Re: Britain outside the EU
 

ah, bless.:)

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

Indeed, rb's posts were an excellent forensic dissection of the whole sorry mess.

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

Thank you. I try my best, because it is still such an important issue.

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

A revised timetable would also have entailed a broken promise. I’m sorry, Seph, but you are not being realistic. Covid cost us billions and billions of pounds, and not taking account of that is, well, (fill in the blank)…

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

Yet you refuse to acknowledge that remain lied. Why do you see everything so one-sided?

You may see deflection. I see balance. You only pronounce ‘deflection’ because you know you have no argument.

Why not just address the point?

You can take that as a rhetorical comment if it saves your embarrassment.

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

ah, the master of the Gifs..:rolleyes:

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

And while we were paying our WWII debt back to the Americans we became the ‘poor man of Europe’. Remember that?

High debt levels are the speciality of the Labour Party - please don’t go there.

The tax burden will reduce by the next election. The debt burden goes on seemingly forever.

---------- Post added at 20:32 ---------- Previous post was at 20:31 ----------

He speaks a strange language, Max. Listen, but don’t touch! :D

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

Very good OB, that made me chuckle. ;)

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

Glad to see you are amused, mate, but it really is disappointing to see that some people just don’t get that the things they criticise one side for, their own side did as well.

The thing is, I don’t think Brexiteers did lie. The most obvious one the leavers like to trot out is the claim that we would save a small fortune on not being members of the EU. They quoted the gross sum rather than the net sum for a reason - the EU could withdraw their concession to the UK at any time.

The net amount was not exactly a small amount, by the way, and we have already credited the NHS with the gross sum under Theresa May’s Prime Ministership.

The remainer lies were quite deliberate lies, for which they should be ashamed.

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

Whichever thread it is, Comical Ali never fails to deliver lots of chuckles by defending the hapless Johnson first and then worrying about the evidence contradicting this stance later.

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

You wouldn't know the word balance if it bit you on the behind.

The Remain campaign was arguing for the real world, the one existing at the time, the one you could quantify and measure. They were accurate and honest about what they were selling because it was the reality of the world that everyone lived in. The Leave campaign were selling sunlit uplands with no downsides i.e. Lies. You will never accept that they lied because you, like others, are so invested in the project that you have wished for, for so long.

It is Deflection because you will never address the lies that Leave used to get over the line. You will try and deflect: "But Sir, they lied as well!"

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

https://www.cableforum.uk/board/atta...8&d=1645224313

;)

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

Never let facts get in the way of your posts….

https://www.cableforum.uk/board/atta...9&d=1645224743

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

As a leave voter, I must admit that I'm quite surprised that the World hasn't stopped turning after a year or two reading about all the horrible and nasty ways my life would be affected.

Covid has had a large impact, and the gas/electric debacle will have one too, but Brexit has hardly made a difference ;)

I'm even wondering if the Russia v Ukraine war will cause me any hardship at all :dozey:

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

Thanks Sephi, for your acknowledgement of my factual approach to the subject. I need to pick up on some of your perceptions regarding my 'inconsistencies'. From where I am sitting they aren't inconsistencies at all.

My reference to carbon-emitting miles was only to address the replacement of trade with our nearest neighbour, the EU, with trade across the wider world. Unless we do something to deal with increased friction across our border with the EU, then the traffic between us will reduce over time. It will need replacing. Why would a German car manufacturer or car component manufacturer put up with multiple disrupted short journeys for an engine, for example, when they can send and receive items, JIT, to customer in Clermont-Ferrand or Prague. Why would a small soft cheese manufacturer in Shropshire send their perishable produce to Almeria, with an uncertain arrival time, when they can fly it more quickly to Winnipeg?

Were we rule takers from the EU? I think not. You have hit upon the major difference between Remainers like me and Leavers like those in the Tory Party, Awkward Squad. For such Eurosceptics it was all about 'us and them' . It was all about thinly veiled xenophobia. To Remainers, emotionally being part of the EU was all about 'us and us'. Economically, if not culturally or politically, we were the same country. For those manufacturers in Germany and Shropshire we were logistically the same country. Sending stuff to Almeria or Clermont was no different qualitatively than send stuff to Dundee or Modena. As 'us and us' we facilitated that flow of goods by pre-agreeing, in fine detail, rules pertaining to product quality, price and specification. Natural distrust between businesses was transcended by trust in the agreed terms, therefore no checks were required at borders. The borders were effectively not there. We made those rules as if we were in the same country in the same sense that the Senate makes rules, where relevant, for the whole of the USA. Rules that were not to do with mutual interest, were not made in Brussels. They were made in the parliaments of the sovereign nations of the EU.

You are right to say that businesses do what they do and that they will find ways to make Brexit work for them, as best they can. Those that trade in bulk will make a better fist of this, because they can send, for example, a whole truckload of the same known gearbox. They can limit the paperwork and also easily absorb the additional cost and/or pass it on to the customer. All they have to worry about is negotiating the massive jams on the A20.

For a small business, sending a couple of palettes a week, the problems are sometimes insurmountable. Their palette, for efficiency's sake, always needed to be sent in a mixed load, and will continue to be sent that way. A mixed load, usually from different producers, will now, since Brexit, generate an enormous pile of paperwork, additional inspections and the attendant fees. These are the trucks causing the queues. Because there are thousands of small businesses trying to continue to trade we can't dismiss this as a small part of our economy. SMEs matter! They are our lifeblood. Even if we identify and burn a whole bunch of 'non-essential', rolled over EU regulations to do with product quality, price and specification, the EU won't be reciprocating. The EU, necessarily, to protect the single market, will always be generating more friction for us, than we will find in trade with the rest of the world. Unless we take the step of nudging nearer to the single market by coming to a Corbyn-style customs union agreement, our trade with the EU will whittle down. EU businesses will increasingly find most of what they wanted from us, within the EU itself - Breton cream will replace Devon cream - Car door panels for Renault, from Liberty Pressings in Coventry, will be replaced by some new plant in Bucharest built with regional development fund support. We will, increasingly replace such EU trade with carbon-emitting long-haul journeys. Our cream may have to go to Tacoma and our car door panels to Lake Orion, Michigan, if, given zero-carbon targets, they want us from so far away. It's what businesses do!

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

Get a room.

---------- Post added at 10:12 ---------- Previous post was at 10:07 ----------

Kier’s managed to move on, it’s been six years, I suggest you do to.

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

I was prepared to move on if we hadn't done such a terrible deal with the EU. Even though the referendum was the opposite of how democracy should work, I respected the result. I cannot stand aside and watch the country go down like this. No Deal would have been even more of a disaster.

I was one of those who supported Corbyn's proposals for a customs union Brexit with a confirmatory referendum.(No Remain option.) Sadly, Starmer had his way and so lost Labour the Red Wall. He is pretending to move on because he wrecked Labour's support in Leave-voting Labour strongholds. He needs to regain their vote, so never discusses Brexit. He is an even worse lying sh** than Johnson, so don't go by anything he says.

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

Wow … we’re doing all the greatest hits this morning :erm:

I’m curious how the referendum was the ‘opposite’ of how democracy should work. Perhaps you could fill in some facts here? As far as I can see it was a simple binary vote with a clear proposition, argued over by well-regulated campaigns on both sides leading to a free and fair vote, tallied in process that was both transparent and well run. A summary of international observers’ responses is here:

https://www.electoralcommission.org....mme-Report.pdf

The fact that you supported the concept of a confirmatory referendum, despite this not forming part of any proposal prior to the referendum being held, suggests to me that you were less likely to ‘move on’ than you have suggested.

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

The binary vote was the key problem and the campaigns weren't sufficiently regulated! We were warned about the path we were taking by Austria, the referendum experts. They warned us that to reduce such an important and complex issue into a binary vote would invite all kinds of confusions and abuses. They warned us that the a Leave campaign could present Leave as all kinds of outcomes. anything between No Deal at one end to EEA membership at the other. People might vote for a Leave that kept us close to the single market, or they might vote Leave because they wanted as much distance from the EU as possible. This is exactly what happened. Many voted Leave because they thought, as Farage had proposed, that we would have a soft Brexit.

Farage famously told us how happy and prosperous the people of Norway were as members of the EEA, with no need to contribute to the EU regional development fund or the CAP and with a say over the rules that affected them. He lulled waverers, who feared for the economy, into believing that Brexit could be that benign. The Remain campaign could not carry out such a deception because everyone felt that they knew what Remain meant, given that we were already in the EU. It meant the status quo.

That is something else that Austria warned is about with a binary vote on such a complex and generationally important issue. They warned that a disgruntled population suffering the consequences of austerity would be looking for someone or something to blame. They warned that a Leave campaign might characterise the difficulties people were having in their lives as a the fault of the EU rather than the result of a dogmatic Tory government and the 2008 global crash. We all know that that is exactly what the Leave campaign did. They even encouraged the population to believe that immigration was causing the stress on services and that high immigration was the fault of the EU's addiction to the mobility of labour. (free movement). Stress on services was caused by austerity and failing to fund towns like Boston that had had particularly large immigration surges.

Austrian advisors suggested a different way to manage a referendum. They recommended that the run up to a referendum should be a at least a two-year process of education about what the EU really was and what various versions of Brexit might offer. The referendum itself would have needed to be non-binary. It would at least include Remain, No Deal, EEA membership and some form of customs union as options. The vote would have needed to give people the ability to put their preferences in order One , Two, Three. To avoid Remain coming out on top automatically, because Remain only has one form, the Leave options would have needed to be counted and ranked first, transferring people's second a third choices to bulk out the number of votes for the preferred Leave option. At that point the votes cast for Remain would be brought in.

Another fault with the Referendum was that it was not binding. We were warned that an advisory referendum would allow those who wanted to conduct a corrupt campaign would be inhibited by the strict rules that accompany binding votes. If one side or other in a binding vote commits significant fraud then the vote can be legally declared void. It is a matter of history what happened with the advisory vote. The Leave campaign committed industrial scale fraud, misappropriating funds so that they effectively spent far more on their campaign than allowed. . They were convicted of this and had to pay very large fines, but there was no power to scrub the result because it was only advisory.

Heard enough? I know that you will retort that Cameron and Osborne used public funds to spout Remain propaganda. This accusation could only be levelled at them because we didn't take the time to used public funds to systematically informed the electorate about the merits of Remain and Leave from at least two years before the vote. Cameron and co were compensating for the fact that this education process had not been built in.

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

That would have just delivered a bigger Leave majority.

I voted Remain without really paying much interest in the EU, the last 6 years has shone a very bright light on the EU and I would vote Leave now without hesitation.

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

Copy & Paste?

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

So … to summarise … the electorate was too stupid to deal with nuance? Or was the remain campaign simply too complacent, or dare I say too smug, to engage seriously with the arguments being raised by their opponents?

Incidentally, I have some experience of complex issues in binary referendums, living in Scotland and having participated in the 2014 referendum. Here, the “leave” campaign put forward a similarly broad and optimistic menu of potential scenarios for an independent Scotland. Yet here, the “remain” campaign won the status quo position convincingly, if not crushingly. So I have no need of the Austrians to warn me of what can happen, and actually neither do you. Simply ask those who are (thankfully, still) your countrymen.

It was a free, open and fair debate, and the remain campaign had the advantage of status quo and broad political consensus amongst the senior members of all major parties across Britain.

Incidentally, all politics is compromise and coalition. The idea that one single, concrete leave model required backing prior to changing the status quo is simply one of many fallacies raised by the continuity leavers inside and outside parliament as they attempted to unpick their defeat via the so-called confirmatory referendum.

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

You mean 37% of the electorate did not buy the Remain campaign? And there is lies the only point that matters here: yes, Leave lied on an industrial scale, yes, they broke the law, yes, they had the majority of the MSM behind them pumping out decades of false propaganda as a backdrop to the voting decision, but here lies the rub: any decision that changes the macro economic & political destiny of a country for generations to come can not be made on the basis on a vote of just over a 1/3 of the electorate.

Just because it was legal does not make it democratic. No-one on the political right side of this forum except you are willing to address & discuss the mistakes that led us to this debacle.

Again just to be clear here: the Leave campaign made promises that could never be kept and history has and will demonstrate this. This is now a case of damage limitation. It was not Boris that betrayed the magic Brexit fantasy, it was never there in the first place.

Gravity is everything in world trade and we have chosen to establish a punitive trade barrier with the EU, as was forecast, and so all else follows from this. We are a trading nation, it's obvious. The snake oil salemen who sell the sunlit uplands based on deals on the other side of the world are fantasists. With climate change, transport costs will sky rocket and so closer deals made more economic sense.

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

Maybe or maybe not. At ;least the outcome would have been based upon fuller knowledge, which the 2016 referendum was not.

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

That isn't the fault of those who voted to leave surely, the ones that didn't vote and who could obviously have made a difference to the outcome are the ones to blame.

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

We have never dallied with compulsory voting in this country because we believe in the right of an individual to abstain - and an abstention must always mean abstention; it cannot and must not be co-opted as tacit support for one side or another.

This is the point at which it’s safe to just stop listening to any remainer who wishes to deliver lectures about democracy whilst attempting to steal the support of those who exercised their right not to vote.

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

Well said.

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

You raised numerous issues with few words, some well rehearsed and refutable, but others mistaken and laughable. Forgive me.

1. Yes, there were a minority of voices, some influential, who were federalist, but every single one of the 27 EU nations, including the homelands of those voices, were and are against the proposition of a United States of Europe. It would have taken generations for all those veto wielding 27 nations and their populations to convert to the idea of an EU state. Effectively, this was part of Leave's very own Project Fear, as was the unlikely accession of Turkey, an EU army, a German NAZI-style takeover and the infamous Tipping Point poster summatively encapsulating the threat of brown Kalashnikov-bearing hordes invading our civilisation in order to rape our women and girls! :mad: Yes! Farage, the 'Great Man' stooped that low!

2) Great men never use crude stereotypical photo-shopped images of brown, male refugees to trigger homegrown racists. Diminutive losers with toothbrush moustaches, a side parting and a massive chip on their shoulders do. Neither do great men entice the gullible with cuddly fantasies, such as an EEA Brexit, when they themselves have their sights on a much harsher reality. Here is a plausible Farage, the genius communicator, lying through his teeth to entrap the Leave waverers. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtNr...ab_channel=LBC

3) Knowledge is good, Complexity is good, if it results in more choices. Time to reflect is good, if you want people to engage their intellect, rather than their emotions, in a big generational decision. All this is good. If the referendum had featured these things I would not be complaining so much, whatever the outcome. But it didn't. I find it very telling that you believe that extended choices, enhanced knowledge, opportunity to engage our intellects and time to reflect would have resulted in a Remain decision.

4) Yes, business will attempt to forge ahead. Rees-Mogg believes it will take up to 50 years for business to reap all the benefits of Brexit and for all the human cost, pain and damage caused by the transition to be deemed worthwhile. He won't care whether this happens or not, because he and his class are immune from the fallout, as are the billionaire owners of the Tory rags that conspired against the EU and conspired to misinform us all. In 50 years Mogg and I will be dead, my children dead or elderly and my grandchildren middle aged. I hope you can wait for the results of that shabby referendum to come to pass.

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

I'm disappointed in your response Seph. Dismissing my contribution as a Remainer's whinge is a cop out. I use true fact as rationally as I can, and in some detail, because this subject doesn't deserve the intellectual laziness you just now deployed. Patriots cannot stand by and watch our country go down without comment and recommendations for the future.

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

I would not be complaining (whinging). Oooops.

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

Complain: express dissatisfaction or annoyance about something.

Whinge: complain persistently and in a peevish or irritating way.

I would like to think that my complaining has been persistent only because the subject of my complaints is perennial and only those who disagree with me might find it irritating. Peevish? I am incandescent!

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

Are you an activist? do you go out and protest your beliefs? Or do you think as a Patriot you do enough by discussing your beliefs on a technical based forum? If it is how I suspect and you do just express yourself in type then you are sitting by doing almost nothing

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

5 1/2 + years of it isn't a complaint, it's definitely whinging.

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

OK I have no problem with you complaining about something but when you persitently complain in a peevish or irritating way (as you do) then it is whinging.

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

I used to be a Labour Party activist, campaigning for my local MP and acting as an agent for them and local councillor candidates. From 2015 I campaigned actively for Remain and went on most of the big London marches after the referendum. My particular angle was for honouring the referendum, albeit flawed, but to negotiate a customs union deal.

Since Starmer has made it clear that he is Tory-lite, and has used gross dishonesty to marginalise the left, I have left the Labour Party. I was likely to be kicked anyway, for protesting about the treatment of Corbyn. The party is doomed as a socialist force. I have joined the Greens, so now campaign for them in local elections but regularly go door-knocking with Zarah Sultana, our local Labour MP. I support her because she promotes the Green New Deal and she is is a committed socialist. I was out in the rain door-knocking with her yesterday.

Over the last 18 months I have been on protests against the current policing bill in that it attacks your right and my right right to protest peacefully and I have been on marches demanding real commitment from COP 26 members.

Generally, my politics is policy based, rather than tribal.



Any more ill-informed speculations about me?

Next!

---------- Post added at 14:29 ---------- Previous post was at 14:21 ----------

I am allowed to use some emotive language within the context of the subject, am I not? I thought shabby was a pretty good substitute for ill-thought-out, and you do get a sense of my feelings. At least I attack the issue and behaviors rather than label or demean the person. (That isn't an attack on you.)

Thank you for acknowledging my persistence. ;)

---------- Post added at 14:32 ---------- Previous post was at 14:29 ----------

As I say, those who disagree with me do find me irritating, mostly because my attention to detail, persistence and rationality unsettles them and their standpoint.

Peevish? That's an understatement. I'm frigging furious!!

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

Well, thank God for that!

Well, at least you have set out where you have come from, roughbeast. I would simply say that if a staunch follower of Jeremy Corbyn considers that he would be good at running the country :Yikes: then goes on to say that he thinks we should have remained in the EU, we Brexiteers must have got something right!

---------- Post added at 14:58 ---------- Previous post was at 14:46 ----------

Just for the record, the Policing Bill does no such thing. What it does do is clamp down on disruptive protests, such as the ones we saw where Insulate Britain brought motorways to a halt. Peaceful protests that still allow people to carry on with their business will not be restricted under this legislation.

Most people were angry about these protesters making people late for work, to attend medical appointments, etc, and want to see this kind of disruption stopped. The government has listened to the people and introduced this Bill.

Just as the government listened when people said they wanted to be out of the EU. I think I’ve spotted a pattern here that indicates your attitude towards democracy. Am I right or am I right? :D

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

Says the person who literally is unable to understand the point being made. Here's some bedside reading for you: https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Supermajority

Of course, you don't need a qualified majority when you change the country but, it seems you do need one if you are a union member:

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/t...ustrial-action

Sort of sums it up really

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

Particularly when the decision has been taken already!

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

I understand your disappointment. There are many valid points, as you mention, that can and will never be addressed in an honest debate. Why is this you might ask? The answer is both simple and complex at the same time: simple in so far that there are truisms that are self evident to an unbiased observer and complex in that, as you point out, requires a lot of research, thought and patience.

You will not find many here who will honestly address the fundamental failings of the Brexit process because they too invested. Whether their denial is deliberate or not is hard to tell for some, easy to tell for others.

---------- Post added at 15:08 ---------- Previous post was at 15:06 ----------

Some were "whinging" for 40+ years while we were part of the EU/Common Market. 5 years is nothing ..

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I am not sure I understand the point of your remark? Are you seeking to denigrate someone's views if they have not "protested" as you describe it.

---------- Post added at 15:17 ---------- Previous post was at 15:11 ----------

But it is only irritating because you are uncomfortable/disagree with the points being raised.

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

I see you're still going on about numbers ianch99.

It is irrelevant - what matters is that in 2016, over 1 Million more people voted for something opposite to something else, if over 1 Million people is not a "super" majority for a decision on something, no numbers ever matter at all.

You cannot force people to vote and never should be forced to vote, what we have learned over the last few days is that supposed liberal ideals are being eradicated by supposed liberals.

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

Quite. :dozey:

While I’m sure a few people on here will be taken in by your pomposity, I’m confident most will spot this little segue for what it is. We have only ever held one constitutional referendum in this country with even a quorum clause and it wasn’t the 1975 EU vote. As you’re such a fan of looking stuff up on the internet I’ll leave you to work out which one it was and why it, or anything like it, hasn’t been repeated.

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

You are wrong. Corbyn would have led us out of the EU if he had become PM, despite the sentiments of the Labour Party as a whole. This makes your Corbyn point a moot one. I supported Corbyn's principled stance of honouring the referendum result, so what is your point about my attitude to democracy? Do I detect binary thinking on your part? If I am not wholly in a agreement with you, I must therefore be wholly against you? There are shades of grey in human affairs you know.

The clause in the policing bill that gives police the right to ban marches that might be noisy is an attack on the right to protest. Noisy doesn't equate to disruptive.
https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/ho...rities-1407386


We have a long tradition of allowing marches, even if they are down main city roads. Police and marchers have, through cooperation usually ensured that marches are orderly and enable alternative routes for traffic etc. The consensus is that democracy is worth a bit of managed disruption. The government seeing the power of anti-Iraq war protests and the support for Remain marches, i.e. over 1 million. has decided that street protest might be a threat to them. They are looking for excuses to ban the lot.

In my experience, all protests are noisy. The word 'noisy' needs removing from the bill, and any word meaning noisy, because in the wrong hands it could be misused. Imagine if Farage's protest marches had been banned beforehand because they might be noisy. We would never hear the end of it.

If, on the other hand, protests involve criminal damage, violence, and even disruption that has not been negotiated between police and organisers, then the perpetrators should accept the consequences. We already have laws in place to deal with that. No change needed. If I joined an Insulate Britain, protest and glued myself to the road, I must accept my punishment for disrupting lives beyond the agreed limits. Banning protests beforehand should only occur if the protesting group is known for consistent law-breaking, criminal damage and violence against people. e.g. most EDL and Britain First marches, some Insulate Britain protests and the fringes of Farage marches and BLM marches.

In my time, the only violent protest I have been on was the one that became The Battle of Grosvenor Square. It was a march to the US embassy protesting the Vietnam War. I, a 21-year old, was one of those. who slipped through the police cordons and got as far as the embassy gates. I ended up in hospital having been whacked on the head by a member of the US military police. I was responsible for what happened to me, not the MP defending US territory. Oh, to be young and stupid again! :angel:

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

It is rare for any vote to have the majority of the voting population support:shocked: ie over 50.1% of voters supporting it . Perhaps of those that vote yes but total that could no:erm:

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

Quorums are tricky because they incentivise disengagement as a campaign strategy and disenfranchise those who genuinely intend not to participate (because their lack of participation becomes de facto support for the status quo). Supermajorities are anti-democratic because they permit a long-standing, significant majority for a cause to nevertheless fail to deliver the settled view of that majority, for lack of the support of an arbitrary number of people. They’re also meaningless in the Westminster parliamentary system because any referendum can only ever be advisory, and ultimately any legally binding decision is always taken by 50% +1 of the votes in the House of Commons.

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

I won't rise to your childish baiting but thank you for proving my point.

---------- Post added at 22:07 ---------- Previous post was at 22:01 ----------

Supermajorities do not need to be an arithmetic number they are more varied. See here for examples: https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Supermaj...upermajorities

What they do guard against is the ability of a vocal and well resourced minority hijacking decisions that impact large, nation-sized populations.

Here is a good example:



---------- Post added at 22:23 ---------- Previous post was at 22:07 ----------

But Corbyn was conflicted and deceived many in the lead up the the referendum. He was always anti-Europe and always has been, mainly due to the limits placed on union powers by the EU. He saw the UK, out of the EU, as a place he could deliver his unfettered Socialist utopia. Although his naivety was evident to all except his inner circle of his "Jeremy, you are brilliant" cabal, he succeeded in hamstringing the Remain campaign which he was, on paper, a lead member. His lack of honesty, a common theme at the time, betrayed many of those he lead.

Your points about noisy protests is a good one. The police have said they already have the legal powers to address the issues this new bill pretends to address. The powers are clearly aimed to suppress legal opposition.

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

You are right, Corbyn had a long-held anti-EEC stance, mostly because he regarded it as a capitalist club,which it was. However, after Maastricht and the dawn of the EU, it became a different animal. Features, such as the Social Chapter, gradually morphed the EU into an increasingly socialistic enterprise with protection for worker rights, human rights and the environment.

When Corbyn saw that he could become leader of the Labour Party and thereby PM he developed a vision. His ambition was to become PM in an EU member state and to use that position to drive the reform of the EU from a socialist perspective. A first step would have been to create a socialist alliance of MEPs from all countries of the EU. This would have enough collective voting power to push through badly needed reforms, thus addressing Corbyn's criticisms of the EU. I know this because I took part in a discussion group led by him in 2014. He was passionate about this. It was natural that he would be in the Remain camp thereafter.

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

All the above sounds entirely credible and I've no reason to disbelieve you. The issue I have is he just never seemed enthusiastic about the EU during the referendum campaign. That's why I saw him as being agnostic on the issue or potentially even a closet Leaver.

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

Thanks for this insight. You obviously know more from the inside than I do. I can only go on his visibly weak performance during the campaign and observations like this:

https://www.markpack.org.uk/153744/j...corbyn-brexit/

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

Corbyn spent more time campaigning for Remain up and down the country than any other individual. He was tireless. He was virtually ignored by the media until the last two weeks of campaigning when Cameron and Osborne threw the towel in. By then it was too late.

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

Vey interesting article which covers UK's changing defence priorities. These are the EU related elements. (As always, non-subscribers should Google the headline for access)

https://www.ft.com/content/76614c19-...0-c7951ba2ef68

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

Or use 12 foot ladder… ;)

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

Yes that article is utter bilge far more based in agenda driven politics then the reality of NATO.

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

It may feel better trying to live in the past, but Europe has changed since the invasion of Ukraine.

---------- Post added at 19:13 ---------- Previous post was at 18:52 ----------

I think you may need to read the full article to avoid drawing erroneous conclusions.

This is my take on that aspect of the article.

When the UK left the EU, it decided to adopt an ad hoc approach to defence meetings with the EU, which is obviously weaker than a regular structure. To the delight of Russia, it was soon squabbling with France over fish and to the horror of the US, arguing with Ireland over its own Brexit agreement.

Post the Ukraine invasion, it's now obvious that the UK's defence priorities lie with Europe. The UK therefore needs some kind of regular forum with EU members. This need is more pressing given Germany's change of position increasing its prominence in NATO.

I can certainly see the benefit of such meetings. If not, there must surely be the chance of France and Germany sewing up European defence policy between them and the UK falls into the background.

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

There’s not an awful lot to discuss here as long as you so casually conflate NATO and the EU. They are very different beasts. If you can unpick your thinking on these two separate institutions, or perhaps justify the way you read across from one to the other, then maybe we have a basis for a debate.

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

Don't understand where you derive the conflation of NATO and the EU from. That's one hell of a leap that would put even Greg Rutherford to shame!

The author is making the point that the UK needs to put a structure in place for its defence meetings with the EU. Seems to make sense to me.

---------- Post added at 20:32 ---------- Previous post was at 20:30 ----------

This thread is about Britain outside the EU and my post is about exactly that. It's not about travelling back to 2016 and rehashing old arguments.

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

Andrew the difference between the EU and NATO is cavernous which you clearly don't understand.

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

You need to join me by moving on mate.

---------- Post added at 21:02 ---------- Previous post was at 20:56 ----------

I do and I'm pretty sure the author of the article and the editor who signed off on the piece all do as well.

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

Moving on isn’t exactly how I’d describe it …

https://www.cableforum.uk/board/atta...1&d=1646259860

:angel:

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

lol.

It may go against the grain to acknowledge it, but discussing how the Ukraine invasion may impact UK-EU relations ticks the box of moving on.

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

Andrew the EU as an organisation has little to do with the operation of NATO even though they get regular briefings and the UK role within NATO was not altered by brexit.

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

You may find this informative…

https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_49217.htm

tl:dr - there’s a lot more co-operation than "regular briefings’…

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

Hugh the EU does not have control over NATO operation's of course there's cooperation given so many EU member states are NATO member's but the EU cannot override NATO on theatre operations but NATO could overrule the EU if it ordered it's member state's to conduct operation's not in accordance with NATO strategy.

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

You appear to have accidentally moved the goalposts from "has little to do with the operation of NATO" to "does not have control over NATO operations"… ;)

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

No you know what I mean the EU can request but cannot demand or order anything militarily and the UK's role within NATO has not been affected by brexit as somebody would like some to believe.

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

You appear, once again, to be countering an argument I haven’t made…

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

Here is confirmation, if any were needed, that bureaucratic EU laws are damaging the economy.

The GDPR is one of the worst, and it’s not that effective in achieving its objectives either.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business...saster-better/

[EXTRACT]

‘We have ticked all the right boxes a hundred thousand times. We have clicked past reams of terms and conditions we have never had the slightest intention of ever actually reading. And we have accepted cookies, shared our data, and opted in for emails.

We already knew the European Union’s GDPR rules for managing the way data is used and shared over the internet were tedious, bureaucratic and overly complex. But now we know something else as well. The system has cost us billions, and made us all much poorer than we otherwise would be.

According to a new study from academics at Oxford University, the rules have had two dramatic impacts. They have significantly reduced the profits and sales of digital companies.

And even worse, the harm has been concentrated on the smaller companies, leaving the American tech giants such as Facebook and Google largely unscathed. It has turned into one of the worst pieces of legislation ever introduced.

There is little hope of the EU ever reforming it. Brussels does not admit to mistakes. But the UK should sweep the system away, and replace it with something more workable, before it does any more damage to our economy.

When GDPR – General Data Protection Regulation – was introduced in May 2018 it was meant to turn the digital economy into a safer, properly regulated space, where privacy would be protected, and data valued and looked after.

In the almost four years since then, EU officials have held the legislation up as a huge improvement in the way ordinary people are protected by better, smarter regulation.’

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

Here’s the actual research conclusions, without the Telegraph’s anti-EU spin…

https://voxeu.org/article/how-data-p...mance-globally

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

Read your post a coup!e of times thinking I must have missed the confirmation. If you hadn't of included a link to the Telegraph I might have mistaken the post for something you heard some big boys saying down the pub but then remembered some of the Barclay clan were accused of breaking data protection laws so maybe, just maybe, the family is using one of their publications to defend their actions.

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

A lot of supposition in there except one thing.

adverse impacts we document might be temporary

negative effects of GDPR might taper off.

probably reflects one-off investments in new GDPR-compliant technologies.

if GDPR is widely adopted.

our estimates do not capture the aggregate welfare effects...

...GDPR might even have strengthened them.

Indeed, our findings show that smaller companies have been disproportionally adversely impacted, both in terms of sales and profits.

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

The last paragraph of that Telegraph article on GDPR includes the following;

So the argument is that we should remove GDPR as it's too difficult and expensive for small businesses. We should therefore make it impossible for those businesses to share data with the EU. I guess that will fix the issue.

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

It's nice to see that the UK Government is listening to industry and trying to be flexible, which is more than we can say for the EU. They imposed full checks from day one.

We need a more sophisticated system on both sides to speed up the checking process, but as we are seeing with NI/Ireland border trade, the EU is less than helpful on these matters.

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

Perhaps the Government should have listened to industry before the Government signed a deal with the EU. Probably more sensible than protecting industry from a deal that the Government itself signed by not implementing the agreement.

At the moment, the lack of implementation of the border controls favours importers to the UK massively over exporters

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

These were Theresa Mays red lines and their implications on the relationship going forward with the EU;

https://www.cableforum.uk/images/local/2022/03/1.jpeg

They seem pretty 'Brexity' to me so I am curious how she tried to sabotage Brexit. What should the Johnson administration have changed from Theresa Mays approach?

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

The government listened to the people. It’s the government’s job now to make it work.

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

And how is that working out?

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

Well, let’s wait and see, shall we? It’s early days yet. Nobody suggested everything would be hunky dory on day 1 as I recall, and certainly I did not expect that.

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

Really, I thought they did say just that, the day we leave we hold all the cards, easiest deal ever done, sorted out in an afternoon etc

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

That was about the withdrawal agreement, wasn’t it? Certainly not about implementation.

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

Does it really matter any more, no one will be held accountable for the things they said or did so what's the point

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

No, it doesn't matter at all! You raised it, not me.:walk:.

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

It's a long time ago but for the avoidance of misunderstanding, they were about the trade deal not the WA.
I guess only history will hold the players responsible.

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

And I shall keep on reminding people of what was said and the promises that were made and I have no doubt that for some bizarre reason you'll attempt to excuse their shithousery

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

If you were fool enough to fall for any promises made by a politician - from either side - then I guess nobody can help you . . . carry on moaning though, because it's apparently good to release that pent up anger and disillusionment ;)

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Carth (Post 36117861) If you were fool enough to fall for any promises made by a politician - from either side - then I guess nobody can help you . . . carry on moaning though, because it's apparently good to release that pent up anger and disillusionment ;)

Broken promises are one thing, outright lies however are much better at getting the anger and disillusionment to the surface. Just off for my afternoon Vodka (made in Poland of course) and some Woodbines.

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

Even though, as you said, it doesn’t matter?

Well if it does matter after all, I would point out again that the statements you were referring to were about the agreement itself, not it’s implementation.

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

What a cop out, they're all at it so that makes it all right, it's because of attitudes like that things will never change and the infantilisation of British politics will continue, what a pity, never had you down as part of the problem but guess I just thought to highly of you, that was my foolish mistake

It doesn't matter because they won't be held to account but that doesn't mean I'll shut up about it, might be time for you to go back on ignore, your simpering sycophantic ways are mildly annoying