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UK triggers the official Brexit process in a letter to EU

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Re: UK triggers the official Brexit process in a letter to EU

#251

Post by sangnoir »

coldtea wrote: post #155
bryanrasmussen wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, this is why there have never been empires, kings, large nations or organized groups that have subsumed smaller groups around them, the United States, Great Britain itself, or any organization of peoples greater than just one lone man standing in a field bellowing 'ME!' at the emptiness.

"Independence" it's not about some lone man bellowing "ME". It's about like-minded people sharing a common culture (as developed historically up to some point), over a hodge podge of states being united by sheer power or top-down dictum. Empires and kings ruled thanks to tons of bloodshed and continued vigilance and stomping of revolts. The "Great Britain" itself is a bad example -- it lost colony after colony due to…

> And of course it took some wars (and a lot of resentment) to bring down the Scottish into the UK's stable for example.

It looks like it's going to take Brexit for Scotland to leave the UK. Politically, Scotland and England have very little in common yet they are handcuffed together by "sheer power of top-down dictum"

Re: UK triggers the official Brexit process in a letter to EU

#252

Post by sgift »

mootothemax wrote: post #169
maaaats wrote: post #61

Whatever one may think of the politics or if one's country should join/leave, it's absolutely true that EU has been a big factor in keeping the peace between European nations for decades. The Nobel Peace Prize to EU got a lot of criticism because of politics, but I think it was important to show that EU has helped keep the peace.

> keeping the peace between European nations for decades It really doesn't do anyone any favours to make claims like this; the breakup of Yugoslavia and the associated genocides were hideous: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakup_of_Yugoslavia (cards on table: I'm very pro-EU)

Yugoslavia wasn't part of the EU, so it doesn't apply here. Fact is no EU country attacked another EU country since the EU (and its predecessors) came into existence. Before that time the same countries attacked each other on a fairly regular schedule.

Re: UK triggers the official Brexit process in a letter to EU

#253

Post by coldtea »

mrcarrot wrote: post #238
randiantech wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Didnt the experts also said that UK not joining the Euro was going to be a catastrophe?

Some of them, probably. Were they the same ones?

Most of them yes. They tend to be the same types, at least in my country.

Re: UK triggers the official Brexit process in a letter to EU

#254

Post by Nursie »

pluma wrote: post #246
Svip wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the EU does have a directly elected parliament? So where's the lack of democracy in the EU?

The often cited claim that the EU is undemocratic stems from a difference of opinion what "democratic" actually means. First of all: there is barely any nation that is truly democratic in the historic sense of the word. Most democracies are actually representational systems: citizens don't vote on every single issue, they elect someone to represent them and vote in their name. Who each representative actually represe…

The Commission gets a bad rap because basically it's been stuffed with cronies and friends of council members. The UK may be the worst for this, we had one Commissioner who had been disgraced out of the UK cabinet twice, and then found himself in a nice 'untouchable' position on the Commission.

He's now a Lord.

There are flaws in UK democracy certainly but I don't think the EU got it right.

I also fundamentally have a problem with the scale of the thing - any government of a bloc that large is going to have problems with being unrepresentative. I look at Switzerland and Iceland with envy - the people can achieve change there. The USA, EU, even UK? Not so much.

Re: UK triggers the official Brexit process in a letter to EU

#255

Post by sgift »

danielvf wrote: post #117
maaaats wrote: post #61

Whatever one may think of the politics or if one's country should join/leave, it's absolutely true that EU has been a big factor in keeping the peace between European nations for decades. The Nobel Peace Prize to EU got a lot of criticism because of politics, but I think it was important to show that EU has helped keep the peace.

I know there has been intra-nation peace in western Europe since the end of WWII, but how do we know it was due to the EU? Both the peace and the EU would seem to as easily explained by the post war situation where European nations were now second tier economicly, and threatened by a big external nation. The reward for war was no longer there, and the need for cooperation was high.

All of your points also existed before the second world war. Russia was already a big empire, other big empires existed throughout the history of Europe. That never stopped European countries from attacking each other. Basically, almost everything else has staid the same, the only change was the EU and its predecessors came into existence after WW2. That's certainly not a proof (it's impossible to proof such thins without a alternative-history-viewer-machine, which hasn't been developed so far) but it is a very strong hint.

Re: UK triggers the official Brexit process in a letter to EU

#256

Post by sangnoir »

coldtea wrote: post #250
mrcarrot wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you point to any case where the UK could not make a law that it wanted to because of "having to wait for Brussels"?

> where the UK could not make a law that it wanted to because of "having to wait for Brussels"? "Having to wait" not as in actually waiting (e.g. as if Brussels would somehow slow down the pace of law-making in the UK) but in the sense UK will have to be handed down to adopt and enforce EU laws. So, wanting to make a law about X, in the sense that UK citizens see it and to their interests? Tough luck, unless it match…

> "Having to wait" not as in actually waiting (e.g. as if Brussels would somehow slow down the pace of law-making in the UK) but in the sense UK will have to adopt and enforce EU laws

There is no definition or synonym of "wait" that matches your attempt to salvage your initial argument.

Re: UK triggers the official Brexit process in a letter to EU

#257

Post by barrkel »

taejo wrote: post #201
mdekkers wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the EU cannot strive for the closest relationship possible because that would encourage other countries to leave. There must be a price, an ongoing cost. I don't understand why this wasn't a centerpiece of the Remain campaign.

Because it makes the EU look evil, and remaining looks like submitting to bullies.

The EU is a protectionist island in a global economy filled with large ambivalent actors. It's less evil, more like self-preservation, or an immune system. There has to be surface tension to retain mass, and there has to be barriers because that's it's raison d'etre.

Re: UK triggers the official Brexit process in a letter to EU

#258

Post by dnautics »

Svip wrote: post #181
folli wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I absolutely see the advantages of having common standards, tariff agreements etc. to make trade across borders easier (i.e. something akin to the European Economic Area). I'm however also a proponent of federalism, because I believe that for a democracy to truly work it is necessary that the people still feel responsible for their votes and their decisions. This is something which I'm missing in centralised and unit…

But the EU does have a directly elected parliament? So where's the lack of democracy in the EU?

The eu's Parliament has de facto no power and all of the authority rests with the European commission, which is an unelected entity.

Re: UK triggers the official Brexit process in a letter to EU

#259

Post by csdreamer7 »

JetSetWilly wrote: post #104
adnam wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except I didn't say that the Falklands happened because of the EU, did I? It happened because Argentina invaded British sovereign territory, and the British defended it. Interestingly, not a single other EU country aided the UK.

France aided the UK and was the UK's best ally during the campaign. They declared an arms embargo against Argentina, they allowed use of french controlled ports in West Africa, they provided lots of information about Exocet missiles and they aided British intelligence in preventing Argentina obtaining more of them. Our biggest "frenemies" during the Falklands were the USA and Israel. Israel were selling them arms (or…

> USA was neutral (with lots of Argentinian sympathy) until their hand was forced.

Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher: A Political Marriage would disagree with you. Reagan wanted to keep the USSR out of Argentina so the public line was neutrality even with Thatcher pushing him to do otherwise. Behind the scenes the US provided intelligence to Britain.

Re: UK triggers the official Brexit process in a letter to EU

#260

Post by therpe1 »

barrkel wrote: post #126
dustinmoris wrote: post #51

I'm a bit tired of reading doomsday messages by now. I am an European living and working in the UK and even though this affects me I have no reason to believe that things will go downwards now. If there's anything I've learned so far then that every analysis I've read couldn't have been more wrong. It almost seems like the more the UK economy doesn't collapse the more people shout even louder how bad the Brexit is. M…

I'll say what I said before the referendum: the EU cannot strive for the closest relationship possible because that would encourage other countries to leave. There must be a price, an ongoing cost. Britain is trapped with a forked strategy: it can go the Singapore route or the supplicant route. The two are incompatible and neither of them is realistically feasible. The Singapore route is what hard Brexiteers want but…

One thing that Brexit will prove is whether the EU is in fact the latest manifestation of the German Empire[1]. If this is the case I would think that Germany (and basically France) will in fact make Britain pay a very steep, steep cost. Empires absolutely must punish rebellious provinces... unless they're not really empires.

The funny thing is that this "steep, steep" cost requires that the EU powers do basically nothing but give Britain exactly what it wants. There will be no bombing of London or cross-Channel invasion. All the EU really has to do is forcefully exclude Britain (meaning no customs union) while maintaining relatively open borders with Britain. Over time this restricted flow of goods and services but free flow of people should sort itself out as the best and the brightest individuals and businesses leave Britain for the much larger market of the EU. This "hinterazation" of Britain will be absolutely devastating to a country that, frankly, doesn't have anything to offer but it's people and some choice real-estate. So Singapore is a very optimistic model for Britain's future -- I'm much more thinking Mexico.

But it will be very interesting to see if France and Germany actually do "hold the line."

[1] http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2015/07/germany-s-trium...

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