Honestly, UK, do it or fuck off. The world’s in flames, and you’re pissing about over the name of the most basic and uncontroversial form of cooperation imaginable. If you can’t even manage this, go away and come back when you’ve grown the fuck up. www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/poli... - ThreadSky | a Reddit-style client for Bluesky

guitarmoog.bsky.social • 1 day ago

Honestly, UK, do it or fuck off.

The world’s in flames, and you’re pissing about over the name of the most basic and uncontroversial form of cooperation imaginable.

If you can’t even manage this, go away and come back when you’ve grown the fuck up.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-youth-mobility-scheme-work-eu-b2718689.html

Comments

darvitwendy.bsky.social•1 day ago

I agree how frustrating the approach is for those of us that would happily move faster (immediately!)
But if calling vegetables "corned beef" got you to eat your vegetables surely this was a good thing in the long run?
If we have to infantalise the infantile, so be it

guitarmoog.bsky.social•1 day ago

In this though I think it is the UK government that is infantile, not the voters they’re trying to triangulate with (who will see right through them), and it’s not the EU’s job to accommodate infantile 3rd country govts.

guitarmoog.bsky.social•1 day ago

That triangulation shit you think you’re so good at (and which voters hate you for) doesn’t work with the EU. You make commitments and both sides mean them and stick to them.

You want weasel words and half-promises nobody intends to stick to, talk to your pal Don.

guitarmoog.bsky.social•1 day ago

Oh, but if we changed the name so it sounded like something it wasn’t so it didn’t upset a very specific demographic and made special conditions just for us, then maybe possibly we could perhaps think about doing it.

OK. Let us know when you’re serious, won’t you.

guitarmoog.bsky.social•1 day ago

This is the international relations equivalent of my mum telling toddler me that everything was corned beef so I would eat it.

It’s childish, non-serious shit in a grown-up world that’s as serious as your life right now.

What happens now may define the next decades. Grow up.

guitarmoog.bsky.social•1 day ago

The EU is well aware of domestic political concerns, and always happy to package things for home consumption, but at a certain point this hand-holding and gently guiding and inducing the reluctant toddler into eating its vegetables or putting its shoes on is just enabling more of the same.

guitarmoog.bsky.social•1 day ago

Do you know how Europeans take this? They take it as you saying “Well, no, we don’t actually *want* any of you or your young people to come here because they’re foreign and we don’t like foreign, but we might be just about willing to permit a very few of them to under strict conditions. Maybe.”

guitarmoog.bsky.social•1 day ago

We don’t like you and we don’t want you but we might just get enough back ourselves for it to be worth unconvincingly pretending that we do if you’ll agree to it being obnoxiously and insultingly restrictive.

This is certainly not friendship and it’s no basis for international cooperation.

simonbm.bsky.social•1 day ago

That’s not just how it’s taken. It’s exactly what it is. That is less serious outside than not joining Schengen was inside. It’s a culture of regarding Europeans as seriously undesirable. It’s a permanent “fuck off” that should produce “fuck off” counter-reflexes rather than indulgence.

mmrr.bsky.social•1 day ago

Maybe there will be some sort of customs union with Canada and we'll join that, but I still see labour having that as a red line

almagroschool.bsky.social•1 day ago

Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons, must be out of the country by 1900

grantwhite.bsky.social•1 day ago

The worst part is all the gormless handsitters who will go "See, Starmer was always moving us back to the EU! You just didn't see it!"

I'm so damn tired of a country that wants a pseudo monarchy to rule over them, not public servants they steer in the public interest.

dotlepkowska.bsky.social•1 day ago

Great thread. Spot on. I am sick of Labour's approach.

catanonim.me•1 day ago

Sadly, that's what he's doing (talking to Mafia D)!

grantwhite.bsky.social•1 day ago

I'm tired of being stuck in a country where the fear of Farage steers every government.

All those rent a gob pundits promising "We just vote Labour in and the conversation on EU membership will dramatically improve!"

Haven't I suffered enough?

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demcath.bsky.social•1 day ago

Millions of us agree in UK
Sick of Labour messing us all about. Tired of it.
.

fayheatley.bsky.social•1 day ago

The timidity of the Labour Government is excruciating 😩

mrkeithtaylor.bsky.social•1 day ago

I've completely given up on them. If the word 'mobility' is too much for Labour then walking to the polling station is too much for me. I'll consider returning if and when, as you suggest, there are some adults on the ballot paper.

henriettam.bsky.social•1 day ago

As a non Brit I can only but agree. I'm so fecking tired of politicians, no matter which bloody rosette they're wearing, tiptoeing around Farage, pandering to his every whim.

garymitch.bsky.social•1 day ago

I am with you on this. What are the real reasons for not joining? If it is just voting intentions then grow the fuck up.

parisdaguerre.bsky.social•1 day ago

It’s just so searingly painful witnessing Starmer’s timidity in the face of kicking the ball into an open goal.

Ok wait to do it on the next day Trump announces a new global timebomb & everyone is focused on that. That’ll probably be tomorrow anyway!

sg99.bsky.social•1 day ago

100% this.

alanjstedman.bsky.social•1 day ago

Yep, they seem on the whole to like playing around at the edges and just hoping the core middle but just falls into place

Their strategy is increment, increment, increment

About as bold as being hit with a bunch of fading gladioli...and I really don't like gladioli!

smfbooth.bsky.social•1 day ago

I completely agree.

smfbooth.bsky.social•1 day ago

Starmer needs to stop being a doormat. His communications are dreadful. He needs to sort that out pronto.

sdinpraxis.bsky.social•1 day ago

Nothing quite like the dulcet terms of a former uncivil servant unleashed 😄

serenllan.bsky.social•1 day ago

Absolutely correct. Starmer needs to wiggle his head. Pathetic. Who the hell is he that frightened of? If this is a Morgan McSweeney special he needs sacking.

paperghost.bsky.social•1 day ago

jesus this is beyond embarrassing at this point (especially as the people who'll rage at "mobility" will rage at the replacement word too)

neilmull.bsky.social•1 day ago

True. I mean they rage at "Motability" too.

andrewbrook.bsky.social•1 day ago

Yes, in a way I echo that. But Starmer is fighting Reform. Do we want a major European country being governed by the far right? Italy and France are teetering, Germany has a big problem and the UK really could elect Reform in 5 years. So I understand his caution even if I don’t agree with it.

guitarmoog.bsky.social•1 day ago

Adopting far-right lite policies has been shown repeatedly to fail as voters that way inclined opt for the real authentic thing. Voters of all sides can spot a phoney and don’t like it.

You fight it by showing leadership, selling something better, and moving public opinion rather than following it.

frankexchange.bsky.social•1 day ago

Italy, Germany and France are conclusively demonstrating that when you adopt far-right- light policies, it doesn't appease.the voters, because those policies don't actually work, so they want the "real deal" and you're fucked.

andrewbrook.bsky.social•1 day ago

I know, and I agree… and yet all major European countries are doing it. Could it be that there is a permanent underbelly of would-be fascists that rears its ugly head every so often, and that nothing we can do will change this aspect of human nature?

frankexchange.bsky.social•1 day ago

There's a perennial centrist preference for fascism, which has the great advantage of not proposing leftist economic policies, which would presumably entail some taxes. Can't have that, can we? Looks like we'll have jack-booted thugs instead.

fascinatorfun.bsky.social•1 day ago

Splendid to see you cutting through the bollox again!

It is embarrassingly stupid. Do they sit around telling one another how crafty/ smart they are being.

The EU should hand them a piece of string each time they do it.

Trying to string them along

sarahcalvert.bsky.social•1 day ago

Absolutely. 100% agree.

catanonim.me•1 day ago

Steve letting rip here ↑ is well worthy of a one-pager, which I have munged to remove the hyperlink:

skywriter[dot]blue/pages/guitarmoog[dot]bsky[dot]social/post/3lmoox4swo22b

goodclimate.bsky.social•1 day ago

Don't scroll all the way down to the trolls in the comments like I did. Oh, my bad, it's the government spokesman.

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grantwhite.bsky.social•1 day ago

Can you just request I be let in? I'm sure if you highlight my record they'd see I'm a good egg.

juiceianturner.bsky.social•1 day ago

Well said Steve 👍