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 Future War Cultist wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:

 Future War Cultist wrote:
Thing is though, when our PMs feth up they do pay for it at the ballot box. John Major, Gordon Brown, even May got a slap during her GE for being stupid. The same can’t be said for the President Of The Commission. Think Juncker and his crowd will be held accountable for everything during his term?

For what should he be held accountable for?

Eurozone crisis, immigration crisis, one of its members leaving. Heads of government always get it in the neck for everything that goes wrong, except for the heads of the eu for some reason.

So he should be held accountable for your, the italian, spanish and greek missbehaviour of monetary policy?
He should be held accountable for the destabilisation of the middle east? Which you ultimately started in combination with the french btw and the help you offered even against better knowledge to the USA for invading iraq?
Excuse me but i think that if anyone shouldn't take responsibility for these things then Juncker.

A president is not a prime minister. It’s not comparable.

 Knockagh wrote:
If the EU tried to make at least a display of democracy the president would be elected by the people of the member states. It not only would increase accountability for the post it would also help massively with citizens sense of involvement in the trading block. The EU self imposed isolation from its citizens is one of the biggest causes of popular resentment against the EU.

The EU is not isolated from citizens. It is in fact a lot more transparent than most of its member state governments. People just perceive it that way because they are too lazy to keep track of EU politics and elections. The EU has put a lot of effort into trying to turn that around, but to little effect. Turnout rates for European elections are ridiculously low. Even if the EU were a direct democracy, people would still complain it wasn't democratic, simply because they can't be bothered with participating in said democracy. Democracy requires a lot of effort on part of the citizens as well to function properly. British people have no right to complain about a lack of democracy in the EU when only 34% of them even bother with showing up for the vote. Evidently, they are not actually interested in democracy in the EU. And of course, when the EU tries to remedy that and get more involved with its citizens, they will complain that the EU is infringing on their sovereignty. As has been said in this thread many times already, appeasing eurosceptics is impossible.

That said, Juncker is a total idiot.

President can mean a lot of different things. The President of Ireland is not the same as the President of the USA who is not the same as the President of France.

The Presidency Juncker holds is not the same as the British Prime Minister's role, not least because the EU is not like a country, but the method through which he is chosen is quite similar, being selected as the candidate of the biggest party in the democratically elected party in the European Parliament.

I am unhappy with Juncker's tenure, particularly on environmental issues, so I will be voting either Green or Socialist in the next election to get rid of him. Which is exactly what you guys would do if you wanted to get rid of Theresa May.

It really is not hard to understand.

Edit: I should also note that in all the "reforms" the UK was pushing for, making the EU more democratically accountable, for example with a directly elected president, was never mentioned. Cameron did not care about the supposed democratic deficit that so exercises Brexiteers. I would have supported that, as I believe there are ways in which the EU could become more democratically accountable, but it was never pushed for. This is why "reform" is a meaningless weasel word.

I legitimately do not know if I have ever voted in any MEP elections and I've voted every time a polling card has come through my door through my life as an adult.

That... doesn't feel right, really.

Getting rid of Juncker sounds good, until Varadkar somehow convinces them to put Enda Kenny in charge or something like that.

 Compel wrote:
I legitimately do not know if I have ever voted in any MEP elections and I've voted every time a polling card has come through my door through my life as an adult.

That... doesn't feel right, really.

I'm in the same boat. I've been an eligible voter for just over 7 years, and the last vote was 2014, so it stands to reason that I did, at some point, vote on an MEP. Looking it up, there were also local elections held on the exact same day, so they likely massively overshadowed the MEP elections. I don't recall getting any information on MEP elections between the usual leaflets and assorted other paper recycling that gets shoved through the letterbox around election time, but again, could be it was bundled and thrown out with all the local election-themed guff on the doormat.

That and the fact my memory is less a sieve and more just one giant, gaping hole probably explains why I've no real recollection of it.

In NI euro elections are just a secterian head count. Very few people of any quality stand in fact it’s often seen as a retirement post for useless and embarrassing politicians. Jim Nicholson and Martina Anderson we are looking at you right now!

Over the years from Ian Paisley to Mrs Anderson we have mightly embarrassed our nation with the reprobates we have sent to obscurity in Brussels

Don't worry Knockagh. At least you didn't send Nigel Farage. And we sent Big Phil Hogan as our commissioner.

 Knockagh wrote:
A president is not a prime minister. It’s not comparable.

Yes, Prime Ministers are held accountable for their actions. Presidents can commit all the crimes they like and their parties will just whine that policemen are unfair to them.

 Knockagh wrote:
I have Sciatica. I’m a farmer and got diagnosed with it two years ago. I lie flat on the floor when it strikes bad and eat co codamol. I have a chronic version of it. If I sit for any length of time at all I feel it. I feel the nerve right now.

I have never got on like that ever. I know someone who is drunk and he is drunk.

Then I would have thought you would have had more sympathy, perhaps it's just not as crippling as the version you have. I'm afraid all you are doing is looking for a reason to hurl abuse at him rather. You are neither a doctor not an expert on what he acts like when drunk. Therefore you should be more considerate of the condition and stop laughing at someone else's pain. What happened if I saw you in pain and just assumed you were drug addict lying on the floor regardless of what you said? Would that be reasonable, would you appreciate it if I just pointed, laughed and scorned you for that pain by making something up? This is exactly the same as When Diane Abbot missed a vote and was sick and missed a vote or when some folks didn't believe Obama was born in the US. It's all the same. All anti-[insert X] people just made wild claims without evidence as to how/why [insert Y]. Rather than take it on face value they use it as an attempt to make an attack on an individual because they don't like that person because they represent the head of something they despise. It is, to coin a term, a shameful display and lacks any empathy of what another human might be going through.

 Da Boss wrote:
Don't worry Knockagh. At least you didn't send Nigel Farage. And we sent Big Phil Hogan as our commissioner.

Farange is a gentleman compared to our euro gangsters. Paisley led men to their deaths for his own glory for decades spouting poison and hate. At the end of his life for more personal gain he dropped every principle he had supposedly lived for and became a senile old fool. My friend David Ervine described him and the DUP (as a they were back then) as “ These people are not to be trusted, their interest does not lie in Northern Ireland, their interest is self-interest."
Martina has a catalog of convictions including bombing a furniture shop full of innocent shoppers she then fled while on bail and was later recaptured in England while on a bombing spree. Even if you ignore these lovely acts she is a total fishwife, honestly you haven’t sen the like of her.

Watch this video of her in action in Brussels and laugh. Yes some of you hate May but this killer is an animal.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fYmnw-Z343E

https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/daily-mail-describes_uk_5b49f020e4b0e7c958fbab20?arm&utm_hp_ref=uk-homepage

When I saw that front page this morning I really had to pick my jaw up from the floor. I get that the Mail has a right wing bias, but this is bordering on being unhinged from reality

Bordering?

Das Daily Heil hasn’t been familiar with reality since, well, forever!

Holy horsegak! This is a turn up for the books: arch Remainer Mandelson say's he'd rather leave the EU then sign up to May's white paper.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/jul/14/mandelson-brexiters-may-eu-humiliation-opinium-poll

Taxi for May.

With the Tories behind in the polls, UKIP coming back from the dead, and Corbyn's do nothing policy appearing to pay dividends, this is defcom 5 for the Tories. Their lust for power knows no bounds. May is endangering that.

There must surely be 48 letters on Sir Graham Brady's desk by now?

Small business minister Andrew Griffiths has quit because the Sunday Mirror are releasing 2000 sexts he's sent to two constituents (neither of whom are his wife, obviously) tomorrow.

nfe wrote:
Small business minister Andrew Griffiths has quit because the Sunday Mirror are releasing 2000 sexts he's sent to two constituents (neither of whom are his wife, obviously) tomorrow.

May must be thinking that when it rains, it pours...

Oh, I've just discovered he used to be May's chief of staff. She loves creepy pals, evidently.

Tory ministers resigning over sleaze. Have they become a mid-90s tribute act?

 Riquende wrote:
Tory ministers resigning over sleaze. Have they become a mid-90s tribute act?

There's definitely some hypocrisy, however I haven't yet seen anywhere that he was potentially breaking the law (e.g. stalking them). Indeed some of the implications from the texts would imply it wasn't just a one way street. For example "The video of you spanking her was nowhere near hard enough". I mean who sends someone that type of video if you aren't interested and find things vile? Those sort of things makes me wonder about the motive of all this. As it does again undermine May.

It's not really in any of our interests as the private affairs of MPs really though.

In other news apprarently Trump told May to sue the EU. She felt that was too harsh. Or in reality the UK would lose. I wonder how may advisors rolled their eyes when Trump suggested this?

Sue the EU where, exactly? In their own court? That’ll work.

 Riquende wrote:
Tory ministers resigning over sleaze. Have they become a mid-90s tribute act?

Yeah, we could call it back to basics.

 Whirlwind wrote:

 Riquende wrote:
Tory ministers resigning over sleaze. Have they become a mid-90s tribute act?

There's definitely some hypocrisy, however I haven't yet seen anywhere that he was potentially breaking the law (e.g. stalking them). Indeed some of the implications from the texts would imply it wasn't just a one way street. For example "The video of you spanking her was nowhere near hard enough". I mean who sends someone that type of video if you aren't interested and find things vile? Those sort of things makes me wonder about the motive of all this. As it does again undermine May.

It's not really in any of our interests as the private affairs of MPs really though.

It's vey much in the NOTW tradition. It's not in the public interest and it would appear to be two-directional. I don't think it's so much about undermining May as simply selling papers, though.

 Whirlwind wrote:

 Riquende wrote:
Tory ministers resigning over sleaze. Have they become a mid-90s tribute act?

There's definitely some hypocrisy, however I haven't yet seen anywhere that he was potentially breaking the law (e.g. stalking them). Indeed some of the implications from the texts would imply it wasn't just a one way street. For example "The video of you spanking her was nowhere near hard enough". I mean who sends someone that type of video if you aren't interested and find things vile? Those sort of things makes me wonder about the motive of all this. As it does again undermine May.

It's not really in any of our interests as the private affairs of MPs really though.

In other news apprarently Trump told May to sue the EU. She felt that was too harsh. Or in reality the UK would lose. I wonder how may advisors rolled their eyes when Trump suggested this?

Like I've said before, the Tory party is imploding. Open warfare, May desperately wheeled out on Sunday morning TV to save her skin. I love it.

I've been dreaming about the destruction of the Tory party since the 1980s...

Thank you God.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:


Like I've said before, the Tory party is imploding. Open warfare, May desperately wheeled out on Sunday morning TV to save her skin. I love it.

I've been dreaming about the destruction of the Tory party since the 1980s...

Thank you God.

Opinion polls are turning against her and the party as well.

https://www.opinium.co.uk/political-polling-10th-july-2018/

If that trend continues then I think we will probably see a leadership contest. If I would hazard a guess then I would suspect it will come next summer. I don't think anyone will make a move until the Wrexit deal is done, however should they lose a lot of seats at the next local election (which is probable if the above trend continues) then I think next summer the knife will be wielded.

Yeah, but do they have to drag the rest of us down with them.

All of this for a plan that the EU is sure to reject anyway, as it is untenable. What are they going to be like when she presents the actual option, which is still either Norway or Canada + Backstop?

I thought May might have weathered the storm, but the polls turning against her might change that. The Tories are pathological about maintaining power and a sniff of weakness like that is like blood in the water. The feeding frenzy will eventually start. Who are we looking at then - Prime Minister Gove?

I'll be honest with people and say that I think we're in for at least a decade of coalition politics.

The Tories are imploding, the Blairites will never back Corbyn, the Lib Dems are still struggling to fill a phone box, and UKIP's rise from the dead will only weaken the Tories. The SNP will remain a solid force, but if there's another referendum in Scotland, then we're off.

Who's going to salvage a majority in The Commons out of that?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Da Boss wrote:
All of this for a plan that the EU is sure to reject anyway, as it is untenable. What are they going to be like when she presents the actual option, which is still either Norway or Canada + Backstop?

I thought May might have weathered the storm, but the polls turning against her might change that. The Tories are pathological about maintaining power and a sniff of weakness like that is like blood in the water. The feeding frenzy will eventually start. Who are we looking at then - Prime Minister Gove?

Believe it or not, Jeremy Hunt is seen as a possible candidate.

Scandal slides off him, he survives bombshells that would kill a cockroach, he's seen as establishment through and through, and because he's a walking policy vacuum, he can be all things to all men when the situation warrants it.


I tells ya people, Hunt could be sprung upon us

Jermony Cu-opp, sorry, nearly had a Freudian Slip there. Giving it to him though? That is scraping the bottom of the barrel.

This all could have been so much simpler. Right off the bat, go with the Norway option of EFTA. Negotiations could have focused on small print rather than all this fething faffing about. I’ll try to assume that the EU would have actually been up for negotiation on that rather than just stonewalling like the difficult bastards they are. This would have solved most of the immediate issues. Then, while in EFTA, build alliances with the others and then negotiate as a group for a better deal down the line. As the eu goes deeper, efta can go back. Hell, I can see some other members bailing further down the line.

It kills me that I can type this and the civil service and the government can’t seem to grasp this. For all that supposed expertise, and all that money,

And all those Oxbridge educations. The standing of Oxford and Cambridge has really taken a beating over this whole shambles.

I agree with you though - settle on Norway, then use the time to try and tweak it a bit. I would have been reasonably happy with that as an EU member.

The other option was Canada with a sea border, which I think is a much worse deal than Norway.

It could accidentally stagger into No Deal at this stage, which would be a catastrophe for the UK and Ireland, so I hope it does not get that far. My wife thinks the EU would extend Article 50 to prevent it, but there are complications with that plan too what with the EU elections coming up. I think there might be a temptation in the EU to let No Deal play out for a short time to smack some sense into the UK political classes and make the populace wake up to what is at stake before allowing them back to the table, but my wife thinks the EU is not that mean.