Brexit discussion thread V - No Pic/GIF dumps please

PeadarCo

Enzokk wrote:

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.

Why is it surprising? He has never been a fan of the EU. Had he got behind the remain campaign the referendum might have gone the other way. He's has a the hard left background who are notoriously bad at comprising. He just wants to be in power and to hell with the people who vote for him. It's what you would expect from an idelogue.

He will just blame the Tory's. In the indo during the week John Bruton made the point that the 6 Labour tests are impossible to meet. They are an excuse to vote against any deal that is arrived at if that's what Corby wants.

Spook_ie

listermint wrote: »

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

Terrible website.

Which would you prefer out of

Irish Examiner
https://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/world/artists-and-intellectuals-call-for-a-european-republic-884560.html
ZDF Today
https://www.zdf.de/nachrichten/heute/european-balcony-project-ausrufung-der-europaeischen-republik-100.html
Washington Post
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/artists-intellectuals-call-for-european-republic/2018/11/10/8b131ebc-e4e9-11e8-ba30-a7ded04d8fac_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.da04bf5925eb
Irish Times
https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/why-we-should-be-concerned-about-germany-s-political-situation-1.3692262
La Republica
https://video.repubblica.it/mondo/european-balcony-project-sui-balconi-delle-citta-si-proclamera-la-repubblica-europea/318953/319582

And many others


Pretty sure they can't all be trash, maybe you just think that they're trash because they publish something you don't agree with, but I suppose that's democracy for you.

Enzokk

PeadarCo wrote: »

Why is it surprising? He has never been a fan of the EU. Had he got behind the remain campaign the referendum might have gone the other way. He's has a the hard left background who are notoriously bad at comprising. He just wants to be in power and to hell with the people who vote for him. It's what you would expect from an idelogue.

He will just blame the Tory's. In the indo during the week John Bruton made the point that the 6 Labour tests are impossible to meet. They are an excuse to vote against any deal that is arrived at if that's what Corby wants.

True, I think it shouldn't be a surprise that a politician is not honest about his positions. He told us himself that he wants to return the power to the members, and yet his actions says something else. I would guess this will hurt his polling numbers even more and I would not be surprised if Brexit is the hill he loses the leadership on. The funny thing is if he actually just did what he said he would do, give the members the voice in Labour, he would be fine.

But as you say, ideologues be ideologues I guess.

Tell me how

PeadarCo wrote: »

Why is it surprising? He has never been a fan of the EU. Had he got behind the remain campaign the referendum might have gone the other way. He's has a the hard left background who are notoriously bad at comprising. He just wants to be in power and to hell with the people who vote for him. It's what you would expect from an idelogue.

He will just blame the Tory's. In the indo during the week John Bruton made the point that the 6 Labour tests are impossible to meet. They are an excuse to vote against any deal that is arrived at if that's what Corby wants.

I don't think so. Certainly not while the Brexit fiasco is unfolding.
Didn't Labour say that they were going to support the conservative budget proposals? They've had plenty opportunity to tear in to the conservatives and demand an opportunity to take the reigns but they've never taken them.

I think what Corbyn wants now is his fan base saying he should be in power but not having to actually hold that responsibility and deliver something.

Enzokk

Spook_ie wrote: »

Which would you prefer out of

Irish Examiner
https://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/world/artists-and-intellectuals-call-for-a-european-republic-884560.html
ZDF Today
https://www.zdf.de/nachrichten/heute/european-balcony-project-ausrufung-der-europaeischen-republik-100.html
Washington Post
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/artists-intellectuals-call-for-european-republic/2018/11/10/8b131ebc-e4e9-11e8-ba30-a7ded04d8fac_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.da04bf5925eb
Irish Times
https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/why-we-should-be-concerned-about-germany-s-political-situation-1.3692262
La Republica
https://video.repubblica.it/mondo/european-balcony-project-sui-balconi-delle-citta-si-proclamera-la-repubblica-europea/318953/319582

And many others


Pretty sure they can't all be trash, maybe you just think that they're trash because they publish something you don't agree with, but I suppose that's democracy for you.

Sorry, I must have missed where the EU bureaucrats were calling for a European Republic. Or where the EU Commission or EU Parliament is calling for it.

Personally I don't see Hungary willingly giving up the power their leader had fought hard in obtaining and giving it up to the EU. Poland may be a problem as well and then we have Italy as well, so I don't think anyone will take this as something that is serious.

MrMusician18

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.

Would you have said the same about the 1983 referendum?

It's easy to think referendums are great when the result goes your way.

ArmaniJeanss

PeadarCo wrote: »

He will just blame the Tory's. In the indo during the week John Bruton made the point that the 6 Labour tests are impossible to meet. They are an excuse to vote against any deal that is arrived at if that's what Corby wants.

Not at all, they are perfectly reasonable and easily achievable conditions, in a certain light.
That light being a time when high ranking Brexiteers used phrases like 'they need us more than we need them', 'easiest trade deal in history', 'first port of call will be Berlin, not Brussels', 'queueing up to do deals with us'.
Starmer set those 6 tests in that environment, so Brexiteers can hardly complain now that the tests are unfair.

Also worth pointing out that those tests stop Corbyn voting for the likely deal, so well played by Starmer all round.

MrMusician18

ArmaniJeanss wrote: »

Not at all, they are perfectly reasonable and easily achievable conditions, in a certain light.
That light being a time when high ranking Brexiteers used phrases like 'they need us more than we need them', 'easiest trade deal in history', 'first port of call will be Berlin, not Brussels', 'queueing up to do deals with us'.
Starmer set those 6 tests in that environment, so Brexiteers can hardly complain now that the tests are unfair.

Also worth pointing out that those tests stop Corbyn voting for the likely deal, so well played by Starmer all round.

The six tests are a joke and are so subjective that they can always be argued that they are not met. Even remaining in the EU wouldn't meet them.

It's the same nonsense Gordon Browne came out with for his tests on UK euro membership. It's a cop out

Enzokk

ArmaniJeanss wrote: »

Not at all, they are perfectly reasonable and easily achievable conditions, in a certain light.
That light being a time when high ranking Brexiteers used phrases like 'they need us more than we need them', 'easiest trade deal in history', 'first port of call will be Berlin, not Brussels', 'queueing up to do deals with us'.
Starmer set those 6 tests in that environment, so Brexiteers can hardly complain now that the tests are unfair.

Also worth pointing out that those tests stop Corbyn voting for the likely deal, so well played by Starmer all round.

Starmer has played a blinder as far as I can see. He has been able to have the Labour policy on Brexit basically be a soft Brexit as you can get. How do you get a deal with the same benefits as now? Just keep it all the same basically, and he has forced Corbyn to agree to this. He also has the members backing this view.

It will be interesting to see if there is a new leadership challenge and Starmer actually stands against Corbyn this time, what will the membership decide. Seeing that Starmer will almost certainly ask for a new referendum and a reversal of Brexit, how will Corbyn counter this?

EdgeCase

MrMusician18 wrote: »

Would you have said the same about the 1983 referendum?

It's easy to think referendums are great when the result goes your way.

There's also a line being pushed in the UK that the Brexit referendum was somehow an exercise in democracy that can never be repeated again under any circumstances, including when the information that people were working with were largely discovered to be a be a pack of lies.

Circumstances change, and in this case they've changed *very* quickly due to the way the original referendum was carried out : in a fact-free vacuum.

Spook_ie

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.

listermint wrote: »

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

Terrible website.

Enzokk wrote: »

Sorry, I must have missed where the EU bureaucrats were calling for a European Republic. Or where the EU Commission or EU Parliament is calling for it.

Personally I don't see Hungary willingly giving up the power their leader had fought hard in obtaining and giving it up to the EU. Poland may be a problem as well and then we have Italy as well, so I don't think anyone will take this as something that is serious.

Don't see anywhere I said much other than Brexiteers wouldn't like it

MrMusician18

EdgeCase wrote: »

There's also a line being pushed in the UK that the Brexit referendum was somehow an exercise in democracy that can never be repeated again under any circumstances, including when the information that people were working with were largely discovered to be a be a pack of lies.

Circumstances change, and in this case they've changed *very* quickly due to the way the original referendum was carried out : in a fact-free vacuum.

I can't argue with that. What I was hinting at was really how effective the referendum is as a tool for producing an optimal solution. I mean people here cite the May referendum as a good one spring the best aspects of direct democracy, yet ignore the same exercise in May 1983 which produced the opposite result.

The truth is the referendum is a poor tool when it comes to optimal decision making. The electorate is making a choice with a mix of factual, fabricated and partial information, so how can it?

An Ciarraioch

After watching Macron and Merkel in the famous Compiegne railway carriage (even if a replica), you can't help but feel that in an era where Russia and China are flexing their diplomatic muscles, and the US chooses to sit on the sidelines, that multilateralism is very much undervalued. With very few nations able to act effectively on a global level, the EU may very well have little alternative to co-ordinate foreign policy, and unless Britain chooses to remain in the American orbit, it will probably have similar objectives to Brussels in that area.

10000maniacs

MrMusician18 wrote: »

EdgeCase wrote: »

There's also a line being pushed in the UK that the Brexit referendum was somehow an exercise in democracy that can never be repeated again under any circumstances, including when the information that people were working with were largely discovered to be a be a pack of lies.

Circumstances change, and in this case they've changed *very* quickly due to the way the original referendum was carried out : in a fact-free vacuum.

The truth is the referendum is a poor tool when it comes to optimal decision making. The electorate is making a choice with a mix of factual, fabricated and partial information, so how can it?

The truth of the matter is in referenda, the electorate need to have the intellect to understand all the facts and consequences of their vote and even if they do, they also require the integrity and responsibility to make the correct decision for the country.
This was clearly not the case with the Brexit vote. What % of the people who voted "leave" knew what the were voting for? 5%? 10%? This is democracy in action?
Even the politicians on both sides running the campaigns did not have a clue of the implications of their stance. Johnson, Rabb, Rees Mogg, Davis and Fox proved this time and time again. Rabb having another Baldrick moment on Thursday.

BlitzKrieg

The problem with discussions about rerunning the referendum is nobody is phrasing the issue correctly, there is too much focus on democracy or people's vote when the reason it needs to be run (and will never get run) is because the tories did a f*cking sh*tshow arseway job of the first one. Regardless if you support brexit or not the first referendum was bad, it was poorly managed, it had basically an open ended question that was allowed to be interpreted a 100 different ways and still be the same answer and the government who posed the question made no preparations of what to do if it went either way. they assumed it would go one way and ordered no research, fact finding or anything.

While I rather they didnt I am not against the UK leaving the EU, but the brexit referendum is a sh*tshow that got hijacked by extremists who are now pushing for the absolutely most insane result.

And thats why we wont get a 2nd referendum because the only way to argue for one is for the government to admit they completely f*cked the first one and that they were to blame for putting on such a badly laid out referendum. They'd have to throw Cameron under the bus (or he'd have to throw himself)

which the tories will never do.

murphaph

There's something very perverse that this country that strives to remember their war dead perhaps more than any other has decided to walk away from the greatest contribution to peace in Europe.

RobMc59

[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?

That's as unlikely as the UK saying -as we're leaving we want the rest of ireland back...

An Ciarraioch

The Sunday front pages make for grim reading in terms of movement towards a deal:

http://twitter.com/MsHelicat/status/1061375904339976192

http://twitter.com/MsHelicat/status/1061376957798141954

Kermit.de.frog

Well, they created the mess.

May could still get a deal through with support of Labour MPs who are very sensitive to any notion of No Deal.

J Mysterio

10000maniacs wrote: »

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.

The problem is people making uninformed decisions.

For me the biggest issue - what annoys me the most - is the lack of a fair, unbiased and professional referendum commission.

We have an excellent referendum commision here which explains the facts and the pros and cons of both sides of the argument. They do not have this in the UK, which is ridiculous. Even for such a seismic decision such as this.

So you have uninformed people making a huge decision affecting the fate of generations.

ilovesmybrick

Honestly, the idea that the British Government could 'reset the negotiations' as on the telegraph front page is utterly delusional. The UK doesn't control these negotiations, they never have (due to serious failures in how they approached them), and article 50 started a timer that is due to expire very shortly and will expire unless they get agreement with the entire EU.

You might understand when this process (which was never undertaken before) has a learning curve at the beginning, but at this stage it's frankly mad that they haven't even pretended to have come to terms with what it entails or what it involves.

ilovesmybrick

J Mysterio wrote:

For me the biggest issue - what annoys me the most - is the lack of a fair, unbiased and professional referendum commission.

That is a major issue. We have had many, many contentious referenda, with a lot of bull**** from both sides, but the referendum commission always does a pretty good job of laying out the basic premise and results of each choice. We have a lot of failings in our political system, a hell of a lot, but there is something to be said about the almost reverence we take to handling the constitution properly.

Imreoir2

Kermit.de.frog wrote: »

Well, they created the mess.

May could still get a deal through with support of Labour MPs who are very sensitive to any notion of No Deal.

If May's only hope of getting a deal through is relying on Labour rebels, then I think we are facing no deal. How many Labour rebels would she need? Without the DUP she would need 6, even if every ERG Tory voted for the deal. For every member of the ERG who votes against her deal, she needs either a Labour rebel or some other MP, perhaps she has convinced some of the Lib Dems to support a deal? Even so, there are over 60 in the ERG, if they all vote a deal down, then it is likely that the deal is dead unless you see a massive number of Labour MPs breaking ranks. The deal is looking ever more unlikely.

Rhineshark

ilovesmybrick wrote: »

That is a major issue. We have had many, many contentious referenda, with a lot of bull**** from both sides, but the referendum commission always does a pretty good job of laying out the basic premise and results of each choice. We have a lot of failings in our political system, a hell of a lot, but there is something to be said about the almost reverence we take to handling the constitution properly.

Referendum commission, paper ballots and perhaps the publically viewable counting by citizens counters are all saving graces regarding our referenda. Not sure the third has been as spectacularly tested as the first two were by the UK and US but it seems a good added layer to transparency.

Strazdas

Kermit.de.frog wrote: »

Well, they created the mess.

May could still get a deal through with support of Labour MPs who are very sensitive to any notion of No Deal.

I think it's very unlikely. Even Conservative Remainers like Dominic Grieve and Jo Johnson and former Tory MP Mathew Parris are pointing out that May's customs union plan is pretty disastrous for the UK. The idea that Labour MPs would attach their names to it and have it on their CV from now on doesn't seem plausible.

Tell me how

Strazdas wrote: »

I think it's very unlikely. Even Conservative Remainers like Dominic Grieve and Jo Johnson and former Tory MP Mathew Parris are pointing out that May's customs union plan is pretty disastrous for the UK. The idea that Labour MPs would attach their names to it and have it on their CV from now on doesn't seem plausible.

Would they rather put their name to a No Deal scenario? Maybe they would given that they are not negotiating but I wouldn't be sure. Surely they might try to make the best of a bad situation at that point. Time is rapidly running out.

Strazdas

Tell me how wrote: »

Would they rather put their name to a No Deal scenario? Maybe they would given that they are not negotiating but I wouldn't be sure. Surely they might try to make the best of a bad situation at that point. Time is rapidly running out.

I take your point but the current crisis / fiasco is 100% a Tory one caused by May's numerous red lines. Any Labour MP would have to think long and hard before getting involved with anything to do with May.

It doesn't necessarily follow either that the deal being defeated in the HoC would lead to No Deal. It might be the thing that leads instead to the fall of May or a general election or a second referendum or some other dramatic outcome. They might be prepared to go for this and see what happens.

Tell me how

Strazdas wrote: »

I take your point but the current crisis / fiasco is 100% a Tory one caused by May's numerous red lines. Any Labour MP would have to think long and hard before getting involved with anything to do with May.

It seems that many members of the public in the uK are simply of the view that the delay in a deal is the fault of the EU. They don't understand why they don't just leave. If someone tells them that there is a deal but their local Labour mp is going against the will of the people in the 2016 referendum, they won't stop to query why. They will see them as obstructing Brexit.

Strazdas wrote: »

It doesn't necessarily follow either that the deal being defeated in the HoC would lead to No Deal. It might be the thing that leads instead to the fall of May or a general election or a second referendum or some other dramatic outcome. They might be prepared to go for this and see what happens.

Time is running out. They do not now have time to replace May and/or have a GE before the 29th of March. (maybe they could do the former but given that the purpose of getting rid of her would be to replace the deal which she is negotiating, they would still run out of time) They cannot just say "Sorry lads, we're not wuite ready, give us another 6 months." They either sign up to a deal with a transition period or they go with none.

Strazdas

Tell me how wrote: »

It seems that many members of the public in the uK are simply of the view that the delay in a deal is the fault of the EU. They don't understand why they don't just leave. If someone tells them that there is a deal but their local Labour mp is going against the will of the people in the 2016 referendum, they won't stop to query why. They will see them as obstructing Brexit.



Time is running out. They do not now have time to replace May and/or have a GE before the 29th of March. (maybe they could do the former but given that the purpose of getting rid of her would be to replace the deal which she is negotiating, they would still run out of time) They cannot just say "Sorry lads, we're not wuite ready, give us another 6 months." They either sign up to a deal with a transition period or they go with none.

Well even Tory Remainers like Dominic Grieve and Jo Johnson are urging MPs not to vote for May's deal, so they must clearly be of the opinion that things are still salvageable, even though it's a high risk strategy.

Tell me how

Strazdas wrote: »

Well even Tory Remainers like Dominic Grieve and Jo Johnson are urging MPs not to vote for May's deal, so they must clearly be of the opinion that things are still salvageable, even though it's a high risk strategy.

Yes. And the Labour leader is saying that he will not stop Brexit. It is likely that they are not going to enforce the whip when it comes to voting but it is a sense of where they see the lie of the land that they are looking this way.

Brexit is a bad idea being attempted in a terrible manner. But for it not to happen in some form next March will lead to implications down the line in my view.