Laughing
Well-known member
If you say so LittleJimmy
Who the f**** needs Europe. We have all we need here.
- Thread starter Trug
- Start date
NYboro
Well-known member
All of that would be better addressed from within the EU and the Euro-Zone is irrelevant as we were never going to be in it.
BoroMart
Well-known member
It was clear Johnson was being lined up many years ago, it was also clear that it was simply a cult of personality rather than any actual ability. The press have made politics largely about personality rather than policy and the last election was the absolute epitome of that. Where a bumbling idiot won, in spite of his policies being largely not clear, Corbyn, like or loath him had clear policies on most things that were actually well supported, but he was like watching drying paint. The one exception was brexit....which, could be argued was a cult of personality in itself, either a UK personality as a world power, or individual as in the loud and boisterous Farage, JRM and others, it certainly wasn't a well thought out coherent strategy for a better UK.
You are right the immigration angle should never have been an issue, European immigrants have been good for prosperity, the electorate didn't understand teh difference between middle east and european immigrants.
May failed, because she was terrible. Johnson has succeeded, in that he isn't interested in a deal. His orders are to get us out, if the EU were to buckle and beg with a deal that was bad for them and great for us, sure he'd think about it. But the money for the few is to be made with post-brexit trade with the US. It'll harm the masses, but line the pockets of a few thousand very rich people. Johnson has a short life span as a leader simply because he isn't intellectually or morally armed to do the job. Once the cult starts to evaporate, and it is quickly due to the failure of handling covid, then he knows his days are numbered. He is clinging on by hiding.
But all of this (bar the double whammy of covid) was utterly predictable. When you had different members of the tory party arguing for different things, but they put ERG people in key positions, it was absolutely abundantly clear that they were going for no deal.
I find it amusing that you were against the political machinations of the EU parliament, but happy to return power and control to our sad show of a democratic system. We are not represented in parliament properly due to a two party system and first past the post. There is little to no scrutiny of the MPs honesty, corruption, morality, business links. We have an unelected House of Lords that have political power through favours to Boris or birthright into a rich family, and then we have royal family with their thousands of hectares of land, billions in property, offshored money, well0healed old money connections, and unaccounted influence over the political landscape. This is far far more corrupt and unaccounted than the EU parliament.
NYboro
Well-known member
^^^^^ This.
SmallTown
Well-known member
Common security and defence policy - whilst as it stands it doesn't concern me that much, but it has changed over time and will continue to change, I don't want another super power on the planet.
Agreed and a fair point. Although we no longer have power of Veto over, say, the formation of a european army.
European Commission - my MEP cannot propose legislation, they can, of course veto legislation, but cannot propose it, that is shocking state of affairs for a democracy.
My MP can neither propose or veto UK legislation currently.
European Commission - I don't like the way it is elected and with respect to the point above we do not know how the commission will be formed before casting votes in a European election.
Is it better, or worse, than having Dominic Cummings in charge of things with no recourse to his actions?
I don't agree with the fiscal power the EU has over the Euro-Zone and the punitive actions it can take when a member state falls outside of the regulations for membership of the Euro-Zone
Not relevant to us in the UK as we aren't members of the eurozone
Laughing
Well-known member
BoroMart, I won't quote your post. On the subject of Johnson, I never thought he could win an election, how can the electorate be dumb enough, I asked myself?
On the subject of EU politics v UK politics, I have to live with one, I was given a choice about the other. Of course I don't like what Johnson is doing, but I have to live with it for the next 3.5 years, unfortunately. The two have nothing to do with each other.
On the subject of EU politics v UK politics, I have to live with one, I was given a choice about the other. Of course I don't like what Johnson is doing, but I have to live with it for the next 3.5 years, unfortunately. The two have nothing to do with each other.
Laughing
Well-known member
ST I answered your main question about Cummings in my response to BoroMart. I think MEP's can veto legislation, though not on their own, obviously.
The EZ - Yeah I do care and whilst it is not politically relevant to the UK, I don't like what we (the eu) did to Greece
The EZ - Yeah I do care and whilst it is not politically relevant to the UK, I don't like what we (the eu) did to Greece
Laughing
Well-known member
The responses I have gotten are the reason I don't argue about this anymore. Yes our government is corrupt, yes if we had a seat at the EU table we could change from within, but it never has, and the EZ is not my problem. Well that sort of depends on whether you find bullying acceptable, I dont
BoroMart
Well-known member
Greece did it to themselves by having had decades of uber corrupt national politicans......that's where we are now headed. The handing out of contracts to mates and subverting of process, and persistent lying and dishonesty to cover real policy is exactly what made Greece bankrupt. It was not the EUs doing, and it was not their role to bail them out, but they did.
SmallTown
Well-known member
It's fine to car about the euro zone. It's not really a reason for supporting Brexit though is it? With it not being relevant to our membership of the EU.
Laughing
Well-known member
First, why am I bothering?
OK ST what happened with Greece concerns me because I don't want to be a member of that particular club.
BoroMart, I don't disagree that Greece did it to themselves, their political class did it to the common man, the common man suffered and I think there were other ways to deal with it. Greece were desperate to stay in the EZ for the EZ bailout which made it easy for the rest of the EZ to bully Greece, it was punitive and used as a warning to other member states.
SmallTown
Well-known member
Because it's a debate? You're one of the very few people (and only person on this site) who actually can justify your reasons for voting brexit. That still doesn't mean we have to agree with those reasons or can't provide counter arguments to support our desire to rejoin the EU.
Laughing
Well-known member
The vast majority of people are so entrenched in their viewpoint that debate becomes meaningless, the EU are corrupt - So are the Tories, THe European Commission are un-democratic, so is our parliament and so on. Because our government is crap doesn't mean I want to stay under an umbrella of a poor organization. The arguments coming back aren't really very strong and are all about comparisons, which they shouldn't be.
I was asked why I voted to leave the EU and I gave some of those reasons. comparing those reasons by saying our government is crap is just no argument at all, it wasn't the EU or the Tories. It was the EU and the Tories or just the Tories.
I was asked why I voted to leave the EU and I gave some of those reasons. comparing those reasons by saying our government is crap is just no argument at all, it wasn't the EU or the Tories. It was the EU and the Tories or just the Tories.
Adi_Dem
Well-known member
But you accept, presumably, that:
1. Any expansion of the CDSP would need to be ‘compatible’ with NATO policy;
2. Any such expansion of the CDSP would require a unanimous decision of the European Council (giving the UK a right of veto) and even if there was such unanimity such decision would then need to be ratified by a referendum, as set out in section 6(2) of the European Union Act 2011?
In which case the risks are really pretty low of any significant steps in that direction.
Again, you presumably accept that:
1. There are over 750 MEPs and giving each of them individually the power to propose legislation would be unworkable and unwieldy and slow the machine down to a crawl.
2. The power to amend the EU's constitution is reserved to the member states i.e. the government we elect;
3. As you acknowledge we have significant and extensive veto rights and a lot of influence to shape the legislation proposed;
4. It is not dissimilar in our own Parliament in which MP's can introduce Bills but ultimately getting laws on the statute book is really a matter of scrutiny, majority and committee.
So again I am not sure this really stands up to scrutiny as a major problem. The mechanics of legislating within the EU framework might not allow for individual MEPs to propose legislation (not that we seem to care enough to vote in any number for MEPs anyway even if it did) but they certainly afford us significant influence, certainly more than almost any other EU member state. We are in a uniquely privileged position in that respect.
What is it that you don't like about it? To me it is a pretty robust process which results in people of the right competence being appointed in the right roles. Such appointments require a majority vote and each is scrutinised.
How does this affect the UK to prompt a Leave vote?
Laughing
Well-known member
Nice to talk to you again Adi - OK Yes that is correct as it stands today with respect to NATO. The requirement for a unanimous vote doesn't impress me very much in terms of the UK vetoing such action, the smaller nations will be bullied and cajoled into agreement so really the decision is based on the top 4 or 5 member states. Secondly, the point about NATO would become invalid if we became a single state, and the UK have demonstrated in the past they are prepared to ignore UN resolutions and by extension NATO limitations.
Why can't they propose legislation, anyone in parliament can put forward legislation and there are 650 of them. The argument is a little straw that we don't seem to care enough, I cannot change that.
Yes we do have a bigger influence than most other member states, did't stop Cameron coming back from the european parliament with his tail between his legs on numerous occasions.
As I said Adi, we have had all these arguments before, you don't agree with me, which is fine, I do wonder though, had we not had a referendum and these arguments had been hypothetical whether people would have disagreed with me so strongly. I don't know.
Anyway good to have you back, we argued all the time, but it was always a good clean fight.
Adi_Dem
Well-known member
But a failure to veto would have to be ratified by referendum in the UK. Surely it doesn't get any more democratic than that? Isn't that the signficant safeguard you're looking for?
Well because it is 650 MPs within one state government and opposing MPs all of which are controlled by the Parliamentary process. 750 MEPs spread across 27 member states is a bit different. I don't see why this is such a big issue anyway to be honest. I accept you do but I genuinely don't see how it can be construed as anti-democratic or a reason to want to leave the EU.
Usually because Cameron along with May and Johnson thereafter were asking for things that could not be delivered. Self imposed red lines that ran contrary to anything the EU member states could contemplate. One country failing to impose its will on the other member states is evidence of EU democracy in action rather than evidence against it.
I can only speak personally. I have had these debates for a couple of decades now. Studied the EU at Uni (from a legal perspective anyway) and so all I can say is that categorically I haven't changed my views on many things and was debating these very things in the run up to the referendum.
Always happy to engage with someone that comes at it from a reasonable and respectful standpoint. You're a good egg in that respect.
Lefty
Well-known member
I'm not surprised many people did not realise it, because there was a long legacy of lies about this and even more during the referendum campaign, but the UK had in fact a bigger influence than ANY other EU state.
The University of Gothenburg studied this. They asked member state's official in the committees and working groups in the EU Council:
“Which member states do you most often co-operate with in order to develop a common position?”
As you will see from the table composed from the answers, the UK came top. We were the biggest influencer.
The centrality of the UK, along with the other large member states, is clearly revealed in the number of officials from other EU governments who mentioned the UK. The UK’s officials were the most well connected of all the governments. In fact, the officials of only 6 other governments (out of 26 others) did not mention the UK as the main government they co-operated with in their working group in either 2006, 2009 or 2012: Greece, Italy, Luxembourg, Portugal, Cyprus, and Romania.
The University of Gothenburg studied this. They asked member state's official in the committees and working groups in the EU Council:
“Which member states do you most often co-operate with in order to develop a common position?”
As you will see from the table composed from the answers, the UK came top. We were the biggest influencer.
The centrality of the UK, along with the other large member states, is clearly revealed in the number of officials from other EU governments who mentioned the UK. The UK’s officials were the most well connected of all the governments. In fact, the officials of only 6 other governments (out of 26 others) did not mention the UK as the main government they co-operated with in their working group in either 2006, 2009 or 2012: Greece, Italy, Luxembourg, Portugal, Cyprus, and Romania.
Laughing
Well-known member
Adi, don't want to re-quote, that is hard work.
OK first let's argue the common defense policy. As it stands, and I said this at the outset, I don't have much a problem with it or it's goals (apart from one, and we'll come to that in a minute). The one thing in their mission statement and I am paraphrasing, but isn't one of it's missions to oversea a EU wide security policy, and by extension, I am assuming a military oversight. This is my first issue with the organization. Any changes would require a unanimous vote, absolutely, but I am not sure how robust that would be. as I have said. Finally a referendum on any change would have to take place - hmm, that's how we ended up here in the first place, I would rather not take the chance on an EU army followed by an EU state, or indeed vice versa.
My key arguments are now it's OK, mostly, I am concerned about what it may become given the EU's aims of a united Europe, which BTW I would be fine with if it were a United Planet. I really fear for the world at the moment with 3 super powers, we don't need another.
Now to MEP's v MP's. I get that it is more difficult to allow disparate nations to all put forward legislation, but is it much different to an MP from Stockton South arguing a case in parliament with a southern centric parliament? I don't think so. Now consider how the president of the commission is elected, they are proposed first by the European Commission then ratified by the European parliament in a vote. Not all countries have an equal vote, Germany, France and Italy have a massive influence with, I think, a third of the total votes.
This is skewed away from smaller nations, and I do get why that is the case, but I don't agree with it, and it seems undemocratic, at least to me.
When talking about Cameron not getting what he wanted i was, obviously referring to pre-referendum, for example Cameron wanted a status for the UK that recognised no closer political integration with the EU. What the Eu agreed was a woolly wording that the EU recognised that aim. I would have to look up the wording of the final agreement, but it didn't look binding to me. The EU has always and always will want a closer political integration leading to another super power. I don't want that
OK first let's argue the common defense policy. As it stands, and I said this at the outset, I don't have much a problem with it or it's goals (apart from one, and we'll come to that in a minute). The one thing in their mission statement and I am paraphrasing, but isn't one of it's missions to oversea a EU wide security policy, and by extension, I am assuming a military oversight. This is my first issue with the organization. Any changes would require a unanimous vote, absolutely, but I am not sure how robust that would be. as I have said. Finally a referendum on any change would have to take place - hmm, that's how we ended up here in the first place, I would rather not take the chance on an EU army followed by an EU state, or indeed vice versa.
My key arguments are now it's OK, mostly, I am concerned about what it may become given the EU's aims of a united Europe, which BTW I would be fine with if it were a United Planet. I really fear for the world at the moment with 3 super powers, we don't need another.
Now to MEP's v MP's. I get that it is more difficult to allow disparate nations to all put forward legislation, but is it much different to an MP from Stockton South arguing a case in parliament with a southern centric parliament? I don't think so. Now consider how the president of the commission is elected, they are proposed first by the European Commission then ratified by the European parliament in a vote. Not all countries have an equal vote, Germany, France and Italy have a massive influence with, I think, a third of the total votes.
This is skewed away from smaller nations, and I do get why that is the case, but I don't agree with it, and it seems undemocratic, at least to me.
When talking about Cameron not getting what he wanted i was, obviously referring to pre-referendum, for example Cameron wanted a status for the UK that recognised no closer political integration with the EU. What the Eu agreed was a woolly wording that the EU recognised that aim. I would have to look up the wording of the final agreement, but it didn't look binding to me. The EU has always and always will want a closer political integration leading to another super power. I don't want that
Lefty
Well-known member
In addition the next two graphs show how close the final EU policy outcome was to the policy positions of National Governments.
Robert Thomson, at the University of Strathclyde, and his collaborators, put together a dataset on the passage of 125 pieces of EU legislation between 1996 and 2008. They interviewed over 350 decision-makers to identify the positions of the member state governments, the EU commission, and the European parliament on each piece of law (on a 0-100 scale on each issue). For example, in a piece of legislation in 2005 on sugar subsidies the positions ranged from stopping all subsidies (supported by Denmark and Sweden) to keeping current levels (supported by Poland). The UK’s position was closer to Denmark and Sweden, as was the outcome, which meant a substantial reduction in subsidy levels.
The team also identified the location of the final policy outcome, the existing policy, and the importance (salience) each government attached to each issue.
If a government is very powerful, we can assume that policy outcomes are likely to be close to the policy positions of this government. If, on the other hand, a government is marginalised, either because it is not powerful or because it is isolated from a deal between other governments, then final outcomes are likely to be further from the positions of this government. A government could be “lucky”, by simply having a policy position that is the same as that of many other governments. Nevertheless, by aggregating across a large number of issues on a large number of pieces of legislation, the effect of such luck should wash out.
Figure 1 below shows the average “distance” between a government’s policy position (on the 0-100 scale) and the final outcomes on over 300 issues involved. Out of 29 EU actors (27 governments plus the commission and parliament), the UK was on average the fourth closest actor to final policy outcomes, and performed much better than France, Germany and the EU commission. So, far from marginalised.
But perhaps the UK government was only successful on issues it did not particularly care about?
Figure 2 shows the average distances from outcomes on only those issues for which each actor felt very strongly (which they rated as “highly salient”). The results are even more positive from a UK perspective: the UK was even closer to the average policy outcome on these issues.
That said, this data only goes up to 2008. It does not take in the Financial Crash and Eurozone Crisis nor the refugee crisis. It also does not reflect the shifting position of the Conservatives following the UKIP threat. During the 2009-2015 period there was a big increase in the level of conflict in the Council in general and the UK government was on the losing side a much higher proportion of times in 2009-15 compared with 2004-09 (2.6% in the former period and 12.3% in the latter).
Even so, the Council overwhelmingly decides by consensus, which means the UK is on the winning majority side almost 87% of the time in Council and most likely higher than that in eventual outcome especially on matters it really cares about.
Robert Thomson, at the University of Strathclyde, and his collaborators, put together a dataset on the passage of 125 pieces of EU legislation between 1996 and 2008. They interviewed over 350 decision-makers to identify the positions of the member state governments, the EU commission, and the European parliament on each piece of law (on a 0-100 scale on each issue). For example, in a piece of legislation in 2005 on sugar subsidies the positions ranged from stopping all subsidies (supported by Denmark and Sweden) to keeping current levels (supported by Poland). The UK’s position was closer to Denmark and Sweden, as was the outcome, which meant a substantial reduction in subsidy levels.
The team also identified the location of the final policy outcome, the existing policy, and the importance (salience) each government attached to each issue.
If a government is very powerful, we can assume that policy outcomes are likely to be close to the policy positions of this government. If, on the other hand, a government is marginalised, either because it is not powerful or because it is isolated from a deal between other governments, then final outcomes are likely to be further from the positions of this government. A government could be “lucky”, by simply having a policy position that is the same as that of many other governments. Nevertheless, by aggregating across a large number of issues on a large number of pieces of legislation, the effect of such luck should wash out.
Figure 1 below shows the average “distance” between a government’s policy position (on the 0-100 scale) and the final outcomes on over 300 issues involved. Out of 29 EU actors (27 governments plus the commission and parliament), the UK was on average the fourth closest actor to final policy outcomes, and performed much better than France, Germany and the EU commission. So, far from marginalised.
But perhaps the UK government was only successful on issues it did not particularly care about?
Figure 2 shows the average distances from outcomes on only those issues for which each actor felt very strongly (which they rated as “highly salient”). The results are even more positive from a UK perspective: the UK was even closer to the average policy outcome on these issues.
That said, this data only goes up to 2008. It does not take in the Financial Crash and Eurozone Crisis nor the refugee crisis. It also does not reflect the shifting position of the Conservatives following the UKIP threat. During the 2009-2015 period there was a big increase in the level of conflict in the Council in general and the UK government was on the losing side a much higher proportion of times in 2009-15 compared with 2004-09 (2.6% in the former period and 12.3% in the latter).
Even so, the Council overwhelmingly decides by consensus, which means the UK is on the winning majority side almost 87% of the time in Council and most likely higher than that in eventual outcome especially on matters it really cares about.
Laughing
Well-known member
That is interesting Lefty, and it is about what I would have expected, except for France and Germany being below the UK in the first table. The most powerful nations have the most influence, as you would expect. That isn't inherently why I am not a fan of the EU though. We could be getting everything we wanted - I still wouldn't have wanted to stay in the EU, at the time.
As I have said elsewhere, had I considered the GFA I would probably have voted to remain, the break up of the union is more important to me than whether we are in or out of the EU.
Ultimately it was a stupid project and Cameron just wanted to stay in power and didn't really expect a leave vote, or if he did he cared more about tory power than what subsequently happened to the country.
Oh oh, one final point - at the time I cast my vote Junker was president, my oh my and he was nominated and ratified, he is a pi55ed up misogynist
As I have said elsewhere, had I considered the GFA I would probably have voted to remain, the break up of the union is more important to me than whether we are in or out of the EU.
Ultimately it was a stupid project and Cameron just wanted to stay in power and didn't really expect a leave vote, or if he did he cared more about tory power than what subsequently happened to the country.
Oh oh, one final point - at the time I cast my vote Junker was president, my oh my and he was nominated and ratified, he is a pi55ed up misogynist