Brexit

[Hulyss]

I broke EU down into language sectors because it is the major problem. In France 80% of the ppl I know don't even speak English (so imagine writing...).

The West sector would communicate easily if there is a push at school to adopt proper English as the main 2nd language. For the North sector I think there is no problem. For the central sector it should be a bit more complicated because of diluted russian language. For the south ... well... south will always be a little problem but we will help him.

The major democratic and cohesive engine is school. Today school are far too soft with students. It should be more rude, more hard. Education should budget #1 after science and Military. We overtax Asia goods.

West collaborate with US, North collaborate with everybody (they are veryyy open), Center collaborate with Russia and Asia, and the south ... well the south will try to collaborate with themselves first.

Give THIS Europe to English people and they Brexin tomorrow.

[Telecaster]

One thing I'll note about my friends whose jobs are potentially threatened depending on how Brexit plays out: their response isn't "Oh no, I might be screwed!" but rather "Oh well, guess I might have to move." They're not bound—physically, psychologically or emotionally—by nations & borders to anywhere near the degree of earlier generations. Of course this outlook depends on a certain freedom of movement, but given that I see it as a hopeful sign in the opposite direction from the more nativist/nationalist tendencies also on display (in various locales).

Ultimately it's in the economic interest of countries to appeal to smart & creative potential workers, wherever they come from. Those countries that recognize and respond positively to this are IMO likely to be healthier in the long term. Globalization will continue, Brexit or no Brexit. Automation of un/low-skilled jobs will continue, walls or no walls. How best to adjust and take advantage? That's the question.

-Dave-

[Hulyss]

What's the reaction to Brexit in France BTW?

The french reaction to Brexit is vicious. Strangely there is the same problem in France and it might go the same way. But France isn't GB. We are not as strong as English ppl because, after all, England is an Island and islanders are more determinated and prone to face problems with good laughter and a beer. I have some Romanian friends and poeple of the east call France "the big whore". Imho they are spot on. France isn't a country since Napoleon I think.

Deep inside I'm a Scots. I use to go and know an island very well, the Isle of Arran, west of Irvin. My dream is to finish my days over there, in the art of photography, with a jar of marmitte, some farmer cheddar, some smoked salmon, the rain and the midges. I do not really care about all this mess I give up long time ago and I'm only 37.

Edit: And some Whisky and some open girls.

[Rob C]

The french reaction to Brexit is vicious. Strangely there is the same problem in France and it might go the same way. But France isn't GB. We are not as strong as English ppl because, after all, England is an Island and islanders are more determinated and prone to face problems with good laughter and a beer. I have some Romanian friends and poeple of the east call France "the big whore". Imho they are spot on. France isn't a country since Napoleon I think.

Deep inside I'm a Scots. I use to go and know an island very well, the Isle of Arran, west of Irvin. My dream is to finish my days over there, in the art of photography, with a jar of marmitte, some farmer cheddar, some smoked salmon, the rain and the midges. I do not really care about all this mess I give up long time ago and I'm only 37.

Edit: And some Whisky and some open girls.

You want to make Arran the next Big Whore?

Rob C

[Hulyss]

You want to make Arran the next Big Whore?

Rob C

Lol because of you I have tea all over my keyboard !

Arran is for me like Avalon. Should be preserved of all kind of thing. Since I work girls all day long I might bring some. The kitchen of the Castle is pretty big and there is a lot of deer trophy to dust off.

[Alan Klein]

Nationalism will destroy the EU.  Each people want self-government and their own borders.  They should have created a trade pact only.  Maybe that's what it will wind up being. 

[BobShaw]

Name me any country in the world that is a real democracy?

Probably most are, but you have to actually vote.
It seems that many didn't and then complain about the result.
That is the problem with voluntary elections.
Many are too lazy, don't want to go out in the rain, or think that their side is bound to win. All three probably applied here.

The other side is the people who vote to give a protest vote. I want my side to win but I am going to tell them I am not in nirvana yet.
If you actually are going to go to the trouble of voting then at least make it count.

[Justinr]

Nationalism will destroy the EU.  Each people want self-government and their own borders.  They should have created a trade pact only.  Maybe that's what it will wind up being.

That's only what it was meant to be, or so we were told over the years.

[Manoli]

...  I've no reason to assume that his knowledge of constitutional law is any better than mine, or anyone else's ...

Jeremy,

I didn't suggest that your knowledge of constitutional law was any less than Maugham's. The article, as you say, wan't an opinion but conjecture on what might happen and how it could possibly come to pass.

Nowhere have I suggested that the law will be changed retrospectively We both agree on that. What is seemingly questioned at this moment is the legality of the referendum and the exit process (http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201516/ldselect/ldeucom/138/138.pdf).

You mistakenly assume that the petition was started after the Brexit vote. It wasn't , it was started well before. The momentum picked up after the vote. When I first heard of it yesterday morning, it had barely half a million signatures - this morning, close to 3,000,000. Far from 'giving a clear outcome', the referendum has highlighted how unwise it is to decide the future of a people based on such a thin majority.

Bottom line is the referendum was advisory, not legally binding - it has only created a democratic imperative, one that could easily be superseded. It will now be up to Parliament to decide how best to go forward with Brexit.

When Nigel Farage first spoke to Sky news once the polls had closed, he described the then predicted slim margin of defeat as a small obstacle and declared 'the fight will go on..' At no point ever did he, or any other Leave campaigner, indicate a willingness to accept the result as conclusive (barring a 2/3 majority).

As the saying goes 'What's good for the goose .. '

Manoli

[Chairman Bill]

The question now is, who is going to pick up the poisoned chalice that is leadership of the Tory Party? Cameron has handed over responsibility to who ever comes next, and whoever that is, Boris Johnson, Teresa May or Michael Gove, or indeed someone else entirely, they have the blessed joy of dealing with an economy ruined by Osborne, now facing possibly recession from a very low base, and struggling to do a deal with an EU that seems in no mood to be accommodating. It is going to be one awful mess, and will quite probably lead to the break-up of the United Kingdom. If Cameron is going to go down in history as one of our most incompetent PMs, whoever follows him is likely to end with an even worse reputation. Political careers will be ruined. Boris knows that what is down the line is horrendous, hence his reluctance to move quickly to Brexit. Cameron knows it, and that is why he's leaving it to his successor. Boris has been royally screwed. As for Osborne, he's no doubt had his face planted in some lines of white powder, neatly laid out on his dominatrix's best assets. No one else has seen him. He's toast, and he knows it.

So, either we get led into Brexit, and it destroys whoever is leading the Tories, or there's a decision that it's all going to be far too damaging to the country and we should remain, which would also destroy whoever is leading the Tories. Frankly, it's schadenfreude time, either way.

[Rob C]

Lol because of you I have tea all over my keyboard !

Arran is for me like Avalon. Should be preserved of all kind of thing. Since I work girls all day long I might bring some. The kitchen of the Castle is pretty big and there is a lot of deer trophy to dust off.

My advice would be: don't go for an island: it becomes damned hard to get off them. My own velvet-lined trap in Mallorca proves this over and over again. You can't just jump into your car and go: you have to make arrangements ahead... And by that time, you could just as easily have changed your mind, and so nothing gets done. Sure, it does keep some people out, thank God - mainly those with caravans, but it does also imprison those who come and rent bicycles, which may be just as frustrating for those who don't like bicycles. Which is everybody in a car.

Try the edges of Loch Tay instead; beautiful, peaceful and as many midges as your heart desires. You can get the royal itch every night, if you expose yourself properly to them. Come winter, you can ski on the bonny sides of Ben Lawers.

But yes, you have to bring your own girl(s).

;-)

Rob

P.S.

There's a Sleepy Labeef version of Boogie Woogie Country Girl where your Ms Silhouette dances right through the number; tried to find it for you, but my two lists of musical 'favourites' make me blind each time I try to use them, so I gave up. Just like with the ferries, then.

[Jeremy Roussak]

Nowhere have I suggested that the law will be changed retrospectively We both agree on that. What is seemingly questioned at this moment is the legality of the referendum and the exit process (http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201516/ldselect/ldeucom/138/138.pdf).

You mistakenly assume that the petition was started after the Brexit vote. It wasn't , it was started well before. The momentum picked up after the vote. When I first heard of it yesterday morning, it had barely half a million signatures - this morning, close to 3,000,000. Far from 'giving a clear outcome', the referendum has highlighted how unwise it is to decide the future of a people based on such a thin majority.

It doesn't matter when it was started. The 2015 Act set the parameters of the referendum and defined how the result was to be determined. Any change would by definition be retrospective: the referendum has been and the result is known. It's a silly irrelevance, and would be even if it attracted the signatures of all 16.odd million people who voted remain.

There is no real, as opposed to fanciful, doubt on the legality of the referendum.

Bottom line is the referendum was advisory, not legally binding - it has only created a democratic imperative, one that could easily be superseded. It will now be up to Parliament to decide how best to go forward with Brexit.

That's an astonishing assertion. Whither (or wither, indeed) democracy? How can a "democratic imperative" be "easily ... superseded" save by abandoning the concept of democracy?

When Nigel Farage first spoke to Sky news once the polls had closed, he described the then predicted slim margin of defeat as a small obstacle and declared 'the fight will go on..' At no point ever did he, or any other Leave campaigner, indicate a willingness to accept the result as conclusive (barring a 2/3 majority).

As the saying goes 'What's good for the goose .. '

So what? There is no valid concept of a ⅔ majority. It's a retrospective irrelevance. The vote has been; the die is cast. Nothing, perhaps other than a second referendum on a very much changed EU, can change it. The EU has form for demanding that referenda which don't produce the result it likes are re-run, and some countries have given way and voted on the second occasion on the way in which the lords of Brussels wanted. I don't see that happening here.

Jeremy

[Rob C]

The question now is, who is going to pick up the poisoned chalice that is leadership of the Tory Party? Cameron has handed over responsibility to who ever comes next, and whoever that is, Boris Johnson, Teresa May or Michael Gove, or indeed someone else entirely, they have the blessed joy of dealing with an economy ruined by Osborne, now facing possibly recession from a very low base, and struggling to do a deal with an EU that seems in no mood to be accommodating. It is going to be one awful mess, and will quite probably lead to the break-up of the United Kingdom. If Cameron is going to go down in history as one of our most incompetent PMs, whoever follows him is likely to end with an even worse reputation. Political careers will be ruined. Boris knows that what is down the line is horrendous, hence his reluctance to move quickly to Brexit. Cameron knows it, and that is why he's leaving it to his successor. Boris has been royally screwed. As for Osborne, he's no doubt had his face planted in some lines of white powder, neatly laid out on his dominatrix's best assets. No one else has seen him. He's toast, and he knows it.

So, either we get led into Brexit, and it destroys whoever is leading the Tories, or there's a decision that it's all going to be far too damaging to the country and we should remain, which would also destroy whoever is leading the Tories. Frankly, it's schadenfreude time, either way.

Cameron is toast, he'd already indicated his lack of interest in running again - but according to the news this a.m. so is St Jeremy. Seems fair. Pity the rest of the country is also in the shit, but hey, half won't even be aware of it, thinking it "es normal", as they say in Spain, another land in political crisis.

Sadly, the final solution can only come when 100% of the population realises there are no free lunches. Even 10% still believing in fairies is enough to destabilize everything, because with them they carry the seeds of discontent, of the gracious living owed and denied.

Funny that otherwise logical people can believe the good life hangs on the branches of every tree, and is there simply for the picking, as of right.

Rob

[Manoli]

Jeremy,

What the petition is telling you is that there is an ever increasng groundswell of popular dissent against Brexit. The shadow cabinet is in disarray, the Tories are split probably 2/3 - 1/3, Scotland has clearly indicated it's desire to remain in the EU - and your response is 'so what?'

Whether you like it or not, Brexit is anything but a done deal, and it won't be until someone invokes Article 50. It was an advisory referendum , done and dusted, has no kegal validity but has given the Government of the day a democratic imperative, still very much subject to both informal and formal negotiations.

A general election returning a party that undertakes to keep Britain part of Europe, would supersede the result of the referendum. And democracy would be none the worse for it.

But Chairman Bill is right, for the current lot of players, it's a poisoned chalice - 'schadenfreude time all the way'.

Manoli

Edit:
Anyway time for some levity - someone mentioned that according to the House of Lords EU committee report, apparently HM Gov can't revoke EU membership without the prior approval of the Scottish Parliament - now that would be amusing !

It doesn't matter when it was started. The 2015 Act set the parameters of the referendum and defined how the result was to be determined. Any change would by definition be retrospective: the referendum has been and the result is known. It's a silly irrelevance, and would be even if it attracted the signatures of all 16.odd million people who voted remain.

There is no real, as opposed to fanciful, doubt on the legality of the referendum.

That's an astonishing assertion. Whither (or wither, indeed) democracy? How can a "democratic imperative" be "easily ... superseded" save by abandoning the concept of democracy?

So what? There is no valid concept of a ⅔ majority. It's a retrospective irrelevance. The vote has been; the die is cast. Nothing, perhaps other than a second referendum on a very much changed EU, can change it. The EU has form for demanding that referenda which don't produce the result it likes are re-run, and some countries have given way and voted on the second occasion on the way in which the lords of Brussels wanted. I don't see that happening here.

Jeremy

[AreBee]

Rob,

So political correctness, how does it figure?

Because even today it has prevented the truth being debated, either fully in Europe or even slightly in the UK. Every politician who has dared to come within breathing distance of the subject has been branded racist, thisophobe or thatophobe; in our lands of 'freedom' only the indigenous people are prevented from expressing what they may actually feel. Look at many political rallies, and you see the same thing: dissenting native voices get banned but the other sides are allowed to carry on out of fear of the government or the police being branded racist if they stop them. It's called the race card; you simply could not make it up.

Then don't.

Indigenous people? Native voices? Whence did the peoples of the UK originate?

How sad to think Jo Cox had to be murdered for this result; that so many thousands of soldiers of different nationalities lie in graves in the war cemeteries of France, and all for this.

Such grotesque thinking is indeed sad.



Alan,

Europe existed and traded before the EU.  America, a non-member, trades with Britain and the rest of Europe.  So Britain will have to operate like America, and Japan, and most countries in the world who aren't part of the EU.  Life will go on.

Indeed.

The alternative to being in the European Union... is not being in the European Union. It may come as a shock to little Europeans that most of the world is not in the European Union, and indeed most of these countries are doing better economically than most of the European Union.

Credit: Nigel Lawson



Dave,

If I were a Scot living in Scotland... I think I'd want a redo of that 2014 independence vote ASAP.

All three parties within Better Together are agreed that we should stay within the UK. There's a debate about what the best way to do that is. But there's one thing that's absolutely certain: that if the Nationalists get a Yes vote, Scotland will be leaving the UK, and so will be leaving the European Union.

Credit: Blair McDougall

Oops.



JV,

Millennials want to live in a world that is slightly larger than little Britain, and slightly larger than the EU as well for that matter...

All they need do is open their eyes - the world has always been larger than Britain and Europe.



Bernard,

There is little doubt that the EU as it is today isn't democratic enough.

I genuinely believe that the Brexit will help move that topic in the right direction.

Hope springs eternal.



Hulyss,

...France isn't GB. We are not as strong as English ppl because, after all, England is an Island..

Deep inside I'm a Scots.

Hmm.



Chairman Bill,

Political careers will be ruined.

All political lives, unless they are cut off in midstream at a happy juncture, end in failure, because that is the nature of politics and of human affairs.

Credit: Enoch Powell

[stamper]

http://uk.businessinsider.com/green-eu-referendum-not-legally-binding-brexit-2016-6

We ain't out YET.

[stamper]

If Boris Johnson looked downbeat yesterday, that is because he realises that he has lost.

Perhaps many Brexiters do not realise it yet, but they have actually lost, and it is all down to one man: David Cameron.

With one fell swoop yesterday at 9:15 am, Cameron effectively annulled the referendum result, and simultaneously destroyed the political careers of Boris Johnson, Michael Gove and leading Brexiters who cost him so much anguish, not to mention his premiership.

How?

Throughout the campaign, Cameron had repeatedly said that a vote for leave would lead to triggering Article 50 straight away. Whether implicitly or explicitly, the image was clear: he would be giving that notice under Article 50 the morning after a vote to leave. Whether that was scaremongering or not is a bit moot now but, in the midst of the sentimental nautical references of his speech yesterday, he quietly abandoned that position and handed the responsibility over to his successor.

And as the day wore on, the enormity of that step started to sink in: the markets, Sterling, Scotland, the Irish border, the Gibraltar border, the frontier at Calais, the need to continue compliance with all EU regulations for a free market, re-issuing passports, Brits abroad, EU citizens in Britain, the mountain of legistlation to be torn up and rewritten ... the list grew and grew.

The referendum result is not binding. It is advisory. Parliament is not bound to commit itself in that same direction.

The Conservative party election that Cameron triggered will now have one question looming over it: will you, if elected as party leader, trigger the notice under Article 50?

Who will want to have the responsibility of all those ramifications and consequences on his/her head and shoulders?

Boris Johnson knew this yesterday, when he emerged subdued from his home and was even more subdued at the press conference. He has been out-maneouvered and check-mated.

If he runs for leadership of the party, and then fails to follow through on triggering Article 50, then he is finished. If he does not run and effectively abandons the field, then he is finished. If he runs, wins and pulls the UK out of the EU, then it will all be over - Scotland will break away, there will be upheaval in Ireland, a recession ... broken trade agreements. Then he is also finished. Boris Johnson knows all of this. When he acts like the dumb blond it is just that: an act.

The Brexit leaders now have a result that they cannot use. For them, leadership of the Tory party has become a poison chalice.

When Boris Johnson said there was no need to trigger Article 50 straight away, what he really meant to say was "never". When Michael Gove went on and on about "informal negotiations" ... why? why not the formal ones straight away? ... he also meant not triggering the formal departure. They both know what a formal demarche would mean: an irreversible step that neither of them is prepared to take.

All that remains is for someone to have the guts to stand up and say that Brexit is unachievable in reality without an enormous amount of pain and destruction, that cannot be borne. And David Cameron has put the onus of making that statement on the heads of the people who led the Brexit campaign

Comments from the Guardian newspaper

[Ray]

Crikey! For a moment I was surprised at your comments, Stamper, which appeared to be very insightful, but a bit puzzling because they seemed to be out of character. 

Then I noticed at the end of your post: "Comments from the Guardian newspaper". 

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

Crikey! For a moment I was surprised at your comments, Stamper, which appeared to be very insightful, but a bit puzzling because they seemed to be out of character. 

Then I noticed at the end of your post: "Comments from the Guardian newspaper". 

+1   

Cheers,
Bart

[Rob C]

+1   

Cheers,
Bart

+2

BUT: stamper, if quoting all that is declaring his suppport for staying in, then he's right. I have never been a Scot Nat, but I have to admit that they seem more attractive this weekend.

If this cursed break does go ahead, rapidly followed by another internal one, then I see two local winners: Ireland and Scotland.

Both have engineering skills, and the attractions for Belfast to swallow its religious differences and vote to join the south makes a lot of economic sense. It would be a large gulp, but in the end, both would win.

Scotland, as anyone who knows it has to admit, has a vast heritage of engineering know-how and its attractions as an alternative for Nissan et al. seem fairly obvious: they still would have a footprint/base on the closest coast to Europe. Leith to Zeebrugge is already operable for large vessels... Ireland would be marginally more expensive from that aspect, but regardless, cheaper than shipping from Japan, and yes, Scotland and Ireland would be far less prone to labour problems than France! (I think they learned their lesson on that a few years ago.) And certainly no more expensive labour-wise than England.

As for the recent attack some make on banks, and the pleasure at the new problems they now face: how dumb; the money they hold is ours; we should be happy it's being jeopardized? Ditto the bail outs of 2008: yes, they kept their jobs, those rash gents, but our savings didn't become scraps of worthless balance sheet either, preventing which the primary intention of the bail outs. Amazing how hatred can blind the eyes of those who feel left behind, less capable.

Again, that bloody great lies go unchallenged, swallowed whole, is certainly the fault of those telling them; but is the populace blameless, can it escape the responsibilty of using common sense? Is it so stupid as to believe what it reads in the tabloids? If so, then I think that democracy-without-qualification and referenda are ever less worthy or reliable ways of running an organization as big as a country.

How to improve it? No idea that would stick.