The world's most-read Scottish politics website

Wings Over Scotland


The question begged

Posted on November 15, 2018 by

Only an idiot would try to write anything today about the epic mess currently unfolding in British politics. You’d barely get to the end of typing a sentence before events had rendered it obsolete. But there’s one thing we’d really like to know, which bewilderingly nobody is mentioning.

The primary root cause of Brexit was idiots complaining about immigration. The core supposed aim of leaving, no matter what anyone said, was to reduce the number of foreign people coming to live and work in the UK. The issue of immigration regularly topped polls of what voters were most concerned about, and a 2017 study showed it was the biggest factor in the Leave vote.

But yesterday the UK government, after two and a half years of quite spectacularly inept negotiation, produced for the approval of the electorate a Brexit deal which did precisely NOTHING about immigration, and nobody in the media even mentioned it.

Don’t get us wrong – we’re happy that the hatred of foreigners last seen from the No campaign in the independence referendum has apparently fallen off the news agenda. We couldn’t be more pleased. We just don’t understand why.

After all, it’s not as if the people who wanted Brexit suddenly LIKE foreigners.

And the proposed deal would mean no policed UK/EU land border in Ireland, which means that anyone from the EU could perfectly legally come to the Republic, stroll unchallenged across the border into the UK, and from there onto the mainland, since there was no proposed pseudo-border in the Irish Sea either. As an initial access route it sure beats clinging to the underside of a lorry all the way from Romania to Dover.

So the UK would have snarling dogs, barbed wire, minefields and riot police all over its front lawn (facing Calais, which the newly-departed Brexit minister recently discovered is in a foreign country across a sea), but would be leaving its back door unlocked, unguarded and swinging open in the breeze next to a 50-foot-high billboard saying “COME RIGHT IN, JOHNNY FOREIGN!”

(Although of course, as a concession to Brexiters and a demonstration of the government’s serious concern and joined-up policy-making, it’d be an incredibly racist one trying to make the would-be immigrants feel unwelcome, and the ports would be patrolled by Theresa May’s patented ImmiVans telling them to sod off again.)

And we’re just perplexed that nobody at all seems to be making any fuss about that. Because hardcore Brexiters and the UK’s right-wing press hating foreign people was just about the last thing in the world that we still regarded as a fixed point of certainty, and now there’s literally nothing happening in UK politics that we understand.

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

516 to “The question begged”

  1. sandy
    Ignored
    says:

    Rock, obviously you have ignored the therapy advised in a previous post. To remind you, immerse your head completely in a bucket of water for one hour. This has an amazing effect & is a permanent cure for anybody who is a natural bore to his fellow men. I can guarantee 100% success.

  2. Stravaiger
    Ignored
    says:

    @HYUFD,

    If you choose not to listen then it’s no skin off my nose.

  3. yesindyref2
    Ignored
    says:

    @sandy
    He already tried that …

  4. Gfaetheblock
    Ignored
    says:

    Sandy, encouraging suicide, even if ‘joking’, is pretty grim. FFS, ignore or debate.

  5. Cubby
    Ignored
    says:

    I see the crack Britnat tag team – The Plonkers – have been let out to play tonight.

    Rockshit you are still top man. The most boring boring Britnat on Wings. A Britnat with nothing original to say. Repeats his shit night after night. Still got the crown on for the biggest Britnat Diddy on Wings. Your partner is trying hard to take the crown away with his lies but boring will always beat lies.

    The Plonkers by name – plonkers by posts. Just pity them.

    ps it is out of order to suggest they put their head in a bucket of ice. They carry around their own bucket of sand so that they can stick their head in it at a moments notice and hum Rule Britannia.

  6. cynicalHighlander
    Ignored
    says:

    Ignore every time it’s the only sane way

  7. sandy
    Ignored
    says:

    Gfaetheblock,
    Come ashore, lad, come ashore. He’s got 600 & odd years to go.

  8. Benhope
    Ignored
    says:

    Some cheering news for the week-end. Johnston Press going into administration.The shares have no value.The Scotsman vile headlines gone soon from the newsagents hopefully. The first of many failing Yoon rags to go. Many more to follow ASAP.

  9. msdidi
    Ignored
    says:

    tried catching up with wings tonight…..more scrolling than reading…..it’s getting to be the norm. SAD face

  10. Petra
    Ignored
    says:

    @msdidi at 12:20pm …. “More trolling than reading … sad.” ..

    Just reading through the last few posts and who in their right mind would want to join us? If anything it would put you right off. Name of the game? So-called Independence supporters supposedly castigating trolls? No this just comes across akin to kids behaving badly in a Primary School playground. No forget that we’re looking at kids functioning at pre-five Nursery level here. I know it, we know it and hopefully anyone with as much as an IQ of 90 will know it. Know that most of these people don’t support Independence at all.

  11. Rick H Johnston
    Ignored
    says:

    What about strong and stable? Did I just dream that.
    I’m in a dwam, where the Scots decide what the shit, get us out of here. Tick Tock ye cannae hurry a clock.
    Gie me patience Lord, but hurry.

  12. yesindyref2
    Ignored
    says:

    Oh give it a rest, who appointed you headmistress?

    For a thread that’s over 500 postings long and with more serious things happening in the disintegrating UK around us, if the Rev wants to leave a couple of stress balls lying around for us kids to play with that’s his right, take it up with him.

    Oh, and don’t bother saying you personally know twenty-eleven people from the Nether Antarctic who’ve vowed never to read Wings again, I’ve heard it all before.

  13. Petra
    Ignored
    says:

    “Stress balls lying around for us kids to play with”, says it all for me. That’s the type of mentality that’s going to help to push up support, Not. You know the support that we need to deal with “the more serious things happening in the disintegrating UK around us.”

  14. yesindyref2
    Ignored
    says:

    “Stress balls lying around for us kids to play with”, says it all for me.

    Help yourself, there’s more than just a couple of them.

    No need to thank me, plenty to go around, you’re welcome!

  15. Gary
    Ignored
    says:

    I’m not sure I agree. There’s a VAST difference between ‘freedom of movement’ and ‘immigration’ Immigration benefits us whereas freedom of movement does not.

    Those who make their home here permanently will work and contribute tax and NI. Those who come and work for the summer season in ultra low paid jobs will be below the tax threshold due to this being a summer job. Due to their lower cost of living it is worthwhile for them to do it. This means employers will keep wages artificially low and become dependent upon temp workers from eastern Europe. Artificially low wages keep inflation artificially low leading to unbelievably low interest rates.

    So that’s good for borrowers, right? No, it isn’t. With wages being kept down they can’t afford to borrow. Even those in work are ‘under employed’ and for many, dependent upon Working Tax Credits to bring their wages up to where they should be. WTC is touted by govt as help for workers, it isn’t. WTC is a subsidy for employers. They get bigger profits and pay pitiful amounts of Corporation Tax due to the abuse of ‘group accounting’ to the extent it is barely concealed fraud. Appropriate donations and ‘jobs for the boys’ ensure this has been kept going through parliaments of several colours.

    Interest rates at the level they’re at has seen a ‘flight’ of cash out of banks and bonds into off shore accounts and other nefarious hidey holes for the rich. Low interest rates leads to less investment. We have the perfect storm for causing permanent damage to our economy, and no one in government has the balls to BEGIN to resolve this.

    May has claimed that ‘freedom of movement’ has ended. But it has ended in name only, already exceptions are being made for financial service, job transfers etc.

    Why train employees when you can ‘transfer’ them in from the EU? They can come for a couple of months (until they’ve almost used their ‘free pay’ then return without having paid ANY tax of NI here.

    Immigration, on the other hand, IS good. What May is doing is ensuring that those who already HAVE money, KEEP their money. We will continue to collect little tax from bug companies and big earners and we will continue to give away our fishing rights and we will continue with suppressed wages, weak corrupt unions and a lack of investment in Scotland in particular…

  16. GirlsGospel
    Ignored
    says:

    Face palm. :-/ sigh.



Comment - please read this page for comment rules. HTML tags like <i> and <b> are permitted. Use paragraph breaks in long comments. DO NOT SIGN YOUR COMMENTS, either with a name or a slogan. If your comment does not appear immediately, DO NOT REPOST IT. Ignore these rules and I WILL KILL YOU WITH HAMMERS.




↑ Top