Political relations between UK-EU

[ganganvince]

I know you don’t. Not understanding is a major part of the problem.

No not letting go is the problem we have left look forward

 

[bugsyblue]

I am afraid that you are going have to be really quite young to have the prospect of seeing it happen

You don’t need to be afraid mate.

 

[meltonblue]

So you think we'll be spending, sorry wasting, our time arguing with the EU
about getting back what we had?
Lol.
Somehow, I doubt it.

In terms of trade, it will. The main discussions over the next few years around that will be how we get back to as frictionless as possible, be that through technology or increased parity in certain sectors.

We’ll then be in the never ending state of swinging between the two - ease of trade vs control and autonomy of laws.

 

[blueparrot]

So you think we'll be spending, sorry wasting, our time arguing with the EU
about getting back what we had?
Lol.
Somehow, I doubt it.

So you think everthing in the agreement will work out perfectly, there are no unforseen consequnces of just copying old agreements across, that having different agreements in different parts of the UK won’t cause problems, that changing governments won’t want different things.
That this agreement is perfect, even without sorting out the service side or, lets not forget recisiting fishing in 5 years?

 

[Rascal]

All you had to do was get all the true socialists in the EU to vote for socialist MEPs. With PR you would then have had a socialist European Parliament.

You also get socialists in each member state to elect socialist governments to send socialists to the European Council and Council of ministers and appoint socialist Commissioners.

The only flaw in this procedure is that you don't have enough socialists. Maybe that isn't a problem for revolutionary socialists, but it is for socialists who support "leftist parties" that can actually get elected.

I enjoy your political education lectures, but a degree of realism about your "vision" would not go amiss. The idea that leaving the EU is going to hasten a pan-European socialist state (or a socialist England) seems a recipe for being disappointed. Even with oppressed masses (and there aren't that many people in Europe now who really understand how oppressed they are) revolution was a hard sell. Lenin might have been against, but frankly the "miserable reforms" of class collaboration (i.e. get people of all classes to vote for a leftist party) is the sum of my current political ambitions.

Fair enough, but as long as we think it is unrealistic, it will be unrealistic. I get told all the time my vision of the world is unrealistic, but it is only unrealistic because people are fearful of change and are somewhat indoctrinated into believing that the market is the answer to everything. As Covid has shown the market fails when times are desperate and the state has to come to the peoples aid. It has to be collaborative rather than the conservative mantra of pushing for individualism. Individualism will not solve the covid crisis, it needs the state to act, maybe its the first act of people trusting the state again rather than mistrusting as in the American way of seeing all government as interference. I am a collectivist, i do believe humans work better as a collective, Socialism is an expansion of collectivism in my view.

I am not a Revolutionary Socialist, i am a Democratic Socialist, i believe in democracy, we just need a vision and if we can base that vision around collectivist ideals then i truly believe we can achieve a Socialist Europe. Of course the outside interests and the interests of the Capitalists would be out in full force against such a move, because after all why should we have what they have, they have had people work very hard for them to get where they are and they are not going to let it go without a fight.

 

[Vic]

Who specifically said they wanted open borders

We never had open borders

It depends what you mean. If you mean there was never a time when Britain didn't have any restrictions on immigration, there was such a time. Most of history in fact.

Whether that's realistic now is another question - and if you do restrict immigration who decides who comes in? It is of course the one area where capitalist governments tend to think that letting the market decide doesn't apply. I'd suggest a separate thread but it looks obvious already that if we stuck to a very narrow understanding of the thread title it would be a very thin thread.

I'll make my usual point that from the arrival of the Flemish weavers this area has done ok from work provided by immigrants who came without restriction. Engels (his dad), Renold chains, Beyer Peacock, Ferranti, ICI, Clayton Aniline.... bloody European immigrants coming here and employing thousands.

And there are some interesting quotes in this Daily Mail article (I googled Polish + Southampton).

Polish invasion that's SAVED my home town: An influx of 25,000 Poles has left Southampton's schools full to bursting - with some locals feeling pushed out. But BARBARA DAVIES, who grew up there, found there's another side to the story

Shelves in the Malinka delicatessen groan beneath piles of pickled vegetables, fish, rye bread and canned meats, writes BARBARA DAVIES.

www.dailymail.co.uk

 

[bluethrunthru]

There are going to be lots of stumbles along the way - this for example

Britons living in Spain barred from Madrid flight in post-Brexit travel row

British embassy says ‘this should not be happening’ after airline staff claim pre-Brexit ID documents are invalid

www.theguardian.com

 

[Ban-jani]

The problem that can easily occur with something like this if you don't implement it properly is that you can end up giving a large amount of control to an employer. In a lot of countries a visa is linked to a particular job, which means that your employer doesn't only have control over your job, but also your entire future in the country. That sort of situation is ripe for abuse. But then go the other way and give people a visa for a particular sector, and employers will be reluctant to go through the effort and expense of sponsoring someone knowing that they can just jump ship to another employer as soon as they get into the country.

This happens right now, all across the world, including in the UK.

The good thing is, the employer has to be able to prove they have exhausted the internal market first, before offering sponsorship, so it’s likely to bring unemployment down.

What is your alternative?

 

[TheRemainsOfTheDave]

No it didnt, I actually wanted further integration and a fully federal state with single political parties that operated across the Union. An elected President and single constitution. Nobody had that vision though and the status quo was unacceptable as it is just a neo-liberal club that benefits those with wealth. A fully federated EU could have led to a fully federated Socialist state, with the likes of Labour, Portugals Bloc Esquerida and other Leftist EU parties forming one mass party to campaign for a Socialist state. When remain became the supporters of status quo i came to the conclusion I cant support that and initially i was unsure so abstained in the actual vote. I do consider myself fairly well educated but the complexity of the debate was overwhelming for me, for others it was much simple such as they wanted to end all immigration, or they wanted to carry on travelling to their holiday home in the Languedoc without a problem. The more I looked into it the more I came to realise that if i wanted a Socialist state then leaving was the only way that could be achieved. It wasn't easy though because i do still believe the EU is a source for good and i hated that i would be on the same side, albeit for different reasons as the likes of that horrible **** Farage.

Problem is we can't even get individual political parties in the UK to act coherently (and I assume this is mirrored in every country) so attempting this across a continent would be a recipe for disaster in my view - the replacement of Labour with the SNP in Scotland is a perfect example of two very similar political ideals with a single major opposing issue. Creating a more centralised government/political system seems to go against the modern trend of devolving decision-making to regions and countries breaking into smaller pieces.

 

[Vic]

So you think we'll be spending, sorry wasting, our time arguing with the EU
about getting back what we had?
Lol.
Somehow, I doubt it.

On Christmas Eve the default position was we had nothing. We had been negotiating to retain some of what we had. It's obvious we are still negotiating on other stuff we don't want to lose (like flying) so I don't know what's funny.