The UK Politics and EU Referendum thread - merged

[MintTrav]

Speaking as someone who has virtually no political knowledge but has spent a lifetime doing deals, I can guarantee there is zero chance of a no deal brexit. All the 'no deal' preparations and discussions are nothing more than a very transparent negotiating tool.

Never mind "No deal is better than a bad deal". No deal would be the worst deal of all and there is no way we can allow it to happen.

But, the simple truth is, we have no bargaining chips. We will be forced to accept the softest of brexits where we obey EU laws, continue with free trade - free movement, pay our dues but have no seat at the decision making table.

Just catching up. This seems to be where we are heading. If we are to lose the advantages of belonging to the EU, this seems like the ideal next best scenario. There are right-wingers who would like to see “efficiency savings” forced through that are a cover for taking away our employment, consumer and environmental protections. The EU currently protects us from these charlatans, and will continue to do so if we have to comply with their regulations.

In some ways it could actually be better, as the EU can press ahead with further protections without the negative UK always holding up every bit of progress and, as we have to fall in line, we will also benefit despite ourselves.

The markets right across Europe have been on the slide, lack of confidence, serious fall in German manufacturing orders illustrates some of the potential negative effects on EU states. It isn't the case that only UK will feel discomfort. Makes the situation organic moving forward, gives us bargaining chips. In fact the, cough, intransigence of EU leadership is actually right in the process of taking away employment.

I don't think we really need EU management of our consumer protections, we are quite capable of working it out. This is actually one of the advantages of Brexit. I feel more regional politics is a good idea so Chipping Sodbury taking it's lead from Brussels is an unagreeable notion. Anyway, in a free market this is kinda self-regulating as customers generally buy goods & services from companies they trust.

We’ve already had the ‘Europe will also be damaged by Brexit’ discussion. Parts of Europe will be affected a bit and we will be affected many times more. There’s no need to have it again.

We may be capable of doing so but, before we joined the EU, we didn’t introduce consumer/employment/environment protection and we won’t do it after we leave unless the EU forces us to. If anything, there are dark forces longing to ‘cut back on red tape’. Any time any new protection is proposed, scaremongers say it will cost too much money, cost jobs, put too much strain on employers, etc - all the usual old crap to avoid doing it. One of the reasons the EU is so much better than individual governments at this kind of thing is because of the power held by appointed officials rather than elected politicians. Pressure from vested interests and fear of electoral backlash prevent politicians from following their conscience whereas those not subject to elections can focus on doing the right thing without having to take popularity contests into account.

As for the free market self-regulating without legal requirement - come on, get serious. Unless children start dropping from being poisoned, the unregulated free market is terrible at protecting consumers, and you can forget altogether about protecting employees and the environment.

We joined the Common Market / EEC in 1973 and were coerced into the EU in 1993.

There were numerous consumer and employment protection laws before that and as the timeline in this article demonstrates, these have developed with our own development into a more equal society. For instance, we abolished slavery without the need for any help from unelected officials in Brussels. We also managed to legislate against racism, for employment contracts and to give a right to redundancy payments.
https://www.morton-fraser.com/knowledge-hub/history-employment-law-0

The argument that the power f unelected officials is a strength of the EU is clearly nonsense, but just in case you really believe it maybe you should consider this
According to the EU’s figures there are 371 Senior Managers controlling the 32,000 staff. Making decisions for 508,000,000 people and answerable to none of them.

Surely the truth is somewhere imbetween?  We will still have protections, but they are likely to be less strong than in the EU and likely to swing about a bit depending on the Governmemt.   I can't see them disappearing quickly, as much of the Government's energy will be devoted to fire fighting over the next year or two.  

I don't think the negative UK holds up every bit of progress either.  I am not sure why we are singled out, or why everything the UK opposes is viewed as progress.  Some things we oppose are bound to be terrible ideas.

Yes, of course.

We had a decent amount of employment protection in the years before EU membership - in fact, with the erosion of collective rights in the 80s you could easily make an argument that we have lost employment protection rights while we've been in the EU (EEC) versus the time before joining. Since we've been in the EU, we've played a part in every bit of legislation that protects us as employees, consumers so we haven't passively been gifted those rights, and there's no reason to suppose that we will see our rights erode if we leave.

This is much more about national Government than the EU. Good luck to any prospective Government standing on a manifesto of turning back the clock on the elements of any protections that are valued by the electorate.

nb, you can argue about the merits or otherwise of a National minimum wage but we introduced ours in 1998 - any ideas of when the Germans introduced theirs ?

In a number of areas of welfare we're well ahead of the EU - animal welfare, important to many, is a good example - bullfighting anyone ?

I have to admit to being impressed with those responses - it's much better when one side isn't represented only by people who are here to troll.

- I concede that there were employment rights etc enacted before we joined the EEC, as has been demonstrated. However, they picked up pace dramatically shortly after joining.
- I'm not sure what point is being made regarding EU staff numbers.
- I don't think our protections will disappear quickly either, but I think it is likely that some of them will be eroded slowly.
- If you don't think the UK is a brake on EU progress, try living in another EU country and hearing the evening news saying that initiative after initiative has been agreed by all except the UK, which is objecting to this or that part. It is the same story time after time.
- I'd be genuinely interested in hearing more about the areas of (human) welfare where we are ahead of the EU, if you feel inclined to expand. You may be right, but I can't think what they are. Not Education, Health, Transport or Social Welfare anyway.

[Pokerpops]

Speaking as someone who has virtually no political knowledge but has spent a lifetime doing deals, I can guarantee there is zero chance of a no deal brexit. All the 'no deal' preparations and discussions are nothing more than a very transparent negotiating tool.

Never mind "No deal is better than a bad deal". No deal would be the worst deal of all and there is no way we can allow it to happen.

But, the simple truth is, we have no bargaining chips. We will be forced to accept the softest of brexits where we obey EU laws, continue with free trade - free movement, pay our dues but have no seat at the decision making table.

Just catching up. This seems to be where we are heading. If we are to lose the advantages of belonging to the EU, this seems like the ideal next best scenario. There are right-wingers who would like to see “efficiency savings” forced through that are a cover for taking away our employment, consumer and environmental protections. The EU currently protects us from these charlatans, and will continue to do so if we have to comply with their regulations.

In some ways it could actually be better, as the EU can press ahead with further protections without the negative UK always holding up every bit of progress and, as we have to fall in line, we will also benefit despite ourselves.

The markets right across Europe have been on the slide, lack of confidence, serious fall in German manufacturing orders illustrates some of the potential negative effects on EU states. It isn't the case that only UK will feel discomfort. Makes the situation organic moving forward, gives us bargaining chips. In fact the, cough, intransigence of EU leadership is actually right in the process of taking away employment.

I don't think we really need EU management of our consumer protections, we are quite capable of working it out. This is actually one of the advantages of Brexit. I feel more regional politics is a good idea so Chipping Sodbury taking it's lead from Brussels is an unagreeable notion. Anyway, in a free market this is kinda self-regulating as customers generally buy goods & services from companies they trust.

We’ve already had the ‘Europe will also be damaged by Brexit’ discussion. Parts of Europe will be affected a bit and we will be affected many times more. There’s no need to have it again.

We may be capable of doing so but, before we joined the EU, we didn’t introduce consumer/employment/environment protection and we won’t do it after we leave unless the EU forces us to. If anything, there are dark forces longing to ‘cut back on red tape’. Any time any new protection is proposed, scaremongers say it will cost too much money, cost jobs, put too much strain on employers, etc - all the usual old crap to avoid doing it. One of the reasons the EU is so much better than individual governments at this kind of thing is because of the power held by appointed officials rather than elected politicians. Pressure from vested interests and fear of electoral backlash prevent politicians from following their conscience whereas those not subject to elections can focus on doing the right thing without having to take popularity contests into account.

As for the free market self-regulating without legal requirement - come on, get serious. Unless children start dropping from being poisoned, the unregulated free market is terrible at protecting consumers, and you can forget altogether about protecting employees and the environment.

We joined the Common Market / EEC in 1973 and were coerced into the EU in 1993.

There were numerous consumer and employment protection laws before that and as the timeline in this article demonstrates, these have developed with our own development into a more equal society. For instance, we abolished slavery without the need for any help from unelected officials in Brussels. We also managed to legislate against racism, for employment contracts and to give a right to redundancy payments.
https://www.morton-fraser.com/knowledge-hub/history-employment-law-0

The argument that the power f unelected officials is a strength of the EU is clearly nonsense, but just in case you really believe it maybe you should consider this
According to the EU’s figures there are 371 Senior Managers controlling the 32,000 staff. Making decisions for 508,000,000 people and answerable to none of them.

Surely the truth is somewhere imbetween?  We will still have protections, but they are likely to be less strong than in the EU and likely to swing about a bit depending on the Governmemt.   I can't see them disappearing quickly, as much of the Government's energy will be devoted to fire fighting over the next year or two.  

I don't think the negative UK holds up every bit of progress either.  I am not sure why we are singled out, or why everything the UK opposes is viewed as progress.  Some things we oppose are bound to be terrible ideas.

Yes, of course.

We had a decent amount of employment protection in the years before EU membership - in fact, with the erosion of collective rights in the 80s you could easily make an argument that we have lost employment protection rights while we've been in the EU (EEC) versus the time before joining. Since we've been in the EU, we've played a part in every bit of legislation that protects us as employees, consumers so we haven't passively been gifted those rights, and there's no reason to suppose that we will see our rights erode if we leave.

This is much more about national Government than the EU. Good luck to any prospective Government standing on a manifesto of turning back the clock on the elements of any protections that are valued by the electorate.

nb, you can argue about the merits or otherwise of a National minimum wage but we introduced ours in 1998 - any ideas of when the Germans introduced theirs ?

In a number of areas of welfare we're well ahead of the EU - animal welfare, important to many, is a good example - bullfighting anyone ?

I have to admit to being impressed with those responses - it's much better when one side isn't represented only by people who are here to troll.

- I concede that there were employment rights etc enacted before we joined the EEC, as has been demonstrated. However, they picked up pace dramatically shortly after joining.   Correlation is not causation, and the EU isn’t the only legislature that has introduced them.
- I'm not sure what point is being made regarding EU staff numbers.    You seemed to believe that the fact that the EU is controlled by unelected officials is a good thing. I fundamentally disagree and pointed out that this control is potentially exercised by just 371 people.
- I don't think our protections will disappear quickly either, but I think it is likely that some of them will be eroded slowly.   We will remain a democratic country and our elected representatives will make those decisions.
- If you don't think the UK is a brake on EU progress, try living in another EU country and hearing the evening news saying that initiative after initiative has been agreed by all except the UK, which is objecting to this or that part. It is the same story time after time.   Examples please
- I'd be genuinely interested in hearing more about the areas of (human) welfare where we are ahead of the EU, if you feel inclined to expand. You may be right, but I can't think what they are. Not Education, Health, Transport or Social Welfare anyway.    This is a spurious argument. The EU doesn’t have a common system for any of these areas.

[alanc]

In democracy terms, is Westminster nor similar to the EU? The laws are made in the parliaments. We vote for MPs and MEPs. The European Commission is made up of the heads of states and we voted for ours. To carry out the work, we have our civil service and the EU has theirs. 

[Pokerpops]

In democracy terms, is Westminster nor similar to the EU? The laws are made in the parliaments. We vote for MPs and MEPs. The European Commission is made up of the heads of states and we voted for ours. To carry out the work, we have our civil service and the EU has theirs. 

https://europa.eu/european-union/about-eu/institutions-bodies/european-commission_en

The Commission is not made up of the heads of state.

It’s full of people like Neil Kinnock and Peter Mandelson who have both dipped their noses in the trough in the past.

[MintTrav]

In democracy terms, is Westminster nor similar to the EU? The laws are made in the parliaments. We vote for MPs and MEPs. The European Commission is made up of the heads of states and we voted for ours. To carry out the work, we have our civil service and the EU has theirs. 

It is a bit different. The European Commission is the civil service, but it is led by Commissioners who are appointed by national governments, one from each country, and acts pretty much like a government. For example, for some reason, the UK has quite often provided the Commissioner for Trade. The Commissioners are supposed to ignore their national origins and act in the overall interest of the Community. The European Parliament has less power than our parliament. For example, only the Commission can propose new legislation. The European Council is the Prime Ministers of each country (or the relevant Minister for the area under discussion).

[MANTIS01]

If the UK don’t agree with ‘initiative after initiative’ it sounds like our standards/expectations/objectives are way misaligned with the whole EU...

...thus leaving seems wholly appropriate.

Sure there will be some economic pain but hey we don’t agree with all the other countries on basically anything so clearly the right move.

[nirvana]

Speaking as someone who has virtually no political knowledge but has spent a lifetime doing deals, I can guarantee there is zero chance of a no deal brexit. All the 'no deal' preparations and discussions are nothing more than a very transparent negotiating tool.

Never mind "No deal is better than a bad deal". No deal would be the worst deal of all and there is no way we can allow it to happen.

But, the simple truth is, we have no bargaining chips. We will be forced to accept the softest of brexits where we obey EU laws, continue with free trade - free movement, pay our dues but have no seat at the decision making table.

Just catching up. This seems to be where we are heading. If we are to lose the advantages of belonging to the EU, this seems like the ideal next best scenario. There are right-wingers who would like to see “efficiency savings” forced through that are a cover for taking away our employment, consumer and environmental protections. The EU currently protects us from these charlatans, and will continue to do so if we have to comply with their regulations.

In some ways it could actually be better, as the EU can press ahead with further protections without the negative UK always holding up every bit of progress and, as we have to fall in line, we will also benefit despite ourselves.

The markets right across Europe have been on the slide, lack of confidence, serious fall in German manufacturing orders illustrates some of the potential negative effects on EU states. It isn't the case that only UK will feel discomfort. Makes the situation organic moving forward, gives us bargaining chips. In fact the, cough, intransigence of EU leadership is actually right in the process of taking away employment.

I don't think we really need EU management of our consumer protections, we are quite capable of working it out. This is actually one of the advantages of Brexit. I feel more regional politics is a good idea so Chipping Sodbury taking it's lead from Brussels is an unagreeable notion. Anyway, in a free market this is kinda self-regulating as customers generally buy goods & services from companies they trust.

We’ve already had the ‘Europe will also be damaged by Brexit’ discussion. Parts of Europe will be affected a bit and we will be affected many times more. There’s no need to have it again.

We may be capable of doing so but, before we joined the EU, we didn’t introduce consumer/employment/environment protection and we won’t do it after we leave unless the EU forces us to. If anything, there are dark forces longing to ‘cut back on red tape’. Any time any new protection is proposed, scaremongers say it will cost too much money, cost jobs, put too much strain on employers, etc - all the usual old crap to avoid doing it. One of the reasons the EU is so much better than individual governments at this kind of thing is because of the power held by appointed officials rather than elected politicians. Pressure from vested interests and fear of electoral backlash prevent politicians from following their conscience whereas those not subject to elections can focus on doing the right thing without having to take popularity contests into account.

As for the free market self-regulating without legal requirement - come on, get serious. Unless children start dropping from being poisoned, the unregulated free market is terrible at protecting consumers, and you can forget altogether about protecting employees and the environment.

We joined the Common Market / EEC in 1973 and were coerced into the EU in 1993.

There were numerous consumer and employment protection laws before that and as the timeline in this article demonstrates, these have developed with our own development into a more equal society. For instance, we abolished slavery without the need for any help from unelected officials in Brussels. We also managed to legislate against racism, for employment contracts and to give a right to redundancy payments.
https://www.morton-fraser.com/knowledge-hub/history-employment-law-0

The argument that the power f unelected officials is a strength of the EU is clearly nonsense, but just in case you really believe it maybe you should consider this
According to the EU’s figures there are 371 Senior Managers controlling the 32,000 staff. Making decisions for 508,000,000 people and answerable to none of them.

Surely the truth is somewhere imbetween?  We will still have protections, but they are likely to be less strong than in the EU and likely to swing about a bit depending on the Governmemt.   I can't see them disappearing quickly, as much of the Government's energy will be devoted to fire fighting over the next year or two.  

I don't think the negative UK holds up every bit of progress either.  I am not sure why we are singled out, or why everything the UK opposes is viewed as progress.  Some things we oppose are bound to be terrible ideas.

Yes, of course.

We had a decent amount of employment protection in the years before EU membership - in fact, with the erosion of collective rights in the 80s you could easily make an argument that we have lost employment protection rights while we've been in the EU (EEC) versus the time before joining. Since we've been in the EU, we've played a part in every bit of legislation that protects us as employees, consumers so we haven't passively been gifted those rights, and there's no reason to suppose that we will see our rights erode if we leave.

This is much more about national Government than the EU. Good luck to any prospective Government standing on a manifesto of turning back the clock on the elements of any protections that are valued by the electorate.

nb, you can argue about the merits or otherwise of a National minimum wage but we introduced ours in 1998 - any ideas of when the Germans introduced theirs ?

In a number of areas of welfare we're well ahead of the EU - animal welfare, important to many, is a good example - bullfighting anyone ?

I have to admit to being impressed with those responses - it's much better when one side isn't represented only by people who are here to troll.

- I concede that there were employment rights etc enacted before we joined the EEC, as has been demonstrated. However, they picked up pace dramatically shortly after joining.
- I'm not sure what point is being made regarding EU staff numbers.
- I don't think our protections will disappear quickly either, but I think it is likely that some of them will be eroded slowly.
- If you don't think the UK is a brake on EU progress, try living in another EU country and hearing the evening news saying that initiative after initiative has been agreed by all except the UK, which is objecting to this or that part. It is the same story time after time.
- I'd be genuinely interested in hearing more about the areas of (human) welfare where we are ahead of the EU, if you feel inclined to expand. You may be right, but I can't think what they are. Not Education, Health, Transport or Social Welfare anyway.

It's possible that the UK acting as a brake at times will be one of the things that the EU will most miss if we leave - ie we will have helped create better regulation and more widely acceptable regulation than if we didn't, at times, act as some counterbalance to the more extreme supranationalists in the EU.

Health and Safety at work is an area where the UK is a long way ahead of many EU countries both in terms of the demands of and practical application of the regulations.

In terms of job protection (tenure, job security etc) we are behind a number of countries and the fairly Thatcherite approach, that continued under the Labour years, has led directly to where we are now I think.. ie too many jobs created, attracting too many people in a manner that harmed people already working in the UK economy on low (and then stagnant) wages with growing queues for public services.
 

[Karabiner]

This picture I came across on Twitter tickled me:

[TightEnd]

I was present...I don’t think I was actually involved.

[TightEnd]

 

[TightEnd]

Wreathgate should, by rights, be the end of Corbyn. It shows him in the clearest light

It won't be though. Like Trump, like Corbyn, for his supporters facts mean nothing

[TightEnd]

think this is very good

Labour MP Chuka Umunna says neither the Tories or his own party deserve to lead the country in a pretty blistering column.

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/theresa-may-jeremy-corbyn-uk-politics-labour-conservatives-brexit-a8490091.html

[Pokerpops]

think this is very good

Labour MP Chuka Umunna says neither the Tories or his own party deserve to lead the country in a pretty blistering column.

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/theresa-may-jeremy-corbyn-uk-politics-labour-conservatives-brexit-a8490091.html

These are my principles. If you don’t like them, I have others.

He’s right though, the current state of affairs is down to the politicians we have elected.

[nirvana]

This picture I came across on Twitter tickled me:

That is good

[DaveShoelace]

Wreathgate should, by rights, be the end of Corbyn. It shows him in the clearest light

It won't be though. Like Trump, like Corbyn, for his supporters facts mean nothing

Anyone who pays attention to politics already knows whether they are voting for or against JC whenever the next election is. All that's left is the battle for people who don't consume politics (but do vote) until election time. I've no idea how big a % of the electorate that is.

With regards to Trump, I think 99% of Americans already know they hate or love him and you could do the 2020 election tomorrow and I suspect it would be the same outcome as 2020.