As the dust settles after the UK vote to leave the EU, lawyers are picking over the landscape and legal opinions are emerging as to how the UK's departure from the European Union might be slowed or even stopped.
They fall into three main areas:
-The operation of Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty
-A Scottish "block"
-A second national referendum
As I see it, there are several ways in which this madness could, plausibly, still be prevented. Although there is not much mood in Parliament right now to block it or hold a second referendum, even Michael "twerpface" Gove (who, unlike Boris, is a true Euroskeptic) is saying he wouldn't trigger A50 until he was ready. That means we have several months at least for things to change. And at the rate at which things are currently changing, stopping Brexit is beginning to seem less and less like wishful thinking.
A Scottish block, even if it were legally possibly, wouldn't work. That would probably alienate voters as much as humanly possible. But a cross-party decision by MPs from all countries to block legislation might have a chance of not provoking a constitutional catastrophe (we're already deep into the "crisis" stage), if there was a clear public mood for it. With several months of this to go, there's a very real chance that could develop.
If the petition grew to show a clear majority of the electorate now favoured Remain, that might be tantamount to the revolution and might possibly trigger the unthinkable. But four million is a long way off that.
I think they're not giving it due credit, it's by far and away the most successful e-petition. It's not that people don't care about various other issues, it's simply that they don't sign e-petitions. The key factor is how many people signing it are disgruntled Leave voters who are now feeling lied to, or those who inexplicably insist on using referendums as a protest votes ("What would you like for dinner, sausages or roast turkey ?", "No thanks I'll have the dog food".... "Well, you asked for it...").
Possibly the most likely option is a snap general election. Although currently almost all bets are off, I can't imagine this not happening in the highly likely event of new leaders of both Labour and the Tories in the next few weeks/months (Corbyn is really shooting himself in the feet by refusing to leave, he's damaging his reputation as a man of honour at this point). If the campaign was based on a promise to prevent Brexit, that would probably satisfy enough people that a second referendum would not be likely.
But who knows, right now it looks just as plausible that the Monster Raving Loony party will sweep to victory.
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-uk-leaves-the-eu-36671629
Thursday, 30 June 2016
Tuesday, 28 June 2016
Best cake ever
I hate posting pictures of food but I make exceptions whenever they're outstandingly awesome. This observatory cake at today's seminar, celebrating someone's career, certainly qualifies.
Monday, 27 June 2016
Justice
"When has justice ever been as simple as a rule-book ?"
[I'm preserving this one mainly for the comments, although sadly the main response has been removed]
[I'm preserving this one mainly for the comments, although sadly the main response has been removed]
Abusing democracy
[This post did not get captured by the exporter tool for some reason so I did it manually. Unfortunately that means copy and pasting the comments by hand, so they appear in the main text rather than separately. I cut off the discussion here at the point where it ceased to add anything useful and became a bit uncivil.]
So many, many people are screaming, "PROTECT DEMOCRACY !!!!" as though it were a sacrosanct, inviolable, perfect system that must be preserved even if it means we all decided to throw ourselves into a volcano. Well, guess what, people sometimes make collectively stupid decisions. Happens in suicide cults all the time, and you don't see people clamouring to protect their "democratic rights". You don't let lunatics run the asylum. You don't vote on the value of pi. No sane person votes for self harm. No-one with any sense fails to change their mind when the lies and misinformation on which their choice was based are exposed for all to see. Screaming "we MUST jump into the volcano because votes !" makes no sense whatsoever. None.
Dan Weese
Democracy was once a synonym for anarchy. Kinda still is..
Tim Stoev
with the exponential growth of the amount of subsystems and their connection between each other each modern state goes closer to anarchy than any form of government..there is simply too much information to process and not enough tool to do it in a meaningful way
Brian Fitzgerald
In the realm of software development, there can be several "release candidates" which are each tested in turn to discover potentially disastrous inconsistencies. Eventually, one is deemed sufficiently stable to make it into distribution and deployment. Democracy might benefit from a similar scheme.
Dan Weese
+Brian Fitzgerald As in software, governments are seldom constituted for the benefit of the many but rather by and for the few. The many must bear the consequences of the decisions of those Elite Few. Nobody seems to learn from any of these Release Candidates: subsequent iterations seldom fix the fundamental issues but are mere reactions to the disastrous inconsistencies as they graduate from Potential to Actual.
This lack of foresight has kept me in business as a consultant for three decades and more. Occasionally, I feel like a fraud, for wading into the flaming, steaming wreckage and coming out again, to tell the Elite Few exactly what their own subordinates have been telling them for years - often weeping as they tell me. But that uncomfortable sensation subsides, as the Outside Consultant becomes the guy who shepherds the Cassandras through the rewrite.
Tim Stoev
+Dan Weese that was strong mate...cheers :DD
Mark Ruhland
+Rhys Taylor Pi has the value of 3.2... Supposedly in Indiana (US) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiana_Pi_Bill. I about fell off my wheelchair as I read the article, laughing hysterically.
Winchell Chung
About this point in the discussion somebody has the bright idea that the solution is to restrict who can vote.
Things tend to explode into a flamewar then, as they argue over how to define who is excluded from the franchise.
Robert Heinlein had an essay a long time ago where he explores this, giving various solutions and uncovering their drawbacks. None of them really worked.
Thing like
[1] the voting machine gives you a random differential equation. Solve the equation and you can vote
[2] only women can vote
[3] since intelligent savy people are successful, a vote cost one troy ounce of gold. And you can buy as many votes as you can afford.
etc.
Dan Weese
+Winchell Chung Let's cut to the chase on this, avoiding just such flamewars by admitting the obvious:
We shall never be able to keep Stupid Persons from voting.
Populism isn't a particularly good scheme for governance. Populism has an unfortunate and entirely predictable tendency to devolve into mob rule. We do want representative government, but we also want our elected officials, especially judges, to have enough mandate to make necessary and painful - and yes, unpopular decisions.
There's another interesting set of essays on this subject. Most of them were written by James Madison, quite a few by Alexander Hamilton and John Jay. They are called The Federalist Papers. You may have heard of them.
Elie Thorne
+Winchell Chung Yes, that's one insidious reaction.
Obviously, many (if not most) people are clearly irresponsible in their way of voting, putting the entire democratic system in peril.
The obvious solution would be to forbid them to vote (but it is indeed impossible to come up with a better subset of voters than the current universal one). As this is an unworkable solution, it can be put forth again and again, to fix thing "this time for good", until only a small elite or one individual can vote.
But there is a more difficult, but potentially better solution: turn people into responsible voters.
This requires an efficient general education system and balanced investigation/analysis media, two very hard but not impossible endeavours.
This is, by the way, what Enlightenment philosophers considered mandatory for the democracy they envisioned.
Of course, the flamewar can now begin about how to implement those.
Rhys Taylor
My biggest fear in all of this is that large numbers of people are simply physiologically too stupid to make sensible decisions. We can do an awful lot about poor education, strong ideological beliefs, etc., but if it's because people's brains are just too small then we haven't got a hope in hell.
Now, I hope and believe that that is not the case. In this case we must improve the education system and take some fairly drastic action with regards to the media.
The education system needs a lot more investment. We still need to teach people basic facts, but with the omnipresence of the internet rote learning is becoming less important. We need to teach people how to think, to consider the larger context, the deeper underlying meanings and implications. And we've got to make learning more fun. This may mean using unconventional techniques seen as "dumbing down", so be it - I rather enjoy long, detailed books, but most people don't. A system that only works for people like me is not a good system ! Science is inherently an anarchic system of play and it should be seen as such, not the dry series of equations that it all too often becomes in the classroom.
Science classes should, wherever possible, encourage students to come to their own conclusions, ahead of teaching them what's already been established. This can be done using canned data where it isn't possible for them to get direct access to high-end facilities. Although some things will always need to be simplified, and not everything can be done by experiment, the priority should be getting people to think for themselves as much as possible. And they have to enjoy doing it, and the relevancy of it emphasised (if that means "because you can get rich doing this", then fine). That, I hope, will encourage them to be rational in all aspects of life, not just in science.
My thoughts on the humanities are well-known, so I will just state they need as much emphasis as the sciences. They are an area which require just as much in the way of reasoning and logic.
As to the media, something has gone badly wrong and I'm not sure how to fix it. I know the end state we need to achieve, but I have less idea about the route. Most British tabloids read like campaign leaflets - they are not in the least impartial, which should be a journalist's first duty. Their second duty should be in choosing what to publish, i.e. freedom of speech guarantees than you can say a great many things without being locked up, but that does not necessarily mean you get to come into people's homes and lecture them. Similarly saying something Bloody Stupid should not be a guarantee that it gets published in a major newspaper just because it's provocative or exciting; they ought to at least try to establish if it's true. They need to use far, far less prejudicial language when reporting, unless a very large OPINION PIECE label appears in great big letters.
Perhaps some sort of basic qualification should be necessary to be a journalist. But this will count for little unless we reform who can own media outlets and how many.
Mark Ruhland
+Rhys Taylor Hey, my asylum runs fairly well... But, then again, I run it. I don't do things outside my realm, though. I know my limitations;-D
Tim Stoev
+Rhys Taylor the more you think on the issues the more complicated it gets. At some point you will realize that one needs to start somewhere and hope to get it right, but this is pretty much what is happening right now. Nevertheless you look in the right direction.
Winchell Chung
+Rhys Taylor unfortunately here in the States there is such a strong "cult of ignorance" and anti-intellectualism that a person of suspicious mind suspects it is all part of a master plan.
The US conservatives got a rude shock with the advent of television, suddenly discovering that other places in the world were not like the sleepy little towns they lived and died in.
But it really didn't hit the fan until the 1960s with all those young people going to colleged and being corrupted with all that book larning and stuff.
Since then it would seem like education has been under a stealthy attack. And every despot knows that an uneducated population is easier to control. All you have to do is make them tired of listening to experts.
Dan Weese
+Winchell Chung The 'cult of ignorance' is very old. It's not even American. It's German. Populism lies at the heart of the Reformation. As America became a largely Protestant nation, the same ethos of the pious burgher rising by dint of hard labour, clean living and just enough education to read the Bible, use a sextant, a pair of calipers, and raise a barn roof - came to be the American rags-to-riches myth.
These people are not entirely ignorant. They are both literate and numerate. They just don't like anyone to question their assertions, any more than Cardinal Bellarmine was prepared to give Galileo a fair hearing on the basis of the evidence. As with Bellarmine in his day, today's conservatives want to present such notions as Evolution and modern cosmology as mere hypotheses.
Higher education was always the province of the elites until the post-WW2 GI Bill gave ordinary joes the opportunity to go to college. Today's Fox News crowd was once a gaggle of earnest young things who considered themselves quite progressive, doffing their uniforms and going to the state university, for free, too. Also pushing out little Baby Boomers in those ticky-tacky little two bedroom jobs paid for by generous GI Bill housing loans.
Now here's what happened: where college was a deserved reward for national service, university became a bolthole for those who did not wish to serve in the Vietnam War, including many in the Cult of Ignorance's own ranks. Donald Trump was one such draft dodger. Most modern Republicans have never worn a uniform, where a great many modern Democrats have.
Don't underestimate these conservatives - they're not conservatives as any political scientist might interpret that word. They are mere reactionaries, as were their forebears. Furthermore, they are reasonably cosmopolitan. If Fox News caters to them, it's just what the ur-Protestant peasant has always wanted, a strenuous Hell Fire Sermon about someone else's evils.
So many, many people are screaming, "PROTECT DEMOCRACY !!!!" as though it were a sacrosanct, inviolable, perfect system that must be preserved even if it means we all decided to throw ourselves into a volcano. Well, guess what, people sometimes make collectively stupid decisions. Happens in suicide cults all the time, and you don't see people clamouring to protect their "democratic rights". You don't let lunatics run the asylum. You don't vote on the value of pi. No sane person votes for self harm. No-one with any sense fails to change their mind when the lies and misinformation on which their choice was based are exposed for all to see. Screaming "we MUST jump into the volcano because votes !" makes no sense whatsoever. None.
Dan Weese
Democracy was once a synonym for anarchy. Kinda still is..
Tim Stoev
with the exponential growth of the amount of subsystems and their connection between each other each modern state goes closer to anarchy than any form of government..there is simply too much information to process and not enough tool to do it in a meaningful way
Brian Fitzgerald
In the realm of software development, there can be several "release candidates" which are each tested in turn to discover potentially disastrous inconsistencies. Eventually, one is deemed sufficiently stable to make it into distribution and deployment. Democracy might benefit from a similar scheme.
Dan Weese
+Brian Fitzgerald As in software, governments are seldom constituted for the benefit of the many but rather by and for the few. The many must bear the consequences of the decisions of those Elite Few. Nobody seems to learn from any of these Release Candidates: subsequent iterations seldom fix the fundamental issues but are mere reactions to the disastrous inconsistencies as they graduate from Potential to Actual.
This lack of foresight has kept me in business as a consultant for three decades and more. Occasionally, I feel like a fraud, for wading into the flaming, steaming wreckage and coming out again, to tell the Elite Few exactly what their own subordinates have been telling them for years - often weeping as they tell me. But that uncomfortable sensation subsides, as the Outside Consultant becomes the guy who shepherds the Cassandras through the rewrite.
Tim Stoev
+Dan Weese that was strong mate...cheers :DD
Mark Ruhland
+Rhys Taylor Pi has the value of 3.2... Supposedly in Indiana (US) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiana_Pi_Bill. I about fell off my wheelchair as I read the article, laughing hysterically.
Winchell Chung
About this point in the discussion somebody has the bright idea that the solution is to restrict who can vote.
Things tend to explode into a flamewar then, as they argue over how to define who is excluded from the franchise.
Robert Heinlein had an essay a long time ago where he explores this, giving various solutions and uncovering their drawbacks. None of them really worked.
Thing like
[1] the voting machine gives you a random differential equation. Solve the equation and you can vote
[2] only women can vote
[3] since intelligent savy people are successful, a vote cost one troy ounce of gold. And you can buy as many votes as you can afford.
etc.
Dan Weese
+Winchell Chung Let's cut to the chase on this, avoiding just such flamewars by admitting the obvious:
We shall never be able to keep Stupid Persons from voting.
Populism isn't a particularly good scheme for governance. Populism has an unfortunate and entirely predictable tendency to devolve into mob rule. We do want representative government, but we also want our elected officials, especially judges, to have enough mandate to make necessary and painful - and yes, unpopular decisions.
There's another interesting set of essays on this subject. Most of them were written by James Madison, quite a few by Alexander Hamilton and John Jay. They are called The Federalist Papers. You may have heard of them.
Elie Thorne
+Winchell Chung Yes, that's one insidious reaction.
Obviously, many (if not most) people are clearly irresponsible in their way of voting, putting the entire democratic system in peril.
The obvious solution would be to forbid them to vote (but it is indeed impossible to come up with a better subset of voters than the current universal one). As this is an unworkable solution, it can be put forth again and again, to fix thing "this time for good", until only a small elite or one individual can vote.
But there is a more difficult, but potentially better solution: turn people into responsible voters.
This requires an efficient general education system and balanced investigation/analysis media, two very hard but not impossible endeavours.
This is, by the way, what Enlightenment philosophers considered mandatory for the democracy they envisioned.
Of course, the flamewar can now begin about how to implement those.
Rhys Taylor
My biggest fear in all of this is that large numbers of people are simply physiologically too stupid to make sensible decisions. We can do an awful lot about poor education, strong ideological beliefs, etc., but if it's because people's brains are just too small then we haven't got a hope in hell.
Now, I hope and believe that that is not the case. In this case we must improve the education system and take some fairly drastic action with regards to the media.
The education system needs a lot more investment. We still need to teach people basic facts, but with the omnipresence of the internet rote learning is becoming less important. We need to teach people how to think, to consider the larger context, the deeper underlying meanings and implications. And we've got to make learning more fun. This may mean using unconventional techniques seen as "dumbing down", so be it - I rather enjoy long, detailed books, but most people don't. A system that only works for people like me is not a good system ! Science is inherently an anarchic system of play and it should be seen as such, not the dry series of equations that it all too often becomes in the classroom.
Science classes should, wherever possible, encourage students to come to their own conclusions, ahead of teaching them what's already been established. This can be done using canned data where it isn't possible for them to get direct access to high-end facilities. Although some things will always need to be simplified, and not everything can be done by experiment, the priority should be getting people to think for themselves as much as possible. And they have to enjoy doing it, and the relevancy of it emphasised (if that means "because you can get rich doing this", then fine). That, I hope, will encourage them to be rational in all aspects of life, not just in science.
My thoughts on the humanities are well-known, so I will just state they need as much emphasis as the sciences. They are an area which require just as much in the way of reasoning and logic.
As to the media, something has gone badly wrong and I'm not sure how to fix it. I know the end state we need to achieve, but I have less idea about the route. Most British tabloids read like campaign leaflets - they are not in the least impartial, which should be a journalist's first duty. Their second duty should be in choosing what to publish, i.e. freedom of speech guarantees than you can say a great many things without being locked up, but that does not necessarily mean you get to come into people's homes and lecture them. Similarly saying something Bloody Stupid should not be a guarantee that it gets published in a major newspaper just because it's provocative or exciting; they ought to at least try to establish if it's true. They need to use far, far less prejudicial language when reporting, unless a very large OPINION PIECE label appears in great big letters.
Perhaps some sort of basic qualification should be necessary to be a journalist. But this will count for little unless we reform who can own media outlets and how many.
Mark Ruhland
+Rhys Taylor Hey, my asylum runs fairly well... But, then again, I run it. I don't do things outside my realm, though. I know my limitations;-D
Tim Stoev
+Rhys Taylor the more you think on the issues the more complicated it gets. At some point you will realize that one needs to start somewhere and hope to get it right, but this is pretty much what is happening right now. Nevertheless you look in the right direction.
Winchell Chung
+Rhys Taylor unfortunately here in the States there is such a strong "cult of ignorance" and anti-intellectualism that a person of suspicious mind suspects it is all part of a master plan.
The US conservatives got a rude shock with the advent of television, suddenly discovering that other places in the world were not like the sleepy little towns they lived and died in.
But it really didn't hit the fan until the 1960s with all those young people going to colleged and being corrupted with all that book larning and stuff.
Since then it would seem like education has been under a stealthy attack. And every despot knows that an uneducated population is easier to control. All you have to do is make them tired of listening to experts.
Dan Weese
+Winchell Chung The 'cult of ignorance' is very old. It's not even American. It's German. Populism lies at the heart of the Reformation. As America became a largely Protestant nation, the same ethos of the pious burgher rising by dint of hard labour, clean living and just enough education to read the Bible, use a sextant, a pair of calipers, and raise a barn roof - came to be the American rags-to-riches myth.
These people are not entirely ignorant. They are both literate and numerate. They just don't like anyone to question their assertions, any more than Cardinal Bellarmine was prepared to give Galileo a fair hearing on the basis of the evidence. As with Bellarmine in his day, today's conservatives want to present such notions as Evolution and modern cosmology as mere hypotheses.
Higher education was always the province of the elites until the post-WW2 GI Bill gave ordinary joes the opportunity to go to college. Today's Fox News crowd was once a gaggle of earnest young things who considered themselves quite progressive, doffing their uniforms and going to the state university, for free, too. Also pushing out little Baby Boomers in those ticky-tacky little two bedroom jobs paid for by generous GI Bill housing loans.
Now here's what happened: where college was a deserved reward for national service, university became a bolthole for those who did not wish to serve in the Vietnam War, including many in the Cult of Ignorance's own ranks. Donald Trump was one such draft dodger. Most modern Republicans have never worn a uniform, where a great many modern Democrats have.
Don't underestimate these conservatives - they're not conservatives as any political scientist might interpret that word. They are mere reactionaries, as were their forebears. Furthermore, they are reasonably cosmopolitan. If Fox News caters to them, it's just what the ur-Protestant peasant has always wanted, a strenuous Hell Fire Sermon about someone else's evils.
Sunday, 26 June 2016
You're not helping, Nicola
Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has told the BBC that Holyrood could try to block the UK's exit from the EU. She was speaking following a referendum on Thursday which saw Britain vote by 52% to 48% to leave Europe. However, in Scotland the picture was different with 62% backing Remain and 38% wanting to go. SNP leader Ms Sturgeon said that "of course" she would ask MSPs to refuse to give their "legislative consent".
This wouldn't help. Scotland vetos Brexit => support for SNP surges => Scotland becomes independent => England and Wales exit. Thus, no change in the current situation.
Oh what a tangled web we weave...
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-36633244
This wouldn't help. Scotland vetos Brexit => support for SNP surges => Scotland becomes independent => England and Wales exit. Thus, no change in the current situation.
Oh what a tangled web we weave...
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-36633244
Irony, thy name is Leave voters
Irony level is off the charts.
[Let's also not forget Farage's statement that a 52:48 split would be grounds for a second referendum in the event of a Remain win. That a Leave win of equal magnitude is in strong contrast the undeniable "will of the people" says quite a lot about the lack of thought processes going on here.]
The petition for a second EU referendum with 3 million signatures was started by a leave voter last month worried the remain camp would win. William Oliver Healey, an English Democrat activist, claims it has been "hijacked" and has tried to distance himself from what has become the largest petition of its kind in history.
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/william-oliver-healey-referendum-petition_uk_576f8b28e4b0232d331e1b39
[Let's also not forget Farage's statement that a 52:48 split would be grounds for a second referendum in the event of a Remain win. That a Leave win of equal magnitude is in strong contrast the undeniable "will of the people" says quite a lot about the lack of thought processes going on here.]
The petition for a second EU referendum with 3 million signatures was started by a leave voter last month worried the remain camp would win. William Oliver Healey, an English Democrat activist, claims it has been "hijacked" and has tried to distance himself from what has become the largest petition of its kind in history.
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/william-oliver-healey-referendum-petition_uk_576f8b28e4b0232d331e1b39
Voting for pi
Goodwin wasn’t going to let something trivial like the proven mathematical impossibility of his task deter his efforts, though. He persevered, and in 1894 he even convinced the upstart journal American Mathematical Monthly to print the proof in which he “solved” the squaring-the-circle problem.... One of the odd side effects of Goodwin’s machinations was that the value of pi morphed into 3.2.
He didn’t just publish his faulty method in journals; he copyrighted it.... The state could avoid paying royalties if and only if the legislature would accept and adopt this “new mathematical truth” as state law. Goodwin convinced Representative Taylor I. Record to introduce House Bill 246, which outlined both this bargain and the basics of his method.
Professor C.A. Waldo of Purdue University was in Indianapolis while the pi hoopla was unfolding, and after watching part of the debate at the statehouse he was so thoroughly horrified that he decided to intervene. After receiving Waldo’s coaching, the Senate realized that the new bill was a very, very bad idea. Senator Orrin Hubbel moved that a vote on the bill be postponed indefinitely, and Goodwin’s new math died a quiet legislative death. The Indiana legislature hasn’t tried to rewrite the basic principles of math in all the years since.
Consider the possibility that Indiana had voted to set pi exactly equal to 3.2. This is objectively false. Would it then really be "undemocratic" to call for a second vote after the legislators were properly informed ?
http://mentalfloss.com/article/30214/new-math-time-indiana-tried-change-pi-32
He didn’t just publish his faulty method in journals; he copyrighted it.... The state could avoid paying royalties if and only if the legislature would accept and adopt this “new mathematical truth” as state law. Goodwin convinced Representative Taylor I. Record to introduce House Bill 246, which outlined both this bargain and the basics of his method.
Professor C.A. Waldo of Purdue University was in Indianapolis while the pi hoopla was unfolding, and after watching part of the debate at the statehouse he was so thoroughly horrified that he decided to intervene. After receiving Waldo’s coaching, the Senate realized that the new bill was a very, very bad idea. Senator Orrin Hubbel moved that a vote on the bill be postponed indefinitely, and Goodwin’s new math died a quiet legislative death. The Indiana legislature hasn’t tried to rewrite the basic principles of math in all the years since.
Consider the possibility that Indiana had voted to set pi exactly equal to 3.2. This is objectively false. Would it then really be "undemocratic" to call for a second vote after the legislators were properly informed ?
http://mentalfloss.com/article/30214/new-math-time-indiana-tried-change-pi-32
Friday, 24 June 2016
Corbyn has the right policies but is a useless leader
I like Corbyn. I agree with probably 90% or more of his policies. But as a leader he is useless.
Two Labour MPs have submitted a motion of no confidence in their leader Jeremy Corbyn for failing to give party voters a clear message on the EU referendum. Dame Margaret Hodge and Ann Coffey confirmed the move in a letter to the Parliamentary Labour Party chairman. The motion has no formal constitutional force but calls for a discussion at their next PLP meeting on Monday.
Asked if he will resign, Mr Corbyn, who campaigned on the losing Remain side, said: "No, I'm carrying on.
"I'm making the case for unity, I'm making the case of what Labour can offer to Britain, of decent housing for people, of good secure jobs for people, of trade with Europe and of course with other parts of the world. Because if we don't get the trade issue right, we've got a real problem in this country," he told Channel 4 News.
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-36621777
Two Labour MPs have submitted a motion of no confidence in their leader Jeremy Corbyn for failing to give party voters a clear message on the EU referendum. Dame Margaret Hodge and Ann Coffey confirmed the move in a letter to the Parliamentary Labour Party chairman. The motion has no formal constitutional force but calls for a discussion at their next PLP meeting on Monday.
Asked if he will resign, Mr Corbyn, who campaigned on the losing Remain side, said: "No, I'm carrying on.
"I'm making the case for unity, I'm making the case of what Labour can offer to Britain, of decent housing for people, of good secure jobs for people, of trade with Europe and of course with other parts of the world. Because if we don't get the trade issue right, we've got a real problem in this country," he told Channel 4 News.
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-36621777
Fact-checking Brexit
I'll have more to say on this in the not-too-distant future, but this is the real danger of allowing a cult of ignorance, anti-science and anti-expertise to flourish. If you start saying that facts aren't worth a damn in one area, then they quickly aren't worth a damn at all. Yes, Creationism may be fine by itself, and denying the existence of dark matter doesn't make you an evil person. But if you allow bullshit to replace reality in once instance, there's nothing holding back the bullshit everywhere else.
At every single turn, I found that the Leave campaign’s arguments were founded on lies. Sorry, it’s as simple as that. I wish it wasn’t. They lie about how much money we spend on the EU. I’d love to say “they’re misinformed”, or “they exaggerate”, but they don’t. They lie. Outright.
They lie about the business case for Leave. I still have found absolutely no support whatsoever for the figures that are confidently quoted here. They lie about the state of democracy in the EU. The more I investigate the EU, the more I find out it’s fairer and better set up than the UK’s government. Just today I discovered that the European Commission’s role in legislation is actually far more balanced than I thought.
Remain’s campaign has been criticised for being dull, being negative, and being led by people who are thoroughly disliked. All of those claims are entirely reasonable. Personally I intensely dislike both Cameron and Osborne. I’m about as much of a fan of the current UK government as I am of bowel cancer. But every claim of theirs I’ve checked — even the ones that had pro-Remain friends shouting about how over the top and ridiculous they were has turned out to be more or less sound.
https://medium.com/im-trying-to-fact-check-brexit/fact-checking-brexit-the-conclusion-c1f56ba4cb70#.uw6uhe3s2
At every single turn, I found that the Leave campaign’s arguments were founded on lies. Sorry, it’s as simple as that. I wish it wasn’t. They lie about how much money we spend on the EU. I’d love to say “they’re misinformed”, or “they exaggerate”, but they don’t. They lie. Outright.
They lie about the business case for Leave. I still have found absolutely no support whatsoever for the figures that are confidently quoted here. They lie about the state of democracy in the EU. The more I investigate the EU, the more I find out it’s fairer and better set up than the UK’s government. Just today I discovered that the European Commission’s role in legislation is actually far more balanced than I thought.
Remain’s campaign has been criticised for being dull, being negative, and being led by people who are thoroughly disliked. All of those claims are entirely reasonable. Personally I intensely dislike both Cameron and Osborne. I’m about as much of a fan of the current UK government as I am of bowel cancer. But every claim of theirs I’ve checked — even the ones that had pro-Remain friends shouting about how over the top and ridiculous they were has turned out to be more or less sound.
https://medium.com/im-trying-to-fact-check-brexit/fact-checking-brexit-the-conclusion-c1f56ba4cb70#.uw6uhe3s2
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