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Brexit Deal Fails in Parliament

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Re: Brexit Deal Fails in Parliament

#301
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 the opposite: of course they can leave, but they don't want to lose all the benefits they had before leaving. Unfortunately for them there's little benefit for the people they are leaving to really offer them anything.

At least in a divorce you tend to split things (I'll keep the bed and you can have the dresser). In this case it's someone walking out the door but saying "hey, could you let me still come by for dinner?"

Re: Brexit Deal Fails in Parliament

#302
post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, what if? You're essentially arguing that if our benevolent overlords decide that the democratic process might result in something unfavorable that they should do the wise thing and ignore the will of the people.

I'm arguing in favor of representative government where elected people decide on what makes the most sense for complex issues. Relying on advice from experts, but ultimately making the call that's in the country's best interest.

That sounds like a fantastic system, where is being implemented?

I would like to move there.

Re: Brexit Deal Fails in Parliament

#303
post #269
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…

No it does not. It simply requires that the UK ensure that no hard (customs) border is required in Ireland. A key component of the Good Friday Agreement which ended 3 decades of bloodshed on the island of Ireland was that physical border checks between the two states whould be phased out. All it requires is that the UK accepts that EU customs checks are performed between Britain and Ireland rather than at the Irish b…

> I have no idea why the extreme brexiteers find this idea so objectionable?

Because it's a slippery slope that looks very much like ceding territory. It's not just border checks, but Northern Ireland would be effectively in the EU as far as customs rules and tariffs. Otherwise, you could circumvent the EU tariffs by importing in the UK, moving the goods "internally" to NE then loading them on a truck and unloading somewhere in the rest Ireland.

This differentiated regime would strengthen economic ties with Ireland and weaken those with Britain.

Re: Brexit Deal Fails in Parliament

#304
post #209
post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Donald Tusk has repeatedly offered "Canada +++" to Great Britain. (Not to the United Kingdom, as part of their "we're going to annex Northern Ireland as a punishment beating" approach.) > UK still needs to respect the EU regulations WHEN EXPORTING TO THE EU, yes. The ~90% of UK businesses that don't do any trade with the EU do not. Those trading with the rest of the world outside the EU - a majority of the UK's trade…

So, just to clarify, you're arguing that Donald Tusk has offered exactly what you want (except - in the absence of viable alternative solutions - to Northern Ireland in order to honour existing bilateral agreements implying no new customs borders there).

Do you think this offer is more or less likely to still exist if the UK insists that it doesn't need the EU's stinking trade, defaults on its financial obligations to the EU and enrages an Irish government with veto power over any hypothetical future deal by re-erecting customs borders with the north? (Even before considering the UK's ill-preparedness to attempt such a gambit means the direct short term consequences would hurt the country)

Re: Brexit Deal Fails in Parliament

#305
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was, nevertheless, the directly expressed will of the people. This is very much the social contract that holds the society together, and makes the government accountable to the people. Would you rather they just did as they please?

Polling has pretty consistently been anti-Brexit for awhile now, once the clear scope of what Brexit entails has actually been better understood. If another referendum were held today it would fail. Why should a single non-binding vote taken at one point in time two years ago be considered forever irrevocable? Especially considering all of the pro-Brexit fake news and false promises at the time? Most of the promises…

As recent history shows, polling is unreliable in heavily politically charged issues like this one. Oversample here, undersample there, and you get "95% probability of winning" the night before the loss.

Re: Brexit Deal Fails in Parliament

#306
Article 50 exists. The UK can leave on WTO terms and the EU cannot stop it. The EU has some incentives (money) to give the UK some other deal than WTO terms, and it has some incentives (avoiding a rush to the exits) to give the UK nothing more than WTO terms. As it happens the UK is wealthier than other EU countries that might head for the exits if they thought they could get as good a deal as the UK, but no one thinks that Poland can get the same terms as the UK, so fear of a rush to exit is not a reason to give the UK nothing. It's not at all clear that May tried to get a better deal than the one she presented to Parliament -- the brexiteers in her previous cabinet were sidelined and ignored, and no attempt was made to make clear that the EU would not yield (if that was the problem).

Re: Brexit Deal Fails in Parliament

#307

To be honest this is just a repeat of two years ago, apart from now it's May not getting her way instead of Cameron. The whole thing is such a colossal failure that they need to just to give up and stop acting like this is the 'will of the people' - as if people don't change their mind when presented with the facts or something.

>stop acting like this is the 'will of the people'

Well, unlike how people like to complain about US politics where it's a representative democracy... Brexit was a real democracy, and you can remind me if you like how that vote worked out...

Sorry, but you don't get to wave away "will of the people" as nonsense when the majority did vote for it and majority system is what they used.

It's only your prerogative that now straight Democracy is bad because you don't agree with the result.

Re: Brexit Deal Fails in Parliament

#308
post #41

The Brexit promise is something nobody can deliver on. It was a lie, you cannot force the EU to accept an unfavorable trade deal. If only for the reason that it would set an exceptionally bad precedent and everybody would want their own deal, to pick and choose the parts of EU membership that are favorable to them, leading the EU to implode. Somebody needs to own up to that lie and accept that a "no deal" outcome, wh…

> you cannot force the EU to accept an unfavorable trade deal source? The deal failed inside UK parliament and not at EU.

Juncker tweeted about an hour ago that “time is almost up” for the UK. That means that the EU won’t sweeten the proposed deal.

Re: Brexit Deal Fails in Parliament

#309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brexit is a real problem that the human race is faced with. There can be no higher question than that of what rules people should be using to deal with each other. For most of human history the rules were imposed by force. You open your market because if you don't, I'll escalate from sending a strongly worded missive all the way up to sending my armies to pillage your countryside. Recently we've moved to a more contr…

I’m not sure. I think we’ll leave or stay in the EU and it won’t make a tangible difference in the long run. Not in the way that say the internet, smartphones, antibiotics, nuclear weapons/power, quantum physics etc etc have made a difference to the world. MAD means we probably won’t have a major war any time soon, so we’ll be trading with the EU regardless, it’s all semanitics and minor politics.

It may not make an identifiable difference, but it will make a material difference. I’m not sure what tangible means in this context.

What was the effect of Columbus sailing across the Atlantic? Maybe nothing! Maybe another sailor would have come 20 years later and American history would have played out just the same with different dates.

Or would two decades of Aztec rule made a difference? Two more decades of Nagualism before the Church started eradicating the libraries and the language? Could books have been copied and hidden? Would political bodies have had more time to adapt? Were there tipping points on the horizon?

Or was America in a steady state just waiting for Europe to come plunder it? Are forces at play which are so much bigger than individuals that nothing we do really matters?

Personally, I think it all matters very much. History does not repeat itself, it’s a story built on every word that came before it. Brexit will frame everything that comes after it, and if we had swapped this decade for a different decade in UK history, we would have a very different story.

Re: Brexit Deal Fails in Parliament

#310
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was, nevertheless, the directly expressed will of the people. This is very much the social contract that holds the society together, and makes the government accountable to the people. Would you rather they just did as they please?

The real issue is that the people who voted "for Brexit" were all voting for different things, because it wasn't at all articulated what "Brexit" would look like. Now that that's better understood, there should absolutely be a second referendum, probably with three ranked options: 1. Stay 2. Soft leave (May's deal) 3. Hard leave (No deal) With months and months of nonstop coverage, one could now say that there's broa…

Maybe the second referendum should just be between soft leave and hard leave, as the first referendum already settled the question of leave or remain.

Call it a runoff referendum.

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