Brexit What Happens Next Thread ---multiple merged threads.

[Dorkins]

30 minutes ago, crouch said:

It is indeed a civilised procedure. But is that the issue? With 28 members does there have to be compromise to the extent that it satisfies no-one and sub optimality reigns and that many issues are not properly addressed? Can you get sensible agreement with 28 horse traders? Maybe; maybe not. It may be civilised but inefficient.

The horsetrading and consensus-driven nature of the EU isn't an issue for me. Seems like a perfectly adequate way to administer a trading bloc made up of nation states.

Edited September 12, 2019 by Dorkins

[grasshopper]

38 minutes ago, crouch said:

It is indeed a civilised procedure. But is that the issue? With 28 members does there have to be compromise to the extent that it satisfies no-one and sub optimality reigns and that many issues are not properly addressed? Can you get sensible agreement with 28 horse traders? Maybe; maybe not. It may be civilised but inefficient.

Or it may be both civilised and efficient. Sometimes cooperation delivers great benefits for all parties.

Standard Gauge 

As railways developed and expanded, one of the key issues was the track gauge (the distance, or width, between the inner sides of the rails) to be used. Different railways used different gauges, and where rails of different gauge met – a "gauge break" – loads had to be unloaded from one set of rail cars and re-loaded onto another, a time-consuming and expensive process. The result was the adoption throughout a large part of the world of a "standard gauge" of 1435 mm (4 ft 8 ¹⁄₂ in), allowing interconnectivity and interoperability.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard-gauge_railway?wprov=sfla1

[Confusion of VIs]

3 hours ago, kzb said:

I tried to find out but voting records are not classified by country.  You would have to go through every individual vote and count up yourself.

Fortunately someone has already done that

Quote

Official EU voting records* show that the British government has voted ‘No’ to laws passed at EU level on 56 occasions, abstained 70 times, and voted ‘Yes’ 2,466 times since 1999, according to UK in a Changing Europe Fellows Sara Hagemann and Simon Hix.

In other words, UK ministers were on the “winning side” 95% of the time, abstained 3% of the time, and were on the losing side 2%.

This is counting votes in the EU Council of Ministers, which passes most EU laws jointly with the European Parliament.

NB This is based on the UK government position taken in the council of Ministers. The figures for the EP are heavily influenced by UKIP MEPs voting against just about everything apart from salary/expenses rises on the occasions when they bother to turn up. 

 

[IMHAL]

17 hours ago, crouch said:

It is indeed a civilised procedure. But is that the issue? With 28 members does there have to be compromise to the extent that it satisfies no-one and sub optimality reigns and that many issues are not properly addressed? Can you get sensible agreement with 28 horse traders? Maybe; maybe not. It may be civilised but inefficient.

I can go better than that....approximately X 33 million times better actually. Or thereabouts.....

Sounds like you are describing the referendum result for brexit....48% know what they want....52% want a form of bexit that they cannot agree on.... the likely brexit that is offered is only supported by a minority ....a minority of brexit voters at that.....can you get more sub-optimal than that.

Edited September 13, 2019 by IMHAL

[Arpeggio]

2 minutes ago, IMHAL said:

I can go better than that....approximately X 33 million times better actually. Or thereabouts.....

Sounds like you are describing the referendum result for brexit....48% know what they want....52% want a form of bexit that they cannot agree on.... the likely brexit that is offered is only supported by a minority ....a minority of brexit voters at that.....can you get more sub-optimal is that.

That there was never that much choice to the public on the type of remain certainly benefits your argument.

However if the opposite were true and there was, then I would not use this to critique you on the other side of the argument. I would instead praise it.

[IMHAL]

7 hours ago, Arpeggio said:

1 - That there was never that much choice to the public on the type of remain certainly benefits your argument. Thats right... the choice to remain was clear and 48% of people chose this in preference to the rainbow of vague possiblities and impossibilities that are Brexit. 

2 - However if the opposite were true and there was, then I would not use this to critique you on the other side of the argument. I would instead praise it.

Your second point.

Do you mean we could imply that other vague possibilities could have been part of Remain? 

Like imply that we could Remain and the EU would pay £350 million a week towards our NHS? Or imply that we would be allowed to do our own FTA's independent of the EU, easy peazy.... or imply that we would not have to contribute anything towards the EU for continued membership......do you mean we could add ANY cake and eat it made-up fantasy to the notion of what Remain means?

Well, that would be deceitful and clearly a ploy to capture voters under false pretenses... we would just end up in the same situation as now...... ie voters who voted for something and then receive nothing like that which they have been promised. 

 

[crouch]

10 hours ago, Dorkins said:

The horsetrading and consensus-driven nature of the EU isn't an issue for me. Seems like a perfectly adequate way to administer a trading bloc made up of nation states.

"Seems" and "adequate" are the operative words. Precisely.

[crouch]

10 hours ago, grasshopper said:

Or it may be both civilised and efficient. Sometimes cooperation delivers great benefits for all parties.

Of course it does. But does it do so here - that was my question?

[Dorkins]

55 minutes ago, crouch said:

"Seems" and "adequate" are the operative words. Precisely.

If you think any design of real world political system is ever going to be more than adequate, prepare for a lifetime of disappointment.

[crouch]

11 minutes ago, Dorkins said:

If you think any design of real world political system is ever going to be more than adequate, prepare for a lifetime of disappointment.

As I'm 74 I think my preparations for disappointment are more than well advanced.

And I was of course questioning whether it was adequate not whether it was more than adequate.

[Dorkins]

1 minute ago, crouch said:

As I'm 74 I think my preparations for disappointment are more than well advanced.

And I was of course questioning whether it was adequate not whether it was more than adequate.

I can't think of any situations where the speed/quality of the decision-making processes in the EU institutions have held back anything that affects my life. Can you?

[crouch]

11 minutes ago, Dorkins said:

I can't think of any situations where the speed/quality of the decision-making processes in the EU institutions have held back anything that affects my life. Can you?

Do you seriously expect an answer to that question?

[Gigantic Purple Slug]

20 minutes ago, crouch said:

As I'm 74 I think my preparations for disappointment are more than well advanced.

And I was of course questioning whether it was adequate not whether it was more than adequate.

Problem with a horsetrading system, or what I think is consensus politics is that the actual debate takes place outside of public scrutiny.

Systems like the HOC may be more adversarial, but everyone can see the nuances of the debate and who stands for what. Of course there is no reason why deals cannot be done outside of the house, but traditionally that is not the way it has happened.

In many European systems the parliament is often there just to rubber stamp deals that have been done behind closed doors.

[Exiled Canadian]

19 minutes ago, crouch said:

Do you seriously expect an answer to that question?

Why not?

James O'Brien has a penchant for asking Leavers to give him one way in which their lives will be improved following Brexit.  They have all so far failed to come up with anything credible.  It is claimed by Leavers that the people who have been selected to get though to him on air are deliberately along the less "thoughtful" of the Leave community and hence O'Brien is stitching them up. (I have no idea if this is true or not although O'Brien states that it is not).

You strike me as a thoughtful Leaver - surely you can name a host of ways in which your life will be better as a result of Brexit?

Edited September 13, 2019 by Exiled Canadian

[Arpeggio]

1 hour ago, IMHAL said:

Your second point.

Do you mean we could imply that other vague possibilities could have been part of Remain? 

Like imply that we could Remain and the EU would pay £350 million a week towards our NHS? Or imply that we would be allowed to do our own FTA's independent of the EU, easy peazy.... or imply that we would not have to contribute anything towards the EU for continued membership......do you mean we could add ANY cake and eat it made-up fantasy to the notion of what Remain means?

Well, that would be deceitful and clearly a ploy to capture voters under false pretenses... we would just end up in the same situation as now...... ie voters who voted for something and then receive nothing like that which they have been promised. 

As I put in bold of your text, the typical opposition guff approaching putting words in my mouth then finishing with a condemning paragraph based on those words! Perhaps you need to “argue” with a puppet?

You have deliberately chosen the most ridiculous arrangements. Could have saved time by just saying something like “such as?”

Being part of EU army, the Lisbon treaty, the Euro currency etc. Many things / policies that the EU changed to since the last U.K. referendum in 1975 when it was the EEC.

Edited September 13, 2019 by Arpeggio

[crouch]

14 minutes ago, Gigantic Purple Slug said:

Problem with a horsetrading system, or what I think is consensus politics is that the actual debate takes place outside of public scrutiny.

Systems like the HOC may be more adversarial, but everyone can see the nuances of the debate and who stands for what. Of course there is no reason why deals cannot be done outside of the house, but traditionally that is not the way it has happened.

In many European systems the parliament is often there just to rubber stamp deals that have been done behind closed doors.

One of the issues I was hinting at is that it's not only difficult to get any agreement between 28 sovereign states ( for a larger example see the Doha round) but that many agreements end up satisfying very few. Of course if there was a US of E, a federal state, thee would be a formal separation of powers. What we have instead is horse trading which is not only less transparent but probably less efficient.

[PeanutButter]

Science on safety of chlorinated chicken 'misunderstood'

Quote

 

But the academics point to research published last year which found washing food in bleach does not kill many of the pathogens that cause food poisoning. Instead, it sends them into a “viable but non-culturable state”, which means they are not picked up in standard tests, which take a sample of the food and try to culture any germs on it.

The presence of the pathogens is thus masked by the bleach, but they are still dangerous to human health.

Erik Millstone, professor of science policy at Sussex University and co-author of the briefing, told the Guardian lives would be at stake if food based on these lower standards were sold in the UK. “I am satisfied [by the evidence] that US food poisoning cases are significantly higher than in the UK. A minority of people suffer fatal complications,” he said. “There will certainly be fatalities, and they typically affect vulnerable people, such as infants, small children and the elderly.”

He said a no-deal Brexit would increase the pressure for the UK to accept food from abroad produced to US standards, especially if shortages raised prices, and warned that current laws on labelling were inadequate.

 

 

[Arpeggio]

9 minutes ago, Exiled Canadian said:

Why not?

James O'Brien has a penchant for asking Leavers to give him one way in which their liveswill be improved following Brexit.  They have all so far failed to come up with anything credible.  It is claimed by Leavers that the people who have been selected to get though to him on air are deliberately along the less "thoughtful" of the Leave community and hence O'Brien is stitching them up. (I have no idea if this is true or not although O'Brien states that it is not).

You strike me as a thoughtful Leaver - surely you can name a host of ways in which your life will be better as a result of Brexit?

Apparently the BBC are a little bit biased too or so I’ve heard, so hardly a stretch of the imagination.

For most of the less thoughtful it will likely be “Arms length democracy”.  Often people can’t answer something because they assume the answer should be advanced in some way, and that giving the simple one will make them look stupid.

Some brexiters may not be able to give as much detail as things of the top of their head, like control of our own tariffs, getting rid of 0 VAT threshold on digital goods or taxation. If you are to apply as much scrutiny to Leavers knowledge then obviously it has to work both ways and we could have a radio show asking remainers from the public things like what the ECB base rate is, what is Eurogenfor, how many countries are net contributors to the EU and how many are net benefactors etc etc.

 

[btl_hater]

The old "control our own VAT rates" line. After 3 years of scratching their (usually bald) heads, that is the best "benefit" the Brexiteersphere can come up with! ****** me.

 

[crouch]

1 hour ago, Exiled Canadian said:

Why not?

James O'Brien has a penchant for asking Leavers to give him one way in which their lives will be improved following Brexit.  They have all so far failed to come up with anything credible.  It is claimed by Leavers that the people who have been selected to get though to him on air are deliberately along the less "thoughtful" of the Leave community and hence O'Brien is stitching them up. (I have no idea if this is true or not although O'Brien states that it is not).

You strike me as a thoughtful Leaver - surely you can name a host of ways in which your life will be better as a result of Brexit?

The operative word is "credible". Most Leavers voted to return sovereignty and to limit immigration, issues that many would dismiss as "airy fairy".

How do you evaluate the return of sovereignty or the return of judicial powers to the UK? What is apparent is that the EU has become more intrusive over the years rather than less, notwithstanding the subsidiarity principle in the Maastricht Treaty. Many people are unhappy about this direction of travel and can see nothing that will reverse it so any disquiet about this should be stilled by our departure.

In addition the drive towards "ever closer union", whilst less prominent than formerly, is still a background objective which many are concerned about and these concerns can only be satisfied by leaving.

As far as immigration is concerned the issue is one of control. As soon as we finally leave the EU we will regain control. But "control" does not necessarily mean less immigration; it just means control. So, in that sense, the mere fact of ceasing to be a member of the EU will make that aspect an advantage of leaving the EU despite the fact that it may ultimately be in our interests to have more immigration.

Two days ago Jean Claude Juncker said of the UK that they were "part time "Europeans. He's right. Since Thatcher the UK has been regarded as being in the Anglo-Saxonsphere rather than in Europe. The fact is that we don't "fit" into Europe and, truth be told, never have and this is a fact that many Remainers don't acknowledge. Being outside is more natural for the UK than being in.

Merkel said a few days ago that she was concerned about a "Singapore - on Thames" being created of the coast of Europe and this betrays both a concern about the future but also an acknowledgement that one of the primary purposes of the EU is to avoid internal competition. In some way this is an extraordinary admission because it says that the EU as a whole is a cartel. If true, and it probably is, then is this really good for either the UK or the EU?

Edited September 13, 2019 by crouch

[IMHAL]

1 hour ago, Arpeggio said:

As I put in bold of your text, the typical opposition guff approaching putting words in my mouth then finishing with a condemning paragraph based on those words! Perhaps you need to “argue” with a puppet? 

You have deliberately chosen the most ridiculous arrangements. Could have saved time by just saying something like “such as?”

Being part of EU army, the Lisbon treaty, the Euro currency etc. Many things / policies that the EU changed to since the last U.K. referendum in 1975 when it was the EEC.

Most ridiculous? No more ridiculous that NHS £350 million, easy pease trade deals, roll over all trading arrangements, can be part of the SM and CU and make trade deals outside the EU....they all sound like ridiculous lies to me. Of course we (remainers) could have implied that our relationship with  the EU may change and also that it may not change to include those items you mentioned..so that we could capture the maximum vote.....

What is not disputed is that people voted for a Brexit that is vague and included many implied possibilities and many impossibilities.......what they will get is sub optimal in terms of voter intent.

 

Edited September 13, 2019 by IMHAL

[thecrashingisles]

2 hours ago, crouch said:

Two days ago Jean Claude Juncker said of the UK that they were "part time "Europeans. He's right. Since Thatcher the UK has been regarded as being in the Anglo-Saxonsphere rather than in Europe. The fact is that we don't "fit" into Europe and, truth be told, never have and this is a fact that many Remainers don't acknowledge. Being outside is more natural for the UK than being in.

Merkel said a few days ago that she was concerned about a "Singapore - on Thames" being created of the coast of Europe and this betrays both a concern about the future but also an acknowledgement that one of the primary purposes of the EU is to avoid internal competition. In some way this is an extraordinary admission because it says that the EU as a whole is a cartel. If true, and it probably is, then is this really good for either the UK or the EU?

This is pure delusion.  Britain is part of Europe and can only ever be part of Europe.  Do you think the existence of South and Central America makes Spain or Portugal less European?

Merkel did not use the term "Singapore-on-Thames" and your characterisation of her remarks is absurd.  You exist in an echo chamber of ignorance.

[Errol]

Brexit Party making historic gain of the Hartlepool Council will not have gone unnoticed by Labour and Conservatives. Any attempt to not deliver on the result of the 2016 referendum will result in carnage for both parties as a very large proportion of the 17+ million vote Brexit Party. Farage will have an open goal and has the financial backing to run a massive campaign.

 

Edited September 13, 2019 by Errol

[crouch]

17 minutes ago, thecrashingisles said:

Merkel did not use the term "Singapore-on-Thames" and your characterisation of her remarks is absurd.  You exist in an echo chamber of ignorance.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/sep/11/angela-merkel-stresses-danger-of-britain-becoming-singapore-on-thames-no-deal

Can you read? Where did I say that Merkel actually said those words. Let me requote what I actually said:

"Merkel said a few days ago that she was concerned about a "Singapore - on Thames" being created of the coast of Europe and this betrays both a concern about the future but also an acknowledgement that one of the primary purposes of the EU is to avoid internal competition."

"Singapore - on - Thames" is a model and my post does not say that she actually used that term, but rather the economic model that it encapsulates.

You exist in an echo chamber of ignorance.

Edited September 13, 2019 by crouch

[thecrashingisles]

3 minutes ago, crouch said:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/sep/11/angela-merkel-stresses-danger-of-britain-becoming-singapore-on-thames-no-deal

Can you read? Where did I say that Merkel actually said those words. Let me requote what I actually said:

"Merkel said a few days ago that she was concerned about a "Singapore - on Thames" being created of the coast of Europe and this betrays both a concern about the future but also an acknowledgement that one of the primary purposes of the EU is to avoid internal competition."

"Singapore - on - Thames" is a model and my post does not say that she actually used that term, but rather the economic model that it encapsulates.

You exist in an echo chamber of ignorance.

Your sentence started "Merkel said..." and then used quotation marks, implying those were the words she used.