since the fall of the Western Roman Empire'.
Even for a man whose job is to pretend he believes God exists, that seems a little bit completely unhinged, tbh.
There genuinely is a class of otherwise plausible people in this country whom Brexit has revealed to be utterly, barking mad.
Not least of all your swivel-eyed self b.Quote:
Originally Posted by Burney
Yes - they are the ****wits who voted Brexit knowing there was no feasible plan that would be best for the country and continue to do so despite the utter **** show that is going on. Though I do agree that the Bish is a bit wayward thereQuote:
Originally Posted by Burney
And you think it isn't I suppose? I always am amazed by people who would prefer that Europe went back to the 1970s. Yalls were not competitive on the world stage. But hey, maybe that's not important. Maybe you don't want to be. After all my state of California now has a bigger economy than the UK.Quote:
Originally Posted by Burney
one thing this sh*t show has highlighted is how ****ing difficult it is to leave the EU 'gang'.Quote:
Originally Posted by Luis Anaconda
Whether you voted for or against it, Cameron really did leave Theresa May holding a bucket of sh*t that is now full to overflowing.
I struggle with this argument, to be honest. I wanted out of the EU because it fundamentally undermines this country's legal and political sovereignty, is wholly unaccountable and is profoundly anti-democratic. When, for the first time in my life, I was given a say on whether I wanted this process to continue, I and millions like me grabbed the opportunity with both hands to say 'No'.Quote:
Originally Posted by Luis Anaconda
Your argument appears to be that we should not have taken that opportunity because our political classes hadn't the wit or wherewithal to know what to do with a vote to Leave (something I absolutely agree is the case). You seem to believe we should have stayed in a union we loathe and believe to be utterly wrong simply because that would have been easier? What kind of an argument is that? Leave voters voted to leave the EU. The fact that politicians are making an almighty fvckery of doing so because that isn't what they want to do is NOT a reason not to have done so.
To be fair, our perception of the 'utter sh*t show' which is going on is based on briefings being handed out bu butthurt Eurocrats and, no doubt, anxious civil servants, and are almost certainly exaggerated by the BBC anbd the bulk of traditional media which certainly has an agenda.Quote:
Originally Posted by Luis Anaconda
In short, don't believe everything you read, la.
This is sort of the point, yes. The same people who told us the EU really didn't control that much of our lives and didn't really make that many of our laws are now saying that we are too inextricably bound up with the EU for us to be able to leave. :rubchin:Quote:
Originally Posted by IUFG
Funny that.
I do like that the latest Italian Prime Minister is already calling for a stronger, fairer EuropeQuote:
Originally Posted by Burney
So, the head of a founding member state believes the EU to be not strong enough or fair... :rubchin:
This would be the same founding member state whose economy has been horribly damaged by Eurozone membership, which has had its Prime Ministers effectively dictated to it by the EU (ie Germany) and in whose recent election the EU blatantly interfered - even to the point of openly pressuring the President into rejecting cabinet ministers.Quote:
Originally Posted by IUFG
You can see their point, tbh.
1 This is laughableQuote:
Originally Posted by Burney
2 No we don't a proportion do and a large proportion of that is fuelled by xenophobia and racism not logical thought
We'll be alright, la. Chill. This is the country of Nelson, of Drake, Wellington, Churchill, of Boudicca, of the Virgin Queen, of Barnes Wallis, Nobby Stiles and Syd James.Quote:
Originally Posted by Luis Anaconda
We'll be fine.
You wait til Scottish independence and they put up the price of whiskeyQuote:
Originally Posted by Sir C
Newton, Faraday, Bowie, Shakespeare, Ray ParlourQuote:
Originally Posted by Sir C
1 is not laughable, not really.Quote:
Originally Posted by Luis Anaconda
Imagine a state where neither the executive nor the head of state is elected and the only democratic accountability is through a partly elected legislative chamber. A system where your local vote for that chamber is only counted in real terms if it is in the majority..... where your only right ofrepresentation is through your local representative who is swallowed up by a party machine and legislative alliances to the extent that they cease to represent your views at all.....
What honest, humble democrat could possibly tolerate such a system?
And to top it all off we then went and joined the ****ing EU :)
Thank you p - I couldn't be bothered with writing all thatQuote:
Originally Posted by Peter
Whisky, la...Quote:
Originally Posted by Luis Anaconda
So your argument is that our domestic democratic system is flawed, so we should therefore happily tolerate the democratic deficit inherent to the EU?Quote:
Originally Posted by Peter
This is an odd way of thinking, p.
Can't blame me if those proddie ****ers can't spellQuote:
Originally Posted by IUFG
Nope. My argument is that the moral high ground of democratic accountability adopted by you and your ilk would be a lot easier to swallow if you had ever raised similar concerns about the very similar lack of democracy in the very institutions you claim have been undermined by the EU.Quote:
Originally Posted by Burney
THese institutions you cherish and protect managed, by your own admission, to keep the matter of EU membership off the political agenda for 40 years despite the evident demand for a discussion by a huge percentage of the voting public. Where is your democratic outrage at that system?
I acknowledge the deficit inherent in each but I would never demand we fix one and not the other. That is simply unbalanced.
Well the glib answer would be to turn the question on its head and ask those who have long moaned about the HoL, FPTP and the Monarchy how are they a problem, but this hugely undemocratic entity that has been legislating over you for decades doesn't bother you?Quote:
Originally Posted by Peter
But ultimately this is simply whataboutery, p - and not very good whataboutery at that. Democracy is about what the people want and, for instance, this country was given a vote on changing FPTP and rejected it by a massive margin. Equally, there is precisely no democratic impetus for getting rid of our monarch as head of state, which leaves that question moot. I have always had major questions about the House of Lords, but have always seen their role as advisory rather than strictly legislative - plus I can see the issues of precedence associated with having two elected chambers, so am on the fence.
As for the issue of parties, that is common to every democratic system in the world and there seems precious little alternative to party systems.
And - frankly - all these shortcomings are as nothing to an unelected, unaccountable Commission that is the sole source of legislation (Article 294 of the Lisbon Treaty) and which arrogates hugely important 'exclusive competences' to itself; a Parliament whose power is purely advisory and a Council of Ministers whose power is hugely circumscribed by that of the unelected Commission and whose international nature means that voters in one country that may suffer hugely from a piece of legislation are essentially powerless to opt out of anything (particularly since the advent of QMV).
This is not OK. On any level.
It is not whataboutery when the crux of your argument is that the anti democratic EU is stifling and undermining our own democratic processes. THe response that those processes are not democratic is hugely relevant. As is the irony that those processes combined to prevent a vote on the EU for 40 years. It could hardly be more relevant.Quote:
Originally Posted by Burney
Ultimately democracy is a process, not a series of outcomes. The notion that an undemocratic british system doesnt cause problems undermines the argument that an undeomocratic EU is by definition unacceptable.
I get why you dont like the EU and I agree with some of it. My response to you has always been that I do not accept your posturing on democracy and accountability because...well, I know you!
It's whataboutery because - as I explained - the deficiencies in the UK's democracy are not on an even comparable scale to those that are intrinsic to the EU. Equally, as a voter, I have the democratic power to change things in the UK should I wish to. For instance, if I wanted to get rid of the Lords and the Monarchy, I could vote for Jeremy Corbyn. How could I ever have voted to reform the EU?Quote:
Originally Posted by Peter
House of Lords is next! :rubshands:Quote:
Originally Posted by Peter
And as Mr Burnley said, we did have a referendum on FPTP, albeit on a watered-down alternative which I did vote for anyway. As much as I'd like to see the end of the monarchy, most people want to keep it so I must accept that. The executive is appointed by the leader of the party that won the election so you can't really say that's undemocratic.
Sorry, that does not make it whataboutery........ and the scale is not the issue. THe issue is your total disinterest in the U.K deficit alongside your obsession with that of the EU.Quote:
Originally Posted by Burney
I am not saying you are wrong about the EU. I am calling you a hypocrite. I hope I am making myself clear on that point. I wouldn't want you to get insulted for the wrong reason :)
I don't much care if you think I'm a hypocrite just as long as you acknowledge that I'm right. :thumbup:Quote:
Originally Posted by Peter
Anyway, at least I don't racially abuse my neighbours like you do. And I could. They're gyppos (albeit ones who live in a proper house).
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ash
See, fair or not, I would allow you to grandstand on theEU democratic deficit because you seem to actually care about it.
I simply will not tolerate the same from B. He just doesnt like Darkies :)
I didnt even vote in the FPTP referendum. To be honest, I had forgotten it even happened. :(
Of course you are right. It just isnt good enough I'm afraid :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Burney
I can accept your ad hominem attack with equanimity, p. I'm the bigger man. :nod:Quote:
Originally Posted by Peter
And 'disinterest' doesn't mean 'lack of interest'.
What has been largely missing from the whole saga imo is the coherent left-leaning critique of the EU, as expressed by Peter Shore and Tony Benn in the old days. Those on the right may well be sincere when talking about accountability but there will always be the suspicion that they simply don't like furrins.Quote:
Originally Posted by Peter
Diana Johnstone wrote a piece about Italy for Consortium News, where she said:
https://consortiumnews.com/2018/06/0...r-cannot-hold/Quote:
World Values Survey results indicate that in Europe and the United States, people who describe themselves as “centrist” on the average have less attachment to democracy (e.g. free and fair elections) that those on the left, and even those on the far right. This is not as surprising as it may seem at first, since “centrists” are by definition attached to the status quo. In European countries, the authoritarian neoliberal “center” is institutionalized in the European Union, which imposes economic policy over the heads of the parliaments of the member countries, dictating measures which conform to the choices of Germany and northern Europe, but are increasingly disastrous for the Southern EU members.
THe future was supposed to be proportional representation which tends to lead to minority or coalition government and inevitably to centrist politics. THis is probably why the rest of europe is more comfortable with the EU than we are. When we have an election we want a clear result.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ash
I am all for democracy, up to a point. :)
Are lefties immune from suspicions of xenophobia and racism, then? :rubchin:Quote:
Originally Posted by Ash
Anyway, the left-wing argument against the EU was missing because the left-wing is so riddled with identity politics that it is hidebound by identity politics and its members terrified of being labelled racist by doing things like opposing mass immigration of cheap labour. For that reason, the innate corporatism of the EU gets a pass.
The EU was designed to solve a problem we never had: namely the failure of liberal democracy to prevent the rise of extremism and militarism. That's why Europeans are more comfortable with the EU than we are.Quote:
Originally Posted by Peter
Ad hominem- How rude.Quote:
Originally Posted by Burney
It is a fact that the EU has a democratic deficit. It is also a fact that if it didnt, you would still have voted leave.
Tell me I am wrong.....
THat is ostensibly the same point.Quote:
Originally Posted by Burney
The question is silly because I simply don't believe a supra-national body with rights of governance over 27 very separate and very different countries can ever be democratic.Quote:
Originally Posted by Peter
THe question in the referendum was silly but you answered that one happily enough.Quote:
Originally Posted by Burney
Permit me my silly question and give me a silly answer if you must
No, as when any criticism of the government of Israel is considered anti-semitic, but apart from the fear of being called racist which is probably a bit more likely to be felt by people on the left, there is the old tradition of internationalism. Workers of the world unite ... as the man said.Quote:
Originally Posted by Burney
Indeed, which is more or less what the article I linked to concludes. If you scroll down to the last section she talks about this, and how "Leftist denial of the problem leaves its exploitation and resolution to the extreme right."Quote:
Anyway, the left-wing argument against the EU was missing because the left-wing is so riddled with identity politics that it is hidebound by identity politics and its members terrified of being labelled racist by doing things like opposing mass immigration of cheap labour. For that reason, the innate corporatism of the EU gets a pass.
Italy is interesting because there seems to be some semblance of recognition from elements of the left, who are prepared to do pragmatic deals with elements of the right over common ground with that and other issues, including foreign policy. For me the old concepts of left and right have long been broken. Both should be thinking about how to deal with the common foe - the ruling class, and how the 1% dominate the 99%.
But the rest of Europe is not entirely comfortable with the EU. Germany is very comfortable, because they get to do most of the production, and they get to tell Italy, Greece and others what they are allowed to do and who they are allowed to appoint to prominent positions. "The markets will tell Italians the right way to vote". Blimey, thank god for the markets, eh?Quote:
Originally Posted by Peter
No, I am sure the rest are not comfortable with it. But I dont think they ever saw it as completely alien the way we did.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ash
We are a rather difficult people to deal with it, and rightly so :)