It's the only way to keep the .EU domain since the EU has (in a totally not petty way) revoked all holders who aren't in the EU.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pannonian
~:smoking:
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It's the only way to keep the .EU domain since the EU has (in a totally not petty way) revoked all holders who aren't in the EU.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pannonian
~:smoking:
Rory, if you have the time I would like to get this discussion to get further into the weeds. The timeline from my brief research seems to be contrary to your portrayal. Greece was admitted into the EEC well back in the 1980s when it was still a fledgling, corrupt Democracy just out of the junta, I don't think anyone was looking the other way as far as the near future of Greek financials. When the EU single market was established along with the Euro, Greece was not permitted to join the Euro for exactly those concerns. The question is, from 1999 to 2001 (which is when Greece cooked its books to join the Euro in 2001) can you show me evidence, news articles, that seems to indicate there was skepticism at the time regarding Greece's improving financial reports?Quote:
Originally Posted by rory_20_uk
It wasn't until 2004 that Athens began admitting the financial troubles. To me, your argument could hold water during the 5 year period between 2004 and 2009 when the EU now had concrete evidence from the 2004 audit that Greece had lied to them, unless you can show otherwise that the financial fraud was an 'open secret' prior to that. However, with that being said you as a European (well, now just British as of Jan 1st) could perhaps shed some insight on the following:
* What was the better option for the EU to react to the Greek 2004 audit: Removal from the Euro, removal from the entire EU apparatus including the single market, both?
* What could the EU have done in 2004 to make course corrections for Greece, keeping in mind that is still pre-Lisbon treaty. Now, I have absolutely no knowledge of the differences between the European Central Bank authority pre and post Lisbon so again you may have to indulge me in what exactly they could have done at the time. To me, Lisbon seemed to be in part influenced by the 2004 audit to give the central bank and the European Commission more centralized power to coordinate monetary and financial relief programs. The fact that the Great Recession began in 2007 right as Lisbon was ratified seems to be the most tragic timing which prevented the EU from doing more before Greece's financials completely fell apart.
"under the plan, the EU will not be able to implement sanctions nor withhold funding before 2022 and that’s only if the bloc's highest court, the European Court of Justice, also rules against Poland or Hungary."Quote:
Originally Posted by Furunculus
Wikipedia tells me out of the 27 justices on the ECJ, only three come from either Hungary or Poland. So Poland and Hungary have bought themselves another two years, but after that are you concerned that the ECJ will not be aggressive against their illiberal practices?
Come on Rory, is this fair? I don't quite understand why following the implications of Brexit to the fullest extent of the law is considered 'petty'. If an organization is no longer in the EU, a domain exception would cause market confusion. People might be thinking they are dealing with EU based companies, following EU rules and standards based on the domain of the website they are interacting with. So what is the pettiness here?Quote:
Originally Posted by rory_20_uk
Yes, I found that one too but it was not what i was referring to.Quote:
Originally Posted by a completely inoffensive name
I think I have tracked it down now (from a different source) using enhanced google fu:
Basically - rule of law provision now applies only to the misuse of EU funds and no longer - as people might imagine - to the constitutional 'irregularities' that lead to calls for the rule of law provisions in the first place.
What people think it means:
https://euobserver.com/political/148801
https://euobserver.com/institutional/149967Quote:
EU justice commissioner Didier Reynders on Monday argued for an "effective" link between respect for rule law and the disbursement of EU funds - as complex negotiations drag on among EU leaders on the bloc's long-term budget and recovery.
What it actually means:Quote:
Negotiators from the European Parliament and the German EU presidency on Thursday (5 November) clinched an agreement on a mechanism that for the first time allows suspending or cutting EU funds if a member state breaches the rule of law.
https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/...ss-to-eu-funds
https://eucrim.eu/news/compromise-ma...e-law-respect/Quote:
Under the new regulation, EU budget payments can be withheld from countries in which established breaches of the rule of law compromise management of the EU funds. At the same time, the EU is ensuring that final beneficiaries do not end up paying the bill.
https://www.euractiv.com/section/all...law-mechanism/Quote:
The deal deletes the Commission’s approach that “generalised deficiencies” as regards the rule of law in a given Member State may trigger preventive measures. Instead, it is now foreseen that appropriate measures can be taken if it is established that breaches of the principles of the rule of law in a Member State affect or seriously risk affecting the sound financial management of the EU budget or the protection of the financial interests of the EU “in a sufficiently direct way”.
Some eastern european think-tanker I follow highlighted the discrepancy in early December - but it hasn't been reported on in any useful way.Quote:
The MEPs did not manage to convince member state negotiators to instead require a country to have to build a qualified majority coalition to block the Commission’s decision... Moreover, MEPs succeeded in expanding the scope of the mechanism from the previous proposal that applies only where rule of law problems already “affect in a sufficiently direct way the sound financial management of the EU budget” to include breaches that “seriously risk” affecting EU money.
The Polish/Hungarian gov'ts are of course laughing - because they just want to have the money, not misuse it. They're more concerned about interference in their in [domestic] constitutional affairs, and here the teeth have been pulled.
Why would the EU's teeth being pulled be a bad thing?Quote:
Originally Posted by Furunculus
Is this question ironic?
Not sure if this is intended for me (as I have expressed no value judgement on this statement), or, if perhaps the question is more metaphysical (in that we must presume the collective will of the polish/hungarian populace as evidenced through the action of their gov'ts)...
I'll do my best.Quote:
Originally Posted by a completely inoffensive name
First off the EEC. A pure trading block. In the same way a shop is not at risk from potential customers, admitting countries with poor credit history is not itself an issue. So let them in by all means... But perhaps don't let them pay on credit.
The EU is like two companies merging. You need to know them inside out.
Let's start with Greece's history of their currency... they've had many, many, MANY issues before. Almost to the degree one could say it was wilful ignorance to let them in, and a political decision rather than one based on economics... although no one seemed to view asking the citizens of the EU what they thought.
Attachment 24237
Regarding "open secret". Apart from the word "secret" I'd agree with you - Link - with ministers loudly decrying the mess things were in with government owned industries. The only redeeming thing is that everyone was sinning.
The key facet here is how there was a large difference in borrowing costs in the drachma compared to the Euro / Deuchmark. Greece had tried for years to join the EU to help stabilise the mess their economy had been in throughout the 80's Link- so even if the numbers look OK, this should have been thoroughly audited how this turnaround happened.
Greece's financials had been falling apart since they left the Ottoman Empire. It was one catastrophe after another fuelled by mismanagement and tax evasion on a grand scale. They sort of managed by devaluing their currency from time to time and everyone knew they were a basket case - hence why borrowing costs were so high.
What was the EU to do after they wilfully believed what was an obvious lie? If we pretend for a second that the EU is based on sound economics they'd remove them from the EU. If it is a political construct then this is an opportunity! Another reason for more EU institutions, oversight of countries and another small step to being a supra state. So no real surprises there then. And soon afterwards another treaty that was created to ensure that no voters need be bothered with their opinion.
First off, owning an .eu website does not in any way imply EU standards any more than any other domain implies standards - by these rules it would be fine to have the website hosted there and the businesses elsewhere. And what other places on the planet enforce this? I can't find any - certainly not .com or .co.uk - here I do know that companies need to have their address and incorporation number on the website, regardless of the domain. It is not that enforcing the law that is petty, is that they've got this law in the first place.Quote:
Originally Posted by a completely inoffensive name
~:smoking:
I've seen the argument posted that any infringement of sovereignty is a bad thing, even if it's overwhelmingly in our favour, and that the theoretical restoration of complete sovereignty was why we left the EU. Then you are arguing here that the EU is in a bad state because it does not override Polish and Hungarian sovereignty sufficiently with enforceable rules.Quote:
Originally Posted by Furunculus
That is in fact not an argument I made - as my detailed and meticulous expansion on the limitations of the rule-of-law provision (that it no longer does what people think it does), included zero value judgements on matter itself.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pannonian
Quote:
Under .us nexus requirements, .us domains may be registered only by the following qualified entities:
Any United States citizen or resident,
Any United States entity, such as organizations or corporations,
Any foreign entity or organization with a bona fide presence in the United States
To ensure that these requirements are met, GoDaddy frequently conducts "spot checks" on registrant information.
To prevent anonymous registrations that do not meet these requirements, in 2005 the National Telecommunications and Information Administration ruled that registrants of .us domains may not secure private domain name registration via anonymizing proxies, and that their contact information must be made public.[23] Registrants are required to provide complete contact information without omissions.[24]
:coffeenews:Quote:
According to .EU registry policy, the following persons are eligible to register .EU domain names:
A Union citizen, independently of their place of residence
A natural person who is not a Union citizen and who is a resident of a Member State
An undertaking that is established in the Union
An organization that is established in the Union, without prejudice to the application of national law
I'll never understand these emotional hangups about the EU.
EDIT: Unrelatedly, here's a document that I haven't looked at but might be of interest: "Mind the values gap: The social and economic values of MPs, party members and voters"
That was very interesting! It pretty much destroyed the myth that Labour lost the last elections, because Corbyn too left-wing.
Very interesting and definitely something to make me think twice on EU's legacy. Quick question on the bold section. In the same manner that Greece's financial future was known, how could the UK not see the EU as anything but a supra-national political organization at its very outset in 1992? Many of the arguments I see from the anti position (against EU policies/orgs) are phrased as "well if the EU was truly an economic union and not a political union..." Was it not clear what the EU was going to be in 1992? In 2007? Now we are 13 years from Lisbon and the separation has finally happened with much anguish over separating the tangled mess of interwoven economic and political treaties. If sovereignty is valued above else (and it clearly is to the frustration of Pann), why the fuck did you all stay so long in it or even join to begin with?Quote:
Originally Posted by rory_20_uk
Not all those who voted Leave voted for sovereignty above all else. Fishermen voted for a bigger share of the catch in British waters, but the deal which Boris Johnson has been praised for getting threw that away to get it across the finishing line, and now they're complaining that the government sold them out. Also, our leaving the economic union has made it practically impossible to sell the catch that they do have, resulting in the last catches rotting in the docks instead of being sold. The cases being highlighted so far have pointed to the increased paperwork making it impractical to get the extremely perishable goods to the desired market in time (one Leave-voting woman, boasting beforehand that she'd spent 40k to prepare her company for Brexit, complained that her 50k load had to be written off for this reason). On top of that, EU-based hauliers who form a large proportion of our logistics system, have decided that the UK leg is not worth the hassle (due to our leaving the economic union and incurring huge amounts of paperwork and other bureaucracy).Quote:
Originally Posted by a completely inoffensive name
Our ports are currently operating at something like 20% of their normal capacity. Is this due to covid? Not necessarily, as the traffic on the Ireland-France direct route have doubled or tripled. There is traffic, but it's bypassing Britain. Supermarkets have expressed concern that their stockpiles, made in preparation for Brexit, are emptying at an unsustainable rate (NB. in contrast they were clear last year that there were adequate stocks). Newspapers have been showing empty shelves again, but this time it's not due to user panic, but due to decreasing stocks.
This is your first sentence but your following example about fish is about the desire of British fisherman to gain full control of British fish stock and the harvesting thereof. You phrase it as a economic desire, but the means to achieve it is clearly through sovereignty and breaking away from EU agreements. I think there is confusion regarding the arguments, as it seems many of these economic situations you talk about are primarily in relation to the removal of checks or limitations imposed by EU rules. So it is still a sovereignty issue at its core, but people always phrase things in the immediate economic benefit. 'I get to catch more fish' is really, 'EU can't tell me where and how much to fish'.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pannonian
They want more money. That it's economic can be seen in their complaining about being unable to sell the catches that they are making. If it's purely about sovereignty, then as Jacob Rees Mogg calls it, we now have happier fish due to our now uncompromised sovereignty. Except they can't get the catch to the buyers in the EU, and people in the UK aren't interested in what they catch.Quote:
Originally Posted by a completely inoffensive name
'I voted out for my grandchildren!' Businesswoman says £40,000 Brexit hit is worth it
Family-run business risks losing £50,000 worth of shellfish after Brexit delays at French border
Same person.
Another person in the business.
Brexit red tape could make our export business unviable, says shellfish boss
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pannonian
Pan this is directly from your second link:
Quote:
She added: “I knew when I voted Leave that it would directly affect my business, both my businesses - the farming and the shellfish.
“But I also believe that I am not the important person here.
“The whole nation is important so for the greater good is why I voted out.
“And for my grandchildren and their future, that’s why I voted out.”
That quote is from 2019. Here are some quotes from 2021.Quote:
Originally Posted by a completely inoffensive name
"The powers that be should have been able to give us guidance," she said.
"We've had no opportunity to practice. Not even a week to practice and implement these new rules.
"I'm exhausted and ready to jack it in. I can't keep up with the stress of this again.
"I can't do this again next week, I need a break."
"We're a tiny little Welsh company, its family run - we're fourth generation running it. We can't afford to take the hit."
Here's another in the fishing industry, regretting voting Leave and losing his market.
"Be careful what you wish for. I thought we were going to get a global market. This is going to be a new opportunity. But it hasn't turned out like this. I would have never voted for Brexit if I knew we were going to lose our job."
Well that's just sad. I'm not sure how any business owner could go into Brexit thinking that leaving a common market was going to reduce documentation and obstacles to selling.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pannonian
Again, I have to ask you the same question I just asked Rory, when you joined the EU in 1992...what did you think you were getting yourself into?
We weren't joining, we we're on a rollercoaster with a bunch of other people.
the situation is quite different.
Not sure I understand.Quote:
Originally Posted by Furunculus
It used to be called the EEC (European Economic Community). By the time I was old enough to vote, it was the EC (European Community). There were some additional political and fiscal union measures introduced from 1992 onwards, but the UK was largely excepted from them. During the Labour government, we signed up to some of these measures, largely relating to workers' rights. Most of the additional integration that we experienced in the UK were to do with the common market, which we were one of the principal drivers of. Most of the additional measures like the common currency, Schengen and so on, didn't apply to us. The only additional political union thing that I can think of that we took part in was electing MEPs to the EU parliament. Which we didn't take seriously, as seen in the success of UKIP despite their MEPs doing sweet FA in the EU parliament except vowing to take all the money they were entitled to whilst doing none of the work.Quote:
Originally Posted by a completely inoffensive name
I get the history and I get that you negotiated to be mostly exempt from many of the provisions but the Maastricht Treaty explicitly states: "resolved to continue the process of creating an ever closer union among the peoples of Europe" [...] "further steps to be taken in order to advance European integration".Quote:
Originally Posted by Pannonian
So when Frun in the past on this forum demeans the ongoing process of "integration", again, it seems pretty clear the direction that the EU was going in from 1992. Yet here we are 28 years later and everyone is mad about too much EU control?
Did the UK expect special treatment and exceptions in perpetuity, did it believe that it would always hold a single member veto over future reforms, tell me how EU integration is in anyway not something that the UK implicitly agreed to by staying within the EU system for the past 30 years.
I guess my complaint is that the Brexiteers pushed the subject now and not in 1992 and the question of how much does the UK plan to integrate themselves was kicked down the road until the choice became absolute economic upheaval or acceptance of a future Federalized Europe.
My feeling, probably shared by all UK governments until Cameron made the referendum a manifesto promise to try and neutralise UKIP's threat to the Tories, was that the other European countries can engage in as much union as they want while we engaged at our own pace. We're not the only country with exceptions. Ireland has some, as does Denmark. The biggest markers of this ever increasing union were the common currency and Schengen. Both of which we were exempt from. Ireland isn't in Schengen, while Denmark doesn't use the euro. Why is it our business if the other countries want a currency and travel union?Quote:
Originally Posted by a completely inoffensive name
In other words, a matter of identity. The abstract issue of sovereignty, to the extent the UK ever gave any up, has historically weighed on few minds.Quote:
Originally Posted by a completely inoffensive name
Only a handful of elite bureaucrats and ivory-tower philosophers ever had grand roadmaps for the EU, likely none viable. Furunc is getting at that ad-hoc nature of the existing institutions when he calls it a rollercoaster, but the metaphor doesn't succeed overall because anyone can see the defined track - start and end - of a rollercoaster.Quote:
Originally Posted by a completely inoffensive name
Has the choice been made elsewhere? Maybe in 2100 at this rate...Quote:
the choice became absolute economic upheaval or acceptance of a future Federalized Europe.
Before the referendum became a thing, the common travel area (Schengen) and the common currency were the usual Eurosceptic arguments as to why we were threatened by ever increasing union. Both of which we were exempt from, and both of which only involved countries which wanted to be involved. Every time other countries engaged in more multilateral activities which we didn't want to be involved in, it was painted as a threat to our independence because they were doing things without us. The more opt outs we negotiated, the more our independence was threatened because the other countries were going off and doing their own thing without us.Quote:
Originally Posted by Montmorency
"when you joined the EU in 1992...what did you think you were getting yourself into?"
As Pannonian explained, it wasn't something that we joined - from which there is an obvious branch in history where we could have said:Quote:
Originally Posted by a completely inoffensive name
"Oh, you know what, I don't think I fancy that after all."
Ever closer union is a continual inevitable process, not a moment.
And we were already sat on the porch of our house as it serenely drifts down the valley on the mudslide.
I always maintain that the moment it should have been obvious we were headed somewhere we didn't want to go was when Blair surrendered the opt-out Major negotiated on the Social Chapter.
From where what was principally an economic vehicle for external collaboration and cooperation, into something that was deeply intertwined with the organisation of society via internal regulations.
But, it was done after 14 years of divisive Tory government when the party was tired and discredited, and we were all dewy eyed at the joys of Nu Labour 'Cool Britannia'...
And of course, after we buckled the Social Chapter was disolved throughout Lisbon Constitution, making it essentially impossible to pick out the elements of social organisation (hereafter termed: domestic governance), from the rest of the EU.
Again, Pannonian was giving a reasonable description of of what was animating 'brexiteers' in their public discourse with a largely disinterested populace.Quote:
Originally Posted by a completely inoffensive name
But not really illuminating the problem:
a) In the EEC everything worked on Veto, and the project was shallow - and thus little threat.
b) After Mastrict we started to see the adoption of Qualified Majority Voting - but we were content to build blocking coalitions.
c) Then the Euro arrived and this is a fundamental threat to domestic governance, but we were outside.
d) Then 2007 and three things went wrong with the plan for blocking coalitions:
1. Financial Crisis brought areas of fundamental economic importance into the remit of the EU via the Eurozone - Bailout veto
2. The eurozone made it known that it intented to caucus Eurozone voting on economic matters - inc tools in #1 above
3. The post-Lisbon vote-weight changes diluted UK power in the parliament
e) So Cameron said; "look here, let's talk about how we're going to keep the UK getting entangled in the mechanisms you need to fix your flakey currency union?"
1. And the result was: "yes, you can have an exemption from ever-closer-union, but it will only be available for you. no-one else!"
The result:
Britain looking at how diminished was its ability to build blocking coalitions - then wondered how interested like-minded nations would be in joining them when they would not benefit - as the same understanding on being exempt from the integrating pressure did not apply to them.
It's not about sovereignty or identity, it's about the economy. People may phrase it in a different way, but financial worries always lie beneath the surface. Even that Brexit lady admitted so in her 2019 interview. She may have said that she expected some difficulties in the beginning, but she hoped for a brighter future for her grandchildren. As far as I see it, what she means is that the adjustment will be costly, but the long-term benefits will eventually outweigh the disadvantages. That's why the deindustrialised north and Wales voted overwhelmingly for Brexit, but London and large urban centers that have transitioned successfully into a service-orientated economy supported Bremain.
Wales is in fact an interesting case. Brexit crushed the opposition there, especially in rural areas. Since the region is actually the recipient of EU's most generous packages, many journalists interpreted their stance as an example of tribalism surpassing the economy, but the reality is more nuanced. After all, the populations of immigrants or British citizens with immigrant background is one of the smallest in the Kingdom. In reality, many blame the EU for wage stagnation, deindustrialisation and unemployment. Even though it's largely Brussels that keeps these communities from being depopulated altogether, many still blame the EU for starting the troubles in the first place. On the contrary, Cardiff, a prosperous city with a vibrant university and service-orientated economy stood behind Bremain.
Patrick Cockburn wrote a nice piece about that.
Another year, another month, another day, another drawn breath and with it yet another "brexit wasnt about what it was about" post.
Another year, another month, another day, another drawn breath and with it yet another post discussing what has been a faut accompli for ages.Quote:
Originally Posted by Greyblades
"Be careful what you wish for. I thought we were going to get a global market. This is going to be a new opportunity. But it hasn't turned out like this. I would have never voted for Brexit if I knew we were going to lose our job."Quote:
Originally Posted by Greyblades
Pan' you have consistently stood for the UK remaining in the EU.
You have consistently asserted that the pols advocating leave misrepresented/wishfully thought/misunderstood/and in some cases outright lied (with support).
You continue to assert your belief that the majority and minority opinions rendered during the leave/stay vote have reversed and that leave is now in the minority (and some statistics support this).
Can we PLEASE stipulate all of these as "givens" from you now? It's coming across as a rather repetitive "see I told ya so" kind of thing now.
Moving forward:
Is there the political will to reverse the decision and go back to the EU?
If not, then what steps are/should be taken to make the transition to a new living arrangement?
Answer to your first question: no.Quote:
Originally Posted by Seamus Fermanagh
Answer to your second question: The government has been putting forward proposals to remove regulations (as Furunculus has been intimating), and Boris Johnson has personally appealed to industry leaders for ideas on what regulations to next remove. OTOH, industry frontliners have been saying that it's the separation from the customs union and single market that is the practical problem. So what is the way forward, when those doing the reporting and those doing the planning are of completely different perspectives?
And about the list of assertions that you say that I'm making: I've never said that Leave are now in the minority. I have little confidence that it is so, and zero confidence that it is so to any significant degree. But it is never not current news to point out that Leave lied and continue to lie. As you've seen on your side of the water with your version of the Tufton lot, democracy does not work when one side lies with impunity and are allowed to do so without check.
Because such union might become mandatory to participate in the trade union at the insistence of those other countries at some future date?Quote:
Originally Posted by Pannonian
The idea of a supra-national organization that prevented European countries from practicing nationalistic protectionism only weighed on a few minds post-WW2?Quote:
Originally Posted by Montmorency
You could very well be right (what do I know), but I'm not sure how I feel about the inability of UK politicians to recognize the slide for where it was going. If we take governments in general to be enterprises that naturally expand in scope and authority as time goes on, than by its nature a supra-national organization would seem to imply certain future structures...Quote:
Originally Posted by Furunculus
Now that you broke it down like this, it makes a lot more sense, thank you. Follow up on the bold, was that anticipated and discussed in the House when Lisbon Treaty was being ratified?Quote:
Originally Posted by Furunculus
I'm really trying to learn more about this topic since as an outsider it seems like such a mess (guess I know how you all feel on US elections). Here is something else I don't understand:
Lisbon passed under Gordon Brown, he refused to have a referendum on the issue for reasons that I don't understand. Cameron pushed for the referendum and made it a promise for the 2010 elections which Conservatives won.
But my understanding is that Cameron assumed such a referendum to leave the EU would fail and would quiet down the anti-EU faction in the Conservative Party. If that was the assumption, then at the time it would have strengthened Brown's position to move for a referendum that (assuming yes wins) supported the Labour Position of ratifying the treaty for greater EU integration.
So did Brown not think the EU question would have turned out in favor of pro-EU support? If so, why did he push forward on ratifying Lisbon. I'm so lost on what the motivators are here.
too my knowledge the bold text was not discussed as part of any live political debate which had salience with public news broadcasting.
**i say this as an utter outsider with no privileged knowledge - merely a political person deeply enthused by the europe question for the last twenty years**
but the vote weight changes were made for good reason, to rejig the parliament numbers in light of the huge expansion of national membership...
... so they were a 'problem' in their own right, but they were only a significant problem because of our desire to sit outside the structures of power (when taken with the other two factors listed above).
cameron backed down from a referendum on lisbon becuase it was a done deal - signed and sealed by Gordon in the years before the Tory's got into power. it would have been performative grievance mongering, not a useful pursuit in the effecting change with democratic power.
that gordon spent about fifteen minutes at the signing ceremony - grimacing all the time - should tell you everything you need to know about the the crowning glory of fifteen years of work to transfer power from the states to the EU.
cameron did promise a referendum on future 'significant' transfers of sovereignty, and this was duly signed into law. then the 2011 bailout veto crisis arrived, bringing to fruition the three bullet points of the apocalypse listed above.
this of course led to cameron promising a referendum on the eu itself if they got back into power - which they didn't expect to do (presuming coalition hagglings would see the death of that manifesto promise).
rofl's
i supported cameron's renegotiation - and wanted him to succeed.
Have a look at this for some perspective on how important it was to get the Treaty of Lisbon ratified by the UK public. Polls by Mori, probably the most reliable general polling company out there. Until 2016, the percentage of UK people who deemed EU membership an important issue was generally in single figures, with a couple of months in the low 10s. As recently as January 2016 (the year of the referendum), only 1% of the UK public deemed EU membership to be the most important issue.Quote:
Originally Posted by a completely inoffensive name
What was deemed an important issue, was immigration. Consistently polling in the 30s and one of the top 2 number one issues (another being the health service). In January 2016, immigration was the top issue according to 46% of Britons, the health service according to 38% of Britons, EU membership according to 1%. Between then and the referendum, you had posters from Leave like this.
https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.t...df-turkey-.jpg
Thus folding immigration and the NHS, the top two issues according to the British public, into the Brexit debate. It was a lie, of course. Turkey is nowhere near joining the EU, and even if it applied, every single EU member could veto it should they so wish. In fact, overall, EU migrants to the UK make a net contribution to the economy, both being more liable to pay taxes to the state and being less liable to claim benefits of any kind, including NHS burden. But Leave, as was their wont, lied on pretty much everything to get the vote over the line, and once they'd reached their goal, redefined the debate away from immigration and the NHS and claimed it was all about sovereignty. If you want to see for yourself, here are the Mori archives. Here's OpenDemocracy's report on the Leave campaign and their use of anti-immigration adverts.Quote:
Vote Leave said: “Since the birthrate in Turkey is so high, we can expect to see an additional million people added to the UK population from Turkey alone within eight years.
“This will not only increase the strain on Britain’s public services, but it will also create a number of threats to UK security. Crime is far higher in Turkey than the UK. Gun ownership is also more widespread. Because of the EU’s free movement laws, the government will not be able to exclude Turkish criminals from entering the UK.”
Quote:
Cummings himself writes: ‘Would we have won without immigration? No’, and confirms that the key argument was: ‘Vote Leave to take back control of immigration policy. If we stay there will be more new countries like Turkey joining and you won’t get a vote. Cameron says he wants to “pave the road” from Turkey to here. That’s dangerous. If we leave we can have democratic control and a system like Australia’s. It’s safer to take back control.’ He adds, ‘It is true that we did not do much on immigration before the 10 week official campaign. That is because ... we did not need to. It was far more important to plant other seeds and recruit support that would have been put off if we had focused early on immigration. Immigration was a baseball bat that just needed picking up at the right time and in the right way.’
I lost my job because the world decided to shut down over a flu, noone asked me if we should; they just did it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pannonian
There is not a linguist alive who can adequately express how miniscule a shit I give that other people regret the one meaningful choice we were given in our lives.
Sorry to hear that. I don't know anything about UK welfare but I hope you get some sort of credit or cash equivalent to the amount you can claim to have lost due to COVID. In the US we do it mainly through UI (unemployment insurance).Quote:
Originally Posted by Greyblades
Last time you talked shop you mentioned being on zero-hour contract, we don't have those here but I hope you can at least extrapolate an annual salary to claim based on pre-COVID work schedule.
That is not an opinion I share.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pannonian
The Ashcroft referendum exit polls would bear out my opinion on the importance of 'sovereignty':
https://lordashcroftpolls.com/2016/0...voted-and-why/
In pollster terms the EU had what is termed as 'low salience' prior to the referendum build up. Which doesn't speak to how much they like/dislike the EU, just how high up the pecking order of concerns it is.
---------------------------
separately - the deficiency of the euro:
https://reaction.life/why-is-the-eur...most-anything/
The UK government is advising UK companies wanting to trade with the EU to set up in the EU, as the problems are financially insurmountable with the deal the UK government has signed. This advice is supported by the testimony of a number of people/business owners who were formerly vocal advocates of Brexit, but who say that they are no longer viable under the present regime, with the problems deriving from no longer being part of the customs union/single market (moreso the latter). One of these people being a fish marketer and Brexit Party candidate who was enthusiastic about Brexit as recently as December, but who now says, 3 weeks into Brexit, that her business and the industry will not survive.
When in an election are there not cases of voter regret? But voters often seem to expect to get what they want rather than what is realistic - the EU was never going to give frictionless trade since this is basically the main thing they offer to accept entry into their cartel - pay the protection money and they won't damage your trade.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pannonian
The EU are also upset that their diplomat isn't being treated equally to other sovereign states by the UK... Although they aren't a sovereign state. Definitely not...
~:smoking:
A nice summary of several businesses and sectors of the economy that face difficulties in transitioning into the new situation. The video interview with the fisherman is also useful in exploring the deeper reasons behind Brexit. The repented Brexiteer keeps mentioning independence and alludes to sovereignty, but his concerns are primarily financial. Apart from the 350 millions bus, he seems to have believed that an exit from the EU would grant him greater access to fishing grounds and a privileged position in trade with European customers. As the cheese merchant had said, it was about the future of his children and grand-children. Also, Chris Grey's blog is offering regular insights over Brexit, its narrative and impact.
The EU is now unhappy with how they ordered vaccine late and want to be given supplies for other countries. Apparently for the UK not to give it is the UK starting a war over the issue.
Sovereignty - such a useful thing.
~:smoking:
How is this a matter of sovereignty?Quote:
Originally Posted by rory_20_uk
The EU has the power to withhold Pfizer vaccines to the UK from the EU. If the EU wants to get hold of the UK vaccines it will have to open a court case in the UK and argue that "best efforts" somehow mean their supply is more important than the UK.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pannonian
I imagine that if we were still in the Blessed EU we first off might not have immunised anyone with the AZ vaccine yet since the EMA has only just approved but there might not even be the AZ vaccine; the doses we would have been given would also have been determined by the EU.
~:smoking:
Laughing my breasts off at the NI art16 move by the EU:
“#fbpe understands and supports The Commission at this difficult time.” :sweatdrop:
What is sauce for goose...
Didn't each country have the freedom to act as they wished? AFAIK the EU batch ordered a number of different vaccines, but each individual country could do whatever they saw fit on top of that.Quote:
Originally Posted by rory_20_uk
The EU took a lot longer to negotiate with companies - hence why they had an agreement 3 months after the UK.
And no, Germany bought doses outside of the EU system: Link - not something that the EU seems to mention often. Why was this? Because Germany wanted more doses than the EU thought they should get, and wanted them faster.
~:smoking:
Disclosure: I judge purely-materialist models of political behavior to have weak explanatory power, both in history and in recent world trends. Theories that accommodate status threat and relative deprivation/gratification account for observed correlations of demography and class (hint: it's not the lower classes) behind phenomena like Brexit. The advantage is of course that facts on the ground get woven together as a product of interactive socioeconomic factors (which can't actually be cleanly severed). There is after all little reason in principle why social conservatism would be synonymous with a self-reported belief that Brexit would either bring economic advantages or be worth any economic disadvantages... Not that, to be clear, almost any Brexiter claimed that economic motivations, which being a prominent preserve of Remainers, were their decisive factor.
I don't really understand the vaccine thing. As far as I can tell, despite all or most manufacturers having had a rought start of it, the bottleneck is not any lack of vaccine stock but the distribution to and by local health providers; certainly such is the case in the US. Germany's top-up doesn't appear to have ushered it upward in the ranking of vaccination rates (they're average among the EU-27). I have some dim appreciation for why every country seems to have applied for vastly more doses than is strictly apportionable by population, but widening that pipeline won't on its own facilitate inoculation. The EU is scheduled to receive hundreds of millions of doses next month anyway...
Yes: "elites'."Quote:
Originally Posted by a completely inoffensive name
By the way, I found the quote I was looking for.
https://europa.eu/european-union/abo...declaration_en
Most human beings were not actively cogitating the mechanisms of world peace, let alone their relationship to sovereignty. Not in 1945, not in 1815, not in 1648, not today.Quote:
"World peace cannot be safeguarded without the making of creative efforts proportionate to the dangers which threaten it."
"Europe will not be made all at once, or according to a single plan. It will be built through concrete achievements which first create a de facto solidarity."
"The pooling of coal and steel production... will change the destinies of those regions which have long been devoted to the manufacture of munitions of war, of which they have been the most constant victims."
If Greyblades were making this comment from a place of ideological anarchism I would have marginally more respect for it, but he certainly isn't an anarchist. In fact, it's kind of enraging that in the very same breath he implicitly accepts the consensual legitimacy of the party, government, and institutions that have delivered Brexit, while lapsing on this very consensual legitimacy when it comes to something he doesn't enjoy as much (yet is more fundamental to the role and nature of the state in its relationship to the polity).Quote:
Originally Posted by Greyblades
While as a leftist I believe everyone should be helped, this is the kind of mentality that riles me: 'Fuck You, I Got Mine.' It's not about you dude.
We don't need a name for such contracts in the US because we have "independent contractors" - of whom, a quick search shows, there are proportionally more of than zero-hour workers in the UK.Quote:
Originally Posted by a completely inoffensive name
UK, please let Labor do something about this very blatant slippery slope.
"Little England" indeed.Quote:
Originally Posted by Furunculus
https://lordashcroftpolls.com/wp-con...LR-768x685.jpg
The poll implies that people who agree with sovereignty claims around Brexit are extremely likely to agree with Brexit, but that said agreement is significantly less relevant to driving decisions on Brexit compared to all the other popular justifications. :blush:
Striking how most respondents claimed to have come to a decision in 2016. They could be lying or mistaken of course, but this is less likely with (formerly) low salience issues. Paired with this at the end it's staggering:
Quote:
More than three quarters (77%) of those who voted to remain thought “the decision we make in the referendum could have disastrous consequences for us as a country if we get it wrong”. More than two thirds (69%) of leavers, by contrast, thought the decision “might make us a bit better or worse off as a country, but there probably isn’t much in it either way”.
Quote:While I agree in principle with the latter, I must have said at least once over the years that the greatest obstacle before EU integration is that almost any given European country is and almost always has been centrifugally fractious. If European countries are constantly disintegrating (as has long been observed in the so-called Third World) then how could those countries, individually, design to univocality for empowering a unitary government of higher order? Pretty much any deficiency of the EU is factually a deficiency of its constituent parts. Admittedly more so the large countries, in proportion to their size...Quote:
The real issue is not whether there exist joint institutions, policies and procedures. The essential issue is to what extent they correspond to a stable and wide-spread will of member state populations to abandon present nation states.
As is well known, the centralization of power has been tried numerous times before in Europe and so far with less than sterling results. If this time the goal is to achieve unity through peaceful means it is, arguably, necessary to ensure explicit popular support for important unifying measures. Secrecy, misinformation or pressure could, at some time, become a focus for popular resistance to the very idea of a union.
That's why I don't take as credible the typical assumption among both friends and foes that the EU is on a rapid or continuous path toward integration or federalization. For such a thing to become available (hypothetically edging on security cooperation and sporadic fiscal transfers ain't it), it would not be by a deepening of the current equilibrium but by either a radically top-down or radically bottom-up process. In the top-down process, either EU institutional actors overwhelm fragile member states to consolidate power, or the member governments durably unify on a much more pro-EU agenda than they ever have. I can't imagine either of those are forthcoming. In the bottom-up process, the general publics of fragile or failing European states would have to decisively reject their national establishments and appeal to the EU to fulfill the traditional functions of the state. Could happen after a generation of global turmoil, but just as conceivable are some worse outcomes. So - expect further trundling.
purely as anecdote, rather than a response:
on english-british identity - i seem to be an oddity in that i have a wholly british identity.
on making decisions in 2016 - this was in fact true for me for while i have been a 20-year sceptic I wanted Cameron to succeed, and was tipped over to the other side when belgium ensured that an exclusion to ever close union must apply only to britain. whether that too is an oddity i have no answer.
The UK left the EU. What waited with irrelevance, food shortages and so on and so forth. Because without the EU, what could the UK be?
The whole point of the EU is that how collective action is more useful than unilateral action. Not just collective action of course, but functions centralised as collective action would have been the EEC - but how many jobs could such an organisation support? Preventing wars was what NATO was created for - armed forces that were integrated and used to working together more than apart and has worked pretty well in the main.
Then the pandemic happened. And the UK didn't join in with the EU. If it had joined all would have been fine. All countries banned from talking to the pharma companies and only the EU in charge. The concept of "better" and "worse" is irrelevant if all are together. But the UK did decide to go alone and hence why the EU had a slower process in getting a licence and slower in getting the contract . In essence adding an additional level of failure rather than helping. Unsurprisingly, people are wondering why on earth they have the EU if in their time of need it hasn't helped.
And to truly show that the gloves are off they decide to invoke Article 16 - an event of such massive hubris that it managed to unite even the DUP and Sein Fein in speaking against it - along with many in the countries of Europe who aren't buying the narrative that this is all the perfidious British / AZ's fault or that the contract says they should get product before those who purchased it before them when it patently doesn't.
The EU is currently having a spat with the UK on whether their ambassadors are for a sovereign power or not. Although they are not a country their argument is that they have a foreign policy and a diplomatic policy they should be treated as a country.
So those in the EU appear always to be looking for ways to further unify but in this case they have been let down by their own incompetence. The Financial crisis enabled the ECB to take powers that had hitherto been viewed as impossible and here was the time to take a control over health systems - at least in terms of the emergencies. But currently besides having a spat with an anachronistic irrelevance (the UK) over a vaccine that Macron (and to a lesser degree the Germans) have dismissed as ineffective especially in the elderly there's little evidence of success. In essence, as rapid as their competence allows which is very, very slow. If they had been more discerning with who was admitted this might have integrated more easily.
~:smoking:
I think there is a difference between independent contractors in US vs zero-hour contracts in UK. The latter you are still considered an employee, I.C.'s in the US lose a lot of legal benefits that employees otherwise enjoy. Also, if we were really going into the weeds, I think in the U.S. you can be an I.C. operating through a one person LLC under your name, and LLC's have a bunch of benefits of their own. I know of a few people who did this, but never asked them about it in depth on how it worked and if it was better than being a direct employee.Quote:
Originally Posted by Montmorency
Separately, if the UK ever did decide to backtrack on Brexit how feasible would it be to move to a Norway type relationship from the current agreements?
From everything that's happened so far, the EU has been ever ready to accommodate any move towards arrangements that already exist for others. All the friction has come from the UK side, together with lack of trust from their willingness to ignore previously made promises. The problem is all the promises made on the UK side to the UK electorate, along with all the anti-European rhetoric. The UK government has made it politically impossible, on the UK side, to reach any accommodation with the EU. All it can do is toodle along and blame everything on the EU.Quote:
Originally Posted by a completely inoffensive name
See the fishing industry for example. Leave has made all kinds of promises which cannot be fulfilled. So they've switched from the fishing industry will benefit to it's the EU's fault the fishing industry will die. Oh, and buy British fish.
Always good to read some free EU propaganda.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pannonian
I run a scheme that if people give me 5% of their wealth annually they get into a special club. Currently no one has joined the scheme, but I remain willing for anyone to join with these preset terms with open arms. All the friction has come from others and frankly lack of trust and willingness...
Previously made promises... such as triggering Article 16? No? Ah yes that was the EU... Oh, just other unnamed, ones.
The rhetoric was, if anything, anti-EU, not anti-European. I know you find it difficult to delineate the two. Are you not going to rehash the xenophobia trope? Or is the UK giving the path to citizenship to those from Hong Kong whilst countries in the EU are openly xenophobic it's best to have a "1984" moment with that one?
For example, the fishing industry. The EU demanded increased access to UK territorial waters for a period of years else they would not agree to any facet of the deal. The UK did try to prevent this, but the EU would not shift since that would have restricted their fishing industry; the EU has also suddenly decided that catches of seafood now can not be moved to EU countries for processing as has been the case for several years and have to be processed locally in facilities that do not currently exist, meaning that the seafood can not now be imported - could they have signalled this would be the case 4 years ago thus helping prevent problems? Who is to say. Have standards in the UK suddenly changed? Well, no and in fact their are agreements that the UK can't easily unilaterally do so if they wanted to... Almost like they are trying to benefit their own fishermen...
All together now! "Four feet good! Two feet bad! Four feet good! Two feet better!"
~:smoking:
The UK is rapidly tieing itself in a web of international agreements that will make it politically non-trivial to try and rejoin:Quote:
Originally Posted by a completely inoffensive name
"What, you want us to leave CTTP!?!?"
The more the merrier...
Is Norway model considered rejoining?Quote:
Originally Posted by Furunculus
Anyway, I was hoping to get another question in and not have it get absolutely derailed. I'll try one more time:
Jake Tapper seems to have triggered quite a conversation on twitter about the UK usage of 'government' vs 'Parliament' with a tweet about OFCOM investigating Piers Morgan comments on Harry and Markle.
See relevant thread here: https://twitter.com/JamesSurowiecki/...46963977011207
I want to make sure I am speaking the same language as British people about UK politics. What exactly does it mean for an institution to be part of the 'government' and if an organization is established by 'Parliament' why does that not necessarily make it a 'government' organization, this specific case is regarding OFCOM.
"Is Norway model considered rejoining?"
Speaking personally - in principle, no.
In practice, it would leave several strategic service industries at the mercy of eu regulation, which given they are nascent tech-related industries would be a disaster given the EU's penchant for the 'precautionary principle' model.
Financial Services, Biotech, AI, Data, GMO, etc.
This was the heart of the Chequers plan, to separate goods from services.
The former being full alignment - which would be fine - with the latter regulated in the UK.
"Cake'ism!" you might say...?
But the easy reply would be to point out that in the most of the above the UK is the enormously dominant partner, and it would be frankly inappropriate to let a minor third party with a reflexive distrust for the 'demonstrable harm' model to be our regulator in these fields.
And that is before you factor in that some of them are strategic industries with which the UK wields power and influence.
But, alas, it was "tres unacceptable", and so here we are. While this attitude remains Norway is off the table.
I can't speak to the constitutional niceties of your second question.
Appreciate the answer, is this in essence the Tory case on how Brexit can/will re-invigorate the British economy? Because like you said, if the UK tacks towards demonstrable harm while the EU continues to regulate on precautionary principle, the idea is that those types of services would prefer to migrate to the UK?Quote:
Originally Posted by Furunculus
To be honest that seems like a reasonable strategy, it's been so long why exactly did the Chequers plan fail? My impression is that May could not get the hard-core Brexiteers in the party on board for such a plan. I don't remember what Labours position on Chequers was. Other sources I see say that the EU rejected it because it did not want to give on its 'four freedoms'. I can start to see why so many blame the EU for the negotiating failure, although on the other hand I don't see why the EU had any obligation to minimize the pain if it wishes to prevent other states from separating.
The counter to that is that the UK government has asked industry figures which regulations they would look to cut, and their answer is none, because there's a reason why the regulations are there, and it's not due to EU bossiness. Yeah, the theory Furunculus talks about has been put in practice, and those who know most about the practicals don't want divergence from EU regulations, even without the legal necessity to follow these regulations.Quote:
Originally Posted by a completely inoffensive name
To be fair, it is more of a philosophical bent than a political ideology:Quote:
Originally Posted by a completely inoffensive name
Precautionary Principle is about harm reduction - and appeals to the progressive-left as a social view that is more centered on the collective is willing to accept curtailment of free-action in order to achieve good.
Demonstrable Harm is more about minimising infringements on private activity - and appeals to the conservative right as a social view that is more centered on the individual is unwilling to accept unnecessary curtailment.
The argument here, is that the EU tends to fear new technologies, and it hampers its ability to thrive in the growth industries that will generate wealth when building diesel cars has gone the way of detroit?
How many Unicorns does the EU have?
How much investment in AI happens in the EU?
How much biotech?
Is MIFID2 deemed a travesty of beurocratic intervention in financial services?
Is the nascent Data industry (that feeds all the above) damaged by GDPR?
What happens to industries like fracking and GMO?
Where is the university base to lead in these new industries?
The counter to Pannonian's intervention is that it is not the state of the regulatory base of today that is of particular concern, but where it will go tomorrow.
As mentioned previously, the UK has spent the last third of a century walling itself off from the new competences of eu governance and so, naturally, we were have less and less influence on how they should be regulated.
UK may never get equivalence deal say Fin-Serv sector - and they seem ok with that:
https://www.fnlondon.com/articles/br...other-20210315
I do not detect fear from our young thrusters of the sq mile.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world...9ac_story.html
Getting nicer and nicer by the day, the relationship between UK and the EU. Squabbling over vaccines is only going to benefit everyone, right?
Paywalled. Got a free source?Quote:
Originally Posted by edyzmedieval
Odd, we can access it here over in Europe. But I guess if you read too many it gets paywalled?Quote:
Originally Posted by Pannonian
Quote:
BERLIN — The European Commission introduced new limits on coronavirus vaccine exports Wednesday in a move that could widen the rift between the European Union and its former member state Britain.
Although the revised rules do not constitute an outright ban, they will make reciprocity, a country’s epidemiological situation and its vaccination rate key criteria for export approval.
Expected to be in place for at least six weeks, the curbs could have a particularly strong effect on Britain, which has received more than 10 million doses from plants inside the E.U. — more than any other non-E.U. destination — but has exported no vaccine back to the bloc. Britain now has one of Europe's lowest daily case numbers per capita, and it has at least partially vaccinated more than 40 percent of its population, compared with just 9 percent in Germany and France.
E.U. denies vaccine nationalism charge, accuses U.S. and U.K. of not sharing
As it lags behind Britain and the United States in its vaccination campaign, the E.U. has experienced growing anger from its citizens and a resurgence of the virus that has forced new shutdowns. Officials lay much of the blame with British-Swedish vaccine manufacturer AstraZeneca for failing to meet its production targets.
AD
The path out of the pandemic is also being viewed as a critical post-Brexit test, pitting the 27-nation bloc’s communal approach against its former member’s go-it-alone model.
Britain's departure meant it could negotiate is own vaccine deals without having to worry about unity or equity. It did not spend as long as the E.U. did negotiating prices or sorting through liability questions.
E.U. officials have defended their approach, saying it ensured that member countries were not competing with one another and that poorer countries in the bloc were not left behind.
Officials have also cited the bloc's commitment to supplying other countries with doses produced within its territory, while Britain and the United States have not made such a pledge. Whereas more than 64 million doses had been distributed across E.U. member states and associated countries by the middle of this month, at least 41 million were exported outside the E.U.
Pan' is part of Europe. Sort of. A little exited but yet not.
i am genuinely entertained that my niche obsession with precautionary-principle vs demonstrable-harm has now become mainstream.
**sobs to himself - "I'm not a wierdo any longer!"**
Like Italy and the EU Commission blocking 250,000 vaccines going to Australia...Quote:
Originally Posted by edyzmedieval
You might have noticed the EU has dropped their pretence of breaking a contract and moving to a playground "our fair share" approach.
Controlling the borders of countries unilaterally? That is another precident towards acting like a state.
~:smoking:
latest news is that a crack italian carabinieri unit has smashed into a GSK facility holding meningitis jabs for the US, looking for stashed covid jabs being mendaciously profiteered away from honest european citizens.
Ironically, your presentation of Brexit was as an issue of especially vigorous application of the precautionary principle. :shifty:Quote:
Originally Posted by Furunculus
I thought you were joking. So private property is being searched because government believes that anything produced or in transit through their country is theirs.Quote:
Originally Posted by Furunculus
Eminent domain and/or expropriation says the government can do so if it is deemed to be in the public interest. How advisable such an approach may be is another thing entirely.Quote:
Originally Posted by Papewaio
do elaborate?Quote:
Originally Posted by Montmorency
I shouldn't have to.Quote:
Originally Posted by Furunculus
Though for my part on the philosophies themselves:Quote:
Originally Posted by Furunculus
1. Recourse to "demonstrable harm" standards has routinely generated demonstrable harm.
2. People don't actually invoke or apply abstract principles of "demonstrable harm" as against "precautionary principle" - it's just not a thing. The only question is what harms any given actor or stakeholder weighs as tolerable or not, and what they are prepared to do or capable of having done about the matter.
I believe you are over-thinking this.
The head of Wetherspoons is the latest Brexit supporter to call for easier access to EU labour.
i wonder if he, like many, voted to leave because he viewed the EU as a v. poor form of governance.
i mean, it shouldn't really come as a surprise in these hallowed intellectual halls, as I at least have spent years pointing out that I am pro-immigration in principle, not fussed about FoM in practice, and rejected EU membership for completely separate and meticulously detailed reasons.
and yet... somehow, the debate always drifts back to nasty racist leavers.
That is because, however many conservatives like myself and you may oppose a policy or treaty or regulation for logical reasons stemming from our ideology and values, there is another wedge of nativist xenophobes who oppose those policies because they hate/fear/need to feel superior to persons of color. Sadly, that wedge of persons is too numerous by far.Quote:
Originally Posted by Furunculus
That has been one of my personal "learning moments" over the past 5 or so years. The reactionary fringe is not, as I had supposed, a tiny strident minority. While still a minority, there are far more such than is healthy in my polity, and I suspect that the same obtains for you lot.
There are definitely racists or Xenophobes in the UK. As there definitely are in the rest of Europe. I am sure many Remainers are also equally racist and / or Xenophobic - after all the whole EU project has mainly drawn a line with White / Good allowed in and Anything Else / Bad being the order of the day. As long as the vast majority is white then it is a non issue and the EU can continue to pay money to keep people overseas.
Or indeed the other overlooked facet of non-whites who are often Xenophobes, as yes, being a nasty bigoted person is something that is a quality that can be held by all mankind.
Stories such as an employer wanting the Government to increase the number of work visas cling to something untrue and smugly view it as an "aha!" moment as opposed to they might have missed the point in the first place.
Nothing seems to have been made of people from Hong Kong offered passports, or Afghan interpreters who will also be offered the right to remain. But it is oh so much easier to just repeat "Brexiteers are racists" than acknowledge there might be other causes.
~:smoking:
The question I was implying was, if the guy wants the conditions within the EU that much, why did he campaign to get us out of it? It was Furunculus who raised racism as the issue, when the issue I was highlighting was the stupidity of shooting himself in the foot, then wondering why it was bleeding.Quote:
Originally Posted by rory_20_uk