The Brexit referendum thread: potential consequences for GB, EU and the Brits in CH

[lewton]

	Quote:	Loz1983
	Council elections are meaningless, other than the turnout and the number of spoilt ballot papers. The real fun begins in 3 weeks with the EU Parliament elections when the Brexit Party and Change UK take part. Can’t wait.

Me neither.
Can we agree that whatever percentage the Brexit party gets, this will be the percentage of Brits who want Hard Brexit?

	Quote:	lewton
	Me neither. Can we agree that whatever percentage the Brexit party gets, this will be the percentage of Brits who want Hard Brexit?

Nope, because as I’ve said before, there really are people (usually of the hard of thinking) who will vote Tory or Labour no matter what they do. Tribal voters who have voted that way their entire life.

	Quote:	Loz1983
	Nope, because as I’ve said before, there really are people (usually of the hard of thinking) who will vote Tory or Labour no matter what they do. Tribal voters who have voted that way their entire life.

There were people falling over themselves yesterday telling anyone who’d listen that they’d been lifelong Tory/Labour voters and had either voted elsewhere or spoiled their ballot paper due to Brexit. Either they didn’t want it or it wasn’t being pushed through regardless.

Enough (not all) people have had enough of their buttons pushed to cause them to really think about what’s going on.

	Quote:	Blueangel
	The turnout was standard for this type of ballot, which surprised many commentators who believed there would be a marked drop in turnout. You also need to figure in that there were no ballots in London, which could have seen huge losses by Labour. In my hometown constituency of Wigan, which was targeted by a considerable UKIP campaign over recent months, and voted by 63.9% Leave the EU, the results were: Conservatives 8 +1, Labour 57 -3, Independent 10 +2 In the constituency where my vote is registered, Windsor & Maidenhead Royal, whch voted by 53.9% to Remain in the EU, and where the PM is one of the two MPs that represent the area, the results were: Conservative 23 -15, Lib Dem 9 +8, Independent 9 +7. Over those 41 seats, UKIP only fielded one candidate who got 152 votes, and the only candidates who polled lower than him across all 41 seats, were all Labour. In Wigan, UKIP fielded candidates in 70 of the 75 seats. They came second in 8 of those seats, all of which would be considered by your average local to be 'socially deprived areas'. I hate that turn of phrase, so to better define it, I'm talking about families who are into their 3rd generation of long term unemployed and poverty. In lived in one of those areas for 6mths and our house was broken into 3 times. On the second occasion, the thieves stole food from the fridge and the leftovers from a Chinese takeaway. They literally scraped the leftovers from our discarded plates back into the foil tubs and took them.

Forget about UKIP, they're not the same party anymore. Despite what you read in the newspapers, Brits tend not to vote for the far-right.

	Quote:	Blueangel
	Where would you have put your cross with the candidates inn the area that your last UK vote is, or was registered in?

Living in Switzerland and voting in council elections is utterly pointless. Voting for who decides what day your bin gets emptied? No thanks.

Back way back when I did vote for my local Lib Dem candidate. Not out of any party affiliation, but because I knew her and I knew she cared for where we lived. This is how local elections should work.

	Quote:
	There were people falling over themselves yesterday telling anyone who’d listen that they’d been lifelong Tory/Labour voters and had either voted elsewhere or spoiled their ballot paper due to Brexit. Either they didn’t want it or it wasn’t being pushed through regardless. Enough (not all) people have had enough of their buttons pushed to cause them to really think about what’s going on.

Obviously not enough. In spite of the shitshow we've seen from the two main parties, they still won the popular vote (28% a piece). Just goes to prove my point that many people will vote Labour or Tory whatever.

[Blueangel]

	Quote:	Loz1983
	Despite what you read in the newspapers, Brits tend not to vote for the far-right.

They used to quite a bit in my hometown. At one point, we had the only branch of the BNP that was rejected by the central party for being too aggressive.

	Quote:	Loz1983
	Living in Switzerland and voting in council elections is utterly pointless.

I didn't select that option when I renewed my voting rights in Jan. Never seen the point in voting on such local issues, and this time the main one in Windsor was the new generation of parking meters that's been rolled out but doesn't work.

[John William]

British Overseas voters are not entitled to vote in UK local Council elections anyway.

	Quote:	John William
	British Overseas voters are not entitled to vote in UK local Council elections anyway.

Not if they don’t know you’re overseas

[Blueangel]

	Quote:	John William
	British Overseas voters are not entitled to vote in UK local Council elections anyway.

You're right. Just read over my last renewal form and it said Parliamentary and European Parliamentary.

[SponPlague]

This is interesting: https://simonbriscoeblog.wordpress.c...-results-show/

	Quote:	SponPlague
	This is interesting: https://simonbriscoeblog.wordpress.c...-results-show/

Not really. He conveniently ignores the fact that in 2015 the local elections were on the same day as the general election. Local election turnout is normally around 30% or a little more. General election turnout is normally around 70%. That - and not any concerted abstentions - is the reason for the lower absolute vote numbers.

There's a comment at the bottom making the point

	Quote:
	I think you are making a mistake here. These seats were last contested in 2015 in General Election Day, when turnout is roughly double a local election. A better comparison is with 2011 when the same seats were contested without a GE on the same day. The turnout was similar but results very different. For the Lib Dem’s to achieve GE vote totals in a local election is an exceptional performance (it’s incredibly rare), for the Tory vote to halve from GE to local is not unexpected.

[Blueangel]

	Quote:
	Not really. He conveniently ignores the fact that in 2015 the local elections were on the same day as the general election. Local election turnout is normally around 30% or a little more.

Exactly! He also keeps raising the point that it's "difficult" to find the voting numbers. That's BS and a piece of lazy journalism. I've had absolutely no problem looking up the vote results for the councils that I was interested in.

I've seen similar posts from staunch Labour supporters who have used graphs shoing the results 'in the Shires which are never held by Labour'. Again, what a load of BS and selective imagery. The aim of that particular graph and post was to make all the LD votes appear to be turncoat Tories, and completely ignores the fact that voters aged 18-22 didn't have a vote in the last local elections.

The really simple, though time consuming, way to read the results are to look at the local council sites, and where a particular candidate polled particularly badly, check out their biog. There's usually a good reason why certain people polled badly that is nothing to do with party politics, and a lot about poor candidate selection.

What I've seen, particularly in the Windsor & Maidenhead Royal area, is a considerable swing back to candidates who represent very specific local issues and residents' associations. In Windsor, a 'major' issue has been a new generation of parking meters that have been rolled out and have proved to be exceptionally unreliable. The Tories in that particular area lost seats to people who represented issues such as that.

The bottom line is, of the 49 councils that the Tories lost control of, only 9 went to LD and the remainding 40 to NOC. For any geeks out there, these are the areas that went from Tory to LD, and I've put a star next to the areas where the Tories got absolutely trounced, losing over 50% of their seats and council control.


* Bath & North East Somerset
* Chelmsford
Cotswold
Mole Valley
* North Norfolk
* Somerset West & Taunton
* Teignbridge
* Vale of White Horse
Winchester

Source: https://election.news.sky.com/englan...l-elections-26

[Jim2007]

British lawyers hit trouble in rebranding as Irish after Brexit

It seems like the plan to circumvent the EU practicing rules by British solicitors and barristers has hit a wee problem...

	Quote:
	According to a report from the Law Gazette, 2,772 English and Welsh solicitors have been admitted to the Irish bar since the U.K. voted to leave the EU.

	Quote:
	Practising certificates issued by the Law Society of Ireland entitle the solicitor holder to provide Irish and EU legal services ... solely from an establishment in the Irish State

	Quote:
	A lawyer in Brussels explained that U.K. solicitors would not be allowed to represent clients before the European top courts in Luxembourg after Brexit unless they obtain the right to practice EU law in another country. This is because only lawyers who qualify in an EU country can make a submission to the European courts.

	Quote:
	Another lawyer explained that U.K.-qualified lawyers are also concerned that their correspondence could be seized following Brexit, as the European Commission does not recognize legal privilege for advisers who are not registered at an EU bar. Privilege exempts the seizure of a lawyer's files.

One can only wonder what else is to come in mess.

Source

[Fish Paste]

Lots and lots of talk today on the radio of a second referendum/confirmatory vote.


I think the electorate are being softened up for this.



Personally I don't think it's a bad thing.

[marton]

	Quote:	marton
	Softening of tone from Honda Source The Japanese carmaker, which said earlier this week that the closure was “not a Brexit-related issue”, appeared to dilute its rhetoric after the Guardian presented it with details of what Swindon residents were told last year [about why Brexit, in particular the prospect of a no-deal scenario, posed a threat to the factory.]

Honda has confirmed today it will close its plant in Swindon in 2021 with the loss of 3,500 jobs.

[Troublawesome]

	Quote:	marton
	Honda has confirmed today it will close its plant in Swindon in 2021 with the loss of 3,500 jobs.

Yeah but it's definitely not because of Brexit

[3Wishes]

	Quote:	Jim2007
	British lawyers hit trouble in rebranding as Irish after Brexit It seems like the plan to circumvent the EU practicing rules by British solicitors and barristers has hit a wee problem... One can only wonder what else is to come in mess. Source

I would assume lawyers would fight and say that anything that happened while UK was still part of the EU is still covered under that rule. In addition, I imagine that legal files, notes, etc. are covered under UK law, which would (theoretically?) supersede any EU ruling on seizing records post-Brexit.

[Urs Max]

	Quote:	Troublawesome
	Yeah but it's definitely not because of Brexit

Of course not, Brexit hasn't even happened yet.

[Jim2007]

	Quote:	3Wishes
	I would assume lawyers would fight and say that anything that happened while UK was still part of the EU is still covered under that rule. In addition, I imagine that legal files, notes, etc. are covered under UK law, which would (theoretically?) supersede any EU ruling on seizing records post-Brexit.

It is not about the law it is about the lawyer. The British lawyers will have no right of audience, so clients we’ll need to higher new lawyers, this is what happens in any case where a lawyer is unable to continue.

Any documents etc within the jurisdiction of the ECJ is subject to EU law and UK law has no role to play in it. And since cases are heard within the EU it’s a fair assumption that the relevant documents are being held at legal offices in Brussels.

[John William]

Meanwhile back to those forthcoming European elections in the UK. Could Ann Widdecombe
take centre stage ?