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

[blandy]

3 hours ago, Awol said:

, meaning everyone who makes our laws can be sacked by us, the British public.  Hooray for that - although I don't expect to change your mind on this one! 

Nor do I Jon

[darrenm]

I don't know about everyone else but I really like European laws, they always seem to be about protecting the consumer.

[OutByEaster?]

4 hours ago, Awol said:

What will end with Brexit is the supremacy of EU law within the United Kingdom, meaning everyone who makes our laws can be sacked by us, the British public.  Hooray for that - although I don't expect to change your mind on this one! 

We can sack banks, lobbyists and think tanks?

 

[LondonLax]

3 hours ago, darrenm said:

I don't know about everyone else but I really like European laws, they always seem to be about protecting the consumer.

Why else do you think the 'free market' types all want out.

[Jon]

8 hours ago, darrenm said:

I don't know about everyone else but I really like European laws, they always seem to be about protecting the consumer.

Yep.  And employees.  And the environment.  Groups that will become more vulnerable one we're out.  

[blandy]

8 hours ago, darrenm said:

I don't know about everyone else but I really like European laws, they always seem to be about protecting the consumer.

You're right, but to be fair things like the CAP, the shenanigans on TTIP and others are all about the big corporations and interests at the expense of the little guy and the consumer.

[darrenm]

Just now, blandy said:

You're right, but to be fair things like the CAP, the shenanigans on TTIP and others are all about the big corporations and interests at the expense of the little guy and the consumer.

But wasn't TTIP a trade deal between the USA, UK and (by inclusion) the EU, the likes of which we're now desperately trying to get? The main objections to it was around the clauses which allowed private organisations the ability to sue governments if they felt they weren't given a fair opportunity to tender against state owned organisations.

IIRC, France and others were throwing that bit out anyway as it stuck out like a sore thumb and was never going to pass through. So in the end it was just going to be another trade deal. I may be remembering it all wrong though, and I haven't kept up to date.

[blandy]

@darrenm that's the badger (allowing for the juxtaposition). The EU was seeking to enter an arrangement which would/could have meant business going to, not national or European courts, but "above the law" tribunals to prevent elected governments from passing laws to protect public health, the environment etc. If the company felt it would damage their bottom line, or to seek compensation for it. 

The same applied to the Canada deal until a part of Belgium blocked It.

TTIP and ceta were stopped/amended not by actions from the EU parliament or commission, but because of a French pm under pressure in the polls and a Belgian regional council wanting concessions. The EU bodies resisted efforts to allow scrutiny, to make the deals fairer for people. It is and was a disgrace.

[OutByEaster?]

2 hours ago, blandy said:

 

TTIP and ceta were stopped/amended not by actions from the EU parliament or commission, but because of a French pm under pressure in the polls and a Belgian regional council wanting concessions. The EU bodies resisted efforts to allow scrutiny, to make the deals fairer for people. It is and was a disgrace.

But we didn't get out of the EU because we were disgusted that the EU bodies had resisted efforts to allow public scrutiny of corporate control measures - we got out because they failed to resist efforts to allow public scrutiny of corporate control measures.

 

That's the thing with the EU - I don't disagree at all with those that say it was subject to undue influence by what is an insane corporate financial structure - it clearly was - but what I liked about the EU was that within it there were still weaknesses where people - people in small patches of Belgium or people threatening to vote out a national or local leader - could still manage to be heard, could still have an influence, because of the maddeningly complicated way the EU was set up, because of the bureaucratic cracks in its systems that accidentally allowed occasional outbreaks of resistance.

What we've selected instead is a fast track to Friedman-esque hell, an unfettered, almost unopposed bank run government with exceptional powers granted to them through Brexit to change laws in ways that they ordinarily couldn't do, that believe absolutely in principles that have no interest in people, society or anything that interferes with the free market principle.  

After years of fending off slaps that had become punches, we've shown our displeasure by turning to a different opponent and giving them a knife.

 

[blandy]

2 hours ago, OutByEaster? said:

the EU ..[has].. bureaucratic cracks in its systems that accidentally allowed occasional outbreaks of resistance.

What we've selected instead is a fast track to Friedman-esque hell, an unfettered, almost unopposed bank run government with exceptional powers granted to them through Brexit to change laws in ways that they ordinarily couldn't do, that believe absolutely in principles that have no interest in people, society or anything that interferes with the free market principle.  

Agreed. I wonder if the EU will try to fix the cracks to stop further resistance, or will open them up and allow the light of democracy to shine and illuminate things. I suspect the former.

As for the UK and what we're doing, yeah, mental. I cannot see people and the environment benefitting overall from the way the tories are approaching the whole thing. They seem to want to ditch the good bits of the EU even more than the bad bits, mainly through some sort of obsession with a notion of control and sovereignty that doesn't exist in the modern world. They're stuck in some kind of imperialist, empirest, time warp, whilst simultaneously going all out for the worst excesses of the international corporations and financial deviants.

[blandy]

This is intriguing, extract from the FT

https://www.ft.com/content/8393b2d0-1b89-11e7-a266-12672483791a

Quote

Brussels is eyeing the exclusion of Britain from updates on EU trade talks amid concerns that the UK could take advantage of sensitive information in its own post-Brexit trade negotiations.  After a briefing last month by Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, the European Commission warned that there needed to be a “discussion about the treatment of sensitive information in the context of certain trade negotiations, to which the UK would continue to have access to while it remained a full member of the union”.  The warning, in an official account of the meeting, came as the EU prepared to initiate trade talks with Australia, a country which with the UK hopes to strike its own post-Brexit free-trade deal. …

…The question is to what extent Britain should be involved or informed or have access to ongoing negotiations when they are leaving because then they will proceed to conclude their own deals….  “All our negotiations would clearly be for a market of 28, but we’re going to be a market of 27 down the line,” the [EU] person added. “It’s more that we should be aware of what’s going to come down the road in terms of strategy . . . We shouldn’t put ourselves at a disadvantage.”  But Downing Street has rejected any suggestion that the UK will be excluded from trade conversations.  …  Trade experts say one option would be for the UK to opt out of the information loop during the Brexit process in exchange for an agreement with Europe to allow it begin bilateral talks before it leaves the bloc. 

 

[TrentVilla]

So they want to restrict our membership while still members and want us to contribute to costs after we leave.... hmmm

[blandy]

11 minutes ago, TrentVilla said:

So they want to restrict our membership while still members and want us to contribute to costs after we leave.... hmmm

It's not really that, is it?

This thing's different. It's (IMO) one of those where there's a potential win-win. The suggested "solution" is a good one all round, isn't it?

While a UK-Aus trade deal will basically be small fry, and because we'll be fine with them in terms of reaching a good agreement anyway, we could offer to keep out of the EU - Australia discussions, which is not really a problem for us yet would give the EU something they want, and let us start trade chats generally ahead of the legally permissible date.

I bet someone effs it up, mind.  

[a m ole]

I've just seen Theresa May's 'Brexit Plan' party political broadcast.

What an embarrassment.

[Enda]

1 hour ago, TrentVilla said:

So they want to restrict our membership while still members and want us to contribute to costs after we leave.... hmmm

You're not going to be part of the EU-Aus FTA anyway. Pram/toys.

[jon_c]

Reports now that an MP report believes voter registration site for Brexit referendum may have been taken down by a foreign power in a DDOS attack prior to vote. 

 

[Chindie]

There will have been Russian involvement in the campaign. It's well known they 'assist' in the spread of misleading articles online and will have been delighted at the result in June.

The report is also critical of Cameron, which is just common sense at this point.

Edited April 12, 2017 by Chindie

[Awol]

22 minutes ago, jon_c said:

Reports now that an MP report believes voter registration site for Brexit referendum may have been taken down by a foreign power in a DDOS attack prior to vote. 

 

Maybe why they extended the deadline for registration - at the time I thought it was cynical attempt to register more young voters who hadn't previously bothered their arses to meet the deadline. 

[Xann]

Quote

 

The EU is set to inflict a double humiliation on Theresa May, stripping Britain of its European agencies within weeks, while formally rejecting the prime minister’s calls for early trade talks...

... Britain failed to secure the backing of any of the 27 countries for its case that trade talks should start early in the two years of negotiations allowed by article 50 of the Lisbon treaty. The position will be announced at a Brussels summit on 29 April.

Despite a recent whistlestop tour of EU capitals by the Brexit secretary, David Davis, diplomats concluded unanimously that the European commission was right to block any talks about a future comprehensive trade deal until the UK agrees to settle its divorce bill – which some estimate could be as high as €60bn – and comes to a settlement on the rights of EU citizens.

May will have hoped that draft European council guidelines, leaked last month, which took a tough line on the negotiations, including a clause ruling out a trade deal within two years, would have been softened during consultation with the member states. However, the lack of any questioning of the European commission’s position on the timeline surprised Brussels veterans, wearily used to displays of EU disunity.

Senior EU sources claimed that Britain’s aggressive approach to the talks, including threats of becoming a low-tax, low-regulation state unless it was given a good deal, had backfired. “However realistic the threats were, or not, they were noticed,” one senior EU source said. “The future prosperity of the single market was challenged. That had an impact – it pushed people together.”

Another senior diplomat said initial sympathy with Britain had fallen away in many capitals, due to the approach of Theresa May’s government. “Of course, we want to protect trade with Britain, but maintaining the single market, keeping trade flowing there, is the priority, and so we will work through [the EU’s chief negotiator] Michel Barnier,” the source said. “Britain used to be pragmatic. That doesn’t seem to be the case any more, and we need to protect our interests.”

 

Observer

[Chindie]

Unsurprisingly, the European Medicines Agency and European Banking Authority are leaving. More surprisingly (/bizarrely?) David Davis seems to think he can keep them. 

Also, unquestionably qualified for the role Amber Rudd seems to be mulling the idea of offering special 2 year visas to people from the EU to prop up the hospitality and retail sectors, as it's become clear those industries rely on young immigrant workers. Great right?! Except... It is only for 2 years and you can only work in those sectors. Who on earth is going to come over here to work as a barista for 2 years and then get frog marched home? 'Hey Poles! Come to Britain and do a shit job for 2 years with no prospect of building a life here afterwards'. Apparently it's based on a scheme we've had in place for Hong Kong, Canada and Australia (amongst others) which has been so attractive it's brought 42k here from countries with a combined 350m population...