Brexit discussion thread IV

ancapailldorcha

Unfortunately, it seems that Labour's divisions are very much still there:

Labour would fight a snap general election vowing to press ahead with Brexit, but it would secure better terms, John McDonnell has said, defying demands from party members to include a second-referendum pledge in any manifesto.

The standoff between Theresa May and the EU27 leaders in Salzburg this week, and the apparent lack of a parliamentary majority for her Chequers plan for Brexit, have raised the possibility of an early general election.

Labour has repeatedly made clear that it would prefer this option over a “people’s vote” on any deal.

Source.

Disappointing to say the least though it makes sense from the perspective that Labour isn't going to want to lose it's Northern working class vote while it probably thinks its metropolitan left wing contingent will stick with it.

revelman

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

Unfortunately, it seems that Labour's divisions are very much still there:



Source.

Disappointing to say the least though it makes sense from the perspective that Labour isn't going to want to lose it's Northern working class vote while it probably thinks its metropolitan left wing contingent will stick with it.

I would say it is more so a matter of principle for Corbyn and McDonnel given that they have been euro-sceptic (from a socialist perspective) for decades.

lawred2

Infini wrote: »

Have to say despite the host repeatedly trying to change the subject or detract he held his ground pretty well there.

What was her Tony Blair interjection about?

kowtow

Sassygirl1999 wrote: »

the brits leaving might slow the integration, unlikely though

More likely to speed it up I would have thought?

I heard a Newstalk presenter yesterday dismissing the phrase "no deal is better than a bad deal" as stupid and nonsensical. A deal - he said - was always better than "no deal". The silliness of his own words would be evident to him if he considered that when it came to selling his child or his kidneys, or even his family home, no deal might certainly be better than a bad deal if the terms of that deal - or what he was being asked to part with - were unpalatable.

But his words reminded me that the non-economic elements of Brexit are, in Ireland, to all intents and purposes irrelevant and invisible.

The trouble is - if you say Brexit is about Sovereignty you get told that Sovereignty is not a straightforward concept, that it must always be "shared", or that you are deluded and dreaming of Empire. Respectfully, I don't believe that is the case. I believe that, when push comes to shove, Sovereignty expresses the boundaries and embodies the authority of the nation which you would be prepared to but hope never to have to fight for - traditionally the Sovereign. It can, by means of treaties and agreements, be tempered or assigned in part and for a period, but it cannot (should not) be parted with. Delegans non potest Delegare, perhaps.

The close counterpart of Sovereignty is Democracy. Is the EU democratic? Yes, it is in part - but it can never be as democratic as the parliament of a nation, or - better still - a local parliament within the parliament of a nation. Power should be exercised as close to those to whom it is accountable as possible. People's votes need to make a difference. No democracy is ideal, but on a continuum from local and accountable to central for many the EU model is too remote and too central.

The truth is that EU Law has expanded, in furtherance of the aims of the single market, far and wide. What's more, it is - for good reason - technocratic in it's nature and the decrees made by Brussels have tended to lead to a lot of unintended consequences and a fair amount of badly drafted law in the EU states. That's not unusual, any relatively short period of intense lawmaking tends to produce a fair bit of sub-standard legislation - but it does add to the view that a less than democratic bunch of remote institutions interferes unnecessarily with the laws of a sovereign nation.

These two concerns, of discarded Sovereignty and impeded democracy are, in my opinion, the major issues behind Brexit, and neither of them are economic. No doubt it is possible to make too much of them, but I also don't believe that they are imaginary myths dreamed up by a Tory press. They are the real concerns of intelligent and well informed people.

What interests me most is that in the Irish media, and in this thread in particular, this take on the non-economic aspects of Brexit has little if any resonance. Most people here will dismiss it easily, either challenging the basic premise (qualified majority voting, shared sovereignty, I must not understand how the EU functions, I must be thick or illiterate or deluded ...) or alternatively that I am somehow, and wrongly, giving too much currency to my "feelings" about Sovereignty and Democracy rather than consulting with certified experts.

My first career taught me long ago to be suspicious of crowds which hold one sided opinions as unchallenged fact, and round on those who would challenge them. My experience, and indeed Ireland's experience, is that group-think tends to be wrong, often leading to disaster and recriminations later. And yet, we do seem to all be of the one mind where Brexit is concerned. I hope to God that in this case popular opinion in Ireland and the political courses it has supported turns out to be right.

And I wonder whether as a smaller nation, when we examine our own relationship with Europe, the non-economic "soft" elements driving Brexit - the democracy, sovereignty, etc. etc. are simply less important than the economic ones? If that is so it may explain why the debate here - unlike the visceral tit for tat, Leave vs Remain argument in the UK, is seen so much through a single and unchallenged prism.

Igotadose

lawred2 wrote: »

What was her Tony Blair interjection about?

He worked for Blair, Blair's after a second referendum, she tried to tie his objections to the farcical speech by May to him working on Blair's agenda, where all he wanted to do, is point out the obvious - EU's been saying 'no, Chequers doesn't work,' May goes with Chequers to Salzburg, gets told it doesn't work, and has a meltdown at 10 Downing street.

Given Mays ineptitude in speaking (and, hey, this speech was delayed like 10 minutes, due to a power outage, *cue the 3 stooges woop-woop sounds here*,) and having watched the speech, I'm thinking it was all planned to get May through till the Tory conference. She didn't just write the speech on the flight back from Salzburg. Had the various cabinet ministers ready, too.

I actually thought the moderator talking to the Tory wingnut and the less nutty ex-Tory cabinet minister did a good job, too. "How can you say you're going to have a deal when Parliament and the Torys have said no to Chequers" (paraphrasing).

EU showed one thing, they're taking this seriously. Macron's not making headlines or Tusk baiting May for jollies. The ones that haven't taken it seriously are the Torys, massive wishful thinking that when challenged degenerates into 'we'll just be strong and carry on, stiff upper lip, tally ho, yadda yadda'

Sassygirl1999

The irony in the Brexiteers argument is shocking, the UK union is exactly the appalling bully system that the EU is not, the EU hasn't in the past (yet) been able to override a member countries democracy if that country voted against some strategy, the UK is the opposite in that the English can dictate to and ignore the other 'nations' vote even if the other nations don't want to do something such as leave the EU, imagine Germany forcing all the other countries in the EU into massive strategy changes even if they had democratically voted against that strategy, the arrogance is ironic

Imreoir2

kowtow wrote: »

I heard a Newstalk presenter yesterday dismissing the phrase "no deal is better than a bad deal" as stupid and nonsensical. A deal - he said - was always better than "no deal". The silliness of his own words would be evident to him if he considered that when it came to selling his child or his kidneys, or even his family home, no deal might certainly be better than a bad deal if the terms of that deal - or what he was being asked to part with - were unpalatable.

This would be valid if no-deal resulted in the status quo, but in this case it does not. To extend your metaphor, if a deal means losing a kidney, then no-deal means losing both your kidneys, your liver, your ability to digest food and one of your lungs, and you get noting in return.

These two concerns, of discarded Sovereignty and impeded democracy are, in my opinion, the major issues behind Brexit, and neither of them are economic. No doubt it is possible to make too much of them, but I also don't believe that they are imaginary myths dreamed up by a Tory press. They are the real concerns of intelligent and well informed people.

I would suggest that concern over sovereignty and democracy have both been twisted to promote an anti-EU agenda. Take the Democracy argument, given that the UK is both a theocracy and a monarchy, I really think these arguements are overblown. The leaders of the EU are either elected or apointed by elected heads of state, the British head of state is not elected, she is a monarch, the antithsis or Democracy. The UK legislature is also only semi-democratic, one of the houses of Parliament is filled with unelected peers. The UK government itself is not officially elected, it is apointed by the Monarch and serves at the pleasure of that Monarch. For all the niceities of the UK's unwritten constitution and certainties of a constitutional crisis should it happen, legally it is still within the power of the British Monarch to dismiss any government for any reason. In case it escaped your attention, this is not democratic, and there is no parallel of these anti-democratic structures in the EU.

On sovereignty, the UK never gave up its sovereignty, the UK parliament has always been sovereign. Pooling sovereignty in the EU is not the same thing as giving up sovereignty. The UK has always had to aprove every change to the EU, every decision made in the EU that effects the UK were both influenced by the UK, but also required the consent of the UK to be operable within the UK. The UK always had sovereignty, some people choose to twist participation in the EU as a loss of sovereignty, but those people are liars.

judeboy101

Just watching Kate hoey, DD and farage on a whistlestop tour "leave means leave". More venom than a cobra lol.

kowtow

Imreoir2 wrote: »

This would be valid if no-deal resulted in the status quo, but in this case it does not. To extend your metaphor, if a deal means losing a kidney, then no-deal means losing both your kidneys, your liver, your ability to digest food and one of your lungs, and you get noting in return.

in your opinion

You are illustrating the point of my post precisely. The NT presenter refuses, point blank, to countenance that there might be any advantage from Brexit or disadvantage to remaining in the EU. Even being charitable and assuming that his economic assumptions all turn out to be correct, he must be utterly blind to the non-economic elements of the argument in particular as they affect the UK.

Sam Russell

kowtow wrote: »

in your opinion

You are illustrating the point of my post precisely. The NT presenter refuses, point blank, to countenance that there might be any advantage from Brexit or disadvantage to remaining in the EU. Even being charitable and assuming that his economic assumptions all turn out to be correct, he must be utterly blind to the non-economic elements of the argument in particular as they affect the UK.

No brexiteer has named a single EU law that diminishes their sovereignty. Nor have they cited a single country that will/has offered them a FTA that does not already exist through the EU.

They cite India, that requires freedom of movement, and USA that demands lower food standards like chlorinated chicken and hormone fed beef, and privatisation of the NHS. No other possible FTAs have been cited, except the possible southern Africa countries, providing the UK hand out huge foreign aid to them.

Perhaps someone might list a few of them - either laws or FTAs.

Imreoir2

kowtow wrote: »

in your opinion

You are illustrating the point of my post precisely. The NT presenter refuses, point blank, to countenance that there might be any advantage from Brexit or disadvantage to remaining in the EU. Even being charitable and assuming that his economic assumptions all turn out to be correct, he must be utterly blind to the non-economic elements of the argument in particular as they affect the UK.

I responed to this above, the non-economic arguements are a pile on nonsence.

The arguement that no-deal is better than a bad deal fully depends on what the bad deal is. Every deal other than the deal the UK has now as members of the EU is in reality a bad deal because it is worse than they have now. But the arguement is not between the status quo and the proposed deal, it is between no-deal and the proposed deal. It is blindingly obvious that no-deal will be horrificly damaging for the UK. As such, I have no time for the arguement that any of the proposed arrangements would be anything like a deal bad enough to be worse than a no-deal scenario.

The decision to work in concert with other nations is a soverign decision, the decision not to work in concert with other nations is not a higher level of siverignty, but in the UK's current position, it is a higher level of stupidity.

murphaph

Sassygirl1999 wrote: »

the brits leaving might slow the integration, unlikely though

Personally I'm for more integration. I once thought differently but I recognise that there are bigger beasts out there that could crush each of our EU countries individually but united we are a much stronger force.

I don't see the threat in the latest EU directive about weights and measures from the Brussels bureaucrats. I see the threat in cyber warfare emanating out of Moscow, Beijing and sadly perhaps even Washington, all trying to undermine Europe.

Times have changed significantly since I was in school and I'm not yet 40.

Capt'n Midnight

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

Disappointing to say the least though it makes sense from the perspective that Labour isn't going to want to lose it's Northern working class vote while it probably thinks its metropolitan left wing contingent will stick with it.

The Romans used Decimation "Removal of a Tenth" as a Draconian punishment

Given what a Hard Brexit will inflict on the Northern working class a lot more than one in ten will be affected.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/feb/07/brexit-north-east-west-midlands-hardest-secret-analysis

The report suggests that the north-east would face a 16% hit to regional economic growth, and the West Midlands 13%. And it claims that a hard Brexit would mean an overall 21% rise in retail prices, with a 17% rise in food and drink costs.

It's Boys from the Blackstuff, "It's grim up north" all over again.

Followed by the Tories only needing to offer cheap bribes to get re-elected.

Enzokk

revelman wrote: »

Why is everyone saying 'former unionists'? In the unlikely event of a United Ireland, there will still be unionists in the North in the same way there were still unionists in Ireland following the establishment of the Free State!

How long were they unionists for after the establishment of the Free State? Will they forever be unionists if there is no union to fight for? Surely if they feel so strongly about their country (union) they will leave for the union.

I mean will there still be nationalists if there is a united Ireland?

kowtow wrote: »

in your opinion

You are illustrating the point of my post precisely. The NT presenter refuses, point blank, to countenance that there might be any advantage from Brexit or disadvantage to remaining in the EU. Even being charitable and assuming that his economic assumptions all turn out to be correct, he must be utterly blind to the non-economic elements of the argument in particular as they affect the UK.

The question on what benefits always comes down to making a list of said benefits that leaving the EU will bring a nation, from a non-economic standpoint.

You will have to excuse if we get a little short of this train of thought as the Brexiteers has had an awful long time to list these benefits but I can never seem to remember them and neither can they. We have had posters before stating the same thing about leaving the EU, democracy, sovereignty, taking back control of their laws, immigration. Almost all of these have been shown to either been lies or there were ways to gain back "control" on some of these issues.

Then we also have to make a determination if these benefits that may or may not exist trumps the economical hurt you will face from leaving the EU. I think it is very much established already that leaving the EU will harm your economy. That should not be in dispute, so the question is how much is less bureaucracy worth economically. Now for every person that will be a different answer but it is also one that needs to be confronted by those that want to leave. During this referendum there was no mention of any pain for less EU red tape, people were told they could have less EU and the same benefits.

So we can have this dance again, what are the benefits to leaving the EU for any nation currently in the EU.

kowtow

Imreoir2 wrote: »

I would suggest that concern over sovereignty and democracy have both been twisted to promote an anti-EU agenda. Take the Democracy argument, given that the UK is both a theocracy and a monarchy, I really think these arguements are overblown. The leaders of the EU are either elected or apointed by elected heads of state, the British head of state is not elected, she is a monarch, the antithsis or Democracy. The UK legislature is also only semi-democratic, one of the houses of Parliament is filled with unelected peers. The UK government itself is not officially elected, it is apointed by the Monarch and serves at the pleasure of that Monarch. For all the niceities of the UK's unwritten constitution and certainties of a constitutional crisis should it happen, legally it is still within the power of the British Monarch to dismiss any government for any reason. In case it escaped your attention, this is not democratic, and there is no parallel of these anti-democratic structures in the EU.

Your argument that the EU is somehow more democratic than the UK rests upon a series of hypothetical acts which would be unconstitutional. The fact that the UK's constitution is unwritten does not make it non-existent. There are surely few serious commentators or political historians and analysts who would characterize the UK as undemocratic on account of being a Monarchy?

Also - small point here - the House of Lords is hardly half of the UK parliament. It's powers to return legislation have been limited for a long time and in many important areas don't exist at all. As a second chamber it's not all that different to our own.

On sovereignty, the UK never gave up its sovereignty, the UK parliament has always been sovereign. Pooling sovereignty in the EU is not the same thing as giving up sovereignty. The UK has always had to aprove every change to the EU, every decision made in the EU that effects the UK were both influenced by the UK, but also required the consent of the UK to be operable within the UK. The UK always had sovereignty, some people choose to twist participation in the EU as a loss of sovereignty, but those people are liars.

I didn't suggest that Sovereignty had been given away, rather that - to retain EU membership - it must necessarily be tempered in it's practical effect and (to some degree) delegated. Parliament remains Sovereign, most particularly of course in it's unquestioned ability to Repeal the 1972 Act, but the practical pooling of sovereignty is not without effect and it's effects are sometimes unpalatable.

There are over 50,000 laws on the UK statute book as a result of EU membership, so it's unlikely that there are none that are unpalatable - but just for the fun of it off the top of my head I'm pretty certain that the UK courts were prevented from banning live animal exports.

The fact that the UK has to approve, within the terms of the EU constitution, changes to EU law and indeed to implement specific directives doesn't mean that the politics involved in doing so, the inevitable trade-offs, do not amount to a dilution of Sovereignty and indeed democracy.

None of which is to say that these things might not be a price worth paying - up to a point, they probably are - but the debate in Ireland assumes that these concerns are literally nothing, worthless, and only the economics count.

revelman

Imreoir2 wrote: »

I responed to this above, the non-economic arguements are a pile on nonsence.

Personally, I don't see how you can separate the economic and non-economic arguments and hypotheticals. The two go hand in hand.

Where Ireland is today is of course partly to do with EU support and the opportunities the single market has offered us. But it has also to do with our exercise of sovereignty - deciding to focus on the policies we have focused on since the foundation of the State. We have got things badly wrong along the way but we have also got things right e.g. our highly educated workforce - we have (or at least had) one of the best education systems in Europe; we have chosen to follow a quite distinctive corporation tax policy etc.

I understand that in a federal system there is in principle no reason why federated states can't pursue some or many of these policies. It would all depend the constitutional document and how competences are divided up. But a federation necessarily means compromise and that certain policy decisions are taken at a federal level e.g. federal taxes, foreign policy, defence etc.

I believe that we are better off taking these decisions ourselves. We may get things right, we may get things wrong but at least they are our decisions. I don't think we should automatically assume that we would be better off in a United States of Europe. When all of this Brexit stuff eventually dies down, we will continue to be as irrelevant to the rest of Europe as we were before. And we are kidding ourselves if we think that a little island on the west of Europe with a population the same size of a German city would have any clout in a federal system.

And this leads me on to murphaph's argument about the threat of Russia, China etc. I don't see that as an argument for further integration. I think that says more about the failure of the United States to lead and stand up for what is right in the present climate. Personally, I'd rather that Nato and the like play a role here rather than the EU seeking to flex its muscles with a common defence policy. There is plenty I disagree with De Valera on but I do value Ireland's neutrality.

kowtow

Enzokk wrote: »

Then we also have to make a determination if these benefits that may or may not exist trumps the economical hurt you will face from leaving the EU. I think it is very much established already that leaving the EU will harm your economy.

Why are you addressing an Irish dairy farmer as if he is about to leave the EU?

revelman

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

The Romans used Decimation "Removal of a Tenth" as a Draconian punishment

Given what a Hard Brexit will inflict on the Northern working class a lot more than one in ten will be affected.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/feb/07/brexit-north-east-west-midlands-hardest-secret-analysis

It's Boys from the Blackstuff, "It's grim up north" all over again.

Followed by the Tories only needing to offer cheap bribes to get re-elected.

I do try to take an interest in economics and I really admire the likes of Keynes. But we should remember that economics is not a science. Even economists admit that future predictions are invariably proved wrong. I'd be interested if somebody could point to an example from the recent past where an economist or think tank has made a precise predication about future economic activity that has turned out to be accurate. The idea that somebody can say that there will be a '16% hit to the regional economy' in the North East and people take this as the gospel truth is a bit strange in my opinion. I think most can agree that things are likely to get worse than better following Brexit in the UK but anything beyond this is pure guesswork in my opinion.

revelman

Enzokk wrote: »

How long were they unionists for after the establishment of the Free State? Will they forever be unionists if there is no union to fight for? Surely if they feel so strongly about their country (union) they will leave for the union.

I mean will there still be nationalists if there is a united Ireland?

There are nationalists in Northern Ireland despite the fact that the North has been part of the UK for a very long time.

There are plenty of Anglo-Irish families still in Ireland who were traditionally unionist. I don't know if they would apply that label to themselves today. But they very much have a strong affinity to the UK even though their family may have been in Ireland for generations.

lawred2

Igotadose wrote: »

He worked for Blair, Blair's after a second referendum, she tried to tie his objections to the farcical speech by May to him working on Blair's agenda, where all he wanted to do, is point out the obvious - EU's been saying 'no, Chequers doesn't work,' May goes with Chequers to Salzburg, gets told it doesn't work, and has a meltdown at 10 Downing street.

Given Mays ineptitude in speaking (and, hey, this speech was delayed like 10 minutes, due to a power outage, *cue the 3 stooges woop-woop sounds here*,) and having watched the speech, I'm thinking it was all planned to get May through till the Tory conference. She didn't just write the speech on the flight back from Salzburg. Had the various cabinet ministers ready, too.

I actually thought the moderator talking to the Tory wingnut and the less nutty ex-Tory cabinet minister did a good job, too. "How can you say you're going to have a deal when Parliament and the Torys have said no to Chequers" (paraphrasing).

EU showed one thing, they're taking this seriously. Macron's not making headlines or Tusk baiting May for jollies. The ones that haven't taken it seriously are the Torys, massive wishful thinking that when challenged degenerates into 'we'll just be strong and carry on, stiff upper lip, tally ho, yadda yadda'

I know he worked for Blair. But it was an odd interjection almost as if she were pushing him on some subversive machinations at play within Labour to bring Blair back into the fold.

Capt'n Midnight

revelman wrote: »

But anyone who has spent anytime working in or with the EU (though they won't publicly admit it) knows that the EU turned into a bureaucratic monster, reaching into all sorts of areas that it didn't really need to reach into.

Have you ever tried to do anything official in Italy ?

In Italy you'd have to take a form to another office, in another building in another part of town. And stop at the post office to pay and get a special stamp to prove payment. And they all have different opening hours, and you can't get parking. And you have to queue every step of the way. And if there's a problem it's back to the other office or even square one.


The other thing is that the EU means that standards are standardising.
The old BS , IS and DIN standards now incorporate EU standards too.
Here we used to follow British Standards for the most part with a few amendments and additions.
Now we get the best of German and British and other European standards on a plate.

fly_agaric

kowtow wrote: »

But his words reminded me that the non-economic elements of Brexit are, in Ireland, to all intents and purposes irrelevant and invisible.

The trouble is - if you say Brexit is about Sovereignty you get told that Sovereignty is not a straightforward concept, that it must always be "shared", or that you are deluded and dreaming of Empire. Respectfully, I don't believe that is the case. I believe that, when push comes to shove, Sovereignty expresses the boundaries and embodies the authority of the nation which you would be prepared to but hope never to have to fight for - traditionally the Sovereign. It can, by means of treaties and agreements, be tempered or assigned in part and for a period, but it cannot (should not) be parted with. Delegans non potest Delegare, perhaps. The close counterpart of Sovereignty is Democracy. Is the EU democratic? Yes, it is in part - but it can never be as democratic as the parliament of a nation, or - better still - a local parliament within the parliament of a nation.

Sovereignty or democracy can be overridden by force and coercion, or ignored because those seeking to assert it for themselves don't have the means to do so in practice.
What hope of sovereignty do small nations have in a world where might makes right? The idea of somehow having a pur(er) Irish sovereignty or democracy is a chimera. Small nations trying to go it alone find they will frequently need to do what they are told by one power or another, or they will get stomped on. The likes of Trump, Brexit. seem to signal a sharp return to that sort of world IMO. The lovers of "sovereignty" in the UK who support Brexit seem to think the UK is a big enough animal to prosper in such a world and they won't need to be beholden to anyone. I think they might be wrong about that.

Being part of the EEC/EC/EU has provided structures, rules and legalisms that have been of great benefit to Ireland. Practically we're in a much better position now as regards ability to exercise our own sovereignty and democracy in the world than we were either as part of the UK pre-independence, or as a poor nation in the UK's economic orbit pre joining the EEC.

kowtow wrote: »

Power should be exercised as close to those to whom it is accountable as possible. People's votes need to make a difference. No democracy is ideal, but on a continuum from local and accountable to central for many the EU model is too remote and too central.

It is a nice idealistic wish, but even the the larger & wealthier states in the EU simply don't have the weight to take on some big issues of today on their own such as the disturbing wealth & power of MNCs, Europe's migration & immigration policy, possibly also foreign relations with other big "powers" in the world like the US, China and Russia which as mentioned in a post above may be inimical to the wishes of small EU states. We need more of these big picture issues being organised up at the EU/collective level & not fewer. In practice, power need to be exercised at at level where any decisions made can have a concrete effect on the world.

revelman

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Have you ever tried to do anything official in Italy ?

In Italy you'd have to take a form to another office, in another building in another part of town. And stop at the post office to pay and get a special stamp to prove payment. And they all have different opening hours, and you can't get parking. And you have to queue every step of the way. And if there's a problem it's back to the other office or even square one.


The other thing is that the EU means that standards are standardising.
The old BS , IS and DIN standards now incorporate EU standards too.
Here we used to follow British Standards for the most part with a few amendments and additions.
Now we get the best of German and British and other European standards on a plate.

Good points. By bureaucracy though, I mean something more than officaldom.

An Ciarraioch

It would appear UK Labour's strategy is to push for a general election if either talks collapse, or the Commons rejects a deal. Of course, they then have to win the GE, form a stable government, and get Brussels approval for their own plan, which all amounts to a considerable ask:

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/labour-early-election-theresa-may-brexit-deal-jeremy-corbyn-negotiations-a8550186.html

briany

Let's talk about 'Leave means Leave' for a second. It's one of these vagaries totally open to interpretation. You can leave the EU but transition to the EEA and EFTA. Notice that Norway, while a member of the EEA and EFTA, is not referred to as a member of the EU. Why? Because it isn't one.

fash

Sam Russell wrote: »

No brexiteer has named a single EU law that diminishes their sovereignty. Nor have they cited a single country that will/has offered them a FTA that does not already exist through the EU.

They cite India, that requires freedom of movement, and USA that demands lower food standards like chlorinated chicken and hormone fed beef, and privatisation of the NHS. ...

...and the only reason there is no FTA between the EU and India is that the UK refused it because it refused to allow easier access from India. How it thinks it will get better terms from India after brexit would be interesting to know.

Enzokk

kowtow wrote: »

Why are you addressing an Irish dairy farmer as if he is about to leave the EU?

I don't know what your argument is to be honest. Please correct me if I have it wrong but you are commenting on a Newstalk presenter not taking into account any argument for Brexit other than an economical one. You are saying that there are more to Brexit than just economics. Right?

Imreoir2

kowtow wrote: »

Your argument that the EU is somehow more democratic than the UK rests upon a series of hypothetical acts which would be unconstitutional. The fact that the UK's constitution is unwritten does not make it non-existent. There are surely few serious commentators or political historians and analysts who would characterize the UK as undemocratic on account of being a Monarchy?

They would not be unconstitutional, those acts are specifically enabled by the UK constitution. The issue is not that those acts would be in breach of the UK constitution, it is that they would cause a political crisis requiring the constitution to be changed. The power of the monarch remains under the UK constitution because it is never used. That does not mean that power does not exist under the constitution however.

Also - small point here - the House of Lords is hardly half of the UK parliament. It's powers to return legislation have been limited for a long time and in many important areas don't exist at all. As a second chamber it's not all that different to our own.

I did not say it was half of parliament, the House of Lords is similar to our own second chamber, with the main diference being that our's is elected (if under a more limited franchise than the Dáil) and theirs is not.

I didn't suggest that Sovereignty had been given away, rather that - to retain EU membership - it must necessarily be tempered in it's practical effect and (to some degree) delegated. Parliament remains Sovereign, most particularly of course in it's unquestioned ability to Repeal the 1972 Act, but the practical pooling of sovereignty is not without effect and it's effects are sometimes unpalatable.

The choice not to pool sovereignty is also not without effect, and its effects will be quite unpalatable to the UK in April. The arguement is not that pooling sovereignty is without any effect, indeed if that was the case there would be no point in doing it, would there? It can have unpalatable effects, it can also have hugely beneficial effects. The UK has benefit significnatly from the overall effect of pooling its sovereignty in the EU.

The fact that the UK has to approve, within the terms of the EU constitution, changes to EU law and indeed to implement specific directives doesn't mean that the politics involved in doing so, the inevitable trade-offs, do not amount to a dilution of Sovereignty and indeed democracy.

I disagree. The UK was free to leave the EU rather than accept any of those directives or trade-offs. Choosing not to leave rather than accept a directive or trade off does not dilute your soverignty. Soverignty is the ability to mack the choice, it does not rest on making one choice over the other.

None of which is to say that these things might not be a price worth paying - up to a point, they probably are - but the debate in Ireland assumes that these concerns are literally nothing, worthless, and only the economics count.

I would agree that the concern's, as things stand, ar next to worthless. Should the EU turn into some form of dictatorship which seeks to infringe on the soverignty of its members, or undermine their democracies, then they might be valid issues, but as things stand I do not believe that they are.

revelman

Imreoir2 wrote: »

I did not say it was half of parliament, the House of Lords is similar to our own second chamber, with the main diference being that our's is elected (if under a more limited franchise than the Dáil) and theirs is not.

The vast majority of seats in the senate are either nominated directly by the Taoiseach or by members of the Oireachtas, Councils etc through 'panels'. The only election is for the six NUI and University of Dublin seats and this election is confined to graduates of those places

kowtow

briany wrote: »

Let's talk about 'Leave means Leave' for a second. It's one of these vagaries totally open to interpretation. You can leave the EU but transition to the EEA and EFTA. Notice that Norway, while a member of the EEA and EFTA, is not referred to as a member of the EU. Why? Because it isn't one.

Yup, Leave Means Leave really is nonsense.

All Humpty Dumpty words.