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Brexit Deal Fails in Parliament

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Re: Brexit Deal Fails in Parliament

#631

Post by neotek »

mrec wrote: post #178
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…

> Why is May being held responsible for this? In short, May has never taken a WTO ("no deal") exit seriously. Since she won't walk away she's had no leverage, so the EU predictably gave her the worst "deal" imaginable, to the extent that polls show Leave voters would prefer staying in the EU and Remain voters would prefer leaving with no deal. It's seriously awful. > Where are the people who initially brought in Brex…

>As an American, what prevented the election of Trump being declared stupid and that the US gov't was not going to accept him?

The Constitution. The referendum, on the other hand, was non-binding.

Re: Brexit Deal Fails in Parliament

#632

Post by peteretep »

accnumnplus1 wrote: post #597
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…

Exactly. I've been voted down for pointing that out. May is not a brexiter.

What does that even mean now though? May was not originally sold on Brexit. Since becoming PM, what evidence do you have that she is not absolutely committed to Brexit? She may not be a True Believer, but she's a human apparently 100% intent on Brexit.

Re: Brexit Deal Fails in Parliament

#633

Post by graeme »

hanoz wrote: post #334

The deal was the worst of all worlds and deliberately designed to fail. The whole project since the referendum has been to work towards the palatable introduction of a second referendum whilst spending the intervening time demonstrating the impossibility of a good deal and the awfulness of no deal. We will now proceed to run down the clock towards the no deal 'cliff edge' and as the precipice looms go to the EU askin…

What deal would you have designed, and how would it have avoided a border in Ireland?

Or, if you woulf have a border in Ireland, do you think all 52% of voters voted for that?

Re: Brexit Deal Fails in Parliament

#634

Post by buboard »

i m under the impression that the UK elites are in favor of brexit. Or rather that the elites are not in favor of remain, and they are not going to mobilize for that. The UK people, despite apparent polarization, does not expect major changes in their lives any way.

Re: Brexit Deal Fails in Parliament

#635

Post by sonnyblarney »

Beldin wrote: post #239
nostrademons wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then that's what we get. There's no guarantee of a good outcome: if the majority of people want to do stupid things, a democracy will let them. In such a case we'd probably be fucked regardless of what form of government we had. A dictatorship, monarchy, or oligarchy lets a minority of people do stupid things, and if you have a majority, it's fairly likely there is a powerful minority contained within them.

The majority of EU citizens did not vote in the Brexit referendum. They shouldn't have to suffer the consequences [edit to clarify] of a war resulting from this vote.

"The majority of EU citizens did not vote in the Brexit referendum"

The overwhelming majority of EU citizens did not vote to join the EU, nor did they vote in favour of the Treaty of Lisbon upon which the authority of the EU currently resides.

Nor do any of the citizens of the EU get to vote for the EU executive, or anyone who has any material influence over legislation (their MEP's can't introduce legislation).

In fact, majorities of several EU nations voted against the Treaty of Lisbon after which it was 'passed anyways' (I'm looking at you France), and after which the other referendums were cancelled because the elites knew it would would fail.

And of course UK citizens never voted to join the EU, they voted to join the EEC.

Most EU citizens want something like the EEC, with some nice freedom of movement. They don't want a hard or ideological political union.

Have a look at Pew historical polling, it's interesting [1] - it shows the majority of even very large EU nations actually wary of the EU - up until the 'Brexit scare'. After Brexit, this will continue to languish downward.

The EU has so many existential issues that it's facing, and it doesn't seem to want to suggest anything other than 'more political union' as an answer, which is clearly not it. (See the recent 'twinning' agreement signed by Macron and Merkel last week as an example of trying to get some political momentum going on the pro-EU side).

The EU needs to reform, but it can't unfortunately for a variety of reasons, and I don't see any meaningful path forward.

[1] http://www.pewglobal.org/2017/06/15/post-brexit-europeans-mo...

Re: Brexit Deal Fails in Parliament

#636

Post by int_19h »

pron wrote: post #591
yholio wrote: 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…

> a "no deal" outcome, which is clearly bad, is still the best thing brexiters can actually deliver I don't see the logic here. The deal (let's call it D), is clearly worse than staying in the EU (let's call that option E). From that relation D < E it does not follow that no-deal (N) is better than a deal, i.e. D < N. It may well be that N < D < E. So I don't see how no-deal is the "best the brexiteers can delliver."

It's the best deal they can deliever that's still meaningfully a Brexit (i.e. it achieves other political goals that were the reason for it in the first place).

Re: Brexit Deal Fails in Parliament

#637

Post by toufiqbarhamov »

nostrademons wrote: post #139
gonehome wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if the consequences are instability or large scale war?

Then that's what we get. There's no guarantee of a good outcome: if the majority of people want to do stupid things, a democracy will let them. In such a case we'd probably be fucked regardless of what form of government we had. A dictatorship, monarchy, or oligarchy lets a minority of people do stupid things, and if you have a majority, it's fairly likely there is a powerful minority contained within them.

Then that's what we get. There's no guarantee of a good outcome: if the majority of people want to do stupid things, a democracy will let them. In such a case we'd probably be fucked regardless of what form of government we had. A dictatorship, monarchy, or oligarchy lets a minority of people do stupid things, and if you have a majority, it's fairly likely there is a powerful minority contained within them.

If that’s the degree of freedom you need to be happy, you probably need to live somewhere that has ever claimed to offer it. If you’re just convinced of the incompetence and doom of the race then while I can certainly see your point of view and don’t dismiss it, I don’t know that such a perspective is useful in a public policy context as it offers no solutions or hope.

Not accepting that we’re fallible, that principle is subservient to outcomes, and that a 48%-52% split is not exactly a significant minority-majority split seems unhelpful. More, if you see doom around every corner then what’s the harm in another referendum with a better defined question, and better controls on lying, dirty money and foreign influence? Remember that we’re less than a century away from the last time Europe tried to tear itself apart and take the rest of the world with it, maybe some caution is warranted here.

Re: Brexit Deal Fails in Parliament

#638

Post by peteretep »

derriz wrote: post #269
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…

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…

There's a really simple answer to this. You said:

> All it requires is that the UK accepts that EU customs checks are performed between Britain and Ireland ... I have no idea why the extreme brexiteers find this idea so objectionable?

Generally they don't. However the government is only in power with the support of the DUP[0] who see it as THE END OF THE WORLD, and it would be a complete anathema to Ulster loyalists[1], whose are (essentially) half of the Good Friday Agreement.

In short: if they accepted this, the British government would fall and armed conflict could well break out again in Northern Ireland.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Unionist_Party

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

Re: Brexit Deal Fails in Parliament

#639

Post by int_19h »

makomk wrote: post #551
amelius wrote: post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's why I'm always annoyed at the 'another referendum would tarnish democracy' line I'm annoyed for another reason: first, in 1975, [1], there was a referendum that asked the British people if they would want to join the EEC. Then, in 2016, there was a referendum that asked them if they would want to leave the EU. So if there can be a second, then why can't there be a third? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/His…

Bear in mind that the second of those referendums didn't happen until two decades after the EEC we'd originally signed up to was massively and fundamentally changed in nature. Now we're talking about having another referendum two and a half years after the previous one, before the result of the last referendum has even been implemented. That's quite a difference and it very strongly suggests that we're only seeing ca…

The second referendum was on the broad question of leave/stay, without the fine details. It is widely accepted that a lot of people voted without understanding the details.

Now there are specific options on the table. It seems only fair to allow people to vote on no-deal, the best deal they could get, or no Brexit at this point.

Re: Brexit Deal Fails in Parliament

#640

Post by wbl »

sonnyblarney wrote: post #607
yholio wrote: 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…

The gains that Germany and France will make in EU oriented financials services will pale in comparison to the loss of a major trading partner. Remember that the EU is becoming less and less important over time as a financial services market, even the UK's financial services sector has become less dependant on it over time. The juicier fruit is in the rest of the world. There's quite a lot of real trade between the EU…

There already was a customs union. It was called the EU.
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