BREXIT

Questa conversazione è stata continuata da BREXIT - Part 2.

ConversazioniBrits

Iscriviti a LibraryThing per pubblicare un messaggio.

BREXIT

Questa conversazione è attualmente segnalata come "addormentata"—l'ultimo messaggio è più vecchio di 90 giorni. Puoi rianimarla postando una risposta.

1justmum
Nov 23, 2016, 5:21 am

Well, come on ALL of YOU . What do YOU really want to comment about it?

2Maura49
Nov 23, 2016, 7:34 am

Well that is a challenge justmum. After close on 6 months( and as a remain voter) I am still struggling with the very idea that we are going to do this self defeating thing. I do not want to think of my fellow citizens in a negative light and I want to understand why so many voted to leave the EU. In many cases it seemed to have little to do with Europe and more to do with dissatisfaction at the antics of an elitist government.
I do see that worries about immigration had quite a lot to do with it for some voters and this does not mean that they were racists. The actions of a largely right wing press seems to have had a big influence; rarely have I seen more appalling headlines in newspapers. There is also a ridiculous and disturbing over-reaction on the part of pro-brexit spokespersons (and some members of the government) at any hint that things are not moving their way. The truly disgraceful press reaction to the high court judgement that Parliament should have a say in the Brexit process should have been rebutted at once by the conservative government and it is truly disgusting that they did not do so. Some newspapers seemed to be threatening our legal processes. As an older citizen I am finding it difficult to recognize my own country at the moment. I can only hope that sanity prevails!

3abbottthomas
Nov 23, 2016, 7:36 am

I will throw a wobbly if I hear one more time about "The Will of the People" - actually the ill-considered will of a little over half of those people who bothered to vote (after listening to, and believing, much hogwash and several downright lies put out by the campaigners).

I could say more but it's too damn depressing!

4sirfurboy
Nov 23, 2016, 9:13 am

An Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman are in a pub. But they all have to leave because the Englishman said so.

5reading_fox
Nov 23, 2016, 10:43 am

>4 sirfurboy: well done.

6justmum
Nov 23, 2016, 2:49 pm

>2 Maura49: Sanity has never been a big thing over here - you know the saying - you have to me mad to work here!Take care - happy reading

7justmum
Nov 23, 2016, 2:51 pm

>3 abbottthomas: See my a comment to Maura - I'm concerned to post that my mouth is rather turned down too it is damned depressing!

8pokarekareana
Nov 23, 2016, 4:34 pm

The BBC reported today that Brexit is likely to cost us £58bn. Oh well. At least we took back control. Now we can retreat back to our island to exert our own sovereignty*

>4 sirfurboy: - Excellent. I won't chortle until you write it on the side of a bus though.

(*- be ruled by a hereditary monarchy and an unelected House of Lords)

9Jargoneer
Nov 24, 2016, 5:12 am

The problem with Brexit is that it doesn't go far enough. What we need is to have more referenda so that various regions and counties can exit from each other until the map resembles the Dark Ages. At this point King Arthur will re-awake to save the nation and we will all live in a beautiful happy-clappy land, except for any remaining immigrants who will be slaughtered by Arthur's knights for being infidels.

10reading_fox
Nov 24, 2016, 9:49 am

>9 Jargoneer: at times strange women in ponds handing over swords seems like a perfectly fine form of government.

11leigonj
Nov 24, 2016, 12:34 pm

I think we should abandon this idea of democracy altogether. People should accept the rule and the inevitable progress of global capitalism instead. Countries should dissolve into each other entirely: states are no more than regional labour/ financial markets, and should be peopled with the best workers in the name of productivity. Borders of any kind are nonsensical. Culture is an illusion. Difference of opinion immaterial.

It is sad that the clergy are losing their grip.

12darrow
Nov 25, 2016, 2:15 pm

The Americans brexited on July 4th, 1776 and they did OK.

13abbottthomas
Nov 25, 2016, 5:58 pm

I seem to recall that they had a civil war before they got settled. I'd rather Queen Elizabeth than the Donald as my head of state.

14proximity1
Modificato: Dic 20, 2016, 12:26 pm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpMbrmnoGkE


Bored of Brexit?
"Jonathan Pie"

_______________

Dare to listen. Dare to question.

_______________


ETA :



Between 21 and 28 October 1971 the House of Commons debated whether or not the UK should become a member of the EC, with then Prime Minister Edward Heath commenting just before the vote:
“ But tonight when this House endorses this Motion many millions of people right across the world will rejoice that we have taken our rightful place in a truly United Europe! ”

The House of Commons voted 356-224 in favour of the motion, with the Prime Minister commenting straight afterwards on behalf of the house.
“ Resolved, That this House approves Her Majesty's Government's decision of principle to join the European Communities on the basis of the arrangements which have been negotiated. ”

No referendum was held when Britain agreed to an accession treaty on 22 January 1972 or when the European Communities Act 1972 went through the legislative process, on the grounds that to hold one would be unconstitutional. The United Kingdom joined the European Communities on 1 January 1973, along with Denmark and the Republic of Ireland. This would later became the European Union.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_European_Communities_membership_ref...



Then , later, the voting public in a sense "ratified" that move in a referendum in 1975:



1975: UK embraces Europe in referendum

British voters have backed the UK's continued membership of the European Economic Community by a large majority in the country's first nationwide referendum.

Just over 67% of voters supported the Labour government's campaign to stay in the EEC, or Common Market, despite several cabinet ministers having come out in favour of British withdrawal.

The result was later hailed by Prime Minister Harold Wilson as a "historic decision".

For him the victory came after a long and bruising campaign against many in his own party, following Labour's promise to hold a vote in its general election manifesto last October.

Faced with the referendum question, "Do you think the UK should stay in the European Community (Common Market)?" Britons voted "Yes" in most of the 68 administrative counties, regions and Northern Ireland. Only Shetland and the Western Isles voted against the EEC.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/june/6/newsid_2499000/2499297.s...



So, rather than,

"An Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman are in a pub. But they all have to leave because the Englishman said so."

Parliament voted to go into a bar. A few years later, the national electorate voted in a referendum to stay in the bar. Then, after some forty years in the bar, another referendum was held and all the eligible voters then in the bar had a chance to vote on whether or not to remain.

In a very clear and decisive vote, their decision was, "Let's leave."

They had a right to decide that. The bar wasn't really any good, the service was shitty and there was poor value for money.

It was a joint decision, not just "England"'s. Everyone got a vote. The majority view prevailed.

15justmum
Dic 22, 2016, 3:48 pm

>14 proximity1: I think you just about said it ALL. Well done!

16sirfurboy
Dic 29, 2016, 2:59 am

>14 proximity1:

You have neglected the thrust of the joke, which is that it evokes the tyranny of the majority. The English voted to leave, the Scottish (who only just voted to remain in the UK because it would keep them in the EU) voted remain.

Also "all eligible voters" is fine, until you think about the eligibility criteria and realise that millions of people most affected by the change were ineligible for one reason or another, and you can hardly say the result was decisive. Every analysis anywhere shows that the vote was anything but decisive.

Add to that the fact that the "let's leave" are very divided on what leave means, and that over and over again the leave campaign said (and this is a direct quote) "no one is talking about leaving the single market". Add to that the fact that the leave campaign was demonstrably running project fear and smear with a pack of lies about Turkey, money for the NHS, bananas and democracy. Add to that the fact that analysis of our press shows that they were extremely partisan pro Brexit, so that the Michael Gove-Richard Desmond-Barclay Brothers-Reese Mogg led rejection of elitessic is really a textbook case of manufacturing consent.

But hey, the jokes are funnier.

17Cynfelyn
Modificato: Dic 29, 2016, 7:45 am

>16 sirfurboy:: "Add to that the fact that the "let's leave" are very divided on what leave means ..."

Case in point: Enam Ali, founder of the British curry awards and publisher of the Spice Business trade magazine, says the curry restaurant sector, employing 100,000 people in the UK, voted overwhelmingly for leave after Brexit campaigners suggested that a quid pro quo for restrictions on EU immigration would be more visas for workers from Asia who would have the skills to work in the sector.

A suggestion that is now as likely to be honoured as the promised £350m/week for the NHS.
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/dec/23/restaurateur-britain-curry-...

Financial Times : UK curry houses angry over visa betrayal (paywall)
https://www.ft.com/content/e72be378-a0ee-11e6-891e-abe238dee8e2

18proximity1
Modificato: Dic 29, 2016, 8:58 am

>16 sirfurboy:

I neglected nothing of the sort. Instead, I have an appreciation for what "democracy" means.

Think about it:
People were and are no less divided and uncertain about what "Remain" would or ought to "mean."

_________________
If you're so concerned about the "tyrannt of the majority, then just imagine what the tyranny of some minority could produce. Why should you suppose that you get your own heart's desire as a minority with which to determine these political issues? Why shouldn't the majority--as near as we can devise it--decide such things? Who better? The Queen? The royal family in council? Parliament? or one of its committees?

You're not a democrat. AFAIC, that's tough if you don't like the way this worked out. Really, the "alternatives" are very much what we see and what we get 362 of the rest of the days per year. So I suggest you content youself with the sordid and despicable state of political affairs by which, through one or another of the usual minorities which routinely decide all other things, just as you live and accept as the status quo.

We have and we get precious little occasion to decide anything of importance politically.

Maybe forty years on the public shall be invited again to pronounce upon some very important matter of social and political life's affairs. Meanwhile, you have your little minorities running things.

_________________________________________________

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpMbrmnoGkE

19sirfurboy
Modificato: Dic 30, 2016, 1:16 pm

>18 proximity1:. "You're not a democrat."

Of course I am. It seems I understand that term better than you do based on the above.

"Who better? The Queen? The royal family in council? Parliament?"

In the British political system, a representative democracy, the decision lies with parliament as parliament is sovereign.

20proximity1
Modificato: Dic 31, 2016, 3:54 am

"In the British political system, a representative democracy, the decision lies with parliament as parliament is sovereign" --

hence, as I pointed out, you're not a democrat. In a democracy--even a "representative" democracy--the people as a body politic are sovereign since legitimate legislative authority is only derived from their grant of it via the ballot box.

What's still more absurd is your pointing to parliament as being essential here to Britain's "representative democracy" when, in this case, parliament is anything but "representative"--as the referendum result clearly showed.

21sirfurboy
Modificato: Dic 31, 2016, 10:59 am

If we take your overly narrow description of democracy (i.e. a political system where people are called upon to participate but where sovereignty does not lie with the people but with a directly elected body cannot be called a democracy in your view) then what you have shown is not what you think you have shown.

If we accept your definition, you have demonstrated the the UK (and most other democracies) are not, in face democracies. That tells you nothing about whether *I* am a democrat. You have just shown that on your narrow definition of democracy, there are not many democracies at all.

The concept of parliamentary sovereignty is enshrined in UK law, which is why Theresa May's attempts to overturn the principle of parliamentary sovereignty, and instead act by invoking the monarch's powers will fail in the supreme court. Other democracies also hold their parliaments to be sovereign.

I refer you to this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy

"In some countries, notably in the United Kingdom which originated the Westminster system, the dominant principle is that of parliamentary sovereignty, while maintaining judicial independence."

Interestingly the EU allows greater power of action to individuals than the UK system, in that any EU citizen may introduce a bill if they wish to. That then, in your definition, makes the EU more democratic than the UK (which is the case on a number of measures but is not widely recognised).

Also you don't seem to have grasped that the tyranny of the majority is not something I made up, but something that is recognised as a problem in a democracy, and which is thus guarded against in many democracies. See:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyranny_of_the_majority

In particular, when a democracy involves a union of national groups or ethnicities, most modern democracies (but not the UK) specifically provide controls to stop a larger ethnic or national group imposing its will upon a smaller one. See, for instance, the Swiss system where citizens are given the opportunity to turn down any new legislation through the calling of a referendum and other such controls. See also Belgium, recently in the news, where the Wallonia and Flanders governments have veto powers over most matters.

If we had as good a democracy as some of these other countries, Scotland and Northern Ireland would have a veto over Brexit and there would be no doubt of their right to invoke it as (unlike in England) their vote was most decisive. Every single constituency in Scotland rejected Brexit. Every one.

You also claim that parliament is unrepresentative. However you again seem to have misunderstood the standard political term. The UK has a representative democracy because you have an MP who represents you in parliament.

You claim parliament is unrepresentative. Well yes, the UK as something of a democratic deficit here on account that (unlike pretty much every other democracy in the world, including the EU) we have a first past the post system that pretty much guaranties that people do not get the representative that the majority in a constituency would actually agree to. In well over half of all constituencies, an MP is elected on a minority of the votes cast.

That, of course, is an argument for proportional representation, and so if you are serious about improving our democracy may I invite you to join the Electoral Reform Society.

Now you can leave this there or you can do some reading. What you cannot do is continue to pretend that I am not a democrat because I disagree with you, because you have done nothing whatsoever to support your view that I am not a democrat. You cannot do that because you have not actually asked nor received my personal view on what political system is best. You may wish to infer that I support PR, although I do not say that explicitly. However as the reason for supporting PR is to ensure that people's are represented proportionally to their preference, that would infer I was more pro-democratic than anti, I think. Other than that, though, the above is merely political theory and practice.

The above is a description of the political systems we have. It does seem rather unfortunate to me, however, that those who shouted the loudest that they were voting leave "for democracy" seem to have very little idea of what that actually means.

22proximity1
Dic 31, 2016, 11:49 am



To call a free and open referendum such as was the Brexit vote a case of "the tyranny of the majority" is simply typical of the outrageous intellectual dishonesty of so many "Remain" supporters.

The tranny of the majority refers to those political systems which do not systematically protect the rights of minorities to freely and fairly compete to win the agreement and votes of an electorate.

In Britain's Brexit campaigns, that could only apply to the overwhelming bias in the mainstream media in _favour_ of "Remain."

But in this case, the genuinely tyrannous majority--in the media elite only-- was actually outmatched by more able argument and proved that a falsely-claimed majority view can be defeated by an authentic majority view.

The Remain camp not only had every fair chance to win, it also had every unfair advantage. And still it failed to convince a majority of the eligible voters.

Thus, you're actually flatly defending the tyranny of your preferred & specially-designed minority--so that your prejudices are given undue weight-- over the overall majority of Britons.

You have amazing nerve to presume to lecture me on tyranny versus democracy and to point me to recommended reading on topics I understand far better than you--amazing nerve to presume to think you're some sort of friend of democracy's principles--which always must include a minority's right to seek to win over the opposition--which Remain tried and deservedly failed to do.

And now, true to anti-democratic form, you'd have Parliament repudiate the electorate's expressed wishes in this case --all in the name of your twisted idea of "democracy."

Thank goodness your view lost!

23sirfurboy
Dic 31, 2016, 12:41 pm

"To call a free and open referendum such as was the Brexit vote a case of "the tyranny of the majority""

I didn't. Please avoid imputing views to me that you think I should think I should hold, rather than listening to what I actually say.

The referendum is not the tyranny of the majority. The referendum was a public consultation (check the legislation and all commentary: it is a consultation, nothing more). What you *do* with the referendum is quite anther matter. In the referendum, two ethnic groups turned down Brexit, one by a stunning margin. England, on the other hand, was somewhat ambivalent. Nevertheless because England outnumbers all other home nations by a considerable margin, what it says goes. And THAT is the tyranny of the majority: a text book case of it. Where a majority that identifies as one group over-rides the settled and clear will of another group simply because it outnumbers them.

Regardless of whether you think Brexit is good or bad, or whether we are talking about this or any other issue, that IS the definition of the tyranny of the majority. You seem to be annoyed that I am "lecturing" you, but the point is that this is exactly what it is. This is what people mean by the tyranny of the majority. I get that you want Brexit. I understand that. But you cannot get away from the fact that a clear majority of Scots in every single constituency voted overwhelming to remain, and recently also voted to remain in the UK *because* it guarantied them continued membership of the EU. You cannot get away from the fact that to force Scotland out of the EU against their will is a defiance of their democratic will, and a textbook case, therefore, of the tyranny of the majority.

You can say that they must leave anyway. You can argue that they are part of the wider UK and the UK must leave together but you cannot say that democracy has not failed them if you do that. It has.

"In Britain's Brexit campaigns, that could only apply to the overwhelming bias in the mainstream media in _favour_ of "Remain." "

I find that statement absolutely astounding, particularly as all the academic studies show the bias is very firmly the other way.

See for instance this one:

http://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/news/study-shows-majority-press-covera...

As for fair chances to win: that really is not the point. I would rather have had a debate that just looked at the issues and allowed informed choices. We did not get that though. Instead we had a pack of lies upon lines, people telling us we must not listen to experts, smearing of respected and independent bodies, and some extremely nasty and dangerous xenophobic campaigning. We also had assurances that a vote to leave would not mean we have to use article 50 at all (that was on vote leave's website), that no on was talking bout leaving the single market, etc. etc. What we never had was any kind of agreement as to what we might actually do if we did vote to leave.

People were not given an informed choice to make on this issue because vested interests have been plying the British public with propaganda for a long time now. A classic case of manufactured consent.

"And now, true to anti-democratic form, you'd have Parliament repudiate the electorate's expressed wishes in this case "

You REALLY need to stop putting words into my mouth.

Did I say that? No.

Do I think that? No.

Do I think we should then just march off over a cliff edge without a second thought? No to that too.

But if you think that this referendum is a mandate for a Michael Gove or Liam Fox Brexit then you are quite wrong.

Tell me, are you afraid that the British people may have changed their mind?

24justmum
Feb 5, 2017, 3:17 pm

>23 sirfurboy: Personally I feel that the silent or non voting majority didn't wan t to leave; however I was told from what I believed to be a reliable source that the number of people voting was high. I don't know what the majority was - if it was by a few votes or many. I think quite possibly voters may have altered their minds, unfortunately the outcome of the vote still remains

25andyl
Feb 6, 2017, 4:24 am

>24 justmum:

Turnout was 72.2% - so 51.9% (the Leave vote) was just under 37.5% of the electorate. Remain was just over 34.7%, non-voters 28.8%. That doesn't look like a clear decision (either way) on a referendum aimed at leading to an irrevocable decision.

26sirfurboy
Feb 6, 2017, 5:01 am

>24 justmum: I an only repeat what I said above:

"Also "all eligible voters" is fine, until you think about the eligibility criteria and realise that millions of people most affected by the change were ineligible for one reason or another, and you can hardly say the result was decisive. Every analysis anywhere shows that the vote was anything but decisive."

And then add some figures. Or rather to add to some that andy has already given.

As Andy says, of those eligible to vote, 37.5% voted leave, 34.7% voted remain and 28.8% did not vote. However I accept the general principle that in a vote we cannot impute motive to those who did not vote, so on the vote we have a narrow margin to leave.

However that margin *is* narrow. Because it is heavily demographically skewed, particularly with a strong leave vote amongst the oldest voters who were also the most likely to vote, it is the case that by 2020 there will be more people alive in this country who voted remain than who voted leave.

It is normal practice throughout the world to set thresholds on votes that entail major constitutional change, and no threshold would normally be below 60%, and 66% being considered more normal. This was a consultative referendum so parliament did not think a threshold was required - which was a major failure of parliament.

But there is another problem with these figures: millions of people were denied a vote altogether despite living in this country for many many years. EU citizens were not allowed to vote, even though they can vote here on many issues. The decision was taken to use a specific electoral register that excludes them, even though the vote affects them more than anyone, and even though they are co citizens with us (we are all EU citizens).

That decision is even less understandable when you see that UK citizens who have lived abroad for many years were also denied the vote despite retaining their UK citizenship. Those, too, are people very much affected by the vote.

In the Scottish independence referendum, the decision was taken that all those living in Scotland should have a vote. That decision seems pragmatic and fair, and despite the fact that the nationalists lost, I am not aware that there have been complaints about that. That is what we should have done here, and without a doubt had we done so, the result would have been very different.

27andyl
Feb 6, 2017, 6:14 am

>26 sirfurboy:

I agree with your general point about the electorate but a slight correction Irish and Maltese citizens could vote. As could people from a lot of Commonwealth countries.

Personally I would have also liked to see all people aged 16 and over be given the vote - and that is in all elections not just referenda.

28justmum
Feb 6, 2017, 9:09 am

>26 sirfurboy:/>27 andyl: I agree with a lot of your points; and I think personally that the decision was wrong to exclude EU citizens from the vote. However it must h ave been ratified in some way. The outcome still remains - unless Royalty is allowed to veto the voters decision - then of course we don't have democracy! The fact remains the vote was taken to leave.

29sirfurboy
Modificato: Feb 7, 2017, 3:09 am

>28 justmum: No it is not ratified because referenda in the UK have no legal standing unless the legislation expressly gives them that. As such the referendum is technically a "public consultation". It is up to parliament to decide whether they wish to follow the wishes expressed in a public consultation.

ETA

Re-reading that, I think I misunderstood. Parliament ratified the decision to exclude millions of the people living here most affected by the change. That does not mean they were right though, and much of the thoughtless way the legislation was drafted appeared to be about party politics and legislation created in haste.

30leigonj
Feb 8, 2017, 5:02 am

>23 sirfurboy: >26 sirfurboy: You appear to be grasping at everything you can here to delegitimise the result.

None of it delegitimises the result.

The tyranny of the majority argument is completely moot. Scotland/ Northern Ireland's vote to remain is as arbitrary in the context of as this UK referendum as any select group you care to mention - be they 26 year old women, red-heads, Hindus, or the city of Ludlow - none of these groups or regions has any special privileges within our system; if they did it would be a 'tyranny of the minority'.
In Scotland's case its referendum reaffirmed Westminster's sovereignty over such decisions.

" "In Britain's Brexit campaigns, that could only apply to the overwhelming bias in the mainstream media in _favour_ of "Remain." "

I find that statement absolutely astounding, particularly as all the academic studies show the bias is very firmly the other way. "

The top academic result I got for searching 'media bias EU referendum' on Bing was this from Loughborough University: https://blog.lboro.ac.uk/crcc/eu-referendum/uk-news-coverage-2016-eu-referendum-...
It states: 'TV news gave 6 percent more coverage to individuals and institutions supporting the UK’s continued membership of the EU.'
and
'In more than 4 in 5 cases, items in the broadcast coverage did not privilege the arguments of either camp.
On the minority of instances when this occurred, IN items received more prominence than OUT items.'

The press, however, was a different matter as larger circulation newspapers favoured OUT.

"Also "all eligible voters" is fine, until you think about the eligibility criteria and realise that millions of people most affected by the change were ineligible for one reason or another, and you can hardly say the result was decisive. Every analysis anywhere shows that the vote was anything but decisive."

On this point, lines have to be drawn somewhere. The referendum will have implications not just for the UK or even EU, but globally, yet no-one was advocating allowing everyone on earth a vote. Given that the vote was about the British people deciding their relationship with the EU, millions of EU citizens resident in the UK having a vote quite probably would have been anti-democratic - effectively amounting to a fifth column.
That a majority of the overall population did not vote leave, again, is moot. If one person out of 60 million votes, their vote carries. No threshold was in place and can't be introduced post-hoc; again, thresholds aren't a norm in the British system - the Welsh Assembly was created after only 25% of Welsh voters said 'yes'.
Scotland's referendum was different, largely because there is no such thing as a Scottish citizen.

On the point of its having been a 'public consultation', legally, yes, this was the case, but it was clear from the very beginning that parliament would ratify the voters' decision. The referendum was not organised as some glorified opinion poll and to ignore its decision would be anti-democratic, and electoral suicide.

Finally, regarding a second referendum, I actually voted 'remain', but am/ was not fond of the EU as is. However, I understood that my vote was not one on 'what kind of EU we should be a part of', it was simply a binary choice - be part or no part - while the rest is up to our elected representatives.

31sirfurboy
Modificato: Feb 8, 2017, 11:54 am

>30 leigonj: I am not grasping to delegitimise the result. The fact is no one could look at this in the round and say this was a clear and informed decision based on a well conducted campaign that led to a settled view by the populace".

I believe the numbers as counted add up as they do. In that, the result is legitimate, but the other problems with the whole thing are legion, and the fact is, democracy does not stand still and if you take a measured view of the result, the vast majority of places in the country are pretty close to "ambivalent"!

To be clear, vote leave won the vote, but not the argument. Indeed, their own director has gone on record and admitted that they won the vote by lying to the public:

http://www.thelondoneconomic.com/news/vote-leave-director-admits-won-lied-public...

On the term "tyranny of the majority": Tyranny of the majority is not protected against in our democracy, but that does not mean it is a non issue. I agree it is "moot" in that it is an area that can be discussed rather than enacted, because we do not protect minorities from the tyranny of the majority in the UK. Nevertheless this is a textbook case of it. You have an ethnic group (Scotland, the Scottish) whose settled will (100% of constituencies voted remain) is being overridden by the much larger English majority, even though the will of the English was not as clearly settled.

The UK provides the Scots no recourse, no veto, nothing. That is clear and accepted, but as I said to a previous poster, you cannot argue that democracy has not failed Scotland here: it most certainly has.

I think the Loughborough report you mention makes the point I made. The TV skew is much smaller than the paper skew and look at the news angles table:

Balanced/ neutral treatment of positions:

Out Papers: 34.8
In Papers: 48.5
TV: 81.9

So TV was much more likely to offer balanced reporting. 82% of TV reports were balanced, whereas 12% of reports were solely/mainly in and 6% solely or mainly out. That is actually pretty balanced all in all.

The real skew comes with papers, where "In" papers were balanced about 50% of the time (as I recall, the Guardian came out top). Out papers were only balanced one third of the time, and of course, some of those with the highest circulations were little more than propaganda pieces and still are. Out papers also out number in papers and have much higher circulations which further skews that result.

In terms of reach, the media coverage, all in all, was very much skewed to out.

There is another issue here. Expert opinion was vastly in favour of remaining in. A problem with BBC coverage, in my opinion, was the slavish way that they gave equal time to both sides of the argument, which meant, for instance, that we got to know one economist very very well because he was pretty much the only one the BBC could find who would speak up for leaving the EU. That means that BBC coverage was close to spot on for balance in the above measures, but to what extent is that actually right?

Consider some other issues where all or nearly all experts in a field agree. For instance: anthropogenic global warming. The scientific community is pretty much unanimous that man made greenhouse emissions cause global warming. However if you have a debate with the public on this and you give equal time to those who agree and oppose that hypothesis then you actually end up misrepresenting the issue. You allow the crazy ideas more time than they merit, and necessarily some stupid stuff goes unanswered. All the evidence shows (and this has been studied) that this "balanced" coverage causes more people to doubt the scientific consensus.

Think also of the theory of evolution, where some would argue for "balanced" education where creation science or intelligenet design or somesuch is given equal time with a teaching of the science. If you do that, you get more people doubting a theory in the teeth of the facts of the matter.

So should there have even been a 50/50 split of coverage on this issue? Admittedly it would be very controversial to do it any other way, but you could certainly argue that "equal time" here actually is itself a pro-leave bias because whether it was experts, politicians, business people or whatever, the split was never even close to 50/50.

I was thinking on this, however, and I think you could rightly object that my examples of evolution and global warming are scientific theories for which there is good scientific evidence. Moreover the consensus on both is greater even than on the EU debate. That would be fair comment but it reminded me of something else I have been wondering:

As the benefits of EU membership are so clearly positive, and the disbenefits *cited* in the campaing so clearly spurious (see above regarding the leave admission regarding their lies), why is it that any intelligent people are so evangelical about exit? What drives Jacob Rees Mogg, or Richard Desmond or Paul Dacre or these other members of the establishment elite to convince the British public to vote for what looks like a massive act of national self harm?

Here I wish to discount the possibility that they are just plain nasty (much as that description might apply to... no I had better not say that...)

I believe that there must be some reason why these people want EU exit, some benefit that agrees with an actual vision for Britain that they have that is better achieved with Britain out of the EU. But what is it?

Jacob Rees Mogg may have let slip some of that when he made clear he wants to remove workers rights and environmental standards. Still, I feel that there must be something more. I just can't for the life of me see what it is.

32sirfurboy
Feb 8, 2017, 12:07 pm

Sorry, I realised I left two points unanswered.

1. Yes it was clear that the referendum, whilst not legally binding, would have to be treated seriously by parliament, but the closeness of the referendum should also be considered carefully. As vote leave were clear that "no one is talking about leaving the single market" and the Norway model was most often cited, and as that would be a model most suited to in voters too, parliament ought to be enforcing a soft line on Brexit - a compromise if you like. What we have instead is an attempt to railroad us into a catastrophic EU severance that will leave us floundering on the world stage. It is much as if leave had won and we were immediately made to adopt the Euro, give up our rebate, join the Schengen area, switch time zones and learn French!

2. The liberal democrat position on a second referendum is clear and principled. As you say, we had a binary choice of "in" or "out", but no one knew what out would mean. Most people seemed to believe the leave camp that the Norway model would suit us, and that might well be what people voted for (as well as for all that money for the NHS, for bendy bananas and for unicorns). Nevertheless the law of unintended consequences applies, and faced with an actual deal, an actual straight choice of "this deal out of the EU" or "stay in on current terms" people might choose differently. To deny people an *informed* choice at the end of the process is not democracy. Nevertheless don't hold your breath, as those pushing the leave agenda don't care about what the people actually want. Still I will say it again: to deny people an *informed* choice at the end of the process is not democracy.

33leigonj
Feb 8, 2017, 3:25 pm

"I think the Loughborough report you mention makes the point I made. "

I wouldn't say this is straightforward. Newspapers that favoured out were certainly less balanced, but newspapers, as opposed to television, cater directly to their audience (which is not a general audience), while television news has a duty to remain balanced, which newspapers do not. That television has a larger reach would, assumedly, give it a larger skewing effect - which is why it's more closely regulated to begin with. That the largest newspapers by circulation - The Daily Mail and Telegraph - favoured out might be explained, at least partially, by the fact their readers tend to be oldest. Indeed, this explains both why they have they favoured out (older voters were more likely to vote out) AND why they have the largest circulation (newspaper readers tend to be older). If you looked at posts on social media, favoured by the young, I doubt you'd find the same.

A political debate, such as whether to remain in the EU, cannot be compared to a scientific 'debate' such as on the validity of the theory of evolution. Experts occupy a different place in the equation because - unfortunately, some might say - indefinable things like identity come into it. It's not only about the value of single market access to the UK economy - rightly so, others might say.
And the EU wasn't/ isn't an absolute good anyway. My father, for example, now retired, had long been a civil servant managing the NHS in Wales; he voted out, primarily, because he felt the EU had a damaging effect there, resulting from overbearing regulation. Growth is sluggish out there, unemployment is high and look at what the Euro has done to Greece; Italy's banks are an existential risk to the single currency - and they're such a mess exactly because of it and rules tied to it. The answer to every question is 'ever closer union', 'deeper integration', and eurocrats are, really, just another type of utopian; completely intractable, for example, on free movement (if they weren't so stubborn support for the project, in Western Europe at least, would rocket, and we never would have left).

I never understood the accusation that the out side lied. 'Let's put the £350m into our NHS' reads very much like a suggestion to me, not a pledge or promise, it's simply offering an alternative vision. Yes, the £350m figure is disputable, and extremely simplified either way, but no-one denies we give the EU money and outside it we wouldn't do that (unless, of course, we joined the single market), this was just underlining the point. The same is true of immigration: outside the EU we have different choices, can adopt a different model. Fundamentally, we seem to be complaining that some people thought they were voting in this alternative vision, these 'policies' of the leavers. If that's the case, it's less an issue of the leave campaign and more an issue of the voters who didn't understand what they were voting on: fundamentally the problem is with democracy itself, that we as voters are not equipped to participate (and in this respect a second referendum wouldn't resolve anything - we'd be making it up as we go along all over again).

From this point on, protecting environmental standards and workers rights is about who you vote into Westminster (ironically, what most people thought it was anyway). We should actually take this opportunity to revitalise the whole of British politics and break with the failures of the model we have, improve upon it all over: build a better education system, health service, look after each other, and work to make the world a better place.
But let's be honest, in two years time, four years time, ten years time, we'll still be arguing about all this, who voted what, who said what and why they're wrong - won't we?

34justmum
Feb 8, 2017, 4:49 pm

>33 leigonj: There really is no point in arguing - the vote's been done so that's that. Whether the money will go go the NHS etc is debateable too. I don't know all the figures now - in some ways being in Europe is good financially in others not.

35sirfurboy
Feb 9, 2017, 10:51 am

>33 leigonj: "...while television news has a duty to remain balanced, which newspapers do not."

The evidence is that television was pretty balanced. To be clear, you are not going to get perfect balance but to have in excess of 80% balanced reports, and a split on the one sided reports that was not wholly in any one direction, is probably as good as one would expect. However the thinking behind that is a little dated. It turns out that most people are not taking their news from television anymore. The Internet has become a huge source of news for all age groups (but moreso for digital natives of course). Indeed you say: "If you looked at posts on social media, favoured by the young, I doubt you'd find the same."

Social media largely means Facebook these days, and herein lies the problem. Facebook curates our content based on our preferences. They are very good at doing this, and we don't notice just how much it is being done for us. However if I was a leaver I would actually expect that majority of my friends, whose posts show up on my feed, would be supporting leave. Likewise my actual feed does strongly skew to people who cannot fathom why anyone would want to leave the EU.

Facebook gives us what we want. The problem is, it does not give us what we need. I always took the view that I would take a daily paper whose politics I disagreed with, because it would expose me to alternative points of view. For very many years I took the Daily Telegraph, although their reporting went downhill rapidly a few years ago and these days I have turned, instead, to overseas papers as it also helps with language learning.

I mention that because even though the Telegraph never convinced me to vote Conservative, I did come to understand both sides of many arguments.

With the way content is curated on Facebook and elsewhere we don't get that. Instead we feed our biases with only the points of view of those who largely agree with us. It is a classic case of massive and unconscious confirmation bias, and you see it also in America with the election of Donald Trump. We are no longer holding conversations with everyone - we are being quietly and unconsciously pushed into our little seperate in groups and are shouting into our echo chambers.

Socilam media doesn't show any bias except the bias towards telling us what we already think.

But that is off the point. In terms of overall media bias, I simply do not see clear bias on TV. The strongest bias comes in print media, where, as you note, people are allowed to treat their publications as propoganda sheets.

You are right that the Mail and Telegraph have the oldest readership, but these are not the largest circulation titles. The Sun, with a younger readership (and pro leave) has that (1.7 million). The Daily Mail is huge (1.5 million) and the Telegraph is the largest circulation of the broadsheets (470,000). These were all extremely strongly pro leave along with many other titles with high circulation (The Express, The Star etc.).

Because The Sun is in there, your argument about readers skewing older does not entirely hold, but still you have a point. These papers are feeding some natural inclinations amongst the very demographic that are less likely to be caught in the social media exho chambers. Interestingly too, the readers of this very biased press corps were much more likely to vote. In terms of deciding whether the media was biased leave or remain, it is very clear that the media that showed most bias did so to those most likely to vote.

On the comparable particulars between debates, I think I ceded that point in my own article. They are not directly comparable, and yet I feel more strongly now that I think about it, that on some issues where there was clear consensus, less time should have been given to dissenters and more challenge to them.

"And the EU wasn't/ isn't an absolute good anyway. My father, for example, now retired, had long been a civil servant managing the NHS in Wales;"

That is interesting. I may know him.

"he voted out, primarily, because he felt the EU had a damaging effect there, resulting from overbearing regulation. Growth is sluggish out there, unemployment is high..."

By "out there" do you mean Wales? because to me that is right here. Welsh growth is slugish for many hostorical factors, but I cannot see any reason to blame the EU. Rather I could reel off a list of ways that the EU has helped the Welsh economy that was largely abandoned by the UK government. Unemployment is also not that high anymore. Indeed, last I heard, it had fallen below the English rate.

"...and look at what the Euro has done to Greece;"

Well the euro is a non issue for the UK as we were not in it and there really was no suggestion that we would pay for it either. As to what it has done to Greece... well that is way too simplistic, so let's look at the history. When the Euro was created a series of economic tests, the Maastricht criteria, were created with the intention that no economy could join the single currency without meeting convergence criteria that would bring fiscal stability.

Nevertheless there were political imperatives why many countries rushed to join a single currency. These political imperatives were actually quite complex, and we cannot get into them here because one needs to understand German fiscal policy and various other factors around the EU to get to the bottom of that, but ultimately this political imperative casued the Greek Government to employ some quite dodgy accountancy practices to meet the convergence criteria (despite initially missing the Maastricht criteria).

This was not, in fact, unnoticed at the time. Indeed as soon as Greece joined the currency, the president of the European Central Bank, Wim Duisenberg, warned that Greece still had a lot of work to do to improve its economy and bring inflation under control. It was not just Greece either. It was clear that joining of the single currency was the beginning of a journey for all members and structural changes were required to ensure stability.

It is a matter of public record that not a single country made the necessary structural changes that were required by this new adventure in ecionomic policy. Greece, Spain, Italy, France... none of these did what was required because once they had joined and were enjoying the benefits of EU membership, it was all too easy to postpone the difficult job of economic convergence and structural changes. In this, Germany also does not get off the hook. Germany gained enormously from the depressing effect the other economies had on the value of the currency and started to shore up huge urpluses that were themselves unstable. For Germany, structural change was also required and probably easier too, but they did not make those changes.

The result of this is what we see now. The euro crisis has not gone away, and I am glad we are not euro members. I say that even though I went on record as being broadly in favour of euro membership until it was clear that Italy, and particularly Greece were going to join. I say broadly in favour - the UK economy itself needed structural changes to align better with Germany and France and without recognition of those, I would not have been in favour of membership of the euro. As it happens we did converge our economy more over time, but once Greece was in, I never favoured euro membership again. This was a crisis long awaiting.

Interesting as that is, it is not relevant to the issue of our EU membership.

"... and eurocrats are"

What is a eurocrat? Because if you read the papers that use the term, they tend to use it to refer to the elected members of the european parliament, and your usage here is not clear. Perhaps you mean instead the elected government leaders on the council. If those are eurocrats than MPs are bureaucrats.

"... really, just another type of utopian; completely intractable, for example, on free movement (if they weren't so stubborn support for the project, in Western Europe at least, would rocket, and we never would have left)."

Free movement of people is a core principle of a free market. It was Margaret Thatcher's vision after all. And here is the thing: Here in Wales we have free movement with the rest of the UK. That means there are 55 million English people with the right to live and work in Cwmsymlog. The only way to stop this nonsense is Welsh independence.

Or... we could realise that free movement just never meant what Nigel Farage and others have pretended it means. The right to take up a job in a member state is not a right to land on our doorstep and demand to be looked after. It never was.

"I never understood the accusation that the out side lied. 'Let's put the £350m into our NHS' reads very much like a suggestion to me, not a pledge or promise, it's simply offering an alternative vision. Yes, the £350m figure is disputable,"

It was not disputable, it was an out and out lie. 350 million never left the country. Margaret Thatcher succesfully negotiated a rebate - a rebate that cannot be removed as we can veto any attempt to do so - so that the figure was much lower than that. And although we call it a rebate, it is actually a straight discount. The money never leaves the country, nor does the EU tell us how to spend it as Angela Leadsom and others pretended.

But it was not just that one. Here is the clever thing about the leave camp: that deliberate lie was very much allowed to stand because it drew attention away from other lies, and at the same time, voters would say "well we might quibble about how much money it is but its still too much". When you lie, lie big. That is tha Machivelian advice, and it works. That was why they also pretended that there was an imminent conspiracy to admit Turkey to EU membership as soon as the vote was done, and why we were told we could not stop that or why we were told we could not stop an EU army (we did, much to their abboyance seeing as we are leaving) or we were told we would have to pay for the euro bailout (no), or our VAT exemptions would be ended, or that Camerons deal would be scrapped, or that we cannot control our borders (we always had the power as the government have just admitted) or that health tourism was costing us millions, or that auditors refuse to sign off EU accounts or that the CAP adds $400 to British food bills, or that the UK is always outvoted, or that Germany hates us, or that we cannot deport EU criminals or that 70% of our laws are made in Brussels, or that we cannot veto treaty change or we cannot veto the budget, or that we only thought we were joining a free trade zone, or that the Queen backed Brexit, or that Churchill would have backed ot or that Thatcher would have backed it, or that there are five presidents, or that the EU lacks democracy, or that we cannot have bendy bananas or that supermarkets are not allowed bunches of more than three bananas, or that we can have a Norway style of EU membership without free movement of people, or that the EU would wave through TTIP and the only ay to stop it was to leave (as we have now seen, the reverse is true. Goodbye NHS if the Trump deal goes through).

These are just not matters of nuance, they are out and out deliberate and mendacious misrepresentations of the facts. They are lies. The lies from the leave camp make Donald Trump look like the truth fairy.

"From this point on, protecting environmental standards and workers rights is about who you vote into Westminster (ironically, what most people thought it was anyway). We should actually take this opportunity to revitalise the whole of British politics and break with the failures of the model we have, improve upon it all over: build a better education system, health service, look after each other, and work to make the world a better place."

All things we would have been better placed to do were we not involving ourselves in the toryous and costly matter of leaving the EU.

"But let's be honest, in two years time, four years time, ten years time, we'll still be arguing about all this, who voted what, who said what and why they're wrong - won't we?"

Worse than that. I fully expect the UK will still be trying to disentangle itself from the EU for the rest of my working life.

36leigonj
Modificato: Feb 10, 2017, 9:57 am

>35 sirfurboy: 'the Mail and Telegraph have the oldest readership, but these are not the largest circulation titles. The Sun...'

You're right. I even knew the Sun has the biggest circulation but somehow confused myself by misreading one of the graphs on the Loughborough study. I will accept your argument that, overall, the media was a factor in bringing about the result we have, an out vote, and it was because of bias. However, I think its important to keep in mind that voters are not so much persuaded by facts as feelings, feelings for the facts rather than the facts themselves and such things as group identity - especially in referendums - and that this is something both Brexit and the Trump election have underlined. Regarding the £350m figure, again, I'm not sure this was of any real importance: people read it as 'a lot of money is going to Europe; let's keep it and spend it on something else instead.' Its the same with the '70% of our laws are made in Europe'. I don't know where they get the figure from but most people simply hear, if they are that way inclined, 'lots - too many - of our laws are made in Europe.' The leave campaign was simply better at speaking to people's vague, underlying, gut feelings - and it was the same with Trump. Its not particularly heartening, its not a good advert for democracy, but there we go: people are people after all. (Interestingly enough, I'm currently reading The Righteous Mind which goes into all this, the psychology of it; I highly recommend it). The Remain campaign failed in this sense. It focussed on economic issues, the potential damage to the UK economy and interests - what the Leave campaign dismissed as 'Project Fear' - but I can't imagine it persuaded many people to believe in Europe, to believe that we are Europeans, part of this greater whole.

'Here in Wales we have free movement with the rest of the UK. That means there are 55 million English people with the right to live and work in Cwmsymlog. The only way to stop this nonsense is Welsh independence.'

The difference here is that the people of Wales, and the UK, overwhelmingly accept that we are one country. Free movement within a country is not thought of in the same way as free movement between countries - the EU made the latter a right but never persuaded people to think of their national borders differently. To put an end to what they regarded 'nonsense' they 'declared independence', they voted out.

'What is a eurocrat?'

'Autocrat' pertains to rule by oneself (auto). A democrat believe in rule by the people (demos). A eurocrat believes in rule by Europe/ the EU. Not simply someone who is a part of the EU machinery but someone ideologically committed to the European cause (a UKIP MEP is never a eurocrat). If such people - eurocrats - had wanted people's support for free movement they should have been prepared to allow certain limits to be applied by national governments to control inward migration, but, instead, they are committed, absolutely, to the ideals, and to Europe. The same is evident in the case of the Euro. It was implanted too quickly, as you described - especially in the case of Greece. But limits, recommendations, safeguards, were all set aside to push on with the project. This is what I mean when I say that the European Union contains a streak of utopianism: many at the top are so committed to the ideal that they ignore the real world. In Greece it has caused disaster.

'By "out there" do you mean Wales?'

No, I meant in the wider EU, on the continent. Our national economy is healthier, in terms of growth rates and, especially, unemployment, than the others of Europe. Given that growth remains sluggish in the EU it is not entirely senseless to untie ourselves from it - growth elsewhere will be comparatively higher and independence allows us greater freedom to tap into these markets. Even though we are not part of the Euro, being bound to it through membership of the single market gives its structural problems - which, potentially, could get a lot worse, as I mentioned, because of Italy's banking crisis - a disproportionate effect here.

'Goodbye NHS if the Trump deal goes through'

This is a threat, although I do find it ironic that some - I'm not saying you - were so worried about us 'turning our back on the world' and are now so fearful of free-trade. However, having read a little about TTIP, it is my understanding that giving companies the right to sue governments is pretty common practice in trade deals; it was simply the size of the deal that generated such focus, and, therefore, such concern. There's no reason our government have to accept such terms, or any that threaten worker's rights, environmental or food standards, although I understand the worry that we are negotiating from a position of weakness, that Trump will want to empower business and that American corporations are particularly predatory.

'All things we would have been better placed to do were we not involving ourselves in the toryous and costly matter of leaving the EU... I fully expect the UK will still be trying to disentangle itself from the EU for the rest of my working life.'

I very much hope not. It's particularly unfortunate that the Labour Party has fallen apart, leaving the government with no effective opposition to hold it to account. And we both agree that the media is utterly failing to on the same account. The Scotland question is also badly timed...

Hmmm... fingers crossed.

37proximity1
Feb 19, 2017, 8:31 am



The Dangled Carrot of Democracy

@ Youtube.com

Jonathan Pie
175.208

38sirfurboy
Feb 20, 2017, 9:41 am

>36 leigonj:

"No, I meant in the wider EU, on the continent. Our national economy is healthier, in terms of growth rates and, especially, unemployment, than the others of Europe."

One of the problems with the referendum debate was the way the leave campaign were allowed to set the terms of the debate unchallenged. This myth of low growth rates in the EU was much quoted, but I didn't hear anyone pointing out the effect of the economic cycle o these figures. It is like those who were saying a couple of years ago that global warming had paused, because they were looking at a high set in the last major El Nino cycle and failing to credit that the next El Nino would beat that last high (which it did, of course).

So to understand growth rates a little better, I took a look at the 10 year figures for the EU 28, using the latest data available on the Maddison Project:

http://www.ggdc.net/maddison/maddison-project/home.htm

It turns out the Maddison project does not have data for Cyprus, Malta or Luxembourg. Luxembourg is a surprisingly big economy for its geographical and population size, but as all three are nevertheless relatively small, the omission is not grave.

Over a period of 10 years, by my calculations, the UK economy grew a total of a little over 10%. It turns out that was better than Italy, Portugal, Ireland, Denmark,
France, Spain, Germany and the Netherlands. 8 countries, Fair enough. However we were worse than 16 countries. That is 16 countries of the EU had 10 year growth rates better than the UK. 7 of these had close to or over 4 times better growth than the UK. Greece had one and a half times our growth rate.

German unemployment is 4.2% against 5.2% in the UK, but I agree that in general UK unemployment is lower or much lower than most EU economies. But that actually means we need to import people! Germany has known this for many years and has grown on its ability to bring people in and have them add to the country's productivity. The UK needs immigration in the same way, but sadly, as an article in Le Monde had it on Saturday, this country is consuming itself in xenophobia.

*

On "Eurocrat", I dispute your etymology. It seems clear to me from the generally pejorative usage of the term that it is derived from "bureaucrat" and is a term coined to instil visions of faceless European bureaucracy. Of course we can take the word apart and try to understand it by its roots, but sadly Eurocrat no more means "someone who believes in rule by Europe" than "homophobia" means "fear of same-ness".

In any case, even those who believe in EU membership don't believe in "rule by Europe" because that is not what the EU is. EU law making relates to the regulation and operation of a single market. It touches on issues of natural sovereignty, of course, because to have a working single market you have to agree a single set of regulations, but the EU is not there to be a sovereign state in its own right, and the UK government has recently agreed in their white paper on Brexit that of course the UK has always been sovereign.

So then, as you say, we in the UK largely agree we are one country (well... at least we agree we are one state. The extent to which the UK is a country of countries is open to endless debate). Nevertheless there is no logic in restricting free movement to fellow EU citizens but not restricting the English from moving into Wales. English immigration to Wales has long been a hot topic, of course, because of the detrimental effect it has on Welsh culture and language, but even if we accept that many people are untroubled by it, this is only an example of in-group bias. As long as the incomer is seen as part of an in-group, then its ok. That is human nature, but its not logical.

Thanks for the book recommendation though, and indeed, thanks for your reply. Apologies it took me a while tor respond but I wanted to find some time to sit down with the Maddison project data first.

39justmum
Feb 20, 2017, 3:40 pm

>36 leigonj: This topic was intended to discuss Brexit NOT Welsh independance etc.

40Cynfelyn
Feb 21, 2017, 4:15 am

>39 justmum: And you're trying to erect a straw man. Leigonj said:

Free movement of people is a core principle of a free market. It was Margaret Thatcher's vision after all. And here is the thing: Here in Wales we have free movement with the rest of the UK. That means there are 55 million English people with the right to live and work in Cwmsymlog. The only way to stop this nonsense is Welsh independence.


Leigonj might just as easily have said "there are 55 million English people with the right to live and work in Perranporth, Arbroath or London". Free movement means free movement, as much as Bregsit means Bregsit.

Although I do wonder where you stand on subsidiarity.

41sirfurboy
Feb 21, 2017, 5:27 am

>40 Cynfelyn: Actually I said that, not Legionj. But yes, that analysis is correct.

Btw, I like your name. Makes me suspect we live quite close.

42abbottthomas
Feb 21, 2017, 7:15 am

>4 sirfurboy: All this talk of the Welsh made me think again about your post. I suppose the Welshman in the pub who, as I recall, had also decided to leave, had just popped out for a leek.

43sirfurboy
Feb 22, 2017, 5:22 am

>42 abbottthomas: We need a like button!

44justmum
Feb 23, 2017, 12:38 pm

>42 abbottthomas: Love the joke - are they growing yet by the way - snowdrops and daffys out down here!

45oldstick
Mar 2, 2017, 5:55 am

How about proportional representation?

46justmum
Mar 4, 2017, 2:15 pm

>45 oldstick: You have to put the greater than sign in and the no. of the post you are replying/talking about.

47antimuzak
Mar 11, 2017, 2:03 am

An extract from an editorial I wrote recently:

Government briefings and speeches at the time of writing in early February seem to leave little doubt that the government intends the UK to leave the single market and the customs union and to substitute this access with “trade deals” with individual countries. Let’s take a closer look at what a trade deal may look like.

The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) was the name of a series of trade negotiations being carried out mostly in secret between the EU and USA. As a bi-lateral trade agreement, TTIP was concerned with reducing the regulatory barriers to trade for big business, which included things like food safety law, environmental legislation, banking regulations and the sovereign powers of individual nations. Public services, especially the NHS, were in the firing line. One of the main aims of TTIP was to open up Europe’s public health, education and water services to US companies. This could essentially mean the privatisation of the NHS and other public services and the purchase of large parts of it by huge American Companies. And we know that, in privatising public services, it is always that case that profit is privatised but risk is socialised. Other likely consequences would have been a reduction in food and environmental standards, reduced regulation of banks, an easing of data privacy laws, a restriction of public access to pharmaceutical companies’ clinical trial information, and reduced employment rights and protections. These negotiations ground to a halt last summer but will probably be revived in some similar form. CETA, which is currently being negotiated by the EU is a very kindred trade deal.

The single most important question, in negotiating a trade deal is how much of a market do you have to offer the other side in the negotiation? So, for example, if we go to China wanting a trade deal we do so on the basis of having a tiny market in relation to a huge market – and China can then set the trade conditions in its favour. As a member of the EU with a market of 500 million we had much more power to negotiate a reasonable deal than we will have as a single small country. The bigger countries will always dictate the terms. These trade deals also take a long time and business needs certainty as well as the largest market share possible – so we can expect to see companies pull out of the UK and relocate elsewhere in this context of uncertainty and the real possibility of an adverse market environment.

Given the above, it is highly probable that the UK will have no alternative than to move even further towards a low wage and low business tax economy with increased numbers of insecure workers on part or short term contracts and with no guaranteed hours or employment rights. Yet further evidence, to add to the previous and prolific public information on the creation of a low wage UK is provided by a Resolution Foundation study that appeared in February 2017, which found that men born between 1981 and 2000 in employment are earning £12,500 less in their 20s than the generation before them did at the same point in their lives – partly due to of the creation of a large number of part time jobs. They state that “While low pay is likely to be better than no pay at all, it's troubling that the number of low-paid workers across Britain reached a record high last year.” TUC General Secretary Frances O’Grady commented that “Many of the jobs created since the crash are very much of the low-paid, casual and zero-hours variety. This risks many people and their families simply being left behind, unable to share in any benefit from a possible economic recovery – while those at the top take an increasing share of the nation's wealth.” Any dismemberment of EU laws on Human Rights will be enabling of this process of undermining wages and employment rights.

These findings are supported up by a number of expert opinions. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has just stated that, on current forecasts, public spending will be 13% lower by 2019-20. In the Autumn Statement in November 2016 The Office for Budget Responsibility estimated that the fiscal damage from the Brexit vote would open up a 59 billion pound hole in public finances by 2020-21. Other expert predictions are of increased inflation, lowered wages and increased unemployment. In a low wage, low tax, shrinking economy that has high inflation compared to other major economies and where the government is ideologically opposed to increased taxation we are talking about shrinkage in all sectors of society.

48justmum
Mar 12, 2017, 6:11 pm

>47 antimuzak: to be honest I could hardly bear to read your well written extract.
It seems the poor are becoming and will become even poorer. It just moves me to tears.

49proximity1
Modificato: Mar 18, 2017, 6:08 am

>47 antimuzak: :

RE:
..." and China can then set the trade conditions in its favour. As a member of the EU with a market of 500 million we had much more power to negotiate a reasonable deal than we will have as a single small country. The bigger countries will always dictate the terms. These trade deals also take a long time and business needs certainty as well as the largest market share possible – so we can expect to see companies pull out of the UK and relocate elsewhere in this context of uncertainty and the real possibility of an adverse market environment."

More to the point, as a member of the E.U., according to your theory (" The bigger countries will always dictate the terms") German and French multinational corporate interests, where they align with U.K. multinational corporate interests are what we should expect to have most benefited from the supposedly more favourable negotiating circumstances vis-à-vis certain other nations as a member-state of the E.U. rather than some vague or entirely unspecified "we" (i.e. Britain, in general).

But, if, as has seemed abundantly clear for decades, ("New Labour" (LOL!) in or out, and Tory party in or out) this "we" has not had a hope in Hell of being giving anything even remotely like decent "look in" when it comes to sharing out the spoils of international political affairs.

RE:
Given the above, it is highly probable that the UK will have no alternative than to move even further towards a low wage and low business tax economy with increased numbers of insecure workers on part or short term contracts and with no guaranteed hours or employment rights.


Yes, but that's because this is the way the power relations in British political affairs want it. Outside the E.U., if they actually gave a good goddamn about the welfare of the British publics, those in the key decision-making places could decide to drive a harder and harder bargain with these supposed economic giants of world trade. If they chose, they could, against the pressures, protect U.K. jobs and workers' rights and their long and hard-won gains in labour relations rather than doing what they are only too happy to do: sacrifice them to their own political and economic selfish interests--and screw the rest.

Britain's main problems are British in nature and origin. It's fun and easy to shove the blame and responsibilities for a lousy political situation off on the In-or-Out of the E.U. issue, but that's a dodge and a sham.

The E.U. was a near guaranteed continued drastically shitty deal for those who aren't already well served by the political order. You can go pretending to not see that but it won't change the facts on the ground or really help improve real lives one little bit.

50antimuzak
Mar 20, 2017, 3:07 am

Yes, I agree with what you write above. I should really have written "no alternative, without disastrous economic consequences, given the neoliberal underpinnings of the global economy."

The first quote you cite above could also be expanded to include a critique of neoliberalism and how it operates in the global economy. You are right that multinationals are the beneficiaries of this system whilst the poor get poorer. Trade deals are practical aspects of the neoliberal belief in the importance of free trade. Unfortunately, there is no present alternative to playing by the rules of this economic system - to do so is to court economic disaster. My editorial was concerned with trying to outline some of the rules of play of neoliberalism with regard to the process of leaving the EU. A critique of neoliberalism is probably needed to understand some of the underpinnings of what I write in my editorial.

51sirfurboy
Mar 27, 2017, 5:29 am

An interesting outsider's view that mirrors some of the concerns I expressed above about the way the BBC has become unwittingly biased towards Brexit.

Sorry that it is in German, but Google translate seems to do a good enough job (although when I ran it through translate, it suggested "BBC police" for "BBC-Polittalk", whereas it should be clear that a BBC political talk show is meant).

http://www.sueddeutsche.de/kultur/der-countdown-xiv-bbc-brexit-broadcasting-corp...

52leigonj
Giu 9, 2017, 6:30 pm

Brexit was a terrible idea but the voter went for it.

There was a small chance we could make it work - IF we concentrated on stabilising the economy. With a large majority (a majority for Labour was never really on the cards) the Conservatives could have, at the same time, established a negotiating position and begun the process in earnest.
But the voter said 'no'.
Now the whole thing will be done by a weak, fragile party, looking over its shoulder and beholden to every single one of its MPs.
The EU negotiators already know exactly where they stand and where are we? Nowhere.
Frankly this is embarrassing, and they are probably embarrassed for us. We're falling apart - again. And, again, it's because of the voter, who it seems, is an f---ing idiot.

53abbottthomas
Giu 9, 2017, 7:10 pm

>52 leigonj: I would rather lay the blame at the feet of two successive Tory prime ministers, both of whom could have ducked the issue, given better judgement and a willingness to take on rogue elements in their party.

Of course the 'voter' is a 'f---ing idiot' but surely those who aspire to government know this and should take it into account. Many of the population are prejudiced, not very bright, and, particularly, not at all well informed about the important issues. Most people seem to vote along with the community in which they live and the way that they and their parents, always have done. Given the sound-bite driven interviewing of broadcasters of the John Humphrys school, and the partisan press, can you blame them? Manipulative social media is making matters much worse.

This debacle has unfortunately, made this 'Remoaner' lapse back into magical thinking - maybe the negotiations will collapse and we will be able to go, cap in hand, to Merkel et. al. and ask to stay. No, I mustn't go there!

54antimuzak
Giu 10, 2017, 1:58 am

I'm of a different opinion. I think that a large majority, small majority, minority government will make little difference to the process of leaving the EU since the EU has all the cards and always has and their negotiating stances will determine the process. A minority government may even make a "soft exit" more likely than a "hard exit" since the DUP, despite all the other problems with this party, will exert an influence on the process and the power of parliament will also be increased. A soft exit from the EU will be better for all of us.

What was heartening about the election result, to my mind, was that Labour managed to put on the agenda some policy ideas that had been dismissed for 30/40 years challenging the neoliberal consensus and these proved to be popular. Even better that Labour did not win so that they are not now in a position to be blamed for the necessary decisions that will be taken re. the process of leaving the EU - the government will cop this and become increasingly unpopular.

55proximity1
Modificato: Giu 10, 2017, 4:30 am

>53 abbottthomas:

>52 leigonj: leigonj: I would rather lay the blame at the feet of two successive Tory prime ministers, both of whom could have ducked the issue, given better judgement and a willingness to take on rogue elements in their party.

You really completely miss Prime Minister May's point--and I'm not a fan of hers: she called the snap election because, in her own words, she was seeking some better consensus in the negotiations ahead and, therefore, in her view, she couldn't "duck the issue". She needed what she didn't have but was, oh, so very confident she could get from the electorate--again, in her own words, "the country's coming together but Parliament isn't," a view (the 'country's coming together') which was quickly disputed here in these threads.

The electorate has just demonstrated that May hasn't read and perhaps can't read the nation's moods correctly. Oblivious to her own failings, she has the incredible cheek to say, "Let's get to work."

How? When it has just been shown she doesn't really have much idea of what's going on in her own country?

56Cynfelyn
Modificato: Giu 10, 2017, 6:07 am

>53 abbottthomas: "This debacle has unfortunately, made this 'Remoaner' lapse back into magical thinking - maybe the negotiations will collapse and we will be able to go, cap in hand, to Merkel et. al. and ask to stay. No, I mustn't go there!"

Yes, go there.

The referendum was advisory - the High Court confirmed that the result was not legally binding (remember "enemies of the people"?) - and leading Leavers were saying before the referendum that if the result was close they would want a re-run.

The Leave campaign misled (other words are available) the electorate. The £350m a week for the NHS battlebus anyone? The day after, Nigel Farage was saying "I would never have made that claim, and it's one of the mistakes the Leave campaign made and would be a guarantee I can never make". Mendacious, moi?

A lot of voters were giving the establishment a kicking, ten years into the crash, seven years into austerity. And they were fed the lie by certain foreign-owned newspapers that it was about foreigners, bent bananas, bent politicians, and seventy million Turks on the point of joining the EU. And that anyway they'd be able to choose from an a-la carte menu which of the four freedoms the UK kept (the freedom of movement of capital, labour, goods and services), with the rest of the world blazing a trail to our door to make bilateral trade deals.

Even so, the result was close, 51.9% to 48.1%.

Two of the nations of the UK voted to leave (England, 53.3%, and Wales, 52.5% to leave), and one and a half to remain (Scotland, 62.0%, and Northern Ireland, 55.8% to remain). Tellingly, the two territories with a land border with the rest of the EU both voted to remain, Northern Ireland and Gibraltar (95.9%)

Frankly, I'm hoping that the whole house of cards will collapse about their ears, and in eighteen months Boris Johnson or whoever represents whatever's left of the UK will have to go to Brussels cap in hand and say something like "I say, what, we, um, seem to have had a bit of a senior moment there and, um, no hard feelings, but any chance of status quo ante? Wibble, wibble?"

Yes, go there. Definitely go there.

57abbottthomas
Giu 10, 2017, 7:29 am

>56 Cynfelyn: OK, you've convinced me ;-)

If you are right about the collapse and wibble, what do you think would be demanded of us in return? Abandon sterling and join the Euro? Hand over the SAS and the Household Cavalry to a European Army? £20 billion to pay for the waste of time and resources in the abortive talks?

Might even be cheap at the price!

>55 proximity1: I don't "really completely miss Prime Minister May's point". You repeat the reasons she gave for her decision. I would be surprised if an unspoken aspect of her decision was not to try to get more control over her own parliamentary colleagues, rather than the opposition. My point was that she made a decision she didn't have to make and got it utterly wrong.

58proximity1
Modificato: Giu 10, 2017, 8:48 am

>57 abbottthomas:

"I would be surprised if an unspoken aspect of her decision was not to try to get more control over her own parliamentary colleagues, rather than the opposition."

But, for May, this amounts to the same thing as "getting 'Parliament' to come together." In her position, she viewed her bargaining position as less than adequate and believed, quite wrongly, that she not only could but, really, had to improve it--however one calculates this: weaking the opposition parties, strengthening the Tory faction which most favors her personally--by going to the country in calling for a new election. In other words, she gambled and it seems incredible that she might not have recognized that the decision entailed something of a gamble.

There's a bit of absurdity in it: her position, and yours, if I'm not mistaken, is that the Leave plebescite is good for nothing but an advisory "opinion," yet, in calling an election to shore up her positions as P.M, she's effectively resorting to the same electorate which chose to exit the E.U. In both cases, all eligible voters can participate and the two electorates are not significantly different. So, just exactly how, in one case, the vote outcome is nothing to take very seriously--when it applies to staying in or leaving the E.U. while, in another case, her own electoral position as prime minister, it's all-important and binding in its political value--such "logic" escapes me.

60Cynfelyn
Mar 3, 2018, 9:01 am

Well, I must say it all seems to be going swimmingly.

61abbottthomas
Mar 3, 2018, 11:13 am

Well, it is "The Will of the People"!

62PossMan
Mar 4, 2018, 2:56 pm

Quentin Letts in his book Patronising Bastards quotes (page 7) Paddy Ashdown, once leader of the LibDems, as saying pre-vote "I will forgive no one who does not respect the sovereign voice of the British People once it has spoken whether it is a majority of 1% or 20%." But that was when he thought Remain was going to win and when they lost he pretty quickly tried to have the vote reversed.
Never ever trust an MP.

63sirfurboy
Mar 4, 2018, 3:03 pm

>62 PossMan: Then Quentin Letts has wilfully misunderstood Ashdown's position (no surprises there). The will of the people is not a once for all proposition, and if anyone says that the electorate cannot change their mind, having seen what the options actually are, then they are no democrat.

64Cynfelyn
Ott 1, 2018, 5:55 pm

And another seven months on from whatever it was that provoked us last time, City types are beginning to get into the swim of things:


https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/picture/2018/oct/01/martin-rowson-on-b...

65pokarekareana
Nov 14, 2018, 11:14 am

Would anyone like to join me in a spot of primal screaming?

66Cynfelyn
Nov 15, 2018, 10:28 am

I'd be in an ecstasy of schadenfreude if it weren't for a gnawing feeling that the lunatics may yet take over the asylum.

A dose of primal screaming would probably do me the world of good.

67proximity1
Modificato: Nov 15, 2018, 11:35 am

>66 Cynfelyn:

You already have Theresa May and what now (or soon) shall remain of her cabinet 'in charge' (LOL!) of 'the asylum.' It's hilarious, then, that you advertise your worries about the potential take-over of the asylum by 'lunatics' as the only or the main thing keeping you from enjoying your 'ecstasy of schadenfreude' in this case.

Mrs. May is a stunningly, amazingly, bizarre example of the worst way to go about negotiating something.

It's impossible to imagine her doing anything actually clever behind closed doors in Brussels when she's behaving openly in ways that resemble a card-player showing everyone at the table the cards in his hand and muttering aloud, "Oh, dear! Oh, dear!" with every turn of play,

Inside or outside the European Union, Britain's problems are truly far more serious than anything surrounding 'Brexit' issues: it apparently doesn't have much of anything better than the currently-observable political-class. This state of affairs sums up how and why the national governmental infrastructure is so shocking a general failure-- failing so disastrously on so many fronts at once.

Britain is cursed with what is practically a total lack of a sense of responsibility on the part of those in elective and appointive office and none in the reigning business-class; few are ever held to account for their ineptitude; and they are apparently unable to appreciate the gravity of their failings for either the present or the future. Having chosen "remain" would have changed nothing about that picture of disaster.

68tendring
Nov 26, 2018, 5:46 am

If you wish to look at ineptitude look no further than the coward David Cameron who ran away after the referendum which he called purely in the interests of the Conservative Party followed closely by a Brexit Secretary who it appears did nothing at all for two years.

69justmum
Dic 5, 2018, 4:11 pm

65 I think I could at the moment

70proximity1
Modificato: Dic 10, 2018, 11:42 am

If Brexit is blocked, will it ever be worth voting again? | by Douglas Murray | 6 December 2018 | 5:03 PM



... "The second reason why this fills me with regret is that when I speak with friends across the continent (even those who are ardent opponents of Brexit) they occasionally express a degree of admiration at the fact that the British government has appeared to be at least trying to fulfil the will of the people. Earlier plebiscites in Ireland, France and The Netherlands, after all, were ignored by those countries’ establishments. The people were told to vote again until they got the ‘right’ answer (as we too may yet be asked to do). In such countries there was never any intention of doing what the public wanted. And so the fact that the British government seemed to be trying – loathe though some of them may have been – to do what the public had asked elicited a batsqueak of admiration from some friends on the continent, in a way that permitted an uncommon squeak of pride in return.

"But that brings me to the real reason why I say all this. I am not the world’s most ardent Brexiteer. I voted to leave because I could see what the EU now wanted to become, and whether or not that direction was right for the rest of the continent it was not right for the UK. We were always going to be an awkward and aggravating presence holding back this project. We were going to have to divorce at some point. And for that reason – among others – I voted to ‘leave’. I have not spent the last two and a half years obsessing about this because having had my say I wanted the politicians to get it done." ...



___________________________________

I dare "Remainers" to read the above-linked article with their best attempt at an open mind, thinking very seriously about what is being argued there.

The one thing which "Brexit" has done and done literally "marvellously" is to reveal something really shocking: the number of Britons (apparently with a great deal of education and influence) who are prepared to demonstrate that they sincerely believe (without openly admitting it) "We don't really take democratically-based-government or even the principle itself of 'democracy' seriously. We know and accept in our hearts that these things are as phony as 'Father Christmas' and, just as we've gotten over and moved on from 'Father Christmas,' we've done the same about democratically-based politics and government and the idea of democracy as a principle. Others now ought to just 'get over it,' too."

Such assumptions are a stark revelation of a socio-political catastrophe. If such really is the dominant view of most of the most educated and influential people in Britain, then the nation's 'goose' is well and truly 'cooked,' as it shall follow from this as night follows day, that others shall conclude that, under these circumstances, not only is voting no longer worth bothering about, any and all acts of actually standing up for, defending and fighting present or future enemies of the country are similarly a waste of time, treasure and lives -- and so people shall not fight for or defend it.

ETA:
In botching the work of dealing responsibly with E.U.-nation's leaders concerning Britain's pending exit from the E.U., Prime Minister May has not only been amazingly stupid and incompetent, she's also effectively ruined the possibility of someone else,-- a successor to her barely-believable malfeasance--reversing her blunders and delivering in their place a firm stand against a set of Brussels-led positions which seem based on an assumption that Britain sits opposite them at the table in a poker-game holding no cards at all.

Had she showed some back-bone and just a little intelligence, May could have helped avoid placing Britain in the unfortunate position of now having to deal with Brussels just as harshly and destructively as Brussels' positions have been toward Britain's desire to exit the E.U. membership. Now faced with a regime in Brussels which was rewarded for having learned early on that it could be adamant about inflicting as great harms and punishments on Britain as it is possible to imagine short of open war in the event that the British government should dare to 'fail' to capitulate to Brussels' requirements, Britain is practically forced to reply in kind. There now seems no alternative to either surrender to Brussels' terms or to making it very clear to Brussels that, unless reasonable terms are reached and reached VERY soon through renewed, and this time, cooperatively-aimed negotiations, Britain's response shall answer, a tit-for-tat situation is ahead in which Britain replies in kind to any and everything that Brussels (and its supporting-cast) deals out as threats in punishment.

To France's Macron, for example: every last one of your fellow Frenchmen and women shall, if lacking other legal grounds to remain as legal resident-aliens, find themselves expelled from Briton as illegal aliens, no longer legally able to remain living and working in the country.

The once-freely-and-mutually-beneficial operations of international finance and banking, for example, done in and through British-based firms shall be done under new terms which shall be the harshest possible toward continental counterparts.

Etc.

European tourists to Britain can expect to meet with extremely cold treatment when things come to the disastrous break-down which May's idiocy and incompetence have helped to ensure. Why, treated like shit by the E.U. top authorities, shouldn't Britons show European visitors to Briton the very same contempt?

The truth is that both continental Europe and the British Isles need each other, need good, friendly relations but they do not necessarily need to be members in a E.U.-like association in order to achieve that. But Brussels has completely lost sight of these facts. And now, to remind them effectively, it is apparently going to require some really very hard and damaging lessons in which both Britain and E.U. nations suffer real harms. E.U. nations' leaders are dreaming if they think that things for them won't be seriously difficult in return for the serious difficulties which they have been threatening and promising to put into effect in their determination to bring British 'negotiators' to heel.

Come Tuesday, it's time for Parliament to vote May's disaster down, force her out of office and replace her--one way or another, with new elections if need be. Parliament's party-members, both Conservative and Labour, have been an integral part of the failures of May's government. There is no sign that MPs understand this.

__________________________________________

Monday, 10 December
___________________

The vote is called off--

Prime Minister May cancels planned vote on her so-called "Withdrawal Agreement" (W.A.) with Brussels

So the vote won't go ahead as she repeatedly insisted—insisted right up to less than only a couple of hours before the announcement of the cancellation of the scheduled vote—that it should. This demonstrates several things:

She cannot see clearly ahead even beyond twelve hours on certain issues, including some of the most momentous.

Her judgment, therefore, is lousy.

She feigns resolution, resolve, then shows observers that it is an act with nothing behind it. Her concerns appear to be what one would suspect them to be: first, a selfish view of her own personal political ambitions, and, everything else comes later if at all.

She undertakes dishonesty, stealth and trickery to keep others from learning about facts which, were they revealed and, when they are revealed, expose her as someone who casually engages in dishonesty, stealth and trickery with her opponents and members of her own party, offering no apologies when caught at it.

She's either engaging in more of this dishonesty and trickery in suggesting that the vote on this or another similar "W.A." might still take place later—that is, she recognizes that such a plan is now dead or she's actually so stupid as to think that her plan can be salvaged, that it is not effectively dead and thus does not understand that it cannot survive a vote later any more than it could have survived a vote on Tuesday.

Here's the problem in brief:

Brussels, on one side, and Parliament, on the other, are locked into positions which are irreconcilable. Brussels' position—laid out by the creepy Jean-Claude Junker—has been declared non-negotiable: it's now "take it", i.e. capitulate fully to our terms, or "leave it", i.e. exit the E.U. with no negotiated settlement of any kind, what's called a "hard-Brexit" or "crashing out".


"In Brussels, a European commission spokesman said: 'This deal is the best and only deal possible. We will not renegotiate the deal that is on the table right now. That is very clear'

“ 'Our position has therefore not changed and as far as we’re concerned the UK is leaving the EU on the 29 March 2019. We are prepared for all scenarios.' ”


Parliament seems determined not to accept the terms from Brussels as they are. This leaves "No deal" as the only alternative remaining. And, in fact, "No deal" is indeed better than accepting the Brussels-plan.

Now: how long before it's crystal-clear that the postponed-vote is tantamount to having held a vote and lost?—which was already the foregone conclusion anyway?

And what is to be done then? Either May tries and fails to get concessions from Junker or she tries to lie, claiming to have won concessions which are in fact nothing but make-believe, or she resigns, or she bets everything on new elections, all before or after some vote of no-confidence passes the Commons.

Too bad no one in Mrs. May's government could get her to see the sense in resolutely arguing, right from the first, something like this (first, in private, then, only later, if necessary, in public):



(sometime from the end of July of 2016)

"We're now obliged to negotiate the terms of the British exit from E.U.-membership. There are obviously many different sets of terms by which such a departure could be arranged; some of them are constructive and conducive to what could be the improved long-term relations between Britain and E.U. member-states and some are the polar opposite of all that. We, in the government of Britain, stand ready to cooperate in seeking and finding a way to the former kind of arrangement. We would welcome Brussels' clearly adopting a similar position.

"We have to notify our negotiating partners that, should they insist on demanding hard terms, if they insist on taking all possible measures in an attempt to 'punish' Britain and its people for their decision to leave E.U.-membership, then this is bound to ensure an equally-hard-line position being taken from our side. Please do not test us on this point. To do so would be foolish and needlessly costly to all parties. If faced with intransigence from our counter-parts, we shall ensure that their adopting a hard-line shall be as equally-costly as we can make it. The consequences could be very damaging and very long-lasting. Join us in a sincere effort to avoid this course. For, unless you do, we shall certainly and quickly find ourselves on that course."


71tendring
Dic 17, 2018, 8:51 am

You seem to be forgetting that the EU can manage quite well without the UK But the UK cannot manage without the EU. Also why should the " will of the people" be blindly accepted when leave was based at the very least on a very optimistic view of the result of leaving. Should not the people be entitled to vote again based on what they now know and not on Rees- Mogg,Johnson and others fairy tales'

72proximity1
Modificato: Dic 23, 2018, 6:34 am

Originally posted and edited: 17 December, 2018

Added comment (B) : 22 December, 2018
___________________________________________

>71 tendring:

You claim that I "forget" (LOL!) that ... "Britain cannot manage without the E.U." as though this is some sort of established fact. It isn't.

Britain is in the E.U. and has been since its inception twenty-five years ago!

This isn't "managing." I contend that Britain in the "E.U."* hasn't "managed" at all well--not, at any rate, what I'd call "managing."

Britain today is a world-class laughing stock, so badly incapable of managing under the mill-stone of Brussels that it is politically-paralyzed between factions which cannot settle "Brexit" either by resort to the public's clearly-expressed desire to leave the E.U. or by resort to Parliament, which doesn't have any clear way forward and, instead, has focused on betraying the popular will expressed in the 2016 referendum.

Britain now, and especially London, has become a disgrace, a source of shame, a disgusting shit-hole. But it wasn't always that way and doesn't have to remain that way.

In London, the police cannot cope with robberies and thefts of only £50 in value. These are so frequent that they aren't even investigated; they're immediately dismissed from further time and attention. The nation's health-care system has been brutalized, left pillaged, a sorry ruin of a former great national health service--left with little oases of decent care amidst areas of wide need going unanswered. The nation's industrial heritage has been sold off, exported and left derelict. Vast numbers of people working in low-paid (minimum-wage) full-time jobs cannot adequately provide for their family's needs on even a barely decent level. And the deeper poverty of partial or full unemployment haunts their futures.

A primary-school has recently opened a food-bank on its premises:


"A school (North Denes Primary in Great Yarmouth) has set up a food bank to help pupils and their families who have run out of money and cannot afford to eat."


Why? Because the government is in such flagrant default of its responsibilities to the general public:



"Great Yarmouth was chosen as one of the first places in the UK to test the welfare policy which has replaced six working age benefits.

"It takes a month for a universal credit assessment and can take seven days for money to arrive in an account.

"Mrs Whiting said: 'As a school we were aware some families were struggling but never realised the situation was this bad.' " ...


That is typical of the abject failure that now generally characterizes life in Britain.

Brussels' concerns come first--before everything else. And that is how the treacherous British financial/bankng-elite like it and want to keep it--May et al, included.



ETA (22/12/2018):

Your post asks,



"Should not the people be entitled to vote again based on what they now know and not on Rees- Mogg, Johnson and others fairy tales' (?) "


And that's an important question I would like to address, for its answer is much too important to leave unstated--though in all the aftermath of the 2016 referendum, the mainstream press has, as far as I'm aware, completely ignored pointing out the best reply to that very important question:


The short answer is, of course, 'No, they definitely should not "be entitled to vote again based on what they now know" ...

In democratic theory and practice, the reason they aren't entitled to vote again "based on what they now know" is precisely because the referendum's question is implied to include this as preamble:

"according to your present knowledge at the time of this vote" are you in favour of or opposed to ... (insert referendum issue(s) here).

No one, whether "Leave" or "Remain" voters, were asked to vote according to what they then imagined their view should be two years hence, with experiences and knowledge they neither had nor could have had about the world two years in the future-- indeed, most people then voting didn't and really could have hardly even imagined the "Leave" side would mark a clear victory! So, their projected vision, two years on, would in so many cases not even have envisioned their being in today's circumstances.

The "Remain" camp had taken victory for granted and, in doing so, demonstrated a massive ignorance of actual popular opinion. Why, then, ought these fools' guesses about a future Brexit-based disaster in the wake of their loss of the referendum be given any more respect?

But, more to the point, the "Leave" people are still waiting to have their victory vote made good. There's been no exit yet. The projections of terrible things to come when the Exit is finally effected are just that--projections, guesses, conjecture--from biased people who have demonstrated poor judgment and of people, events and where political affairs are headed.

First, we LEAVE-- Goddamn it! and only later, with actual real-world experience of that could there come some justifiable occasion for reconsideration in some form.

If you're having trouble understanding this simple principle of democratic life, then just imagine: Suppose you were a Super-Lotto or Euro-Millions lottery drawing winner. Your prize-- let's say you've won £150M. Now, how'd you like if, before you could collect your winnings, the lottery announced that they'd like to cancel those results--not that there was anything improper or faulty about them, no, just cancel them for no other reason than that another drawing would suit them better.

When you protest, asking, "Wasn't my ticket valid?" or, "Was there anything about the drawing which could justify its cancellation?", the answers are all in your favour: Yes, your ticket was valid. Yes, you're the winner, yes, you're entitled to the prize-money--and we assume here that you wanted to win when you purchased the ticket and still want to win having had your numbers drawn--and, no, there was nothing at all irregular or faulty about the drawing your numbers won.

How'd you like it if there was a popular demand to cancel the drawing and hold another one--from scratch?

Fair? After all, everyone who played in the drawing has knowledge, information, understanding and awareness that, before the announced results, they didn't have! So, there's your reasoning placed in a similar case-example.

So, you tell me: in such a scenario, is a new drawing fair? You have "new" information--you "won"! And your fellow-players also have "new" information: they lost! So, by your logic (and fucked-up anti-democratic "principles"), there ought to be a new drawing held, with your ticket ought to be nullified in the process. Right?

Fuck no!, not right!


(B)


________________________



* "The European Union was formally established when the Maastricht Treaty—whose main architects were Helmut Kohl and François Mitterrand—came into force on 1 November 1993." (Wikipedia European Union)

73MyopicBookworm
Dic 17, 2018, 10:43 am

It is a common trend for Brexit enthusiasts to blame the EU for the failings of successive British governments. The loss of services in the UK is due to Conservative party policy, not the EU. Leaving the EU will mean less money for British public services. The NHS is unlikely to survive the economic hit and will be sold off to predatory companies. Anything that can be rescued from the UK economy will go into the pockets of the international tycoons, and after Brexit, we will not be able to use European laws against tax evasion. The financial elite are indeed making ordinary life difficult, but Murdoch, Farage, and particularly Rees-Mogg are simply the part of that elite who think they can make bigger profits with the UK outside the EU.

74proximity1
Modificato: Dic 17, 2018, 11:15 am

>73 MyopicBookworm:

"The loss of services in the UK is due to Conservative party policy, not the EU."

In fact, the E.U. hierarchy has done nothing to slow, halt or reverse Britain's decline--one which is seen replicated in other E.U.-member-nations, by the way-- and has clearly demonstrated that it has no intentions of doing so; why that should be the case is obvious to anyone who isn't benefiting from this scandal of public betrayal.

Rather, the same financial elite which enjoys a world of walled-off luxury in London and on country estates (as elsewhere around Europe) is the also that to which the E.U.'s Commission and Council pander. So these entities resemble the interlocking memberships of boards of directors which characterizes a late-stage monopolized economic order--which is in effect what the E.U. is, politically and economically. It's a predatory monster. Both Tories and 'New Labour' have been full and knowing partners in this outrageous disgrace.


"Leaving the EU will mean less money for British public services."


Only if people like you and "tendring" succeed in urging a fatalistic surrender to "the inevitable" The British public could decide and demand to do otherwise and stick to their guns.


"The NHS is unlikely to survive the economic hit and will be sold off to predatory companies."


Only if people like you and "tendring" succeed in urging a fatalistic surrender to "the inevitable" The British public could decide and demand to do otherwise and stick to their guns.


"Anything that can be rescued from the UK economy will go into the pockets of the international tycoons, and after Brexit, we will not be able to use European laws against tax evasion."


Only if people like you and "tendring" succeed in urging a fatalistic surrender to "the inevitable" The British public could decide and demand to do otherwise and stick to their guns.


The financial elite are indeed making ordinary life difficult, but Murdoch, Farage, and particularly Rees-Mogg are simply the part of that elite who think they can make bigger profits with the UK outside the EU."


Only if people like you and "tendring" succeed in urging a fatalistic surrender to "the inevitable" The British public could decide and demand to do otherwise and stick to their guns.

Farage, Rees-Mogg and many others like them and with them are making a calculated gamble. They believe that politically they could do more their own way without their very similar counter-parts on the continent (within the E.U. Commission and Council.) But they don't know that this will actually work out as they'd like. What is and long has been certain is that Brussels has worked in close harmony with the virtual totality of the rest of the Euro and British economic elite to savage, pillage, brutalize and ruin the former barriers to their unbridled rule--devastation of union-labour, etc.

Breaking that combination of Europe-based power is immeasurably more difficult than dealing with it within Britain alone. Trapped inside the Neo-liberal E.U., Britain has zero prospects of setting a different course. This, indeed, is exactly why Brussels is so determined to punish Britains for daring to defy their domination, making of them the severest example possible to other people of Europe, similarly under the thumb of the E.U.

75MyopicBookworm
Modificato: Dic 19, 2018, 4:43 am

The British public can't just "decide" or "demand" to spend more money on public services if there actually isn't more money. The UK economy is beginning to shrink as businesses move their activities to EU territories, so there will be less profit and less income in the UK, so less tax revenue, and less money for any government to spend.

Britain hasn't "declined" in the EU: what has happened is increased imbalance between parts of the country, and between top executives and the rest of the population. By providing funds for regional development, the EU has in fact tended to act against this imbalance. Possibly the only potential upside of Brexit is the reduction of domination of the UK economy by London-based financial business, but the EU will no longer provide development money for regions outside London, and the Conservatives have paid only lip-service to supporting the regions.

As for union labour, the EU has broadly supported workers' rights, and you can bet that any closer ties with the US will erode that pretty fast.

76proximity1
Modificato: Dic 19, 2018, 9:52 am

"The British public can't just "decide" or "demand" to spend more money on public services if there actually isn't more money."

Right. But there's that "if" in there and it has nothing to do with present-day reality. Britain is many things: a pathetic example of a self-satisfied but woefully-failed-state; a moral disgrace as a society and political order--obscenely corrupt and shamelessly so. Think of ancient Rome at its worst and just add modern glitz, choked traffic -and choking polluted air-in the metropolises, and high-speed internet. Britain is awash in wealth and the government has made itself into a state-protector of a world of finance that resembles the morals of organized-crime syndicates.

These mega-wealthy aren't going anywhere because they're completely convinced that their crony-connections place them far beyond the reach of the law. And, so far, they're right about that. But there's no respectable reason why that ought not change.

"Britain hasn't "declined" in the EU: what has happened is increased imbalance between parts of the country, and between top executives and the rest of the population."

BULLSHIT.





_________________________________

Here's the kind of wealth in which Britain is awash:

('Britain's biggest divorce': The Ivy owner Richard Caring 'faces £350m bill after separating from his wife')



( British entrepreneur Richard Caring pays $33 million for a notorious Beverly Hills showpiece
Posted on 15/01/2017 at 11:59 AM)

BEFORE:


First listed on the housing market in 2013 for £105m., the property has been bought for £40m. "Plans lodged with Kensington and Chelsea Council show that Mr. Caring wants to demolish two Victorian 'cottages' set in an acre of land that were turned into a single house by a previous owner in the Eighties. He plans to build a two-storey house with a vast master-bedroom suite complete with his and hers dressing rooms and 'five additional bedrooms for nannies and children.' "

(Property news) Digging In: Ivy Tychoon Richard Caring plans double basement at 'bargain' £40m Kensington Mansion

AFTER:

(Homesandproperty.co.uk | https://www.homesandproperty.co.uk/property-news/ivy-tycoon-richard-caring-plans... )

Caring paid £40M for the property; will demolish the former house there and rebuild at a cost of an additional £20M. He's expected to receive Council approval for his building plan and is reportedly expected to chip in £235,000 toward Kensington Chelsea's "affordable housing" builds.

77tendring
Dic 19, 2018, 10:04 am

What Guns-Thanks to wonderful politicians we have the situation of an aircraft carrier with inadequate aircraft and no means to defend itself.As to your other points about British inadequacies which I agree are present these have been brought about by British Governments.

Now let us look at Europe. Since 1955 when Europe was still largely in ruins and the European Iron and Steel Community was established Europe has been transformed with everywhere better off in every respect especially where the concept of a United Europe has been embraced.

Still no doubt after Brexit huge sums can be found for the NHS Defence and Social Care from the stupendous trade deals Rees-Mogg Johnson and Co can negotiate with the likes of Fiji and Tuvalu.

78MyopicBookworm
Dic 19, 2018, 4:45 pm

Britain isn't "awash" with this wealth: it's very tightly held by a small number of people who keep much of it overseas to avoid paying UK tax. Brexit will enable them to avoid tax more easily, so we'll see even less of it. As for environmental destruction, I have seen precious little interest in that from the Brexiteers (with the possible and marginal exception of Gove).

79proximity1
Modificato: Dic 20, 2018, 6:31 am

>78 MyopicBookworm:

"Britain isn't "awash" with this wealth: it's very tightly held by a small number of people"...

No. My point was never that Britain's general public is or was "awash" with wealth; rather, that a relatively teeny-tiny minority of people and companies hold fabulous amounts of wealth entitles one to rightly assert that Britain (i.e. as this tiny minority taken as a group) is awash with wealth.

"awash" : "containing large numbers or amounts of someone or something." (emphasis added (for you))

"the city was awash with journalists"-- this means that there was an abundance of journalists in the city, not that they were spread or found evenly distributed across the general population or roughly equally-represented in all class-strata. My having to do such petty stuff as this tedious definition-explanation for you is an example of your bad-faith in this phony discussion. You could have taken the trouble to discover a fully apt meaning for "awash" in the current context. Instead, you uselessly nit-picked over the term.

SO, then you in fact agree that a small number. in your words, "tightly hold" immense wealth in Britain. Thank you.

Further, you imply that, these people are either criminals engaging in tax-evasion or they are legally able to export "much of it" (their wealth) "overseas" "to avoid paying U.K. tax."

Either way, that's a scandal; but, either way, it in no way diminishes my point that within Britain there is immense wealth.

AS for tax-avoidance--
Britain is, of course, so politically and economically corrupt that it is at once a tax-haven of various kinds (for hundreds of billions (valued in USD, GBP, etc.) from foreign nationals who park their money in U.K. real estate) as well as a country the wealthiest citizens of which export significant parts of their wealth to other foreign tax-havens. It works both ways.

80pokarekareana
Dic 20, 2018, 11:41 am

This thread seems to reflect the divisions in our society fairly well. There seems to be precious little agreement about anything to do with Brexit any more, as the government's spectacular handling of the whole process from start to finish has brought us to a point where opinions are so horribly fragmented that there is essentially no consensus.

The Brexiteers can't decide whether or not it is acceptable for us to crash out on 29th March, whether we should pause Article 50, whether the existing deal could potentially be renegotiated, whether Theresa May can persuade the Commons to approve it or will she just leave it so late before holding the vote that they have no choice but to approve?

The remain camp are not much better - should we seek to stop Brexit at any cost, regardless of the potential damage to democracy and public faith in our electoral system? Is there a moral obligation to keep pushing for as soft a Brexit as possible, or is now the moment to demand another referendum? If so, what should we ask? What would we do if the result is equally close as it was last time? Should it require a supermajority of 60% or more to back one side or the other - and what happens if that threshold isn't reached?

So many questions - so few answers!

81proximity1
Modificato: Dic 23, 2018, 6:24 am

Originally posted on Friday, 21 December, 2018
_______________________________________

>80 pokarekareana:

There actually are highly-talented, very experienced and knowledgeable negotiators. These people understand what amounts to a core of key negotiation tactics, strategies and techniques. Practically all of these are drawn from important insight into characteristics of human nature which are, if not completely universal, then at least completely common to all contemporary societies of the industrialized world--and it is there that nearly all of the high-level, high-stakes negotiations occur.

One such expert is the former chief of F.B.I hostage-negotiation, Chris Voss, now C.E.O. of his own practice as a consultant-for-hire in important business and personal negotiation matters. the Black Swan Group (Ltd.)

People who have a great deal on the line in negotiations often turn to Voss for his advice. He knows and admires other highly-skilled experts in his field who have helped bring this art to its present-day level of sophistication and he names some of them in his popular best-selling book on negotiation, Never Split the Difference: Negotiating as If Your Life Depended on It, (2016) a HarperBusiness book.

The best advisers on negotiating know that there are some common mistakes which are fatal to a successful outcome and they work hard at instructing people in what they are and in how to avoid them. One of the worst mistakes--and one of the very easiest to avoid--is the mistake of beginning by assuming that "No (ultimate) deal" is the worst of all possible outcomes. All who take this approach are undermining their position; those who actually allow their negotiating counter-parts to know of their position on this point have, in effect, committed what is tantamount to negotiation suicide (or surrender) right from the outset. As Voss and others understand, such "anything except 'no-deal'" negotiators begin by "taking themselves 'hostage' ". Theresa May has flagrantly committed this mistake--unless, of course, she actually never had any sincere desire to negotiate for favorable terms from Brussels in the first place and was, right from the start, willingly "in the bag" for Brussels' points-of-view.

But for the moment I dismiss such a hypothesis in order to simply point out that, unless May was secretly in league with Brussels and hoped that, by totally botching the (faked) negotiations, she'd eventually wear down "Brexiters'" opposition to a new referendum--on which outcome as a reversal of the June 2016 vote she pinned everything-- her tactics have been absurdly wrong. Indeed, on just her "Brexit"-negotiation-record alone, to refer to Theresa May as "stupid" is merely stating the obvious. It's perhaps a gross understatement since, in her performance, as any kind of sincere advocate for British interests as opposed to Brussels' interests, at any rate, May has proven herself to have been unbelievably stupid.

She should never have hinted that there was any hesitation on her part from walking away from an unfavourable "deal". This worst-mistake and easiest-to-avoid blunder sabotaged all prospects for anything other than simply rolling over and accepting anything and everything that Brussels demanded. Suggestions that she has done other than that are utter nonsense or flat-out lies.

______________________________

Now, to address the issues you raise above:

"The Brexiteers can't decide whether or not it is acceptable for us to crash out on 29th March, ..."

I don't know exactly who you mean to indicate by 'The Brexiteers can't decide whether ' but ordinary Britons favourable to "Leave" can certainly decide that, yes, indeed, and absolutely: it is not only 'acceptable' but, moreover, far, far better to 'crash out' on 29 March, 2019 (that is, refuse a bad deal as unacceptable, including the Brussels/May "Withdrawal Agreement") than to accept such a "deal."

"whether we should pause Article 50,"...

We ought not! We must not! To do so annuls the referendum vote in a single stroke :

Invoking Article 50--effectively starting a count-down clock--before having wrung any concessions at all from Brussels-- was, of course, the second of the two most incredible negotiation blunders on May's part. Again, one is forced to consider the possibility that no one, in fact, is actually that stupid and that, therefore, she must have been engaged in a prior-arranged plan to botch the negotiations and give Brussels everything it desired. The clock-countdown running means that Britain, not Brussels, is under an artificially-(SELF!-)imposed time-pressure--especially if and when it becomes clear to Brussels that, for the government of Britain, "No Deal" is inconceivable and would under no circumstances be allowed to happen.

But, as has been explained elsewhere* in the press, it is entirely false to suggest or imply that Brussels would accept a "pause". Rather, what Brussels has made available is a unilateral cancellation of the entire Exit-initiative. This is what such 'pause' would in fact mean. Under Brussels' terms, stopping Article 50 means a reversion to the pre-referendum status quo. It would annul the referendum vote and require--in order to 're-start' the Article 50 countdown clock--a completely new decision (whether by referendum vote or Parliament) to leave E.U. membership.

"...whether the existing deal could potentially be renegotiated," ...

That's a tall order after having in effect already abjectly surrendered to everything Brussels has demanded. At this point, there is simply no reason why anyone on Brussels' side of the (imaginary) bargaining-table (LOL!) would take P.M. May's or her deputies' appeals for "renegotiation" seriously. Why should they? They've already won everything they wanted. It's now "that or nothing"--Thank you! so much, Mrs. May!"

So the 'answer' is simple: No, it couldn't; certainly not by May or any successor Tory government, no.

... "whether Theresa May can persuade the Commons to approve it" ...

Again, by all indications and evidence so far, no, there is no reason to suppose that she could persuade the Commons to approve the "Withdrawal Agreement" (W.A.)as it stands. The D.U.P. has made it clear that it won't go along. Taken together with Labour party members' opposition to the W.A., it can't pass the Commons.

... "or will she just leave it so late before holding the vote that they have no choice but to approve?"

"No choice but to approve"? It is extremely unlikely that the House of Commons would be so easily played as May has been by Brussels' intransigence. Why, for crying out loud, would the Commons "have no choice" unless it, like May, accepted the idiotic premise that the worst possible outcome is, by definition, 'no deal at all.'?

____________________

*
... "the court added that the decision to revoke Article 50 must be “unequivocal and unconditional”. This means that the member state has to make it clear that it wishes to maintain its EU membership. This is not about extending the Article 50 process to extend the Brexit transition period beyond March 2019. That would still require agreement from the EU member states. Rather, a notification revoking Article 50 means not leaving the EU at all. In other words, it would stop Brexit." ...

82justmum
Dic 21, 2018, 1:57 pm

>71 tendring: The picture is a VERY old one on Bill and Hillary Clinton. Not sure who the other person is. As you are aware they are not British but American.

83proximity1
Modificato: Dic 22, 2018, 8:41 am

>82 justmum:

"The picture is a VERY old one on Bill and Hillary Clinton. Not sure who the other person is. As you are aware they are not British but American."

LOL!

The photo which features, among others, former U.S. president Bill Clinton is, yes, ancient-- LOL!

As near as I have been able to tell, this photo is from a lavish fund-raiser party hosted by R. Caring in 2005. In the photo's foreground, the four shown wearing fancy-dress costumes, are, from L to R, Philip Green (English) (he would be listed in the following year's Birthday honours, given a knighthood by the queen), (seated) Caring's wife, Jacqui (Stead) Caring, then 57, a former fashion-model, and, standing behind her, Caring (English), 57 at the time, and, of course, Bill Clinton, aged 59. The party is likely one held at St. Petersburg, Russia, where Caring was the host of a

"charity costume “Napoleonic Ball” for the NSPCC in St Petersburg's Catherine Palace, Russia, featuring a performance by Sir Elton John. Caring spent £8m flying in 450 guests in by private jet, including Bob Geldof and former US president Bill Clinton, raising £11m." (see source: Wikipedia : Richard Caring)


So Mr. Caring, a very clever self-made multi-millionaire or billionaire, spent more than two-thirds of the amount the fund-raiser brought in just flying in his celebrity guests. But he and his ego are like that.

And former-president Clinton is the only guest pictured who is not British.

84justmum
Dic 29, 2018, 1:27 pm

>83 proximity1: You obviously know more about it than I . Sorry - at least I was correct about Bill Clinton.

85proximity1
Dic 30, 2018, 6:42 am


"You obviously know more about it than I*."

True.

"Sorry - at least I was correct about Bill Clinton."

Also true.

Your acknowledgment and apology for having gotten things wrong--and your good grammar*-- all of these set you apart from the crowd here.

_____________________________

* Many people would have written, ..."more about it than me." And perhaps just as many erroneously think that even caring about such a distinction at all is proof of one's "pedantry."

86tendring
Dic 31, 2018, 10:36 am

Referendum Question--Easy

1 Crash Out

2 Accept the deal on the table

3 Remain

87proximity1
Modificato: Feb 1, 2019, 8:34 am


>86 tendring:

I think I've already made my own views known. Prime Minister May could not have botched the so-called "negotiations" more if she'd taken an advanced course in how not to negotiate. She's already given away everything--without the least concessions from Brussels--and so it is very difficult to see how one could do other than "crash out"--leave without any formal deal agreed with Brussels.

Still-- I'd attempt this:

Behind closed doors, I'd tell Jean-Claude Juncker that, despite May's wreckage, I'd offer a new post-Brexit (leave without a deal) occasion for negotiation in return for his pledge to accept it in a genuine good-faith effort to find common ground in a compromise. Without that, I'd announce--assuming, for the sake of this exercise, that I'd replaced Theresa May--that his intransigence, his refusal to open real negotiations, would ensure that at every opportunity in bilateral trade and other mutually-necessary cooperative practices, Britain would seek to inflict the maximum harm, damage and hardship upon each and every key actor-E.U.-member state which aligned unconditionally with the European Council's and Commission's positions.

This would be like a war without the fighter-bombers and the artillery and tanks. It would be Hell-ish and I'd ensure that they hate it and know that they're going to live with it until they come to the bargaining table like the responsible adults they've so far failed to be.

88tendring
Feb 1, 2019, 6:04 am

I do not know which I hate more--the past dwelling blind Tory Brexiteers or the gutless Tory Remainers. And to be fair the Labour Party is no better. What is really needed is for Centre-Left Tories and Right-Centre Labour to get together and put Brexit where it belongs- in the dustbin.

89proximity1
Modificato: Feb 3, 2019, 10:01 am

It's an enormous mistake to suppose that the referendum's result was a fluke, the consequence of clever public-relations campaigns duping a large proportion of the voting public into believing nonsense about the relations between Britain and the European Union's authorities.

Given any fair replay, most people can see through the barrage of hyped nonsense coming from all sides but, overwhelmingly, from the best-financed, most elite and politically and socially most powerful group--the "movers-and-shakers" part of the powers-that-be.

Yes, this was, in essence, a bitter struggle between two warring factions within the ruling class. A faction of it does not subscribe to what might be termed the orthodoxy of globalized, brutally-complete rationalized capitalism, or "the Washington 'consensus' " or "Aspen consensus" while the majority of the other faction does. The latter group, though politically and economically powerful, is morally and intellectually faint-hearted and has no faith in national pride or the potential of ordinary people to contribute importantly to producing extraordinary things in national life. This faction essentially believes that practically everything of any value can be reduced to monetary terms and measured and weighed--and that these things come nearly exclusively from a so-called highly-educated group of technocrats, usually with Ph.D.s or at least Master's degrees in finance and business management. What they often lack is common sense and the capacity to doubt in their own terrible special-ness and importance and infallibility.

Even if a second referendum succeeded in wringing a "Remain" result out of the vote, this would eventually be overturned after a period of further misery and disillusionment with membership in the E.U.--until even many supposedly intelligent people cannot escape the obvious fact that the mistaken and unacknowledged premises by which the E.U.'s original project has been derailed are inherently disastrous and cannot be "repaired."

____________________________________________________________________________________

"Welcome to 'Britain.' " (LOL!!!)

Serialized scare-mongering from the free daily-advertising piece-of-shit, "Metro"

Can Britain grow its own lettuce?

"SALAD CRISIS COULD ALSO HIT OUR FAST-FOOD CHAINS LIKE KFC AND McDONALD's"

"SALAD CRISIS" ?



_________________________________________________________________________

(And, this, from the moronic Guardian (London)



(Photograph: Alastair Grant/AP)




Queen to be evacuated if Brexit turns ugly – reports ||
Cold war plans revived to move royals to safe locations away from London if unrest follows no deal





"British officials have revived cold war emergency plans to relocate the royal family should there be riots in London if Britain suffers a disruptive departure from the European Union, two Sunday newspapers have reported.

“These emergency evacuation plans have been in existence since the cold war but have now been repurposed in the event of civil disorder following a no-deal Brexit,” the Sunday Times said, quoting an unnamed source from the government’s Cabinet Office, which handles sensitive administrative issues.

"The Mail on Sunday also said it had learnt of plans to move the royal family, including Queen Elizabeth, to safe locations away from London."


_________________________

79 years ago, in London:


(Photo: Press Association. U.K.)

"The children will not leave unless I do. I shall not leave unless their father does, and the king will not leave the country in any circumstances, whatever.” — The Queen Mother, September, 1940, during 'the Blitz'

Scottish quip, during World War II :

"If London falls, it's going to be a long war."




(Photo source/credit: Herbert Mason, The Daily Mail, taken Sunday, 29 December

and published Tuesday, 31 December 1940)

90tendring
Feb 4, 2019, 6:09 am

They must have been duped-otherwise how could they have voted for it. As a result we are heading for disaster as May to try and keep the Tory Party from breaking apart is allowing the DUP tail to wag the Tory dog with the help of unscrupulous politicians like Boris.

91proximity1
Modificato: Feb 4, 2019, 7:12 am

>90 tendring: "They must have been duped-otherwise how could they have voted for it.(?)"

"My opponents are obviously idiots--otherwise, they'd see the wisdom of my views and agree with me."

Got it.

Look: if you really cannot fathom at all how and why others could be motivated to see things very differently from the way you see them other than by ascribing to them falling victim to ruses which only dupes, fools, could believe, then this is objective evidence of a serious failing on your part to see things as others are able to see them-- sometimes millions and millions of others.

Look first, then, to your own intellectual weaknesses and faults.

___________________________

92pokarekareana
Feb 4, 2019, 11:34 am

>91 proximity1: - How does that fit with your post #89, in which you described the Guardian as moronic? Might we then surmise that you believe those who share that paper's views to be morons?

tendring's approach of believing Leave voters to have been misled seems a bit kinder, at least, than calling people names.

93proximity1
Modificato: Feb 5, 2019, 8:59 am

>92 pokarekareana:

Of course--(here, I meant, "of course" I can explain my reasoning and the apparent contradiction; not, "of course I think ' (all) those who share that paper's views to (necessarily) be morons' ) :

it's the conventional wisdom among the self-satisfied smart-set that, in the referendum, those who voted "Remain," did so overwhelmingly both because they better-understood the stakes and because, in their smug certainty about the future—near-term, mid-term and long-term—they have never feared to pronounce, for the supposed benefit of others, on what the future was certain to hold in store either way the vote went.

The "Remain" camp had two aspects to its pubic-relations campaign. It was unstinting in its insults of the opposition's views and reasoning—without ever addressing and countering them on the merits (I think that's maily because "Remainers" could not conceive of the possibility that their opponents' case had any merits to be addressed) and, secondly their predictions of wall-to-wall disaster should the "Remain" case not prevail.

To summarize:

"You lot are hopeless idiots if you can't see how wrong you are." and "The sky is going to fall on us all and that's going to be directly due to you people who just don't understand this modern world of globalized finance."

From their 68th-floor windows, these privileged and pampered elite looked out on the glittering city of London and asked, "What's not to like?" From that height, they can't see the people crouching on the sidewalks, asking passers-by for pocket-money because the work these beggars once might have done has been and continues to be sent off to distant foreign lands to be done by people who, in their turn, are being exploited for the greater enrichment of this elite gazing from their high-rise office suites.

The Guardian sold out—lost its miserable, shitty little soul—to, threw its lot in with, this class of Masters-degree-holders in business-management and finance years and years ago, spewing endless crap about the wonderful new things to come.

These wonderful things never came for the class of voters who saw the eminent good sense in voting "Leave."

"Leave" voters had already calculated their losses with impeccable accuracy. After all, the wreckage which the privileged refused to acknowledge ran through and through the "Leave"-voters' lives: their once-affordable neighborhoods gentrified--again, to the benefit of the privileged; their factory-jobs shipped off; their wages not just stagnant but falling--undercut by millions of east-European laborers who flooded into Britain over the past twenty years to take jobs which British people used to found their lives upon.

Go in any cafe, sandwich shop or fast-food restaurant in London and listen for English accents coming from the counter-service staff. The odds are long against your hearing one. Instead, you'll hear the broken English of people from Poland, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Greece, the Baltic states, Hungary, etc. Life for them--many in their twenties or early thirties--was so bleak that they chucked it and came to try their luck in London. Most of these, the overwhelming majority, will never make great progress beyond the low-paid jobs which they first find. Only a tiny few will find anything resembling the dreamed-of future of the rest of them. But never mind that: the elite and their interest-monopoly in the press will focus exclusively on those fortunate few, touting them as proof that "globalization works."

When I describe The Guardian's editorial management and its stable of opinion-writers a bunch of morons, it's in part because, to suppose that they are in fact quite as morally-bankrupt and viciously cruel as they'd otherwise have to be in order to write and argue as they do, feigning their sickening concern for the real poor and needy, who'd they'd quickly have to join in misery if they had scruples about justice, only in between their constant concern for trivial frustrations of life for the fortunate 'Yuppies' (young-urban-professionals) and 'Hipsters' whose points of view they model--that's just more than I can maintain for very long at a time.

In truth, behind the smothering political-correctness of The Guardian is a lucid awareness which runs fully counter to the patronizing stuff they direct at the disadvantaged:

It truly is a jungle out there; and may God, in Her mercy, keep us from its harms! We had to face it: your loss is our gain. The choice was stark-- protecting ourselves or sacrificing our comforts to help you. You lost. Now, please don't be a fool and bring on disaster by voting "Leave."

So, I do understand the point of view of The Guardian and, in its rational* essence, it is brutally correct.

If only the worst thing that The Guardian's victims had to suffer was some nasty name-calling!

_________________________

* I use "rational" here in the same pejorative sense which the writer, John Ralston Saul, has in mind in his brilliant essay, Voltaire's Bastards: The Dictatorship of Reason in the West (Random House, (1992))

__________________________

Jonathan Pie:
Brexit & The Spayed Parliament | (216,295 views) | Published on Feb 1, 2019


"Westminster has ceased to function. ...



"We're literally 'fucked'. Westminster is literally 'fucked'. ... (Prime Minister May) is fucked!. Parliament can’t—or won’t—do anything because Parliament overwhelmingly doesn’t want what the electorate asked for. The country is pretty much without a properly functioning Parliament right now. … MPs vote to guarantee there won’t be a ‘No-deal’ Brexit. The result? Businesses are stepping up their ‘No-deal’ plans. That is how much confidence business-leaders have in our democracy. Parliament just voted against a “No-deal” and yet we’ve never been closer to one. That is how castrated our democracy has become.” …



__________________________

Rob Johnson of the Institute for New Economic Thinking in a podcast with guest Anand Giriharadas* on The New Feudalism (85,604 views)

* author of Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World (New York : Alfred A. Knopf, (2018))

___________________________

MIT Professor Destroys Entire DAVOS Panel, Silences Confused Panel Host

The Majority Report w/ Sam Seder
Published on Jan 26, 2019

MIT Professor Erik Brynjolfsson just dropped some heavy knowledge on a DAVOS panel. Sam Seder and the Majority Report crew discuss this.

"It's mind-boggling. I think that there's—when you see reporting around economics—the CNBCs of the world, and I'd include her in that (a Washington Post economics-beat reporter) It's not even about the history, it's not about looking at policy even ... it's about this kind of disturbing worship of corporate culture and of wealth-building; and economic forums like Davos are a part of that weird worship. It's a capitalism shrine, basically." ...

94alaudacorax
Modificato: Feb 6, 2019, 8:16 am

>93 proximity1: - The "Remain" camp had two aspects to its pubic-relations campaign. It was unstinting in its insults of the opposition's views and reasoning—without ever addressing and countering them on the merits (I think that's maily because "Remainers" could not conceive of the possibility that their opponents' case had any merits to be addressed) and, secondly their predictions of wall-to-wall disaster should the "Remain" case not prevail.

Oh, come on! 'Disingenous' isn't the word for that. I've been firmly restraining myself from posting here because I obviously wouldn't achieve anything by it, but I can't let that one pass. I don't at all disagree with what you said, but you must - surely - be aware it would be equally true if you replaced 'Remain' with 'Leave'? If the referendum campaigns (not to mention the expenses scandal, sexual harrassment scandal and a bunch of other things) taught us anything - and they taught us sod all about the merits or demerits of Brexit - it was that our leading politicians across the board are lacking in integrity, common sense and any real concept of decent behaviour. Whatever the eventual outcome of all this, it will not have been caused by honesty, honest intentions or rational argument.

ETA - and if the bit in parentheses sounds as if I regard the referendum campaigns as 'scandals' - yes, I do.

95proximity1
Modificato: Feb 6, 2019, 8:38 am

>94 alaudacorax:

There are two very important respects in which I entirely agree with you:

First, in that "they (i.e. the referendum campaigns) taught us sod all about the merits or demerits of Brexit"— and that is because, as I thought it ought to be obvious, it is simply not possible that anyone or anything about these campaigns could "teach" us anything about 'Brexit', still, so far, a prospect rather than a fact of present-day life. We can only "learn" about "Brexit" 's consequences after its actual implementation—and even there, for many aspects and many reasons, it won't be at all clear immediately just what those consequences, for good or ill, are.

And, second, in that "our leading politicians across the board are lacking in integrity, common sense and any real concept of decent behaviour." (emphasis added)

On the other hand, I certainly do not include the vast majority of the "Leave"-supporting voters in that judgment; but, as to the "Remain"-supporting voters, I consider that there were and there remain among them a great many who I certainly do regard as lacking in integrity, (much) common sense (or) any real concept of decent behaviour. The more their wealth, power and potential selfish gains from any derailment of the referendum's result, the more I hold them in that view and, the less so, then correspondingly, the less I hold them in that view. I don't doubt or deny that there were many completely sincere supporters of "Remain" who stood to gain nothing personally really important financially or otherwise from their vote. But I don't think I could say that about any of the "Remain" campaign's leadership.

96Jargoneer
Feb 7, 2019, 5:23 am

>95 proximity1: - I think you have things back-to-front here. It is 'Vote Leave' that has been found guilty of breaking electoral law and hiding the source of funds. And what of Johnson, Rees-Mogg and their cronies desperate to leave before April to avoid the implementation of EU Laws cracking down on offshore tax avoidance? (Rees-Mogg believes in post-Brexit UK so much he has moved his company to Dublin). The Leave campaign was dominated by rich extreme neo-liberals who believe that they can make even more money in a free-for-all UK.
As for Leave Voters with integrity, common sense and a sense of decency - what about the open racism and xenophobia? How many times does a Leave voter need to be told that WWII ended in 1945, that their vote was not a vote against the Nazis and the Fourth Reich. As for the workers speaking broken English, that was only partly the issue - a significant number of Leave voters believe that people with the wrong colour of skin will be sent back to 'where they belong' once Britain gets its 'freedom'.

97proximity1
Modificato: Feb 8, 2019, 6:24 am

>96 Jargoneer: "It is 'Vote Leave' that has been found guilty of breaking electoral law and hiding the source of funds."

Is that sentence your way of saying that 'Vote Leave' has been found guilty of breaking electoral law by hiding the source of funds ?

If not, I'd appreciate a pointer to a complete list of the Leave-camp's alleged illegal acts in the prosecution of their campaign. If so, I would appreciate your citing the court-case's reference so that I can review the court's findings of fact and its ruling. (thank you.)

When it came to the sources of their operating funds, I suppose the alleged legal fault is that some of these, to an important extent, were not only not divulged as they were supposed to be, but positively hidden from discovery--out of fear or recognition that these sources weren't legally entitled to contribute to the campaign because, on some theory which apparently holds that foreign-sourced funds are not a valid way in which to purchase newspaper column-inches or air-time on the public airwaves or cable networks while, on the other hand, 'British-based"-money, with certain conditions, is a good and, thus, legal, way to fund these campaigns.

In addition to my very strong doubts about the reasonable foundation of such a view, by which there exists "clean" money--namely, that which is raised only within Britain--and all other, which is "dirty"--not because, or only because it does or it might have come from Mafia-like organizations but only because they are based outside Britain, I also find it both interesting and rather amusing that this is an objection made by people--very socially, financially and politically powerful people--who are driven by a philosophical attachment to the view that, today, not only is money global and its forces and effects only vainly "held" within national boundaries, but that this is how things are inevitably going to be--and, so much for the better, according to these people, since they also believe that this is the way such matters ought to be.

I wonder: how do we calculate how many--or indeed, if there even were any-- actual voters' intentions "corrupted" by these foreign funds?--assuming they existed (and, by the way, could you cite the court case in which it has been conclusively-judged that the 'Leave'-campaign violated these laws? Thank you.) What, for you, would and should the minimum number of such corrupted voter-ballots be? Is it "1 or more"? Seriously?

"And what of Johnson, Rees-Mogg and their cronies desperate to leave before April to avoid the implementation of EU Laws cracking down on offshore tax avoidance?"

If Britain (i.e. its people) want to crack down on "offshore tax avoidance"-- and I agree that they certainly ought to want to do so and that the government and Parliament ought not be waiting around for Brussels' authority to regulate these things--then they should see to this via their own electoral and legislative processes. And if, for a variety of reasons, they're stymied in that effort--as I suspect is the case--then what reason do we have to suppose that the same powerful political forces which stymie these efforts in Britain are any less powerful and effective within the E.U.? Indeed, the E.U., in various forms, has been around for a couple of generations. It could have or, at least, it ought to have done this long ago. If these successive E.U.-type organizations haven't done so already, it is because, clearly, they're managed and controlled by people who don't want them to do so, whatever the British people in their majority may think about it or want.

So, for me, that claim that it's worth membership just to achieve this far-fetched and as-yet-unattainable goal of cracking down on off-shore tax avoidance is really far too flimsy an excuse for ceding so much in prerogative to the E.U.'s institutions.

"The Leave campaign was dominated by rich extreme neo-liberals who believe that they can make even more money in a free-for-all UK."

I know that. After all, I wrote, above:

... " this was, in essence, a bitter struggle between two warring factions within the ruling class. A faction of it does not subscribe to what might be termed the orthodoxy of globalized, brutally-complete rationalized capitalism, or "the Washington 'consensus' " or "Aspen consensus" while the majority of the other faction does." ...

But so what? In the circumstances, it seems to me that, in such a factional struggle, the average working-class British man and woman is entitled to seek and find his or her own best idea of where one's interests lie. For pity's sake, the rich-and-powerful were doing nothing other than that for themselves. Why the poor and middle-class should be made to feel ashamed about 'getting their hands "dirty" ' by mingling their affairs in this struggle strikes me as neither intellectually or morally respectable as an objection. It appears that the everyday working of British 'democracy' is rife with this sort of morally-ambiguous wheeling and dealing. Let the average Briton apologize after the physicians among the rich and powerful have 'healed' themselves.

"As for Leave Voters with integrity, common sense and a sense of decency - what about the open racism and xenophobia?"

Yes, of course, that must be it: racism and xenophobia; after all, if potential immigrants have dark(er) skin than 'Churchillian' Britons, well, anyone who'd question or hinder their immigration to Britain is and can only be motivated by these deplorable motives, isn't that right?

Very frankly--you should, perhaps, steady yourself before reading on--it seems to me that there is every bit as much racism in those, whatever their skin-colour--who are seeking to emigrate to Britain as there is in those born in Britain or already long-time established immigrants. I do wish you'd find a more respectable objection to the Leave-voters' motives than "racism" or "xenophobia." How do you account for former immigrants from British colonies--India (with what later became Pakistan), and on and on--how do you account for their having been among the "Leave"-camp's voters?

"How many times does a Leave voter need to be told that WWII ended in 1945, that their vote was not a vote against the Nazis and the Fourth Reich."

I'm quite prepared to accept such a motive as within their rights to conceive and act upon, no matter how absurd I find its factual basis. There is, after all, a case, however far-fetched it seems to you or to me, that among the open-border E.U. immigrants coming to Britain, there are some, too many, feared sympathetic to and nostalgic for the forces which lost their cause in World War II. If we're to have Nazi sympathizers or Neo-Nazis in Britain, let us limit them, as far as possible, to the already-unavoidable-British-born-variety.

"As for the workers speaking broken English, that was only partly the issue - a significant number of Leave voters believe that people with the wrong colour of skin will be sent back to 'where they belong' once Britain gets its 'freedom'."

As an excuse to dismiss out of hand all those who preferred to support "Leave" in the referendum, I find that a very weak and flimsy offering. These are, again, people you're pleased to dismiss as hopelessly "racist" and, by extension, then, you can conveniently dismiss the entire "Leave"-campaign as, therefore, rightly damned and doomed on that account--as was done as a mainstay of the "Remain"-camp's public-relations effort.

Again, if only things were that simple! What I find very obvious is that there is nothing less of this very same motive--what you easily define as racist, as racism-- in those who, whether they admit it or not, and many would of course no more admit it than would someone of your favoured definition of racist believe and act on the conviction that this, that or another person ought to be encouraged to settle in Britain because his or her skin is the right colour, in this case, anything except "White."

The last time I checked, being racist--either in the imagination of one's opponents or, indeed, in fact--by whatever terms one defines that word, was not and is not valid grounds to exclude one's participation in this or any future referendum; and in my opinion, that's very much as it ought to be.

I want no moral or other politically-correct tests as prerequisites to casting a ballot and I don't trust the judgment or fairness of anyone who does. In any democracy deserving of the name, the bigots and the racists get to vote--just like their morally-lily-white fellow-citizens. I do not intend to apologize for that view.

98tendring
Feb 8, 2019, 6:09 am

Vote Leave if you are old.bigoted,would like to return to 1945 and have no idea how the modern world works.

By the way there is something we can probably agree on- if there is a deal whatever it's terms everyone will hate it.

99proximity1
Feb 8, 2019, 6:29 am



>98 tendring:

"Vote Leave if you are old.bigoted,would like to return to 1945 and have no idea how the modern world works."

Or, if one would prefer, vote "leave the E.U.'s membership" if you, while none of the above, simply want Britain out of the E.U. because you believe the country should be better off that way.

Cast aspersions at those who favour Britain's leaving the E.U., call them a lot of people who are just "old, bigoted, would like to return to 1945 and have no idea how the modern world works."

Yes, do that. It worked so well for you last time, now, didn't it?

LOL!

100tendring
Feb 18, 2019, 6:15 am

I Am not sure what your last sentence implies. The point I was making was 1945 was the last time Britain had an Empire to rule and having won the war had pretensions of being a Superpower.

Obviously I think Britain would be better off to stay in the EU

Meanwhile the pathetic posturings that May calls negotiations meander along when we all know Boris etc will vote down any deal that is not no deal.

101proximity1
Feb 18, 2019, 1:27 pm

>100 tendring:

"I Am not sure what your last sentence implies."

That's a very bad sign, then.

I had no trouble parsing this, from you: "Vote Leave if you are old.bigoted,would like to return to 1945 and have no idea how the modern world works."

Really, should there be a second referendum on the issue, the "Leave" camp could do worse than to run that slogan over and over and over. "Leave" voters would get a very clear picture of how they are regarded.

Unlike last time (2016), when I wasn't eligible to vote-- because ex patriated Britons were not eligible--now I can vote and I shall, if the question is put again.

102proximity1
Modificato: Feb 27, 2019, 5:27 am

Jeremy Corbyn shows what he's made of: weak mush.

Labour to betray the democratic processes and back a second referendum (on ... what, exactly?)--that is, such as these are in this pathetic, politically-crippled nation. The two main parties, the "Conservative" party, heirs to monarchical absolutist rule, and "Labour," faint-hearted, morally-lost and completely feckless. Each of these-wastes-of-precious-political-resources has the hopeless ineptitude of its opposition to thank for the fact that it limps on.

If things go as it appears they might, voters, cheated of their democratic rights, shall be faced with a wholly phoney "choice" between "remain" in the E.U. or accept May's botched bullshit so-called "deal"--which the E.U.'s top leaders wrote to suit their designs down to the last detail.

Britain is a fucked-up, shitty little nation of political morons--led by their inferiors.

103Jargoneer
Feb 27, 2019, 7:31 am

102 - how can you betray the democratic process by having another democratic vote? (How often do you think we should have elections? One a generation?) As the first referendum was only advisory and we now all know more than we did 2016 does a second referendum not make sense? At least this time the various parties should have to produce a proper plan rather than just saying "It'll be alright on the night".

104proximity1
Modificato: Feb 27, 2019, 9:50 am

>103 Jargoneer:

It's important to understand the position and point of view of the few, top, "key" executives, those officials directing the European Union's executive and in that way recognize that these leaders, from the very start, sought, above all, to exact the maximum possible punishment on Britain--its government and public--for the unpardonable sin of having publicly, openly, repudiated the the European Union by expressing a clear popular desire (in the majority of those casting a ballot) to leave the E.U. membership.

Theresa May can and should be faulted for having botched what there was in possibilities for "negotiating" by making in cringingly clear that she would do virtually anything to avoid a "no deal." In the realm of negotiation-tactics, this is one of the biggest blunders a person can make. But leave that aside since the E.U. execs were so single-mindedly looking for the punishment of Britain.

" how can you betray the democratic process by having another democratic vote?"

Simple: by holding a second vote even before the terms, conditions and requirements of the previous vote have been respected by putting their consequences into effect. One annuls, repudiates, the validity of a prior vote by failing to honour it and, instead, holding another vote, the sole purpose of which is to overturn the first vote. That parliament's own members could somehow fail to grasp this is simply inconceivable. Members of Parliament know exactly what they are doing in repudiating an as-yet-un-honoured vote; and they themselves would never tolerate for a moment any analogous treatment touching any matter of importance to them in the course of official government procedures.

"As the first referendum was only advisory and we now all know more than we did 2016 does a second referendum not make sense?"

These objections have been answered, above, in this thread.

..."does a second referendum not make sense?"

Definitely not, no. It makes no more sense to hold a second referendum when, in doing so, one dishonours the first, than it would to propose marriage, marry, then marry again, then divorce--all in the space of two hours--concluding, with no new facts or information, and no new experience by which to judge, that the marriage "wouldn't have worked."

No, in fact, on the crucial point(s), we do not really "know more" today than we did in 2016--with the exception of this "new" "knowledge":

--that the Prime Minister--in this case, Theresa May--would, either through gross incompetence or deliberate sabotage, botch the job of "leaving" the E.U. in such a way as to encourage and, as nearly as possible, make inevitable either a new referendum on some question--preferably one which, as some have proposed, puts "leave--full stop" off the list of options and provides only for a choice between May's idiotic botched "plan"--a deal completely designed by the E.U.'s execs, or "Remain" !!! --we now "know" this.

We know even better than previously that the powerful interests behind "Remain" not only have no respect for democratic processes, they also have no shame and there is nothing at which they'll stop in order to thwart the effect of the 2016 referendum.

But, as to what in fact the benefits or harms of actually leaving the E.U. membership shall be for Britain--on that, we "know" no more today than we did before or after the referendum's balloting: because we have yet to leave the E.U. group.

"At least this time the various parties should have to produce a proper plan rather than just saying "It'll be alright on the night"

Do you seriously propose to put this so-called "plan" 's details to the national electorate for approval or disapproval? Voters elect MPs at each new parliamentary election with less than that in the way of precise detailed "plans" about what shall actually be done in the next session! Are we now to suppose that referenda can and should take that responsibility on?

Voters weren't consulted on the "how"--in detail of leaving the E.U. They were asked something else: should we stay in or should we leave; they answered clearly and unambiguously. We should leave.

Now, if May or any other Prime Minister is not up to the task of putting that demonstrated desire into effect--even the simplest way possible: by doing "nothing" in a "deal" and simply leaving the E.U. deal or no deal-- then she and these others ought to get the hell out of the way and allow someone else who can do it, to get on with the job.

It is that simple.

_____________________________

“To have (or to ‘use’) a scape-goat, by definition, is not to know that we have (or ‘use’) him.”

—René Girard, “The Scapegoat: The Ideas of René Girard,” Part 2

105sirfurboy
Feb 27, 2019, 9:32 am

>104 proximity1: You wrote a lot, as usual, but I have to stop you here:

"It's important to understand the position and point of view of the few, top, "key" executives, the those officials directing the European Union's executive and in that way recognize that these leaders, from the very start, sought, above all, to exact the maximum possible punishment on Britain--its government and public"

This is delusional thinking of the first order. how anyone could possibly claim to have followed this saga through could believe that where we are at is at all the fault of the EU is beyond me. We had plenty of goodwill going forward from many nations. Angela Merkel made it clear from the start that she wanted to reach an accommodation that would limit the damage for all concerned, and all through the negotiations it has been clear that the EU has worked in good faith to reach a deal.

But hey, it was not the EU who set out a set of "red lines" that were incompatible with the UKs other treaty agreements. You can thank Theresa May for that. It is not the EU who have been running down the clock, trying to force through the botched half deal that is wholly Theresa May's Brexit plan. It was not the EU who failed to consult with all parties, or who started the clock running when there was still no agreement as to what we wanted.

If you want to be taken seriously as a political commentator, you really need to start basing your views in the reality of what is happening rather than recycling Daily Express conspiracy theories and UKIP nonsense. The EU is not run by lizard men. They do not seek to punish the UK. The miserable position that the UK finds itself now is *all our own fault*.

Nice "scapegoat" quote btw. This explains why you did not see that the EU is your scapegoat.

I skimmed the rest of your message. You seem to claim that holding a vote is to betray a vote. How? As JKR says: this literally makes no sense. Who do you think will be voting? the Chinese?

The people cannot betray the will of the people. you are making a category error.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category_mistake

106proximity1
Modificato: Feb 27, 2019, 10:29 am

>105 sirfurboy:

"Angela Merkel made it clear from the start that she wanted to reach an accommodation that would limit the damage for all concerned, and all through the negotiations it has been clear that the EU has worked in good faith to reach a deal."

SO: list their concessions.

List them for us. What, precisely, have "they" granted, given up, conceded that Britain didn't already have or couldn't have had in any case for nothing in return?

As far as I'm aware, the answer to this is very simple: nothing.

I cannot name a single thing which May, in her "negotiations" with Brussels, actually got from them.

So, now I challenge you to specify these for us. I would like to see what Britain has "won" from the E.U.'s directors.

I'll wait.

RE: "Angela Merkel made it clear from the start that she wanted to reach an accommodation that would limit the damage for all concerned..."

Merkel didn't so much "make (this) clear" as she merely claimed it as an undemonstrated fact.

Talk is cheap. And from the E.U. leadership, talk is very, very cheap.

..." an accommodation that would limit the damage for all concerned,"

Utter bullshit. That could have been done had the E.U. ever actually been interested in it.

_______________________________


But hey, it was not the EU who set out a set of "red lines" that were incompatible with the UKs other treaty agreements. You can thank Theresa May for that

"It is not the EU who have been running down the clock," ...


At no time did the E.U.'s officials counsel Britons against the initiative--discussed openly in the U.K. press*--to invoke Article 50 in advance of exit-deal negotiations' conclusion. Why didn't they? What, who stopped them? Granted, it was a blunder on May's and the Conservative-led parliament's part to invoke Article 50*; but no one at Brussels did anything we're aware of to counsel against that false step. Where were Merkel's good intentions then?


...trying to force through the botched half deal that is wholly Theresa May's Brexit plan."


True--May's plan, made necessary to an extent by the fact that Brussels wants blood all over the floor as an example to other E.U. member-states' leaders and publics--was pathetically desperate. So?


"It was not the EU who failed to consult with all parties," ...


Right again. May's entire enterprise here has been a colossal cock-up. You seem to have confused me with a Tory or May-supporter; I'm neither. The fact remains that, having started badly, Brussels in no way made May's job the slightest bit easier.


..."or who started the clock running when there was still no agreement as to what we wanted."


See above.


"The EU is not run by lizard men."


Right. So you may drop that straw-man since neither I nor anyone else here has claimed that. They're not lizards; they are, however, thorough-going politicians. Real lizards don't look that bad next to them.


"They do not seek to punish the UK."


Right. By the same token and the same reasoning, Hitler didn't "seek to punish the U.K." He 'merely' invaded Poland. Had the British accepted that like 'good neighbors,' (of Reich Germany) there'd have been either no war with Hitler or, at the most, it should have come about very diffferently and rather later than it did in the event.


The miserable position that the UK finds itself now is *all our own fault*.

Right. As was the war with Germany from 1939-45. See? Any number can play at this "what if" game.

I've never once read The Daily Express and I have no idea what their editorial line is on Brexit or any other issues.

When I want your advice on what I "need to do", I'll ask you for it.

___________________________________

*


"On 29 March 2017, the United Kingdom (UK) invoked Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union (TEU) which began the member state's withdrawal, commonly known as Brexit, from the European Union (EU). In compliance with the TEU, the UK gave formal notice to the European Council of its intention to withdraw from the EU to allow withdrawal negotiations to begin.

"The process of leaving the EU was initiated by a referendum held in June 2016 which favoured British withdrawal from the EU with a 52% majority. In October 2016, the UK Prime Minister, Theresa May, announced that Article 50 would be invoked by "the first quarter of 2017".(1) On 24 January 2017 the Supreme Court ruled in the Miller case that the process could not be initiated without an authorising act of Parliament, and unanimously ruled against the Scottish government's claim in respect of devolution. Consequently, the European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Act 2017 empowering the prime minister to invoke Article 50 was enacted in March 2017.

"Invocation of Article 50 occurred on 29 March 2017, when Sir Tim Barrow, the Permanent Representative of the United Kingdom to the European Union, formally delivered by hand a letter signed by Prime Minister Theresa May to Donald Tusk, the President of the European Council in Brussels.(2) The letter also contained the United Kingdom's intention to withdraw from the European Atomic Energy Community (EAEC or Euratom). This means that the UK is scheduled to cease being a member of the EU at 00:00, 30 March 2019 Brussels time (UTC+1), which would be 23:00 on 29 March British time.

___________________________

WIKIPEDIA : United Kingdom invocation of Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union

107Jargoneer
Feb 27, 2019, 10:56 am

Right. By the same token and the same reasoning, Hitler didn't "seek to punish the U.K." He 'merely' invaded Poland. Had the British accepted that like 'good neighbors,' (of Reich Germany) there'd have been either no war with Hitler or, at the most, it should have come about very diffferently and rather later than it did in the event. What are you on about? The war ended over 70 years ago. Why is that hard-line leavers are obsessed with the war, obsessed with the idea that Germany is trying to 'invade' us through stealth? I don't hear the French or the Dutch or the Belgians going on about it but read any BTL on Brexit and there will be people going on about the war and the Germany. It's time to grow up and accept that Our Finest Hour is over, the Empire is gone, and the "good old days" are not coming back.

108proximity1
Modificato: Feb 27, 2019, 11:49 am

>107 Jargoneer:

"What are you on about?"

This: the war of 1939-1945, though full of disgraceful examples of people failing themselves and each other, was one of the largest and most important examples of British people undertaking a common project and working in concert for the sake of the nation's survival and future welfare. Rather than cherish and respect this heritage, you write, true to "type,"



"It's time to grow up and accept that Our Finest Hour is over, the Empire is gone, and the 'good old days' are not coming back."




You're selling "vasselage" and, fortunately, for reasons you shall never understand, the British public are not 'buying' that--at least not in the form you're recommending.

"∑κανδαλον," "∑κανδαλίζω" ?

No, thank you,

___________________________

WHEN DO I GET A LIST OF ALL THOSE CONCESSIONS THE E.U. MADE TO BRITAIN, FFS?!!!!

109sirfurboy
Modificato: Feb 27, 2019, 12:10 pm

>106 proximity1:

You ask for evidence and yet provide none for your own assertion that the "officials directing the European Union's executive ..., from the very start, sought, above all, to exact the maximum possible punishment on Britain--its government and public"

Did you think I would not notice?

This was how you started off your post. That is the assertion you must defend and that I pulled you up on and you provided not a shred of evidence that these people in the EU sought to punish Britain. You provide no evidence because, as I have said, it is false. It is delusional thinking. It is the rhetoric of in-groups, the politics of fear. It is, in the last analysis, the reason why project fear and smear won the consultative referendum (with a lot of help from illegal spending and illegal use of personal data).

It is insidious because people are prone to believe this arrant nonsense, without evidence, and then somehow think it is a rational response to ask someone else to *disprove* their wrong and false assertion. People are too ready to distrust what they do not know, and too ready to trust their own in group bias. You demonstrate it in spades here.

Look how you respond to my objection that your assertion is without evidence or basis in fact:

"SO: list their concessions."

You see what you did there? The burden of proof lies with you. You made the claim they wish to punish us. It is now for you to show how they have sought to do that.

To be clear, even if they stuck rigidly to their negotiating lines and did not move at all on any issue, this would *not* be evidence of an attempt to punish Britain - it would just be an acknowledgement of their superior negotiating position. But, in fact, the EU did move on a number of issues. They accepted a fudge that allowed trade talks to proceed in parallel with the withdrawal agreement despite their red lines. They have accepted a withdrawal agreement that is blind on many issues, granting the UK an effective extension of such issues into a transition period. They granted a transition period itself, and they agreed to Theresa May's proposals on a NI back stop which they did not want. To be clear, the backstop arrangement is very much what they objected to when they said there would be no cherry picking - it gives, in some sense, a beneficial position for the UK over existing member states when the UK is in that arrangement.

There are many other ways that the EU have conceded. If you were remotely familiar with the actual withdrawal agreement itself and how we got to it, you would be aware that this was indeed something that was quite uncomfortable for the EU in many ways.

But it is clear you are not familiar with the agreement nor the intricacies of this matter. Indeed, you claim to not even know the daily Express editorial line on Brexit, which is an astounding claim, especially as I have provided data on that to you in this very thread. But then, I do frequently wonder whether you even live in the UK. Don't you live in the USA? Where *do* you get your information on Brexit from?

110proximity1
Modificato: Feb 27, 2019, 2:08 pm


>109 sirfurboy:

"You see what you did there? The burden of proof lies with you. You made the claim they wish to punish us. It is now for you to show how they have sought to do that."

Fine--

They have not only sought but achieved this by making no concessions whatever and, instead, writing a "deal" to suit their own, and only their own desires and interests and presenting it as an ultimatum, i.e., in effect,"take it or leave it", we shall not budge from this--which Prime Minister May, for all practical purposes, did: she caved in, for fear that unless she did, the for-her-unbearable would occur, a "no-Deal Exit" from the E.U.

Now, if you dispute that, then, by God, put up or shut up: show me the counter-evidence, namely, as I have asked repeatedly that you give example of, their concessions.

And here's what we have as your "offer" :



To be clear, even if they stuck rigidly to their negotiating lines and did not move at all on any issue, this would *not* be evidence of an attempt to punish Britain - it would just be an acknowledgement of their superior negotiating position.

(emphasis added)


Seriously? Just "an acknowledgement of their superior negotiating position"?

What, then, should real punishment have looked like? And how is it distinguishable from what you call "just ... an acknowledgement of their superior negotiating position" (this is a serious question, posed seriously, and I expect a respectable answer, not what you've offered above)

Because this is the picture which comes to my mind after reading your preposterous characterization:


"Your honour, (or, if you prefer, "Mi'lord,") my client vehemently denies that he raped the defendant. What actually happened was that, in the course of a dinner-date, he simply acknowledged his superior negotiating position vis-à-vis the young lady concerned. In the event, her clothing may have suffered some mussing and perhaps a few little tears. That was all in the course of his recognizing his superior negotiating position, you see."



(Quoting you)


"But, in fact, the EU did move on a number of issues.

1) "They accepted a fudge that allowed trade talks to proceed in parallel with the withdrawal agreement despite their red lines.

2) "They have accepted a withdrawal agreement that is blind on many issues, granting the UK an effective extension of such issues into a transition period.

3) "They granted a transition period itself, and they agreed to Theresa May's proposals on a NI back stop which they did not want.

4) "To be clear, the backstop arrangement is very much what they objected to when they said there would be no cherry picking - it gives, in some sense, a beneficial position for the UK over existing member states when the UK is in that arrangement."
(End quote)

(emphasis added)


In answer, I ask and would like to hear your replies to the following:

RE (1) What, exactly, are these "trade talks" you say are going on "in parallel" with the withdrawal agreement?
Where are they taking place? And since when?
Further, how is this (1) a "concession" to Britain? What advantage does it grant to Britain that isn't just as beneficial o Brussels? Please be clear in your explaining that.

RE (2)
" a withdrawal agreement that is blind on many issues," Which issues? How is it that these are "blind"? I take it that this means they are as yet not determined. If so, again, why is this exclusively in Britain's favour rather than just as much in the favour of Brussels to allow these things "To Be Determined"?

RE (3) By "transition period" are you referring to the two-year period from the time of formal notification of the intent to withdraw from E.U. membership? Isn't that a part of Article 50 itself and, therefore, certainly no concession?

RE (3) & (4) on the N.I. "Back-stop," "they agreed to Theresa May's proposals on a NI back stop which they did not want" where and when did this occur? They're not bound legally to respect this so-called back-stop arrangement for any specific period; in other words, what you're calling a "concession" in this instance is a completely optional position which Brussels may revoke at any time; thus, there is no obligation on the part of Brussels to respect this "back-stop" any longer than it may suit them to do. So, again, please explain in what exactly this constitutes a "concession"--since it's entirely non-binding and can be dispensed with unilaterally by Brussels at any time.

You go on to claim that



"There are many other ways that the EU have conceded. If you were remotely familiar with the actual withdrawal agreement itself and how we got to it, you would be aware that"... (emphasis added)

and that,

" this was indeed something that was quite uncomfortable for the EU in many ways."



As I expected, you cite none of these "many (other) ways."

Why not? If there are many, please cite some of them so that, as with (1) through (4), above, we can examine how well they measure up as genuine concessions.



People are too ready to distrust what they do not know, and too ready to trust their own in group bias. You demonstrate it in spades here.



Personally, I'm a 'Europhile' by nearly any standard or measure and all my political biases throughout my youth and early adulthood made me a Bertrand Russell-style internationalist and political left-winger. I speak French fluently, having spent fourteen years in Paris--longer in one place than any other place I've lived, though I lived in Italy three years subsequent to that and have lived in Britain for various stints over the course of my life. Europe is not a neo-liberal project it is a historical reality and the neo-liberal toxin which poisons everything the European Union has done since its formal creation has been devastating for European peoples, their well-being and abilities to live harmoniously with each other.


Indeed, you claim to not even know the Daily Express editorial line on Brexit, which is an astounding claim, especially as I have provided data on that to you in this very thread.


I haven't read those posts of yours. They weren't addressed to me in particular, were they? Tell me:
What difference does it make to our discussion whether I'm familiar with the Daily Express editorial line on Brexit --I mean, except, that is, as far as that lack of familiarity demonstrates that your allegation --an attempted smear, I guess--that I am not "basing (my) views in the reality of what is happening (but) rather ... recycling Daily Express conspiracy theories and UKIP nonsense" is completely false?

RE:



"Don't you live in the USA? Where *do* you get your information on Brexit from?"



Here's a hint: in the 2016 referendum, I wasn't in a position to vote under the terms of eligibility for that referendum. On the other hand, in what appears to be the great likelihood of a second referendum, I shall be casting a ballot --the same vote I'd have made in 2016 had I been allowed to participate. I'll be voting "Leave" unless, of course, the opposition simply refuses to put that option on the ballot and, instead, offers a so-called "do-over" referendum proposing only these two:

"Indicate your preference between the following two options:

1) Britain accepts and endorses the withdrawal agreeement negotiated by Prime Minister May with E.U. officials in Brussels

or

2) Britain should remain in the E.U. membership under the currently-stading terms."

Some "choice"!

111sirfurboy
Modificato: Feb 27, 2019, 2:49 pm

So I asked you for evidence of your claim that the EU "from the very start, sought, above all, to exact the maximum possible punishment on Britain--its government and public."

Your answer:

"Fine--

"They have not only sought but achieved this by making no concessions whatever and, instead, writing a "deal" to suit their own, and only their own desires and interests and presenting it as an ultimatum, i.e., in effect,"take it or leave it", we shall not budge from this--which Prime Minister May, for all practical purposes, did: she caved in, for fear that unless she did, the for-her-unbearable would occur, a "no-Deal Exit" from the E.U.

"Now, if you dispute that, then, by God, put up or shut up: show me the counter-evidence, namely, as I have asked repeatedly that you give example of, their concessions."


This is pretty poor evidence. So to summarise, your argument that the the EU sought to punish the UK government and public to the maximum extent possible is that you do not believe they moved at all in negotations (despite the fact I have already provided evidence that refutes that claim by showing several areas where the EU did indeed move). You argue that the EU chose a direction for the UK and no other direction was possible because the UK was being punished from the start. This is complete denial of the facts. The EU actually offered the UK a range of options, modelled on various existing arrangements. It was the UK chosen red lines that had the EU deciding that the only possible model for an agreement was a Canada style free trade agreement, and it was UK insistence on both retaining a frictionless border with Ireland *and* not having a border in the Irish sea that forced, and I say that advisedly: forced the EU to enter into an agreement with an Irish backstop arrangement in place until and if the UK's frictionless technological border could be invented and implemented.

So your claim fails. Completely. Your only evidence that the EU sought to punish the UK is that the EU did not compromise on negotiations that they *did* in fact compromise on. This is why I said your claim was so astoundingly counter factual. As for the Daily Express reference, I was referring to the fact that this is the kind of nonsense the Daily Express (a rabidly pro Brexit propoganda rag) have been pushing incessantly for years. For instance:

https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1034067/Brexit-news-UK-EU-latest-deal-vote-ref...

Warning, reading that newspaper can seriously damage your sanity.

The Daily Express, as well as the Daily Mail and other highly partisan sources have pushed this line of punishment for years, but always without evidence. The narrative is always us and them, and people buy it, just as you have bought it, regardless of where you actually heard this claim. The fact is that the EU has not sought to punish the UK for its decision to leave. You have not provided any evidence otherwise, and this grievous error at the head of your argument rather points to the fallacy of the whole.

Now again, as you are not in the UK, where is it that you are getting your Brexit information from? You seek to present an analysis, but where are you getting your information from? Could it be that your sources, like the Daily Express, are partisan? Or did you come up with this unevidenced claim of punishment all on your own?

One last point, I only address because it again shows that you do not seem to have read the withdrawal agreement, nor even a good summary of it:

You say:

"Back-stop," "they agreed to Theresa May's proposals on a NI back stop which they did not want" where and when did this occur? They're not bound legally to respect this so-called back-stop arrangement for any specific period; in other words, what you're calling a "concession" in this instance is a completely optional position which Brussels may revoke at any time; thus, there is no obligation on the part of Brussels to respect this "back-stop" any longer than it may suit them to do. So, again, please explain in what exactly this constitutes a "concession"--since it's entirely non-binding and can be dispensed with unilaterally by Brussels at any time."

The legally binding backstop is legally binding on both parties. Neither, and I repeat *Neither* party may unilaterally revoke the backstop once it has come into force. It is as binding on Brussels as it is on London. That you don't understand this is surprising, considering you would have us believe you have some insight on this issue. That you do not see how uncomfortable the EU were about accepting this arrangement over their preferred solution (a backstop border in the Irish sea) again shows how wrong you were in your statement above.

112proximity1
Modificato: Feb 28, 2019, 5:46 am

>111 sirfurboy:

These are shameless lies on your part :



" (despite the fact I have already provided evidence that refutes that claim by showing several areas where the EU did indeed move)."

" The EU actually offered the UK a range of options, modelled on various existing arrangements." (1)

" forced the EU to enter into an agreement with an Irish backstop arrangement in place until and if the UK's frictionless technological border could be invented and implemented"



I just need one example of the fact that you "DKS"--you can look that up--

You claimed, completely wrongly that:



"The legally binding backstop is legally binding on both parties. Neither, and I repeat *Neither* party may unilaterally revoke the backstop once it has come into force. It is as binding on Brussels as it is on London. "



That is utter bullshit and I cannot explain it coming from you as other than a deliberate fucking lie.

Read this :



Brexit and the Irish border (Wikipedia)


"Wider EU reaction

In April 2017 the European Council agreed that, in the event of a united Ireland, Northern Ireland could rejoin the EU.30

In January 2019, German foreign minister Heiko Maas urged British MPs not to let UK leave the EU without a deal, saying that "some people call us stubborn, but the truth is avoiding a hard border in Ireland is a fundamental concern for the EU, a union that more than anything else serves one purpose – to build and maintain peace in Europe".(31) Nevertheless, the European Commission's chief spokesman Margaritis Schinas stated on 23 January (2019) that it is "obvious" that there would be a hard border were the United Kingdom to leave the EU without a deal."

______________________

Note (31) : Campbell, John (23 January 2019). "No-deal Brexit 'means hard border' ". BBC News. Retrieved 23 January 2019



Clearly, you don't know either how to read or, still less, how to think. SO let me explain the import of that citation above:

The "hard-border" in Ireland is exactly what Prime Minister May has declared to be unacceptable and it is for that reason that the so-called "Back-stop" provision is sought by May.

Does she have that elimination of the hard-border locked down, assured, in writing and irrevocably granted by Brussels, "deal or no-deal" ? FUCK NO, she doesn't--despite your lies about it. If she had that assurance, in writing, YOU COULD HAVE CITED IT VERBATIM HERE. That you didn't do that demonstrates clearly that you're full of shit.

We know that because, "the European Commission's chief spokesman Margaritis Schinas stated on 23 January that it is "obvious" that there would be a hard border were the United Kingdom to leave the EU without a deal."

So many "Remainers" are typified by being one or another combination of goddamn fucking morons and shameless liars.


YOU "DKS". And I've exposed your claims to be the laughable bullshit they are and were all along.

Citing you: "So your claim fails. Completely."

LOL! I'm quite content to let my posts be read and judged for themselves and each reader can determine for himself or herself whose claims fail.

As Exhibit 1 of the "Remain" camp's moral-bankruptcy I offer your participation here. Disgustingly dishonest.

You lied, writing:

"The legally binding backstop is legally binding on both parties. "

Prove that! Cite the text! Let's see it!

You won't because you cannot. There's no such documented proof of your claim.


Bring on the fucking second-round referendum so we can re-confirm that "Leave" means LEAVE!

__________________

(1) Which you don't bother to cite. LOL!

113sirfurboy
Modificato: Feb 28, 2019, 6:22 am

Oh I seem to have riled you. You call me a liar. How disingenuous of you. Also there is no need to resort to swearing. Let's just stick to examining your claims.

Your assertion that I have taken issue with is that the EU:

"from the very start, sought, above all, to exact the maximum possible punishment on Britain--its government and public."

You did not provide evidence for your claim until challenged, and then the only evidence you brought to bear was that the EU did not move on negotiations, despite the fact I had already told you several ways that the EU did move. That you think I was lying about these merely shows how out of touch with the actual Brexit process you are.

I am sorry, but there is really no better way to put this: you really do not seem to understand this issue at all.

Now, as you have been disengenuous enough to call me a liar for something you could have found out for yourself with but a modicum of google-fu, let me help you out (so as to avoid a tit for tat "yes you did/no you didn't"). Here:

It’s worth remembering that the EU has also compromised, particularly around this shared customs territory. That was something that member states didn’t particularly like.

also:

Others are afraid that in the absence of an alternative, the UK would be locked into a customs arrangement, which would constrain its ability to strike other trade agreements. But it is a big compromise on the part of the EU. Many did not expect that to happen.
Chatham House - Expert Comment

You will note that this was one of the areas I drew your attention to.

So again, your claim fails. You claim the EU are punishing us, but all the evidence is otherwise. The EU have negotiated in good faith and given more ground than you give them credit for. There is no punishment. You are just angry because your false claim has been shown for what it is.

You might also want to read the Attorney General's advice, should you be inclined to dismiss the expertise of the Royal Institute of International Affairs:

Attorney General's Legal Advice

*

You also take issue with this from me:

"The legally binding backstop is legally binding on both parties. Neither, and I repeat *Neither* party may unilaterally revoke the backstop once it has come into force. It is as binding on Brussels as it is on London. "

You tell me this is completely wrong. Interestingly the Attorney General disagrees with you. click on the link above and you will find this:

3. The Protocol is part of an international agreement that is binding on the United Kingdom and the European Union in international law and must be performed by them in good faith.

The arrangement requires the EU and the UK both to agree to bring it to an end. Neither can unilaterally revoke it. You might want to read the advice and the relevant sections of the withdrawal agreement before you embarrass yourself further by calling people liars for stating what is clearly set out in the legal text and published legal advice.

I do not know what point you are trying to make about the fact that a united Ireland could rejoin the EU. That rather substantially changes the situation. If there were a border poll under the GFA, and if the result of that poll were for Northern Ireland to leave the UK, then clearly all arrangements regarding the British border in Ireland become moot. There will then be no British border in Ireland. But that is all conjectured on some future border poll. As long as Northern Ireland remains in the union, the legal situation is perfectly clear. Neither the EU nor the UK can unilaterally bring the backstop arrangement to an end. You were wrong to claim that and disingenuous to suggest I was engaging in deliberate dishonesty in pointing this out to you.

*

I ask you again: as you are not in the UK, but are claiming expertise on this topic, and as you are repeating this refuted "punishment" line so adored by certain propagandists, where exactly are you getting your information from? What site or news source is telling you that the EU are trying to punish the UK? Who is claiming that the backstop arrangement is only binding on the UK and not the EU? I am curious as to where all this erroneous information is coming from.

Finally, I would respectfully suggest you have apologies to make. You made a claim that has been thoroughly refuted now, and I think you ought to retract that claim. More importantly, you impugned my integrity by suggesting I was deliberately lying to you. As I have now shown you quite clearly that I was not only being honest, but also that I was right, I suggest an apology is in order.

114proximity1
Modificato: Feb 28, 2019, 8:55 am


EXCLUSIVE: The Evening Standard (London), Wednesday, 27 February 2019


Brussels ‘will insist on delay of up to two years if UK fails to agree a deal” |
By Joe Murphy and Nicholas Cecil—



“Senior ministers believe that the European Union (E.U.) will insist on a Brexit delay of up to two years if Britain fails to agree a deal in the next few weeks.

“Several sources have told the Standard they do not think the sort of ‘short, limited extension’ of Article 50 suggested in the Commons yesterday by Theresa May—pictured today—would be permitted by Brussels.

“Ministers closely involved in Brexit preparations believe the E.U. would probably demand an extension until December 2020, effectively replacing the planned transition period with continued E.U. membership.

“The disadvantage for Britain is that would also delay the start of negotiations on future trade deals and U.K./E.U. relations, which Brussels claims must begin only after the U.K. has left the bloc. ‘Any delay has to be agreed by all 27 E.U. countries which means we cannot stipulate how long it would be,’ said a minister. The E.U. does not want a short delay. It would prefer 21 months, which would mean no future relationship talks until the start of 2021.’

“Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson reportedly raised the issue in yesterday’s stormy Cabinet meeting, warning colleagues that if Britain asks for an extension in a no-deal scenario (if granted) it will be entirely the gift of the E.U. to decide how long it is for.”


... ... ...






____________________________




(The Guardian (London)

Brexit explained
Brexit

Brexit: what is the UK's backstop proposal?

The whole of the UK could remain in the customs union for a time after transition in order to prevent a hard border in Ireland


| by Jon Henley | Thu 7 Jun 2018 18.25 BSTLast modified on Tue 18 Sep 2018 09.39 BST


... ...

Why is a backstop necessary?

Both the UK and the EU are determined to avoid a hard border – physical infrastructure, officials, checks – between Northern Ireland and the republic after Brexit. The government believes the key to doing this is a comprehensive free trade and customs agreement, but the EU fears Theresa May’s red lines of leaving the single market, customs union and ECJ jurisdiction make such a deal unlikely. It also thinks there is no time to conclude one (it could take many, many years) before the transition period ends in December 2020. The government has proposed two customs solutions: a partnership, under which Britain would collect import duties on the EU’s behalf, and a high-tech “max-fac” alternative, but the EU has rejected both as unworkable. So Brussels has insisted the UK sign up to a legally binding “backstop” clause, or fallback option, to ensure there is no hard border.

What did Britain sign up to?

Back in December, the UK agreed that in the absence of any other solution, Northern Ireland would remain in “full alignment” with the EU’s single market and customs union rules in all relevant sectors. But after the DUP’s 11th-hour intervention, it also guaranteed no border in the Irish Sea – sowing the seeds of its current dilemma. The legal text that followed, drawn up by the European commission, stipulated that until a workable solution was found, Northern Ireland would be part of a “common regulatory area ... and customs territory” with the EU to ensure free movement of goods across the Irish border. May dismissed this as unacceptable because it implied creating a customs and regulatory barrier between Northern Ireland and the UK and promised to publish a counter-proposition, which the government has now done.

So what is the UK’s backstop proposal?

In essence, the UK’s proposal is for the whole of the UK to remain in the customs union for a limited period after the end of the transition period – so it would leave the EU in March 2019 and the single market in December 2020, but stay in the customs union for longer. The idea is “to apply a temporary customs arrangement ... between the UK and the EU” that would allow the UK to sign free trade deals with other countries (but not implement the parts of them relating to tariffs, rendering them largely pointless). The proposed UK backstop “will only be in place until the future customs arrangement can be introduced”, which the government “expects” to be the end of December 2021 at the latest.


So is this the answer?

Hardly. First, there is no clarity on who calls time on the backstop and when. This is a problem: pro-Brexit ministers and MPs would like the UK to be able to declare it over unilaterally, so those trade deals can kick in. But the EU (including Ireland) did not agree in December, and is unlikely to agree now, to a time limit that could end with the Irish border problem still unresolved: a temporary backstop is not a backstop. The UK document is therefore a fudge: it tries to set a time limit without actually setting one. But the EU also points out that the UK undertook to maintain full alignment for Northern Ireland with the relevant rules of both the customs union and the single market, and this paper only addresses the former. There is no agreement, either, on whether ECJ jurisdiction will apply during the backstop period. Finally, the EU is unwilling to accept the whole of the UK remaining in the customs union and single market without the obligations of membership.

... ...



BLOOMBERG NEWS

Politics

May Backs Plan to Scrap Brexit Backstop in Struggle for Deal

By Tim Ross , Kitty Donaldson , and Robert Hutton
January 28, 2019, 6:30 PM GMT


Eight days later ...

(Sky News (Britain) | Theresa May says she is 'not proposing' to scrap Brexit backstop

The PM risks causing anger among eurosceptics in her party by saying she is instead seeking changes to the controversial measure. | By Alan McGuinness, political reporter
| Tuesday 5 February 2019 21:10, UK


LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

115proximity1
Modificato: Feb 28, 2019, 8:04 am


>113 sirfurboy:


"More importantly, you impugned my integrity by suggesting I was deliberately lying to you. As I have now shown you quite clearly that I was not only being honest, but also that I was right, I suggest an apology is in order."


Indeed, an apology is in order. You have blatantly misstated, misrepresented and lied about the facts here and you owe this thread's readers in general an apology for that disgusting behaviour. You have "refuted" nothing of my points and your claim to the contrary is as worthless as the rest of the shameless bullshit you post here.

The policy paper you cite ( (.pdf) Policy paper | Exiting the EU: Publication of Legal Advice
Publication of the Attorney General’s legal advice to Cabinet on the Withdrawal Agreement and the Protocol on Ireland/Northern Ireland.
) has no force in law. It is strictly an advisory opinion of the U.K. Attorney General and has no binding effect on any E.U. authority. Not only does the policy paper fail to cite the international agreements which allegedly "bind" the U.K. and the E.U. -- it stops well short of your assertion.

This,



"Both the UK and the EU are under binding international obligations to use their best endeavours to seek an agreement to replace the backstop in full by the end of 2020, using alternative arrangements to ensure permanently that there will be no hard border on the island of Ireland."

... ...

"6. Both the UK and EU have been clear, however, that there is no intention for
the backstop to be used
1. That is why the Withdrawal Agreement commits both
the UK and the EU to use their best endeavours - an obligation with clear
precedents in international law - to supersede it. The Withdrawal Agreement
also provides an option for the Implementation Period to be extended instead;
and makes explicit that the backstop cannot be a permanent arrangement. As
EU leaders have recognised, it would be an uncomfortable outcome for the
European Union: providing quota-free, tariff-free access to the EU market
without any accompanying financial obligations; without any access to UK
fishing waters in the absence of a further agreement; and without any
commitments to align with the majority of so-called level playing field
measures. As such, we fully expect2 that permanent arrangements to avoid a
hard border will be ready by the end of the Implementation Period, meaning
that the backstop would never be required.

"7. We nevertheless recognise that concerns have been raised about the
backstop and what it would mean for Northern Ireland’s relationship with the
rest of the UK, and the role of the Northern Ireland Executive and Assembly.
For this reason the Government remains in discussions with the European
Union about further assurances to address these concerns
3."
______________

(page 3 of 13)



—— means precisely what it says—no less and no more: the parties agree to "use their best efforts" "to seek an agreement."

So fucking what!?!

That can mean virtually anything in effort; whatever, according to each party, the people concerned say suffices to constitute their "best efforts." The E.U. may at any time merely announce that it has made its "best efforts" "to seek an agreement and that, alas, those best efforts were of no avail. End of search for agreement.



(1) & (2): Weasel words, full of mealy-mouthed nonsense and signifying nothing.

(3) According to your claims, there is no basis for these continued discussions "about further assurances to address these concerns" since the parties are under binding terms on each side. That, of course, is your pure sophistry. Discussions seeking "further assurances" means nothing less than that your claims are so much bullshit.

116sirfurboy
Modificato: Feb 28, 2019, 10:03 am

>115 proximity1: "You have blatantly misstated, misrepresented and lied ..."

And off you go again. It is clear you are not going to apologise for these baseless and nasty accusations, but you will understand that my estimation of you is therefore diminished.

This is how rational argument works: you wish to present a proposition for consideration and, hopefully, agreement by others. In order to present your proposition, you place it at the conclusion of an argument, or you assert it with supportive evidence, so that others can evaluate the evidence and reach a judgement on the facts presented. I know you don't like me lecturing you on things, but I feel it is necessary to put that out there, because once again you have made no attempt to defend your assertion that the EU are attempting to punish the UK. Indeed, you don't address or defend that point at all any more, but instead have taken to name calling, swearing and attempts to pull the thread off at tangents.

To be clear, also, if you want to make an accusation that someone has lied, this too requires evidence. You should state the claim I have made that you believe to be counter factual (you have not done so), then you must show that the statement is indeed false (clearly you have not done this either) and finally, to uphold an allegation of dishonesty, such as you have made, you must present evidence that I made the statement in full knowledge that it is false. You did none of this. I presume you just call people liars when you run out of things to say.

Now as to the attorney general's legal advice, I am simply stunned that you would respond to that whilst apparently unaware of what it is you are reading, and having apparently still not actually having read it.

You say it is strictly an "advisory opinion". Indeed, as I said when I posted it, this is the legal advice of the UK attorney general given to the Prime Minister and later published after the UK Government was found in contempt of parliament in refusing to provide the said advice to MPs. The legal advice is not the legally binding withdrawal agreement itself. The withdrawal agreement is the legally binding agreement, and this is the legal advice on that agreement. Legal advice has a very clear definition in English Law, and this is legal advice.

So now we are clear what we are reading, look at paragraph 30:


In conclusion, the current drafting of the Protocol, including Article 19, does not provide for a
mechanism that is likely to enable the UK lawfully to exit the UK wide customs union without
a subsequent agreement. This remains the case even if parties are still negotiating many
years later, and even if the parties believe that talks have clearly broken down and there is no
prospect of a future relationship agreement. The resolution of such a stalemate would have
to be political.


Now don't get confused about the reference to the UK here. This is legal advice to the UK Prime Minister. What this tells you is that the effect of Article 19 is to create a backstop that, despite the wishes of the EU and the UK that it be kept short, would prevent either party from unilaterally exiting the backstop unless there were a superseding agreement between both parties.

So, again, the backstop is legally binding on the EU too. You were wrong to say otherwise, and if you think otherwise, you really should ask a lawyer for their opinion, or at least find some evidence to back up your opinion.

Now you have quoted newspaper articles in a former messages without substantive comment. These don't appear to be relevant. If you think they are relevant, then I have to wonder whether you are really clear on the terminology on this case. You are aware that the withdrawal agreement is *not* the trading relationship with the EU, yes? That trading arrangement gets negotiated in the transition phase. You are aware that the backstop comes into force if the trading arrangements and customs arrangement fail to deliver a friction-less border, yes? If you know these things, I cannot see how those articles are at all relevant.

As for the EU insisting on a longer extension to Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty than 3 months - well yes - and with very good reason. It is not certain they would get their way (after all, we have established they are not seeking to punish the UK), but you are aware, are you not, why a 3 month extension creates a giant elephant trap that hijacks all forms of Brexit and no Brexit and forces them into submission under the pointy heels of Theresa May, no? Because this is Brexit 101. If you don't see why a 3 month extension, without - at least - a People's vote is an attempt by the executive to wrest power from the legislature, then you have missed a really big elephant sitting in the room.

117proximity1
Modificato: Feb 28, 2019, 10:30 am

>116 sirfurboy:

LOL!


" if you want to make an accusation that someone has lied, this too requires evidence. You should state the claim I have made that you believe to be counter factual (you have not done so)," ...
(emphasis added)



>112 proximity1:


>111 sirfurboy:


These (from >111 sirfurboy:) are shameless lies on your part :



" (despite the fact I have already provided evidence that refutes that claim by showing several areas where the EU did indeed move)."

" The EU actually offered the UK a range of options, modelled on various existing arrangements." (1)

" forced the EU to enter into an agreement with an Irish backstop arrangement in place until and if the UK's frictionless technological border could be invented and implemented"



I just need one example of the fact that you "DKS"--you can look that up--

You claimed, completely wrongly that:



"The legally binding backstop is legally binding on both parties. Neither, and I repeat *Neither* party may unilaterally revoke the backstop once it has come into force. It is as binding on Brussels as it is on London. "









__________________________________________________________

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=counterfactual



counterfactual

Dictionary result for counterfactual
/ˌkaʊntəˈfaktʃʊəl/Submit

PHILOSOPHY

adjective
1. relating to or expressing what has not happened or is not the case.

noun
1. a counterfactual conditional statement (e.g. If kangaroos had no tails, they would topple over ).


118sirfurboy
Modificato: Feb 28, 2019, 11:05 am

>117 proximity1: These (from >111 sirfurboy: sirfurboy:) are shameless lies on your part :

The fact that you think so shows:

1. You have still not understood the concept of burden of proof. You may disagree with the statements, but you have presented no evidence that they were dishonestly made, neither have you presented any evidence that they are untrue.
2. That you do not like to use google and do not seem to understand this subject well

Let's deal with all three You say each of these numbered statements is a lie:

1. " (despite the fact I have already provided evidence that refutes that claim by showing several areas where the EU did indeed move)."

You will find my list of several areas where the EU moved in paragraph 8 of message 109. You will find my referral to expert opinion to back up my view in paragraphs 6 and 8 of message 113 that I wrote to you just today. In the light of this very clear evidence right here in this thread, which one of us is being economical with the truth here?

To be clear, to make the above statement a lie you must show that I did NOT provide evidence that the EU did not move. The evidence is in the thread, so the statement is not a lie. Moreover, despite your reversal of the burden of proof, it shows I was able to demonstrate that the EU did not seek to punish the UK. Your claim that the EU did seek to punish the UK was based on nothing more than your assertion that the EU did not move at all in the negotiations. The information I have provided above refutes your assertion. So we are left with no evidence at all that the EU seeks to punish the UK - and yet you do not wish to withdraw the claim (although you have taken to not responding to it, but instead calling me a liar. Hmmm).

2. " The EU actually offered the UK a range of options, modelled on various existing arrangements."

So your claim is I lied when I said this (although you appear ignorant of the fact that quoting me saying this is quoting evidence I gave that the EU were indeed flexible. So to be clear, your point 2 refutes your own point 1 here).

Now to be a lie, I would have had to have dishonestly made up this claim, yes? We agree that is the definition of a lie?

So...oops:

Stairway to Brexit: Barnier maps out UK's Canadian path

Key to this is Michel Barnier's graphic:



In this we see all the options the EU were willing to countenance, and they moved substantially towards another arrangement when the Chequers plan was presented (although note that at this stage, no plan is agreed as this the EU has allowed a fudge on the future relationship so as to allow the Withdrawal agreement to get over the line).

Personally I don't know if the Swiss model was truly on offer. That was the EU's least favourite model because it consists of huge numbers of individual treaties. Still, if the UK had asked for it, something like it would probably have been allowed. As regards all the others, they were all clearly available to the UK. The problem is the UK did not, and still has not made up its mind what it actually wants from Brexit.

But in any case, my statement is clearly not a lie. The EU did indeed offer a range of options modelled on existing arrangements, and that graphic proves it.

3. "... forced the EU to enter into an agreement with an Irish backstop arrangement in place until and if the UK's frictionless technological border could be invented and implemented"

Again, evidence of this claim is in paragraphs 6 and 8 of message 113 and the supporting link to expert opinion. So the claim appears to be true and is certainly not dishonestly made.

So now you have embarrassed yourself. You made a claim which was refuted so you attempted to deflect from this by claiming I was lying and that has now also been refuted.

There is a saying:

When in a hole...

119proximity1
Feb 28, 2019, 11:42 am



When, earlier, I challenged you for documented proof of the claim that the E.U. are under binding obligations toward Britain in any part the terms agreed so far, I believe you referred me to this document:
POLITICAL DECLARATION SETTING OUT THE FRAMEWORK FOR THE FUTURE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE EUROPEAN UNION AND THE
UNITED KINGDOM


which is described here, in the following way:


" the Outline Political Declaration expresses the (non-legally binding) intention to replace the backstop with an agreement which ensures the absence of a hard border on the island of Ireland. To the extent that the Withdrawal Agreement refers to union law, it is to be interpreted in accordance with the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union."



You've amply demonstrated in this thread your complete disregard for and apparent self-exemption from facts and honesty.

Given that, this exchange is now concluded as far as I'm concerned. (Hint: that means that indulging you further is a waste of my time.)

Readers get to sort out which of us is more ridiculous. Let those chips fall where they may. I wouldn't trade places with you.

120sirfurboy
Modificato: Feb 28, 2019, 1:30 pm

Oh did I miss one?

OK let's deal with that. What you actually said was:

'You claimed, completely wrongly that:

"The legally binding backstop is legally binding on both parties. Neither, and I repeat *Neither* party may unilaterally revoke the backstop once it has come into force. It is as binding on Brussels as it is on London. "'


you also described that line from me, in a previous message as follows:

"That is utter bull**** and I cannot explain it coming from you as other than a deliberate ******* lie."

So again you assert that I lied but offer no evidence that I did so. Instead I made a claim which you apparently disagree with, but that I evidenced as above with, for instance, reference to the legal advice from the attorney general. I have fully defended that statement. It is exactly as I said. Let me repeat it, with emphasis for you:

The legally binding backstop is legally binding on both parties. Neither, and I repeat *Neither* party may unilaterally revoke the backstop once it has come into force. It is as binding on Brussels as it is on London.

But look what you now turn around and ask me:

"When, earlier, I challenged you for documented proof of the claim that the E.U. are under binding obligations toward Britain in any part the terms agreed so far..."

Ooh, do you see those goal posts racing over the horizon?

My claim is that the backstop is legally binding on both parties equally when it has come into force. Let us just recap where we are:

1. EU Heads of Government have ratified the withdrawal agreement;
2. The withdrawal agreement has been voted down by the UK parliament, and so cannot, as it stands, come into force on 29 March;
3. If the withdrawal agreement came into force, we would begin the trading relationship negotiation with the EU; and
4. If the trading relationship and solutions for the Irish border fail to deliver a frictionless border, article 19 of the withdrawal agreement could come into force, creating the legally binding backstop.

So those words you just added in: "agreed so far" are really quite loaded. What do you mean by them? EU heads of Government, including Theresa May, signed off on the witdrawal agreement, so you *could* argue that this is agreed, or not - because parliament turned it down. Also, the backstop would not come into force and be legally binding on both sides for years yet. I guess you could say those words mean what you like. But, note they are not in the above. Where you *claim* I lied, those words do not exist. I was quite clear in my statement and the statement was neither a lie nor was it wrong. It is factually correct, as it stands.

Now are you coming out of that hole, or do I have to take your spade away?

121tendring
Mar 1, 2019, 6:01 am

Are you so deluded that you believe that if the EU had advised not to invoke Article 50 that it would not have caused a firestorm in the uk and had the Brexiteers and the Daily Mail suffering apoplexy.

As for equating Germany and/0r the EU with the Third Reich-killed by the EU nil by the Reich about ten million or so.

122proximity1
Mar 1, 2019, 6:49 am


>121 tendring:

Clearly, had the E.U. been amenable to negotiating with Britain without Britain's first having had to formally invoke Article 50, there'd have been a far easier course for all concerned. If that didn't happen it was solely because the E.U. refused to allow it as a possibility.

Britain was put in the position of having to invoke Article 50 in order that any formal "leave"-negotiations might begin. That was a choice which Brussels made from its desire to have Britain "over a barrel" in the negotiations.

I was told the fatuous lie according to which Britain "had plenty of goodwill going forward from many nations. Angela Merkel made it clear from the start that she wanted to reach an accommodation that would limit the damage for all concerned, and all through the negotiations it has been clear that the EU has worked in good faith to reach a deal."

Bull-shit.

______________

I never "equated" "Germany and/0r the EU with the Third Reich."

123sirfurboy
Modificato: Mar 1, 2019, 7:18 am

>122 proximity1: And again you ignore all the evidence in this thread and repeat the accusation of lying. Proximity1: you cannot keep acting this way. You cannot just dismiss rational argument by accusing others, without evidence, of lying. It makes you look ridiculous. It is disingenuous. It is infantile and it is intellectually dishonest.

To your substantive point to tendring: you feel there should have been negotiations before A.50 was invoked. No. that is not the problem. The reason we are where we are at is because the UK had no idea and no agreement about what Brexit should look like before A.50 was invoked. We were not in a position to begin negotiations, because the conservative government could not agree with itself, let alone with the opposition, about what it wanted from Brexit.

A.50 was always under our control, and indeed it was our strongest negotiating point. We could invoke it when we chose. There are various things that should have been done before invocation that did not involve formal negotiation with the EU. Some possibilities:

1. Hold the General Election *before* invocation and not just after it;
2. Reach out to the opposition to attempt to form a cross party consensus on what "leave" should look like; and
3. Create a Royal Commission to produce the UK's preferred Brexit destination.

Get those out of the way and with a clear destination in mind, the UK would have been ready to invoke article 50 (if it still wished to - 2, and 3 would have shown what we can see now - that there is no consensus for *any* form of Brexit). Once we were ready, 2 years would have been plenty of time for the negotiation, which is why A.50 provides that formal negotiating period.

So again, the problem was not that the EU was lacking in good will. The problem is that no one agreed on what the UK wants from Brexit. The problem lies firmly at the UK's door.

124proximity1
Modificato: Mar 1, 2019, 10:43 am

Prime Minister May’s Minister for Agriculture, George Eustice, quit his cabinet post yesterday, Thursday, 28 February, after five years in that post. This is from the London week-day free daily newspaper, City A.M.’s front-page story, “Minister Quits Over Britain’s ‘Humiliation’

While it’s true that Mr. Eustice is unambiguously in favour of Brexit, it’s also true that he has some experience within the government and has a better view on things inside than many of the rest of us.

I’ll let his own words speak for themselves:

In his view, according to City A.M., “the U.K. would suffer a ‘national humiliation’ if it delayed Brexit beyond 29 March” (2019).
From his resignation-letter to the prime minister,



“ ‘I have stuck with the government through a series of rather undignified retreats. However, I fear that the development this week will lead to a sequence of events culminating in the E.U. dictating the terms of any extension requested and the final humiliation of our country. I appreciate that you (the prime minister) have been terribly undermined by those in parliament who refuse to respect the referendum result.”


… referring to “the E.U.”, Eustice wrote that


“They have deliberately made progress slow and difficult.”


__________________________



(full text of the resignation-letter / from the website of City A.M.)
__________________________________________________

Dear Prime Minister,

It is with tremendous sadness that I have decided to resign from the government following the decision this week to allow the postponement of our exit from the EU. Since Parliament is now in direct control of events, I want to be free to participate in the critical debate that will take place in the weeks ahead.

It has been an honour to work alongside so many talented individuals at Defra over the past five years. Defra has phenomenal expertise and, more than any other government department, has embraced the opportunities posed by our exit from the EU. I have particularly welcomed the chance to craft two new Bills on farming and fisheries, which are the first for half a century, as we have prepared the ground to restore self-government in this country.

I will vote for your Withdrawal Agreement when it returns to the House and I very much hope that the Attorney General succeeds in securing final changes so that others might too. Although I campaigned to leave, I have always supported compromise to achieve a reconciliation in our country. Leaving the EU would represent an historic change and it is natural that some people will feel apprehensive. I have been open to the idea of using our existing membership of the EEA as an exit mechanism and I supported your approach outlined at Chequers when others did not. I have stuck with the government through a series of rather undignified retreats. However, I fear that developments this week will lead to a sequence of events culminating in the EU dictating the terms of any extension requested and the final humiliation of our country.

I appreciate that you have been terribly undermined by those in Parliament who refuse to respect the referendum result. You have shown tenacity and resilience over the past year. However, what our country needs from all its political leaders at this critical juncture is courage, and we are about to find out whether Parliament has it.

As a Defra Minister, I have enjoyed good relations with the European Commission and with Ministers from other member states. However, I do not believe that the Commission has behaved honourably during these negotiations. They have deliberately made progress slow and difficult. They have stated in terms that they will refuse to even hold substantive negotiations on a future partnership until after we leave. If the position of Parliament is now that we will refuse to leave without an agreement then we are somewhat stuck. This is uncomfortable for everyone, but we cannot negotiate a successful Brexit unless we are prepared to walk through the door.

We must therefore have the courage, if necessary, to reclaim our freedom first and talk afterwards. We must be ready to face down the European Union here and now. The absence of an agreement poses risks and costs for them too. We already know that in the event of "no deal" the EU will seek an informal transition period for nine months in many areas and settlement talks could continue within this window.

I will do what I can from the back benches to try to salvage this sorry situation and I hope that, when the moment comes, Parliament will not let our country down.
_______________________

(emphasis added)



City A.M. : "Eustice is the 24th person to quit as a minister or secretary of state since May became Prime Minster in July 2016"

125sirfurboy
Mar 1, 2019, 10:17 am

Not sure why you post whole articles without comment, but I note that he may say a delay of Brexit would be a national humiliation, but, in fact, he knows full well that a delay has been inevitable for some time. The simple fact of the matter is that there is not enough parliamentary time to enact legislation required for Brexit on 29 March and that has been true since the start of January. Even a no deal Brexit requires parliamentary time.

The question is not whether the UK will ask for an extension, but what would be the effect of not having an extension. The answer to that can be summed up in one word. "Chaos".

Now this person knows the reality, so what is behind what he says now? Why would a politician, who knows that delay is inevitable, resign at this stage and say delay would be a humiliation? What could possibly be his motive I wonder?

126sirfurboy
Mar 1, 2019, 12:58 pm

Spot on.

127MyopicBookworm
Mar 4, 2019, 5:13 am

I'm just hanging on in the hope that the No Deal Brexit will destroy the Conservative party.

128tendring
Mar 4, 2019, 6:19 am

Brexiteers-we will do marvellous trade deals with everybody including the US'

Reality-a trade deal with the US that lessens environmental food protection and apparently prevents us trading with other countries if the US says so. Bring on more great deals after Brexit.

It is almost criminal that we are in this position because of a totally inept politician who only called a referendum to prevent Brexit Tories from joining UKIP or losing seats to them at the next election. He and his equally Party led successor are the worst leaders since Ramsey Macdonald.

129proximity1
Mar 4, 2019, 6:54 am



>128 tendring:

You could always defect to North Korea— where all life's troubles: vexing questions, decisions to make about public policy in a "free society" (LOL!)— are taken care of for you.

130pokarekareana
Mar 4, 2019, 9:06 am

Not only are the present government entirely inept, we can't get rid of them. In any other situation, the government would have fallen by now but we cannot afford for that to happen now.

I look forward to having chlorine-rinsed chicken for dinner on 30th March.

131Cynfelyn
Mar 4, 2019, 12:24 pm

>130 pokarekareana: Something like this?


From the pen of Chris Riddell.

132sirfurboy
Modificato: Mar 5, 2019, 10:10 am

An interesting interview in Le Monde today with Nicola Sturgeon:

https://www.lemonde.fr/international/article/2019/02/20/nicola-sturgeon-l-ecosse...

Some highlights relevant to our discussion here are below. Firstly, I mentioned that the withdrawal agreement is currently giving us something of a "blind Brexit" above, and was asked what that meant. Nicola Sturgeon answers that under the question: "Attendre le dernier moment pour faire voter l'accord, est-ce la bonne stratégie ?" (that is: "Waiting until the last moment to vote the agreement, is this the right strategy?").

I will post my translation rather than copy and pasting all the French into this thread. She says:


It's a push to call that a strategy. It is rather an act of despair. The Prime Minister has kicked all the other options into touch. I recognise that from a European point of view, this is the best deal we could hope for, given the stated red lines. But that remains a very bad deal for the UK.

Mrs. May's deal was rejected and, instead of changing her approach, she decided to play down the clock, hoping people would panic as the likelihood of a "no deal" increases. It is a high-risk strategy that has no guarantee of success. And even if it succeeds, this solution will exclude the United Kingdom from the EU, the single market, the customs union, but gives no clarity on the future relationship.


Another relevant section is where she is asked: "Estimez-vous que l'Union européenne s'est parfois -montrée arrogante durant les négociations ?", that is: "Do you think that the European Union has sometimes been arrogant during the negotiations?"

The First Minister says:

There are many areas where you can criticize the EU - even if I am a Pro-European - but it would be unfair to blame it for the state of disorder in which the United Kingdom is today. This is the result of how the UK government has managed, or not managed, the process. The EU has been reasonable and patient. It went as far as possible to get a proper deal.

She also talks about Scottish independence, not giving any firm ideas about when she might call a referendum, but reading between the lines, she clearly suggests that an early independence vote is likely to be called unless Brexit is reversed.

133proximity1
Modificato: Mar 5, 2019, 11:43 am


>132 sirfurboy:

Your translation of French leaves much to be desired.

"Attendre le dernier moment pour faire voter l'accord, est-ce la bonne stratégie ?"

is better rendered in English as

"Waiting till the last moment in order to gain the passage (i.e. by default of any other possibility) of the (P.M. May) withdrawal agreement, is this the right strategy?"

rather than your version,

"Waiting until the last moment to vote the agreement, is this the right strategy?"

which fails to adequately convey the aspect of being coerced by the clock's having been run down.

I'll read the original French for myself, "thank you."

134sirfurboy
Mar 5, 2019, 3:38 pm

Handbags at dawn!

I was fully aware that you can read the French, as you already told us you lived in Paris a lot longer than you ever lived in Britain. I posted in English because that is the forum language.

As to the merits or otherwise of the translation, I simply note that you added a bunch of words in there that were not in the original. *shrugs*.

135proximity1
Modificato: Mar 6, 2019, 5:29 am

>134 sirfurboy:

LOL!

Yeah!, Gee whiz! ("Ouai!, Ça alors!"*) Ooooh, I added (some English) words (which you didn't bother to add). In this case, it was to make the obvious intent of the original phrase as clear as possible . Literal, word-for-word, (a.k.a. "verbatim") translations are seldom as faithful to the original in a translation.

That is what competent translators do. You show once more how and why your views are ridiculous.

______________________

* Caveat lector: Not a verbatim translation. ;^)

136sirfurboy
Modificato: Mar 6, 2019, 6:49 am

And that is how this became alt.nitpick.frenchpod101.

Sorry, I don't see how your translation improved things. Like so much of what you write, it just seemed to muddy the waters. I apologise if "Waiting until the last moment to vote the agreement, is this the right strategy?" is so unintelligible to you though. Perhaps "Waiting until the last moment to vote through the agreement, is this the right strategy?" would be better, but then I forgot that I was writing in a forum where someone has the habit of ignoring the substantive issue and attempting to derail the discussion with pointless tangents.

The article in le Monde is interesting, not because it highlights some intricacy of French grammar, but because of what the Scottish First Minister has to say about the miserable blind Brexit that the Prime Minister is seeking to impose upon us all, and her view that the EU have been very reasonable in negotiations.

*

To move the discussion on, I would note Robert Peston has pointed out the (as usual) amazing constitutional implications of next week's votes.

Peston says he cannot find any Minister of the Crown who actually believes that (a) the attorney General will come back with any meaningful change to the backstop proposals, and (b) that the withdrawal agreement will therefore be voted through on the 12th. It seems inevitable that it will fail.

In the light of this, there is the vote on the 13th, about whether parliament will sanction a no deal exit on 29 March. This, with even more certainty, will fail. This leads to the constitutional dilemma. What will May tell her party to do?

Her options are:

1. Whip her MPs. In this case, as many as 20 of her Ministers will resign from her revolving door cabinet. This is the kind of mishap that, to coin a phrase, looks rather more like carelessness. Or to put it another way - in what period in British history can we find a government in such a state of disintegration where there was no ensuing general election? She will still lose the vote despite the whip.

2. Allow a free vote but vote for no deal exit. This will place her firmly in a minority in parliament.It may seem a good bet, but again, how can she vote for something she so clearly does not believe in, and find herself on the losing side of the vote, and yet seek to continue in government? It basically destroys any pretense that the government is in control of the process.

3. Allow a free vote and she will herself vote to rule out no deal. This firmly destroys forever her own lines that "no deal is better than a bad deal" and, indeed, that we will leave the EU on 29 March (something she has said 100 times). It is basically a mammoth U turn, and yet it is the only option she has that doesn't put her on the losing side of yet another historic question.

What will she do? Peston points out that no-one knows. Not even her closest ministers know. She does not tell anyone. This is extraordinary, but we have no idea what she will do.

My own view: she has quite a penchant for major policy U turns and then pretending that this was her intention all along. I suspect she will go with 3... or maybe she will abstain (which would be seen as cowardly I think). But like everyone else, I don't know.

Another possibility, and in line with her general contempt for parliament, would be for her to seek to avoid the 13 March vote altogether. How she would do that is not clear, but she may try it.

13 March will be interesting.

137proximity1
Modificato: Mar 6, 2019, 11:17 am

>134 sirfurboy: >136 sirfurboy:

Typical bullshit from you.

The whole point of a translation is to represent the genuine intent of the original text's author as that is revealed in his words. "Nit-picking"? No. Translation in a clear and reliably-correct manner.

"Attendre le dernier moment pour faire voter l'accord, est-ce la bonne stratégie?"

cannot be fairly and correctly translated into English other than by making it clear that "faire voter l'accord" means, in effect, "to pass (adopt, approve, assent to,) the (Withdrawal) agreement."

But, 'oddly' in your translation, "Waiting until the last moment to vote the agreement, is this the right strategy?" leaves the key import of "to vote the agreement" ambiguous because it's not clear whether "vot(ing) the agreement" results in its passage (approval) or its rejection.

If that sort of detail is, for you, a matter of "nit-picking", then really, again, you show us that you neither know much nor care much about getting translations correct. Your readers deserve to be alerted to that.

BTW,

more translation nonsense from you, here:

(Nicola Sturgeon is speaking)

" Je reconnais que d’un point de vue européen, c’est le meilleur accord qu’on pouvait espérer, étant donné les lignes rouges connues."

"I understand (literally, I recognize) that from a European point of view, this is the best deal (agreement) that could be hoped for, given the known 'Red lines'."

"qu’on pouvait espérer"

can be translated, variously,

"that might be hoped for..."

"that you could hope for..."

"that could be hoped for..."

"that one could hope for..."

or, finally,

"that we could (or 'might') hope for".

But, given the context, and following the phrase, ..."que d’un point de vue européen," ("that from a European point of view" (emphasis added)) the least likely, least good version is indeed your chosen version,

"that we could (or 'might') hope for"

since, rather obviously, Nicola Sturgeon, being Scottish, would not have intended to suggest that "from a European point of view" the deal is the best "that we (Scottish? No!, British? No! you, Europeans could hope for"...) As, indeed, it is their, (the Europeans') veritable dream-come-true as a "deal" at the same time as it is, according to the same Scottish Nicola Sturgeon,


("Mais cela reste" ("But it remains"))

"un très mauvais accord pour le Royaume-Uni."

"a very bad deal for the United Kingdom."


_____________________

Leave translations of French into English (on matters of controversy in which you have a partisan position) to others. You're not competent at it.

138sirfurboy
Modificato: Mar 6, 2019, 10:47 am

>137 proximity1: This is opaque even by your standards.

It is also off topic of Brexit. Again you ignore all the substance and nitpick the French. Look, you ignore where I say: 'perhaps "Waiting until the last moment to vote through the agreement, is this the right strategy?" would be better', and then say exactly the same thing, and frankly there cannot have been much doubt about what was meant. I knocked out a quick translation in a few minutes before lunch. I did not expect it to be approved by the Académie française. But see, you don't like the contents of the article so instead you decided to spend several messages trying to talk about the French rather than about the subject of the conversation. Shall we also start criticising our English usage? As I said before, "handbags at dawn?"

The rest of your message left me scratching my head as to what you were complaining about, but on reflection I decided it was probably not worth following up. \ETA: no, actually, I got it eventually. You think I should have translated on as one and not we. Yes, I agree. I thought the very same thing as I walked to town after writing my translation. I shrugged and thought, 'well it is not like anyone would be so anal as to complain about that.' I had forgotten about it by the time I returned. If you intended to say anything else in that message of yours, it is lost on me. But I am not the first to comment that your style is extremely hard to follow. \

*

In Le Monde today there is an article all about the European Banking Authority moving to France. It also has something I was not aware of in that article, about the lease on the European Medicines Agency that the UK is also losing. In that case, it seems the EMA had a long lease they cannot terminate on their offices, but the EBA lease is shorter so less of a problem. Also a greater number of their staff are transferring with the move than with the EMA.

139sirfurboy
Mar 6, 2019, 11:01 am

As expected (see message 136), the EU say there has been no breakthrough on the backstop:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-47470382

It seems inconceivable that May's deal could get through the commons now.

140proximity1
Modificato: Mar 6, 2019, 11:15 am

>138 sirfurboy:

RE your, "As I said before, 'handbags at dawn?'"

Right, you did post that before. And it's just as stupid, just as dismissive, just as beside-the-point, just as much a feckless dodge the second time.

Who needs dawn? My objective is to direct giant klieg-lights



on the absurd stuff you post and try to get away with here.

142sirfurboy
Modificato: Mar 6, 2019, 4:59 pm



I checked the facts here to make sure that population size was adequately accounted for. In most recent years the number of salmonella deaths in the UK has been 0. See stats for 2007-2016. There is a news report of 1 death in 2018.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attac...

EU food safety really is better.

143sirfurboy
Mar 8, 2019, 5:04 am

Robert Peston has just posted the following on social media. His analysis has been sound thus far, and as this is not an article published in a news outlet, I will post it here. For non UK based readers, "Today" is a news and current affairs programme on Radio 4.

*

The foreign secretary on Today has reinforced the Prime Minister’s Grimsby warning that if she loses the meaningful vote on Tuesday it will be the EU’s fault.

Hunt warns EU leaders to take care the impasse “doesn’t inject poison into our relations for many years to come” and warns that if the EU doesn’t make further backstop concessions “people will say the EU got this moment wrong”.

This is a million miles from how EU leaders see the state of negotiations. According to source they believe the “EU has already made its choice to be as helpful as possible on giving legally binding reassurances that the backstop will apply only for as long as necessary”.

It has “submitted various ideas to the UK’s attention this week to clarify issues and reinforce mechanisms to give reassurances that the UK-requested single customs territory or the backstop more generally is not ‘a trap’, but such reassurances are always consistent with the agreed Withdrawal Agreement”.

The EU “also offered ideas for how to work on alternative arrangements during the transition. And signalled a willingness to rework the Political Declaration”.

To translate this, the EU sees itself not as intransigent but as being as flexible as it can be, subject to not opening the Withdrawal Agreement, to get the deal over the line, including changing the parameters of the Political Declaration on the future relationship to make it more attractive to MPs in all parties.

So EU leaders would argue intransigence is on the side of May and her Attorney General Cox.

And as I said last night they won’t respond well to the PM playing the blame game, especially before her latest moment of truth.

PS In response to what I’ve just written, a member of the cabinet tells me - of EU negotiators - “when we are clear what’s needed to get this over the line, if they choose not to give that, they are choosing to fail”.

So there you have it, nutshelled.

The PM is now dug in to a trench that says it is the EU that wishes to blow up Brexit by not doing as she says.

But the EU would argue that 1) they don’t really know what the PM wants and 2) even if they did they are not persuaded she is right that their capitulation would in fact see her deal ratified by MPs on Tuesday.

We are almost at our destination: Brexit deal, PM, government all in that Italian-Job bus, hanging over the cliff edge.

PPS A senior Tory has just telephoned me to remind me:

1) when the Withdrawal Agreement was signed at the end of last year the PM lauded the reworked backstop as a great British victory - so today Theresa May is attacking the EU for allowing her to trounce them back in the autumn!

2) The PM has consistently chanted the mantra that “there is no Brexit deal without a backstop” - and she knows that a backstop is not a backstop if one or other side can unilaterally withdraw from it, although that is what she says she wants now.

144tendring
Mar 8, 2019, 6:07 am

It is not choosing to fail if in a disagreement one party adopts one line 27 others adopt a different line and won't change and expects the singleton to accept it. It is something called democracy.

I see that one of our contributors is reduced to criticising translations. Presumably he has accepted his views on Brexit ae wrong.

145sirfurboy
Modificato: Mar 8, 2019, 6:31 am

>144 tendring: Yes, I agree, and I think Robert Peston does too, but he is reporting faithfully what he is told.

The ludicrous situation we are in can be summarised thus:

1. The UK succesfully negotiated a backstop quite different to what the EU had proposed (a customs border in the Irish sea as a backstop). This was hailed as a triumph by the PM and was a clear sign of the EU's good faith in negotiations.

2. MPs rejected May's plan in the largest defeat ever inflicted on a government bill.

3. Theresa May then whipped MPs to support an amendment that basically said "reject the PMs deal and demand renegotiation." This in itself was a totally unprecedented U turn. The government whipped their own party to defeat and change a government bill.

4. After more prevarication, the UK Government finally presented a proposal (on 26 February) to the EU that would essentially have asked them to give up control of their own internal market. Michel Barnier did not take too long to realise that this could never be acceptable. However he offered the UK government four different ways that the EU could make statements to reassure, in legal language, that the EU would not retain the backstop any longer than necessary and would wish for its earliest end. The EU said that they would work all weekend on any "new proposal", and the clear implication was that the UK could choose any of the alternatives presented and run with it so as to give the UK something to come back with on Monday to say "look, here, we told you the EU would back down at the last minute".

5. Government ministers, knowing that *nothing* will satisfy the ERG, appear to have given up on the face saving strategy the EU offered them, and instead have themselves chosen to fail whilst starting the blame game to try to make their own failure look like EU intransigence.

As regards our friend, the nitpicker, I agree with you there too. It is notable that whenever a point he makes is refuted in full and with references, he never acknowledges his error but seeks to shift the topic to something else. But then, he already went full Trump earlier in the thread, so we should not be surprised by his following that play from the Trump playbook.

Look carefully at what gets omitted from his messages. It is very telling.

"He who controls the present, controls the past."

146proximity1
Mar 8, 2019, 9:59 am


>144 tendring:

You're "reduced to" posting and presuming nonsense.

147Jargoneer
Mar 12, 2019, 10:20 am

The DUP have just announced they won't back May's deal until the govt admits that evolution is lie, that dinosaurs and mankind did walk the Earth together, and that our ancestors weren't apes but looked like Raquel Welch in that docu-drama, "One Million Years B.C.".

148sirfurboy
Mar 12, 2019, 10:25 am

>147 Jargoneer: Lol! And it is not even April 1. :)

149sirfurboy
Modificato: Mar 12, 2019, 10:31 am

>145 sirfurboy: Quoting myself here:

"However \Michel Barnier\ offered the UK government four different ways that the EU could make statements to reassure, in legal language, that the EU would not retain the backstop any longer than necessary and would wish for its earliest end. The EU said that they would work all weekend on any "new proposal", and the clear implication was that the UK could choose any of the alternatives presented and run with it so as to give the UK something to come back with on Monday to say "look, here, we told you the EU would back down at the last minute"."

OK so in this case "last minute" meant Monday night, but so far it is all following the script. Next we should see the government losing the vote today. They won't win it, but any uncertainty will be over whether they somehow pull the vote to edge us ever closer to 29 March to try to ram their proposals down everyone's throats.

150sirfurboy
Modificato: Mar 12, 2019, 10:49 am

Another interesting article in Le Monde.

https://www.lemonde.fr/international/article/2019/03/11/brexit-la-semaine-de-la-...

The analysis is good but not greatly different to what you see in English language media, but there is this paragraph (referring to Geoffrey Cox's hamfisted interventions):


Ses tentatives pour revenir sur des points déjà tranchés au cours de deux années de bras de fer, comme l’impossibilité pour Londres de sortir unilatéralement du « backstop », ont exaspéré l’équipe de Bruxelles chargée du divorce avec le Royaume-Uni, y compris le très diplomate Michel Barnier. « Michel Barnier disait qu’il avait rarement vu quelqu’un d’aussi arrogant et condescendant, apportant des idées qu’il croyait nouvelles alors qu’elles avaient déjà été écartées pendant les négociations », témoigne un haut responsable européen.


Cox's attempts to revisit issues already discussed and discounted over the last two years so exasperated the Brussels team that the usually extremely courteous and diplomatic Michel Barnier gave vent to to his frustrations. The quote (from a senior official) in the second half of the paragraph reads:

"Michel Barnier said he had rarely seen someone so arrogant and condescending, raising ideas he believed new when they had already been dismissed during negotiations."

Also in Le Monde's M magazine this week, a funny article about Chris Grayling and how much government money he has wasted.

151Jargoneer
Mar 12, 2019, 3:40 pm

A defeat by a mere 149. If May tries another couple of times she could get it under 100. (Strange how it is OK for her to keep putting her plan to MPs but it is wrong to give the general public another vote).

152proximity1
Mar 13, 2019, 7:23 am


>151 Jargoneer:

Here are some serious questions for you to disingenuously dodge:

1) How many "people's votes" are we to have? How many do you want? Just enough so that your view prevails in the "ultimate vote"?-- "ultimate" to be defined, ex post facto as "the vote in which 'Remain' prevails"?

2) If a second popular referendum is held, are you going to allow a simple " 'in' or 'out' " choice as was first placed before voters?

3) Or is it your intention that the second-round (LOL!) ballot offer only a "cholce" between May's 'plan' or "remain"?

Do you recognize just how shitty and back-stabbing a turn the ploy described in No. 3, above, is?

4) If you did muster the decency and honesty to allow a genuine re-run of the 2016 referendum and your view again lost would you state here, in advance, that with such an outcome as this, you would and others clamoring for a 'people's vote' would at last shut the fuck up and respect voters' clearly shown preferences?

Since there's not a chance in hell that readers here are going to get straight and honest answers to these questions, I'll tell them the truthful answers as follows:

1) as many votes as needed to get a "remain" victory--and no more.


2) No.

3) The re-run should poll voters on their choice between remaining in the E.U. or endorsing May's deal with Brussels--which is Brussels' deal imposed on May and on Britain.

4) We'll know when voters have correctly understood the issues when they freely vote the right way: to remain in the E.U.

153sirfurboy
Modificato: Mar 13, 2019, 8:19 am

>152 proximity1: You have exceedingly low expectations from your readers if you think they cannot provide straight answers to these questions. Here are the answers:


1) How many "people's votes" are we to have? How many do you want? Just enough so that your view prevails in the "ultimate vote"?-- "ultimate" to be defined, ex post facto as "the vote in which 'Remain' prevails"?


There should be one referendum on the withdrawal deal. This is the first referendum to put a definite choice to the electorate. Would you like this deal outside the EU or would you now prefer to stay.

Note that it is inaccurate to speak of this as a second referendum. It would be the third European referendum, but the first and only referendum on the withdrawal deal on offer.


2) If a second popular referendum is held, are you going to allow a simple " 'in' or 'out' " choice as was first placed before voters?


"In" and "out" are not the choices because it is not a re-run of the in/out referendum. This is a referendum on a fully described destination, so the available choices are:

1. Leave on May's withdrawal deal (that has been rejected by Parliament)
2. Leave on No Deal (which will be rejected by parliament later today)
3. Remain

A fourth option would appear to be to leave on some other deal, but for that to happen we would need to withdraw article 50, decide the destination first (ideally through a Royal Commission) and then decide in the future whether to pursue that, so remain does not mean remain forever. It means remain unless and until an acceptable destination outside the EU can command majority support from the country. because, you know, democracy.

Now there is a problem, and it will be a problem for parliament and the electoral commission to resolve. The UK is not very good at referenda, and we never had a 3 way question before. It is possible we would have all 3 choices on the ballot paper, but it is more likely that parliament would decide that leaving without a deal is simply unacceptable, and so the choice should be between 1 and 3. Others will argue that as May's deal has been rejected twice, it should be between 2 and 3. However, No Deal will similarly be rejected again today, so I think it is probably to be 1 and 3.

That is my reading of the situation, but not my choice. I would go with the 3 way vote, using AV. I don't think that will happen though.

As I say, it is for our sovereign parliament to decide on the question to be put in such a consultation.


3) Or is it your intention that the second-round (LOL!) ballot offer only a "cholce" between May's 'plan' or "remain"?


See above.


4) If you did muster the decency and honesty to allow a genuine re-run of the 2016 referendum and your view again lost would you state here, in advance, that with such an outcome as this, you would and others clamoring for a 'people's vote' would at last shut ... up and respect voters' clearly shown preferences?


It is not a re-run of the 2016 referendum (see above).

There is no doubt that people would have to abide by such a confirmatory referendum. There would be no second confirmatory referendum. If a vote for, say, May's deal won, then we would have May's deal. We would leave the EU, and then we will begin the Brexit negotiations with the EU over the future relationship. We will spend at least 5 years more on that, and the rest of my working life and beyond on recreating trade deals.

At some point down the road I would expect that we would have a vote to rejoin the EU. This could not happen any time soon - it would be many years away - but just as the 1975 referendum was superseded by the 2016 referendum, I don't expect the answer to be put to bed whether we are in or out. Do you?

154PossMan
Mar 13, 2019, 8:49 am

Just saw Nigel Farage speaking to the EU Parliament telling them that when (he didn't seem to think it was "if") the UK came begging for an extension the EU side should just refuse. Otherwise they might have to put up with him and his like for another 4 years.

155Jargoneer
Mar 13, 2019, 9:02 am

>152 proximity1: - what is your alternative? After tonight May's deal will be (un)dead and the option of a No Deal will be off the table. How long does A50 get extended for? 3 months? 2 years? 10 years? No party is going take the country out on a No Deal scenario and no party is going to cancel Brexit. So the options appear to be either table May's deal again and again until it passes or ask the general public again, the vote being a straight No Deal or Remain.
If I was a Brexiteer I'd want the second vote sooner than later because Leavers are dying while Remainers are bolstered by young people being able to vote. In a couple of years time demographic change will probably make staying a certainty.

156proximity1
Modificato: Mar 13, 2019, 9:34 am

>155 Jargoneer:



No-deal Brexit still possible even if MPs vote against it – ERG |
Eurosceptic Tories say risk of softer Brexit higher after Tuesday’s vote, but leaving with no deal more likely
| Tue 12 Mar 2019 21.06 GMT (Last modified on Wed 13 Mar 2019 06.59 GMT)



...

Eurosceptic Conservatives have insisted they could still force a no-deal Brexit even if the House of Commons votes on Wednesday against crashing out of the EU without a deal.

Jacob Rees-Mogg, chair of the European Research Group (ERG), said it was a “serious point” that the risk of a softer Brexit or a second referendum may have increased after the deal’s defeat, but he believed most MPs considered a no-deal exit more likely.

He said the European commission president Jean-Claude Juncker “has said there will be no more negotiations so I think our expectations are that we will leave without a deal”.

Steve Baker, the former Brexit minister who is the ERG’s chief organiser, announced late on Tuesday that he and others would attempt to force a so-called “managed no deal” in the Commons on Wednesday, when MPs will have a free vote on whether the UK should leave with no agreement.

In a late-night amendment signed by the former remainers Nicky Morgan and Damian Green, Baker proposed a 21-month transition to no deal, an idea that the EU’s chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, has explicitly rejected.

Baker said he and others would not be “bullied” by the threat of no Brexit or a softer deal. “It is the worst conceivable reason to vote for a terrible deal to say that if we don’t vote for this deal, which betrays the public vote, then parliament will betray the public vote to a worse degree,” he said. “This is a mad argument. I am not going to allow my conduct to be determined by fear.” ... ...

____________________________





---> 21-month "transition" to 'no-deal' !?

British politics are a grossly-insulting and humiliating farce.

"what is your alternative?"

Leave without delay with no deal. Period.

The so-called "crash-out" of the E.U. membership, part of the shit-eating propagandists' effort to smear "leave" per se by tagging it with a loaded misnomer, "Crash out".

This is my alternative: RESPECT the referendum, NOW! And declare that, OPENLY, CLEARLY! Goddamn it!

No more delays, No more fucking phony 'negotiations,' no more BULLSHIT from Tories and false-Labour Party morons.

RE: ... "Remainers are bolstered by young people being able to vote. In a couple of years time demographic change will probably make staying a certainty." ...

LOL! You have no fucking idea!

On the contrary, as British young people get a better understanding that their futures (ESP. in the E.U.) have been sold off to an illusory "gig economy", that they've been "Uber-ized", their fury is going to sweep everything in its path. I hope you're there for that whirlwind -- for you've helped to sow it.

These young people are going to curse and damn the likes of you, for generations to come.

157Jargoneer
Modificato: Mar 13, 2019, 10:34 am

>156 proximity1: These young people are going to curse and damn the likes of you, for generations to come. I think you'll find they already think that of you. More than 70% of people under 25 voted to Remain. They see Leavers as old codgers on their death-bed who are so bitter and self-obsessed that they want to ruin their futures just for the spite of it. To put it bluntly, they don't see the EU as the enemy, you are the enemy.

158sirfurboy
Modificato: Mar 13, 2019, 10:43 am

>156 proximity1: You wrote:

"what is your alternative?"

Leave without delay with no deal. Period.


This is simply not an alternative, regardless of how loudly people declare their support for it. The fact people think leaving without a deal is somehow the simple option is an example of the Dunning–Kruger effect. They underestimate the complexity of a subject because they do not understand the subject.

Talk today is of how we will create a massive customs back door by not imposing border checks in NI in the event of no deal. The thing the coverage is lacking (as usual) is the in depth analysis that would have told you that the government always had no choice on that. The UK government cannot impose border checks on the British border in Ireland, because to do so would be illegal.

And there is part of the problem. Simply walking away, as so many ill informed people keep suggesting, is not possible because it is illegal. It will lead to several legal challenges, which will be successful.

And that does not begin to cover the mayhem of a chaotic exit, much of which has been widely discussed but the majority of which is only really known within those areas specifically working on them.

But in any case, Jargoneer asked you what the alternative is in the light of the fact that the sovereign parliament of the UK is about to rule out no deal?

Consider:

"- Welcome to McDonalds, what can I get you?

"- I'll have a milk shake.

"- I am sorry, we have no milk shakes. What alternative will you have?

"- OK then, I will have a milk shake."

It does not really answer Jargoneer's question, when he asks what alternative you have to the current impasse to simply re-iterate your preferred ruled out option. You see that?

159sirfurboy
Mar 13, 2019, 10:47 am

>157 Jargoneer: Depending on how you crunch the numbers, we are now at or very close to the point where more people alive in the UK today voted remain than voted leave.

160Jargoneer
Modificato: Mar 13, 2019, 10:58 am

>158 sirfurboy: - listening to the radio phone-ins following the vote last night every Leave voter said the same thing in answer to every question "Leave means Leave" or "Brexit means Brexit". The idea that the world is more complex than a simple slogan appears to be beyond their grasp. It's only a matter of time before this behaviour is medically classified as "Brexitourettes".

161proximity1
Mar 13, 2019, 2:09 pm



>151 Jargoneer:

In >152 proximity1: I posed "some serious questions for you" and predicted that you'd disingenuously dodge them.

And you did exactly that.

162Jargoneer
Mar 13, 2019, 2:43 pm

>161 proximity1: - I said one public vote - No Deal or Remain. Winner takes all. My only caveat is that if we leave with no deal and the economy tanks leave voters should pay more tax to make up the shortfall in govt revenue.

163proximity1
Modificato: Mar 13, 2019, 3:13 pm


>162 Jargoneer:

" I said one public vote - No Deal or Remain. Winner takes all. My only caveat is that if we leave with no deal and the economy tanks leave voters should pay more tax to make up the shortfall in govt revenue."

I don't see where you'd replied with that. So, no, you didn't say any of that since I asked my questions. Do you just make this stuff up?

__________

Here's your post >155 Jargoneer: in its entirety:

"what is your alternative? After tonight May's deal will be (un)dead and the option of a No Deal will be off the table. How long does A50 get extended for? 3 months? 2 years? 10 years? No party is going take the country out on a No Deal scenario and no party is going to cancel Brexit. So the options appear to be either table May's deal again and again until it passes or ask the general public again, the vote being a straight No Deal or Remain.

"If I was a Brexiteer I'd want the second vote sooner than later because Leavers are dying while Remainers are bolstered by young people being able to vote. In a couple of years time demographic change will probably make staying a certainty."

Nothing there in answer to my questions.

_________________

Here's your post >157 Jargoneer: in its entirety :

"These young people are going to curse and damn the likes of you, for generations to come. I think you'll find they already think that of you. More than 70% of people under 25 voted to Remain. They see Leavers as old codgers on their death-bed who are so bitter and self-obsessed that they want to ruin their futures just for the spite of it. To put it bluntly, they don't see the EU as the enemy, you are the enemy."

Nothing there in answer to my questions.

___________________________

your insulting post >160 Jargoneer: in its entirety:

" listening to the radio phone-ins following the vote last night every Leave voter said the same thing in answer to every question "Leave means Leave" or "Brexit means Brexit". The idea that the world is more complex than a simple slogan appears to be beyond their grasp. It's only a matter of time before this behaviour is medically classified as "Brexitourettes' ".

Nothing there in answer to my questions.

_____________________________

Then tell me this--

at the outcome of a favourable vote for "leave", you desist and accept that, I gather.

So why not now?

at the outcome of a favourable vote for "remain," there'd have been two referenda votes in total; with a victory for "leave" and one for "remain."

On what ground do you refuse and reject calls from the losing side of this second vote for yet another vote in a month, two, three, six, eight, or a year?

Indeed, with experience of "remaining," at what point, if any, do you admit that the public can regret having "stayed" and is entitled to revisit the question?

How many more votes then, in that case? One? Two? Three? Best three out of five? How do you determine that and what are your grounds for your choice of the number of votes?

164Jargoneer
Mar 13, 2019, 3:11 pm

>163 proximity1: - because now we can see the real consequences of leaving with No Deal. If the British public are thick enough to vote for that now then so be it. I wouldn't waste my energy on demanding another vote as I would expect to be part of an independent Scotland within 5-10 years.

165Jargoneer
Modificato: Mar 13, 2019, 3:28 pm

MPs have just voted not to accept No Deal under any circumstances. Expect another vote on May's deal shortly. This time to go through?

166Jargoneer
Mar 13, 2019, 5:57 pm

So the end result of tonight's chaos appears to be that May will put her deal to a vote again. (And it's still undemocratic for a second public vote). She is now threatening doubters with the possibility of remain or a long extension. The ERG appear to ready to vote for it on the basis that May falls on her sword. The DUP are still saying no but could be swayed by another billion or two.

167sirfurboy
Mar 13, 2019, 6:14 pm

Maybe not. Did you hear John Bercow say this?

"No answer is required now but a ruling will be made about that matter at the appropriate time. I'm grateful to the right honourable lady for reminding me a ruling might be required."

The question was whether the same question could be brought back to the house in the same parliamentary session. Bercow clearly may rule that it may not do so, and parliamentary procedure will back him up.

168Jargoneer
Mar 14, 2019, 4:42 am

>167 sirfurboy: - it all seems to depend on this -
On paper, the principle is actually quite clear. According to the Commons' rule book "Erskine May", there is a clear precedent that a matter, once decided upon by MPs, cannot be considered again in the same session of parliament (which usually lasts a year - this current session has gone on for longer and will expire in the summer).

Buried deep within on page 397, there lies: "A motion or an amendment which is the same, in substance, as a question which has been decided during a session may not be brought forward again during that same session."

It continues: "Whether the second motion is substantively the same as the first is a matter for the chair."

By the book May should not be able to bring her deal back but I imagine if Bercow doesn't allow the vote the usual suspects will be calling him "traitor", "enemy of the people", and such like. If he does say no then it looks like May will have to ask the EU for a longer extension - 18 to 24 months. If he says May can put her deal back to a vote she has a chance of it going through if she can get the ERG onside, although they will probably extract some price - her resignation? more say in the trade negotiations? a statue of Jason Rees-Mogg in the Hall of Heroes?*

* I know there is no Hall of Heroes but I imagine they will demand one so they can erect a statue of JRM. I just hope they have one of his nanny helping him along - https://www.scotsman.com/news/uk/flashback-when-jacob-rees-mogg-campaigned-in-fi...
The DUP will probably demand one as well, something like John Knox pinning the Pope to the ground by standing on his head.

169sirfurboy
Modificato: Mar 14, 2019, 5:15 am

>168 Jargoneer: LOL!

I don't think Bercow cares if they call him traitor. He will do what he thinks is right for the legislature. Some other interesting lines yesterday on that front:

1. Hilary Benn pressed the PM as to when she would heed the clear instruction of parliament. echoing one of her preferred phrases.

2. A conservative (I missed his name) asked the speaker whether the will of parliament trumps the will of the people.

The speaker would not be drawn on the philosophical debate, stating only that it was his job to ensure the legislature be heard. Nevertheless, the conservative MP must surely have known that the answer to that is technically "yes"! He presumably wanted the speaker to say so in order that he could trap him into a huge headline grabbing row.

But the answer is yes, because despite a whole lot of guff spoken for public consumption, in the UK sovereignty lies with parliament. I made that point much earlier in this thread too (Messages 19 and 21 to proximity1). UK sovereignty flows downwards. Technically from the sovereign, but over the years the principle of parliamentary sovereignty has been enshrined in law and practice. A parliament is sovereign and cannot be bound (not even by a previous parliament).

The UK is a representative democracy, and so if the elected representatives of the people give the government a clear instruction, that instruction must be heeded.

And that is why we are skating very close to a constitutional crisis here - because May has repeatedly shown contempt for the sovereign parliament. I think she knows it is sovereign, but everything she does smacks of that hated school teacher who took you up a mountain on a geography field trip, and the whole class can see that she is about to set off on the wrong path, but she forces you all down it anyway because she is "quite clear" that she is right.

So May is constantly using every trick she can to force parliament to agree with her, in the desperate hope to get her deal (which no one voted for or wanted) over the line. It is her way or disaster, and she will continue to ignore the instruction of parliament as long as she is able.

However, some comfort can be had from other words from the speaker last night. He was clear that in his view there would be opportunity to amend statute law, and he spoke of seeking professional advice (i.e. clerks and parliamentary members services) and his advice.

We will shortly see the amendments on today's motion. It will be interesting to see what these are and which might garner support.

170sirfurboy
Modificato: Mar 14, 2019, 6:02 am

Just adding to what I said, I have now seen one of the proposed amendments, which - if carried - would instruct the PM to seek a sufficient extension to conduct a public vote, after arriving at a new consensus of what leaving would mean.

The wording removes some government guff and adds:

"instructs the Prime Minister to request an extension to the Article 50 period at the European Council in March 2019 sufficient for the purpose of legislating for and conducting a public vote in which the people of the United Kingdom may give their consent to either leaving the European Union on terms to be determined by Parliament or retaining the United Kingdom's membership of the European Union."

The amendment has a lot of support, but that public vote clause is likely to be troubling. If Labour were to whip their MPs, this amendment could pass (but my guess is they won't). The conservatives are likely to whip against it, and it is not clear at all that there is sufficient support for an amendment for a public vote to pass. We will see.

171proximity1
Modificato: Mar 14, 2019, 7:14 am

>165 Jargoneer:

Your fucking 'plan' is dead.

And, get this:

"No-Deal" is the default case where May's capitulation to Brussels is serially rejected.

Viz :

(Metro (London) Thursday, March 14, 2019)



... "ex-Brexit minister Steve Baker said he had no intention of supporting the (May/Brussels) agreement when the third 'meaningful vote' (LOL!) on it is held.

"He said he canvassed external Brexit campaign groups to find their opinion on whether it was right to vote down the deal.

"And he added: 'I can tell government that unanimously so far the opinion was the deal is so rotten that we were absolutely right to vote it down, and that come what may we should continue to do so. I'll tell the government now, when meaningful vote three comes back I'll see to it that we honour what we owe to them to keep voting this down however many times it's brought back, whatever pressure we're put under....' ...

"The European Commission last night warned that MPs voting against a no-deal was not enough to prevent it--and there could only be a deal if the Commons approved one. An E.U. official said: 'There are only two ways to leave the E.U.: with or without a deal. The E.U. is prepared for both ( (sic) (he means 'is prepared for either)) To take no deal off the table, it is not enough to vote against no deal--you have to agree to a deal.' "



There, in clear and simple terms for you.

We're getting "No-deal" by default, as this was the baked-in plan for such a scenario as this back when the E.U. treaty's terms were drawn up.

Brussels reasoned that, with a "no-deal" exit as the default result of any failure to come around to their dictated terms, no member-state's government could stand up to the pressure of producing a 'no-deal' departure.

Brussels was wrong on that (at least in the present case).

And that's a good thing.

Prime Minister May, the E.U. Commission, and the Remain-camp are all trying to play "chicken" with the British public.

They're all going to be handed their heads.

172Jargoneer
Mar 14, 2019, 7:07 am

>171 proximity1: - of the four possible options, No Deal is the least likely, behind May's Deal, an extension or revoking of A50. If it comes to crunch time May will have to let MPs vote on the latter. Facing No Deal or revoking A50 will way do you think Parliament will vote?
It says everything about the state of the leavers that half-wits like Farage, Duncan-Smith and Aaron Banks are lobbying European govts to try to stop the extension. They campaigned about control and sovereignty and yet now Parliament is in control they want to undermine British sovereignty. And all for the sake of keeping their tax hideaways.

173proximity1
Modificato: Mar 14, 2019, 9:39 am

>172 Jargoneer:

" Chance of no-deal Brexit has 'significantly increased', says EU"


"Donald Tusk said: 'On the EU side we have done all that is possible to reach an agreement ... With only 17 days left to 29 March, today’s vote has significantly increased the likelihood of a no-deal Brexit.' "




Being the self-serving cowards that they are, I think the parliamentary parties will fear the wrath of voters and do what they've been doing: dithering and living in denial about these matters. No-deal shall happen by default. Their mealy-mouthed excuse to those outraged "Remainers" shall be that they did all they could to get the May/Brussels deal through but there weren't the votes for it and May wouldn't budge--mainly because, as Brussels' accomplice in this farce, she couldn't.

That's going to cost her the prime minister-ship before it's all over.

If their choice is between their own seats or May's premiership, they'll sacrifice May. That's how politicians are; and, of course, as a politician, even the feckless moron May has to understand this.

It seems you've put 'all your chips' on this,



"The decision of the European court of justice in the Wightman case gave the United Kingdom an absolute right to revoke the article 50 notice and remain in the European Union. And it is open to MPs to adopt legislation – which I have drafted – that has the consequence that, if they can’t agree on a deal by exit day (whether that be on 29 March or at the expiry of an extension), we would automatically revoke our article 50 notice.”



This would, of course, be a last-resort and a humiliation of untold proportions: it would be a clear and open betrayal of elected officials' solemn word to the British public--that their voice on the referendum would be respected and put into effect.

To repudiate that is now what all your hopes are pinned on.

This speaks volumes about your regard for the British people's political rights and their place in some so-called 'democratically-based' political order.

The idea that the European Commission (E.C.) would permit an extension of Article 50 for any other purpose than a guaranteed, iron-clad promise of either a revocation of Article 50 before, and only before the first of April, is preposterous. The E.C. has issued an ultimatum to May, to the British parliament and to the British public: accept our terms (in the May/Brussels withdrawal plan) or face a no-deal departure at the expiry of Article 50's unextended dead-line. They know they've won in this tug-of-war with Britain. No extensions are possible without the E.C.'s consent. The E.C. has no reason to consent--and has made that clear unless they get what they want out of it.

The idea that Britain could legally revoke Article 50 by some means, even a vote of Parliament, is sheer make-believe. This would be challenged in the U.K. courts by those favoring Brexit. The E.U. treaty's terms are legally-binding on Britain and they specify the terms by which Britain remains or leaves the E.U.'s membership. To allow the dead-line to pass without a deal means, legally, that Britain has legally left, annulled, its E.U. membership, under the terms of the treaty.

That cannot be "undone" by a simple (but, legally, too late) vote of parliament. The courts don't have the prerogative to engage in that sort of fairy-tale stuff. The treaty's terms are clear and a member may not choose to adopt the semi-live state of Schrödinger's cat.

And, should an English court actually attempt such a defiance of legal 'gravity', woe, then, to Britain's prospects for a stable political culture.

If such a repudiation sparked open and violent civil revolt, that would be nothing less than what you and others like you deserved.

It wouldn't be safe to walk unguarded into the houses of Parliament.

174sirfurboy
Mar 14, 2019, 7:56 am

>173 proximity1: "If such a repudiation sparked open and violent civil revolt, that would be nothing less than what you and others like you deserved."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_baculum

All this talk of betrayal of the people is utter nonsense. 65 million people have already been betrayed. It is just that 17 million don't know it.

175Jargoneer
Modificato: Mar 14, 2019, 8:28 am

>173 proximity1: - If such a repudiation sparked open and violent civil revolt, that would be nothing less than what you and others like you deserved....It wouldn't be safe to walk unguarded into the houses of Parliament. So you are saying that a large section to Leavers are undemocratic thugs? What colour of shirts will they wear? I suggest black may be more appropriate than yellow.

176sirfurboy
Mar 14, 2019, 8:29 am

>175 Jargoneer: I find I wish LT had a like button.

177proximity1
Modificato: Mar 14, 2019, 10:48 am

>174 sirfurboy:, >175 Jargoneer:, >176 sirfurboy:



"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."

— John F. Kennedy, Address to Latin American diplomats at the White House (13 March 1962)
____________________________

“The most effective means of upholding the law is not the State policeman or the marshals or the National Guard. It is you. It lies in your courage to accept those laws with which you disagree as well as those with which you agree.”

— John F. Kennedy, Radio and Television Report to the Nation on the Situation at the University of Mississippi (30 September 1962)

____________________________

• … "a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.”

—John F. Kennedy, "Remarks on the 20th Anniversary of the Voice of America" (26 February 1962)
____________________________



The British government—and too many of the British people—are apparently afraid of their fellow countrymen.

What a disgrace! This is the stuff of juvenile fears of the dark.

When did the British people—who once had the guts to take on and defeat Hitler's Wehrmacht!—become such a bunch of pussies?

____________________________

With the following, however, I'm quite proud to associate myself:



"A flawed second referendum could break our democracy"

by Lisa Nandy
_________________________

“We’ve been locked in a tug-of-war for years that has effectively shut down government, and produced drift, anxiety and anger. Today a group of MPs will push for a second referendum to break the deadlock. In Westminster, their voices have dominated the Brexit debate and at times made a second vote seem inevitable. But when I go home to Wigan, for the most part it seems absurd.

“I’ve never been a fan of binary choices. I dislike the divisive nature of our first-past-the-post electoral system and argued against a simple remain-leave referendum on the EU, which forced people to take sides on an issue that for most inspires mixed feelings. I am even less convinced by the case for a second referendum in the terms proposed.

“Campaigners want to put a 585-page withdrawal agreement to the public that covers data sharing, security protocols and the Northern Ireland backstop. Unlike the Good Friday agreement, which is often used as a parallel, it tells us virtually nothing about the deep and fundamental issues at stake – the sort of jobs, wages or environment we’ll have after we leave the EU – because after three years those negotiations haven’t even started.

“More troubling is the proposal to rig the result by posing a straight choice between Theresa May’s deal and remaining in the EU, with no-deal left off the ballot. Most Labour MPs – myself included – believe no deal would be a nightmare, tearing up the Good Friday agreement, lowering rights, wages and consumer protection and likely to trigger job losses and disrupt access to medicine. But offering a “choice” between an unpopular half-formed deal and a remain option that many already rejected is disrespectful, undemocratic and dishonest.

“Leaving with no deal is the single most popular option, and supported by a quarter of the public. Leaving that option off the ballot would be seen by many voters as an establishment stitch-up and they would be right. In the referendum many leave voters repeatedly said they were prepared to put up with economic loss in return for more power, agency and control. The People’s Vote campaign’s slogan, ‘Nobody voted to make themselves poorer’, indicates just how little this has been understood. As Jon Cruddas and Nick Lowles argued in the Guardian last week: ‘If anything would create a right-wing backlash, this specific approach to a second referendum would be it.’

“It is playing with fire to suggest we can settle the defining question of our age, affecting every aspect of our lives, communities and the future of the planet, through a referendum that large numbers passionately believe is illegitimate. In May there will be elections to a new European parliament and if we choose to pursue a referendum Britain will have to take part. The last referendum was ugly and divisive with claims on both sides that were untrue. The debate has since worsened. Cries of traitor which used to echo around far-right rallies are routinely heard in Westminster. To re-elect MEPs to a parliament we promised to leave months earlier, while also seeking a referendum in terms that are not considered legitimate by many, is like walking into a room full of explosives with a lit match. We are breaking our democracy.

“People have the right to change their minds, but on both sides attitudes have hardened. In the middle are people who daily voice their frustration that this issue is unresolved because of an inability to compromise. They see, like me, jobs disappearing because companies do not know if they can bid for contracts beyond the end of the month. One constituent has a child waiting for a potentially life-saving clinical trial that depends on a conversation with the EU that hasn’t yet started. Most MPs haven’t slept for months but it is nothing compared with the anxiety of people whose jobs and access to medical treatment have hung in the balance for three years and do still.

“The tug-of-war is killing us. Parliament is divided because the people are divided and flipping the decision to the public does nothing to alter it. There is a better way through. Democracy is not a tug-of-war but an ongoing process of dialogue and negotiation.

“Forty MPs from across the divide pressed for a citizen’s assembly seeking progress through dialogue and the search for common ground. It was greeted with enthusiasm in the country while in Westminster it hit the brick wall that surrounds an institution hostile to reform and change. I have been clear with the prime minister that if she guarantees parliament a role and a vote in the next stages of the negotiations I will support this agreement and we will find a way through, but she resists because that would require compromise, which she will not consider.

Three years ago most MPs supported a referendum without thinking through the consequences or considering the detail. At every stage in the past three years it has become apparent that we are able to take a complete mess of a situation and still manage to make it worse. Why aren’t we learning? Not listening to what people are trying to tell us or thinking through our choices is what got us here. It cannot provide a route out. (emphasis added)

“The drift, anxiety and anger will not be resolved without a deeper understanding of democracy and a willingness to do the messy, hard business of dialogue, compromise and hard choices. It is politics not protest that is needed. Despite all options supposedly being on the table, that is the one that still seems to be missing.”

178Jargoneer
Mar 14, 2019, 10:30 am

>177 proximity1: - so in one post you claim the British people and politicians should be afraid that the Brexit Blackshirts will be pouring onto the streets to demand justice (and probably beat-up a few immigrants to pass the time). The next post you are saying the British people shouldn't be afraid of their fellow countrymen. What's it to be? Are your blackshirts going to rip up the country to get the "freedom" they want or are they going to sit around in cafes sobbing about their lost dream?

179sirfurboy
Mar 14, 2019, 10:34 am

>177 proximity1: "a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.”

I am glad you have come around to the idea of a public vote on the deal.

180proximity1
Mar 14, 2019, 10:40 am


>178 Jargoneer:

The vote was done in 2016. The result was clear: Get Britain OUT of the E.U.

It then became the responsibility of parliamentary democratic government in Britain to deliver on the promise to respect the outcome of a vote already solemnly held and completed.

_________________________


"Campaigners want to put a 585-page withdrawal agreement to the public that covers data sharing, security protocols and the Northern Ireland backstop. Unlike the Good Friday agreement, which is often used as a parallel, it tells us virtually nothing about the deep and fundamental issues at stake – the sort of jobs, wages or environment we’ll have after we leave the EU – because after three years those negotiations haven’t even started."

181sirfurboy
Mar 14, 2019, 10:53 am

>180 proximity1:

Oh, but I thought you just quoted JFK as saying "a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people."

I guess you did not mean it.

The people cannot betray the will of the people.

182proximity1
Mar 14, 2019, 11:33 am



>181 sirfurboy:

You:

"The people cannot betray the will of the people." —that is, in other words:


...
"Come, thick night,
And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell,
That my keen knife see not the wound it makes," ...


Kennedy's words were quite clear: A nation and its people are not one and the same: "A nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.

A nation can betray itself, its people. A people can betray itself--or its members. A group may betray itself or other groups; and a single individual may betray himself or any of these others--groups, nations, peoples.

Idiots can and do confound themselves and each other.

To preserve what is, inevitably, imperfect-democacy in general, we're obliged to respect its outcomes whether we approved them or agreed with them in the first place or not. You two ("sirfurboy" & "Jargoneer") are traitors to this essential principle of democratic practice.

183sirfurboy
Mar 14, 2019, 12:15 pm

>182 proximity1::

'"The people cannot betray the will of the people." —that is, in other words: '

The words are quite clear on their own, as are Kennedy's. You make the case for a people's vote very well. Our nation should not be afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in the Brexit deal that has been negotiated on their behalf.

Oh and I liked this quote from James O'Brien on Tuesday too:

'Vote Leave chairman Michael Gove warns about the dangers of “throwing the country into a long period of uncertainty”. And irony quietly dies.'

So true.

184Jargoneer
Mar 14, 2019, 12:24 pm

>183 sirfurboy: - I thought that as well. The Kennedy quote seems to suggest a second vote.

I would have thought a more appropriate quote for the gangs about to start roaming our streets is from Montgomery Burns, "I've said it before and I'll say it again: Democracy simply doesn't work."

185proximity1
Modificato: Mar 15, 2019, 8:35 am

>184 Jargoneer:

How appropriate that you'd cite this character,

"I've said it before and I'll say it again: Democracy simply doesn't work."

"

Say the people who are faithless saboteurs of democracy's chances of working, people who, when it does work, defy its product.

____________________________________

Here's just one instance of my favorite example of "Remainers" 's muddle-headed thinking about the E.U. and the matter of Britain's departure from that group:

Over at The Guardian, a reader, Benjamin Lewis, had this to say in the comments-forum of a story about "Brexit" :



Benjamin Lewis 5h ago :

"On the 30th of March I will still wake up a European citizen. This is cause for a smile at the very least.

The fight may not be won, not by a long way. But the tide is turning.

Ich bin europäisch.

Je suis européenne. (Sic)

I am a European."

_____________________

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2019/mar/15/brexit-may-scrambles-to-ge...



There's no such thing as "European citizenship." And, at this writing, an additional 343 others who seconded Benjamin's comment are apparently as confused as is he about this matter.

Benjamin shall (perhaps) figure this out if and when Britain ("crashes" out (LOL!)) leaves the E.U.'s membership.

Fortunately for him, nothing about his citizenship shall have been altered in the least bit.

_________________________

Benjamin's grasp of french-grammar's masculine & feminine forms is no better than his grasp of "citizenship."

He's more likely "européen" as the French would have it.

________________________



(from The Spectator)

The British Parliament’s plot to thwart Brexit is complete |
Bit by bit, blow by blow, motion by motion, the largest democratic vote in British history is slain | by Brendan O'Neill




... ..

"They don’t want Brexit. That’s the long and short of it. Of course a few of them do — the ERG, some DUP people, principled Labour folk like Kate Hoey and Dennis Skinner — but not many. My favorite statistic of the 21st century so far is that 95 percent of Labour MPs voted to remain. Ninety-five percent! As against just 48 percent of the public who favored remain. It is hard to think of any other time in living memory when the political machine was so spectacularly adrift from public sentiment.

"And so they thwart Brexit. We are living through something extraordinary: a slow-motion assassination of the people’s will. Bit by bit, blow by blow, motion by motion, the largest democratic vote in British history is slain. No soft Brexit, no hard Brexit, definitely no no-deal Brexit. For God’s sake just say it: No Brexit. What I wouldn’t give for some honesty. I would cheer the politician who stood up and said, ‘I will block Brexit because I think it is a pig-ignorant idea voted for by pig-ignorant people’, because at least then the truth would be out, naked and disturbing.

"They will not allow Brexit. And the reasons they are giving for their revolt against Brexit, which is a revolt against voters, are positively Victorian. They must save us from ourselves, apparently, from our dumb, self-destructive instincts, from the idiotic decision we made in June 2016 when our brains had clearly been muddled by that advert on the side of a bus and by Eurosceptic demagogues like Jacob Rees-Mogg. The masses were ‘tricked’, ‘lied to’, and ‘conned’, says Anna Soubry, sounding indistinguishable from those who argued against universal suffrage on the basis that ordinary folk lack ‘ripened wisdom’ and thus are susceptible to the ‘vicious ends of faction’. "

_________________

186tendring
Mar 15, 2019, 7:25 am

Do you seriously think that if Article 50 is substantially delayed it is democratic to deny all who have reached voting age the right to decide about the EU. Oh no the people have spoken at least three years ago when they were lied to and in a campaign when Cameron fought it on the basis of tot causing any rift in the Tory Party not to mention illegality on the part of the Leavers..

Also swearing at people who put forward more cogent arguments is not debate.

Incidentally MPs are elected to do what is best for the country even if their constituents do not necessarily agree. If you buy this basis it follows if the majority of their constituents wanted to bring back the death penalty they should promote this.MPs should vote for what is best for the country not hide behind this will of the people nonsense as most including my MP does.

187sirfurboy
Modificato: Mar 15, 2019, 8:06 am

>185 proximity1: "There's no such thing as "European citizenship." And, at this writing, an additional 343 others who seconded Benjamin's comment are apparently as confused as is he about this matter."

No, the confusion is yours (unless you are being pedantic about whether that should be called "EU" citizenship. As usual, you are not to clear on that).

Citizenship of the European Union is afforded to qualifying citizens of European Union member states. It was given to the citizens of member states by the 1992 Maastricht Treaty.

That is the european citizenship that people do not want stripped from them against their will.

If your beef is they mean "European Union Citizenship" rather than "European citizenship", then it is a pedantic point, poorly made (did you intend us to misunderstand you?) You are technically correct, but I doubt anyone who values their citizenship is in any doubt that it is citizenship of the EU and not of some other union of European countries that affords citizenship under international treaty provisions - and that would be lost if/when the UK leaves the EU.

if you actually think that such citizenship simply does not exist, (perhaps you argue the EU is not a state and citizenship only derives from states), then you are incorrect. The EU is not a state but the citizenship exists, and is accompanied with associated legal rights, as provided under the Maastrich Treaty.

On balance, trying to decipher your message, I think you actually do not know there is EU citizenship, when you say:

"Nothing about his citizenship shall have been altered in the least bit."

You are wrong. His EU citizenship would be lost in that eventuality, as will the same citizenship rights afforded to all British nationals. I am still not clear whether that includes you, because when I asked if you were, in fact, American, you dodged the question. If you are a British national or a British dual national, you too will lose citizenship and rights if/when the UK leaves the EU.

188proximity1
Mar 15, 2019, 8:02 am



"Incidentally MPs are elected to do what is best for the country even if their constituents do not necessarily agree. If you buy this basis it follows if the majority of their constituents wanted to bring back the death penalty they should promote this. MPs should vote for what is best for the country not hide behind this will of the people nonsense as most including my MP does."

This is another very good example of muddle-headed nonsense about political reality.

I'm not at all impressed by people who try to argue that the British parliament is "sovereign" (LOL!) I've just been given lessons in spades about this supposed sovereignty. Currently, the British parliament couldn't even agree on how to order a taxi-cab to their palace-door.

... "MPs should vote for what is best for the country" ...

MPs have demonstrated beyond all question or doubt that they haven't the slightest idea of or care about what is "best for the country." On that they are fucking clueless laughing-stocks!

The British electorate are the effective sovereign power in Britain. That is in fact a good thing and as it should be. People who think that the parliament which the British electorate determines by its votes are superior in sovereign power to those who elect them show clearly that they know and understand nothing about real power-relations. They are, in a word, political morons.

The sovereign power is that which determines the make-up of legisative bodies and their executive and judicial components.

There are numerous possibilities--

(hereditary or other varieties of) Monarchy: an un-elected monarch, typically determined by birth-order, the eldest male child, if any, (or, in some cases, the eldest child, regardless of its gender) of the reigning monarch. In this kind of political order, the monarch, having the power to determine all practical legal issues. (In this example, there is no parliamentary body or, if one, it is entirely dependent on the whims of the monarch, who may determine any issue as he or she pleases, leaving the parliament to rubber-stamp these decisions.

All manner of dictatorships-- usually just a matter of the person who commands a de facto ability to control the state's organized bodies of armed-force: police and military, and who can withstand or effectively prevent would-be challengers from deposing him or her in the position of ultimate ruler/decision-maker. In these cases, the dictator is the sovereign power.

Direct democracies: the citizenry as a whole undertakes the direct decision of all important issues by direct majority-vote, and in certain cases, where minority-rights are paramount, such as in free-expression, assembly, etc., restrictions on these require super-majorities to be enacted, if at all.

'Republican' governments (any type of "republic" (an elected government; esp. and often a popularly-elected government, though any government chosen through elective means is, strictly-speaking a "republican" form of government. Where the election is conducted according to democratic principles--via the successful balloting of a majority of legally-eligible voters, the government is a democratic republic. (thus, of all types of elected government (parliamentary, or other representative assemblies.)

189sirfurboy
Modificato: Mar 15, 2019, 8:13 am

>187 sirfurboy: "I'm not at all impressed by people who try to argue that the British parliament is "sovereign" (LOL!) I've just been given lessons in spades about this supposed sovereignty. Currently, the British parliament couldn't even agree on how to order a taxi-cab to their palace-door. "

You are being given lessons because you apparently do not understand British constitutional law.


Parliamentary sovereignty is a principle of the UK constitution. It makes Parliament the supreme legal authority in the UK, which can create or end any law. Generally, the courts cannot overrule its legislation and no Parliament can pass laws that future Parliaments cannot change. Parliamentary sovereignty is the most important part of the UK constitution.


https://www.parliament.uk/about/how/role/sovereignty/

190proximity1
Modificato: Mar 15, 2019, 8:27 am



>186 tendring:

"Do you seriously think that if Article 50 is substantially delayed it is democratic to deny all who have reached voting age the right to decide about the EU. Oh no the people have spoken at least three years ago when they were lied to and in a campaign when Cameron fought it on the basis of tot causing any rift in the Tory Party not to mention illegality on the part of the Leavers.."



As you damn well know, the British Parliament and the United States' state and federal legislatures in the United States promulgate laws every month or week which have binding force on the public---

In Britain, you drive on the left-hand side of the street and if you don't, you face arrest and prosecution (fines & other penalties) for failing to observe that injunction. No one asks you which side of the street you'd prefer to drive on and this matter isn't revisited each generation in order to "check with" the newly-enfranchised voters about how they'd prefer the surface-transportation to be regulated in this regard.

None of that bothers you at all.

And so likewise in this matter. There has been an experience of over fifty years in one or another form of European supranational political organization--European Community, European Union, etc. With that, it is completely within the prerogative of the British electorate to be offered and to take and effect an opportunity to determine whether this experiment in multi-state governance ought to continue with Britain as a member-state. That decision has to be binding on the general public as a practical matter of reality. To object to this as somehow essentially different in kind to any other sort of popularly-determined political matter is wholly disingenuous of you.

You're cherry-picking here because, damn it!, this time, the decision didn't go as you'd have preferred.

That's too fucking bad and, as an adult, it's way past time you got the hell over it.

191proximity1
Modificato: Mar 15, 2019, 8:37 am

>189 sirfurboy:

"Parliamentary sovereignty is the most important part of the UK constitution."

Pedantic sophistry and, from a practical point of view, totally beside the real-world point:

The British electorate, a group, chooses, by ballot, the composition of what comes to be as this "Parliamentary sovereignty", and, as you call it, "the most important part of the UK constitution."

Thus, the British electorate determine as they see fit to do "the most important part of the UK constitution."

192sirfurboy
Mar 15, 2019, 8:57 am

>190 proximity1: "In Britain, you drive on the left-hand side of the street and if you don't, you face arrest and prosecution (fines & other penalties) for failing to observe that injunction"

As you like nit picking, I invite you to consider why "injunction" is the wrong word there. I think you meant to say "law".

Of course, what you refer to is indeed a matter of law, and as stated above, the UK parliament can change that law, and no UK parliament is bound by a previous one. If we wished to drive on the right, parliament could legislate to that effect.

The referendum was not legally binding though, It was a public consultation, and a flawed one at that. It is not a law that parliament can overturn, it is an expression of opinion by the people that the people are fully entitled to overturn. I am not overly impressed with an argument solely on the basis that more people are now of voting age, although I would note that 16 and 17 year olds were only denied a vote on the basis of cost. I also note that many others were disenfranchised in the previous referendum, and that every poll and every piece of research now shows that public opinion has significantly shifted. Moreover I note that the People's Vote is asking for a vote on the proposed deal.

20 People are in a pub and they take a vote, asking if they should go somewhere else. We don't allow 5 of them to vote because they are too young or have not been in the pub long enough, or don't really have roots in the pub. 5 of them say "whatever". 5 vote to stay and 5 vote to leave. The vote is carried. We leave (because one of those 5 is pregnant and is given a fractional extra vote).

Now all 20 of us are outside the pub. A couple want to go skydiving (they say there are parachutes but we don't believe them). Three of them want to sit in the beer garden and spend a lot more time deciding where they are going next. The five who voted last time, and possibly more, want to go back in the pub. Wouldn't it make sense to ask what the preferred option is, now that we can see the choice is sky diving, beer garden or pub?

To be clear, if skydiving were so attractive, now that everyone can see the destination, why wouldn't everyone vote for that? Why are you so afraid to ask what the will of the people is?

*

On another point, I note that you have not mentioned the concerns about the previous consultative referendum. As I observed before, you tend to ignore points you know are soundly refuted. It is interesting what you don't answer.

So, to the point:

The previous referendum is known to be deeply flawed. In particular there was criminal overspend, and huge sums of illegal contributions that breach electoral law, and almost certainly came from overseas, with Russia being squarely in the frame. Although questions remain, sufficient facts have now emerged that judges in a court case have made a judgment on the legality of the first referendum.

That judgement was that they could not overturn the referendum because the government argued it was not legally binding. The government argued that it was only a consultation. Thus the court will not order a re-run. In their narrative, however, the judges universally agreed that had the referendum been legally binding, then it would have been overturned.

To be clear, the last referendum was won following the largest electoral overspend in British history.

Why wouldn't you be concerned about that?

193sirfurboy
Mar 15, 2019, 9:09 am

>191 proximity1: You say:

"Parliamentary sovereignty is the most important part of the UK constitution."

Pedantic sophistry and, from a practical point of view, totally beside the real-world point:

The British electorate, a group, chooses, by ballot, the composition of what comes to be as this "Parliamentary sovereignty", and, as you call it, "the most important part of the UK constitution."

Thus, the British electorate determine as they see fit to do "the most important part of the UK constitution."


It really ought to take you just a moment of thought to realise this is not the case.

But again,you do not seem to understand the UK constitution at all. Which country are you from again? You seem to have neglected to answer that again.

So let me spell it out again. As per Parliament's website:


Parliamentary sovereignty is a principle of the UK constitution. It makes Parliament the supreme legal authority in the UK, which can create or end any law. Generally, the courts cannot overrule its legislation and no Parliament can pass laws that future Parliaments cannot change. Parliamentary sovereignty is the most important part of the UK constitution


And you keep trying to deflect this by arguing thus:

The British electorate, a group, chooses, by ballot, the composition of what comes to be as this "Parliamentary sovereignty"/

But this is wrong. It is wrong because you are confused. You have forgotten that only one chamber of parliament is made up of elected representatives. The other chamber of the sovereign parliament is appointed. Oops!

Parliament is sovereign. One chamber of parliament is made of elected representatives of the people, but that does not alter the constitutional arrangement that defines the UK state.

194Jargoneer
Modificato: Mar 15, 2019, 9:50 am

>191 proximity1: - weren't you complaining about Parliamentary sovereignty earlier in this debate when they were voting against what you want? If I remember correctly you promised anarchy in the streets if Parliament didn't enact the will of the people. You can't have both, either Parliament is sovereign or Parliament has to follow the will of people. If you accept the former then Parliament can do want they want regarding Brexit, if it is the latter Parliament is simply a puppet of the people and since the will of the people appears to have changed they should call a second referendum.

195proximity1
Mar 15, 2019, 9:46 am


>192 sirfurboy:

"As you like nit picking,

Bullshit. My points here concerning "Brexit" have absolutely nothing to do with "nit-picking".

This is "nit-picking":


I invite you to consider why "injunction" is the wrong word there. I think you meant to say 'law'."


"Law" is fine alternative for what I meant, as you show you understood. I used 'injunction' loosely, not in the strictest formal sense.



injunction
/ɪnˈdʒʌŋ(k)ʃ(ə)n/Submit

noun
an authoritative warning or order.

synonyms: order, ruling, direction, directive, command, instruction, demand; More

LAW
a judicial order restraining a person from beginning or continuing an action threatening or invading the legal right of another, or compelling a person to carry out a certain act, e.g. to make restitution to an injured party.



You waste our time with such shit, even as you ignore the key points I've been raising.

You really deserve this fucked-up mess which is British "government."

196proximity1
Mar 15, 2019, 10:04 am


>192 sirfurboy:

Irrelevant, unrelated stuff and nonsense.

You're a fucking waste of time.

197proximity1
Mar 15, 2019, 10:14 am


>194 Jargoneer:

"You can't have both, either Parliament is sovereign or Parliament has to follow the will of people."

_________________

Right. Parliament isn't sovereign. Ultimately, it has to follow the will of the people. And, if it doesn't, it's fucking 'chopped-liver' if and when, after that, it loses sufficient legitimacy in the eyes of the public (or, for that matter, the armed-forces, on whose support it would depend to defend it against a public it had pushed beyond all limits of sane endurance.

Spare me your hypocrite's lectures about "respect for law". By the time what I describe has come to pass, Parliament itself shall have made a sordid joke of "respect for law," having mocked and scorned that so long and so openly.

If you won't grant that much as a fact of reality, you, too, are a fucking waste of time.

Your "sovereign" Parliament kicked the ball into the public's court--the court of last resort, where real sovereignty resides and always has.

Go back to your fairy-tale law texts. We're discussing real-world affairs here.

198sirfurboy
Modificato: Mar 15, 2019, 10:18 am

>195 proximity1: No, you wasted the time. You will note I did not write a post about the definition of a word whilst ignoring all the on topic substance. You did that.

Now, let's think about what you ignored:

1. Your incorrect assertion that there is no such thing as EU citizenship (refutation in message 187)
2. Your argument that parliament is not sovereign (refutation in message 189 and link to Parliament website - but despite the refutation you repeat the point in message 197, without any reference to the refutation. Is this "proof by repeated assertion"?)
3. Your confusion of a flawed consultation with statute law (corrected in message 192)
4. Your confusion of Parliament with the House of Commons (corrected in message 193)

And that is just today!

199proximity1
Mar 15, 2019, 10:26 am



"That judgement was that they could not overturn the referendum because the government argued it was not legally binding. The government argued that it was only a consultation. Thus the court will not order a re-run. In their narrative, however, the judges universally agreed that had the referendum been legally binding, then it would have been overturned."

Moot point : 2) an issue only of academic interest.



John McDonnell: ‘We’re not pushing second Brexit referendum yet...

'People’s Vote' think they will lose’






LOL!

Wait! Wait! We need more youngsters to be born and raised up to favour "Remain".

You people are a fucking joke. You lost.

GET.
OVER.
IT.

200proximity1
Mar 15, 2019, 10:38 am



>187 sirfurboy:, >189 sirfurboy:, >192 sirfurboy: & >193 sirfurboy: are bullshit.

________________________

When I refer to Parliament, I mean the "Commons."

There are no "citizens" of the "European Union." The E.U. does not recognise people as "citizens" of its organization. There is no E.U.-issued passport. E.U. officials travel on their respective home-countries' passports.

Your claims are ridiculous bullshit.

If Britain's Parliament were really sovereign, it could put down civil insurrection with a simple public proclamation.

Go ahead--test your "sovereignty"-theory in that regard. LOL!

But, so far from being able to handle that, parliament (yes, the House of Commons) can't even settle on the matter of leave with or without a "deal" with Brussels.

201sirfurboy
Mar 15, 2019, 10:39 am

>199 proximity1: In law the position is moot. In here it is salient as you keep treating the referendum result as though it were sacrosanct, an untainted expression now and forever of an inviolable will of the people. I am glad you can see now that this is not the case.

202Cynfelyn
Mar 15, 2019, 10:43 am

Don't feed the troll.

203proximity1
Mar 15, 2019, 10:44 am


Oh, by the way, "Sirfurboy", when Britain "crashes out" (LOL!) of the E.U. and you can't get a fucking extension of Article 50 and your case is so lost that even you have to rejoin reality--then go take it to court.

Go sue the bastards that "stole" your "E.U. citizenship." Or, even better, go get the "sovereign" British parliament to overturn Brussels' decision that the Article 50 period has run and that Britain is definitvely out, sans "deal."

Let me know how that works out. LOL!

But, but, but!!!! We voted in favour of an extension! What 'hap'?

204Jargoneer
Mar 15, 2019, 10:45 am

>199 proximity1: - I think you'll find we will all lose. If Bercow allows May to put her deal back on the table it looks like the ERG will vote for it and depending on the size of the bribe so will the DUP which will give her a good chance of winning. If she loses then we will be in the EU until 2021 when we can start this all over again.

205sirfurboy
Mar 15, 2019, 10:53 am

>200 proximity1: “When I refer to Parliament, I mean the "Commons."”

Oh dear! Time for some Lewis Carroll:

“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”

The problem is, Humpty, dear, that what you are doing now is called "equivocation".

In UK constitutional law, it is Parliament that is sovereign. That the commons is elected does not mean that all of parliament is elected, even if you choose to refer to the House of Commons as though the term is coextensive with the term Parliament.

So once again, you are in a hole of your own making. Time to stop digging and start doing some reading maybe? I have noted that you do not seem to understand the British Constitution, which is perhaps no fault of your own. You did not go to school here did you? You keep ignoring the question about your nationality, but even if you are a dual national, it looks like you grew up elsewhere. So why would you know this stuff? It should not be a matter for embarrassment - it is just a reflection of a different background.

But it is time to take a step back, admit you are out of your depth on this point, and read up on how the British Constitution actually works.

206sirfurboy
Mar 15, 2019, 11:05 am

>200 proximity1: “There are no "citizens" of the "European Union." The E.U. does not recognise people as "citizens" of its organization. There is no E.U.-issued passport. E.U. officials travel on their respective home-countries' passports.”

But you see, you are ignoring the refutation again. The EU does recognise people as citizens and it gives them additional rights as citizens. This, as I stated before, is enshrined in the Maastricht Treaty.

Have a read of this, for instance:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizenship_of_the_European_Union

All EU member states, of course, issue EU citizens in their state with EU passports. It says it on the front cover of the passport. This, for instance, gives the EU citizen consular protection from the diplomatic authorities of any EU member state. Just one of many rights afforded to EU citizens.

So again, it was not the people you were laughing at who were confused on this issue, it was you.

There is such a thing as an EU citizen, and I am one of them. Are you?

Incidentally, the UK government sent out a communication to EU citizens in the UK to sign up to a mailing list to learn about their rights to live in the UK after Brexit. As an EU citizen, I did (of course) sign up. :)

207proximity1
Modificato: Mar 15, 2019, 11:33 am


Of course we won't "all lose"!

British society is so disgustingly segregated financially that "losers" and "winners" are brutally and severely sorted into distinct groups--with the set of those who
overwhelmingly comprise the "losers" being almost completely discontinuous with the set of those who, relative to the losers, "win" overwhelmingly.

To a certain very limited respect, there'll be some loss in all strata. But that is really a shit-asses' lying rationale in the service of arguing that things all "even out" "overall."

You argue from a point of view which suggests that you're among the particularly privileged.

Your "losses," I suspect, in this case, resemble the relatively puny things of "mortified pride or stinted luxury" rather than what is, for others, real want and pain, in the way that John Edward Emerich Dalberg had in mind when he wrote,



... "the men who pay wages ought not to be the political
masters of those who earn them (because laws should be adapted
to those who have the heaviest stake in the country, for whom
misgovernment means not mortified pride or stinted luxury,
but want and pain, and degradation and risk to their own lives
and to their children's souls), and who yet can understand and
feel sympathy for institutions that incorporate tradition and
prolong the reign of the dead."

208proximity1
Modificato: Mar 15, 2019, 11:35 am

>206 sirfurboy:

"The EU does recognise people as citizens and it gives them additional rights as citizens. This, as I stated before, is enshrined in the Maastricht Treaty."

Nonsense.

What these people are "given" by the E.U. aren't rights. They're, rather, the privileges (such as they are, or are not) of their being nationals of an E.U.-member state. But they are not in any meaningful sense "rights" since they cannot be insisted on outside the narrow set of conditions which define those who are "qualified" to take part in them.

One's rights are inherently one's own. There is no question of "qualifying" for them. To be a person is, per se, to qualify for the inherent rights of people.

The E.U. grants a certain set of privileges which happen to accrue to, and only to, its member-states' citizens.

This is not pedantic or "nit-picking" it's the recognition of an essential distinction which you try to ignore or brush off--most dishonestly, and it's that which makes your arguments here truly repugnant.

209proximity1
Mar 15, 2019, 11:40 am


>205 sirfurboy: "The problem is, Humpty, dear, that what you are doing now is called "equivocation."


Go fuck yourself, you (insert any disallowed epithet of contempt here, e.g. 'patronizing *****' ) !

I'm through reading your drivel.

210proximity1
Mar 15, 2019, 11:51 am




211Jargoneer
Mar 15, 2019, 12:04 pm

>210 proximity1: - The Daily Express. A bastion of journalism. I'm surprised that the headline wasn't how Princess Diana would be disappointed in Brexit negotiations and how, if she were still arrive, she unite us all and lead us to the promised land of milk and honey where the off-white and those with funny accents would be locked out, and where everyone who didn't have the right background would be issued a cap so they could doff them to their betters.

212sirfurboy
Modificato: Mar 16, 2019, 3:56 am

>210 proximity1: Makes sense you are an Express reader. You recall our discussion about that paper earlier in the thread (you claimed you never read it)?

>208 proximity1: You are equivocating again. Your claim:
"There's no such thing as "European citizenship." And, at this writing, an additional 343 others who seconded Benjamin's comment are apparently as confused as is he about this matter."
has been demonstrated to be false. It is also false, because you do not seem to be familiar with the Maastricht treaty.

Don't take my word for it. Here are the words of the European Council:

"The Maastricht Treaty also made other significant changes. One of the most important is the formal creation of the European citizenship."


https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/maastricht-treaty/

And here I quote directly from the treaty, rebuffing your nonsense about there not being rights:


PART TWO
CITIZENSHIP OF THE UNION
Article 8
1. Citizenship of the Union is hereby established.
Every person holding the nationatity of a Member State shall be a citizen of the
Union.
2. Citizens of the Union shall enjoy the rights conferred by this Treaty and shall
be subject to the duties imposed thereby.


The rights are then set out in articles 8a to 8e.

https://europa.eu/european-union/sites/europaeu/files/docs/body/treaty_on_europe...

To be honest I find it utterly extraordinary that you do not know this. That you could think all those people were "confused" on the matter and that you could actually think there is no such thing as European Union Citizenship must cast considerable doubt about whether you know anything about the EU at all.

But then, if you are getting your information from the Daily Express, we might not be surprised.

213Jargoneer
Modificato: Mar 15, 2019, 12:25 pm

>212 sirfurboy: - unfortunately in the world we live in facts have become debatable. If you don't like them you just substitute your own beliefs. This was best summed up by an individual who was asked how he felt about the misuse of facts in the Brexit vote he replied, "I don't need facts. I know my own facts."

214proximity1
Mar 15, 2019, 12:24 pm

Jargoneer & sirfurboy

I no longer open or read your posts.

215sirfurboy
Modificato: Mar 16, 2019, 3:54 am

>214 proximity1: You are, of course, welcome to stick your fingers in your ears, but when you tell us "I can't hear you," it does look a teeny bit infantile.

That you don't hear was already clear. I first explained to you that the British Parliament is sovereign in December 2016 (along with a prediction, proven right, that the PM would lose her A50 case in the supreme court), and you still haven't read up on the subject.

ETA:

Ah, here we are, I thought I had seen it somewhere. You kept refusing to answer but you are American:

"...I showed you in answer my country's counter-example, the United States Constitution, as it happens. "


https://www.eurotrib.com/story/2006/5/29/4509/97496

216proximity1
Mar 16, 2019, 6:29 am

217sirfurboy
Modificato: Mar 16, 2019, 1:12 pm

>216 proximity1: Yes, I saw 214 - but you kind of messed that one up by replying, no? :)

Interesting article by a former worker for Vote Leave in the Guardian here:

Hypnotised by cake and unicorns, the Brexit perfectionists have blown it

Includes this:


What makes their intransigence all the more useless is their collective inability to produce any worthwhile negotiating alternative. What we have witnessed is an exercise in prioritising ideology over what is best for the country.

218sirfurboy
Mar 19, 2019, 4:37 pm

As Theresa May lurches more preciptously towards a "no deal" Brexit by mismanagement, this legal opinion (among several others regarding the constitutionality of A50, the Good Frday Agreement) and others may be tested:

https://ukhumanrightsblog.com/2019/03/19/no-deal-brexit-may-be-unlawful-a-view-f...


In conclusion, if the UK is unable to leave the EU in a constitutionally compliant manner by 29 March 2019, as in by an Act of Parliament, then we cannot lawfully withdraw. If an extension of time is not agreed by the EU, or as and when that extension expires, the UK’s Article 50 notice will lapse as a matter of national and supranational law, if not unilaterally withdrawn. A no-deal Brexit in the absence of parliamentary approval is, therefore, not the legal default.

219sirfurboy
Modificato: Mar 19, 2019, 4:59 pm

This seems apposite.

220Jargoneer
Mar 20, 2019, 4:58 am

May is to ask the EU for a short extension, primarily so she can try to put her deal back to a vote again. (There have rumours that she will try to bring it back in the next week regardless of the speaker's decision). Her hope that she can bribe (DUP) or threaten (ERG) enough MPs seems to feeding the hope she can squeeze it through. It just proves her total contempt for Parliament.

But we know she is a scoundrel. On Sunday she was in the Sunday Telegraph asking for MPs to be patriotic and vote for her deal. Obviously she doesn't know her Johnson, "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel."

221sirfurboy
Mar 20, 2019, 5:44 am

>220 Jargoneer: Yes, I saw that and agree.

It may not be the last word, but let's make no mistake what is going on here. An extension only to 30 June gives us a hard Brexit (unless Labour are persuaded to vote for May's deal. She will certainly not get enough support for it in her own party). If not an absolute certainty, it is, nevertheless, by far the most likely outcome if that is the only extension we get. The publicly funded ERG party that pretend to be conservatives will not vote for her deal when they can see that waiting gives them the outcome that parliament has twice ruled out.

So, this is Theresa May choosing hard Brexit. She knows that is a terrible outcome for the country, and is not supported by the majority. She knows the economic cost and the constitutional carnage she is causing (ignoring the will of parliament will have permanent political implications). She is choosing it because in her judgement it is the best she can do for her party.

This is Theresa May choosing party over country.

So what happens now?

No one knows. Parliament still has moves it can make, and the EU doesn't have to offer any kind of extension. The judgement of the EU, incidentally, is that if the UK falls out of the EU without a deal, it will be forced back to the table pretty sharpish.

Bearing in mind that any kind of EU exit locks the UK up for years in negotiations with the EU, there is plenty of time to reverse decisions, but May is doing what May has done before: she is deliberately throwing away our best cards because she is terrified of the split of her party, apparently unaware that the split has already happened - the publicly funded ERG just do not admit it.

So we could lose the right to unilaterally withdraw article 50 (although expect the case I posted about above to go all the way to the supreme court - it may be judged that article 50 simply lapsed). May's days are very much numbered. She wants to get the deal over the line before she goes. If she goes, then who knows what happens next - but the greatest damage will be done and Brexit is going to go on and on and on.

March 23rd - march for the People's Vote.

222Jargoneer
Modificato: Mar 20, 2019, 9:27 am

>221 sirfurboy: So Theresa May has blamed Parliament for the Brexit mess - it's all their fault for not voting for her deal but they can make it all OK by voting for it next time. It is bizarre that May is now seen as standing up for the 'ordinary people' considering she has spent all her political life avoiding them. During the last GE the Conservatives made sure that she wouldn't go near the general public because they were worried it would show how out of touch she was with them.

Her June 30 extension makes no sense - according to the EU it either needs to be shorter (pre-election) or at least a year. Since May said she won't go beyond June 30 would a longer extension result in the end of her as PM?

Everything she is doing and saying backs up your last paragraph. it's the political version of a scorched earth policy.

There was a reporter on Radio 5 talking about the financial state of the two major parties - according to him Labour have enough money to either campaign for a second referendum or a GE but not both; the Tories, on the other hand, could be facing meltdown as a number of their big donors are remainers and the money is drying up.

223Jargoneer
Mar 20, 2019, 5:14 pm

So May has just addressed the nation, basically to tell us that she knows best and MPs are a bunch of naughty children who should do as they are told. Once they do and we leave on June 30 all the divisions in the country will be magically gone. Why hasn't this woman been sectioned? It's clear that she desperately needs extensive psychiatric help.

224sirfurboy
Mar 20, 2019, 5:56 pm

>223 Jargoneer: Indeed. It was so good of her to tell me what I think too. I surely hardly knew my mind before she spoke!!

Luckily the BBC then put on Dominic Grieve to inject some common sense into the discussion.

225sirfurboy
Mar 20, 2019, 6:12 pm

This petition is currently getting about 40 signatures a second. Worth signing if you are in the UK:

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/241584

226andyl
Mar 21, 2019, 5:52 am

>225 sirfurboy:

Looks like something has broken - it is down for now.

227sirfurboy
Modificato: Mar 21, 2019, 8:33 am

Indeed, as reported on the BBC:

Brexit: Revoke Article 50 petition crashes Parliament website

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-47652071

But it is back now and has garnered 834,000 signatures, most of them since 8.30 last night. I wonder why... :)

228pokarekareana
Mar 21, 2019, 2:37 pm

It has just hit 1,230,000 signatures. Quite remarkable. I'm looking forward to a nice walk around central London on Saturday with a few (hundred?) thousand of my friends.

229Jargoneer
Modificato: Mar 21, 2019, 4:11 pm

This is from the FT (quoted in The Guardian) -
In the early hours of Wednesday morning, Theresa May made a momentous choice. After a day of acrimonious debate in her cabinet and inner circle, the prime minister decided that she was willing to take Britain out of the EU without a deal.

At Thursday’s European council meeting in Brussels, EU diplomats wondered whether Mrs May was bluffing, but those close to the prime minister said if she cannot secure her Brexit deal she is determined the UK should embark on a no-deal exit.


Also from The Guardian, a fair summary -
Forced to summarise Theresa May’s Downing Street address to the nation last night, I’d go with: Prime Minister Kurtz … she mad. “They told me you had gone totally insane,” Martin Sheen says to Marlon Brando’s rogue colonel in Apocalypse Now, “that your methods were unsound.” “Are my methods unsound?” pants Colonel Kurtz. A pause. “I don’t see any method at all, sir.”

230proximity1
Modificato: Mar 22, 2019, 8:21 am

>228 pokarekareana: "1,230,000 signatures"

Here's a figure for you: 17 million 410 thousand 742


__________________________________

Britons,

Are you fed up to the gills with the "Brexit" soap-opera drama? Had enough?

This week, polls showed 90% of Britons regard the Briexit affair between the current government and Brussels to be a source of, I quote, "humiliation" for the nation as a whole. A ninety-percent consensus dwarfs anything produced in the referendum or in Parliament since it.

But there was always something the British people themselves could have done—and, God knows, should have done after the vote—to have ensured that this now-years-fiasco could never have occurred in the first place:

The losing camp—the “Remainers”—could and should have made it immediately clear beyond all doubt that the referendum’s result was final and that they were going to respect it! This is what is done in a functioning & self-respecting (more or less) ‘democratic’ political order.

But this didn’t happen in Britain. Why not!?

The fact that it didn’t happen is a clear indication of extent to which the British people are failing themselves as the essential actors in their own democratic order just as it would be for any other public in such circumstances.

There is no remedy for a public which so spectacularly fails its democratic duties to to itself other than a (usually) long, hard and dangerously hazardous road back to a working sense of mature political responsibility.

That—a mature sense of political responsibility— is now nowhere to be found in Britain’s political institutions as they exist today—not in Parliament, not on Downing Street and, above all, not Britain’s treacherous and élite-corporate-owned national press. But since mature political responsibility is so signally lacking in these institutions, there is no other place than within the public at large to seek and find the power of responsibility which the nation’s failed leadership cannot deliver.

It is really high time that Britons understand and act on their political responsibility to themselves and each other by joining as one and, “Leave"-voters and “Remain”-voters demanding together and unambiguously that the 2016 referendum’s result

...............Votes ................%

Leave: ......17,410,742 ........51.89%
Remain:.....16,141,241........48.11%

BE FULLY AND EFFECTIVELY RESPECTED!


Britain is indeed in a "political crisis" and, as always in such cases, the ultimate responsibility for it must in the end reside within a public which has failed its democratic responsibilities to itself.

Shame!

231tendring
Mar 22, 2019, 7:21 am

Unfortunately due to cowardice and hypocracy by the DUP and ERG she will probably win the vote although she probably will not see Brexit Day as PM. Her scorched earth approach marks her as a true follower of the Hitler or Stalin approach- if I can't have it no one else can.

However she and the EU are right about one thing-Parliament cannot keep voting for what they don't want. Sensible members must come together agree what they want and go to the EU and negotiate by passing May and do what is best for the country not what is best to stop the Tory Party imploding.

Incidentally please could Brexiteers shut up with this nonsense about "will of the people".They simply had a very small majority of the people voting convinced by the lies of the like of Boris and Aaron Banks. Apart from everything else there are large numbers of newly enfranchised voters today who never had the right to vote in 2016.

232Jargoneer
Mar 22, 2019, 7:50 am

>230 proximity1: - Here's a figure for you - 2,864,903. That's the number of the votes Hilary Clinton beat Donald Trump by in 2016. This suggests either two things - absolute numbers are not the be-all-and-end-all; or, why aren't you fighting for democracy in your own country?

233sirfurboy
Modificato: Mar 22, 2019, 8:08 am

>230 proximity1: You opted for the Leadsom line that a petition is only worth taking notice of if it exceeds the public consultation? Leadsom was wrong, of course. All politicians worth their salt *already* took notice of this petition, but at just under 3 million signatures at the time of writing, it is worth noting that we are nearly 18% of the way to that 17.4 million target, despite requiring Internet access, and having no funding. It seems likely this will soon be the largest petition in British political history.

And then you go on to repeat the old canard that the current political debacle is remainer's fault for not getting behind the narrow majority. This is all rather disingenuous, when you consider that those remainers have, in fact, been totally ignored. There was never any attempt to reach out and agree on a Brexit destination that they could live with. Where we are is entirely down to the following:

1. There is no good Brexit.
2. Theresa May chose red lines, apparently plucked out of the air (but, in fact, largely indicative of her own prejudices), and these were always incompatible with any kind of Brexit.
3. Theresa May started the article 50 process without any clear destination, without any consultation, and without any attempt to find a Brexit destination that parliament could agree on.

To try to blame this on remainers is not just a bit rich - it is disingenuous to the Nth degree. It is the talk of tin pot dictators. "The reason we are in a mess", says the dictator, "is that the people do not agree with me."

You are not a democrat, Proximity1. You simply do not understand what the term means.

234sirfurboy
Modificato: Mar 22, 2019, 8:26 am

>231 tendring: I don't think MV3 will pass now, even if the speaker allows it to go to the vote (which is by no means certain).

May's disastrous speech has effectively killed it. The DUP say they will not be bullied into supporting it (we will see - but it does seem that they won't roll over and let May bully her). Even if the DUP supports it, the numbers no longer add up. Not even close.

To understand this, you have to remember that even with the DUP, May does not have a majority in the commons any longer. If every single conservative and the DUP were to vote for the deal, she must still rely on some opposition votes.

There are some opposition votes she can rely on. 1 independent and 7 Labour, but equally, there will be conservatives who defy the whip. She won't get every single conservative to vote for her deal. Not now (indeed, that was never going to happen).

The chance that was open to her that could have got the deal through was if Labour had voted with the government, or abstained - or if there were larger numbers of Labour MPs defying the whip. She was relying on the fact that, given the choice between her Brexit or a chaotic exit, Labour would cave in at the last minute, and help her out.

After her speech though, how could Labour members vote with May? If she won, she would be triumphant, unassailable. Government and opposition would be in her pocket. They would have accepted and admitted they had been bad, and had come under the discipline of headmistress May.

Labour won't do that.

So MV3 is lost. The Speaker will be doing her a favour if he does not allow it.

Brexit is either a chaotic exit in April (which, disturbingly and remarkably seems to be May's preference - which is why some are now openly and honestly, in good faith, questioning her sanity) or else it is a long extension - but that destination is also tricky as there has to be a plan, and any such plan could be the end of the Conservative party, which makes agreement on a plan exceptionally hard to achieve.

I cannot settle on an outcome I think is likely. I think it would be madness to make a prediction. However, I do predict that MV3 passing and leading to the 22 May date for exit are far and away the least likely to happen.

235sirfurboy
Mar 22, 2019, 8:29 am

>232 Jargoneer: In America, Democracy is the system by which voters are given the choice between two candidates, and the one with the most votes sometimes wins.

:)

236andyl
Mar 22, 2019, 9:11 am

>234 sirfurboy:

The only sensible plan if MV3 falls (and it will) and the indicative votes do not show a firm majority for an option is to go back to the people - with the choice of the best supported plan (which may well be May's plan) and calling the whole thing off and remaining. We would need a long extension for that to happen. A chaotic falling off the cliff would be a disaster for the UK, and to a lesser degree for the EU.

It is all very unpalatable to May. Because a) there would have to be EU elections due to the long extension needed and b) the confirmation referendum itself. Either of those decisions would bring a quick end to her stint as PM rather than the lingering death we are currently going through.

237proximity1
Modificato: Mar 22, 2019, 9:27 am

>231 tendring:

"They simply had a very small majority of the people voting convinced...."

against all odds.

You lost and now you're faithless and disgruntled.

This "Brexit" mess we're living? It's directly down to people like you.

>236 andyl: "The only sensible plan if MV3 falls (and it will) and the indicative votes do not show a firm majority for an option is to go back to the people - with the choice of the best supported plan (which may well be May's plan) and calling the whole thing off and remaining."

Oh, no, there's definitely another "sensible plan": respect the democratic vote--despite your own disappointment in the outcome.

Are you mature enough to do that?

238andyl
Mar 22, 2019, 9:49 am

>237 proximity1:

Even when I was little I knew enough not to put my head in the oven if someone told me to. It would be a disaster economically and socially and politcally (on a global level) for the UK to go for no deal. I believe it would also be a disaster for the Tories (not that I worry too much about that). Yes a confirmation referendum would also probably be a disaster for the Tories - but they only have themselves to blame, they were in nominal control of how this all played out.

The thing with democracy is that people can (and usually do) change their minds over time. Having the people vote again (in regular elections, and in another referendum if Parliament believes that a good Brexit cannot be delivered) is not a disrespecting democracy, it is the opposite in my opinion. A confirmation referendum would be on something concrete - not an abstract notion which you could squint and make fit half a dozen competing political arrangements and philosophies - it is likely to be very decisive.

239sirfurboy
Modificato: Mar 22, 2019, 11:11 am

>237 proximity1: 'This "Brexit" mess we're living? It's directly down to people like you.'

Once again you ignore the refutation and resort to proof by repeated assertion.

"Blaming Remainers for the Brexit debacle is like blaming fire alarms for fires." - James O Brien

The Brexit mess we're living is entirely because, as we have said often enough, the people were sold a pack of lies. They were promised unicorns in sunlit uplands, and the reality is that the best we can get are pantomime horses in muddy car parks. Brexit is impossible. There is no good Brexit. There is no Brexit at all that ever had the support of an actual majority of the people. May's red lines create an unsolvable dilemma.

As andyl points out, the only solution that seems to make any sense is to put the deal back to the people. Let them see the bedraggled pantomime horse in the car park and ask them whether they would like that or the status quo. That is democracy after all.

As you (now) know, parliament cannot be bound by a previous parliament. Likewise the will of the people cannot be bound by a previous expression of the will of the people. You are not a democrat if you argue that a vote on the deal should not happen. In that case it is not democracy that you care about, it is just Brexit.

Your preference is to leave without a deal. Well, of course, that is fine by you. You are not British. You don't have to live with that disaster. But in any case, our elected parliament has twice ruled that out categorically. Leaving without a deal would be anti-democratic. It would be a contempt of parliament. It would be a forced outcome in contravention of the democratic vote of our representatives.

If that were such a desirable outcome (and if it was your country, and your savings and your future at stake, I think you would find it less desirable), but if it were so desirable, the only way to make that the democratic choice would be to put it to a vote. To force such an outcome on the British people otherwise is undemocratic.

240proximity1
Modificato: Mar 22, 2019, 12:30 pm

>238 andyl:

When pressed, Jeremy Corbyn specifically stated that he'd put off a direct call for a second referendum because he'd been informed by The People's VoteTM* that it feared the timing could produce a second case of "Leave" winning the referendum--that is, The People's VoteTM wasn't confident of a victory.

(You) "It would be a disaster economically and socially and politcally (on a global level) for the UK to go for no deal."

Many in the 'Remain' savagely rebuke their opponents in "Leave" as idiots who have fallen for patent nonsense. Yet you believe with apparent certainty in something that, though widely predicted by the same press which assured us that "Leave" should and would virtually certainly lose the vote--and which was determined to do and in fact did do everything in its power to try and ensure this outcome.

You have no real basis for this now-tiresome prediction--just pure speculation based on its having been repeated ad nauseam by the mainstream corporate press.

(YOU) "I believe it would also be a disaster for the Tories (not that I worry too much about that)."

LOL! A "disaster" for the Tories? As opposed to what!?

(YOU) : "The thing with democracy is that people can (and usually do) change their minds over time."

But you refuse to give "Leave's" voters--which had a majority (about which you apparently don't give a damn)-- just that: time to change their minds.

Instead, you lot, the "Remain" camp, who haven't changed your minds at all are now "ready" to re-play the vote---except that you prefer that this time "leave" isn't even an option!.

(YOU) " A confirmation referendum would be on something concrete - not an abstract notion "...

More sheer disingenuousness from you. "Leave the E.U." was entirely 'concrete' and clear. What you want is not only that a plan be set out in advance of a popular vote, you want to insist--as you certainly would, as soon as your ploy were allowed to go ahead--insist that whatever came about as a Withdrawal Agreement gained an overwhelming majority, not a simple majority; no, you'd demand that the plan be approved by a two-thirds, three-fourths, or four-fifths majority--thereby reducing its chances of approval--which is, of course, your whole objective in the first place.

Do you even have the first idea how utterly cynical that is? How disgustingly "thumb-on-the-scales" it is?

You have truly unbelievable nerve to try this shit here. In your place, I would be mortally ashamed to attempt such stuff.

You might try relocating to North Korea. There, the authorities have your same complete contempt for popular opinion, for decisions by majority-vote of the general adult population; and, they brook nothing of the sort. Rather, whatever the elite dictatorship decides is what is done. You'd have every matter decided according to your preferred view--that of the unchallenged power structure.

Really, your future happiness is there, in North Korea. No more such messiness as Tendring described: annoying popular votes in which "a very small majority of the people voting (are) convinced by the lies of the like of Boris and Aaron Banks."

_________________________

* Open Britain, Millbank Tower, 21-24 Millbank, London, England, SW1P 4QP

241sirfurboy
Mar 22, 2019, 12:47 pm

>240 proximity1: Jeremy Corbyn claimed he did not support the vote at that time because the People's Vote did not think the timing was correct, but the suggestion they thought leave would win again is purely your invention. Do you have a quote or source that says otherwise? No. Thought not.

The timing issue was all about getting support in parliament.

You are just making it up as you go along.

242andyl
Mar 22, 2019, 3:49 pm

>240 proximity1:

1) Why do I care what Corbyn says? I didn't mention him, but you seem to bring him up as if what he does is particularly important to me.

2) As for it not being a disaster. Well economically that is the government position. Are you saying that I shouldn't believe or trust in the government figures?

3) Leavers haven't had to decide on whether they would support a particular* concrete proposal. Even so some have changed their minds. Some have died. And they were only 37% of the electorate to begin with (although nearly 52% of the voters).

4) In my post you were referring to I was quite clearly talking about the situation where MV3 falls and Parliament cannot agree a way forwards by indicative votes.

4a) Of course Leave would be an option. It could be a Leave with May's Deal vs Remain or it could be Leave with No Deal vs Remain or Leave with Labour's Deal vs Remain. All of those have Leave as an option.

4b) The only way the country is going to come together in the short to medium term is either a deal that has broad cross party agreement in Parliament (a Tory/DUP stitch up won't do it) or asking the people again. A no-deal scenario is not going to help the country come together at all.

5) Actually even before the referendum I said (although unfortunately not in LT) that it needed a super-majority to be considered as being the will of the people as it is a major constitutional change. Such super-majorities are common practice in many countries.

6) Thanks for the frothing insults and comparisons to dictators and fascists. I have had very little regard for your debating style (or content) for a long time and this unprovoked ad-hominen attack just confirms that my thoughts.

* Yes and I do consider the referendum flawed on that basis. People were being sold contradictory destinations during and after the referendum. We have been told that such and such a plan isn't really leaving the EU even though we would no longer be members. That is one of the big sticking points for the ERG group with the backstop. That they don't think that is a proper (in their minds') Brexit.

243antimuzak
Mar 22, 2019, 4:45 pm

I wonder: does anyone here understand why leaving a world trade block, such as the EU would be detrimental to a small country who would then have to fend for itself and have conditions imposed on it by larger countries or trade blocks in any trade deals. There is a reason for countries to want to join trade blocks such as the EU - the principle of the Trade Union movement is that strength lies in collectivism rather than individualism - together we are strong, individually we are weak. The same principle applies to individual countries in a globalised world operating on neo-liberal economic principles. The world has changed greatly in the past 50 or so years. Leaving a trade block inevitably means less "sovereignty" and much reduced ability to control our trade, economics and laws.

Shall we debate this free of abuse and personal attacks?

244proximity1
Modificato: Mar 23, 2019, 6:57 am

>243 antimuzak:

I dare you to listen to this--ALL of it-- with even just a faked, a bullshit "open-mind":

Brexit: What's the f**k is going on? | Jonathan Pie

-- again, I dare you to give it a hearing.

"individually we are weak"

Thank God you weren't around in 1939. This isn't Hitler, it's perhaps--though this is NOT KNOWN with any kind of certainty! --a couple of index points off the FTSE averages for a while until things go back to their usual norms; it's perhaps--though this is NOT KNOWN with any kind of certainty! -- a 1.86% drop in national GDP for a while until things go back to their usual norms.

Or perhaps none of that shall happen. NO ONE KNOWS the answers to these questions at this point!

I suggest that you go to live in North Korea. Kim Jun-Un will "protect" you--as long as you do everything according to his whims-- just as you are ready to do for the European Council's executives.

You ask: "Shall we debate this free of abuse and personal attacks?"

But your post abuses my intelligence. It "attacks" the truth and leaves it bloodied and torn up. It asserts as respectably-known fact what is, instead, sheer speculation--proffered to incite desperation and panic. That is a "personal attack" on fair-minded debate.

So, you tell me: "Shall we debate this free of abuse and personal attacks?" Because, as I gather from that challenge, what you really seek is to have a discussion in which your opponents drop their most cogent and compelling points and give you an open run at the goal-cage.

________________________________



(YouTube video) Theresa May dismisses petition calling on her to revoke Article 50



... "“And I think that it’s important if we want to show that we can be trusted as politicians to respect a decision that we gave to the people—(one) that we didn’t say, ‘Tells us what you think and we’ll think about it; we said, “Here’s the vote, what is your decision?” and we will deliver on it.’ ”
(emphasis in the original)
" ...


245proximity1
Modificato: Mar 23, 2019, 8:09 am

>242 andyl:

1) "Why do I care what Corbyn says?"

Because he gave what you have no reasonable grounds to doubt: a report of the People's Vote estimate that they didn't have a winning-majority behind their objective to garner a reversal of the 2016 referendum's result--that's why you ought to care.

2) As for it not being a disaster. Well economically that is the government position. Are you saying that I shouldn't believe or trust in the government figures?

That's the government position--the government owned and operated by the elite private power which opposed "Brexit". As you know, had it seen any way to renege on the promise to put the question to the general public in an open referendum, there'd never have been any vote--which, now, with the knowledge of the referendum's unexpected result, People's-Vote-supporter that you are, you'd have been quite content to have avoided; but, of course, you didn't expect the "Remain" camp to lose. You weren't worried about the Leave-voters winning because, "lied to" or not, they weren't supposed to prevail. It's only since they did that their being "lied to" becomes so important to you.

3) Leavers haven't had to decide on whether they would support a particular* concrete proposal. Even so some have changed their minds. Some have died. And they were only 37% of the electorate to begin with (although nearly 52% of the voters).

They needn't. There's an already-established course: the U.K. leaves by default without a "plan" agreed by the government and the E.U. Council and member-states' executives. That course is indeed my preferred one. Had the Council wanted to negotiate a mutually-advantageous withdrawal plan, it could have easily done that. It never had any such intention. As this was crystal clear, there was no point in the three wasted years, spent in needlessly agonizing doubt and acrimony--for nothing.

4) In my post you were referring to I was quite clearly talking about the situation where MV3 falls and Parliament cannot agree a way forwards by indicative votes.

In your >238 andyl: you make no mention at all, implicitly or explicitly, of an "MV3". None. Do you simply make this stuff up? (I can read.)

4a) Of course Leave would be an option. It could be a Leave with May's Deal vs Remain or it could be Leave with No Deal vs Remain or Leave with Labour's Deal vs Remain. All of those have Leave as an option.

Perhaps. But in fact, The People's Vote do not propose that.

Here's their text on that issue:



From their file, "Myth-busters" :



" ‘Those advocating a People’s Vote simply want a re-run because they didn’t like the result first time around’

"Let’s be clear – this is not a ‘second referendum’, or a re-run of the vote in 2016.

"In fact, to be accurate, this would be the third time the public have had a vote on Europe, after 1975 and 2016.

"But this is a completely new question, about the future relationship which we had no information about in 2016: Once we know all the facts about the Brexit deal, do we want to accept it or not? And who should get to decide that – should it be politicians or the public?

"Whatever your views on Brexit, no one would disagree that it’s a very big deal that will especially affect young people for generations to come, and it increasingly looks as though we will get a bad deal.

"A People’s Vote would put the electorate back in control and give everyone the chance to decide whether the deal is good for the country."

____________________________

https://www.peoples-vote.uk/mythbusters




Dress it up anyway you like. What's being done there is VERY CLEAR: it takes a solemn vote's outcome and, without having implemented that result's directive, it places the vote's essential matter back in question, offering an occasion to reverse the first vote.

To pretend that this new call for a referendum poses a "new" and "different" question is sheer lying BULLSHIT when it is completely obvious that the purpose of the second vote is to seek the reversal of, the annulment of, the first vote before and without implementing it. THAT is a usurpation of the validity of the first vote and it does precisely what Prime Minister May warned in her comments refusing the call for a second vote, it completely undermines, betrays any attempt on the part of the government to

... "show that we can be trusted as politicians to respect a decision that we gave to the people."

But, as to that, you clearly don't give a damn. And that is exactly why I urged you to fuck off to North Korea. No democracy can persist in the face of faithless voters such as yourself. You deserve to live under a dictatorial tyranny. For that, I respectfully suggest that you get the fuck out of Britain and stay out. Indeed, some disgruntled "Remainers" have done or are planning to do just that--leave Britain for permanent-residence in another country, one they hope to find allows them E.U.-member-state's privileges.

That's their right. Let such people leave if they think they have a better future elsewhere. And good riddance to them.



4b) The only way the country is going to come together in the short to medium term is either a deal that has broad cross party agreement in Parliament (a Tory/DUP stitch up won't do it) or asking the people again. A no-deal scenario is not going to help the country come together at all.

Says you. But, again, this is sheer self-serving conjecture, no better than tarot-card reading, crystal-ball reading; AND IT IS DEEPLY INSULTING to be repeatedly faced with such sheer conjecture claimed as an established fact.

5) Actually even before the referendum I said (although unfortunately not in LT) that it needed a super-majority to be considered as being the will of the people as it is a major constitutional change. Such super-majorities are common practice in many countries.

Just as I wrote, above,

"as soon as your ploy were allowed to go ahead--insist that whatever came about as a Withdrawal Agreement gained an overwhelming majority, not a simple majority; no, you'd demand that the plan be approved by a two-thirds, three-fourths, or four-fifths majority--thereby reducing its chances of approval--which is, of course, your whole objective in the first place."

6) Thanks for the frothing insults and comparisons to dictators and fascists. I have had very little regard for your debating style (or content) for a long time and this unprovoked ad-hominen attack just confirms that my thoughts.

Oh!, you're welcome. Anyone who'd be so blatantly a traitor to the most basic principles of democratic practice deserves every bit of the invective.

Get and stay the fuck out of any democratic or would-be-democratic society. You and all like you are pure poison.

246sirfurboy
Modificato: Mar 25, 2019, 11:38 am

>244 proximity1: I have listened to Jonathan Pie on occasions, including his latest. I loved his "The Maybot has morphed into Hal from 2001". That was spot on. He makes other good points too, but here is why I don't get all my news analysis from Jonathan Pie:

1. He is a comedian doing an opinion piece to camera. The first one I watched was hilarious and spot on in so many ways. The next one - well it was just more of the same. So now, I am like "meh". For a comedian, he is not very funny (comparisons between May and HAL 9000 notwithstanding).
2. He has a bit of a potty mouth. That doesn't make anything he says wrong, but again leaves me thinking "meh". I think the same on here when I see it too.
3. His opinions are often right but he is hardly an oracle. He gets things wrong too. It is opinion, not news and I see a lot of opinon. Sometimes he nails it, sometimes not so much.

Now what you put in the rest of that message is not obviously a Pie quote. Perhaps it is, because as I mentoned, I don't listen to much from him because his format is too samey. Whether it is his opinion or yours though, it is wrong. A no deal Brexit is predicted to knock between 6.5% and 9% off GDPP in fifteen years.

And here is the thing - growth is growth. If you damage growth in something, then the effects are felt forever. If you knock 9% off UK GDP over 15 years, the UK economy will be permanently smaller than it would have been.

The only way that would not be so is if the effect of Brexit were to be positive for GDP after 15 years - and no one thinks it will be. Even those who think that one day the UK economy would grow faster than it would if it remained in the EU expect the effect to take way longer than that. Jacob Rees Mogg was quite honest when he stated his opinion that the UK could regain that lost GDP in 50 years. And that is an arch Brexiteer speaking. Nearly all economists do not expect any upside from Brexit. Even economists who argued for Brexit argued that the economic cost/benefit after Brexit would be neutral. Not positive, but neutral.

And here is the thing: those economists believed there would be a deal that kept UK trade with the EU largely neutral too (although with a shift away from manufacturing to services. They said the UK car industry would have to be sacrificed).

Their modelling assumes a deal. That 9% loss in GDP after 15 years - that is permanent. If the economy is 9% smaller than it would have been in 15 years, then all growth from then on begins at that lower base. It never gets caught up. It is a permanent cost.

That is the way it works.

247sirfurboy
Mar 23, 2019, 2:44 pm

>245 proximity1: I will leave Andy to answer most of those points, but this one is typical proximity1:

"Because he gave what you have no reasonable grounds to doubt: a report of the People's Vote estimate that they didn't have a winning-majority behind their objective to garner a reversal of the 2016 referendum's result--that's why you ought to care."

That is refuted above. Corbyn did not say that. The People's Vote did not say that. You were asked for sources but instead you just repeated the claim. Proof by repeated assertion. Again.

Also you said to Andy: "you didn't expect the "Remain" camp to lose.". I don't know what Andy expected but I had every expectation that loss was likely. There is a narrative these days that the leave vote was hugely unexpected. It was not unexpected. It was unwanted and unwise, but I for one was never surprised, and indeed I know others who were not surprised.

Oh and your last line to Andy is a bit rich, where you, an American, tell a British National to get out of his own country because he does not agree with you!

What is the world coming to?

248andyl
Mar 23, 2019, 4:04 pm

>245 proximity1:

the government owned and operated by the elite private power which opposed "Brexit"
As opposed to the elite private power which has bankrolled and supported Brexit for a generation.

There's an already-established course: the U.K. leaves by default without a "plan" agreed by the government and the E.U. Council and member-states' executives. That course is indeed my preferred one.

That may be your preferred one - but it isn't the preferred one of the majority of the country, of Parliament, of the cabinet, or of Theresa May. I remember when I was little my Mum admonishing me with "If he had told you to jump off a cliff would you?". Well the answer then was no, and the answer now is no. I will do all, which in reality is very little, I can to try and prevent the entire country jumping off a cliff.

In your >238 andyl: andyl: you make no mention at all, implicitly or explicitly, of an "MV3". None. Do you simply make this stuff up? (I can read.)

Although obviously not very well. I made mention of MV3 in my post 236. The thing about conversations, even written ones on a forum, is that we take turns and we remember the context from each other's previous remarks. Maybe a little less frothing about traitors and North Korea and other fantasies might help you follow along with everyone's conversations.

The quote from the People's Vote is not virulently in opposition to me. You quoted. "Once we know all the facts about the Brexit deal, do we want to accept it or not?". That is exactly my point. Whichever deal (or no deal) gets the most support from Parliament in indicative votes should be subject to a confirmation referendum as Parliament cannot agree a way forwards.

But it seems strange you were so quick to jump onto the false claim that I had never mentioned MV3; but in your previous two posts you have introduced both Jeremy Corbyn and now The People's Vote neither of which I mentioned at all. Let me make it clear. I have been expressing my own views. If they do not align completely with a politician, political party, or campaigning group then I don't really care. They are my views, and my views alone.

Thanks for upgrading me to a traitor - it just goes to show how out of touch you are. Calling for more democracy - petitions, peaceful marches, votes - can never be anti-democratic. It certainly isn't traitorous.

249pokarekareana
Mar 23, 2019, 6:14 pm

Amazing day out in London today as an estimated million people took to the streets to oppose Brexit. Quite the contrast with the pro-Brexit group who are marching south to London at the moment - I believe their numbers are currently around 200.

I found it such a relief to remember that there are sixteen million other Remain voters still out there, and interesting to see some placards from people who voted Leave but have subsequently changed their minds and now wish to have another referendum and/or revoke Article 50. The sands have clearly shifted since 2016, and haven't settled yet.

250antimuzak
Mar 24, 2019, 4:58 am

Yes, amazing day. I was there.

251proximity1
Mar 24, 2019, 9:08 am


>248 andyl:

( Quoting me) "There's an already-established course: the U.K. leaves by default without a "plan" agreed by the government and the E.U. Council and member-states' executives. That course is indeed my preferred one.

( You ) "That may be your preferred one - but it isn't the preferred one of the majority of the country, of Parliament, of the cabinet, or of Theresa May."

You don't actually know this--you merely assert it. The facts are otherwise: More than 17 million Britons ( a majority of those "present and voting") declared themselves in favour of "Leave the E.U. membership." This, at the time they voted, was well-known in law to be feasible in in only one of two possible manners:

Either by

1) an agreed arrangement of terms between the British government and the E.U. member-states and executives by which Britain would leave its membership

OR, failing that,

2) a departure without any agreement on terms, that is, by default; this would ensue automatically in ANY absence of an agreement on terms OTHERWISE.

To suggest that this was not or couldn't have been known or understood by the voters at the time they voted is a dastardly lie typical of your ilk.

The 17-million-vote majority's import was precisely:

"Leave the E.U. according to existing law with or without an agreement."

Saying otherwise is lying.

___________________________

( Quoting me) "There's an already-established course: the U.K. leaves by default without a "plan" agreed by the government and the E.U. Council and member-states' executives. That course is indeed In your >238 andyl: andyl: you make no mention at all, implicitly or explicitly, of an "MV3". None. Do you simply make this stuff up? (I can read.)"

(YOU) "Although obviously not very well. I made mention of MV3 in my post 236."

There's nothing wrong with my reading skills. But >236 andyl: wasn't addressed to me. MY POINT was, clearly, that nowhere in your post to to me did you ever make this clear.

(YOU) : "But it seems strange you were so quick to jump onto the false claim that I had never mentioned MV3;"

Who wrote, anywhere above, that you "had never mentioned MV3"? Not I. I pointed out that you made NO SUCH MENTION in any post to addressed to ME--hence, that'd I'D read. But I didn't claim that you'd never mentioned it. Can YOU read well?

(YOU) ..."but in your previous two posts you have introduced both Jeremy Corbyn and now The People's Vote neither of which I mentioned at all."

Right. You didn't. And the point--and the distinction--here is that, in this case, I hadn't claimed that you had previously mentioned Corbyn in posts to me. Get it? It's not that complicated. I can raise a point to you by referencing something which or someone who, believe it or not!, you may not have already mentioned yourself. It's called a "debate." No one claimed you had mentioned Corbyn in posts addressed to me; so what? Now, try and follow me here, it gets very "complicated": this same (just explained) goes as well for the matter of "The People's Vote" which, you rightly point out, you also hadn't mentioned in a post addressed to me. Again, so what?

(YOU) "Let me make it clear. I have been expressing my own views. If they do not align completely with a politician, political party, or campaigning group then I don't really care. They are my views, and my views alone."

Well, "your views", in as much as they include the assertion that this:

(quoting me) "the U.K. leaves by default without a "plan" agreed by the government and the E.U. Council and member-states' executives"

(QUOTING YOU) "isn't the preferred one of the majority of the country"*

( i.e. as far as we know from the last official referendum on the issue) include clearly deliberate and distortions of the facts.

(YOU) "Calling for more democracy - petitions, peaceful marches, votes - can never be anti-democratic. It certainly isn't traitorous."

Oh, yes, in this case, it is. It's a flagrant betrayal of democratic principles when it's done, as I already explained above, as it's being attempted in the present case.

A disgruntled losing minority's reversal of a majority-vote's effect without any valid ground --simply because the losers are spoiled-sports, is not an example of "Calling for more democracy."

You're a liar.
________________________

(* Emphasis added)

252antimuzak
Mar 24, 2019, 9:53 am

Oh Dear, I'm really very sorry that you feel that my post abuses your intelligence - this was not my intention, but I only wanted to enter into a reasoned discussion, and to politely disagree, with reasons, if that was the case. I'm sorry that I did cause you to feel fragile and I apologise for this.

How might I, then, engage in any disagreement with you and avoid this level of distress? I would love to do so, please do let me know.

253antimuzak
Mar 24, 2019, 9:59 am

How might we engage in debate without false claims that we know nothing about, even lies, or personal attacks? is this possible here. To my mind the emotional tone needs to be lowered so that we can really engage with the issues.

254andyl
Modificato: Mar 24, 2019, 11:33 am

>251 proximity1:

There's nothing wrong with my reading skills. But >236 andyl: andyl: wasn't addressed to me.

I knew you would try and wriggle out of it by saying that.

I agree >236 andyl: wasn't addressed to you, but that doesn't mean much - forums are not lots of isolate one to one conversations. They are a conversation amongst a group - points are addressed to the group not individuals. Also however I would note that your post >237 proximity1: directly replied to my post 236 (and you even quoted me saying MV3). My post >238 andyl: was a reply to your post >237 proximity1:.

So your argument about not knowing context because my original post wasn't addressed to you seems to fall at the first fence. You directly replied to it and even quoted a sentence that included MV3. You can't claim that you had no knowledge about it - well you can claim it, but I am not sure anyone would believe it.

andyl "isn't the preferred one of the majority of the country"*
proximity1 ( i.e. as far as we know from the last official referendum on the issue) include clearly deliberate and distortions of the facts.

You later (in your asterisked footnote) call me a liar for my claim.

However I think it is fucking obvious that leaving without a deal isn't the preferred choice of the majority of the country.

1) At the time of the referendum only 37% of the total electorate voted to Leave the EU (that is already a minority)
2) The electorate didn't include everybody in the country (it didn't include most EU nationals, nor did it include 16 and 17 year olds).
3) Not everyone who voted to leave wants to leave without a deal. I don't know what the percentage of those who voted to leave prefer to leave with no deal and neither do you - but it isn't 100%. Some will have changed their mind on the issue, and some (a larger percentage) will prefer some kind of deal along the lines promised by the Leave camp in the campaign.

So even if we try and capture public opinion on the morning of the referendum results I would have been happy saying that the majority of the country do not prefer a no-deal Brexit. I am even more confident in saying that at the current time - with people changing their mind, with demographic change etc. The country is more than those who vote, more than those who are allowed to vote.

255antimuzak
Mar 24, 2019, 11:01 am

I think it woulod be much better, rather than attacking your respondent, To just clearly outline the arguments for not leaving without a deal. Much better.

Why is this discussion becoming so emotional (and therefore irrational?)

256andyl
Mar 24, 2019, 11:09 am

>255 antimuzak:

I tried to do that. I was called a traitor, an enemy of democracy, a liar. I have made no similar personal attacks but when people make such personal attacks (in three successive posts) on me then I will certainly be assertive in attacking the weaknesses is their arguments and counter-arguments.

257sirfurboy
Modificato: Mar 24, 2019, 4:11 pm

In Proxmity1's musings above, responds to Andy's claim that a no deal Brexit "... may be your Proximity1's preferred one - but it isn't the preferred one of the majority of the country, of Parliament, of the cabinet, or of Theresa May."

Proximity1's argument:
"You don't actually know this--you merely assert it. "

Aside from the fact that we so know it is not the preference of parliament, as they democratically voted on that and ruled it out, I note that Proximity1 has once again demonstrated the inescapable logic of a People's Vote on the deal.

If the choice is "no deal" or "remain", that is clearly not the same as "Remain" or "leave with the 'easiest deal in human history'" that people voted for. Proximity1 is right that we do not know (beyond the opinon polls, that is) that the majority would rehect no deal over remain. The only way we can know that for certain is to put it to the vote.

Thank you Proximity1. Your support for the People's Vote (again) is noted.

258antimuzak
Mar 24, 2019, 1:49 pm

Ok to point out the weakness in arguments, certainly. But - it is a strategy of those who can't argue a reasonable case to deliberately attack and undermine others without responding to arguments or discussion, in order for their discussants to be humiliated and then to attack back. This is a mistake. All lose the argument in this situation and no-one is heard. Simply - the lowest common denominator should be ignored - personal attacks, etc. need to be ignored. If you have "tried to do that" but have been drawn into the web you have failed. Sorry - could you try to do better?

259antimuzak
Mar 24, 2019, 1:51 pm

Sorry, "ramblings" is rather an emotive word is it not? The rest of your post is good but would be much better with some evidence.

260Jargoneer
Mar 24, 2019, 3:19 pm

>259 antimuzak: - I think you should read some of Promixity1's posts and cut both Andyl and sirfuyboy a little slack. This is a man who believes that the true citizens of Britain should take to the streets and teach the traitors (of which you are one by going on the march) a lesson they won't forget. After all, nothing says democracy more than clubbing your opponent into submission.

261antimuzak
Mar 24, 2019, 4:21 pm

Well, no, I obviously don't agree with clubbing your opponent into submission... But words may also club a person who doesn't agree with you into submission - or, even more likely, into anger and aggression and this may then just create a cycle of increased anger and aggression. How to get out of this....?

262sirfurboy
Modificato: Mar 24, 2019, 4:29 pm

>259 antimuzak: For your sake, I have changed the word to "musings". Nevertheless the word I used was there for a reason that may not be obvious. Proximity1, having made a load of assertions that were demonstrated to be wrong above by myself and Jargoneer, resorted first to ad hominem attacks and swearing and then said he would no longer read our posts. He has started down the same road with AndyL now.

My replies to Proximity1, therefore, are an object lesson to the poster about the futility of standing in a room and trying to debate whilst sticking your fingers in your ears and pretending not to listen to the others present.

He will, of course, read this reply, but he has to pretend he didn't read it. If you watch carefully, he will reply to my messages by replying to others and saying things like "some people say..." and then paraphrasing me.

To be clear, I don't think anything will convince Proximity1 that his views are wrong here. I also don't think that matters, as Proximity1 is an American. What I hoped to teach proximity1 is something about debating. The importance of getting your facts right first, before debating. The importance of engaging with the argument and not the person, and the futility of attempting to stay in a debate whilst saying "I don't hear you!"

To be clear, I completely agree with you about the importance of being courteous and reasonable in debate, and giving people who are genuinely searching for answers the space to change their opinions. I also agree that it is good for ourselves to think into both sides of an argument and allow that to challenge us, and perhaps even change our minds too. These are good principles, but when you do these things and the person you are debating with calls you a liar, won't apologise when that too is refuted, ignores the refutations over and over and keeps repeating the wrong information, you are left with just two choices. Stop debating, or else seek to challenge that person where the challenge may perhaps pay some dividends.

263andyl
Mar 24, 2019, 5:07 pm

>262 sirfurboy: as Proximity1 is an American

From what I remember from a while ago is that they have joint US/UK nationality and that they didn't have a vote in the Brexit referendum due to being non-resident in the UK for over 15 years.

264sirfurboy
Mar 24, 2019, 5:38 pm

>263 andyl: He has neither confirmed or denied that. I asked him about 4 times whether he was perhaps a dual national. He never answered and I cannot find the information in any other thread either. He has lived in France more than he ever lived in Britain, but may well be in Britain now. He has claimed to be American but I do not find a claim to British dual nationality.

265Jargoneer
Mar 25, 2019, 3:18 am

Good news! There is no longer any need to worry about anything - Uri Geller is on the case. He is going to use his telepathic powers to get May to revoke Article 50 although I'm a little worried that he could accidentally bend all the cutlery forcing people away from the table.
He has already warned May -
“I love you very much but I will not allow you to lead Britain into Brexit. As much as I admire you, I will stop you telepathically from doing this – and believe me I am capable of executing it. Before I take this drastic course of action, I appeal to you to stop the process immediately while you still have a chance.”

266andyl
Mar 25, 2019, 4:55 am

267sirfurboy
Mar 25, 2019, 6:08 am

>266 andyl: Ah, OK. Strange that he refused to answer the question here though.

268tendring
Mar 25, 2019, 7:15 am

As proximity will no doubt be replying soon perhaps I can point out that cogent argument is not telling someone to go and live in North Korea. In addition using foul language in argument is not nice and it is not clever.

As he clearly does not appreciate the referendum has nothing whatsoever to do with the will of the people. It was a device from Cameron to avoid a split in the Tory Party. He was afraid that either A) at the next election the Tories would lose seats to UKIP or b) that existing MPs would defect as to my shame mine did to UKIP.The referendum campaign was then fought on the basis of doing as little as possible to effect the unity of the Tory Party with the result that Leave could tell what lies they liked and any attacks on Boris and his cronies were forbidden.

Afterwards May adopted the same policy which resulted with a deal that was as close to no deal as she could manage.Unfortunately for her the Tea Party backwoodsmen of the ERG who wanted to return to the broad sunlit uplands of old,jam for tea and possibly sending young boys up chimneys to sweep them were not satifisfied and so here are.

Furthermore to adopt his view of the will of the people as we voted Tory in the last election which presumably was the will of the people there is no need to have a further election in 2022 or ever.

In case he has missed the point a no-deal Brexit would send us over a cliff to the valley far below.Any Brexit will eventually do the same-it will only take longer or shorter depending on a hard or soft Brexit with the hope it will be halted by rejoining the EU before we hit the bottom.

269proximity1
Modificato: Mar 25, 2019, 7:55 am

>252 antimuzak:

RE: "There is a reason for countries to want to join trade blocks such as the EU - the principle of the Trade Union movement is that strength lies in collectivism rather than individualism - together we are strong, individually we are weak."

There's a big assumption within this nostrum about strength lying in collectivism.

Labour unions can advance the interests of their labouring members provided that they (the union) are not effectively the captives of the very management groups with which they (the unions) are supposed to deal as representatives of the labour-force--their membership and constituency.

You lump everyone in Britain together under a single, unified "we." That's really a gross distortion of the actual (and blatantly obvious) facts on the ground.

Britain's population is viciously, savagely, and grotesquely unequally-split between a tiny and truly obscenely wealthy elite whose interests are as nearly in line with the neo-liberal project (which the E.U. has become since the Common Market was first established) as that is practically possible to be, on the one hand, and, to oversimplify a bit, everyone else on the other hand. Quite the opposite is true--that is, the interests of the average Briton are essentially the polar opposite of what the E.U. cares for and protects most-- when one considers the interests of the rest of the British public in relation to the E.U. power-relations.

This key point is what comedian Tom Walker (as "Jonathan Pie") points out in the video I dared you to view in its entirety.

The disadvantaged, dispossessed Britons are definitely not "stronger" as a consequence of Britain's membership in the E.U. The contrary is very much the case. They are not only vastly weaker as a result, they're virtually "disarmed" by Britain's remaining in the E.U. The wealthy interests which support "Remain" understand this only too well.

In an odd sectarian scuffle with a different faction of British wealth, there's "Leave" group which differs on the relative importance of Britain's E.U. membership as a factor in the wealthy-class continued overwhelming domination of the British political order.

This is a fight in which two factions of British wealth are disputing the best way to cook and eat the British poor--

should they be boiled or fried?

Traditionally, they'd be boiled. But, within the E.U., being "Continental," the poor are more commonly fried. It's purely a matter of taste. And, one way or the other, the British people who aren't obscenely wealthy are living at sufferance of the wealthy dominant class.

Britain's leaving the E.U. could help bring the basic power-relations in Britain into a little better relief--making it easier for more ordinary Britons to observe how the wealthy are fucking them over. And that, in essence, is why the other "Remain" group opposes "leave"--apart from the inherent banking/finance interests in membership in the E.U.--but those interests are the farthest things from home-grown "British" national interests; indeed, they're virtually antithetical to these latter.

270pokarekareana
Mar 25, 2019, 11:44 am

> 269

"Britain's population is viciously, savagely, and grotesquely unequally-split between a tiny and truly obscenely wealthy elite whose interests are as nearly in line with the neo-liberal project (which the E.U. has become since the Common Market was first established) as that is practically possible to be, on the one hand, and, to oversimplify a bit, everyone else on the other hand. Quite the opposite is true--that is, the interests of the average Briton are essentially the polar opposite of what the E.U. cares for and protects most-- when one considers the interests of the rest of the British public in relation to the E.U. power-relations."

I disagree - I think what you've described there is an oversimplification of where we may have been in 2016. Now, we're split along far more dangerous lines - between those (on all sides) who are willing to compromise and those (on all sides) who are not.

271proximity1
Modificato: Mar 26, 2019, 9:03 am

>270 pokarekareana: " Now, we're split along far more dangerous lines - between those (on all sides) who are willing to compromise and those (on all sides) who are not."

___________________________

It's interesting that you put it that way. For about the last two or three days I've been mulling over a posting a comment which touches on this--perhaps, if I understand your point.

Think about the import of the reaction--pro and con--to the result of the 2016 referendum. It should stun Britons that so many of them are adamantly opposed to respecting the referendum's result and accepting it as decisive.

Now, I've startled some readers in these threads by challenging those who are categorically opposed to accepting the referendum's result to do their fellow Britons a favour and just depart--leave, go live abroad.

Imagine that they all did that.

Imagine, further, that every British citizen who was prepared to vote in one or another kind of ballot-issue in Britain but who was not, by that very act, also just as prepared to accept those ballots' results (in any and all cases in which an issue which may properly be decided by a majority-vote decision is to be decided*) also departed and took up residence abroad.

Among other things, this new state of affairs would then imply that every matter of controversy which which was susceptible to being settled by reaching a consensus could then be put to a vote and settled.

All sorts of divisive issues would then become matters which could be settled by a consensus simply because all participating voters, were, a priori, willing to accept a a fair vote's outcome even if it went against their own personal preferences.


We are very far from enjoying this kind of circumstance.

It's said, claimed, that the "Brexit" referendum wouldn't qualify under such a proviso because it was tainted by illegal funds or other electoral irregularities or illegalities.

Consider that charge: it means that more than a million voters in the referendum should, ought to, today feel deep outrage at having been duped, tricked, into supporting a course which they had not properly understood.

I ask: where are these people? Where are over a million voters so outraged at their having been victims of a deliberate fraud upon them? Why have they not identified themselves as having been cheated?--why have they not gone to the authorities and reported that they'd never have voted as they did had it not been for "X"-- a fraudulent act by which they were fooled?

Second, consider this:

Even supposing that every "Leave" voter cast his and her ballot upon a false estimation of the circumstances, upon a faulty appraisal of the pros and cons, since when is making that sort of error in judgment proper grounds for reversing a ballot decision?

It is one thing, indeed, to mis-mark one's ballot paper -- that is, to "pull the wrong lever", punch the wrong hole in the machine-readable ballot, to tick the wrong box---those are what are called mistakenly cast ballots. In certain cases, they may be described as "spoiled ballots". In either case, the ballot as marked does not represent the voter's true intentions.

In the case of people who are so-called 'victims' of a campaign to mislead them into voting in one or another manner, this is not at all the same thing. These voter's ballots do conform to the intentions they had in mind when they went into the polls and marked or cast their ballots. When they voted "Aye" they intended to vote "Aye," when "Nay," they intended to vote "Nay."

Were they victims of other than their own reasoning and judgment? Of course not. Every ballot issue turns on the success or failure of the competing campaigns' efforts to convince, persuade, the electorate.

To say that your opponents only voted against your own view of things because they weren't smart enough to agree with you --this is simply bad faith. It assumes that yours is the only possible valid view, that all others are necessarily foolish or worse, flat wrong.

But votes are held on matters of opinion--what people who have less than perfect knowledge think is most likely true or the case.

Where it is not proper to consult a majority opinion is on those matters which are inherently matters of an individual's legal rights--

one may not vote away others' most basic rights--the right to speech, to assembly, to a fair and public trial, to the right to be tried by a jury of one's peers, etc. These matters are not up to the majority's preferences to determine. So voting on them does not constitute an example of a properly formulated question.

On the other hand, Britain's remaining in the E.U.'s membership or renouncing it, that issue is eminently a matter fit for an electorate or a legislative assembly to take up and to determine democratically--by simple majority vote--for no basic rights are at stake : no one has any unquestionable right to be a citizen of a nation which is a member-state of the European Union. Such membership is purely elective, not theirs by inherent right, as is the right to vote, to speak, to travel, to assemble, to write and to hold religious convictions or no religious convictions according to one's conscience, etc. These are rights, not "privileges". Denying them is a moral wrong. No one may properly say the same about nation-states' E.U.-membership.

272sirfurboy
Mar 25, 2019, 1:14 pm

>271 proximity1: A few points to make to your post.

Firstly, you seem to assume that there was some kind of social contract that all voters agreed to abide by a simple majority advisory consultation, as though it were legally binding and sacrosanct. In fact, we know that was never the case:



Secondly, any call for dissenters to get out of the country is just the kind of nasty politics used by dictators the world over. It has no place in a democracy. It has no place in this discussion.

Consider this: even if we wanted to up sticks and leave our homes and our country, it is not as easy as that. Our children are in school, our families are here (many of us with family members on the other side of the argument so they can't come with us), and then get this one: we literally just had our rights to live and work in 27 other countries stripped away from us!

So it is not practical even if it were desirable, and it is not desirable because this is our HOME!

So stop with that nonsense. Just stop it right now.

And then you say:

"one may not vote away others' most basic rights."

But of course, that is exactly what did happen. Our rights to free movement, to access to healthcare, to diplomatic representation and other such rights have indeed been voted away.

You will want to answer that by saying you did not mean those rights. You meant basic rights. But who is to say what rights are basic? Why isn't it a basic right to be able to live and work anywhere in the European Union? Because you said so?

Make no mistake: Brexit represents the largest rolling back of rights for Britons in my lifetime, and maybe a lot longer. Maybe the largest since 1066 and the creation of the Royal Forests.

And why are you so afraid of a People's Vote? The people cannot betray the will of the people. Thinking otherwise is a category error.

273sirfurboy
Modificato: Mar 25, 2019, 1:31 pm

Oh and one other legal right that Brexit saw removed: Before the referendum, Britons already had a right in law to vote on the withdrawal agreement, being that it was a treaty with the European Union. We went into the Brexit vote with a right to vote on the withdrawal agreement.

Only the Conservative Government voted themselves in the so called Henry VIII powers, which allowed them to repeal legislation without any recourse to parliament. Last summer the Brexit secretary quietly and without fanfair repealed the legislation that guaranteed a vote.

So where is the democracy there?

274andyl
Mar 25, 2019, 2:09 pm

>271 proximity1: where are these people

People* who feel sheepish about having been lied to, by having been conned are not likely to be shouting it from the rooftops. However there is https://www.remainernow.com/ (which doesn't have anywhere near the number) does show that there are some people who are putting their hands up.

Also I am not sure why you are talking about 1million it would have only required about 650,000 to change their minds to switch the result.

Personally I would have thought that quite a few of the people who feel that way may well not be the kind of people who are comfortable with social media, who may find it impossible (or difficult) to find websites such as remainernow and who may not be comfortable about writing their story down for such websites.

275proximity1
Modificato: Mar 27, 2019, 1:03 pm


>274 andyl: "People* who feel sheepish about having been lied to, by having been conned are not likely to be shouting it from the rooftops."

Right, they aren't. That's because they were convinced at the time they formed their opinions and, having formed them, when they cast their ballot, based on their judgment that they'd reasoned correctly---just as you believe you'd done, no less.

I could say, about those who supported "Remain", just as easily as you believe about those who voted the other way, that these voters were damned fools and didn't understand the issues correctly and that they fell for idiotic nonsense--in effect, they swallowed lies wholesale.

But there's one thing I can't say about them-- their ballots as cast did not accurately reflect their intentions at the time.

That, of course, would be foolish nonsense.

When you ask the public to vote on an issue, you don't demand that they prove that they are, in each case, geniuses of political affairs; could you prove such a claim?

We take voters as they are; in the referendum, not a single "Leave" voter went to vote in ignorance of the fact that his opponents were LOUDLY proclaiming, warning him, that he'd been treated to a prolonged campaign of lies, disinformation, distortions and that, if he believed the claims made by those who'd convinced him to vote "Leave" he be falling for a blatant pack of ticked out lies and, in sum, he'd be a prize dope, moron.

NO "LEAVE" voter could possibly have escaped hearing that said about himself, his cohort and his views OVER AND OVER.

Now, guess what? After decades of scandalous abuse, these voters favouring "Leave" felt zero confidence in or sympathy for those who were mocking their intelligence and telling them that only idiots could favour voting "Leave."

So, your lot tried--foolishly--to convince them not to support "Leave." They definitely heard you; and they were anything but persuaded to alter their views. Your side failed to sway sufficient "Leave" voters. And you had EVERY CARD IN THE DECK in your "hand."

What'd really due--and shamelessly lacking on your side--is a very long, deep and serious period of self-examination and introspection.

277proximity1
Modificato: Mar 27, 2019, 1:26 pm

>274 andyl: "Also I am not sure why you are talking about 1million it would have only required about 650,000 to change their minds to switch the result."

Can "Remainers" Count?





Leave ......... 17,410,742 .......... 51.89%
Remain ....... 16,141,241 .......... 48.11%

____________________________________________________

(Wikipedia: "Results of the 2016 United Kingdom European Union membership referendum")



That's a difference of 1, 269, 501 votes-- well over a million votes.

Get it?

______________________________

By the way,

from The Guardian (London) Government rejects Brexit petition to revoke article 50 signed by 5.8 million people

278andyl
Mar 27, 2019, 1:38 pm

>277 proximity1:
Can "Remainers" Count?
That's a difference of 1, 269, 501 votes-- well over a million votes.

Which is not at all incompatible with my previous statement that you quoted in bold - namely it would have only required about 650,000 to change their minds to switch the result.

If 650,000 of those 1.2695 million voters switched their votes then Remain would have won. Leave would have had 0.65m less votes, and remain would have 0.65 more. Which means Leave would have had 16760742 votes and Remain would have had 16791241.

So not only can I count, I can do simple sums.

279sirfurboy
Mar 27, 2019, 1:44 pm

>277 proximity1: "Can "Remainers" Count?"

The question is, can you?

AndyL (speaking for himself, btw, and not all remainders everywhere, although he does speak good sense) said:

"it would have only required about 650,000 to change their minds to switch the result"

You quoted that in your own post.

So if 650,000 people had switched from leave to remain, what would be the numbers?

Here:

17,410,742 - 650,000 = 16,760,742
16,141,241 + 650,000 = 16,791,241

So AndyL is correct, it would only require 650,000 to change their minds to switch the result. Actually a little less. More like 635,000.

280proximity1
Modificato: Mar 27, 2019, 2:49 pm

>278 andyl:

LOL!!! Oh, well, then, of course! ;^) -- I see the point.

You're of course using "Remainer's Logic" there and, well, you see, not belonging to that camp myself, it just had not occurred to me that all the switched voters, every last stinking one of them!, would be to the detriment of the "Leave" camp, to which, you see, I belong, and not a single "Remain" voter, by your revision of things, changes his mind. The "Remain" camp just has no defectors at all.

And, well, you know, that strikes me as a bit far-fetched; partly because, in addition to the onslaught of examples "Leave"'s voters were treated to in those who'd voted "leave" but quickly avowed that they'd never imagined that the "Leave" camp could really win, I've also read of regrets from some who voted "Remain" and would change their vote if they had it to do over.

Well, they needn't. "Leave" won.

I do grant you this much: you, like so many "Re-moaners," are extremely consistent since the picture you offer us of this highly-hypothetical "reality" by which only "Leave's" voters change their minds is entirely in keeping with the bullshit presentations of what was just bound to happen if the "Leave" nutters, those "‘thick 'Little-England'-ers" ever had their way.

____________________________________________

Who started the "Remainer now" initiative and where'd the seed-money come from, hmmm? For some reason they don't see fit to divulge this. And Re-moan-ers can't whine sufficiently about how, according to them, the "Leave" campaign only got a majority through lies and corrupt, illegal funding.

So here's a golden opportunity for some Remain-ers to show that they are not really a band of fucking hypocrites.

Note: the site has this in its About Us page:



"ABOUT RN
We started on Twitter in December 2017.

Read Andy's story here

Now, we're a group of former Leave voters (and friends) who want to say 'it's ok to change your mind' and that 2016 was a LONG time ago. People know more, they are seeing more impacts on their lives, their livelihoods, and their children's futures.

" 'Remainer now' is a Not For Profit NGO, currently run on a voluntary basis."

281sirfurboy
Mar 27, 2019, 2:40 pm

>280 proximity1: "the picture you offer us of this highly-hypothetical..."

Of course it was hypothetical. Why would you have thought it was anything but? It was just an illustration of the slender majority in the referendum, after all.

Or is this just an attempt to distract us from your error above?
Questa conversazione è stata continuata da BREXIT - Part 2.

Iscriviti per commentare