Brexit matters

[najaB]

Especially as Downing Street has pressured each government department multiple times to find some Brexit related advantages they could then sell to the public. And yet still ... Nothing

I'm sure they'll be asked again once the new PM takes charge

Can't quote more than the first part of the article since it's behind a paywall, but the Honourable Member for the 18th Century has identified "reshaping of the British government" as a Brexit prize.

Jacob Rees-Mogg has urged the next prime minister to slash back the government’s role as a prize of Brexit, suggesting it should not “deliver certain functions at all”.

A strong supporter of Liz Truss to win the race for No 10, the arch-Brexiteer called for “a re-thinking of the British state” – arguing mere cuts in public spending will not go far enough.

Jacob Rees-Mogg says state should no longer ‘deliver certain functions’ after Brexit

‘Our departure from the European Union necessitates a re-thinking of the British state’

www.independent.co.uk

 

[Gloster]

Sweden hasn’t been invaded in living memory, but (in my opinion) it still had a somewhat authoritarian system right up to within, if not living memory of those now alive, but the memory of those they knew. Finland was attacked and subsequently lost territory to the USSR in 1939.

 

[Berliner]

Ironically, many EU rules were preventing the UK from sliding into authoritarian rule, and now we are out, we can see for ourselves how much that slide has sped up.

By suggesting that Government should deliver fewer functions, I assume JRM is proposing to privatise even more things to either companies he owns or has interests in, or those of his mates? If he wasn't going to benefit from such things personally then he wouldn't suggest it.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Ironically, many EU rules were preventing the UK from sliding into authoritarian rule, and now we are out, we can see for ourselves how much that slide has sped up.

Oh rubbish! What's prevented the UK from sliding into authoritarian rule [*] is that the UK has no authoritarian parties with enough support to get many seats in the Commons, and has a very strong and longstanding tradition of democracy and free speech.

If you really think that the EU is able to prevent states from sliding into authoritarianism, then I refer you to the current EU member, Hungary (and possibly, to a lesser extent, Poland).

[*] Covid lockdown aside, which was obviously a temporary emergency which caused pretty much the entire EU apart from Sweden to impose authoritarian restrictions on liberty.

 

[najaB]

Oh rubbish! What's prevented the UK from sliding into authoritarian rule [*] is that the UK has no authoritarian parties with enough support to get many seats in the Commons, and has a very strong and longstanding tradition of democracy and free speech.

Almost all of which is currently under threat from the current lot.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Almost all of which is currently under threat from the current lot.

With respect, I would regard that as silly scaremongering. I know people on the left like to make out that the UK is somehow sliding into some horrendous dictatorship under the Tories, but there really is no comparison between the UK and actual authoritarian countries (which would normally be characterised for example by opposition figures being locked up, Government controlling the press, elections being rigged or non-existent, huge restrictions on personal liberty etc. etc., none of which remotely characterise the UK).

 

[najaB]

With respect, I would regard that as silly scaremongering. I know people on the left like to make out that the UK is somehow sliding into some horrendous dictatorship under the Tories, but there really is no comparison between the UK and actual authoritarian countries (which would normally be characterised for example by opposition figures being locked up, Government controlling the press, elections being rigged or non-existent, huge restrictions on personal liberty etc. etc., none of which remotely characterise the UK).

Yet.

 

[Berliner]

Almost all of which is currently under threat from the current lot.

It really is astounding that some people don't see what is happening and choose to just dismiss it as something that won't happen here!

This government is being clear as day about how it wants to tinker with so many of our rights and yet still it's called scaremongering!

 

[E27007]

Ironically, many EU rules were preventing the UK from sliding into authoritarian rule, and now we are out, we can see for ourselves how much that slide has sped up.

Nonsense, the EU is the usurper of national democracy for federal authoritarianism,
1) As an example our parliamentary system is far more democratically principled than the EU "Parliament". Our elected MPs introduce legislation to Westminster. The MEPs of the EU CANNOT introduce legislation to the EU parliamnent , surely a fundamental tenet of any true democracy. For the EU Parliament, EU legislation, is the dictat of un-elected bureaucrats, The EU Parliament is basically a "rubber stamp" for the authoritarianism of those un-elected bureaucrats.
2) The electoral turnout in elections for Euro MPs is feeble, around 40% and declining. Only a fool or a Dictator would assert the EU is legitimately empowered to represent the will of the electorate..

 

[daodao]

Ironically, many EU rules were preventing the UK from sliding into authoritarian rule, and now we are out, we can see for ourselves how much that slide has sped up.

Fiddlesticks. The EU itself is authoritarian in the way it operates, e.g. the latest diktat about railway gauges.

It is for UK citizens to determine how it is governed. If you are actually from Berlin and want to live in the EU, you could go home. If you are a UK citizen and wish to live in the EU, like @najaB you could campaign for Scottish secession from the UK to achieve that aim. as the UK as a whole won't be re-joining the EU any time soon. Scots were warned of the consequence of voting NO before the first Scottish independence referendum (see cartoon at https://www.nationalcollective.com/2013/05/14/havent-i-always-told-you-were-safer-together/ published on the Wings over Scotland website before mid September 2014).

I specifically voted for Brexit because I did not want to be ruled from Berlin. The Germans have bossed the EU ever since re-unification and driven the EU's desire for expansion to the east and the financial policy of the EU via the common currency (the Euro).

Germany fomented the violent break-up of Yugoslavia by recognising the secession of statelets in former Austro-Hungarian lands in 1991/2, and by supporting the violent coup in Kiev in February 2014, which led to the tragedy that is now occurring in the Ukraine. I heard Nigel Farage speak on the TV about the latter before 23rd June 2016, which was a factor in convincing me to vote for Brexit.

 

[RT4038]

Sweden hasn’t been invaded in living memory, but (in my opinion) it still had a somewhat authoritarian system right up to within, if not living memory of those now alive, but the memory of those they knew. Finland was attacked and subsequently lost territory to the USSR in 1939.

Finland has not been invaded by a country that is or has been an EU member (as per post # 4859) pretty much within living memory. The Republic of Ireland hasn't either.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

This government is being clear as day about how it wants to tinker with so many of our rights and yet still it's called scaremongering!

And that is precisely because it *is* scaremongering and is not grounded in reality.

But we're heading off topic. To get back to the EU, you earlier made the (to my mind) astonishing claim that 'many EU rules were preventing the UK from sliding into authoritarian rule' but you haven't mentioned any particular rules. Perhaps you could clarify which rules you think were preventing the UK from sliding into authoritarian rule, and why those rules apparently do not apply to Hungary or Poland?

 

[najaB]

Scots were warned of the consequence of voting NO before the first Scottish independence referendum (see attached cartoon, published on the Wings over Scotland website before mid September 2014).

I seem to remember the official No campaign saying that a "No" vote was the only way to ensure Scotland's EU membership.

If you are a UK citizen and wish to live in the EU, like @najaB you could campaign for Scottish secession from the UK to achieve that aim.

For clarity, I am not campaigning for Scottish independence - my current pro-independence position is one that I've been forced into taking by the decline of politics and societal attitudes over the decade and a half since I moved back to the UK. As an example, the country that saw hundreds of thousands on the street to protest an unjust war is shipping asylum seekers off to the other side of the world and it's out of the zeitgeist after a long weekend.

 

[VauxhallandI]

I seem to remember the official No campaign saying that a "No" vote was the only way to ensure Scotland's EU membership.For clarity, I am not campaigning for Scottish independence - my current pro-independence position is one that I've been forced into taking by the decline of politics and societal attitudes over the decade and a half since I moved back to the UK. As an example, the country that saw hundreds of thousands on the street to protest an unjust war is shipping asylum seekers off to the other side of the world and it's out of the zeitgeist after a long weekend.

Correct; as a Scot living in England I wholeheartedly back the right to another referendum even if I wouldn't have been a Yes voter if I lived there.

EU membership was a main part of the campaign and it is a fact rather than an opinion. The financial success of the move can be debated until Kingdom come but being in or out of the EU is binary.

 

[AlterEgo]

Ironically, many EU rules were preventing the UK from sliding into authoritarian rule, and now we are out, we can see for ourselves how much that slide has sped up.

By suggesting that Government should deliver fewer functions, I assume JRM is proposing to privatise even more things to either companies he owns or has interests in, or those of his mates? If he wasn't going to benefit from such things personally then he wouldn't suggest it.

Privatising government functions is often bad, but is also the opposite of authoritarianism.

Which of the EU's rules "against authoritarianism" do you think stopped the UK until a couple of years ago, but which are working so incredibly well in places like Hungary?

 

[DC1989]

I specifically voted for Brexit because I did not want to be ruled from Berlin. The Germans have bossed the EU ever since re-unification and driven the EU's desire for expansion to the east

The UK was the biggest advocator of eastern expansion

Germany fomented the violent break-up of Yugoslavia by recognising the secession of statelets in former Austro-Hungarian lands in 1991/2, and by supporting the violent coup in Kiev in February 2014, which led to the tragedy that is now occurring in the Ukraine. I heard Nigel Farage speak on the TV about the latter before 23rd June 2016, which was a factor in convincing me to vote for Brexit.

Yet the UK is Ukraine's biggest European supporter? And Germany isn't - so how does that work?

Interesting that you call the 2014 revolution a coup. What's your opinion on Ukraine's 2019 election?

 

[alex397]

Germany fomented the violent break-up of Yugoslavia by recognising the secession of statelets in former Austro-Hungarian lands in 1991/2.

Not sure we need the incredibly complicated topic of the break up of Yugoslavia and Balkan Wars also in this thread, which can not be explained easily. And not sure lots of blame can be put on Germany for that…

I really don’t agree with you posting the picture of Merkel as a Nazi either. Does that add much to the discussion?

 

[najaB]

…and by supporting the violent coup in Kiev in February 2014, which led to the tragedy that is now occurring in the Ukraine.

And I suppose the tragedy in Ukraine (note, not "The Ukraine") has absolutely nothing to do with your paymaster Russia choosing to fund and support a civil war and then invade a sovereign country? It's all the EU's fault.

Okay then.

 

[ainsworth74]

and by supporting the violent coup in Kiev in February 2014, which led to the tragedy that is now occurring in the Ukraine

You really just cannot help your pro-Putin views leaking out can you? There direct cause of the current atrocities in Ukraine was the decision by Putin to invade a sovereign nation state that had a Government, elected by it's own people in elections in 2019 (you know, well after the revolution that deposed a Russian stooge, sorry, I mean violent coup ), that was doing things he didn't like. Ironic really as you early talk about how important it was for you that decisions for the UK be taken by the UK rather than Berlin. But when it's Russia doing the invading because they don't like the decisions made by another sovereign state suddenly it's okay and how awful that Putin was terribly provoked by the evil EUSSR and NATO. Pull the other one. We'll also just ignore the illegal occupation of Crimea (I suppose that's also somehow Germany, the EU and Wests fault?) as well as the Russian backed and funded civil war in Donbass that had been raging since 2014. That little war that wouldn't have even happened if Russia hadn't interfered in Ukraine's internal affairs. Because as we know the real problem is Germany. Christ.

And, for the 94th time, it's Kyiv and Ukraine. I appreciate that for a Putin sympathiser that's hard to accept but those are the correct terms.

 

[najaB]

EU membership was a main part of the campaign and it is a fact rather than an opinion.

Indeed it was. For example:

An independent Scotland would find itself at the back of the queue to get into the EU, David Cameron claimed today.

The Prime Minister said Scotland would have to wait its turn behind Serbia, Macedonia and Montenegro before it would be readmitted.

Mr Cameron's provocative remarks come after the Scottish Tories announced that they now backed full income tax powers for the Edinburgh Government - if the country voted to stay in the United Kingdom.

https://web.archive.org/web/2021111...ULL-control-taxes-Cameron-tells-Scotland.html

 

[Gloster]

I am not going to give the Daily Mail any advertising revenue, so I haven’t read the piece, but I can remember somebody, possibly a Labour politician, saying at the time that Scotland would still, despite Salmond’s vague assurances, have to join the queue. However, it would be already be far better aligned with the EU and the process would probably not take anything like as long as it usually does.

 

[najaB]

I am not going to give the Daily Mail any advertising revenue, so I haven’t read the piece, but I can remember somebody, possibly a Labour politician, saying at the time that Scotland would still, despite Salmond’s vague assurances, have to join the queue. However, it would be already be far better aligned with the EU and the process would probably not take anything like as long as it usually does.

Yeah, I did pause before posting a link to the DM. I've edited the link to the Internet Archive version of the page.

 

[Berliner]

I am not going to give the Daily Mail any advertising revenue, so I haven’t read the piece, but I can remember somebody, possibly a Labour politician, saying at the time that Scotland would still, despite Salmond’s vague assurances, have to join the queue. However, it would be already be far better aligned with the EU and the process would probably not take anything like as long as it usually does.

Where does this idea come from that countries join a queue to become EU Members?

Do people really think the EU would stop Scotland from joining because they are waiting for Montenegro to catch up?

A real-world example of countries not being part of any sort of queue.
Romania, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and Slovakia all applied to join in 1995.
Slovenia and the Czech Republic both applied in 1996.

All of them joined in 2004, apart from Bulgaria and Romania who joined in 2007. Slovenia and the Czech Republic applied after these to, but were not held back while they waited for Romania and Bulgaria to join first, why on earth would this apply to Scotland?

 

[Gloster]

Where does this idea come from that countries join a queue to become EU Members?

Do people really think the EU would stop Scotland from joining because they are waiting for Montenegro to catch up?

A real-world example of countries not being part of any sort of queue.
Romania, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and Slovakia all applied to join in 1995.
Slovenia and the Czech Republic both applied in 1996.

All of them joined in 2004, apart from Bulgaria and Romania who joined in 2007. Slovenia and the Czech Republic applied after these to, but were not held back while they waited for Romania and Bulgaria to join first, why on earth would this apply to Scotland?

All right. If you are going to take the word queue so literally, I will make clear that I meant the group of countries wishing to join. However, I don’t think that queue is such a bad description: even if they don’t queue-barge, one member of a queue may pass another if the first is not ready to move forward.

 

[Berliner]

All right. If you are going to take the word queue so literally, I will make clear that I meant the group of countries wishing to join. However, I don’t think that queue is such a bad description: even if they don’t queue-barge, one member of a queue may pass another if the first is not ready to move forward.

Well how else is it supposed to be taken?

A queue is a process whereby you are attended to in the order you are lined up. This is different to something requiring a set of demands be met before you are tended to, regardless of when you started the process. They are two completely different things. You wait in a queue at the bus stop. You don't wait in a queue to apply for a job.

The EU does not have a queue. The use of that word to describe joining the EU is factually incorrect and needs to stop. There is no back of line!

I want to expand on previous comments made in my direction too, from other members upthread. Firstly, I am not from Berlin, my username is jam filled donut based.

When I suggested the UK was prevented from authoritairan rule by EU mebership I meant it and stand by this comment. Being in the EU meant our government had to adhere to various laws and treaties, which are now being torn up by flag waving career politicians most of us didnt even vote for. We had the protection of the ECHR and the European courts. This government is doing its very best to make sure neither apply to us anymore and if that doesn't ring alarm bells then I don't know what will to be honest.

People can point to Hungary or Poland all they like but the people in those countries still have free access to more than 2 dozen other countries where they are treated equally and they still have the protection of forces higher than their own governments.

We do not, or at least won't have for much longer and that to me is the start of the slippery slope.

 

[reddragon]

https://twitter.com/TSSAunion/status/1560647641616109568?t=OBmkz5k7kA9C-xjPcslMrA&s=19

This really says it all.

Our privatised railways subsidise EU railways!

 

[RT4038]

Well how else is it supposed to be taken?

A queue is a process whereby you are attended to in the order you are lined up. This is different to something requiring a set of demands be met before you are tended to, regardless of when you started the process. They are two completely different things. You wait in a queue at the bus stop. You don't wait in a queue to apply for a job.

The EU does not have a queue. The use of that word to describe joining the EU is factually incorrect and needs to stop. There is no back of line!

I want to expand on previous comments made in my direction too, from other members upthread. Firstly, I am not from Berlin, my username is jam filled donut based.

When I suggested the UK was prevented from authoritairan rule by EU mebership I meant it and stand by this comment. Being in the EU meant our government had to adhere to various laws and treaties, which are now being torn up by flag waving career politicians most of us didnt even vote for. We had the protection of the ECHR and the European courts. This government is doing its very best to make sure neither apply to us anymore and if that doesn't ring alarm bells then I don't know what will to be honest.

People can point to Hungary or Poland all they like but the people in those countries still have free access to more than 2 dozen other countries where they are treated equally and they still have the protection of forces higher than their own governments.

We do not, or at least won't have for much longer and that to me is the start of the slippery slope.

Prior to the establishment of these courts I don't recall that the inhabitants required protection of forces 'higher than their own governments'. How are EU member citizens protected from the possible tyranny of the European Courts? Sovereignty means not being subjected to the interference of other countries, who may have their own agenda.

 

[VauxhallandI]

https://twitter.com/TSSAunion/status/1560647641616109568?t=OBmkz5k7kA9C-xjPcslMrA&s=19

This really says it all.

Our privatised railways subsidise EU railways!

Are they really or do the firms just take as much profit from their “home” countries as they do from the UK etc?

 

[JamesT]

Are they really or do the firms just take as much profit from their “home” countries as they do from the UK etc?

That video is from 2017, it mentions franchises like Scotrail which have since been nationalised. Though given Abellio famously lost money for several years running Scotrail, probably not the best example to use. (The Dutch subsidising our railways?)

 

[Gloster]

This has been around for the some years, but it appear to be a new or reedited version where the fact that Britain has left the EU is mentioned by the French girl. (A bit too much of the national stereotypes for my taste, but effective.)