Brexit

The UK wants out, so the UK pays (most).

 

Asmo

Sorry not sure what your comment is about?

 

It was a comment to your post above it (well last post on former page).

 

Asmo

About the Dutch?

In what way is that related to "The UK wants out, so the UK pays (most)."?

 

If you read them right after each other wtf don't you get?

 

Asmo

So is this a kind of - you pay for your mistakes?

Thing is that I don't think the people of the UK should pay for the lies and manipulation of the wealth and ideological neoliberals - thats why i think we should have another vote but this time without the lying.

 

I agree of course. The UK people who don't want a hard no deal brexit don't deserve it. But to be fair: UK citizens like Mally do. It's exactly what he seems to be arguing for. No deal is fine. As long as 'you' get out. Meanwhile every other EU country is righteously doing damage control, if possible at expense of the UK. About those successes; its give and take/hit and miss. Unilever headquarters for instance will remain in London

 

Asmo

Thing about unilever is that it is an Anglo-Dutch company which already has one of its headquarters in Rotterdam (the other in London) so it already has a foot within the EU (and the closing down of the London site seems to have been more about streamlining, to have a single HQ.)

But many businesses if not actually moving are opening ‘shadow’ branches in other places Dublin, Amsterdam, Paris, Frankfurt etc as a ‘step in the door’ if Brexit goes bad (when it might get more difficult to set such things up) sometimes just a name or small office.

Even the hard-line leaver Jacob Rees-Mogg was involved in setting up a branch of his invest firm in Dublin and like many others he was claiming that the move had nothing to do with Brexit.

What many analysts are saying is that if (as suspected) Brexit shrinks the opportunities such businesses have by been based outside the EU then the EU branches will get expanded with work and jobs moving to them and away from the UK.

And I’m sure that many will carry on claiming that this movement has nothing to do with Brexit.

 

NEWS JUST IN

The May deal has been rejected AGAIN

 

And the Brex (/beat) goes on ....

 

Nice attempt at being funny. Better luck next time.

Regarding your insistence that I pick up a dictionary. Never I have I seen the left misuse the word "progressive" as their fiscal policies keep bringing civilizations further into the dark ages.

 

Edit: I have never seen anyone misuse the dictionary as much as the left, with the way they call themselves “progressives,” as their fiscal policies keep bringing civilizations further into the dark ages.

 

Was that ment to be on topic? How is it particularly the left that is to blame here. Hope you explain in a meaningful way.

 

Just pointing out some of the many far-left contradictions of Balbus.

Apparently, imperialism is wrong with Britain does it, but imperialism is good when the EU does it.

 

Hmm, I have to agree with Balbus at this point. You seem to be equating the 2 in a nonsensical manner. For one, how nations join(ed) this EU 'empire' lol It's really not an empire (so yeah, I really got to lol here)

 

Seeing how it’s run by unelected officials that rob the sovereignty of many nations. This is why a referendum was voted for in the first place. It is very much an empire.

 

6

LOL who said I was trying to be funny?

As pointed out the Brexit debate isn’t a left or right argument. Do you read the posts?

And anyway your viewpoint on ‘the left’ hasn’t stood up to scrutiny any of the many times you have presented it and is not on topic her.

To repeat the Brexit debate isn’t a left or right argument.

Also views on the British Empire been ‘good’ or ‘bad’ are not really a purely left or right argument either (do you do any reading or research?)

If anything it is more about been informed or been ill-informed, I’ve meet many right wingers that do not look back on British imperialism as a ‘good’ thing. Yes there are neo-con supporting historians like Niall Ferguson who have tried to reimage the empire in a better light but I’ve read his work and he had to gloss over a lot of dead bodies and a lot of economic (and otherwise) rape in the attempt.

Empire : How Britain made the modern world by Niall Ferguson

Oh for fuck sake read the fucking posts.

This has already been covered just repeating ‘unelected officials’ over and over and over just becomes increasingly moronic seeming if you can’t address the counter arguments.

 

Unelected officials

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.

 

6

The supposed ‘democratic deficit’ of the EU was covered many times at the time of referendum and if you had bothered to become informed you would have realised by now that the idea of ‘unelected officials’ is way too simplistic and that the truth is a lot more complex and nuanced.

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 back in 1931.

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

 

OK

It’s another Brexit vote day in Parliament and there is even rumours May might bring forward her deal to be voted on for the FOURTH time.

So what we seem to have at the moment is hard-line neoliberals and socialist that want a no deal crash out Brexit.

Arm twisted Tory’s that will hold their nose and vote for the May deal ‘for the good of the party’ (but not the country).

Soft leavers that are happy to have a Norway no say OUT but still be IN to paying membership fees and following the EU rules

Those that thing the people should have the final say

Those that think we should revoke article 50, and like Bobby Ewing coming out of the shower forget the last 3 years ever happened.

(The petition to Revoke Article 50 has gone over 6 million)

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