On 18 May 2016 at 12:36am Democratic Will wrote:
There will be an unstoppable demand for a re-run of the EU referendum if Remain wins by a narrow margin on 23 June, UKIP leader Nigel Farage has said.Quite right too,the democratic British people will produce the result that WE in the Leave Campaign want,because only WE proper British know what is good for the British people.We will demand another referendum and then another ,until we get OUR way and we get out of this undemocratic EU dictatorship forever.This will not have been a fair contest.WE cannot be stopped and we will never give in till we get OUR COUNTRY back You have been warned, you traitors.
Check it out here »
On 18 May 2016 at 5:56am Zzz.. wrote:
What, like Belgium and Ireland? Now remind me, what were the final results?
On 18 May 2016 at 9:51am Historian wrote:
You sound like Nicola Sturgeon !! Look what's happened to her, slowly slowly catcha monkey !
On 18 May 2016 at 10:03am fair wrote:
It's a perfectly fair position to take seeing as this hasn't been a fair campaign. EU slave Cameron has sought to scare and bully us in, spend 9 million of taxpayers money on propaganda and now is clear his 'renegotiation' was a complete sham.
Check it out here »
On 18 May 2016 at 10:36am A Person wrote:
Hmmm. You clearly missed the classes on the meaning of "democracy". Democracy is where the majority choose, not where the majority who happen to agree with you choose.
On 18 May 2016 at 11:17am peter perfect wrote:
Farage, Boris Johnson, Donald Trump, Murdoch, the Daily Mail and the Sun all agree - help! Get me out of here....
On 18 May 2016 at 11:31am the common man wrote:
Michele Hanson summed it up in this way yesterday: 'It's Hobson's choice: nasty corporate business versus nasty racists.'
Paul Mason headed up another of his excellent articles with this: 'there is a left wing case for Brexit but we can't let Boris Johnson turn Britain into a neoliberal island.'
He finishes by saying that' the EU looks more and more like a gerrymandered state where politically immature electorates of eastern Europe can be used as a permanent obstacle to liberalism and social justice. If so - even though the political conditions for a left Brexit are absent today - I will want out soon.'(17/05/2016)
And so will I. I'm heartily sick of the low level of discussion consisting solely of sound bites that is currently assaulting the ear of the British public .
On 18 May 2016 at 11:36am Democrat wrote:
Referendums are arguably far from democratic and have often been used in the past by dictators as a tool of power consolidation. Cameron is no different in seeking to spin and twist the result into validating his increasingly dangerous and obsequious behaviour to Brussels.
The essence of this criticism is that elites have an array of exclusive powers at their disposal such as, the timing of the referendum, the state media portrayal of the issues, the wording and determining the process and rules by which it will be conducted. This allows them to deploy the full force of the state machinery, as we have seen with Cameron, into ensuring he gets the 'correct' outcome.
This referendum has been manipulated so brazenly that it is becoming deranged. We have seen the Cameron government break the law in election spending rules in 2015, commit corporate leaders to back remain before his 'renegotiation' that was choreographed with EU leaders thereby deliberately misleading parliament and the country, himself exposed in the Panama papers asa beneficiary of dubious tax practices and using Whitehall, BBC and taxpayer money to fund one side of the argument.
We need to realise what's left of our democracy is hugely at risk of being submerged further into a shadowy, unaccountable superstate directly funded and run by multinationals who hold us and our country in contempt. Cameron is one of them and is not to be trusted.
On 18 May 2016 at 12:30pm A Person wrote:
I'd remind you of who it was who demanded a referendum in the first place! I didn't want a referendum, and neither, I'd suggest, did anyone who knows that it would be madness to leave the EU.
On 18 May 2016 at 12:41pm Democrat wrote:
How tiresome to have someone lecture people about 'democracy' classes when he himself clearly hasn't been to any and doesn't even believe in it.
How do you *know* it would be madness? Perhaps you could consult your EU funded crystal ball seeing as it involves a fantasy future of yours.
On 18 May 2016 at 12:42pm Observer wrote:
They're dusting off the excuses already.
It's not fair.
The media were biased. (except all the ones that were pro-brexit)
The people were conned.
Jeremy Corbyn's troops will be taking notes on what to use after the next general election.
I don't get the sovereignty argument. We are holding a referendum on whether to leave. If it goes the one way, we will leave. Therefore we have sovereignty, we can reject the EU at any time. What I have seen, and read, it is our best interests to stay. if that changes, we can leave. As I said on another thread, the rest of the EU has bent over backwards to create an exceptional status for the UK (not in the Euro, not in the fiscal compact, not in Schengen - unlike Norway & Switzerland). What exactly is the problem?
On 18 May 2016 at 1:06pm Clifford wrote:
A Person wrote: 'Democracy is where the majority choose, not where the majority who happen to agree with you choose.'
Which is why we have elections every five years or so - not one election with a result that lasts forever. I think an EU referendum every five years would be democratic.
On 18 May 2016 at 1:09pm A Person wrote:
I know it just as surely as you know we must leave.
I wasn't trying to make the case for the indices of relative democratic effectiveness of referenda, merely pointing out that having demanded a referendum at enormous expense, it's hardly democratic to threaten dire consequences if it doesn't go the OP's way. Or yours, for that matter.
On 18 May 2016 at 1:18pm observing wrote:
Observer you don't get it because you clearly don't understand it - It's like dealing with children on here, does any remainer seriously understand the EU?
'Before Edward Heath signed the Treaty of Rome in 1972, all laws affecting the people of this country were made by their own directly elected parliament - this is called Parliamentary sovereignty. The UK’s accession to what was then called the Common Market transferred sovereignty over a massive amount of law-making from Westminster to Brussels.
There are many who did not realise that this was part of the deal. They thought Britain was signing up to a free trade area. But the “ever closer union” envisaged in the treaty required greater harmonisation of laws in order that each member state should operate on the same basis as far as possible.
The constitutional upheaval caused by membership of what is now the EU was the greatest in the country’s history since the Glorious Revolution of 1688. For almost 300 years, the “old constitution” was self-contained and largely immune to outside influences.
All this changed when we joined the EEC. As Prof Anthony King observed in his book The British Constitution: “Not only did Parliament cease to be sovereign, Britain itself ceased to be a sovereign state. The fact of being a member of the EU permeates almost the whole of the British government – to a far greater extent than most Britons seem to realise.”
If we have laws imposed on us by a foreign unelected commission that we cannot disobey or remove then yes we are not a sovereign state anymore - You may be pro EU but at least have the decency to understand what you are supporting.
On 18 May 2016 at 4:28pm Observer wrote:
I completely understand the EU and the treaties, old chap. Perhaps you could come back to this board and explain the principle of subsidiarity. And as for "a massive amount of lawmaking" that is clearly rubbish. Something like 10-20% of laws and regulations originate in Brussels (with many gold plated by Westminster). This figure has been declining!
But yes, we do sacrifice a degree of control for the sake of economic, trade and geopolitical advantage; it's also about working with other western democracies. However we have been granted exemption from having to join the EU, we are outside Schengen, and do not have to sign up to any more federalisation or centralisation if we do not want to. If the situation changes, and membership becomes negative for the UK, then we leave. What ex
if you want to see how the brexiteers play loose with the facts, read this:
Check it out here »
On 18 May 2016 at 5:22pm Pedant wrote:
Observer wrote: However we have been granted exemption from having to join the EU...
That's a relief. No referendum necessary.
On 18 May 2016 at 5:55pm Observer wrote:
"However we have been granted exemption from having to join the EU..."
I meant the Euro, obvs
On 18 May 2016 at 7:19pm obvs wrote:
Not. Kind regards, a fan of pedant.
On 18 May 2016 at 7:47pm observing wrote:
Unfortunately you're playing 'loose with the facts' old chap
Firstly your 10-20% doesn't include regulations as you've stated - EU regulations actually account for 53%.
Secondly parliamentary sovereignty is the ability to kick out those who govern you, that 'control' you euphemistically refer to is actually the destruction of a crucial link between the electorate and politician and a crucial one in any healthy democracy. The EU with it's unelected commission and preferment to rule without accountability is a huge constitutional change and not one for the better.
No matter though i'm glad it was worth destroying a 1000 years of history for all those EU regulations regarding how straight our vegetables must be to give us geo-political clout...
Secondly it was Gordon Brown who kept us out of the Euro with his 'five tests', nothing to do with an 'exemption' from the EU - much to the annoyance of the madly europhile Blair and no doubt you, even though it was clearly shown it would of been a disaster. Obvs.
On 18 May 2016 at 7:49pm Bremainer wrote:
No second referendum under any circumstances.
If it's Brexit I plan to just sit back and quietly watch it burn.
If it's Bremain I will ignore all brexiters from then on.
On 19 May 2016 at 9:55am Observer wrote:
If parliamentary sovreignty is the ability to kick out those who govern you, the British system does not do very well, seeing that one can achieve control of the country (with few checks and balances compared to the US or most continental systems) with little more than a third of the vote.
Of course, governments have indeed chosen to pool sovereignty to create things like the single market - you need to have some uniformity of regulations to create a single market, I would have thought that would be obvious. The single market has been a huge benefit for the UK, and something that most people, even many eurosceptics, thoroughly embraced. The UK has been influential in trying to create a single market for services - an incomplete job. A few points:
1) According to the British Chambers of Commerce, "In terms of the number of regulations, the EU this year accounted for only 20%. The reduction from the previous EU level of about 30% is the primary reason for the overall decline in 2007/8."
2) Most of these regulations relate to fairly minor issues that have little or no impact on yours or anyone else's life. The big decisions over defence, budgets, education policy, housing policy, foreign policy are all made by national governments.
3) We would have to abide by these regulations if we leave the EU but remain within the single market, like Norway or Switzerland - but we would have absolutely no say over what they were.
4) If we leave completely and move to WTO terms of trade we would have to abide by these regulations for all the goods and services exported into the single market. That represents around 60% of all UK exports.
5) I am not quite sure how we are destroying 1,000 years of history with regulations about tradable items. What exactly happened in 1016 that you're so produ about? The death of Aethelred the Unready at the hands of the Danes? The Magna Carta was in 1215, the Dutch Invasion of 1688, the Act of Union in 1707 or mass enfranchisement, which happened after many European countries?.
Finally, how dare you assume that I am some sort of rabid europhile, who was in favour of the euro et al. I am not, as I have made clear in other posts, I believe the UK is an excellent position with the best of both worlds - we do not have to join the euro, we are not part of Schengen, and we have clearly been given an 'exceptional' position within the union by our partners.
On 19 May 2016 at 12:05pm Observer wrote:
"arliamentary sovereignty is the ability to kick out those who govern you"
We can do this, obviously, with the EU as we are having a referendum on membership.
We can, at any time, implement article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty and leave - thereby 'kicking out' the EU.
What is the issue again?