Re: Britain outside the EU
 

You plainly aren’t taking an evidence-based approach. You’re swallowing what the ultra-remain Independent is feeding you: interim measures that may or may not turn out to have worked very well, which are hard to judge fairly at present as we’re (1) emerging from a pandemic that has absorbed huge amounts of government time and (2) we are only 4 months through the 12 month financial year in which the scheme will operate.

On the basis of this scant evidence you are concluding that (1) everything is the way you always thought it would be and (2) it will ever be thus. You’re as clear a case study in confirmation bias as you’ll ever find.

Regardless, the substantive point is this: if they royally screw it up, they can be removed from office. That’s the democratic state of affairs I voted for in 2016 and it will require a fundamental, constitutional balls-up to challenge that, not a piffling, mid-ranking kerfuffle over one year of regional grant aid.

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

Not at all.

You're giving the government a green card to not deliver on its promises and for it not to be honest about not doing so because you are seeing the words sovereignty and are being dazzled by them. The government chose to implement Brexit when a pandemic was raging. It's sensibly not using this as an excuse for inaction. Councils need some notice that funds are on the way even if they won't be receiving them for several months.

I had hoped that the government would honour its promises and as a net contributor to the EU budget, it's not as if we don't have the money. Or am I assuming something here?

You will find that I've posted positive news stories about Brexit. Unfortunately, my optimism was misplaced with the story I posted about musicians' touring rights as it turned out to be the government department rehashing something agreed previously.

But on the subject of sovereignty. The fact remains that genuine sovereignty costs and it's not a price that governments feel is worth paying. Look at the medicines regulator as an example of how things are going. The government is proposing substantial cuts there that that will reputedly make it an organisation that simply rubber stamps the European Medicine Agency's decisions. Our seat at the table is gone. For a sovereignty theorist such as yourself, no problem, just elect a government that is prepared to spend the sums required on duplicating such bodies. You and I both know that with our political set-up, such choices are unlikely to appear on the ballot paper.

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

You use an awful lot of words to disguise your distaste for our democracy. Fortunately they are of no consequence. The present government will either satisfy the electorate and win a new term in office, or it will not, and be removed. That’s not a green card for anything - it is our democracy at work. As it should be.

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

The green card referred to your use of the pandemic to justify the government's inaction on this issue when even it wasn't this desperate to use this excuse. And to write off as mere words the fact that the UK is having to become a rule-taker in some areas shows an ideological approach at work, whether consciously or unconsciously.

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

Pivot … pivot … pivot …

Let’s re-cap.

You presented an argument that conflated constitution and policy (as remainers are wont to do)
I pointed out your error
You switched to argue an unrelated point.

It’s a given you’re never going to admit you’re wrong, which is why the tack-switch is always so gratifying.

Goodnight. ;)

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

You remember Bately and Spen? I think it was there I saw a couple interviewed saying they'd voted Labour all their lives but were switching to Conservatives, when asked why they said it was because the labour council had closed this, shut that and cut the other, turns out of course that they didn't have any choice because the central government grant had been slashed. It's not always as simple as you've made out.

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

Good afternoon. :)

I did indeed mention a related point about how sovereignty on paper might sound good but in the real world practicalities mean that it does not work out that way.

I do acknowledge I could not get you to agree on regional funding and I give you full credit for the lengths you have gone to defend the government not doing what it said it would do.

---------- Post added at 16:45 ---------- Previous post was at 16:41 ----------

I'm deeply worried by some of the apparent corruption I'm now seeing (look at the VIP lane for PPE procurement for example) and our inability to tackle this as a country.

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

As a reminder, The Daddy made a good point earlier - it's not as simple as Chris likes to think.
What do you mean by our own democratic processes?

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

- we have democratically elected institutions;
- we have free, fair, open elections and universal suffrage.

By any global standard our democratic processes are more than up to the task of giving the people a voice in who governs and how they behave.

Examples of the electorate making judgments you (or the daddy) consider inadequate … well that just begins to sound a teensy bit like the sort of patronising nonsense that was sadly all too common from remain campaigners in 2016. It seems some Europhiles really do think a technocratic government in a foreign country is what’s required to save them from stupid British voters who keep making poor decisions.

To reiterate the substantive point: regional development funding is a political issue, not a constitutional one. It will be solved by political means (either by the incumbent party or one elected to replace it), not by wholesale constitutional change. British voters deciding British issues, which was the entire point of Brexit. It really is that simple.

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

The substantive point is that regional funding actually got paid out by the EU when it was going it and the current government has broken its promises and not delivered on this. That's always been my point despite many attempts to take me on another path.

But issues like this in the absence of more trustworthy politicians can be obfuscated and TheDaddy gave you an example of how this is so. Inconvenient as it might be. To stipulate that matters are either perfect or that we need a foreign country to help reeks of playing to the audience when matters are far more nuanced.

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

… so vote them out. Replace them with a party that will adequately fund regional development. What’s so hard to understand about that?

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

You’re right, It’s not, because Labour is now the party of identity politics, pro-nouns and Palestine, which may be important to the metropolitan blue hair wing of the NUS, but not the people of Batley & Spen and others. In a few short years Labour has divorced itself from the working class and actively despises them.

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

Odd, according to the two interviewed it wasn't any of the things you mentioned, just the fact local services had be cut to the bone and they wrongly blamed it on the labour council. Maybe those things you mention do matter to the people of Batley and Spen after all considering Labour held it or maybe they just identified less with the sleezy chumocricy currently making themselves richer at everyone else's expense at the heart of government