Brexit

And dont have our best interests at heart !

( and in some cases Exactly the Opposite )

 

You should be planning for all the disruption Y2K will cause as well

 

Laugh it up, fuzzball.

 

I was around at the time and a lot of time effort and money was spent making sure there was a smooth transition. People saw the possible problems and dangers and planned to mitigate them – the Brexiteers seem to dismiss planning prefering wishful thinking instead.

Here is something

Developers wish people would remember what a big deal the Y2K bug was

Jacob Rees-Mogg, an outspoken Conservative MP, sits firmly within the Brexit camp, and recently described the consequences of a no-deal exit scenario as being exaggerated “much like the millennium bug.” The complicated realities of Brexit aside, this remark has annoyed developers d’un certain age who remember the Y2K panic, and dedicated years of their lives to ensuring the worst predictions never came to pass.

The Y2K bug essentially was the product of a time when memory was prohibitively expensive. To save space, years would be represented as two digits rather than four — so, instead of ‘1999’ you’d have ’99’. The problem is, when the millennium happens, it’d be like if the clock went backwards to 1900. This would result in all sorts of hilarious (like, newborn babies being issued birth certificates dated 1900 hilarious) and non-hilarious (banking and military computers not working properly) SNAFUs.

Solving the Y2K bug was an immense task. It involved the efforts of countless developers around the world, and if it wasn’t for their efforts, things could have gone very badly.

In comparison, Brexit will make this look like a walk in the park, as the UK attempts to untangle itself from 40 years of European integration. In the case of a no-deal scenario, it’ll have to build entire regulatory bodies from scratch, and figure out legislation surrounding everything from food imports, to aviation, to customs.

So, nothing like the millennium bug then.

Developers wish people would remember what a big deal the Y2K bug was

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Modas

I was a teenager at the time of the vote and I knew what the arguments were, yes there were those that promoted it purely as a trade agreement but many others realised this was entry into the ‘European project’. The problem was that it was mainly the right and the dominant right wing media that pushed the trade angle and after the neo-liberal dogma took hold in the 1980 amongst that group they became increasingly hostile to the EU as they saw it as holding back a full neo-liberal free market revolution.

Here is something I posted early on in this thread

De Gaulle was right when he famously vetoed Britain’s entry into what would become the EU. He didn’t think Britain as a nation thought of itself as European and so had little interest in the ‘European Project’ which was form the beginning the idea of ever greater union as a means and to the end of stopping the wars that had devastated Europe since the fall of the Western Roman Empire. De Gaulle thought that Britain would have to undergo a “radical transformation" before it would actually sign up to the project. I think that he thought that the only reason Britain wanted to join was to get into the market, all the easier to sell British goods to the French Germans Italians etc, but the common market was only ever a means to an end, the end been that ever closer union.

And the politicians that wanted into the European union sold it as such as a market place with very little said about the project and when we did get in the Little Britain nationalists and the wealth owned media have been railing against the ever closer union, using all the dark arts of spin, innuendo and often straight out lying.

The BBC did a piece on what people from around Europe thought of the referendum and a couple of comments from a German and a French woman are telling

German – “My feeling is that countries who do not believe in the values of the EU should leave the union. It will be better for the remaining countries, because only then can they create a real democratic, governed and socially united Europe”


French – “For me, Europe is about more than just free trade. It is also about sticking together and preventing another world war. It is about sharing the same democratic values and principles”

 

Modas

But the question is why would we want to and in what way would they be ‘better’?

Just saying we can does not mean that doing so would be in the best interests of the majority of Britain’s.

I mean how is making trading with a nearest and largest trading block harder an improvement?

As part of the EU we have many trading agreements with countries outside the EU.

For example people say it means we can trade more with China, but why are we not trading more with China now? I mean Germany trades more with China than we do from within the EU how is the UK suddenly going to find things to trade with just by leaving the EU?

Can you please give us a bit more detail of your thinking?

 

Modas

Which laws are you talking about exactly?

This is a well know claim by many in the right wing media, but many of the things they cite turn out to be gross distortions or outright lies.

The 10 best Euro myths – from custard creams to condoms

 

Part one

Here is something about EU ‘unelected bureaucrats’ from Simon Hix, the Harold Laski Professor of Political Science at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

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A popular claim by many supporters of the Leave campaign is that the EU is run by ‘unelected bureaucrats’. How much truth is there behind that claim?

This claim mainly refers to the EU Commission: the EU’s executive body. It is true that the Commission President and the individual Commissioners are not directly elected by the peoples of Europe. So, in that sense, we cannot “throw the scoundrels out”. It is also true that under the provisions of the EU treaty, the Commission has the sole right to propose EU legislation, which, if passed, is then binding on all the EU member states and the citizens of these member states.

But, that’s not the end of the story. First, the Commission’s power to propose legislation is much weaker than it at first seems. The Commission can only propose laws in those areas where the EU governments have unanimously agreed to allow it to do under the EU treaty. Put another way, the Commission can only propose EU laws in areas where the UK government and the House of Commons has allowed it to do so.

Also, ‘proposing’ is not the same as ‘deciding’. A Commission proposal only becomes law if it is approved by both a qualified-majority in the EU Council (unanimity in many sensitive areas) and a simple majority in the European Parliament. In practice this means that after the amendments adopted by the governments and the MEPs, the legislation usually looks very different to what the Commission originally proposed. In this sense, the Commission is much weaker than it was in the 1980s, when it was harder to amend its proposals in the Council and when the European Parliament did not have amendment and veto power.

Part of the misunderstanding about the power of the Commission perhaps stems from a comparison with the British system of government. Unlike the British government, which commands a majority in the House of Commons, the Commission does not command an in-built majority in the EU Council or the European Parliament, and so has to build a coalition issue-by-issue. This puts the Commission in a much weaker position in the EU system than the British government in the UK system.

Second, the Commission President and the Commissioners are indirectly elected. Under Article 17 of the EU treaty, as amended by the Lisbon Treaty, the Commission President is formally proposed by the European Council (the 28 heads of government of the EU member states), by a qualified-majority vote, and is then ‘elected’ by a majority vote in the European Parliament. In an effort to inject a bit more democracy into this process, the main European party families proposed rival candidates for the Commission President before the 2014 European Parliament elections. Then, after the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP) won the most seats in the new Parliament, the European Council agreed to propose the EPP’s candidate: Jean-Claude Juncker.

The problem in Britain, though, is that this new way of ‘electing’ the Commission President did not feel very democratic. None of the main British parties are in the EPP (the Conservatives left the EPP in 2009), and so British voters were not able to vote for Juncker (although they could vote against him). There was also very little media coverage in the UK of the campaigns between the various candidates for the Commission President, so few British people understand how the process worked (unlike in some other member states). But, we can hardly blame the EU for the Conservatives leaving the EPP or for our media failing to cover the Commission President election campaign!

Then, once the Commission President is chosen, each EU member state nominates a Commissioner, and each Commissioner is then subject to a hearing in one of the committees of the European Parliament (modelled on US Senate hearings of US Presidential nominees to the US cabinet). If a committee issues a ‘negative opinion’ the candidate is usually withdrawn by the government concerned. After the hearings, the team of 28 is then subject to an up/down ‘investiture vote’ by a simple majority of the MEPs.

Finally, once invested, the Commission as a whole can be removed by a two-thirds ‘censure vote’ in the European Parliament. This has never happened before, but in 1999 the Santer Commission resigned before a censure vote was due to be taken which they were likely to lose. So, yes, the Commission is not directly elected. But it is not strictly true to say that it is ‘unelected’ or unaccountable.

And, in many ways, the way the Commission is now chosen is similar to the way the UK government is formed. Neither the British Prime Minister nor the British cabinet are ‘directly elected’. Formally, in House of Commons elections, we do not vote on the choice for the Prime Minister, but rather vote for individual MPs from different parties. Then, by convention, the Queen chooses the leader of the largest party in the House of Commons to form a government. This is rather like the European Council choosing the candidate of the political group with the most seats in the European Parliament to become the Commission President.

Then, after the Prime Minister is chosen, he or she is free to choose his or her cabinet ministers. There are no hearings of individual ministerial nominees before committees of the House of Commons, and there is no formal investiture vote in the government as a whole. From this perspective, the Commissioners and the Commission are more scrutinised and more accountable than British cabinet ministers.

So, it is easy to claim that the EU is run by ‘unelected bureaucrats’, but the reality is quite a long way from that. Although, having said that, I would be one of the first to acknowledge that the EU does not feel as democratic as it could or should be – as I have spent much of my academic career writing about this issue. But, this is perhaps more to do with the stage of development of the EU than because of the procedures that are now in place for choosing and removing the Commission, which are far more ‘democratic’ than they were 5 or 10 years ago.

 

Modas

Part two

This was covered many times at the time of referendum so you must know this is way too simplistic and that the truth is a lot more complex and nuanced, don’t you?

So to me the slogan is disingenuous at best and to some outright lying.

“It is time to nail another lie: Britain is not ruled by unelected bureaucrats in Brussels.”

Ruled by Brussels Bureaucrats? It's Another Lie

I’m not saying the EU is perfect but I don’t think any system is - yes there is a certain amount of ‘democratic deceit’ in the EU but that is also true for the UK. The parliamentary, constituency and first past the post electoral system in the UK for example means that political Party’s that get control of the government have power in excess (often far in excess) to their mandate. For example even though Margret Thatcher’s as leader of the Conservatives won three elections the Tory’s never polled more than 43% of the popular vote. I’ve been told that that the last time a UK government was elected with more than 50% of the popular vote was 1931.

This means that we get things like the 2015 election the Conservatives got only 36.9% of the popular vote but 50.9% of the Parliamentary seats.

 

It felt like one of those 'appear to be reasonable but actually has zero truth value' statements.

Brexit is seriously the worst decision to come out of western Europe since the treaty of Versailles.

 

Many right wing leavers are neo-liberals that seem to think that the economic shock of a hard brexit will somehow galvanise the British into been better traders and workers, in the same way that they think removing publically funded welfare and healthcare from the poorer of will make them work harder, as in if the alternative is death you have to do something, anything, to survive.

They don’t put in in those terms but push some nostalgic and jingoistic line that takes in everything from Elizabethan privateers, the Empire and the Dunkirk spirt, to try and claim that once released from the EU shackles the British spirit will be free to soar on the world stage and find the things and the dynamism to trade far better than we do now.

But I’d ask why we are not doing that now?

I mean it seems to me that many of the problems with the UK economy are due to too much neo-liberalism and would only become worse with more of it.

The neo-liberal approach of letting the market decide has meant that the UK hasn’t had a dedicated industrial or export policy in years, unlike places like Germany where the state plays an integral part in boosting manufacturing and exports.

The British model has not been to nurture industry but to let it go to the highest bidder, for example virtually all our car manufacturing companies are foreign owned (I can only think of one off the top of my head the luxury car maker Morgan)

*OK had a look and “according to the AA, which produces a guide to buying British cars, there are only three fully British-owned car manufacturers in the UK: Morgan, Caterham and McLaren” (these are all luxury car makers)

John Redwood mocked for telling people to buy non-existent British cars

We cannot let our future be dictated by neo-liberal fantasists.

 

I don’t think we will crash out in a very hard Brexit because the consequences for the UK would be so dire I think the EU would take pity on us and through some type of political fudge allow the negotiations to continue.

As I’ve said before threatening the EU with a crash out is like someone saying ‘ok I’m going to blow my brains out and you’ll be sorry because you’’ll get blood on your cloths and have to get them dry cleaned.”

But if we still carry on with Brexit, even if it is soft, it is still likely to have a detrimental effect on the UK economy, the implications of which might not be immediately now until ten, twenty, fifty years down the line.

 

A new report by Thiemo Fetzer, associate professor in economics at the University of Warwick links the leave vote for Brexit to the Tory lead policy of austerity pointing out that those areas most adversely effected by austerity measures were the ones were there was a large growth in support for leave.

The results [of the report] suggest that the EU referendum either may not have taken place, or, as a back of the envelope calculations suggests, could have resulted in a victory for remain, had it not been for austerity.

 

This is really no surprise. Cameron mis-calculated very badly (unless he was a secret leaver all along). How did they suppose people were going to re-act to having their public services systemastically dismantled......not fit to run a tuperware party.

Meantime there are growing calls for a second referendum - personally I'd support it just on the grounds of the irregularities that are emerging about leave campaign finance etc. I also think though that many leave voters imaginded that there would be some kind of plan in place for leaving. Maybe now it's more eveident than ever what a mess this all is they'd vote differently.

UK seems something like a parasite infested goldfish about to be dropped into a tank of hungry sharks.

 

All This cutting and Pasting ??
Truth is nobody knows Exactly what the UK will be like outside the EU ? Only what its like inside ! and people voted to leave . So you guys want another Vote OK

we didn't win the world cup either lets have another go Eh !!

 

Billy

It’s like the Obamacare thing in the US, with the right wingers screaming about how bad it was and how they could do so much better but when they get that chance it turns out they didn’t have a clue how to improve it only to make things worse.

Except this has been going on for some 40 odd years! So the leavers have literally had years in which to think through their plans for exiting the EU and when it happens its turns out none of them had actually given it much thought beyond ‘leave’.

But that wasn’t a surprise to many of us, I’ve taken some interest in the issue (having lived and worked in several EU countries) and have read in those 40 years many articles by eurosceptics and all of them seem full of jingoistic rhetoric but lacked in detail.

But you would think reality might of concentrated the leavers minds but if anything it’s made them even more muddled, they still haven’t got a clue what to do except, it seems, to criticise anybody else’s ideas as too soft or unworkable.

You would think so yes - but I fear many that voted leave don’t know or don’t care.

I’ve talked to some leavers who seem incredibly ill-informed or worse misinformed they don’t see or read any of the criticisms of leave and/or dismiss them as part of ‘project fear’.

And the leave politicians seem to be already working on the line they are going to feed their supporters once things do turn bad, and surprise, surprise that is to blame the EU for everything.

The big bad EU wanted us to feel pain so they made sure we did feel pain, it’s not that pain was to one degree or another inevitable as soon as Brexit was triggered.

Imagine a couple where the husband has constantly been putting down his wife for years and she has carried on for the sake of the children. Then one day he turns around and says he wants a divorce so he can go and have sex with other women.

But he wants to carry on having sex with her and wants to carry on living in their house but not pay the mortgage anymore.

He then becomes very annoyed then angry when her lawyer informs him that sex with her is just not going to happen, that all the property has to be shared out equally and she is getting custody of the kids.

Such guys usually end up friendless, single, living in a mouldy bedsit in Dagenham and drinking half a bottle of scotch a night while mumbling ‘the bitch’ every once and awhile.

 

Mally

Two piece makes an ALL – lol

Thing is can you address the many criticisms raised?

Truth is nobody knows exactly what will happen if you put your head in a hungry tigers mouth, but you can make some educated guesses as to if it seems like a good idea or not.

Most sensible and rational people think and plan before making important decisions, as in what are the likely outcomes if you put your head in a hungry tiger’s mouth.

And what is so bad about being inside? I mean there hasn’t been a strong case presented here for us been better out of the EU.

LOL - Well yes we will have another go in a few years’ time, that’s the thing with the world cup it happens every four years.

This is not like a world cup or general election we can't have another go every four years or so this is going to have a generational effect on the whole counrty. And once out even in yeras to come we asked to get back in again we will never get as sweet a deal as we did have, if they let us in at all.

I mean honestly to you the future of the UK is just a sport, something basically trivial and unimportant? I think that kind of frivolous thinking is what got us to this point.

I mean if you actually think about it the referendum was nothing like a football match. Even those that ran the leave campaign admit many voted for leave because of the huge lie over the NHS funding and the many minor lies over immigration.

As pointed out the before British politicians have been implying for years that EU was to blame for the hardships caused by their own policies not Europe’s backed up by the drip, drip maliciousness of the right wing press and it’s not surprising many were bamboozled into giving the EU the two fingers.

 

A no-deal Brexit would be a 'mistake we would regret for generations' according to Jeremy Hunt the Foreign Secretary.

The Danish finance minister says the chances of a no deal Brexit is now at 50/50

And the London committee that plans for disasters such as terrorist attacks on the capital have stated doing contingency planning for if the UK crashes out of Europe

7 months and ticking and there still is no realistic plan for leaving.

 

We now have until the end of October to present a new plan and six months until we leave

And we still don’t seem to have a sketch of a reasonable and rational plan let alone anything that has details in it.

35 days and 186 days

And still no real plan, zilch, nada, rien, nichts

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The so called ‘Chequers Agreement’, fell flat at Salzburg, as many predicted, and there doesn’t seem to be any rational or reasonable plan B.

The Tories were told that they could have no cherry picking but tried to cherry pick anyway, so they were told, politely, once again that they could have no cherry picking – so they wrote an agreement that was based on cherry picking and seemed surprised that the EU said again, but less politely, NO.

Tick tock

35 days and six months

Tempus fugit

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Thing is that it seems to me that it’s just beginning to dawn on a few leave voters what leaving will actually do to the country and their lives but that many still are holding on to the hope and are waiting to see if all those lies they were sold will somehow become true.

To me it’s like they are waiting to see what happens when the shit hits the fan and hoping that it will end up turning into a shower of gold.

 

OK so six months (as of writing 163 days to go) and still nothing.

Everything should have been sorted my now - everyone should have a clear picture of what Brexit means, things are not and the picture is a blank canvas.

I mean we were told by the leavers that everything was going to be easy that it would be just a simple matter of telling the EU what they wanted and the EU would just give us it or as Boris Johnson put it we could have our cake and eat it too.

They lied either on purpose or through ignorance but none of them can claim ignorance now they have leant now that their dream of Brexit was always that a fantast’s dream which is rapidly becoming the UK’s nightmare.

I’ve begun meeting normal sensible people that are now really wondering if it just might be a good idea to stock up on canned goods in case the UK does crash out.

As I’ve said I don’t think we will crash out (although that is a hope) because I think the EU will take pity on us and fudge it so we can carry on negotiating, but….

Six months and still nothing