English Chess Forum

Probably should let this lie, but there was quite a striking poll yesterday regarding how heavy a blow the referendum was for a fair few people: 1/4 having thought of leaving the country.

Far fewer will actually enact it of course - ultimately England is still pleasant to live in by most standards and will remain so going forwards - but that isn't how people react to general elections etc, and honestly isn't a fun sort of way to feel for even a temporary period.

MartinCarpenter wrote: Far fewer will actually enact it of course

Yes. What I know for sure is that many health service personnel are considering leaving the country, and I think a lot really will do it, because of the behaviour of Mr Hunt. My opthalmologist recently told me that I shall not be meeting her again because her papers are in.

MartinCarpenter wrote:Probably should let this lie, but there was quite a striking poll yesterday regarding how heavy a blow the referendum was for a fair few people: 1/4 having thought of leaving the country.

In the interests of balance, in the same poll: "62 percent of respondents said they had a positive outlook for the U.K.’s future after the referendum, while 35 percent believed the future looked grim"

Why should anyone feel sad about escaping from a failing organisation?

Because they were born and brought up there and thought they rather liked it?

Quite long to read through, but the Hansard record of the debate triggered by the petition is here:

https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2 ... endumRules

Some interesting comments, in the bits I had time to read. Has anyone read the whole thing?

The effective result was:

"Motion lapsed, and sitting adjourned without Question put (Standing Order No. 10(14))."

The word "clear" is becoming the most abused word of all in this chaos. Brexit means Brexit and nothing more needs to be said about that because its meaning is "clear"; and we must give effect to the decision because it was the "clear" mandate of the 51.9% who voted for it.

The 51.9% of the votes to 'leave' from a turnout of 72.2% looks a lot more 'democratic' than the Conservatives' 36.9% of the votes from a 66.1% turnout at the 2015 General Election. If the UK had something other than the first-past-the-post electoral system there may never have been a referendum at all. Still, it did get shot of Camborne so fptp is not without its saving graces.

Another (delayed) consequence of the referendum:

David Cameron to quit as Tory MP

Any takers on how long it will be before he is offered a peerage and if he would accept it?

EDIT: Actually, it seems to take quite a while now before former PMs become peers.

There's a huge amount of money to be made via after dinner speaking. Terrifying amounts really.

Jonathan Rogers wrote:The word "clear" is becoming the most abused word of all in this chaos. Brexit means Brexit and nothing more needs to be said about that because its meaning is "clear"; and we must give effect to the decision because it was the "clear" mandate of the 51.9% who voted for it.

If you don't like "clear", then consider "not close" as in the majority in England (on its own) of over 1.9 million to leave being not even close.

Apparently Corbyn (leadership election victory expected, but not declared yet) will put the Labour Party on an election footing, and Lord Ashdown "believes the prime minister may put her Brexit deal to the electorate". We can only hope.

There will be no election before the better balanced constituency boundaries come in.

Heh, those, yes. Some interesting comments about how the data used for the proposed redrawing of constituency boundaries is outdated because of the surge of registrations to vote in the Brexit referendum. Ironic, that. Will the boundary changes definitely happen before the next election has to happen?

They could have used the census information, which would be accurate, given how many people aren't on the electoral roll

Christopher Kreuzer wrote:Apparently Corbyn (leadership election victory expected, but not declared yet) will put the Labour Party on an election footing, [...]

Corbyn will be putting the Party on an election footing so that his vocal opponents (so-called Blairites but not only) will be considered traitorous in battle. It's a call to unite behind the Leader in the war against the Tories who are the real enemy not one another.