Brexit -am I stupid or what

That's exactly what one of my neighbours said to me today. He's a staunch Tory voter but now has a big Brexit poster on his gates. He voted remain in the referendum but wants to give all the other parties a kick in the pants and actually feels that Farage et al will also better represent the UK in the EU.

 

I think they all need a kick in the pants to be honest - not just here, but in the EU, and if they hadn't continued, bullishly, down the paths that they did............

I may well come across as staunchly anti-EU, but in fact at the time of the referendum I swung between Leave and Remain on an almost daily basis.

When it comes down to it (personal opinion here) I reckon that all of this has all been driven by austerity, increasing controls or arbitrary targets for things such as air pollution (most of which come from the EU) where a lot of those controls result in taxes or fines, huge reductions in the standards and availability of public services, with uncontrolled immigration at the back end of all of it (note the word 'uncontrolled') - people got to the point where they had simply had enough. Since the vote, a number of things have been said and done, again by politicians both in the UK and the EU that have deepened the resentment that the public have for the government, parliaments and politicians.

Things need to change, drastically - and I do mean drastically. Whoever gets elected at these local elections today, and then in the EU elections later in this month, need to realise and remember that they work FOR the public, and are not there to control and dictate.

 

I agree that it should be, but sadly the two cannot be separated - the poison that is running through party politics at the moment has seeped down to a local level, as is borne out by the fact that none of the Labour councillors here have given any information about themselves, their political stance or their aims should they be elected. It is not a case of one of them not doing it - it is a coordinated effort, as if in protest at something further up the chain. Furthermore, local councillors have proved that they are little more than book-keepers/bursars with government policy and financing driving virtually all of their decisions.

I'm not falling into the trap of seeing local councils as not being government, because they are - they are merely a subsidiary company of the government. If we looked at the UK government and local councils as a business, we would be stripping out all these layers and standardising as much as we could to save money - - and you have to wonder just how much money it is costing to run the government and councils.

 

I agree. Local councillors are simply local representations of the party line. Ours are so content to tow that line to the detriment of the locals that I find them contemptible, hence my vote for the independent that at least lives in the area! The Tory rep has never said what they actually do for their money and vote - it's always obfuscating BS such as 'oh I can't divulge most of what I do as it's confidential' or 'the parties involved would not appreciate me talking about it' which is all so vague, non-specific and makes me believe they're doing nothing. There's certainly no evidence of it. On the few occasions that some flyer has been put through the letterbox it's always what the borough has achieved and in the recent fluff for this local election she actually claimed something that I know was an out and out lie as my wife did it!
When involved with the local residents association we often asked for updates and input and got the cold shoulder except when the councillors needed to put on a show (public events) and whereas some councillors are adept at communication and social media ours actively shun that approach although funnily enough, a FB page has popped up asking for us to vote for her but nothing else! Running scared but it's not good enough although I will not vote Labour with Corbyn in charge.

 

I voted first thing this morning. We normally vote for Parish Councillors and a District Councillor. There's no voting for the Parish as the number of candidates didn't exceed the seats available, but usually these councillors are only interested in trying to sort things out within the parish and politics rarely comes into it.

There were two candidates for District council and just one local seat. One of the candidates is/was one of our parish councillors and his address was on the ballot paper and he lives in the village. The other I've never heard of and he doesn't have his address on the ballot paper. All it says is that he lives within the District Council area - which cover over 130sq miles! I can't see him knowing much locally and I wouldn't vote for him. Neither of them had given any information about themselves but everyone locally knows the other person.

 

Quite probably true, although the Remain campaign did little if anything to enlighten the public in the run up. They should have been out there singing praises and highlighting all the good and explaining to Joe Public what the point of the EU is and how it functions. But they didn't.

 

I don't dispute these figures (haven't the faintest idea what the figures are) but aren't you comparing unlike systems? The UK civil servants have to manage a vast amount of aspects of government that are not directly relatable to the work of the EU civil servants. These are all internal management things that each member of the EU also has. The EU civil servants are on top of those needed to run each member country.

Having said that, I think that 400,000 is way too much (another feeling I can't justify - through lack of knowledge ) and I guess it could be greatly reduced. Quite frankly, I couldn't really be bothered to try and find out how and what that 400,000 do.