EU membership referendum debate thread

PS_RalphW · Post by **PS_RalphW** » 27 Jun 2016, 14:38

http://www.newsweek.com/brexit-uk-tony- ... -eu-474665

I really hate that man.

fuzzy · Post by **fuzzy** » 27 Jun 2016, 15:59

Chilcot report soon. We can only hope he is arrested.

3rdRock · Post by **3rdRock** » 27 Jun 2016, 16:06

fuzzy wrote:Chilcot report soon. We can only hope he is arrested.

Nah, Teflon is tough stuff!

3rdRock · Post by **3rdRock** » 27 Jun 2016, 16:24

I'm often accused of being a conspiracist on Powerswitch - what do you think of this one?

The Bullingdon Boys and their right-wing, neo-liberal chums have finally figured out that the wheels are about to come off the global gravy train.

Rather than being left without a chair when the music stops, they have cunningly created the referendum (complete with all of the corrosive disinformation on both sides of the debate) to ensure that, at the end of the day, they can happily blame the great British public for having taken the wrong decision.

Oh yes, and BTW, they'll probably make a few bob into the bargain by getting their city chums to start selling short.

Just testing!

johnhemming2 · Post by **johnhemming2** » 27 Jun 2016, 18:10

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor

3rdRock · Post by **3rdRock** » 27 Jun 2016, 18:39

johnhemming2 wrote:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor

Complicated or what?

johnhemming2 · Post by **johnhemming2** » 27 Jun 2016, 19:15

This is as the article in The Guardian correctly identified a "clusterfuck". It is not a conspiracy. It has left SNAFU behind and even exceeded FUBAR.

Lord Beria3 · Post by **Lord Beria3** » 27 Jun 2016, 20:34

There are so many benefits of brexit...

1) The City and its overpaid *ankers will be taken down a notch.

2) Insanely high house prices will go down a bit, which will help ordinary people, buy a property.

3) The cheaper pound, plus the shrinking of the City, may inadvertently lead to a rebalancing of the economy.

4) The shock of a Leave vote may force Brussels and European elites to finally take the public concerns seriously about encroaching powers to Brussels. Maybe. If not, expect a flood of other leave referendums in the coming years.

5) Hopefully, Britain will be able to negotiate greater controls over immigration which will protect us as the Middle East/North Africa arc of crisis collapses leading to millions of migrants trying to get into Europe in the coming decades.

6) Finally, we are entering a new era of Scarcity Industrialism - a return to more national based policies will be good for Britain in the long-term. Lets invest in our British agriculture, become more nationally self-sufficient and ready for the coming resource shocks.

Yes, the next few years will be challenging but Britain has half accidentally, half deliberately gone down a new strategic path that will save us in the future once the shit really starts to hit the fan in the new era of Scarcity Industrialism.

Little John · Post by **Little John** » 27 Jun 2016, 20:51

We often disagree LB. but, on that last post, I can find nothing at all to disagree with. In fact, that list is so good, I am certain to re-use it when engaged in debate on this elsewhere.

Peter H-i-t-c-h-e-n-s puts it well in describing how a flank of the Left and a flank of the old conservative Right have far more in common with each other than either of them have in common with, for want of a better description, the metropolitan, corporate-capitalist-arse-licking Blairites. This common underlying philosophy, that cuts across traditional Left/right party politics, finally coalesced into a virtual movement in all but name, in this referendum.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/artic ... CHENS.html

Post by **clv101** » 27 Jun 2016, 20:57

Yeah, I don't disagree with much of that... The only problem is that those 'benefits' absolutely won't be recognised as such by the majority so there'll play out against a background of anger, angst, fear, poverty etc...

But yes, we are heading for Scarcity Industrialism, getting there was never going to be easy.

johnhemming2 · Post by **johnhemming2** » 27 Jun 2016, 21:05

vtsnowedin wrote:Your on for the FTSE at or below 5831.755 for $20.00 US

FTSE100 at 5,982. (2.5% off). Dow 17140 (1.5% off). How do I get my USD 20?

UndercoverElephant · Post by **UndercoverElephant** » 27 Jun 2016, 22:31

The more I think about this, the more obvious it becomes that the whole exercise of holding a referendum to leave the EU was an absurdity, because there is no usable mechanism for leaving. Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty is useless. As soon as a country issues its notice to leave, it is in such a weak negotiating position that it might as well give up. The EU negotiators can basically just offer the leaving country a really bad deal and say "take it or leave it", in the full knowledge that if they don't take it then when the 2 year time period expires, they'll end up with nothing at all.

I now strongly believe that no notice will be given under article 50, ever, by any country. It is an exit mechanism that simply doesn't work. But if this analysis is correct, it really does mean we are in a FUBAR of immense proportions. Not just the UK - the EU is also stuck in the same FUBAR.

A general election won't necessarily sort it out. And neither would a second referendum, because if the public is told that actually there is no usable mechanism for a country to leave the EU - that effectively we can't leave the EU - then what is the point in holding a second referendum?

I think this is actually going to end up being the responsibility of the EU to sort out. The impasse has not been created by the UK, but by the people who wrote and agreed to the Lisbon Treaty to include a broken exit mechanism. The UK therefore has the right to demand of Europe one of two things - either a concession on freedom of movement that would make a "remain" victory fairly straightforwards in a second referendum, or an exit mechanism that can actually be used. Otherwise we have an unresolvable FUBAR.

Little John · Post by **Little John** » 27 Jun 2016, 23:36

I agree with you on the point about article 50 being a pile of bullshit and how the system was set such that it is more or less impossible to Leave.

Which is precisely why we are absolutely right to leave, no matter how difficult that process may be.

Indeed, part of our negotiating tactic should be to shout from the rooftops about how the article 50 mechanism is designed to F--k over leaving nations in order to make it effectively impossible to properly negotiate an orderly exit. This, in turn, will cause the population of various E?U countries to become even more antipathetic to the EU project than they already are and the EU architects will want to avoid that at all cost

UndercoverElephant · Post by **UndercoverElephant** » 27 Jun 2016, 23:46

It gets worse.

https://ukconstitutionallaw.org/2016/06 ... able-role/

Conclusion

Far from being a straightforward and streamlined process of exit, the Article 50 process raises very complicated legal and political issues and is pregnant with risk (additional to those inherent in existing outside the EU). These complexities are compounded by the murky ambiguities of our unwritten constitution.

The referendum result itself does not speak to the question of how the UK should leave the EU. It is up to the Government and to Parliament to ensure that the exit is managed consistently with the UK’s national interest.

Our analysis leads to the possibility that the process of extraction from the EU could be a very long one indeed, potentially even taking many years to come about. Of course, the EU Member States have made clear that they will only negotiate once the Article 50 exit provisions have been triggered and are pressing the UK to pull the trigger “as soon as possible”. It is also clear that uncertainty is itself undesirable. But uncertainty needs to be weighed against other imperatives, such as the need to comply with the UK’s constitutional requirements and the need to ensure that Brexit is effected consistently with the national interest. A quick pull of the Article 50 trigger is unlikely to be feasible under the UK’s constitutional arrangements and may well not be desirable for any UK Government or Parliament, even one committed to eventual withdrawal from the EU.

The above article argues quite effectively that even if it made sense to trigger article 50 without prior negotiations, it would be unlawful to do so without the consent of parliament. No Prime Minister can unilaterally do it. There has to be an act of parliament.

Little John · Post by **Little John** » 27 Jun 2016, 23:58

In case you missed this because I added it after:

Part of our negotiating tactic should be to shout from the rooftops about how the article 50 mechanism is designed to **** over leaving nations in order to make it effectively impossible to properly negotiate an orderly exit. This, in turn, will cause the population of various EU countries to become even more antipathetic to the EU project than they already are and the EU architects will want to avoid that at all costs.