Brexit Encore

[Alan Klein]

Aha! Your checklist for chaos, then!

Try harder, Alan; we're talking about a club, here, where mutually agreed rules and norms function for the greater and smoother good of the group. Which they generally have, with the inevitable cases of  winners and losers depending on the areas where each has its strengths or weaknesses. No unit can have it all, and that includes the ones some love to hate: Germany and France.

But what's the point of engaging here when you clearly refuse to understand a goddam thing about it. Any fool can copy out or link to wiki or any other site and draw up any nonsense he likes.

You're out of your depth. Get yourself a hobby you can do.

Why  are you getting angry at me, Rob, an American observer?  Your fellow Brits voted for Brexit, not me.  And Italian, French and others just voted for for more nationalist control rather then letting Brussels dictate how Europeans should live.  People are rejecting globalists and their socialist, nationless corporate, pie-in-the-sky borderless theories. 

[Rob C]

Why  are you getting angry at me, Rob, an American observer?  Your fellow Brits voted for Brexit, not me.  And Italian, French and others just voted for for more nationalist control rather then letting Brussels dictate how Europeans should live.  People are rejecting globalists and their socialist, nationless corporate, pie-in-the-sky borderless theories.

Because you just don't get what people are trying to explain to you, ad nauseam. It's like you have an impenetrable barrier between reading and comprehension.

It has zero to do with socialism; God knows that's the last creed I would embrace! There is nothing illusory about borders: they have their forms of control and these vary depending on whether or not the individual countries signed up to the Schengen deal. The UK did not, and the borders are controlled. You still require a passport to travel in and out, as do I, a Brit!

https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C2PRFE_enES586ES586&source=hp&ei=A7bvXNa_AaeOlwSe3ae4Cw&q=schengen+agreement&oq=schengen&gs_l=psy-ab.1.3.0l10.1257.2781..9169...0.0..0.69.496.8......0....1..gws-wiz.....0.2jR4B3tyBxY

The border controls that are vitally important to the survival of the UK industrial exercise are those that govern the free passage of parts from one company in Europoe to another, and the car industry - as probably the washing machine one too - is full of such movements of parts. If you will have to have all those trucks checked, duty applied, the competitive edge with disappear.

The UK builds wings for Aerobus, wings that go to Toulouse for assembly; only America's Boeing and some other, alternative EEC country that will get the employment instead, will be celebrating the demise of the UK industry. Do you have shares in Boeing, perchance?

Rob

[Alan Klein]

Because you just don't get what people are trying to explain to you, ad nauseam. It's like you have an impenetrable barrier between reading and comprehension.

It has zero to do with socialism; God knows that's the last creed I would embrace! There is nothing illusory about borders: they have their forms of control and these vary depending on whether or not the individual countries signed up to the Schengen deal. The UK did not, and the borders are controlled. You still require a passport to travel in and out, as do I, a Brit!

https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C2PRFE_enES586ES586&source=hp&ei=A7bvXNa_AaeOlwSe3ae4Cw&q=schengen+agreement&oq=schengen&gs_l=psy-ab.1.3.0l10.1257.2781..9169...0.0..0.69.496.8......0....1..gws-wiz.....0.2jR4B3tyBxY

The border controls that are vitally important to the survival of the UK industrial exercise are those that govern the free passage of parts from one company in Europoe to another, and the car industry - as probably the washing machine one too - is full of such movements of parts. If you will have to have all those trucks checked, duty applied, the competitive edge with disappear.

The UK builds wings for Aerobus, wings that go to Toulouse for assembly; only America's Boeing and some other, alternative EEC country that will get the employment instead, will be celebrating the demise of the UK industry. Do you have shares in Boeing, perchance?

Rob

The fact is people voted for Brexit.  And recently they voted for nationalists who object the way the EU has ruled.  They want their nations' parliament to legislate, not Brussels' bureaucrats who don;t answer directly to their country's voters.  I welcome your observations of why Europeans are voting this way.  But your reaction seems to be disappointment with the results and an attempt to deny it happened.  We had similar reactions here when Trump won with his nationalist stands.  What's happening since then is that the other side is now taking stronger nationalist positions regarding workers and espousing patriotic leanings regarding international affairs.  Trump and Brexit have woken up the "silent majority". 

[Alan Klein]

Some of them did, 33.9% of those old enough to vote.

Cheers,
Bart

Some?  That's spin.  It was a Majority. 

[Rob C]

1. The fact is people voted for Brexit.  And recently they voted for nationalists who object the way the EU has ruled.  2. They want their nations' parliament to legislate, not Brussels' bureaucrats who don;t answer directly to their country's voters.  I welcome your observations of why Europeans are voting this way.  But your reaction seems to be disappointment with the results and an attempt to deny it happened.  3. We had similar reactions here when Trump won with his nationalist stands.  What's happening since then is that the other side is now taking stronger nationalist positions regarding workers and espousing patriotic leanings regarding international affairs.  Trump and Brexit have woken up the "silent majority".

1. Just as people leap off the Brooklyn Bridge.

Does that imply that there is little merit to trying to save them (and the rest of the famiily if chained to them too) from making that damnfool jump whilst there is still time?

2. You still haven't picked up on what you have been told, what has been explained to you, have you? You persist in sticking with half-digested notions. That is why I find conversing with you is like whipping the fog. I'm out of it, thanks; fight with your shadow if you must.

3. The reasons why your lot voted for Trump are because you Americans live in a bubble of your own. That your decisions, and that those subsequently made on your behalf beggar belief, has nothing to do with Brexit beyond the fact that Trump seems willing to lend weight and leap under the covers with Nigel... maybe the latter is hoping Melania might be there, too. But you never can tell, can you?

[Alan Klein]

The losing side in every election always claims the other side just didn't "get it."

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

Those who are mocking Alan seem like a good example of not being able to see the forest from the trees. Seeing things from a distance helps to recognize major shapes and forms, even if the detail is missing or wrong. From here, especially some of us who also lived there, we see socialist tendencies better than you frogs in a still tepid pot. We see the tendency toward a United States of Europe (actually, it is more like a Union of Soviet Europe Socialist Republics). We see the tendency toward majority vote, instead of consensus. Apparently, most Brits, by the virtue of seeing it from the distance as well, can see all that too.

[jeremyrh]

The losing side in every election always claims the other side just didn't "get it."

It's not really about one side or another "not getting it" It's just that Alan doesn't know what he's talking about. That's ok - he doesn't live here so he's not aware of the issues, what's real and what's propaganda and he can't he expected to. But it just makes discussion a bit pointless.

[jeremyrh]

Those who are mocking Alan seem like a good example of not being able to see the forest from the trees. Seeing things from a distance helps to recognize major shapes and forms, even if the detail is missing or wrong. From here, especially some of us who also lived there, we see socialist tendencies better than you frogs in a still tepid pot. We see the tendency toward a United States of Europe (actually, it is more like a Union of Soviet Europe Socialist Republics). We see the tendency toward majority vote, instead of consensus. Apparently, most Brits, by the virtue of seeing it from the distance as well, can see all that too.

Your argument would be stronger if you gave some actual examples of this malignant tendency that you identify, rather than just asserting that it is real.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

Your argument would be stronger if you gave some actual examples of this malignant tendency that you identify, rather than just asserting that it is real.

When you buy me a beer

In the meantime, one example (emphasis mine):

While some policy areas require unanimity among Council members, for selected policy areas qualified majority voting has existed right from the start. All major treaties have shifted some policy areas from unanimity to qualified majority voting.

Worth mentioning that majority is defined not only by member-state (i.e., 16 out of 28), but by population as well, giving Germany and France the top-two positions, followed by the UK and Italy.

[Jeremy Roussak]

Some of them did, 33.9% of those old enough to vote.

That's how elections work, Bart. If you can't be bothered to get off your arse and walk to a polling station, or can't be bothered to apply for a postal vote and post it, your opinion doesn't count. It's hardly unfair.

Jeremy

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

An interesting angle on Brexit, from The Economist:

Britons pride themselves on their “unwritten” constitution. America, France and Germany need rules to be set down in black and white. In the Mother of Parliaments democracy has blossomed for over 300 years without coups, revolution or civil war, Irish independence aside. Its politics are governed by an evolving set of traditions, conventions and laws under a sovereign Parliament. Thanks to its stability, Britain convinced the world that its style of government was built on solid foundations laid down over centuries of commonsense adaptation.

That view is out of date. The remorseless logic of Brexit has shoved a stick of constitutional dynamite beneath the United Kingdom—and, given the difficulty of constitutional reform in a country at loggerheads, there is little that can be done to defuse it. The chances are high that Britons will soon discover that the constitution they counted on to be adaptable and robust can in fact amplify chaos, division and the threat to the union.

https://www.economist.com/leaders/2019/05/30/britains-constitutional-time-bomb?cid1=cust/ednew/n/bl/n/2019/05/30n/owned/n/n/nwl/n/n/NA/247492/n

[john beardsworth]

An interesting angle on Brexit, from The Economist...

That's pretty well what has already happened. The first-past-the-post system may have worked in a two party system, but didn't allow the range of pro and anti-European views to be reflected in party politics or doesn't offer the flexibilty that's needed to resolve the situation.

[jeremyrh]

I totally agree. I just tried clarifying to Alan that "The fact is people voted for Brexit." doesn't mean that the majority of 'the people in the UK' wanted to Leave. It's more that a lot of them couldn't be bothered to vote, especially young people.

Which is also why I encourage everyone to always make use of their voting rights. If you don't, then others will decide your future, and possibly not the future you agree with.

Cheers,
Bart

Not so
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jul/09/young-people-referendum-turnout-brexit-twice-as-high

[Rob C]

That's how elections work, Bart. If you can't be bothered to get off your arse and walk to a polling station, or can't be bothered to apply for a postal vote and post it, your opinion doesn't count. It's hardly unfair.

Jeremy

Which does nothing to explain why some of us living abroad, who are still British citizens unless we changed nationalities, were denied a vote.

Seems extraordinarily unfair and undemocratic. Our past and future is irrevocably bound up with the future of the United Kingdom on almost every level. As to why it makes any legal difference to allow a migrant of five years the vote but not one of many more years, is crazy and no more than an attempt at rigging the presumed colour of such a vote. Of the two, the one with the greater foreign experience surely knows one helluva lot more about the advantages or otherwise of open doors than the other! If anything, he can bring a less rose-tinted perspective to the debate. But then that's not was wanted, was it?

[Rob C]

An interesting angle on Brexit, from The Economist:

https://www.economist.com/leaders/2019/05/30/britains-constitutional-time-bomb?cid1=cust/ednew/n/bl/n/2019/05/30n/owned/n/n/nwl/n/n/NA/247492/n

That little scribble is no more than a journalistic attempt to ignite some fresh interest in what that paper has to say. The writer could just as easily have swung it in the opposite direction, saying how wonderfully resilient the system is that it survives so well and can continue to battle on until it resolves the issue, whereas other systems would have had the cobblestones torn up and The Houses of Parliament set ablaze.

Journos can write anything they need to write, just as posters in LuLa can defend any old crap they feel inclined to defend, whether or not they actually believe in it. Who will ever know?

[Chris Kern]

The reasons why your lot voted for Trump are because you Americans live in a bubble of your own. That your decisions, and that those subsequently made on your behalf beggar belief, has nothing to do with Brexit beyond the fact that Trump seems willing to lend weight and leap under the covers with Nigel. . . .

I wish you were correct about that, and that Trump's election was a purely American anomaly, but I think actually he tapped into the same current of anti-elite resentment that has energized the neo-nationalist movement in the U.K.—and elsewhere in Europe, for that matter.  That their policy prescriptions may wind up hurting rather than helping the proponents doesn't negate the emotional value of "sticking it to the man."  People who are angry enough tend to lash out even when lashing out is self-defeating.

I welcome your observations of why Europeans are voting this way.  But your reaction seems to be disappointment with the results and an attempt to deny it happened.  We had similar reactions here when Trump won with his nationalist stands.  What's happening since then is that the other side is now taking stronger nationalist positions regarding workers . . .

I wish you were wrong about that, but I think it's a valid point: the centrist and center-right Democrats failed in 2016 to take seriously the economic grievances of working- and middle-class voters who gave Trump majorities in a sufficient number of states to achieve a victory in the electoral college despite losing the national popular vote.  Now, as they prepare for 2020, many of them are adopting policy proposals from the left wing of the party that they previously considered too radical.

But while the causes of this resentment on either side of the Atlantic may have much in common, the effects are quite different.  Trump's election and the policy initiatives of his Administration—some of which have been ineffective or ruled improper by the courts on either procedural or substantive legal grounds—are easily, and, if a Democrat or a mainstream Republican is elected president in 2020, quickly reversible.  If the U.K. exits the European Union, whether it's a "hard Brexit" or any sort of negotiated one that currently seems feasible, the effects will likely be impossible to undo.

[Alan Klein]

Which does nothing to explain why some of us living abroad, who are still British citizens unless we changed nationalities, were denied a vote.

Seems extraordinarily unfair and undemocratic. Our past and future is irrevocably bound up with the future of the United Kingdom on almost every level. As to why it makes any legal difference to allow a migrant of five years the vote but not one of many more years, is crazy and no more than an attempt at rigging the presumed colour of such a vote. Of the two, the one with the greater foreign experience surely knows one helluva lot more about the advantages or otherwise of open doors than the other! If anything, he can bring a less rose-tinted perspective to the debate. But then that's not was wanted, was it?

Why were you denied the right to vote? 

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

Not so
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jul/09/young-people-referendum-turnout-brexit-twice-as-high

Every time I hear about "new findings" that correct the old by 100%, I become highly suspicions of the finders intentions, bias, and motive.

EDIT: Oh, this was based on polling! But of course. We all know by now how accurate polls are. Check out the Bradley Effect..

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

... he writer could just as easily have swung it in the opposite direction, saying how wonderfully resilient the system is that it survives so well and can continue to battle on until it resolves the issue...

Have you read the article, you would have found exactly that:

It is indeed just possible that their constitution’s infinite flexibility will permit a compromise that gets the country through the Brexit badlands.