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....

We want everything for nothing!!

Dog eat dog.

The blond bombshell as vacuous as usual.

And who's the editor of the London Evening Standard? Hmmm.

Well, it all looks too difficult, shall we call it off?

Walk away time comes closer..


EU wants power to raid financial firms in Britain after Brexit



By James Crisp, Brussels correspondent
14 February 2018 • 5:51pm




The European Union will demand the right to raid financial services firms in Britain after Brexit and hand its regulators sweeping new powers, as Brussels moves to shackle the City of London with red tape after the UK leaves the bloc.

The three regulators, the European Supervisory Authorities (ESAs), will be given extra resources, levied in large part from British-headquartered firms, under the plans to closely police enforcement and regulation of the City.

Brussels will bestow the new powers on the ESAs during the Brexit transition period, when Britain will be stripped of EU voting rights and be powerless to stop the changes.

After transition, the ESAs will report to the European Commission,...



More if you sign up: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2018/02/14/eu-wants-power-raid-financial-firms-britain-brexit/

That is what some in the "City" were trying to escape from.

Max,

You really think Boris even wants Brexit? I don't.

He stage managed his public announcement of which camp he was going to support for maximum personal political gain, not out of undying love for his country. Every other MP had made their opinions known without a fanfare a long time before Boris decided to call a press conference.

Doc Proc said a couple of months ago that his dad was a useless tosser (or words to that effect). Well like father, like son!

hilly.

I'm not sure where you got the idea that I am a Boris supporter, other than that he appears to be a brexit enthusiast.

I don't actually trust any of them.

My bad, Max, I thought you were commenting on Gideon's editorial of Boris' speech from yesterday.

He's obviously directing his speech at Corbyn

Well , well the old my democratic right not to vote , so he doesn't vote ( people fought for it ) he then spends every gawd dam day knocking the out vote with endless pathetic ramblings against anyone and everyone , who ARE Tories did you know , I mean we are ALL Tories . Shocking really , can't get off his arse but spends endless hours moaning
about results of any vote . Meanwhile you say very little , but then I come along and knock two individuals ( I dare say their respected lawyers are to about raid my house any moment ) and all hell breaks loose from you , I'm the scum of the earth suddenly, I am what i am , i don't pretend to be above my station in life , but over the last few weeks i think very clearly you have given an incite into what you are about , well done , my spelling by the way isn't too bad see , P.O.M.P.O.U.S . J.U.M.P.E.D U.P. . P.R.E.M.A.D.O.N.N.A. S.P.O.I.L.T . By the way things can't be so good for you if you spend time on a BB arguing with washed out individuals , maybe your in the wrong place .

Has Corbyn or the Labour Party decided what it wants out of Brexit yet ?

I'm not even sure if they are officially for or against it even though it was Labour voters who won the day for the Brexit vote in Wales and large parts of the north of England.

Do you know their policy Fred ?

I would've thought Corbyn just wants to be on the right side of public opinion, Dil. By being non-committal, he's possibly playing a blinder, as he'll be able to latch onto and side with any change of public opinion if or when it occurs.

I would think Corbyn and others are happy to see the tories and brexiters implode.

Why should they help T. May and cohorts?

At the moment the cons and neo-cons and little people are doing a good job at self-destruction.

The problem is that at the moment they are taking others with them.

Haystack , I hope your Mums OK and healing , you shouldn't have to respond and explain her condition on here in answer to what was a disgusting and deplorable assault on your rights to Medical Treatment , the cheap jibe that recent free loaders are treated and why don't you change your mothers bandage yourself is beyond belief . You should demand an apology , as you and your Mother being lifelong Tax Payers are only receiving what they deserve .
I thought the days of , I am rich and am better than you , I make the rules , I want the EU to rule because it's best for me , I don't care about the rest of you , were declining , but apparently not . We are all getting older and parents more frail , these can be difficult times .

More likely that Labour will implode before next election.

Non loony Labour won't put up with him and the loonies forever and wait til they start de selecting the non loonies , that'll really be a vote loser.

It's probably time for a bit more on my (our?) hero Jacob Rees-Mogg.....

Taken from the Belfast Telegraph on 17 February 2018:

Why Rees-Mogg is tipped as next Tory PM and what it could mean for the (Irish) border
Kim Bielenberg on the rise of the maverick who may have Northern Ireland's future in his hands


Committed man: Jacob Rees-Mogg, with his wife Helena de Chair, is a blue-blooded Conservative and a devout Catholic

February 17 2018

The Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg is the sort of chap whose idea of being casual is to wear a tweed jacket and tie at weekends, rather than his normal double-breasted pinstripe suit.

The politician peppers his conversations with Latin phrases, drives around in a 1968 Bentley and, as the father of six children, proudly boasts that he has never condescended to change a nappy in his life.

"Nanny would not think it a good idea for me to be changing nappies," the 48-year-old explained, defying modern conventions of parental political correctness. "She thinks it is her job."

The nanny concerned, Veronica Crook, seems to loom large in the life of this marble-mouthed maverick. She looked after him as a child and then he used her services himself when he became a father.

When he first stood for Parliament unsuccessfully in Scotland two decades ago, he went canvassing with Crook, who drove him around the constituency in his mother's Mercedes.

Until recently, the MP for Somerset North-East could be casually dismissed as a cosseted cartoon aristocrat. After all, he was playing second fiddle to a more chummy old Etonian chap, Boris Johnson.

But now, the commentariat is beginning to take the claims of Rees-Mogg to high office more seriously, as the leader of the arch-Brexiteers.

He is chairman of an influential committee of MPs campaigning against any attempt to water down the UK's commitment to telling the EU to get stuffed.

With the Conservative Party in disarray over Brexit and Theresa May teetering on the brink, Rees-Mogg is the bookies' favourite to be the next Tory prime minister. Preposterous? Is it any more outlandish a prospect than Donald Trump as President of the United States?

The prospect of a new age of Moggocracy cannot be ignored, and it is now conceivable that the future of the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic could be in the hands of the man leading the British charge against the EU.

Recently, one newspaper described him as the "MP for the 18th century whose time may have come".

That is a version of 'tiocfaidh ar la' that nobody, least of all the Shinners, really bargained for.

With Sinn Fein and the DUP failing to form a power-sharing executive, Northern Ireland may be facing direct rule by Mogg.

While Theresa May has struggled to make up her mind over which form Brexit takes, he is unambiguous in pushing for the UK to leave any kind of customs union or single market.

Unlike ministers on the Conservative benches, the backbencher does not sully his public utterances with any hint of compromise.

Before Britain ever decided to quit the EU, he declared the plans of Brussels eurocrats to be the "work of the devil".

In a characteristic flourish, he used the longest word ever recorded in the Houses of Parliament when lambasting the EU judiciary: "Let me indulge in the floccinaucinihilipilification (*) of EU judges." He later defined the word as "the action or habit of estimating as worthless".

Born into the upper classes as the son of William Rees-Mogg, editor of The Times, Jacob was reading the Financial Times at the age of eight and used a £50 inheritance from a departed uncle to invest in the stock market.

His now legendary nanny had the task of phoning his broker.

Aged 11, he had already made decent profits from his investments and even turned up at shareholders' meetings to give speeches.

In an interview as a teenager, the precocious Etonian told of his ambition to be a millionaire at 20, a multi-millionaire at 40 and prime minister at 70.

Rees-Mogg once recalled how he'd been sent out of class twice: the first time for wearing a large Tory rosette on his lapel, and a second time after arguing with a teacher about the infallibility of the Pope.

These infractions show the most important cornerstones of the Rees-Mogg philosophy - true blue-blooded Conservatism and devout Catholicism.

Asked if he would ever join Nigel Farage's UK Independence Party, the man elected as an MP in 2010, replied: "No! Never, never, never! I was born a Conservative and I shall die a Conservative."

Many of Rees-Mogg's views chime with those of social conservatives in Ireland who campaigned against gay marriage and now want to stop the repeal of the Eighth Amendment.

"I am a Catholic and I take the teachings of the Catholic Church seriously," he has said.

Outlining his opposition to same-sex marriage, he said: "Marriage is a sacrament, and the decision of what is a sacrament lies with the Church, not with Parliament."

The Church's teachings on faith and morals were "authoritative", he said, but added it was not for him to judge others.

However, he said he was completely opposed to abortion, arguing that it was "morally indefensible".

"Life is sacrosanct and begins at the point of conception," he has argued.

Placing himself outside the spectrum of mainstream British opinion, he said he was opposed to abortion in cases of rape: "A great wrong has been created at the point of a rape. The question is, does a second wrong make it any better?"

Stories abound about his privileged upbringing. Some of them are inevitably apocryphal. He denied that he once paid a boy at Eton to shield him with an umbrella from the rain on a cross-country run.

But he confirmed a story that his nanny and his maid did take turns to shield his neck from the sun with a book at the Glyndebourne opera festival. And he validated a report that, along with the King of Spain, he has exclusive access to an upstairs loo at Claridges.

The Irish government will no doubt fear that a Mogg premiership will inevitably lead to the border being closed between north and south in a hard Brexit situation, but his own position on the border is quite simple - do nothing.

He told a Conservative event in the autumn that post-Brexit Britain would not have to put up border posts stretching from Carlingford Lough to Lough Foyle.

"I don't care if a few hundredweight of beef is smuggled across the Irish border. It will make no odds to the British economy. We have no obligation to put any border up. Full stop," he said.

"Challenge the EU to do it. I just don't believe that they will, and I don't believe that the Irish will agree to them doing it."

At the same time, PM Mogg will not have any truck with the notion of a United Ireland. He gives his party its full title as the Conservative and Unionist Party and recently declared: "Northern Ireland is as much a part of the United Kingdom as Somerset."

If Mogg moves into 10 Downing Street, he may have to patch up some differences with Leo Varadkar.

Last month, Rees-Mogg took exception to remarks by the Taoiseach. Varadkar expressed regret that the UK was leaving the EU and said he was conscious of "British veterans, very brave people, who fought on the beaches of France, not just for Britain but also for European democracy and for European values".

Rees-Mogg took a swipe at the Republic's Second World War record. "Mr Varadkar forgets Ireland was neutral during the war, which implies it had no interest in Europe, and Eamon de Valera signed a book of condolence at the German Embassy in Dublin on the death of Hitler.

"Perhaps if Mr Varadkar knew his own country's undistinguished wartime history better, his views on our history would be more informed."

In order to be chosen as leader if Theresa May is deposed, he would first have to be chosen by fellow MPs to be one of the candidates who are then elected by members of the party.

Professor Philip Cowley, political scientist at Queen Mary University in London, predicted: "If he stands in any forthcoming leadership contest, (and) he gets through to the last two, he'll walk it."

Career: Educated at Eton and Oxford. Worked in investment banking before becoming an MP in 2010.

Family: Married to wealthy heiress Helena De Chair. They have six children - Peter Theodore Alphege, Mary Emma, Thomas Wentworth Somerset Dunstan, Anselm Charles Fitzwilliam, Alfred Wulfric Leyson Pius, Sixtus Dominic Boniface.

First words on Twitter: "Tempora mutantur, et nos mutamur in illis (the times change, and we change with them)."

Philosophy: "I want people to be able to get on with their lives without the Government bossing them about. I'm all in favour of nannies but not the nanny state."

Nanny fan with no time for a nanny state
Career: Educated at Eton and Oxford. Worked in investment banking before becoming an MP in 2010.

Family: Married to wealthy heiress Helena De Chair. They have six children — Peter Theodore Alphege, Mary Emma, Thomas Wentworth Somerset Dunstan, Anselm Charles Fitzwilliam, Alfred Wulfric Leyson Pius, Sixtus Dominic Boniface.

First words on Twitter: “Tempora mutantur, et nos mutamur in illis (the times change, and we change with them).”

Philosophy: “I want people to be able to get on with their lives without the Government bossing them about. I’m all in favour of nannies but not the nanny state.”

Belfast Telegraph

(*) floccinaucinihilipilification: pronounced "flock-sin-how-sinny-hilly-pilly-fick-ayshun"

Bristol University Conservative Organisation's speaking event at the University of Bristol for North East Somerset MP Jacob Rees-Mogg drew a sell-out audience

A very eloquent female protestor had this to say:

“The reason I’m here is that at the moment it seems very one-sided,” she said. “The tickets for the talk have run out, and it seems that the uni are accommodating his views. And so many of his views are racist and sexist, and we can’t as a diverse student body be seen to be condoning those views.

He called women that have abortions after been raped as having committed a ‘second wrong’, so he’s basically saying abortion is just as bad as rape."

You can see her speaking HERE

She went on....

“He wants EU nationals out, he voted against unaccompanied refugee children being reunited with their families – things like that don’t reflect the progressive climate that Bristol is here for,” she added.

“Obviously we say he has the right to speak – we’re not telling people to boycott, we’re not ‘no-platforming’ him, he has the right to speak, of course. But we also have the right to show that we are not happy with him,” she said.
.................................

Let's just discuss this bit:

".....so he’s basically saying abortion is just as bad as rape."

No he is not saying this at all.

Rees-Mogg is not "anti choice". He has his personal views but fully supports/respects democracy and the status quo of choice.

A murder is a "wrong". If the murderer robs the body, he has committed a "second wrong". But to say that a robbery "is as bad as" murder is a fallacy.

Rees-Mogg says that rape is a moral wrong. Using his catholic teachings as his 'moral rule book', he also feels that to take life at the point of conception is a religious moral wrong. But he does not say that these moral crimes are as bad as each other.

Rape is also a criminally wrong act. A legal pregnancy termination is not a criminally wrong act.

Importantly and furthermore, Rees-Mogg has no wish to force his views on the religious moral wrong of legal pregnancy termination on others.