EU in or out?
Reply

How do you feel about Britain leaving the EU?
1) I want the UK out of the EU at all costs.  0%  [ 0 ]
2) I want out of the EU, unless there is some show stopper that means we should stay in.  0%  [ 0 ]
3) I want out of the EU, but could easily be persuaded to stay in.  2%  [ 1 ]
4) Not sure if we should stay in or out.  8%  [ 3 ]
5) I want to stay in the EU, but could easily be persuaded to leave.  2%  [ 1 ]
6) I want to stay in the EU, unless there is a showstopper that means we should leave.  59%  [ 22 ]
7) I want the UK to stay in the EU at all costs.  27%  [ 10 ]
Total votes : 37
Cras wrote:
The last six years of conservative government haven't seen a single UK statutory instrument in banking regulation either.
Related: were any banking regulation laws stricken from the statute books in the period 1997-2008?
Ha! Yeah, Labour are just *reknown* for apologising for stuff - three times over by consecutive leaders - that they weren't actually in any way culpable for, honest guv.... and yes, they're going to apologise for fucking the entire country up when actually they haven't...? :DD
Man, I love you guys, I really do. Excellent, that's me "rebutted" eh.

That's enough laffs and intruding on private grief for one day, methinks.
Cavey wrote:
Ha! Yeah, Labour are just *reknown* for apologising for stuff - three times over by consecutive leaders - that they weren't actually in any way culpable for, honest guv.... and yes, they're going to apologise for fucking the entire country up when actually they haven't...? :DD
Man, I love you guys, I really do. Excellent, that's me "rebutted" eh.

Nice way to sidestep the tricky questions about regulations though. Keep spluttering guff out and hope we forget they were asked. ;)
I'm sidestepping nothing. I've pointed out time and again Labour tearing down the entire previous (hitherto largely successful) regulatory framework and replacing it with their tri-partite/FSA system, and even gave formation date. You, as ever, either point blank refuse to read it, or if you do, it just goes in one ear and out the other? I mean FFS, this stuff is _two pages back_.

Like I said, you cannot be told and you'll never be told; we're already into the realms of the fucking fairies IMO - Labour repeatedly apologizing for the worst financial disaster to befall the UK economy ever, and all the appalling poverty/austerity that directly ensued from this incompetence - but they didn't mean it on any of the three occasions...? I mean seriously, what *is* there to say to that? What CAN one say? :roll:

You cannot be told. Seriously. Nothing I could ever say or do will ever change that. If you won't take that from the last three leaders of the Labour Party, including the current incumbent, you're not going to take it from me. I've got better things to do with my time - like order the tide to go back or something. It's got to be easier than this particular brick wall.

I can't help you here chaps, sorry.
Why wouldn't you apologise if your political advisors were telling you it would win you back support in upcoming elections? Most politicians would paint their arses blue and call themselves baboons if it was a vote-winner.
Cavey wrote:
order the tide to go back or something


All: You Cnut.
Cavey wrote:
I'm sidestepping nothing. I've pointed out time and again Labour tearing down the entire previous (hitherto largely successful) regulatory framework and replacing it with their tri-partite/FSA system, and even gave formation date. You, as ever, either point blank refuse to read it, or if you do, it just goes in one ear and out the other? I mean FFS, this stuff is _two pages back_


Labour tore down nothing. The SIB was replaced by the FSA. No regulations were weakened. No laws were removed. The FSA carried on doing exactly the same job the SIB always did.
Cras wrote:
Most politicians would paint their arses blue and call themselves baboons if it was a vote-winner.

Or promise to hold a referendum on the EU despite the risk it might turn into political suicide.
Cras wrote:
Cavey wrote:
I'm sidestepping nothing. I've pointed out time and again Labour tearing down the entire previous (hitherto largely successful) regulatory framework and replacing it with their tri-partite/FSA system, and even gave formation date. You, as ever, either point blank refuse to read it, or if you do, it just goes in one ear and out the other? I mean FFS, this stuff is _two pages back_


Labour tore down nothing. The SIB was replaced by the FSA. No regulations were weakened. No laws were removed. The FSA carried on doing exactly the same job the SIB always did.


I really don't have the time for this :) but even the most cursory Googling trawls up interesting, authoritive pieces like this, which beg to differ:

Quote:
In sum, the tripartite arrangement seems to have been set up without proper
care about the design of incentives for prudential regulators, and constitutes a
significant failure of the organizational redesign under Labour. The post-crisis
reforms represent a return to the twin peaks structure, with the creation of a
Prudential Regulation Authority within the Bank and a Financial Conduct
Authority to assume the other tasks current currently carried out by the FSA.


Quote:
First, if there is to be more effective regulation in the future, it will almost
certainly require considerably more resources than were invested under the
Labour regime. With hindsight, the “light-touch” regulation of this period simply
meant that it was massively under-resourced
(see Section IV c).
Second, the primacy accorded to regulatory concerns, as mediated by the
political process, tends to vary with the economic cycle. When the economy is
doing well, so does the financial sector. Regulators are typically unwilling or
unable to take a very stringent stance as concerns about competitiveness
outweigh prudential concerns, especially once the economic boom is legitimised
by a ‘this-time-is-different’ mindset. A benign environment also makes for easier
regulatory capture by a wealth-generating financial sector, again lessening the
regulatory burden. The pattern of regulation under Labour bears all the
hallmarks of such patterns of behaviour


http://www.bbk.ac.uk/ems/faculty/wright/pdf/oxrep

"organizational redesign" doesn't seem very compatible with what you've just said? One assumes that the Dept of Economics at University of London at least know that much... ;)
Don't forget that I'm not for a moment suggesting that regulation was sufficient pre-crash. I'm saying instead that regulation since the mid-80s has been a global beast, not a national one, and to attempt to do otherwise would have been utterly futile. There has never been a suggestion, as far as I'm aware, that the FSA failed in enforcing the regulatory framework that existed - rather, that the (global) framework was in itself insufficient.
The FSA and their subsequent iterations certainly paid a lot more attention to things post-crash than pre-crash.

I'm unsure why America, the rest of Europe etc, haven't invaded us or something for wrecking all their economies purely on Labour's policies in the UK.
Kern wrote:
Cavey wrote:
order the tide to go back or something


All: You Cnut.


This deserves a little bit of recognition at least. It made me laugh.
I'm not down with my Danish history.
Grim... wrote:
I'm not down with my Danish history.

Pick a coffee shop and we'll go and revise.
I can tolerate people dissing Tories but not Danish stuff.
Because Bacon.

/slamdunk
Grim... wrote:
I'm not down with my Danish history.


He was someone else who was interested in unifying a part of Europe.

(He comes up in the 'Rex Factor' - I'm still enjoying that podcast and am up to Richard III.)
Cavey wrote:
I can tolerate people dissing Tories

Really? :DD
That Spencer Perceval, eh? What a plonker.
Kern wrote:
That Spencer Perceval, eh? What a plonker.


>:| >:| >:| :blown:
Presented without comment
Pass the mind-bleach.
Holy shit! This would, uhh, ruffle some feathers.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-e ... m-36457120

Quote:
Pro-Remain MPs are considering using their Commons majority to keep Britain inside the EU single market if there is a vote for Brexit, the BBC has learned.

The MPs fear a post-Brexit government might negotiate a limited free trade deal with the EU, which they say would damage the UK's economy.

There is a pro-Remain majority in the House of Commons of 454 MPs to 147.

A Vote Leave campaign spokesman said MPs will not be able to "defy the will of the electorate" on key issues.

The single market guarantees the free movement of goods, people, services and capital.

The BBC has learned pro-Remain MPs would use their voting power in the House of Commons to protect what they see as the economic benefits of a single market, which gives the UK access to 500 million consumers.

Staying inside the single market would mean Britain would have to keep its borders open to EU workers and continue paying into EU coffers.



They say it would be legitimate for MPs to push for the UK to stay in the single market because the Leave campaign has refused to spell out what trading relationship it wants the UK to have with the EU in the future.

As such, a post-Brexit government could not claim it had a popular mandate for a particular model.

One minister said: "This is not fantasy. This is a huge probability.

"The longer we move away from the referendum, the more the economic pressures will grow to keep some links with the single market."

Another said: "We would accept the mandate of the people to leave the EU.

"But everything after that is negotiable and Parliament would have its say. The terms on which we leave are entirely within my remit as a parliamentarian and that is something for me to take a view on."


There's more at the link.
A lot of people, particularly out supporters, seem to have this odd idea that with an out vote suddenly the leave campaign would be running the country. I think the above is a clear demonstration that the opposite is true and I very much wish it had come sooner.
are there any guarantees that they have to follow the public consensus on this post referendum anyway? I don't know why, but I was pretty much expecting a lot of foot shuffling and nothing happening if the referendum did indicate a majority of the peasants, sorry, populace voted out.
It's an advisory referendum. It might be politically damaging for our sovereign Parliament to ignore the answer, but that's its right.

Interestingly (if you're me), the AVref was binding as the legislation for the new system was passed in the Act but with a note instructing immediate repeal if the vote failed.
Cras wrote:
A lot of people, particularly out supporters, seem to have this odd idea that with an out vote suddenly the leave campaign would be running the country. I think the above is a clear demonstration that the opposite is true and I very much wish it had come sooner.



Aye. I've often felt the OUTies should respond to any question about what life in the Brave New Free Independent Britain would be like by saying 'that, dear citizen, is for you via Parliament to decide'.

I felt in 2014 that the SNP would have been better not promising a golden future with wine flowing from the pumps but saying 'we're Scots, we'll have an election, we'll work it out'.
Speaking of the Scottish referendum, I never liked how the SNP's plans for independence were, reading between the lines, that they actually wanted some sort of confederation with rUK rather than independence, keeping the Pound Sterling and BBC and so on.

(FWIW, I was pleased that the people of Scotland voted to remain. I hate all forms of nationalism and isolationism. There is no grievances that the Scottish have that couldn't instead be solved or placated by a federal United Kingdom.)
EU referendum: Is David Cameron starting to crack under the pressure?

Quote:
All the same, today’s press conference did confirm one thing: Mr Cameron remains incapable of thinking further ahead than the next move on the chessboard. Live on TV, he’d just told the public that Boris Johnson and Michael Gove are utterly untrustworthy; they “tell complete untruths” and “peddle nonsense”.  

Now, imagine Remain wins the referendum. Surely, after effectively calling these two men liars, Mr Cameron can’t include them in his Cabinet. Yet, for reasons of Tory unity, he surely can’t leave them out, either.

In order to tackle one crisis, he’s creating another.


That's a fair point, although Cameron would just brazen his way through it as he did with Sadiq Khan.
Cameron v Farage live on itv now
I say Cameron v Farage, it looks like 20 mins of Farage followed by 20 mins of Cameron.

:(
Just finished the Farage half. I was impressed at the quality of the audience: some very intelligent questions and very little of the annoying noise that puts me off 'Question Time'.
Interesting. Clear that the audience didn't like Farage, but they reserved their hostility for Cameron.
Cras wrote:
Lonewolves wrote:
Do people think the EU killed their spouse or something?


I like the difference between Separated and Divorced in those stats. Like people start of being 'FUCK YEAH, EU' because it'll be loads easier to bang a 20 year old Lithuanian girl, then by the time their divorce comes through they've banged so many 20 year old Lithuanian girls that they're jaded and cynical about the whole idea.

Sounds like the voice of experience. :P
This makes a lot of sense to me: "why Leave is going to win"

https://medium.com/@shaunjlawson/be-in- ... .ogmhgo6if


Quote:
The polling companies, indeed, endured such a collective nightmare last year that they are palpably floundering around, trying to cover all bases. This time, one has to sympathise with them — for this referendum has no modern day precedent. No member state has ever left the EU before; and the usual approach of reassigning ‘Don’t Knows’ to the party supported previously cannot apply here. The huge disparity between online and telephone polls only added to the confusion of pollsters: who are still searching for the right methodology even now.

Yet since YouGov revealed that phone polls were surveying too high a proportion of graduates, there has been a palpable shift overall towards Leave. The polling companies, even allowing for Opinium’s decision to re-weight their data over the weekend, are beginning to get it right… or at least, more right than hitherto.


Quote:
Why have Remain been so negative? Very simply, they have come up against the exact same barrier which stopped so many British governments (notably Tony Blair’s Labour administration) from calling a referendum in the first place. It’s perfectly possible to make a series of dry, technocratic arguments explaining why EU membership is a good thing — but it’s close to impossible to do so via the kind of simple, emotive language required in contemporary election campaigns.


This criticism of the Labour party is right on the money for me:

Quote:
7. In keeping with their state since the general election, Labour’s role in the campaign has been an unmitigated fiasco. Under a leader who many suspect favours Brexit in any case, and terrified of appearing alongside pro-EU Conservatives, Labour have shrunk before our eyes: practically to vanishing point. The entire campaign has become a battle between the two wings of the Tory Party; instead of a positive one explaining how the EU can be reformed for everyone’s benefit.

This was a generational opportunity for the British left to come together, stand up for workers’ rights and against deregulation, and exploit how unpopular Tory ideas are among so many. It’s failed. In fact, it’s barely even tried. Under Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour Party isn’t so much waving as drowning: it cannot get its message (whatever that might be) across, it cannot speak for the needs and desires of ordinary people, and is rapidly becoming a total irrelevance. Alarmingly, that’s very likely to remain the case under another leader too.


Quote:
Ever since Rupert Murdoch bought The Times and The Sunday Times in 1981, his newspapers have never backed the losing horse at an important British election. Not once. Undoubtedly, The Sun’s vitriolic treatment of Miliband did much to create his hapless public image; so cynical was it, indeed, that it actually backed the SNP (against Labour) north of the border, the Tories (against Labour) south of it.

Much of the anti-EU debate of the last 20 years has been led by the right wing press — which has never displayed such disdain for facts and objective argument as it does now. The mounting corporatism of the media is the reason for that: but regardless, this is the opportunity which right wing magnates and oligarchs have been waiting for.

On that basis, it should scarcely be a surprise that so much of the debate has turned towards immigration in recent days; and as Leave’s ultimate vote winner, that pattern will only intensify between now and June 23. It is impossible for Remain to counter the argument that Britain can only control its borders outside the EU: which is why Cameron’s concessions had to include one on freedom of movement. They did not.


Quote:
Think what you will about what this says on the state of British politics and the media in 2016. Undoubtedly, the mainstream media enjoy alarming levels of power without responsibility; the continued primacy of patronage at Westminster is wholly at odds with any kind of meritocratic society; and both elements help generate a dumbed down political discourse which is high on sensationalism, low on facts, and does not represent the wishes or needs of the people.

Be all that as it may. The point is this: mounting numbers of people across the Western world no longer believe that the system delivers for them. The middle class continues to be hollowed out; jobs become ever more insecure; homes ever more out of reach. The next generation will be poorer than its predecessors.

Hence the rise of various forms of populism, both extreme and more moderate, whether through the guise of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders in the US; Podemos in Spain; Syriza in Greece; the SNP in Scotland; Marine Le Pen in France; Norbert Hofer in Austria; or Farage and UKIP in England. The political establishment does not know how to respond to this — and as long as globalisation continues to shift power, wealth and jobs towards the east, the centre will not be able to hold much longer.

In Europe, social democratic parties were first to suffer the consequences. But now, Cameron himself is discovering that the Blairite liberal centre no longer speaks for the majority, or anything resembling a majority. In the wake of the most disproportionate electoral outcome in modern British history, the fabled ‘centre ground’ has practically ceased to exist; and is about to count the unsuspecting Prime Minister among its mounting number of victims.

Against such a backdrop, ‘more of the same’, as presented by Remain, is no offer at all.
Good quote. Thank you. I agree with much of that.
True about that idiot Corbyn. If he hadn't become leader, he'd be a prominent member of the Labour Leave team. It's like he's trying to sabotage the remain campaign from within. Honestly, I hope that there's quick and brutal leadership coup against him if there's a Brexit result.
Interesting piece.

The key part of the guy's argument is early on but not included in the Doc's above quote, but it goes to the heart of why remain are in the position they are:

Quote:
In the two decades since, those in favour of British membership have had opportunity after opportunity to explain what the advantages were, and trust the public in the process. They failed: mirroring the highhanded, craven attitudes of technocratic elites in Brussels in so doing. The constant refusal to allow the people to decide allowed the whole question of the EU to fester at the heart of political discourse, playing into the hands of its many opponents; and on June 23, just seventeen days from now, those opponents will finally prove victorious.


The EU has always, from its earliest days, been a project for the elites. Keeping a distance is fine if you don't go too far from the people, but eventually, as we're seeing across the continent, the public snap.

Admittedly, if we are to live in a technocracy, I'd rather it would be run by the rule-of-law-abiding European Commission then the Chinese Communist party...
Incidentally, I just had a Tweet about the possibility of a second referendum answered by the head of the Social Democratic group in the European Parliament.

Attachment:
IMG_2322.PNG
I'm sticking to my guns, Brexit ain't gonna happen folks, because inertia, fear-factor and last minute bricking it when it comes to the crunch in the actual voting booth and the shit's real.

If we assume 50/50 polling, the latter factor only has to come into play for, say, one-in-ten weakly Brexit voters - and that seems entirely possible to me. Remain are having a poor campaign but so are Brexit; there's no killer blow (yet) from them.

55/45 remain.
A friend of mine writes a theological blog, but he recently posted his views on the referendum. I liked how he ended it:

Quote:
1. Check your prejudices - we all have them, but it's helpful to be honest with ourselves and be sure it isn't only our prejudices that are motivating our decisions;
2. Think about others - it's easy to think about what would be best for me, but more difficult to get into other people's shoes - but the effort is worth it;
3. Be irenic - one of the problems with a referendum is that it whips people up into holding strong opinions about things they had previously barely thought about, and can lead to really bitter exchanges - we can avoid that if we remember to be kind;
4. Consider your opponents' best arguments - and give more time to this especially if their best arguments aren't of a sort to immediately appeal to you - they probably have more force than you're able to recognise at first;
5. Consider the weaknesses of your own side - are they inherent or incidental? Are you implicated in opinions and actions that are just wrong?;
6. And finally, make up your mind and vote - knowing that you could be wrong. It helps to remember that the future of nations is not ultimately in our hands, but God's!
Cavey wrote:
I'm sticking to my guns, Brexit ain't gonna happen folks, because inertia, fear-factor and last minute bricking it when it comes to the crunch in the actual voting booth and the shit's real.
Which is why Labour nominated Yet Another Interchangeable Blairite as leader in 2015 and Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders were laughed out of the presidential nomination processes and hardline right-wing parties across Europe (from UKIP and much worse) aren't winning any votes anywhere. Oh, no, wait.

I think the piece I linked makes a strong point; there's a strong but largely undirected appetite for change across much of world politics. The question is how successfully the Leave campaign has tapped into it.
I think it is Leave's to lose.
I hope you're right, Cavey, I really do. But I'd add to Kern's point about no good argument being made about the EU. Not only have we not heard good arguments for the EU, but it has been habitually referred to by politicians of both colours as the source of legislation etc. when in reality those same politicians wanted to bring in said legislation. For years the template has been 'blame the EU, bring in a new law without taking blame ourselves' and that has conjoured this image of us at their mercy, which image might bite us on the arse.

Doc's last line, above, sums up the general 'let's change something' feeling around nicely.
It's still 5/2 against at the bookies for Brexit.

If you even think it's a 50/50 shot, you'd be mad not to back it with some cash (I did).
Can you do an each-way?
What's the odds for Bremain at the moment?
@DocG

You're betting that the (general) dash to the Right around the world means that Brexit will capitalise on this zeitgeist/sentiment, but I argue that notwithstanding Brexit = right wing, not many people actually make this connection (and even if they do, the fear-factor supersedes this).

Fundamentally, the mistake I believe you're making is to interpret the EU referendum in Left vs. Right terms, as you inevitably do, whereas to most it's not like that, merely "will I (we) be better off in or out" [irrespective of the politics] and also "shit I am scared, I'm hearing all sorts of nasty stuff in the papers about more austerity/economic shock/more recession etc.".


Ah well. We'll find out who is right soon enough, won't we? Will you make it 1-1? ;)
JBR wrote:
I hope you're right, Cavey, I really do. But I'd add to Kern's point about no good argument being made about the EU. Not only have we not heard good arguments for the EU, but it has been habitually referred to by politicians of both colours as the source of legislation etc. when in reality those same politicians wanted to bring in said legislation. For years the template has been 'blame the EU, bring in a new law without taking blame ourselves' and that has conjoured this image of us at their mercy, which image might bite us on the arse.

Doc's last line, above, sums up the general 'let's change something' feeling around nicely.


I think I am, yes. :)
Remain don't actually have to come up with a "good argument to remain" which could then potentially be used against them; all they need to do is generate fear and uncertainty, which they certainly are doing.

I heard similar arguments being used during the Scottish Indyref and I told all the Yessers that they'd lose - and by some margin - then too, for much the same reasons. History, as ever, has a habit of repeating itself. Hold your nerve. :)
Cavey wrote:
You're betting that the (general) dash to the Right around the world means that Brexit will capitalise on this zeitgeist/sentiment,
I don't see a dash to the right, I see a hunger for politicians who didn't come from the same system. Sanders and Corbyn are not products of a dash to the right, are they?

Quote:
Fundamentally, the mistake I believe you're making is to interpret the EU referendum in Left vs. Right terms, as you inevitably do,
Uh, no. You're the one who's forever casting things into two-party politics.

Quote:
whereas to most it's not like that, merely "will I (we) be better off in or out" [irrespective of the politics] and also "shit I am scared, I'm hearing all sorts of nasty stuff in the papers about more austerity/economic shock/more recession etc.".
Maybe. Depends who has made people most scared: of austerity or of immigrants taking our NHS and our jobs and our benefits. I think you're under-stating the second factor.

Quote:
Will you make it 1-1? ;)
1-1?

Quote:
I heard similar arguments being used during the Scottish Indyref and I told all the Yessers that they'd lose - and by some margin - then too, for much the same reasons. History, as ever, has a habit of repeating itself. Hold your nerve.
That's a decent point (which the author of the piece I quote mentioned but did not counter, to my mind.) There are strong parallels to the indyref.
Doctor Glyndwr wrote:
Maybe. Depends who has made people most scared: of austerity or of immigrants taking our NHS and our jobs and our benefits. I think you're under-stating the second factor.

I somewhat fear the effect of the NHS without a supply of foreign doctors/nurses.
Page 5 of 15 [ 723 posts ]