Cont: Brexit: Now What? Part 5

[quadraginta]

On Radio4 the PM talking about her post Brexit plans for immigration proclaimed "the end of the free movement of people" as if it was a triumph for democracy.
(Exemptions for cheap labour for farmers and construction companies)

Funny how things like that seem to slip in.

The same thing has happened with our own vaunted federal eVerify, which would confirm the legitimacy of identification and employment documents. The various states cheerfully mandated that it be used by everyone, and equally cheerfully exempted all of the jobs where it would do the most good to use it.

 

[quadraginta]

I think Belz... has a point. When you place blame you are not looking for a solution.

<snip>

It seems to me that an essential prerequisite to looking for a solution is to identify the causes of the problem needing to be solved.

If you want to characterize that as 'placing blame', fine. But it attaches a pointlessly misleading and misdirecting pejorative to the problem solving process.

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

Not true. If more Scottish Leave voters had gone the other way, they could have swung the overall result, even if England, Wales, and NI had stayed exactly the same.

There were 1m Scottish Leave voters. The majority to Leave was 1.3m.

It would have taken 130% of the Scottish leave voters to change their mind to affect the final result.

Even in Brexit la la land I can say that isn't going to happen.

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

I wanted to emphasize that it is particularly english ethnic identity that is associated with the leave vote. It's not people who live in england.
There must be some sort of ideological package in the air that combines englishness and anti-eu sentiment.
I didn't mean to imply that this wasn't being addressed.

Yes but... there's always a but. That same identity or mindset gets reflected in other parts as 'British'.

Hence Scottish and Welsh and NI nationalists tend to be very much in favour of the EU and Unionists less so.

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

I think Belz... has a point. When you place blame you are not looking for a solution.

If you say that it is people's own fault for being misinformed then you implicitly accept that the information system (ie the British media) is fine. Is it?

If you say that leave voters are racists then you imply that it really is the wish of a majority to end freedom of movement, regardless of economic consequences. If that had been the explicit ballot question, would that really have gotten a majority? Theresa May acts like it. IF leave voters are racists then she is right; or is a radical minoriy taking Britain for a ride?

Solutions are another kettle of fish but the two things are not necessarily opposed to each other. if you accept that the people are racists and/or stupid then you ask why that's the case and you find that there are many issues.

Not least of all a racist media and a pandering political class who seem to either be racist themselves or more often believe that the oiks are racists and need to be thrown a bone.

That's why none of the Daily Mail nonsense was ever countered.

And no, because they are racists doesn't mean she's right because they might be racist enough to not like the idea of having Indian people on the high street but not quite racist enough to be prepared to lose their jobs over it.

 

[Information Analyst]

There were 1m Scottish Leave voters. The majority to Leave was 1.3m.

It would have taken 130% of the Scottish leave voters to change their mind to affect the final result.

Even in Brexit la la land I can say that isn't going to happen.

On the contrary, if you add the Scottish Leave votes to Remain, you have to also remove them from Leave.

All Leave votes = 17,410,742
All Remain votes = 16,141,241

Scottish Leave votes = 1,018,322

All Leave votes less Scottish Leave votes = 16,392,420
All Remain votes plus Scottish Leave votes = 17,159,563

A few Welsh and NI Remain votes would have also helped, but the mathematical reality is that even the English Leave majority as it was could still have been overturned by the rest of the UK. Personally I think that would have been hilarious, not least because it would have given Farage a coronary.

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

Funny how things like that seem to slip in.

The same thing has happened with our own vaunted federal eVerify, which would confirm the legitimacy of identification and employment documents. The various states cheerfully mandated that it be used by everyone, and equally cheerfully exempted all of the jobs where it would do the most good to use it.

So in other words we are going to keep every single working EU person here (pretty much all of them) and get rid of only the ones who are benefit scroungers (pretty much none of them)?

The only slight downside of that plan is that a lot of the EU people have already pissed off because they know when they aren't wanted and have been made to feel like second class citizens.

As usual with Brexiteers and Tories they forget that other people don't necessarily have to fall into line with what they want.

 

[ceptimus]

Seems every chancellor of the Exchequer we have ever had is stupid. I wonder what alternative you suggest chancellors resort to when setting budgets. I guess the reading of chlorine washed chicken bones.

I never said that every chancellor was stupid. Please don't try to attribute to me things I never wrote.

Economic forecasts are woefully inaccurate but if they're the best available that's what chancellors have to use - fully expecting (from past experience) that the forecasts will turn out to be wrong.

For deciding which way to vote on a matter as important as Brexit, economic forecasts are completely untrustworthy. You're better advised to base your decision on the history of the organization, its current rules, and the pronouncements of the current leaders on their intentions for its future development.

 

[ceptimus]

Do you have a source for this?
If they agree to something they are against, they can't have been much against it; or really against it, at all.


How can a treaty that the UK is party to, be changed without consent from the UK. How can that be done without ratification by the UK parliament?

Read the Wikipedia article on the Treaty of Lisbon:

The Constitution, having been agreed by heads of government from the 25 Member States, was signed at a ceremony in Rome on 29 October 2004. Before it could enter into force, however, it had to be ratified by each member state. Ratification took different forms in each country, depending on the traditions, constitutional arrangements, and political processes of each country. In 2005, referendums held in France and the Netherlands rejected the European Constitution. While the majority of the Member States already had ratified the European Constitution (mostly through parliamentary ratification, although Spain and Luxembourg held referendums), due to the requirement of unanimity to amend the treaties of the EU, it became clear that it could not enter into force. This led to a "period of reflection" and the political end of the proposed European Constitution.

After a "period of reflection", member states agreed instead to maintain the existing treaties, but to amend them, salvaging a number of the reforms that had been envisaged in the constitution. An amending "reform" treaty was drawn up and signed in Lisbon in 2007. It was originally intended to have been ratified by all member states by the end of 2008. This timetable failed, primarily due to the initial rejection of the Treaty in June 2008 by the Irish electorate, a decision which was reversed in a second referendum in October 2009 after Ireland secured a number of concessions related to the treaty.

 

[Wudang]

And then had to be re-ratified by Parliament as described in the very Wiki article you cite.

In the UK, the European Union (Amendment) Bill was debated in the House of Commons on 21 January 2008, and passed its second reading that day by a vote of 362 to 224;

 

[Lothian]

I never said that every chancellor was stupid. Please don't try to attribute to me things I never wrote.

Economic forecasts are woefully inaccurate but if they're the best available that's what chancellors have to use - fully expecting (from past experience) that the forecasts will turn out to be wrong.

For deciding which way to vote on a matter as important as Brexit, economic forecasts are completely untrustworthy. You're better advised to base your decision on the history of the organization, its current rules, and the pronouncements of the current leaders on their intentions for its future development.

No the choice is exactly the same. and forecasts normally have error bars and forecasts normally fall within them. Of course you don't want people to listen to the forecasts of experts as they almost unanimously predicted that the UK would be worse off. It is not just expert forecasts you are asking people to ignore, it is years of economic knowledge. As a hard breathier your preferred option is the imposition of tariffs. That makes imported goods more expensive and our exports more expensive. That will hit the current UK manufacturing sector in terms of jobs and will result in higher prices on the high street. Again practically every economist considers tariffs a bad thing for the public, but you are asking us to treat their view as untrustworthy, not because of a failure in their logic but because you don't like the result.

 

[ceptimus]

And then had to be re-ratified by Parliament as described in the very Wiki article you cite.

Parliaments yes - but they'd already voted in favour of the original constitution.

But note that France, Netherlands, and Denmark, which had all held referendums that rejected the original constitution, did NOT hold second referendums on the "amended treaties" (which were largely just a rewrite of the rejected constitution). So those three country's referendum results were ignored by the devious means of sneaking through the same changes in a different way - after a "period of reflection", of course.

 

[ceptimus]

No the choice is exactly the same. and forecasts normally have error bars and forecasts normally fall within them. Of course you don't want people to listen to the forecasts of experts as they almost unanimously predicted that the UK would be worse off.

A) We didn't vote on whether we'd be better or worse off. The Brexit decision is not a matter of mere economics.

B) After we've left and things have had time to settle down, that will be the right time to assess how accurate (or inaccurate) the economic forecasts were. Right now, none of us know.

 

[Lothian]

Parliaments yes - but they'd already voted in favour of the original constitution.

But note that France, Netherlands, and Denmark, which had all held referendums that rejected the original constitution, did NOT hold second referendums on the "amended treaties" (which were largely just a rewrite of the rejected constitution). So those three country's referendum results were ignored by the devious means of sneaking through the same changes in a different way - after a "period of reflection", of course.

I am so glad that you support the idea that before final implementation any new agreement with the EU should have public support and that governments agreeing to changes in the relationship without a public vote are wrong. People need to know exactly what they are getting before any change takes place. You can't have a situation where only after a vote you find that the there are changes to the arrangements.

 

[ceptimus]

I predict that after we've left, and the forecasts of Project Fear have been revealed to be mostly wrong, posters here, if they're not too ashamed to post, will be saying, "The UK's current economic prosperity is nothing to do with Brexit - it's because of [insert excuses here].

 

[ceptimus]

I am so glad that you support the idea that before final implementation any new agreement with the EU should have public support and that governments agreeing to changes in the relationship without a public vote are wrong. People need to know exactly what they are getting before any change takes place. You can't have a situation where only after a vote you find that the there are changes to the arrangements.

You're not reading. France, Netherlands, Denmark - the people voted AGAINST the changes. But the changes were introduced anyhow. And without a second referendum. How democratic is that?

 

[Lothian]

You're not reading. France, Netherlands, Denmark - the people voted AGAINST the changes. But the changes were introduced anyhow.

That is their right. The member states in the EU have sovereignty to decide. National rules will prevail on how that happens. We had a recent referendum that had no legal status. The PM without any reference to parliament unilaterally decided we should leave the EU and handed in our notice. I am sure in other counties leaving the EU would require different steps.

 

[Tolls]

Parliaments yes - but they'd already voted in favour of the original constitution.

But note that France, Netherlands, and Denmark, which had all held referendums that rejected the original constitution, did NOT hold second referendums on the "amended treaties" (which were largely just a rewrite of the rejected constitution). So those three country's referendum results were ignored by the devious means of sneaking through the same changes in a different way - after a "period of reflection", of course.

Which had bugger all to do with the EU, as reflected by the Irish votes.
If I were French, or Dutch, or Danish I might complain, but these things are not down to the EU, just as it was not down to the EU that the bulk of the other states (including us) did not bother with a referendum at all.

But, as Lothian says, it's nice to know that you think we ought to have a second referendum.

 

[JoeMorgue]

You're not reading. France, Netherlands, Denmark - the people voted AGAINST the changes. But the changes were introduced anyhow. And without a second referendum. How democratic is that?

Wait are you suggesting that France and Denmark should be able to vote on whether the UK stays in the EU?

The EU isn't a sovereign nation like the United States is. The individual countries still retain autonomy.

Or am I just reading this whole thing wrong? (honest question, no snark)

 

[Wudang]

Parliaments yes - but they'd already voted in favour of the original constitution.

And still our Parliament had to re-ratify it before it could take effect.

But note that France, Netherlands, and Denmark, which had all held referendums that rejected the original constitution, did NOT hold second referendums on the "amended treaties" (which were largely just a rewrite of the rejected constitution). So those three country's referendum results were ignored by the devious means of sneaking through the same changes in a different way - after a "period of reflection", of course.

I'm not sure why I, as a UK citizen, should be interfering in the decisions of sovereign states within the EU.
Oh wait! You're arguing that the EU should be able to override the national governments and force them to rerun the referendums?