On Sophie Raworth’s show this morning Penny Mordaunt flatly denied the fact that the UK had a veto to prevent Turkey joining the EU, despite Raworth’s actual evidence. Her stance is based on reassurances that the UK gave to Turkey at the time and not the word of the treaty involved.
It’s thoroughly disheartening to me that this is the calibre of politician the UK is inviting. The crux of her argument is that the UK government’s word is to be trusted above and beyond any international treaty obligations, a reputation which the conservatives are actively destroying.
Video: https://twitter.com/Haggis_UK/status/1548599777285361665
21 comments
Poor thing… Still cannot read at her age.
Simple facts for simpletons…
The UK had a veto over any further membership in the EU.
The UK is no longer a member of the EU.
The UK no longer has any say in membership of the EU.
She may be right about it not being misleading, in the sense that the object of the lie was not to mislead. The UK had a veto, as every EU member still has. That is and was an obvious truth. Why then tell the lie and why exoect people to believe it? Because it’s not about truth or lies at all. It’s about repeating the mantra to reassure the target audience that you are part of the tribe.
You tell people what they want to hear, and they believe it because it justifies a choice they have already made for reasons they might not want to admit (including no reason at all).
I would suggest that for those who cared about this particular argument it was never about the specifics. It didn’t matter whether the UK could have stopped Turkish accession or not. The only thing that mattered was that the person in question repeated the anti-immigration talking points and therefore agree with the broader sentiments and agenda behind it. Rather than being a poor effort at misdirection, it’s what people in the USA call a “dog-whistle”: the use of coded language and slogans that imply allegiance to the cause in order to garner political support.
“The UK government’s word is to be trusted.” Hahahahahahaha…
A lie repeated 100 times becomes the truth.
If the UK was the only member stopping Turkey’s accession to the EU then why isn’t it a member now? The reason of course being that Turkey simply didn’t meet the criteria then and now.
However Boris Johnson did advocate for Turkey’s accession even when it fell well short of even the basic convergence commitments.
Who is like the female Boris, the French le Pen or the English Penny?
Who cares it’s totally irrelevant now move on.
Like Trump did with America, Boris and the tories have made any agreement the UK signs not worth the paper it is written on
Mordant gives me Marine Le Pen vibes. Not a good thing at all.
As if Turkey stood a snowball in hells chance of getting into the EU with Erdoan in charge,
This woman lies with such conviction. She must be a front runner to lead this conservative government. Boris without the baggage.
The same word of the same govt who signed a brexit deal to only weeks later threaten to break international law because of the issues around Ireland and NI?
This same govt?
Its a stupid comment. Aside from the veto Turkey is further away from joining the EU than when it applied
She looks increasingly like an idiot
As someone of Turkish heritage who lives in the UK I find it funny that anyone could possibly think Turkey is even close to qualifying to join the EU. It is a useful NATO ally, but the sheer amount of human rights issues would mean that it might nearly qualify in like 50 years time, and that’s with a serious change of the system.
In this clip Mordor is talking absolute bollocks. With that said, the fact that she can lie so brazenly even in the face of overwhelming evidence against what she said, shows that she’ll fit right in as a conservative PM.
I hate these people. I truly, deeply hate them. Thankfully they’re doing everything a party does when it’s on its way out of government so hopefully we won’t have to put up with them for too much longer
Turkey supported Putin. They are a pariah state.
>”Her stance is based on reassurances that the UK gave to Turkey at the time and not the word of the treaty involved.”
“We left the EU because we promised Turkey we wouldn’t veto their hypothetical accession.”
I was always confused about this point. Maybe someone can elaborate?
I am confused because the Brexiteers used the potential Turkey accession to the EU as a reason to leave the EU.
At the same time, the Tory government reassures Turkey that it has its back. Then the Tory voters (who vote for the Tory government who promises Turkey support) get mad about the 85 million Turks (at that time I saw a poster with 77 million Turks but now they 85 anyway I digress) who will come to the UK.
What’s this? It sounds mad. And then you have the whole Cyprus thing. Turkey was never going to join the EU. This is not realistic in our timeline. Even if they close all the chapters, will Cyprus ever going to let it join?
Anyway I just don’t understand why they’ve created all this fake panic for a supposed “ally”.
Turkey was never going to join the EU in the first place, it was going to take them decades to reach the starting criteria