Brexit revisited

Your unsubstantoated numbers are puny compated to the 450 million population of the EU.

ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat-news/w/edn-20230711-1#:~:text=Over%20a%20longer%20period%2C%20the,increase%20of%2093.9%20million%20people.

I know there are multiple ways I parted company with Labour in the Blair years. Some of them policy failures. Some of them just bad policies. And the toadying to Bush and Murdoch both loom large. If I were to list everything that was bad or wrong, this would indeed be a very long post. But purely in the interests of balance, I will state what I think their main successes were.

For the first time we had a national minimum wage. We had devolution for Scotland and Wales, and the Good Friday agreement in Northern Ireland. NHS waiting lists came down substantially. We had working tax credits to support the low paid and a minimum income guarantee for pensioners. Free bus travel and winter fuel payments for the latter as well. Sure start centres. More investment in education. Introduction of the social chapter improving workers' rights. Paid maternity leave.I am struggling to think of much more.

It is not a very long list and many of the above were not perfect. The minimum wage for example was set at a very low level and stayed there. The Tories, incredibly, have been far more ambitious in raising its real value. And much of the investment in the NHS was achieved via PFI, and the NHS is saddled with the costs of that today. And working tax credits were very hit and miss, excluding many part time workers, and most childless people under 25, whilst many of the payments to pensioners were unneeded and therefore wasteful. I can for example totally understand why granny in her bungalow might need winter fuel payments, but struggle to understand why Peter Stringfellow in his mansion does.

Nevertheless all that I listed above were real improvements which the Tories of the day had they been in power were highly unlikely to have delivered. They had totally opposed the social chapter and minimum wage for example.

This is a credit where credit is due post. Were I to make a post listing all that was bad, it would be a post so long that it would take me hours to concoct it and few would bother reading it due to the massive number of words necessary to paint the sorry picture in full, lol.

But these centrist types who laughably think the rest of us are the biased ones will be along in due course to rubbish the above and indulge in another spot of blinkered hero worship and remind us of how fantastic it all was.

devolution was a policy labour were `forced` to introduce dragging their heels as I have said many a time by the diktats of the council of Europe . I posted a link to it for Bancroft on another thread. It wasn't some masterful policy labour introduced to help the Scottish people. They spent a century talking about home rule( devolution for Scotland within the empire) before they were forced into acting on repeated broken  promises they consistently  ignored when in power.

 To try and take the credit( labour not you) for something that everyone's knows they were deeply unhappy about introducing with one arm up their back gritting their teeth is  partly why I despise labour and their utter total duplicity.

same with the Good Friday agreement , once more , something that had to be dealt with unwillingly and was equally enforced by the European Union , who funded a lot of things in Northern Ireland , and the American administration at the time. It was a joint effort , not labours solely to claim.

The minimum wage as predicted has now become the maximum wage for the low paid , and labour bitterly opposed the introduction of free bus travel for under 18s in Scotland. I could go on .

 I speak for myself , coming from a working class background , that every time labour are in charge at any level , be it Westminster  , devolved governance , council and constituency , I am personally worse off.

 in the supposed halcyon days of the last blairite administration , I was made redundant three times in a five year period, and struggled in many other ways , and it wasn't till both the snp and tories came into power, that I recovered re trained in another industry and started my own business and bought my house. 

All parties have pros and cons , I fully agree . Labour though are one of the most duplicitous and untrustworthy parties in the uk that I have ever come across , and they have betrayed not just Scotland , but the working class of the uk  repeatedly.

we are all biased , so. pointing out my bias as though its unique just shows the stupidity of your arguments . It's a fact to point out four fifths of the uk electorate aren't going to vote for the Labour Party. Im sure you will tell me its because we are all stupid, and need to see the light , but I prefer to think its because most folk like myself have suffered under past labour administrations at various levels and are therefore engaging our brains .

I point out your bias because it is excessive. 

Care to mention how you personally suffered because of the New Labour administration? 

I said in some member states it is declining France 69 in 04 against 59 in 23; Spain 80 in 07 against 67 in 23; Hungary 61 in 16 against 59 in 23; Italy 78 in 07 against 69 in 23. I accept that in others it has increased but most from a high point in 22 have dropped away again.

EDIT as regards the Guardian that is why I said it was variable.