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.

Subscribe
Notify of
guest

516 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
sandy

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.

Stravaiger

@HYUFD,

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

yesindyref2

@sandy
He already tried that …

Gfaetheblock

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

Cubby

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.

cynicalHighlander

Ignore every time it’s the only sane way

sandy

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

Benhope

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.

msdidi

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

Petra

@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.

Rick H Johnston

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.

yesindyref2

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.

Petra

“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.”

yesindyref2

“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!

Gary

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…

GirlsGospel

Face palm. :-/ sigh.


  • About

    Wings Over Scotland is a (mainly) Scottish political media digest and monitor, which also offers its own commentary. (More)

    Stats: 6,677 Posts, 1,204,909 Comments

  • Recent Posts

  • Archives

  • Categories

  • Tags

  • Recent Comments

    • Willie on The Wage Thief: “Seems that the popular support in the US is turning to support the young man alleged to have shot the…Dec 12, 06:22
    • Geri on The Wage Thief: “It’s barking mad. All coz one eejit country is an anti social fuckwit that can’t decide if God gave them…Dec 12, 05:37
    • Geri on The Wage Thief: “My guess, btw, if they’d to choose it’d be the one with the most to offer. The one with extensive…Dec 12, 05:17
    • Geri on The Wage Thief: “That last para is absolute bollox & has been debunked a gazillion times. & The West lied just the once?…Dec 12, 01:59
    • Geri on The Wage Thief: “Unfortunately Estonia has jettisoned in a rabid psycho & Ursula Von derHitler has ushered her pal into the EU fold…Dec 12, 01:13
    • Geri on The Wage Thief: “He has spoken of regrets about that in the past. The more he was in the job the more shit…Dec 12, 01:01
    • Robert Matthews on The Wage Thief: “The usual ‘colonial’ guff from a man with an Anglo Saxon first name.Dec 12, 00:49
    • znovak on The Wage Thief: “Thanks for the response, I wrote what I think about Sachs (and why) in a reply to Breeks a little…Dec 11, 23:04
    • znovak on The Wage Thief: “Thanks for a long and thoughtful response, even if I have to disagree with parts of it. I reply late,…Dec 11, 22:57
    • Robert Matthews on The Wage Thief: “If Alba intervene in constituency races in 2026, they will harm independence and harm themselves on the listDec 11, 22:54
    • agent X on The Wage Thief: “I bet all the 1000s of OAPs ( aka – Geriatric Millionaires , according the warped perception of ” some…Dec 11, 21:54
    • gregor on The Wage Thief: “The Vandals: Internet Dating Superstuds: 43210-1: “Stop! Pretending you’re even having fun You just stand there looking dumb and bored…Dec 11, 21:52
    • Willie on The Wage Thief: “Assisted Dying – it’s here now big time with these sub zero temperatures and Starmer’s removal of the pensioner heating…Dec 11, 21:50
    • gregor on The Wage Thief: “@PeteWishart has blocked you: “You guys are certainly obsessed with carrots, but ’10 years of carrots’ would be a great…Dec 11, 21:21
    • sarah on The Wage Thief: “Why? Surely better to stand on the list?Dec 11, 20:27
    • gregor on The Wage Thief: “The Sheepdogs: The Sheepdogs: Feeling Good: “Are you close to mine Or could you blow my mind Cause the heat…Dec 11, 20:22
    • gregor on The Wage Thief: “Evil Conduct: King of Kings: Change the World: “You ain’t got no message You won’t change the world I don’t…Dec 11, 20:11
    • Hatey McHateface on The Wage Thief: “Deep fried in Fanny Batter. The order that’s set off many a post-closing-time chipper rammy in my neck of the…Dec 11, 19:51
    • Hatey McHateface on The Wage Thief: “On the plus side, sheep are feeling a lot less nervous.Dec 11, 19:46
    • Hatey McHateface on The Wage Thief: ““Readers here like what I write” Nah. 1 Upvote 2 Scroll on by 3 Log in with new ID 4…Dec 11, 19:42
    • Hatey McHateface on The Wage Thief: “He’d maybe have to do what it says in the Declaration Of Arbroath and completely destroy the Picts. That may…Dec 11, 19:33
    • Campbell Clansman on The Wage Thief: “The “Claim of Right,” promoted by morons like Alf and Sarah as part of a (non-existent) “Scottish Constitution,” IS “sectarian…Dec 11, 19:28
    • Zander Tait on The Wage Thief: “Ha ha. More lies from Grendel. 6 up votes in 26 minutes for me and numerous down votes for you…Dec 11, 19:23
    • Young Lochinvar on The Wage Thief: “Codename Beef Curtains..Dec 11, 19:20
    • Young Lochinvar on The Wage Thief: “Maybe she’ll team up with Jean Paul Gautier and release Eau de Colon..Dec 11, 19:06
    • Captain Caveman on The Wage Thief: ““Rammy in the chipper” …? I think not. These lot barely leave the safety of their mum’s spare bedroom lol,…Dec 11, 19:01
    • Campbell Clansman on The Wage Thief: “6 upvotes in 3 minutes! Very impressive! I guess we now know how many aliases “Zander” posts under. My fellow…Dec 11, 18:57
    • Captain Caveman on The Wage Thief: “Being told I’m “missing a few brain cells” by some fragile, witless moron who does know what paragraph breaks are…Dec 11, 18:56
    • Dan on The Wage Thief: “Still tying to punt that sectarian drivel. https://yoursforscotlandcom.wordpress.com/2022/08/31/in-response-to-roddy-dunlop-qc/Dec 11, 18:53
    • Mark Beggan on The Wage Thief: “For me The Cranky Show is a conspired and direct attack on our society. A threat to men, women, and…Dec 11, 18:53
  • A tall tale



↑ Top
149
0
Would love your thoughts, please comment.x
()
x