Cont: Brexit: Now What? Part 5

[Lothian]

By Lothian's reasoning, the main reason for the existence of the Scottish National Party must be xenophobia.

I don't know enough about them. Perhaps it is an element.

In my view it is about putting decisions at the right level. Some will be local, some national, some international. It is a balance between having all decisions decided at a local level which would make everyone happy(ish) but is tremendously expensive and inefficient and having international decisions that may be broad brush and lead to local gripes but is cheap.

If instead of making that choice using rational decision making the SNP make it, insisting all decisions about Scotland must be made by Scots then they could be xenophobic. My understanding is they are pro-Europe which suggests they are not but but as said I don't know enough about their policies.

 

[GnaGnaMan]

No, I cannot. I've said I think Britain should be governed by the British. Mayor Khan is British. What's the problem that would be caused by my attitude, exactly?

You want to be governed by people who you perceive as ingroup. Some people perceive Khan as outgroup.

Huh? If the people of Scotland took the view that Britain should be governed by the British, then I would think that would be a reason for them to stay part of the UK.

Some brexiteers insist that great britain remains part of europe. That is certainly true in the same sense in which canada is part of america.
You don't want to be governed by your fellow europeans, who you perceive as outgroup. You want to be governed by those europeans you perceive as ingroup: Your fellow british.
Isn't it clear how scots might not want to be governed by the british in general but rather by scots in particular for the same reasons?

I assume that what you mean is that if the Scottish took the view that Scotland should be governed purely by the Scottish people, that would be a problem? That's not my approach. But sure, if they thought that way then they would leave the UK. Of course the last time anybody asked them, they didn't think that way.

Yes, apparently a majority of scottish people don't think that way. That's the point. What if everyone thought like you?

 

[Craig B]

Sovereignty is the one argument I don't understand. By that I mean I don't understand what specifically you are objecting to.

Being told what to do by Johnnie Foreigner.

 

[Lothian]

Being told what to do by Johnnie Foreigner.

More accurate, given how the EU works, the objection is against sitting in a room with Johnnie Foreigner seeking agreement on issues. Instead we have decided that is not for us and we are going alone and will negotiate our own trade deals by sitting in a room with j...hang on have we thought this through?

 

[Craig B]

By Lothian's reasoning, the main reason for the existence of the Scottish National Party must be xenophobia.

No it's sovereignty. Here we have a situation in which sovereignty is really and truly compromised.

The monarch, Lords and Commons can alter the succession to the Crown or repeal the Acts of Union in the same manner in which they can pass an Act enabling a company to make a new railway from Oxford to London....
[N]either the Act of Union with Scotland nor the Dentists Act, 1878, has more claim than the other to be considered a supreme law.​

A.V.Dicey, "Introduction to the Study of the Law of the Constitution"

 

[P.J. Denyer]

More accurate, given how the EU works, the objection is against sitting in a room with Johnnie Foreigner seeking agreement on issues. Instead we have decided that is not for us and we are going alone and will negotiate our own trade deals by sitting in a room with j...hang on have we thought this through?

Quoted for truth.

Seriously, how the **** did we get it come to this?

 

[ceptimus]

No it's sovereignty. Here we have a situation in which sovereignty is really and truly compromised.

The monarch, Lords and Commons can alter the succession to the Crown or repeal the Acts of Union in the same manner in which they can pass an Act enabling a company to make a new railway from Oxford to London....
[N]either the Act of Union with Scotland nor the Dentists Act, 1878, has more claim than the other to be considered a supreme law.​

A.V.Dicey, "Introduction to the Study of the Law of the Constitution"

How is this any different from the EU deciding to adopt a new common currency, or deciding to have a new elected EU president, or forming an EU army, or admitting new countries to the union, or any of the other 'constitutional' changes they have made or are thinking of making? I really am struggling to understand why the SNP hate being 'ruled from Westminster' but are content and even eager to be 'ruled from Brussles.'

 

[Seismosaurus]

You want to be governed by people who you perceive as ingroup. Some people perceive Khan as outgroup.

So then the proper way to word the the question was not what if they had my attitude, but rather what if they had a different attitude that I don't hold. And the answer is that in that case, I would disagree with such people.

Some brexiteers insist that great britain remains part of europe. That is certainly true in the same sense in which canada is part of america.
You don't want to be governed by your fellow europeans, who you perceive as outgroup. You want to be governed by those europeans you perceive as ingroup: Your fellow british.
Isn't it clear how scots might not want to be governed by the british in general but rather by scots in particular for the same reasons?

You seem to be saying that because I set boundaries around one group, then I must agree with anybody who sets boundaries around any group. Like the person (I don't remember who) who seemed to be saying that if you want to be governed by British people, that's like wanting to be governed by men, or white people, or whatever.

But it's just not. You might as well say "your favourite food is carrots? Well what if somebody else had a favourite food, but it was arsenic! What then, eh!!!" As if accepting the principle that one has a favourite food means that one must accept that anybody's favourite food is an equally good idea.

But it's not. No more than having loyalty and common cause with any particular group of people - British - means that I have to accept that it's a good idea to feel that way about men or whites or whatever.

Yes, apparently a majority of scottish people don't think that way. That's the point. What if everyone thought like you?

And yet again, if everyone thought like me there would be no such thing as a Scottish independence movement. And that will remain the answer no matter how many times or how many different ways I'm asked the same question.

Now if you want to form the question properly, as something like "Well what if everyone wanted to be governed by a particular national group as you do, but with different groups in mind... and in the case of the Scots, that was other Scots... what then!!!"

Well, then there would be Scottish independence. And should be. And might be, for all I know. That would make me sad, but so what?

 

[Darat]

More accurate, given how the EU works, the objection is against sitting in a room with Johnnie Foreigner seeking agreement on issues. Instead we have decided that is not for us and we are going alone and will negotiate our own trade deals by sitting in a room with j...hang on have we thought this through?

That's because we are shackled to the EU, once we are free of the EU Johnny Foreigner will once again recognise the innate righteousness of the British and will do what we tell them!

 

[The Don]

That's because we are shackled to the EU, once we are free of the EU Johnny Foreigner will once again recognise the innate righteousness of the British and will do what we tell them!

Of course, in pretty short order Johnny Foreigner could be joined by Jocky Foreigner, Sean Foreigner and even Dai Foreigner.

 

[Lothian]

How is this any different from the EU deciding to adopt a new common currency, or deciding to have a new elected EU president, or forming an EU army, or admitting new countries to the union, or any of the other 'constitutional' changes they have made or are thinking of making? I really am struggling to understand why the SNP hate being 'ruled from Westminster' but are content and even eager to be 'ruled from Brussles.'

We have a veto on votes in connection with Security, Finance and EU membership. We can currently block these on our own. The easy way to remember these things is to recall the leave campaign. If they said it, it was a lie.

Turkey (population 76 million) is joining the EU. Vote Leave, take back control.

 

[Information Analyst]

How is this any different from the EU deciding to adopt a new common currency, or deciding to have a new elected EU president, or forming an EU army, or admitting new countries to the union, or any of the other 'constitutional' changes they have made or are thinking of making? I really am struggling to understand why the SNP hate being 'ruled from Westminster' but are content and even eager to be 'ruled from Brussles.'

Because as an EU member the UK could veto all those things, while no such mechanism exists for Scotland, or Wales, or NI, or individual England Regions, for that matter.

 

[Craig B]

How is this any different from the EU deciding to adopt a new common currency, or deciding to have a new elected EU president, or forming an EU army, or admitting new countries to the union, or any of the other 'constitutional' changes they have made or are thinking of making? I really am struggling to understand why the SNP hate being 'ruled from Westminster' but are content and even eager to be 'ruled from Brussles.'

Say you so? Dicey tells us that the Union can be formed or amended or dissolved by parliament as easily as parliament can decide to support a new railway. That is to say, it can change the Union constitution without the consent of the Scots or their elected representatives. There is no constitutional safeguard at all; but in the EU, per wiki:

To join the EU, a state needs to fulfil economic and political conditions called the Copenhagen criteria (after the Copenhagen summit in June 1993), which require a stable democratic government that respects the rule of law, and its corresponding freedoms and institutions. According to the Maastricht Treaty, each current member state and the European Parliament must agree to any enlargement.​

So there is a constitution, and member states remain states. That is the fundamental difference.

Within the EU, the members are constitutional entities in close cooperation, coordination and alliance. In the U.K. Scotland has been merely a small minority of MPs in a Union parliament, who can be outvoted in any matter without ceremony or restraint, however important or trivial the question may be. If the Union had really been an alliance or confederation things would have been very different. But it was not to be. In 1707 as in 1801 Westminster supremacism ruled.

It started to unravel in 1921 in Ireland, and now Scotland Is fitfully moving towards constitutional change ... but how slow and difficult this process has been!

 

[Information Analyst]

The easy way to remember these things is to recall the leave campaign. If they said it, it was a lie.

Brexit in a nutshell.

BBC News: Vote Leave broke electoral law, Electoral Commission expected to say

"The official Brexit campaign is expected to be found guilty of four charges of breaking electoral law, the BBC has been told.

The draft of an investigation into Vote Leave concludes it broke spending limits and failed to comply with some of the rules.

It also imposes fines as a result of its findings."

 

[Wildy]

If all the MEPs were elected by Britain, and all the Commissioners and Eurocrats and such were appointed by Britain, and the EU President was British, etc, I'd probably like the EU a lot better.

And of course, the other EU nations would not object to this. Because if they did, they'd be xenophobes. And we all know that's not the case!

Am I understanding this right, your issue with the EU is simply that the UK wasn't enforcing its will upon the other member nations?

As a though experiment, how would you have felt about the EU if they had moved the parliament to London, with EU legislative policy coming from there instead of Brussels?

 

[Andy_Ross]

Brexit in a nutshell.

BBC News: Vote Leave broke electoral law, Electoral Commission expected to say

"The official Brexit campaign is expected to be found guilty of four charges of breaking electoral law, the BBC has been told.

The draft of an investigation into Vote Leave concludes it broke spending limits and failed to comply with some of the rules.

It also imposes fines as a result of its findings."

Apparently the BBC reporting that today after an England football victory and having a leave campaigner on to comment shows the BBC is pro brexit and in May's pocket.

Well, according to the left wing scrap the BBC crowd. Those on the right are saying that the BBC reporting it at all shows they are blatantly remains and should be scrapped.

 

[Information Analyst]

Apparently the BBC reporting that today after an England football victory and having a leave campaigner on to comment shows the BBC is pro brexit and in May's pocket.

Well, according to the left wing scrap the BBC crowd. Those on the right are saying that the BBC reporting it at all shows they are blatantly remains and should be scrapped.

As usual, we only need to worry when one faction claims, "the BBC are obviously on our side!" If both/all are condemning the BBC, they're probably getting it about right.

 

[Wudang]

Apparently the BBC reporting that today after an England football victory and having a leave campaigner on to comment shows the BBC is pro brexit and in May's pocket.

Well, according to the left wing scrap the BBC crowd. Those on the right are saying that the BBC reporting it at all shows they are blatantly remains and should be scrapped.

https://twitter.com/carolecadwalla/status/1014395336134201344

Carole says:

This isn’t the official report. We don’t know the sanction. & it was leaked & spun by Vote Leave who put it out after midnight, post-football.
This is the official Vote Leave campaign, funded with taxpayers’ money & it leaked this report to select outlets. It briefed the Sun yesterday but wouldn’t answer the Guardian’s emails...

It can’t get reported properly at this stage because we don’t know the details but it’ll help the sting out the real report when it arrives because there’ll be a sense we’ve already heard it...it’s a cynical attempt to bury bad news by a campaign headed by 2 govt ministers.

NB trimmed and joined by me. See link for full text of the tweets

I believe the idea is they put out a low key version of the story at a time when it will be overshadowed so it doesn't prominence.

 

[catsmate]

I prefer the country to be governed by those we elect to our own institutions.

Fine. Isolate yourselves and don't deal with anyone else.

 

[catsmate]

You think it's xenophobic that a person would prefer that British people decide how Britain is governed?

But your opinion also appears be be that only "British People" control issues that involve (for example) Britain and France.