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

[jon_c]

3 hours ago, lapal_fan said:

The more I hear/read about it, the more and more obvious it is that people shouldn't decide on it.

Both parties are getting increasingly more spiteful, the language used from each side is more repugnant/sarcastic/dismissive/fear in-sighting.. It's just such a huge issue. 

I'll be voting (for myself just so it happens), but this referendum is a huge mistake.

100% this.

[OutByEaster?]

9 hours ago, Awol said:

Fair enough, if you want to understand the broad strokes of the Leave argument it's worth an hour and won't poison your soul, if not I'd go for pornhub while you still can - if the country votes out of political union we're all going to die anyway, according to Dave. 

As if I've got a soul! I will give it another go - I promise you.

Quote

The Government knows full well they are telling bare faced lies which will terrify some people, it's the most sustained bout of official dishonesty since Iraq. 

Both sides are telling bigger and bigger and more and more bizarre porkies every day - both trying to terrify the public into their camp - it's the most unedifying campaign for anything that I've ever seen; managing to simultaneously insult its voters and fail to offer them any information that might give them the opportunity to respond.

I think that at the end of this campaign the British public will have no idea whether they're better off in or out of Europe, but every idea that they never want to see an awful lot of these political figures ever again.

 

[mjmooney]

Wouldn't it be great if nobody voted? 

[chrisp65]

Did Douglas Carswell (UKIP), on Newsnight really just suggest that the european 'junta' probably use our billions to buy themselves a jet?

That on the same day George Osbourne's special guest was Ed Balls, a man touted by Osbourne as being dangerously incompetent.

All that after having watched Kelvin Mackenzie on the Brexit film describe politicians as shits. The man clearly has no self awareness. 

Both sides making the debate impossible to navigate. Question is, why would both sides just deliberately by spouting abject nonsense about juntas and hitler whilst waving icecreams and pasties?

Ever had the feeling you've been cheated?

[Mantis]

1 hour ago, chrisp65 said:

Did Douglas Carswell (UKIP), on Newsnight really just suggest that the european 'junta' probably use our billions to buy themselves a jet?

That on the same day George Osbourne's special guest was Ed Balls, a man touted by Osbourne as being dangerously incompetent.

All that after having watched Kelvin Mackenzie on the Brexit film describe politicians as shits. The man clearly has no self awareness. 

Both sides making the debate impossible to navigate. Question is, why would both sides just deliberately by spouting abject nonsense about juntas and hitler whilst waving icecreams and pasties?

Ever had the feeling you've been cheated?

I don't really know what you're getting at? I think it's just a case of the campaigns losing control over a highly emotive topic.

[chrisp65]

1 minute ago, Mantis said:

I don't really know what you're getting at? I think it's just a case of the campaigns losing control over a highly emotive topic.

Cameron has given us a yes / no vote and warned us the wrong answer and the lights go out on our children's future. That's not losing control, that's wrong from the get go, that's negligence of the highest order. Or patent lies. Probably both. The exit campaign has no possible way of knowing what their promised future holds, so they keep warning us of a european unaccountable junta whilst relentlessly quoting figures they know to be disingenuous. 

They aren't losing control, they just have nothing substantial to say. 

[Mantis]

15 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

Cameron has given us a yes / no vote and warned us the wrong answer and the lights go out on our children's future. That's not losing control, that's wrong from the get go, that's negligence of the highest order. Or patent lies. Probably both. The exit campaign has no possible way of knowing what their promised future holds, so they keep warning us of a european unaccountable junta whilst relentlessly quoting figures they know to be disingenuous. 

They aren't losing control, they just have nothing substantial to say. 

I guess it's because there's a lot of uncertainty, although I think it's clear that some people on both sides are losing their cool a bit, and it'll only get worse.

[HanoiVillan]

5 hours ago, Mantis said:

it'll only get worse.

The next six weeks are going to be some of the most ghastly in our national history I'll warrant. 

[Awol]

1 hour ago, HanoiVillan said:

The next six weeks are going to be some of the most ghastly in our national history I'll warrant. 

In a way that's not a terrible thing and OBE puts his finger on why above; this 'campaign' of lies, spin and disinformation is so crude and insulting almost the entire political class is discrediting itself. Every party, every leader will end this covered in shite in public eyes and that process of becoming totally discredited is necessary. 

In parallel this same or a similar pattern is repeating all over the western world, or is just a question of timing as people wait for their next election.

If you stand back and look at it I think (FWIW) we are reaching an inflection point, in part caused by the blistering speed of technological change and connectivity between people that is enabling communication and the exchange of ideas like never before. Change is clearly coming, it's the how and to what that matters.

The two common factors in everything from the Arab Spring to the Occupy Movement, Brexit and the rise of Trump are a dissatisfaction with the status quo and grassroots mobilization i.e. it's being driven up from below at the citizen level.  People have twigged that doing more of the same just gets you more of the same, and they're not happy with it.

It also seems to me that western liberal democracy as we understand it is on the way out, or will be unless it's demise is resisted by the citizenry. 

The west is moving towards a corporatist model, a new world order akin to 1930's Italy but universal and with exponentially more corporate power.

Many multinationals are now more powerful and influential than some states, and the real powers in the world are attempting to order the societies in ways that smooth that transition to corporatism - see TTP & TTIP.

Where I differ with most of VT is viewing the EU not as a bulwark against this trend but as a vector to spread its poison. 

I'm not against the idea of the EU per se, but it should be something built by common consent with democracy at its heart, not excluded by design. That may take a very long time but most things worth having do,  like our own imperfect democracy.

However awful our governments are (and they are) we do ultimately have the power to change them and bring in something else. We also have the freedom to build something different and run for election ourselves if we don't like the options available - UKIP and Corbyn evidence the truth of this. 

My fear is the impending loss of our ability to implement that meaningful change through the ballot box because the real power has been raised beyond our reach, while our own Parliaments become little more than bad reality TV shows, entertaining and distracting through trivia, titilation and scandal.

Bringing this back on topic I believe we are on the cusp (maybe in the next 10-15 years) of fundamental change in the way we arrange society and are governed. The global elite - including our own establishment and the EU - have a very clear view of how that should be arranged for their benefit, while we the little people focus on getting through the day to day business of survival.

If, as I think they intend, we lose the ability to change things so that they benefit the many not the few then that future won't look good for us, or the planet. But if we retain that ultimate democratic control then we put a roadblock in front of this current trajectory, banking the ability to support a programme that is not yet clear, but that works better for more people than not.

There's a reason the global elites have swung so hard behind Cameron, despite being furious with him for risking public opinion.  In the past referenda in the EU were simply ignored as an irrelevance to the project, but by putting actual membership on the ballot paper he may have fatally miscalculated. Economic catastrophy, war, pestilence, it's obviously all bollocks. 

If we vote to leave the EU we will buy time for the future, to see how new technology and the thinking it provokes introduces new possibilities and fairer ways to arrange society. There is also a very good chance our example will encourage others in Europe to do the same, putting a much bigger spanner in the machine.

They are throwing the kitchen sink at putting the fear of God into us to remain because they don't yet have full control, so fear is their only and best weapon. If we allow them to have that control we will ultimately get what we deserve. 

Yours, 

Mr Paranoid

Sutton Coldfield

 

 

Edited May 17, 2016 by Awol

[OutByEaster?]

7 hours ago, Mantis said:

I think it's just a case of the campaigns losing control over a highly emotive topic.

Which is exactly what it's not - this isn't at heart an emotive issue, it's not about flag waving and crying for the queen - it's whether or not we want to be part of a group of economies working for a common goal or whether we feel we can be more effective outside of that group. It's the furthest thing from emotive as can be. It's a complicated technical issue around the way in which a particularly complicated bureaucracy works and whether there's benefit in it - it requires an awful lot of good information for people like me and you to make informed choices on. Both sides decided very early on that we were too dumb to be trusted with information and have instead gone with a series of increasingly emotive scare stories.

As others have said, this isn't an easy issue for a referendum, because of how complicated the issues are - it's even less so when those people that are leading our decisions have decided a playground fight would be better than a reasoned debate.

 

[CarewsEyebrowDesigner]

If it was left to the UK, TTIP would be through and all. Despite the USA's best efforts, it is close t being 'kicked into the long grass' because too many EU members (most notably the Greeks with their feta protection!) don't fancy it - at this point at least. The EU, because it is varied, mitigates the worst impulses of the neoliberals precisely because it is just so bloody difficult to get everyone to agree, as it should be. TTIP will probably go through in the end, but that will happen regardless of the UK's position. The only viable method of reducing the power of the corporate elite is to, well, take their money.

.

[Mantis]

2 hours ago, OutByEaster? said:

Which is exactly what it's not - this isn't at heart an emotive issue, it's not about flag waving and crying for the queen - it's whether or not we want to be part of a group of economies working for a common goal or whether we feel we can be more effective outside of that group. It's the furthest thing from emotive as can be. It's a complicated technical issue around the way in which a particularly complicated bureaucracy works and whether there's benefit in it - it requires an awful lot of good information for people like me and you to make informed choices on. Both sides decided very early on that we were too dumb to be trusted with information and have instead gone with a series of increasingly emotive scare stories.

As others have said, this isn't an easy issue for a referendum, because of how complicated the issues are - it's even less so when those people that are leading our decisions have decided a playground fight would be better than a reasoned debate.

 

Doesn't matter whether it should or should not be an emotive topic - the fact is that it is for many people, including the campaigns by the looks of it.

[Chindie]

Farage, shock horror, raising the prospect of a second referendum if Remain doesn't win decisively.

Turkeys also found not to vote for Christmas.

[blandy]

11 hours ago, Awol said:

I'm not against the idea of the EU per se, but it should be something built by common consent with democracy at its heart, not excluded by design.

To my reading the EU does have democracy at its heart and it certainly isn't excluded by design. Sure the implementation is different to the UK Parliament, but it's not undemocratic.

The European Parliament is directly elected.

The European Council is made up of the elected national leaders from the member countries.

The Council of the EU is made up of elected ministers from the member countries.

The European Commission is Made up of elected Commissioners from each country.

In the UK our Government can and does appoint unelected people (e.g. from the Lords) to fill cabinet roles. They appoint people from business or science or wherever to roles to formulate policy on (say) drugs or telecoms or whatever. There's not an elected member anywhere in the Lords.

The FPTP system in the UK national elections is massively broken. I don't recall the exact figures but UKIP got something like 8 million votes nationally and 1 MP. The tories got maybe three times as many votes nationally and nearly 300 (100 times as many) MPs. Other than a few marginals, most people's votes in safe seats are utterly without effect or influence. If the UK is the mother of democracy and an example of how to do it better than the EU then I just don't agree.

I do agree that people basically don't trust the "elite" any more. Whether its Cameron, the EU, Obama or any of the other people and bodies, because the last 35 years has seen a few people get very rich and everyone else get shafted & the planet get shafted. There's no respect or trust for the bodies and people who led to that. The whole Capitalism, globalisation thing is deeply unpopular.

I think that (as I said previously) in/out choice is like choosing between two pretty unappealing options, but the democracy, sovereignty,and economic arguments made by the out team don't hold water for me personally.

 

[MakemineVanilla]

Accountability is a big issue.

I have four European MPs representing my area: 2 UKIP, 1 Labour, 1 Conservative.

So who who should I complain to if I have a grievance, and who should I not vote for should I think they failed?

My local council send me a leaflet quite often to tell me what they have achieved.

I can judge the government by what they do.

But I never hear anything the European MPs have achieved, I can see UKIP giving a long speech to an empty or contemptuous chamber, but what have they achieved and what have they done for me?

In the absence of any information, on what basis are they accountable?

Edited May 17, 2016 by MakemineVanilla
Stuff added

[colhint]

One thing I struggle with is the amount of directives coming out of the eu.  3580 in 3 years according to full fact 

Now I'm not going all Daily Mail saying they are costing us billions. But the thing is they must apply to all countries within the eu, so you would think some countries would like some and some not. So just going on simple maths, The Mep's work 5 days a week for about 44 weeks a year I would think,  (5 weeks hols, bank hols and constituantcy work )

so that works out about 5.5 every day.  or less than 90 mins each. 

How does that even get debated between 28 different countries 

[blandy]

2 hours ago, colhint said:

One thing I struggle with is the amount of directives coming out of the eu.  3580 in 3 years according to full fact 

Now I'm not going all Daily Mail saying they are costing us billions.... 

How does that even get debated between 28 different countries 

6 years, not 3 from your link

Quote

since the election in May 2010 British firms have been forced to deal with some 3,580 new EU directives

Which does seem a lot, even so. until  you compare it with the UK parliament which enacts round 4 to 6 times as many laws.

for example

Quote

A "late push" of new laws in the last months of the Labour government helped to make 2010 a record-breaking year for new legislation, researchers say.

In total, 3,506 laws were introduced in the UK last year - up 41% on the previous year...

By comparison, there were 2,492 in 2009 and 2,148 in 2008. The previous high was in the election year of 2001, when the total was 2,725....

 

[colhint]

Not trying to be a pedant, but that was the only link I could find, but it was from 2013, so it was 3 years, but that's not the point how do you pass so many laws, you can't really debate them properly, 

not to my mind anyway

[blandy]

4 minutes ago, colhint said:

it was from 2013...

...how do you pass so many laws, you can't really debate them properly

My apologies, Col.

Perhaps it's something to do with the nature of them. Many many directives (or UK law stuff for that matter) is basically very simple, or maybe one complex mater might take days or weeks to debate and consider and lead to a multiple of directives once settled. Or maybe they are all considered in detail, and there's like a time lag - so stuff being discussed now (and for the next week, say, won't actually pop out of the machine for a while - so like a car plant - a car may pop put each 5 minutes, but that doesn't mean the car only took 5 minutes to build.

And the EU is still making these things at around half the rate of the UK Gov't.

[colhint]

I know what you mean, just don't like laws passed without debate from all quarters. I don't think they are in either London or Brussels