EXIT NEGOTIATIONS

[Furunculus]

Shouldn't the UK be remaining in the EU then? After all, every previous government has been in favour of EU membership, and they all have democratic mandates more concrete than that of Leave, which didn't publish any manifestos.

But, do they vote for it?

That's misleading. Tax revenue as % of GDP is neither an explicit function of voter choice nor of law/policy - which latter is itself is not an explicit function of voter choice.
I don't think your pat assertion holds up; if the formula 'more taxes for more services' has the plurality in the UK, we might expect it to be the majority stance across the EU-27.
If people's representatives (in the UK) legislated more in accord with fulfilling their constituents' wishes, you would probably be quite unhappy with that direction.

If you want a better measure of the collective expectation of society, then the level of taxation and the degree to which it is progressive (punitive?), is pretty much up there with the best of them.
You can see the same result from looking at more direct research such as eurobaromoter, i simply couldn't find it on my phone in the five minutes I had to post that comment.

[Pannonian]

But, do they vote for it?

They voted for governments implementing manifestos favouring EU membership. Did the voters vote for hard Brexit? Which bit of the government's manifesto promised no-deal, and what majority did such a manifesto win?

[rory_20_uk]

Shouldn't the UK be remaining in the EU then? After all, every previous government has been in favour of EU membership, and they all have democratic mandates more concrete than that of Leave, which didn't publish any manifestos.

In an entrenched system based on first past the post, all three main parties were all to a greater or lesser degree for the EU. Where exactly does that leave choice for the voters - ignoring that most seats are "safe" for one party or another, and given there was up until a shock vote no hint that the EU had any intention of democracy rearing its ugly head, why would this be a bigger issue than any other?

[Pannonian]

In an entrenched system based on first past the post, all three main parties were all to a greater or lesser degree for the EU. Where exactly does that leave choice for the voters - ignoring that most seats are "safe" for one party or another, and given there was up until a shock vote no hint that the EU had any intention of democracy rearing its ugly head, why would this be a bigger issue than any other?

You could always have voted for UKIP. Did you?

BTW, what democratic mandate does no-deal or hard Brexit have? Did the winning party promise such in their manifesto, and what majority did they win?

[Furunculus]

They voted for governments implementing manifestos favouring EU membership. Did the voters vote for hard Brexit? Which bit of the government's manifesto promised no-deal, and what majority did such a manifesto win?

Funny, I thought the 2017GE was campaigned in the knowledge of the fairly clear direction for brexit...

[rory_20_uk]

You could always have voted for UKIP. Did you?

BTW, what democratic mandate does no-deal or hard Brexit have? Did the winning party promise such in their manifesto, and what majority did they win?

Perhaps there are more aspects in the normal election cycle than the EU. I also disagree with many of UKIP's positions. So no, I didn't vote for them.

The democratic mandate is what was decided by the politicians who created a digital yes/no vote on the issue. Perhaps politicians were concerned that an alternative voting system with nuance might have ended up with more happy to leave if there was a "soft" Brexit. But then you're in to reinterpreting things to fit your own position.

More voted for "out" than "in". There was nothing on the voting card caveating either position in any way. The decision for the wording was from the party that had been democratically elected in... who had never said they'd do such a thing. But if you want to somehow doubt that mandate, you have to equally doubt the mandate for each and every alteration to the treaty that has been made. You shouldn't pick and choose (although you certainly appear to be doing so).

[Pannonian]

Funny, I thought the 2017GE was campaigned in the knowledge of the fairly clear direction for brexit...

So what's the majority of the winning manifesto?

[Furunculus]

Why don't you go away and quote the tory manifesto section on brexit?

[Pannonian]

Why don't you go away and quote the tory manifesto section on brexit?

What was the Tory majority from the 2017 general election?

[Furunculus]

What was the lib-dem majority from GE17?

From wiki:
"The Conservative manifesto committed the party to leaving the single market and customs union, but sought a "deep and special partnership" through a comprehensive free trade and customs agreement. It proposed seeking to remain part of some EU programmes where it would "be reasonable that we make a contribution", staying as a signatory of the European Convention on Human Rights over the next parliament, and maintaining the Human Rights Act during Brexit negotiations. Parliament would be able to amend or repeal EU legislation once converted into UK law, and have a vote on the final agreement"

2017
Popular vote 13,636,684
Percentage 42.4%

2015
Popular vote 11,334,226
Percentage 36.9%

2010
Popular vote 10,703,754
Percentage 36.1%

2005:
Popular vote 9,552,436
Percentage 35.2%

2001
Popular vote 10,724,953
Percentage 40.7%

1997
Popular vote 13,518,167
Percentage 43.2%

You have to go back over twenty years before you find an election with a higher percentage of the popular vote.
"But," you say, "labour still received 40% of the popular vote, such a narrow margin obviously changes things..."
"Yes," I reply, "indeed that is so, for they too went out on a manifesto of leaving the single market and [the] customs union!"

[Pannonian]

You have to go back over twenty years before you find an election with a higher percentage of the popular vote.

If you want to use the popular vote argument, note that the Major government of 92-97 was the most popular in my lifetime in terms of votes. Is it viewed that way in retrospect?

The U.K. would run out of food by this time next year if a no-deal Brexit forced the nation to rely solely on its own produce, a farmers group warned.

British food supplies would be exhausted by Aug. 7, 2019, if the country ate only its own products from Jan. 1, the National Farmers’ Union said Tuesday, highlighting the U.K.’s reliance on imports from the European Union and other regions. The group called for the government to prioritize food security in Brexit negotiations.

U.K. farming “has the potential to be one of the most impacted sectors from a bad Brexit,” NFU President Minette Batters said. “A free and frictionless free trade deal with the EU and access to a reliable and competent workforce for farm businesses is critical to the future of the sector.”


Britain produces just under two-thirds of its own food, according to government figures for 2017, and most of the rest comes from the EU. Concerns about the impact of Brexit are rising as Trade Secretary Liam Fox said this weekend that there was a 60 percent chance that no agreement would be struck before the U.K. leaves the EU in March, although a spokesman for Prime Minister Theresa May said Monday that an accord is more likely than not.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...t-farmers-warn

You said that you favour no deal out of those three options mentioned earlier. Can you explain how you'd ensure food security in the event of your favoured scenario? Or do you consider it of minor importance, compared with your "classical liberalism" project?

[Furunculus]

If you want to use the popular vote argument, note that the Major government of 92-97 was the most popular in my lifetime in terms of votes. Is it viewed that way in retrospect?

You said that you favour no deal out of those three options mentioned earlier. Can you explain how you'd ensure food security in the event of your favoured scenario? Or do you consider it of minor importance, compared with your "classical liberalism" project?

This is a non-sequitur.

My "classical liberalism project" is informed by an understanding that socialism is a great way to spend other peoples money. I am not obliged to accept the moral superiority of your values. This is desperately close to vexatious whining.

[Husar]

[Husar]

My "classical liberalism project" is informed by an understanding that socialism is a great way to spend other peoples money.

So is capitalism. The corporations are spending the money of their investors and the investors are spending the money of their investors /daddies/underpaid workers, the banks are spending the money of their customers and money that doesn't even really exist on top. The only difference is that in capitalism very few people get to spend everybody else's money and in socialism, more people get the benefits while the profiteers of capitalism still aren't worse off than everybody else...

And that's before we get into the question of whether people actually deserve to own billions of dollars just for having had a nice idea one time.

[a completely inoffensive name]

This is a non-sequitur.

My "classical liberalism project" is informed by an understanding that socialism is a great way to spend other peoples money. I am not obliged to accept the moral superiority of your values. This is desperately close to vexatious whining.

You would rather pay the 2 grand for a CT Scan like us Yanks over here?

Personally I would rather have them take another 5% from my paycheck and only worry about the results, not my bills.

[spmetla]

You would rather pay the 2 grand for a CT Scan like us Yanks over here?

Personally I would rather have them take another 5% from my paycheck and only worry about the results, not my bills.

Would be nice if people who needed a doctor went instead of ignoring it until whatever it is is so bad because they can't afford the co-pay etc...

[Montmorency]

But, do they vote for it?


If you want a better measure of the collective expectation of society, then the level of taxation and the degree to which it is progressive (punitive?), is pretty much up there with the best of them.
You can see the same result from looking at more direct research such as eurobaromoter, i simply couldn't find it on my phone in the five minutes I had to post that comment.

Well, first, I don't see why, unless you are presuming a close relationship between public weltanschauung and executive wrangling.

Second, even if that were true you should present the actual tax policy rather than an indirect measure like tax revenue as % of GDP; such a measure fluctuates regardless of any government policy, or as a consequence of any government policy other than tax policy.

Third, even if the two above are true, why is a tax rate a good measure of "the collective expectation" of society?

Why does the evidence suggest desire for less social or fiscal intervention rather than more? As far as I have seen, every single successful upstart far-right party in Europe today is anti-austerity as well as white supremacist/identitarian.

[Pannonian]

This is a non-sequitur.

My "classical liberalism project" is informed by an understanding that socialism is a great way to spend other peoples money. I am not obliged to accept the moral superiority of your values. This is desperately close to vexatious whining.

Does repeating what experts deem to be important issues, backed by what I know of RL, count as vexatious whining? The NFU reckons we'll be running out of homegrown food by this time next year, while you're suggesting putting up barriers to importing food. How do you propose we ensure food security in your favoured scenario of no-deal? Or is your dream of classical liberalism the only thing that matters, and people can go starve if they can't cope? Is wanting to be able to eat deemed socialism?

[AE Bravo]

Ease up on the rhetorical questions ffs. You do seem like you are whining.

[Pannonian]

Ease up on the rhetorical questions ffs. You do seem like you are whining.

That's what Leave accused Remain of: "Project Fear". Except that post-referendum, the Leavers are going for a far more drastic option than they'd promised. And the people who know about such things have subsequently postulated a far worse scenario than Remain said would happen, given this changed Leaver stance.

1. Around half of the UK's food supply comes from abroad. By far the majority of the food imports come from elsewhere in the EU.
2. The truckers responsible from bringing in this food supply have said that this will be impractical post-Brexit, either from extreme delays from the customs bottleneck, or from some of them going out of business altogether from the increased overheads.
3. The local authority dealing with the bottleneck are preparing for a far worse queue than they've ever dealt with before, except their worst previous experience happened once in the decade since they'd prepared for it, while they expect this to happen every day post-Brexit until the infrastructure is up. They don't expect the infrastructure to be up for another 5 years, at the soonest.
4. Food retailers have said that stockpiling at their end is not possible.
5. National Farmers' Union have said that, if we rely solely on homegrown food without imports, our food will run out August next year.

Is it whining to say that food is an important issue?

[Furunculus]

And that's before we get into the question of whether people actually deserve to own billions of dollars just for having had a nice idea one time.

I am not obliged to accept the moral superiority of your values.

Well, first, I don't see why, unless you are presuming a close relationship between public weltanschauung and executive wrangling.
Second, even if that were true you should present the actual tax policy rather than an indirect measure like tax revenue as % of GDP; such a measure fluctuates regardless of any government policy, or as a consequence of any government policy other than tax policy.
Third, even if the two above are true, why is a tax rate a good measure of "the collective expectation" of society?

Why does the evidence suggest desire for less social or fiscal intervention rather than more? As far as I have seen, every single successful upstart far-right party in Europe today is anti-austerity as well as white supremacist/identitarian.

Answer to all three: because I referenced tax:gdp in terms of long-term trend.

I make no claim that 'right-wing' parties must be [both] socially conservative [and] economically liberal. It is a self-evident fact that polish politics (to give one example) cleaves in the opposite direction: with a 'right-wing' socially conservative [and] economically conservative party and a 'left-wing' socially liberal [and] economically liberal. That fascinating little aside dealt with, i'm not sure what relevance the nature of right wing populist parties on the continent have to the broad social compact in the UK which seems to restrict our appetite for tax and regulation at a level noticeably below the norm on the continent.

[Furunculus]

You would rather pay the 2 grand for a CT Scan like us Yanks over here?

Personally I would rather have them take another 5% from my paycheck and only worry about the results, not my bills.

No, I wouldn't.
I don't think pure-'Murica is a good model to follow.
Equally, I think france with its tax at 50+ percent of GDP is a terrible model.
What I have actually advocated is something closer to the model practiced in Canada or Australia.

The NFU reckons we'll be running out of homegrown food by this time next year, while you're suggesting putting up barriers to importing food.
Or is your dream of classical liberalism the only thing that matters, and people can go starve if they can't cope?

Two points:
1. The customs union [IS] a barrier to importing food!
2. Suggesting that choosing democratic self governance which adopts a canada/australia style open trading environment will lead to starvation is 110% absurdist fantasy.

[Pannonian]

No, I wouldn't.
I don't think pure-'Murica is a good model to follow.
Equally, I think france with its tax at 50+ percent of GDP is a terrible model.
What I have actually advocated is something closer to the model practiced in Canada or Australia.

Two points:
1. The customs union [IS] a barrier to importing food!
2. Suggesting that choosing democratic self governance which adopts a canada/australia style open trading environment will lead to starvation is 110% absurdist fantasy.

On your point 1: have you listened to that trucker I linked to earlier? He describes the process of going through customs, the timings involved, the documents necessary, etc. He also calls out Kate Hoey as a know-nothing liar for claiming what he knows to be not the case.

On your point 2: the government are saying that, in the event of no-deal, they are downgrading the UK's food supply from abundant (currently) to adequate.

What is your answer to the logistics problem highlighted by experts on the subject? Your suggested solution of stockpiles was shot down by the food retailers who have been asked by the government to do the stockpiling. If you are content to say that it's not your problem but the government's, and the government says there is no satisfactory solution, will you still deny there is a problem?

[Husar]

I am not obliged to accept the moral superiority of your values.

So now you're selectively quoting me, answering the one part I said we weren't talking about.
And the answer to your answer is that the same also applies in reverse. You can't seem to give any convincing arguments for your neoliberal ideas other than a polemic "you're spending other peoples' money" that doesn't even make sense.

This article is a bit older, but could be relevant to the topic and even our discussion to some extent: https://www.theglobalist.com/british...uropean-union/

The art of compromise, of creating friendships and mutual obligations across a political divide is essential for any continental politician who wants to succeed.

But in the UK, the norm has been majority governments. A British prime minister is used to getting his or her way, whether it be with cabinet, party or Parliament. It breeds a different approach — decide and implement, not discuss and compromise.
[...]
The prevailing political style in Britain also creates leaders who think deeply, but too often in a vacuum. But it doesn’t end there. Having done so, they inevitably convince themselves that they are right and then simply do not know how to interact with people who do not agree.

All of this has created a succession of British prime ministers who are used to dictating events at home. When they get to Brussels and have to negotiate, they founder, with neither diplomatic skills nor prearranged alliances.

[Pannonian]

So now you're selectively quoting me, answering the one part I said we weren't talking about.
And the answer to your answer is that the same also applies in reverse. You can't seem to give any convincing arguments for your neoliberal ideas other than a polemic "you're spending other peoples' money" that doesn't even make sense.

This article is a bit older, but could be relevant to the topic and even our discussion to some extent: https://www.theglobalist.com/british...uropean-union/

The funny thing is, up until Cameron, every other previous British PM in my lifetime has been unabashedly Europhile, with Thatcher arguably the most Europhilic of them all. I'd point to the increasingly Eurosceptic media as the reason for the confrontational style, and the owners and editors of said media. For a free press to work, it must at least aspire to truthful journalism. When the majority of your press is the equivalent of Infowars, confirming each other and egging each other on, society is going to suffer. Brexit is just the watershed moment.

You know what though. With what we've seen of Facebook, twitter and news via social media, even the bad old conventional media may well be seen as the golden age of journalism compared with what's to come. Leave was probably just the first to seize the moment. How they did so was deeply corrupt, up to and including a hostile foreign government financing the campaign by bribing a local middleman. There should be a proper inquiry into how it happened, and laws updated to make sure democracy regains accountability.

[Furunculus]

I'd point to the increasingly Eurosceptic media as the reason for the confrontational style, and the owners and editors of said media.

I'd point to ever-closer-union. Simply, that the 1973 gov't leaflet was a lie that could no longer be sustained.

[Fragony]

The funny thing is, up until Cameron, every other previous British PM in my lifetime has been unabashedly Europhile, with Thatcher arguably the most Europhilic of them all. I'd point to the increasingly Eurosceptic media as the reason for the confrontational style, and the owners and editors of said media. For a free press to work, it must at least aspire to truthful journalism. When the majority of your press is the equivalent of Infowars, confirming each other and egging each other on, society is going to suffer. Brexit is just the watershed moment.

You know what though. With what we've seen of Facebook, twitter and news via social media, even the bad old conventional media may well be seen as the golden age of journalism compared with what's to come. Leave was probably just the first to seize the moment. How they did so was deeply corrupt, up to and including a hostile foreign government financing the campaign by bribing a local middleman. There should be a proper inquiry into how it happened, and laws updated to make sure democracy regains accountability.

An inquiry by who

[Pannonian]

I'd point to ever-closer-union. Simply, that the 1973 gov't leaflet was a lie that could no longer be sustained.

You what?

[Furunculus]

You what?

You very reasonably ask me to clarify my rather muddy comment:

Your response was to Husar who was discussing brexit in the context of our adversarial politics, noting the role you believe the british media has played in creating the adversarial style (and perhaps by extension led to brexit).

My response to you (from a brief free moment at work dashed out on a phone - my apologies), is to counter that a fptp majoritarian electoral system is always going to breed an adversarial form of politics (rather than consensual), that our political system has thus always been this way, and that anti-eu sentiment has responded to ever-closer-union rather than ever-more-hostile media.

the reference to the "1973 leaflet" actually referring to the 1975 referendum pamphlet:
http://www.harvard-digital.co.uk/euro/pamphlet.htm

What is your answer to the logistics problem highlighted by experts on the subject? Your suggested solution of stockpiles was shot down by the food retailers who have been asked by the government to do the stockpiling. If you are content to say that it's not your problem but the government's, and the government says there is no satisfactory solution, will you still deny there is a problem?

Your looking at this with all of the soul and vitality of a bureaucrat:
"This change to the existing operating environment will not work within the current fiscal and regulatory regime!"
"No kidding, the current regime was tailored to the existing environment. What we must do is change the regime."

[Furunculus]

You can't seem to give any convincing arguments for your neoliberal ideas other than a polemic "you're spending other peoples' money" that doesn't even make sense.

This article is a bit older, but could be relevant to the topic and even our discussion to some extent: https://www.theglobalist.com/british...uropean-union/

Not convincing to you, no, apparently not. But fortunately for both of us, we our not obliged to to accept the intellectual and moral foundations of each other's value systems. Not only because we can both agree to disagree under the assent to accept the outcome of common governance, but in our particular case: because we exist in different political entities and so our different views do not compete directly with one another.

There is much to recommend in that article. In the broad strokes it is on the money.
I do take issue with his interpretation of some of the detail:

"In the UK, party manifestos at election time have traditionally been very granular. This gives the British political class a good grip on practicalities, but a correspondingly poor concept of “vision.” The UK prefers to work out the next steps exactly — rather than contemplate what may be on the far horizon.
The more common approach in continental European — not just the French one, but to an extent also the German approach — is to focus on “le grand projet.”
That kind of visioning is sometimes done at the cost of letting the details sort out themselves as they happen, the exact opposite to how the UK approaches things."

I'd say this is far more a consequence of a common-law legal system derived from natural rights, than it is a cosnequence of an adversarial political system.

"The more common approach in continental European — not just the French one, but to an extent also the German approach — is to focus on “le grand projet.”
That kind of visioning is sometimes done at the cost of letting the details sort out themselves as they happen, the exact opposite to how the UK approaches things.
This creates a political class which is good at immediate problem-solving — and poor at vision and long-term planning. As policy issues become ever more complex, that kind of visionless pragmatism is not necessarily an advantage. It lacks the guiding perspective."

Or, to flip the lens the other way around; this big-picture perspective creates inflexible visions of a destination, with no detail how to get there, and no metrics for the political class to assess public acceptance and re calibrate based on the results. The vision is all!

"The prevailing political style in Britain also creates leaders who think deeply, but too often in a vacuum. But it doesn’t end there. Having done so, they inevitably convince themselves that they are right and then simply do not know how to interact with people who do not agree."

Hmmm, this just seems flat out wrong, in that it much better describes the flaws of the 'big picture perspective' than it does the 'visionless pragmatism' of the UK.