Brexit

Discussion in 'Politics' started by BlackBillBlake, Feb 19, 2016.

  1. Balbus

    Balbus Senior Member

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    Billy

    Yes as a people and a nation EVERY version of leave would make us worse off

    From the bad of the May deal to the utter catastrophe of a crash out

    And what do we gain?

    NOTHING

    The Brexiteers told us there was going to be a Brexit dividend - billions more to be spent on the NHS (a public institution that many of them, as neoliberals, despised) it’s now clear that there is likely to be a deficit, many more years of austerity many more years of defunding the NHS (which is exactly what the neoliberal Brexit extremists would like to happen).

    The 52% were bamboozled and lied to and should be angry has hell, but the sorry fact is I’m not sure they are.

    So if we get a second vote (my hope) what happens then, is the last two years just get forgotten?
     
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  2. BlackBillBlake

    BlackBillBlake resigned HipForums Supporter

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    I agree that there is nothing at all to be gained for ordinary people, and never was. The brexiteers lied, the papers drip fed them anti-european sentiment for years, and enough people were conned to give 'leave' the narrow 'victory' they got.

    I don't know where it goes from here. I doubt we'll get another vote, although we should.

    I'm sure the leavers will be happy with their new brexit 50p coin, which is about all they are going to get assuming this idiocy isn't halted now. When the economic downturn starts to bite, and it won't be only the worst off who will feel it like under austerity, maybe they will thrash around trying to find a new enemy on whom they can blame it all - hard to see who. No doubt Europe will be the villain for not giving us a 'good deal'. WTF did they expect?

    Cameron, and now May have to go down as the 2 worst prime ministers the UK ever had. Weak, inneffective and incapable of putting the country's future ahead of their own narrow partisan interest. Only consolation is that far from 'healing' the divisions within the con party, this has widened them to an unparalled degree.
    Be interesting to see how many tory 'rebels' slip quietly back into line if they see the fall of the government looming.
     
    Balbus likes this.
  3. Balbus

    Balbus Senior Member

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    So the only deal on the table has been pulled from Parliament because everyone knew it didn’t have the votes to pass

    So three months to go and we still don’t have a plan.

    As of writing we its 108 days

    Three fucking months about a hundred fucking days

    Thing is that I don’t even believe an actual deal is achievable, well not one that will be acceptable to all the different views of what they thought ‘Brexit’ meant

    Talking to the leavers over the past two years (and many before that) it was like every one of them had a differing view and all of them lacking in detail even the hardline brexiteers didn’t have a clue what to do and still don’t so are now pushing from there padded cells that a crash out is some type of ‘rational’ plan. They are actually advising that madness is better than sanity while calling those more clear head people that are calling for another referendum the real nutters.

    And we only have three fucking months

    I can’t see how the rest of the people in the world are supposed ever again accept the UK as I sensible and rational nation when we would allow this to happen.
     
    BlackBillBlake likes this.
  4. McFuddy

    McFuddy Visitor

    I think the whole thing here is Brexiteers, as you call them, are wholly uninterested in the rest of the world and what it thinks. No offense intended here (honestly) but at times like this it's easy to see where America inherited its stupidity from.
     
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  5. BlackBillBlake

    BlackBillBlake resigned HipForums Supporter

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    Another fine mess.

    Seems to be going nowhere. Personally, I'm suffering from Brexit Fatigue.
     
    EloiseAtThePlaza likes this.
  6. Balbus

    Balbus Senior Member

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    Bill

    I've still got Brexit anger – anger at the lying cheating bastards that pushed for this - knowing all too well that they had no plan or clue what to do if they had to actually do the thing they have been claiming they’ve wanted for years

    And I’m even angrier that they knew it was all crap, it was all a ploy about factional power within the Tory party - they never believed they’d get an actual chance and if they did that they could bamboozle enough people to vote against their own and the country’s best interests.

    And above all I’m angry because my child is going to have to suffer the long term consequences of these bastards actions.
     
  7. BlackBillBlake

    BlackBillBlake resigned HipForums Supporter

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    I fully understand your anger. I'm not exactly jubilant myself, but I have other problems of a personal nature that also demand my attention.
    This mess was never, as you rightly say, about the best future for the country or for our children, it was about factions in the tory party and a leadership that was too weak to deal with it.
    Combined with good old fashioned British hubris and arrogance.

    I'm very sympathetic towards the plight of youung people - thery've already been substansively ripped off compared to people of my age what with universtity tuition fees, no good job prospects and the rest of it.Also the genral sad amd sorry state of society after both the Blair years, and since 2010 under this current bunch of incompetents.
     
    Balbus likes this.
  8. Balbus

    Balbus Senior Member

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    OK I’ve now read that Theresa May will probably bring her Brexit deal back to parliament to be voted on by the 21 January.

    That would leave 9 weeks and 4 days before a crash out.

    UK election law specifies a minimum 10-week campaign period for any referendum, like a people vote....

    Fucking bastards

    Fact is that given the criminal waste of time its unlikely any referendum could be organised (and longer for general election) even if they voted for one today so in my opinion we need to get an extention from the EU.
     
    Last edited: Dec 11, 2018
  9. BlackBillBlake

    BlackBillBlake resigned HipForums Supporter

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    I don't think there's any doubt that the EU would willingly allow an extension. But clearly May is playing for time - it's not clear what she hopes to achieve, there's no re-negotiation on the table, Merkel and others have made that plain. If her underlying plan is to crash out, she'd have done better to just go ahead with the vote rather than postponing it. I think all of this is very probably just a desperate attempt to hang on to power no matter what the cost to the UK's reputation as a serious player in the rest of the world, or indeed to the value of the pound, the FTSE and so on. It's bringing the government and the office of PM into disrepute,

    I think it's going to come to the question of will enough MPs back a new referendum. Personally, I feel let down (yet again) by Labour who should IMO have been championing this unequivocally. It's been left to the Greens , the LibDems and the SNP. I think Caroline Lucas is one of the few politicians who comes out of this looking good.

    A few months ago I'd have given very short odds of Brexit being abandoned. Now, I think it's slightly more probable. I hope so.
     
  10. Balbus

    Balbus Senior Member

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    Bill

    I agree

    And as if to highlight the fact that this is all about factional fighting in the Tory party rather than the interests of the nation - the extreme right wing leavers in the party have triggered a leadership battle. If they win the no confidence vote the country will be effectively leaderless until it is sorted out.

    And as you say it not much different on the Labour side with Corbyn angling for a general election, he hopes to win, rather than opposing Brexit.

    I heard someone on the radio pointing out that these types of political shenanigans are just the thing that turns people against the present political system and aids the rise of populists.
     
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  11. BlackBillBlake

    BlackBillBlake resigned HipForums Supporter

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    Yes, I'm afraid all this does give more fuel to populism. Just when we are facing the biggest political crisis since World War 2 the tories turn inward and continue their usual squabbling . Just when we need people who will put the long term interests of the country first, we get this.
     
    Balbus likes this.
  12. Rots in hell

    Rots in hell Senior Member

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  13. Balbus

    Balbus Senior Member

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    Mal

    This video just seems to be one long moan full of bullshit that does not address any of the criticisms of the brexit stance please can you in your own words try and address those criticisms

    Oh and for context the man is Pat Condell right wing politician and UKIP supporter
     
    Last edited: Dec 15, 2018
  14. Rots in hell

    Rots in hell Senior Member

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    Yeah I know who he is ! Here is another earlier one where he tries to explain what brexit means
     
  15. Balbus

    Balbus Senior Member

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    Mal


    But can you explain what it means to you?

    *

    Politics Forum Guidelines (Where they are different than the general forum guidelines)

    As often stated this is not a bulletin board it is a place to debate politics.

    For that reason cut and pasted articles or links [including video] should be used sparingly and more as a way to highlight a persons viewpoint rather than as a replacement for a persons viewpoint.

    People that consistently post articles or links (including video) without comment may find their posts removed.
     
  16. Balbus

    Balbus Senior Member

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    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.

    *

    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.
     
  17. Balbus

    Balbus Senior Member

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    Mal

    The supposed ‘democratic deficit’ of the EU was covered many times at the time of referendum so you must know that Pats assessment 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.
     
    Last edited: Dec 17, 2018
  18. Balbus

    Balbus Senior Member

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    Mal

    Analysis of the video

    Well another long moaning and groaning rant from Pat full of inaccuracies and right wing propaganda fantasies.

    And everything he moaned about has already been covered and doesn’t stand that well up to scrutiny.

    Mal have you actually read this thread can you actually address the criticisms of the Brexit stance?

    *

    OK the things he brings up (so others don’t have to watch Pat's garbage) –

    He thinks the EU is the same as the Soviet Union, do you and if so why?

    The thing about the EU not being democratic has already been covered (I have repeated above)

    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.

    It is more likely we are going to be in a worse position to get a trade agreement with the US, why do you think he disagrees?

    He then says he doesn’t care about what trade agreements we do get and doesn’t care if we are poorer off outside EU - do you agree?

    Can you please name the ‘bad’ laws he seems to claim have been forced on the UK and explain why in your opinion they are ‘bad’? Briexit people keep repeating this but when asked they don’t seem to be able point out any ‘bad’ laws, (or go on a rant about the discredited thing about straight bananas)

    I can point to many ‘good’ EU regulations that have been adopted by the UK from the clean beaches to food regulations.

    *

    BUT

    A lot of Pat’s video is taken up by an anti-Muslim anti-migrant rant, a long tirade about the ‘refugee crisis’ and ‘Islamic men of fighting age’ who all hate western values. With side dishes of the usual right wing scaremongering about immigrant rape and crime gangs that he claims is all been hushed up by a worldwide leftie conspiracy, which presumably take in the Sun, Daily Mail and Express (which for non-British readers are openly right wing and immigrant bashing newspaper in the UK).

    Thing is that most of the UK's Muslims hail from Pakistan and Bangladesh not from the EU. I’ve also heard that the number of those coming to work from Pakistani and Bangladeshi is likely to increase if we don’t get the migrant workers we need to keep the economy going from the EU, so the result of leaving the EU could mean less Christian Poles and more Muslim Pakistanis. I wonder what Pat would say to that?

    Anyway - for fuck sake Mal stop listening to Pat's shit it will rot you brains. LOL

    Look why not stop letting others talk for you and start thinking and talking for yourself.
     
    Last edited: Dec 17, 2018
  19. Balbus

    Balbus Senior Member

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    Basically two months do go (as of writing 72 days)

    AND STILL NO DEAL.

    As predicted the May deal got voted down what was surprising to many was the size of the defeat 230 votes against, I think this is the largest defeat of a bill in modern times.

    This is absolute madness but all too predictable

    I’ve talked to many leavers and all seem to have a different view as to what Brexit meant for them and many if not most were aggressively opposed to other leaver’s ideas of what Brexit meant.

    On the Brexit side there never was any agreement about what Brexit meant.

    And NO plan was presented during the referendum so that leaver voters could actually say that was definitively what they voted for.

    The leave campaign basically was based on lies, misdirection, nationalism and the demonising of anyone that spoke against it.

    And since then we have had a lot a talk about what Brxit isn’t (disputed even between Brexiteers) while no coherent ideas of what it should be (and those disputed between Brexiteers).

    The only group that has been consistent and whose numbers have grown are the remainers
     
  20. McFuddy

    McFuddy Visitor

    That was the only deal Brussels was going to offer.

    Put on your safety belts, Britain - you’re in for a rough ride.
     

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