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Brexit Deal Fails in Parliament

nytimes.com

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Re: Brexit Deal Fails in Parliament

#851

Post by rezeroed »

leadingthenet wrote: post #430
sparkie wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They will make concessions. I'll put money on it. The UK leaving with no deal would be the beginning of the end of the EU. There is already growing anti-EU sentiment in Italy (4th largest economy in the block), Hungary, Austria, Poland. The UK leaving could set off a chain reaction which would either end the EU project or drastically reduce its size. The EU simply can't afford to have the UK leave completely, because…

This is ridiculous Brexiteer fantasy. The UK will have no measure of success in the short to medium term in a no deal scenario; it will be absolutely catastrophic. It's meaningless to speculate what might happen in a fantasy scenario a decade or more later, but we know for a fact that the UK would be initially hurt much more badly by no deal than the EU. If anything, no deal should convince Eurosceptics in other coun…

What nonsense. The people most worried about no deal are the Germans. You seem be missing much of what's going on around you. Pro-EU is pro-Titanic.

Re: Brexit Deal Fails in Parliament

#852

Post by dmurray »

nraynaud wrote: post #756
justaguyhere wrote: post #651

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.

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…

I don't see how this could reasonably have been done in the Brexit case. You would have to spend years negotiating the terms of the withdrawal first, then ask the people for a yea or nay. That negotiation would go totally differently if the UK government couldn't credibly claim it had a mandate from the people for the withdrawal.

Re: Brexit Deal Fails in Parliament

#853

Post by AstralStorm »

m_mueller wrote: post #844
_nalply wrote: post #817

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

be careful with that "neutral explanation". in the last one we got told that private agents hired by social insurances may only observe clients in public spaces, while the law text actually says "public spaces and what's observable from there". i.e. pretty much any Swiss inhabitant can now be put under surveillance in their private homes without any judge order.

This would be considered abuse and such interpretation would likely get thrown out as justification for active surveillance. The law pertains to truly passive surveillance only.

And trying to use such evidence in court could be repealed then as obtained illegally. (Surveillance without a warrant.) The spirit of the law is to allow reasonably incidental recording only. A zoom camera pointed at your window is not covered, neither are directional microphones etc.

Law is not an algorithm. It is executed by judges and jurors.

(Note: not a lawyer, this is not legal advice, etc.)

Re: Brexit Deal Fails in Parliament

#854

Post by NeedMoreTea »

collyw wrote: post #776
NeedMoreTea wrote: post #704

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whichever way one voted, we were sold a pup. Both sides lied. Which makes the case and result, either way, rather academic. Farage admitted the morning after the result that the £350m a week to the NHS was a lie. A promise that undoubtedly had considerable impact with the current austerity NHS funding crisis.

What lies did the remain side give? We know exactly what we were getting there, the same as what we have.

We knew what we were getting, but that is not what the campaign sold. Both sides ran overwhelmingly negative campaigns.

Ironic that remain was labelled Project Fear as the most direct lies were on the leave side - the £350m that is nowhere near and never has been, and the claims of mass Turkish immigration when Turkey isn't even in the EU stand out as easily memorable.

Remain were less blatant, but gave numerous predictions and estimates of the consequence of leaving. Some were reasonable, from good sources. Others appear to have been back of an envelope escalating wildness like that house prices would fall 10%, then 20, then 25% and more. Often very poor credibility sources but still repeated as though just as credible as the Treasury or BoE etc. Which just gave easy ammunition for the Mail etc.

Re: Brexit Deal Fails in Parliament

#855

Post by robertony »

_lbaq wrote: post #846
robertony wrote: post #838

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Brexit promise was to leave the EU and open better trading options with the rest of the world. Outside of the EU, there is no issue reducing VAT, customs fees etc. In fact, WTO rules even allow more competitive options between countries if the UK chooses to lower associated fees in the WTO. Additional the UK is able to negotiate trade deals for it's own interests rather than concerns about protectionism for the E…

>The Brexit promise was to leave the EU and open better >trading options with the rest of the world. One would think that the EU would be in a better position to get better deals than a single country.

> One would think that the EU would be in a better position to get better deals than a single country.

The EU has a history of being really slow at negotiating trade deals unfortunately.

Further, the EU enforces VAT fees and implements protectionism with these methods to favour EU-based businesses, even when no EU competitors exist. These fees have a trendency to reduce economic activity within the EU and prevent cheaper alterantives from outside of the EU being effective as they end up becoming a similar prices or more expensive when the customs fees are applied (despite trying to pass on the savings from signficantly lower production/service costs with less gross income than an EU company which results in a similarly priced product that the customer sees).

Even with a worse trade deal than the EU, the UK can stand to benefit because it won't be required to tack expensive fees on top for the purposes of protectionism of industries that may not even be in the UK to begin with.

Re: Brexit Deal Fails in Parliament

#856

Post by kristianc »

ajuc wrote: post #774
nraynaud wrote: post #756

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…

> Population would have voted "no" if just a few more young people cared enough to get their asses to the voting booths.

I don't understand the need to youth-bash here. Turnout for young people was pretty similar to that of older demographics. There was a generational gap in how people voted, but not so much in whether they voted or not. [1]

https://www.opinium.co.uk/did-young-people-bother-to-vote-in...

In fact, turnout was 64% among 18-24 year olds and 65% among 25-39 year old, which is closer to the population average than could have been expected.

Re: Brexit Deal Fails in Parliament

#857

Post by rezeroed »

workmandan wrote: post #783
growlist wrote: post #474

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The EU's plan from the start has been to make the process so painful as to dissuade anyone else from trying. Martin Selmayr was boasting that he has managed to trap the UK.

As they rightly should! I voted remain and would do so again in a heartbeat but if you have an exclusive members only club what use is it if leaving has no consequences? The UK most certainly should be punished if it leaves the EU. Otherwise you undermine the entire organisation.

You would obviously lose the advantages, but why should it be difficult to leave, or punishable? Next you'll be suggesting job resignations should include a fine.

Re: Brexit Deal Fails in Parliament

#858

Post by roenxi »

mirimir wrote: post #724
asabjorn wrote: post #709

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is interesting how any movement in opposition to globalism is caused by Russia, and any opponent of the progressivism pushing for this is obviously an racist/sexist/bigot. It is interesting how all the yellow jackets, the maga folks, and the brexiters are all brutes easily influenced by nepharious forces against their own good. Especially when others manipulate their sometimes violent primitive tendencies. It is i…

You're arguing against a strawman. So do you think that nations don't intervene covertly in other nations? What about the US in Iran (1953) or Chile (60s)? And so why is it so improbable that Russia is doing it? And recall the study by Prof. Igor Panarin (former KGB analyst) predicting that the US will fragment. Maybe it's more like a game plan.

Occam's Razor suggests that the people who voted for Brexit didn't think that they were receiving net benefits from the EU. I'm pretty sure the net financial transfer is Britain sends more money to the EU than they get back, so it is easy to see why a tax-paying voter might feel that way.

There is an argument that this view is too simplistic and that the trade situation is complicated; but it seems a lot more plausible than a Russian conspiracy to ... do something.

There is always some level of background interference by foreign nations (as an Australian I shudder to think how much influence the US must have over Australia's politics in practice) but typically it would be cheaper to buy off or otherwise influence entrenched politicians rather than try to influence popular votes. I expect the Russians can figure that out too.

Re: Brexit Deal Fails in Parliament

#859

Post by hkt »

kristianc wrote: post #850
_lbaq wrote: post #846

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The Brexit promise was to leave the EU and open better >trading options with the rest of the world. One would think that the EU would be in a better position to get better deals than a single country.

> One would think that the EU would be in a better position to get better deals than a single country. One would think, but the EU has been trying and failing to secure any kind of a trade deal with the US, largely due to Europe's instinctive love of protectionism.

protectionism/standards.

Remember, our cheese doesn't come out of a tube, usually.

Re: Brexit Deal Fails in Parliament

#860

Post by AstralStorm »

robertony wrote: post #835
gpvos wrote: post #698

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The UK already had so many opt-outs and rebates compared to all other members, there really wasn't that much room for more concessions, certainly not of the type that the UK "leavers" wanted.

Some "leavers" just want to trade with the rest of the world with flexibility and not be bound to the EU. It's a hard argument to make that the EU is better when "leavers" compare the economic growth of the EU, which employs protectionism to prevent easy trading with outside of the EU when comparing the potential trade deals with the rest of world outside of the EU, without the need for VAT etc.

"Flexibility" such as small negotiating position of weakness and having to negotiate trade and tariffs with every important trade partner directly from such position.

Small is not beautiful in global trade.

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