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British Government loses Article 50 court fight

bbc.co.uk

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Re: British Government loses Article 50 court fight

#251

Post by throwaway-hn123 »

ldjb wrote: post #245
throwaway-hn123 wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, if you want to keep moving the goalposts as your arguments are rebutted, that's fine. It just makes you not appear to be acting in good faith.

I don't see how I'm moving the goalposts. All I'm saying is that the EU referendum result must be respected. General election results must also be respected, but they revolve around a number of issues, so are not a good indicator of voters' opinion of membership of the EU. Besides, the Conservatives were elected into government with a manifesto promising an in-out referendum. The government has delivered on that prom…

> All I'm saying is that the EU referendum result must be respected.

It is being respected. This might be news to you, but we don't live in a fascist dictatorship where dissent is forbidden.

So, in your view, not a single thing any government has done (with the exception of joining the Common Market) has been agreed to by the population. Interesting.

Re: British Government loses Article 50 court fight

#252

Post by emp_zealoth »

zigzigzag wrote: post #185
_delirium wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't the current Swiss controversy just a simple case of Switzerland abrogating the treaty? Switzerland and the EU member states signed a treaty agreeing that Switzerland would be given access to the common market, on the same footing as if it were an EU member, in return for following the EU's common product labeling/regulation, and allowing free movement of labor between all signatories of the treaty. Then, recent…

The treaties, like all EU treaties, are deliberately designed to bind people to things they don't want to do by artificially tying them all together with a "guillotine clause". There is no need for this type of thing - it's a pure power play. Switzerland is heading for what could be a potentially nasty constitutional crisis, if things go wrong. Parliament is legally bound to implement referendums because they work by…

>like all EU treaties, are deliberately designed to bind people to things they don't want to do by artificially tying them all together with a "guillotine clause".

I'm sorry, what?

You sign a bilateral agreement bringing you massive wealth and advantages then you try to avoid doing your part of the deal

So EU is now evil because it will not take shit from a tiny country?

Re: British Government loses Article 50 court fight

#253

Post by vixen99 »

return0 wrote: post #57
elcct wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But whatever they call it, it is majority indeed and that's the democracy - you either accept that majority wins or well... don't know

The referendum is a poll. UK has representative, parliamentary democracy.

Exactly - so we should disregard the original referendum (a mere poll, as you put it) on the basis of which the British government signed up in 1975 to what was then the embryo EU - though only those experienced in deciphering subtexts in official documents really understood at that time that federation was the real goal not merely the establishment of a free trade area.

Re: British Government loses Article 50 court fight

#254

Post by antocv »

thesimon wrote: post #146
antocv wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone should send a memo Bashar al Assad that "dire consequences" are a valid reason to postpone democracy. In fact, democracy seems to be reserved only for use by western NATO powers, even when not respecting a democratic vote, while imposing democracy "with dire consequences" on the rest of the world.

>even when not respecting a democratic vote The "Brexit" vote was nothing more than an opinion poll. There is no direct democracy in the UK.

Indeed. al Assads next interview "Sure, I did not win the vote, but this is not a direct democracy, the presidential ballot is mere a poll".

Direct democracy for export to some (exclude Saudi), power for others.

All this Brexit event just highlights the hypocrisy when calling Russian political system names and criticizing it for lack of democracy and other positive terms-on-paper.

Re: British Government loses Article 50 court fight

#255

Post by saaaaaam »

jlangenauer wrote: post #44
agd wrote: post #12

For those who don't follow British politics this is very significant. - Invocation of Article 50 is likely to be delayed from Q1 as the legislation will go through parliament and the (hostile) House of Lords. - A 'hard' Brexit is less likely due to incoming amendments from remainer MPs and Lords It also increases the chances of a general election before Article 50 is invoked if the PM feels that MPs will force too ma…

The problem is, of course, that how "hard" Brexit is, is not really up to the UK, or its parliament. It'll depend what sort of deal the rest of the EU is willing to strike, and unless either the UK is willing to compromise on allowing free movement of people, or the EU is willing to compromise on the indivisibility of the "four freedoms" - neither of which seems likely - then the Brexit is, in fact, going to be quite…

Interesting piece of commentary about this by Alistair Sloan here:

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2016/10/uk-choice-h...

Re: British Government loses Article 50 court fight

#256

Post by ldjb »

leonk wrote: post #241
ldjb wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the government has said that Brexit means Brexit, meaning that the UK will exit the EU. There will be controls on immigration, but the UK will seek to maintain positive relationships with other European countries (and the rest of the world) and co-operate in matters such as security. Okay, they haven't quite spelt it out in the level of detail some would have liked, but they've provided more detail than other pa…

I'd say this is more of a strategy than a plan. It's all pretty vague. It was the tories who called the referendum, and the tories who are currently dealing with Brexit. It's not Labour's job to come up with a plan (which would not get used anyway). All Labour have been trying to do is get details of the Tory (currently non-existent) plan, in order to be able to start a discussion on it. http://www.independent.co.uk/…

Labour, as the official opposition, are supposed to represent an alternative government. I think it's perfectly right to expect them to set out what they want from Brexit. However, they won't even answer any of the 170 questions they asked the government.

I don't want the Conservative government to have a monopoly over deciding how Brexit is implemented. But if other parties want to have a say, then they do need to say what they want from Brexit! They need to take a more pro-active stance. Problem is that Labour is still rather divided, UKIP is literally beating itself up, and the Lib Dems (whilst united in opposing Brexit) are still rather weak. What we really need is a strong opposition, and unfortunately we don't have one right now.

Re: British Government loses Article 50 court fight

#257

Post by emp_zealoth »

zigzigzag wrote: post #172
DocTomoe wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they'd be willing to start talks now, pre-notification And fuel every little fascist's antieuropean campaign in other EU countries? The EU has to make an example about how leaving the Union is a bad idea, one that even the dumbest of voters understand - and that's exactly what they are going to do. > In fact they are acting as if the vote never happened Which is partly due to the fact that the British Referendum vo…

Your response is typical of why the EU will eventually collapse in a messy way that will likely make all of Europe poorer. It is simply re-running the story of the USSR in a less extreme way. EU supporters even think of themselves as being "anti-fascist", language identical to what the Bolesheviks used in the 30's and 40's. I absolutely understand that the EU can simply "refuse to play" and that's what I expect them…

UK is bringing this on itself.

I'm sorry, time to wake up from fantasyland of sovereignity. Decisions have consequences and it was rather obvious that the incentives become rather misaligned when UK decides to tell EU to go fuck itself.

UK did enough damage already, the latest and most glorious example is blocking finance reform so you could protect your criminal banker city (which, ironically will probably pack up and leave after brexit)

EU has no obligation to make special concessions, quite the contrary - it is obvious you cannot get a better deal than for example Norway, nor can you continue to benefit from common market without agreeing to it's most core terms

Sure, the Euro is in dire need of remaking, maybe explosive collapse of UK will be glorious enough to force some changes in that regard, so...thanks!

Re: British Government loses Article 50 court fight

#258

Post by joosters »

arethuza wrote: post #229
joosters wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since when have party manifestos been used to hold political parties to account?

As far as I recall the only time manifestos come in play in the political process is during the passage of a bill through the House of Lords - they "will not oppose the second or third reading of any government legislation promised in its election manifesto": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salisbury_Convention Note that this appears to be a "constitutional convention" rather than a hard and fast bit of law.

That's interesting, I had never heard of the convention before, thanks for mentioning it.

However, it is specifically about the house of lords not blocking government manifesto promises. I was more thinking about the opposite, i.e. a government not going ahead with their manifesto promises.

Re: British Government loses Article 50 court fight

#259

Post by lucb1e »

midgetjones wrote: post #221
lucb1e wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never seen anyone call this a clear majority, all the news I've read, seen and heard called it close. Anyone who calls this a clear victory or clear majority is kidding themselves.

David Davis said "The mandate for Britain to leave the European Union is clear, overwhelming, and unarguable."

Well then he's either a fool or misrepresenting facts. I recall the difference being less than 4 percent points which cannot be called significant in a referendum under any circumstance.

I'm not even saying Britain should leave or stay, the whole methodology is wrong here. With close calls this is equivalent to flipping a coin, and only because it's a close call we accept the given outcome. Or in this case, many don't because they didn't think it'd come to this, but that's beside the point.

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