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Brexit Deal Fails in Parliament

nytimes.com

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Re: Brexit Deal Fails in Parliament

#241

Post by twoslide »

m0zg wrote: post #71

Of course it "failed". The government did everything it could to sabotage it and arrive at as unfavorable a set of exit conditions as possible. Even if she did want to get a good deal, May doesn't strike me as a cutthroat negotiator. Couple this with her unwillingness to abide by the will of the people (the size of the voting margin is somewhat irrelevant in a properly functioning democracy), and you get this. This w…

> You don't get a re-do just because you didn't like the outcome.

Not asking for a "re-do," asking for a vote on the final terms of the agreement. There is a lot precedent for voting on the final deal, e.g. trade union negotiations.

> unwillingness to abide by the will of the people

"The will of the people" is her catch phrase, the brexit vote is the only mandate this shows.

This comment does not suggest a great level of familiarity with British politics or the Brexit process.

Re: Brexit Deal Fails in Parliament

#242

Post by bilbo0s »

School-Cotton wrote: post #194
makomk wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

May's deal permanently blocks the UK from ever fully leaving the EU without the EU's permission, meaning that anyone who wants to leave won't support it. It also removes almost all the benefits of remaining in the EU, meaning Remain supporters hate it too. Oh, and for bonus points it effectively makes Northern Ireland no longer fully part of the UK, meaning that the DUP (the Northern Ireland unionist party which the…

The UK is a sovereign country -- how is it possible for them to never be able to do something without someone else's permission?

It's not possible for anyone to tell you that you can't take a given action.

But it is possible for someone to inform you that if you do take a given action, they will take draconian, but completely legal, measures against you.

Re: Brexit Deal Fails in Parliament

#243

Post by shripadk »

albertgoeswoof wrote: post #154
hollerith wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>MAD means we probably won’t have a major war any time soon Was the Korean war a major war in your book? To the Korean people it was. In that war, the US's having nukes did not prevent North Korea from starting the war, did not prevent the Soviets from sending MIGs with Soviet pilots against the US army and air force and did not prevent China from sending a million soldiers.

From a euro centric perspective Korea is a proxy war. MAD blocks major conflict directly between two nuclear states or states with strong nuclear allies. It doesn’t prevent wars fought in other territories backed by nuclear states (eg Syria)

Conventional wars have been fought in the past between two nuclear states. On example is that of the Kargil War[1] which was a major conflict between India and Pakistan. This was not fought in a different territory.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kargil_War

Re: Brexit Deal Fails in Parliament

#244

Post by mongol »

School-Cotton wrote: post #194
makomk wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

May's deal permanently blocks the UK from ever fully leaving the EU without the EU's permission, meaning that anyone who wants to leave won't support it. It also removes almost all the benefits of remaining in the EU, meaning Remain supporters hate it too. Oh, and for bonus points it effectively makes Northern Ireland no longer fully part of the UK, meaning that the DUP (the Northern Ireland unionist party which the…

The UK is a sovereign country -- how is it possible for them to never be able to do something without someone else's permission?

I guess it is like leaving any contract or agreement without fulfilling your obligations. You can do it, but there will be consequences.

Re: Brexit Deal Fails in Parliament

#245

Post by r3bl »

gwbas1c wrote: post #112
ceejayoz wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The EU is a phenomenally novel way of integrating sovereign nation-states into a singular political entity, that happened without war. Not just without war, but between nations that've been regularly at war with each other (in various iterations) for well over a thousand years. It's a pretty remarkable achievement.

And some EU states still don't recognize each other. Just look at the 49.999 hz issue.

What? Serbia is an EU candidate, not an EU member. It is an outsider to this.

Five EU members don't recognize Kosovo as independent, meaning that Kosovo can't even apply for the EU membership. Serbia's making small steps, but won't enter any time soon.

This was a European problem (as in, the continent) that had nothing to do with the EU specifically.

Re: Brexit Deal Fails in Parliament

#246

Post by tomarr »

SolaceQuantum wrote: post #99

I'll be the first to admit: I'm an American. I fundamentally do not understand Brexit. I understand the following timeline: 1. A largely disseminated, nation-wide vote occurs, bolstered by nationalist sentiment, that the EU is bad for the UK. This vote results in a conclusion that UK should leave the EU. 2. This is controversial, due to the majority of the populace in general not desiring to leave the EU, but not vot…

It's not people voting against May, it's just that nothing _could_ command a majority at this point other than a fanciful option that takes the best of EU (no economic shock) but strips out unchecked migration and European courts.

Our gradient descent has ended in a local minimum, and noone can agree enough to climb the hill.

Immigration is a very powerful topic (fear and loathing?) in the mind of voters and much of the 'debate' is not based on reason on either side. It's probably worth noting since the referendum was announced it's unclear whether one person in a country of 60 million has changed their mind on what they preconceptually had locked in at the start.

Re: Brexit Deal Fails in Parliament

#247

Post by jcranmer »

simonbarker87 wrote: post #189
itissid wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the others are just angry - and I mean really angry. Out of curiosity, how has "EU is telling us what to do" affected these people to make them so angry?

I wish I knew, I have asked and the best I can sumise is that their lives haven’t gone they way they hoped, the UK government has historically blamed stuff on the EU (a bit like someone blaming stuff on their manager to a customer) so they correlate the two “my life is not what I hoped because of the EU”, sprinkle on some patriotism (well I’m “British”) and the fear that 52/48 isn’t strong enough to see their “win” o…

The general sense is that elected officials can be quite good at blaming others for their own failures (this tendency is by no means limited to British government). The EU is the convenient scapegoat in European politics, even if Britain has wide latitude to opt out of swathes of EU politics or even drive the EU itself as one of the largest members.

The other point you make is quite true: even Brexiteers didn't think they would win the referendum. And the problem is that, in unexpectedly winning, they wanted to lock their success in quickly, before anyone could discover the problems in their arguments. And when they themselves found the problems, well, see the point I made: it's not the Brexiteers' fault that they couldn't come up with a deal that the EU would like, it's the EU's fault that Britain is in this mess.

Re: Brexit Deal Fails in Parliament

#249

Post by mattmanser »

Zhyl wrote: post #171
simonbyrne wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He has never been an MP.

There also wasn't an election in 2014. His party won 1 seat in 2015 and got 12.6% of the total vote. 12.6% is really high to be getting only 1 seat, but it definitely isn't 20%.

He's talking about the MEP elections.

It's been very easy to dismiss UKIP's parliamentary holding only because the UK is first past the post, had it been more representative these last few decades, we probably wouldn't be in this mess.

Instead we've had two decades of Tory and Labour governments effectively sticking their fingers in their ears and going "lalalalalaaaa, we can't hear you, growth is king" when anyone mentioned the word immigration. Or talking about lower immigration targets, while at the same time the treasury was producing budget forecasts based on mass immigration continuing.

Re: Brexit Deal Fails in Parliament

#250

Post by OscarCunningham »

yholio wrote: post #169
mrec wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they are trying to camouflage that reality with a bad deal They're not, May is, and May is not a Brexiter. The Brexiters generally are pushing to leave on WTO terms, not so much as a preferred end state but in recognition of the fact that only a genuine commitment to doing so has any chance of convincing the EU to agree to sensible terms such as Canada+. If the EU can keep the UK under its thumb forever then of cou…

There is no Canada+ on the table and there never was, it's just "Canada" without the "+": a set of trade liberalization measures that cover some physical goods and very few services. It's a bad match for Britain's needs: http://www.policyreview.co.uk/eu-uk-canada/ It's hard to understand why Germany or France, who stand to gain from excluding the powerful UK service sector from the EU financial markets, would think t…

> It's hard to understand why Germany or France, who stand to gain from excluding the powerful UK service sector from the EU financial markets

No they don't. Germany and France contain consumers of services as well as providers.

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