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Brexit

Started by vandermolen, May 01, 2017, 10:14:35 PM

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vandermolen

Quote from: mc ukrneal on May 02, 2017, 05:05:26 AM
Too much doom and gloom. An FTA with the EU would bring a lot of the advantages without the disadvantages. What's more, many of the other European countries are dealing with similar sentiments, as the election in France currently shows.
I hope that you're right but I'm not encouraged at the moment.

Thanks to everyone for the interesting responses.
"Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm" (Churchill).

'The test of a work of art is, in the end, our affection for it, not our ability to explain why it is good' (Stanley Kubrick).

DaveF

Quote from: vandermolen on May 02, 2017, 01:18:45 AM
David Cameron made a terrible misjudgement in my view.

That's assuming he is a man of principle who genuinely wanted to give the UK electorate the chance to strengthen the UK's links with the EU.  Assuming, on the other hand, that the referendum promise was merely a manoeuvre to get him re-elected, it was a perfect bit of judgement.  I don't know whether, like Johnson, he had a pro- and anti-EU speech written to be used as required - but it wouldn't surprise me to learn that he had.

So, what's up next?  Capital punishment?  Outlawing Christianity?  Demolishing all those elitist theatres and concert halls?  I'm sure the great British electorate would vote them all through with large majorities.
"All the world is birthday cake" - George Harrison

Christo

Quote from: DaveF on May 02, 2017, 11:56:27 PMSo, what's up next?  Capital punishment?  Outlawing Christianity?  Demolishing all those elitist theatres and concert halls?  I'm sure the great British electorate would vote them all through with large majorities.

Exactly my point: we're witnessing times of anti-democratic flirtations sold as "democracy".
... music is not only an 'entertainment', nor a mere luxury, but a necessity of the spiritual if not of the physical life, an opening of those magic casements through which we can catch a glimpse of that country where ultimate reality will be found.    RVW, 1948

Jo498

I thought that Cameron's gambit had had two purposes: Get him reelected and strengthen the bargaining position with the EU because of the looming Brexit-threat. (Both after a narrow vote against Brexit.) Needless to say that the perennial special role of the UK did not make them all that popular even before the Brexit began to loom. So while I feel with the 48% who voted differently, overall my pity with the UK is severely limited, I am afraid.
@Dave: Have you read any of Fforde's "Thursday Next" books? There is a People's Republic of Wales in their alternative timeline...
Tout le malheur des hommes vient d'une seule chose, qui est de ne savoir pas demeurer en repos, dans une chambre.
- Blaise Pascal

Florestan

Quote from: Christo on May 03, 2017, 01:01:44 AM
Exactly my point: we're witnessing times of anti-democratic flirtations sold as "democracy".

If Plato came back to life, he'd not be surprised in the least. "I told you so long time ago, gentlemen! And mark my words well this time: the worst is yet to come!"  ;D
Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind. — Rossini

71 dB

Quote from: Christo on May 03, 2017, 01:01:44 AM
Exactly my point: we're witnessing times of anti-democratic flirtations sold as "democracy".

The reason why we witness this is because people have become too ignorant of politics. They are easily manipulated by opportunists and populists who use fear and false promises as their weapon for power. Democracy works well as long as ignorant people are a small minority, but now they are becoming a large minority or even majority.  ???

At the moment we need moderated democracy (modecracy). We need wise men and women in power to overrule "stupid" political ideology. We need perhaps the possibility to give negative votes in elections to block extremists. We need to make people interested of real unpopulistic politics until we can return to "normal" democracy.
Spatial distortion is a serious problem deteriorating headphone listening.
Crossfeeders reduce spatial distortion and make the sound more natural
and less tiresome in headphone listening.

My Sound Cloud page <-- NEW Jan. 2024 "Harpeggiator"

ahinton

There's been a great deal of welcome good sense in this thread so far.

Mr Cameron had no need even to include the promise of Parliamentary debate and voting on UK's continued EU membership in the manifesto for the 2015 UK General Election, still less a referendum on the issue which, as has already been noted, was the most crass way in which to introduce the subject into the Tory party agenda. No other UK political party included any reference to this in its manifesto pledges, which surely teaches us something about the matter, namely that the undertaking to call a referendum on it was a matter of perceived political expediency on the part of the Tory party - an expediency turned out to be mythical in any case.

The conduct and aftermath of the referendum were shameful beyond words, but the worst aspect of it - even worsre in some ways than the lies, half-truths and acrimony that characterised the campaign - is that neither those who voted Remain nor those who voted Leave nor even the majority of those who abstained were given anything like sufficient reliable information upon which to base their voting decisions.

Moreover, the UK electorate votes and pays squillions for Parliamentarians in the lower House in order that they may avail themselves of the opportunity to place trust in them to represent them and then to vote them out if they fail, so why suddenly delegate responsibility for a matter of the utmost importance for UK's future to the amateurs to decide?

Mr Cameron's allocation of almost £10m to the Remain campaign was also entirely out of order; if the government of the day wanted to persuade the electorate that to remain in EU was in UK's best interests, it should have done that in Parliamentary debate (I write as a Remain supporter in so saying).

The calling of the forthcoming UK General Election seems to have about as much reasoning as that of the referendum two years ago; its principal justification appears to be the perceived need to secure a much larger majority for the Tory party yet, even if that goal is achieved (which must surely be in some doubt), what difference will that make to the strength of UK's negotiation position when none of the other 27 EU nations have any reason to be interested in it? The 1 against 27 factor will remain, unaffected by the strength or weakness of the majority achieved by whichever party wins the UK General Election (even assuming that any one of them actually does so).

"The longest suicide note in history" -  that epithet infamously coined by one of the longest serving UK Labour Party MPs, Sir Gerald Kaufman (who died earlier this year), to describe his own party's 1983 General Election manifesto - looks soon to be overtaken as a descriptor of the manifestos (manifesti?) of both the Tory and the Labour parties (indeed, they might even come to be regarded as being in competition with one another as such), given that those two parties appear to endorse the UK leaving EU on the specious and spurious grounds of "the people have spoken" (yes, around 37% of UK's electorate voted for UK to leave EU and many of them and those who voted Remain didn't know enough of what they spoke).

I cannot imagine either EU or UK coming out of this mess unscathed; rather the reverse, indeed...

Que


vandermolen

Quote from: Christo on May 03, 2017, 01:01:44 AM
Exactly my point: we're witnessing times of anti-democratic flirtations sold as "democracy".
Totally agree - sadly.
"Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm" (Churchill).

'The test of a work of art is, in the end, our affection for it, not our ability to explain why it is good' (Stanley Kubrick).

Turner


nodogen

The General Election and Brexit...

Clearly the upcoming General Election is beyond normal as it will be followed by Brexit negotiations and all that that entails. Voters who are concerned to try to minimise the chance of an unchecked "hard Brexit" can make use of this Dashboard to see who may be best placed in your own constituency to try and achieve this. It is not about party politics, it is about democracy. (The people behind this include Gina Miller who prevented Theresa May from bypassing parliament regarding Article 50).

(Feel free to share this link with others)

https://bestforbritain.org/vote-smart

nodogen

http://evolvepolitics.com/

http://anotherangryvoice.blogspot.co.uk/

https://www.thecanary.co/

Apparently these are getting more read than the online version of the Daily Hate. There is hope. 👏


Turner

#32
Though almost everyone is predicting a strong victory for her, May seems to experience more problems in her campaign than expected.

Here´s one case where she doesn´t do well - is caught lying or being very uninformed, then makes a poor escape from it:
"Theresa_May tells a nurse who says she earns the same as they did in 2009 that sadly there 'isn't a magic money tree"
https://twitter.com/bbcquestiontime/status/870732339155836928

Another strong point of critique is her manifest absence from public debates with other politicians. Officially, she "prefers meeting the voters", but those meetings are usually staged and organized by her own party.


Holden

I was in the UK recently and took some time to ask as many Brits as I could what they thought of Brexit. I got opinions from all stratas of society and overwhelmingly, there was agreement that this has been the right thing to do.

Some common themes emerged:

Unchecked immigration was the major one followed by the idea of the country having more of a say in its own destiny. I wondered if xenophobia was the reason behind the immigration concerns. Many told me that they just saw streams of people who could legally come into the country putting a huge strain on welfare and especially the excellent health system that the Brits have. There was no mention of any specific ideology or ethnic group, they just saw people escaping inferior systems to take advantage of what the UK had to offer. The equitability of propping up very weak economies at the expense of their own was a concern.

One thing all were agreed on. They were very thankful that the UK had retained their own currency and not adopted the Euro.

These were the views that registered with me yet I didn't see them reflected in the media. Maybe, once again, they are out of touch or maybe my survey came from a very narrow slice of the electorate.
Cheers

Holden

nodogen

Quote from: Holden on June 03, 2017, 12:35:03 AM
I was in the UK recently and took some time to ask as many Brits as I could what they thought of Brexit. I got opinions from all stratas of society and overwhelmingly, there was agreement that this has been the right thing to do.

16.1 million voted to remain in the EU; 17.4 to leave. It was not an overwhelming result. And given that 28% of eligible voters abstained, neither campaign gained anywhere near a majority.

Perhaps like T**** in the USA, the issue and the result aroused great anger, division and bitterness, including a rise in hate crimes and the murder of an MP.

Que

#35
Quote from: Holden on June 03, 2017, 12:35:03 AM
I was in the UK recently and took some time to ask as many Brits as I could what they thought of Brexit. I got opinions from all stratas of society and overwhelmingly, there was agreement that this has been the right thing to do.

Some common themes emerged:

Unchecked immigration was the major one followed by the idea of the country having more of a say in its own destiny. I wondered if xenophobia was the reason behind the immigration concerns. Many told me that they just saw streams of people who could legally come into the country putting a huge strain on welfare and especially the excellent health system that the Brits have. There was no mention of any specific ideology or ethnic group, they just saw people escaping inferior systems to take advantage of what the UK had to offer. The equitability of propping up very weak economies at the expense of their own was a concern.

One thing all were agreed on. They were very thankful that the UK had retained their own currency and not adopted the Euro.

These were the views that registered with me yet I didn't see them reflected in the media. Maybe, once again, they are out of touch or maybe my survey came from a very narrow slice of the electorate.

Oh, definitely immigration was a major concern that led to support for a Brexit.
But as per usual the popular assumptions you describe are unfounded, not to say delusional...

Long story short: people blamed real problems they have on immigration, like a lack of proper housing and the lowering of wages, and increase in social and economic inequality. But they have no one but the successive British governments to blame for that, not the EU or immigration.
See the link to a study of the London School of Economics linked below.
I have quoted the main findings.

As to the "unchecked immigration": that can only refer to immigration from inside the EU, since the UK controls immigration from outside the EU entirely by itself.
And research show that immigrants from inside the EU are NOT the cause of social and economic problems. On the contrary, economists and the business community are worried about the future lack of both cheap labour and highly qualified personel that is in short domestic supply, and the damage it can do to the British economy...

One interesting detail: most EU immigrants in the UK are from Eastern Europe.
Now.... which important member state had been pushing tirelessly EU expansion towards the East?  ::)
For geopolitical reasons and to please their American Masters friends? Right....it was Britain....

It is like Trump's climate change denial: a bogus story
But hey, we live in an era in which the way things really are, doesn't matter anymore!  :laugh:
Complex realities lead to simplified falsehoods - at least people can understand those....  8)
But the politicians don't care, and nor does their electorate...until it figured out it has been conned....and then to blame it on someone else...
I guess it is generally easier to blame other people instead of admitting you were stupid enough to be screwed over by the ruling elite....
Again, Trump's election is another perfect example in case... 8)

The British were right about the euro though.... ;)

http://cep.lse.ac.uk/pubs/download/brexit05.pdf

Brexit and the impact of immigration on the UK

- Between 1995 and 2015, the number of immigrants from other European Union (EU) countries living in the UK tripled from 0.9 million to 3.3 million. In 2015, EU net
immigration to the UK was 172,000, only just below the figure of 191,000 for non-EU immigrants.

- The big increase in EU immigration occurred after the 'A8' East European countries joined in 2004. In 2015 29% of EU immigrants were Polish.

- EU immigrants are more educated, younger, more likely to be in work and less likely to claim benefits than the UK-born. About 44% have some form of higher education  compared with only 23% of the UK-born. About a third of EU immigrants live in London, compared with only 11% of the UK-born.

- Many people are concerned that immigration reduces the pay and job chances of the UK-born due to more competition for jobs. But immigrants consume goods and services and this increased demand helps to create more employment opportunities. Immigrants also might have skills that complement UK-born workers. So we need empirical evidence to settle the issue of whether the economic impact of immigration is negative or positive for the UK-born.

- New evidence in this Report shows that the areas of the UK with large increases in EU immigration did not suffer greater falls in the jobs and pay of UK-born workers. The big
falls in wages after 2008 are due to the global financial crisis and a weak economic recovery, not to immigration.

- There is also little effect of EU immigration on inequality through reducing the pay and jobs of less skilled UK workers. Changes in wages and joblessness for less educated UK-born workers show little correlation with changes in EU immigration.

- EU immigrants pay more in taxes than they take out in welfare and the use of public services. They therefore help reduce the budget deficit. Immigrants do not have a negative effect on local services such as crime, education, health, or social housing

- European countries with access to the Single Market must allow free movement of EU citizens whether in the EU (like the UK) or outside it (like Norway and Switzerland).

- The refugee crisis has nothing to do with EU membership. Refugees admitted to Germany have no right to live in the UK. The UK is not in the Schengen passport-free travel agreement so there are border checks on migrants.


Q

nodogen

+1, Que.

Non-Brits should be aware that Paul Nuttall is the current leader of the far right UKIP party:

https://youtu.be/tKEsyIuTrO8

Holden

One caveat - these are the opinions I heard, not my own. In fact I don't have an opinion on Brexit as it's too far removed to really affect me. I was just curious as to what people thought. I also explored EPL and Championship football, something I definitely have opinions about.
Cheers

Holden

Que

Quote from: Holden on June 03, 2017, 02:30:47 PM
One caveat - these are the opinions I heard, not my own. In fact I don't have an opinion on Brexit as it's too far removed to really affect me. I was just curious as to what people thought. I also explored EPL and Championship football, something I definitely have opinions about.

That was totally understood.  :) 

And I am not surprised you heard them since these were/are an important driving force behind Brexit.

Q

Que

Back to the course - or rather lack thereof - of the negotiations....

The prospect of a "hard", unprepared and abrupt Brexit is becoming more and more likely.
This will hurt Britain, but will also inflict considerable economic damage on EU countries that have important trading relations with the UK, like my own.

Britain is being led to an epic act of national self-harm over Brexit

Q