Thought I'd start a new thread as this is going to be a major talking point this year...have not made up my mind yet...(unlike bucksfizz)....but thinking of voting for an exit as Europe is not doing Britain any good at all it seems....

If you have spare time have a look at the summation the world 2019 on I player of This Week.

Interesting!

(At least to me.)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0bw5jmk/this-week-20122018

Also, I would like to say the best of season's greetings to all including Manuel and a few more unlikely lads and lasses.

Also, many thanks to RF for starting this thread and GF for the Talk to Your Self, thread.

In the spirit of Xmas, would it be possible to allow GF and Exec to start posting again, even though I disagree with the latter on many things?

-=-=-=

Nadolig llawen a blwyddyn newydd dda pawb

i suspect GF is banned for life ....... when the mood or the demon drink takes him, he's still as bats as ever

have managed to get myself a job here over christmas on double bubble, and with a bit of luck, the tips should be good too ...... certainly some of the tits are :-)

Reads as if you are on the bottle too.

not so ...... went for a great walk x-country this morning and finished with a very pleasant pint of wadworth 6x

E/L Banned as well? I didn't know that what was that for and when?

He agreed with Manuel!

don't be ridiculous :-)

Not possible Fred as no one is daft enough to agree with Alf -):

Shall we have a day of kindness to Alf?


Just 1 day!

What a most Generous thought Fred ...but then on the other hand -):

11043. Have you been on the sauce Fred? You'll be suggesting next that we meet in No Mans Land, exchange mince pies and have a game of footie. Apart from you being far too old for that, I suppose you could mind the togs, I have no intention of going to Burnley.

Meet the anti-Brexit campaigner (literally) behind the news




Anti-Brexit campaigner Steve Bray has made himself an unlikely television star, with his photobombing antics on news reports outside the Houses of Parliament. TIM WALKER went to watch him at work, and hear about how the mood in the area is darkening



It is barely 8am on a bitingly-cold morning at the mini media village which has set up camp on College Green opposite the Palace of Westminster, and the Brexit Circus is already open for business. Most of the star turns are performing: Jacob Rees-Mogg in a Dickensian top coat; Labour’s John McDonnell, surprisingly diminutive and doddery up close; my charming New European colleague Andrew Adonis, stopping by to share a joke; and the ever-immaculate Gina Miller, waiting patiently to appear on a radio show.

He is deftly positioning a placard on a very long pole – bearing the words ‘We Want a People’s Vote’ – directly behind Rees-Mogg’s head as he addresses the BBC cameras on a towering wooden platform that was specifically erected to frustrate the efforts of the man becoming known as Britain’s most prominent protester.

Bray takes an obvious pride in his work – he naturally couldn’t talk to me until Rees-Mogg was off-air – and he knows how to play the game with the camera crews and the presenters to keep in sync with them, as they swiftly change their positions. It is like watching an immensely complicated dance routine. He takes special satisfaction in particular acts of placard-manoeuvring and shows me his favourite screen grabs – occasions where he has got his message onto the television screens – with obvious delight.



Bray in person is an engaging 49-year-old Welshman who is on good terms now with a number of the technicians and journalists operating outside the Houses of Parliament, like the BBC’s amiable Simon McCoy, and he can even engage in cheerful banter with a lot of the Brextremist MPs.

He is sporting a blue top hat emblazoned with the words “Stop Brexit” when we meet and his associate Barbara Want is carrying a huge Union Jack.

“There is really something very British and eccentric about it all – the way people you would imagine would hate each other can largely take their turns to go before the cameras in a civilised, good-humoured way,” he says. “I’ve been doing this continuously since September last year and most of the time I would say there has been a real camaraderie.

“I told McCoy, for instance, that I would do a banner saying he’s my favourite BBC presenter and every time he sees me now he asks me where it is. There have been occasions I have even managed to have a laugh with Rees-Mogg, to be honest. The problem is, just lately, things have started to change and it’s very worrying.”

There were angry cries of “gas her” as Gina Miller talked to the BBC’s Huw Edwards the other day – it visibly shocked both the campaigner and the anchorman – and Bray saw, too, the Guardian journalist Owen Jones being pursued along the road by an ugly mob shouting homophobic abuse and accusing him of treachery. He also witnessed a Remain campaigner with Parkinson’s disease pushed against a barrier and hurt.

Bray himself has not been immune. “It’s getting very personal now. There was a guy with a placard with the words ‘who is funding Steve the drunk?’ on it, which anyone will tell you who knows me will say is just so unfair on every level. I had a small business and I could be making money, but protesting against Brexit seems to me to be the number one priority now. I might add I like the idea that I am a drunkard as I can’t honestly see how I could be with the sort of hours I am putting in.”

As a matter of fact, Bray was a rare coins dealer before all this happened, but he closed the business and sold most of the stock to fund himself. He is divorced, with a daughter and grandson, and lives frugally in a London flat lent to him by a Remainer. The SODEM Brexit protest group – which he founded – raises money to help him with the costs of living away from home, and occasionally passers-by stop to give him cash. He was particularly touched when a white van drew up and the two guys in it gave him a £50 note just to help continue doing what he does.

“The people who are doing this are a really nasty bunch – supporters of the English Defence League, the hard right of UKIP and so on – and they’ve only started pitching up here over the past few weeks and turned out in force a few times,” he says.

“It’s changing the atmosphere and there are people who are starting to feel frightened. To their great credit, guys I know from Leave Means Leave are as disgusted by this mob as I am. All of us who have been here for a while agree that the tactics they are using are totally unacceptable.

“They like to threaten and physically intimidate and use abusive words and talk about treachery, but to me the right to protest is one of the most fundamental, defining things we have in this country and the fact they are trying to threaten Mrs Miller and frighten us all away, just shows how little they understand this country.”

There is fencing around College Green, but it is easy to climb over and never once when I have gone has there been a police officer at the official entrance to ask the purpose of my visit or to even attempt to search me. Bray has had some run-ins with the police, but says, generally speaking, they appear to want to keep as low a profile as possible.

“They escorted me away the other day because one of the broadcasters had complained about me, but it’s always a temporary thing, a short conversation, and then I am back. The other day a cameraman tried to allege that I had, by holding up a banner behind a guy they were interviewing, inflicted ‘criminal damage’ upon his film, but it was clearly just a try-on and it went nowhere.

“Most of the time it has actually only been Remainers here protesting, so there has never been any real friction, but this lot we are seeing now – they are good at using the internet to get a crowd together – make me think the police should be more assertive and aware there could be trouble.”

Bray is adamant, however, that he is not going to be intimidated and assures me the one thing that can be said for sure about Brexit is the continued presence of his banners on the news bulletins.

“I do think that we are winning and the ugly scenes we have been seeing here just lately shows how desperate our most extreme opponents are now becoming. I think we all get that there is a principle at stake and no one has been scared away. I really admire Gina Miller in particular for the way she came back after what she had to go through – it was the fact she’s a lady that made it so disgusting. These people as I say know absolutely nothing about what Britain is about.”

For all that, Bray is optimistic and 
there is no doubt at all in his mind that Brexit can and will be stopped in the year ahead. “I am absolutely certain that we will not leave the European Union and that we will come out of this a stronger and more unified country than we were before. All of the most deprived areas I know voted for Brexit because they genuinely thought the people campaigning for it were their friends and that they cared. I think they know now who their real friends are. After this is all over, we must become a lot more compassionate as a society and be willing to listen a lot more.”

“I do think that we are winning and the ugly scenes we have been seeing here just lately shows how desperate our most extreme opponents are now becoming. I think we all get that there is a principle at stake and no one has been scared away. I really admire Gina Miller in particular for the way she came back after what she had to go through – it was the fact she’s a lady that made it so disgusting. These people as I say know absolutely nothing about what Britain is about.”

For all that, Bray is optimistic and 
there is no doubt at all in his mind that Brexit can and will be stopped in the year ahead. “I am absolutely certain that we will not leave the European Union and that we will come out of this a stronger and more unified country than we were before. All of the most deprived areas I know voted for Brexit because they genuinely thought the people campaigning for it were their friends and that they cared. I think they know now who their real friends are. After this is all over, we must become a lot more compassionate as a society and be willing to listen a lot more.”

That nutter is giving Bray a bad name.

Proud to be the new British.

no real surprise for similar splits in the labour party as in the conservatives to be shown loud and clear ...... anyone with half a brain cell knew it anyway ......

today's observer headline
corbyn faces furious labour backlash over backing brexit
leader accused of betrayal on second poll
party in danger of losing young backers

Manuel.

Did you read the article?

If so, read it again.

I think if you read what JC is supposed to have said carefully you may realise that the interpretation you are emphasising is slanted by your own wishful thinking.

-=-==-=

Personally, I would like him to come out against the BREXIT SUICIDE pact, but realise until the "negotiation" and residual "deal" is finalised to do so at the moment would immediately be jumped upon by the Betrayers of Britain, as Corbyn wishing to refuse or satisfy the "Willies of the People".

When the "final deal" is declared and shown that if accepted the result would be catastrophic for the UK, then would be his time to advocate another referendum.

Maybe wrong, maybe right.

From Observer "Your Letters"


Opinion Brexit
Letters: no second Brexit vote is an affront to democracy
Without another referendum, increasing numbers of voters will be disenfranchised
Sun 23 Dec 2018 06.00 GMT


Freezing democracy by preventing a further vote is undemocratic (“Chaos reigns. The only viable option left is a second vote”, Editorial). Intrinsic to democracy is regular consultation of the people.

You might argue that after an overwhelming majority vote it would be unnecessary to have any further votes on a topic for some time; however, the reverse logic equally applies.

A small majority indicates that the electorate is seriously divided and, as events and people move on, that majority opinion could easily shift. Given that the terms of the EU withdrawal agreement were unknown at the time of voting, that the Leave vote was not overwhelming, that two countries in the UK voted to remain and that the UK faces some of the most important series of decisions in its recent history, exercising further democracy can only be just.


It is quite ridiculous to suggest that calling for a vote is against democracy. Voting is what democracy is all about and it should not exclude the option to change direction completely.

Paul Young

Weybridge, Surrey

You outsiders better start criticising your own motley crew before starting on anyone else.