# Nigel Farage



## MikeyBikey (Nov 2, 2019)

Well my first election leaflet had come through the door and it's from the Brexit party. I found it mildly disturbing as obviously it focuses on a "hard" Brexit there are no real policies. Yes we will be free to do trade deals.but what then? Nothing on NHS, education, social care! In my area there are long waiting lists for treatment and it is near impossible to get a GP appointment. There seems to be some real muddles with this academy/free school nonsense. I have even heard of one trust closing one of its academies next year causing a crisis for the local council.


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## Ditto (Nov 3, 2019)

::sticks head in sand::


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## Andy HB (Nov 3, 2019)

Ditto said:


> ::sticks head in sand::



Did you know that recently the average height of the UK has increased by .00032mm? 

p.s. Ok, if every person (man, woman and child) in the UK stuck their head in the sand what would the 'actual average increase' in the height of the UK be. Answers on a postcard to ......


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## ukjohn (Nov 3, 2019)

Andy HB said:


> Did you know that recently the average height of the UK has increased by .00032mm?
> 
> p.s. Ok, if every person (man, woman and child) in the UK stuck their heads in the sand what would the 'actual average increase' in the height of the UK be. Answers on a postcard to ......



*I must stress that this can only be an estimate but if you take every person in the UK and multiply that by .00032mm, then while the heads are buried in the sand you have to take into account the number of bigger bums sticking up out of the ground and the height measured on a par with others, this is why it can only be an estimate, because some bums are bigger than others, therefor the answer must be an average increase of .00032mm. .  Thank you Andy for the intelligent mind boggling question, I hope my answer is just as good as the question. .

John*


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## Andy HB (Nov 3, 2019)

I just worked it out (excluding the bums issue) and interestingly (or not) my calculated answer is not that far off my 'finger in the air' estimate. 

By the way, if anyone wants to try the calculation out, I assumed the following:
1) Human heads are perfect spheres.
2) Radius of an average human head is 100mm.
3) Population of the UK = 67million
4) Area of UK = 242,495km^2
5) The sand displaced is spread evenly and instantaneously across the UK.

Do you think that I have successfully got this thread off-topic?


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## ukjohn (Nov 3, 2019)

Andy HB said:


> I just worked it out (excluding the bums issue) and interestingly (or not) my calculated answer is not that far off my 'finger in the air' estimate.
> 
> By the way, if anyone wants to try the calculation out, I assumed the following:
> 1) Human heads are perfect spheres.
> ...




*Damn, I forgot to take the sand displacement into account.. I take my hat off to you Andy*


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## everydayupsanddowns (Nov 3, 2019)

I understand from the Breakfast News this morning that Nigel Farage has decided not to stand for election as an MP in the upcoming general election. 

I’m not sure what that says about his confidence.


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## Northerner (Nov 3, 2019)

MikeyBikey said:


> Well my first election leaflet had come through the door and it's from the Brexit party. I found it mildly disturbing as obviously it focuses on a "hard" Brexit there are no real policies. Yes we will be free to do trade deals.but what then? Nothing on NHS, education, social care! In my area there are long waiting lists for treatment and it is near impossible to get a GP appointment. There seems to be some real muddles with this academy/free school nonsense. I have even heard of one trust closing one of its academies next year causing a crisis for the local council. And pea-brain Farage just obsesses about a single issue because "He's all right Jack"! Scary!!!


It may be just me, but I'm getting the feeling that much of the general public are actually quite relieved to have an opportunity to discuss things other than Brexit, which is all they have been 'told' is important to them for the past 3+ years, and people like Farage overestimate the proportion of voters who are so rabidly committed to his notion of a 'real' Brexit. Actually, it does illustrate the contradiction that, for the past 3+ years Brexit supporting individuals have been insisting that people 'knew what they were voting for when they voted to leave', yet here we have two apparently completely different proposals of leaving that are being put forward by the leader of Vote Leave and the leader of Leave.EU 

I just hope that people will bear in mind that they are electing people for a 5-year parliamentary term in which they will have influence on ALL areas of policy, and not just Brexit, however significant that might be as a single issue.


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## Bronco Billy (Nov 3, 2019)

There is no contradiction, leavers did know what they were voting for. However, no supporter of the EU has yet been able to explain which version of remain they voted for.


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## Jodee (Nov 3, 2019)

Northerner said:


> It may be just me, but I'm getting the feeling that much of the general public are actually quite relieved to have an opportunity to discuss things other than Brexit, which is all they have been 'told' is important to them for the past 3+ years, and people like Farage overestimate the proportion of voters who are so rabidly committed to his notion of a 'real' Brexit. Actually, it does illustrate the contradiction that, for the past 3+ years Brexit supporting individuals have been insisting that people 'knew what they were voting for when they voted to leave', yet here we have two apparently completely different proposals of leaving that are being put forward by the leader of Vote Leave and the leader of Leave.EU
> 
> I just hope that people will bear in mind that they are electing people for a 5-year parliamentary term in which they will have influence on ALL areas of policy, and not just Brexit, however significant that might be as a single issue.



The politicians have forgotten its not what they think, its what the people voted for, they are paid huge salaries to respect the vote of the people.  And they are not, fire em I say.


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## Northerner (Nov 4, 2019)

Jodee said:


> The politicians have forgotten its not what they think, its what the people voted for, they are paid huge salaries to respect the vote of the people.  And they are not, fire em I say.


Well, to be honest it's the government, not parliament that has caused all the chaos and delays. TM triggered Article 50 without a plan then called a GE which wasted a couple of months right at the start. Eventually she got a deal but delayed a vote on it for a further month into January of this year. She persisted with the deal despite the fact that a large portion of her own MPs wouldn't vote for it and it wasn't until April that she finally tried to work cross-party. Although progress was made there the Tory Party decided to get rid of TM before a vote could be taken on the deal and then wasted a further couple of months on a one-horse leadership election. After being elected leader Johnson did nothing throughout August, wasting yet more time, then illegally tried to prorogue parliament for 5 weeks for a meaningless Queen's Speech - meaningless because he had no majority and couldn't implement any of the policies. He then got a deal which was the same one that TM had rejected a year earlier because the DUP wouldn't back it. He then brought back this most important piece of legislation back to parliament and tried to bulldozer it through without scrutiny in 3 days, as though it was a bill concerning the 9 circus animals left in the UK  Having got an extension he then called a GE. All of this is *government incompetence *- not parliament. The notion that you can just switch off trade with your biggest trading partner for the past 40 years as if you were changing your mobile phone contract is just ridiculous and not facing reality, I'm afraid


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## Docb (Nov 4, 2019)

Well put Northerner.


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## C&E Guy (Nov 4, 2019)

My brother refers to him as Nigel Damage.


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## Ditto (Nov 4, 2019)

Bronco Billy said:


> There is no contradiction, leavers did know what they were voting for. However, no supporter of the EU has yet been able to explain which version of remain they voted for.


No I didn't. I know nothing.  I just wanted them to shut the gates so this little island wouldn't sink under the overload of people but all the ones already here should stay of course. We need to sort out the countries they are all from so they wouldn't have to leave home in the first place. Yeah right.


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## Bronco Billy (Nov 4, 2019)

Northerner said:


> Well, to be honest it's the government, not parliament that has caused all the chaos and delays. TM triggered Article 50 without a plan then called a GE which wasted a couple of months right at the start. Eventually she got a deal but delayed a vote on it for a further month into January of this year. She persisted with the deal despite the fact that a large portion of her own MPs wouldn't vote for it and it wasn't until April that she finally tried to work cross-party. Although progress was made there the Tory Party decided to get rid of TM before a vote could be taken on the deal and then wasted a further couple of months on a one-horse leadership election. After being elected leader Johnson did nothing throughout August, wasting yet more time, then illegally tried to prorogue parliament for 5 weeks for a meaningless Queen's Speech - meaningless because he had no majority and couldn't implement any of the policies. He then got a deal which was the same one that TM had rejected a year earlier because the DUP wouldn't back it. He then brought back this most important piece of legislation back to parliament and tried to bulldozer it through without scrutiny in 3 days, as though it was a bill concerning the 9 circus animals left in the UK  Having got an extension he then called a GE. All of this is *government incompetence *- not parliament. The notion that you can just switch off trade with your biggest trading partner for the past 40 years as if you were changing your mobile phone contract is just ridiculous and not facing reality, I'm afraid




Nope! The fault lies squarely at the feet of remain supporting MPs who don't respect democracy! The truth is there isn't a deal they would support. 

The Conservatives “got rid” of TM because she was a lame duck Prime Minister thanks to the constant tantrums thrown by remain supporting MPs who don’t respect democracy. Johnson did nothing except force the EU to renegotiate a deal they said was non-negotiable, had bi-lateral talks with the Irish PM who had previously said he wouldn’t engage in bi-lateral talks, forced the EU to drop the backstop when they had previously said a deal would be impossible without it and a lot more behind the scenes that we don’t know about. The deal he won is significantly different to the original deal and almost got through Parliament, but didn’t because of remain supporting MPs who won’t accept any deal. We need an election to end the stalemate.

There’s a pattern developing, and it’s not government incompetence.


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## everydayupsanddowns (Nov 4, 2019)

I think part of the problem is that the conversation around this is always framed as being entirely binary, and has become increasingly extreme.

During the campaign I clearly remember many different options being tabled for leaving the EU, with a Norway or Canada type arrangements, or leaving the political institution but retaining the economic advantages of check-free customs arrangements. All of this was going to be negotiated by a cross party group with expert, specialist support (I think that was on the Vote Leave Take Back Control website). It was all ‘holding all the cards’, sunlit uplands and £350m a week to the NHS. I hardly remember the border issue in Northern Ireland getting a mention.

Almost immediately after the vote The promises seemed to disappeared like vapour, and what had once been labelled ‘project fear’ became the ‘base scenario’, later renamed ‘realistic worst case’ of Yellowhammer.

Most of the more middle-ground options are now dismissed as BRINO (Brexit in name only) and we seem only to be left with versions that struggle to find wider support. And are repeatedly told that this was what everyone wanted all along.

The vote was pretty much 50:50. And yes it was a huge turnout, and 17.4million IS a massive number, but 16.1million is a massive number too (who did not vote for Brexit) so actually the ‘will of the people’ is actually the will of only around 1.25million people - which was the difference between the equally passionately held beliefs on each side. I find the maps rather misleading on this because in almost every part of the country the vote was really very tight and almost half the people voted the other way (in both remain and leave areas).

I am pretty sure that everyone who voted wanted the country to be better. Some wanted to reduce immigration, some wanted to get the promised funds for the NHS, some wanted complete trade and regulatory autonomy, some just wanted out of the political movement towards ‘greater union’. Some I believe just knew that the area where they lived was struggling and thought that this would fix it. It would be a change. And change was what they wanted rather than ‘more of the same’. And if we ask the question again, I’m pretty sure the result will be more or less 50:50 again.

But I’m not sure I blame MPs for being worried about the ramifications of the various Brexit proposals that they had been offered so far. Each time the offering was either Not Brexity Enough on one side, or predicted to be so economically damaging as to be unworkable on the other FOR THE SAME THING. With the only thing left to be an imaginary ‘clean break’ with no period of transition at all, and immediate tariffs which business leaders, economists and most MPs seem to consider to be a Very Bad Idea with the potential to cause the biggest dent in GDP over the longest period.

And so each side continues to blame the other. From yet more entrenched and stubborn positions. It felt like progress was being made, when the deal DID pass its second reading. But there was no time to look at the detail, so now we are stopping for an election. And the discontent rumbles on.

And this is only the beginning. This is the easy bit at the start. After the divorce bill is passed then, only then, do we start the tricky bit. The difficult and challenging discussions about future trade arrangements. If those involved thought that would be straightforward, then there would have been no worries about that ole backstop chestnut.


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## Lucy Honeychurch (Nov 4, 2019)

There were 34 constituencies that voted remain which have 'Leave' MP's...very conveniently forgotten.

Edit: Also, not all MP's that backed leave voted for BJ's deal.


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## Bruce Stephens (Nov 5, 2019)

Bronco Billy said:


> The deal he won is significantly different to the original deal and almost got through Parliament, but didn’t because of remain supporting MPs who won’t accept any deal.



Alternatively, he's got a deal which is 95% the same as the first one (according to NF), the main difference being with NI.

The original suggestion for NI (presuming the trade negotiations didn't resolve the border issue) was for NI to be more closely aligned with the single market and customs union, perhaps with checks between NI and GB. And the EU was OK with that being basically a permanent state. TM didn't like that, and (to her credit) negotiated a UK-wide backstop (which the EU was much less happy with which is why it had to be temporary).

So Johnson's heroically persuaded the EU to accept something they were happier with anyway.


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## Northerner (Nov 5, 2019)

Bruce Stephens said:


> Alternatively, he's got a deal which is 95% the same as the first one (according to NF), the main difference being with NI.
> 
> The original suggestion for NI (presuming the trade negotiations didn't resolve the border issue) was for NI to be more closely aligned with the single market and customs union, perhaps with checks between NI and GB. And the EU was OK with that being basically a permanent state. TM didn't like that, and (to her credit) negotiated a UK-wide backstop (which the EU was much less happy with which is why it had to be temporary).
> 
> So Johnson's heroically persuaded the EU to accept something they were happier with anyway.


Indeed  'They said it couldn't be done' - er, well, it could if you just change it to something that was offered and rejected a year earlier!  What I find interesting is all the talk about chasing the 'Leave' voters - what about the 30% of Tory voters that voted Remain and are likely to be very unhappy with the party's direction since BJ took over, and may quite possibly lose now to the LibDems?


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## Northerner (Nov 5, 2019)

"One candidate who believes she comes from the star Sirius quit the election yesterday."  

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/general-election-brexit-party-disarray-20814948


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## Eddy Edson (Nov 5, 2019)

Northerner said:


> "One candidate who believes she comes from the star Sirius quit the election yesterday."
> 
> https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/general-election-brexit-party-disarray-20814948



Perhaps she suddenly became anxious that a no-deal Brexit might mean she runs the risk of being deported back to Sirius.


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## Bronco Billy (Nov 5, 2019)

Meanwhile, in the Labour Party…

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/pol...ion-ballot-amid-scenes-of-chaos-a4272406.html

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-coventry-warwickshire-50292235


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## everydayupsanddowns (Nov 5, 2019)

I think this thread has drifted from the original topic and had probably run its course so I’m going to close it.


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