UK Referendum

[ebhead]

I wonder what the Queen thinks of all the shenanigans going on (considering her empire could get noticeably smaller if Scotland and NI decide to leave, and are successful)

...and i have a feeling the UK will never trigger Article 50...whole lotta waste to end up right back where everyone started.

e

[CaptainQuintero]

49 minutes ago, ebhead said:

I wonder what the Queen thinks of all the shenanigans going on (considering her empire could get noticeably smaller if Scotland and NI decide to leave, and are successful)

...and i have a feeling the UK will never trigger Article 50...whole lotta waste to end up right back where everyone started.

e

Supposedly she is feverently anti EU if the papers are to be believed based on what she's supposedly said to people over dinners

[ebhead]

1 minute ago, CaptainQuintero said:

Supposedly she is feverently anti EU if the papers are to be believed based on what she's supposedly said to people over dinners

Interesting...I just found it odd that in all of my readings her stance on the whole referendum fallout had not been commented on. I get that in her role that she doesn't get involved in the day to day affairs of the country but I would have thought there would be curiosity out there...

 

[Fugu]

On 27/06/2016 at 8:52 PM, Orion21 said:

My friend the young only know the UK as being a part of the EU.  I wasn't born when the UK joined the EU, so my point of reference is the same.  It's human nature to fear change, even if the change will be positive.  The UK leaving the EU may be a disaster or it may turn out to be great, but again, I am not surprised at all the younger people voted for stay.  European governments and the EU have spent decades and billions, upon billions of Euros to develop the EU identity.  This doesn't necessarily mean it was what was best for the young people of the UK or any other European Union member country.  It's just the only reality they know.

Skewed argument, Orion. With the UK membership in 1973, first Brits consciously been living in the EU as "the only reality they know" would have been born from early 60s on. You count a mid-50 under young people?

No, there have been resentments all the time and also through later generations. But only the younger people today practise intensive exchange on a broader basis within Europe and they see their future within a system of closer inter-European collaboration and friendship. That's the point, the older generation (majoriity of...) is living in a backward directed whining for the "good old times". Those times but won't come back with leaving the EU. Will take a while for them to realise, I fear.

They are not looking for a "change" - they are not being capable of it, betaking themselves in turning the clocks back..

[Akela3rd]

My wife, a hairdresser and therefore someone who talks to her clients whilst working, told me that all the older ones seemed to think that leaving the EU would magically return the UK to the 1950s, whilst the younger ones generally had split leave/remain opinions for a variety of reasons. The 'good old days' factor certainly played a part in all this, rose tinted glasses and all that. But, bugger all can actually happen for quite a while yet. The dust will settle and life will go on pretty much as before.

Sent from my HTC One M8s using Tapatalk

[Orion21]

Henry Kissinger authored a fantastic essay on Brexit late yesterday in the Wall Street Journal:

 

By HENRY A. KISSINGER
June 28, 2016 6:03 p.m. ET

The cascade of commentary on Britain’s decision to leave institutional Europe has described the epochal event primarily in the vocabulary of calamity. However, the coin of the realm for statesmen is not anguish or recrimination; it should be to transform setback into opportunity.

The impact of the British vote is so profound because the emotions it reflects are not confined to Britain or even Europe. The popular reaction to European Union institutions (as reflected in public-opinion polls) is comparable in most major countries, especially France and Spain. The multilateral approach based on open borders for trade and the movement of peoples is increasingly being challenged, and now an act of direct democracy intended to reaffirm the status quo has rendered a damning verdict. However challenging this expression of popular sentiment, ignoring the concerns it manifests is a path to greater disillusionment.

Brexit is a classic illustration of the law of unintended consequences. The British government sought a Remain vote to end, once and for all, domestic disputes about Europe in a minority of the Conservative Party and among fringe populist groups. Many backers of the Leave campaign were surprised by their success, having understood their political mission initially in much less sweeping terms.

All these elements have been overwhelmed because the European vision elaborated over decades has been developing a sclerotic character. Internal debates of Europe have increasingly concentrated on structural contradictions. In the process, the vision that motivates sacrifice is weakening.

The founders of European unity understood the ultimate scope of their project. It was, on one level, a rejection of the worst consequences of European divisions, especially the traumatic wars that had killed tens of millions of Europeans in the 20th century alone. But it was also an affirmation of the values by which Europe had become great.

The Europe of the founders’ youth had thrived by the elaboration of the nation-state, which on one hand competed for pre-eminence, but at the same time evolved a common culture. Its principles of democracy and constitutionalism were spread around the world, even while respect for the dignity of the individual had been violated under colonialism. The European vision sought to maintain the dynamism reflected in Europe’s historical achievements while tempering the competition which had, by 1945, nearly led to their destruction.

Too much of the Europe of today is absorbed in management of structural problems rather than the elaboration of its purposes. From globalization to migration, the willingness to sacrifice is weakening. But a better future cannot be reached without some sacrifice of the present. A society reluctant to accept this verity stagnates and, over the decades, consumes its substance.

Inevitably a gap arises between the institutions and their responsibilities, which accounts for increasing populist pressures. The deepest challenge to the EU is not its management but its ultimate goals. In a world in which upheavals based on conflicting values span the continents, a common act of imagination by Europe and its Atlantic partners is badly needed.

Instead, European leadership is now faced with an unexpected challenge. Under the terms of its charter, the EU is obliged to negotiate with a principal member over the terms of withdrawal. Britain will want to maintain extensive ties with Europe while lifting or easing the constraints of its many legislative and bureaucratic requirements. The EU leadership has almost the opposite incentive. It will not wish to reward Britain’s Leave majority by granting Britain better terms than it enjoyed as a full member. Hence a punitive element is likely to be inherent in the EU bargaining position.

Many of us who have grown up with and admired the vision of European unity hope that the EU will transcend itself, by seeking its vocation not in penalizing the recalcitrant but by negotiating in a manner that restores the prospects of unity. The EU should not treat Britain as an escapee from prison but as a potential compatriot.

Punishing the U.K. will not solve the question of how to operate a common currency in the absence of a common fiscal policy among countries with disparate economic capacities, or of how to define a union whose ability to achieve common political strategies lags fundamentally behind its economic and administrative capacities.

By the same token, Britain needs to put forward the concept of autonomy for which its people voted in a manner that embraces ultimate cooperation. Britain and Europe together must consider how they might return, at least partially, to their historical role as shapers of international order.

In recent decades, Europe has retreated to the conduct of soft power. But besieged as it is on almost all frontiers by upheavals and migration, Europe, including Britain, can avoid turning into a victim of circumstance only by assuming a more active role. These vistas cannot yet be discussed at a geopolitical level, but the EU’s leaders should be able to form discrete and discreet panels for exploring them. In this manner, the Leave vote can serve as a catharsis.

The United States has encouraged the European Union from its beginning but has had difficulty adjusting to the achievement that followed. When the EU idea was first put forward by Jean Monnet at the end of World War II and advanced by the Marshall Plan, the U.S. was the indispensable contributor for international security and economic progress. Given the recovery of contemporary Europe, the American role needs to be redefined to a new kind of leadership, moving from dominance to persuasion.

The manner in which the U.S. administration and other advocates of Remain sought to influence the Brexit vote illustrates the point. The threat that without the support of Europe, a solitary Britain would move to the end of the line in negotiations with Washington reversed the historical sequence of that relationship. The “special relationship” is founded in the origins of America, in a common language and in a comparable system of political values reinforced by fighting together in common wars. The idea of the special relationship was enunciated by Winston Churchill not as a refutation of a multilateral world, but as the guarantor of its values in the hard times sure to follow World War II.

That special relationship is needed for the Atlantic world to traverse the present crisis. A disintegrating Europe could subside into an impotent passivity that will shrivel the entire Atlantic partnership, which represents one of the greatest achievements of the past century. Britain, in whatever mutually respectful legal status it arranges with Europe, is an essential element in this design. Its history and emotion are Atlantic; its current necessity requires as well a link to Europe. Today’s established international order was founded upon conceptions that emerged from the British Isles, were carried by Europe around the world, and ultimately took deep root in North America. American leadership in reinvigorating the contemporary order is imperative.

The Brexit vote has unleashed the anxieties of two continents and of all those who rely upon the stability that their union of purpose provides. The needed restoration of faith will not come through recriminations. To inspire the confidence of the world, Europe and America must demonstrate confidence in themselves.

Mr. Kissinger served as national-security adviser and secretary of state under Presidents Nixon and Ford.

[ChanceSchmerr]

10 hours ago, Akela3rd said:

all the older ones seemed to think that leaving the EU would magically return the UK to the 1950s

Great. UK Back in the 1950s.  When Rationing was still in force, and visibly damaged/destroyed buildings from the war were still found everywhere.  Sounds magical, indeed!

[stigmata]

Hopefully the UK is a democracy and shows that it's a democracy.

To pretend a referendum didn't happen for a certain result will unleash major mayhem on itself

Much bigger than any temporary markets can.

 

It's up to the UK to negotiate with the EU where it goes from here,!

Is the EU building fences?

[Kratos]

As I see it the problem is not EU itself but the economic system we/politicians has allowed to be created.

We have to ask our self why people in the western world want change, they know its something wrong (less jobs, less salary, less security) but cant understand what is the specific problem. Therefore they vote on everything that is not the regular like Trump, Leave EU and right wing politicians.

The experiment of globalization and to give all power to the market is the root of the problem and the experiment is simply not working. Examples of this can be found in every major economic news. The rescue of the big banks, printing money on a massive scale (quantitative easing), Panama papers, moving jobs abroad. 

A good read:http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/eu-referendum-brexit-remain-leave-in-out-european-union-what-it-means-society-a7097066.html

A good watch from the brilliant Adam Curtis: Watch in particular the interview with James Goldsmith at 31 min and 44 min

 

[Ryan]

13 hours ago, stigmata said:

Is the EU building fences?

No. Any EU citizen can live, work or retire in any other EU country.

People should understand that the EU might not be too eager to install a one-way door in the fence the UK just voted for.

Central to EU policy are the "Four Freedoms". Free movement of goods, workers, capital and services.

From the point of view of an individual country, each of these can be seen from a "flowing-in" and "flowing out" standpoint. So the "Four Freedoms" can be seen as eight principles under EU policy, i.e. Goods (in and out), workers (EU citizens in and out), capital (in and out) and services (in and out),

A very large number of Leave voters voted the way they did due to a disagreement with one of these principles (EU workers in), should they really expect their access to the other 7 to remain unchanged?

Maybe when Boris Johnson becomes PM, he will explain this. I have a feeling Boris would have run for PM if the vote had been for "Remain" as he was expecting. The next PM will have to deal with the decision and the negotiations and that will take someone who values the people who vote for him over his or her own political career.

There aren't many of those around.

[ayepatz]

*breaking* Boris rules himself out.

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-36672591

[Fugu]

46 minutes ago, Ryan said:

Maybe when Boris Johnson becomes PM, he will explain this. I have a feeling Boris would have run for PM if the vote had been for "Remain" as he was expecting.

news just out, he won't....

[CaptainQuintero]

7 hours ago, Fugu said:

news just out, he won't....

I'd love to have heard the conversations and deals being done backstage which resulted in this. There must have been done tremendous backstabbings, sword fallings and deals being cut

The wheeling and dealing to come which decides the new leader would be even more interesting to hear

[gweilgi]

5 hours ago, CaptainQuintero said:

I'd love to have heard the conversations and deals being done backstage which resulted in this. There must have been done tremendous backstabbings, sword fallings and deals being cut

The wheeling and dealing to come which decides the new leader would be even more interesting to hear

 

The Telegraph (the London one, not the Aussie rag) has extensive coverage of this.  Seems like Boris was well and truly stitched up, used as a stalking horse by Gove.

 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/06/30/how-boris-johnson-was-brought-to-his-knees-by-the-cuckoo-nest-pl/

[Ryan]

10 hours ago, gweilgi said:

 

The Telegraph (the London one, not the Aussie rag) has extensive coverage of this.  Seems like Boris was well and truly stitched up, used as a stalking horse by Gove.

 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/06/30/how-boris-johnson-was-brought-to-his-knees-by-the-cuckoo-nest-pl/

Regarding the version of the Johnson/Gove story in the UK Telegraph. It's probably worth knowing that the Telegraph pays Johnson £5000 per week for a column.

It's an amount he described as "chicken feed" but his opinion of £250k per year for a column isn't really the relevant part in this.

[Akela3rd]

By God, I've always loved seeing the Tories in meltdown. The seething unpleasantness, backbiting and self-aggrandizing come to the surface, bubbling through the panicked PR attempts as they desperately try to save their own careers. Boris has played a clever card by refusing the leadership challenge - he's in the long game no doubt, waiting a few years for Gove etc to destroy themselves before picking their bones.

This is why I don't get a weekly Telegraph column... the readers could taste the bile spat at them.

And the funny thing is that none of it really matters because the same stencils will be used to create the next generation of Tory shites.

And Labour? Pretending to know what they're doing but missing the point again by trying to get rid of the only leader they've had in recent history with any principles. The Labour leader is voted for by party members, not MPs, and now the MPs don't like what their own party members chose - that's plain wrong. .

C'est la vie, as they say in that Europe.

Sent from my HTC One M8s using Tapatalk

[Fugu]

... and Farage wants his life back.

What an abject pack. Well, not that it were in any way a surprise....

[Akela3rd]

Sorry to resurrect this old horse but ..

As a direct consequence of the leave vote, Cameron etc bailing out, we have a new Prime Minister, new Treasurer, and a whole new long-term fiscal policy overturning what had been prolthesised as the way to save the country from wrack and ruin.

All I want to say is - we didn't vote for them, they've organised it internally within the Conservative Party and constitutionally it's allowed. And the general populace seems not to have noticed. How f*cked up is that?

But, as I've said before, it doesn't actually matter because they're all the bloody same in the big picture. And having got that off my chest, I'll get on with my life. ??

[Chaki]

Agreed - as you said: "...it doesn't actually matter because they're all the bloody same in the big picture."

This new Conservative Party government will have to deal with the same real problems in the UK: de-industrialization, stagnant wages and high cost of housing.

De-industrialization is largely caused by the very globalization that the post-Brexit UK want to embrace even more.  Stagnant wages are mostly due to low productivity growth.  In fact, these two problems, to various degrees, also plague EU members like France, Italy, Spain but also non-members like the US, Japan etc...If these problems are not caused by EU membership, I fail to see what leaving the EU will do to solve them.

As for the high cost of housing, this is more of a UK-specific issue.  But again, leaving the EU will not solve it, unless one believes that Polish plumbers and Czech waitresses are the ones buying real estate in Belgravia and Chelsea.

 

You are right, better get on with my life!

 

[Akela3rd]

And now all we need is a revolutionary iconic figure who likes cigars...

[Akela3rd]

Just to clarify.
My point, though inelegantly put, was more to do with the fact that the government and it's policies which were voted in at the last general election (whether you agreed with them or not, it's democracy) has been replaced both personally and ideologically, in an undemocratic manner.

[Fugu]

9 hours ago, Akela3rd said:

As a direct consequence of the leave vote, Cameron etc bailing out, we have a new Prime Minister, new Treasurer, and a whole new long-term fiscal policy overturning what had been prolthesised as the way to save the country from wrack and ruin.

All I want to say is - we didn't vote for them, they've organised it internally within the Conservative Party and constitutionally it's allowed. And the general populace seems not to have noticed. How f*cked up is that?

I wondered exactly the same these last days, provoking a similar sentiment in me.

But then, well it's a constitutional monarchy. The Queen appoints the Premier, the Premier appoints his/her ministers. In other countries at least the parliament would have a say in this (which wouldn't have changed too much in the current situation, I fear)

But on top of that, I think, it is just the way how this all was brought about by this singulary referendum, which is leaving such a bad aftertaste.

However, at least good thing is Johnson will be responsible to handle the issue. Was fun to hear that decision by May.

[Akela3rd]

It just confirms my general disgust at the political class in this country and at their self serving machinations. I've been on holiday for last two weeks and avoiding the media is part of that, plus I've been abroad for this last few days. The first I've heard of all this really was early this morning (Sat). I first thought "you couldn't write this", especially Johnson as Foreign Secretary, then realised you could and that it had all been written weeks ago. BJ is an old school friend (Eton, natch) of Cameron's. If Cameron loses the vote he has to go. Johnson very publicly announces that he won't go for the PM role thus scuppering the main contender, Gove. Theresa May, a Cameron flunky, goes up against someone who no-one really knows and wins and gives the highest profile ministry role to BJ, thus setting him up for a world stage and future PMship. He's too clever to deliberately make a balls up of it and this might just be his moment.

It's all a game. Neither Cameron nor Johnson need the wages, they want the kudos. Cameron has had his time in the driver's seat can now rake it in on the dinner circuit like Blair does. May could just be a puppet for the boys to control from behind the screen while Boris builds his profile higher, with his eyes firmly on the prize, helped into position by you-know-who.

Yes, I'm cynical, but it seems to be the best evidence based explanation for the last few days' manoeuvres.

Let the game commence. Brandy and cigars at the Club after and a slap on the back to all involved for making it work.

[gweilgi]

12 hours ago, Akela3rd said:

And now all we need is a revolutionary iconic figure who likes cigars...

Bring back Winston Churchill!

 

[El Presidente]

After federal elections in Oz....we haven't had a government for two weeks. 

It has worked better than normal.