The now-enacted will of (some of) the people

[Chindie]

3 minutes ago, LondonLax said:

In the UK you currently elect EU mps to represent your interests in Europe yet don’t elect the members of the House of Lords. A lot of Brexiteers who campaigned for democracy reasons seem perfectly happy with that paradox. 

I listened to a podcast recently, ostensibly about trying to counterpoint the traditional view of the 'federal' EU, and the apparent democratic deficit, in the UK. It raised an interesting side point.  It contended that the UK has a problem with seeing it's democracy as the best, and that anything else is inferior as a matter of course, ignoring or hand waving the problems inherent in our own system.

[Awol]

4 minutes ago, LondonLax said:

In the UK you currently elect EU mps to represent your interests in Europe yet don’t elect the members of the House of Lords. A lot of Brexiteers who campaigned for democracy reasons seem perfectly happy with that paradox. 

The House of Lords is a revising chamber without power to legislate. (I’d love to see it reformed once someone comes forward with a workable plan) The people who vote in the HoC are answerable to the electorate directly, as individuals.

MEPs are not directly accountable as individuals and in any case don’t draft legislation, the Commission does.

The democratic deficit in the EU model is a thing, it’s well noted & us arguing in circles about it doesn’t get to the bigger issue: The point is no one voted to offshore the responsibility of legislating for the people of the UK to a foreign entity. That process of outsourcing is extended piece by piece as the EU extends the areas for which it has responsibility.

It’s headed in a direction which is only disputed in the UK by people who prefer not to frighten the horses. First they pretend it’s not happening, when that fails they claim it’s a small thing of little consequence and finally that we can’t leave because actually we are so interwoven and reliant on the EU it’s too dangerous or too complicated to leave, or our own institutions have atrophyed out of existence because everything is done by the EU.

The patent dishonesty of the whole thing is repulsive and many people understand it.

When we were finally asked directly if we approved of this situation the public answered that no, actually, they didn’t. 

We’re now waiting for Merkel’s meeting with Putin to decide what the EU’s policy towards Moscow is going to be. F*** that for a game of soldiers. 

[StefanAVFC]

So it's ideology at any cost then.

[blandy]

2 hours ago, Awol said:

Even now, after everything, this is basically a version of “if only we’d explained a bit harder how terrible leaving would be, Remain would’ve won.” No. That was laid on by the ton before the vote, so blood curdling that it became a bit of a joke. We still voted to leave. Fear didn’t and doesn’t work. 

What Remain failed to do then and is still failing to do now is articulate a positive vision of the future in the EU. Where’s it going to be in 10 years or 20 years, what are the institutions going to look like? Where are the borders going to be, where will it end? Will expansion end? How are they going to fix the Eurozone? 

There’s a bucket full of genuine and valid questions Leave voters had that are completely ignored by a Remain campaign, who never tried to win the argument with anything positive. 

Now they are pushing for a 2nd referendum with exactly the same game plan. Not a single serious Remain leader has asked why they lost and tried to work forward from there. It’s ridiculous. 

Your point is valid, to a, er, point. I’m not an EU enthusiast, there’s much flawed about it. Forced to make a pro EU argument, I’d point to things that involve being ahead of the U.K. on protections for people and the environment and trade etc. and I’d kind of acknowledge that there are major flaws.  Not massively convincing, then.

if or when someone says, “but we can do so much better you can have the same and more without any of the disadvantages”, how can you form a persuasive argument? It’s hard. It doesn’t mean the other side is right, if just reflects that detail isn’t what humans base much of our discourse around. So, it’s a “hopey-changey” promise against “more of the same “.

which is kind of ok, as long as the people selling the “hope” aren’t utter words removed, with no understanding of the detail, or do understand and don’t give a ****, or even worse do understand and actively seek to profit from the ensuing chaos.

dont take those drugs they’ll make you sick because they’ve got toxins in them v go on, you’ll feel amazing, you’ll get high. It’ll be brilliant.

[ml1dch]

13 minutes ago, Awol said:

The House of Lords is a revising chamber without power to legislate. (I’d love to see it reformed once someone comes forward with a workable plan) The people who vote in the HoC are answerable to the electorate directly, as individuals.

MEPs are not directly accountable as individuals and in any case don’t draft legislation, the Commission does.

The democratic deficit in the EU model is a thing, it’s well noted & us arguing in circles about it doesn’t get to the bigger issue: The point is no one voted to offshore the responsibility of legislating for the people of the UK to a foreign entity. That process of outsourcing is extended piece by piece as the EU extends the areas for which it has responsibility.

It’s headed in a direction which is only disputed in the UK by people who prefer not to frighten the horses. First they pretend it’s not happening, when that fails they claim it’s a small thing of little consequence and finally that we can’t leave because actually we are so interwoven and reliant on the EU it’s too dangerous or too complicated to leave, or our own institutions have atrophyed out of existence because everything is done by the EU.

The patent dishonesty of the whole thing is repulsive and many people understand it.

When we were finally asked directly if we approved of this situation the public answered that no, actually, they didn’t. 

We’re now waiting for Merkel’s meeting with Putin to decide what the EU’s policy towards Moscow is going to be. F*** that for a game of soldiers. 

Cool. All good. 2016 wants it's polemicism back. More people liked your argument than ours. Congratulations.

You now get to move on to what happens next. 

If you're going to suggest that other people should be bearing in mind what the EU looks like in twenty years time, you'll presumably be happy to tell us what the UK looks like in say, twenty months time?

For all the whining about people wanting to re-fight the referendum, it seem that nobody wants to do that more than those who can't articulate what they want to do with the prize that they have won.

[Awol]

26 minutes ago, StefanAVFC said:

So it's ideology at any cost then.

If you believe something is the right thing to do, reject the counter arguments not to do it, and then get the chance to do it, you’d have to have not really believed it in the first place to then not follow through. 

[StefanAVFC]

17 minutes ago, Awol said:

If you believe something is the right thing to do, reject the counter arguments not to do it, and then get the chance to do it, you’d have to have not really believed it in the first place to then not follow through. 

I don't agree.

If you believe in something, yet everything along the way, and all evidence points to said thing being a disaster it's logical to reevaluate whether your belief is worth the damage it will cause.

[Awol]

21 minutes ago, blandy said:

Your point is valid, to a, er, point. I’m not an EU enthusiast, there’s much flawed about it. Forced to make a pro EU argument, I’d point to things that involve being ahead of the U.K. on protections for people and the environment and trade etc. and I’d kind of acknowledge that there are major flaws.  Not massively convincing, then.

if or when someone says, “but we can do so much better you can have the same and more without any of the disadvantages”, how can you form a persuasive argument? It’s hard. It doesn’t mean the other side is right, if just reflects that detail isn’t what humans base much of our discourse around. So, it’s a “hopey-changey” promise against “more of the same “.

which is kind of ok, as long as the people selling the “hope” aren’t utter words removed, with no understanding of the detail, or do understand and don’t give a ****, or even worse do understand and actively seek to profit from the ensuing chaos.

dont take those drugs they’ll make you sick because they’ve got toxins in them v go on, you’ll feel amazing, you’ll get high. It’ll be brilliant.

I’ve got no faith in the Tories, never did. As I’ve argued to you for years this is a process. The UK and the West more broadly is slowly circling the plug hole, our politics is corrupt, shallow & venal. Media is the same deal, in bed with the former. The EU was (is) the apogee of thee convergence between big business and political sleeze, lobbyists and consultants greasing the wheels with no accountability as decisions are stitched up behind closed doors. 

Imho we need a radical decentralization of power combined with root and branch reform of politics and our institutions. It’s going to be ugly, messy and prolonged. The political parties or coalitions of different groups to push it don’t exist yet, but that’s a process and it’s coming, the political market place demands it. We all know the current system is broken beyond repair.

Phase one is leaving the EU which will shatter our corrupt and closed party system as we know it. Phase two is having our internal scraps and figuring out a new way forward. The Brexit vote demonstrates that the inertia of the status quo isn’t viable. It’s not just us either, this is coming all over the West imho. The fall of Trump may well trigger something similar in the US. 

We’ll fix it when we’re forced to fix it. Brexit is the systemic shock that can break the inertia holding back the next necessary political evolution we need to take. 

[Awol]

7 minutes ago, StefanAVFC said:

I don't agree.

If you believe in something, yet everything along the way, and all evidence points to said thing being a disaster it's logical to reevaluate whether your belief is worth the damage it will cause.

Confirmation bias, on both sides. You always believed it will be a disaster so when people you already agree with feed those opinions back to you they become ever more entrenched. I see those same opinions and disagree. You cite experts, I point out their utter failure to forecast anything to date. We all get very cross and nothing changes. 

When we’re actually out I expect the totally irreconcilables will self-segregate and the rest will come around to the opportunities we have to actually do things differently, united in the view that the politicians have utterly failed. 

That will be interesting, but until then 99% of discourse is fairly pointless bitching and cheap insults that’s worth just filtering out.

 

[Newry_Villan]

I haven't really read through this thread at all. What I do know is, is that it's left us in a pretty sticky situation in the North of Ireland/Northern Ireland whatever you want to call it. 

[WhatAboutTheFinish]

4 hours ago, StefanAVFC said:

So it's ideology at any cost then.

I love how given the tone of most of the other Bolitics threads on VT and...how shall I say...the slightly left of centre views of the majority of posters, how when it comes to the EU that financial self interest is suddenly the bastion of all political decision making   

[chrisp65]

2 hours ago, WhatAboutTheFinish said:

I love how given the tone of most of the other Bolitics threads on VT and...how shall I say...the slightly left of centre views of the majority of posters, how when it comes to the EU that financial self interest is suddenly the bastion of all political decision making   

Well that's easily turned around isn't it?

Tories always happy to skim a buck off people at any opportunity now appear hell bent on closing off markets and opportunities. There's a nose being cut off here, because once a long time ago, an arse said we'd all get £350 million.

It's about a lot more than 'money'. It's about the actual jobs. I don't think the workers at Airbus are so much worried about the exchange rate as they are having a job at all. I don't think the inshore shellfish industry is worried about a slightly lower price for oysters as they are worried about not having a market anymore because a two hour wait at Dover doesn't really help them like they were told / lied to.

There's concerns about 'money' where some might say they'd take a penny on income tax for the sake of the NHS. Then there's concerns about whether the NHS could collapse due to a lack of medicines, new therapies and boots on the ground. They both come down to 'money'. 

Don't get me wrong, I'm happy to pay for principles. I just don't see where we are gaining any. Turns out, and who knew, that if we don't comply with what the EU want, then we have to comply with what Trump and the Chinese want. When I was told all we had to do was rock up with some union jack jam and we'd all be £350 million a week better off.

We're looking perilously close to swapping the mire of EU 'democracy' for a tory version of free trade where we get to take more Chinese steel and more U.S. health care. 

But don't worry, all those immigrants have gone away. Except they haven't have they, because India wants to send us more people in exchange for our jam.

It's all been handled just about as badly as it could have been.

I hope it all works out, I really do. I have to, I live here. It's just right now it's looking like 'principles' has swapped me the arse Verhofstadt for the arse Rees Mogg. I'm not entirely convinced that's improved my democracy or my mortgage.

But yeah, left vs right.

This is probably the one issue where left versus right just isn't part of it.

[snowychap]

7 hours ago, Awol said:

Imho we need a radical decentralization of power combined with root and branch reform of politics and our institutions.

No one of any relevance is proposing this, though, are they?

7 hours ago, Awol said:

We’ll fix it when we’re forced to fix it. Brexit is the systemic shock that can break the inertia holding back the next necessary political evolution we need to take.

So it's Year Zero and hope that someone and something better emerges from the ashes?

Edited August 24, 2018 by snowychap

[Amsterdam_Neil_D]

7 hours ago, StefanAVFC said:

I don't agree.

If you believe in something, yet everything along the way, and all evidence points to said thing being a disaster it's logical to reevaluate whether your belief is worth the damage it will cause.

It does not explain why the Tories keep getting voted in.  People know they will go after and destroy where possible the poor or ill within a society as an example  

People vote for them knowing other members of their own family will suffer at their hands so voting and logic don't live in the same world afaik.  

[OutByEaster?]

7 hours ago, Awol said:

Phase one is leaving the EU which will shatter our corrupt and closed party system as we know it.

I think this one is the key for me - for all it's (massive) faults, the EU was an obstacle to the corporate interest that controls the Conservative party - I think that distinction, which of the two things you see as most damaging, was to me the key in voting leave or remain. For me the question in the referendum was almost "There are two forces which are being undermined as democratic devices by the influence of business and money, which do you think is least affected?"

For me, I think Phase one, leaving the EU - will protect and embolden our corrupt and closed party system. It puts more power into the hands of those that have already sold their hands for money.

 

[bickster]

3 hours ago, WhatAboutTheFinish said:

I love how given the tone of most of the other Bolitics threads on VT and...how shall I say...the slightly left of centre views of the majority of posters, how when it comes to the EU that financial self interest is suddenly the bastion of all political decision making   

Financial self interest is the bastion of most political decision making, always has been

 

[WhatAboutTheFinish]

32 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

Don't get me wrong, I'm happy to pay for principles. I just don't see where we are gaining any. 

And there we have it, who gets the monopoly on what principles are worth paying for? I think my initial post was a response to how ‘ideology’ is somehow now a bad thing if it’s an economic detriment.

*The VT thread on the abolition of slavery*

W1lbur: I think we should get rid of this slavery thing.

VTM@b: What?! You swivel eyed loon! Haven’t you read the economic reports on what that would do to the economy. Entire industries are going to be decimated. Cotton, rubber, tea, sugar...prices are going to rocket. Farmers are going to go out of business, not to mention all those shipping companies, this is going to cost people jobs! The cotton shortage is going to mean hospitals can’t get enough clean sheets. Is that what you want, people dying in dirty bedsheets? And what about if this leads to the end of the empire, what are we going to do then? It’s a sorry day that my children might not know the pleasure of being able to travel, live and work in two thirds of the globe without having to apply for a visa. And a hard border between India and Pakistan, how are you going to prevent that happening with your gammon faced abolition and freedom?

W1lbur: I just think that all we shouldn’t perpetuate a system that removes all power from individuals.

VTM@b: Oh, so it’s ideology at any cost then.

[Awol]

34 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

For me, I think Phase one, leaving the EU - will protect and embolden our corrupt and closed party system. It puts more power into the hands of those that have already sold their hands for money.

It may turn out that way but as it stands the main two are tearing themselves apart. As we hit the centrifugal forces of the party conferences that is likely to accelerate, imo. 

I agree both Westminster and Brussels are corrupt but in London we do have the ability to remove the executive. I think that’s why Brussels is able to operate the way it does and represents the greater threat. 

We’re not a million miles apart in our views, though - at least not on this  

[chrisp65]

8 minutes ago, WhatAboutTheFinish said:

And there we have it, who gets the monopoly on what principles are worth paying for? I think my initial post was a response to how ‘ideology’ is somehow now a bad thing if it’s an economic detriment.

*The VT thread on the abolition of slavery*

W1lbur: I think we should get rid of this slavery thing.

VTM@b: What?! You swivel eyed loon! Haven’t you read the economic reports on what that would do to the economy. Entire industries are going to be decimated. Cotton, rubber, tea, sugar...prices are going to rocket. Farmers are going to go out of business, not to mention all those shipping companies, this is going to cost people jobs! The cotton shortage is going to mean hospitals can’t get enough clean sheets. Is that what you want, people dying in dirty bedsheets? And what about if this leads to the end of the empire, what are we going to do then? It’s a sorry day that my children might not know the pleasure of being able to travel, live and work in two thirds of the globe without having to apply for a visa. And a hard border between India and Pakistan, how are you going to prevent that happening with your gammon faced abolition and freedom?

W1lbur: I just think that all we shouldn’t perpetuate a system that removes all power from individuals.

VTM@b: Oh, so it’s ideology at any cost then.

I have no monopoly on principles. This is a debate and I'm representing myself. 

As for the weird example pitching people on the side of slavers and empire, I'm not sure how I respond to that. Hitler is the usual 'go to', slavers and empire, that's a new spin and I congratulate you on this novel approach.

 

[PompeyVillan]

33 minutes ago, WhatAboutTheFinish said:

And there we have it, who gets the monopoly on what principles are worth paying for? I think my initial post was a response to how ‘ideology’ is somehow now a bad thing if it’s an economic detriment.

*The VT thread on the abolition of slavery*

W1lbur: I think we should get rid of this slavery thing.

VTM@b: What?! You swivel eyed loon! Haven’t you read the economic reports on what that would do to the economy. Entire industries are going to be decimated. Cotton, rubber, tea, sugar...prices are going to rocket. Farmers are going to go out of business, not to mention all those shipping companies, this is going to cost people jobs! The cotton shortage is going to mean hospitals can’t get enough clean sheets. Is that what you want, people dying in dirty bedsheets? And what about if this leads to the end of the empire, what are we going to do then? It’s a sorry day that my children might not know the pleasure of being able to travel, live and work in two thirds of the globe without having to apply for a visa. And a hard border between India and Pakistan, how are you going to prevent that happening with your gammon faced abolition and freedom?

W1lbur: I just think that all we shouldn’t perpetuate a system that removes all power from individuals.

VTM@b: Oh, so it’s ideology at any cost then.

That's utterly bizarre, have you considered that with a potentially weaker economy we will have less money for School, Hospitals, Police. Etc. 

It's not just 'self interest' as in, oh shit I don't want Brexit because I'll have less beer money. For many they don't want Brexit because it may bankrupt their business or lead them to losing their job. 

To compare the EU to slavery is so wide of the mark it's unreal. Slavery is abhorrent.