Brexit discussion thread V - No Pic/GIF dumps please

murphaph

Sand wrote: »

The Guardian is hopelessly biased, little better than Breitbart. Raab is a fool, but I wouldn't particularly trust anything the Guardian reports on the matter.

In fairness without Carole Cadwalladr (ok it's the sister paper but same difference) we might still not know about Banks dealings and the whole CA business.

murphaph

judeboy101 wrote: »

"Referendums are the antithesis of democracy."

I'll tell that to all the gay people who can now marry or the women who can now access safe abortions.

We were behind many many countries where such decisions are simply taken in parliament.

First Up

murphaph wrote: »

judeboy101 wrote: »

"Referendums are the antithesis of democracy."

I'll tell that to all the gay people who can now marry or the women who can now access safe abortions.

We were behind many many countries where such decisions are simply taken in parliament.

All Irish referenda have been about changing the constitution - as required in the constitution.

Government and acts of parliament are conducted by those elected to that responsibility.

Our referenda have only been to allow them do that job. The Brexit referendum was an abdication of responsibility by people who really should have known better.

Rhineshark

First Up wrote: »

All Irish referenda have been about changing the constitution - as required in the constitution.

Government and acts of parlient are conducted by those elected to that responsibility.

Our referenda have only been to allow them do that job. The Brexit referendum was an abdication of responsibility by people who really should have known better.

Comparing Irish and that British referenda is a bit absurd in the first place.

We use them because it is part of how our democracy is run. They work best in small, relatively homogenous populations regarding purely internal matters in my view. In an international negotiation, the top mandate is actually from the people, thus the negotiation agreed by our gov has to be ratified by the people to allow for constitutional changes.

By British standards, it is only democratic to decide once and if it doesn't pass, no more negotiation, that's it. However, if a negotiation was to be brought to the UK Parliament and it was automatically take it or leave it, they would and should be up in arms. That would be ridiculous, rather than renegotiating if the Parliament feels there are points that could be adjusted (opt outs) to make it suitable for Britain. But apparently Ireland must illogically restrict itself and not renegotiate because it makes the appalling hash they made of their own democracy-breaking vote look even worse.

Britain is not set up to be run like that. The public vote which was then rammed past Parliament completely undercut all British institutions and gave a huge precedent for other stupid decisions to be shoved through. And on top of that, it was a stupid question where they didn't know the consequences or impossibilities of one side.

As I've said before, that was a decision that required calm, rational debate, and a Parliamentary set up would have been far more effective than loosing the populists to talk mostly rubbish.

Comparing the situations as I keep seeing British people (and some on boards) doing is at *kindest* disingenuous.

Imreoir2

brickster69 wrote: »

Rubbish, where do you stop a democratic vote? A country votes for a party in an election to serve 4 years and then two years through the term the public can request to vote again because their views have changed ?

Ahh... Yes. That happens quite a lot actually. The UK's most recent general electon for example.

Regardless of views, i would be pretty sure that the way this Government has handled this matter has broken whatever trust people had in politicians for a long long time. Quite shameful to be honest.

Hopefully the British people will have learned an important lesson not to instruct their government to do something that is fundementally damaging and expect the government to work wonders including somehow inducing a much larger power to accept a deal that would be entirely against it's interests. The British people have no one to blame but themselves for Brexit being a disaster.

Imreoir2

backspin. wrote: »

I wish the UK never voted for Brexit. But i would worry that if they changed course now and decided to stay under the strain of realizing the possible consequences. What would that say to all other countries in the EU. That they can never really leave the EU. It would embolden the EU so that any individual country that was not going along with the majority on any matter would be dismissed without a care in the world.

What would it say to the likes of Hungary or Poland or Italy with their views on immigration. They would be told toe the line or else. Because we know you will never leave.

There is still such a fundemental lack of understanding of how the EU works. The EU being so beneficial that leaving would be hugely damaging to a country is somehow a bad thing. The EU does not force countries to toe the line or else, the only "or else" the EU has to threaten a country with is suspension from membership of the EU. The EU works by consensus not by threats and coercion. Stop reading the Daily Mail!

Fr Tod Umptious

judeboy101 wrote: »

"Referendums are the antithesis of democracy."

I'll tell that to all the gay people who can now marry or the women who can now access safe abortions.

And to all the children born here who do not have citizenship.

Imreoir2

murphaph wrote: »

We were behind many many countries where such decisions are simply taken in parliament.

Yes, but we are ahead of many countries in that a decision to reverse same sex marriage cannot be made by a vote in parliament. It may have taken longer than it might have, the way it was done here has killed it as a political question right from the start and has given SSM a level of legal protection that it has almost nowhere else.

Imreoir2

An Ciarraioch wrote: »

And now the independent review mechanism for the temporary customs union has been rejected:

https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/mays-brexit-deal-suffers-major-setback-after-eu-rejects-uk-arbitration-mechanism_uk_5be60739e4b0e8438897d972#comments

“They think they’ve got us on the run,” one senior figure told HuffPost. “But they haven’t. We’ve drawn a line in the sand.”

This is getting into pure Dads Army stuff, "Who do you think you are kidding Mr Barner..." and Cpl Jones shouting "Don't Panic" in the corner.

judeboy101

Fr Tod Umptious wrote: »

And to all the children born here who do not have citizenship.

To quote a famous Irish man " being born in a stable, doesn't make you a horse"

murphaph

Imreoir2 wrote: »

Yes, but we are ahead of many countries in that a decision to reverse same sex marriage cannot be made by a vote in parliament. It may have taken longer than it might have, the way it was done here has killed it as a political question right from the start and has given SSM a level of legal protection that it has almost nowhere else.

An electorate that would put such a repressive government in power could not exactly be trusted not to remove the protection from the constitution.

I simply prefer the idea of representative democracy rather than direct democracy. Issues are more often than not too complicated for the man in the street.

Each to their own however.

Anthracite

Imreoir2 wrote: »

“They think they’ve got us on the run,” one senior figure told HuffPost. “But they haven’t. We’ve drawn a line in the sand.”

Lines in sand are not known for their defensive capabilities.

brickster69

Imreoir2 wrote: »

Ahh... Yes. That happens quite a lot actually. The UK's most recent general electon for example.

Eh ? Did the public call for a new election because they changed minds on the initial vote, or did the PM call an election in the hope of getting a larger majority ?

Rhineshark

Fr Tod Umptious wrote: »

And to all the children born here who do not have citizenship.

Unless we decide to go the British route, we'll get another say on that if enough people want it.

Which is, despite UK punditry, democratic.

10000maniacs

judeboy101 wrote: »

"Referendums are the antithesis of democracy."

I'll tell that to all the gay people who can now marry or the women who can now access safe abortions.

If you ask 100 voters what was the reasoning behind their vote, you might get 100 different answers depending on the question.This is at best crude and in the case of the Brexit vote dangerous. When you are tweaking one simple item in the constitution, you might get lucky and the will of the people might be satisfied, but even in Irelands last three referenda, a large proportion of voters were not voting on the question asked but on their own built in biases or ignorance. This makes the result of any referendum undemocratic IMO. The tighter the result the more undemocratic it is.

charlie14

CelticRambler wrote: »

The partition of the island of Ireland is the reason why the EU included "no hard border" as one of its conditions for a Withdrawal Agreement. It's quite likely that Ireland(RoI) would have been equally successful in requiring that condition to be met if the GFA did not exist, but it does and has done for two decades. There would be no point in TM "threatening" the DUP with a border poll if she wasn't prepared to follow through on her threat, and - if the poll was carried in favour of a UI - cede NI afterwards. That would have been a huge gamble when she could as easily have gambled on getting sufficient support from disaffected members of Labour or some of the other smaller parties.

The EU upon accepting Britains`s application for membership of the EU accepted NI territorially as part of that application when they granted membership. Same as they accepted Scotland who could equally make a claim they were also partitioned in 1707/1707.

Without the GFA the EU legally would have no case whatsoever in relation to the territorial boundaries it accepted when Britain joined. Without the GFA had we requested of the EU that there be no hard border, they would have had no option but to inform us that the could not grant that request as legally we did not have a leg to stand on.





My point on May even threatening a border poll is that it would at the least given the DUP pause for thought on the NI Brexit referendum result where the electorate reject their call for a Leave vote by voting Remain. Even going through with it regardless of the result would have left her in a better position than she is now imo, where even if she does find support from some Labour MP`s she has left herself a hostage to fortune where the DUP can bring down her Government whenever they wish.

charlie14

brickster69 wrote: »

Eh ? Did the public call for a new election because they changed minds on the initial vote, or did the PM call an election in the hope of getting a larger majority ?

The choice was May`s to call an election with the hope of getting a larger majority. With her losing seats rather than gaining, a case could be made that the public to an extent did change their minds.

CelticRambler

charlie14 wrote: »

The EU upon accepting Britains`s application for membership of the EU accepted NI territorially as part of that application when they granted membership. Same as they accepted Scotland who could equally make a claim they were also partitioned in 1707/1707.

We're talking here about discussions that were started in 2017, based on the circumstances of 2017. Regardless of the GFA, the RoI will be adversely affected by Brexit and argued its position based on the political and economic realities of 2017.


Still don't understand why you think Theresa May could achieve anything by threatening the DUP with something that she herself has said she's opposed to ... The DUP can see for themselves that the prospect of a UI is suddenly much closer than it was in 2016. Perhaps the only sensible thing that TM has done in the last two years is to not complicate the situation by adding an out-of-context border poll into the Brexit process.

Sam Russell

CelticRambler wrote: »

We're talking here about discussions that were started in 2017, based on the circumstances of 2017. Regardless of the GFA, the RoI will be adversely affected by Brexit and argued its position based on the political and economic realities of 2017.


Still don't understand why you think Theresa May could achieve anything by threatening the DUP with something that she herself has said she's opposed to ... The DUP can see for themselves that the prospect of a UI is suddenly much closer than it was in 2016. Perhaps the only sensible thing that TM has done in the last two years is to not complicate the situation by adding an out-of-context border poll into the Brexit process.

I would have thought that NI Assembly elections would be a greater threat. If the DUP vote falls less than the UUP or SF get the most Assemble seats, the Arlene is in trouble, and the DUP are in trouble.

Spook_ie

https://www.breakingnews.ie/world/artists-and-intellectuals-call-for-a-european-republic-884560.html

Not exactly going to go down well with anyone disagreeing about a United States of Europe, like a lot of Brexiteers.

listermint

Spook_ie wrote: »

https://www.breakingnews.ie/world/artists-and-intellectuals-call-for-a-european-republic-884560.html

Not exactly going to go down well with anyone disagreeing about a United States of Europe, like a lot of Brexiteers.

Breaking news is a trash website. Any reports on it should be questioned throughly and other sources found.

Terrible website.

Strazdas

Spook_ie wrote: »

https://www.breakingnews.ie/world/artists-and-intellectuals-call-for-a-european-republic-884560.html

Not exactly going to go down well with anyone disagreeing about a United States of Europe, like a lot of Brexiteers.

The idea of a United States of Europe is absolute rubbish. Countries like France, Spain, Portugal and Greece have been in existence as independent states for many centuries and the idea that they or their populations would voluntarily vote themselves out of existence to become part of a superstate is absurd.

Tell me how

The leader of the opposition.

https://twitter.com/paulwaugh/status/1060956975985496064

If I was living in the UK, I think I would be more annoyed by Corbyn's facile performance in opposition that May's failure in leading.

charlie14

CelticRambler wrote: »

We're talking here about discussions that were started in 2017, based on the circumstances of 2017. Regardless of the GFA, the RoI will be adversely affected by Brexit and argued its position based on the political and economic realities of 2017.


Still don't understand why you think Theresa May could achieve anything by threatening the DUP with something that she herself has said she's opposed to ... The DUP can see for themselves that the prospect of a UI is suddenly much closer than it was in 2016. Perhaps the only sensible thing that TM has done in the last two years is to not complicate the situation by adding an out-of-context border poll into the Brexit process.

If there was no GFA there would be no basis to discuss anything in relation to the border.

The GFA is an internationally recognised agreement on an open border between NI and the RoI. Without it the EU would have no options other than recognising that the UK territorial boundaries were the same leaving as they were when the EU accepted their application to join.


May and her cohorts have said so many thinks that have changed often in as little as a day, so it is impossible to know what she really is opposed to and what she isn`t. If her government wasn`t being propped up by the DUP, do you actually believe for a minute she would not drop NI like a hot potato to get a soft Brexit ?
She was certainly happy to do so in December.
The DUP are very much like May`s government in wanting to have their cake and eat it. They want to remain a part of the UK, which is leaving the EU, while at the same time remaining in the EU and enjoying all the benefits by having an open border to the rest of the EU.They cannot have both and that is why the UK is facing a hard Brexit.
If there is a hard Brexit then there will be a border. From the NI Brexit vote the case can be made that such a border on the island will increase the chances of their being a UI from where they were in 2016 as NI will be out of both the CU and the SM.
My point on her even threatening to hold a border poll is that it would have softened the DUP cough.

charlie14

charlie14 wrote: »

If there was no GFA there would be no basis to discuss anything in relation to the border.

The GFA is an internationally recognised agreement on an open border between NI and the RoI. Without it the EU would have no options other than recognising that the UK territorial boundaries were the same leaving as they were when the EU accepted their application to join.

Without the GFA we might still have a territorial claim on the north - would the back a members territorial claim against a leaving UK?

CelticRambler

charlie14 wrote: »

If there was no GFA there would be no basis to discuss anything in relation to the border.

:eek:

Of course there would be. It would represent a turning back of the clock, and crystallisation of the partition that was the catalyst for so much paramilitary action (presumably continued during the twenty years since).

When the UK and the RoI joined the EU, it was the start of a process that would lead to less marked differences between the two countries, so the RoI had no reason to dispute the EEC's recognition of the then accepted boundaries of the UK.

But just because, forty years ago, it suited all parties to agree not to disagree too much about that particular point of contention, for the sake of peaceful progress, doesn't mean that it's okay to return to a situation that led to the greatest number of terrorist deaths, injuries and structural damage that the EU member states have seen since WW2.

charlie14

Deleted User wrote: »

Without the GFA we might still have a territorial claim on the north - would the back a members territorial claim against a leaving UK?

I wouldn`t see how the EU could as the accepted the territorial borders when the UK joined.

Enzokk

Tell me how wrote: »

The leader of the opposition.

https://twitter.com/paulwaugh/status/1060956975985496064

If I was living in the UK, I think I would be more annoyed by Corbyn's facile performance in opposition that May's failure in leading.

Ha, what a hypocrite. He is happy to agitate for a new general election but Brexit has been done and nothing can be done to change it. The funny thing is watching his supporters who were staunch remainers fall over themselves to try and defend this position now.

And still you have a majority of Labour members and supporters looking to stay in the EU. Also, those MPs in the northern seats that voted to Leave will be the most hit by Brexit, but JC says he he cannot stop the pain for his own voters and members so let them suffer.

The upcoming vote on Brexit will be interesting for Labour MPs. Those that support it will be supporting a vote that will hurt their constituents. I don't know how they are actually going to justify it to themselves when they have had time to reflect on that. They are there to represent the best interests of their constituents and if that is against what they voted for then you have an obligation to vote for their best interests.

Tell me how

Enzokk wrote: »

Ha, what a hypocrite. He is happy to agitate for a new general election but Brexit has been done and nothing can be done to change it. The funny thing is watching his supporters who were staunch remainers fall over themselves to try and defend this position now.

And still you have a majority of Labour members and supporters looking to stay in the EU. Also, those MPs in the northern seats that voted to Leave will be the most hit by Brexit, but JC says he he cannot stop the pain for his own voters and members so let them suffer.

The upcoming vote on Brexit will be interesting for Labour MPs. Those that support it will be supporting a vote that will hurt their constituents. I don't know how they are actually going to justify it to themselves when they have had time to reflect on that. They are there to represent the best interests of their constituents and if that is against what they voted for then you have an obligation to vote for their best interests.

I joked to someone during the summer that I thought he was happy with the furore about the labour party and antisemitism as it distracted from his performance and position on Brexit.

I'm not too sure it was a joke now.

He is a living example of someone who no matter what you are doing, tells you that you shouldn't be doing it that way but offers no more advice.

charlie14

CelticRambler wrote: »

:eek:

Of course there would be. It would represent a turning back of the clock, and crystallisation of the partition that was the catalyst for so much paramilitary action (presumably continued during the twenty years since).

When the UK and the RoI joined the EU, it was the start of a process that would lead to less marked differences between the two countries, so the RoI had no reason to dispute the EEC's recognition of the then accepted boundaries of the UK.

But just because, forty years ago, it suited all parties to agree not to disagree too much about that particular point of contention, for the sake of peaceful progress, doesn't mean that it's okay to return to a situation that led to the greatest number of terrorist deaths, injuries and structural damage that the EU member states have seen since WW2.

The EU are not, and have no wish to be, arbitrators of territorial disputes. Something they recently made clear to Catalonia.

They recognise the territorial boundaries of a state upon that state joining regardless of the past histories between it and neighbouring states.The only changes the EU recognise on boundary changes are those altered by legal agreement which in this instance is the GFA. A internationally recognised agreement relating to the north/south border. Without it the EU would have no legal right to get involved.