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

[sharkyvilla]

9 hours ago, snowychap said:

IF anyone trying to follow all of this feels that they are struggling to get it or to imagine what might happen then they shouldn't feel either inadequate or alone.

The people fiddling with the dials don't even know what they are doing.

There's only one real, striking truism: Us bods on the wrong end of history are always likely to get ****. Buckle up, the ride might not be 'the one of your life'.

I couldn't believe it when I read about that Brady amendment last night.  Utter stupidity.  I **** despair at all this nonsense.

[desensitized43]

The ERG will roll over on all this, but it won't be tonight. They'll wait, run down the clock a little bit more in the hope they can engineer a no deal outcome in some way.

If/When it looks like the house is starting to coalesce around either a delay, ref2 or remain they'll instruct May that they're ready to back it, it'll then come back and be passed. I'm convinced it's going to go through in some fashion.

I find the hypocrisy of the whole situation just staggering. It's fine for May to bring the same deal back to be voted on multiple times by MPs, that's democratic, but when asked about putting it back to the people for some informed consent it's "betrayal". 

 

[tonyh29]

the worry for me is everyone is so fixated on the Backstop , they've forgotten how shit the rest of the deal is 

 

lets see what today brings

[NurembergVillan]

6 minutes ago, tonyh29 said:

the worry for me is everyone is so fixated on the Backstop , they've forgotten how shit the rest of the deal is 

 

lets see what today brings

If you were King, or PM or whatever, for day what would you do now, Tone?

I'm not trying to trip you up here, I'm interested because you've had an opposing view to me on EU membership and you seem as exasperated as (almost) anyone else at the state of it all.

[lapal_fan]

Just thinking out loud for a moment; 

- with a few other countries' citizens apparent discontent for the EU, what is the main reason for staying within an organisation which appears to be slowly dying?  

- I'm in the fortunate enough position where I don't think I'll be too affected by Brexit (I say unwittingly), I feel for those who would be, either through job cuts or poverty - will the changes for someone earning an average salary really feel much of an effect? 

- Would there really be a food shortage?  Would medicines really become unaffordable? 

As much as I too am pretty doom and gloom about it, is everything really as cack as some are making out? 

[ml1dch]

22 minutes ago, lapal_fan said:

Just thinking out loud for a moment; 

- with a few other countries' citizens apparent discontent for the EU, what is the main reason for staying within an organisation which appears to be slowly dying?  

Support for EU membership across the member states is currently at it's highest level since 1983.

[ml1dch]

1 hour ago, tonyh29 said:

the worry for me is everyone is so fixated on the Backstop , they've forgotten how shit the rest of the deal is 

 

lets see what today brings

Most likely seems to be that every amendment fails and we are in exactly the same position as we were two weeks ago.

[bickster]

27 minutes ago, lapal_fan said:

Just thinking out loud for a moment; 

- with a few other countries' citizens apparent discontent for the EU, what is the main reason for staying within an organisation which appears to be slowly dying?  

 

1

Source? 

[lapal_fan]

Just now, bickster said:

Source? 

Riots

[bickster]

Just now, lapal_fan said:

Riots

Where?

[lapal_fan]

1 minute ago, bickster said:

Where?

France, Belgium 

[Chindie]

3 minutes ago, lapal_fan said:

Just thinking out loud for a moment; 

- with a few other countries' citizens apparent discontent for the EU, what is the main reason for staying within an organisation which appears to be slowly dying?  

- I'm in the fortunate enough position where I don't think I'll be too affected by Brexit (I say unwittingly), I feel for those who would be, either through job cuts or poverty - will the changes for someone earning an average salary really feel much of an effect? 

- Would there really be a food shortage?  Would medicines really become unaffordable? 

As much as I too am pretty doom and gloom about it, is everything really as cack as some are making out? 

Brexiteers like this.

There's not any evidence the EU is dying. There's some desperate wishful thinking, but nothing to suggest its going anywhere. The EU is, iirc, hugely popular in its member countries, and even Greece is more supportive of the EU than leaving it. Funnily enough support for membership actually went up in the aftermath of Brexit. I wonder why?

Will the average earner see an effect of it? Depending on how we leave, and depending on their profession, yes. It would be most noticeable in a No Deal scenario. Someone working in manufacturing related fields would be effected by the company's ability to trade easily with the EU, potentially leading to job losses, be that because of instantly increased difficulty to sell in the EU market, or to receive components quickly from the EU. This would also be true of a number of services based businesses (and even in the case of May's deal being accepted in that situation).

This all ties in to the third question. Even where someone's job isn't directly affected, they'd see the effects. We import a considerable amount of food from the EU, especially in off seasons (as said before, Spain is essentially Europe's farm in winter). Leaving with No Deal would instantly subject those products to tariffs (increasing costs in some cases) and customs checks. That would in turn lead to shortages as the delay prevents products quickly getting to shelves, also meaning for fresh products quality would be reduced. This all also applies to medicine.

We also are completely unprepared for this scenario. We don't have the customs check capacity. Which will make the problem even worse.

And this also applies to products from outside the EU. When we leave our trade deals with other nations revert to WTO terms, as our deals have been made as part of being in the EU (meaning they usually were pretty good deals, the bloc having good negotiating power just from its size alone).

[bickster]

1 minute ago, lapal_fan said:

France, Belgium 

Petrol Prices

Riots are also not a particularly good guide to general approval ratings

[tonyh29]

43 minutes ago, NurembergVillan said:

If you were King, or PM or whatever, for day what would you do now, Tone?

I'm not trying to trip you up here, I'm interested because you've had an opposing view to me on EU membership and you seem as exasperated as (almost) anyone else at the state of it all.

as it stands I'll cancel it , there is so much in the treaty I really don't like  , We can't  Leave on this deal and then come back and negotiate better arrangements so this deal isn't an option imo  ...  No deal isn't an option , therefore lets withdraw article 50 but agree to a 10 - 15 year timetable for our withdrawal ... of course Europe could say but we've already given you our terms we won't change them  ,  but there might also be some desire / relief all round , plus May will be gone  , Merkel will be gone and there could be a general change of attitude within the EU over this period ... There was a "flexit" approach proposed way way back , I think you can google it and find their document , it proposed a managed withdrawal of individual areas over a xx years timescale  .. less drastic than bang March 29th everything cancelled

of course the hard core Brexit people wouldn't stand for it  , but I think the more rationale ones might accept that approach ?

 

as we currently stand I think even if polls show a preference to remain and even if they held  a second referendum that remain won, I still think that it is inevitable that we leave the EU at some  point ...  not every old person is going to conveniently die , unless remain have thought of a way of lacing their voting pencils with arsenic , so I think anything that leads to remain , sees the creation of a new political party  , but whereas UKIP previously had 1MP , this new party could end up with 100 MP's and that then creates a very different political landscape ... and maybe one with a lurch further right than anybody wants

 

 

[StefanAVFC]

12 minutes ago, ml1dch said:

Support for EU membership across the member states is currently at it's highest level since 1983.

Yep.

A lot of Eurosceptism relies on being the opponent, because they can sit and moan and whinge.

If they get any of power or control, they don't know what to do.

In Poland, the party in power are soft-Eurosceptic, but they know they can't be anti-EU because of 1) the popularity of the EU in Poland 2) The net benefits they still get 3) the net benefits they did get that has absolutely transformed Poland. The Republicans in the US are the same. 

Eurosceptism is a protest movement. It isn't possible as a governing ideology. A bit like Corbynism.

[lapal_fan]

11 minutes ago, Chindie said:

Brexiteers like this.

There's not any evidence the EU is dying. There's some desperate wishful thinking, but nothing to suggest its going anywhere. The EU is, iirc, hugely popular in its member countries, and even Greece is more supportive of the EU than leaving it. Funnily enough support for membership actually went up in the aftermath of Brexit. I wonder why?

Will the average earner see an effect of it? Depending on how we leave, and depending on their profession, yes. It would be most noticeable in a No Deal scenario. Someone working in manufacturing related fields would be effected by the company's ability to trade easily with the EU, potentially leading to job losses, be that because of instantly increased difficulty to sell in the EU market, or to receive components quickly from the EU. This would also be true of a number of services based businesses (and even in the case of May's deal being accepted in that situation).

This all ties in to the third question. Even where someone's job isn't directly affected, they'd see the effects. We import a considerable amount of food from the EU, especially in off seasons (as said before, Spain is essentially Europe's farm in winter). Leaving with No Deal would instantly subject those products to tariffs (increasing costs in some cases) and customs checks. That would in turn lead to shortages as the delay prevents products quickly getting to shelves, also meaning for fresh products quality would be reduced. This all also applies to medicine.

We also are completely unprepared for this scenario. We don't have the customs check capacity. Which will make the problem even worse.

And this also applies to products from outside the EU. When we leave our trade deals with other nations revert to WTO terms, as our deals have been made as part of being in the EU (meaning they usually were pretty good deals, the bloc having good negotiating power just from its size alone).

Thanks   I'm all for remain, obviously - but I did wonder just how much people would be affected by it.  

 

12 minutes ago, bickster said:

Petrol Prices

Riots are also not a particularly good guide to general approval ratings

I knew it was to do with tax (on petrol apparently!), but in the media (the usual suspects), it's been written as Euro-bashing exercises, particularly in Belgium. 

I'd like to see what the approval ratings are per country, if such stats exist. 

[tonyh29]

7 minutes ago, lapal_fan said:

I'd like to see what the approval ratings are per country, if such stats exist. 

Politico have some stats  ... the EU themselves fund a regular survey that you cna find on their webpage  , but I'd trust that the same way Bicks trusts a man listening to the Beatles , whilst eating a lettuce sandwich

The good news for the Eurocrats and politicians preparing for next year's election is that support for the EU is “the highest score ever measured since 1983” according to the survey report

 

[ml1dch]

8 minutes ago, lapal_fan said:

I'd like to see what the approval ratings are per country, if such stats exist. 

https://www.politico.eu/article/europeans-love-the-eu-and-populists-too/amp/

The main figure are in here.

[bickster]

9 minutes ago, lapal_fan said:

Thanks   I'm all for remain, obviously - but I did wonder just how much people would be affected by it.  

 

I knew it was to do with tax (on petrol apparently!), but in the media (the usual suspects), it's been written as Euro-bashing exercises, particularly in Belgium. 

I'd like to see what the approval ratings are per country, if such stats exist. 

Eurobarometer results 2018 (PDF Download) (RESULTS AND MUCH MORE)

Quote

In general, do you have a very positive, fairly positive, neutral, fairly negative or very negative image of the European Parliament?

 

[snowychap]

It seems that the Labour leadership (snigger) has now decided to back the Cooper amendment.