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the EU referendum was a good example.
But it wasn't though was it. The Good Friday agreement was posted through the letterbox of every address on the Island pointing out what it meant, what it didn't mean, what structures would be in place and when that would happen. No one could've honestly said that they didn't know what it was they were voting for in 1998. The Brexit vote was the complete opposite of that process. If you're going to advocate for more democracy at least have a sensible idea of what that looks like, and if you think it was the EU vote in 2016, then I'm going to ignore you because you're not being serious.
The fact that politicians gave the people a choice on an issue as big as this goes against the popular view that politicians do what the hell they like and don’t listen to the voters.
Politicians (Tory politicians) gave the people the opportunity to vote on this as a means of getting shut of Farage and his ilk. I don't think for one moment it panned out exactly as they imagined it would.
Politicians (Tory politicians) gave the people the opportunity to vote on this as a means of getting shut of Farage and his ilk. I don’t think for one moment it panned out exactly as they imagined it would.
Worse. It didn't pan out as expected, but instead of trying to mitigate the effects on the innocent victims (the population) they swiftly re-oriented themselves and pursued whatever course they thought would benefit their personal interests.
Don’t be daft. EU membership was an issue which directly affected everyone in the country.
Please do find the 2013 articles for us all to read pointing out the affect leaving the EU would have and the importance of voting in a national referenda.
You know full well that it was called to try to finally resolve an internal Tory party conflict, to try to pretend otherwise makes you look unserious.
I believe that it’s a fairly established fact in political science that more democracy does not mean better democracy.
Hence you get the situation where MPs are held hostage by their local (often swivel eyed crazy) associations rather than representing their constituents.
The UK population both Tory and Labour had become used to the idea of referendums in the context of decisons on Europe, they'd already had one.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_United_Kingdom_European_Communities_membership_referendum
In 2004 Blair yielded to pressure for a referendum on the European constitution (which I interpreted as Britain not being prepared to sign as I reckoned "no" would win and got on with protecting my interests). As it was referendums in France and the Netherlands scuppered the idea which was watered down to the Lisbon treaty and the promise of a referendum got forgotten.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/apr/20/eu.politics6
But the idea of a referendum on Europe persisted - the foreign press barons dictating British public opinion and government policy weren't going to let it drop with both sides of the house having yielded to their pressure before.
The press barons knew they could win and Boris was their man.
You’d have checks and controls to prevent a tyranny of the majority situation
Such obstructions would be voted out
Capital punishment is a fringe issue
Ask the right questions and itd have majority support.
Bit late in the day but https://fullfact.org/health/coronavirus-vaccine-brexit/
This is not correct. Under European law, the UK was permitted to act independently to approve the vaccine in an emergency.
The tax on Tampax was reduced from 5% to 0%, (whether it's been passed on thou may be a story for another day).
The imperial thing is also another thing you could do without leaving the E.U., as long as you had the metric on the packaging I dont think it ws illegal to have this.
Don’t be daft. EU membership was an issue which directly affected everyone in the country. Capital punishment affects a tiny few people who commit or are victims of murder. Clearly you wouldn’t have a referendum on an issue that only impacts a negligible percentage of the population.
what like ECHR membership?
youre arguing against yourself here Daz, EU membership barely registered on voters concerns, until it became a scapegoat for the governments own failures
brexit has shown us that anything can be weaponised in a culture war
brexit has also helped normalise the far right policies of this government, rwanda deportation scheme, prison hulks for immigrants .... these are policies we long thought we'd consigned to history
Capital punishment affects a tiny few people who commit or are victims of murder.
Or folk who didn’t commit whatever offences were deemed to be capital (we could all have a referendum on those too) but get hung anyway. The justice system is not in fallible after all.
Dazh, I know you mean well and all, but your arguments don’t hang together.
Leaving the the EU was a mechanism not an outcome. It sought to achieve something (admittedly different groups were sold it as a mechanism to achieve mutually exclusive outcomes) - it wasn’t an outcome in itself.
The outcomes associated might have been better jobs, fewer foreigners, higher environmental standards, faster deportation of disreputable types, more international trade, onshoring of manufacturing and so on and so forth. Ask people’s preferences on those by all means, but don’t use a referendum to ask them how to do it.
I think whatever replaces the CAP will be better.
Says the Brexiteer. Any idea what will replace the CAP, ctk. Be nice if you could explain how it will be better rather than just think it.
to try to pretend otherwise makes you look unserious.
Of course it was to fix an internal Tory problem. I’ve never claimed otherwise. That doesn’t mean the people voting in it didn’t take it seriously. The fact that the turnout was higher than any general election and the amount of campaigning was off the chart that shows the voters were wholly supportive of their opportunity to make a decision on something irregardless of why it happened.
Fan of the CAP edukator?
I’m looking at it from an EU point of view, Brucewee. Freedom of movement was at the heart of negotiations:
Yep,people who already lived outside of the U.K. were biggly shafted by the U.K. as this removed their rights to free movement which I think should have been protected.
Anyway I’m still unable to leave Spain,without voiding my residency application, haven’t seen family for 2+ years, my driving licence will not be recognised in the middle of the next month. I’m also not the only person to be in this position.
Without Brexit I wouldn’t be a legal, illegal alien 🙁
Seems good to me- an emphasis on the environment and sustainable farming.
CAP was/is a disgrace.
it wasn’t an outcome in itself.
Nonsense. The question on the ballot was do you want the UK to leave the EU or remain? A simple binary choice with a definite outcome. Everyone understood what this question means.
I agree with the objectives of the CAP which you'll find by googling just that and the good health of European agriculture demostrates its success.
Sure there are abuses and some failings as with any system, but on the whole I think European farming has benefitted from the CAP and the population is well fed at affordable prices as a result.
Fan of the CAP edukator?
Probably goes without saying seeing as he lives in France.
If you're a fan of roadside kidney cider then you're in luck round our way, there's a huge choice of bottles of truck drivers' piss to choose from thanks to Operation Brock. I call that a brexit benefit for the so inclined.
Likewise, if you enjoy filling in lots of bloody forms then Brexit is a huge bonus.
The only benefit I've seen is that my fanatically supporting Brexit colleague's have gone very quiet and probably feel remarkably stupid for getting so suckered in.......
That doesn’t mean the people voting in it didn’t take it seriously.
Would that be the same people who didn't even think of it as an issue to get worked up about until UKIP et al started frothing on about it?
The policy arguably goes beyond the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) in supporting wider land management improvement.
So the Welsh idea is to arguably go beyond the CAP in one aspect. That's a hell of an endorsement for the CAP. I wonder how it compares in all the other aspects of the CAP such as support for farmers, food standards, regulating pesticide, herbicide and fungiscide use, GM foods, pricing, food reserves, international aid... .
Prince Khalid Abdullah al Saud, who owns champion racehorse Frankel, has reportedly described his farming interest as a hobby. Juddmonte Farms, which he owns through an offshore holding company in Guernsey, received £406,826 in farm subsidies last year, of which £378,856 came from the single payment scheme.
CAP edukator. Poor people giving rich people money because they own land. If you are in favour of this crack on. I think we can do better.
...didn’t even think of it as an issue to get worked up about until UKIP et al started frothing on about it
By jove - we have a Brexit benefit
Nonsense. The question on the ballot was do you want the UK to leave the EU or remain? A simple binary choice with a definite outcome. Everyone understood what this question means.
Informed consent is usually accepted as requiring the person to understand the consequences of whatever it is they are consenting to.
Do you think anyone gave informed consent to Brexit?
Everyone understood what this question means.
I don't really see how you can type that with a straight face.
Nonsense. The question on the ballot was do you want the UK should leave the EU or remain? A simple binary choice with a definite outcome. Everyone understood what this question means.
I think you choose not to understand, for I have seen you argue fairly intelligently in the past.
Leaving the EU was not an outcome, it was a mechanism to achieve an outcome.
The question (which had some of the words you wrote) was to decide on a mechanism to achieve a “better life” whatever that might be defined as. The outcome desired was that better life. Now I agree a few folk, a negligible number, would have no concept of a better life than living outside the EU - so yes for them it was an outcome.
There was a question, some folk understood it (not all, trust me), there was a result and that was to leave the EU.
The actual outcome of the referendum, the things people care about, jobs, livelihoods, quality of life, we will find out in years and decades to come.
It doesn’t look good so far though, does it.
CAP edukator. Poor people giving rich people money because they own land. If you are in favour of this crack on. I think we can do better.
@ctk the new version of the CAP is quite different
ironically UK had quite a big input into the new version
https://agriculture.ec.europa.eu/common-agricultural-policy/cap-overview/cap-2023-27_en
active farmers: the new legislation contains a mandatory but flexible definition of an active farmer to be established by EU countries, including the level of activities undertaken. Only active farmers may receive certain EU support;
we'll probably end up with something less fair, if the government ever gets round to actually implementing anything
I'm sure our favourite farmer is rich too, in fact all land owners are rich so long as they don't have more debt than the land is worth. Policy applies to all and doesn't descriminate so King Charles used to get subsidies too in millions rather than hundeds of thousands, Dyson too. If you think a British system will be "fairer" I think you are deluded. So far the poorest British farmers are the been the ones hardest hit by leaving the CAP:
Read all the article before you reply, it'll save both of us time.
Yep nothing there that makes me think CAP isnt crap. Did you read it all?
I’m not a Brexiteer, and I don’t think it’s a good thing. But those people who are demonising Dyson for promoting Brexit are wrong.
The history of the European Commission colluding with Bosch to regulate against Dyson’s company, and their own reluctance to obey their own competition rules even when they’d been found against by their own court was a case of the European Union at it’s absolute worst. Dyson has every right to detest the European Union IMO.
My understanding is smaller farms didn't get much out of CAP and the UK was a net financial contributor. However, don't forget we had cheap farm labour and good access to EU buyers and sellers of produce, especially for smaller quantities.
Criticising CAP may be valid but the UK govt (except the Welsh Assembly) have made a poor attempt at replacing it so far.
Giving money to rich landowners who are already rich with no upper limit was and is a scam. But also there were ridiculous regs on what your land had to look like to be entitled to subsidies. Farmers were having to cut down trees to make their land qualify as farmable!
I did read it all, ctk, both when it first appeared and then "en diagonale" before linking. Things are rarely perfect and hopefully evolve towards something better through feedback. Junking everything you have and starting from scratch is rarely the best option, even Windows is pleasant to use and pretty reliable these days. Brexit as defined by the withdrawal agreement was junking gone too far except maybe for a rich arable farmer who holidays in Shetland and Northumberland.
Capital punishment affects a tiny few people who commit or are victims of murder
Another subject dazh knows FA about it seems.
I’m not a Brexiteer, and I don’t think it’s a good thing. But those people who are demonising Dyson for promoting Brexit are wrong.
The history of the European Commission colluding with Bosch to regulate against Dyson’s company, and their own reluctance to obey their own competition rules even when they’d been found against by their own court was a case of the European Union at it’s absolute worst. Dyson has every right to detest the European Union IMO.
German MEP's and representatives went in to bat for German companies, British MEP's were disruptors and couldn't be arsed representing British interests. A lot of voters thought sticking two fingers up to "brussels" as represented by Farage et al was fun. It would have been better if they had actually fought for our interests rather than just going on the piss.
Dyson should have blamed the way the British body politic engaged with Europe, instead he threw a hissy fit against the wrong people.
A lot of voters thought sticking two fingers up to “brussels” as represented by Farage et al was fun.
The irony being farage banging on about how the uk fishing industy was being shafted by the EU.
Nigel Farage sailed a boat down the Thames yesterday in an attempt to highlight the plight of British fishermen, conveniently forgetting that he did nothing to protect the industry while on the EU fisheries committee.
“over the three years that Nigel Farage was a member of the European Parliament Fisheries Committee, he attended one out of 42 meetings”.
Dyson should have blamed the way the British body politic engaged with Europe, instead he threw a hissy fit against the wrong people.
I believe that even the European Court Of Justice ruled that the European Commission had acted illegally against Dyson, but you may know more about the case than me?
Isn't stopping the jurisdiction of the ECJ one of the brexiteer froth points? hahah!
An excellent example for why the political system should not be allowed to interfere with the judiciary.
Conversley we had UK tabloids running headlines like 'traitors of the people' in reference to the UK supreme court.
What a ****ing waste of electrons this thread is.