Wednesday 2nd August 2017
Posted: Wed 02 Aug, 2017 7:10 am
Morning all.
More of the kind of detail that should be been at the forefront of the referendum debate and around the time of the Article 50 votes in parliament.The miscalculation politicians have always made in negotiating European treaties is that we’ll be welcomed with open arms. Time for a history lesson
It seems to me that the government chose to make the referendum advisory rather than binding, precisely so they could avoid doing the proper preparation beforehand. If they made it binding, a white paper setting out all the details of what would happen if leave won would have needed to be produced and would have brought attention to all these issues before the referendum happened. How much difference this would have made to the campaigns is hard to tell, but at least we would have been a bit more ready to do this.adam wrote:Before anyone else (rightly) says it, it's also true that it's difficult to see how sensible, evidence based detailed arguments would have got a hearing in the referendum campaign as it happened.
If a yes/no referendum had to happen, the government should have structured it around some kind of consultation period with a series of papers on different issued being loudly and angrily but openly and in detail debated. I'm not at all sure that a three-option question would have worked - referenda are good for railroading through decisive answers (thank you for giving up on electoral reform before you'd even begun, Liberal Democrats) and if we'd been able to vote for stay as we are / walk away / some kind of middle ground then we would have been left with a huge fudge. The detail is what parliament should be for.
I tend to agree wholeheartedly both that a parliament who established a binding referendum on electoral reform (by passing the new system into law but only enacting the law on a Yes vote in the referendum) must have deliberately chosen not to do the same on the EU, and with Anatoly when he points out that everybody said beforehand that the government would consider itself bound by the referendum result and everybody knew this.Willow904 wrote:advisory/binding question
I think your last sentence neatly sums up why I want to see us stay/negotiate to remain in the single market. Hard Brexiters may find life harder than they expected outside the single market but such a "discovery" won't suddenly mean a happy, jolly consensus on going back into the EU/single market, plus such options of applying to rejoin one or the other will be considerably harder to effect than negotiating to remain in the single market at this point.adam wrote:I tend to agree wholeheartedly both that a parliament who established a binding referendum on electoral reform (by passing the new system into law but only enacting the law on a Yes vote in the referendum) must have deliberately chosen not to do the same on the EU, and with Anatoly when he points out that everybody said beforehand that the government would consider itself bound by the referendum result and everybody knew this.Willow904 wrote:advisory/binding question
The problem I have with the soft leave / hard leave talk is that if you ignore my beloved pedantry about 'not a binding referendum' but just accept the 'feel' of the thing then I'm not at all convinced that 'leaving' but staying in the single market / staying in the customs union / and so on is actually leaving. I think leaving is a disaster, I'm not suddenly going to change my mind about that, but the miserable bastard in me does kind of think that the only thing that will ever possibly change people's minds is seeing how bad it will be to actually functionally properly leave.
But by then we'll never get back in, because we'll never get back the terms we've come to enjoy and we'll never vote to go back on worse terms.
Hi ho.
They both see America as an experiment in property rather than experiment in democracy. Liberty to them is not government of the people, by the people, for the people. Liberty is ownership. Taxation is legal plunder.
What you are saying undoubtedly applies to an indeterminate number of leave voters, but by no means all and when trying to build a consensus, bowing to the views of part of 52% of referendum voters is going to leave a majority of the overall population unrepresented. Lots of people are currently being polled as saying they would put staying in the single market before curbing immigration. There is no need for playing devil's advocate. We already have the Tories representing the views of hard Brexit voters. There is no reason why other people can't argue for soft Brexit. To my mind there is more chance of convincing a majority of the population to back a soft Brexit than there is convincing a majority to back a hard Brexit. This is based on the observation that to date the only arguments I've heard for pursuing a hard Brexit is yours above - that this is perceived/guessed/insinuated as what people voted for. For me that's not good enough. There is no evidence. The referendum asked only about the EU and nothing else - not the single market, not immigration, not the ECJ. The case to leave the single market has not been made. To assume it's what people want when we haven't even had the debate seems to me to be lacking in democratic spirit. We're not being persuaded into hard Brexit with well thought through argument, we're being railroaded into it with a familiar brand of right-wing fatalism, a exhortation to take our medicine because "there is no alternative".adam wrote:I am playing devil's advocate a little here, and I know that Paul in particular would point out that we don't know what might be possible, but the problem with the argument that we can leave the EU but stay in the single market is that the starting point of everybody else in the EU is that staying in the single market means freedom of movement, and however shit I know it is I don't believe that people voted to get out of the EU in order to protect freedom of movement. I know that lots of different people had lots of different ideas of what they were voting for and I know that the leave campaign were irredeemably full of shit, and I know that that we might be able to explore various derogations from a simple 'open borders' policy, but you will struggle to convince me either that this is what people voted for or that the EU are minded to be helpful to us in this regard. It might have been different if we'd taken the time to spell out what different consequences there might be from different outcomes but we didn't.
Having a binary referendum on a question that splits the country is meant to leave half the country unrepresented.Willow904 wrote:What you are saying undoubtedly applies to an indeterminate number of leave voters, but by no means all and when trying to build a consensus, bowing to the views of part of 52% of referendum voters is going to leave a majority of the overall population unrepresented. Lots of people are currently being polled as saying they would put staying in the single market before curbing immigration. There is no need for playing devil's advocate. We already have the Tories representing the views of hard Brexit voters. There is no reason why other people can't argue for soft Brexit. To my mind there is more chance of convincing a majority of the population to back a soft Brexit than there is convincing a majority to back a hard Brexit. This is based on the observation that to date the only arguments I've heard for pursuing a hard Brexit is yours above - that this is perceived/guessed/insinuated as what people voted for. For me that's not good enough. There is no evidence. The referendum asked only about the EU and nothing else - not the single market, not immigration, not the ECJ. The case to leave the single market has not been made. To assume it's what people want when we haven't even had the debate seems to me to be lacking in democratic spirit. We're not being persuaded into hard Brexit with well thought through argument, we're being railroaded into it with a familiar brand of right-wing fatalism, a exhortation to take our medicine because "there is no alternative".adam wrote:I am playing devil's advocate a little here, and I know that Paul in particular would point out that we don't know what might be possible, but the problem with the argument that we can leave the EU but stay in the single market is that the starting point of everybody else in the EU is that staying in the single market means freedom of movement, and however shit I know it is I don't believe that people voted to get out of the EU in order to protect freedom of movement. I know that lots of different people had lots of different ideas of what they were voting for and I know that the leave campaign were irredeemably full of shit, and I know that that we might be able to explore various derogations from a simple 'open borders' policy, but you will struggle to convince me either that this is what people voted for or that the EU are minded to be helpful to us in this regard. It might have been different if we'd taken the time to spell out what different consequences there might be from different outcomes but we didn't.
I'm with Lost Soul. I'm going to keep making the arguments against hard Brexit until we're out of the single market and it's over. The people who want to leave the single market are quite capable of making the TINA arguments for themselves. We don't have to help them. The reason I get frustrated is several people here say they think staying in the single market is preferable (given the poor options) but then go to great lengths to explain why we can't. It might be difficult, it might be politically awkward, but it is perfectly possible, but to have a chance of staying in we have to try. And I know the Tories are in charge, but they are by no means in agreement on leaving the single market. The more arguments for not leaving the single market, the more the public are persuaded against the hard Brexit option, the harder it will be for Theresa May to deliver her plan. Given it's the Tories who have more voters who support curbing immigration, Labour have much to gain and little to lose by trying to build a consensus for soft Brexit. I'm not saying there's any certainty people can be persuaded to accept freedom of movement, just pointing out that if Labour go along with the Tory narrative that immigration curbs have to be achieved in order to fulfil the referendum, we are actively encouraging people away from accepting a soft Brexit option and I really can't understand why anyone who favours the soft Brexit option would want to do that.
My view is the opposite from this as I do not see the Single Market as a monolithic beast and I think there are some options for negotiations as long as they do not infringe on the four freedoms - I have always argues that the FoM one especially is not well understood in the UK and part of our reason for not being able to comply is that we have poorly implemented immigration management over the yearsThe reason I get frustrated is several people here say they think staying in the single market is preferable (given the poor options) but then go to great lengths to explain why we can't.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... trade-deal“What would they do with the British Open if they ever got out? They’d no longer have the British Open.” (Guardian)
I don't want to leave the EU either but the time to fight leaving was before we left. I'm not saying it's impossible for us to change our minds, but having given notice to leave it is no longer solely in our hands. It's with the EU and it's with legal rulings, so it's not something we can just say let's do that then. I would definitely like to know whether Theresa May thinks she can just change her mind. If she does, I'd like to understand on what basis, because it doesn't seem clear cut to me. Even if she fails to get her repeal bill through, the Treaties could nonetheless cease to apply come March 2019 (and then we'll be in serious trouble). Which is why, of all the options, trying to steer towards the "soft" half in, half out option to me seems the best bet and certainly doesn't reduce the likelihood of eventually staying in the EU. Many of the arguments for accepting freedom of movement in return for staying in the single market equally apply to the EU so are well worth making, even if you prefer to fight for remain over a soft exit.adam wrote:Having a binary referendum on a question that splits the country is meant to leave half the country unrepresented.Willow904 wrote:What you are saying undoubtedly applies to an indeterminate number of leave voters, but by no means all and when trying to build a consensus, bowing to the views of part of 52% of referendum voters is going to leave a majority of the overall population unrepresented. Lots of people are currently being polled as saying they would put staying in the single market before curbing immigration. There is no need for playing devil's advocate. We already have the Tories representing the views of hard Brexit voters. There is no reason why other people can't argue for soft Brexit. To my mind there is more chance of convincing a majority of the population to back a soft Brexit than there is convincing a majority to back a hard Brexit. This is based on the observation that to date the only arguments I've heard for pursuing a hard Brexit is yours above - that this is perceived/guessed/insinuated as what people voted for. For me that's not good enough. There is no evidence. The referendum asked only about the EU and nothing else - not the single market, not immigration, not the ECJ. The case to leave the single market has not been made. To assume it's what people want when we haven't even had the debate seems to me to be lacking in democratic spirit. We're not being persuaded into hard Brexit with well thought through argument, we're being railroaded into it with a familiar brand of right-wing fatalism, a exhortation to take our medicine because "there is no alternative".adam wrote:I am playing devil's advocate a little here, and I know that Paul in particular would point out that we don't know what might be possible, but the problem with the argument that we can leave the EU but stay in the single market is that the starting point of everybody else in the EU is that staying in the single market means freedom of movement, and however shit I know it is I don't believe that people voted to get out of the EU in order to protect freedom of movement. I know that lots of different people had lots of different ideas of what they were voting for and I know that the leave campaign were irredeemably full of shit, and I know that that we might be able to explore various derogations from a simple 'open borders' policy, but you will struggle to convince me either that this is what people voted for or that the EU are minded to be helpful to us in this regard. It might have been different if we'd taken the time to spell out what different consequences there might be from different outcomes but we didn't.
I'm with Lost Soul. I'm going to keep making the arguments against hard Brexit until we're out of the single market and it's over. The people who want to leave the single market are quite capable of making the TINA arguments for themselves. We don't have to help them. The reason I get frustrated is several people here say they think staying in the single market is preferable (given the poor options) but then go to great lengths to explain why we can't. It might be difficult, it might be politically awkward, but it is perfectly possible, but to have a chance of staying in we have to try. And I know the Tories are in charge, but they are by no means in agreement on leaving the single market. The more arguments for not leaving the single market, the more the public are persuaded against the hard Brexit option, the harder it will be for Theresa May to deliver her plan. Given it's the Tories who have more voters who support curbing immigration, Labour have much to gain and little to lose by trying to build a consensus for soft Brexit. I'm not saying there's any certainty people can be persuaded to accept freedom of movement, just pointing out that if Labour go along with the Tory narrative that immigration curbs have to be achieved in order to fulfil the referendum, we are actively encouraging people away from accepting a soft Brexit option and I really can't understand why anyone who favours the soft Brexit option would want to do that.
Part of my response comes from the fact that I don't favour a 'soft' response, I bloody-mindedly favour not leaving, and when you're faced with a choice between two options and you want neither of them then the right thing to do is to reject them both. I honestly think the best chance we have of getting through this is by taking the country to the brink and letting them see what will follow. Given that I'm all but sure that the government's plan is to rush us over the brink I think this is what might happen.
Yes, what do I know, but I don't believe the conservatives will risk breaking themselves apart, and so risk an election and a further loss of seats and even the possibility of a labour government, on any question, even this one. Whoever there is on the government back benches who is unhappy with this has done nothing at all about it in the lobbies so far, other then Clarke, and I think is very very unlikely to. They will see this through.
They have created all sorts of problems for themselves - even some ridiculous apparent red line about the ECJ which as much as anything they've done by conflating in the public's mind the ECJ and the ECHR. Back to Euratom as an example, but why do we think we can have all of the benefits of membership of a transnational organisation without accepting the transnational regulation and oversight that comes with it? But the public (big generalisation but you know what I mean) don't know or understand this at all and it's difficult to see how the government can backtrack on their own bullshit and now say 'no, that's not what we meant'.
I wasn't referring to you particularly, just some responses I get sometimes to my argument that Labour aren't helping to build a consensus towards accepting those compromises, such as freedom of movement which could (as you say) be presented and operated better, when they suggest continued freedom of movement would be going against the referendum result as Corbyn clearly indicated on Marr the other day. Although others in Labour have suggested staying in the single market remains on the table, Corbyn has not as far as I'm aware and I find that disappointing and support for his stance by those who say they oppose hard Brexit unfathomable. I don't believe you were one of the ones who defended his arguments. Indeed, half the time I'm unclear as to why you think I'm in disagreement with you. I spelled out pretty clearly that any bespoke deal with the SM worth having will involve accepting the four freedoms including freedom of movement and that's what I would like to see Labour building a consensus for. Whether you call that "membership" or not is really not important, the bits you have to persuade the British electorate to accept in order to get the main benefits remain the same.howsillyofme1 wrote:Willow
I am not sure if you were referring to me when you said that
My view is the opposite from this as I do not see the Single Market as a monolithic beast and I think there are some options for negotiations as long as they do not infringe on the four freedoms - I have always argues that the FoM one especially is not well understood in the UK and part of our reason for not being able to comply is that we have poorly implemented immigration management over the yearsThe reason I get frustrated is several people here say they think staying in the single market is preferable (given the poor options) but then go to great lengths to explain why we can't.
I can tell you from a country that has FoM, it is not carte blanche to come and go as you please or live off the state.....as is often the case, the problem lies at home rather than with the EU
My argument is also that the EEA agreement is not fit for purpose for us and whatever we have will be a bespoke one that is negotiated with the EU
By taking acceptance of freedom of movement off the table, I felt Corbyn had actually come off the fence. McDonnell's later statement seems to reverse that, which is positive, but reiterating leave mantras such as free movement of people reduces wages and to fulfil the referendum we have to leave the single market will only make supporting anything less than a full hard Brexit at a later date politically more difficult not less.howsillyofme1 wrote:The difference between my views, as an individual, and the Labour Party is that they have to think of the overall situation which is made up of people who, in the main, have not spent the time and the effort to look up the details
I am of the view that the SM is an internal EU mechanism that controls all aspects of movement of people/trade and goods within the EU, so if you are a country that is outside the EU then you are not part of the internal mechanism but may be permitted to participate in certain aspects depending upon negotiation - as far as I can tell no country outside the EU is fully integrated into the EU internal market. In that respect Corbyn's words are fine with me and it could be a smart politics......whether it is or not we will have to wait and see . I know it is semantics but exact wording is important in these things - and it also allows for flexibility
Again, I will try to exemplify what I mean. There are a lot of people who are calling for EEA terms but that means no CU, no market in fisheries and agriculture and all are also members of Schengen.......I for one see that as being sub-optimal for the UK
I, and always will, maintain that the moment to come off the fence is when we actually see what are concrete results of the negotiations - it is at that time I will also expect those Tory Remainers to also show their cards as well
Agreed, one worry is that because of time limitations for negotiations, and by excluding certain options, not all possibilities will be considered.howsillyofme1 wrote:The difference between my views, as an individual, and the Labour Party is that they have to think of the overall situation which is made up of people who, in the main, have not spent the time and the effort to look up the details
I am of the view that the SM is an internal EU mechanism that controls all aspects of movement of people/trade and goods within the EU, so if you are a country that is outside the EU then you are not part of the internal mechanism but may be permitted to participate in certain aspects depending upon negotiation - as far as I can tell no country outside the EU is fully integrated into the EU internal market. In that respect Corbyn's words are fine with me and it could be a smart politics......whether it is or not we will have to wait and see . I know it is semantics but exact wording is important in these things - and it also allows for flexibility
Again, I will try to exemplify what I mean. There are a lot of people who are calling for EEA terms but that means no CU, no market in fisheries and agriculture and all are also members of Schengen.......I for one see that as being sub-optimal for the UK
I, and always will, maintain that the moment to come off the fence is when we actually see what are concrete results of the negotiations - it is at that time I will also expect those Tory Remainers to also show their cards as well
It's a bit hard to see how increasing our pension age by 4 years, in my case, with 20 years notice, and then another 18 months with 7 years notice, wouldn't make us worse off?HindleA wrote:https://www.theguardian.com/money/2017/ ... CMP=twt_gu
A million women £32 a week worse off thanks to pension age changes
They do like their £30'ish p.w. policy targeted reductions.
I contacted Peter Clarke, the chief inspector of prisons, and asked him whether the Inspectorate had taken any action to inspect for fire safety in light of Grenfell. He replied saying that fire safety in prisons was not his bag - it's the responsibility of an independent inspectorate known as the Crown Properties Fire Inspection Group (CPFIG), based in the Home Office.
I searched online for CPFIG prison fire inspection reports. There were none.
When I contacted them, a spokesman told me: "Due to regulations we work within we are not allowed to publish our reports online."
I hadn't looked at it that way but I'm sure you're right.Willow904 wrote:Re: social care.
Is it just me or are the Tories using the clear need for extensive reform of our social care system going forward as cover for present day underfunding and neglect?
The above story shows the necessary care was available for the person in question and that the problems in the case arose more as a consequence of inadequate resources available to implement the current system, than from the nature of the system itself. Lack of promptness in needs assessments is a resource problem (not enough assessors, not enough money to pay for assessors) rather than a structural one.
I just wonder, with all the demands for change, if pressure on the government to fund and run our current system properly is quite as strong as it could be.
You're a glass-half-empty sort of person?adam wrote:I am aware that my view of these things tends to be based on an attitude of 'so this is it, we're all going to die' that I don't expect others to share
Despite being often characterised on here as an optimist, so am I in many ways. An optimistic realist, perhapsgilsey wrote:You're a glass-half-empty sort of person?adam wrote:I am aware that my view of these things tends to be based on an attitude of 'so this is it, we're all going to die' that I don't expect others to share
Me too.
The word "reform" has certainly been much abused over the years!gilsey wrote:I hadn't looked at it that way but I'm sure you're right.Willow904 wrote:Re: social care.
Is it just me or are the Tories using the clear need for extensive reform of our social care system going forward as cover for present day underfunding and neglect?
The above story shows the necessary care was available for the person in question and that the problems in the case arose more as a consequence of inadequate resources available to implement the current system, than from the nature of the system itself. Lack of promptness in needs assessments is a resource problem (not enough assessors, not enough money to pay for assessors) rather than a structural one.
I just wonder, with all the demands for change, if pressure on the government to fund and run our current system properly is quite as strong as it could be.
As I think you said about the NHS, fund it properly and then tweak it on an ongoing basis to achieve the best possible system, same applies to social care.
See also this article, if you haven't already.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/201 ... vatisation" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Over my life I've come to hate that word 'reform'.
It's in the Express, so it must be true. The EU tried to get rid of the British pint, but don't worry, we showed 'em!SAVED: The good old British pint
THE British pint, mile and ounce were saved yesterday as Brussels finally quit trying to kill them off.