Kenneth Clarke

[nomoss]

...is the first MP I have EVER heard in the house who has clearly pointed out misconceptions about EU membership which form the basis for arguments presented by a large number of proponents of Brexit.

These included:

The fact that the UK contributed in an important and significant way to most EU regulations, including on both safety at work and food standards, contrary to the widespread belief that EU rules are made by unelected bureaucrats in Brussels.

The fact that immigration into the UK could and should have been controlled by the government.

He pointed out that under the EU rules, the UK could have insisted that people entering or staying more than three months should have a job, that they could not stay more than three months if they left a job, and that they should have enough income to support themselves.

He also mentioned the fact that immigrants are not entitled to free care under the NHS unless working and paying into the system, which is yet another widely spread misconception.

The first problem is caused by the failure of successive UK governments to properly control and record the movement of people in and out of the country.

The second is due to the lack of a working system for charging unentitled people for NHS care. They made a half-baked effort to do this by shifting the responsibility onto NHS personnel, who are already overburdened with bureaucracy.

Of course having identity cards for everyone would go a long way to solving both these problems, but the UK voted against these, didn't they?

I and my family have had compulsory ID or resident cards in every one of the countries we have lived in, except Australia, which, like the UK also has/had no system, and France, where we have voluntary cards.

[Patf]

Ken Clarke speaks in a very clear and logical way, and he's very knowledgeable.

The trouble is, most people's views on Brexit are based on emotion, and don't respond to logic.

eg one excited caller on LBC today - all he could keep saying was get rid of May, then everything will work out fine for we Brexiters. It's all her fault. And he wouldn't budge, in spite of J.O'B pointing out the flaws in his logic, and many facts he was ignoring.

[Gardengirl]

I have respect for Kenneth Clarke.

I put parts of what you said earlier on a thread on another forum, a private one, but you’ve put it much better than me. I hope you won’t mind if I take your post to use - is that OK?

[YCCMB]

It's gone beyond logic and reason now, and out the other side. It's all knee jerk emotional twiddle. Nobody who tries to apply any logic is really being listened to, sadly. Ken Clarke and a few others are voices in the wilderness.

I watched a bloke who was definitely a good bit younger than me on the lunchtime news (the 10 seconds I managed to tolerate) saying how he wanted Britain to become self-sufficient, successful and yada, yada, yada "like we used to be" and I just wondered how he knew, given that from his age he couldn't have been alive when any of that was the case. I suspect that few, if any people who are alive today can remember when Britain was actually "Great" in any real sense.

[Alan Zoff]

Incredible how many Brits seem to think that Brexit means we will get back The British Empire. All other countries will roll over and kow tow to us like they did in the good old days. "Rule Britannia".

Americans are often accused of being insular and not understanding what goes on outside their own borders but Brexit has really shown up the same weakness in a large part of the UK population.

[nomoss]

[quote user="Gardengirl "]I have respect for Kenneth Clarke.

I put parts of what you said earlier on a thread on another forum, a private one, but you’ve put it much better than me. I hope you won’t mind if I take your post to use - is that OK?[/quote]

Be my guest [:D]

Actually, I feel I should have said more, sooner, on as many

platforms as I could manage, but I was always too busy trying to make a

living.

I abandoned the UK in 1962, feeling disgusted at the way I had been treated by the establishment.

I returned to try, seriously, to live there again, in 1978, and left for good, feeling even more disgust, in 1980.

This after I had subjected my two children to living away from home to undergo secondary education in England (at my own expense). They both hated it, one completed his by gaining a Masters in Copenhagen, the other with a MA in Perth, WA, and now lives in NZ.

Until Brexit and its ramifications I didn't realise the UK government's ability to ruin my life further than it had done already.

[nomoss]

230 votes down.

But she's going down pleading.[6]

[Gardian]

I know that this will sound like hindsight, but I’ve said many times to Mrs G that if the ‘Remain’ camp had invited Ken Clarke to front the campaign, things mightn’t have turned out like they did.

A politician who, unlike so many others, has always been consistent in his views.

Your summary of his speech Nomoss, sums up the view of many (not all, of course), but many of us.

[PaulT]

Ah yes, the days of Empire.....

The BBC programme 'Who do you think you are' often covers the persons ancestors living in, say the late 1800s / early 1900s. Some lived in grand houses but others lived in abject poverty, in atrocious slums with extremely poor sanitation and high infant mortality.

My own time starting in the early 50s was not great ......some peoples imagination does not match reality.

Perhaps closed mind TM needs to listen to KC.

[nomoss]

Listening to BBC News today, some Members about to reluctantly vote in favour of TM's deal have a view which harks back to Victorian times, in the light of what will happen to the country:

"Just close your eyes and think of Britain"

[Alan Zoff]

Rodda Thomas post on Facebook

18 January

BREXIT; THE STORY SO FAR.

David Cameron made a promise he didn't think he'd have to keep to have a referendum he didn't think he would lose. Boris Johnson decided to back the side he didn't believe in because he didn't think it would win. Then Gove, who said he wouldn't run, did, and Boris who said he would run, didn’t, and Theresa May who didn't vote for Brexit got the job of making it happen. She called the election she said she wouldn't and lost the majority David Cameron hadn't expected to win in the first place. She stayed in power by paying the DUP to agree with her. The DUP wanted to leave the EU but the people of NI wanted to remain. She triggered Article 50 when we didn't need to and said we would talk about trade at the same time as the divorce deal and the EU said they wouldn't so we didn't.

People thought she wouldn't get the divorce settled but she did, but only by agreeing to things she had promised the DUP she wouldn't. Then the Cabinet agreed a deal but they hadn't, and David Davis who was Brexit Secretary but wasn't, said it wasn't what people had voted for and he couldn't support what he had just supported and left. Boris Johnson who hadn't left then wished that he had and did, but it was a bit late for that. Dominic Raab become the new Brexit secretary.

People thought Theresa May wouldn't get a withdrawal agreement negotiated, but once she had they wished that she hadn't, because hardly anybody liked it whether they wanted to leave or not. Jacob Rees-Mogg kept threatening a vote of no confidence in her but not enough people were confident enough people would not have confidence in her to confidently call a no confidence vote. Dominic Raab said he hadn't really been Brexit Secretary either and resigned, and somebody else took the job but it probably isn't worth remembering who they are as they're not really doing the job either as Olly Robbins is.

Then she said she would call a vote and didn't, that she wouldn't release some legal advice but had to, that she would get some concessions but didn't, and got cross that Juncker was calling her nebulous when he wasn't but probably should have been.

At some point Jacob Rees Mogg and others called a vote of no confidence in her, which she won by promising to leave, so she can stay. But they said she had really lost it and should go, at the same time as saying that people who voted Leave knew what they were voting for which they couldn't possibly have because we still don't know now, and that we should leave the vote to Leave vote alone but have no confidence in the no confidence vote which won by more. The government also argued in court against us being able to say we didn't want to leave after all but it turned out we could. She named a date for the vote on her agreement which nobody expected to pass, while pretending that no deal which nobody wants is still possible (even though we know we can just say we are not leaving), and that we can't have a second referendum because having a democratic vote is undemocratic. And of course as expected she lost.

Some people are talking about a managed no-deal which is not a deal but is not managed either. When asked, our MP’s voted that they had confidence in her when they haven’t and said that we can’t have a Corbyn government because it would be chaotic and be bad for the country. Corbyn complained that May hadn’t asked for his views but when she did he said he wouldn’t talk because she is intransigent. There are 10 weeks left before it will all be sorted at the last minute. Or not......

[YCCMB]

Weirdly, that's about the clearest explanation I've read to date. Which speaks volumes.

[woolybanana]

Reading it made me dizzy!

[Loiseau]

+1 YCCMB !

[Théière]

Brilliant, just like one of the long speeches in yes minister.