Nigel Farage, UKIP leader, resigns from his position.

[Nick Young]

My point is, if all you knew was Dresta, NY, 9er, and NumberSix supported Brexit it would be enough to know it's likely a poor choice. Watching the leaders of Brexit run and hide while our ISHiots keep changing the world one message board post at a time makes it even better.

the ignorant hillybilly spews more ignorant verbal feces out of his sphincter

No surprises that Deucey boy supports the EU and the continued oppression of people from Mediterranean nations.

Deuce has a long and consistent history of posting hateful ideas against the working class.

[Lebowsky]

What kind of ass-backwards bullshit is this? You argued it will have an impact--you have to prove that. You can't prove the absence of something you ignorant child; it's one of the most basic things a person can know: that you cannot prove a negative. The onus probandi is entirely on you, boy-o!

And seriously, with your education, how can you not even be schooled in the most basic rules and assumptions of civilised debate? Been spending too much time learning about the endless intricacies of the silly European Union project, have we? Says everything about how shitty formal education has become: you know your classifications and your labels, but you can't actually understand anything. A bloody parrot.

Yes, you can.

[Brunch@Five]

"It is such because I say it is such" is all you are arguing here, repeatedly, ad infinitum . No-one has to take your subjective, a priori assumptions as fact. Try to do better next time.

you honestly think a fruitful discussion about politics can be had when a basic assumption is that individual politicians don't have an influence on the process?
If that is your assumption, you're discussing on basis of post-WW 2 realist political science. Say hello to 60 years ago. Meanwhile, the rest of the intellectual debate has moved on.

[LJJ]

How do you conclude that it "doesn't have any effect on Brexit" when one of the most influential politicians in the UK is concluding his political career (while still insisting on collecting his paycheck as a member of the European parliament ), who also happened to be one of the most controversial advocates of the Brexit

I'm sorry Brunch, but this seems like a huge contradiction you are presenting here.

Is Farage concluding his political career immediately and completely distancing himself from his political voice, or is he going to stay MEP for the next two years and represent the British will for independence in Europe?

Sounds to me like Farage is staying in European politics until Brexit is done and not running away from anything.

[Brunch@Five]

I'm sorry Brunch, but this seems like a huge contradiction you are presenting here.

Is Farage concluding his political career immediately and completely distancing himself from his political voice, or is he going to stay MEP for the next two years and represent the British will for independence in Europe?

Sounds to me like Farage is staying in European politics until Brexit is done and not running away from anything.

It's not a contradiction considering that his political impact is not exerted through his formal powers as a representative, but as a public figure who has constantly been campaigning to push his agenda, first and foremost in Great Britain. He managed to shape the national discourse quite considerably.
This not the case for his role in the European Parliament or the European cosmopolitan discourse. The European political System works differently - agendas are set on the intergovernmental level, not in the European Parliament.
He might prove me wrong, but from what he has said (taking his life back) he'll probably collect his paycheck but not really voice his opinion publicly. As a MEP alone he'll have little influence.

[LJJ]

I can see how you can infer from his small statement that he's going to leave the limelight entirely, it's a bit awkwardly worded. He hasn't really clarified what he'll be doing, so everybody immediately jumps to whatever assumption fits their agenda.

From what I hear he'll be doing a big radioshow this weekend, so we will probably know definitively what his plans are then.

[Dresta]

you honestly think a fruitful discussion about politics can be had when a basic assumption is that individual politicians don't have an influence on the process?
If that is your assumption, you're discussing on basis of post-WW 2 realist political science. Say hello to 60 years ago. Meanwhile, the rest of the intellectual debate has moved on.

Human affairs and interactions don't undergo fundamental changes over 60 years. Your "intellectual debate" is mere intellectual *********ion with no relation to the real world, or to how peoples and nations act, where their allegiances lie, and what sort of things are important to the human species.

There is no new paradigm in political science unless human nature has undergone a fundamental change in the last 60 years--if you think this, you're delusional, and must know very little history--but by all means, keep up the "advanced" and "modern" political science discourse.

And your argument is a straw-man anyway: I never said politicians can't affect outcomes, nor do I see how thinking otherwise is "post-ww2 realism" (always with your bland labels and classifications--a sure sign you have been indoctrinated in how to think; such classifications have no place in the complex art of politics, because it is and has always been more of an art than a science; human beings ought not to be viewed as inanimate objects). "Political Science" is everything that is wrong with politics: it is a junk discipline with little relation to reality; again, it is a way to break the world into little classifiable pieces, so that the rubes can more easily digest it in their simpleminded way. Think about this next time you start blathering on about "post ww2 realism" or "Behavioralism" or "methodological nationalism" or some other such theoretical nonsense (these are constructs, and nothing else).

Sorry to inform you of this, but most of the advanced political scientists that make you feel smart and modern, don't even compare favourably with the fragments left by Polybius 2150 years ago (when it comes to political insight); there is infinitely more to be learnt about human affairs from him, than from someone like Rawls or Dahl (their books will be dead and buried in 100 years). What you've been taught is a load of bollocks for the most part, and I know, because I went through it myself.

Farage has not stepped down from all politics; he resigned as leader, as he had already offered to do after he failed to win a seat in Parliament (he's not even a member of Parliament!) in the last general election; the UKIP Part committee pleaded with him to stay on at least until the referendum had been held, and he did. That you should find this so astounding and monumental is really quite strange--maybe you need some more up to date political science lectures? Because you clearly have only started paying attention to UK politics since they voted to leave the EU. It's easy to see when someone joins the party late, unaware of everything that happened before they got there, and laughable when they start making large judgements based upon the few seconds of the party they've been to.

Yes, you can.

Oh, ok then, tell me then how one can prove that Aliens (or ghosts) don't exist. And i mean proof, not just a probabilistic assumption.

[Lebowsky]

Oh, ok then, tell me then how one can prove that Aliens (or ghosts) don't exist. And i mean proof, not just a probabilistic assumption.

That, I don't know. However, I do know nonexistence (or absence of existence) can be and is proven regularly in many different fields. Take Fermat's theorem, for example. I was merely pointing out what you said is incorrect.

[NumberSix]

That, I don't know. However, I do know nonexistence (or absence of existence) can be and is proven regularly in many different fields. Take Fermat's theorem, for example. I was merely pointing out what you said is incorrect.

Absence =/= non existence.

Even if you can prove something is absent in a specific place, you can't prove that it doesn't exist anywhere.

[Brunch@Five]

Human affairs and interactions don't undergo fundamental changes over 60 years.

knowledge does.
you can't seriously deny that a) politicians and other public figures can and do heavily influence public opinion and b) public opinion affects political processes.
Deducting from those two "truths" it is self-evident that Farage leaving the British political stage does indeed influence how Brexit will play out.
If you want to stick to your hardcore realism then so be it. It's your loss.

[Brunch@Five]

Absence =/= non existence.

Even if you can prove something is absent in a specific place, you can't prove that it doesn't exist anywhere.

If we're talking about a binary phenomenon (0/1) we can absolutely prove that "0" is untrue when we can observe "1".
i.e., if we prove/correctly assume that individual politicians influence the political process, we know that the opposite is untrue.

unless you're talking about parallel universes

[Brunch@Five]

Dresta, just reminding you what you initially said:

Whether Farage is or is not leader of the fringe UKIP party doesn't have any effect on Brexit.

Grats on showing that you understand nothing about UK politics. As leader of UKIP Farage could have no part in any Brexit negotiations.

now you say

I never said politicians can't affect outcomes

asking again, how do you conclude that Nigel Farage removing himself from the British political sphere does NOT affect the outcome, considering that he has been a major factor in the Brexit debate until this point. I just don't see how he would suddenly have lost all influence he had.
Your argument for him not having impact is that he would not have partaken in negotiations. Thereby ignoring all other possible ways in which political actors can impact political processes and presenting a view of human nature that reduces political processes to mere (pseudo-rational) transactions following objective logics.

I don't have any more time for you if you can't acknowledge the simple truth that it makes a difference for UK politics and the outcome of Brexit whether Farage is engaged in the process or not.

[Dresta]

There's no contradiction in those two quotes. I don't see why you think there is.

I don't have any more time for you if you can't acknowledge the simple truth that Nigel Farage was never going to be involved in the Brexit process, as leader of UKIP or otherwise. It's really not that hard to understand; I don't think you know enough about UK politics to be commenting on this sort of thing tbh. Boris Johnson and the building of a cross-party coalition was much more important in getting the Leave vote than Nigel Farage. He was instrumental in forcing the referendum, but pretty unimportant in getting the Leave vote, and almost entirely irrelevant when it comes to Brexit negotiations.

What is so complicated?

knowledge does.
you can't seriously deny that a) politicians and other public figures can and do heavily influence public opinion and b) public opinion affects political processes.
Deducting from those two "truths" it is self-evident that Farage leaving the British political stage does indeed influence how Brexit will play out.
If you want to stick to your hardcore realism then so be it. It's your loss.

I've never said that. But Farage's influence on the public has been marginal, and he has always been of marginal influence. Shifts in public opinion due to the blindness of the mainstream parties is not Farage influencing the political process; the inability for the mainstream parties to listen to their voters is at the heart of it. That's why you're seeing the rise of nationalist parties all over Europe: in the childish structure vs. agency paradigm taught to political science students, this is almost entirely a structural thing (elites all over Europe, ignoring the protestations of their populations--any demagogue can take advantage of such a situation, and there is no shortage of demagogues in democracies).

I don't know why you think I don't think individual persons can play a great role in human affairs--I think the "Great Man" theory of history has a lot of evidence in its favour. English history would be almost entirely different if Alfred had never existed, for example; but Alfred was the last king of the Saxons, Nigel Farage was the leader of UKIP. Perhaps the entirety of European history would be almost wholly different if not for the caution of Fabius Maximus, and the military expertise of Scipio Africanus--but although I think Farage is given a hard time by the media and political class, I know he's not one of these figures, and that his influence is marginal (UKIP has ONE member of Parliament, and that one member dislikes Farage); he's no Lord Chatham or Robert Walpole; stop with this silliness.

[Dresta]

That, I don't know. However, I do know nonexistence (or absence of existence) can be and is proven regularly in many different fields. Take Fermat's theorem, for example. I was merely pointing out what you said is incorrect.

This:

Absence =/= non existence.

Even if you can prove something is absent in a specific place, you can't prove that it doesn't exist anywhere.

Yes, within confined parameters you can prove the absence of something, but you can't prove its absence in all places.

If i wasn't clear enough then my bad.