Brexit Thread

[InsaneApache]

[Husar]

(video)

He seems like a nice guy but his argumentation is strange.
First he mentions the English being proud of having defended their sovereignty in WW1 and WW2, but then again those people have mostly died out by now. He later says the English/UK people are not nationalist and don't want to hang on to laws made by people who are dead. Why then hang on to the WW2 victories?
His claim that England defended itself from the Lebensraum-ambitions of the Nazis could also hardly be more wrong since the Lebensraum thing didn't apply to the UK at all, it was directed toward the East, Poland and Russia, while the English were seen as fellow aryans.

The argument about where laws come from is just a matter of perspective, according to him, the UK has most laws from appointed (not elected) judges and that is somehow better because it is based on conflict resolution between citizens. But why then criticize the EC for not being elected but appointed law makers if your own judges are just the same? Meanwhile judges make quite a few decisions which basically become law in other European countries as well, so I'm not even sure if the difference is as big as he makes it out to be. Going by the British argument that the British parliament is elected while the EC is not, I'd assumed that the parliament is a very important law maker in Britain as well.

If there's one thing I have learned, it's that you island people do indeed see the world differently, but I'm not sure if that is as positive a thing as you think. So as I said before, maybe it's better that you do leave so we can move forward and you can do whatever it is that you want to do. It's just sad for the 48% of UK citizens who just have to live with that, but otherwise it'd be 52% who'd have to do that I guess.

[Greyblades]

25% actually, population of 61 million only 16 million voted remain, 17 million voted leave.

Judges in the UK don't make law; they interpret it. Every judgment is based on an act of parliament but the records of cases and commentary of previous judges are used to determine how the act should be applied with each new case, though there are several rules among judges that allow them to ignore precedent when it would result in a very silly outcome, usually used to negate the effects of a particularly senile, cruel or loony judge of ages past.

Ideally acts are updated and reissued every few decades to accommodate changes in situation, differences in public attitude etc. The oldest act still in force is a 1424 Royal Mines Act of the Scottish parliament which reads:

"Item gif ony myne of golde or siluer be fundyn in ony lordis landis of the realme and it may be prowyt that thre halfpennys of siluer may be fynit owt of the punde of leide The lordis of parliament consentis that sik myne be the kingis as is vsuale in vthir realmys"

That it hasn't been revised to be legible to modern English probably tells you how long it has been since it has come up, but if by some extreme twist it did, that act would be the one acted upon.

Or at least it would be until today's parliament overrules it, because handing over any newly found Scottish gold mines to Franz Bonaventura Adalbert Maria Herzog von Bayern, aka Duke of Bavaria, would be a hell of a thing to explain to the voters.

[Husar]

25% actually, population of 61 million only 16 million voted remain, 17 million voted leave.

I was going with the idea that the referendum is representative. If you'd say it is not, then I'd argue the UK shouldn't leave based on what only 26% of the population want. You also forgot to subtract the citizens who are too young to vote unless babies can already vote in the UK.

Judges in the UK don't make law; they interpret it. Every judgment is based on an act of parliament but the records of cases and commentary of previous judges are used to determine how the act should be applied with each new case, though there are several rules among judges that allow them to ignore precedent when it would result in a very silly outcome, usually used to negate the effects of a particularly senile, cruel or loony judge of ages past.

Well, tell that to the guy in the video who said law in the UK was/is made from the bottom by the people/courts whereas in continental Europe it's a Napoleonic top-down approach.

[Gilrandir]

You also forgot to subtract the citizens who are too young to vote unless babies can already vote in the UK.

Judging by the result of the referendum they can and they did.

And Leadsom backs out.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articl...ership-contest

[Greyblades]

I was going with the idea that the referendum is representative. If you'd say it is not, then I'd argue the UK shouldn't leave based on what only 26% of the population want. You also forgot to subtract the citizens who are too young to vote unless babies can already vote in the UK.

The word "citizen" includes the young, the incapable, even the criminal. You seemed to be giving the impression that 48% of everyone in the country actively didn't want to leave.

Well, tell that to the guy in the video who said law in the UK was/is made from the bottom by the people/courts whereas in continental Europe it's a Napoleonic top-down approach.

I'm at work an lacking headphones so I cannot comment on the video beyond what the auto-generated subtitles tell me, but it sort of is.

What I learned from taking a Law A-level 5 years ago is that in the British common law a court set precedent can change the meaning of a law; where every judge/lawyer from then on says "the last judge on your level facing this sort of circumstance said it was interpreted thus; unless you can say the circumstance is significantly different here you must do the same now" with only a bit of wriggle room to avoid absurdity.

Essentially Common Law allows there to be an automatically growing library of instructions for each situation the law applies to that the original document might not have accounted for.

On the other hand Civil Law based on what was used in Napoleonic France have judges who are free to ignore previous cases and instead have to work off the wording of the original document of law. Civil Law relies less on what the judges who came before decided to do in the same situation, and more how many eventualities the men writing the law thought to account for.

Every time something unexpected comes up the Civil courts ends up having to figure it out themselves and have to keep doing that until the government sets down a new rule, resulting in the law only being changeable from the highest level.

Common law can change from bottom up: a magistrate (the lowest rank of judge; and easiest for the common man to become) can tweak a law's use nation wide unless overruled through appeal in a higher court, whereas in civil law the lower courts cant affect the law outside the immediate case, only the parliament/senate/whatever can do so.

TL:DR Common vs Napoleonic is Flexibility vs Uniformity. Change can be Bottom up rather than Top down in British Law.

Fun fact: Napoleon was on the other side of that dynamic when it came to military practices. His enemies' armies, in particular the Prussians, were hamstrung due to inflexibility in comparison to Napoleon's.
I wonder if he ever appreciated the Irony after the code was developed.

[InsaneApache]

[HopAlongBunny]

Looks like May is PM:

http://ca.reuters.com/article/topNew...0ZR19P?sp=true

Is a non-binding referendum enough for Britain to actually leave the EU?

[Gilrandir]

I'm at work an lacking headphones

It is outrageous! What does your boss think he is doing? No headphones nor privacy for an employee to pay attention to what really matters (unlike those stupid job resposibilities). This is all EU bureaucracy's fault. But now when you have Brexited things will change. You will be able to indulge in internet chatting as much as you like and no one from Brussels will boss you around.

[Greyblades]

The Joys of zero hour contracts, where productivity is punished by the fact that once the work is done they stop paying you, but too little productivity and they can call someone else in to do your job. I'm stuck walking the tightrope of efficiency, and that's when there's any work at all, Brussels did jack to stop such becoming widespread.

Fortunately I have a good boss that helps me avoid insanity in repeptetive work by allowing breaks, probably should be using those breaks better.

[Pannonian]

He seems like a nice guy but his argumentation is strange.
First he mentions the English being proud of having defended their sovereignty in WW1 and WW2, but then again those people have mostly died out by now. He later says the English/UK people are not nationalist and don't want to hang on to laws made by people who are dead. Why then hang on to the WW2 victories?
His claim that England defended itself from the Lebensraum-ambitions of the Nazis could also hardly be more wrong since the Lebensraum thing didn't apply to the UK at all, it was directed toward the East, Poland and Russia, while the English were seen as fellow aryans.

The argument about where laws come from is just a matter of perspective, according to him, the UK has most laws from appointed (not elected) judges and that is somehow better because it is based on conflict resolution between citizens. But why then criticize the EC for not being elected but appointed law makers if your own judges are just the same? Meanwhile judges make quite a few decisions which basically become law in other European countries as well, so I'm not even sure if the difference is as big as he makes it out to be. Going by the British argument that the British parliament is elected while the EC is not, I'd assumed that the parliament is a very important law maker in Britain as well.

If there's one thing I have learned, it's that you island people do indeed see the world differently, but I'm not sure if that is as positive a thing as you think. So as I said before, maybe it's better that you do leave so we can move forward and you can do whatever it is that you want to do. It's just sad for the 48% of UK citizens who just have to live with that, but otherwise it'd be 52% who'd have to do that I guess.

When Virginia voted to leave the Union, the western bit broke off as they wanted to remain inside.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

When Virginia voted to leave the Union, the western bit broke off as they wanted to remain inside.

We handled the whole thing rather quasi-legally (or expediently and the laws be damned if you prefer).

Union Position: Secession is illegal as there is no provision for it in the Constitution. But if you want to secede from a Rebel Secession state, that is just hunky-dory by us.

Confederate Position: A procedure to join in as a new state implies the right of the state to depart though no procedure is specified. We want out.

Resolution: Fight a war, amateurishly, and kill 600-800k soldiers and civilians, mostly by disease. Union position adopted by right of conquest.