Current Politics in the United Kingdom

[scoundrel]

Originally Posted by Biggerone

I say we bloody well should leave. The UK used to do pretty well, we made our own cars exported products under a UK economy, as to the Scott's referendum, not so fast. In addition to this, that Soros chap is involved in running the EU, look how that worked out with our banking when he was here in the UK. Then there is Junkers. I don't know about you, but his family built the bombers that tried to ferry out our nation during WWII when the hun decided to flatten London and other places. The EU has changed from a simple trading block to something far worse as of late. Time to get out.

I would point out that while (with very conflicted feelings) I voted Leave to safeguard the future independence of my country, you need to make decisions starting from where you are now rather than where you used to be in 1966.

• I might be the only one but I quite like George Soros. He did this country a really good turn in 1992 when he was instrumental in forcing the British government to abandon membership of the Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM). It was absolutely mad to run a Bank of England base rate at 10% at the bottom of a really crippling recession. The economy started to visibly recover within weeks of Britain leaving the ERM and the recovery proved how wrong the policy of joining and staying with the ERM had been. George Soros forced the government of the day to take the right decision for Britain, a decision they were flatly refusing to make because it amounted to a confession of their own incompetence and failure.
• The motor industry is now concentrated on Japanese manufacturers assembling cars in the UK and this is a major economic activity employing several hundred thousand people directly and indirectly. There is not a big enough market for this production in the UK only and so the terms and conditions for the UK to export these cars to the EU after Brexit will be very important. 80% of Uk car production is exported and half that 80% goes to the EU. This export trade to the EU was worth €14.6bn in 2016. Fortunately, the EU, particularly Germany, export a lot of cars to the UK; the total imported by the UK in 2016 was €44.7bn. It isn't really in anyone's interests to start a trade war on this front. But for the record the British motor trade has morphed a great deal since Britain joined the EU but in economic terms it has done well from EU membership. Sadly, the main British marques have died or been assimilated by foreign companies, but they were failing even before we joined the EU and this would have happened anyway.
  ~ source of figures = European Automobile Manufacturers Association
• I do regard Jean Claude Juncker as a dangerous enemy of my country; his decisions concerning our immigration and social welfare policies were a key driver to vote Leave for many and I think legitimately so. He was directly endangering our social and economic well being and making far reaching strategic decisions affecting us which he had absolutely no right to make, and leaving the EU is really the only effective riposte available, the only way Britain can tell him where to go and how to travel and make that instruction stick. As Wendigo has already pointed out, he was nothing to do with the Blitz, and in any case Germany had to experience town and country planning courtesy of the RAF and the USAAF, so perhaps the less said the better...
• You are right about the morphing of the EU away from being the trading bloc or "Economic Community" we were told we had joined in 1975. This is ongoing and is being performed in an extremely secretive and deceitful way, designed to sidestep democratic checks. Britain should have had a referendum on the Treaty of Maastrict which opened our borders to the "free movement of labour" but we weren't even properly told what had been agreed and found it out the hard way. Later Britain was promised a referendum on the new European Constitution, but this was re branded as the Treaty of Lisbon and Gordon Brown did a word-search and removed the word "constitution" from it, so we didn't need a referendum after all. Then there is this odious "Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership" deal the EU [including Cameron's government] were trying to cut with President Obama in secret and were going to foist on us all as a fair accompli. We have had 43 years of watching our elected Westminster politicians sell Britain's arsehole in public toilets and we have learned that we will never be allowed to say no to greater integration.

So, on the whole, I strongly believe that the British people are the right ones to decide what shit goes down in Great Britain. That is my own bottom line.

[scoundrel]

Originally Posted by ********

It would be nice if that were to somehow happen, but how can any result be politically successful when the country is so completely divided? It's difficult to see how the divisions will ever be resolved, and we probably have at least another three years of this before we are even out.

We have more magical thinking and vague aspirations from May today. Brexiteers fuming, remainers still frustrated with the lack of detail or practical solutions.

Just crossing your fingers and hoping for the best isn't going to cut it this time.

I am sure everyone will try their best...

But you never seem to talk about the fundamental issues here, ********. It is always about how the shit is going to hit the fan tomorrow unless we say sorry, ask to be taken back and then go stand on the naughty step until Mr Juncker is feeling better towards us.

Questions you have never addressed in your posts:

1. How is "ever closer union" going to be consistent with our inalienable right to be an independent nation?
2. What in the EU structure are the answers to Tony Benn's five democratic questions?

   - what power do you have?
   - where did you get it?
   - in whose interests do you exercise it?
   - to whom are you accountable?
   - how can we get rid of you?

3. Why are we to be governed by strangers who do not live here and who have no stake in the consequences for us of their own decisions?

These are no theoretical questions. We have been mis-governed from the EU. We have not had redress.

[scoundrel]

Originally Posted by jacques22

That's another Brexit lie. The UK was so poor in the 60's and 70's, that's why the Brits were desperate to join what was then known as the EEC.

Here are the GDP per capita from the World Bank, comparing France and the UK:
In 1972, the year before the UK officially joined the EEC, France had a GDP per capita of $3,857, compared to $3,030 for the UK. (Yes, the UK was an economic midget compared to France)
In 2015, the year before the Brexit referendum, France had a GDP per capita of $36,526, compared to $44,305 for the UK. (Yes, the UK overtook the French economy)
Anybody with a brain can understand that EU membership helped boost the UK economy.

The real reason why Ted Heath betrayed us in 1973 and Margaret Thatcher supported this betrayal is that Britain has since the election of the first Labour government in 1945 been lurching between state socialism and free market liberalisation. The steel industry was nationalised and privatised three times. Nationalisation had been a keystone of Labour policy since 1945 and the Conservative Party had never supported it and wanted to reverse it. Joining the relatively social-democratic and corporatist EEC [as it used to call itself] was a body blow to Labour's nationalising aspirations and set the scene for a lot of ECJ rulings against British state aid and subsidising of failing industries.

Joining the EU was (ironically) a neo-liberal measure designed to undermine terms and conditions for British workers, weaken trade unions and strengthen capital against labour. Some of this was actually justified, because we were in a destructive phase of endless strikes, idiotic wage demands and imbecile class-struggle; the 1970s were the heyday of Arthur Scargill and his ilk. But Heath's decision was absolutely not justified. Edward Heath: I shit him.

[Wendigo]

I guess Cameron's no longer on your Christmas card list now.

He might have been a smarmy chancer but he promised a referendum and did actually deliver it. Very rare a politician fulfils a promise even if he made a total bollocks of his own arguments.

Whatever happens inside the EU in the meantime is immaterial, any reforms within the EU are likely to be cosmetic as the Commission will already have the agenda for the future mapped out. If some reform does take place it may work out better for Britain in the long run.

[scoundrel]

Originally Posted by ********

It couldn't have. Shouldn't have called the referendum in teh first place. Cameron should have been less shit at reforming the EU.

Look at Macron. He is getting real change to happen because he is getting other EU countries on board with it and not just listing demands. A lot of the things British peolpe were complaining about are now being addressed anyway.

Not to mention that a lot of the problems are our own fault anyway, e.g. eastern European immigration.

Just for a change, something we agree on.

It will be interesting to see what actual changes arise as a result of President Macron's endeavours. Past experience has taught that the EU talks about change and reform occasionally but only does this as a deflection and a delaying tactic because they know individual statesmen come and go and it is an effective technique to play for time until the pressure goes away and business as usual can resume.

[scoundrel]

Originally Posted by ********

No it's already hit the fan, the damage is already done. I'm just trying to limit how bad it gets.

Defeatism is not conducive to engagement with the EU or to looking at a constructive future. Your basis position is defeatist.

Originally Posted by ********

It's not. But the premise you base the question on is flawed.

How is the UK consistent with the inalienable right to be an independent nation? Soctland isn't independent, and in fact has far less independence than the UK does inside the EU.

Taking it to its logical conclusion, how is it fair that my house can't be independent from the UK, with its own laws and immigration policy?

My point is that you are just creating an arbitrary definition of what being independent means. Also, the EU is very much heading towards a two teir system, with countries in the centre having a close union and those on the periphery retaining things like their own currency and monetary policy. We could be leading either of those groups, taking control.

Identity is a key political concept. The United Kingdom, as the name implies, is a union of kingdoms, of which Scotland is one, together with England and Wales. Northern Ireland is an anomaly created by the Irish war of independence in 1919-22; there are nine counties in the historic Kingdom of Ulster and six of these nine form Northern Ireland now, with three adhering to the Irish Republic. The point is that we have multiple identities which are mutually consistent. I am English and British and I have no conflict in this. Rather more than six million Britons are also Scottish and about three million of us are Welsh and British.

You do get the occasional eccentric trying to declare independence but this never seems to stop the bailiffs.

Originally Posted by ********

This explains it in detail, but the bottom line is that the EU is in fact democratic and we can get rid of people, at least to the extent that it is possible in most democracies (e.g. you can't fire civil servants, only the peolpe who control them).

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...-reality-check

Compare and contrast to teh British system, with the House of Lords, for example.

How do we get rid of Jean Claude Juncker? We dont. He was not elected and he serves regardless until 2019 when another appointee will replace him under EU rules. Nothing so messy as an election will be involved.

Originally Posted by ********

I dunno, ask Nigel Farrage why he doesn't live here half the time.

I would rather ask Nigel Farrage to shoot himself as an act of good taste.

Originally Posted by ********

Of course, most of our MEPs to live in the UK, as do many EU staff. There are many British judges working for the ECJ.

This is a really bizarre question... I mean, do you think that there are literally no British citizens elected to or working for the EU?

Genuine question, I'm not trying to be sarcastic.

What we do not have and never have had is MEPs acting in our national interest to safeguard our sovereignty from EU mission creep. The same is true of our esteemed House of Commons to be fair. The EU is like a Borg hive assimilating its member states and just because there are British people employed there does not mean Britain or any other member nation is being respected there. This institution does not recognise national sovereignty, it thinks borders are bad, and it wants to unite us all into an artificial superstate. I prefer not to be a part of that.

[palo5]

Originally Posted by scoundrel

How do we get rid of Jean Claude Juncker? We dont

The European Parliament can fire the entire Commission at any time, or you wait until the next one is elected, that's how

He was not elected and he serves regardless until 2019 when another appointee will replace him under EU rules. Nothing so messy as an election will be involved

Task tsk tsk. It takes around 20 seconds to find out how the President of the EU Commission is elected. It couldn't be more transparent

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/e...n-gets-elected

[scoundrel]

Originally Posted by palo5

The European Parliament can fire the entire Commission at any time, or you wait until the next one is elected, that's how

Task tsk tsk. It takes around 20 seconds to find out how the President of the EU Commission is elected. It couldn't be more transparent

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/e...n-gets-elected

Just like the Pope, or the Doge of Venice.

[scoundrel]

Originally Posted by ********

On the one hand, it's changed from what we signed up for in the 70s and is inextricably changing into a United States of Europe.

On the other hand, it rarely changes.

Both of these propositions are true. The EU is set on the course programmed by its founders and does not deviate. It can go towards its destiny with my best wishes for its good luck, but with me not on board.

[palo5]

Originally Posted by scoundrel

Just like the Pope, or the Doge of Venice.

No, it's more like the USA, actually -- none of their Secretaries are elected. They're proposed by the President and approved by the Senate

Btw, the UK PM isn't elected as PM either. Nor are any of her Secretaries elected as Secretaries

The PM is an MP for her local constituency (about 75,000 people) under a system where typically more than half the votes don't count. So only a few thousands actually have to vote for her to be an MP

And she's elected head of her party by party members only, who we're told only number about 70,000 these days, nearly all of them geriatric

The Secretaries are hired & fired by the PM

Not to mention you have zero influence over the Head of State or the House of Lords

Do you now understand why the EU has no need at all to be lectured about "democracy" by the UK?

Your answer interests me, because I think you get more democracy from the EU, and less by moving away from it