.politico.eu/article/where-br ... f-ireland/

it sounds funny say "lol first they came for the mushroom farms" but they really are quite fucked

Fungus is serious business.

[Dooom35796821595]

Relocating to the UK sounds like a good idea.......

Relocating Ireland to the UK. OK.

It's decided! We shall place it below the south of england, to form a land bridge with Europe so we have better access for tanks.

[Souseiseki]

gonna laugh so fucking hard if president trump makes the pound bounce up

it's already getting a tiny little boost

[Dooom35796821595]

gonna laugh so fucking hard if president trump makes the pound bounce up

That's would be a double score for Farrage, people might actually want him around, like some sort of *shudder* electoral good luck charm.

[Hydesland]

Let's reconquer the US.

[The Nihilistic view]

gonna laugh so fucking hard if president trump makes the pound bounce up

it's already getting a tiny little boost

Would make us front of the queue too Hehe!

[Dooom35796821595]

gonna laugh so fucking hard if president trump makes the pound bounce up

it's already getting a tiny little boost

Would make us front of the queue too Hehe!

He might give us a good deal in exchange for a title. Lord Trump, anyone?

[The Nihilistic view]

Would make us front of the queue too Hehe!

He might give us a good deal in exchange for a title. Lord Trump, anyone?

Lord Trump of Trumpton?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trumpton