Brexit discussion thread X (Please read OP before posting)

Zubeneschamali

lawred2 wrote: »

so - what's the difference then between the Scottish courts and the English courts? Are they not as conservative where precedent is concerned?

Scotland doesn't just have its own courts, it has its own laws.

lawred2

Zubeneschamali wrote: »

Scotland doesn't just have its own courts, it has its own laws.

I understand that. So inferred in what you've just said is that prorogation was deemed illegal in Scotland on a point of law? Is that the case?

It's still a common law system as far as I was aware.

CelticRambler

54and56 wrote: »

They are a very well established German company so will do things by the book. They won't have taken the decision lightly but they know (or are very confident) a No Deal Brexit would be such a disaster that shutting down is the correct commercial decision to make.

We've had experience of this in my département here in France, where it is considerably more difficult to shutter an established business. The (not very competitive) local factory was sold to a German business in the last decade, but the French workers refused to apply any common sense to the proposed evolution of their working practices. After several years of being persistently loss-making, the German owners decided to pull the plug.

Despite the incredibly complex and worker-friendly regulations in force, they had dotted every i, crossed every t and lined up every duck before they announced the closure. The workers went absolutely mental (like only the French do :rolleyes:) and spent a fortune of their own and other people's money taking the Germans to every court and tribunal they could think of. Every single challenge was thrown out.

I happen to know some of the people who worked there. Those who saw the closure - and the generous redundancy package - as an opportunity, took the money, found another job and have since done very well for themselves. Those who ranted and raved about it all are sitting on roundabouts wearing yellow jackets, voting for Marine LePen and whinging about the EU/Germans/foreigners in exactly the same way as Brexiters.

Akrasia

lawred2 wrote: »

I understand that. So inferred in what you've just said is that prorogation was deemed illegal in Scotland on a point of law? Is that the case?

It's still a common law system as far as I was aware.

The case was originally rejected on the same basis as the English high court that the courts did not have jurisdiction over the HOC Parliamentary procedure, but it was appealed to a bench of 3 Court of Session Judges (supreme court in Scotland) who heard arguments that this instance was more than just a normal parliamentary procedure and that Johnson was acting in bad faith to bypass parliament which is supposed to be sovereign.

Once these arguments have ruled upon, and the Scottish appeals court found against Johnson on these arguments, the Supreme Court will have to consider this judgement and I cannot see them ruling that Johnson has the legal right to request a prorogation for any cause and for any duration. It would be absolutely ludicrous and the implications for UK democracy would be catastrophic.

BonnieSituation

Zubeneschamali wrote: »

A real example which tied up our legal and legislative system for 35 years.

It didn't tie up the legislative system for 35 years. It was a hot-button topic that successive governments sought to brush under the carpet, but it never brought the State to a standstill.

lawred2 wrote: »

urm I think that's sarcasm but as I'm straying into waters deeper than I'm comfortable with - I'm not so sure.

I thought uncodified constitutions were in the minority.

It is and they are

lawred2

Akrasia wrote: »

The case was originally rejected on the same basis as the English high court that the courts did not have jurisdiction over the HOC Parliamentary procedure, but it was appealed to a bench of 3 Court of Session Judges (supreme court in Scotland) who heard arguments that this instance was more than just a normal parliamentary procedure and that Johnson was acting in bad faith to bypass parliament which is supposed to be sovereign.

Once these arguments have ruled upon, and the Scottish appeals court found against Johnson on these arguments, the Supreme Court will have to consider this judgement and I cannot see them ruling that Johnson has the legal right to request a prorogation for any cause and for any duration. It would be absolutely ludicrous and the implications for UK democracy would be catastrophic.

thanks for that

trellheim

geffbyupy wrote: »

How do you think the next election will work out in the Six Counties? I doubt there will be a nationalist majority but I would bet that the DUP will lose a seat and SF will gain one, probably from that Nigel Dodds in North Belfast or Emma Pengelly in South Belfast, which previously had an SDLP seat.

The next election will be in a post Oct-31 world ...ask us then !

murphaph

lawred2 wrote: »

so - what's the difference then between the Scottish courts and the English courts? Are they not as conservative where precedent is concerned?

Two separate legal systems. The UK is not a federation like say Germany. In Germany federal law trumps state law if there is any disagreement but this concept does not hold in the UK where the systems exist in parallel and there is no "federal law". It has been argued that if there is a disagreement here, the more conservative legal system should take precedence (Scots law in this case). This is all uncharted territory.

J Mysterio

This isn't strictly Brexit related but I just had to share this here, seems I missed it completely before!

A Dub in Glasgo

lawred2 wrote: »

so - what's the difference then between the Scottish courts and the English courts? Are they not as conservative where precedent is concerned?

The Scottish case went to the outer court which ruled against Cherry and co, they appealed to the inner court (highest court in Scotland) which overturned the outer court and said it was unlawful. The UK govt then appealed to the UK Supreme court

The English case never got to the highest court in England, they appealed straight to the UK Supreme court

Enzokk

I didn't watch all of the morning proceedings, but Lord Keen is painful in his delivery. I hope for his sake that this doesn't play a role as there is no flow to the way he is presenting his arguments and even accounting for the stop-start nature of the proceeding with questions being asked, he seems to break his own momentum constantly and it does seem like he has delayed answering a few questions already.

Enzokk

Ah, these judges know their stuff. They just asked Lord Keen some of the questions that people have as well. One of them was whether the recess could have been voted against by parliament and he acknowledge it could have been, even if it hasn't happened in a long time. Then on the timing of the prorogation and why it couldn't have been done after conference season as the amount of time lost would have been roughly what the government says, 7 days, and parliament and committee's would still have been sitting.

https://twitter.com/JoshuaRozenberg/status/1173973494658457600?s=20

Zubeneschamali

Enzokk wrote: »

I didn't watch all of the morning proceedings, but Lord Keen is painful in his delivery. I hope for his sake that this doesn't play a role as there is no flow to the way he is presenting his arguments and even accounting for the stop-start nature of the proceeding with questions being asked, he seems to break his own momentum constantly and it does seem like he has delayed answering a few questions already.

Very different to Pannick this morning, he was very smooth. Questions seemed to be helping him make points, not stopping him in his tracks.

Enzokk

Zubeneschamali wrote: »

Very different to Pannick this morning, he was very smooth. Questions seemed to be helping him make points, not stopping him in his tracks.

From the little I saw this morning that was my impression as well. I cannot help but notice that Lord Keen wasn't keen to address why there was not signed statement on the reason for the prorogation other than there are other documents and that means it really isn't an issue. That seems to be missing the point.

He was also asked on the reasons for prorogation and why they wanted to include the recess period, and for me he didn't address these at all. I wish I knew whether this meant anything or if in fact the way he avoided answering pointed questions actually means more than avoiding the answers.

That is it for today though, back again tomorrow for more.

Just a quick follow up to see what Mark Francois is up to, and it is only to suggest violence in case he doesn't get his way.

https://twitter.com/PoliticsJOE_UK/status/1173942067631972353?s=20

Joe_ Public

Enzokk wrote: »

From the little I saw this morning that was my impression as well. I cannot help but notice that Lord Keen wasn't keen to address why there was not signed statement on the reason for the prorogation other than there are other documents and that means it really isn't an issue. That seems to be missing the point.

He was also asked on the reasons for prorogation and why they wanted to include the recess period, and for me he didn't address these at all. I wish I knew whether this meant anything or if in fact the way he avoided answering pointed questions actually means more than avoiding the answers.

That is it for today though, back again tomorrow for more.

Just a quick follow up to see what Mark Francois is up to, and it is only to suggest violence in case he doesn't get his way.

https://twitter.com/PoliticsJOE_UK/status/1173942067631972353?s=20

Had a big bunfight with Sam Gyimah on same show. The guy would start a fight with his own shadow.

Professor Moriarty

Enzokk wrote: »

From the little I saw this morning that was my impression as well. I cannot help but notice that Lord Keen wasn't keen to address why there was not signed statement on the reason for the prorogation other than there are other documents and that means it really isn't an issue. That seems to be missing the point.

He was also asked on the reasons for prorogation and why they wanted to include the recess period, and for me he didn't address these at all. I wish I knew whether this meant anything or if in fact the way he avoided answering pointed questions actually means more than avoiding the answers.

That is it for today though, back again tomorrow for more.

Just a quick follow up to see what Mark Francois is up to, and it is only to suggest violence in case he doesn't get his way.

https://twitter.com/PoliticsJOE_UK/status/1173942067631972353?s=20

Francois could well be right. The Telegraph, Express and Mail have whipped up English nationalism in a way that I haven't seen before. They have abandoned any pretence of independent reportage as a quick scan of their headlines will show. Ditto the ERG and Brexit Party.

Infini

Professor Moriarty wrote: »

Francois could well be right. The Telegraph, Express and Mail have whipped up English nationalism in a way that I haven't seen before. They have abandoned any pretence of independent reportage as a quick scan of their headlines will show. Ditto the ERG and Brexit Party.

Honestly I would be of the opinion of so what, if you dont tackle it now you get riots when people have their rights and other benefits removed because of Brexit. THe simple truth is the Telegraph, Mail, Express and the sun are propaganda rags peddling bull and lies and need to be held to account for publshing such distorted rubbish to begin with. Either they're hauled before the courts for publishing misinformation or those who run them are held to account. Either way they're standards have fallen into the gutter and they need to be dragged back to a level of quality thats reliable and verifiable or they're shut down for basically lying and speading misinformation just like the anti-vaxxer idiots.

The ERG are a bunch of self serving clowns and I'm pretty sure they've some rather nasty stuff hidden in the closet it doesnt take a genius to figure out they're purely out engineering this for their own benefit and not the country and as for the Brexit "party" they're just a front for other's namely that troll Farage, no policies, no idea's, only Brexit or Riot.

I'd be honest if there's a serious investigation into these wasters I wouldn't be suprised if theres more than a few dirty secrets buried there, follow the money and you find out who the real puppeteers of this are. As for Brexit itself it's a scam and if politicians were a Bit Braver they'd stop this madness and cut off any BS on this whole thing, the whole thing was built on lies and was nothing more than a Tory party scam and any of those advocating this is a good thing need to be told that they dont have any facts, they're talking out of their hole and that they have no right to take people's rights away purely for vanity. As for will of the people 17.4milliion of a population of 64million+ is not a majority plain and simple and the whole referendum was won on misinformation and lies and is thus invalid based on those 2 facts alone.

CrabRevolution

Akrasia wrote: »

No Matter who the Labour leader is, they will be character assassinated by the UK press and the troll army

If Labour were clever they would announce a change of leader the day before an election, so that all of the Tory campaigning which will be entirely focused on how bad Corbyn is, would be immediately neutralised, and they wouldn't have the time to poison the public against whoever the new Labour leader happened to be.

Chances of this happening are zero due to the egos and personalities involved

The UK press seem to have it both ways for criticising Labour. Elect a Corbyn type as leader and they vilify him as an evil communist who'll ruin the country. Elect a centrist and they'll be accused of being a "Blairite" and out of touch with the real Labour core.

Professor Moriarty

Infini wrote: »

Honestly I would be of the opinion of so what, if you dont tackle it now you get riots when people have their rights and other benefits removed because of Brexit. THe simple truth is the Telegraph, Mail, Express and the sun are propaganda rags peddling bull and lies and need to be held to account for publshing such distorted rubbish to begin with.

The ERG are a bunch of self serving clowns and I'm pretty sure they've some rather nasty stuff hidden in the closet it doesnt take a genius to figure out they're purely out engineering this for their own benefit and not the country and as for the Brexit "party" they're just a front for other's namely that troll Farage, no policies, no idea's, only Brexit or Riot.

I'd be honest if there's a serious investigation into these wasters I wouldn't be suprised if theres more than a few dirty secrets buried there, follow the money and you find out who the real puppeteers of this are.

Indeed. But many people no longer want facts, explanations or depth. They want simple slogans that feed into their sense of Englishness and their sense of entitlement. So these papers and politicians tell them what they want to hear. Much like Trump supporters, they don't care about any secrets or realities. They just want to believe in something and someone. Brexit and Brexiteers answer that call perfectly.

ElectronVolt

I'm most definitely in favour of an European Union, but I am a bit stunned at Guy Verhofstadt's speech at the Liberal Democrats conference where he talked about a world of 'Empires'. I understand what he was trying to say i.e. that the EU was a collection of nations, standing together against, being able to operate in a world of empires and emerging empires, but that is not how it came across at all.

https://twitter.com/Channel4News/status/1173548730542448645?s=09

The choice of language was extremely clumsy and the word 'empire' in these islands is an incredibly loaded phrase and immediately brings up connotations of the British Empire, both in the minds of those of us who would found that empire abhorrent and those on the right in England who quite like the idea of the days of 'Rule Britannia'.

I get what he was trying to say, but I think he's managed to paint the EU as an emergent imperial force and that is likely to play extremely badly with both Brexiteers and Remainers.

The EU needs to get across the point that it's not something that can be compared to militarily imposed empires of the past. It's more like crowdsourcing, pooling and bringing together of a group of smaller, generally like minded countries to allow them to exist in a world of bullying empires. It's about having scale and an ability to stand independently without being bounced between major global economic and military powers, but that absolutely is not how his speech will be interpreted.

His choice of language and delivery has probably just fed the trolls with rocket fuel.

Infini

Professor Moriarty wrote: »

Indeed. But many people no longer want facts, explanations or depth. They want simple slogans that feed into their sense of Englishness and their sense of entitlement. So these papers and politicians tell them what they want to hear. Much like Trump supporters, they don't care about any secrets or realities. They just want to believe in something and someone. Brexit and Brexiteers answer that call perfectly.

Sadly they're just fooling themselves and worse they're dragging other's down with their blind faith in a lie and delusion and fail to see how damaging it's gonna be to themselves. Sadly they're gonna end up having to suffer for their own stupidity simply because they refuse to listen to reason and it wont be because anyone wished it on them but because they brought it on themselves. I swear human stupidity is the cancer of this existence.

Joe_ Public

CrabRevolution wrote: »

The UK press seem to have it both ways for criticising Labour. Elect a Corbyn type as leader and they vilify him as an evil communist who'll ruin the country. Elect a centrist and they'll be accused of being a "Blairite" and out of touch with the real Labour core.

The right wing press will never get behind any kind of leftist labour leader, witness how they monstered soft left Ed, but corbyn is also getting it from the centre ground and left leaning outlets lime the guardian. And yet all that happened in 2017 and it just played into corbyns hands, all that rabid Marxist Stalinist stuff did not resonate with an electorate who see the modern world in different terms and I suspect that'll all be repeated next to e around. The post you were responding to about replacing corbyn on the eve of polling date was, I thought, a little bonkers.

Strazdas

Professor Moriarty wrote: »

Indeed. But many people no longer want facts, explanations or depth. They want simple slogans that feed into their sense of Englishness and their sense of entitlement. So these papers and politicians tell them what they want to hear. Much like Trump supporters, they don't care about any secrets or realities. They just want to believe in something and someone. Brexit and Brexiteers answer that call perfectly.

It's a bit of a perfect storm. A dumbed down section of the population being lied to by a corrupt press (and wanting to be lied to, as the press are feeding them a load of bile that ties in with their bigoted attitudes).

Best guess is that this leads to the break up of the UK. It seems to be mainly England going through this craziness.

briany

Strazdas wrote: »

Best guess is that this leads to the break up of the UK. It seems to be mainly England going through this craziness.

The arguments made against the EU can be made against the UK as well, so watch the hypocrisy ensue when the English must do a 180 flip from arguing against one union, right into arguing for another. The one that they're at the head of, incidentally, and can dictate the terms of.

Or, to use Brexiteers' own rhetoric against them, the UK is an undemocratic construct whereby laws are imposed from London in which Scotland, Wales and NI have little say. They have an unelected upper house, and an unelected head of state.

prunudo

Maybe Mark Francois would prefer an implosion rather than an explosion, because thats what will happen if they leave without a deal on the 31st Oct

ElectronVolt

briany wrote: »

The arguments made against the EU can be made against the UK as well, so watch the hypocrisy ensue when the English must do a 180 flip from arguing against one union, right into arguing for another. The one that they're at the head of, incidentally, and can dictate the terms of.

Or, to use Brexiteers' own rhetoric against them, the UK is an undemocratic construct whereby laws are imposed from London in which Scotland, Wales and NI have little say. They have an unelected upper house, and an unelected head of state.

One's a voluntary union of equals, the other's a 18th and early 19th century gunshot wedding. The two aren't remotely comparable. I'd also wonder if push came to shove, and Scotland attempts to leave or Northern Ireland approaches the point where reunification is likely, will either be facilitated by Westminster, or will we be up against a brick wall of obstructionism?

I have a sense they probably wouldn't block Northern Ireland from making up its own mind, but I could definitely see Scotland having a referendum on independence and it ending up more like the situation in Catalonia.

devnull

From RTE

The UK has put forward proposals to end the Brexit deadlock, but will not allow the European Union to keep hold of the written details for fear of leaks, British sources have said.

Brussels is becoming increasingly frustrated that no "concrete" suggestions to replace the controversial Irish backstop have been submitted.

However British sources insisted papers setting out British Prime Minister Boris Johnson's position had been shown to the EU side, even though they were taken back at the end of meetings.

It was "the nature of the Brussels system" that any documents shared with the EU would also be sent to the member states.

"Once you share it with 27 countries you are not in control of the document," a source said.

Words fail me. They really do.

I mean it's almost like they can't comprehend that the countries of the EU have a say rather than some head honcho just making a decision on his own

ElectronVolt

devnull wrote: »

From RTE

Words fail me. They really do.

I mean it's almost like they can't comprehend that the countries of the EU have a say rather than some head honcho just making a decision on his own

They just can't seem to see that the EU is *not* a nation state, nor is it a copy of the UK system where you've got the "big boss country" and a bunch of other places that get dragged along. It functions as a cooperative collectivity and the power and decision making is distributed amongst its members and with the institutions.

If anything, it's the polar opposite to the autocracy that it is constantly accused of being by the UK tabloids. The biggest 'problem' in the EU is that the decision making system is so complex and inclusive that it can be extremely slow to react.

It's also a reason why the notion that the EU will 'blink' or 'bend at the knees' is utter nonsense. It doesn't have eyelids or knees, because it's not a person - it's a large, highly complex organisation that operates only on behalf of the member states. They keep trying to personify it as if it's ruled by some imaginary king or emperor.

I'm not even sure the UK can 'blink' either as the PM, certainly since May, has had no parliamentary mandate to make any decisions anyway - as was seen by her withdrawal agreement being shot down by her own parliament and Johnson's inability to get anything through parliament at all.

None of these post WWII European systems are autocracies. They're representative democracies. Even if the UK tends to hang onto the curtains from the 16th century in some of its systems, the bits that actually have driven it through the 20th century are fairly modern.

Akrasia

Professor Moriarty wrote: »

Francois could well be right. The Telegraph, Express and Mail have whipped up English nationalism in a way that I haven't seen before. They have abandoned any pretence of independent reportage as a quick scan of their headlines will show. Ditto the ERG and Brexit Party.

It's ironic that he's saying brexit has to happen because if it doesn't, there will be violence in the streets, but the Yellowhammer report says that if brexit does happen, there will be civil unrest because of shortages of food, medicine, fuel and the damage it will do the economy.

briany

Former/current occupations of virulent Brexiteers.

Mark Francois - Banker (and a word which rhymes) / lobbyist

Jacob Rees Mogg - Banking / Investments

Andrea Leadsom - Banking

Nigel Farage - Stock trader

Peter Bone - Businessman

David Davis - Businessman


I'll let you draw your own conclusions.