
TL;DR
We're fucked.
Nestled among the mass publication of no-deal guidance yesterday was the UK government's vision for the future of the Brit satellite and space programmes if the country falls out of the EU with no pact in March. The guidance is, unsurprisingly, grim. Galileo Billed as the EU's answer to the USA's GPS system, and aimed at …
If you are one of the 99% who's job has nothing to do with the space industry, then who cares?
The other people who work in industries who support the space industry, the people who run businesses where space industry employees spend their wages, the government department that takes taxation from the space industry and its employees, people who benefit from that taxation.
But, yeah...apart from them, who cares?
@AC (should really have been Troll icon, but I'll bite...)
Effect on the UK economy: insignificantly small and unmeasurable.
Unless you are one of the 158,000+ job losses already announced, and we still haven't left! And then of course there is the drop in government tax income as GDP falls steadily for a decade or more.
Interesting list at:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vTIPx0lI6pb-3Tn-3D6uNJNyKcCd-A8uPMxViagyJAR9T87ZmnSdAEPCzp5ljlNYoUNdxJiJqQdBm7b/pubhtml
"Only if you work in a tiny specialisted field.
If you are one of the 99% who's job has nothing to do with the space industry, then who cares?
Effect on the UK economy: insignificantly small and unmeasurable."
Unmeasurable maybe, insignificant definitely not.
Space science is one of those flagships industries which governments spend a lot of money trying to attract. Not only on do they directly employ people in high margin industries and indirectly through suppliers, but spin off industries and expertise gained are immeasurable important, especially in developed economies.
In fact it is so important the government have already committed £100 mill of UK tax funds, just to see if they can justify spending £4-5 bill to keep the industry going.
On the other hand, maybe the British economy will be based in the future on tax havens, zero hour contracts warehouses, strawberry picking. So maybe on that basis your right, it doesn't matter at all
Unmeasurable maybe, insignificant definitely not.
Space science is one of those flagships industries which governments spend a lot of money trying to attract. Not only on do they directly employ people in high margin industries and indirectly through suppliers, but spin off industries and expertise gained are immeasurable important, especially in developed economies.
In fact it is so important the government have already committed £100 mill of UK tax funds, just to see if they can justify spending £4-5 bill to keep the industry going.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Typically governments are absolutely horrible at picking wise investments, and tend to go for glitz and glamour over real returns. It's all about spinning stuff for the next election.
It is not uncommon for governments to spend ten or twenty times as much on 'flagship' programs than goes back into the economy in a useful way.
A smart government would back basic research in broad general areas, and let the more targeted, 'practical' investments come from private industry.
The Large Hadron Collider is a good project. The more 'applied' and specific a program becomes the less likely it is to be beneficial.
The costs and damage of the Ontario 'Green Energy' program, which was supposed to create a profitable world class energy industry exporting to everyone in the world (sound like a familiar theme you've heard elsewhere?) has cost the economy tens of billions so far, and the damage is still mounting.
"So you're saying only 1% of people have jobs that depend in some way on satellite communications and GPS? Please cite a source for that figure."
Way less than 1% rely on the government funded programs such a Galileo
GPS doesn't stop working after brexit.
Galileo isn't actually needed, it's a vanity project.
The only downside is the tiny amount of economic activity promoted by the government/EU funded programs. But they are so small as to mean nothing in terms of the economic future of this country.
"Galileo isn't actually needed, it's a vanity project."
Galileo is not a vanity project. It is a geopolitical/military necessity for an independent superpower - which is what the EU is evolving into.
The 'we can do it too, so there! UK GNSS' announced by the UK politicians is a vanity project, of little use to a second tier power, and definitely not worth the money.
Yeah. What has the space industry and the technology that trickled down from it into wider use ever done for us? It's not like people have benefited from technology like the microprocessor, inertial navigation, priority-based task scheduling, satellites, earth observation, GPS, insulation materials, scratch resistant lenses, CAT scans, LEDs, water purification systems, memory foam...
"If you are one of the 99% who's job has nothing to do with the space industry, then who cares?"
And if you work in one of the other 99% who work in some other sector that is equally at risk then who cares when that too goes down the drain.
Effect on the UK economy: of your particular employer - insignificantly small and unmeasurable.
The only possible way to get unfucked is to hold a second referendum with the option to stay in the EU. Maybe adding to the 800,000 who've already signed this petition to hold one will help.
demanding more votes until the "correct" result is returned is unreasonable
By that logic, we might as well not have elections at all and stick with the government we've got for ever more. Mind you, given that both the present government and opposition are essentially so riven by internal divisions as to be completely ineffective, I can see the merit in your proposition.
>By that logic, we might as well not have elections at all and stick with the government we've got for ever more.
Add unelected to that and you have the very reason why we have Brexit and Trump. When democracy is too important to leave to the people the wheels will always come off.
The level of ignorance about the effects of leaving the EU at the time of the last referendum - not least among the most extreme Brexiteers in the government - casts a long shadow over the proceedings. Holding a referendum on the terms of the negotiated agreement versus the status quo, now that people are much better informed, would be good for democracy.
@Thought about IT
The level of ignorance about the effects of leaving the EU at the time of the last referendum - not least among the most extreme Brexiteers in the government - casts a long shadow over the proceedings.
The level of ignorance about the effects of leaving the EU at the time of the last referendum even now - not least among the most extreme Brexiteers in the government - casts a long shadow over the proceedings.
FTFY
"The level of ignorance about the effects of leaving the EU at the time of the last referendum - not least among the most extreme Brexiteers in the government - casts a long shadow over the proceedings. Holding a referendum on the terms of the negotiated agreement versus the status quo, now that people are much better informed, would be good for democracy."
People aren't better informed now, though are they?
All we hear is scaremongering from the media and silly stories about Boris and Theresa.
They ignore all the positive news. Things like manufacturing and tourism are already booming before Brexit has even happened.
Things like manufacturing and tourism are already booming before Brexit has even happened.
Are they booming because of the Brexit vote or in spite of it? What about the strong run of good summer weather helping tourism? Or are you going to claim that the Brexit vote causing the pound to lose value was a really good thing, in which case you should be demanding we really fuck up the economy because it'll be good for tourism and exports. Oh, wait, you are....
The fall in value of the pound is indeed a good thing.
Something the media have never understood.
How something going down can be a good thing.
They are just simplistic idiots.
They think when the value of a company goes up, it is good news for the company, and when it goes down it is bad news for the company. Neither are true.
>This is true if only you sell more than you buy using USD.
And that is wrong. Just wrong. Fall in value is not just the USD gaining, it is a fall with respect to the rest of the world. So you can trade with Canada in Euro or USD, it does not matter.
What matters is that the cost of the work to add value to the raw materials become cheaper and thus more competitive. And that gains more jobs, improves employment etc.
"The fall in value of the pound is indeed a good thing.
Something the media have never understood."
ITYF that the media understand very well that the value of the pound is based on a reasoned estimate of the prospects of the British economy (that is, in the absence of fiddling with interest rates to try to buoy it up). If it falls it's because the rest of the world doesn't rate our prospects. Tell me why I should be pleased that the majority opinion is that we'll come out of this badly.
They ignore all the positive news. Things like manufacturing and tourism are already booming before Brexit has even happened.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There are a few things wrong with your failed analysis...
1. Brexit hasn't happened yet. All the hard regulatory and pragmatic problems have not yet started.
2. Lots of people have a glibly optimistic belief that the UK couldn't actually be stupid enough to go through with it.
3. Some manufacturing and tourism are getting a boost from the fact that the GBP is tanking. Other manufacturers are losing business as doubts grow about their ability to deliver timely, reliable, and affordable goods and services after Brexit. As the deadline approaches, the pound is likely to continue to decline, costs are likely to increase, and the numbers of firms hurt rather than helped is likely to increase.
"Things like manufacturing and tourism are already booming before Brexit has even happened."
What's pushing those at the moment is that the pound has dropped. The strength of a currency depends on the markets' judgement about the prospects of an economy. So the general view is that the economy will falter once the trade barriers go up. What trade barriers? Those between us and the greater part of our former home market.
We/re not ignoring your "good news", we're simply seeing it for what it is.
You know what would be really good for democracy? The House of Commons doing its job (as the legislature in a representative democracy) by voting for the good of the country, not for the good of certain political parties. That would fix Brexit in a heartbeat, now that the facts are in.
The UK should be voting afresh until the UK attains the "right" result that would be the preferred EU choice, The EU has already used this approach with Eire when it was told to jump a second time but somehow the UK doesn't want to jump in the right direction and all the EU treaties barely paid lip service to the unthinkable idea that anyone would leave.
Currently it looks as if Brexit is the first of several exits (Hungary?) to avoid a Geman controlled super-state. Mercifully the Germans don't have a viable army at the moment so the Sudentland is safe for the moment. The EU are however making progress having found a modern Chamberlain aka Macron. He clearly understands German needs less so France's.
"Holding a referendum on the terms of the negotiated agreement versus the status quo, now that people are much better informed, would be good for democracy."
And if that fails there will be demand for another referendum when reality strikes but by then it will be too late.
Experience is a dear teacher but there are those who will learn at no other.
Correct.
If you were arrested, taken to a police station and handed a blank sheet of paper with "Confession" at the top and asked to sign it at the bottom who in their right minds would do so?
Yet that is exactly what Leave voters did.
Now they are reading their "confession" and it turns out they don't like what (they) did.
Leave voters. However Brexit turns out, this is what you asked for. You gave a blank sheet of paper to a bunch of delusional f**kwits and chancers on the promise of what exactly?
Before the referendum, Brexits thought they would lose by a small amount. They set up a petition to repeat the referendum until their was a 60/40 majority in either direction. When the results were announced Bremainers jumped on the petition and took it to 4,150,262 signatures.
Before the referendum, Brexits thought they would lose by a small amount. They set up a petition to repeat the referendum until their was a 60/40 majority in either direction.
Which seems quite sensible and legitimate to me. It doesn't matter which way the vote goes only that there is a substantial majority in favour one way or the other. Until then it's not settled. And it's never settled for eternity - It's an inalienable right to change one's mind, take into account changes, new information and evidence.
It's how democracy works. We keep voting for governments and representatives, and when we find one which suits the majority they keep getting re-elected. When things change we vote for someone else.
There is nothing wrong with keeping on voting to come to a consensus. It is how it has always been. It's only hypocritical brexiteers having claimed victory who have now decided it's one vote and that's it, that re-voting is somehow undemocratic.
I expect they would also say the right to appeal a court conviction is also wrong; once convicted that's it. Tough shit if convicted on the back of lies and false claims.
The difference is that we vote for our representatives to parliament, on the strict basis that they fill that role for a period not exceeding 5 years. When we then have the next general election, we are not 'changing our mind'; once we vote for our MP, that result is fixed and permanent, and is not, and cannot be, over turned, because some people don't like the result / think it may be harmful.
We (the nation) voted in a free and fair referendum, which was not just authorised but instructed to occur by act of parliament. We voted to leave the EU: the exact details of what this meant were indeed unclear (other than it meant leaving the single market, leaving the common external tariff area / customs union, and ending the general jurisdiction of the ECJ, all points that were absolutely clear during the referendum). Parliament voted to enact that result, and duly started the process for leaving the EU. It would be an over-turning of democracy to stop that process: the instruction to leave the EU has been given and so should be carried out.
Once we have left the EU, then anybody is of course entirely free to make the case to then reverse that decision, just as once your duly elected MP takes his seat in parliament, you are entirely free to start campaigning, for or against him/her, for the next election.
Of course, given that the only previous time the people of the UK were consulted on membership of the EEC/EC/EU was 1975, which was a referendum won by the remain campaign, it might be viewed as hypocritical for supporters of remain to insist on another referendum in less than 40 years from 2016.
@EvilDrSmith: The referendum was by no means free and fair. The Electoral Commission has now proved that Leave committed "serious breaches of the laws put in place by Parliament to ensure fairness and transparency at elections and referendums." (https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/i-am-a/journalist/electoral-commission-media-centre/news-releases-donations/vote-leave-fined-and-referred-to-the-police-for-breaking-electoral-law)
If you think the result should stand, you support criminals cheating to win votes, not democracy.
You missed out that the breach of the law committed by the leave campaign was because they took advice from the Electoral Commission, who stated that what they were going to do (in general terms) was legal, when, in fact, it was not. And that the Electoral Commission then attempted to cover up their own part in this to the High Court.
From the High Court ruling:
Conclusion
94. For the reasons given, we conclude that the Electoral Commission has misinterpreted the definition of “referendum expenses” in section 111(2) of PPERA. The source of its error is a mistaken assumption that an individual or body which makes a donation to a permitted participant cannot thereby incur referendum expenses. As a result of this error, the Electoral Commission has interpreted the definition in a way that is inconsistent with both the language and the purpose of the legislation.
So the Electoral Commission have found the leave campaign guilty of serious crimes, but the High Court has found the Electoral Commission (in effect) misled the leave campaign, causing that breach of the law.
There have also been numerous accusations of breaches of the rules by the remain campaign which the Electoral Commission has failed to investigate (not investigated and found to be unsubstantiated, but failed to investigate).
I take issue with your assertion that this referendum was "free and fair."
In the UK, it is illegal to tell lies about a political candidate during an election campaign in order to sabotage their candidacy. There is no similar law that makes it illegal to tell such lies in a referendum campaign.
The EU referendum campaign was, in my view, defined by people telling the public whatever they wanted to hear to get the result they desired. I don't think that any democratic process can be defined as "free and fair" or even genuinely democratic when significant campaigners set out to spread misinformation so that the voters weren't making a genuinely informed decision.
"once we vote for our MP, that result is fixed and permanent, and is not, and cannot be, over turned, because some people don't like the result / think it may be harmful."
If said MP has made public claims, eg on the side of a bus which are then shown to be blatant lies and enough people petition, then a by-election can be called and said MP may well be ousted. That's democracy in action.
"once we vote for our MP, that result is fixed and permanent"
Hang on there! You have MPs for life?
I doubt that. I bet they have to stand for re-election a couple of times a decade, on the average.
If Brexit could be undone simply by a twice a decade vote in the UK, you might have a point.
As it is, you are comparing apples and granite boulders.
"The difference is that we vote for our representatives to parliament, on the strict basis that they fill that role for a period not exceeding 5 years."
You said difference. Difference between an election and what? Let me spell out the difference for you. It's the difference between a period not exceeding 5 years and keeps. The maximum damage a bad choice in an election is 5 years plus however long it takes to unwind 5 years' of damage. The damage an irreversible referendum can cause can last for generations. We really need more commitment than a couple of percent majority.
I think that's OK though. Given the demographics of the vote, any sufficiently long chain of referendums (referenda?) will probably show an increasing trend towards remain as elderly people die off. (I realise not everyone who voted leave was elderly but, well, look at the demographics of the vote.)
Of course there's always the option that as people become elderly they turn from remain to leave, but I suspect that's not the case as things like explicit jingoism in the education system have become less acceptable since the 1940s & 1950s. I also kind of hope that even elderly people are becoming aware that their health care & hence quality of life since, well, they are elderly and are going to need health care, kind of depends on lots of EU people being willing & able to work here, although apocryphal evidence (my mother (in her 80s, remain) says her leave-voting friends have not changed their minds) says otherwise.
"I certainly think it would be a good thing if all the major parties stopped refighting battles from the 1970s and before, and if that takes old people to die off, well, OK."
Such hate for the 'old' when your real target should be the 'young' who CNBA to vote !!!
Don't let the truth get in your way and diminish your 'Entitled Arrogance'
I hope you all have a long long life and appreciate every minute of it ........... BUT I doubt it as you lack the capacity to think for yourselves and take all your views from the internet.
You will learn the hard way you are being manipulated from 'Cradle to Grave' by the people who are telling you what to say, think and do ...... all for a few 'likes' from some strangers on the internet.
I could 'hate' you back but really 'pity' you and your 'shallow entitled life' were everything you cannot 'have now' is someone elses fault. It will get very interesting as you get older and run out of 'other' people to blame. :)
"Downvoted. I vociferously oppose Jeremy Corbyn's political ideas but I would not wish a human being dead just because I disagree with him."
I suspect there's been a lot of kneejerk reaction to that statement when in my interpretation, in context of the discussion, is that he'll die of old age sooner rather than later due to his current age and not some sort of death wish by the poster implying Corbyn ought to get mortally ill or be in a fatal accident. Those downvoting the original comment and upvoting Smooth Newt really ought to go back and look at what was said and the context in which it was posted, ie the demographics of older voters generally being Brexiteers.
"my mother (in her 80s, remain) says her leave-voting friends have not changed their minds"
Tell her to point out that the subsequent faltering economy will need a cut in their pensions. It still might not work because somehow the notion that it's only getting back what they paid in has stuck in people's minds.
Nice idea (and certainly sensible) but not going to happen.
Politicians (of all parties) know that older people are active voters and will vote for the party that ensures maximum benefits for them (even if they already independently wealthy and have no actual need of them).
The proportion of the yoof who vote has just about halved in the last 50 years in the UK. So they can effectively be ignored. A combination of the "Politics is all a con, blah blah" and "I don't want to join any party" memes have effectively (and substantially) reduced the influence of the young and their issues.
Effectively the yoof have played themselves, much as Leave voters have been played.
When you delete a file on a computer, it generally asks 'are you sure?', so that you can have a think about what you're doing and confirm whether you really want to proceed or not.
Same for when you purchase something.
Same goes for pretty much any decision where there is a lot at stake or may have bad consequences.
But for some reason, brexiters deem it inappropriate to exercise this same level of caution when doing something monumental like leaving the EU. Even though 'leaving the EU' still hasn't been defined. We still don't know what exactly that will entail. Or what the consequences will be. Or what we should do to prepare.
What we *do* know is that all the promises were either lies or fantasy.
We also know that the various Leave campaigns not only broke the law, but were backed by Russian money and deliberately used data harvested from social media to target the victims with emotionally manipulative ads and fake activity.
We also know that nobody in any of the Leave campaigns had any actual plan or idea of what would be involved.
We also know that businesses are already suffering from supply, labour and financial problems just in the negotiation period. Nobody knows how bad it'll get when March comes around and we actually leave. Because still nobody knows what Brexit will be.
We also know that workers and visitors from the EU are avoiding coming here because of uncertainty and because they now see us as a backwards, racist and hostile nation.
The list goes on. and on. and on.
But sure, we definitely shouldn't have an 'are you sure you want to proceed?' second vote. Because 'the will of the people' only mattered that one specific time. Right?
"Same for when you purchase something."
Except when you buy a pig in a poke. The sellers really don't want you to have a chance to change your mind.
For those of a curious mind a poke is a small sack. A con trick was to persuade punters to buy a poke containing an alleged piglet whthout seeing what they were buying. The matching saying was "letting the cat out of the bag".
Ross 12 said:
"But sure, we definitely shouldn't have an 'are you sure you want to proceed?' second vote. Because 'the will of the people' only mattered that one specific time. Right?"
Of course, just like I am more than sure that we would be having petitions and calls for 2nd votes 'Just to make sure !!!???' if the original result had gone the 'other way' ..... Right?
And if the result changed to remain. a lot of people would demand a best of three - demanding more votes until the "correct" result is returned is unreasonable.
I am trying to understand why having a vote on something of enduring public interest every few years is a bad thing. Why shouldn't people be able vote periodically on, I don't know, what sort of Government should be in power?
But this misses the point about the "Peoples Vote", which is not a simple rerun of the referendum, but is about voting on the terms actually negotiated by the Government versus sticking with the status quo.
The first vote was about a lump of vague and contradictory options - was become like Norway, or was it Canada, or was it a free trade agreement - the easiest in Human history - or was it “no-one is talking about threatening our place in the single market”. In a few weeks we will know which particular one of those it was, or maybe - almost certainly - none of the above.
If you want to stay in the EU I have a better idea, how about making arguments based on verifiable real world fact and/or data as opposed to FUD and opinion; to give you a helping hand here is an example of a leave argument; at the time of the referendum the EU accounted for approximately 16-17% or world GDP and declining (in the 70s it was 30% plus), that means that 83-84% resides in the rest of the world; I back trade with the rest of the world unencumbered by EU protectionist crony corporatism; a small percentage of something big is probably going to be worth more than a large percentage of something small and getting smaller in long term.
You may also like to explore the lack of democracy (law originating from the commission), systemic corruption (accounts not signed off for 20+ years).
"If you want to stay in the EU I have a better idea, how about making arguments based on verifiable real world fact and/or data as opposed to FUD and opinion"
Yes, that's why we want to stay in the EU. We know what we get by staying in. It's what we have now. It's verifiable real world data, as you put it. What the Brexiteers offer is FUD and opinion.
"at the time of the referendum the EU accounted for approximately 16-17% or world GDP and declining (in the 70s it was 30% plus), that means that 83-84% resides in the rest of the world; I back trade with the rest of the world unencumbered by EU protectionist crony corporatism; a small percentage of something big is probably going to be worth more than a large percentage of something small and getting smaller in long term."
And if all trade ignored geography and other factors you might be right... but it doesn't.
One of the other factors is a similar regulatory environment. A trade deal with the US, for example, will almost certainly require opening UK food markets to products that cannot pass EU and current UK food regulations for things like chlorine washed chicken, hormone raised beef, etc... which would probably sink most domestic producers unless they adopted similar techniques.
Your choice, but don't pretend it's a trivial or obvious issue.
Funny you should say that.
The Referendum vote was all to appease CMD's backbench nutters who were still bi**hing about
not having a vote in 1992, when the EEC became the EU.
While some were still bi**hing about not having a 2nd vote in 1975.
So I think we know whose been whining the longest about Europe.
BTW. Both Margaret Thatcher and John Major could have set up referendums in 1992, as they had substantial absolute majorities. If they'd wanted one, it would have happened. It didn't. But then neither was clinically insane or expected to play an angle that would make them an obscene amount of money (despite the British economy being FUBAR'd in the process).
And if the result changed to remain. a lot of people would demand a best of three - demanding more votes until the "correct" result is returned is unreasonable.
I think one way to overcome that would be to require a ⅔ majority - a requirement that should have been part of the original vote given its momentous impact - an impact even uninformed people see now as the marketing, the liars and the buses with lies-they-never-said have gone (the smart ones saw this coming the moment the idea was ever uttered).
Not that I suspect this will happen. After all, the UK stood side by side with the US against Russia so it's included in Putin's grand plan to f*ck over the US and its allies and so far it has been remarkably successful. We've become remarkably naïve over the years.
"I think one way to overcome that would be to require a ⅔ majority - a requirement that should have been part of the original vote given its momentous impact "
In most places a supermajority would be required for a decision of such magnitude and import, even if it were something that could be unilaterally reversed by the country voting.
The people who set up the referendum were idiots. The choices were not sufficiently clear, the impacts had not been analyzed before the votes, there were too few alternatives, and it was explicitly defined as 'advisory only' before the vote and treated as 'mandatory' after the vote.
No wonder things are so f*cked up.
@AC (There's a lot of AC comments here, wonder why?)
Just leave Scotland in the EU and put all trade through there
Ideally, Scotland, Wales and a united Ireland. (Latest Welsh polling shows strong Remain support now - the original referendum had a lot of stuff you Cameron behind the vote, and farmers who thought it would cut down on the paperwork! Which it will of course - no more payments, so no paperwork!)
Anyway, that wouldn't solve it. There would then be a hard border between the glorious kingdom of Little England and Wales/Scotland.
Face it, the vast majority of citizens of the disUK are going to get battered, unless they own a hedge-fund in Ireland or a German passport.
"Acrtally an Irish passport works very nicely thank you."
Wait, what if a majority of UK residents end up holding an Irish passport for convenience? Will that mean that Ireland can legally take over and bring the UK back in the EU as an Irish colony?
Oh hey, it's the weekend, I'll go fetch my coat...
Hmmm - two things I hear a lot from Remainers.....
1) It was so close that the vote was meaningless
2) non-England are massive Remainers really.
Mathematically, those can’t both be true. If #2, then England must have been massively Brexit to make up the numbers.
It wasn’t of course, so #2 is just rubbish.
The problem for all of us, in either direction, is the echo chamber. We all think that the others are just a minority of idiots. They aren’t.
Poster is guilty of a third error though “people who disagree with me, would agree with me if they knew the One True Way. So, I will add the numbers of the other side to mine. Obviously, none of My Tribe will have switched allegiance in the interim, because by definition they are Intelligent, and would never vote as Idiots.”
13/25 of the people who voted chose to Leave.
That's in the statistical noise band for these things. For the biggest change in the UK's relationship to the rest of the world since the Suez Crisis (when it officially became America's b**ch).
I wonder how many would have voted Remain but thought "Only a bunch of f**k witted numpties would fall for this bul**hit. I've got better things to do than vote," underestimating how desperate the nutters and chancers who wanted Brexit were going to be.
CMD made the pass level cretiniously stupid, presumably thinking his cunning plan had worked well with the Scottish Referendum, ignoring Scotland has been part of a United Kingdom for 400 years, not 40 years.I note the Scottish referendum allowed nearly everyone who lived there (and would live with the consequences) to vote.
"and farmers who thought it would cut down on the paperwork!"
Our local BBC news covered the farmers intentions on Brexit quite extensively and almost without exception, they were all voting leave for $reasons. Once the vote was in and the true ramifications were starting to become clear, those same farmers being interviewed in post-vote reports all seemed to think Brexit would be a disaster. And some of them really were the same people. People I recognised. It wasn't a BBC plot as some people would try to have us believe!
I think what a lot of hard line leavers don't seem to realise is that of those who voted remain, they all voted in unison for the same thing. The status quo. Those who voted leave voted for many different reasons and I'd be prepared to stump up cash to bet that most leavers expected some sort of orderly withdrawal and some kind of deal or treaty or something. Only a hard core minority want a hard. cliff-edge exit and as that become more likely, more and more leavers are getting cold-feet over the issue.
Months ago, when the topic came up, in discussions I'd say it was about 50:50 leave:remain. More recently, fewer people seem to want to admit to voting leave.
F**king hilarious. Really ROTLMFAO moment.
The impact assessment report by the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (about the only one you can read outside of a locked room in the HoC) made it clear that unless the UK replaces the CAP with equal funding pretty much all farming goes down the sh**ter except pig farming (that survived under all scenarios). So much for "£350m/week more for the NHS."
Extremely funny as only 2 groups are in surplus to the EU, Welsh hill farmers being one of them. I'm guessing a lot of farmers fantasized no EU membership--> no red tape --> do what we like.
IRL no EU membership--> no red tape --> No entry of UK products to the EU on food safety grounds.
Their thinking "Excellent, we can go back to Veal crates," but they're forgetting Germany's outright ban on British Beef during the CJD outbreak.
"Just leave Scotland in the EU and put all trade through there. If we don't we could get battered."
I just drove up to Scotland and back the other day via the A1. I see the Scots are gentrifying the border with a nice wall across the lay-bys there. I wonder if they have more wall builders on stand-by, just in case?
That's exactly what will happen in the case of Northern Ireland. The UK will tell the EU that UK integrity is a higher good than an EU regulation and if the EU wants a border then it should make Eire a "special" case just as the EU wants Northern Ireland to be a special case.
That such a solution will leave a big hole in the EU's walls is not a UK issue and there are plenty of holes already in the EUs barriers already including the VAT carousels.
The only possible way to get unfucked is to hold a second referendum
Not in a supposedly parliamentary democracy it isn't. I was against the referendum on principle and remain so. If parliament decides against deal then it is entitled and actually required to come up with an alternative. The will of the people is catchy but has no basis in law.
Sensible policy would be to press for the transitional arrangement to last as long as necesary so that all the issues can be worked out.
"Sensible policy would be to press for the transitional arrangement to last as long as necesary so that all the issues can be worked out."
You are making a couple of assumptions here, unfortunately.
It is not clear that the issues can be 'worked out' given that a minority support any specific end goal. The plurality seems to favour a soft Brexit considered individually, but no Brexit as a second choice seems to have a majority... but you would have to have some kind of first choice/second choice mechanism, which the Brexitines would fight tooth and nail.
It is also unlikely that the EU would accept, potentially, decades of uncertainty and distraction, while allowing undue access to their market for a nonmember to go on indefinitely.
It is surprising how often opinions show up in the British press that seem to assume unilateral British control over the processes and events.... along with other delusions that will bite the UK in the ass in coming months and years.
The only possible way to get unfucked is to hold a second referendum
No, just the change the interpretation of the first one .. require, for example, that 40% of the electorate be in favour of leaving before accepting that as the will of the people. It worked for Thatcher in the 70s.
About percentages at a referendum, the cleanest approach would be that at least 50% of the total electorate would have to have chosen for one of the two options. That way you could actually state that the will of the people is X. It would be quite hard for either option to reach that point, though.
Moreover, any of this tinkering with percentages doesn't solve the problem of binary referenda not giving a clear answer about what people DO want. They often only tell you what they DON'T want. The Brexit referendum is a case in point. 51.9% of the voters in a 72.2% turnout wanted to leave the EU. The problem that we are now facing is that there is no idea about what they want to happen after the UK has left. SM+CU? Hard Brexit? Something in between? If that was crystal clear then the country wouldn't be in the mess it is in now.
I think the most popular way to leave the EU would perhaps get support by 30% of the population, that means that 70% would be unhappy. And that is the most popular one, we're more likely to end up in a scenario that only 15% would support, making the other 85% unhappy. That is why the country is currently ungovernable and another referendum or general election won't make that go away. We'll be discussing Brexit for at least another decade before we get any closure.
"About percentages at a referendum, the cleanest approach would be that at least 50% of the total electorate would have to have chosen for one of the two options. That way you could actually state that the will of the people is X. It would be quite hard for either option to reach that point, though."
Actually the cleanest approach is to have a substantial, say 2/3 majority for a change in the status quo. That means you don't go casting back and forth (even assuming you can and in this case we probably can't - once we're out we're out) on small sways of opinion or that you commit future generations to a potentially bad decision on the basis of a small majority.
Can you explain how we get unfucked when we give Scotland unlimited re-runs on their independence which inevitably leads to the break up of the United Kingdom and we end up as a single nation (England) just a poor insignificant slave nation to Germany and France?
No I didn't think you could.
The United Kingdom has been through far, far worse things than a no deal Brexit and it only made us stronger, true then we wen't filled with limp writsed, soy boy wimps like you in those times but I'm confident our feminists can take your place.
"The United Kingdom has been through far, far worse things than a no deal Brexit and it only made us stronger, true then we wen't filled with limp writsed, soy boy wimps like you in those times but I'm confident our feminists can take your place."
Oh do fuck off.
What are these worse things that only made us stronger? Let me just reach into my bag of "Brexiteer Bollocks", rummage around for a tired old trope, and... Oh, dear God, its not WW2, is it? It is, isn't it?
As for the name calling; that's one reason, of many, why so many of you Brexiteers are regarded with such contempt. It's pathetic. Grow. The. Fuck. Up.
In fact the UK was broke after WWII.
It appealed to the US for support.
It got a $5Bn loan which it finished paying back around the early 2000's.
The best line about the US involvement in WWII is probably from Nicholas Montserrat in "The Cruel Sea"
"It's no way to win a war"
"Yes, but it's a great way to ensure you're in first place after it."
Just like Trump you seem to believe the solution to any relationship is being an unreasonable arsehole and demanding preferential treatment. Sure, you can be an arsehole. At best you'll achieve some small victories, likely you'll be laughed at and at worst it will cause friction that escalates disputes over generations. History has taught me diplomacy yields the best long term outcomes. Why we're allowing narcissistic fucktards like Trump, Johnson, Rees-Mogg et al to dictate our future I cannot understand.
"... Maybe adding to the 800,000 who've already signed this petition to hold one will help. "
Short answer: No it will not !!!
But it may weaken any pretense of having a democracy in the UK.
Our country is not run by random voting for petitions that are created by 'Voters that did not get their own way'.
Where do we stop ?
Who decides whether the result of 'this' petition is OK or do we allow yet another group to start another petition because 'they' do not like the result ...... rinse & repeat ad nauseum.
The real issue is the absolute fiasco that our so called negotiations is turning out to be.
Vote remain could have not done a better job of screwing up the job ..... 'deliberately' to gain their own way !!!
A new vote will NOT settle this as the it will simply 'swap' the group that is aggreived* and we will get as close as possible to a real revolt, with people in the streets. If you cannot see this you are too blinkered by your own selfish need to get what you want and beggar the rest !!!
*Considering that a petition is not a legal way to change the result, as our laws stand, it is a very appropriate word to use.
>We're fucked.
I assume you are referring to Joe Public and those intending to remain in the country post-Brexit, as it is clear the subtext to the government position: "the government warns that now would be a good time to consider the impact" is that businesses that benefit from EU contracts and monies should relocate to an EU27 member state PDQ...
"businesses that benefit from EU contracts and monies should relocate to an EU27 member state PDQ"
I doubt they actually needed a government warning for that.
The big question is how far does that reach? Any business that was established here by a foreign investor because the wanted a plant or office in the EU must clearly be at risk. Such investors might not yet have would up the UK business but you can bet (in fact, the leavers have already bet on our behalf) that they'll be looking at alternatives for future investment.
Copernicus is not an ESA project. It is an EU project, and so it is they who say what goes. Where ESA plays a part is that it is "sub-contracted" to manage the delivery of the complicated stuff.
And again is a bit like leaving your snooker club; your previous subscriptions helped pay for the tables, but you lose access to them after leaving :-/
More like actually wanting to be a member of your local snooker club, but being having your membership taken away from you because some other people were fooled into thinking that snooker is a bad thing so nobody should be allowed to be in a snooker club any more....once snooker has gone you can go back to playing wonderful games like shove ha'penny, tip cat or knur and spell like we did in the old days - you'll be so much happier.
Please can we kill all the shit analogies. Leaving the EU is not like divorce, or leaving a club or any other bollocks. Leaving the EU is a bit like... Leaving the EU. It's a very unusual organisation that nobody's left before, unless you count Greenland - and their membership came via Denmark. Also wasn't that long enough ago to be the EEC they left rather than the EU?
One of the many things I don't understand is why, having chosen to leave the EU, the people who advocated leaving are choosing to characterise the consequences of leaving as "punishment". This is what we asked for and it seems to be what we're getting. Why isn't that being welcomed by those who wanted it most?
I think you're assuming that people who wanted to leave the EU wanted any coherent thing at all: it's clear they didn't, because if they did they'd have had a plan and they didn't. Instead they wanted 'to leave the EU' with no detailed idea what that involved at all: it was just some words that sounded kind of good. It's like 'wanting unicorns': everyone 'wants unicorns' even though we don't really know what unicorns would be like, until it turns out they're the unicorns of Equoid and we really didn't want them at all.
"Having unicorns seems like such an awesome idea until you find yourself spending all your time cleaning unicorn sh!t off the carpet."
Oddly, I've never wanted unicorns.
Maybe that's why I found the version of unicorns in Glen Cook's "Sweet Silver Blues" so satisfying.
"no detailed idea what that involved at all:"
And that's still the case for some - last night's BBC Question time had the now-traditional long debate about Brexit and one idiot in the audience still commented "why can't we just leave now?"
These types give it no thought at all. None.
Pretty much.
I found it very interesting that most of the people I know who voted Leave had left long term and quite toxic relationships.
Where walking out with just what you can carry is a painful but quite viable idea.
Sub consciously they seemed to equate Brexit with their own personal journey, which with any critical thinking at all would be seen as just foolish.
Which I guess is why Linton Crosby got such a fat fee for helping Leave win.
Ever heard of collective self flagellation?
That's what we are doing at the moment and will continue to do for the next 20+ years.
The EU are suppling the stuff we are using to beat ourselves with with smiles on their faces as the perennial thorn in their sides will soon be begging for help from them.
Well only somewhat a con. It's actually £280m a week from memory. The £350m a week included our rebate, which by definition we don't pay - so was clearly deliberately misleading. But the argument was apparently we'd "have control of" the money - as our net payment is only something like £120m a week ish - that's the actual cash we get back. Though obviously we can cut subsidies to agriculture, which is about a third of EU spending. In fact that's DEFRA's plan, with payments for holding farmland to be phased out over the next decade and a (presumably smaller) amount to be moved to support maintaining hedgerows, bio-diversity and the like.
Sadly the quality of the referendum campaign was shocking on both sides - although at least there's some good organisations out there now to give you a better idea of what the true numbers are. I recommend Radio 4's More or Less - who covered this extensively at the time - and do lots of number checking at election times.
I'm not sure if the most depressing thing is the tendency for people to just pick numbers out of the air and shout them loudly, or the habit of deliberately misrepresenting the other sides' argument in order to make things even more unpleasant and polarised.
Why can't we all just get along, and declare war on France. That and tougher sentences for geography teachers are both sensible policies, for a happy Britain.
"But the argument was apparently we'd "have control of" the money - as our net payment is only something like £120m a week ish - that's the actual cash we get back."
And not forgetting, of course, that quite a lot of that money will be used to create, staff and operate institutions which which we used to have but closed down in favour of "outsourcing" to the EU. Things which must be done, whether for ourselves or by the EU, either way, it still needs to be paid for so even less of that money will be coming into the economy in a real sense.
There has been much discussion about the pros and cons of Brexit. In recent months there has been a growing list of very specific things that will definitely be worse, or no longer available, or cost more after we leave. The precise numbers may be open to debate, but the trend is very clear.
Remind me, what are the specific and definite benefits of leaving? And that doesn't include 'the possibility of a Free Trade Agreement with Vanuatu'.
"Blue passports are the benefit."
No, they are available to EU members, as is controlling non-EU immigration (about x10 EU immigration) or not giving arriving EU migrants just arrived with no job anything for ages. Burgundy is All was perfectly legal in EU. The fact is that T.May was ineffectual but toxic in the Home Office. The Home Office is still toxic. Almost everything the UK media & UK politicians blamed on EU for over 20 years was a lie.
Boris Johnson and his banana lies. He got sacked as a journalist for lying. No risk of libel, it's a fact.
https://blogs.ec.europa.eu/ECintheUK/euromyths-a-z-index/
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jun/23/10-best-euro-myths-from-custard-creams-to-condoms
Even the Daily Mirror and the Mail have admitted some.
Would you believe anything the Murdoch press or media says? An Australian that bought US citizenship because the US doesn't allow foreigners to control media.
And in fact quite a lot of could be traced back to the Home Office.
Too many foreigners. HO doesn't have it's s**t together.
Foreign criminals not being deported. HO doesn't have it's s**t together.
Pervasive surveillance and near unlimited police powers with no accountability. HO doesn't have it's s**t together.
How much is incompetence by senior civil servants with a massive sense of superiority and how much is simple incompetence and taking the easy way out is impossible to say. quite a lot I'd think.
"Pervasive surveillance and near unlimited police powers with no accountability. HO doesn't have it's s**t together."
In the HO's view that's where it definitely does have its s**t together. And it wants to keep it that way so the sooner we can get out of the jurisdiction the ECJ and preferably the ECHR the better as far as they're concerned.
>And anyone hoping for that is going to find themselves sorely misled or working in a crap low-paid job which those foreigners used to be doing.
First off, a LOT of those jobs are set to be automated away. Secondly, isn't anyone concerned that "youth these days" [*] do not want to get their hands dirty? And expect foreigners to do all their bidding? Anyone who has read a little history will remember what happened to Spain after Columbus started the American wealth transfer to Spain. Briefly, vast amounts of value poured in, people did not want to work, all jobs went to French and German, building up their countries based on WORK. The situation was worse than the North Sea oil flow, and resulted in a financial disaster worse than Dutch Disease, and according to financial historians, led to the financial difficulties we see in Spain today, more than 400, yes, four hundred, years later.
[*] I hear this is mostly a Gen Y / Millennial issue and that Gen Z is very different. Probably a bit early to tell for sure. It is now 10 years since Lehman Brothers keeled over and the financial troubles are not over yet.
First off, a LOT of those jobs are set to be automated away.
Some. Others not. One of the problems with automating low paid jobs is that you spend money up-front to make savings which, by definition, must be small.
Secondly, isn't anyone concerned that "youth these days" [*] do not want to get their hands dirty?"
Once the economy can't afford to pay out as much in benefits they may find out that they're not given the option; come October they get sent to pick spuds, in January daffs etc.
>>First off, a LOT of those jobs are set to be automated away.
>Some. Others not. One of the problems with automating low paid jobs is that you spend money up-front to make savings which, by definition, must be small.
Tech is getting cheaper all the time. Secondly a bot can work 24/7 (168 hours a week) while humans are about 40 hours a week, and occasionally get ill, requiring even more manpower to keep a backup plan. Burger flippers are in a low paid jobs but even they are about to be automated away.
Perhaps it is just because I have seen my entire profession pulverized twice that I cannot share your rosy red view of the future.
>>Secondly, isn't anyone concerned that "youth these days" [*] do not want to get their hands dirty?"
Seems that one angered quite a few. Too bad that never helped Spain. Once you go down it will take you centuries to crawl up again.
>Once the economy can't afford to pay out as much in benefits they may find out that they're not given the option; come October they get sent to pick spuds, in January daffs etc.
Produce harvesting are even more automated, more so now that we had the hygiene issues in berries recently. So no, farmers will be happier with full automation.
Some. Others not. One of the problems with automating low paid jobs is that you spend money up-front to make savings which, by definition, must be small.
This just in from WEF - The Future of Jobs 2018:
http://reports.weforum.org/future-of-jobs-2018/
75 million jobs lost within 2022. That is pretty dramatic.
This post has been deleted by its author
I was going to point out "fewer" rather than "less"
It's one of those things that people say because someone read it somewhere written by someone who heard someone say it because they'd read it somewhere....which just goes back to someone writing it originally just because they thought it should work that way. JRM and Bojo are just the sort of persons who would probably stand by it.
Tell me, is 3 fewer or less than half a dozen?
"in fact 'less foreigners'"
Less from the EU and more from rest of world that are prepared to work for less. The targets for immigration were fantasy. The EU workers are leaving already.
So, no, not less foreigners. That was always a lie to try and get votes back from UKIP.
"I think the benefits outcome of leaving are, in fact 'less foreigners'"
FTFY. Whether the outcome is also a benefit depends on what those foreigners are doing. Where they're staffing hospitals and the like it might not be a benefit.
"although no-one is allowed to say that, quite."
It seems to have emboldened some quite nasty people to say just that.
Cake? I'm sure I heard something about everybody getting to have their cake and eat it.
You know what happened to the last person with governmental connections who suggested the eating of cake...
I would suggest the current crop of MPs carefully consider their actions in the last few years and those to come, if they fail to keep their promises and actually have made things worse, the kind of divisive politics they've been nurturing for advantage could easily turn very nasty.
> I would suggest the current crop of MPs carefully consider their actions in the last few years and those to come, if they fail to keep their promises
There was a column written fairly recently suggesting that _if_ Brexit goes really badly wrong, and unrest spills out into the street, it might be unwise to be in the country for some of the more visible/memorable Brexiters. Particularly if those who are rioting used to support your position.
Hopefully it's not going to get anywhere near that bad, but if I was Boris (in particular), I'd be giving it long hard thought.
I think you're ignoring all the carefully prepared propaganda being pushed out by the press and over the internet. Anything that goes wrong after Brexit will be blamed on "remainers", either specific groups or even named individuals, with the full 'enemies of the people' level of synthesised outrage.
"A sector poised to benefit from Brexit: pitchfork sales. Possibly also tar & feathers."
Flaming torches. You forgot the flaming torches. You can't have a good march or proper tar'n'feathing without flaming torches. And no, a torch app on your mobile phone is NOT acceptable!!
Long hard thinking is not really Johnson's strong suit.
Saying whatever s**t's inside his head and then shrugging it off with a laugh and a joke if it disliked widely (or by any group whose support he wants) is more his style.
Much like Trump in many ways sans replaceable trophy wives of course.
Depends what you want. Some people voted on immigration levels, some people voted on economic grounds, others political or constitutional. Remeber that UKIP were founded by economists and were originally about leaving the EU to do freer trade (as well as opposition to the Euro). It became a more socially conservative / anti-large-scale immigration protest party later.
That's why some people campaigned to leave the political bits of the EU and join the EEA, and others wanted to leave and have unilateral zero tarriff access allowed to anyone in the world and others wanted some kind of special deal that the EU were unlikely to offer.
The real answer is that a small minority believe strongly in the EU, and another small minority really disllike it. But quite a large majority aren't fans, and definitely don't like the political bits, and were willing to be persuaded on the grounds of whether it was more hassle to leave than to stay and put up with the bits they didn't like.
One economic forecast from the EU (also pretty much agreed with by the World Bank) was that if we'd stayed in, our population would have gone up to 85 million by 2040-2050 and our GDP overtaken Germany's by the early 2030s. Now I'm pretty sceptical of those kinds of long-term forecasts - but it's interesting to ponder that and wonder who the winners and losers would have been from that scenario. Personally I don't think that would be politically sustainable - countries who add 30% to their population over a couple of decades tend to suffer high instability and massive social changes, to go with the ecomic growth.
"There has been much discussion about the pros and cons of Brexit. In recent months there has been a growing list of very specific things that will definitely be worse, or no longer available, or cost more after we leave. The precise numbers may be open to debate, but the trend is very clear."
To be fair, much of that is worst case scenario stuff that the media delight in reporting, on the assumption that we end up with a "hard Brexit". Sadly, it might all come true.
I think you can be pretty sure that there won't be another ISS-like project. It was conceived at a time when it was thought that post-Soviet Russia intended to follow a Western model of government and that such projects could help cement that position. Well, it was probably worth a try...
The ISS is a cooperative workplace, not whole countries running a political and economic system in which every decision affects the lives and economy of their people.
Of course the EU countries are going to try to get whatever they can out of the negotiations, in the same way that the British should be (but failing). That's not unreasonable, it's entirely reasonable and natural and their duty anyway. They are not a "help the Brits" charity.
Surely not.
Britain is special
It's not as big as the US, Canada, India, Russia in land, resources or population It didn't found the EU.
But it seems a lot of British people expect to be treated by the EU as if they were.
they are going to find out how "special" they are real soon.
You brexiteers that voted for this, you can relish in old episodes of Blakes' Seven and Doctor Who because that's about as close as UK is going to anything intergalactically spatial get if the gov doesn't get its head out of its arse and start dealing with this mistake of exiting the EU.
You brexiteers that voted for this, you can relish in old episodes of Blakes' Seven and Doctor Who because that's about as close as UK is going to anything intergalactically spatial get if the gov doesn't get its head out of its arse and start dealing with this mistake of exiting the EU.
Steady on, I'm fairly remain oriented, and I already relish old Episodes of Blakes Seven and Doctor Who.
Brexit is more Enoch Powell and 'Watch with Mother'
You brexiteers that voted for this, you can relish in old episodes of Blakes' Seven and Doctor Who because that's about as close as UK is going to anything intergalactically spatial get if the gov doesn't get its head out of its arse and start dealing with this mistake of exiting the EU.
The government's so-called "space catapult" may become significantly more literal
Getting back into the EU means joining the Euro. If it's possible to cancel Article 50, then that's viable and can be sold to the public. But joining the Euro is economically insane - unless you plan to have a much larger EU budget and use that money to make large economic transfers between the member states.
The current EU budget is about 1% of EU GDP. In order to make the Euro a viable long-term currency that's got to be increased dramatically, to something like 10-20% of GDP, and large chunks of it spent in the regions of the Eurozone that are suffering economically at that particular time. You can cut that amount by having schemes like jointly issued government bonds and a well-enforced common banking supervision and bail-out system - and obviously a large chunk of that spending could be common unemployment insurance - so it needn't require the EU to become the state and the countries just regions. But it definitely means much more political integration - which isn't even popular in the countries like Germany where a large minority of voters actually believe in a federal EU - let alone Britain.
If it's possible to cancel Article 50, then that's viable and can be sold to the public. But joining the Euro is economically insane
I don't think that joining the Euro would be forced on the UK should some arrangement to stay in the EU be drafted. Apart from the politics of selling the deal to the Brits (everybody would scream right up until they found the coins still had a picture of the queen on them), there are politics of the Eurozone and the future direction of the currency to deal with. But I also don't think it would be economically insane either. UK fiscal policy is closer to that of Germany than that of Italy and it hasn't favoured devaluation for years because it has a labour market that is flexible enough to deal with competitive pressures directly.
But let's not put the cart before the horse.
Not as part of an arrangement to stay. I'm sure it will be part of the terms to rejoin.
Probably on the same terms of the never never than Denmark, Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Sweden have (and that Britain itself signed up to): "when the time is right". The Eurogroup has to do some reforming which, due to consensus being required, will be easier to do with a smaller group.
"by the time Galileo is up and running we will likely be trying to get back into the EU anyway."
I'm not sure that that is such a good idea, overall.
Sure, it would be good for the UK, but not so much for the EU.
Historically the UK has been an obstructionist force and a drag on the evolution of the EU into one of the 21st century's superpowers. They're better off without the UK.
In this BBC story - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-36306681 - just a month before the referendum and with a Remain victory seeming likely Nigel Farrage was reported as saying "In a 52-48 referendum this would be unfinished business by a long way. If the Remain campaign win two-thirds to one-third that ends it."
Funny how with Leave having won unexpectedly by precisely that margin those who voted Remain are supposed to just accept it when the Brexiteers clearly weren't prepared to.
I don't understand why Brexiteers are so scared of a second vote. If "Leave" was the will of the people two years ago and still is then surely it will only confirm that?
The problem of course is the "and still is" bit. I suspect many in the Leave camp know they attracted a protest vote - about things other than the EU - which they won't benefit from second time round.
They are afraid of a second referendum because they fiddled the first one and now the light has been turned on they are scurrying into the corners like a bunch of cockroaches crying that it's worldn't be democratic to hold a second vote.
Hell, we vote all the time, if it's not democratic to hold another vote then why do we have a democracy?
It was always a case of do what I say not what I do. The whole idea of leaving was mainly a way of putting pressure on the Tory party to adopt particular policies and losing the referendum closely would have given them the opportunity to claim that it was the wrong question or that the government fiddled the process.
I don't think you can call the "European Research Group" the British government. *
*Bunch of delusional xenophobic little Britain nutters. Bunch of power hungry political chancers. Bunch of city types seeing some angles to make a big killing on the markets as the UK economy goes down the sh**ter certainly. Bunch of pocket lining liars.
*Bunch of delusional xenophobic little Britain nutters. Bunch of power hungry political chancers. Bunch of city types seeing some angles to make a big killing on the markets as the UK economy goes down the sh**ter certainly. Bunch of pocket lining liars.
And the others are the ERG .....
From Wikipedia:
"Referendums in the United Kingdom are very occasionally held at a national, regional or local level. National referendums can be permitted by an Act of Parliament and regulated though the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000, but they are by tradition extremely rare due to the principle of parliamentary sovereignty meaning that they cannot be constitutionally binding on either the Government or Parliament, although they usually have a persuasive political effect.
Until the latter half of the twentieth century the concept of a referendum was widely seen in British politics as "unconstitutional" and an "alien device". As of 2018, only three national referendums have ever been held across the whole of the United Kingdom: in 1975, 2011 and most recently in 2016."
If the result of a referendum is not constitutionally binding on the Govt/Parliment, then why doesn't the govt just ignore the result & remain in the EU? Seeing how the UK hasn't got a clue on how to go about leaving the EU, and looks like it is going to lose a shed load of jobs if/when it does leave.
Because in a democracy sovereign power comes not from parliament (or even the sovereign), but from the people.
If the peoples' representatives ask the people for direction, then they follow the instruction they get back from the people.
The sensible thing is, of course, never to be stupid enough to ask the people a direct question like this in the first place.
>Can you see any MP who voted against the motion to leave the EU surviving the next election if his constituency voted to leave?
Yes! :)
Remember the last GE...
However, I suspect if the MP was a member of the Conservative party and the nutters in that party hold sway, I suspect they will be deselected...
"Can you see any MP who voted against the motion to leave the EU surviving the next election if his constituency voted to leave?"
Yes, once it had been clear what the consequences would be for the constituency.
But can you see any MP who voted to leave surviving the next election once the consequences of leaving are experienced?
"If the peoples' representatives ask the people for direction, then they follow the instruction they get back from the people."
The only sensible conclusion to draw from the result was "we're not sure".
However, taking the result as an advisory vote to leave the responsible thing would have been to start a proper project, starting with a feasibility study and to take a responsible decision, based on that, as to whether to continue. In effect we're now seeing the results of that feasibility study. Would a responsible government go on to the next phase in the light of those results?
renniks,
I don't see how Parliament can reverse a referendum result, without going back and asking permission first.
Obviously our constitutional position is that "no Parliament can bind the hands of future Parliaments" - so it's not unconstitutional. But it's politically unaccepable. Also our constitution works by precedent. We joined the EU without a referendum. But after a huge political argument, we had one on whether to stay in or not. So that sort of sets a precedent that the EU is now a decision for public vote. Particularly as we had an agreement from both major parties that we shouldn't join the Euro or sign the European Constitution without a referendum. Although admittedly they simply renamed that the Lisbon Treaty and pushed it through largely unchanged - and it's arguable that this was the breach of faith that massively increased support for leaving the EU and made leaving much more likely. I still don't think it would have happend without the Euro-crisis and a decade of unprecedentedly high net immigration though.
So I'd say we're stuck with referendums on major EU issues now. Our constitution changed by precedent. After all, each time we sign another EU treaty previous Parliaments were binding the hands of future Parliaments in that they were giving away their power to make decisions in major areas of policy to the EU.
There's a good argument that if we do want to stay in the EU we need a written constitution in order to protect us from EU mission-creep.
"So I'd say we're stuck with referendums on major EU issues now. "
If we leave the only future EU issue would be about rejoining. And, just as with leaving, it would be on the EU's terms because, as with the existing fiasco, beggars can't be choosers. So preventing EU mission-creep would have to be accepted if/when we want back in.
A lot of bitter remoaners in this thread.
Face it we're leaving, if we're lucky without a deal so we save £40bn for naff all.
And for the remoaners who keep going on about "Stupid Brexiteers didn't know what they were voting for...waaah!" - NEITHER DID YOU! The EU has changed hugely in the last 40 years and no one knows what will happen in the future.
The only people with the experience to give an informed vote were the people who swung it for liberty - the oldies.
They remember what life was like outside the EU.
They remember the promises made about joining the Common Market.
They know how those promises turned out.
They made the decision based on all that - and did the right thing!
So suck it up sweethearts and enjoy the ride :)
Face it we're leaving, if we're lucky without a deal so we save £40bn for naff all.
Sure, there's no settle-up payment with a no-deal, but there are more indepth costs to not having a deal, which will likely cost way more than that £40bn in the long term.
Typical shallow thinking from the Brexit trolls.
This post has been deleted by its author
> A lot of bitter remoaners in this thread.
And perhaps you would like to reflect on that as May and brexidiots continue to hijack leaving and push the uk into doing something the majority do not want.
Going against the will of the people and forcing things upon them which they do not want has a habit of ending badly and often violently.
You have noticed how bitter remoaners are now: I can assure you they will be no less bitter when May or brexidiots have had their way and more so when the reality of leaving bites.
I would advise a blue passport and an escape plan if I were you.
And for the remoaners who keep going on about "Stupid Brexiteers didn't know what they were voting for...waaah!" - NEITHER DID YOU!
That's true. We didn't know what Brexiteers voted for for the simple reason that they didn't all seem to vote for the same thing. And we still don't know what they voted for.
What's worse, whatever they, as individuals, voted for, they didn't know what they were going to get because, as supplicants, it wasn't going to be in their hands. That we did know.
What we voted for was quite clear: the status quo.
Richard, your article is refreshingly accurate and a well explained account of the actual state of affairs.
For whatever reason, most other journalists have shortened the idea to "UK will be kicked out of Galileo", which people have very wrongly interpreted as "Galileo positioning will not be available in the UK".
You even go on to mention the exact implications for EGNOS. I am seriously impressed.
Congratulations Richard, this was an excellent article indeed.
You're logic is sound, but I disagree. Democracy is something that we in the 'liberal west' take for granted, yet it is so incredibly fragile and easy to lose, and it is invariably so difficult and bloody to restore.
You do not defend democracy when the government is a dictatorship, and the gulags/death camps are in operation - by then it's way too late; you defend democracy over the first little things.. when the PM tries to lock innocent people (erm.. terrorist suspects) up for 90 days without charge or trail.
Or when attempts are made to overthrow a decision of the people by assorted individuals, many of whom fail to understand that democracy doesn't mean that we all vote and that they then get what they want, but some of whom are politicians carefully noting how 'the people' are accepting that democracy can be ignored (if they accept it once, they have no fundamental principle over it happening again, and again, and again...).
Whether BREXIT is good or bad is irrelevant (and a matter of opinion).
We agreed a set of rules for the referendum. We agreed that the result would be implemented, on the basis that +1 vote was enough. We reached a democratic decision.
We now implement that decision. Anything else is an attack in democracy.
And it's never a waste of time to stand up and defend democracy.
I will no doubt now be heavily down voted. Meh!
So at the time the referendum bill was in parliament you wrote to your MP insisting he or she oppose it?
Or wrote a strongly worded letter to the Times, demanding the rules be changed?
Or took to the streets and opposed the whole process in a demonstration parliament square?
Or actually, you did nothing, smug and confident that your side would win by the rules which you knew (or which you would have known if you had made the modicum of effort to find them out).
And then only when you lost could you be bothered to do anything (that being, posting rudely worded comments on a discussion board).
How many of the people here so upset with the vote did anything to help the remain campaign?
How many volunteered to hand out fliers outside rainy stations, or deliver leaflets to a two-mile stretch of houses?
The rules were set down clearly, and in plenty of time, There was no widespread disagreement with them (with the exception, if I recall, of the SNP, who I think did object to some of the rules, but also to the whole idea of the referendum anyway).
How many even bothered to vote?
As a society, we agreed the rules and we agreed that the result would be implemented.
We reached a result.
We implement the result.
EvilDrSmith,
To be fair, I think a reaonable argument can be made to re-run the referendum. If enough people think circumstances have changed, then that's politically acceptable. Despite a lot of cherry-picking of poll data, I'm not sure we're at that stage yet. I just don't think Parliament can do it.
Tactically it's awful, as it hands the EU negotiators the option to offer nothing, in the hopes that the decision will be overturned. But due to the way the Commission have run the negotiations so far, there is currently no acceptable option on the table. Even a lot of remain politicians don't think they can justify agreeing free movement without another referendum anyway, and I'd hope no serious politician would be willing to put up customs barriers between NI and the rest of the UK. So we're currently headed for hard Brexit, even though I don't think anyone but the head-bangers on either side actually want that. The Commission have over-played their hand in the hopes of forcing May to accept something like EEA status and full freedom of movement - and I don't think there's a majority in Parliament to agree that either.
There's still plenty of time to apply massive amounts of fudge though...
So I still see it as democratic to allow another referendum. Not ideal, but acceptable. But the cost to trust in politics would be massive. I also think that would lead to a permanent divide in our politics on EU membership - which would lead to us leaving in the long-run anyway. Once the rest of the EU decided that they didn't want to offer concessions for a re-run - I think remaining in the EU became almost impossible.
That's why leaving the EU is not like a divorce, or leaving a club. It's like a huge constitutional mess - but then so's staying in it.
I broadly agree, apart from it actually being democratic to hold another referendum - democracy, like justice has to be seen to be done, as well as to be done. The most voracious cries for another referendum are from those people that have been trying to overthrow the decision from the start.
Whatever the arguments for a new referendum may be, it will clearly be seen by many as an attempt to frustrate BREXIT, and as such would be harmful to democracy.
Add in that the EU (and ECC/EC) has a history of telling countries that have held referenda on EC/EU issues to think again when they came back with the 'wrong' result, and also the suggestion (repeated below I see) that it should be a three way referendum with two options to leave, thus ensuring the leave to vote is split so that remain can win, and any attempt to force through a second referendum would be viewed as an attack on democracy, and be even more highly divisive than the original back in 2016.
Which is pretty much what you said.
EvilDrSmith,
Remember that people who care deeply about the EU are in a minority. Probably less than 5% of the electorate are actual federalists and maybe another 10-15% hard-core remainers.
And for 40 years numbers saying they want to leave the EU have hovered around the 30%-35% mark. With the odd move about of course. That leaves the other half of the electorate who are not huge fans of the EU, but can take it or leave it. They decided the referendum, and if enough of them change their minds might still be able to force a re-run.
So far most polling I've seen has shown not a huge amount of movement, and a majority who believe the referendum should be implemented whichever way they happened to vote. But those numbers are shifting a bit, and if happens in a major way, there's still time to do something about it.
Like-it-or not, if you have a strong opinion on EU membership, you're probably in a minority amongst the general electorate.
That's why it took 40 years to build up enough steam to get another referendum after all.
"Like-it-or not, if you have a strong opinion on EU membership, you're probably in a minority amongst the general electorate."
This is true. It's the economic consequences of leaving that will inevitable fall on the majority and Leave, despite running a major Project Fear campaign of their own, called drawing attention to those "Project Fear".
Ben Tasker,
It's a different thing. People expect politicians to make a mess of things. And after all, the majority voted to leave - though admittedly the voters are quite prone to say "who us?" and blame the politicians for stuff they agreed with at the time anyway.
But directly reversing a referendum result is another thing entirely. I think if the public mood changes it might be possible, but even now I think the polls show there's still a majority that think that would be illegitimate and undemocratic. Even from voters who voted remain.
Note that the yes/no balance has barely changed on Scottish independence, yet polling consistently shows that a large majority don't want another referendum.
As May found last year, it's been an axiom in politics for decades that the voters don't actually like elections. They want the policiticians to get on with it - and however high you are in the polls, if you call an early election, you'll regret it.
"Tactically it's awful, as it hands the EU negotiators the option to offer nothing"
Do you still not understand despite watching the process so far? The "it" in your statement was the insistence by Leavers on leaving whatever the consequences. Why should the EU negotiators offer anything?
You are correct. EU negotiators should (and will) offer nothing.
The problem, is that EU negotiations go on all the time, for the past twenty years. And they have been offering nothing consistently every time. Nothing at all will change.
Point to just one negotiation where the U.K. interest was served. You can’t. I worked on the Galileo programme myself. We got royally stuffed six ways from Wednesday on the satellites.
Horizon2020 is worse!
>Point to just one negotiation where the U.K. interest was served. You can’t. I worked on the Galileo programme myself.
It would seem you have answered your own question, by getting involved in Galileo, some of the work was contracted out to UK-based businesses and UK residents got jobs. If the UK had not been involved then all the work would have been contracted among the EU27 with near zero spin-off for the UK.
>As a society, we agreed the rules and we agreed that the result would be implemented.
>We reached a result.
>We implement the result.
No, the people just offered their opinion. The referendum was only ADVISORY.
‘This Bill requires a referendum to be held on the question of the UK’s continued membership of the European Union (EU) before the end of 2017. It does not contain any requirement for the UK Government to implement the results of the referendum, nor set a time limit by which a vote to leave the EU should be implemented. Instead, this is a type of referendum known as pre-legislative or consultative, which enables the electorate to voice an opinion (etc).’
http://acgrayling.com/letter-to-mps
and it took Gina Miller and the High Court and Supreme Court to stop the government resorting to un-challengeable royal prerogative powers from 1610 rather than Parliament voting that Article 50 process could be triggered because only Parliament can take away rights that Parliament has granted.
I offer you sovereignty and democracy.
https://www.peoples-vote.uk/petition
"We reached a result.
We implement the result."
Which was, by a small majority, that people wanted to leave the EU. There was no indication what they wanted to do instead. There was no indication whether they'd still want to leave if it cost them their job, if it reduced the quality of health care by denying the NHS staff (even if £350 million a day was really available it wouldn't help if there weren't enough UK staff) or if it cut pensions and benefits as a result of a contracting economy.
So, how does a responsible government react? How does any business react to an ill-constructed requirement? It tries to put in some detail. It does feasibility studies. None of that happened. Cameron stood aside. The gung-ho leavers stood aside from taking his position. The resulting half-arsed government tried to push ahead blindly without even determining what was the legal way of doing so*, let alone looking at practicalities. As a result the outcome is looking worse and worse.
*Remember that it took a citizen to bring the matter to court to determine that. She was vilified by Leavers who still haven't even grasped that without that a court could have come along now and had the entire invocation of Article 50 declared illegal for lack of Parliamentary consent. In fact, it's a pity she did take that step as it would have been a useful brake no have invoked now.
"We agreed a set of rules for the referendum. We agreed that the result would be implemented, on the basis that +1 vote was enough."
I, and many others, never agreed to that, it was forced on us. A vote with such a possible monumental significant change should have a been based on a distinct and significant majority and I said so at the time. Basing a referendum of this magnitude on a simple "+1" majority was monumentally stupid without compulsory voting. No one knows what those who didn't vote thought and neither side can claim all thier votes or discount non-voters as "don't care". The 25%(ish) who didn't vote failed to do so for many reasons and can't be simply tarred with the same brush. I'm sure quite a few didn't vote because they either thought it was a waste of time, ie leave would lose, and a few might even have been so confident in a leave win that they didn't bother.
The Brexit vote had even larger ramifications to the UK as a whole than the Scottish Independence vote, yet was treated with such disdain that no one bothered to place similar conditions on it, eg minimum turnout + significant majority in favour.
"We agreed that the result would be implemented"
No, we most certainly did not. Unless you think any old shit is now legally binding. Let's put that to the test; Find me something, anything, in our statutes that said the referendum result would be implemented. If you can't, you owe me £5000. If you can, I owe you £5000.
So, purely on the basis I've written that, we agree to that, right? No, I didn't think so.
"We agreed that the result would be implemented"
Actually no. It was an advisory vote and I doubt even its proponents had any workable idea as to how to implement it or even expected to win it. AFAICS they were just expecting Cameron to stay on and implement it when they won. The panic when it fell to them was evident. Those who stepped up to the plate failed, those who stood on the sidelines shouting have yet again, last week, ducked out of giving is their view of how to do it, apparently out of fear it would be torn to pieces.
Wait for deal to be announced
hold referendum with three options:
1.Take deal and GO!
2.Stuff deal and stay!
3.Stuff deal and GO!
the current deal we have with the EU is the best anyone has, if we leave we will have to follow the whole process to come back.
No Disputes with members - That means Gibralter with spain and the Irleland problem need to be sorted before we get back in
Must Join the Euro - try getting that one passed
No Rebate - saves us a good chunk of what we put in
Fix the Surveilence regieme - They hate the 5 EYES and have some other issues too
"the current deal we have with the EU is the best anyone has,"
I don't believe that is correct, the best deal is with Deutchland, they pay but they effectively run the show. It's cheaper than using military might whch they've already tried unsuccessfully. This is why the Yanks are against Merkel especially as she's cuddling up to Putin.
They can't be serious, can they? Duplicating that and the other stuff that came as part of the EU would wipe out the "savings" projected by even the most ardent Brexiteers.
Though I guess they won't care, Brexit was sold to the masses on the basis of saving money, but the motivation of its real supporters was always getting out from under the EU's thumb - damn the consequences to the UK economy!
"I think you can be pretty sure that there won't be another ISS-like project .............. Well, it was probably worth a try..."
Very worth it, given that Russia had the only man-rated orbital vehicle when the US shuttle program died... the Russians were the ones who saved the ISS project.
"the Russians were the ones who saved the ISS project."
Yes, and no. The US wanted the Russian space program to continue and have put a lot of money their way to help ensure that. Maybe not so much in the last few years other than taxi fares, but it was partly to help retain the Russian space expertise in Russia and not have them selling out to the highest bidders all over the world. Rocket engineers wanting to Get Rich Quick can build all sorts of upwardly mobile explody things for other governments if their own government can longer no longer pay them.
It's my view that the EU "divorce bill" should be separated from the outcome of the current negotiations. These are things we already agreed to fund at the point we entered into them and I see our current attempts to use them as leverage in the negotiating process as very damaging to our credibility on the world stage.
How will any other country view us as a faithful and honest party to enter into any long term agreement with in future if we don't honor existing agreements and demonstrate that we have no issue walking away leaving unpaid bills if we don't get what we want at the end?
Those who wish to leave don't have to be part of the EU. They don't have to pay anything which goes to the EU, they are banned from public places built by EU money, they can't rely on EU laws which protect them in the workplace etc.
And the rest continue has we have been for years.
Win win!
The Referendum was about 2 things.
1) Killing UKIP
2) Stopping backbenchers defecting to UKIP.
Job done.
The UK economy is simply "Collateral damage" needed to save the leaderships collective backside.
The rest was just verbal bu***hit.
Although to be fair Labour's position on Brexit was even worse.
We could lose the entire North to UKIP if we don't
We could lose everyone young, poor and/or black in London if we do
So we are definitely supporting ........ erm
The UK FPTP election system does not encourage coalition politics but the Leave votes seems to have been exactly that.
A coalition of the ignorant (on what the EU actually helps the British economy do) who seem unaware that while trade to the EU is 40-50% of UK trade, trade to the UK (from the other 27) is about 6.7% of their business. So who's going to be replacing who, exactly?
A coalition of the delusional. Who fantasized that ending free immigration from rest of the EU would open up a magic world of high paying jobs they could do (without any experience or qualifications) that "The furriners" were keeping them out of. The jobs they can do are hard and only pay minimum wage, but of course it's the furriners fault because......
A coalition of the racist. Who don't like Europeans but haven't worked out that those trade deals with India and China are likely to involve the UK seeing a whole lot more of those kind of furriners. BTW I note a lot of racists live in predominantly white areas and have rarely (if ever) actually seen, spoken to or worked with anyone from any place else (the North East being a strong Leave voting area). For most of them the closest they've got is reading about them in a newspaper.