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Brexit Deal Fails in Parliament

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Re: Brexit Deal Fails in Parliament

#981
post #258
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…

>The Brexit promise is something nobody can deliver on.. I would - respectfully - point out that's not the situation. It is (was?) a promise in the sense that the government is there to enact the will of the people. The majority of people who voted, voted to leave (personally I was in the minority). So now (in engineering terms) it's pretty simple. If everyone sits on their hands, the UK will leave the UK as schedule…

The government is there to enact the will of the manifesto it proclaimed prior to an election. Representative government does not mean that the wishes of the majority outweight the rights of the minority.

There is no requirement of government that it allows the nation to commit political and economical suicide.

All of the modelling, by all sides, show that Brexit will cause economic damage to the UK (and the EU).

The only answer the Brexiters have is that they have an unfounded belief that somehow, the UK, a relatively small market, with under-developed non-EU export industries, has some sort of comparative advantage in trade negotiations that will somehow lead to greater economic benefits in the long term.

All of the promises during the referendum (not legally binding on Parliament) by the Leave campaign have proven to be completely and utterly false.

So the "Brexit promise" of the Leavers is definitely something that nobody can deliver on. The act of leaving the EU is possible, the promises of the results of that are not.

Re: Brexit Deal Fails in Parliament

#982
post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More importantly the government cannot deliver both "Brexit" and "business continuity", potentially including such things as "food and medical supplies". This is gradually dawning on even the dimmest Cabinet ministers.

That is not true in general. I accept that this government cannot. It is perfectly feasible to leave the European Union and remain within EEA, gaining control of laws that do not relate to maintenance of European standards and maintaining business continuity.

It was feasible, had the government started 2 years ago.

As for gaining control of laws, the primary complaint was the free movement of EU citizens, the UK wanted its cake (the right to move freely in the EU) and eat it (but control who came from the EU to the UK).

The equivalent stupidity would be for the Scottish devolved parliament to demand free movement of Scottish citizens in England while establishing immigration controls at the Scottish/English border.

Re: Brexit Deal Fails in Parliament

#983
post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More importantly the government cannot deliver both "Brexit" and "business continuity", potentially including such things as "food and medical supplies". This is gradually dawning on even the dimmest Cabinet ministers.

The idea that food and medical supplies will disappear is completely wrong and has already been debunked by, amongst other people, the head of the NHS. This is especially true because being in the EU actually increases food costs due to the common external tariff. The only reason food imports would slow is if the government wanted them to, which it doesn't. The illogical and ridiculous predictions that somehow the on…

> The UK survived the rest of Europe trying to literally conquer it.

I don't think you understand the literal meaning of "literally".

The UK chose to join the EU. It has chosen to leave. That means it will have to comply with the rules the EU has for nations not part of the EU.

For some reason, the Brexiters seem to follow the "Fog in Channel, Continent cut off" idea that the UK has control over what the EU has to accept after it has left.

Re: Brexit Deal Fails in Parliament

#984
post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A "no deal" outcome, which is clearly bad, is still the best thing brexiters can actually deliver. It could go much much worse than just "bad". The UK imports a lot of food from EU neighbors. In case of a hard Brexit, this will just ... stop. The question is whether all supermarkets can immediately redo their supply chains. That is not likely. Especially since the UK will loose all trade agreements with the non-EU…

I think this is a ridiculous claim. Are you saying the UK is going to stop food coming across its border when it is to the clear benefit of it's citizens? That is ridiculous. The UK will suspend ALL customs operations before it does that. The bureaucratic state is kind of broken but not that broken.

What about the EUs export custom operations? Exporting to the UK is currently intra-EU. Exporting to the UK post-Brexit is ex-EU.

The rules on VAT alone will be enough to clog the ports. Are the trucks covered by insurance if they leave the EU? Are the drivers licenses valid? What about when the trucks return? Are they being re-imported?

It's not the concept of leaving that is the problem, it's all of the "etc".

Re: Brexit Deal Fails in Parliament

#985
post #774

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

1. vote 2. don't vote populists Poe's law again. What's up with these posts? Voting, at its core, is a popularity contest. How exactly do you NOT vote for populists?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Populism

> Daniele Albertazzi and Duncan McDonnell define populism as an ideology that "pits a virtuous and homogeneous people against a set of elites and dangerous 'others' who are together depicted as depriving (or attempting to deprive) the sovereign people of their rights, values, prosperity, identity, and voice".

I don't have problems recognizing politicians propagating such views. Do you?

Re: Brexit Deal Fails in Parliament

#986

Earlier quoted context omitted.

BOTH sides lied. Both sides have been fined.

Sorry, I don’t remember the remain campaign being taken to court over lies, or being fined for such. Could you link to those occurrences?

There are plenty of examples if you bother to search, e.g. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-41649995 and https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-42411144

Re: Brexit Deal Fails in Parliament

#987

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…

That's what Switzerland does. Just today I voted about an energy act, a police act and a residence planning act. I admit that I didn't study the law texts carefully. Instead I read the neutral explanation of the government and both explanations of the pro and contra committees and decided whether the reasonings convinced me or not. So even in Switzerland you could get the proverbial shit show if someone managed to co…

My issue is that people vote based on the fact that they become convinced by other parties instead of developing their own opinions by trying to understand the ramifications of a law. Not saying this is right or wrong, laws are written in a non friendly way so it is not easily understandable by most but I wish more people tried to do the research themselves.

Re: Brexit Deal Fails in Parliament

#988
post #789

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never seen anything in the Brexit campaign saying that the goal was to fall back to WTO rules between UK and EU.

That's because it's the default position after leaving the EU trading block.

Just like the Geneva Convention is the default position when there is no peace treaty.

Nonetheless, having that be the only thing governing one state's relationships with another is so rare and unpleasant that unless that state of affairs is explicitly requested with a declaration of war it is natural to assume something else is intended.

Re: Brexit Deal Fails in Parliament

#989

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a difference: If A, then result would NEVER be realistically contested If B, then result COULD be realistically contested No one would argue that if the vote were stay, we'd be seeing it again. It wouldn't happen. Not even maybe. But since the underdog won, since leave won, it is now contestable. I'm on this fence on this one, and I don't live there, so I don't have a side. But I do see each side's points.

> But since the underdog won, since leave won, it is now contestable. As much as our friends in parliament sometimes make it out to be, it is not purely a match. There is no "underdog" in Brexit; there is one team, the UK, with two options: remain or leave. Choosing a bad option affects everyone equally (except a few career politicians). With all the shouting and finger pointing it's easy to lose track of this fact:…

It sounds like your post is arguing without actually contradicting anything I said.

I mean, your post basically is: Why can't we all just get along.

While it's a noble feeling, the reality is society is fractious, and for complex and nuanced decisions such as brexit there are people who will net-net benefit and people who will net net see detriment. And 'leave option' was the underdog, you might not like to admit it but, the financial and betting markets saw it as such objectively. I'm not sure why you feel the need to try and deny this.

Re: Brexit Deal Fails in Parliament

#990

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who are governed ultimately by the Prime Minister. So they do what she tells them to, ultimately making her the most important person.

Actually, I believe the armed forces of the UK actually take an oath of allegiance to the ruling monarch rather than to the state/government - I did think this didn't mean very much but I have raised the point with a serving army officer and he was rather insistent that they take it seriously: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oath_of_Allegiance_(United_Kin...

This is easily the most interesting conversation that's spawned out of this whole Brexit Clusterfuck. Thank you!
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