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Cathoholic
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Vouthon . . .
Evidently, you do not REALLY want to discuss the issues here.
UK: Conservatives predicted to win election with commanding majority
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Vouthon
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I’ve been discussing the issues in great depth in this thread.
But the ultimate issue is that Scotland is an ancient nation that will always determine its own course for itself, no matter what we’re told.
We shall be having, at some point, another internal discussion on the matter.
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Zzyzx_Road
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From the outside, it does appear that Scotland wants to replace one dependency with another one. If that’s what they want to do, have at it. Just don’t have any illusions about that or about the nature of dependency. The SNP has been very good at extracting the block grants they’re getting from Westminster and they seem to think they can replace that with the EU. Good luck with that.
Regarding Spain, I like how their foreign minister finagled the question: he specifically said “legally binding”. While from Madrid’s point of view, Catalonia will never be allowed “legally binding” independence. Scotland notwithstanding, Madrid will continue to suppress the Catalonians hard. This just goes to show much influence Macron and Merkel have on the lesser powers in the EU.
Before we know it, we’ll be back to skulduggery of the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries when Scotland was commonly used by foreign powers as a willing agent to undermine England. Because the EU still needs to make an example of the UK, even now. The return of the old rivalries. In time, it will be seen that they never really went away. This is why Macron and Merkel will push the Scotland application through, it will be to have another stick to poke England with.
Regarding Spain, I like how their foreign minister finagled the question: he specifically said “legally binding”. While from Madrid’s point of view, Catalonia will never be allowed “legally binding” independence. Scotland notwithstanding, Madrid will continue to suppress the Catalonians hard. This just goes to show much influence Macron and Merkel have on the lesser powers in the EU.
Before we know it, we’ll be back to skulduggery of the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries when Scotland was commonly used by foreign powers as a willing agent to undermine England. Because the EU still needs to make an example of the UK, even now. The return of the old rivalries. In time, it will be seen that they never really went away. This is why Macron and Merkel will push the Scotland application through, it will be to have another stick to poke England with.
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Cathoholic
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Vouthon . . . .
I would have thought it was an obligation for EU member states to . . .
Accept selected Council of Europe conventions
Accept European Social Charter provisions
Imposition of conformity of national law and practice with European Social Charter provisions
And other things.
But I guess not, thanks to you and you explaining to me how “independent” you are.
That’s good to know Vouthon.
I would have thought it was an obligation for EU member states to . . .
Accept selected Council of Europe conventions
Accept European Social Charter provisions
Imposition of conformity of national law and practice with European Social Charter provisions
And other things.
But I guess not, thanks to you and you explaining to me how “independent” you are.
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Cathoholic
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Some of these joint-decisions can be very beneficial. (I just think they can be made without an EU and all the dependency obligations that are built-in).
Here is one such good decision . . . .
Here is one such good decision . . . .
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...y-european-union-tariffs-on-steel-road-wheels
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HarryStotle
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Spoken like a true leftist.Cathoholic:
Oh, we’re “deviants” now are we?
Take what others say in the worst possible light so that it reflects badly on them.
You were being facetious, right?
Of course you were, and so am I.
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Vouthon
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Good to know that we both know where we stand then.
But yes, I actually am a centre-left voter in a majority left-wing voting nation in which a “Tory” (Conservative) is akin to being a ‘Martian’ for the majority of people. Wouldn’t have it any other way.
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HarryStotle
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I take it that by “majority left-wing voting nation” you are Scottish? Or you assume that the rest of Britain voting Conservative doesn’t mean they actually ARE Conservative, but are a “majority” voting as aliens to their own “true” perspective.HarryStotle:
Good to know that we both know where we stand then.
And yes, I’m a centre-left voter in a majority left-wing voting nation in which being a “Tory” (Conservative) is akin to an ‘alien’ for the majority of people. Wouldn’t have it any other way.
Let’s assume Scottish. You then wouldn’t have a problem with the rest of Great Britain voting for their own best interests, and that it isn’t “alien” for them to do so?
Or are you assuming that you know better than the rest of the people of Great Britain what is good for them because they are backwards, deplorable, unsophisticated, and so forth?
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Vouthon
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Of course. Scotland is a nation within the political union of the United Kingdom, which is a multinational country as presently constituted. I’m Scottish.
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Vouthon
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No problem. That’s their democratic right. Not alien for them because they tend to be a majority Tory-voting nation in England.
But we also have our own right to national self-determination, which seeks a different future based upon our distinct voting pattern and more left-liberal culture.
Since 1955, Scotland has not voted for a single Tory government yet we keep getting one imposed upon us, effectively, by the greater demography of England within the Union.
If government is supposed to be based on the consent of the people, the Scottish nation is not being properly represented within or by the UK any more, and has not been for a good few decades of increasing cultural-political divergence between England and Scotland.
So, I think we should now secede from the Treaty of Union that our nation freely acceded to in 1707. If we so choose in future, of course, via an exercise of democracy.
Increasingly, it feels like we have far more in common these days with the other nations within the EU, than with the rest of the UK (sans Northern Ireland). Brexit is making that more readily apparent than before.
England and Wales should be free to Brexit together however they so choose, Scotland should be free to rejoin the EU as its 28th member state and Northern Ireland is probably, at some point, going to re-unify with the Republic as one nation. So be it. Let’s stop interfering with each other’s choices, is all I’m saying. Live and let live.
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niceatheist
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The real irony of all of this, of course, is that now that the Tories have a significant majority, and the latest iteration of the Nigel Farage Party has demonstrated Farage’s utter incapability of actually getting into Westminster, not to mention the ERG being diminished in power and influence, it seems likely that Johnson will probably end up signing something akin to a Norway++ deal. Since he has no particular allegiance to any ideology or philosophy, and adopted his Brexiteer stance largely as a ruse to get him in to Number 10, I’d say within a year or so, there will be as many unhappy Hard Leavers as there are Remainers.
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tomarin
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Interesting prediction!
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Vouthon
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I was discussing this exact possibility with our friend @Kaninchen
I didn’t think this was plausible before the election. But after Johnson’s super-majority in England, I do think it’s one possibility now because he has less reason to listen to the Brexit hardliners.
Unless, of course, he wants to go for the slash-and-burn model. In which case we’re still getting a hard crash-out Brexit once the transition ends in December 2020 (unless it’s extended in July).
If England opts for soft Brexit, I don’t see it staying as Norway forever. The topic of England’s relationship with it’s giant EU neighbour will dominate the country’s politics for years to come, as it does for Norwegians and Swiss.
Playing the long-game, eventually the disgruntled young Remainers of today will become the majority of the population of England and it’s likely then to re-join the EU, once the older lot have passed away.
I see this happening eventually if they go Hard Brexit as well, just less seamlessly.
So we could end up with the entire British Isles back in the EU, one day, but as individual member states. Crazy.
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Kaninchen
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There’s been a reiteration, today, of the assertion that Johnson’s after a ‘Canada’ deal which is pretty unlikely to be achieved and is, I’d suggest, another of the smokescreen positions that have been taken by the UK since the Article 50 declaration - so a crash-out is well and truly back on the agenda.
That’s the attraction of the ‘Singapore’ model, there would be no going back.
It’s not just a question of political manoeuvring and majority votes, it’s a question of what might be possible.
The problem is just how far the UK’s economy and social policies have diverted from the EU - for example, if welfare is privatised, trying to go back could well be impossible.
That’s the attraction of the ‘Singapore’ model, there would be no going back.
It’s not just a question of political manoeuvring and majority votes, it’s a question of what might be possible.
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Cathoholic
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(name removed by moderator) (speaking tor @Vouthon) . . .
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Vouthon
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True, entirely true.
Perhaps never is too strong but the regulatory divergence would so great as it to make that very difficult.
If Labour were to reorganize in future around more Blairite politics, that could change though (unlikely as that is at present).
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niceatheist
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Basically, all I’ve seen done is that clock reset 45 years. There’s an entire generation coming of age that has known nothing but being EU citizens. Whatever happens to the UK itself, the pull of gravity is the same, if not stronger, than it was when membership in the European Community was first debated.
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Kaninchen
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The regulatory divergence will be enshrined in all the international agreements that are signed over the next few years - it’s one thing to go through the practical difficulties of re-establishing a compatible welfare system, it’s quite another to do that in the context of agreements where international corporations are able to sue under Investor-State Dispute Settlement processes.
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Vouthon
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I agree, which is why a Hard Brexit makes Scottish Independence seem inevitable.
There’s so much that would radically have to change in the event of a harder Brexit (i.e. fair competition, state aid, tax dumping, food safety, social and environmental standards).
The EU enjoys exclusive competence over foreign direct investment (its exclusive powers are limited and this is one of them, owing to the Common Commercial Policy). It would be insane, from my perspective, for the UK government not to conclude some kind of “Regulatory Cooperation Forum (RCF)” as was the case in CETA (Canada-EU trade agreement), that might usefully identify where we can anticipate divergence, to quantify the ramifications of such divergence and, really, to try and minimise the negative economic impact.
It makes sense commercially for the UK to remain aligned with standards in the EU market (obviously where rules line up or converge, there are fewer barriers to trade, its just elementary) but this has the not-inconsiderable side-effect of effectively invalidating all the effort, I guess, of pursuing secession from the European Union in the first place - which equally makes it kinda pointless. And Trump would hold back on a trade deal, of course.
So what your saying has genuine merit.
But I’m not, as of yet, entirely sold on the idea that Boris will 100% go down that route of full-on regulatory divergence. I’d say its been likely from the beginning, owing to the preponderance of hardliners. Maybe I’m just overly hopeful that a more commonsense approach could prevail over the puritanical and market-fundamentalist ideology. We shall see, but his majority does give him the agency he lacked before to chart a different course, if he wills.
And we both know how easy it is for him to stab former allies in the back and throw them to the sharks…
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niceatheist
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For that, we’ll just have to see. I think the ERG’s influence has been heavily diluted now, and if the rules of Parliaments past holds true, any PM that just delivered the party that large a majority basically gets two years at least as all but absolute dictator.
I’m less worried about a deal with Europe these days in how Boris’s period of supremacy is going to affect British institutions. There’s going to be an almighty blood letting at White Hall, as he seeks to get rid of every single civil servant that ever said a negative thing in private or public about Brexit, or more particularly, about him. He’s almost certainly going to try to trim back the powers of the courts. The BBC is also in his sights as well (ironically, it is for Labour, who seems to have decided the BBC was mean to Jeremy Corbyn).
I think it’s pretty clear that to keep more restive parts of the UK happy, he’s going to back the money truck up and dump vast sums. That’s going to guide his actions on any deal with Europe, since the only way the UK can afford any of this is by keeping as frictionless a trade system as possible. I suspect he’ll dispense with any real trade negotiations with the US (the perceived and/or real threats against the NHS over what a free trade agreement with the US might mean will hand him a ready excuse on that file).
There aren’t any other trade deals on the horizon that would mean very much of anything. Free trade agreements with Japan, Canada and Australia, seeing as there are these very big oceans between the UK and any of them, were as replacements to frictionless access to European markets more of propaganda set pieces than serious proposals.
Another prediction I’m making now is the Fixed Term Parliament Act is as good as dead. It served some modest purpose of protecting the Tory-LibDem coalition nine years ago, but it’s been the bane of the Tories’ existence since 2016, and Johnson found himself close to ruin, and only the incompetence and hubris of Labour and the LibDems saved him from a Remain coalition seizing power.
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