Off Topic Thread 3.0

Neil3030

swiwi_ wrote: »

Don't think this forum should be preachy given Ireland had 2 goes at each of the Lisbon treaties IIRC. The moral high ground is barely more than a mound.

There was only one Lisbon treaty. We rejected Nice and Lisbon, once each.

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

Neil3030 wrote: »

If the will of the people is a certain way, you can have 100 referenda, it won't change the outcome. Have 100 referenda on introducing the death penalty, for example, and you'll see it beaten every time.

BUT, if the will of the people is unreliable, transient and easily manipulated, and if the issue is complex, I have no logical or moral opposition to several referenda being carried out.

If one study says a drug works you don't just dust your hands and assume it will always work, you carry out follow up confirmation studies to make sure.

The thing I don't get though is why were these politicians and other people deliberately misleading the people? I genuinely don't get what the benefits are for them to leave the EU. Leave people have already admitted there probably won't be any change in immigration numbers, trade agreements aren't as clear cut as they implied they would be, Scotland are kicking off, the Northern Ireland issue is very messy, the Torys and Labour are imploding off the back of the result, not to mention the list of projects, local and nationwide, that will now have EU funding cut.

Leaving aside the reasons that the public voted to leave... I genuinely don't see why some people in positions of power were campaigning so strongly to leave.

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

Neil3030 wrote: »

There was only one Lisbon treaty. We rejected Nice and Lisbon, once each.

There were 2 Lisbon treaty referendums. We rejected the first one and passed the second one, which we had renegotiated some of the terms.

mfceiling

TICKLE_ME_ELMO wrote: »

There were 2 Lisbon treaty referendums. We rejected the first one and passed the second one, which we had renegotiated some of the terms.

And there in lies the problem for a lot of people. Have a referendum and you don't get the result...hold it again til you get what you want.

A lot of the brits were sick of the nonsense from Europe and wanted more controls over their own administration.

You looked at Germany opening up their arms to welcome refugees and then panic a few weeks later when huge numbers arrived and they wondered how they could care for them. In the Sunday Times a couple of weeks ago there was a story from an Iraqi refugee who was returning to Iraq because he felt the food in Germany was poor and he was disappointed with his accommodation. These stories just stoked the fire for the leave campaign.

What happens if they do hold the referendum again and they get the same result? Keep holding til they vote to remain in?

Podge_irl

TICKLE_ME_ELMO wrote: »

Leaving aside the reasons that the public voted to leave... I genuinely don't see why some people in positions of power were campaigning so strongly to leave.

A desire for more power mostly I think. Johnson was purely an internal power play move. Farage was a naked appeal to populism.

And I'm sure some of it was honest, if in my opinion misguided, desire to be able to control things themselves.

Podge_irl

The second Lisbon and nice referenda technically contained assurances or provisions to assuage the main (made up) concerns of the no voters.

There is nothing inherently wrong with them though admittedly the optics are poor.

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

mfceiling wrote: »

And there in lies the problem for a lot of people. Have a referendum and you don't get the result...hold it again til you get what you want.

A lot of the brits were sick of the nonsense from Europe and wanted more controls over their own administration.

You looked at Germany opening up their arms to welcome refugees and then panic a few weeks later when huge numbers arrived and they wondered how they could care for them. In the Sunday Times a couple of weeks ago there was a story from an Iraqi refugee who was returning to Iraq because he felt the food in Germany was poor and he was disappointed with his accommodation. These stories just stoked the fire for the leave campaign.

What happens if they do hold the referendum again and they get the same result? Keep holding til they vote to remain in?

The two referendums aren't really comparable though. We were voting to agree to new things the EU wanted implemented. We didn't agree with all of them and we negotiated on it. The UK already did their negotiating and by all accounts the EU were pretty good to them about it, and they still voted to leave.

Britain happily refused to take 2000 child refugees a few months ago, it's not like they were actually being forced to take them, as far as I know? They can't stroll into the UK either as there's no land border with mainland Europe, they're stopped when they get as far as the French ports, which is also an issue that could be up for debate now they've left the EU. France say it will stay the same but who knows?

Immigration from Africa, Asia and various commonwealth countries won't be changed by them leaving the EU either. I'm sure there are plenty of people from EU countries creaming the welfare system in the UK but there's plenty of their own doing it too. I saw someone on the news last week make the point that a lot of these issues are they fault of successive governments and they should be held accountable for it, not the EU. Which is a fair point. If it's that easy to cream your welfare system do something about it.

A lot of it sounds like treating the symptoms rather than the cause, if that's the right expression.

I'd assume with so many seemingly intelligent people pushing for the Leave vote that there are some valid reasons for it, I just haven't heard any yet.

Neil3030

TICKLE_ME_ELMO wrote: »

There were 2 Lisbon treaty referendums. We rejected the first one and passed the second one, which we had renegotiated some of the terms.

I know, I was responding to this:

Ireland had 2 goes at each of the Lisbon treaties IIRC

Unless "Lisbon treaty" is some Kleenex/Tayto/Hoover propriety eponym phenomenon to describe any international agreement that requires constitutional ratification.

Neil3030

TICKLE_ME_ELMO wrote: »

The thing I don't get though is why were these politicians and other people deliberately misleading the people? I genuinely don't get what the benefits are for them to leave the EU. Leave people have already admitted there probably won't be any change in immigration numbers, trade agreements aren't as clear cut as they implied they would be, Scotland are kicking off, the Northern Ireland issue is very messy, the Torys and Labour are imploding off the back of the result, not to mention the list of projects, local and nationwide, that will now have EU funding cut.

Leaving aside the reasons that the public voted to leave... I genuinely don't see why some people in positions of power were campaigning so strongly to leave.

Well for some politicians like Hannan, they have always branded themselves as eurosceptic and now was their time to shine. For Boris Johnson, this was a straight shoot at the Tory throne. For Farage, see Hannan, but with a primary motivation to establish himself as a leading populist figure, and UKIP as a serious player in UK politics. For Labour members supporting Leave there are probably a few reasons - undermine Corbyn on the one hand, but also establish support amongst the core of Labour voters around the North who really only vote Labour because they aren't the Tories, but otherwise hold none of Labour's social values - the kind of people UKIP have been appealing to. It's an area Labour critically need to deal with, and perhaps a subsection of the party think this would be good way to win them back.

Politics is predominantly a game for careerist sociopaths so a bunch of them conning the general public into potentially jeapordising their future is not the least bit surprising.

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

Neil3030 wrote: »

Well for some politicians like Hannan, they have always branded themselves as eurosceptic and now was their time to shine. For Boris Johnson, this was a straight shoot at the Tory throne. For Farage, see Hannan, but with a primary motivation to establish himself as a leading populist figure, and UKIP as a serious player in UK politics. For Labour members supporting Leave there are probably a few reasons - undermine Corbyn on the one hand, but also establish support amongst the core of Labour voters around the North who really only vote Labour because they aren't the Tories, but otherwise hold none of Labour's social values - the kind of people UKIP have been appealing to. It's an area Labour critically need to deal with, and perhaps a subsection of the party think this would be good way to win them back.

Politics is predominantly a game for careerist sociopaths so a bunch of them conning the general public into potentially jeapordising their future is not the least bit surprising.

Yeah, I agree with all of that but it still sounds like people wanting to vote leave for a number of reasons none of them having anything to do with the actual question on hand. I was reading there about a town in Wales that has almost no immigration and is funded to a huge degree by the EU and they voted to leave. It just makes no sense to me how these people rationalise their decision?

Ian Duncan Smith is now saying that the promises they made were actually more like a list of possibilities. How people are still fooled by these guys is beyond me.

Neil3030

TICKLE_ME_ELMO wrote: »

I was reading there about a town in Wales that has almost no immigration and is funded to a huge degree by the EU and they voted to leave. It just makes no sense to me how these people rationalise their decision?

That happened because Wales.

Ian Duncan Smith is now saying that the promises they made were actually more like a list of possibilities. How people are still fooled by these guys is beyond me.

Yup. It is dispiriting how easily people get conned, but in a land of 60+ million people you are going to get some very very convincing sociopaths.

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

Neil3030 wrote: »

Yup. It is dispiriting how easily people get conned, but in a land of 60+ million people you are going to get some very very convincing sociopaths.

The other thing is they're only 18 months out from a bunch of politicians lying through their teeth to influence a referendum vote and yet they're now acting like it's a shocking thing.

swiwi_

10/10 to Martin o'neill so far. Tactics spot on when you're side is less technically proficient: slowing it down. Playing it long. Etc. Nice to have a proper ref too who isn't showing the French "big team" favouritism.

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

Not sure who he was talking to on this one, but wow....

https://twitter.com/PED7/status/747063871765086208

I don't know why they're surprised at the SNP being the most organised. The night the Scottish referendum results were coming in the experts were already saying that the only way there'd be another Independence referendum would be if Cameron gave the UK the EU referendum, which was already an almost certainty at that point. The SNP have probably had this sorted out and sitting ready a year ago.

irishbucsfan

TICKLE_ME_ELMO wrote: »

Not sure who he was talking to on this one, but wow....

https://twitter.com/PED7/status/747063871765086208

I don't know why they're surprised at the SNP being the most organised. The night the Scottish referendum results were coming in the experts were already saying that the only way there'd be another Independence referendum would be if Cameron gave the UK the EU referendum, which was already an almost certainty at that point. The SNP have probably had this sorted out and sitting ready a year ago.

That's, frankly, a thick question. The only people who have any power to enact a plan are the government.

The media have been depressingly useless over the past couple of days in their rush to generate as much content as they can out of the voids that have appeared in the leadership of the two major British parties.

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

irishbucsfan wrote: »

That's, frankly, a thick question. The only people who have any power to enact a plan are the government.

The media have been depressingly useless over the past couple of days in their rush to generate as much content as they can out of the voids that have appeared in the leadership of the two major British parties.

What's a thick question?

irishbucsfan

TICKLE_ME_ELMO wrote: »

What's a thick question?

Asking anyone outside the government "what's the plan".

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

irishbucsfan wrote: »

Asking anyone outside the government "what's the plan".

Maybe I missed it but I can't hear who they were asking it to.

The government was being led by a man who didn't want to leave, and his party seems very much split on it. Surely those who wanted to leave should be the ones with a plan, Johnson and Gove, for example?

irishbucsfan

TICKLE_ME_ELMO wrote: »

Maybe I missed it but I can't hear who they were asking it to.

The government was being led by a man who didn't want to leave, and his party seems very much split on it. Surely those who wanted to leave should be the ones with a plan, Johnson and Gove, for example?

What are you looking for exactly? What would such a plan consist of?

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

irishbucsfan wrote: »

What are you looking for exactly? What would such a plan consist of?

Well, when are they going to actually pull out, for starters. Who/where/when will negotiations regarding trade deals take place, have they already got provisional deals in the works? What's happening with Northern Ireland and the land border with the EU? How are they going to replace all the funding that the EU currently gives to various projects, payments to farmers, research grants etc.

Even a vague timeline for these some of these things would be better than saying they've nothing at all.

irishbucsfan

TICKLE_ME_ELMO wrote: »

Well, when are they going to actually pull out, for starters. Who/where/when will negotiations regarding trade deals take place, have they already got provisional deals in the works? What's happening with Northern Ireland and the land border with the EU? How are they going to replace all the funding that the EU currently gives to various projects, payments to farmers, research grants etc.

Even a vague timeline for these some of these things would be better than saying they've nothing at all.

Every single one of these things are up to the government. Noone on the other side have any control over any of those things. So unless you're asking the prime minister or a very senior government minister, it's a completely pointless question. At the moment it looks like the government didn't have a plan, but then they were mostly all in favour of the remaining in the EU. So it's not a remotely surprising answer to the question despite Sky's usual standards of commentary making it seem otherwise.

In reality the only real variable that could make a difference right now would be the outgoing PM activating article 50 on his way out.

Felix Jones is God

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/jun/25/view-wales-town-showered-eu-cash-votes-leave-ebbw-vale?CMP=share_btn_fb

Interesting read and probably quite typical of small town mentality I fear

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

irishbucsfan wrote: »

Every single one of these things are up to the government. Noone on the other side have any control over any of those things. So unless you're asking the prime minister or a very senior government minister, it's a completely pointless question. At the moment it looks like the government didn't have a plan, but then they were mostly all in favour of the remaining in the EU. So it's not a remotely surprising answer to the question despite Sky's usual standards of commentary making it seem otherwise.

In reality the only real variable that could make a difference right now would be the outgoing PM activating article 50 on his way out.

Johnson and Gove were both eyeing up Cameron's job. It seems completely ludicrous that they don't have any kind of plan. Whether they were in a position to implement it or not is nearly irrelevant. Did they actually think Cameron was going to stay where he was and negotiate an exit he didn't want? The fact that nobody thought to ask who had a plan before the vote is ridiculous too. How can people make these decisions, or ask the public to make these decisions, with no long term plan in place?

irishbucsfan

TICKLE_ME_ELMO wrote: »

Johnson and Gove were both eyeing up Cameron's job. It seems completely ludicrous that they don't have any kind of plan. Whether they were in a position to implement it or not is nearly irrelevant. Did they actually think Cameron was going to stay where he was and negotiate an exit he didn't want? The fact that nobody thought to ask who had a plan before the vote is ridiculous too. How can people make these decisions, or ask the public to make these decisions, with no long term plan in place?

Don't they? Seems like you're getting ahead of yourself there a little bit.

molloyjh

irishbucsfan wrote: »

TICKLE_ME_ELMO wrote: »

Johnson and Gove were both eyeing up Cameron's job. It seems completely ludicrous that they don't have any kind of plan. Whether they were in a position to implement it or not is nearly irrelevant. Did they actually think Cameron was going to stay where he was and negotiate an exit he didn't want? The fact that nobody thought to ask who had a plan before the vote is ridiculous too. How can people make these decisions, or ask the public to make these decisions, with no long term plan in place?

Don't they? Seems like you're getting ahead of yourself there a little bit.

I think the problem here is around what exactly the Leave campaign were actually campaigning for. The selling points for a Leave vote should have consisted of a list of things that were going to happen as a result of the Leave vote. What was going to happen to trade, how was immigration going to be managed.

Now it's certainly true that the Government should have had a plan for the Leave outcome, but exactly how do they form this plan? What exactly have the people in the UK voted for? We know what they've voted against, but do we know exactly what they want? Do they want to cut all ties with the EU and forego the free trade agreement etc?

The Leave campaign should have had an alternative for people to vote for. They haven't. I think the point the commentator was making was that the Leave campaign should have had a desired outcome and the Government should have had a plan. Both came up with neither which is why he pointed to Sturgeon as the guy who has thought this through the most.

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

irishbucsfan wrote: »

Don't they? Seems like you're getting ahead of yourself there a little bit.

Fair enough but from their reactions since Cameron quit it doesn't seem like too much of a leap to suggest they both expected Cameron to be the one doing the dirty work involved in actually leaving. If they didn't expect to be in charge it wouldn't be that surprising to think they don't have a plan.

We shall see.

Regardless of who did what or who should have done it I would be concerned, if I was British, that there doesn't seem to be any structure or leadership making decisions right now.

wp_rathead

https://twitter.com/jonnycherry/status/747045489359597568?s=09

irishbucsfan

molloyjh wrote: »

I think the problem here is around what exactly the Leave campaign were actually campaigning for. The selling points for a Leave vote should have consisted of a list of things that were going to happen as a result of the Leave vote. What was going to happen to trade, how was immigration going to be managed.

Now it's certainly true that the Government should have had a plan for the Leave outcome, but exactly how do they form this plan? What exactly have the people in the UK voted for? We know what they've voted against, but do we know exactly what they want? Do they want to cut all ties with the EU and forego the free trade agreement etc?

The Leave campaign should have had an alternative for people to vote for. They haven't. I think the point the commentator was making was that the Leave campaign should have had a desired outcome and the Government should have had a plan. Both came up with neither which is why he pointed to Sturgeon as the guy who has thought this through the most.

A referendum isn't an election.

What you're looking for is a complete and utter non-starter. You're asking for one side of a referendum (which itself had multiple sides!) to agree on a platform for government between them, despite them coming from completely different political parties and ideologies. That's not what a referendum is for. It's about as unrealistic as expecting the Tory and Labour governments in the Remain campaign to agree on a platform for government.

That is what will be happening now however within the Conservative government and it should be what is happening now in what remains of the Labour opposition. Gove and Johnson are reportedly negotiating exactly that while Labour need to come together and agree on what they should be doing in opposition.

molloyjh

swiwi_ wrote: »

Don't think this forum should be preachy given Ireland had 2 goes at each of the Lisbon treaties IIRC. The moral high ground is barely more than a mound.

Technically we voted on 2 different things re Lisbon. We said No. They came back and asked why. A large proportion of the No vote said they didn't know why they voted No. The majority of the remainder voted No for things that were never in the Treaty in the first place. So the EU added an addendum to the Treaty that basically listed the main issues for the No vote and promised them that those things weren't actually in the Treaty. After receiving those assurances as part of the Treaty we were asked to vote again.

Also a second referendum is no less democratic than the first. You're as capable of saying No the second time as the first.

The problem here is that people want the right to vote but a lot of people don't want the responsibility that voting entails, which is to educate themselves on what they are voting on. If you can't trust the people to make informed decisions then are referenda not hugely dangerous despite the best of intentions?

molloyjh

swiwi_ wrote: »

Don't think this forum should be preachy given Ireland had 2 goes at each of the Lisbon treaties IIRC. The moral high ground is barely more than a mound.

Technically we voted on 2 different things re Lisbon. We said No. They came back and asked why. A large proportion of the No vote said they didn't know why they voted No. The majority of the remainder voted No for things that were never in the Treaty in the first place. So the EU added an addendum to the Treaty that basically listed the main issues for the No vote and promised them that those things weren't actually in the Treaty. After receiving those assurances as part of the Treaty we were asked to vote again.

Also a second referendum is no less democratic than the first. You're as capable of saying No the second time as the first.

The problem here is that people want the right to vote but a lot of people don't want the responsibility that voting entails, which is to educate themselves on what they are voting on. If you can't trust the people to make informed decisions then are referenda not hugely dangerous despite the best of intentions?