31–40 of 70 posts
I'm not sure if the author is in the "denial" stage or the "bargaining" stage of grief. The outcome of the vote is an absolute travesty, and I don't understand the intricacies of EU politics, but everything I've seen gives me the impression that this is a done deal.
Brexit vote expressed people disagreement with bureaucracy and corruption like this, not with being a part of Europe.
Brexit was all about stopping Muslims from coming to the UK and kicking out people with brown skin. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jan/30/it-is-terri...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nonsense. This type of criticism is unwarranted and I suspect disingenuous. There are lots of contexts in which we can say we would like to see more data. However, when someone is making a point which is a fairly standard one in the Brexit debates we don't need "references". Nor would referring to an article that said the same thing as OP somehow validate the point. There is a place for asking for references, but on…
Leading up to the Brexit vote, there was famously a bus driving around expressing the idea that voting to leave would result in a savings of 350 million pounds per week, which could be reinvested in the NHS. I don't think there was a bus about bureaucracy.
https://fullfact.org/europe/350-million-week-boris-johnson-s...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Listening to people that voted for Brexit has shown me that they voted for it for many reasons. This is one of the reasons that people have given me. Furthermore this is a reason that many remainers were not able to push the case for remain strongly enough.
> This is one of the reasons that people have given me. Which by definition means it wasn't the only reason, which proves kozikow's comment to be untrue.
It's a commonly cited gripe. I suspect it often comes from people entirely unfamiliar with EU processes, but who don't like EU membership or the idea of EU membership for other reasons and since it's a commonly cited gripe (and also doesn't mention immigrants, and has a pro-democratic connotation) they use it themselves.
It would be strange that no one in this thread has ever heard a Brexiteer cite bureaucracy and corruption, but I fear it's an urge to insist that the only reason that anybody voted for Brexit was racism to delegitimatize leaver votes or even the possibility of debate between two good people on the subject. I fear that attitude will not convert many previous leavers to new remainers in any future people's vote.
I suggest not bothering with arguments against racism, which racists will have heard before and dismissed, looking at left-wing arguments against EU membership from the 70s, and responding to those.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nonsense. This type of criticism is unwarranted and I suspect disingenuous. There are lots of contexts in which we can say we would like to see more data. However, when someone is making a point which is a fairly standard one in the Brexit debates we don't need "references". Nor would referring to an article that said the same thing as OP somehow validate the point. There is a place for asking for references, but on…
Leading up to the Brexit vote, there was famously a bus driving around expressing the idea that voting to leave would result in a savings of 350 million pounds per week, which could be reinvested in the NHS. I don't think there was a bus about bureaucracy.
(It also says "Free business from EU red tape - Margot Parker MEP".)
Brexit vote expressed people disagreement with bureaucracy and corruption like this, not with being a part of Europe.
This is the current problem that the UK is facing with Brexit.
People have an array of gripes that all landed under the "Brexit" umbrella. The problem is that some of those gripes are in direct opposition to one another, but it didn't matter because "Brexit" was magically going to fix it.
However, now that you have to reduce to implementation, you can't get anybody to agree on the concrete of what "Brexit" should actually encompass.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
In Westminster the voting system means you have to leave the chamber and go through into another room. Takes about 15 minutes. You get MPs that vote both yes and no. People saying they “made a mistake” only say such a thing because they regret it - they’ve probably never had anyone contact them about which way they voted in the past.
I'm not sure how a different chamber votes is all that relevant. > You get MPs that vote both yes and no. Do you? I've not heard of many issues with the process apart from things typically hundreds of years ago. > People saying they “made a mistake” only say such a thing because they regret it Or because they actually did make a mistake.
Occasionally, yes.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-21591602
>I've not heard of many issues with the process apart from things typically hundreds of years ago.
We've had some serious issues recently with pairing. MPs cannot vote in absentia for any reason. The informal process of pairing allows an ill or otherwise unavoidably absent MP to be paired with an opposition MP, who will agree not to vote and so cancel out the absent MP. Brexit has led to a number of broken pairing agreements, which could have seriously undermined the legitimacy of a close vote.
https://theconversation.com/pairing-and-why-it-matters-in-th...
A broader issue is simply the slow pace of voting; a division can take at least 15 minutes, so the vast majority of votes are taken orally in the house without a formal count. There are long-standing concerns about the ability of back-bench MPs to vote with their conscience; MPs physically have to walk past their party whips to enter the lobby, which some argue contributes to a culture of bullying and intimidation.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/dec/15/rumours-of-...
I'm not sure if the author is in the "denial" stage or the "bargaining" stage of grief. The outcome of the vote is an absolute travesty, and I don't understand the intricacies of EU politics, but everything I've seen gives me the impression that this is a done deal.
Just curious why you think upholding copyright is a travesty?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If this issue is real (and it seems plausible to me) then destroying the EU from the inside might very well be an honorable thing to do.
It most certainly isn't plausible. Have you ever seen any livestreams or full recordings of parliamentary sessions? Not necessary from EP. They are voting whether to have 10 minute break. They are voting whether to accept the daily schedule. They are voting whether to follow with the next point in the schedule. They are voting whether to start voting. Those are the ones voted by raising your hands. Those are the ones…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2YYiig_s9w
I will summarise the claims in the videos.
• Many votes on amendments (not bathroom breaks) are done via quick visual inspection of the room, not electronic vote. It's possible to challenge the outcome and request an electronic vote instead: the video shows many examples of instances where this led to the vote result being inverted i.e. the visual inspection was wrong. In one case the chairman challenges the request for an electronic recount after an amendment was rejected by saying "Usually amendments from Mr Schaffhauser don't find the majority" followed by "good thing we checked ... amendment 247 has been accepted".
• A convention has evolved whereby the chairman doing the visual inspection doesn't even look at the room, and only looks at the leaders of the main parties. The EP frequently assumes everyone will vote with their party leader so there's no point in even checking their actual votes at all. The video contains a clip of the chairman who counts the votes explaining to this MEP that he can clearly see the party leaders so what's the problem.
• In some cases the chairman doesn't even look up from their papers before announcing the results, i.e. votes aren't counted at all.
• Because amendment votes aren't actually being counted, they happen so fast translators can't reliably keep up with the process, such that sometimes by the time the translators have said what the vote is about voting has already closed.
• This happens because the EU Parliament has no real power and the amendments are largely useless, so nobody takes the process seriously. Many people don't bother to raise their hands at all. There are nonetheless lots of votes and MEPs because it inflates the stats and makes the EU look more democratic. A clip is shown of an MEP saying "bear in mind we're in the middle of the world cup so shall we not call for a check".
• Sessions are videoed but the cameras don't show the whole room so you can't actually check how many people voted.
• There is a widespread attitude that none of this matters.
I'm not very surprised by all this myself, because the biggest problem is not even mentioned in the video: the votes are shoddily done because they can't by themselves change the law. They can only do what the Commission lets them do. It's not a real parliament, it just calls itself that.
Seems there's another video in native English that shows other (British) MEPs getting angry about the same problems
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just curious why you think upholding copyright is a travesty?
Regardless if you think "copyright" increases or decreases quality of life, it is irrefutable that it violates Natural rights. If I memorize an illegal number [1], then I've made an copy that the corporate/state doesn't allow and consequently, I no longer own my body. Enforcement of copyright breaks the NAP. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_number
The concept is problematic enough here in the US, where our founding documents assume that rights are granted by a deity who rarely bothers to put in an appearance when said rights are being violated. It's best to find more rational bases than "natural rights" for arguments like copyright reform, if at all possible.