161–170 of 173 posts
Just a reminder though, economic predictions are known to sometimes be wrong. And calm your tits everyone, this is such a contentious matter. Both sides don't know what the future will bring, it's probably neither a disaster nor a panacea. At least it hasn't been so far, despite being known as a definite inevitability for 3 years.
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It's like voting over whether vaccines work or not... Some things should be left to experts. This is the major criticism of direct democracy.
Indeed. A recent poll was quoted on yesterday's "Any Questions?" show on BBC Radio 4 by a Brexiteer, which apparently asked the public "should MPs represent their own views or those of their constituents?". Some small number of voters - I forget, but it was around 7% - thought they should represent their own views and the rest thought those of their constituents. This was, in the Brexiteer's view, evidence that MPs d…
I don’t really buy the expertise argument. Who gets to choose the experts?
For me it’s about accountability. If you want to get a job done, vote for a party that has that thing in their manifesto, and hold them to delivering on it. The problem with direct democracy is, who is responsible for delivering the policies? How can they be accountable for the outcome, if they didn’t formulate or even agree with the policy?
Choose a government and then let them govern. Scrutinise them, challenge them, hold them to account on the things they committed to. That’s how our (British) democracy should work. The reason we’re in this mess is because parliament is being coerced into implementing a policy most parliamentarians disagree with, and even the interpretation of what the referendum meant is up for grabs.
If we can’t agree anything else, can we at least agree not to do anything this way again?
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Elected politicians are not specialists in the issues they vote on. They're specialists in winning elections.
> Elected politicians are not specialists in the issues they vote on. Insofar as the things they vote on are laws and they are disproportionately professionals in law, that's not entirely true.
In the US, the rules that govern the law are set by judges, not by representatives.
Just a reminder though, economic predictions are known to sometimes be wrong. And calm your tits everyone, this is such a contentious matter. Both sides don't know what the future will bring, it's probably neither a disaster nor a panacea. At least it hasn't been so far, despite being known as a definite inevitability for 3 years.
I dunno. If I was British, I’d be hanging on to my nuts reaaal tight or maybe look into selling the left one
They were completely wrong. Not just wrong by magnitude, but wrong in the wrong direction. The economy boomed.
This sort of report was written by civil servants who hate Brexit and want it to die, for ministers who hate Brexit and were looking for reasons to cancel it all together. It has no credibility, simple as that.
Many British people do remember this, and have watched for the last three years as their political leadership mendaciously manipulate things as hard as they can to try and avoid doing what they said they'd do. That's why polls show "no deal" to be significantly more popular than, for example, the opposition party taking over.
Political opposition leaked a scare document? Welcome to politics.
Does it really matter who leaked them if content is true?
The civil service has previously published reports like this. They turned out to be totally wrong. There's a serious and important element of cry wolf here, especially because the previous cabinet that the report was written for were working against leaving. Lots of stuff coming out in recent weeks about how ministers were saying they were preparing and ready to leave without a deal but actually blocking attempts to prepare and telling foreign leaders they'd never leave.
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> slow but inexorable yielding of power to unelected officials of the E.U. ...despite the fact that no EU rules can go into force in any EU state without that state passing a law to make it happen within its borders. And despite the rather pointless European Parliament, the real decisions are made by the elected heads of member state governments, when they meet as the European Council. So after Brexit the new boss wi…
It is not quite true. Certain things can indeed be implemented without a local law being passed in parliament. But that is very rarely used, and when used it is for actual important stuff that a lot of people would agree is a good thing.
The reality is the goal of the EU is to replace national governments. That replacement provides an illusion of democracy but without actually being democratic. Just go read the various statements of the people who control the European apparatus, or witness how the people's primary concerns as measured by opinion polls are simply ignored in Brussels (which does the opposite in fact).
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I dunno. If I was British, I’d be hanging on to my nuts reaaal tight or maybe look into selling the left one
If you were British, you'd remember that these are the same people who assured the population that simply voting to leave would trigger a massive recession that'd destroy half a million jobs in the best case, before leaving actually happened, just due to "uncertainty". They were completely wrong. Not just wrong by magnitude, but wrong in the wrong direction. The economy boomed. This sort of report was written by civi…
Citation needed?
How about this: https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/brexit/2019/03/21/economic-performan...
"Relative to G7 countries, however, the UK has slipped from having the highest growth rate in the G7 before the vote, to the lowest now (OBR 2018)."
"Worryingly, the gap between output per worker in OECD countries and the UK has widened since the referendum"
"On referendum night, the pound fell from a high of $1.50 to $1.33. This is the single biggest drop in the daily exchange rate since the 1970s among the four major currencies of the world. The sterling depreciation was expected by some to spark an export boom, but this has not happened."
"The fallout of higher import costs has to a degree fallen on UK workers in terms of lower earnings now and in the future through fewer skill development opportunities."
"Purchasing power has gone down. On average, real wages have been flat since the referendum. Nominal wages have risen, but below the previous 2% norm (ONS 2018). Consumer prices have risen to reduce real wages. Inflation rose sharply after the referendum and remained high till recently."
"Overall, the real economy shows signs of productivity and real wage stagnation, which has taken the UK much lower than other high-income countries since the Brexit referendum."
Lucky us eh! With our booming economy! Personally, I've found that running a business working almost exclusively with charities and non-profits, that since the vote it has been much harder to get our clients to spend money.
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I dunno. If I was British, I’d be hanging on to my nuts reaaal tight or maybe look into selling the left one
If you were British, you'd remember that these are the same people who assured the population that simply voting to leave would trigger a massive recession that'd destroy half a million jobs in the best case, before leaving actually happened, just due to "uncertainty". They were completely wrong. Not just wrong by magnitude, but wrong in the wrong direction. The economy boomed. This sort of report was written by civi…
I do think it’s funny tho. Lol.
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> but it is still up to individuals to choose to use them for themselves It should not be. If they represented the Brexit correctly, and instead asked the real question “Would you like your life to get worse in pretty much every possible way?”, then how many people would have voted yes?
It should not be up to individuals to decide whether to buy an apple or invite someone into their home? Your rephrasing is not only hyperbolic but also just a theory. Obviously people would answer no. You might assume people are dumber than they are. Perhaps they are weighing factors you are not which lead them to believe that brexit will not have the outcome you think it will.
> Perhaps they are weighing factors you are not which lead them to believe that brexit will not have the outcome you think it will.
I am almost positive this is the case, but I unfortunately doubt that most of those factors are grounded in reality.
I don’t believe there are many experts that believe Brexit is in any way a good thing, and for me those opinions just hold a lot more weight than those of populist politicians.
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EU is more than just a trade agreement and there is nothing preventing trade agreements between the UK and the EU from being developed post-brexit.
After leaving, the UK will be in a weak negotiating position. Recession is almost certain, and even using an existing trade deal like CETA as a basis will take multiple years to negotiate because of the current UK red lines, like controlling their own immigration policy. Canada had to adjust their immigration policy for several EU countries to get CETA. The UK will be over a barrel and will have to make major concess…