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Brexit Deal Fails in Parliament

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Re: Brexit Deal Fails in Parliament

#791
post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

War between who and who?

Not necessarily "large scale", but it's hard to leave the EU customs union without introducing a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, and specifically not having a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland was part of the peace agreement that ended the Troubles.

Well, nothing is stopping the Republic of Ireland from following the UK. The EU can't even really do anything about it without starting a war, so a sudden surprise exit is entirely possible. This would solve the border issue.

Things would have been much less messy if Brexit had been implemented as a split of the EU, with the UK and Republic of Ireland running their own little 2-member EU government. Scotland could then be allowed to do their split from the UK while remaining in the mini-EU.

Re: Brexit Deal Fails in Parliament

#792
post #752

Here's what happens next: - A motion of no confidence has been tabled and will be debated and voted on tomorrow - If the motion carries (i.e. the Government loses): 1. Theresa May must resign as Prime Minister 2. There can be a 14 day window in which a new government is formed, which must be approved by a motion of confidence. This is likely to be waived 3. There will be a general election. Theresa May will remain le…

> It's likely such a referendum will have two questions: Do you wish to leave or remain?; and, in the event of a vote towards leave, would you accept the backstop or would you prefer "No Deal" That's interesting, as it also could have had one question, with three possible answers: What option do you prefer: Leave, No Deal Brexit, May's Deal Brexit? I can very well imagine the presentation of these questions influenci…

At that point you're basically discussion voting systems. Using first-past-the-post with three options, two of them being breixt, would heavily rig the vote towards remain.

Improving voting systems would be great (especially looking at the US, if you ever want more than two real parties), but doing it on the back of such an important decision would be problematic at best.

Here is a cutesy video for those new to FPTP voting issues: https://youtu.be/s7tWHJfhiyo

Re: Brexit Deal Fails in Parliament

#793
post #735

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that interesting. Manipulation was targeted at people more susceptible to it. I expect that most racism/sexism/bigotry generally comes from prior manipulation too.

How do you know that other more major political stories is not the real product of manipulation [1] and these opposition movements are a symptom of problems not solved by a malfunctioning Democratic system? [1] https://youtu.be/bX3EZCVj2XA

They could be, but there is a much lower threshold to manipulate people who are close-minded. Almost everyone I've encountered who repeats racially charged headlines is LESS likely to have much personal experience with the people they feel so strongly about, even to the point of avoiding encounters with those people.

Re: Brexit Deal Fails in Parliament

#794

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you view us?

As bullies, tbh. Reading the history of American foreign policy, it’s difficult to see it otherwise. It’s one long list of screwing other countries to serve the interests of the American people. That list contains a lot of bungled operations so the goals weren’t achieved some of the time. America has had 0 issues propping up brutal, venal, self-serving dictators if it meant benefit to America. Examples include Iran,…

Is that Americans as a nation? Americans as a state? Americans as people? Americans as the leaders that claim to represent those people?

Re: Brexit Deal Fails in Parliament

#795
post #668

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The original intent? What original intent was that? Brexit was always light on detail, and that is coming home to roost. When pressed, most Brexit supporters I've spoken to show absolutely no interest in the dismal nitty gritty of politics, preferring to spout shallow platitudes like "why can't they just get on with it". The silence from chief Brexiteers Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson has been profoundly deafening.

There was no need for detail, because the WTO already provides a framework for trade agreements. That was the assumed state people voted on - talk of a deal came afterwards, and was considered by many to be an attempt to do "Brexit in name only", causing a situation where we're still obligated to the EU but no longer have any MEPs.

Stop trying to gaslight people with this garbage, it was never true that falling back to WTO rules was an intended destination after Brexit.

Re: Brexit Deal Fails in Parliament

#796
post #774

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not the voter’s fault. In a functioning democracy, there is a system to approve a text by popular vote instead of the usual parlement. So the question at such a vote should always be: “do you approve the proposed text?”, then the text becomes law. By organizing an abstract opinion poll, the government just prepared a shit show, there no way to make any significant chunk of the population happy, everybody had…

> This is not the voter’s fault. Yes it is. Asked "do you want to fundamentally change status quo in some random yet to be decided way that most experts warn you will result in chaos" population should have voted "no". Population would have voted "no" if just a few more young people cared enough to get their asses to the voting booths. The lessons from Brexit are the same as the lessons from Trump in USA, Kaczyński i…

While generally in agreement, the "youth didn't vote" scapegoating is incorrect - their turnout numbers were roughly the same as other demographics.

I really don't rate the Guardian for all of its content, this particular article explains well and is reasonably sourced

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jul/09/young-peopl...

Re: Brexit Deal Fails in Parliament

#797
post #790

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This should be a lesson for all voters across the world - think for a minute before voting. At least try to understand what you're voting on. We can blame all we want on the media, politicians etc etc, but in the end, we can't deny Brexit is the result of a properly, democratically conducted election - voters need to take at least some responsibility. No amount of "voters' remorse" is going to help now.

> is the result of a properly, democratically conducted election Hang on, one side was found to have lied and was fined for that.

BOTH sides lied. Both sides have been fined.

Re: Brexit Deal Fails in Parliament

#798

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This should be a lesson for all voters across the world - think for a minute before voting. At least try to understand what you're voting on. We can blame all we want on the media, politicians etc etc, but in the end, we can't deny Brexit is the result of a properly, democratically conducted election It's a shitshow for sure, but at least it's a democratic shitshow. Democracy isn't always a bed of roses, sometimes i…

> The EU council could have offered some reasonable concessions in order to remain, both before and after the referendum, but nada. The essential problem with the Brexit movement is that it's based not on what the EU is but on the distorted view on what the EU is. When you start tackling the specific complaints that people had, it often turns out that it was the British government who had the power to alter the polic…

Here are some specific complaints about the EU:

- Nobody in the UK ever voted for an external, supra-national government to have increasing control over numerous and increasing aspects of British life: farming, fishing, immigration, subsidies, etc. etc.

- The EU is openly talking about a unified army, implementation of a law requiring all members to join the Euro and 'tax harmonisation': the removal of sovereign countries to set their own tax policies.

- Oh I know you'll tell me elected chambers that elect councils that distribute swords allocating a table of 7 presidents who nominate a head hobbit but the EU is patently undemocratic: noone knows who's in it, what they do or how they got there. Turnout for EU elections runs around 25% in the UK: it's hardly a mandate from the people is it?

- The EU is very expensive to the UK which makes a net contribution of £9 billion / year. This is money that could be spent on hospitals, teachers, police, etc.

- I know you like the EU because you see it as some hippy, huggy federation of nations but the EU is increasingly right-wing and neo-liberal - you need only look at their criminal treatment of Greece to see that.

Re: Brexit Deal Fails in Parliament

#799
post #759
post #601

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of the reason the Eurozone's in the mess it is right now is that, for the most part, the EU didn't let the fact that the Euro was completely infeasible for particular countries get in the way of converting them over to it anyway. The UK wasn't the only country with similar problems, but others like Italy didn't opt out and are in a fine state now as a result. In that sense the British opt-out worked well for us.

By that logic the US shouldn't have a single currency, either. I get that a single currency is problematic. Arguably it is problematic even in the US, after all this time. But it doesn't necessarily follow that a single currency is fundamentally infeasible. The US isn't crippled because of it. By contrast, the poster gave a very concrete explanation why adoption of the Euro by the UK was [then] infeasible.

> By that logic the US shouldn't have a single currency, either.

The US is at least somewhat willing to tax money made in California and spend the takings in Michigan. Greece or Italy gets the worst of both worlds: they can't devalue their currency to make their industries competitive with Germany, but they don't receive much share of German taxes either.

Re: Brexit Deal Fails in Parliament

#800
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…

Absolutely this. The day brexit was being voted, I said I would eat my socks if brexit goes thru. The voters did vote for "leave" and my colleagues were wondering if I would really eat my socks. However, I told them this would never get passed thru the parliament. They will dilly dally, drag it along and dump it in the end saying it's too complicated. To solve any equation, just follow the money. Big business stand t…

Big money is already losing some money, AFAIK. I'm in Amsterdam and there's news every other week of a big company or organization moving to Amsterdam _already_, just in case brexit goes through.
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