Article 50/Brexit Negotiations

[Len Rum]

52.1% say get the deed done.

If she's reluctant to blow, try tempting her with fishing rights.

51.9%.
You can't even get that right.

 

[Damocles]

Sounds horrendous. So you would do away with every countries identity in a flash. I'm also sure religion would rear it's ugly head and nothing would be decided. Ever.

Well we've done away with thousands of countries and their identity. England is pretty unique in how old it is and it still is constituent of Wessex, Mercia and other "countries". There's little wept for their loss.

Spain is a combination of Aragon, Catalonia, Galicia, Castile, Leon and the Emirate of Granada. It's only a few hundred years old as a country. France is a bit older but has gone through hundreds of border changes including owning the Netherlands and Belgium then not then Britanny then not then the old Savoy lands then not then into Northern Italy then not.

What about Normandy? There's a good point to make that us and the Danish have as much cultural right to that territory as the French. Is Corsica French or Spanish or Italian or Sardinian or its own thing?

Germany had never existed as a nation from the time of the first Europeans in 5000BC until 1871 when it unified into the whole that we see it as now. Is that really a national identity? When the Germans declared their nation state for the first time, Arthur Connell was already in his Church in St Marks in Gorton and the US had existed for 100 years. Even if you want to put it back to technically the first possible date it could be recognised as anything we'd imagine to be Germany, that would 1806 and barely 200 years ago. Before that the German people were split into Prussians, Bavarians, Saxons, Baden, Hesse, etc.

The concept of national identities as this unchanging thing is incredibly new in the history of civilization and mainly promoted in order to make poor people do things against their personal interest such as travelling to Africa to fight badly organised tribesmen.

We look at a map now and we see the countries of the world and with a few exceptions that is The Way That It Is™ in our minds. We see great nations that link shared cultures together but that's mainly a fiction. Borders in Europe have changed so many times that the concept of some sort of shared nationality identity is just not workable

 

[Damocles]

I'm wholeheartedly in favour of representational systems of democracy.

1. People don't always have the time to dedicate to fully considering complex questions whilst at the same time doing a full time job and/or having other demands on your time.
2. Not everyone has the intellectual capacity either. (Not very PC to say, but patently true. If average IQ is 100 then by the very definition some people are below 100 and some very well below.) Pretty pointless asking people to decide on matters they cannot adequately comprehend.
3. Sometimes decisions which are not popular are nevertheless in our best interest and if left to "micro referendums" such decisions might not be taken.

The idea that we let everyone have a vote on all sorts of subjects - let alone on a majority of subjects, or god forbid all subjects - is completely abhorrent to me. I'm very happy to be represented by my MP, who incidentally until recently was not even from the party I vote for.

It doesn't need to be literal direct democracy, just something a bit more direct than 1 in 70,000. Why can't every street or neighbourhood have an MP or some form of voting power in a Lower House? Why instead of 1 in 70,000 can't we go to 1 in 100 so that every person in the country would regularly chat with their MP to get some sort of idea on what was going on and why? It's technologically possible as well as financially and logistically possible - the objections seem to be based around human objections.

 

[Chippy_boy]

It doesn't need to be literal direct democracy, just something a bit more direct than 1 in 70,000. Why can't every street or neighbourhood have an MP or some form of voting power in a Lower House? Why instead of 1 in 70,000 can't we go to 1 in 100 so that every person in the country would regularly chat with their MP to get some sort of idea on what was going on and why? It's technologically possible as well as financially and logistically possible - the objections seem to be based around human objections.

I agree there's scope for more representation, and I also agree that the technology we are using (bits of paper stuffed into boxes) is in the dark ages. Why on earth we can't vote online when you can fill in your tax return online, god only knows.

 

[BlueHammer85]

Well we've done away with thousands of countries and their identity. England is pretty unique in how old it is and it still is constituent of Wessex, Mercia and other "countries". There's little wept for their loss.

Spain is a combination of Aragon, Catalonia, Galicia, Castile, Leon and the Emirate of Granada. It's only a few hundred years old as a country. France is a bit older but has gone through hundreds of border changes including owning the Netherlands and Belgium then not then Britanny then not then the old Savoy lands then not then into Northern Italy then not.

What about Normandy? There's a good point to make that us and the Danish have as much cultural right to that territory as the French. Is Corsica French or Spanish or Italian or Sardinian or its own thing?

Germany had never existed as a nation from the time of the first Europeans in 5000BC until 1871 when it unified into the whole that we see it as now. Is that really a national identity? When the Germans declared their nation state for the first time, Arthur Connell was already in his Church in St Marks in Gorton and the US had existed for 100 years. Even if you want to put it back to technically the first possible date it could be recognised as anything we'd imagine to be Germany, that would 1806 and barely 200 years ago. Before that the German people were split into Prussians, Bavarians, Saxons, Baden, Hesse, etc.

The concept of national identities as this unchanging thing is incredibly new in the history of civilization and mainly promoted in order to make poor people do things against their personal interest such as travelling to Africa to fight badly organised tribesmen.

We look at a map now and we see the countries of the world and with a few exceptions that is The Way That It Is™ in our minds. We see great nations that link shared cultures together but that's mainly a fiction. Borders in Europe have changed so many times that the concept of some sort of shared nationality identity is just not workable

Good to have you back Damocles. Where have you been ?

 

[Damocles]

Good to have you back Damocles. Where have you been ?

Twitter mainly

 

[Damocles]

passporting of financial services post Brexit will be the major battlefield and I expect a lot of blood will be shed by both sides on this issue sue to the sheer magnitude that this sector contributes to UK GDP - Tough one because if the UK can get free access it will undermine the whole concept of the single market and set a precedent

Perhaps not.

There's reasons to create a precedent for London because it IS an exceptional case. Creating tariffs on financial services from the place where most of Europe's major banks are would be seen as hurting businesses. This falls under "economics rule" in my opinion - I think both sides will find a way for this to work because it's in the financial interest of both sides for it to work and only political willpower is there to stop it.

We'll have to take a hit on something else but I suspect the EU doesn't want the financial services sector in London to fail any more than we do.

Economically I don't see the reasons to do this outside of attempting to move business into Frankfurt and then I really do believe that the Tories would enact their "Isle of Man" scheme. For the record, this was always the problem in having such a financial service based economy and why we should have upgraded the technology of our manufacturing base in the 1980s like the Germans rather than sailing it down the river and buying Chinese but that's a bit of a tangent.

I hear lots of farmers are pleased that we're no longer going to be under the Common Agricultural Policy which might sound good for them but I fear this could be one of those hidden dangers for the populace.

 

[BimboBob]

Well we've done away with thousands of countries and their identity. England is pretty unique in how old it is and it still is constituent of Wessex, Mercia and other "countries". There's little wept for their loss.

Spain is a combination of Aragon, Catalonia, Galicia, Castile, Leon and the Emirate of Granada. It's only a few hundred years old as a country. France is a bit older but has gone through hundreds of border changes including owning the Netherlands and Belgium then not then Britanny then not then the old Savoy lands then not then into Northern Italy then not.

What about Normandy? There's a good point to make that us and the Danish have as much cultural right to that territory as the French. Is Corsica French or Spanish or Italian or Sardinian or its own thing?

Germany had never existed as a nation from the time of the first Europeans in 5000BC until 1871 when it unified into the whole that we see it as now. Is that really a national identity? When the Germans declared their nation state for the first time, Arthur Connell was already in his Church in St Marks in Gorton and the US had existed for 100 years. Even if you want to put it back to technically the first possible date it could be recognised as anything we'd imagine to be Germany, that would 1806 and barely 200 years ago. Before that the German people were split into Prussians, Bavarians, Saxons, Baden, Hesse, etc.

The concept of national identities as this unchanging thing is incredibly new in the history of civilization and mainly promoted in order to make poor people do things against their personal interest such as travelling to Africa to fight badly organised tribesmen.

We look at a map now and we see the countries of the world and with a few exceptions that is The Way That It Is™ in our minds. We see great nations that link shared cultures together but that's mainly a fiction. Borders in Europe have changed so many times that the concept of some sort of shared nationality identity is just not workable

It's all well and good stating the history of certain countries but even if they are only one hundred years old being part of one joins people together.

Take Sweden. Once a vast Empire,owning much of Norway and Finland, until those pesky Russians took it, now a large country in Scandinavia. Ask a Swede who he is and he would say Swedish. Not Scandinavian. A lot of my friends are British before being English. Ask an Italian if he's European and he'll scoff. Ask someone from Sicily and they say Italian rather than Sicilian.

It's not about fluid borders, because a lot of people are completely unaware of their own countries past, but it is about an identity. Humans need identity. A sense of belonging. Being.

Religion now rears it's ugly head. The bit in bold isn't a result of politicians making borders but religion. Starts with exploration, then turns into religion before going to exploitation. Religion is incredible good at trying to make a native population come round to it's way of thinking. Look at the Christians in Britain. Building churches and sacred sites on top of previous sacred sites just so it would appear similar. Out with the old and in with the new-ish. People still can't get the idea that everyone is entitled to their own religious beliefs and when this happens...

...we come to war. Humans are incredible good at waging war against perceived enemies for very little provocation. Wars have been fought over Cod, Camels and even the removing of an ear. We, as a race, appear to love a good fight against an enemy. Take away a border and where does this aggression go?

As much as I agreed with most of your original brexit post, and back on topic-ish, a world where we do away with borders would be a hellish world, where national individuality would slowly be removed, and where one giant government/ corporation would set down the rules and regulations for everyone.

Truly horrific.

 

[AlgarveBlu]

I fully agree with your justified reasons why an exception should be made, but it still does not address the fundamental point that a precedent will have to be made in terms of breaching the founding rules of access to the single market (I'm not aware of any other in existence but I'm not an aficionado on that subject) - Problem is nobody likes precedents as that will open up a can of worms, what would then stop Switzerland from saying ' we want the same package' as the UK for financial services without the conditionality attached to entry to the single market, look how the EU has stood firm in the face of the Swiss referendum result on eu migration (which is supposed to be legally binding under there constitution)

Question is will EU political ideology trump economic logic

 

[Chippy_boy]

I fully agree with your justified reasons why an exception should be made, but it still does not address the fundamental point that a precedent will have to be made in terms of breaching the founding rules of access to the single market (I'm not aware of any other in existence but I'm not an aficionado on that subject) - Problem is nobody likes precedents as that will open up a can of worms, what would then stop Switzerland from saying ' we want the same package' as the UK for financial services without the conditionality attached to entry to the single market, look how the EU has stood firm in the face of the Swiss referendum result on eu migration (which is supposed to be legally binding under there constitution)

Question is will EU political ideology trump economic logic

That's an entirely valid question which I've been posing for 15 months on this very forum. Some Brexiters seem to think that economics winning is a "no-brainer" and that anyone who suggests otherwise is an idiot. I think it's a very valid question actually, and in my estimation, politics will have a huge say in the final settlement. I cannot imagine anything being agreed upon which incentivises other countries to leave.