Guest essay by Eric Worrall
British Green Party Leader Caroline Lucas has urged members to vote on 23rd June to remain part of the European Union. Her concern appears to be that if Britain leaves the EU, democratically elected British politicians might be emboldened to dismantle EU inspired environmental regulations.
Caroline Lucas has today called on Green voters to back remaining in the EU on June 23rd, declaring the imminent vote a “climate referendum”.
Lucas, who is a board member of Britain Stronger in Europe and Another Europe is Possible, as well as the Green Party’s only MP, warned a vote for Brexit would undermine efforts to tackle climate change and build a greener economy.
“June 23rd is a climate referendum,” she said. “Leaving the EU could wreck our chances of playing a part in the fight against this existential threat – and hand the country to people who don’t even believe climate change is happening. But by staying as a member of the EU we can build on the progress already made in Paris earlier this year and continue making strides towards a fossil-free future.”
She reiterated her view the EU is in need of sweeping reform, but insisted it remained the “best hope we have when it comes to tackling climate change and protecting our environment”.
The latest intervention came as the Green Party launched a new online video urging its supporters to back a Remain vote.
Read more: http://www.businessgreen.com/bg/news/2461374/caroline-lucas-declares-eu-vote-a-climate-referendum
Why is Lucas so concerned that politicians elected by the British People, liberated from the shackles of the European Union, might repeal green policies? Is the leader of the British Green Party worried that the people do not want more green? Or does she think that using the undemocratic might of the EU bureaucracy to suppress voter choice, is a more certain route to a low carbon future?
At least one prominent member of the British Green Party has a different view. Baroness Jones thinks the fanatically green European Union is not anti-CO2 enough to deserve her support.
… Writing in the Guardian last week, the Green Party’s Baroness Jenny Jones, set out her reasons for backing a vote for Brexit, arguing the EU has become “a super-sized top-down dogmatic project of endless industrial development and growth” that remains resistant to any attempt to reform it. …
Read more: Same link as Above
Recent polling suggests the leave vote may have developed a commanding lead, over fears about uncontrolled immigration.
Yes!
Yes of course!
I still would like to be in Union with the British but I guess the British don’t like to recieve commandments from Brussels. Sad that weak EU means stronger Russia, which we who live under constant threat of their invasion don’t appreciate. If Brexit happens, I still hope economical and military unification continues.
What is this constant threat of invasion? I keep hearing about these accusations but although I follow the news in great detail I cannot find any evidence to support these assertions, which sound like little more than attempts to drum up more support for NATO and get the cash registers ringing for the American arms manufacturers.
If NATO states had kept up their promised spending on defense they would have no worries. Britain is the only EU nation really capable of military strength.
Ask the people of Ukraine or Crimea. You will understand invasion concerns.
I do like Europe and Europeans, but if you are concerned about Russia, I suggest that Germany, Holland etc start spending their wealth on defence, instead of relying on the US, UK and France.
Vincent has never heard of Crimea, which had always been Russian, of Ukraine, which had always been Russian, or South Ossetia, which had always been Russian. No way Russia would invade any country…
Once part of Russia, always part of Russia, no matter what the people want or what happens in the mean time.
It really is nice the way some people bend over backwards to excuse the actions of their favorite tyrant.
Hugs, good soul,
Like you I prefer something not on offer – namely a Reformed European Union.
{Massively] Reformed EU, actually – but not on offer
Our Fear Master General – also being paid to be Prime Minister – led a negotiation – or ‘negotiation’ maybe – that produced about the fourth root of diddly-squat – plus an infinitesimal amount..
The EU is reportedly [I saw it in the press or on the BBC News website] a substantial wedge of legislation – covering EU Armed Forces, Pensions legislation which is expected to kill all defined benefit schemes, including those for pensioners about to retire . . . .
There may also be restrictions on the financial centre of London, which will move most of the work, bonuses, employment, and taxes out of ‘Europe’.
Accordingly – never mind the sovereignty issues, which I think are important – we have just had a ‘EuroCourt’ [like presidents, – 5; 7? – there appears to be a superfluity of EuroCourts . . . . – rule that a UK Policy on benefits is ‘justifiable’, due to its importance to national budgets.
But surely a sovereign government should be able to do this without rubberstamping by a Luxembourg based set of lawyers?
Brexit – with some drawbacks, I allow – will allow this.
Auto
Hugs……if there is an invasion it will have been started by the EU and U.S. NATO is doing the warmongering. I am in favor of Russia defending itself from overreach by the regime change actors.
Britain fought in two world wars to support European freedom, long before the EU was thought about.
Defense revolves about NATO, which has nothing to do with the EU.
Hugs,
No reason at all why you can’t be in Union with the British outside the EU.
The EU has no army, it functions solely as a legislative body, and you think Russia is afraid of the EU, think again.
Yes. Europe has really pulled their weight militarily over the last, oh say, 70 years. Most EU countries couldn’t defend themselves from a binge-drinking pack of cub scouts, let alone ISIS. It’s easier to pretend “it won’t happen here”, or smother the inevitable savage events in glorious-sounding rhetoric (Hollande promising to destroy ISIS comes to mind).
Without political will, the bad guys will, sooner more likely than later, come and take all your goodies.
Brexit should also be about national security.
Curious George: “… Which has always been Russian…” –
Is that why Ukranians speak Ukranian, and Georgians speak Georgian? Either you forgot the /sarc tag, or you don’t know history. Don’t give the neo-tyrants in Moscow any more cover than they are already taking.
“Auto June 14, 2016 at 2:17 pm
…kill all defined benefit schemes, including those for pensioners about to retire . . . .”
Not true. If anything is true, it would be the reverse. UK state pensions have increased with thanks to the EU (I don’t agree with it, but it is fact).
Curious George
…had always been Russian
What about the UK, USA? Or China, or Mozambique? Have these also always been Russian? Has Uranus always been Russian?
I can’t figure out if you were being sarc or ironic?
Putin won’t invade. He will work to create further discord and weaken the E.U. With that done he will destabilize and dominate the Balkans and other Eastern Euro countries. To Putin, the cold war never ended. The artificial conflict he aggravates is his power base. Russians think NATO might invade them! All politicians think we do what we’re told when we’re scared and we keep proving them right. That’s how Iraq got invaded. Look at the mess there now because Bush didn’t keep his cool and question the basic evidence. Much like climate change, most of the experts agreed, all the media said it was so; and they were all wrong!
The problem with skeptics is nobody ever listens to them!
I don’t know about the thought that the EU is set to kill defined benefit pensions but the rest of your post is incorrect and utterly irrelevant.
Firstly the incorrect part. State pensions have NOT increased with thanks to the EU. Other than in times of extreme economic stress, the state pension has, for many years, increased in line with inflation. The 2010-2015 government improved this to be the highest of inflation, average earnings or 2.5%. That was a political decision (led by the Liberal Democrats, the junior coalition partner, and nothing to do with the EU.
Secondly, the irrelevant part. The state pension is certainly NOT a defined benefit scheme. It is a flat rate scheme, paid to all who reach the qualifying age and who have paid in sufficient NI contributions. It is, therefore, nothing to do with Auto’s original point.
Reposted because of incorrect email address
Incorrect on 2 counts.
Firstly, UK state pensions have NOT increased as a result of anything the EU has done – for many years they increased by price inflation and now by the highest of price inflation, average earnings or 2.5%. That was a political decision, driven by the Liberal Democrats, the junior coalition partner in the 2010-2015 government and nothing to do with the EU.
Secondly, the state pension isn’t a defined benefit scheme anyway. It pays a flat rate to all, provided they qualify by age and number of years NI contributions. Those with inadequate NI contributions get proportionately less. So your entire post seems to be somewhat pointless.
Sorry.
“Mr Green Genes June 15, 2016 at 3:30 am
Firstly, UK state pensions have NOT increased as a result of anything the EU has done…”
They have. Testimony to the fact that what I say true is the recent retirement of my step-father, who went thru the process, and was informed of the changes. Now, he could be telling me porkies, but I very much doubt it.
Paul…..the wrong people are telling you to stay in
Fully agree! That is the reason the Labour Party and the TUC are pushing “Remain”, they know that democratically their political agenda is unobtainable given the UK’s, electorates’ opinions, and the UK’s electoral system and democracy! They need the more totalitarian regime in the EU to sustain their hopes of a socialist nirvana!
Exactly.
Small side note: How many times does Labour get to wreck your economy before they run out of innings? Got to be the longest, stupidest political cricket match in history, with Labour always looking like the “twits” from Monty Python.
John Harmsworth commented: “…How many times does Labour get to wreck your economy before they run out of innings? Got to be the longest, stupidest political cricket match in history,…”
+1 Socialism/Communism has been the bane of the world since its’ inception and they are still trying to convert everyone.
I remain unconvinced.
The last Labour government had a good record on the economy, they certainly cannot be blamed for the 2008 event. Unless you think they had a hand in the US sub-prime mortgage debt, and subsequent selling of that debt, to others, which directly led to the global “collapse”.
I must admit, I had rather they had allowed the banks to collapse and “rescued” the mortgage holders while allowing the rest to destroy itself.
Sometimes the best thing to do with a broken machine is to scrap it , before it malfunctions badly enough to kill you.
She need not worry, as with the Brexit vote, the left-liberal stance on anthropogenic climate change is totally entrenched across the leaderships of all the political parties, governmental bodies, state media and so on. Brexit will have little effect on our insane, hopeless energy policy until and unless the lights start going out.
Oh, wait a minute, hang on….
She might have a point!
Great! Out! Out! Out!
the left-liberal stance on anthropogenic climate change is totally entrenched across the leaderships of all the political parties, governmental bodies, state media and so on.
No, it isn’t.
UKIP is profoundly climate skeptic and anti-renewable energy. It’s commanding around 18% of the popular vote.
FAR more than Luke-arses Greens.
DECC – the official government energy and climate change doodah, is split down the middle with renewable friendly and renewable skeptic elements in it, and a strong pro-nuclear faction, largely because a lot of us here have been pushing a strong anti-renewable message, and there are some people who are not so tied in to pork barrel politics that they haven’t listened. What DECC says, is ‘strong commitment to renewables and meeting EU directives on Climate change’. What DECC does is serious work on nuclear power and hopefully fracking.
Back to the lab! Time to reanimate Maggie!
Any time a country has the opportunity to escape the tyranny of unelected bureaucracy, I say go for it.
(I’m U.S., but I can root for victory from the sidelines, yes?)
Definitely YES but an equally definitely NO to your incompetent President
Obama didn’t stay on the sidelines. I pay US taxes so he is my employee. I apologize for his ignorance.
Well, to quote the Dixie Chicks, “He’s not my president.”
D.J.
Worst Appeal to Authority Ever.
Appeal to authority? Yer trippin’ dude ; )
The leader of the Green party in England and Wales is currently Natalie Bennett, though I think she has expressed an intention to stand down. Caroline Lucas gave up the leadership when she became an MP.
Baroness Jenny Jones, is totally “barking mad”!
Hmmm…
‘Barking’ Baroness Jenny Jones
at the EU threw some stones.
Thought it good that Britain Brexit
’cause the EU… they can’t fixit.
Mr Law it is worse that you thought (isn’t it always).
From the Evening Standard a couple of years back…
“A Green Party peer and London Assembly member who branded black cabs one of the capital’s “most polluting” vehicles today came under fire for claiming more taxi journeys than all her colleagues combined — including Mayor Boris Johnson.
A Standard analysis reveals Baroness Jenny Jones claimed for nearly three times the number of journeys Mr Johnson did and nearly six times that of the Assembly member with the third highest journeys claimed.
But one Assembly member said: “It does smack a bit of hypocrisy when you consider the way she goes on and berates Boris about doing more over the environment, when it appears as if she could have been doing more herself and cut down on her own number [of journeys].”
This is the Lady who says the EU isn’t green enough for her tastes!
This is so typical of many of the Greens. Perhaps it is some psychological problem: they are unable to perceive they are doing themselves what they condemn in others.
Out,out,out and thrice more out…..
Let’s stand alone tall and proud all the better to extend the hand of friendship to the rest of the world.
EU be gone, we are ready to shed the chains of socialism and reveal the nation that is …. again …. Great Britain.
If BREXIT wins, that will give Cameron a bargaining chip to get concessions from the EU–which it will probably give him. Then he’ll call for another referendum, which he’ll win, probably. So voting to leave isn’t an irrevocable decision.
If Britain does leave, it can find a new trading partner in Russia, now shut out from the EU. A captive market!
@ rogerknights. If Brexit wins Cameron will be gone in a thrice. Fired by his own hand or vote of no confidence if he tries to hang in there. He’s toast as is George Osborne.
The new broom will actually be the UK’s best chance to reverse the Green lunacy because the new PM – probably Boris, will be able to say it – AGW / ‘renewables etc, wasn’t his policy.
I hope that you’re right. Those guys have done a Ratner on the UK.
Absolutely.
If, as looks increasingly likely, Leave wins I hope that Cameron will have the integrity to resign almost immediately. Boris did a great job as mayor of London and I think he could be a great Prime Minister who will do his best to make Brexit a huge success. As a bonus, he does seem to have climate sceptical leanings.
Who knows, maybe next year we will have climate sceptics both in No. 10 and the White House!
Chris
That is certainly a scenario, but if >50% of the vote goes to leave, that means that >50% of the population want to, and if he pulls a cunning stunt like that, UKIP is waiting to pick up the protest vote. The way the British electoral system works, is that a party with a broad base of around 20% of the vote across all parts of the country (rather than a regional power base) elects no MPS, but if the opposition – currently a radical Marxist led rabble of unelectable weirdos – represents no threat, then people will allow their protest vote to go where it belongs.
And a UKIP vote up in the low to mid twenties with Tory and Labour polling low thirties stars to make an ‘balance of power’ situation possible.
UKIP won the European elections, which admittedly was pure protest, because European MEPS are completely meaningless and have very little power, but win it they did.
UKIP are poised on the threshold of a major breakthrough. And there is no knowing how many Tories and a few labour MPS would defect if such a stunt were pulled.
Its very interesting for armchair political analysts.
Brexit and the EU is something that wont go away.
And Greece Italy and France are by no means happy – France in particular with its own brand of ‘national socialists’ – Le Front National – led by one of the smartest chicks in politics – Marine Le Pen – is poised for a sea change too.
Its heady stuff, and I dont think anyone knows which way the dice will fall. AS with the collapse of the USSR, it all looked so solid up till the time that some event catalysed the breakup.
Yes, the recent Ipsos-Mori opinion poll was amazing.
In several EU countries, around 60% want a referendum on continued EU membership.
48% of Italians want to leave the EU. There’s an obvious reason for that: since the creation of the euro, Italian GDP growth is a massive – drum roll please – 3%
For most western economies the figure is around 25 to 30%
The EU is a catastrophe, a ship that is slowly sinking. Time to Leave.
Chris
Cameron won’t last the week, if that. He has lied to us, the tried to scare us, and now he threatens us. He has consistently talked Gt Britain down. He is toast.
Once we’re out, we go from a close trading bloc of 500 million to a worldwide trading area of 5,600 million.
Sad to see blatant political rants on this site. Please go elsewhere.
+1 to that steveta_uk
steveta_uk (and Espen)
What did you think it would take to end the green/CAGW nonsense – good clean logic & rhetoric? Discussing Brexit may not be your cup of tea, but this is what shoveling the crap out of the stables looks like – it’s messy, smelly and hard work.
Of course there are political rants.
It’s CAGW we’re talking about.
That makes it 97% political and 3% science.
There is no discussion of CAGW without politics because the watermelons demand the government use guns and bullets to make the freedom lovers stfu.
+10
“It’s CAGW we’re talking about.
That makes it 97% political and 3% science.”
That’s the movement in a nutshell!
Those on the losing side always want the conversation to end.
If the Climate discussion was simply about science, hardly anybody would care. But it is not. It is about political decisions that have or are likely to have an enormous impact on our lives. The politics is much more important than the science.
There are just as heated arguments in many areas of science (e..g the date of man arriving in North America, string theory, the role genes play in behaviour) but because none of those scientists are calling for huge increases in taxes or fundamental changes to our economy, few people care.
What is happening in the UK is FAR more important to the future of the world than which of two people with very bad hair wins a US election.
This is a political event that is being driven by the whole perception of Big Centralised Government as uniquely dysfunctional and unable to react effectively in the 21st century. Climate Change the political agenda is all about Big Centralised Government.
Its happening in Europe first, because Europe is less affluent that than USA, but probably more politically sophisticated. With a long history of having to deal with Empire building tyrannies.
The real question that is being posed here, is so utterly fundamental no one has even realised what it is, and that is “What actually is the purpose of government”?
The (Liberal) Left’s answer seems to be ‘to achieve social justice’
The Right’s answer seems to be ‘to achieve social injustice and fat profits for the Oligarchs’
And in the EU, they combine into what many perceive as an instrument of oppression unmatched since the Third Reich.
Both share a common purpose: More government. The Left because it feels that it and it alone has the moral right to dictate how life shall be lived. And the OIigarchs are quite happy to direct gross wealth generated into their own pockets using lobby created legislation to ensure that its their useless products that are mandated. Viz solar panels and windmills. Climate change is just another weapon like ‘social justice’ and ‘nationalised health services’ to have big fat organisations that are constrained to purchase stuff that is mandated centrally to be the energy source, or drug, of choice.
Note that all these ideas once were genuinely radical and socially beneficial things, until they got subverted into the vast machine that spins propaganda and marketing and legislation to control who buys what, and from whom.
And these days,. Left Or Right, they are as one blunt politician remarked ‘but two cheeks, of the same arse’
[At this point the lights went out, and my computers all died: Due to the magic of persistent history the above post still existed]
What is happening in the UK, is the emergence of something that doesn’t actually quite know what it is. Its anti-the current system, because we know that is broken, but its not yet quite worked out what its for.
Nigel Farage calls it ‘common sense and sound principles, not ideology’ Others call it conservatism with a small C. I see it as really a pragmatic libertarianism. As much government as is strictly necessary to do the jobs only governments can do, applied at the lowest possible level as close to the problem as possible. The USA is better off in this respect as a US state actually has more freedom to operate with the federal united states than a country in the European Union, and there are elections that do elect peole who can do something. IN the EU, elections are a façade only.
What I personally think is happening is a move towards devolution of power authority and accountability to more localised government structures.
And the rise of libertarianism. But the people themselves haven’t recognised that for what it is.
AS long as the EU Titanic sails along, its fun to play at who steers the ship, and leave all the watertight doors open and ignore the designated lifeboats, but post Iceberg, it becomes very imporatnt to have watertight doors between nations, and to have lifeboats that can operate independently, when the big ship of state appears to be holed below the waterline and sinking fast.
The problem is all the chaps in the fancy uniforms are just superfluous baggaqge in the lifeboats, when what you need is not pomp and circumstance, and Zil lanes in Brussels, but people who know how to row, and navigate, and catch fish….which is why they are telling us with every fully paid up organisation that they command, that the ship is fine, and we would be fools to get into the lifeboats. For them, its a shot to nothing. If the ship goes down, there is no room for them in the lifeboats anyway, and they are dead men walking. They have no choice.
We do.
IN 9 days time we will be voting in the single most important election of a lifetime, in an event which may catalyse the breakup of the third biggest political structure in the world. IN US terms, this is our declaration of independence, our Fort Sumter moment.
Some are concerned that we may vote to enter uncharted territory. Those who support leaving the EU, do so because they would say we entered that many many years ago, and we don’t like where we seem to be heading now anyway.
We live in interesting times.
Although, to be fair, our next Prime Minister could have very bad hair too.
“IN US terms, this is our declaration of independence …”
It sure looks like it to me, and what “it” is, appears to me to be centered around “rule by consent of the governed” as our founders put it, Leo. Without that, it doesn’t seem like Britain is even a real country anymore, to me . . just a “collective”.
Or Rational Anarchy as Robert Heinlein put it – the return of individual responsibility and with it, freedom
The facts are that economies across the developed world are debt ridden and struggling to grow, with deflation threatening to create a full on depression. I personally don’t see how we avoid it. Political friction represents the issues of the day. Many of us believe that AGW is in large part an exercise in Socialist undermining of Capitalism. So it’s political!
The EU is communism with new action plan. It is essentially an unelected ruling elite who decide what’s best for us and then makes us follow those plans regardless of our own opinions or what hardships they cause. Capitalism is a nasty means to an end but will be phased out eventually. It’s no co-incidence that the EU has as almost as many former communist countries (Merkel was an East German after all) as democratic ones. Soon to be the majority with a few more additions. UK left wing elite and Green parties love the EU, as does the Guardian and large swathes of the BBC. It’s the nice face of socialism. IT’S FOR YOUR OWN GOOD.
No need for unpleasant economics to intrude into airy, fairy plans. The EU just asks for more money. It’s not like it has to account for the money it fritters. If it can’t compete with the outside world, then exclude them (trade barriers). And just like the USSR, it stifles innovation, ambition and achievement and rewards routine and box ticking. Ultimately it will stagnate in the same way. Worse, it promotes corruption and fake compliance. The whole green agenda is a gift to those brazen enough to shrug off a lack of genuine achievement.
But the Greens can’t see any of that. They have a dream of utopia that can be achieved if only nasty capitalism or silly democracy doesn’t get in the way. They’d found themselves very much at home in the EU corridors. No stupid voters choosing on their own world view, rather than for the green, greater good. They’ve been able to move their plans ahead, where they’d never get a chance in the UK alone. Of course they want us to vote to remain in the EU.
The worst thing for Europe was the reunification of Germany. This has allowed the communists in by the back door and explains the policies that are designed to destabilize Europe until It falls apart.
TinyCO2 – I’m not sure that you’re right about the ex-communist countries in the EU still pushing a communist line. They were typically unwilling communists, having communism imposed on them by the USSR. As Vaclav Havel said, no-one who had experienced communism would willingly return to it. I suspect that the communist push in the EU is coming predominantly from powerful well-funded green groups in western Europe. Britain would surely do well to break their shackles now.
True, but most countries are a mix of left and right. New EU counries tend to be less Eurosceptical than the older ones. Hope over experience? The left wing ideas of being looked after and equality are very seductive no matter what political colour you are. People notoriously fall for the same cons but with different faces. Sure, most wouldn’t vote for communism but many do vote for something very similar. The EU is polarising into those who don’t want the all powerful central state, and those that do. However since the EU isn’t democratic, it can’t be voted out, without a referendum like we’re having.
Mike Jonas – Angela Merkel was a fully paid up communist working for the Party as an agitprop specialist. Many in the East benefited from communism, even if it was that it relieved them of the necessity to actually work for a living – ‘jobs’ and housing were state provided.
The EU was set up by a communist, and it started life as a super-Union to protect IIRC the steel industries of France and Germany.
Europe has always had its communists, even in the West. Fascism and WWII itself was partly a war against communism by Franco, Mussolini and Hitler’s fascist parties. Back in the day Bolshevism and Communism were identified as all part of the ‘Jewish Conspiracy’ – echoes of which sentiment can still be found in the more rightwing nut and fruitcake conspiracy websites.
Today we tend to talk of it as ‘cultural Marxism’ instead.
If you want a quick overview of the Eurosceptic viewpoint of at least one person I recommend you to this site
http://www.jamescarver.org.uk/blog.php?id=11
http://www.jamescarver.org.uk/blog.php?id=10
In the end perhaps what is less significant as to who is right and who is wrong about the exact political leanings of the protagonists in the political sphere today, but the fact that they are protagonists at all, and what the agenda has become.
The fact that the US Tea party even exists at all, is salient, never mind that its not an effective political voice. The sheer vitriol between the Liberal and conservative voices all over the West,and the widespread disillusionment with both, shows that something is afoot. Meanwhile the debt crisis has never been solved, stock markets and economies have been relatively stagnant for nearly a generation, and in an example of supreme displacement (or perhaps an example of the Peter Principle’s Utter Irrelevance ) , we are led to believe that a 20% increase in a trace gas that forms the tiniest fraction of our atmosphere, is The Worsest Thing There Ever Was. ( http://www.clarewind.org.uk/events-1.php?event=35 )
Is that in the end, what governments have become? IN a global confirmation of the Peter Principle, they are all promoted to a level of total incompetence, not one actually has a clue what to do, or even what their job descriptions are? And so 90% of the political process, is spent in exercising those very traits so clearly delineated by Laurence Peters, that of pretending to Do Something – anything – because the real job is totally beyond them?
IN the case of the vapid and vacuous Luke-Arse, its perfectly clear that on any question about the science of climate change, or renewable energy, she has less of a ‘cleau’ than Inspector Clouseau. But that doesn’t stop her jumping on the handy career bandwagon and virtue signalling her way into a well paid job pulling the wool over the public’s eyes, supported by a band of faithful hippies, who believe that if Joni Mitchell sang it, it must be true,.
Greenpeace and the European Green party receives a seriously large amount of funding from the European taxpayers, courtesy of the EU.
Cui Bono?
Go figure.
Its not communism – its not anything more than people climbing over each other chasing gravy trains, careers, personal fame, because the real problems are simply beyond their ability to even comprehend.
They borrow and steal any thing from anywhere that furthers narrow selfish ambition, and they lie from the moment their mouths open to when they go to sleep at night. They dont know what to believe, so they choose top believe whatever will make them richer, more powerful, more famous, more acceptable to their peer group, with no thought whatsoever to the consequences of their actions. They have no morals, though they talk about morals endlessly. They have no honour, no dignity, no conscience, and no friggin idea of what is real or what is not, and in the end, they simply do not care.
IN the end, in the parlance of a bygone generation, they have no class. These are not statesmen, or even idealists, these are vulgar grubby little people: selfish, greedy, elbowing their way into the limelight, grabbing what cash is on offer from whoever is offering it, prepared to sell their virtue, their minds and their bodies, for the chance to be on Facebook, Reality TV, or in the media.
Which wouldn’t be a problem, as a spectacle, but is a problem when they get their hands on the levers of power and start tugging in them without actually having studied the manuals…
Adapting the term coined by James Delingpole, this is not democracy, this is not totalitarianism, this is not a meritocracy, or even an oligarchy, or a monarchy.
It is a Wankerarchy.
WE have a civilisation – almost a global civilisation being run by people who are not even competent to change a lightbulb.
Maybe its too complicated for anyone to run it properly, which is in the end the biggest single reason to cut it up into more manageable chunks, that we can run, and let them sort out their mutual interfaces.
Which is why I will be voting to get the heck out. I’m an engineer who knows a bit about system analyst. And I would never ever contemplate designed something as complex as the EU and expect it to actually work, the way its designed now. And that’s before you let the people who are in charge, be in charge.
I leave you with a final cruel joke. Its called Jean Claude Juncker, President of the European Commission (whatever that is)
The EU has three presidents. None are elected by the people
He isn’t even pretending to be anything other than a drunk on the gravy train. He doesn’t have to. He cannot be sacked.
When the left asks for your vote they don’t tell you they’re going to blow billions on goofy ldeas, bribe the public sector labour monopolies with fat contracts and minimal accountability and suppress opposition with over regulation and undemocratic rules. They only talk about how everything is possible with found money. We can borrow enough to all be rich and we’ll never have to pay it back or even work for it.
@ TinyCO2. Yup, that’s pretty much it right there.
Us yanks took a whack at it in 1776 with “no taxation without representation”. Then we thought about it some more and decided we didn’t want any of that European stuff.
The Napoleonic era was just around the corner and proved the point.
Capitalism is nothing more than individuals freely interacting.
There is nothing nasty about it, and it will continue as long as individuals are allowed the freedom to chose for themselves.
That’s not how the Left define it though. For them, capitalism is part of the class war, as it is the capitalist that control the capital and thus the means of production.
It is markets that are individuals freely interacting, a point that people who hate markets seem to totally misunderstand.
I’m a fan of capitalism but the left thinks it’s a nasty corruption of human society.
Yes, and Christianity is nothing more than believing in Jesus.
‘Individuals freely interacting’ can involve any number of activities, including some that most of us would agree should be illegal.
In other words, the financial industry owns the finest politicians money can buy … just individuals freely interacting.
Capitalism is a brilliant system but it can be perverted.
I don’t think wiki could be more wrong, but it’s convenient to blame our economic problems on Wall Street. Politicians were ‘bought off’s and the crises could have been handled differently but it had little or nothing to do with income inequality.
commieBob,
“Yes, and Christianity is nothing more than believing in Jesus.”
Not really, a certain other major religion espouses “belief in” Jesus . . and several not so major ones too, but Christians believe he was God in the flesh, so to speak.
“Capitalism is a brilliant system but it can be perverted.”
Of course, but so can any system . . for now ; )
You are absolutely right. I was pointing out that “Capitalism is nothing more than individuals freely interacting.” is a gross oversimplification by comparing it with another gross oversimplification.
Yeah, I thought you made a fair point, and in a sense I was elaborating on it . . my point being that while something like a bank robbery can be classified as a form of capitalism, it’s got a distinctly not-free interaction element, which . . bedevils your point to some extent, it seems to me.
The “Regulators turned a blind eye to a lack of transparency and to conflicts of interest” element in what you quoted, brings up, to my mind, a fox’s guarding the hen-house problem that complicates the matter of what exactly is a non-capitalist system. In a sense, within the lexicon MarkW evoked there, other approaches can be rationally described as pre-corrupted capitalism, since the free interaction aspect is essentially surrendered in advance, in the hope that “the regulators” will be constrained from themselves becoming accomplices in what is essentially large scale theft.
By declaring it a “climate referendum”, I believe she actually created an own-goal. So Brexit it is then. Even uber-greenies seem to agree (though for the wrong reason).
But what about the Bees
https://www.foe.co.uk/resource/press_releases/brexit-endangers-britain-s-bees-says-friends-earth_14062016
Read this: https://risk-monger.com/2016/06/08/how-to-starve-africa-ask-the-european-green-party/
Greens, such a caring community. . .
As a congenital sceptic I have come to be suspicious of everything I’m told. I think food security is important for Africans, as it is for everyone. The chronic problem with achieving human development in Africa is corruption. Big organizations like the IMF or World Bank usually prefer to deal with governments rather than managing projects themselves. They believe they have more influence this way but it is a devil’s bargain whereby international money gets played for fools most of the time. Trickle down without the trickle or the down.
One of the arguments for Brexit is that Britain will get control over who enters. Even highly educated, highly desirable people from North America have a very hard time immigrating to Britain. Meanwhile any thieving, unskilled, uneducated scum from Ruritania can cross the border unhindered. Plus, there is a tidal wave of refugees who want in.
Is immigration the elephant in the room that nobody wants to talk about?
From my perspective it seems to be what everyone wants to talk about.
How much do you think it will affect the vote?
Those who believe the EU is undemocratic are just plain wrong, it is a myth , propaganda, it is a lie. In fact the EU is more democratic than the UK system of democracy where again the myth (that the House of Lords just rubber stamps legislation) is far from the truth. Even Juncker was democratically voted into office, something few Brexiters will admit.
Well, sort of:- https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/27/eu-democratic-bandwagon-juncker-president-wanted
“A catalogue of complacency, negligence, miscalculation and manoeuvring by national leaders over the past nine months conspired to deliver an outcome no one really wanted – Jean-Claude Juncker, Europe’s accidental president.”
Yay, democracy!
That’s strange. I don’t remember being in a polling booth with a piece of paper with the name “Juncker” printed on it, their political affiliation etc, along with a range of others so I could put an “X” next to my choice.
What’s more, I don’t remember reading Juncker’s or any other EU Presidential candidates manifesto and election pledges. Did they forget to notify me?
So? I don’t recall seeing Cameron’s name on any polling slip either.
But Steveta_uk, you did get the chance to vote, knowing he was party leader. In a few years you’ll get to vote for someone else and their party. There are no organised, cross border parties to vote for in the EU with specific leaders. There are only local representatives. No matter how you vote, you can’t influence the tone of the whole EU. It’s like being allowed to vote for independent town councillors but not your government.
steveta_uk
Here’s Cameron’s name on a polling slip (last election)
http://survation.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Witney-Ballot1.png
Show me Junkers
steveta_uk: “So? I don’t recall seeing Cameron’s name on any polling slip either.”
Unless you were in his parliamentary constituency you probably wouldn’t have.
But he was elected as the Member of Parliament for Witney, taking 35,201 votes, being 60.2% of the total votes cast.
Are you entirely unaware of the way that the British parliamentary system functions?
It would certainly appear so, from that post.
The EU presidency is rotated. The EU political system is nominally modeled on the Swiss, which is the longest running and most successful continuous democracy in the world. All the EU president (or swiss chair of the Bundesrat) has is a casting vote, they don’t make or lead policy.
Don’t really recall that vote was it on a Saturday night?
It seems that we have a different view of how democracy should work.
According to many that I have talked with, democracy means, my side wins.
Anything else isn’t democracy.
(-; yes, two wolfs and a sheep had vote on what to eat for lunch.
Don’t know what you’re taking, stevmap, but it isn’t doing your head any good.
Brexit, secession fever in Britain. A Limerick.
Secession is brewing in Britain
from EU they’ll vote to be quittin’
More than half to secede,
a reliable read.
No wall, yet the handwriting written.
https://lenbilen.com/2016/06/13/secession-fever-in-britain-a-limerick/
Ienbilen
“No wall, yet the handwriting written”
Got to love that line
Eugene WR Gallun
Leaving the EU will cause contortions of untold agony for so many Liberal loons it will be worth it for that alone. We’re about to witness the world’s biggest political dummy-spit meltdown in history from the UK Left and it will be utterly hilarious to behold.
Yes, the look on Labour faces when the Conservatives won the last election was priceless. The look of the Europhiles if we vote for Brexit would be even better. ‘But, but, we stitched the election up so tight. What went wrong?’ Ah a nice dream but I still fear that it won’t happen.
Finish the job! If you tear it down, they will go away?
It sounds like Lucas is more worried about her job than anything else. Heaven forbid she might have to go back schlepping her own bags like the rest of us.
Fog in Channel – Continent Isolated!
This UK newspaper headline from the 1950s, possibly apocryphal, summed up the prevailing attitude of the times. Britain has always looked out to the world, not just Europe.
Our greatest export has always been the English language. It is now the world’s language of business, diplomacy, commerce, maritime and air traffic control, and computers.
We dont need Europe. Let’s Leave.
You also exported an attitude towards government.
It’s not a coincidence that Britain’s former colonies are doing much better than the former colonies of the other European countries.
Correction. We probably do need Europe, if only as a place to have a second home. What we dont need, and the Europeans don’t need, but haven’t realised yet, is the EU…
What did the EU ever do for us?
A lot less than the Romans…
“This UK newspaper headline from the 1950s, possibly apocryphal,”
It was from 1939 and supposedly from The Times. In reality it was German WWII propaganda trying to convince potential allies that we British could occasionally let our self effacing mask slip a little (in other words we could be arrogant). I’m sure they needed convincing 🙂
Excellent! Blame Jerry, wot?
According to the Harvard International Review the actual headline reads:
‘Heavy Fog in Channel – Continent Cut Off’.
It was published as a headline in the London Times on October 22nd, 1957. It could not have appeared on the front page; only personal announcements (BMDs) were published there, until 1966.
Whatever the wording the sentiment remains the same – Leave.
Nexis media archive turns up the following:
CHUNNELVISION: By William Grimes, New York Times, Sep 16, 1990
“On a wall in the office of Alastair Morton, Eurotunnel’s British deputy chairman and chief executive, hangs one of Britain’s most famous newspaper front pages: a copy of The Daily Mirror from 1930 with the headline “Fog in Channel: Continent Cut Off” – not Britain, proud in her splendid isolation, but the Continent.
and
ONE LAST SHOUT AND WE’RE THERE: Sir Alastair Morton, The Times (London), May 6, 1994
He also has the famous “Fog in Channel Continent Cut Off” headline from the Daily Mirror in 1930.
then there is
ENGLAND AND FRANCE NOW A TRAIN TRIP: New York Times, May 7, 1994
“In some ways, such attitudes underscore Britain’s “splendid isolation” as an island nation, a state of mind reflected in the 1930’s headline from London’s Daily Mirror: “Fog in Channel — Continent Cut Off.”
Of course they could all be wrong, as can I, however the following gives corroboration that the headline (or at least the story of such a headline) is of prewar vintage, though it’s attributed to the Times rather than the Mirror
TOPICS OF THE TIMES – WET BRITISH SUMMER: New York Times, Aug 29, 1936. p. 12
“It is the lonely-furrow weather policy summed up in the famous London Times weather report:
“Heavy fog over Channel. Continent isolated.”
So The New York Times of 1936 refers to it having been printed earlier in The (London) Times. I suspect this is where the German team found it.
One last thing before I shut up, I recall a cartoon in Punch around 1948 which depicted the headline within the cartoon.
Maybe a prize to anyone who can come up with an image of the original, if it actually exists.
None of which really matters; when all is said and done I agree with you re the sentiment.
Phil’s Dad – Thanks for your excellent research on the origins of that headline.
I stand corrected and much better informed.
Now we just need to Leave the EU. Then the fun really starts: Lay in stocks of popcorn…
There is an interesting similarity between the current Brexit referendum and the much longer -standing dispute concerning the role of CO2 in climate change – In both arguments the protagonists start from exactly the same point.
In the AGW debate both sceptics (most of them) and warmists acknowledge the role of CO2 in radiative transfer. The difference is that sceptics believe that the effect , with increased CO2 levels , is minor ,often obscured by natural variabiity , and easily mitigated , if necessary , by the use of modern technology and the human genius for innovation. Warmists on the other hand believe that the effect of CO2 will accelerate beyond our control unless harsh restrictive measures are introduced.
Now look at the Brexit debate : both sides start from the realisation , as Lucas says herself ,that the EU is a hopelessly bureaucratic and financially incompetent structure which can . and probably does , enable the hiding of corruption. The Remain side says that that reform is best done by modifying the rules of this club from within , although the recent attempt to do so by Cameron ended in such a humiliating fiasco that it has not reappeared as a factor in the debate. Those advocating Leaving believe that reform is impossible , because there are too many influential snouts in the trough and our future will, in the longer term , be better outside what appears to be a failing organisation.
If anyone in US is lulled into the false belief that the EU is a European version of the US, I suggest you watch this video:
https://youtu.be/Gu53Z9HDPb8
We are more than half way to Soviet style dictatorship – not because we lost the cold war – but because the EU bureaucrats used stealth to take away our democracy with the complicity of our gullible policians.
That’s why the EU is known as the EUSSR.
Self-reinforcing Lysenkoism via backdoor NGO funding will be terminated.
The Green Party, including Natalie Bennett and Caroline Lucas, like the EU because it gives them the opportunity to impose their minority views on the majority without any democratic mandate or scrutiny. If the EU were a right of centre, free trade, capitalist oriented organisation they would be squealing like pigs.
Dr Caroline Lucas is, of course, a “climate change expert”. She is well qualified, holding a first class honours degree in English Literature from the University of Exeter and a PhD in English Literature from…the University of Exeter. Her thesis was entitled “Writing for Women: a study of woman as reader in Elizabethan romance”.
Trying to get MP’s Stringer and Lilley thrown off the UK Energy & Climate Change committee for daring to dissent, she wrote in a letter:
“However, in light of your criticism of the Prime Minister for having climate deniers in his Cabinet, and your comments about the harm caused to our country by delay and dither on climate change, it was especially disappointing to see Graham Stringer, a senior Labour MP, join forces with Conservative MP Peter Lilley in an attempt to undermine the findings.”
Graham Stringer has a degree in Chemistry
Peter Lilley a degree in Natural Sciences from Cambridge – I believe it was Physics.
So the only two dissenting voices on the committee were the only two actually to hold science degrees, a rare commodity in the Houses of Parliament. Caroline Lucas may be able to string good sentences together but on matters of science I think I’ll get my advice elsewhere.
Perhaps some of this rejection is due to a desire to regain British sovereignty, but from what I have been seeing, there is a STRONG objection to the open borders that are allowing an influx of people who reject the rule of law in favor of the tyranny of religious ‘leaders’.
Although the referendum question is about membership of the European Union many people see this as a revolt of the people against the oligarchs. The entitled have been running the system for their own benefit, for example using the AGW scare to award themselves enormous subsidies for building windmills, and many people have decided that it’s time to remind them that in the UK is a democracy.
One of the better political threads. It is good to know what actual Brits think of Brexit, rather than filtered though American reporters.
Hardly, count back to see how many supporters of the Remain side have contributed. You are only seeing one half of the argument. Remain supporters are unlikely to post here.
Why are remain supporters unlikely to post here? Are they all warmistas?
Probably.
I’ve been getting the “remain” side from the US MSM, notably the NY Times.
MarkW, on the balance of probabilities I suspect yes, probably. Or perhaps it is better to say that warmistas are more likely to vote remain. (Sure, there are other arguments, I personally haven’t made up my mind yet.)
This vote might be characterised as a vote by the UK populace for, or against, more centralised government from further away [*].
The global warmers/greens are usually in favour of bigger, more centralised government because it better allows them to tell the masses how to lead their lives (which they like to do), even though the masses were never actually given the chance to vote for it directly. I would have been surprised if the leader of the Green Party said anything else than what is reported here. So it is a kind of non-story in some respects.
[* The last time it was openly addressed in the EU, I think they called it “subsidiarity”. Nobody mentions it much these days.]
This is quite an eye opener
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jun/13/brexit-supporters-leave-vote-right
The Graundia is a hotbed of rabid warmists. I popped over to see what they were saying. I can’t usually stand it for long in the environment section because they are all doomsters who are convinced the world will end in 10 years and I have to come back to WUWT for a bit of sanity. There are 5500 comments from which you can get a good idea of the feeling or the left.
It does seem to me that everyone who is an anti-warmista, is also passionately anti-EU.
Whether that’s just because of a general attitude, or because they think leaving the EU will further their environmental aims I cannot say.
I think this the problem with the whole referendum. The EU has been such a scapegoat over the years for everything that goes wrong in the UK, that people from every fringe of the political spectrum think that leaving the EU will solve all their specific problems. The left and right both think that leaving will allow the country to be run the way they want.
For my own part, I want the UK to remain in the EU, I fear we will vote to leave, I Hope that if we do leave it won’t actually change much,
Leftists in general have no use for democracy.
I intend to vote in this referendum, even though I haven’t voted for almost 30 years. And yes, I’ll vote Leave.
While, rationally, I can see positives and negatives (but mostly negatives) on both sides, I regard this as an opportunity to register a vote of no confidence in the current political system.
Americans, too, might want to consider registering such a vote come November.
From here it sounds like Brexit will win, and the reason is not environmental laws at all but two major problems the EU brings to Britain: (1) the continuing costs of bailing out Greece and the other spendthrift countries that are members, and (2) the huge flood of allegedly-Syrian refugees.
Both these problems affect the other EU economies too, especially Germany and the other wealthy ones. So I expect that Britain will be only the first of a stampede as the rats leave the sinking ship.
NATO is unlikely to be affected by this, however, NATO has its own big problem — the change of regime in Turkey which has made them no longer our friend — and we desperately need to kick Turkey out, before they manage to force us into a war against Israel. But that’s a problem for next year.
Does anyone think that’s even a remote possibility?
Yes. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/may/31/israeli-attacks-gaza-flotilla-activists
I would say that Israel has done even more annoying things. In spite of that, Uncle Sam remains its steadfast supporter. NATO action without the permission of the USofA isn’t going to happen.
Greece , Portugal and Spain should never been allowed to join and the whole thing was doomed when they were. European economies are too desperate to be using the same currency. A Grexit would have been in order too.
disparate, but then again…
Poll of polls shows brexit winning.
https://ig.ft.com/sites/brexit-polling/
This is great, and the comments too……
http://www.breitbart.com/london/2016/06/10/brexit-might-actually-win-this-referendum-heres-why/
skeptik • 3 days ago
Germany Panics Over Brexit – Largest Newspaper Begs Brits “Please Don’t Go”
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/…
I guess they’ve just realized how much they’ll have to cough up if Britain leaves
There is one major problem for Brexit – we do the voting but they do the counting.
I never thought I’d write that about British politics, but details are now emerging of illegal activity at last year’s general election.
I believe it was Stalin who said that what matters is not who votes, but who counts the votes.
“I never thought I’d write that about British politics…”
Why would you think that, Roy?
When it comes to underhand activity, we British wrote the book, and we still lead the World.
In fairness, while there will undoubted be those who would try to interfere with the result, it will not be at the count.
The real objective of the “Greens” is world government with themselves behind the curtain pulling the levers and collecting the tithes.
Let us make it simple.
1. Green = Red
2. EU = Red
3. Green = EU.
Watermelons: Green on the outside, Red on the inside.
4. Green= Knows best
5. Green=By force
The just-elected Muslim mayor of London has announced he is removing all public pictures of naughty women because they are against his religion. That is, fashion models.
http://static.independent.co.uk/s3fs-public/styles/story_large/public/thumbnails/image/2015/04/27/15/proteinworld.jpg
The London Mayor sounds like a little dictator.
It was not done on religious grounds but to avoid “body shaming” larger women.
Larger women didn’t mind this though
http://i2.mirror.co.uk/incoming/article5580851.ece/ALTERNATES/s615b/David-Beckham.jpg
Not sure what Sid’s views are that one 🙂
What’s next??
Compulsory hijabs with a longer term move to enforcement of burqas?
Seamless exclusion of the key term “human caused” with climate change is the best guide for laymen observers on debate manipulation tactics confronting them. That point needs to be hammered home, at least to the last vestiges of thinking populations.
Thank you Eric.
The so-called “greens” – aka eco-tards – shall have their gravy train derailed very soon. It will be a pleasure to see them choke upon their own carbonated oxygen. They are loathsome and vile.
Regards,
WL
People are curious, and they will vote to leave just to see if this unelected uncountable superstate tells them to vote again, just like Ireland did, they voted No and were told to vote again. who backed Ireland up? no one! that’s who lol they voted yes the second time around because the Irish people realised it is all bull shit…
It really is amazing to me just how trivialized the debate in the UK about Brexit is becoming. The real purpose of the referendum is to decide which approach will allow Britain to fare better many, many years from now, not simply in the short term or because there might be some who will recognise and correct some of the more stupid ‘Green’ ideas that are currently being supported by an overbearing EU. A fear that Britain might be able to determine its own future in opposition to an unelected cabal of commissioners who vote their own (excessive) expense arrangements, whose accounts have not been given the all clear for 19 years running, who want to subsume Britain’s military force into an EU defence sector, all of which which costs us £10bn a year more than we receive and which even now hasn’t reconciled the concepts of Common and Napoleonic law is frankly seriously concerning.
I believe the next Greek bail-out is in around a month.
If we are still in the EU, Juncker will expect Great Britain to cough up around £2.4B.
Cameron will swear on his mother’s grave to refuse to pay, and then surreptitiously slip the cheque to Juncker in a brown envelope.
So how much is the next dues increase from Brussels? Over reach operation is expensive don’t you know, just ask Obama.
It’s all about sovereignty. Britain has had a large undercurrent of Socialism/Marxism since the beginning of the 20th century and the EU is another attempt to put them firmly in that camp. The notion that the EU has elected decision makers is laughable at best and plenty of Kool Aid has been passed around to make people believers. AGW and the EU are products of the same disinformation and both are designed to enact “wealth redistribution” which is code for making the West pay restitution for their earned prosperity. There’s no equitable redistribution planned or intended. All you have to do is look at the history of Socialist/Marxist governments to know what the eventual outcome will be. If you are one of the Yes/No voters please use your vote wisely because this may be your last chance to retain your self determination and it will affect the rest of the world.
This new, short film is pretty darned close to the truth.
https://youtu.be/eHR8Lj3wb-o
I like the Norwegian leader’s contribution to coordinated assault on Brexit. She basically tells the serfs not to look at Norway as a model. (It’s too successful as an energy state to be compared against.) Besides, someone has to pay the rent and party tab in Brussels.
If the UK leaving the EU is going to destroy Europe, why did they not give Cameron the treaty changes he needed to win this referendum? They gave him nothing.
The referendum has been promised many times and not delivered. An EU referendum has become the standard election promise from someone who expects to lose. It is not a vote winner because people want to stay in the union, quite the opposite.
There is nothing Cameron could offer me that would persuade me to vote Remain. I am one of those older voters who, it is said, “would crawl, naked over broken glass to vote Leave if they have to”.
It is actually quite difficult to find anyone who wants to stay in, apart from those who profit directly from the EU and a few misguided children who are unlikely to vote if they have anything better to do on the day.
Britons tend to do divide and conquer on themselves a lot. Like when they had an empire, which they had acquired via using divide and conquer on others. But within this empire they (most likely unconsciously) created a divide between British and non-British, thus preparing way for a permanent division along this lines, when new powerful forces (like Soviets) decided to take advantage of this opportunity.
Long lasting empires were usually doing opposite – trying to unite along a common identity. Eg. Russia convincing various Asiatic Sibiera natives that they are really Russians. Same with USA – convincing all those immigrants that they are really just American. And China – which had multiple cultures, ethnicities and languages, but managed to unify them as Chinese. Or Rome, which after some time of Roman citizenship exclusivity finally gave up and gave it to everyone within the empire.
Britons are a failure at this, even within the small borders stressing how different and separate Scotts are form English etc. Now that they have a chance for a common European Identity, and they seem to fail to embrace it. Even though that Cameron managed to negotiate it they way they like – light, with little strings attached; while still having a vote in EU; that allows them to influence what happens in countries like Germany.
In all fairness what is so special in Britishness now? Now they are weaker at industry than Korea, Switzerland, Germany and others. Worse at high-tech than US, Japan and others. In such situation shouldn’t it be buidling coalitions rather than trying to sepate itself?
The more the merrier in the Great German currency empire. They just don’t get it on the basic design flaws so might as well exploit them—VW style.
GTR,
Your ignorance is bewildering.
Do NOT try and tell us Brits what to do !
There is no such thing as a “coalition” within the EU: there never was.
This time we won’t be alone and we shall set to fire the English Channel.
I strongly suggest you learn before you type.
“Now that they have a chance for a common European Identity, and they seem to fail to embrace it.”
But of the few things most of us agree on, we don’t want a common EU identity. Even the Remain side don’t want to be part of the United States of Europe. The argument is whether we believe that our MPs can keep us in the EU but out of the union. Those who go on past experience want out altogether. Cameron managed to negotiate FA.
Your post is nearly as funny as the Downfall movie clip.
Top marks for the Satire sir!
Oh hang on, you didn’t actually mean it?
Bless!
It’s healthy to hear a “Remainian” voice here. Well done.
Now…, from your examples of people “convinced” to accept a “common identity” the USA clearly fought hard for their independence. That leaves (Revolutionary) China, (Soviet) Russia or the ancient Roman Empire. In which of these would you say the everyday person was better off as a result?
If you are to build coalitions (not the most popular concept in recent memory in the UK) would you not do so with like minded individuals that look like succeeding?
The EU is a burning building and the fire exit will only stay open a few days longer.
@Phil’s Dad – I explicitly wrote about immigrants as people who accept American identity, not those who fought independane war. Meaning even new people do this. And I didn’t mean Soviet Union, but Russia. Rusia (before World War I) had a federalistic identity, that is tried to make people identify as Russians, even if they were from some minority. Soviet Union and China just after revolution had a different identity, based on ideology – they wanted people to identify themselves as communists, and it was an international identity. Similar to what Islam does today.
Europe had unions for it’s history eg. Austro-Hungary, Poland-Lithuania, Coalitons were even more frequent, Eg. today there is Visegrád Group. There was a previous, much wider and more ambitious, but unfortunately unsuccessfull attempt called Hexagonale. Benelux in the West.
UK seems to be kind of deficient in such abilities, with a tendency to isolate itself, thus becoming smaller, and less meaningful.
GTR You obviously have no idea about the EU and Britain’s membership of same. There is no ‘common European identity’ and never will be. Cameron negotiated nothing at all, and then claimed a great victory (just as many of us Brits had predicted). Now he leads a massive campaign of fear, trying his best to frighten the people into voting his way. He has not tried to promote the benefits of EU membership because there are none. All he has done is threaten us all, threaten old people that their pensions will be cut, threaten everyone that all taxes will rise steeply. It isn’t working though. The more he threatens the more the polls move towards a vote to leave. I hope very much that we will vote for independence on 23rd June.
100% 24 carat unmitigated nonsense from start to finish, GTR.
And insufferably patronising to boot.
You haven’t the remotest clue what you’re wittering about.
They are reporting on the news tonight that that United States are preparing to announce that they are devolving power from the electorate to an unelected bureaucracy based in Ottawa to whom citizens of the U.S. will pay a fee to manage governance of their country on their behalf. Needless to say, we Brits stand firmly behind President Obama’s far-sighted plan to align his nation with other Western ‘states’ in this manner.
I hope they know that the sidewalks of Ottawa are rolled at 5pm sharp Mon-Fri. Closed weekends.
Newsflash
Mexico and Central America doing the same. It is likely that USA will be downvoted in all future decisions. Queso and tequila will get huge subsidies and preferred status for exports. All car production will be moved to Belize and Guatemala. Lake Erie will be set aside for the milk lakes and Gildersleeve mountain will be repurposed for the much banana mountain.
much needed banana mountain. doh!
El Salvador given $3 billion to enhance its fishing fleet and sole rights to lobster and crab along the east coast of USA and Canada.
The best, most responsive government is the one that is closest to the People.
+1 TA
I found this point of view compelling, and hard to dispute.
Indeed. Or the longer..
dbstealey commented: “…I found this point of view compelling, and hard to dispute….”
+1
I add my humble support for the country that is the Mother of Parliaments, …shake off the burden of unelected bureaucrats in Brussels and become free again. Just one lonely Canuck wishing you all well and hoping you can make us proud again.
Thanks, we need all the support we can get.
Well, I am most definitely NOT in favour of leaving the EU. And here is why:
Years ago – 2001 – I did a documentary about the EU. It was called Politics Isn’t Working – The E-Word. And it was all about the failings against successes of the EU. It gave me an insight into how it works. The EU is mad, mad organization…even crazier than proponents of the Leave campaign might imagine. Because it is constructed out a hotch-potch of compromise and selfish national interest, it’s MEPs have to work incredibly long hours and travel incessantly. But what struck the documentary and myself makers is how hard those guys actually worked and despite being unheralded, and how much they believed in the principles of democracy and accountability. They work their bottoms off for us.
The other thing that struck me is how little people care or know about the EU and how it works. And reading this thread it’s pretty obvious know one really grasps it here either. The thrust of the documentary was that because no one was particularly interested in the EU, even enthusiastic supporters of it, no one takes the time to work out what their elected representatives are doing and why, and thus aren’t being represented in the traditional sense of democracy. Voter turn outs for MEPs are really low, and I doubt anyone could tell you who their MEP was in any country in the EU let alone the UK.
Attempts to address the lack of transparency in the EU was made via the Lisbon treaty, but voters wanting to object to the way EU did things, ironically voted against the very things that would have addressed their concerns. It speaks to the lack of trust, lack of interest etc.
Yet, the EU does do what it sets out to do. It has presided over the greatest rise in wealth and security in Europe’s history (it’s why the UK wanted to join after the fact in the first place). Member states come together to agree on regulations of common interest. For example, the fisheries policy, environmental policy (and I am not talking about climate change, I am talking pollution, common health care, river and waterfront management – stuff that crosses borders), mobile phone charges, insisting that airlines meet a certain standard for safety and be held responsible for missing luggage and flights that don’t come etc…
What people seem to forget is that the UK is a large, influential and important member of the EU. Far from being DICTATED to by Brussels, the UK IS Brussels – as much “Brussels” as any other major nation. But the EU also gives us recourse against our own government….something that is really important to me right now as a large section of our borough are being royally shafted by our local council…..and actually for other reasons related to my profession.
To the issue of democracy, people don’t realise that if you want a law changed or created in the EU, ANY EU citizen can devise a petition and they HAVE to implement or seriously consider it. You can’t do that in the UK, at least at the moment. We have democratic accountability in that we vote for MEPs, and the members of the executive who currently are able sit behind closed doors (from which the accusation rightfully can be made about lack of transparency). So if anything is implemented we don’t like we can hold our own politicians accountable. And we do….
For me, it makes no sense to leave the EU. The reason most people want to leave is because of immigration, but if we left we would still have to accept free movement of trade in order to be part of the common market. We would still have to accept EU regulations in order to trade with them (for example we couldn’t make…I dunno…DVD players that blow up when you turn them on) but we would have no seat at the table deciding on what those regulations would be. We would be figuratively cutting our nose off to spite our face.
We don’t gain anything by leaving. “Sovereignty”? You’ve got to be joking. That’s really a hard argument to take seriously. You mean you would rather be shafted by your own politicians than your own politicians plus someone else’s? Either way your shafted. What on earth makes people think that our own politicians are so wonderful or our system of democracy is so accountable that we would be any better off? How better off? Plus, we still have the right of veto in the EU, control of our own borders, all the trappings of sovereignty – we just have to accept regulations that all member states – including us – agree to.
Finally, most of the criticisms of the EU are generally right, though not always for the right reasons. But it is NOT imposed on us, we are PART of it and if we don’t like it we can CHANGE it. If you aren’t happy with something, you can write or go and see your MEP. You can formulate a petition and force the EU to consider it. The EU is net good for the UK, for all its faults.
It doesn’t make sense to pick up our toys and go home, it makes better sense to change it for the better.
If you understand the EU then you know full well that they will sweeten the deal on the table and call referenda until they get the answer they want. Whatever we get, everyone else will want, but that is not our problem. Cameron uncorked the bottle with the EU Genie trapped inside, I will vote Leave on the 23rd. Whatever the result some people will lose a lot of money, some will gain, most of us will muddle through as usual.
“Plus, we still have the right of veto in the EU, control of our own borders, all the trappings of sovereignty …”
No, we really don’t. Qualified Majority Voting long ago put paid to any kind of right of veto and the so-called free movement rules prevent us from adequately policing our borders. With regard to border controls, however, I accept that we do not help ourselves by having brain-dead judges deciding that any feeble “human rights” excuse trumps common sense every time but, since that is primarily a result of the ECHR and not the EU, it is less germane.
Reposted (because I accidentally used a wrong email address)
“Plus, we still have the right of veto in the EU, control of our own borders, all the trappings of sovereignty …”
No, we really don’t. Qualified Majority Voting long ago put paid to any kind of right of veto and the so-called free movement rules prevent us from adequately policing our borders. With regard to border controls, however, I accept that we do not help ourselves by having brain-dead judges deciding that any feeble “human rights” excuse trumps common sense every time but, since that is primarily a result of the ECHR and not the EU, it is less germane.
You say they want it to be democratic, but fundamentally, when elected MEPs do not have *any* power over the legislation that originates from unelected bureaucrats, how can it be?
You also say we can change it. There are 2 parts to this, (1) whether Cameron WANTS to change it, and (2) whether he is genuinely ABLE to. To (1) it’s clear his pathetic attempt at ‘renegotiation’ was a poorly veiled demonstration that he DOESN’T want to, and to (2) we have a heavily weighted system against us to achieve anything, and have been consistently outvoted. It is also clear that the core bureaucrats have no intention of deviating from their ultimate goal; that of eliminating nation states and creating the single ‘Country’ called Europe. Their answer to every failure is ‘MORE EUROPE’!
…further. The reason it’s desirable to be “shafted” by ONLY our own politicians, is that we can get rid of them. Has that failed to sink in. We CANNOT vote out the EU bureaucrats and presidents (how many do they need!). That’s being shafted, not our sovereign democracy. If our own politicians try that on us, they can be both DESELECTED, and they and whole governments VOTED OUT, and often are.
agnostic2015,
None of your arguments addresses the fact that once the UK hands over its sovereignty to the EU, it’s a done deal — forever. From that point on, the UK will just be another small part of the Borg.
Greece, along with every other basket case country in the EU, is already making plans to vote the UK’s wealth into their pockets. The UK has only one vote against theirs, so get ready to hand over your taxpayers’ assets based on wishful thinking that joining the EU will be in your best interests.
The EU has been politically unable to make Greece live within its means, and Greek profligacy continues unabated. The EU desperately needs the UK’s substantial wealth to pay for more Greek bailouts, and other countries will be in line with their hands out. British taxpayers are in the EU’s sights. Even the most casual observer can see that if the UK joins the EU, it will be looted to keep the EU kleptocrats in power.
If the UK hands over its sovereignty to the EU, unelected foreign bureaucrats will make decisions directly affecting the UK, and they will carry the force of law — and your MP’s will be impotent to do anything about it except complain.
You don’t seem to understand that the EU does whatever it wants, regardless of any rules. Who is going to challenge them? Every country in the EU is subservient to Brussels. The rules stated that Ireland would vote Yes or No on joining the EU, but when the vote didn’t go the way the EU wanted, the rules were simply discarded.
EU bureaucrats are appointed by the EU President, who is an unelected puppet of the other unelected EU potentates who lord it over individual countries. They get away with it because each of those countries has stupidly handed over its sovereignty to the unelected EU. And now you want your own country to throw out everything it’s gained since the Magna Carta? For WHAT??
And whatever you believe the UK would get out of joining the EU now is nothing compared with what the EU would offer you if the UK voted “NO”. The EU desperately needs your country’s wealth to spread around. Without it, self-serving poseurs like the EU’s unelected president Herman Van Rompuy are fearful of keeping the EU together. If you had even minimal business sense, you would at least hold out for a lot more. If you had real common sense you would vote “NO” and that would be the end of it. Instead, you’re ready to simply hand your collective heads on a platter for nothing to a corrupt gang that’s afraid to stand for election.
Do you really believe that the EU follows its own rules? Do you really believe that if an individual country disagrees, it has any recourse? Those beliefs are contradicted by the EU’s repeated actions and statements. You clearly haven’t watched this video. You really should.
dbstealey,
None of what you right is correct, or where you are correct it makes no difference. Again you fall into the trap of thinking of theEU is somehow a separate entity. It ISN’T. You can say the same thing for every other member state, most of whom are not as powerful or influential as the UK. But they don’t view it that way.
I think one of the reasons for this kind of thinking is an english-speaking habit of viewing the government as “them”. In Switzerland at least, and to an extent other european countries I have visited, they think of government as being a “we”. What “we” are going to do, how “we” are going to live. The idea of sovereignty is in my view delusional. It’s thinking that somehow we are masters of our destiny. We aren’t whether we are in the EU or not. We buffeted by the forces of global economics and politics and we have to react to that, and THAT determines our destiny. Those things don’t change whether we are in or out of the EU, except that the EU itself creates a moderating influence. Like the difference between a large ship or a small ship in rough seas.
“Even the most casual observer can see that if the UK joins the EU, it will be looted to keep the EU kleptocrats in power.”
The UK is ALREADY joined to the EU. It gets its way on policy more than 80% of the time. It is absolutely a critical and influential member, not some whipping boy consigned to be kicked in the teeth for some high minded ideal.
“You don’t seem to understand that the EU does whatever it wants, regardless of any rules. ”
Well….rubbish. The EU is not some distant and distinct entity that exists outside of human experience that imposes its conscious will on the meek subservient mindless masses like a despotic god. The EU is….wait for it…US!! It’s made up of people, flawed, brilliant, overworked, corrupt, uncorruptible, cheating, honourable, lazy and hardworking people.
“EU bureaucrats are appointed by the EU President, who is an unelected puppet of the other unelected EU potentates who lord it over individual countries.”
No, this isn’t correct, or at least it is misleading. The EU president is rotating position held by member states. It is modelled on the swiss system in order to ensure a casting vote. Any appointment has to be ratified by the member states, but important matters of policy can and are discussed behind closed doors by the executive level. One simple suggestion to deal with this lack of transparency is to film those sessions. But those members meeting behind closed doors are elected representatives of the member states, so the accountability is there, it’s just not good enough.
“stupidly handed over its sovereignty to the unelected EU. ”
This just isn’t true, or at least again is misleading….in that the whole concept of sovereignty and self-determination is laughably flawed. The British government, and in fact our local council trample over its own laws and regulations with depressing regularity. The degree to which that is possible in the EU is less, because there is no balance of power.
“And now you want your own country to throw out everything it’s gained since the Magna Carta? For WHAT??”
My friend, the UK is already part of the EU and it hasn’t thrown out the Magna Carta or anything else. All the idea behind agreeing to REMAIN in it is that the EU can continue to formulate regulations that govern the interests of ALL member states where they intersect. And there are TONS of examples. One of the most famous is the fisheries policy. The North Atlantic fishing stocks were nearly decimated a few decades ago, and the EU devised a system that really made EVERYONE unhappy, as such compromises do. But without it stocks would have collapsed entirely and despite the hardship it caused the fishing industries of many member states, at least they still have one today.
Europe is situated over a very small area. Western Europe could fit within the state of Western Australia with room to spare. As a result its geography requires some form of collaboration or confrontation. What happens if environmental laws in say Slovakia are laxer than in Austria and they want to dump their toxic waste into the Danube? The Slovakian Toxic Waste manufacturers pressure their government to let them do it because it “saves jobs” and they have retained all that marvellous “sovereignty”. Yeah, but the farmers in Austria who depend on that water for their farming are upset because now their crops are ruined. Austria says “their killing our crops” and Slovakia says “their taking our jobs”. Meanwhile Croatia are saying “hang on, you shouldn’t use that water for your farms, we need it too!!”
It doesn’t take Einstein to recognize you NEED something to arbitrate all that. Where everyone signs up and says “it’s in our common interest to not stuff things up for everyone else”. Think of it like living in a block of flats – 11b can’t be blasting out hard rock at 2:30 in the morning because 12b has an early start. But would you say that 11b should be allowed to blast out whatever and whenever and agreeing not to is giving up “sovereignty”?
The EU is far…far…from perfect, in ways most people, even those dead against, even realise. BUT it does do, for the most part, what it is supposed to in managing the interests of its members collectively.
The craziness is this notion that the UK is separate from and dictated to by the EU, or that withdrawing from the club will protect it from the decisions it makes. At the moment the UK is influential so if something happens it doesn’t like, it can stop it. BUT there HAS to be compromise, that’s the way of the world.
My final thoughts:
– Would you therefore support Scotland leaving the UK? Why would their reasons to leave be any different from the UK’s leaving the EU?
– If the UK was large enough to leave the EU without it mattering, then surely it is large enough to be getting what it wants if it was still in?
“Again you fall into the trap of thinking of theEU is somehow a separate entity. It ISN’T.”
Bollocks, like most of your disingenuous pro-EU puff pieces.
@dbstealy – Why this talk only about Greek lack of financial discipline, eg, “The EU has been politically unable to make Greece live within its means”? According to Wikipedia: “As of Q1 2015 UK government debt amounted to £1.56 trillion, or 81.58% of total GDP”. Does such debt indicate “living within one’s means”? Is it because UK financial discipline looks well only when compared to Greece?
agnostic2016 begins:
None of what you right is correct…
But what I wrote is correct. Right?
And GTR rights:
Why this talk only about Greek lack of financial discipline…
Greece was just one example of the problem. It is certainly not the only country that wants to make use of the UK’s wealth. That’s much easier than self-imposing financial discipline, AKA: living within their means.
How is the UK is better off being part of the EU? The UK is perfectly capable of negotiating separate agreements with any country, or with the EU itself. The EU needs the UK, not vice-versa.
Giving up sovereignty for imaginary benefits is wishful thinking. Get out while you can.
dbstealey and others:
Here is a professor of EU and UK constitutional law talk about how the EU works and how leaving it will impact the UK. It’s pretty much as I have outlined but in greater detail and far more authoritative:
Key points:
– The UK is a sovereign country. The EU is NOT a sovereign entity let alone a sovereign country. This is not an opinion, that’s a fact of UK and EU and international law.
– The UK parliament allows the EU to draw up legislation on it’s behalf, but it retains ultimate power over any law in the UK.
– Allowing the EU to legislate means there are trade offs. We gain from it although we also have to adhere to it.
– It is democratic in that all legislation has to be agreed by all member states. This involves enormous amount of negotiation, but all parties act for their national interest.
– The key reason as to why the EU is a successful economic bloc is that it standardizes regulation. Prof Dougan uses the example of if the UK manufactured computers. In order to trade with any other country it has to adhere to the individual laws regarding safety and responsibility to the consumer, and every country can and does have its own regulations. The point of the EU is that it standardises those regulations so that if you adhere to them you can trade anywhere within the EU without the regulatory barrier. This is the single greatest economic benefit of the EU.
If the UK were to leave it would STILL have to adhere to those regulations in order to trade with the EU, but without the right to help decide what those regulations should be. It would also STILL have to agree to free movement of people if it wanted to stay in the common market. Since that is major reason why the UK wants to leave, it would mean negotiating trade agreements with the EU member countries separately. That’s a huge amount of work.
– The amount of time it would take to disentangle EU and UK law which is deeply entwined is likely to take at least a decade, keeping people like him in business a long time. It’s considered the most serious difficulty of leaving the EU.
agnostic2015 says:
Allowing the EU to legislate means there are trade offs. We gain from it although we also have to adhere to it.
The United States tried the same thing, with the very best of intentions. Our Constitution says that the States are essentially sovereign. Except for a very few, very limited powers reserved for the federal government, all other governmental power is reserved to the States and their citizens.
But now in the U.S., legislative power is held by the federal government. If there is a conflict between state and federal laws, the feds win. It will be no different with the EU, except it will take much less time for the EU to become the de facto ruler. It’s already happening, right under the noses of countries like the UK, where its jobs and wealth are being transferred to more ‘needy’ countries.
There is always a government pecking order; a top dog. A headman. That’s simple human nature, and the good intentions of everyone concerned cannot stop it from happening in the EU. Bit by bit, law by law, regulation by regulation, the EU will become just like the U.S. federal government: it will become the supreme ruler of its subsidiary nations. Hoping that won’t happen is just wishful thinking, which ignores human nature and thousands of years of history.
And:
…the EU is a successful economic bloc…
…at the expense of its wealthier subsidiary countries. See Warren Latham’s selected examples.
The EU covets the UK’s wealth. That is the primary reason they want to keep the UK under EU jurisdiction. That allows the EU to transfer the UK’s wealth to poorer countries countries, which is exactly what’s happening now.
In the EU the wealth always goes from the makers to the takers. If the UK remains, that process will ratchet up inexorably. Your wealth will be confiscated by the EU and handed out as political favors.
But a vote to remain will accelerate the EU’s confiscation of your wealth. UK taxpayers didn’t cause Greece’s problems, but they will be expected to pay the cost of bailing out the countries whose own bad governments and policies caused their problems.
It’s been demonstrated over and over that the EU is not willing to force austerity on profligate countries like Greece. Why should it, when the UK and other wealthy countries have the money to bail out the deadbeats? The EU doesn’t have the money — but the UK does.
The citizens of the UK have a once in a lifetime opportunity to become independent of their EU master. Or, they can remain on the road to serfdom within the EU. For their sake, I sincerely hope they get out while they can.
“The EU covets the UK’s wealth. That is the primary reason they want to keep the UK under EU jurisdiction. That allows the EU to transfer the UK’s wealth to poorer countries countries, which is exactly what’s happening now.”
dbstealey you are FUNDEMENTALLY misunderstanding how the EU works. The EU …IS….the UK. The UK is a hugely influential stakeholder in the EU. It would be truer to say that the UK covets the wealth that the EU generates. The EU is simply a club run by its members. The UK is one of the “big 3” and it sets the agenda, so you can’t characterise the EU as something that happens to us, or covets or desires anything from the UK, because any agenda is driven largely by the UK itself.
This is the craziness of the whole debate. You have to grasp that nettle. The EU isn’t an entity separate to the UK. I strongly recommend you watch the video I posted. In the climate debate do we not insist on EVIDENCE? Not just arm waving and alarming sensationalism?
The EU is far more democratic than you give it credit for, it has its problems yes, but it’s will is the will of its democratically elected representatives from their respective sovereign countries.
“…at the expense of its wealthier subsidiary countries. See Warren Latham’s selected examples.”
I have and he is utterly wrong. Proveably and demonstrably wrong.
You could check this yourself you know. You can fact check and closely examine what the EU really is and how it works. Once you do, provided you are objective, is conclude that their really is no reason for all the hysteria.
““…at the expense of its wealthier subsidiary countries. See Warren Latham’s selected examples.”
I have and he is utterly wrong. Proveably and demonstrably wrong.”
Actually just to clarify, I mistook those comments for something else that was posted earlier. His comments aren’t wrong, just misleading. It cut’s BOTH ways.
agnostic2015,
We see the role of the EU differently. I respect your views on that more than my own, since you will be affected much more than folks in the U.S. We’re just in the peanut gallery, watching the show.
However, there is still history and human nature to consider. The EU began as an attempt to copy the U.S., which began with its many states united by an extremely weak federal government. In fact, your EU/UK arguments would apply to our federal and state governments just as well. I’m in California, one of the biggest, richest states in the U.S. But this state is subservient to the federal government. What the feds say goes, whether we like it or not.
It wasn’t intended that way. The rules were written to specifically forbid what’s happened. Our Bill of Rights does not allow it. But it’s happened to us anyway — good and hard.
The same evolution will take place in the EU. Eventually it will be the superior government, no matter what the rules say, and no matter what promises are made now. Therefore, my advice is to get out while you can.
If the UK does withdraw it can always re-join, and on much more favorable terms. The EU wants and needs the UK. If Brexit passes the EU will say a lot of things publicly to salve their wounded pride. But as always, money will have the final say. Behind the scenes there will be offers and counter-offfers made. At the very worst, you can re-join later if you want to, but under much more favorable circumstances the second time around.
I would still advise retaining your sovereignty. In the EU that will erode until it’s just an impotent, meaningless, old-timey word. But that’s your decision, not ours. We might see things a little more objectively, viewing the situation from across the Atlantic ocean.
Time will tell. Neither you nor I can make a difference in the voting at this point. The die is cast; voters will decide, and which way it goes will determine the next move in the game. All I can say at this point is, ‘Good luck!’ You will need it in either case.
Agnostic,
Dunno if DB has replied to your question about Scotland, but as a former resident of the UK of both Scottish and English ancestry, I’ll presume to do so.
You ask, “Would you therefore support Scotland leaving the UK? Why would their reasons to leave be any different from the UK’s leaving the EU?”
My answer is indubitably Yes! If Wales wanted to leave the UK, I’d also say, please feel free. For that matter, if the North of England wanted to be free of London, more power to them.
Any political entity with more than ten million people is too big. Five million is better, about the size of the USA in 1800.
Why would England want to be united with a bunch of National Socialist soccer hooligans and heroin addicts, anyway? Once the oil is gone, Scotland will be Venezuela with whisky. Sad what has happened to the land of Adam Smith and David Hume, of James Watt and James C. Maxwell.
Glaswegian In voter:
“agnostic2015 June 15, 2016 at 1:22 am
it’s why the UK wanted to join…”
The UK did NOT want to join the common market, as it was called, in 1973. Heath had no mandate to do so but did anyway. There was a referendum in 1974 and people voted to stay, but the damage was done.
“The reason most people want to leave is because of immigration” + “You mean you would rather be shafted by your own politicians than your own politicians plus someone else’s?” – has EU ever ordered UK to take in Pakistani immigrants? Who let them in?
Some people complain about “unelected” officials – the last time I checked the official head of state of UK is a hereditary monarch…
16th. June 2016
This is how good the EU has been for UK jobs……
Cadbury moved factory to Poland 2011 with EU grant.
Ford Transit moved to Turkey 2013 with EU grant.
Jaguar Land Rover has recently agreed to build a new plant in Slovakia with EU grant, owned by Tata, the same company who have trashed our steel works and emptied the workers pension funds.
Peugeot closed its Ryton (was Rootes Group) plant and moved production to Slovakia with EU grant.
British Army’s new Ajax fighting vehicles to be built in SPAIN using SWEDISH steel at the request of the EU to support jobs in Spain with EU grant, rather than Wales.
Dyson gone to Malaysia, with an EU loan.
Crown Closures, Bournemouth (Was METAL BOX), gone to Poland with EU grant, once employed 1,200.
M&S manufacturing gone to far east with EU loan.
Hornby models gone. In fact all toys and models now gone from UK along with the patents all with EU grants.
Gillette gone to eastern Europe with EU grant.
Texas Instruments Greenock gone to Germany with EU grant.
Indesit (washers and dryers) at Bodelwyddan Wales gone with EU grant.
Sekisui Alveo said production at its Merthyr Tydfil Industrial Park foam plant will relocate production to Roermond in the Netherlands, with EU funding.
Hoover Merthyr factory moved out of UK to Czech Republic and the Far East by Italian company Candy with EU backing.
ICI integration into Holland’s AkzoNobel with EU bank loan and within days of the merger, several factories in the UK, were closed, eliminating 3,500 jobs
Boot’s sold to the Italians – Stefano Pessina, who have based their HQ in Switzerland to avoid tax to the tune of £80 million a year, using an EU loan for the purchase.
JDS Uniphase (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JDSU) run by two Dutch men, bought up companies in the UK with £20 million in EU ‘regeneration’ grants, created a pollution nightmare and just closed it all down leaving 1,200 out of work and an environmental clean-up paid for by the UK tax-payer. They also raided the pension fund and drained it dry. (and don’t forget, these grants are all made with OUR money )
UK airports are owned by a Spanish company.
Scottish Power is owned by a Spanish company.
UK strategic oil pipelines (military airfields) are owned by a Spanish company.
Most London buses are run by Spanish and German companies.
The Hinkley Point C nuclear power station to be built by French company EDF, part owned by the French government, using cheap Chinese steel that has catastrophically failed in other nuclear installations. Now EDF say the costs will be double or more and it will be very late even if it does come online.
Swindon was once our producer of rail locomotives and rolling stock. Not any more, it’s Bombardier in Derby and due to their losses in the aviation market, that could see the end of the British railways manufacturing altogether even though Bombardier had EU grants to keep Derby going which they diverted to their loss-making aviation side in Canada.
39% of British invention patents have been passed to foreign companies, many of them in the EU
The Mini cars that Cameron stood in front of as an example of British engineering, are built by BMW mostly in Holland and Austria. His campaign bus was made in Germany even though we have Plaxton, Optare, Bluebird, Dennis etc., in the UK. The bicycle for the Greens was made in the far east, not by Raleigh UK but then they are probably going to move to the Netherlands too, as they have said recently.
Anyone who thinks the EU is good for British industry or any other business simply hasn’t paid attention to what has been systematically asset-stripped from the UK. Name me one major technology company still running in the UK, I used to contract out to many, then the work just dried up as they were sold off to companies from France, Germany, Holland, Belgium, etc., and now we don’t even teach electronic technology for technicians any more, due to EU regulations.
I haven’t detailed our non-existent fishing industry, that the EU has paid to destroy (using our money of course), nor the farmers being paid NOT to produce food they could sell for more than they get paid to do nothing, don’t even go there.
Appalling. Nothing more than wealth redistribution from the UK to elsewhere.
Why do you think it’s EU that is “guilty” of industries avoiding the UK? How about UK simply not being competitive? The world is different now than in 19th centaury, or during Cold War. China is on the market with with like everything better than the UK: larger, cheaper, more disciplined, perhaps even more talented (IQ, technical education) population, lower prices for land or sub-components, and importantly – less molestation of businesses by lawyers and courts. That’s the main competitor, not EU countries, it’s them who capture most of the business.
Central Europe on the other hand is more competitive with the UK with better location – at the center, close to most of the customers, exactly at the crucial roads (east-west: Asia – Russia – Belarussia – Poland – Germany – France; or north-south: Italy – Germany – UK, or Balkans – Poland – Hungary – Slovakia – Scandinavia). Is reasonable to locate stuff at the center, rather than at the periphery. The workforce is cheaper, prices of land or real estate also. There’s a long tradition of industry, culture and law support it. And no aversion to the energy from coal (UK self injured itself here), including even in Germany.
Granted, there are some countries that do well alone, but they all have some kind of a master game plan. Like Korea or China. Brexiters seem just to believe that everyting is going to work out by itself.
GTR commented: “…Why do you think it’s EU that is “guilty” of industries avoiding the UK? How about UK simply not being competitive?…”
If that were true the EU wouldn’t have to take money from the UK to finance businesses moving to another country.
@markl – why won’t you allow the possibility that the businesses would move of UK to the cheaper locations anyway, independant of it being in EU or not, and got EU grants anyway (perhaps smaller), even if the UK was not in the EU? It looks more like the UK was trying blindly to imitate US model of deindustrialization (they sent their industry to Asia), and transfer into “services economy”, but without having the ability to print the world currency out of thin air.
GTR commented: “…. why won’t you allow the possibility that the businesses would move of UK to the cheaper locations anyway, independant of it being in EU or not, and got EU grants anyway (perhaps smaller), even if the UK was not in the EU?…”
Right. The EU gave away money because it didn’t have anything else to do with it. And the UK being in the EU is relevant because they helped pay for it! Something they’ve been planning all along in parallel with the EU? Kick businesses out and pay them to leave? You’re ignoring the obvious.
markl says:
If that were true the EU wouldn’t have to take money from the UK to finance businesses moving to another country.
Exactly. Warren Latham shows just a small part of the damage being done to the UK by the EU. That will increase over time, as long as the UK remains a subsidiary of the larger government. It’s certain that the EU’s taxing authority and grasp will ratchet up inexorably. They want the UK in the EU for one reason: the UK’s wealth. The EU has plans for it.
In all the arguments for remaining in the EU I haven’t seen anything more than talking points; pablum for the masses. And “What if…” speculation. Instead, the affected voters should be asking themselves: ‘Why is the EU so determined to keep us under their control?’ Because that’s what this is about.
Eventually the typical UK citizen’s standard of living will decline every year; the difference is in having to pay for another large and unnecessary layer of government. After all, someone has to pay. Progressive taxation will make certain that UK taxpayers will pay the most.
But what’s in it for the UK, that the UK couldn’t do as well or better on its own?
The UK is a wealthy country. The EU desperately covets their money. That fully explains the EU’s motivation.
And as time goes by, the superior governing body will naturally assert more and more authority over their subordinate entities. That’s what always happens. The U.S. began as the ‘united states’, with the federal government having very limited authority or power, per the Tenth Amendment:
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.
The specific intent of the “States Rights” 10th Amendment was to prevent the federal government from amassing too much power. But that’s exactly what happened. When immense money and power are involved, there are always those who connive to bend the rules to their advantage; Gresham’s Law in politics and human nature.
The EU will eventually call all the shots, no matter what they promise now. And if the UK remains subservient to the EU, the superior government will not forget this. The UK will become more and more entangled by new EU regulations, laws, agreements, and other hobbles that before very long, it will become practically impossible to disengage. The EU will begin taking the necessary steps to prevent the UK from ever leaving. This may well be the UK’s last chance to escape the trap of forever being a subservient entity in a larger government.
All the talk about competition, businesses, land or labor costs, etc., are a diversion from the central and primary reason the EU wants to keep the UK within the fold: money. The UK has lots of it, and the EU is going to get a larger and larger portion of the UK’s wealth as time goes by.
As a subservient entity, the UK will have no choice but to pay up. Because that’s what happens when you give up your sovereignty. It’s hardly different from selling yourself into slavery. The Master will smile at you right now, and promise you anything. Anything — except the right to stop paying into the EU’s protection racket, and obeying the EU if push comes to shove.
That’s what all this is about: the UK’s money. Who gets it? And it’s adding a higher layer of government; an authority that must be obeyed.
So this is it. Get out while you can — or give up the right to complain about how things didn’t turn out like you expected.
I was born in cork Ireland, I live in the UK (Northern Ireland) I understand how superstates cut off limbs to save themselves,,, I never vote in the tribal politics here, but I know as soon as the UK votes to leave a political union of Europe there will be nothing but a relief for the British. and I would like to see that happen. it’s a big Universe and I dislike seeing people unhappy.
Whoops!
I apologise for my multiple postings. When the originals failed to appear, I realised that my email address was wrong and was not valid. I therefore assumed that the posts had vaporised and reposted. The system works better than I anticipated however so my deathless prose is repeated.
It’s not just green measures that Lucas doesn’t trust our democracy for, it’s also Labour’s line that they don;t trust UK voters to maintain and increase their portfilio/definition of ‘worker protection’. Sorry Ms Lucas, but there’s no way I’m having an unelected, bureaucratic and anti-democratic rabble override my democratic vote.
The only reason that Lucas (and Labour) are taking this line and turning to the EU, is that they know the British electorate have already rejected it, but can’t accept it. It’s the same as the EU apparatchiks not accepting referendum votes in several countries until they got the answer they wanted.
I think Green Politicians are by nature dictatorial and anti-human and prove it by their actions.
Just some thought on the worst case, these things never work out as well as the optimists think they will. Hopefully not as badly as the pessimists think.
Considering the facts
The population of the UK is roughly 63.5 million broken down in rough figures as
England 53 Million
Scotland 5.25 Million
Wales 3 Million
Northern Ireland 1.6 Million
Population of US states
California 40 Million
Texas 28 Million
Florida 20 Million
New York 20 Million
Colorado 5.5 Million
Utah 3 Million
West Virginia 1.8 Million
Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland all have strong separatist movements, Colorado, Utah, and West Virginia wanting to leave the US in population terms, I don’t know the breakdown of populations within US states to get a better analogy. England has a slightly larger population than California the UK less than California and Texas combined. Having set the precedent of leaving a Union of States what logical argument is there against further separations.
The USA is governed by someone with supreme power and who can be elected on a minority of those who voted, can appoint supreme court judges who are political appointees, set up organisations such as the EPA over which the voters have no control. Yet the USA is regarded as a model of democracy which the EU is not.
It’s very much a case of be careful what you wish for.
After exiting the EU you can make a case for a couple of things happening Scotland and Northern Ireland leaving the UK, several countries leaving the EU and then breaking up, Spain, France and Italy both have or had in the recent past strong separatist movements, most EU member states have groups who want more power to their “nation”. Just for starters Catalonia, Basque Country, Galicia, Corsica, Brittany could demand independence. It’s unlikely the US could get involved in sorting the mess out, and a rapid end to NATO is likely leaving Putin to rebuild the former Soviet Union unhindered.
If that happens who’s to say how the US would react with Trump as a second term POTUS, more power devolved or centralised?
What will be true is that people will have taken power from the bureaucrats.
WTF is a “separatist movement”? omg are you about to take over the Nakatomi building?
Think Sandy meant nationalist movements. Dunno if that applies to Northern Ireland, however they may now consider it. There are smaller and less populous EU member states, Malta and Luxembourg, for instance.
Gabro, I can’t imagin your ignorance or Sandy’s over your views, I have watched Die hard, it’s one of my favroute films of all time and when Hans Gruber makes his demands and mentions Northern Ireland I always thought being so ignorant was deliberate, and always laugh at that 🙂 but now I know better and it’s so much funnier.
I’d love to discuss Irish history with you sometime, but remember this, it was my generatation who worked hard and brought about peace in Ireland, I know some asshole politictians like to take credit for it, as they do, but it was us under no lable who got it done. 😉
Considering the UK “Climate Change Act” goes much further than currently required by the European Union, I don’t think that Brexit changes anything
Caroline Lucas is the MP for Brighton Pavilion which is about 11 miles along the coast from here. Rumour has it that she got elected by standing in front of the Royal Pavilion and talking to people until she had met almost the entire electorate personally. Amazing dedication, you can’t help being impressed even if she is Green. How many politicians connect on that level? She may be unique.
She really really wanted that new car, yes I agree some “Greens” and people are unique.
Today, I hear ‘Jerusalem’ very softly wafting in my Texas window…
24 June 2016 is officially Independence Day.
The United Kingdom has voted to leave the EU. The first country – but not the last – to vote ‘OUT’.
That will sign the death knell for the whole corrupt, unaccountable, undemocratic kleptocracy.