Cont: Brexit: Now What? Part 6. Pick up sticks...

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

amazer said:

My point of view (of course, I can't be 100% sure that I am right) is that, if it is the UK's desire to be only a modest net contributor to the EU, it should have this right. I would, however, expect the UK to be a net contributor because it is somewhat richer than the average. Since amazer explains to us that the UK is a large net contributor, there seems to be still a possibility of contribution reduction without resorting to any kind of unpleasant "terrorism".

Perhaps this would have been enough to win these few percents necessary to win a referendum about Brexit (or not).

Of course, one other concession which could easily have been granted to the UK is to limit the freedom of movement of people. I respect the Poles, but perhaps they did not quite need their million Poles.

The UK had the right to limit the freedom of movement of people joining from new member states and chose not to bother to do so. I don't see why you think they would have exercised this right against Poland had they been given it.

As for having the right to be a modest contributor, you don't get to set your own membership fees for a club.

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

I read somewhere that Juncker's father had been an SS-Officer and I took it in good faith.

And yet you were not willing to take on good faith the widely documented fact that Luxembourgers were conscripted to the Wehrmacht. This seems odd. In fact it seems like simple bigotry - you are willing to accept on good faith a horrible smear that a man was complicit in genocide and, in fact, an enthusiastic follower of the ideals of Nazism and yet unwilling to accept any evidence to the contrary.

It's quite pathetic really. It does explain though why you claim to 'understand' irrational anti-German and anti-European xenophobia from idiots.

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

You know very well I was referring to Juncker's dad. It is clear to me the people who lived during the war would now be in their seventies, eighties and nineties, so I was OBVIOUSLY not talking about 'what Jean Claude Juncker did in the war'.

I read somewhere that Juncker's father had been an SS-Officer and I took it in good faith. I am willing to accept that this might just have been a smear by the writer of the piece. It certainly is not my concoction.

Juncker's dad is dead so if you were asking him to 'come clean' i doubt that's going to happen. But you weren't. You were asking Juncker himself to 'come clean' about what his father did as if somehow he was responsible

 

[GnaGnaMan]

Hm, I have my pen, give me that treaty. I'll just add the lines: "December 21, 2018, Amendment pertaining to the Freedom of Movement of people: Freedom of movement into the United Kingdom is limited to a mandatory number of 10 000 people annually. This means that the United Kingdom is given to right to accept no more than 10 000 immigrants from European Union countries annually, if it so desires".
Done.

Lol. Oh dear...
Seriously, though, you really shouldn't make up nonsense like that. Imagine there wasn't anyone here to correct that. Then this would stand on its own and some people might even think it was reasonable. You would have inadvertently become a liar. Just ask when you don't know something.

To come into force international treaties need to be ratified by the signatory countries. Such a treaty has the force of law so it needs to be passed like a law.
The ratification process, like the law-making process, is determined by each countries constitution. In some countries it will be enough if the parliament agrees. In other countries it might trigger a referendum. AFAIK, in Belgium the regional parliaments need to agree to ratify a treaty.

If you want to change the EU treaties you need to ratify the treaties again. I think in this case you'd need all EEA countries and not just the EU members.

Also, the treaties lay out a procedure for negotiating a treaty change. The UK prime minister can't just scrawl something into the treaties and expect anyone to start a ratification process. But that's the least of your worries.

But even if this wasn't such a big deal: Why would the other countries agree? Do you really think they would?

 

[Darat]

I have seen short segments in passing. I once tried to watch an entire episode of 'Allo 'Allo and was bored within minutes..

Right. So why did you say you'd never watched them?

 

[Darat]

You seem to have a belief 'everybody has watched Dad's Army and 'Allo,'Allo.'



People I met were shocked to discover I had never seen 'Sound of Music' up until a few years ago.



I have never watched 'Neighbours' or 'Hollyoaks, 'Love Island' or 'Get Me Out of Here I Am a Celebrity' you might be amazed to know.



I have never watched Eastenders or The Bill except by accident.



My opinions are not formed from popular TV shows, but by dint of critical evaluation of the news from numerous sources and textbooks.

No, none of that can be taken from what I actually posted.

 

[Darat]

You seem to have a belief 'everybody has watched Dad's Army and 'Allo,'Allo.'



People I met were shocked to discover I had never seen 'Sound of Music' up until a few years ago.



I have never watched 'Neighbours' or 'Hollyoaks, 'Love Island' or 'Get Me Out of Here I Am a Celebrity' you might be amazed to know.



I have never watched Eastenders or The Bill except by accident.



My opinions are not formed from popular TV shows, but by dint of critical evaluation of the news from numerous sources and textbooks.

You do have a curious way of putting things, I. E. You contradict yourself.

You say you've never watched Eastenders but then say you have. No wonder you get so confused with actual facts.

 

[Amazer]

My opinions are not formed from popular TV shows, but by dint of critical evaluation of the news from numerous sources and textbooks.

The evidence you've thus far provided in this thread seems to suggest that you are wholly incapable of critical evaluation.



Sent from my SM-J700F using Tapatalk

 

[Information Analyst]

And he rose up to become an officer from what I read.

You keep laying that without presenting a single reliable source..

The rationalisation 'ah, but Herr Juncker Senior was just a young man' is horrible when you consider what some of these zealous young Nazis did.

He may or may not have supported the Nazi cause, but 'oh he was only young' would not be an excuse for committing atrocities, which of course, we don't know he ever did.

Obvious smear is obvious.

 

[Information Analyst]

Germany may have had conscription as a desperate measure towards the end of the war, but the Brits who were extremely short of personnel never did bring in conscription AFAIAA for WWII so I am sceptical of Juncker's claim his father 'was forced to join the Wehrmacht'.

**** me backwards! You are beyond wrong on all three counts counts. Germany had conscription from 1935 - four years before the War actually started. The UK introduced conscription on 3 September 1939. Germany began conscription in Luxembourg in the Autumn of 1942.

OK maybe he was, but to go on to pass officers exams - if my source was correct that he was an officer (and of course it is not referenced so we do not know - means he committed himself.

That source that you have thus far been unable or unwilling to identify.

 

[Information Analyst]

Of course some men weren't conscripted.
Some 'essential' occupations were 'Reserved' and exempt from conscription.

My maternal grandfather is an interesting example. Before the war he was a marine engineer on motor vessels, but in 1938 took a job as a fitter at Blackburn Aircraft at Brough, which was obviously reserved when War broke out. By 1942, however, his marine engineering skills trumped the aircraft production side, so he was transferred to the Merchant Navy Reserve Pool, and was back at sea in the June.

 

[Information Analyst]

You only got to bean officer in the British forces if you went to the right school or university.
Conscripts almost never got to be officers.
They even created a special rank of 'Sergeant Pilot' so they didn't have to make the conscripted Oiks in to officers to let them be pilots.

Further, pre-War there was the distinction between the officers of the Auxiliary Air Force, and the sergeant pilots of the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve.

 

[3point14]

It wouldn't be so worrying, but these people get to vote.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

He may or may not have supported the Nazi cause, but 'oh he was only young' would not be an excuse for committing atrocities, which of course, we don't know he ever did.

He may or may not have robbed banks, tortured kittens and been in league with the devil. We just don't know if he ever did those things either. So we should definitely keep an open mind. Who knows or can even imagine the scale and depravity of the crimes he might theoretically have committed without leaving a scrap of evidence that he ever did anything wrong in his entire life?

 

[Jack by the hedge]

Juncker is not the avuncular sot he likes to present himself as. He has been in politics for many years and is famed for his Machiavellian skills.

I wouldn't take him at face value if I were you.

So you accept he's actually just doing his job and you think he's really rather good at it. But you also reckon he's a wrong 'un in some nebulous way, and for all we know he may be smirking at our troubles behind our backs? Thanks for that insight.

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

So you accept he's actually just doing his job and you think he's really rather good at it. But you also reckon he's a wrong 'un in some nebulous way, and for all we know he may be smirking at our troubles behind our backs? Thanks for that insight.

The amazing thing is that we continually see claims that the EU is screwing over the UK, that they are bullying us and that they are refusing to be reasonable.

And yet I cannot see a single example of the EU doing anything but apply the rules of their organisation even handedly to a country choosing to leave.

 

[The Moog]

Juncker is not the avuncular sot he likes to present himself as. He has been in politics for many years and is famed for his Machiavellian skills.

That's a step up from the UK politicians who have been doing it for years but still seem amazingly incompetent.

 

[Earthborn]

Freedom of movement into the United Kingdom is limited to a mandatory number of 10 000 people annually. This means that the United Kingdom is given to right to accept no more than 10 000 immigrants from European Union countries annually, if it so desires".

In the first sentence it is not clear that it applies only to immigrants; the lack of clarity could mean some 500 thousand truck drivers daily not knowing whether they'll be allowed in. It is also bad form to put a fixed number in the treaty itself; it is something you might want to change without having to renegotiate the treaty.
And you'll also have to get the EU27 to agree to it.

 

[Michel H]

The UK had the right to limit the freedom of movement of people joining from new member states and chose not to bother to do so. I don't see why you think they would have exercised this right against Poland had they been given it.

As for having the right to be a modest contributor, you don't get to set your own membership fees for a club.

The UK had the right to limit the freedom of movement of people joining from new member states and chose not to bother to do so. I don't see why you think they would have exercised this right against Poland had they been given it.

A perception of excessive immigration within the British population was a major reason why a majority chose Leave in 2016, as explained in this article by the Independant:

Brexit: People voted to leave EU because they feared immigration, major survey finds
Claims Leave vote was a result of general disenchantment with politics were 'widely off the mark', according to report

Britain’s vote to leave the EU was the result of widespread anti-immigration sentiment, rather than a wider dissatisfaction with politics, according to a major survey of social attitudes in the UK.

Findings from the British Social Attitudes (BSA) survey published on Wednesday show Brexit was the result of widespread concern over the numbers of people coming to the UK – millions of whom have done so under the EU’s freedom of movement rules in recent years.

(https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...in-reason-european-union-survey-a7811651.html , warning: adblocker must be disabled to read this article)

As for having the right to be a modest contributor, you don't get to set your own membership fees for a club.

The European Union is obviously a club of a special nature, a club of countries, and I would find it normal to negotiate to adjust the fee or contribution, if useful and justified, for example to try to dissuade a valued member to leave the club. The reason why countries pay for access to the single market is that, when the single market was introduced back in 1986, there was a fear that the weaker economies of the European Community – in particular Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain – would not be able to cope with the consequences of large-scale liberalization if they were not helped. So this "access money" is used to help the countries whose economies are deemed to be "too weak to cope". This is explained in this nice blog post: http://capreform.eu/the-uk-must-pay-for-access-to-the-single-market/ (interesting and instructive, although a bit complicated).

This blog post also explains that the UK actually does already have a "long-standing policy of support for the economic development of the less prosperous countries in central and eastern Europe". So (apparently), the UK doesn't want to be selfish and has already accepted the idea of helping.

 

[Darat]

Russia's President Vladimir Putin has accused the UK and US political classes of "disrespecting" the public by questioning the Brexit referendum and Donald Trump's election.



"They don't want to recognise [Mr Trump's] victory. That's disrespect of voters," he said.



"The same in Britain: Brexit happened, but no-one wants to implement it."



Russia's leader also said British Prime Minister Theresa May has no choice but to follow through with Brexit, as failing to do so would undermine UK democracy.



"She must enact the will of the people, expressed during the referendum," he said. "Or otherwise it is not a referendum at all: doing it over and over again if someone did not like it [the result]. Is it a democracy?"



https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-46630723

How surprising that he doesn't understand democracy, democracy by its very principle let's you redo things time and time again.