General British politics discussion thread

But as with the EU, you will need to follow rules set by this supranational organization. Unlike the EU, the benefits of this are minimal.

This is the crux of the matter, you can't have full and complete freedom to decide what you want to do when you want to do it and alo have partnerships.

This is life 101.

You are describing the EU as it is now. Unfortunately this is not the end destination. The end destination is a United States of Europe with Brussels as it's capital.

Our politicians are self interested cheerleaders in the purging of our ability to make our own decisions bit by bit, decade by decade.

The propaganda is intense. Your told that your country is not capable of running it's own affairs so many times you get to believe it. You're beaten over the head with this narrative.

The answer to this is clearly to have some random Swedish person, for example, tell us what our own taxation policies should be...

I don't accept that we are incapable of self governance and managing our own affairs responsibly and prospering like other successful small open economies in the world.

Well the festival of Brexit might have been a flop but England seems determined to create Fyre Festival 2 on the coast of Dover.

When were we a nation state by your definition. Ireland is as independent as it has ever been. The reason we joined the EU was because the UK did, we never had a real choice as the country would have been ruined if we didn't do whatever the Brits did. It would not have even be malicious on behalf of the UK, it was just how it was. Had the UK left relatively quickly we also would have left. Is that independence? Just following along with whatever the UK does because that is what we would return to. UK rule by proxy. All standards would have to be the UK standards they produce because they are the bigger economy and our economy is so close to theirs. We wouldn't even have a say in them, why would we as it is their standards.

This is the first point we have actually stood away from the UK on policy. Ireland is not ruled by Brussels. As a nation state we are able to make agreements with other countries and well people and countries should abide by their agreements. This does not reduce their sovereignty.

It wasn't a question of what the Irish government wanted. Ireland is a republic in which sovereignty is vested in the people, and the government (and the Oireachtas) only have so much authority as the people delegate to them in the Constitution. The terms of the Constitution did not allow either the government or the Oireachtas to undertake, on behalf of Ireland, the obligations entailed in EU membership, even if they wanted to. Legally, they needed to get the authority of the people, by way of a constitutional amendment.

By contrast, in the UK, sovereignty belongs to the Crown in Parliament. Legally, Parliament can do whatever it wants, and never needs to seek the authority of the people, either in a referendum or in a general election. If they do hold a referendum on some question, it will be because a combination of circumstances mean that the dominant faction in the then-governing party finds it politically desirable or convenient to do so.

Considering it took 35 years to get a referendum on the 8th repeal, convenient is probably a wrong choice of term. I'd have said "Important."

You might argue that the 1958 and 1968 referendums on PR were a cynical attempt by Fianna Fail to abolish PR because they thought it would get them a bigger majority.

The car crash that was the eight amendment was a proposal by a minority group (PLAC) which turned into a political football.

You could possibly argue that the referendum on abolishing the Seanad was also something of a stunt by Fine Gael. But as a rule, they are generally not used for cynical reasons or to boost support for a particular party.

Cameron clearly weaponised the Brexit referendum for political reasons and wasn't remotely interested in what the British public thought about anything.

Ish. The UK had been negotiating entry for a few years when the referendum happened and our negotiations were heavily linked with theirs (though that was also just smart for common interests). The Irish government also had to fight against the instinct in Europe to sort out the UK first as Ireland wanted to join at the same time to avoid a period of being outside the EU when the UK was in it.

Two previous attempts to join in the previous 12 years were not so much rejected as let slide by the Irish government when the UK was rejected.

Interestingly one of the main arguments for the yes side was to broaden the export market so we would not remain dependent on the UK. That particular argument seems to have been very accurate.

"And no government in Ireland ever promotes a referendum in order to defeat enemies within the party, or to paper over cracks in parliament"

It seems to be the opposite really. The 2 main parties are relatively conservative and tend to avoid referendums until they're pretty sure they'll pass (given the choice)

Brexit was a referendum that the government called 'knowing' it would lose in order to appease the lunatic fringe of the Tories. They knew it would lose so confidently that they didn't bother making any cogent arguments for remaining in the EU

To compound the error, Cameron thought he could have his cake and eat it by declaring the referendum to be 'advisory' which then meant the courts could decide that the normal rules on campaigning could be ignored without consequences

Parties in Ireland avoid referendums unless (1) they want them to pass and (2) they are optimistic that they will pass.

This is a feature of the system, not a bug. We don't have qualified majorities for amending the constitution like they do in some countries, but we do have a two-stage process; an amendment has to be first approved by the Oireachtas and then approved by the people before it can take effect. Thus we couldn't have the Brexit-type stupidity of a referendum approving a course of action that the Oireachtas doesn't want to implement, hasn't thought about, and has no clue how to implement. Whether you like Irish referendums or not, they are more carefully considered than that.

I wouldn't go so far as to say that referendums don't go ahead unless the politicians are "pretty sure" they will pass. If that were true, it would mean that the politicians are bad judges of public opinion, because referendums do quite often fail. Unsuccessful referendums include two attempts to change the STV voting system, one attempt to change the rules on constituency boundaries, the first divorce referendum; two referendums (in 1992 and 2006) to reverse the X case and provide that a risk of suicide was not grounds for abortion; a referendum to abolish the Seanad; and others besides. I think if it's something they want to do and they hope to win a referendum, they'll go ahead.

Yep. Just look at the parties who have been in charge of Italy the last few governments.

Not a peep of Itexit from these former anti EU populists.

Le Pen keeping her trap firmly shut on the issue now too. As she has when it comes to her love of Putin and Orban.

It even made Sinn Fein pro EU all of a sudden.

This isn't correct. UK citizens have long enjoyed rights in IRL similar to the rights enjoyed by IRL citizens in UK (with the principal exception of voting rights, which were only extended in 1985). This wasn't because of a "lax attitude"; there were explicit agreements between the UK and IRL governments on the point, implemented where necessary by legislation. For example, when Ireland enacted the Aliens Act 1935, imposing entry restrictions, registration requirements, etc on non-citizens, the simultaneous Aliens (Exemption) Order 1935 was made providing that these measures did not apply to UK citizens.

Definitely nothing to do with Brexit.