Brussels changes its mind AGAIN on .EU domains: Euro citizens in post-Brexit Britain can keep them after all

The European Commission has, yet again, changed its position on who can have a .eu domain after Brexit. In what we believe is the fourth such dictat – although we may have missed a few – Brussels bureaucrats have now decided [PDF] that if you are an EU citizen living in the UK you can have a .eu domain. That announcement …

[Dick Kennedy]

So, you criticise the EU for taking a certain position, then criticise them again when they respond to criticism and do something you thought they should do. But I guess that acknowledging that fact would mean passing up an opportunity to be snarky. And, let's face it, the Register is nothing without snark.

[DavCrav]

"So, you criticise the EU for taking a certain position, then criticise them again when they respond to criticism and do something you thought they should do."

Yes. You can criticise someone for being an idiot. And then when they finally change their mind following the fallout, you can still criticise them, because they were still an idiot.

The point is they didn't think before they acted, and then waited an age before performing the U-turn.

[Teiwaz]

Meanwhile those 'in charge' in Blighty...

The Leadership takes a position and sticks to it no matter who and how many people tell them they are being idiots.

If you think about it, which is more frightening....?

An administration that might change it's mind given time to think, or one which leaps on a rash and ill-conceived idea and decides to stick to it, no matter how damaging for country, economy or international reputation....

[Justthefacts]

Do you want a second referendum?

I guess you mean - “if there were a second referendum, UK gov would discover that people had changed their mind, and were now calling them idiots. And since they don’t want to find that out, they refuse to change their mind”.

In that case, please point me to any evidence that people have changed their minds as a result of what you consider to be facts. Polling by a respected pollster that corrects for the effects that caused them to get the result wrong first time.

I’m a democrat, so I genuinely would support cancelling art50 if this were true. But nobody has shown any evidence I am aware of. Asking children whether they like Europe isn’t evidence. Not one Leaver or Remainer I know has changed their mind in three years.

Or, does this post just mean “the government should listen to my view of the world, and not the 52%”? Perhaps you should also consider why *you* haven’t listened to the actual concerns of the 52%. Which are not what you think they are.

[Malcolm Weir]

Re: Do you want a second referendum?

The problem here is, as always, the issue of how the question is phrased! This was always the problem with the referendum: the "leave" side had all the various options "available" (Norwegian, hard, soft, customs union) and the "remain" had just "keep the same as now". It is preposterous to claim that 52% backed a "leave at any cost" position (although of course some did). The problem is that no-one knows what the percentage is for "leave within the constraints of what the EU will agree", as the pieces of excrement that were campaigning for leave (including illegally, apparently) blatantly lied about pretty much everything (£350m being the poster child for that).

It is unarguable that a hard Brexit is incompatible with the Good Friday Agreement, so in that event the probability of Northern Ireland uniting with the south increases. It is also unarguable that part of the Scottish independence referendum was the alleged difficulty of an independent Scotland joining the EU, but given that Scotland's only hope of being in the EU is independence from England, that possibility increases.

Brexit has serious, possibly catastrophic, implications for the UK and everybody therein. It's a pity that those in favour haven't had the honesty to discuss those implications, and continue to lie about the complexity that they're championing.

(Meanwhile, on topic: how about restricting ".com" to only those with a US address?)

[Justthefacts]

Re: Do you want a second referendum?

I certainly agree that phrasing the referendum question is a problem. One proposal I would have though is for multiple options to be on there, (Norwegian, soft, hard, etc) with Single Transferrable Vote.

But, please, enough of this “lying about £350m”. Sure, that is incorrect, but it is no worse than the Remainer claim which would be the net figure £150m pw. If you give me £300, and I give you back £50 in John Lewis vouchers, plus a unicorn cuddly toy I made which I am selling for £100 that you don’t actually want, how much have you given me?

“It is unarguable that a hard Brexit is incompatible with the Good Friday Agreement.”

So....imagine that Britain had never joined the EU. Are you saying that peace in Northern Ireland would have been simply impossible? It would have been the EU insisting that a customs border be maintained after Good Friday, despite the protestation of Eire, and despite the U.K. government saying that it did not intend to enforce the border, but if the EU wanted to put its own customs officials in harms way against the Provos then good luck to them. Is that genuinely what you think would have happened?

“Brexit has serious, possibly catastrophic, implications for the UK and everybody therein”.

Most Leavers see Remain as the catastrophically risky version.

You can google the 950bn Target2 liabilities. Or Have fun reading the European Investment Bank 1400bn loan sheet, all the info is on its website! A quick read will show you that none of those loans have any credible chance of being repaid. Hundreds of millions each to “SME Climate Action groups in Spain”, “Loan for youth employment and female empowerment in Spain”, billions to Credit Agricole. That’s a few loans just in the last month, but they have 23000 “loans” like this outstanding. None of this is counted in EU spending, because it’s “expected” to be repaid.

So, when you are complaining about whether the U.K. contribution is 8 or 15 billion a year, it’s worth remembering that the EIB alone is currently running up liabilities of 200bn a year on our behalf that have no chance of being repaid. Suddenly a divorce bill of 64bn seems like quite a great deal to be allowed to walk away from that cess-pit.

[heyrick]

Re: Do you want a second referendum?

"Most Leavers see Remain as the catastrophically risky version."

Meanwhile the promise of an easy leave, simplest negotiations, nothing much will really change...

...has turned into the very real possibility of crashing out, reneging international obligations and generally having the attitude of "screw you, we're better". That might work for America, but Britain isn't that.

[werdsmith]

Re: Do you want a second referendum?

But, please, enough of this “lying about £350m”. Sure, that is incorrect, but it is no worse than the Remainer claim which would be the net figure £150m pw.

---

Only one side put the false number on the side of a campaign bus and used it for endless media opportunities in a (very successful) attempt to mislead the most ignorant section of the population.

So it is far worse than any other arbitrary claim.

[codejunky]

Re: Do you want a second referendum?

@werdsmith

"So it is far worse than any other arbitrary claim."

Actually I would suggest the punishment budget where our own government literally threatens the population to vote their way or else. Mark Carney was caught out lying his arse off about the costs of brexit and claiming good news and even the aims of the Treasury and BoE were suddenly bad because they would be delivered by brexit.

[Chris Parsons]

Re: Do you want a second referendum?

"Most Leavers see Remain as the catastrophically risky version."

However, The Economist, FT, CBI, IMF and Bank of England think the reverse is true. Still, compared to the bloke in the pub, what do they know?

[codejunky]

Re: Do you want a second referendum?

@Chris Parsons

"The Economist"

Erm ok

"FT"

Erm ok

"CBI"

Not known to represent business in general only big business. And wanted to join the Euro.

"IMF"

Who with the EU managed to ruin Greece. Oops

"Bank of England"

Erm not quite. Unfortunately Carney was caught out lying. He did say brexit would be bad and then listed the objectives of the Treasury and BoE since 2008 as the results of brexit. Mervyn King calling him out on his rubbish.

"Still, compared to the bloke in the pub, what do they know?"

Amusingly condescending while having no stable foundations in your sources. For starters if the bloke at the pub was against the Euro he would already be ahead. And thats because not joining the EU currency is built on sound economics vs the Euro which does the opposite. Why am I talking about the Euro and not the EU? Because the same argument is happening with the same lack of reasoning and we still seem to be on the right side of it.

[anonymous boring coward]

Re: Do you want a second referendum?

"Most Leavers see Remain as the catastrophically risky version."

Why is that then?

Are you aware that UK has its own currency?

[dak]

Re: Do you want a second referendum?

I'll ignore the intemperate and badly-considered rant and concentrate just on the final sentence, which simply displays ignorance of the DNS system.

The .com TLD was not intended for US addresses, but for the worldwide "commercial" namespace, in the same way that .net was intended for worldwide internet organisations, and .org for worldwide non-profits organisations. Also .edu and .gov, although the latter seems to have been appropriated by the US government. The anomalous extension .mil was intended solely for the US military.

Country-specific addresses were to be prefixed by the ISO country code - I own a .uk.com address, and this approach would have kept every commercial site neatly arranged in the commercial branch. However, country-specific TLDs were then established, and .us was amongst the very first. This broke the integrity of the DNS namespace but has become the dominant format, with addresses such as .co.uk (the equivalent of .uk.com) now more common.

So, to return to my point - .com is not solely for US entities and I don't know if there is any restriction on registration. Some countries do restrict registrations by postal address - Finland and Luxembourg in my own experience, and they are entitled to do so.

But the EU is not a country, however much it would like to think it is. It is a political union of varying geographical boundaries and their approach almost seems designed cause maximum disruption. Or maybe it's just lack of thought.

[Alan Brown]

Re: Do you want a second referendum?

"I own a .uk.com address, and this approach would have kept every commercial site neatly arranged in the commercial branch"

Except that registrants of various XX.com domains saw it as an opportunity to sell _THEIR_ services exclusively linked to the domain - and did so. There was no way to independently host yourdomain.XX.com - which pretty much shot this arrangement in the face and then stomped all over the corpse well before e-commerce even started.

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: Do you want a second referendum?

"(Meanwhile, on topic: how about restricting ".com" to only those with a US address?)"

The top level .com is international. They have .us for local geographic addresses.

[adam 40]

It is unarguable that a hard Brexit is compatible with the Good Friday Agreement,

Actually, if you take the time to read the GFA (pdf available online) you'll find that it's compatible with a hard Brexit. THe GFA already contains references to the border between N and S, and it matters not whether this border is hard or soft.

[Alan Brown]

Re: Do you want a second referendum?

"It is preposterous to claim that 52% backed a "leave at any cost" position"

It's even more preposterous to claim that 52% of voters backed leaving.

It was a nonbinding referendum and only 52% of those WHO COULD BE BOTHERED TURNING UP voted Leave.

More than half the electorate stayed at home in many areas (72% turnout overall - meaning 28% of eligible voters didn't show up) - and now they can see the damage being done a second referendum might have a "slightly higher" turnout.

Oh what's that? You don't like the idea of democracy in action? Perhaps something to do with a new crop of newly minted 18-20 year olds who are highly likely to turnout AND vote remain?

Why do we vote for a new government every so often?

Why is there a rule that no government may bind succeeding ones to any policy?

ie: the referendum (which was non-binding anyway) ceased to have any power the moment Theresa May called a general election, except as a rallying cry.

The last legal action to throw out the results based on the illegality of the activities of the various players was ruled invalid because the referendum was non-binding("advisory") and as such any governmental policy decisions made as a result of it are the independent decision of the government of the day.

This being the argument advanced by Theresa May's lawyers - which translates to "Yes, we know it was illegal but it doesn't matter because we can just say it's our own policy and you can't stop us."

A few simple words of advice: Don't piss off the people who get to choose where you spend your twilight years, because Millenials may well look at the large bills and other shit that Boomers have left them with, toss the bills (and a few Boomers) under a passing bus and decide that "Under a motorway overpass bridge" is an appropriate location for the remainder.

[Phil O'Sophical]

Re: Do you want a second referendum?

only 52% of those WHO COULD BE BOTHERED TURNING UP voted Leave.

only 48% of those WHO COULD BE BOTHERED TURNING UP voted Remain. 48 is still less than 52.

[Alan Brown]

Re: Do you want a second referendum?

> (Meanwhile, on topic: how about restricting ".com" to only those with a US address?)

.com has always been international

.us _IS_ restricted to USA entities.

[veti]

Re: Do you want a second referendum?

You make a strong case for a second referendum. Was that your intention?

[Justthefacts]

Re: Do you want a second referendum

In the world of angels, yes I think a second referendum would be the correct solution.

The main problem is that Remainers haven’t given any indications that they would respect the result.

We actually just *had* a second referendum recently, the European elections. The Brexit party became the largest party in the European Parliament, winning every single U.K. constituency. I didn’t vote for them BTW. Remain painted this as evidence that the theoretical non-Leave parties won combined. They decided that all Labour voters are Remainers [we should ask a certain J Corbyn about that]. Can you not see that Remain has a problem with democracy, and needs to start listening to Leave voters, instead of defining what other people’s vote means?

There’s likely to be a Third Referendum (general election). I suggest that if LibDems poll more than Brexit party, that could be a case for a Fourth Referendum. Let’s see how that pans out.

[CountCadaver]

Re: Do you want a second referendum

Actually they didn't - The SNP won nearly every single Scottish consituency (30 out of 32), beating the Brexit Party into a distant second with the Lib Dems in 3rd and thus the SNP won the greatest number of Scottish seats per party.

https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/17666115.european-elections-2019-every-scottish-local-authority-result/

[Justthefacts]

Re: Do you want a second referendum

You’re right, that’s one region out of 13.

Can you not see your data-point just argues *against* Remain?

Firstly, if Scotland is more Remainy, that means the UK referendum vote excluding Scotland must have been much more than 52/48 to get to the average.

Secondly, you clearly feel that it is relevant that the votes of a geographical subsection of a bloc, far from its central parliament, should be taken into account in and of itself, not just averaged out. That their interests may not be best served in such a system. Seems to be a Leave case. My view is that Scotland had its referendum and voted Stay in Uk, which I am glad about. But if they want to have another in ten or twenty years time and vote Leave UK, that vote should be respected too.

[Absolute Cynic]

Re: Do you want a second referendum

Scotland is not a region. It is a country.

[Justthefacts]

Re: Do you want a second referendum

Not according to the EU, sorry, take it up with them.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Do you want a second referendum

The EU has Member States. Publications targeted at the public use the word country presumably because many readers are only familiar with the word State meaning what it means in the USA/Germany/etc.

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a Nation State that contains multiple countries in the form of a Kingdom. To clarify: England, Wales and Scotland are individual countries that are part of the same Nation State. Northern Ireland might be a country, or a region or a province... <insert rapid change of subject!>

See Also: The Kingdom of the Netherlands, The Kingdom of Denmark. etc.

As for the use of State vs Country. It varies based on the history of the Nation State. Nation State being the only term with an unambiguous meaning in this context, as far as I can tell.

[dak]

Re: Do you want a second referendum

We like to think so, but in the EU context Scotland is NUTS regions UKM5, UKM6, UKM7, UKM8 and UKM9.

[Mike007]

Re: Do you want a second referendum

Worth noting that one of the factors in the Scotland referendum was that if they became independent it might be difficult for them to join the EU, and they didn't want to leave the EU.

Now, becoming independent is the only way they can rejoin the EU, might be a factor in their next referendum.

Similar factors might also be relevant in Northern Ireland, which also wanted to stay in the EU. Actually, the situation over there might be a little more compelling...

[Peter X]

Re: Do you want a second referendum

To be fair, non-leave parties + labour can reasonably be counted as non-hard-brexit. You wouldn't question that would you?

[Justthefacts]

Re: Do you want a second referendum

No, I wouldn’t question that.

The Tory party is also non-hard-brexit.

The ERG is a minority within the Tories, which for baffling reasons the Remainers partnered with to prevent the soft Brexit.

If no deal occurs, the main culprits by voting numbers will be Remain. And if no leave occurs, the main culprits by numbers will be hard brexiteers.

What’s your point / conclusion?

[Peter X]

Re: Do you want a second referendum

If no deal occurs, the main culprits by voting numbers will be Remain.

Yeah, good one!

What’s your point / conclusion?

I think I'd blame lies/misinformation which pretty much entirely came from the "Pro-brexit" side myself... because there were many.

And I'd blame "remain" for not countering those lies strongly enough or indeed making their case strongly enough.

Depressing that the tory leadership battle turned into a stupid-a-thon though... no candidate could expect to win without "keeping no-deal on the table", thus we end up with the most ridiculous candidate. I suppose if that were not the case, we'd end up with Raab though... so I suppose that's a small upside.

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: Do you want a second referendum

"There’s likely to be a Third Referendum (general election)."

Starwman! Not only is a GE about more than just Brexit, but the main parties are not united in the leave/remain position, not to mention the leavers can't agree on what type of leave they want. Even leavers who agree but are in different parties can't bring themselves to agree publicly in a vote.

In a GE, do you really think a Labour hard brexiteer would vote for a Tory hard brexit candidate instead of a remain Labour candidate?

[Justthefacts]

Re: Do you want a second referendum

Yes, Strawman was exactly my point.

Counting all LibDem and SNP votes as Remain votes is delusional, for exactly those reasons.

You didn’t read my post properly.

[phuzz]

Re: Do you want a second referendum

"Starwman! Not only is a GE about more than just Brexit"

Officially maybe, but people treated the EU elections as a second referendum, and they'll do the same if there's a general election any time soon.

In fact, I confidently predict that whatever happens with brexit, the topic will have an outsized influence on UK politics (and elections etc.) for at least the next five years, probably longer.

[veti]

Re: Do you want a second referendum

The European elections were subject to many of the same flaws as the original referendum, plus several more that it didn't have. It's hard to interpret a vote - even for the Brexit party - as unequivocally about Brexit and nothing else.

I would favour two more referendums, to be held a week apart. The final referendum would be "should we leave or remain?" The penultimate one would be "If we vote to 'leave' next week, should that mean 'this deal' or 'no deal'?" And both referendums should be considered as binding on parliament, on the strength of a simple majority.

That way everyone would have the chance to vote for what they want, and it would be clear which of the three currently available options they were voting for.

[Cederic]

Re: Do you want a second referendum

Why bother with the first of those two referendum? That vote has already been held, has been supported in the subsequent General Election (where over 80% of votes went to parties promising to leave) and again in the recent European elections (where over 60% of votes went to parties running on a commitment to leave).

How about we get on and leave?

[Teiwaz]

Re: Do you want a second referendum?

Why do you assume I meant the brexit decision alone.

There are other examples....

The 48% very probably have exactly the same concerns as the 52%, they just feel leaving is not the right fix.

Problem is for Brexit is there are too many factions with questionable public support dipping their oar in to the proceedings on the spurious claim of popular support.

Problems for remain in the last Euro elections is the support was split between several parties, while the exit vote was scooped up almost totally by one party, which inflates their perceived support.

[Justthefacts]

Re: Do you want a second referendum?

Your first paragraph I agree with, but I would like to fix your second para:

Problems for Leave in the last Euro elections is the support for Brexit party was split towards the main incumbent party (Conservatives) who have centuries of historically loyal voters, while the Leave vote was scooped up almost totally by one party in each region (LibDem or SNP), which inflates their perceived support. We can’t interpret votes for Labour either way on this issue. Also, at least some LibDem voted due to their support for other LibDem policies, whilst being Leave voters. Otherwise you are saying that nobody voted LibDem policy alone.

To be clear, this is facetious, but your argument is equal and delusional.

[Teiwaz]

Re: Do you want a second referendum?

Facetious or delusional, either way, I'm pretty sure most of those centuries of historically loyal voters, were not longer around to vote.

Was the European Parlament anti-euro vote not totally taken by not-conservatives?

I think you just want to blame the conservatives for Brexit failure - mostly, you might be right, but partly the main pro brexit players are all grandstanders and egomaniacs who enjoyed having the PM over a barrel too much the last few years. Almost all of them are extremists who should be off in their own party except they know they'd get nowhere without being attached to the conservative brandname.

Almost all of them will retire to a cushy boardroom gig afterwards and leave others to pick up the pieces.

It's a bad policy pursued by madmen and lunatics.

[werdsmith]

Re: Do you want a second referendum?

the main incumbent party (Conservatives) who have centuries of historically loyal voters

They must be some seriously old people!

[Dr Paul Taylor]

Evidence of change of public opinion

Best for Britain polling by constituency, November 2018. Try any of the polling companies for national figures.

[Justthefacts]

Re: Evidence of change of public opinion

Random errors are significant in polls, sample sizes around 5000-10000, which usually corresponds to about 2% error, so reputable sources look at trends. Here is the graph of polls over time since the referendum

https://whatukthinks.org/eu/questions/if-a-second-eu-referendum-were-held-today-how-would-you-vote/

On 30th June2016 the polls had Remain in the lead by 6-8%.

Polling systematic errors are larger. Remain substantially over-polled relative to the actual referendum result. We don’t know why, but there is no reason to think this will change as their methodologies haven’t changed. The only thing we can do is to look at the relative trend.

You will see that Remain currently leads by 3-7% in polls in the last few months.

The data clearly show no reason to reject the null hypothesis of unchanged opinion.If you wanted to over-interpret, you ought to guess that Remain have reduced support by 1-2%.

I will grant you this: support for Remain has never been higher! :)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_United_Kingdom_European_Union_membership_referendum#/media/File%3AUK_EU_referendum_polling.svg

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Do you want a second referendum?

"Not one Leaver or Remainer I know has changed their mind in three years."

I have. Mine was a tactical vote, I didn't think the result of the vote would be to leave (because that's what the Cameron, the BBC and other London based media were telling us) but getting maybe 48% leave would help get the message through that the EC needs to change.

There are very real issues in the rest of the UK that London, the South East and the EC have chosen to ignore for decades and that's why so many chose to vote leave. Similar issues exist throughout the EU.

As it happens the large number of "leave" Euro MPs, the basket-case economies within the union, the growth of far-right and nationalist groups might get engender some change.

Despite the vindictive nature of the EC response to the vote, further evidence of their need to change, I would now vote remain to allow time for change - or in the absence of change, the inevitable collapse of the whole project. Let's hope that's a bit sooner than the 70 years it took for the Soviet Union to collapse.

The EC has been very short sighted in just leaving it to UK to decide to take a rubbish deal or leave with no deal. They could have spent some of the past 3 years saying - there are problem not just in UK, we need to address those and propose a reform package, then ask the UK to reconsider with a changed choice: leave or remain but we understand the reasons for a leave vote and this is how we will address those.

As John Maynard Keynes is quoted as saying: “When the facts change, I change my mind." Take that in association with Harold Wilson's "a week is a long time in politics."

[cpage]

Re: Do you want a second referendum?

I don't think many people have changed their minds, but the electorate has changed. In the 3 years since the referendum about 3 million new voters have arrived, and polls suggest they are in favour of remain by about 80% to 90%. They have replaced a similar number of voters who have died: we can't ask their opinion but they will mostly have been old folk who we know voted about 60 to 70% in favour of leave. So this factor alone explains that all opinion polls for the last year or more have got Remain ahead of Leave by about 5 to 10%. Of course opinion polls have random and systematic errors so we can't be sure but there's enough there to be fairly sure that if we actually leave, as Mr Johnson wants, it will probably be against the wishes of most of the electorate. Only another referendum will settle that definitively.

[Phil O'Sophical]

Re: Do you want a second referendum?

the electorate has changed. In the 3 years since the referendum about 3 million new voters have arrived, and polls suggest they are in favour of remain by about 80% to 90%.

We've been in the EU for 27 years, if it was really that simple then the whole population would be 90% remain, and it clearly isn't. If anything it's becoming more anti-EU as time passes.

What your flawed analysis ignores is that people change. We all know that young people tend to be idealistic, and often left-leaning, yet the UK as a whole is pretty solidly conservative. Why? Because as those young people grow up and gain experience of the world, their views change and often become less idealistic and naive, and more conservative. Maybe lots of new voters are Remain, and lots of older ones are Leave, but lots of middle aged ones obviously switch from Remain to Leave as they gain experience of the world. The polls today show pretty much exactly the same numbers as they did three years ago; too close to call.

[HelpfulJohn]

Re: Do you want a second referendum?

I don't know about anyone else (because I have no friends with whom I talk politics) but *I* have changed my mind since 2016's little "non-binding" questionaire. Then, I didn't think the Great British Public could possibly be, even en masse and even though they keep voting in D.U.P. M.P.'s, stupid enough to cut their own throats by voting in favour of running away from Yurp so I didn't bother to vote.

I thought my vote was irrelevant as 99.999999% of sane, sensible adults would vote in favour of staying in.

I was, as we have seen, horribly, tragically wrong. So, were there an UK-Indy-Ref-II:The-Brexit-Fiasco-Revisited, I would *definitely* vote in it. You may guess which way if you like.

My single, solitary vote may not sway the issue but, considering how slender the margin was in 2016, it wouldn't take many to kill the inane, insane, childish, foolish, moronic, jingoistic and utterly daft idea of Brexit stone, cold dead forever.

So, yes, a rerun might have a different outcome because people have changed their minds.

And only a rerun would tell us whether sufficient nuumbers have.

[codejunky]

Re: Do you want a second referendum?

@HelpfulJohn

"So, yes, a rerun might have a different outcome because people have changed their minds."

1 GE to get the referendum, 1 referendum, 1 GE, 1 MEP election. Thats 4 against our existing membership with the EU and 3 outright rejections of the EU.

Maybe a rerun will give a different outcome. As is said every time.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like any government to be honest, SNP in Scotland are just as bad, kneejerk changes in policy (air departure tax) because the dear leader yelled out climate emergency at conference, suddenly volte face and whole membership trying to outgreen the green party.

Yer when it comes to wood burning stoves "we need to study how big the impact is" "we know its bad for air quality but we need to quantify exactly how bad" "there's no consensus on the extent of the issue" - translation we're afraid of losing some middle class votes so we're doing everything we can to boot it into the long grass and hope people forget about it so we can keep sitting on our hands.

Oh and the small matter of NHS waiting lists going into the stratosphere, 12 weeks to start treatment, my area FIVE months backlog on TOP of the 12 weeks. Total and utter incompetence and yet the health minister bears no responsibility....

[Anonymous Coward]

The SNP have turned Scotland into a socialist failed state. Omnishambles on building bridges/hospitals/schools/roads, collapse in educational attainment, collapse in policing, 3,000 fewer nurses, drug deaths skyrocketing, highest income tax in UK, £1B black-hole in the accounts, £500 to park your car at work, collapse in business investment due to the reverendum threat, having to fly-in doctors from England, £50B debt run up in PFI wheezes, university places rationed for Scottish students, all waiting times missed for cancer treatment, soft on criminals, SNP fanning the flames of sectarianism, £250M wasted on failed IT projects, £££ more will be wasted on failed Benefits project, Council's slashing social care due to SNP funding cuts, £500M underspend with money salted away to fund indyref2, centrally mandated destruction of emails that incriminate Salmond. And that's just what we know about!

[Absolute Cynic]

Dear me, Mr Carter

You must believe everything you read in the Daily Heil.I cannot find anything that is factually correct in your post.

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is as per most parliaments the politicians and the civil servants feeding them various "career defining ideas"

WhatI feel (and many others Scots I talk to want) - Clean hospitals, well run schools, the vulnerable taken care of, crime punished, no vanity projects, the roads fixed (so folk can get to work and buses also need the roads), streets swept, taxes levied to provide public services at the asked for level

(I was an SNP voter but recently I've completely drifted away from them, in variant of Mairi Black - I didn't leave the party behind, they left me behind)

Whats actually happening - various daft schemes that don't solve the problems - A90 Average Speed Cameras - when the problem is the road layout with too many junctions and open centre gaps, coupled with tractors etc, not to mention the horrifically poor standards of driving - vans being driven with knees, commuters using laptops while driving, cars with no working lights, insecure loads, cars swerving due to worn shocks / bald tyres, folk whose driving went below terrible about 10 years ago etc - culprit promoted to justice secretary

Climate Emergency - 0.15% of global emissions, yet we have to "lead the way", perhaps they should bear in mind what happens to those who tear off blindly without listening to others....they or others get hurt or killed.

NHS - Everyone's fault but theirs

Local Authority Funding - again someone else's fault (though local authorities still squander money and many of them are functioning as retirement clubs ( the average age of our cllrs is well north of 67)

Disability social security - kicked into the long grass of 2024, yet they claimed they could do a whole country set up in 18 months.....not to mention it still follows the flawed Unum-Provident model (as the DWP does) where the claimant is assumed to be a liar and choosing to adopt a role of being "sick", along with ignoring the patients own doctor or demanding information from them that they have no need to know i.e. can this patient cook a meal / can they manage to shower etc etc etc. All demeaning questions and ones not asked of those getting winter fuel payments / maternity payments / child tax credits etc etc etc

Carer's allowance - yes they supplemented it, but £9 per a week, for something that demands 35 hours per week (and the rest on top) for a total of ~£75 a week is a joke, particularly in a progressive country, their claim they will look at raising it when they introduce the replacement to carer's allowance would be a joke if the effect on carer's mental and physical well being wasn't so serious.

Student Loan clearance - that was quickly dropped

Tuition fees - only paid for undergrad, despite more and more high skilled roles requiring master's degrees or higher

Council Tax- said they were going to replace it 12 years ago, another policy quietly forgotten

ADT - suddenly dropped after the dear leader went and chatted to truanting schoolkids, sounds more like its a way to fill the financial blackhole

Facial recognition - "its just like fingerprints" No its blooming well not, "we'll have a commissioner to oversee it" - How about asking if its appropriate to be infringing on civil liberties?

Plastic Straw ban - It won't affect the disabled - REALLY? Already trying to find straws so disabled people can drink (and no the alternatives AREN'T suitable, they ALL have major flaws) is like finding unicorn poo, and the price for a packet of straws has went from 35pence to £5.99 and most of those now for sale are poor quality with many splitting as soon as they are removed from the packet. Failed entirely to consider collection bins for restaurants and/or building plastic staw collection bins into their reverse vending machines

Bottle Tax (and yes it will turn into a tax as they'll discover it doesn't pay for itself) - my local authority sells the materials that are collected currently in the mixed recycling bin and that pays for the collection and disposal of other waste. According to the SNP "oh no thats a lie its a big cost to councils and we're saving them money and anyway they all send to China where it goes in the oceans and kills baby turtles" My council doesn't, they have chain of custody with a recycling plant in England, where materials are sorted on one site, some reprocessed there, others reprocessed within a 20 or 30 mile radius and none exported. As usual though that can't be happening as it messes with the SNP reality distortion field. Also now used and likely bio cotaminated recyclables will be collected by grocery home delivery companies, which means your food delivery will now be accompanied by what would otherwise be classed as rubbish, waiting for the first outbreak of food poisoning.

Roads becoming congested as folk are being forced to look further and further afield for work or their jobs require them to travel between sites regularly (even some supermarkets require it), yet are they putting in any effort to widen the most busy roads? No, have for example they commissioned a Dundee bypass to remove the regular and length traffic jams caused by running a dual carriageway through a city of 120K people whose council hates the motorist and has erected numerous sets of traffic lights, often set out of order so you get a green, go 20 feet and hit another red, that goes green and then the next lights go red at the same time. Moronic doesn't even cover it, they've even erected 2 pedetrian crossings on an already busy section, refusing to build bridges as "people think they're unsightly and kids just run across the road anyway" so whats going to happen is that kids for fun (in between starting fires in abandoned buildings and chucking stones at ambulances and fire appliances (a Dundee sport it seems) )will keep triggering the crossings causing total gridlock, that or the local XR branch will do it.

Transfer of public funds to private companies - case in point claiming no money to hire extra nurses, but just spent £7.8 MILLION of taxpayers money on emissions control retrofitting for private bus operators vehicles, said operators include First Group, National Express and Stagecoach, all of who have more than sufficient financial resources to pay to keep their vehicles within the law.

I'm pro independence, but I'm anti-SNP, they have done as many other parties have and become more and more authoritarian, unwilling to listen to the public and instead focusing on the demands of incredibly vocal minority interests. They also have the attention span of a senile goldfish, forever hopping between policies and never finishing anything. Its rapidly becoming akin to that Simpsons episode where the council of learned citizens takes over the towns running and in the words of Prof Hawking, rapidly descends into a Fruitopia...

Not that the rest are any better, Jenny Marra playing media tart and proposing ever more authoritarian solutions to a newspaper invented dog bite crisis, Tories asking ministers what they will do to stop people living in proposed LEZs from selling their cars to those in rural areas (ignoring the realities of the used car market) Response "we're looking into this"

Its like a home for bored ex cllrs, no wonder Billy Connelly referred to it as a "wee pretendy parliament" the place is seriously deficient in anyone of actual talent....

[Alan Brown]

Send some of those kids down here. I'll pay them to trigger the crossings and "encourage" motorists to keep off residential routes when bypasses exist.

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot:

Failed Farm Payments system - not our fault guv, somebody elses;

Riding roughshod over the opinions of local residents to permit 500 foot wind turbines on Orkney - have you SEEN a 500 foot wind turbine, let alone lived within ten miles of one - there's a reason they are ten miles out to sea.

Nanny State minimum alcohol pricing that solves not a single problem except putting the cost up for the alcohol dependents - they need help, not approbation;

Not maintaining the old Forth Road Bridge properly - closed for three months for the sake of £10m quid that was just sitting in their current account, unspent, like the other £500m every year;

Cost overruns on the replacement bridge;

Time and cost overruns on all Scotrail upgrades in the Central Belt;

Responsible Person - can't remember the proper name, Stalinist, big brother spying on families more like;

Spiteful, petty, underfunding of councils and Visit Scotland so they had to close public toilets and Tourist Information Centres, like nobody comes here - oh everybody uses mobile devices they said, not when there's no effing signal they don't, Tourism being only the second biggest currency earner after whisky;

Banning landfill so some councils are going to have to ship it to England - that's really nice and good for the planet innit?

Trashed education system, once the pride of Scotland and the envy of England, now the government dare not participate in global education tables lest their failings become apparent;

Inconsistent, moronic, still in short trousers, not a shred of strategy or common sense, or HONESTY or INTEGRITY - an O level in economic theory wouldn't hurt, or reading Adam Smith.

I do like your Reality Distortion Field - that really sums the SNP up perfectly.

[Anonymous Coward]

But the ace up the sleeve of the SNP is that whenever anyone criticises them they simply point the finger at Westminster and blame lack of funding even though Scotland gets more than its fair share of the pie compared to other regions of the UK.

I find it incredible that while people call out Nigel Farage for some of his little England nationalist policies, its seems its perfectly ok for that exact same type of ideology north of the border to thrive and not only to be acceptable but to be in government! Where are all the islington liberal luvvies decrying the unpleasent devisive nationalism in Holyrood?

[Alan Brown]

> Yer when it comes to wood burning stoves "we need to study how big the impact is"

FWIW motor vehicles are no longer the largest single source of NOX emissions in UK cities.

Euro5/6 might have been flawed but they worked well enough - and the culprits for around 40% of the total NOX emissions in inner London are a vanishingly small number of 1970s gas boiler installations which also emit amazingly high levels of Carbon Monoxide - Each one of these installations causes London to breach its air quality limits in the area they're in, but there's nothing that can be done about them as no legislation covers them and their owners have refused all offers to replace them.

[John Brown (no body)]

"An administration that might change it's mind given time to think, or one which leaps on a rash and ill-conceived idea and decides to stick to it, no matter how damaging for country, economy or international reputation...."

Ever since Maggie Thatcher said "the lady's not for turning", and then did a U turn and got slaughter by the press, every UK politician is terrified of changing their minds and getting called out for it. You'd think this would make them think a little more about the positions they take and the possible consequences, but, no it's full steam ahead and damn the torpedoes (and the rudder is jammed in place).

[Stoneshop]

every UK politician is terrified of changing their minds

so to get ahead of that they've decided to go full mindless.

[eldakka]

The point is they didn't think before they acted, and then waited an age before performing the U-turn.

The problem is, they didn't have the opportunity to think before they acted.

The first, and biggest blunder, was not identifying this as an issue two years ago that had to be one of the things sorted out in the exit process. This was a pretty big blunder by the EU.

This particular issue was not discovered, at least at senior levels decision-making levels, not necessarily at the coal-face levels, only a month or two (I forget the exact initial announcement, but it wasn't long) before Britain was due to leave the EU. Therefore they only had the time to make a quick, not thoroughly analysed, decision to meet the mandated deadlines from on high to reach a decision, that is, something that can be implemented on the date of Brexit.

However, due to the farce that was the Tory parties 'negotiating' tactics, the Brexit date has been pushed twice now, so far anyway, thus giving the bureaucrats who are making these decisions time to perform re-assessments, though each time for a specific deadline of only a few months away, which isn't a whole lot of time to come up with a rule, put it out for comment, and re-asses the rule in view of the comments, and then put it in place.

Therefore a processes that would normally have taken 12-months, if followed through properly with consultation, proposed rules, feedback, adjustments, more feedback then final rule-making, is instead being followed in fits and starts, with separate 2 months here, 3 months there processes which each are supposed to encapsulate the entire normal 12-month process. Which isn't ideal for a rule-making process, thus you get the joke that we see here when the normal processes aren't given the appropriate time to be followed.

[anonymous boring coward]

"The point is they didn't think before they acted, and then waited an age before performing the U-turn."

Regarding a relatively minor issue.

Unlike the UK dumbass Brexiters that are doing the same with all of UK.

[CrazyOldCatMan]

they didn't think before they acted

This is a universal attribute of politicians and bureaucrats. Welcome to Western democracy.

[Jason Bloomberg]

It seems that things have changed "thanks to the changes of the .eu eligibility criteria that as of 19 October 2019 will see the citizenship criteria added to the residency criteria".

Presumably, if we had left when we said we would, then the rules at that time would have applied. But since we didn't, and won't be leaving until the end of October, the new rules will consequently apply.

I am not convinced it's the EU inability to make up its mind which lies at the heart of the confusion, but ours. But Let's blame them anyway; what's another anti-EU lie amongst so many which have gone before?

[Milton]

"... Register is nothing without snark"

The quoted remark is true, and El Reg's constant juvenile punning and self-consciously arch sarcasm do it no favours, undercutting even its most important messages. But I'm still here and so are you, Mr Kennedy, so I guess the good:bad ratio still ultimately works for both of us.

And in truth, it's stories and analysis precisely like this that I come here for. The article makes it abundantly clear that this isn't a simple case of criticising the EU whatever it does, it is instead criticism of the hasty, arrogant-seeming, flawed processes that lead to repeated changes and contradictions. The article's writer is making a solid point: "act in haste, repent at leisure" is horribly true when you're making big decisions.

You can see this with many of the panic-stricken laws rushed onto ther statute book, usually a result of reliably predictable political stupidity and cowardice—one recent appalling example being the ill-considered, ignorant attempt to apply age verification for porn sites.

I'm an unshamed Remainer with serious concerns about the EU, who believes those concerns are best addressed with the use of goodwill and sense from the inside, not childish, destructive carping from the outside. The idiocy of the eu domain ruling would cause considerable nuisance for me ...

... so I am pleased to remind everyone here that actually, Brexit will not happen, whatever the Boris the Blustering Buffoon says or does.

It's been over three years. Do the numbers. ☺

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: "... Register is nothing without snark"

"You can see this with many of the panic-stricken laws rushed onto ther statute book, usually a result of reliably predictable political stupidity and cowardice—one recent appalling example being the ill-considered, ignorant attempt to apply age verification for porn sites."

Wait...what? I thought you were talking about the EU, not the UK.

Gun laws, knife laws, Challenge 18/21/25/30, and yes, the porn age verification are all ill thought out, poorly implemented or knee-jerk laws here in the UK, nothing to do with the EU.

[diodesign]

"the Register is nothing without snark."

Bit like saying a steakhouse is nothing without steak.

C.

[STOP_FORTH]

Re: "the Register is nothing without snark."

I only come here for the snark and the hand-biting. I can read marketing waffle and ranting on the rest of the Web.

(I also come here to suck up to the journos, how sad am I?)

[Jamie Jones]

Re: "the Register is nothing without snark."

Even sadder are those that just post here to suck up to other commentators in the forums, however, I must concede that - as usual - your point was thought-provoking, and really well made. Thanks for posting.

[STOP_FORTH]

Re: "the Register is nothing without snark."

Nothing compared with your elegant post. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

[codejunky]

@Dick Kennedy

"So, you criticise the EU for taking a certain position, then criticise them again when they respond to criticism and do something you thought they should do"

Actually I think the criticism was about this being their 4th dictat with little suggestion they understand the reasoning behind whatever they decide.

[Claverhouse]

All TLDs are a pointless scam, 'www' is enough to identify a string of words as an URL; nonetheless....

People who base their decisions on the EU as to whether the EU permits one to have a an eu domain are pretty sad people.

.

The truth is it doesn't really matter if someone with a geographic identifier in their domain name actually lives there. They only gain benefit from it if they focus on that geographic component. For example, a .uk domain is pretty worthless if it is run by a company that doesn't offer its good or services in the UK.

Au contraire I assume there are some scammers who like to give the impression they are based in one locality whist actually being 1000s of miles away.

[John Robson]

You need a TLD to find a nameserver...

Having a relatively small number of TLDs allows the root servers to work effectively, then it’s up to the 2LD NS to be configured for their load (so nominee probably have more UK based nameservers than elsewhere)

[Anonymous Coward]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_Name_System

[veti]

You are missing the point, which is that a .uk TLD is only useful if you're scamming - sorry, I mean serving - the UK market. You may be based in Nigeria, but that TLD will give a useful false sense of familiarity to only one market segment. It wouldn't help you scam, e.g., Germans or Americans.

[Anonymous Coward]

"if you're scamming - sorry, I mean serving - the UK market"

No, it can be used to scam a larger market easily - don't think just about scams selling some fake goods, think a bit larger, i.e. setting up a fake financial entity where telling you are located in UK may give you a paint of credibility.

Anyway, why don't get rid of countries tlds, if they don't matter so much? Or they actually matter, regardless of how the Internet works - because people aren't virtual yet?

[Milton]

Scammers

"Au contraire I assume there are some scammers who like to give the impression they are based in one locality whist [sic] actually being 1000s of miles away."

Given the absurd ease with which email sender data can be spoofed, will they care?

And given that the UK is one of those countries where you can purchase the use of 'origin' phone numbers that are specifically designed to make it look as if your calls come from a specific STD zone—i.e. it's perfectly legal to mislead potential and actual customers as to your geographic presence—I'm not sure this is a distinction worth pursuing for most people. It's a cat that's too hard to put back in the bag, for too little benefit.

[Stoneshop]

Re: Scammers

Given the absurd ease with which email sender data can be spoofed, will they care?

Email, yes, but scammers who want to appear more credible (i.e. not the niece of the brother-in-law of the air traffic controller who received the mayday call from the pilot of the airplane that crashed with this stupendously rich ex-president on board, who you communicate with only via email and maybe skype) would want to set up an authentic-looking website with the proper TLD.

[Claverhouse]

And So, A Long Farewell Forever

And for those who prefer our own, uniquely British, genius, some people may have missed the estimable Mr. Crace's miltonic Elegy for the Departure of Christopher Grayling from the Service of the State Master of Disaster

.

Nor does he neglect to sweat the small stuff, pissing away £72,000 on a failed legal challenge to his plans to stop prisoners reading books. Say what you like, Chris is a details man. A man who understands his job perfectly. To make all those around him look slightly less half-witted.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: And So, A Long Farewell Forever

well, to be fair to him, his only weak point was TOTAL INCOMPETENCE...

[Alan Brown]

Re: And So, A Long Farewell Forever

I thought that was his strongest point

Rimmer Graying

[Dan 55]

The way that the EC has dealt with the question of .eu domains is indicative of the broader issues that led so many Brits to vote for Brexit in the first place: boldly stated bad decisions made without proper consultation and built on ignorance that are then subsequently changed by equally confident changes after flaws in the first decision are highlighted. See also the lies about bendy bananas and chilled kippers that helps fuel the Brexit mess.

I don't understand, how do two lies thought up by Boris Johnson (one a couple of decades ago and one last week) equate to a member state leaving the EU? Before then it was pretty cut and dried (you live in the EU, you can get a .eu domain), the question is how to grandfather people with a .eu domain based in the UK.

The EU is a petty burocratic rules-based institution and is found wanting in some areas, but the approach managed to bring 28 countries together. How else are they supposed to trust each other if not through rules?

Which will do better in the long term? Three decades of bollocks in the media plus a decade of austerity and an establishment hell-bent on winding back the clock or some semblance of rules? I'd like to think the latter.

[Reg Reader 1]

It is very important to consider who owns the media and how it is reported. Early on I was pro-Brexit, but since changed my mind on that issue. I think that England would be poorly served to try and go it alone. The US is proving a fickle friend and considering that England has little in the way of natural resources I do wonder how they'd make a go once that have to negotiate everything outside of the EU.

edited to report that I am neither a British nor EU citizen, but a very interested observer

[Slx]

Oh great!

I come to El Reg to read tech stories and escape toxic UK and US politics and now it's gone all Brexity.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd consider the EC staggering more wildly than a drunk straight off a roller coaster on a TLD to be more than a bit relevant. And one doesn't really have to have an opinion on the overarching politics to have some on this particular issue(though I suppose believing the trigger won't be pulled until February 30^th makes the discussion more entertaining).

[Warm Braw]

Too late!

I didn't renew my .eu domain in the expectation it would be cancelled anyway. And it also prompted me to get rid of a couple of other 'just in case' registrations. Í'll put the savings towards my 'no deal' stockpile...

[DoctorNine]

Re: Too late!

Well. You could always go with .xxx as it is. I'm sure you'd increase traffic.

[Nano nano]

Nigel ?

That's a rather Brexity article, isn't it ?!

[codejunky]

Re: Nigel ?

@Nano nano

It nice to have some variety.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Domains based on citizenship?

So they would welcome .com only being available to US citizens?

Or Prime Minister Farage taking away .co.uk from anyone who wasn't judged sufficiently British

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Domains based on citizenship?

".us is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for the United States of America. It was established in 1985. Registrants of .us domains must be American citizens, residents, or organizations, or a foreign entity with a presence in the United States of America." - Wikipedia

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Domains based on citizenship?

I really doubt the US polices that too carefully, but there is little demand for them. I've only ever seen city government and schools using it, I've never seen a company that uses it.

I'll bet the only reason people want to use .eu domains is because the .com they wanted was taken.

[STOP_FORTH]

Re: Domains based on citizenship?

It's like postage stamps, innit. Invented in the UK so we don't have to print the country on our stamps.

Same with the Internet, invented in USA, so they are the only country that doesn't need a geographic identifier.

Or something.

[STOP_FORTH]

Re: Domains based on citizenship?

I know it's pointless, sad and rather pathetic to complain about or respond to downvoters.

However AFAIK my post was completely true.

Two people don't like the truth?

Who am I, Jack Nicholson?

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: Domains based on citizenship?

"However AFAIK my post was completely true."

No, it wasn't. As other have already posted elsewhere, the US has a country TLD just like every other country.

[Stoneshop]

Re: Domains based on citizenship?

I'll bet the only reason people want to use .eu domains is because the .com they wanted was taken.

No, the .eu TLD offers more options for wordplay than .com does.

Parbl.eu.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: Domains based on citizenship?

> residents, or organizations, or a foreign entity with a presence

Yes that makes sense. Registering europe-tours.eu for my company in London that does tours in the Eu makes equal sense, but demanding that the register-er be a Eu citizen to do it - does not.

Domains are owned by corporations, corporations do not have citizenship they have jurisdictions.

Is it ok if I hire an Irish intern to fill in the form?

Am I ok having doing it myself as long as I have an Irish grandparent ?

[SImon Hobson]

Re: Domains based on citizenship?

No problem, if they haven't already, a number of registrars based in the EU will be happy to proxy for you so you can continue to have your .eu domain. Many countries have similar rules, and all have ways around them - mostly by a registrar having a "local presence" which may be as little as a PO Box !

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Domains based on citizenship?

Some domains are already limited by citizenship/residence - not all entities managing country tlds allow registration if you're not a local citizen or have a local residence. There is not a common rule.

[werdsmith]

Re: Domains based on citizenship?

So they would welcome .com only being available to US citizens?

.com is the domain for a business "COMpany". As far as I know it is not only the United States that has companies, I believe that there are also some in South Korea and China.

[Anonymous Coward]

.fu

Anyone?

[devTrail]

Re: .fu

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fu_(surname)

[veti]

Re: .fu

Everyone!

[Bob. Hitchen]

Re: .fu

.feu!

Seriously I'd like a browser extension that blocked domains especially eu.

[devTrail]

Brexit or not Brexit

The Brexit issue is overshadowing the fact that the tone of this article is the classic laissez-faire corporate friendly propaganda.

The previous decision was meant to keep prices under control and protect small businesses. Unfortunately after the rise of fake populism which weakened the real opposition big business has stepped up their lobbying effort in Brussels. The election of a corporate puppet as the president of the EU commission is a strong evidence.

[James Anderson]

Re: Brexit or not Brexit

Duh! Big business could not care less about the EU domain other than they may feel the need to register to protect thier brand name.

The only benefit is for small businesses trading in the EU who could nab a sensible URL, as all the useful .com ones are taken.

[devTrail]

Re: Brexit or not Brexit

There's a contradiction in what you say:

... Big business could not care less about the EU domain ... ... all the useful .com ones are taken.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Brexit or not Brexit

They're saying Big Business as already taken their .com version, and don't need the .eu one.

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait, I just felt the sanity boulder budge a few inches uphill...

Or, in this case, several centimeters.

The Brussels Eurocracy must have received their prosthetic foot, having blown the real one off several months back on this issue.

[I ain't Spartacus]

Re: Wait, I just felt the sanity boulder budge a few inches uphill...

Well it's only sanity a little bit. I mean, it's great that they're now allowing EU citizens resident in the UK to keep their domains - a decision that's way overdue and something they should have thought of when making their stupid and arbitrary decision before.

But they're still banning all non-EU citizens in the UK from keeping their domains. Which in my view is still a shitty decision.

Particularly when 10% of .eu domains are registered from the UK - which might suggest that dealing with this issue would be better done at a rather slower pace. Unlike things like customs arrangements, there was literally no need to rush this decision - or to rush implementing whatever decision was eventually taken.

It might not be all that important, in the grand scheme of things, given how relatively unimportant the .eu domain is - but nonetheless the Commission have handled it pretty poorly (and I'd argue pretty mean-spiretedly) - and should be called out on it.

[Disgusted of Cheltenham]

Bananas

It was the EEC long before the EU that made special provision for 'dollar' bananas. This bit of history shouldn't be assumed to be a lie just because it was pre-internet:

https://www.cvce.eu/en/obj/treaty_establishing_the_eec_protocol_on_the_tariff_quota_for_imports_of_bananas_rome_25_march_1957-en-3bcfd762-ac40-422d-90a3-1bef6b69d255.html

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Bananas

https://blogs.ec.europa.eu/ECintheUK/curved-bananas/

[JLV]

My fave wasn’t the bendy bananas, or the harmonization of condom girths (which took years cuz the Italians insisted their men needed an extra mm).

Nope, I’ll vote for imposing the display of metric weights in groceries in the UK. As if they needed to protect muppet tourists who couldn’t deal with pounds and ounces while cooking up paella during their holidays. Keeping in mind that many countries, France for example, have a culinary tradition that leans heavily toward the colloquial use of pounds in retail: “ Donnez-moi une livre de foie gras, SVP”, “Mag ik een pond verse worst”.

Brexit is..., well..., let’s be polite and say nothing if one has nothing nice to say. PM BoJo, FTW!!! But asinine Brussels rule-making, contravening the subsidiarity principle sure helped getting y’all there.

[Malcolm Weir]

Hate to interrupt this typical anti-EU nonsense (and by the way, has anyone noticed that all bureaucrats do the same sort of thing that the Brexiteers like to point at; for an easy example, google "Windrush"...)...

BUT the UK decided to adopt metric units in 1965, eight years before the EEC could have had any say in the matter. Britain has long insisted (via Trading Standards laws) that units be indicated when selling goods by volume, weight or length, so it was inevitable that, sooner or later, a mandate would appear that official units be used. The fact that the EU was a part of that mandated policy doesn't mean that, absent the EU, the policy wouldn't have occurred!

(Interestingly, the UK's metrification was handled very well: the suppliers -- farmers, manufacturers, etc -- were required to start reporting to the government in metric units. Consumers were left largely alone, and basic capitalism took care of much of the rest of the transition).

[ Also: anyone who laments the loss of the Imperial system is, in my view, clinically unwell... ! ]

[devTrail]

[ Also: anyone who laments the loss of the Imperial system is, in my view, clinically unwell... ! ]

If you are talking about private citizens you may be right, if you are talking about businesses I'm not so sure. The imperial system is a good protectionist tool..

[JLV]

well, then the UK could have been left to its own devices to legislate the grocery bit itself, no? that’s a pretty weak argument you’re making.

it’s not like I’m keen on imperial units - we had a 2 week session when I was in the US studying engineering when they forced us to use them? know what a slug is? do you know how fun it is to be reasoning in terms of 32.1740 lb, but no one’s quite sure if it’s a mass or weight? everyone, including all the Americans, hated that session. makes El Reg swimming pool units seem limpid. that’s why any actual engineering and science is almost always metric, shipping and aviation aside.

hate to break it to you: i’m pro-EU. just not tribal enough to think they’ve never done anything stupid.

[devTrail]

Whenever Bitons wanted exemptions special clauses and opt outs they always got them. They changed the groceries legislation without a whim because it was in their interest.

[Anonymous Coward]

Going metric

The UK may have started off switching to metric quite well, with significant efforts to get industries to start using metric units, and, yes, indeed, school education also started off very well (which is where the person (and inferred old fart) who foolishly claimed that it was only foreigners who couldn't understand the old lb/oz weights in shops was completely wrong: there should never have been a 20 year delay between converting the two), but then it all came to a juddering halt.

We are now in a stupid situation where we design and build roads and railways, cars and trains, in metric, but then put up distance and speed limit signs in "mph". We should do what Ireland did and add km distances to new signs so that, at a later date, the speed limit signs can be easily converted over as well.

It causes nothing but confusion to use a mish-mash of units in our lives, and I'm sure it plays no small part in the UK being less of a significant industrial nation than it was.

[AndrueC]

Re: Going metric

I started school in 1972. I was taught the metric system, and have never been taught imperial. Possibly it was because the school (Black Firs in Congleton) had only just been built but it seems to me that since the education system taught me metric in 1971 something has been badly managed that so many people are still using the imperial system.

Currently I only use imperial for two things: Driving and golf.

[Jamie Jones]

Re: Going metric

How tall are you, and how much do you weigh? :-)

[AndrueC]

Re: Going metric

1.81 metres, and I usually weigh a bit less than 80 kg. Weight measurement was the last thing I switched to, albeit many years ago now. I inherited the use of stones from my family but when I bought some digital bathroom scales I made the decision to set them to metric. It took me about half a dozen weighs to become happy with kg and I no longer know what my weight is in stones nor care.

[Dave559]

Re: Going metric

Similarly for me for height and weight: I have always measured my height in cm, because that's what I was taught at school (and all that I was taught at school: they literally (and quite rightly) did not teach us anything about imperial measurements at all as they would be going away by the time we left school, uhhh, oops.), and my parents had the foresight not to contradict this (and also many childrenswear shops had height charts on the wall where you could measure your height in cm).

Like the previous poster, as a child, I gave my weight in stone (because it was written in Huge Numbers on the scales, whereas the kg figures were all but invisible), until I eventually realised, as a young adult: "I have literally no idea what these numbers are supposed to mean at all" (we weigh nothing else at all in stone, it's ridiculous), and so I also switched to measuring my weight in kilos, which are real numbers that I know the meaning of.

[Jamie Jones]

Re: Going metric

Ahhh, you thwarted my evil potential gotcha! I'd wrongly assumed you'd still be using imperial for those, and I would have gotten away with it, too, if it wasn't for you meddling kids!

I never did imperial measures in school, and whilst I use metric for smaller lengths, I still use miles (and hours!), and feet/inches/stones/pounds for height and weight.

I was originally a gallon person too, but was too young to drive back then. I couldn't deal with anything but litres for petrol now, so I guess it's what you're used to in every day life (though people still using Fahrenheit need to be shot!)

[JLV]

Re: Going metric

>inferred old fart

Oh, do fuck off. I prefer metric. And I would also prefer it if the UK found a way to stay in the EU. I would totally get if the UK decided to dump the whole imperial mess, including in groceries.

But, I question the logic whereby the EU felt it had to intervene in what’s essentially internal UK affairs in this case. That’s subsidiarity was supposed to be about. Especially, in hindsight, targeting the one country who is doing imperial while it happens to have a strong Eurosceptic sentiment. Waving a red flag to a bull, essentially.

There’s always a tension between under and over-regulation. Or having the wrong kind of regulation. Pai’s FCC usually manages to get it wrong on both ends. Not vetting say nutrition supplements would qualify as under-regulation, because of health risks. The French policing bakery displays depending on where the bread is made is over-regulation: not much harm will come of a bad bread, the customers can vote with their feet ( a trade association logo would be different, it’s not a law).

Regulations against national industrial subsidies at the EU level have been hugely positive, by keeping national governments from propping up crony capitalism.

My point is that it achieved little from an EU perspective to regulate in _this_ particular instance and it was shooting itself in the foot PR-wise. Add up enough dumb regulation and you are enabling the build up of a toxic narrative of distrust in government. It was never about the defending the imperial system or English rather quixotic approaches to measures: Fahrenheit, alcohol proofs, gun sizes in pounds, etc...

Doesn’t excuse the naivety of Brexiteers, but hopefully lessons will be learned that regulation usually involves an expenditure of political capital and goodwill. Forcing fee and kickback disclosures by financial advisors benefits the majority so you get a payback in terms of sentiment and increased economic output - the regulator ends up more appreciated. Regulating hair dressers doesn’t and probably signals hidden taxes and limited competition.

I believe the main loss to the EU from the UK’s departure will be the loss of the occasional sanity check when some of the other big countries want to enforce EU-wide regulation, such as France’s long held dream of a EU-wide corporate tax rate (don’t put words in my mouth here: I find tax avoidance shenanigans abhorrent). Besides getting occasional opt-out the UK often asked the salutary question of why a particular regulation ought to be EU-wide.

And, just so as you seem slow on the uptake “PM Bojo FTW” was most definitely sarcastic. In reality I think it’s no coincidence him and the Orange Buffoon are best pals.

So, again with inferred old fart: je pete dans ta direction generale, pauvre con.

[werdsmith]

Re: Going metric

I am fluently bilingual in metric and imperial. The metric is simplistic and clinical and is based on a correlation between base 10 and the total number of digits on a human's hand. The imperial is quirky, inconsistent but elegant and derived from older systems I think.

Continental Europeans do not generally know imperial measures, but they are mostly fluent in other spoken languages. I would much rather be good at languages than measurement systems.

[Intractable Potsherd]

Re: Going metric @JLV

"But, I question the logic whereby the EU felt it had to intervene in what’s essentially internal UK affairs in this case." Assuming you are talking about weights and measures, the EU didn't interfere at all. The relevant Regulation simply said that packaged goods must show the weight etc in metric somewhere on the package (harmonisation of trade). It did not, however, say that other units could not be used on the packaging. The UK government decided to gold-plate the legislation (surprise!), and then went for broke with legislation that required market traders (i.e. sellers of *unpackaged* goods) to use metric measurements, leading to the totally unedifying case of the "Metric Martyrs", in which Laws J completely misread the law and played into the hands of the EU haters.

[Anonymous Coward]

re. BUT the UK decided to adopt metric units in 1965, eight years before the EEC

NEVER let the truth get in the way of a good story. As brilliantly demonstrated (again, and again) by our soon-to-be Glorious Leader. And his equally glorious, no doubt, minister for economy and other stuff, Mr Rees-Mogg. God save us, nevermind the queen...

[Anonymous Coward]

https://blogs.ec.europa.eu/ECintheUK/curved-bananas/

[Dan 55]

It's all bollocks, and probably written by BoJo in the first place in the late 80s-early 90s:

Condom dimensions to be harmonised

Bananas and Brussels

Off target by a long shot

[JLV]

I admit, I was off on the condoms. Bananas are EU, even they admit.

Your quote is being disingenuous on the metric however. What did I say? Metric display in groceries. Nothing else. Not even _removal_ of imperial in said groceries.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metrication_in_the_United_Kingdom

Read the part about retail, esp sold by weight. In fact the EU didnt impose removal of imperial, but did impose the presence of metrics. Retailers or the UK govt simplified to just metric, rather than metric + imp. Why do you bring up 65? Did I talk about that?

The point isn't really that these are great hardships, they’re not. It’s that they’re not especially useful _and_ ended up playing to the nationalist fringe. I suspect they’d have latched on to something else.

>probably written by BoJo

which was precisely my point, the PR aspect. When you lose a battle, even if your cause is right, it’s useful to understand all the little mistakes that got you there. Otherwise you are at risk of repeating failure.

Next time maybe the EU can think twice about putting in nanny rules, or rules that could be anticipated to be misrepresented as such. It should also, a bit like the FTC in the US with interstate commerce criterias, really check if harmonization is needed or can be left to national legislatures.

There are plenty of other things for the EU to rule usefully about, such as the gradual erosion of civil rights under Viktor Orban or the Polish Piss. Those _will_ also generate pushback, but seem somewhat more worthwhile.

Oh well, all these downvotes on something tongue in cheek make me think y’all are really sore about that upcoming trainwreck. Used to be Commentards were about 50/50 leading up to and right after the referendum. Discounting foreigners, like me, who were probably never really impressed, might even have meant a higher % of Brits.

I guess it’s a tribute to commentard IQ that so many now realize that it was a mistake. Even if a no deal is somehow avoided, which I doubt.

Peace.

[Dan 55]

Read the part about retail, esp sold by weight. In fact the EU didnt impose removal of imperial, but did impose the presence of metrics. Retailers or the UK govt simplified to just metric, rather than metric + imp. Why do you bring up 65? Did I talk about that?

65 is being brought up because "The drive for alignment with global moves in this direction was started by a British government more than 40 years ago [at that time] – in 1965, eight years before the United Kingdom joined the EU".

If metrification is a British government policy then eventually things will have to use metric measures several decades later. There's no point having metrification without them.

The government could have, if it wanted to, rowed back on metrification and opted out of metric measures in the UK. But it didn't because metrification is a British government policy. Done over a very long protracted period of time.

There are already idiot politicians calling for a return to imperial measures after Brexit, but that will get as far as the border because the UK will have to trade with the rest of the world and most people under 45 use metric measures anyway so it won't fly.

[Chubby Chuckles]

the suffix '.eu' speaks volumes for the stinking mess around the european union....

[Anonymous Coward]

That would be England?

[Anonymous Coward]

Remember: The EU will categorically, never ever re-open negotiations on the withdrawal agreement...

...and if you believe that, I have a bridge to sell you!

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: The EU will categorically, never ever re-open negotiations on the withdrawal agreement...

the withdrawal agreement

There is no agreement. There is a proposal on the table which was rejected by the UK parliament 3 times. The EU negotiators like to describe it as an agreement, since it makes the "EU says No" position look better, but in order for there to be an agreement both sides have to agree, and they haven't, yet.

[Dan 55]

Re: The EU will categorically, never ever re-open negotiations on the withdrawal agreement...

The UK agreed a draft with the EU, went back, then couldn't get the vote through Parliament.

[Fonant]

Re: The EU will categorically, never ever re-open negotiations on the withdrawal agreement...

The Withdrawal Agreement is indeed an official Agreement. The clue is in the title.

The Withdrawal Agreement is the result of two years of negotiation between the officially-appointed negotiation teams for UK and EU. It specifies in some detail how the UK will leave the EU in an orderly fashion, with a transition period during which the UK can negotiate new trade deals and international agreements while still keeping EU benefits as things change over. It is published, you can read it.

The Agreement hit the buffers when the UK Parliament refused to ratify it.

The EU won't re-open negotiations because (a) there isn't time before 31 October 2019 and (b) the EU is in the process of electing new leaders.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: The EU will categorically, never ever re-open negotiations on the withdrawal agreement...

the EU is in the process of electing new leaders.

And the parliament recently approved the commission leader by only 52%, where have I seen that number before?

[John Robson]

Re: The EU will categorically, never ever re-open negotiations on the withdrawal agreement...

They would reopen it if, and only if, the magic “red lines” we’re significantly changed.

There would be no particular reason not to, but their position is very clear - and we should be able to take a document to the table and say “this should be the new agreement” and they would be able to read through and go “yep, that meets all the rules and positions we have been saying for the last n years”

[werdsmith]

Re: Remember: The EU will categorically,

"...and if you believe that, I have a bridge to sell you!"

---

Why do people keep using this? McCulloch knew exactly what he was doing when he bought the facing stones for his new access road to Lake Havasu City. It turned out to be very lucrative and to this day the city trades on that story.

Who is the astute one?

[Phil O'Sophical]

Re: Remember: The EU will categorically,

McCulloch knew exactly what he was doing

The phrase has nothing to do with McCulloch's purchase of London Bridge. It's a reference to con-man George Parker's habit of repeatedly selling the Brooklyn Bridge to gullible investors.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: The EU will categorically, never ever re-open negotiations on the withdrawal agreement...

I think they already settled / accepted no deal when March came and went, they have no interest to participate in this farce anymore, and have more important problems to solve (for which there seems to be no solution, but hey, we've got something else to worry about now). They have accepted UK is getting out with no deal, and I think they just can't wait until we finally fuck off and stop getting in their way. And if we want the tariffs - shrug, that's what a no-deal mean, no? EU can live without the UK.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: The EU will categorically, never ever re-open negotiations on the withdrawal agreement...

I think they already settled / accepted no deal when March came and went, they have no interest to participate in this farce anymore, and have more important problems to solve (for which there seems to be no solution, but hey, we've got something else to worry about now).They have accepted UK is getting out with no deal, and I think they just can't wait until we finally fuck off and stop getting in their way. And if we want the tariffs - shrug, that's what a no-deal mean, no?

If your thesis is correct, why on Earth did they over us an extension then? And why are they already discussing offering an extension to the extension. Perhaps the potential loss of the £9 billion net contribution straight into the EU's coffers might have something to do with it?

It's always about the money, stupid.

EU can live without the UK.

And as the 5th largest economy in the world, the UK can live without the EU.

[JLV]

Re: The EU will categorically, never ever re-open negotiations on the withdrawal agreement...

Q: How do you get to be the 6th largest economy in the world?

A: You start as the 5th.

The EU, even if it wanted to sweeten the deal, would face an Irish veto if whatever is agreed to is considered by them to be contrary to their vital interests. Since the UK's main sticking point is precisely the backstop, that leaves you with very little common ground, almost no leverage and with a political system which has been shown to be incapable of actually taking decisions.

Plus, they're likely tired of May-be Yes, May-be No and that's coming from a politician, who, while she didn't the greatest job, at least tried her best with the weak hand she was holding. BoJo is into soundbites more than anything else and is generally not deemed a good faith interlocutor by Europeans. I suspect the European public is also really fed up with the whole mess and want to get it over with.

To answer your question, http://www-personal.umich.edu/~jlawler/aue/sig.html Maybe the UK will have a general election or new referendum and come to its sense, so, within limits, there's no huge downside to allowing you time to think things through. Really doubt it's about fulfilling your lil fantasies.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: The EU will categorically, never ever re-open negotiations on the withdrawal agreement...

Plus, they're likely tired of May-be Yes, May-be No and that's coming from a politician, who, while she didn't the greatest job, at least tried her best with the weak hand she was holding.

May did an excellent job of trying to make Brexit impossible - exactly as you would expect from a Remainer and establishment stooge. This was clear when she appointed Brexiteers to the position of Brexit Secretary then proceeded to freeze them out of the negotiations, preferring instead to rely upon the arch-Remaniac Olly Robbins and his cronies in the Remainer civil service.

To answer your question, http://www-personal.umich.edu/~jlawler/aue/sig.html Maybe the UK will have a general election or new referendum and come to its sense, so, within limits, there's no huge downside to allowing you time to think things through. Really doubt it's about fulfilling your lil fantasies.

Ah the old, giving us time to come to our senses canard! We voted to leave. It's called democracy - that thing that's absolutely antithetical to the EU.

https://pics.me.me/nothing-undemocratic-at-all-about-the-eu-folks-fig-3-2891606.png

The reason the EU never takes no for an answer and will try its absolute best to prevent the UK from leaving is two fold.

Firstly, they need our money. Remember only 10 of the 28 member states are net contributors to the budget. It's difficult enough for the EU to keep the likes of Hungary and Poland onside as it is. How do you think they'll react when the EU turns round and says "oh sorry guys, you're going to be taking a big pay cut but we still expect x, y and z from you!"

Secondly, the idea of a big fish getting away and establishing an alternative, independent path into the future will pose an existential threat to the entire concept of the EU. The federalist approach of ever closer union has failed and instead of acknowledging this, the EU can only propose more of the same. So far they have managed to keep up the pretence of solidarity but all of the simmering tensions lying close to the surface in multiple nations (gilets jaunes, populist movements in Italy and Spain, the broken generation in Greece etc.) will flare up once again when we enter the next financial crisis.

Hopefully, by that stage the nightmarish, neoliberal EU will well and truly be banished to the pages of history!

[JLV]

Re: The EU will categorically, never ever re-open negotiations on the withdrawal agreement...

On the second point, I’m pretty sure your independent path will serve more as a cautionary tale than anything else. Which is, again, another reason why you can, at best, expect strict-but-just treatment in negotiations with them: they have no incentive to make leaving a success, so no reason to go out of their way, in some ways this is worse than a divorce where accommodation is a good game theory strategy.

Will the EU suffer from the UK’s departure? Probably somewhat. Dogmatic nationalists like you aside, the UK’s been a positive influence and a net contributor. Will the UK suffer more? Well, that seems to be the going bet according to foreign direct investment and forex, esp on a no deal. Even to your central bank. But what do they know, compared to anonymous geniuses like yourself? It’s an interesting experiment, for sure. Always good when someone else makes those even if we rarely get singing horses :-)

Broken generation in Greece? Please. Greed by German and French bankers loaning to that country, sure. But mostly a crappy economy, abysmal tax collection, overgenerous social spending and pensions, knowingly faking official stats to get into the Euro. Without the EU they’d have defaulted, just like Argentina. Which might actually have been better for them.

The gilets jaunes are not a surprising phenomenon to someone French like me, it’s the logical extension of the 68tards’ belief that governments have no right to make any unpopular decisions or reforms _between_ elections and has much less to do with the EU than you think. And are you really upholding Italy as any kind of political or economic model? LOL.

Let’s chat 2 yrs from now and see who was closer. I’ve had the guts to post this to my handle, AC dear.

[Starace]

Are .eu domains worth having?

I've always seen them as second tier and the only thing that they suited was EU institutions.

For everything else there always seem to be better options.

[I ain't Spartacus]

Re: Are .eu domains worth having?

We're in the construction industry. Mostly southern England, mostly commercial work, so fewer of the small companies. Just done a quick search of our 9,000 individual contacts' addresses we've got:

5,000 .co.uk

3,000 .com

200 .uk.com

90 .net

40 .org.uk

20 .org

3 .plumbing

10 .biz

9 .eu and 5 .eu.com

[Anonymous Coward]

What about .europe ?

The British domain Registrar should offer .europe domains, after all it's just the undemocratic, corrupt EU we're leaving, not Europe.

I make a point of never buying anything offered on a .eu domain.

[rtfazeberdee]

Re: What about .europe ?

"after all it's just the undemocratic, corrupt EU we're leaving" i see you are one of those brexiters that has no clue about reality. Post your proof about your claim. If you want to try the "it hasn't posted any accounts" lie, research the EU website first. (sorry, i know its against brexiters rules to research as it teaches truth but try it) The UK is more corrupt and undemocratic than anywhere in the EU i.e. it allows a minority government that represents less than 50% of the population to vote, it allows a corrupt referendum to stand, it allows government ministers to blatantly lie, etc etc

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: What about .europe ?

- Von Der Leyen has just been 'elected' as EU President - there were no other names on the ballot papers, North Korean election stylee

- The members of the EU Court of Auditors are appointed by...the European Council. Very 'independent'

]>The UK is more corrupt and undemocratic than anywhere in the EU<

I see you are one of those remainiacs who shills for Brussels. Have you ever done business in Greece, Spain, Italy,...

[Fonant]

Re: What about .europe ?

Von Der Leyen was selected as EU President of the European Commission by the EU Council (Comprising the heads of state of all EU countries, President of the EU Council and President of the EU Commission).

The EU Parliament (MEPs directly elected by you and me) then have an opportunity to vote against the Commissioners' choice, which we've just had. At any time the EU Parliament can vote to remove the EU President and their Commission.

The EU is nowhere near perfect, and nowhere near corruption-free. But at least get the basics right!

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: What about .europe ?

Comedy gold

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: What about .europe ?

The EU Parliament ... then have an opportunity to vote against the Commissioners' choice,

Yes, it's all carefully stage-managed. The unelected commissioners chose their preferred candidate (which isn't the one the parliament wanted) and then parliament has the choice of "deal" or "no deal". If it's "no deal" the commissioners can offer someone else, until parliament caves in.

At any time the EU Parliament can vote to remove the EU President and their Commission.

They only have that nuclear option, they can't remove individual commissioners, or sanction the commission, all they can do is blow the whole thing away, which of course the commission knows they will never, ever, do.

But at least get the basics right!

They have a veneer of democracy over the top of a dirigiste autocracy. Not sure anyone but a dedicated career civil servant would consider that "getting the basics right"

[Phil O'Sophical]

Re: What about .europe ?

The UK is more corrupt and undemocratic than anywhere in the EU

To echo your own request "Post your proof about your claim.". You might want to check with Transparency International before wasting too much time on it, though. You'll find that the UK is the 11th least corrupt country in the world, well ahead of most EU countries.

[Jamie Jones]

Re: What about .europe ?

"The British domain Registrar should offer .europe domains, after all it's just the undemocratic, corrupt EU we're leaving, not Europe."

https://paulbigland.blog/2016/05/24/the-big-brexit-myth-of-an-undemocratic-eu/

"I make a point of never buying anything offered on a .eu domain."

That says far more about you than you should be proud to admit.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: What about .europe ?

>That says far more about you than you should be proud to admit.<

It says I'm delighted we're leaving the EU on 31st Oct, deal or no deal.

[don't you hate it when you lose your account]

Re: What about .europe ?

But after the fact I doubt you'll be willing to take responsibility for what happens after that. What a shame

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: What about .europe ?

What responsibility?! It will be - what else? - all the EU'S FAULT FOR PUSHING US OUT!!! :D

[Tom Paine]

Oh please

The way that the EC has dealt with the question of .eu domains is indicative of the broader issues that led so many Brits to vote for Brexit in the first place [BS continues]

This isn't an article, it's a troll.

[Jamie Jones]

Re: Oh please

Yes!

People voted brexit because of immigration, the undemocratic EU ruling over us, them taking £350 milion from the NHS, them restricting our trading ability, and bendy bananas.

Not to mention, every dodgy decision made by our successive governments, and blamed by them on the EU.

All easily debunkable lies, which makes this whole sordid mess even more annoying.

[Big_Boomer]

EU problems

Like so many of the EU problems, some of the fault lies at our door.

We (the UK) were amongst those who insisted that the Council of Ministers and the European Commission had all the power, and that the European Parliament remained toothless, so it is partially our fault that the EU is "undemocratic". Our "democratically" elected representatives made certain of that. That said, our system of electing MPs is also undemocratic, simply because it is unrepresentative.

It is ****ing hilarious that you are pointing at the EU's indecision over the .eu rules, when the UKs current bureaucracy makes them look organised and decisive.

[Huw D]

Re: Brexit

TBH, I'm fed up to here with the whole palaver.

Just get on with it. If we leave the remainers won't be happy. If we remain, the leavers won't be happy.

Do someting and at least only approximately half the country will be moaning rather than all of it.

[I ain't Spartacus]

Re: Brexit

Polling around the months after the referendum suggested that a compromise on EEA membership might have got over 60% support. That is when people were polled on choices between freedom of movement and economic integration, that seemed to be the sweet spot from the polling. Though probably a lot fewer people understood the issues then, and I doubt many grasp them now.

Some leavers weren't concerned about immigration/freedom of movement. Although many remainers are - they just thought leaving was too high a risk/price to pay to restrict it.

However that would still require some fudging on customs (as Norway do) - or the UK staying in the customs union and losing most of the power to make independent trade deals - the reason Turkey is possibly about to leave its customs agreement with the EU).

For some reason May settled on trying to have as close a customs integration as possible, either because of business lobbying or Civil Service advice - and decided that freedom of movement was too high a price for being in the Single Market.

From the decisions the Commission have made, I'm not sure going the Norway route would have significantly changed things, due to their stance on Northern Ireland. As apparently having a customs barrier between the two halves of Ireland breaks the Good Friday agreement, but somehow magically having a border between NI and the rest of the UK doesn't. So I suspect we might still have ended up in substantially the same place, but maybe positions wouldn't have hardened in the same way, so maybe not.

[Stoneshop]

Re: Brexit

Do someting and at least only approximately half the country will be moaning rather than all of it.

No, the other half will be moaning that it hasn't been done right/was found to have unforeseen consequences/etc.

[Jason Bloomberg]

Re: Brexit

Just get on with it... Do someting and at least only approximately half the country will be moaning rather than all of it.

And that's the problem. No matter what we do half the country won't be happy, and will be more visibly unhappy than we have ever seen them before. Some of the options for 'just do it' will make the overwhelming majority unhappy. And it seems that's what we are heading for.

This is why it was an advisory referendum; with parliament somehow expected to come up with a plan. Treating it as a legally binding referendum was the fuck-up which has now got us into an existential crisis there is no way out of.

We're fucked, and it will only get worse when we run out of popcorn.

[Huw D]

Re: Brexit

"We're fucked, and it will only get worse until we run out of politicians."

FTFY.

[Stoneshop]

Re: Brexit

"We're fucked, and it will only get worse until we run out of politicians."

Gallows are multiple use, as are guillotines, so those won't be a limiting factor. Bullets aren't, but I expect there to be plentiful stock.

[secura]

EU: Only explanation, no contradiction at all

The EU deserves criticism. A discussion by many point of views should be welcomed by anybody.

I want to say only something about the argument, that EU has changed its position concerning the subject "Brexit and .eu".

The position is clear:

1. Hard Brexit means, British citizens and companies lose their Eu-Domain.

(My comment:

British citizens and companies will find registrars to continue the registration of their .eu domains by trustees.)

2. If there is an agreement between EU and Great Britain, the question of .eu domains for British people and companies will be solved.

EURID has now made a new policy, which allows EU citizen living outside the EU, to register .eu domains.

Now EURID explains, that this new policy is self-evident applied also to Great Britain, if Great Britain should be one day outside the EU.

This clarification is no contradiction to former positions of the EU and EURID.

Hans-Peter Oswald

[sitta_europea]

For the last couple of years, every IP which tries to send me mail from .eu domains get dropped into my TARPIT.

[Dan 55]

I sat at the EU’s negotiating table for years – and saw how great Britain’s influence was

Obviously this article is wrong because the narrative is the UK never had any influence and so must leave. Let's not let facts get in the way of a good story to get us all riled up.

[Oligova]

Bye Bye

Looking (from the outside) at all the back and forth in GB politics in the last year I'm not quite sure this is only a EU issue. All this could have been properly arranged and agreed upon.

In any case, living and working in the region between Luxembourg and Frankfurt, I want to thank the british voters for all the business oportunities they have created already here for us in the region :)

[BusinessM8]

UK businesses and individuals CANNOT ‘own’ a .eu domain

EU citizens may be able to keep domains BUT on the EURid ‘Brexit notice’ page (https://eurid.eu/en/register-a-eu-domain/brexit-notice/), updated 19/07/2019, they clearly state:

“As of the withdrawal date, undertakings and organisations that are established in the United Kingdom but not in the EU and third country nationals (i.e. non-EU-27 citizens) who reside in the United Kingdom will no longer be eligible to register .eu domain names or, if they are .eu registrants, to renew .eu domain names registered before the withdrawal date.”

Those reading the article and presenting their pet rants seem to be missing the point?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: UK businesses and individuals CANNOT ‘own’ a .eu domain

Well, the article itself is a little odd, a long rant about issues with the EU, and post-hoc rationalizing, using things that really are between the EU and its citizens.

It's nice to see a Brexiteer care so much about the right of EU citizens living in the UK to keep their domain name, but it smells a little of whataboutism.

I'm pretty sure EU citizens in the UK are more concerned about the mess that is their right to continue living there, and the UK has not exactly been a role model there.

[Anonymous Coward]

the UK government effectively throwing up its hands

sounds a great tactic! And very popular too :D

[anonymous boring coward]

I think comparing an EU minor mess around .eu domains with a total and utter Brexit disaster of our own making, setting us back decades, isn't really very useful. No sense of proportion, perhaps? I've noticed that pretty much all Brexiters have no sense of proportion.

[Eric the Sad]

No Change at All

The EU did not change their minds. There has been new legislation going through for ages which extended ownership to EU citizens regardless of location. This was completed earlier this year and takes effect on October 19.

If the UK had left the EU in March, this would not be in place and EU citizens in the UK would lose their domains. As that didn't happen and we are remaining in past the implementation of (this part of) the new regulations, EU citizens will be able to keep their domains. The EU didn't change their minds; the UK did.

[aldolo]

required to avoid extra fees during online shopping

right now it is pretty important for eu citizen to know the location of a seller to avoid extra fees