Brexit Discussion Thread VI

CelticRambler

Irishmale0399 wrote: »

Can the Irish government afford Northern Ireland?? Could we support their public spending, could we support their social/pension system???

...

I have also seen the damage done here in Germany by joining East and West.....one major eye sore is the pension system which is on its knees.

The cost of reunification is the subject of another thread (zzz - plural! :rolleyes: ) and the question has not yet been answered one way or the other! But the investment advert small print applies: "past results are no guarantee of future performance" - and if you take NI out of the UK, you change everything about the NI economy.

As for the German pension problem - that's not unique to Germany. It's the same across the whole western hemisphere, where decreasing rates of childbirth, increasing life expectancy, and stagnant real wages have made the 20th century model for state pensions obsolete. Here in France, the system isn't just on its knees - it's had both knees and hips replaced and still can't stand up straight. The UK is facing the same future, but instead of working on plans to defuse that social timebomb, it's devoting all its energy to sawing the legs of its zimmer frame.

Strazdas

judeboy101 wrote: »

They backed down on FOM in Switzerland post Swiss referendum. EU citizens no longer have freedom to get any job they want in the alpine country. Imagine if the UK had been offered that version of FOM before 2016, they'd never have left.

Not true :

Following protracted discussions between Switzerland and the EU, the Swiss government largely climbed down from the initial referendum proposals, adopting instead a "light national preference" to implement the referendum. This outcome was decried as a failure to properly implement the referendum by the Swiss SVP party (which had promoted the referendum) as it fails to put any curbs on immigration.

The Swiss government had to back down on its red lines and largely ignore the referendum result, shock, horror.

Irishmale0399

road_high wrote: »

NI couldn’t function as independent in any way, shape or form. It’s an economic basket case, it’s a total disaster area. Without that massive subsidy from England it would collapse, and I mean utter collapse.

Thats my point. Let them learn to grow up and take responsibility for themselves instead of blaming everyone else for their misfortune. Reality is sometimes hard at first but it can make people or nations grow up very fast. Only by taking away from them will they see what they had.



As it stands they want everything with cherries on top. Still hasnt sunk in that the UK has nothing to offer the EU which would hurt it.

ThePanjandrum

Slovenia has been taken to court by the European Commission for allowing national investigators to look into documents and seize IT hardware belonging to the European Central Bank without permission. The case relates to a 2016 investigation into Slovenia's central bank chief Bostjan Jazbec for possible "criminal abuse of office" related to a €3bn bailout preventing banks from collapsing.

https://euobserver.com/tickers/144007

No-one is permitted to check the EU's honesty then?

CelticRambler

Irishmale0399 wrote: »

Thats my point. Let them learn to grow up and take responsibility for themselves instead of blaming everyone else for their misfortune. Reality is sometimes hard at first but it can make people or nations grow up very fast. Only by taking away from them will they see what they had.

They'll get that "tough love" soon enough, when Westminster draws a line down the Irish Sea so as to be able to move on with Brexit; and again when the Westminster subsidy tap runs dry.

Strazdas

ThePanjandrum wrote: »

https://euobserver.com/tickers/144007

No-one is permitted to check the EU's honesty then?

What do you think the European Court of Justice is for? It has full authority to adjudicate on and overrule EU decisions (it's a neutral court with judges from the 28 states).

There is also an EU Ombudsman to whom any individual or organisation can lodge a complaint if they feel they have been treated unfairly by any EU body.

road_high

CelticRambler wrote: »

They'll get that "tough love" soon enough, when Westminster draws a line down the Irish Sea so as to be able to move on with Brexit; and again when the Westminster subsidy tap runs dry.

I thought the £1 billion thing with the DUP bizzare - such a hullabaloo over such a relatively small amount of funding.
The DUP are total welfare junkies despite their pretense otherwise- their reason detre is to bleed Westminster for all they can.

amacca

Zubeneschamali wrote: »

They do have a choice. They could still sign Mays deal or they could cancel Brexit. Both of those choices would do less damage than No Deal, which would be the maddest act of self harm any nation has ever done to itself short of civil war.

I'd argue that Brexit is a civil war of sorts

First Up

Strazdas wrote:

There is also an EU Ombudsman to whom any individual or organisation can lodge a complaint if they feel they have been treated unfairly by any EU body.

The EU also has a very active and well resourced anti fraud office (OLAF).

jm08

Irishmale0399 wrote: »

Thats my point. Let them learn to grow up and take responsibility for themselves instead of blaming everyone else for their misfortune. Reality is sometimes hard at first but it can make people or nations grow up very fast. Only by taking away from them will they see what they had.

As it stands they want everything with cherries on top. Still hasnt sunk in that the UK has nothing to offer the EU which would hurt it.

You need to remember your history. Do you recall how the Stormont Government from the 1920s-70s did? What makes you think that Northern Ireland would make it this time around? And do you honestly believe that Northern Ireland nationalists/catholics would want to go it alone with Northern Unionists?

downcow

CelticRambler wrote: »

... and most of the English don't know or care what the GFA is; and the DUP need to realise NI is not at the centre of the UK. No-one in London will lose any sleep about it, if NI is relegated to having more of a provincial status than it already is.

It's actually quite sad looking on from the sidelines at the DUP, clinging on to a foster mother that really couldn't give a damn about them. If they weren't so utterly determined to always think badly of the "south-of-the-border" Irish, they might realise that we care about them and their well-being far more than Westminster does.

Again you are not understanding the UK. It’s when people tell us we have the English national anthem. We own the UK and anthem every bit as much as England Scotland and Wales.
The clue is in the name. United Kingdom of gb & NI.

jm08

downcow wrote: »

Again you are not understanding the UK. It’s when people tell us we have the English national anthem. We own the UK and anthem every bit as much as England Scotland and Wales.
The clue is in the name. United Kingdom of gb & NI.

And the Welsh and the Scots laugh at both NI & England for clinging onto GSTQ at sporting events. Its actually booed in Cardiff when Wales are playing England.

First Up

jm08 wrote:

And the Welsh and the Scots laugh at both NI & England for clinging onto GSTQ at sporting events. Its actually booed in Cardiff when Wales are playing England.

It doesn't go down too well in Murrayfield or Hampden Park either.

EdgeCase

downcow wrote: »

Again you are not understanding the UK. It’s when people tell us we have the English national anthem. We own the UK and anthem every bit as much as England Scotland and Wales.
The clue is in the name. United Kingdom of gb & NI.

Have you spoken to any English nationalists about that? They tend to see it that way when it suits them, but dare you thwart their sovereignty and all of a sudden your first minister's being called names and you're being accused of all sorts.

Without a proper federal parliament and structure, the UK will always have serious power imbalances between quasi-autonomous bits and also between the English regions (which should be autonomous!)

A lot of things are fundamentally English. Even your central bank is the Bank of England.

There's almost a permanent sense of identity crisis in the UK from what I can see. It's even hard to find an agreed adjective for many things. E.g. the olympic team "Team GB" yet, "Team UK" would more accurately include NI. Try saying the "national news on the BBC" and which nation are you talking about? Some people will be referring to the UK, some to Scotland, some to Wales, some to England and some in Northern Ireland could take it to mean all sorts of things.

Also you've always had NI operating as a parallel political system within a system - voting for entirely different political parties. Scotland's heading that way too, albeit with only the SNP so far.

Anyway, it's a bit of an off topic post, but I just think sometimes the UK needs to sit down and have a long conversation with itself about itself and what it wants to be. There's a good opportunity for the country to shed a lot of the imperial baggage and become something new and vibrant, but it's never happened.

Socially, it did happen after WWII, but politically and structurally it's stuck with a lot of legacy nonsense. It has the ingredients to be a very nice place, but it seems to have always lacked the recipe.

It all works fantastically ... until it doesn't.

Folkstonian

jm08 wrote: »

And the Welsh and the Scots laugh at both NI & England for clinging onto GSTQ at sporting events. Its actually booed in Cardiff when Wales are playing England.

It makes a nice change for the Scottish to hate someone else as opposed to each other once in a while, I guess. And I’d probably go to war with the world if I was welsh too.

But in all seriousness, I don’t think you can draw many conclusions about wider political trends from the potato-brained louts at an international football match that will yell anything if it may get a rise from the opposition fans.

In saying that however, I do think an independent England would be a good thing. Scottish politics have diverged wildly over the last few years. The SNP government north of the wall are every bit as inept, and even more extreme than their counterparts in London. But more troubling is the absolute dominance they have over the electorate. They are a single issue party and they, nor the independence debate, will ever go away. Similarly to Brexit, Let’s just get on with it.

Compromise is always good, but sometimes you have to accept that you will never fully see eye to eye again.

robindch

Borderhopper wrote: »

I would add the EU blood directive to that. It has vastly improved transfusion safety in the EU, including both Ireland and U.K.

If not already added, EU money laundering directive, mobile-phone roaming charges, plus a string of EU rules regarding cross-border payments and single-market rulings in the ECJ which have cut out a lot of protectionist policies implemented by national governments for local political/corruption-related reasons.

Plus the EU anti-tax avoidance measures which came in at the start of this year.

None of the changes the EU has brought in are huge in themselves, but overall, they've made Ireland a better country, with a stronger economy, a higher profile, chances for Irish people to return home again if they wish to, plus a vibrant immigrant community which enriches the country in too many ways to count.

Strazdas

Folkstonian wrote: »

It makes a nice change for the Scottish to hate someone else as opposed to each other once in a while, I guess. And I’d probably go to war with the world if I was welsh too.

But in all seriousness, I don’t think you can draw many conclusions about wider political trends from the potato-brained louts at an international football match that will yell anything if it may get a rise from the opposition fans.

In saying that however, I do think an independent England would be a good thing. Scottish politics have diverged wildly over the last few years. The SNP government north of the wall are every bit as inept, and even more extreme than their counterparts in London. But more troubling is the absolute dominance they have over the electorate. They are a single issue party and they, nor the independence debate, will ever go away. Similarly to Brexit, Let’s just get on with it.

Compromise is always good, but sometimes you have to accept that you will never fully see eye to eye again.

A few constitutional experts have been saying recently that it's crazy that England is being allowed overrule Scotland and Northern Ireland on massive constitutional change with a mere advisory referendum.....they say the other two should have been allowed a veto, this would be standard practise when holding a referendum across a political union of countries.

The Brexit referendum is treating Scotland and Northern Ireland as if they are two English regions who have been overruled by the 'rest' of England.

downcow

jm08 wrote: »

And the Welsh and the Scots laugh at both NI & England for clinging onto GSTQ at sporting events. Its actually booed in Cardiff when Wales are playing England.

You still not getting it. That’s their choice. And I would love a NI sporting anthem as many English also want their own sporting anthem. But on Remembrance Day etc most. Want gstq.

EdgeCase

Strazdas wrote: »

A few constitutional experts have been saying recently that it's crazy that England is being allowed overrule Scotland and Northern Ireland on massive constitutional change with a mere advisory referendum.....they say the other two should have been allowed a veto, this would be standard practise when holding a referendum across a political union of countries.

The Brexit referendum is treating Scotland and Northern Ireland as if they are two English regions who have been overruled by the 'rest' of England.

That's the problem though. I mean in a major EU change of treaties (which is effectively the EU's constitution / make up) a small country like Ireland or Denmark could block it. You need unanimity for certain issues and those are defined.

There are similar checks and balances in the US federal system and in the German Federal system and so on.

downcow

EdgeCase wrote: »

Have you spoken to any English nationalists about that? They tend to see it that way when it suits them, but dare you thwart their sovereignty and all of a sudden your first minister's being called names and you're being accused of all sorts.

Without a proper federal parliament and structure, the UK will always have serious power imbalances between quasi-autonomous bits and also between the English regions (which should be autonomous!)

A lot of things are fundamentally English. Even your central bank is the Bank of England.

There's almost a permanent sense of identity crisis in the UK from what I can see. It's even hard to find an agreed adjective for many things. E.g. the olympic team "Team GB" yet, "Team UK" would more accurately include NI. Try saying the "national news on the BBC" and which nation are you talking about? Some people will be referring to the UK, some to Scotland, some to Wales, some to England and some in Northern Ireland could take it to mean all sorts of things.

Also you've always had NI operating as a parallel political system within a system - voting for entirely different political parties. Scotland's heading that way too, albeit with only the SNP so far.

Anyway, it's a bit of an off topic post, but I just think sometimes the UK needs to sit down and have a long conversation with itself about itself and what it wants to be. There's a good opportunity for the country to shed a lot of the imperial baggage and become something new and vibrant, but it's never happened.

Socially, it did happen after WWII, but politically and structurally it's stuck with a lot of legacy nonsense. It has the ingredients to be a very nice place, but it seems to have always lacked the recipe.

It all works fantastically ... until it doesn't.

A wonderful rich diversity

Folkstonian

downcow wrote: »

You still not getting it. That’s their choice. And I would love a NI spitting anthem as many English also want their own sporting anthem. But in Remembrance Day etc most. Want gstq.

Personally speaking - and this is not particularly political so I hope it’s forgiven - as a massive fan of England cricket, Jerusalem is the song that resonates most with me. I think it’s an uplifting, powerful hymn. So everything our current national anthem isn’t!

EdgeCase

downcow wrote: »

A wonderful rich diversity

A wonderful, rich diversity that's governed by a system that unfortunately fails to reflect that and has done for a very long time.

I would argue that had the UK been a proper federal democracy with real ability to devolve power and treat its constituent parts as a genuine partnership of equals, much like most federations, the bad circumstances that Irish history would have been completely different and also that these islands would be probably far more prosperous and stable.

However, the current system as it is never allowed that to happen and that's why you've got a mess. It's based on a notion of a 'prime country' that holds all the power and even within that country it's sort of still an elite and way over-dominated by London and the Southeast.

The fact that "up north" has been overlooked for decades and told how to run itself, probably plays hugely into why it's failed to thrive.

I mean look at a city like Hull. Why isn't it like Rotterdam or Antwerp? It was let die because to those who were in power it was far away, had a funny accent and didn't matter to them. Now that same group Tory upper-crust elites are deflecting the public anger towards the EU, which had nothing to do with the root causes of all fo that.

Brexit will happen and none of those problems will be resolved unless there's massive reform of how the UK is structured.

To be fair to Tony Blair and that era of New Labour, they did begin that process with serious devolution. That was a progressive era of UK politics and it's also the same era the brought about the Northern Irish peace process. I mean, New Labour may have gone off the rails on the Iraq War and all sorts of other things, but on domestic politics, they achieved quite a lot.

Sadly, we seem to be back to polarising identity politics and nationalism again.

RobMc59

Strazdas wrote: »

A few constitutional experts have been saying recently that it's crazy that England is being allowed overrule Scotland and Northern Ireland on massive constitutional change with a mere advisory referendum.....they say the other two should have been allowed a veto, this would be standard practise when holding a referendum across a political union of countries.

The Brexit referendum is treating Scotland and Northern Ireland as if they are two English regions who have been overruled by the 'rest' of England.

The EU are treating the referendum result the same (ie:collective result,not individual countries)but for some reason that is overlooked by some posters-why is that?

EdgeCase

RobMc59 wrote: »

The EU are treating the referendum result the same (ie:collective result,not individual countries)but for some reason that is overlooked by some posters-why is that?

The EU doesn't have any choice but to deal with the UK as a single entity as it's the UK that's a member of the EU, not its individual components. The problems for the UK internally are domestic matters and the EU will always defer to each member state's national constitutional framework. It doesn't and can't impose one.

The power imbalances between UK regions and the structure of UK government are matters for UK politics, not the EU. It just has no role in the matters at all.

We can all constructively critique, compare and comment but it's entirely down to the UK to figure out its own constitution.

ThePanjandrum

CelticRambler wrote: »

London is not a great financial centre "just because" - it has been the back door into the EU for dozens of non-EU countries, like Switzerland. These countries needed an office in an EU country, and London's simultaneous connections to the EU and the anglosphere gave it an advantage over other continental cities. That's gone now, and as the world evolves, those angloshere connections will be less important in the future, so there's no reason to think offices that have moved will ever be re-established.

The most ardent Brexiteers go on and on (and on and on ...) about Britain being a great world economy and so it will inevitably recover from whatever harm arises from Brexit, especially on the back of trade deals with emerging economies around the world. They fail to see that two of those so-called emerging economies - India and Brazil - are hot on the heels of the UK, and a 5% hit to the UK will see it fall into the minor rankings with countries like Italy, South Korea and Canada. Negotiating great deals is never easy when your tag line is "fastest shrinking economy in the northern hemisphere" ...

London is the world's premier financial centre, despite the EU which has spent years trying to make it move to the Eurozone. The EU has also tried to wreck it with Tobin taxes and such like which have been resisted.
By the way, your "minor rankings includes every EU country except Germany.

Anthracite

ThePanjandrum wrote: »

https://euobserver.com/tickers/144007

No-one is permitted to check the EU's honesty then?

Not really sure if this has anything to do with Brexit.

If you want to start a thread about the formalities of state authorities interacting wtih the EU, with a conspiratorial slant, this would seem to be good material for an opening post.

RobMc59

Strazdas wrote: »

A few constitutional experts have been saying recently that it's crazy that England is being allowed overrule Scotland and Northern Ireland on massive constitutional change with a mere advisory referendum.....they say the other two should have been allowed a veto, this would be standard practise when holding a referendum across a political union of countries.

The Brexit referendum is treating Scotland and Northern Ireland as if they are two English regions who have been overruled by the 'rest' of England.

Regarding the constitutional experts,could you provide a link to this please?

EdgeCase

ThePanjandrum wrote: »

London is the world's premier financial centre, despite the EU which has spent years trying to make it move to the Eurozone. The EU has also tried to wreck it with Tobin taxes and such like which have been resisted.
By the way, your "minor rankings includes every EU country except Germany.

The EU didn't spend years trying to move London's financial centre to the Eurozone. The London financial centre was a fundamental part of the EU and there were discussions and arguments over different ways of regulating and doing taxation, as there would be in any organisation. Also it's an open market, it doesn't protect one region against others, and that includes not giving special status to London.

London now leaves the EU, so effectively other than being geographically closer to the EU, it's as relevant as Wall Street or Singapore in terms of how the EU will be dealing with it going forward. Unfortunately, that removes London's status as a gateway / financial centre for the entire EU, so it will probably diminish its status, at least until it reorientates itself in a decade or so's time.

So, of course you're going to see an EU financial centre emerge in the Eurozone. I would strongly suspect it will be more of a network of financial centres than a single city due to what the EU is but also due to massive changes in technology since the days when everyone had to be physically sitting in the same financial district.

Incidentally, London is not the world's largest financial centre, New York is and Hong Kong and Singapore are hot on its heels.

I'd say you'll probably just see a rather non dramatic emergence of an Eurozone financial network of cities though. It's not going to be a case of Frankfurt turning into something like Wall Street or London.

eagle eye

robindch wrote:

plus a vibrant immigrant community which enriches the country in too many ways to count.

No. Immigration policy in this country is horrendous. We have taken in a lot of people in this country with horrendous criminal records in their own country.
I can't get stats for it but I'm pretty confident that I'm right when I say that the percentage of criminals among non-nationals from other European countries living in Ireland is much higher that the percentage of criminals that exist in the countries they came from.
Lots of bad eggs over here.
And while I'm at it, I'm Irish, I'm not or never will consider myself European. Our ancestors fought hard to give us Independence and I don't mind being part of a common market but I'm not happy with this effort to try and make us believe we are all Europeans like it's one big country.
We have much more in common with the UK, USA and Canada besides language than we have with most of the members of the EU.
We also have a split island with a deep history of violence up north. We don't want that starting up again. If the EU are not able to prevent the troubles starting up again then I'm in favour of Irexit because I'd rather be poor than live in a place where good people are getting killed every week.

CelticRambler

downcow wrote: »

And I would love a NI sporting anthem as many English also want their own sporting anthem.

You've got the Derry Air, played as NI's anthem in the Commonwealth Games. Is that not good enough?

downcow wrote: »

It’s when people tell us we have the English national anthem. We own the UK and anthem every bit as much as England Scotland and Wales.

Yeah ... but ... so did a lot of other countries that have now ditched it in favour of their own anthem - Australia, New Zealand, Canada, South Africa, Rhodesia till it became Zimbabwe. Even France and Prussia used the tune for a while - I wonder how well it'd be received if you stood outside the HoC singing Heil_dir_im_Siegerkranz?

ThePanjandrum wrote: »

London is the world's premier financial centre, despite the EU which has spent years trying to make it move to the Eurozone. The EU has also tried to wreck it with Tobin taxes and such like which have been resisted.
By the way, your "minor rankings includes every EU country except Germany.

Thanks for reinforcing my point, :P even if you forgot to include France with Germany. Post Brexit, the UK will be a nothing-special economy, and have nothing in particular to offer serious players like India or Brazil. Meanwhile, other less important economies like Italy or Poland or Ireland will have one major selling point: access to the Single Market.

For years, London was able to fight the EU's efforts to move London's business to the Eurozone; then, in one hissy fit, English isolationists undermined all those efforts. To date, 10% of all the assets managed by London have been moved to the Eurozone, and Brexit hasn't happened. The EU has graciously allowed an extra year for further funds to be transferred prior to the renewal of contracts, but once the door is shut, London will be on an island with no further access to the EU's customers.