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...on serious topics that don't fit anywhere else at present.
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Alan H
- Posts: 24067
- Joined: July 3rd, 2007, 10:26 pm
#3121
Post
by Alan H » June 5th, 2017, 3:02 pm
Latest post of the previous page:
May's response to terror shows she doesn't understand the internetAs Theresa May strode out to address the press following an all too familiar chain of events, an all too familiar line of response beckoned. What followed suggests that May understands neither the methods used by terrorists to evade surveillance nor their way of looking at the world. Not only has she no idea how to stop them but she has no idea what she's talking about.
Enough is enough, the prime minister said. Quite so.
Alan Henness
There are three fundamental questions for anyone advocating Brexit:
1. What, precisely, are the significant and tangible benefits of leaving the EU?
2. What damage to the UK and its citizens is an acceptable price to pay for those benefits?
3. Which ruling of the ECJ is most persuasive of the need to leave its jurisdiction?
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Alan H
- Posts: 24067
- Joined: July 3rd, 2007, 10:26 pm
#3122
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by Alan H » June 5th, 2017, 11:27 pm
Theresa May’s repeated calls to ban encryption still won’t workHer comments echo those made in March by the home secretary, Amber Rudd. Speaking after the previous terrorist attack in London, Rudd said that end-to-end encryption in apps like WhatsApp is “completely unacceptable” and that there should be “no hiding place for terrorists”.
Yet most experts agree that these repeated calls to be tougher on technology are poorly thought through. Undermining cryptography simply could not work.
The arguments against banning encryption are well rehearsed, but worth repeating. Encryption is not just a tool used by terrorists. Anyone who uses the internet uses encryption. Messaging apps, online banking, e-commerce, government websites, or your local hospital all use encryption.
A ban on encryption would make it impossible to do anything online that relies on keeping things private, like sending your credit card details or messaging your doctor.
Even if governments were willing to sacrifice their citizen’s online privacy, any sort of ban would be futile anyway. Anyone with a little technical know-how could write their own code to encrypt and decrypt data. In fact, the code to do so is so small it easily fits on a t-shirt.
And here's the t-shirt:
- 2017-06-05_23h22_47.png (624.55 KiB) Viewed 5067 times
- 2017-06-05_23h22_31.png (552.39 KiB) Viewed 5067 times
And here's the code, written in perl:
Code: Select all
#!/bin/perl -sp0777i<X+d*lMLa^*lN%0]dsXx++lMlN/dsM0<j]dsj$/=unpack('H*',$_);$_=`echo 16dio\U$k"SK$/SM$n\EsN0p[lN*1lK[d2%Sa2/d0$^Ixp"|dc`;s/\W//g;$_=pack('H*',/((..)*)$/)
That's it. Thats' just about all you need to circumvent anything Theresa May puts in place. Stupidity personified.
Alan Henness
There are three fundamental questions for anyone advocating Brexit:
1. What, precisely, are the significant and tangible benefits of leaving the EU?
2. What damage to the UK and its citizens is an acceptable price to pay for those benefits?
3. Which ruling of the ECJ is most persuasive of the need to leave its jurisdiction?
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Alan H
- Posts: 24067
- Joined: July 3rd, 2007, 10:26 pm
#3123
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by Alan H » June 6th, 2017, 12:43 pm
Alan Henness
There are three fundamental questions for anyone advocating Brexit:
1. What, precisely, are the significant and tangible benefits of leaving the EU?
2. What damage to the UK and its citizens is an acceptable price to pay for those benefits?
3. Which ruling of the ECJ is most persuasive of the need to leave its jurisdiction?
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Alan H
- Posts: 24067
- Joined: July 3rd, 2007, 10:26 pm
#3124
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by Alan H » June 6th, 2017, 12:55 pm
Signed by 100 economists (as far as I can tell):
The big issue: Labour’s manifesto proposals could be just what the economy needsOn 8 June, voters will go to the polls for perhaps the most important UK general election since 1945. The importance arises in great part from profound differences in economic policy, reflecting different views of the nature and health of the British economy.
The Conservative manifesto calls for continued austerity, which will tend to slow the economy at a crucial juncture, against the backdrop of Brexit negotiations. Their spending cuts have hurt the most vulnerable and failed to achieve their intended debt and deficit reduction targets.
In contrast, Labour’s manifesto proposals are much better designed to strengthen and develop the economy and ensure that its benefits are more fairly shared and sustainable, as well as being fiscally responsible and based on sound estimations.
We point to the proposed increases in investment in the future of the UK and its people, labour market policies geared to decrease inequality and to protect the lower paid and those in insecure work and fair and progressive changes in taxation.
There is no future for the UK in a race to the bottom, which would only serve to increase social and economic inequality and further damage our social fabric. On the contrary, the UK urgently needs a government committed, as is Labour, to building an economy that really works “for the many, and not only the few”.
Alan Henness
There are three fundamental questions for anyone advocating Brexit:
1. What, precisely, are the significant and tangible benefits of leaving the EU?
2. What damage to the UK and its citizens is an acceptable price to pay for those benefits?
3. Which ruling of the ECJ is most persuasive of the need to leave its jurisdiction?
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Alan H
- Posts: 24067
- Joined: July 3rd, 2007, 10:26 pm
#3125
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by Alan H » June 6th, 2017, 11:06 pm
So which Human Right don't we need,
Theresa?
I'm clear: if human rights laws get in the way of tackling extremism and terrorism, we will change those laws to keep British people safe.
Alan Henness
There are three fundamental questions for anyone advocating Brexit:
1. What, precisely, are the significant and tangible benefits of leaving the EU?
2. What damage to the UK and its citizens is an acceptable price to pay for those benefits?
3. Which ruling of the ECJ is most persuasive of the need to leave its jurisdiction?
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Alan H
- Posts: 24067
- Joined: July 3rd, 2007, 10:26 pm
#3126
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by Alan H » June 7th, 2017, 10:45 am
Theresa May threat to rip up human rights laws condemned as 'cynical attempt to revive flagging campaign'Both Labour and the Liberal Democrats insisted there was no evidence that human rights legislation had allowed the Manchester and London attacks to take place – or prevented action against terrorists.
Instead, Keir Starmer, Labour’s Brexit spokesman, accused Ms May of a “diversion” from criticism of huge police cuts – while Nick Clegg said she was trying to revive her “lacklustre, flagging election campaign”.
Sir Keir said: “There is nothing in the human rights act that gets in the way of effectively tackling fighting terrorism.
“I can say that with this authority. I was Director of Public Prosecutions for five years. I worked very closely with the security and intelligence services and we prosecuted very, very serious criminals.
“And the Human Rights Act did not get in the way of what we were doing. This is a diversion.”
Alan Henness
There are three fundamental questions for anyone advocating Brexit:
1. What, precisely, are the significant and tangible benefits of leaving the EU?
2. What damage to the UK and its citizens is an acceptable price to pay for those benefits?
3. Which ruling of the ECJ is most persuasive of the need to leave its jurisdiction?
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Alan H
- Posts: 24067
- Joined: July 3rd, 2007, 10:26 pm
#3127
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by Alan H » June 7th, 2017, 2:08 pm
Alan Henness
There are three fundamental questions for anyone advocating Brexit:
1. What, precisely, are the significant and tangible benefits of leaving the EU?
2. What damage to the UK and its citizens is an acceptable price to pay for those benefits?
3. Which ruling of the ECJ is most persuasive of the need to leave its jurisdiction?
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Alan H
- Posts: 24067
- Joined: July 3rd, 2007, 10:26 pm
#3128
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by Alan H » June 7th, 2017, 3:51 pm
Alan Henness
There are three fundamental questions for anyone advocating Brexit:
1. What, precisely, are the significant and tangible benefits of leaving the EU?
2. What damage to the UK and its citizens is an acceptable price to pay for those benefits?
3. Which ruling of the ECJ is most persuasive of the need to leave its jurisdiction?
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Alan H
- Posts: 24067
- Joined: July 3rd, 2007, 10:26 pm
#3129
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by Alan H » June 7th, 2017, 5:32 pm
Ex-Tory Chancellor, George Osborne's newspaper, the Evening Standard, in its editorial today
says:
The Brexit questions
This newspaper asked a series of straightforward questions about Brexit a month ago. How is migration supposed to be cut to the tens of thousands when no one can identify the businesses whose labour supply we will restrict, the universities whose foreign students we will turn away, or the families whose rights to reunion we will restrict still further? How is Brexit going to lead to a net increase in free trade, when leaving the Single Market is the biggest act of protectionism in British history and there is no realistic prospect of new trade deals with other countries anytime soon? Indeed, during this campaign, the Trump administration made it clear that a trade pact with the EU was its first priority and the UK was, to coin a phrase, at the back of the queue.
Are we really going to maintain the same levels of farming subsidies that the much-criticised EU Common Agricultural Policy provides, and do we expect London’s taxpayers to go on writing cheques to the richest landowners in the country? How are we going to maintain Britain’s pre-eminence in science when we withdraw from the EU’s network of scientific collaboration? How are European landing rights going to be secured for our airlines, or European approval arranged for our pharmaceutical products, or market access secured for our massive financial services industry? Not one of these questions has been even addressed, let alone answered, by the main political parties in this election. As a result, it provides no mandate for the details of Brexit.
Alan Henness
There are three fundamental questions for anyone advocating Brexit:
1. What, precisely, are the significant and tangible benefits of leaving the EU?
2. What damage to the UK and its citizens is an acceptable price to pay for those benefits?
3. Which ruling of the ECJ is most persuasive of the need to leave its jurisdiction?
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Alan H
- Posts: 24067
- Joined: July 3rd, 2007, 10:26 pm
#3130
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by Alan H » June 15th, 2017, 7:06 pm
With Grenfell Tower, we’ve seen what ‘ripping up red tape’ really looks likeIn 2014, the then housing minister (who is now the immigration minister), Brandon Lewis, rejected calls to force construction companies to fit sprinklers in the homes they built on the following grounds:
“In our commitment to be the first Government to reduce regulation, we have introduced the one in, two out rule for regulation … Under that rule, when the Government introduce a regulation, we will identify two existing ones to be removed. The Department for Communities and Local Government has gone further and removed an even higher proportion of regulations. In that context, Members will understand why we want to exhaust all non-regulatory options before we introduce any new regulations.”
In other words, though he accepted that sprinklers “are an effective way of controlling fires and of protecting lives and property”, to oblige builders to introduce them would conflict with the government’s deregulatory agenda. Instead, it would be left to the owners of buildings to decide how best to address the fire risk: “Those with responsibility for ensuring fire safety in their businesses, in their homes or as landlords, should and must make informed decisions on how best to manage the risks in their own properties,” Lewis said.
This calls to mind the Financial Times journalist Willem Buiter’s famous remark that “self-regulation stands in relation to regulation the way self-importance stands in relation to importance”. Case after case, across all sectors, demonstrates that self-regulation is no substitute for consistent rules laid down, monitored and enforced by government.
Conservative MPs see Brexit as an excellent opportunity to strip back regulations. The speed with which the “great repeal bill” will have to pass through parliament (assuming that any of Theresa May’s programme can now be implemented) provides unprecedented scope to destroy the protections guaranteed by European regulations. The bill will rely heavily on statutory instruments, which permit far less parliamentary scrutiny than primary legislation. Unnoticed and undebated, crucial elements of public health and safety, workers’ rights and environmental protection could be made to disappear.
Too many times we have seen what the bonfire of regulations, which might sound like common sense when issuing from the mouths of ministers, looks like in the real world. The public protections that governments describe as red tape are what make the difference between a good society and barbarism. It is time to bring the disastrous deregulatory agenda to an end, and put public safety and other basic decencies ahead of corner-cutting and greed.
Alan Henness
There are three fundamental questions for anyone advocating Brexit:
1. What, precisely, are the significant and tangible benefits of leaving the EU?
2. What damage to the UK and its citizens is an acceptable price to pay for those benefits?
3. Which ruling of the ECJ is most persuasive of the need to leave its jurisdiction?
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Alan H
- Posts: 24067
- Joined: July 3rd, 2007, 10:26 pm
#3131
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by Alan H » June 15th, 2017, 7:14 pm
Alan Henness
There are three fundamental questions for anyone advocating Brexit:
1. What, precisely, are the significant and tangible benefits of leaving the EU?
2. What damage to the UK and its citizens is an acceptable price to pay for those benefits?
3. Which ruling of the ECJ is most persuasive of the need to leave its jurisdiction?
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Alan H
- Posts: 24067
- Joined: July 3rd, 2007, 10:26 pm
#3132
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by Alan H » June 15th, 2017, 11:22 pm
Grenfell is a shameful symbol of a state that didn’t careIf we have learned anything from previous disasters, it is not to jump immediately to conclusions. There will rightly be a public inquiry. But the questions it must answer are already evident. How could a building designed to stop fire spreading fail so dismally? When residents complained of what they saw as dangerous breaches of health and safety in the tower, how exactly did the council and the private landlord to which it had contracted out management of the tower, Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation, respond? Could or should lessons have been learned, particularly by then housing minister, and now Downing Street chief of staff, Gavin Barwell, from previous smaller fires in tower blocks? Did successive governments cave in too easily to profiteering landlords lobbying against tighter regulation, and, crucially, what bearing did years of local authority budget cuts have on any of this?
Alan Henness
There are three fundamental questions for anyone advocating Brexit:
1. What, precisely, are the significant and tangible benefits of leaving the EU?
2. What damage to the UK and its citizens is an acceptable price to pay for those benefits?
3. Which ruling of the ECJ is most persuasive of the need to leave its jurisdiction?
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Alan H
- Posts: 24067
- Joined: July 3rd, 2007, 10:26 pm
#3133
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by Alan H » June 18th, 2017, 8:06 pm
Extraordinary words from Philip Hammond:
Philip Hammond hints at tax rises and end to council spending cutshilip Hammond has hinted the Government could raise taxes over the course of the next parliament in a bid to ease years of austerity.
The Chancellor said the Conservatives had never pledged not to raise "some taxes" and suggested that £3billion of cuts to council spending budgets might not ahead.
Mr Hammond also gave vent to his frustration that he was not allowed to defend the Conservatives’ record on the economy since 2010 during the campaign.
He told the Andrew Marr programme: “I would have liked to have made much more of our economic record which I think is an excellent one, creating 2.9 million new jobs, getting the deficit down by three-quarters.
Asked if he was kept of the airwaves during the campaign, he said: "I’m not going to speculate about what happened inside the campaign leadership team.
"The end result is that in my judgement we didn’t talk about the economy as much as we should have done.”
Alan Henness
There are three fundamental questions for anyone advocating Brexit:
1. What, precisely, are the significant and tangible benefits of leaving the EU?
2. What damage to the UK and its citizens is an acceptable price to pay for those benefits?
3. Which ruling of the ECJ is most persuasive of the need to leave its jurisdiction?
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Alan H
- Posts: 24067
- Joined: July 3rd, 2007, 10:26 pm
#3134
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by Alan H » June 20th, 2017, 5:54 pm
Theresa May faces legal challenge over proposed deal with DUPTheresa May is facing a landmark legal challenge over her proposed deal with the Democratic Unionist party on the grounds that it breaches the Good Friday agreement.
An experienced legal team, which has been involved in constitutional challenges, is planning to apply for a judicial review of the deal once it is announced, the Guardian has learned.
High court judges would be asked to examine whether the pact breaches the British government’s commitment to exercise “rigorous impartiality” in the Good Friday agreement.
Alan Henness
There are three fundamental questions for anyone advocating Brexit:
1. What, precisely, are the significant and tangible benefits of leaving the EU?
2. What damage to the UK and its citizens is an acceptable price to pay for those benefits?
3. Which ruling of the ECJ is most persuasive of the need to leave its jurisdiction?
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Alan H
- Posts: 24067
- Joined: July 3rd, 2007, 10:26 pm
#3135
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by Alan H » June 20th, 2017, 6:43 pm
Brexit will make Britain worse off, Bank of England Governor Mark Carney saysThe Bank of England's Governor, Mark Carney, has spelled out that in the Bank's view Brexit will make Britain worse off than otherwise and also appeared to take an indirect swipe at the optimistic view of Boris Johnson and others that the UK can “have its cake and eat it” after leaving the European Union.
In his Mansion House speech on Tuesday morning Mr Carney said that “weaker real income growth [is] likely to accompany the transition to new trading arrangements with the EU”.
This assumption was embedded in the Bank's latest official forecasts, which showed the level of UK GDP in 2019 relative to its pre-June referendum forecasts lower by around 1.5 per cent, or £30bn in today's money.
Alan Henness
There are three fundamental questions for anyone advocating Brexit:
1. What, precisely, are the significant and tangible benefits of leaving the EU?
2. What damage to the UK and its citizens is an acceptable price to pay for those benefits?
3. Which ruling of the ECJ is most persuasive of the need to leave its jurisdiction?
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Alan H
- Posts: 24067
- Joined: July 3rd, 2007, 10:26 pm
#3136
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by Alan H » June 22nd, 2017, 5:44 pm
Tory Government’s benefit cap is unlawful and causes 'real misery for no good purpose', High Court rulesFlagship Conservative welfare policy does ‘real damage’ to single parents and ‘exacerbates poverty’, judge declares
Delivering his verdict, High Court judge Mr Justice Collins said the benefit cap was causing “real damage” to lone parent families, and, in a further blow to ministers, said “real misery is being caused to no good purpose”.
“Those in need of welfare benefits fall within the poorest families with children”, he said. “It seems that some 3.7 million children live in poverty and, as must be obvious, the cap cannot but exacerbate this. The need for alternative benefits to make up shortfalls is hardly conducive to the desire to incentivise work and so not provide benefits. There is powerful evidence that very young children are particularly sensitive to environmental influences. Poverty can have a very damaging effect on children under the age of five.”
“The cap is capable of real damage to such as the claimants. They are not workshy but find it, because of the care difficulties, impossible to comply with the work requirement. Most lone parents with children under two are not the sort of households the cap was intended to cover... Real misery is being caused to no good purpose.”
Alan Henness
There are three fundamental questions for anyone advocating Brexit:
1. What, precisely, are the significant and tangible benefits of leaving the EU?
2. What damage to the UK and its citizens is an acceptable price to pay for those benefits?
3. Which ruling of the ECJ is most persuasive of the need to leave its jurisdiction?
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Alan H
- Posts: 24067
- Joined: July 3rd, 2007, 10:26 pm
#3137
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by Alan H » June 23rd, 2017, 1:26 am
Oh dear:
Revealed: Inside the secretive Tory election call centreThe investigation has uncovered what appear to be underhand and potentially unlawful practices at the centre, in calls made on behalf of the Conservative Party. These allegations include:
● Paid canvassing on behalf of Conservative election candidates – banned under election law.
● Political cold calling to prohibited numbers
● Misleading calls claiming to be from an ‘independent market research company’ which does not apparently exist
Alan Henness
There are three fundamental questions for anyone advocating Brexit:
1. What, precisely, are the significant and tangible benefits of leaving the EU?
2. What damage to the UK and its citizens is an acceptable price to pay for those benefits?
3. Which ruling of the ECJ is most persuasive of the need to leave its jurisdiction?
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Alan H
- Posts: 24067
- Joined: July 3rd, 2007, 10:26 pm
#3138
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by Alan H » June 24th, 2017, 11:18 am
Even Mail Journalists Are Sick of the Daily Mail Yesterday the Daily Mail launched an unprecedented full-page editorial attack on the Guardian, headlined "Fake news, the fascist Left and the REAL purveyors of hate". The 'paper went for the jugular after the Guardian published a cartoon depicting a van driven into worshippers outside a London mosque, with "Read The Sun the Daily Mail" painted on the side. Essentially it accused the UK's top two best-selling newspapers of inciting anti-Muslim hatred of the kind that led to the Finsbury Park attack, which killed one and left nine people injured.
What's behind all this anger?
Dacre is a wounded beast after the election result, which embarrassed him and the 'paper. Dacre and his entourage thought they were going to enter this glorious period of right-wing rule with the Mail's agenda being pushed forward. They had May in their pocket. Suddenly they've got egg on their face and Brexit is in danger. So Dacre is furious, because he's backed May all the way, he'd literally made her and anointed her. But now they've blown all that. The whole landscape's changed. Dacre's been pacing around for the last week and this is him lashing out.
Alan Henness
There are three fundamental questions for anyone advocating Brexit:
1. What, precisely, are the significant and tangible benefits of leaving the EU?
2. What damage to the UK and its citizens is an acceptable price to pay for those benefits?
3. Which ruling of the ECJ is most persuasive of the need to leave its jurisdiction?
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Alan H
- Posts: 24067
- Joined: July 3rd, 2007, 10:26 pm
#3139
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by Alan H » June 26th, 2017, 11:40 am
Alan Henness
There are three fundamental questions for anyone advocating Brexit:
1. What, precisely, are the significant and tangible benefits of leaving the EU?
2. What damage to the UK and its citizens is an acceptable price to pay for those benefits?
3. Which ruling of the ECJ is most persuasive of the need to leave its jurisdiction?
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Alan H
- Posts: 24067
- Joined: July 3rd, 2007, 10:26 pm
#3140
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by Alan H » June 26th, 2017, 1:36 pm
Alan Henness
There are three fundamental questions for anyone advocating Brexit:
1. What, precisely, are the significant and tangible benefits of leaving the EU?
2. What damage to the UK and its citizens is an acceptable price to pay for those benefits?
3. Which ruling of the ECJ is most persuasive of the need to leave its jurisdiction?
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Alan H
- Posts: 24067
- Joined: July 3rd, 2007, 10:26 pm
#3141
Post
by Alan H » June 26th, 2017, 8:09 pm
Alan Henness
There are three fundamental questions for anyone advocating Brexit:
1. What, precisely, are the significant and tangible benefits of leaving the EU?
2. What damage to the UK and its citizens is an acceptable price to pay for those benefits?
3. Which ruling of the ECJ is most persuasive of the need to leave its jurisdiction?