EU referendum

Discussion in 'Off Topic Area' started by cloudz, Feb 23, 2016.

  1. Dead_pool

    Dead_pool Spes mea in nihil Deus MAP 2017 Moi Award

  2. holyheadjch

    holyheadjch Valued Member

    It's only big news if we believe our MPs have the requisite spine to actually do what is right and vote against invoking A50.
     
  3. Dead_pool

    Dead_pool Spes mea in nihil Deus MAP 2017 Moi Award

    We'll leave the EU, but not the EEC, which is the best we can hope for.
     
  4. Giovanni

    Giovanni Well-Known Member Supporter

    well for one, when i read your comment, i just think you're a bigot. words have meaning, and clear you're meaning to be a bigot. but it's not a surprise really considering your post history.

    what resilience of the economy do you speak of? the people that voted for brexit are the ones that are hurt most by the 10% fall of their currency.

    the argument that "it's not as bad as it could be" and/or "so far, the economy seems resilient" is vacuous at best. the 10% drop was only on the vote. britain is still in the eu. industry and financial firms will leave if the borders are closed. i can tell you this, for a fact. i work with these people; the "free market" is indeed very cut-throat. nowdays, corporations, trading firms, exchanges are not bound by places or nations anymore. major industry, and financial firms are in london only because of access to the common market. it's a simple calculation really: doing business in london will cost us x, doing business in paris will cost us y, subtract and make the change.

    case in point, the chicago mercantile exchange has been threatening to move its offices to dallas for years, if not for tax breaks. and will keep their name.

    i'm trying to find anything in eu economic policy that talks about five year plans, or nationalizing industry, or forced industrialization, or work camps. care to point any of that out? or is it just hyperbole?

    oh....we don't like immigrants. check.
     
    Last edited: Nov 3, 2016
  5. Giovanni

    Giovanni Well-Known Member Supporter

    seems like wishful thinking, no?

    i mean sure, that's probably the best one can hope for. but i don't get why europe would go for that. germany has the highest european gdp, followed by france/england. what would germany and france get out of having england there?
     
  6. Dead_pool

    Dead_pool Spes mea in nihil Deus MAP 2017 Moi Award

    Like Switzerland, we would pay roughly what we do now, harmonise our laws, free movement of goods, people and services, and drop our vote and veto.
     
  7. Giovanni

    Giovanni Well-Known Member Supporter

    yeah, so it's interesting, the sticking point for the british would be the free movement of people, no?

    gb already has its own currency. it would seem that the free movement of people is actually the problem that leave voters had.

    do you think the swiss model is do-able in this situation?
     
  8. Theidiot

    Theidiot New Member

    That would indeed be big news. That would be confirmation that there is no democracy in the UK. It would be saying, the majority voted for a particular thing, we reject and ignore the wishes of the majority and do as we please.

    For the record, I voted remain. I was on the losing side. That's democracy. I was on the losing side when I voted against a conservative government that had promised in their election manifesto of hold a referendum on EU membership. I was on the losing side then too. But that's democracy. Either we accept democracy or we launch some sort of fascist uprising and oppose the will of the majority. I think if Britain did become a fascist dictatorship, governed by a select few that blatantly ignore nd make a mockery of democratic process, then it would be time to leave it think because what next? How can anybody trust a system whereby an entire referendum result just gets ignored?
     
  9. Dead_pool

    Dead_pool Spes mea in nihil Deus MAP 2017 Moi Award

    Because referendums are only ever advisorory.

    Our now glorious prime minister even passed a law saying exactly that a few years ago.

    Before you judge democracy, you should really know about it.

    the main argument for brexit was that the UK parliament should be sovereign.

    The recent ruling also says parliment should be sovereign.

    Brexiters should be happy with this result.
     
    Last edited: Nov 3, 2016
  10. Dead_pool

    Dead_pool Spes mea in nihil Deus MAP 2017 Moi Award

    Anything else is financial suicide.

    I expect a general election first, and then we'll see what happens.
     
  11. holyheadjch

    holyheadjch Valued Member

    It was 52:48. That's not a landslide, that's not an overwhelming victory. That's a coin flip. The referendum is not binding on Parliament. In reality, you only need a small shift in public opinion in order for the result to go the other way.

    If that shift happens (and I think it will when the drop in sterling starts to send prices soaring), then the decision to reject the advice offered by that referendum starts to look quite reasonable.
     
  12. Mangosteen

    Mangosteen Hold strong not

    if parliament doesn't get sovereignty then does that set precedent that scotland can hold another referendum and westminster can't do anything about it.
     
  13. Dead_pool

    Dead_pool Spes mea in nihil Deus MAP 2017 Moi Award

  14. Late for dinner

    Late for dinner Valued Member

    People mistake the parliamentary system for a democracy. Never was, never will be.

    We elect representatives to vote with their (or their partys') views on what should happen. We have never had the ability to directly decide on anything that has to be honoured by the government.

    Expectations, valid or not, certainly skew peoples' reactions.

    LFD
     
  15. Southpaw535

    Southpaw535 Well-Known Member Moderator Supporter

    Would they be happy at us losing our veto? Or just our votes to begin with? I don't have a clue what the UK's voting history is like and how often it falls in with France and Germany or conflicts with them but does losing Britain in qualified majority voting weaken France and Germany to the smaller states? Or do they get even more power and end up representing a larger chunk of the population? I can't do maths.

    Meh, does anybody really think unfettered democracy is a good thing? As has been said now already the results weren't a landslide they were barely a majority. I think it would be far more wrong in a liberal country to take a decision that would so drastically effect the lives of a very large chunk of people who don't want it. We're meant to have safeguards against majority tyrannies.

    Also depends how you look at a Parliamentary democracy. I see their job as acting in the countries best interests and a lot of the time that involves telling people they're wrong and they're just not informed enough. Which this thread, facebook, and basically every single thing I saw from Leave proved that point.

    Anecdotal example: I'm doing European Studies as my degree course. Multiple friends of mine on the same course and myself argued with people voting leave, mostly about the democracy thing, and all of have examples of literally reading to people from a textbook or directly from the treaties themselves and being told we're wrong because the Sun disagreed or Farage said something different.

    The public when taken as a single body is completely idiotic. I'm more than happy for Parliament to be a safeguard to actually do what would be in the countries best interests when it effects literally everyone and will do for generations. People don't like immigrants or a system they demonstrably do not understand isn't a good enough reason to alter millions of lives.
     
  16. Southpaw535

    Southpaw535 Well-Known Member Moderator Supporter

    I'm thoroughly looking forward to a second referendum just because I want to see what the better together side has this time. Can't really hold a referendum and proclaim our "independence day" (what an absolute load of crap that is too) and then tell Scotland ya'll can't demand sovereignty over under representation and being dictated to by Westminster.




    (Please have one. I wanna move and still be in the EU :cry:)
     
  17. Ben Gash CLF

    Ben Gash CLF Valued Member

    I think from a democracy perspective it's very difficult to have effective democracy when you ask simple binary questions about complicated issues. Contrary to "Brexit means Brexit" the Leave vote represented a variety of positions, many of which are incompatible. Single market access vs immigration control, freer immigration from outside the EU vs get rid of the Muslims etc. If those positions were represented as parties and applied to our usual electoral system then you'd have a landslide for Remain.
     
  18. Dead_pool

    Dead_pool Spes mea in nihil Deus MAP 2017 Moi Award

  19. David Harrison

    David Harrison MAPper without portfolio

    Yeah, on the one hand we were told that the country made "a clear choice", and yet we still don't know what that choice actually entails in terms of policy.
     
  20. cloudz

    cloudz Valued Member

    Theresa May is not messing about !
     

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