EXIT NEGOTIATIONS

[Husar]

That's someone else's argument for a quite different discussion.

I find the answers are relevant to the topic since you're only discussing one side of the topic here but the other is quite relevant to how much sense your argument makes in itself. If you downsize government to become more democratic, but end up having your democracy upended by powerful corporate, undemocratic interests, then your argument for downsizing due to democracy concerns makes zero sense. The level of government alone does not necessarily say anything about the level of democracy, so you can't link the two as though they were directly related. A small tribe isn't automatically more democratic than a nation state of many tribes.

If your argument is correct, then anarchy, with every man for himself, should be ultimate legitimacy, no?
But why then, does anarchy always lead to a formation of factions and why do factions tend to grow or become absorbed?
Where do you draw the line as the best size of government and how do you maintain it against larger, hostile factions?

[Furunculus]

I find the answers are relevant to the topic since you're only discussing one side of the topic here but the other is quite relevant to how much sense your argument makes in itself. If you downsize government to become more democratic, but end up having your democracy upended by powerful corporate, undemocratic interests, then your argument for downsizing due to democracy concerns makes zero sense. The level of government alone does not necessarily say anything about the level of democracy, so you can't link the two as though they were directly related. A small tribe isn't automatically more democratic than a nation state of many tribes.

If your argument is correct, then anarchy, with every man for himself, should be ultimate legitimacy, no?
But why then, does anarchy always lead to a formation of factions and why do factions tend to grow or become absorbed?
Where do you draw the line as the best size of government and how do you maintain it against larger, hostile factions?

My point previous was in reference to devolution, and that in response to size and diversity of the population governed, not the size of government.

And no, that would not be a liberal conclusion of society should run.

[Pannonian]

I think I told you I have read Flexcit (to mention but one!), have you?

If the original advocates of Flexcit have disowned Brexit as it is transpiring, does the theory still hold water? NB. the salient part of Flexcit is that we should remain inside all EU institutions for 10 years or so while we build new replacements. They've disowned Brexit because it is abandoning this in favour of an immediate and total withdrawal from all important institutions. Why do you continue advocating Flexcit, whilst discounting continued membership of SMCU? Your latter stance is the antithesis of the former.

[Furunculus]

If the original advocates of Flexcit have disowned Brexit as it is transpiring, does the theory still hold water? NB. the salient part of Flexcit is that we should remain inside all EU institutions for 10 years or so while we build new replacements. They've disowned Brexit because it is abandoning this in favour of an immediate and total withdrawal from all important institutions. Why do you continue advocating Flexcit, whilst discounting continued membership of SMCU? Your latter stance is the antithesis of the former.

As already mentioned: it covers these complex trade and border issues in an ENORMOUS amount more detail than joe the trucker, which you keep on asking me to watch. It is in that context I bring it up.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

If this is such a horrid thing, why hasn't someone pushed for a vote of no confidence, and elect a new majority that insists on AoP reversing the referendum?

If not willing to repudiate it, then England pretty much has to lump it, take the economic hit, re-establish the borders and move forward.

The EU has few practical reasons to let England down easy in this, and several political lessons to teach other would-be leavers by telling England to go pound sand.


It is what it is.

[Montmorency]

Says who? We have yet to find out what is achievable in this negotiation.
There are rumours that the EU is willing to separate Goods from Services, that is just the start.

So your understanding of negotiations is the same as it was 2 years ago? What could you possibly mean by this?

Legitimacy derives from [both] representation [and] accountability.
Factors that will always be more achievable in smaller, closer, more coherent polities.

You speak in a relaxed, desultory, impersonal manner - like it's a game to you. Like you're arguing for a certain boardgame rule set, even as the your "polity" and the people that make it up are subjected to a different one.

As already mentioned: it covers these complex trade and border issues in an ENORMOUS amount more detail than joe the trucker, which you keep on asking me to watch. It is in that context I bring it up.

Then apply some of that detail. If Flexit has not been rendered obsolescent, as even many of its early floggers seem to say now, then don't just invoke the idea of Flexcit as a document, or the idea of Flexcit as an idea: apply it.

What does Flexcit have to say about logistics, and why is it right? Since you've read it cover-to-cover so many times.

If this is such a horrid thing, why hasn't someone pushed for a vote of no confidence, and elect a new majority that insists on AoP reversing the referendum?

If not willing to repudiate it, then England pretty much has to lump it, take the economic hit, re-establish the borders and move forward.

The EU has few practical reasons to let England down easy in this, and several political lessons to teach other would-be leavers by telling England to go pound sand.


It is what it is.

The Catastrophe Paradox asserts a correct observation of human behavior to be that we tend to take decisive action against a threat only after the worst has come to pass: inertia.

[Pannonian]

If this is such a horrid thing, why hasn't someone pushed for a vote of no confidence, and elect a new majority that insists on AoP reversing the referendum?

If not willing to repudiate it, then England pretty much has to lump it, take the economic hit, re-establish the borders and move forward.

The EU has few practical reasons to let England down easy in this, and several political lessons to teach other would-be leavers by telling England to go pound sand.


It is what it is.

Because the main parties have put party ahead of country, and they all have reason to go with Brexit for one reason or another. The ERG faction are well placed to take advantage of disaster capitalism, a la the oligarchs in Yeltsin's Russia. May thought she'd increase her majority in 2017 and failed, and won't gamble again. Labour and SNP both hope for a disaster so they can profit politically, with Labour hoping for government of the UK and the SNP hoping for Scottish independence to get away from England and towards Europe.

The current likelihood is that we will go out in the most radical way possible, one that the Brexiteers assured us would not happen, and go crawling back to Brussels within a short while as the results play themselves out. And the EU27 won't have any sympathy.

[Pannonian]

As already mentioned: it covers these complex trade and border issues in an ENORMOUS amount more detail than joe the trucker, which you keep on asking me to watch. It is in that context I bring it up.

The Flexcit creators have already disowned Flexcit. What don't you get about this? All the detail you talk about was contingent on a certain scenario happening. And the ERG-driven Brexit, that you support, has made this scenario unlikely, with all the arguments you make turning against this scenario. With this being the case, they've declared that Flexcit cannot work, and that they've turned against Brexit as a result. So why are you still citing Flexcit as the way forward? They, being the creators, know more about Flexcit than anyone else, even you. a supposed fan.

BTW, why are you so reluctant to take the evidence of Joe the trucker? His testimony is deemed good enough for parliament to base their discussion on, yet it's not good enough for Furunculus? What do you say to the conclusions of the local and national governments, food retailers, logistics union, etc.? Are they unreliable compared with the IEA as well?

[Furunculus]

So your understanding of negotiations is the same as it was 2 years ago? What could you possibly mean by this?

What is not to understand? I was responding to this:
"See, this is what I mean. You talk in Platonic ideals even as you admit elsewhere that they will not and can not be instantiated. What you say you prefer doesn't matter!"
The implicit suggestion that we are in a take it or leave it situation. I disagree; I believe we are in a negotiation, and that valuable compromise can emerge.
Is this confusing?

You speak in a relaxed, desultory, impersonal manner - like it's a game to you. Like you're arguing for a certain boardgame rule set, even as the your "polity" and the people that make it up are subjected to a different one.

Politics is my hobby, I enjoy analysing it. It helps no-one (least of all me), if i am hugely emotionally invested in the things I am trying to analyse. I appreciate Pan is in a different place, he just wants things tomorrow to be broadly the same as today. So our current situation with all its poised potential energy must be very distressing.

Then apply some of that detail. If Flexit has not been rendered obsolescent, as even many of its early floggers seem to say now, then don't just invoke the idea of Flexcit as a document, or the idea of Flexcit as an idea: apply it.

I think the Gov't already did that, they counter-proposed chequers. Now we have to see how that is received.

The Catastrophe Paradox asserts a correct observation of human behavior to be that we tend to take decisive action against a threat only after the worst has come to pass: inertia.

Like staying in the EU to the point where we are so enmeshed politically socially and economically that it is impossible to leave... even thought it is constitutionally just a formal letter away?

[Furunculus]

The Flexcit creators have already disowned Flexcit. What don't you get about this? All the detail you talk about was contingent on a certain scenario happening. And the ERG-driven Brexit, that you support, has made this scenario unlikely, with all the arguments you make turning against this scenario. With this being the case, they've declared that Flexcit cannot work, and that they've turned against Brexit as a result. So why are you still citing Flexcit as the way forward? They, being the creators, know more about Flexcit than anyone else, even you. a supposed fan.

Have the flexcit creators disowned flexcit?

[Pannonian]

The logistics people have criticised the Transport secretary for being clueless about their industry, which is critical to the movement of goods across the UK and borders. They raised the issue of certification in the case of no-deal, and the minister "looked at me like I was talking in a foreign language." This was, as anyone who's listened to Joe the trucker would know, one of the key issues that said trucker noted that would make logistics post-no-deal practical or not. Oh, and said haulage reps deem Operation Brock, the post-Brexit update of Operation Stack, to be unworkable. They also raised various other issues with Grayling that Joe the trucker had already talked about on that clip I pointed you to.

Do you want to listen to what Joe the trucker has to say now? Or do you reckon that all haulage people, even those who represent the whole industry, to be unworthy of your attention, unlike your IEA think tanks?

[Montmorency]

What is not to understand? I was responding to this:
"See, this is what I mean. You talk in Platonic ideals even as you admit elsewhere that they will not and can not be instantiated. What you say you prefer doesn't matter!"
The implicit suggestion that we are in a take it or leave it situation. I disagree; I believe we are in a negotiation, and that valuable compromise can emerge.
Is this confusing?

I'm not referring to the very availability of compromise but of the foreclosure on specific scenarios or features of compromise by this time. You don't think whatever seemed possible in 2016 must be available now, do you?

Politics is my hobby, I enjoy analysing it. It helps no-one (least of all me), if i am hugely emotionally invested in the things I am trying to analyse. I appreciate Pan is in a different place, he just wants things tomorrow to be broadly the same as today. So our current situation with all its poised potential energy must be very distressing.

I get it, it's what all of us do here in the end. But you have to realize at some point that the policies one advocates for can have significant repercussions and affect millions of lives. It's not just something that happens on paper or to satisfy an ideological preference, even if the way we talk about things can sometimes suggest that impression.

I think the Gov't already did that, they counter-proposed chequers. Now we have to see how that is received.

Doesn't tell us much about Flexcit. Did the government make an argument on the basis of Flexcit? And what is "chequers"? If you're referring to the PM, isn't the PM a member of the government? Clarify your terminology please.

Like staying in the EU to the point where we are so enmeshed politically socially and economically that it is impossible to leave... even thought it is constitutionally just a formal letter away?

You're technically on point in that, as I argued on the basis of the construction of a "single economy" being so complex an undertaking, that attempting to extricate one party should have been understood from the outset as too frictional to contemplate naively. Clearly the longer one is a member the more difficult departure becomes. But then if one believes in the value of not continuing in the EU one should be willing to accept the articulation of whatever costs there may be to Exit and 'take it like an adult'.

[Pannonian]

I'm not referring to the very availability of compromise but of the foreclosure on specific scenarios or features of compromise by this time. You don't think whatever seemed possible in 2016 must be available now, do you?

I get it, it's what all of us do here in the end. But you have to realize at some point that the policies one advocates for can have significant repercussions and affect millions of lives. It's not just something that happens on paper or to satisfy an ideological preference, even if the way we talk about things can sometimes suggest that impression.

Doesn't tell us much about Flexcit. Did the government make an argument on the basis of Flexcit? And what is "chequers"? If you're referring to the PM, isn't the PM a member of the government? Clarify your terminology please.

You're technically on point in that, as I argued on the basis of the construction of a "single economy" being so complex an undertaking, that attempting to extricate one party should have been understood from the outset as too frictional to contemplate naively. Clearly the longer one is a member the more difficult departure becomes. But then if one believes in the value of not continuing in the EU one should be willing to accept the articulation of whatever costs there may be to Exit and 'take it like an adult'.

"Chequers" is the recent supposedly final position from the PM, thrashed out over a weekend at the PM's retreat, with all cabinet ministers locked in until they could agree on a position. 3 ministers resigned as a result of that, and the ERG forced the supposedly final position to move towards the ERG's position, with demands that make any compromise with the EU27 impossible, and no-deal more likely. So when Furunculus talks about "Chequers", he might mean May's Chequers position, or Rees-Mogg's Chequers position. I suspect the latter.

And while Furunculus has disdained listening to "Joe the trucker" as his weltanshaung is far too close to the ground to be of use, the reps of the logistics industry, on whom the UK's food supply depends, have made clear their contempt for the Transport minister, who does not understand the issues that "Joe the trucker" raised, which are central to the workability of the logistics industry. NB. anyone talking about tariffs and nothing else is completely missing the point. Tariffs is the easiest bit to work around. It's everything else, especially the bits raised by "Joe the trucker", that is impossible in the case of no-deal.

[Furunculus]

I'm not referring to the very availability of compromise but of the foreclosure on specific scenarios or features of compromise by this time. You don't think whatever seemed possible in 2016 must be available now, do you?

I continue to [hope] that a satisfactory compromise can be found for both parties. I have always known that this would be a classic geopolitical power-struggle, with the EU keen to keep britain firmly within its sphere of power. I accept that the consequence may be that there is no acceptable compromise. Nothing is decided until everything is decided, that is the EU mantra.

I get it, it's what all of us do here in the end. But you have to realize at some point that the policies one advocates for can have significant repercussions and affect millions of lives. It's not just something that happens on paper or to satisfy an ideological preference, even if the way we talk about things can sometimes suggest that impression.

I get that too, but I have always had the decency to accept the choice to remain (and yes; even to go full federal), as a legitimate and moral choice. One that I do not agree with, but so what. That common decency has rarely been reciprocated, so forgive me for being a little blase after x number of wasted pages in this thread playing your game defending my legitimate political preferences.
Preferring more or less tax/regulation are legitimate choice in national politics, it is no less legitimate in european politics.

Doesn't tell us much about Flexcit. Did the government make an argument on the basis of Flexcit? And what is "chequers"? If you're referring to the PM, isn't the PM a member of the government? Clarify your terminology please.

As already explained:
1. "it [flexcit] covers these complex trade and border issues in an ENORMOUS amount more detail than joe the trucker, which you keep on asking me to watch. It is in that context I bring it up."
2. "Flexcit - life is complicated; I can recognise the merit of the authors work without needing to agree with everything he says. Presumably you are the same, given that he advocates brexit for many of the same reasons I do?"
Flexcit is a deep look at the complexities of a post brexit world, it's worth reading and understanding, but I don't hold it against the government for trying to do better than eea+cu for the reasons I mentioned in the last page.

You're technically on point in that, as I argued on the basis of the construction of a "single economy" being so complex an undertaking, that attempting to extricate one party should have been understood from the outset as too frictional to contemplate naively. Clearly the longer one is a member the more difficult departure becomes. But then if one believes in the value of not continuing in the EU one should be willing to accept the articulation of whatever costs there may be to Exit and 'take it like an adult'.

I think I have done exactly that.

[Furunculus]

p.s. an excellent watch:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUhj...ature=youtu.be

[Fragony]

p.s. an excellent watch:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUhj...ature=youtu.be

Not known to you? The trade outside the Eurozone is bigger than the trade in it for you Brits. If you squueze numbers the EU is holding you back

[Husar]

Not known to you? The trade outside the Eurozone is bigger than the trade in it for you Brits. If you squueze numbers the EU is holding you back

Exactly. Let's say oyu have a pie and 60% of that pie is lemon pie from your aunt and 40% of that pie is strawberry pie from your uncle. If you throw the 40% of strawberry pie into the trash, your pie is unshackled and there is more pie for everyone because now you have 100% lemon pie!

[Pannonian]

Not known to you? The trade outside the Eurozone is bigger than the trade in it for you Brits. If you squueze numbers the EU is holding you back

If you think the UK post-Brexit is going to be such a lovely place to live in, why don't you put your money where your mouth is and join us? The leading Brexiteering politicians have certainly put their money where their mouth is; by looking for exit plans for themselves and their money inside the EU27. Even Rees-Mogg's company is advising clients on how to "protect them from the effects of Brexit".

[Fragony]

Exactly. Let's say oyu have a pie and 60% of that pie is lemon pie from your aunt and 40% of that pie is strawberry pie from your uncle. If you throw the 40% of strawberry pie into the trash, your pie is unshackled and there is more pie for everyone because now you have 100% lemon pie!

All I ask from you is to read that out loud three times without feeling stupid

[Gilrandir]

Exactly. Let's say oyu have a pie and 60% of that pie is lemon pie from your aunt and 40% of that pie is strawberry pie from your uncle. If you throw the 40% of strawberry pie into the trash, your pie is unshackled and there is more pie for everyone because now you have 100% lemon pie!

Give me the recipe of the pie that is partly lemon and partly strawberry.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Give me the recipe of the pie that is partly lemon and partly strawberry.

Actually, a good dash of lemon juice while macerating the berries enhances the flavor of the pie.

[Pannonian]

Actually, a good dash of lemon juice while macerating the berries enhances the flavor of the pie.

A sprinkling of lemon juice is also standard procedure when drying or otherwise processing other fruit, to help preserve the colour.

[Husar]

All I ask from you is to read that out loud three times without feeling stupid

Exactly.

Give me the recipe of the pie that is partly lemon and partly strawberry.

I'd ask the IEA, they appear to be the experts.

[Pannonian]

Exactly.

I'd ask the IEA, they appear to be the experts.

The answer would depend on which sponsor they're plugging though.

[Husar]

The answer would depend on which sponsor they're plugging though.

So far they appear to be sponsored by Big Lemon...

[Gilrandir]

According to Husar, you can't mix 'em.

[Husar]

According to Husar, you can't mix 'em.

Don't confuse me with Fragony.

[Fragony]

Don't confuse me with Fragony.

That on tops huh

[Husar]

That on tops huh

Yes, if you throw a paper plane from Ukraine over here, it's very easy to miss my place and hit yours instead.
We're practically neighbors.

[Fragony]

Yes, if you throw a paper plane from Ukraine over here, it's very easy to miss my place and hit yours instead.
We're practically neighbors.

I hope the paper landing isn't the bill of any humour contest that was meant for you