[Politics] Brexit

[Baldseagull]

"to establish the foundations of an ever closer union among the European peoples" is the first line of the original EEC treaty. there is countless evidence of the core euro politicans wanting to drive further integration, on policy beyond that needed for simple trade and commerce. i'm confused by remainers who deny this. there is no pick and chose remain, just as there isnt for leave. accept and embrace the benefits of future integration.

So you see a close Union as an abdication? As I understand it abdication is relinquishing all authority, the UK Parliament has not done that and is no way bound to do so at some point in the future.

At the moment there is a pick and choose remain, if the withdrawal act is repealed then the European Union Act 2011 will come back into force, which ensures a referendum has to agree, and both houses of parliament has to agree before the UK signs up to any further treaties or material amendments to existing treaties. Our current status is quite flexible as to if we take any further steps towards closer union, that will likely be less flexible if we were to leave and rejoin.

 

[WATFORD zero]

We'll just gloss over the EU turning a blind eye to Greece not meeting the criteria to join the Euro shall we ? Or indeed the deal France did to lend Greece money just as long as some of it was spent on weapons .... weapons produced by French companies. Or maybe we'll ignore the money Germany lent them but only if they spent it on infrastructure ..... infrastructure built by German companies. We could even pretend that nobody died because the Greek ambulance service couldn't afford petrol. Maybe we could gloss over relatives having to take bedding in for those in hospital because the hospitals couldn't pay to have bedding cleaned.

And while Greece was takings it's punishment France was also breaking the rules of the Eurozone but the EU just gave them a whisper in their ear telling them to fall back in line.

Facts eh ?

So you are suggesting that Greece's decades of institutionalised tax avoidance, over paying the public sector and ridiculous early retirement would have worked out wonderfully if not for the EU?

Your point about whether they should have been allowed to join may have some validity, but Greece were desperate to join and agree to any terms as they knew their economy was a total basket case and believed (rightly or wrongly) that they would be better restructuring under the EU than going bankrupt as a single nation

Even after everything that you believe the EU 'inflicted' on Greece, they don't want to leave and are encouraging Britain to stay.

 

[Thunder Bolt]

Nice avoidance of the points !

3 years on into this cluster**** and despite Greece not wanting to leave The EU, Yanis Varoufakis, who has more reason than anyone to dislike The EU, urging The UK to remain we've still got faux concerns for the Greeks as a reason for leaving from middle class leave voters from Southern England, who are perfectly happy to inflict a no deal Brexit on the people of their own country and paranoid conspiracy theories.

Greece accepted, reluctantly, that their economy needed reforming, whether or not the joined the euro. Nobody made them join the euro.
They still don't want to leave the euro not the EU.

 

[Mellotron]

There is evidence out there.

Odds on this “evidence” being a ****ing lunatic YouTube video made by an angry incel school shooter in waiting - 1/1,000,000,000

 

[ManOfSussex]

It's quite incredible how this new technology can only be revealed today. Has Jeremy been keeping it a secret all this time?

Technology that doesn't exist anywhere else in the world, on any border between 2 different customs territories - but that's not important, they're merely inconvenient details. The importance is in the first 2 words Mr Hunt said - 'I believe' - because with Brexit, that's all you have to do:

"Alice laughed: "There's no use trying," she said; "one can't believe impossible things."
"I daresay you haven't had much practice," said the Queen. "When I was younger, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."
Alice in Wonderland.

 

[Baldseagull]

Great quote from Jeremy Hunt yesterday...

"I believe it is technically possible now" to find a solution to the Irish border, subject to political will in Ireland"

He will be revealing the newly discovered technology in NI today, what this space...

All you need is belief, and/or absolutely no same about lying that you believe, to be a Brexiter. Nice of him to chuck in the condition on Irish Political will, makes them look like the ********s if they don't agree to our inadequate technology solution.

 

[Garry Nelson's teacher]

So you are suggesting that Greece's decades of institutionalised tax avoidance, over paying the public sector and ridiculous early retirement would have worked out wonderfully if not for the EU?

Your point about whether they should have been allowed to join may have some validity, but Greece were desperate to join and agree to terms as they knew their economy was a total basket case and believed (rightly or wrongly) that they would be better restructuring under the EU than going bankrupt as a single nation

Yes - all the 'Club Med' countries have benefitted considerably from EU membership. Of course there is no 'control' experiment that tells us how they would have done outside the EU. But their economies were (as you rightly call it) basket cases in the 80s and the shock of the global crisis of 2008 would have been very, very grim indeed. (For one thing, imagine the carnage if their currencies were the target of speculators.)

Rather pointless to discuss this with Brexiteers with their rather one-eyed perspective...………..

 

[ManOfSussex]

Odds on this “evidence” being a ****ing lunatic YouTube video made by an angry incel school shooter in waiting - 1/1,000,000,000

It's even got music to the make the paranoid conspiracy and establishment betrayal and cover up for 30 years even more sinister.

 

[Thunder Bolt]

Not sure if anyone picked up on this over the weekend.

Brandon Lewis chairman of the Tories announcing that the UK and Switzerland agree to a transition trade deal, that was agreed 6 months ago.

What has fails to tell us that it doesn’t include services and will mean our large trade surplus will be wiped out.

Great work, and another own goal...


View attachment 112270

As you say, that deal was agreed over 6 months ago, proving the Leave lie, that said we we can't make deals whilst still in the EU(which we are).

Why was it announced again? Because the EU has just signed a huge trade agreement with South American countries.
It was a pathetic attempt to say the UK can sign deals too.

Leavers are getting more desperate.

 

[Garry Nelson's teacher]

All you need is belief, and/or absolutely no same about lying that you believe, to be a Brexiter. Nice of him to chuck in the condition on Irish Political will, makes them look like the ********s if they don't agree to our inadequate technology solution.

Heard an expert - oops dirty word! - this morning saying that technology only works well where there are hard borders eg Canada/USA. If ever there was an issue where all parties need to listen to technical expertise this is surely it? (i.e it's not something that you can just have an 'opinion' on).

 

[beorhthelm]

So you see a close Union as an abdication? As I understand it abdication is relinquishing all authority, the UK Parliament has not done that and is no way bound to do so at some point in the future.

At the moment there is a pick and choose remain, if the withdrawal act is repealed then the European Union Act 2011 will come back into force, which ensures a referendum has to agree, and both houses of parliament has to agree before the UK signs up to any further treaties or material amendments to existing treaties. Our current status is quite flexible as to if we take any further steps towards closer union, that will likely be less flexible if we were to leave and rejoin.

abdication is too strong a term at this point, however the intended destination is for powers being delegated to the EU institutions. if we remain the future treaties will require us to sign up, we wouldnt want to hold up the whole EU while waiting for ratification, and find a way to do so if there were opposition. and why wouldnt we want to sign up?

 

[Mellotron]

Heard an expert - oops dirty word! - this morning saying that technology only works well where there are hard borders eg Canada/USA. If ever there was an issue where all parties need to listen to technical expertise this is surely it? (i.e it's not something that you can just have an 'opinion' on).

Why don’t you just belief in Britian a bit more?!

 

[Thunder Bolt]

Yes - all the 'Club Med' countries have benefitted considerably from EU membership. Of course there is no 'control' experiment that tells us how they would have done outside the EU. But their economies were (as you rightly call it) basket cases in the 80s and the shock of the global crisis of 2008 would have been very, very grim indeed. (For one thing, imagine the carnage if their currencies were the target of speculators.)

Rather pointless to discuss this with Brexiteers with their rather one-eyed perspective...………..

It's not just the ClubMed countries. Portugal was in trouble (remember the PIGS acronym Portugal Italy Greece Spain)
Through the EU, the U.K. made a loan to Portugal, which has been paid back in full.
That's how cooperation works. No coercion nor bullying by one country but working together. Isolationism doesn't work, ever.

 

[nicko31]

As you say, that deal was agreed over 6 months ago, proving the Leave lie, that said we we can't make deals whilst still in the EU(which we are).

Why was it announced again? Because the EU has just signed a huge trade agreement with South American countries.
It was a pathetic attempt to say the UK can sign deals too.

Leavers are getting more desperate.

Just recycled news, really nothing new at all. The government have nothing new to report, its all they have

The South America deal slashes £4B in tariffs between the south American countries and the EU. Barely a mention in the UK press, yet in terms of free trade its historic and 20 years in the making.

The fact is when it comes to free trade agreements the EU has got there first, huge steps forward have made since 2016.

If we do go ahead with Brexit its going to be a very very expensive lesson for us. Its just maths...

Any of the other 27 behind us ready to walk the plank? I thought the EU was supposed to have disintegrated by now...

 

[Is it PotG?]

Any of the other 27 behind us ready to walk the plank? I thought the EU was supposed to have disintegrated by now...

 

[Baldseagull]

abdication is too strong a term at this point, but the intended destination is move powers being delegated to the EU institutions. if we remain the future treaties will require us to sign up, we wouldnt want to hold up the whole EU while waiting for ratification, and find a way to do so if there were opposition. and why wouldnt we want to?

I agree that abdication is too strong a term at this point, now I hope to persuade you that it is never going to happen in the future too. There is absolutely nothing we have already signed up to, that is forcing us to sign any further treaties, if we do so it will be on the merits of those new treaties. It was stated by the EU during Camerons attempts at renegotiation that it was already the case that we were not obliged to go further towards Union, and that to not do so would be without detriment, but that if we voted to remain, they would have this written in explicitly in the treaties. If the rest of the EU wishes to create a new treaty and there is no amendment that would make it acceptable to the UK, then we could keep our existing benefits, and meet our existing obligations and remain as we are, whilst the rest of them got on with the next step. There may be a future UK government that would like to sign up for a next step, but if the withdrawal act has been repealed, then the European Union act 2011 will be in force and that Government will not be able to do it without a referendum and the house of Lords agreement. I am not pretending that there would be no pressure, or persuasion going on, but it would be our choice.

There is no inevitable abdication, there is not even a likely abdication, if we were to have a full federal EU, the States would still retain many powers and would still retain the right to leave the Union.

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

why waste time? because this is is why the argument to remain is not being won, because remainers will dismiss leavers, rather than promote the benefits. the arguement should be that EU is not about abdication as a poster said, its agreed concensus toward common aims.

It’s about picking your discussions. If someone can’t grasp a point which has been made for about 3 years and by numerous people in many different ways I, personally, think it’s time to move on. I don’t have infinite time.

 

[Baldseagull]

Just recycled news, really nothing new at all. The government have nothing new to report, its all they have

The South America deal slashes £4B in tariffs between the south American countries and the EU. Barely a mention in the UK press, yet in terms of free trade its historic and 20 years in the making.

The fact is when it comes to free trade agreements the EU has got there first, huge steps forward have made since 2016.

If we do go ahead with Brexit its going to be a very very expensive lesson for us. Its just maths...

Any of the other 27 behind us ready to walk the plank? I thought the EU was supposed to have disintegrated by now...

Plus the EU has that clause ensuring that no other trade deal undercuts theirs.

 

[Thunder Bolt]

Politics can also scramble our critical thinking skills. Psychological studies show that people fail to notice the logical fallacies in an argument if the conclusion supports their viewpoint; if they are shown contrary evidence, however, they will be far more critical of the tiniest hole in the argument. This phenomenon is known as “motivated reasoning”.



https://www.theguardian.com/science...nfluencing-people-six-ways-to-win-an-argument

 

[Lincoln Imp]

why waste time? because this is is why the argument to remain is not being won, because remainers will dismiss leavers, rather than promote the benefits. the arguement should be that EU is not about abdication as a poster said, its agreed concensus toward common aims.

But all this is being played out against a moment in history when the likelihood of a European superstate being created is more remote than it ever has been. Only one leader of one large member state still appears, possibly, to want it to happen. And against him are arrayed a host of other countries, particularly in Northern and Eastern Europe, who want no such thing. The UK could have been a leader of a growing swathe of opinion in the world's greatest trading bloc, but instead, persuaded by propagandists with agendas, it chose, three years ago, exactly the wrong moment to give up and retreat.