561–570 of 745 posts
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There is a big difference between people legally arriving under a points system and people rowing themselves over to live illegally.
> people rowing themselves over to live illegally. Complete misdirection. It's lawful for asylum seekers to arrive by otherwise-unlawful transport. It'd be better if they didn't have to, of course.
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As a Welsh secessionist, I can't for the life of me square the idea of wanting to leave union that for all its massive faults is at least something you can understand and engage with, to replace that by joining a union that is distant, more artificial and certainly more vague and impenetrable to the common person. Why would you leave economic and political dominance by Westminster with no control over the economics o…
Despite the image that British media have carefully crafted, Brussels (and Frankfurt?) are far more democratic and competent governments than Westminster. It is only vague because British government has had a deliberate policy of keeping that so (you should read some memoirs of other-EU diplomats on the issue). Convolution of governing is such a British tradition, that unfortunately you believe it is both everywhere…
The idea that politicians in Brussels don't have vested interests, are not the result of heavy lobbying, are not seeking re-election, are not corruptible or of questionable moral standing is rather dangerous. There seems to be a heavy degree of Blue-Washing. Take a politician like Donald Tusk for example, someone who would be in the fringes of the socially conservative right in the UK, yet is venerated during the Brexit discussions. Or Micheal Barnier, again venerated amongst so called liberals in the UK, yet now calling for an immigration ban in France.
On the economic side. Yes everything is very convoluted and remote for a reason. Power structures always get taken over by the interests of capital. The idea that the EU / Euro / European central bank is any different is again rather dangerous. This is an institution with economic interests written into its constitution. The goal here is to drive down the costs of labour added with the maybe unintended or maybe intended consequence that the EU has spend 20 years dealing with the contradictions and artificial constraints on public spending of a currency that it has created, when it could have been using that time and effort to do something transformational, especially in the direction of green technology and energy.
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The union worked well as long as voters in Scotland and England voted similarly, but that hasn't been the case since the 1970s. Scottish voters only rarely influence the outcome of elections to the Westminster parliament, because even thought they vote differently, they only make up about 10% of the GB population (Northern Ireland has different political parties). Almost always, whatever the English electorate votes…
IMO any discussion about “fairness” is null and void while the U.K. has a FPTP electoral system. It’s inherently unfair and a poor representation of voters wishes, no matter which country they live in.
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It will encourage residents of poorer regions to travel to London, thus would likely disincentive economic investment in poorer regions. It would be better for the poorer regions to invest the HS2 money in local infrastructure and services.
In the Czech Republic, the most disadvantaged regions tend to be those where connections to Prague / Brno suck. It is not a 100 per cent correlation, but pretty strong. People leave them regardless and tend to come back less. Maybe Scotland is different, but around me, I haven't seen any region that was depopulated by having good rail infrastructure.
Scotland has a population growth issue. The last thing it needs to spend 10bn on, is shaving 10 mins of the journey time to london. That 10bn would be better spend on local infrasctructure.
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Yeah I guess it's just interesting because there's a difference between saying its "immoral" vs "illegal". An Act of Parliament has been passed (Nationality and Borders Act 2022) which gives the legal backing for this, explicitly says that refugees which still have a pending asylum application can be moved to a "safe third country" which is willing to take the asylum responsibilities. Does this change your mind that…
No for two reasons: - it might still violate the Human Rights Act - it’s still a matter for debate whether Rwanda is safe for refugees Just reading one Act isn’t enough because real life is complicated.
It being a matter for debate whether Rwanda is safe is, I think, not something the SC is going to rule on.
It violating the Human Rights Act seems to be the only real issue for the SC then? Again, I just wonder whether this policy is likely to be illegal under that Act given that the relevant clause says "No one shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment”. I just doubt that deportation would fall under torture, inhuman, or degrading treatment _in the spirit of this Act_. I agree that this policy is immoral but kind of doubt that the SC is going to find it tantamount to torture. But maybe there are other arguments here that I'm unaware of?
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Referenda that have a profound impact on your system of government should be rare. There is an impact on both economies in terms of investment and planning. They should be offered in a once in a generation basis. Many (most?) countries have constitutions that forbid splitting up the country. UK is pretty unusual in providing for a referendum of the type that happened in 2014.
Or, you know, require a supermajority instead of disenfranchising voters. You could vote once a day if you did not put the threshold at 50% plus 1.
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Despite the image that British media have carefully crafted, Brussels (and Frankfurt?) are far more democratic and competent governments than Westminster. It is only vague because British government has had a deliberate policy of keeping that so (you should read some memoirs of other-EU diplomats on the issue). Convolution of governing is such a British tradition, that unfortunately you believe it is both everywhere…
I think we should all have a healthy scepticism for leaders and politicians. We do tend to have that for those in Westminster. The idea that politicians in Brussels don't have vested interests, are not the result of heavy lobbying, are not seeking re-election, are not corruptible or of questionable moral standing is rather dangerous. There seems to be a heavy degree of Blue-Washing. Take a politician like Donald Tusk…
That is why I never said anything of the sort. Let's start fresh, shall we?
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One huge government ruling the entire world sounds out-of-this-world-super dystopian to me!
United Earth sounds super dystopian? https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/United_Earth
As a Brit that didn’t want Scotland to be independent last time around: good luck to them. Brexit has shown very clearly that Scotland wants to chart a different path to England and IMO they should be allowed to do it. …just be generous to English folks seeking asylum from Tory rule, yeah?
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For non-UK people: There are four nations in the UK (England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland). But England has roughly 90% of the population of the UK. So what England votes for in an all-nations referendum, the rest of the UK gets. England voted for Brexit by a narrow-ish majority. But Scotland voted against Brexit by a huge margin -- 62/38, or approximately 3:2. Ironically, the year before the Brexit referendum…
During the Brexit debacle, I joked with my Scottish ex-boss that, one day, Scotland will leave the UK, rejoin the EU, and then reabsorb the UK. And then the UK will be renamed United Kingdom of Scotland instead of United Kingdom of Great Britain. He laughed.