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 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:

 welshhoppo wrote:
It's too big to be democratic so it becomes undemocratic.


As SCE said, try and devise a system of government that covers 500 million people from 28 different counties and probably thousands of different regions that is both fair, democratic and is capable of such flexibility to deal with external issues (like the crisis in Syria) or internal issues (like Greece's economy collapsing.)

When you do let me know, you can tell me how to my gravestone because such a thing is pretty much impossible.

That is a problem of lack of competency. That is not a lack of democracy though. Its member states wanting to go halfway.

And whats wrong with that? What is wrong with nations only desiring a small degree of integration - say, a free trade and movement zone, but not a monetary and fiscal Union? Why do we have to have this false dichotomy of all or nothing?

Why can't we have a two-tier European Union?

You misunderstand. The halfway problem are things like the Euro, members like Greece want it but don't want the ECB to look over its shoulder (we now know why). This means that in many cases states only want the good part but then want to avoid responsibility when it goes wrong. I never meant that it should be a nothing or all case. A two tier EU should work fine as long as you create clear boundaries. Of course what those clear boundaries should be is another question.


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 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
But the Netherlands works fine as a democracy, maybe even better than the UK. We have only 1/4th of the UK's pop, so why not quarter the UK. This is the problem I have with SCE argument. There is no perfect amount of population for democracy. Hell, India does it with 1 billion.

India is a false equivalence.

India is one nation state, with a common cultural identity, values, traditions etc. They are not a Political Union of 28 different nation states.

India really isn't so unified as you would think though. That's mainly a well constructed identity that has not been true for history. Certainly they have managed well, but there has been a lot of violence even inside India. I think there are over 30 separatist movements. If the EU manages to hold on long enough we turn into India. As Britain in India and the EU have quite a few parallels in local governance and separate kingdoms/states.

 r_squared wrote:
Isn't it wonderful how all our political discussions eventually swing back around to bloody Brexit, again.

Well of course it does, its the defining issue of this General Election. Do you want to just brush it under the carpet and ignore it like Corbyn?

Actually Ive heard DINLT say that he'd be happy with a proper coalition between the seperate states of the U.K. I think it's his dream, he's probably dreaming about it right now......


And with India. The issue is your comparing Eastern and Western society and they are a little bit different. Also, it was designed that way from the get go.


Also, there are 29 states in India. So close....

 r_squared wrote:
Isn't it wonderful how all our political discussions eventually swing back around to bloody Brexit, again.

Personally, I'm just waiting for their buggers to publish their manifestos for me to get my teeth into. I'm a genuine undecided voter right now, so I'm going to deconstruct every single one of their bloody manifesto points, and use that as my guideline, I think.

I'm a little annoyed I'm still waiting on them, quite frankly. They're already campaigning!

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:

 r_squared wrote:
Isn't it wonderful how all our political discussions eventually swing back around to bloody Brexit, again.

Well of course it does, its the defining issue of this General Election. Do you want to just brush it under the carpet and ignore it like Corbyn?

Its relevant today with the election of Macron again. He certainly is going to make it harder than if Le Pen made it in.

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
India really isn't so unified as you would think though. That's mainly a well constructed identity that has not been true for history. Certainly they have managed well, but their has been a lot of violence even inside India. I think there are over 30 separatist movements. If the EU manages to hold on long enough we turn into India. As Britain in India and the EU have quite a few parallels in local governance and separate kingdoms/states.

And this is a good thing? If bloodshed is the price of unity, perhaps unity is not worth it and India should break up?

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
India really isn't so unified as you would think though. That's mainly a well constructed identity that has not been true for history. Certainly they have managed well, but their has been a lot of violence even inside India. I think there are over 30 separatist movements. If the EU manages to hold on long enough we turn into India. As Britain in India and the EU have quite a few parallels in local governance and separate kingdoms/states.

And this is a good thing? If bloodshed is the price of unity, perhaps unity is not worth it and India should break up?

Well its not like were going at it at the moment. You tell me if unity is worth it. But the UN records plenty of human rights violations of Indian security forces. I don't think its that bad yet with EU security forces in the UK.

You said India was unified and functions as a democracy. I just pointed out that while their democracy might work out better than in the EU it also requires more violence to keep together.

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
You said India was unified and functions as a democracy. I just pointed out that while their democracy might work out better than in the EU it also requires more violence to keep together.

No I didn't, you did. "India manages it with 1 billion people".

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
You said India was unified and functions as a democracy. I just pointed out that while their democracy might work out better than in the EU it also requires more violence to keep together.

No I didn't, you did. "India manages it with 1 billion people".

Yeah they manage to be a functioning democracy with over 1 billion people. I never implied it was a unified nation state or without violence.

I'm really not sure I'd classify a country with an active caste system involving 'Untouchables' as a 'functional democracy'. 'Notional democracy', perhaps.

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
You said India was unified and functions as a democracy. I just pointed out that...

 Disciple of Fate wrote:

Yeah they manage to be a functioning democracy with over 1 billion people.

So which is it? You're contradicting yourself.

You said India was unified and functions as a democracy.

At no point did I say this, this is purely your (false) inference. I said that they have more in common than we do, that is all. India is one Nation. We are 28 Nations.

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
You said India was unified and functions as a democracy. I just pointed out that...

 Disciple of Fate wrote:

Yeah they manage to be a functioning democracy with over 1 billion people.

So which is it? You're contradicting yourself.

I don't, I agree that it functions as a democracy. I just don't agree that it is as unified.

This is what I said : I just pointed out that while their democracy might work out better than in the EU it also requires more violence to keep together.

EU democracy so far isn't held together by violence, the fact that the UK can vote on Brexit means its peaceful, even if it doesn't function as well as a nominally single state.

I wouldn't regard a democracy that requires violence to keep it together as "working better" than the EU...

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
I wouldn't regard a democracy that requires violence to keep it together as "working better" than the EU...

Yet India is generally regarded by society as a better functioning democracy. It just depends on how far under the hood you look.

In other, non Indian related news, how's about our newspaper headlines this morning. Momentous French election, meaning a new, young, pro-EU leader beating the Frexit champion, and what have the DM and Sun got to say?

Nothing whatsoever.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-the-papers-39840163

Had it been the other way around, I'm absolutely positive Nigel Farage's cum face would have been smugly greeting us all this morning.

Macron's election can be considered a blow to the Brexit process in a couple of ways, firstly it demonstrates categorically that there is support for the EU as an institution, but more importantly for us is....

Mr Macron’s core philosophy is not in doubt. He believes that maintaining the strength of the EU is more important than boosting France’s economic ties with the British.

https://www.ft.com/content/02a800b6-28dd-11e7-bc4b-5528796fe35c

Mr Macron said last year that the UK could not expect any special privileges once it goes: “I am attached to a strict approach to Brexit.”

Mr Macron seems keen to exploit Brexit in order to boost France’s economy. Some analysts believe that as a former Rothschild banker, he will want to do everything possible to maximise Paris’s position as a financial centre after Britain’s departure.

In his campaign he has been enthusiastic about attracting foreigners to his country. “I will have a series of initiatives to get talented people in research and lots of fields working here to come to France,” he said in London earlier this year. “I want banks . . . researchers, academics and so on.”

No surprise there, but negotiations may have been a bit easier with Le Pen as it would be in her interests to prove to the French that leaving the EU is possible with minimal disruption.

I'm still glad she got comprehensively curb stomped though.

After hearing about the spoiled ballots in France, I might go with that. I can't bring myself to vote Red or Blue at least.

For the European idea, the election of Macron is absolutely great.
The EU is not only a coalition of countries in economic terms, its a project whose aim is the integration of the European people. This is what the EU is about.

 wuestenfux wrote:
For the European idea, the election of Macron is absolutely great.
The EU is not only a coalition of countries in economic terms, its a project whose aim is the integration of the European people. This is what the EU is about.

But is this what the people of Europe want?

 welshhoppo wrote:

 wuestenfux wrote:
For the European idea, the election of Macron is absolutely great.
The EU is not only a coalition of countries in economic terms, its a project whose aim is the integration of the European people. This is what the EU is about.

But is this what the people of Europe want?

Governments and EU don't want to know that, otherwise they'd hold a referendum

A nation or system's size alone has no bearing on whether a system is democratic or not. The EU is not less democratic just because it is big. Yes, your vote is less powerful when there are more voters, but "democracy" doesn't mean "I get my way!".

There is a lot of merit to discussing decentralization and what level various political decisions should be taken on, but trying to frame it as "more centralization=undemocratic" is lazily counting people connecting "undemocratic" to "bad" in their minds. It's a different type of democracy, sure. It might, depending on context, even be a worse form of democracy. It is, however, still a democracy. Trying to pretend otherwise is folly.

 obsidianaura wrote:

 welshhoppo wrote:

 wuestenfux wrote:
For the European idea, the election of Macron is absolutely great.
The EU is not only a coalition of countries in economic terms, its a project whose aim is the integration of the European people. This is what the EU is about.

But is this what the people of Europe want?

Governments and EU don't want to know that, otherwise they'd hold a referendum

Anymore referendums and the EU should be remained to "The Neverendum Story."

 Ketara wrote:

 r_squared wrote:
Isn't it wonderful how all our political discussions eventually swing back around to bloody Brexit, again.

Personally, I'm just waiting for their buggers to publish their manifestos for me to get my teeth into. I'm a genuine undecided voter right now, so I'm going to deconstruct every single one of their bloody manifesto points, and use that as my guideline, I think.

I'm a little annoyed I'm still waiting on them, quite frankly. They're already campaigning!

Word in the newspapers is that the Tories will continue with their crackpot scheme of getting immigration down to the 100,000 per year mark

That's worked really well for them...

Despite my anti-EU position, I fully support immigration, believing that in this globalised world, you can't fence the world out, although ultimately, I do agree that a nation's people should have the final say on freedom of movement within that nation.





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 Vaktathi wrote:

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

But I believe that democracy works best the closer you are to it. But if you seperate the people from the decision makers with MEPs, European Commision, President this, president that, and an organisation that grows and grows with unaccountable global trade deals...

Then people are cut off and unrest and bitterness sets in.

This happens with literally every organization of any size. Be it a company of 50 people or a megastate of hundreds of millions. You can see it in the UK where there are multiple elements in multiple areas that all feel cut off, dictated to, and controlled by London & Westminster, and that's at a *far* smaller scale. This is nothing new, and has been the case for hundreds of years and the cause of bloodshed...more than once. Hence why there was so much strife in Ireland throughout the 20th century, a strong SNP today, and rumblings in Wales and Cornwall.

While there is some very legitimate criticism of EU policy, structure, etc, any organization of its size is naturally going to have some level of disconnect and have many people that, no matter how well the EU is devolved/locally connected/etc, will never be pro-EU. Same with the US for much of its existence.

We all know that the USA is not perfect, but at least with your nation, it was designed that way from day 1. And at least you have some checks and balances with SCOTUS,POTUS, states' rights etc etc

Those safeguards don't seem to exist in the EU IMO.


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 welshhoppo wrote:

 obsidianaura wrote:

 welshhoppo wrote:

 wuestenfux wrote:
For the European idea, the election of Macron is absolutely great.
The EU is not only a coalition of countries in economic terms, its a project whose aim is the integration of the European people. This is what the EU is about.

But is this what the people of Europe want?

Governments and EU don't want to know that, otherwise they'd hold a referendum

Anymore referendums and the EU should be remained to "The Neverendum Story."

Britain is the referendum capital these days. We've had AV, Scottish indy, EU, and will probably get another Scottish indy referendum soon.

The EU are amateurs compared to us

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:

 r_squared wrote:
Isn't it wonderful how all our political discussions eventually swing back around to bloody Brexit, again.

Well of course it does, its the defining issue of this General Election. Do you want to just brush it under the carpet and ignore it like Corbyn?

It's the Tories who are making this GE about Brexit, because it guarantees support from ex-UKIP, whilst conveniently allowing them to bury their performance and stance on every other issue.

We should be saying to them, we know about Brexit, but where do you stand on this issue?

As Ketara says,we should have their manifestos by now, especially the conservative one, but they're leaving it as long as possible so that we focus on Brexit, and the big bad EU a bit longer.

 welshhoppo wrote:

 obsidianaura wrote:

 welshhoppo wrote:

 wuestenfux wrote:
For the European idea, the election of Macron is absolutely great.
The EU is not only a coalition of countries in economic terms, its a project whose aim is the integration of the European people. This is what the EU is about.

But is this what the people of Europe want?

Governments and EU don't want to know that, otherwise they'd hold a referendum

Anymore referendums and the EU should be remained to "The Neverendum Story."

It'd be awesome, it'd be a massive choose EU're own adventure!


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 r_squared wrote:

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:

 r_squared wrote:
Isn't it wonderful how all our political discussions eventually swing back around to bloody Brexit, again.

Well of course it does, its the defining issue of this General Election. Do you want to just brush it under the carpet and ignore it like Corbyn?

It's the Tories who are making this GE about Brexit, because it guarantees support from ex-UKIP, whilst conveniently allowing them to bury their performance and stance on every other issue.

We should be saying to them, we know about Brexit, but where do you stand on this issue?

As Ketara says,we should have their manifestos by now, especially the conservative one, but they're leaving it as long as possible so that we focus on Brexit, and the big bad EU a bit longer.

I did wonder about why the conservatives didn't have a manifesto ready even though they chose to trigger the gen election

I just assumed they'd gone of half cocked like they keep doing, but yeah probably tactical.

I suppose they also didn't want labour to build a manifesto in response to it. It'll probably come out the day after labours is released.

Even the vast majority of the cabinet weren't aware of the election until the day it was announced, so I don't think anyone had much notice. Perhaps they will all keep an emergency manifesto on stand by from now on, ready for tweaking and release at a moments notice.

 Ketara wrote:

 r_squared wrote:
Isn't it wonderful how all our political discussions eventually swing back around to bloody Brexit, again.

Personally, I'm just waiting for their buggers to publish their manifestos for me to get my teeth into. I'm a genuine undecided voter right now, so I'm going to deconstruct every single one of their bloody manifesto points, and use that as my guideline, I think.

I'm a little annoyed I'm still waiting on them, quite frankly. They're already campaigning!

It is frustrating, I've followed the big three on social media, and even followed Paul Nuttall (seeing as he's standing in my constituency), and I'm seeing stuff being pumped out regularly by Labour and the Lib Dems, yet very little from the Conservatives.
They also seem to be relying on this "cult of personality" around TM. She's giving very scripted, safe, presentations, and she is giving the impression of being "strong and stable".
The Tories realise that soundbites win, they're repeating theirs ad nauseum and associating it with their leader, a manifesto will just get in the way as people ask questions.

And it's working, even my dear old mum likes Theresa May, and feels she's the safe bet, even though she actually disagrees with many conservative policies. It's bonkers and to be admired. If Jeremy Corbyn could put down his integrity for a minute, and play like the Tories, we could actually have a fight on our hands.

Infact, I'm going to suggest that he should do a Trump, he's popular with his grassroots, so he should ignore the media, and go straight for twitter and really let himself get out there. Slag off the Tories, their policies, their elitism, and the "crooked" media, and make a storm of it.
Worked for Trump.

 r_squared wrote:
[

It is frustrating, I've followed the big three on social media, and even followed Paul Nuttall (seeing as he's standing in my constituency), and I'm seeing stuff being pumped out regularly by Labour and the Lib Dems, yet very little from the Conservatives.
They also seem to be relying on this "cult of personality" around TM. She's giving very scripted, safe, presentations, and she is giving the impression of being "strong and stable".
The Tories realise that soundbites win, they're repeating theirs ad nauseum and associating it with their leader, a manifesto will just get in the way as people ask questions.

And it's working, even my dear old mum likes Theresa May, and feels she's the safe bet, even though she actually disagrees with many conservative policies. It's bonkers and to be admired. If Jeremy Corbyn could put down his integrity for a minute, and play like the Tories, we could actually have a fight on our hands.

I think it's because they actually regard Corbyn as so little a threat, that they don't have to brief against him. Why engage in a public debate when May might not be good at it, or even just have a bad day? Why put up a detailed manifesto when yours is likely paper thing and might inspire awkward questions? Just keep hammering on the obvious point (that Corbyn is bloody inept), point to the Brexit negotiations as the top priority (which they quite possible are, in all fairness), and otherwise keep schtum.


Corbyn, on the other hand, hasn't gotten one out I think because he hasn't got one. So far as I'm aware, his policies are:-

-A very confused one on nuclear disarmament, where he's going to listen to everyone but disagree, get rid of nukes, but keep the subs and jobs, but he might keep the nukes just promise never to use them (??????).
-Re-nationalise the railways because they're a shambles. (I'm not against this, but his reasons for doing so seem more rooted in ideology than logic).
-Raise living standards (somehow).
-Raise a few taxes on some rich people and businesses.
-End student tuition fees (but with no detail on where the money to replace it will come from).

It's all so airy-fairy and unspecific.

It suits the Tories to make it about Brexit so there's no scrutiny on the NHS. I emigrated from London (where I was born and raised, more of a footie pitch than a playground kid though ) to Australia after 34.5 years on this planet, and currently work for a well known global health insurance and related businesses company.

What's happening to the NHS needs to be stopped now. Private health insurance is absolute garbage, and if you think the Tories or Blairites (if they grab back control of the Labour party) will give you anything other than a similarly s**t system then you're dreaming.

This should be a single issue GE, the issue just isn't Brexit. If you take the NHS for granted now, well, you deserve everything you get in the long run.

Latest ICM poll gives the Tories a record 22 point lead over Labour

God help us...

Since 2010, the Tories have presided over a drop in real wages, purchasing power, a rising deficit, a rising debt, a gak poor trade deficit, and a chronically imbalanced economy, that's almost flat-lining, and yet, the Tories still have the myth about them that they are good for the economy!

I was around when Black Wednesday happened, and it amazes me how short memories are in this nation...


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 Baragash wrote:
It suits the Tories to make it about Brexit so there's no scrutiny on the NHS. I emigrated from London (where I was born and raised, more of a footie pitch than a playground kid though ) to Australia after 34.5 years on this planet, and currently work for a well known global health insurance and related businesses company.

What's happening to the NHS needs to be stopped now. Private health insurance is absolute garbage, and if you think the Tories or Blairites (if they grab back control of the Labour party) will give you anything other than a similarly s**t system then you're dreaming.

This should be a single issue GE, the issue just isn't Brexit. If you take the NHS for granted now, well, you deserve everything you get in the long run.

True, the NHS isn't perfect, but the alternative is far worse.

 welshhoppo wrote:

 wuestenfux wrote:
For the European idea, the election of Macron is absolutely great.
The EU is not only a coalition of countries in economic terms, its a project whose aim is the integration of the European people. This is what the EU is about.

But is this what the people of Europe want?

If you ask nationalists, unemployed or Nigel Farrage, then probably not.
But striving for higher goods is never a bad thing.
We had so many wars in Europe during the last centuries that a European nation where people can trade and move freely is the best possible answer.