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In or out?

...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

Re: In or out?

#321 Post by Alan H » July 22nd, 2016, 10:07 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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Dave B
Posts: 17809
Joined: May 17th, 2010, 9:15 pm

Re: In or out?

#322 Post by Dave B » July 22nd, 2016, 10:07 am

We are fucked . . .

(Unless the Indie piece is accurate, but I cannot see the EU allowing a state of limbo with no time limit. Better to leave in a planned manner (if you can trust the politicians to achieve that) than be expelled if Brexit is not totally scrapped.)
"Look forward; yesterday was a lesson, if you did not learn from it you wasted it."
Me, 2015

Gottard
Posts: 1306
Joined: October 3rd, 2008, 3:11 pm

Re: In or out?

#323 Post by Gottard » July 22nd, 2016, 4:37 pm

The only thing I fear of death is regret if I couldn’t complete my learning experience

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Alan H
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Re: In or out?

#324 Post by Alan H » July 22nd, 2016, 10:24 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

Re: In or out?

#325 Post by Alan H » July 22nd, 2016, 11:46 pm

That is excellent and well worth half an hour watching. It's a great pity she and that Liverpool professor didn't get the media time they deserved during the referendum campaign. Instead, the media focused on Farage, Johnson and other dimwits...
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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animist
Posts: 6522
Joined: July 30th, 2010, 11:36 pm

Re: In or out?

#326 Post by animist » July 22nd, 2016, 11:50 pm

Alan H wrote:
That is excellent and well worth half an hour watching. It's a great pity she and that Liverpool professor didn't get the media time they deserved during the referendum campaign. Instead, the media focused on Farage, Johnson and other dimwits...
+1

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animist
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Re: In or out?

#327 Post by animist » July 22nd, 2016, 11:54 pm

pretty sensible, and it's good to know, if true, that revocation of Article 50's activation is possible. Of course this may make it easier for Terri M to do the deed!

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Alan H
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Re: In or out?

#328 Post by Alan H » July 23rd, 2016, 10:03 am

David 'call me Dave' Cameron is even more to blame for fucking us up: How David Cameron’s Plan To Screw Labour Cost Him The EU Referendum
In the last days before the EU referendum David Cameron and his team of Remain campaigners were still frantically trying to get young people’s attention. 18-34 year olds, the polls had said, were Britain’s great unharvested crop of Remainers. Andeveryone agreed that if enough of them turned out on June 23rd, it was in the bag.

So Remain had tried everything: an embarrassing video targeting “earnin’ goin’ livin’” millennials, dogged campaigning in university campuses, a social media campaign described as “patronising” by the London Evening Standard.

They did not edge it. Despite what was actually a reasonably high turnout amongst young people who were registered to vote, they had not managed to swing the result. Remain lost by 4%. This was not meant to have happened.

Yesterday, hidden within the cache of information dumped on the government website before ministers went to recess, was a clue as to what went wrong: a written statement by Gary Streeter, a spokesperson for the Speaker’s Committee on the Electoral Commission, which showed a full nine percentage point drop between 10th June 2014 and 1st December 2015 in the number of 18-19 year olds registered to vote.

The document recorded declines in almost every younger age group too, yet the total number of people on the register only dropped by just under one percentage point: older people (more likely to be Leave voters) had not suffered these falls.

At the time of the referendum, it has also emerged, the young were twice as likely as the old not to be on the voting register at all. Poll clarks report young people turning up to vote only to realise they were not signed up.

The statement also showed a marked decline on the voting register amongst people who do not stay in one place for too long “such as those renting from a private landlord”. Private renters, breakdowns show, voted Remain.

What had caused this - possibly fatal - blow to the Remain campaign? Well, it turns out, it was David Cameron himself.

Back in October 2015, amid all the fuss over the House of Lord’s rejection of tax-credit reform, Cameron slipped another statutory instrument quietly through the chamber, by just eleven votes. It was a motion to change the responsibility for signing up to vote from households to individuals.

The change had been due for December 2016 - plenty of time for voters accidentally left off the new list to get their act together and re-register. But Cameron had wanted to rush it through more than a year early. The reason? Those likely to be accidentally left off the new list were Labour voters.

These people - some 1.9 million of them - were mostly students (until last year universities could block-register student halls), people in big cities, and those who rent privately. In other words, not only were they Labour voters but also exactly the sorts of people Remain would later desperately seek votes from.

And the full effects of what he did in October are yet to be felt. Cameron did it to screw Labour in this year’s elections - those of London’s mayor, the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh National Assembly - but also to skew an upcoming constituency boundary reform vastly in his favour. This redrawing of boundaries is to be based on a snapshot of the electorate from December 2015, thus - as least as far as yesterday’s figures indicate - permanently disenfranchising many thousands of Britain’s young, whether they re-register now or not.

Last year, as he prepared to rush the electoral roll change through, Cameron ignored warnings from the Electoral Commission, who said - breaking character - that it would be “hugely damaging to our democracy”. On June 24th, as democracy skidded out of his control like a broken trolley, he must have wondered what he had 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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Dave B
Posts: 17809
Joined: May 17th, 2010, 9:15 pm

Re: In or out?

#329 Post by Dave B » July 23rd, 2016, 12:59 pm

Called politics, ennit?
"Look forward; yesterday was a lesson, if you did not learn from it you wasted it."
Me, 2015

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Dave B
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Joined: May 17th, 2010, 9:15 pm

Re: In or out?

#330 Post by Dave B » July 23rd, 2016, 1:00 pm

Called politics, ennit?

Fouls the entire world up!
"Look forward; yesterday was a lesson, if you did not learn from it you wasted it."
Me, 2015

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animist
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Joined: July 30th, 2010, 11:36 pm

Re: In or out?

#331 Post by animist » July 23rd, 2016, 1:03 pm

a few points which hit me. One is that the speaker seemed to think the "Norway option" had some merits, since it would allow Britain to make trade deals with countries outside the EU and is more-or-less in place already. Her biggest worry is for the rights of nationals of other EU countries now in Britain (and for Brits abroad) given that protection of their residential status does not in fact to be secure. Again, presumably, the Norway option, if adopted, would avoid this problem?

Gottard
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Re: In or out?

#332 Post by Gottard » July 23rd, 2016, 3:52 pm

animist wrote:
a few points which hit me. One is that the speaker seemed to think the "Norway option" had some merits, since it would allow Britain to make trade deals with countries outside the EU and is more-or-less in place already. Her biggest worry is for the rights of nationals of other EU countries now in Britain (and for Brits abroad) given that protection of their residential status does not in fact to be secure. Again, presumably, the Norway option, if adopted, would avoid this problem?
They are two separate items/problems. In all circumstances both the UK and EU have expressed words in favour of a status-quo for citizens already residing abroad.
Politics is able of exceptional gimmicks: I figure out a solution by which: Scotland (in this instance instrumental to Westminster) could become both a member of the UK and the EU. In this circumstance UK benefits would be channelled through Scotland! Will Ms Sturgeon put her strategic skills to good use :idea2: :question:
The only thing I fear of death is regret if I couldn’t complete my learning experience

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Alan H
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Re: In or out?

#333 Post by Alan H » July 24th, 2016, 12:28 am

Brexcuses: A crib sheet for shifting blame if Brexit goes bad
If the rudderless project to divorce Europe ends in disappointment, the possible causes will be many

Leave the European Union campaigners wave banners near Parliament in London, Britain June 15, 2016.

As the UK moves steadily towards its date with Brexit one can already sense the efforts of the Leave campaigners trying to dodge blame for any of the shocks ahead. Rather than own the result, leading advocates are building up alibis in case the outcome is less fabulous than they assured voters it would be. Here then is your cut-out-and-keep guide - the Brexcuses - for Leavers on why things went wrong, just in case they do.

1) The civil service let us down by not planning for Brexit. I can’t believe the government didn’t have contingency plans for the fact that the Leave campaign didn’t have any. What kind of government leaves important issues like the future of the country to people like us? All we said is that we wanted to leave; why does that make figuring out where to go our job? It was the government’s responsibility to deliver on our promises. If they fail to do so, it can hardly be our fault.
2) No one at the wheel. When we said we wanted to take back control, we obviously meant that figuratively. It didn’t mean we don’t want to delegate.
3) Angry Remain campaigners talked down the country. This panicked us into an economic downturn which would undoubtedly have been avoided if they had not insisted on pointing out news which appeared to suggest they were right. Their selfish inability to admit they were wrong ensured that they were proved right, at great cost to the country.
4) The lefty media. By reporting daily on the sterling sell-off instead of hushing it up, the metropolitan elite in the mainstream media let down the public by telling them things they are better off not knowing. This also alerted currency speculators to things they would not otherwise have noticed. The media failed in its moral duty not to report unwelcome news.
5) George Osborne spooked markets. By not appearing in the first days after the vote to reassure markets, the chancellor let Britain down.
6) Mark Carney spooked markets. By making too many regular appearances designed to calm nerves, the governor of the Bank of England let Britain down. Did we mention he used to work for Goldman Sachs?
7) David Cameron should never have resigned. The Leave campaign always made clear that it wanted him to stay on to lead the exit negotiations even though his last negotiations were a catastrophic failure and in spite of our warnings that he had absolutely no credibility any more.
8) Blame Boris. He left the detailed plans for how to manage Brexit on the bus.
9) Blame Boris some more. We had thought that the lean and hungry sharp-suited Boris Johnson was the man to lead our country but it turned out that we confused him with someone else and that the real Boris Johnson was in fact a large blond bumbler with no idea.
10) Greedy bankers. The ordinary decent citizens of this country were let down by greedy bankers, who put their own welfare ahead of that of people they had never met at the other end of the country. There was no way we could have known they would be seduced abroad by the lure of higher profits and salaries.
11) The French. We thought they’d be more British about this, accept the democratic outcome and work with us to make the best of it. Instead of being British about this; they insisted on being all French and spent the 100th anniversary of the Battle of the Somme plotting ways to steal lucrative business from London.
12) The Germans. We really thought they would help us more this time. We’ve always been able to count on Angela Merkel in the past.
13) Cowardly employers. Craven businesses failed to show faith in the country by continuing to hire people to do jobs they no longer needed.
14) Foreigners let Britain down. Refusing to accept the democratic vote of the British people, foreigners moved their investment elsewhere, thereby failing to all pull together to make the best of it.
15) Immigrants. Are you thinking what we’re thinking?
16) Experts. We needed better experts than those we are fed up listening to.
17) We are all in this together now. So it’s as much their fault as ours.
18) We weren’t supposed to win. It never occurred to us that Remain would be so incompetent. Remain should have run a better campaign.
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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animist
Posts: 6522
Joined: July 30th, 2010, 11:36 pm

Re: In or out?

#334 Post by animist » July 24th, 2016, 12:22 pm

I wonder if this is the way that things will go, ie some messy compromise. This is assuming that we do leave and that the current legal challenges to May unilaterally invoking Article 50, without Parliamentary approval, fail:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/ ... even-years

Gottard
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Joined: October 3rd, 2008, 3:11 pm

Re: In or out?

#335 Post by Gottard » July 25th, 2016, 9:39 am

I am surprised that, given the BrExit crisis and ensuing / impelling economic uncertainties, the Governement is due "to honor" the Summer recession. I thought those people's foremost duty were to serve h24 the Nation (adequate compensations are safe, nonetheless) :sad2:
The only thing I fear of death is regret if I couldn’t complete my learning experience

Nick
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Re: In or out?

#336 Post by Nick » July 25th, 2016, 10:16 pm

Gottard wrote:I am surprised that, given the BrExit crisis and ensuing / impelling economic uncertainties, the Governement is due "to honor" the Summer recession. I thought those people's foremost duty were to serve h24 the Nation (adequate compensations are safe, nonetheless) :sad2:
It is Parliament which is in recess, not government....

Of course, never mind being at Westminster, the Labour party aren't even on the same planet at the moment.

Gottard
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Re: In or out?

#337 Post by Gottard » July 25th, 2016, 10:32 pm

Nick wrote:
Gottard wrote:I am surprised that, given the BrExit crisis and ensuing / impelling economic uncertainties, the Governement is due "to honor" the Summer recession. I thought those people's foremost duty were to serve h24 the Nation (adequate compensations are safe, nonetheless) :sad2:
It is Parliament which is in recess, not government....

Of course, never mind being at Westminster, the Labour party aren't even on the same planet at the moment.
Thank you for the correction :thumbsup:
The only thing I fear of death is regret if I couldn’t complete my learning experience

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Alan H
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Re: In or out?

#338 Post by Alan H » July 26th, 2016, 2:58 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?

Gottard
Posts: 1306
Joined: October 3rd, 2008, 3:11 pm

Re: In or out?

#339 Post by Gottard » July 26th, 2016, 3:49 pm

Yeah, I think so. However, the fact of saying that negotiations may last two or more years is void of meaning. 1) once art 50 is started the UK may decide that they have no interest in negotiating; 2) by the same token, the act of negotiating bears no-end in principle (EU have an endless negotiation with Turkey in the hope that they are fed-up and desist).
The only thing I fear of death is regret if I couldn’t complete my learning experience

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animist
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Re: In or out?

#340 Post by animist » July 27th, 2016, 9:15 am

so Article 50 was not intended to be used, one more element in the farce that is enveloping us. I notice that the article (not the Article!) said that Article 50 is irreversible, but another article says that it is not, and that this ability to chop and change would give the British more leverage. What a shame that the EU does not have an Article to simply expel stupid fucking countries like Britain!

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animist
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Re: In or out?

#341 Post by animist » July 27th, 2016, 9:26 am

Gottard wrote:
Yeah, I think so. However, the fact of saying that negotiations may last two or more years is void of meaning. 1) once art 50 is started the UK may decide that they have no interest in negotiating; 2) by the same token, the act of negotiating bears no-end in principle (EU have an endless negotiation with Turkey in the hope that they are fed-up and desist).
but surely the Turkish case is different since they are trying to get in, not out. Actually I thought two years was the MAXIMUM period for negotiation over future relations after Article 50 had been invoked. What might take longer would be the mechanics of separation? The Chatham House lecture which you posted does clearly distinguish between the two types of process

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