MPs vote to NOT extend the no-deal Brexit deadline.

@Harriet03 Clearly there is overlap in the aversion to facts, from some.

But there ARE valid reasons for Brexit, if you think national sovereignty is important or support global free trade (the EU is a free trade area, but very protectionist beyond it), etc. And if that's what you consider important, then a 'hard' Brexit is what you'll want (because you'll be free of the EU altogether). And for some a) they're wealthy enough to ride out the storm, or b) they're so poor that it can't really get much worse anyway - and thus the argument 'we want to control our own affairs' becomes attractive, because the short-term consequences will have little impact.

Whereas there's [i]no[/i] actual valid reason to vote for Trump, especially if a President Clinton were to be combined with a Republican-held Congress, which the anti-Clintonites then have as a bulwark.

@AngieB A yes, no, or I don't know would have sufficed!
Remember this is SW, not Oxford!

@Harriet03 You said discuss 🤷‍♀️

@AngieB Considering the average SW user, "discuss" would usually translate to pictures!!
I should of made myself clear.
Thankyou for War and Peace, anyway.

@AngieB I agree with you on a lot but I think Brexit is more contradictory than that.

The free trade Brexit is absolutely what Tory Brexiteers desire but it is almost never mentioned because it would alienate the working class or less leaving Brexit voters.

The free trade model is based on Singapore, which necessitates extremely low tax, which necessitates huge cuts in public services. Its actually the opposite of the promised NHS money.

@Harriet03 Recently it got a random message out of the blue from someone I'd never interacted with. It said hello and then launched into an epic critique of one my political posts. This message was 5400 words. @AngieB is concise

@Burnley123 At the risk of turning this into a politics seminar (sorry @Harriet03 !), free trade doesn't [i]necessarily[/i] entail low tax (especially if you distinguish corporation and personal taxes), does it?

Meanwhile if there's ever a bloated sacred cow that needs reforming from the ground up (not saying privatise or abolish it, just consider how it's funded because its frankly unsustainable, Brexit or no Brexit) -- it's the NHS. So from that point of view it's probably a good thing. Though I'd not trust anyone on either front bench to do this pragmatically and competently and without ideology sticking its oar in.

As it is we've got a government which is as a collective walking around in circles with its foot stuck in a bucket. And the opposition has a bucket over its head. 🤦‍♀️

@Burnley123 5,400 words? Challenge accepted 👍️

@AngieB NOOOOOOO! 😆

@AngieB I will respond later though.

@AngieB Excellent summary of the Brexit arguments if I may say so. And there are certainly some SW members, though perhaps not all that many, who enjoy reading well-argued political posts like yours!

@Harriet03 get your facts rights nothing like trump supporters, where do you get this stupid information from

@AngieB OK I'll respond.

[quote]Meanwhile if there's ever a bloated sacred cow that needs reforming from the ground up (not saying privatise or abolish it, just consider how it's funded because its frankly unsustainable, Brexit or no Brexit) -- it's the NHS. So from that point of view it's probably a good thing.[/quote]

No way. We can't afford to privatise the NHS. It has its problems but that is due to underfunding. Its the most cost-effective health service of any major country.

The point I was making though is about the hypocrisy of the Brexit campaign. Farage, Cummings and the others promised more money on the bus for something that they would actually want to privatise.

[quote]free trade doesn't necessarily entail low tax (especially if you distinguish corporation and personal taxes), does it?[/quote]

Not necessarily but it invariably does in practice. The ideology of free-market economics ties in both and if you have unregulated trade without protectionism then its advantageous to have low taxes to attract investment; or so the theory goes.

Not 5400 words this time.