UK Politics

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**Silent Puffin?**

welshhoppo wrote:

You'd have to lose either the free healthcare or your free universities, probably both or you'd go bankrupt in less than a decade.

Or just not bother spending any money on a military or large chunks of the 'reserved 70%' that really aren't in Scotland's immediate interest.

**Whirlwind**

Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:

Imagine that David Cameron never made a manifesto pledge to hold a referendum on the EU, and simply decided to arbitrarily invoke Article 50 without consulting the British people. Thats what our Governments did when they helped found the EU. They didn't consult us. They just went ahead and did it, and only consulted us several decades later, expecting that we would rubber-stamp our membership.

The British political Establishment consented to the creation of the EU, the British public did not, because we weren't asked.

Yes we were asked. It has been in the parties manifestos and you have had the opportunity to vote on those. What's is happening now is less democratic than when they agreed to signing up to the EU.

You've had a referendum full of lies. A political party with more than 50% of the seats but with only a third of the votes. A prime minister that no one voted for (not even her own party). A prime minster that thinks it's OK to try and invoke things and ignore parliament. A prime minister that wants to suck up to a fascist. A government that set out a load of manifesto pledges in 2015 only to throw them out 12 months later without any consultation or care what the public might want. A bigoted government that has decided we should leave the common market area despite all polls indicating that the populace is massively in favour of staying in the common market when compared to immigration.

**welshhoppo**

Silent Puffin? wrote:
welshhoppo wrote:

You'd have to lose either the free healthcare or your free universities, probably both or you'd go bankrupt in less than a decade.

Or just not bother spending any money on a military or large chunks of the 'reserved 70%' that really aren't in Scotland's immediate interest.

So that saves you about 3.5 billion of the 12 billion that Scotland is in the red by each year. Still a long way to go.

**Ketara**

Whirlwind wrote:
. Instead we discuss the points that people have said will (or likely to) happen given certain circumstances (so banks packing their bags, except Barclays) given the balance of probabilties. If we just wanted to talk about historical issues then things would be very boring.

We weren't talking historical or future. We were talking contemporary, ala right now. Talking about where the country may or may not be in two, ten, or fifty years means nothing whatsoever when we're dealing with the concept of the 'relevancy' or respective power of a country at this precise minute. Which is why I pointed out that your worries and ideology around Brexit are shading your view of the matter, because it really has nothing to do with anything with regards to the original concept I took issue with (namely the theory of British declinism).

It may be simplistic but it is a useful basic metric simply from it shows how much economic clout any individual country has (for example no one argues that the US is not the largest economic nation and that is also simplistic).

It really, really isn't. It's simplistic, misleading, and I regard that metric as completely invalid and insubstantive when it comes to the point you were trying to make; which was in itself, generalistic, overreaching, and stuffed full of more hyperbole than a christmas dinner with jealous in-laws.

I mean, you're sitting there talking about how it wouldn't matter if we sunk into the sea right now, and nobody would notice after a year or two, but anyone with an inkling of finance knows all too well that global insurance would sink into a mess, Christ knows what would happen to the FTSE and the knockon effect on the New York and Tokyo stock exchanges, half a dozen major commercial banks would probably crumble, there'd be an instant knock-on European recession, and so forth. That's without even going into other sectors!

Waving at a single statistic and expecting that to encompass the horrendously tangled web of global economics sufficiently well to even begin to substantiate such a breathtakingly broad assertion as calling Britain economically 'irrelevant/insignificant'? There's far, far more to economics than that, and I know you know that. The reason you're doing it is because your dooming and glooming about the future of Britain after Brexit is dominating your interpretation of this particular exchange.

Chin up old bean. I know Brexit is pretty big and scary right now, but it doesn't have to factor into every discussion!

**Silent Puffin?**

welshhoppo wrote:

So that saves you about 3.5 billion of the 12 billion that Scotland is in the red by each year. Still a long way to go.

You do know that the GERS data is based largely on assumptions, and in any case is entirely driven by Westminster's spending priorities?

It is a very poor indicator of an independent Scotland's finances.

**jouso**

Ketara wrote:

Many of your statements were quite literally in the future tense and in anticipation of events. In other words, you are making projections about the future, ones which neither you nor I are qualified (frankly, very few are) to make and expect to hold any form of accuracy. For example, if the US declared a nuclear war on China tomorrow, the future would look exceedingly different to your current projection, and it would do so again if Marine Le Pen wins the French election and withdraws France from the EU causing it to crumble.

Marine Le Pen has since backtracked quite a bit from her original leave the euro, leave the EU stance.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/marine-le-pen-france-renegotiate-eu-membership-european-union-front-national-leader-far-right-french-a7511566.html

Now it's "renegotiate our position" and maybe going back to the currency basket model (old ECU) instead of single currency, but something to be worked at the EU level, not a unilateral decision.

**welshhoppo**

Silent Puffin? wrote:
welshhoppo wrote:

So that saves you about 3.5 billion of the 12 billion that Scotland is in the red by each year. Still a long way to go.

You do know that the GERS data is based largely on assumptions, and in any case is entirely driven by Westminster's spending priorities?

It is a very poor indicator of an independent Scotland's finances.

Well it matches up pretty close to what Scotland is saying on their government website. So I'll take it as fact until someone finds me more accurate results.

**r_squared**

So, sovereignty was never an actual issue with the EU at all.

“Whilst parliament has remained sovereign throughout our membership of the EU, it has not always felt like that.”
Brexit white paper, 2017

Why am I not surprised that one of the main complaints also turns out to be a complete load of rubbish?
I'm also actually having to start to remove friends from my social media. The bile and absolute idiocy being spouted on my Facebook feed has exceeded my ability to tolerate listening to the ignorant, racism of people I thought I knew. I've never seen so many Britain First posts pop up in my life.

Is this the true face of Britain? Is this what we have to look forward too? Absolute lies and falsehoods being touted as policy, and low level racism, anger and bigotry?

What the actual feth is going on?

**Herzlos**

Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:

I'm curious, is there any possible hypothetical scenario in which you'd favour remaining in the (British) union? If you could name your price, and assuming that Westminster agreed, what would it be? And I don't mean financially, but in terms of political reform, electoral reform, legal reform, even more devolution, etc.

That is a good question, and one I spent a lot of time pondering (even though I wasn't the one asked).

I don't think there's anything Westminster would agree to that'd make me switch from out to in. We're too politically different.

I'd want: a complete unravelling of Brexit and the Westminster system to make it fairer in terms of representation and distribution, with all of the devolution we were promised.
Any argument for leaving the EU is the same argument for leaving rUK, and I view the Tories as the biggest threat to our country.

**wuestenfux**

Any argument for leaving the EU is the same argument for leaving rUK

Good point.
But what do the Torries think about this?

**Mr. Burning**

r_squared wrote:
So, sovereignty was never an actual issue with the EU at all.

“Whilst parliament has remained sovereign throughout our membership of the EU, it has not always felt like that.”
Brexit white paper, 2017

Why am I not surprised that one of the main complaints also turns out to be a complete load of rubbish?
I'm also actually having to start to remove friends from my social media. The bile and absolute idiocy being spouted on my Facebook feed has exceeded my ability to tolerate listening to the ignorant, racism of people I thought I knew. I've never seen so many Britain First posts pop up in my life.

Is this the true face of Britain? Is this what we have to look forward too? Absolute lies and falsehoods being touted as policy, and low level racism, anger and bigotry?

What the actual feth is going on?

Breathe. The people you know on FB have probably always held some low level bigotry and racism, I bet if you were to look at their FB history over a few years you would come across the same sort of memes and pictures with text which decry all sorts of crises where refugees come in to the UK, aid being spent abroad, wrong sized cucumbers and bananas that being hit with a belt never did them any harm that Obama is a passport less monster, that their news agent is alright, its just the other pakis coming in and taking their jobs that are the problem......and that they will eat a ham sandwich whether they like it or not.

They will probably have held the exact same positions, but you wouldn't have taken any notice because their frequency wasn't that great. Brexit has been a continuous for a year now. Its been on the news daily. There are hundreds of posts shared on face book daily all amounting to the same thing claiming sovereignty back from the EU ra ra fething ra.

The noise has been deafening.

**notprop**

r_squared wrote:
So, sovereignty was never an actual issue with the EU at all.

“Whilst parliament has remained sovereign throughout our membership of the EU, it has not always felt like that.”
Brexit white paper, 2017

Why am I not surprised that one of the main complaints also turns out to be a complete load of rubbish?
I'm also actually having to start to remove friends from my social media. The bile and absolute idiocy being spouted on my Facebook feed has exceeded my ability to tolerate listening to the ignorant, racism of people I thought I knew. I've never seen so many Britain First posts pop up in my life.

Is this the true face of Britain? Is this what we have to look forward too? Absolute lies and falsehoods being touted as policy, and low level racism, anger and bigotry?

What the actual feth is going on?

I don't think you can denigrate the nation based upon a section of your facebook friends.

Perhaps you should chose your friends more carefully.

As for bile, it seems to be common to both sides of the debate. You certainly seem to be quite excitable which may well engender similar responses.

Now the direction is settled perhaps there should no longer be two sides?

**reds8n**

... so looks like we're all getting quite a lot of extra holiday then eh ?

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-white-paper-embarassing-error-chart-14-weeks-holiday-a7559561.html

It's reassuring to know that out leaders are so on top of things.

**Compel**

Urgh... Ick, the Britain First posts, and that's from someone who voted leave. I think I eventually just told Facebook to automagically hide them from me as I'm sure some of my gaming mates still post them.

And that's as a leave voter.

That white paper quote is interesting though.

“Whilst parliament has remained sovereign throughout our membership of the EU, it has not always felt like that.”
Brexit white paper, 2017

It's actually a pretty clever bit of phrasing and, to be honest, probably sums up things pretty well. Sure you could just dismiss it as "hiss... lying" but you could also see it as telling into an emotional core. Sure, one could say that emotions shouldn't have a place in geopolitics and, well they'd be right. But "shouldn't" isn't "doesn't" or "won't".

The EU has always felt somewhat artificial to me, even going by the lack of interest by the people in electing the MEPs (egg Farage and co being the only people really able to energiser MEP voters) that the people of Britain doesn't care for being in the EU.

And ultimately, at that, we shouldn't BE in it. We probably never should have BEEN in it, of we weren't committed to it. - I said it way back in June and I still say it now, if we voted to stay in the EU the British people HAD to go all in on it, otherwise the entire thing just isn't going to work. Those FEELINGS need to be there.

And even those that core remain should admit, they simply weren't, they were never there. They MIGHT be there in other countries, I dunno and if they are I wish those countries the best with the EU.

But the UK in the EU *needs* to FEEL like a natural thing or, sooner or later it was never going to work out. Better sooner than later.

**Sentinel1**

notprop wrote:
r_squared wrote:
So, sovereignty was never an actual issue with the EU at all.

“Whilst parliament has remained sovereign throughout our membership of the EU, it has not always felt like that.”
Brexit white paper, 2017

Why am I not surprised that one of the main complaints also turns out to be a complete load of rubbish?
I'm also actually having to start to remove friends from my social media. The bile and absolute idiocy being spouted on my Facebook feed has exceeded my ability to tolerate listening to the ignorant, racism of people I thought I knew. I've never seen so many Britain First posts pop up in my life.

Is this the true face of Britain? Is this what we have to look forward too? Absolute lies and falsehoods being touted as policy, and low level racism, anger and bigotry?

What the actual feth is going on?

I don't think you can denigrate the nation based upon a section of your facebook friends.

Perhaps you should chose your friends more carefully.

As for bile, it seems to be common to both sides of the debate. You certainly seem to be quite excitable which may well engender similar responses.

Now the direction is settled perhaps there should no longer be two sides?

Agreed, opinions are now prominent as we each take politics a lot more seriously after the vote. As a country we have all jumped into uncharted waters, on the one hand the Brexiteers who over estimated what the benefits were, on the other the Inners who over preached their doom and gloom. So the UK is somewhat in the middle ground, however all it would take is one side of the argument overruling the other and the scales would be tipped again. I am still confident we can pull this off successfully, credit in no part to the UK's strong economy. The problem is 'Inner' politicians as I like to call them cannot accept life outside of the EU and aren't coming up with any solutions to all the problems they foresee. Its a case of all smoke but no fire - particularly in the Labour Party.

I think what both sides of the argument can agree is on speeding on the process this year to make some progress. Each side politician and public have been wearing each other down in what until recently has been one big taboo stalemate. Hopefully with the acceleration of Article 50 we will see some more clear facts rather than the vague, watery, and post vote irrelevant opinions both sides are still throwing about. If anything Mr Jean-Claude Junkers 88 has been rubbing his hands the whole time, most likely saying 'bombing Britain with Article 50 has been our most wonderful legal bill, the mess those British are getting into means no other country would dare leave the EU! Wuhahhaha!' Or something along the same lines privately.

**notprop**

Good post Compel.

**Mozzyfuzzy**

Just a quick point, Mr Junker is from Luxoumberg so I doubt he's doing any Ju88 style bombing, especially as the Junkers aerospace comany merged with messerschmit (spelling) and no longer uses the name, never mind the fact that Junker is a pretty old Germannic name/title.

**Herzlos**

wuestenfux wrote:
Any argument for leaving the EU is the same argument for leaving rUK

Good point.
But what do the Torries think about this?

"The Scots should just shut up" sums it up pretty well. Any request for anything from Scotland is completely ignored.

**notprop**

Rubbish or how else would you explain Devolved parliaments and powers.

Rather the continual din of further demands and complaints is what would elicit such a response.

Why the various regions would want more politicians is beyond me - I can barely tolerate the politician we have now, why more....the waste on an additional level of government is stupefying.

**Sentinel1**

Whirlwind wrote:
Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:

Imagine that David Cameron never made a manifesto pledge to hold a referendum on the EU, and simply decided to arbitrarily invoke Article 50 without consulting the British people. Thats what our Governments did when they helped found the EU. They didn't consult us. They just went ahead and did it, and only consulted us several decades later, expecting that we would rubber-stamp our membership.

The British political Establishment consented to the creation of the EU, the British public did not, because we weren't asked.

Yes we were asked. It has been in the parties manifestos and you have had the opportunity to vote on those. What's is happening now is less democratic than when they agreed to signing up to the EU.

You've had a referendum full of lies. A political party with more than 50% of the seats but with only a third of the votes. A prime minister that no one voted for (not even her own party). A prime minster that thinks it's OK to try and invoke things and ignore parliament. A prime minister that wants to suck up to a fascist. A government that set out a load of manifesto pledges in 2015 only to throw them out 12 months later without any consultation or care what the public might want. A bigoted government that has decided we should leave the common market area despite all polls indicating that the populace is massively in favour of staying in the common market when compared to immigration.

A healthy does of irrelevance I see, David Cameron put himself in the position in which he had to resign, under legal law the Conservatives still had right to lead government for set amount of time, so an interim P.M was inevitable. In some ways of feel sorry for Mrs. May, she has to clear up Cameron's mess and lead a country. She will never be popular as a 'technical-usurper' but someone had to take the job and there were a lot of bad choices that thankfully didn't get the top seat. Generalising Donuld Trump and his Administration is naively wrong, you may not agree with him or his right wing policies but he is still upholding democracy. By your admission would you class all left wings as Communists? No, so we can't assume the extreme on anyone. Many of the 2015 manifesto policies will be no longer feasible post Brexit, and a new Prime Minister has every right to amend their parties policies and change the way of things from previous people. I do not think Cameron's agenda was in their top priorities once he had left and I would like to see the poll that indicate people prefer access to the common market over immigration - a deciding factor in the Referendum result. I do not disagree it was in the public interest to have a debate in parliament over whether we should trigger Article 50, but with hindsight it was a wasted effort with a result we could all Predict (Well apart from Diane Abbot pulling a sickie).

I would greatly appreciate a well thought out response.

Mozzyfuzzy wrote:
Just a quick point, Mr Junker is from Luxoumberg so I doubt he's doing any Ju88 style bombing, especially as the Junkers aerospace comany merged with messerschmit (spelling) and no longer uses the name, never mind the fact that Junker is a pretty old Germannic name/title.

Well, Luxemburg is semi-Germanic in origin and his surname is of Germanic Origin. At the end of the day the joke fitted well, and like any politician he had it coming

**Ketara**

r_squared wrote:

I'm also actually having to start to remove friends from my social media. The bile and absolute idiocy being spouted on my Facebook feed has exceeded my ability to tolerate listening to the ignorant, racism of people I thought I knew. I've never seen so many Britain First posts pop up in my life.

It's weird. I have the exact opposite. There's barely a sniff of a Britain First type post (which tend to be moronic from what I've seen), but the amount of over-exaggerated lies, hyperbole, and vitriol against Brexiters and the Tories on my facebook feed is deafening. The one common factor on most of them I've noticed is that most seem no fonder of the facts than any Ukipper.

Probably something to do with the kind of people you associate with and what walk of life you come from. Most of mine are humanities graduates, foreigners, and artistic types.

I just try and avoid posting on anything political and scroll straight past it. Political frothing is equally unattractive from left or right wing.

**Silent Puffin?**

notprop wrote:
Rubbish or how else would you explain Devolved parliaments and powers.

Hah, good one. Unless of course you are serious.....

Scotland's voice is routinely ignored by Westminster, even on matters that directly effect the very existence of the Scottish parliament. The huge difference between Westminster and Brussels is that Brussels has to listen to all its members.

welshhoppo wrote:
So I'll take it as fact until someone finds me more accurate results.

There are no accurate datasets, and anyway Scotland's current finances are ultimately beholden to Westminster's spending priorities. http://wingsoverscotland.com/the-limitations-of-gers/ Yes its a Wings article but it gets the point across.

**Do_I_Not_Like_That**

Judicial independence: love it! Love it! Always loved it!

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/feb/03/fresh-brexit-legal-challenge-blocked-high-court-article-127

I've always maintained from the start that these legal challenges never gave two hoots for Parliamentary sovereignty, and should be seen for what they are: an attempt to reverse the referendum.

These people, emboldened by a Parliament that voted 70% remain on June 23rd, thought they could reverse the result through the commons.

You'll remember that people were banging on about non-binding referendums for weeks. That has fallen silent now.

Now they have shifted to legal challenges. To be fair to them, they might have won had they acted earlier, but alas, the snail like pace of the court system was their undoing. That and two other factors:

1) They underestimated how much of a shambles the Labour party is.

2) The vote the other day has well and truly pulled the rug from underneath them...

**wuestenfux**

notprop wrote:
Rubbish or how else would you explain Devolved parliaments and powers.

Rather the continual din of further demands and complaints is what would elicit such a response.

Why the various regions would want more politicians is beyond me - I can barely tolerate the politician we have now, why more....the waste on an additional level of government is stupefying.

I guess you mean the EU.
If you look at the history of Europe, the EU is an absolute gain.
The British see it differently, they have hardly been part of Europe.

**Future War Cultist**

The legal challenges won't be stopping any time soon. They'll keep at it indefinitely.

**Do_I_Not_Like_That**

Fine fellows these judges. I name them heroes of the people. The Daily Mail is crowdfunding to get statues of them put up in parliament square.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Future War Cultist wrote:
The legal challenges won't be stopping any time soon. They'll keep at it indefinitely.

It's almost as if they missed the vote in the Commons the other day.

I watched most of the speeches and the debates. There is no appetite to reverse the decision. Whatever obstacles are thrown up, parliament will just blow them away with a vote.

**AlmightyWalrus**

Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
Fine fellows these judges. I name them heroes of the people. The Daily Mail is crowdfunding to get statues of them put up in parliament square.

Would this be the same Daily Mail that called one of the judges on the Supreme Court a traitor for hypothetically talking about the case a few months back?

**Do_I_Not_Like_That**

AlmightyWalrus wrote:
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
Fine fellows these judges. I name them heroes of the people. The Daily Mail is crowdfunding to get statues of them put up in parliament square.

Would this be the same Daily Mail that called one of the judges on the Supreme Court a traitor for hypothetically talking about the case a few months back?

It's a bad joke from me

But I'm sure those good people at the Daily mail are planning something like this

**reds8n**

https://www.buzzfeed.com/jamieross/donald-trumps-muslim-travel-restrictions-could-be-enforced-a?bftw&utm_term=.fwZRB7ykw#.tuaXq36NZ

Donald Trump’s Muslim Travel Restrictions Could Be Enforced At UK Airports
BuzzFeed News has learned that the US president’s controversial immigration restrictions could be enforced in Edinburgh, Manchester, and London Heathrow.

Donald Trump’s hardline immigration policies could be carried out at three UK airports.
The US government is in talks to introduce so-called “pre-clearance” at Manchester, Edinburgh, and London Heathrow airports, meaning US immigration officers could vet passengers traveling from the UK to the US under the guidance of Trump’s controversial executive order.
Ireland, where pre-clearance customs checks are already in place at Dublin and Shannon airports, pledged this week to begin a “complete review” of the process after Trump introduced travel restrictions on people from seven majority-Muslim countries.
The Netherlands ditched its plans to introduce pre-clearance at Schipol airport in Amsterdam earlier this week in protest against Trump’s order. However, the UK government’s Home Office told BuzzFeed News there are no plans to stop pre-clearance desks from appearing in the UK.
An expert in migration law, Professor Mary Bosworth from Oxford University, told BuzzFeed News she believes the pre-clearance gates would act like “a little bit of America on another country’s soil”.
“In practical terms it would mean that US border guards would carry out US border policies on British soil,” said Bosworth. “And so, yes, in light of President Trump’s executive order ban on refugees and travellers from those seven countries, that would be enforced here in Britain.”
In its initial announcement, the Department of Homeland Security said setting up pre-clearance in the UK and beyond will help to “enable the CBP [US customs and border protection] to stop potential threats before they arrive on US soil”.

A US customs and border protections spokesperson told BuzzFeed News: “CBP continues negotiations with many of the host governments of the prioritized locations and expects to announce additional agreements in the coming months.
“Before establishing pre-clearance operations, a government-to-government pre-clearance agreement must be negotiated and concluded and must enter into force.”
The pre-clearance system is already in place in Canada, Ireland, the United Arab Emirates, and the Caribbean, and there are proposals to extend it to the UK, Japan, Belgium, Norway, Spain, and Sweden, among other countries.
Plans to expand the pre-clearance arrangement to Manchester and London were announced by the US Department of Homeland Security in 2015, and last year a US government spokesperson said it could be in place within five years.
Although Trump’s current travel restrictions are set to expire after 90 days, the White House has suggested that restrictions could be extended to other countries such as Pakistan in the future.
In a later round of airports earmarked by the US government for pre-clearance, Edinburgh was also included. Before the gates are implemented, the airports have to produce a business plan and an agreement must be signed between the UK and US governments.
An Edinburgh airport source told BuzzFeed News: “This is in the very early planning stages and we don’t currently have the facilities to have a pre-clearance area. We have been added to a shortlist and we now need to work out if it’s feasible, which could take years.”
The Irish head of government, Enda Kenny, ordered a “complete review” of how the system works at Irish airports after the hardline nature of Trump’s immigration policies became clear. Kenny vowed to confront the US president about the policies when they meet.
The Home Office told BuzzFeed News discussions are ongoing with the US on potential pre-clearance arrangements and there has been no change to UK immigration rules.
UPDATE
This post has been updated with additional information from an Edinburgh Airport source.

**Do_I_Not_Like_That**

No disrespect to American dakka members, but the US government can take its border guards and its checks and stick them where the sun don't shine!

What they do in the USA is their business, but on British soil? At British airports? Never!

I shall be writing to my MP about this if it is implemented.