UK?

You think member states will give up their own veto? You keep one upping yourself.

Excellent example. A forced confederation of different nations trying to act as one unit under a central diktat - worked out well, didnt it.

Also I should have been clearer, when I said 'OMG do you know of a single instance where power has flowed back to nation states?' I meant within the EEC/EU, in its history. I assumed the context of the discussion made that clear, but I guess not.

France, China, Germany, Italy, and pretty much every major successful nation on the planet started off as a forced federation.

Come to think of it, isn't UK still technically a forced federation and not a single country yet?

That is kind of funny.

I guess you guys can't wait for a world govrnment next.

Or is the EU the optimum size?

What would be wrong with world government?

Trolling noted, but lets humour it, bottom line:

Humans have never been cable of successfully designing a planned system anywhere near that complex. We know its not a good way to manage a human system.

Probably going to be using computers for that one. We'll start using more and more data driven solutions to problems as it will be cheaper, quicker and increasingly more testable.

Silly argument ad planning ability increases over time.

Also stop indulging DB and framing arguments in the context of his hyperbole
. However much power has been ceded to the EU, it's still infinty+1 light years away from a federal states of Europe.

Most States reached their present configuration via violent conquest. This is obviously more optimal than via bloodless negotiation.

And it should be initially implemented in a variety of small areas in different ways.

Yeah sorry about the hyperbole. I should learn at the feet of a master of non-hyperbole, like yourself.

Whoooooosh.

...so?

not really, but the Baltic states are in the EU so it should count a bit anyway. As are parts of Ex-Yugoslavia which would be another example. As are the Czech Republic and Slovakia. And haven't the Scottish and the other regional Parliaments been established rather recently?

None of these are having power transferred back from the EEC/EU apparatus though, are they.

'Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.'
- George Santayana

Was that your question?

So you think the EU becomes communist?

Why the lame trolling?

Are you comparing the EU to the USSR or not?

yes. But not quite in the literal way you suggest. I'm not suggesting they'll be communists, or Stalin will take over etc.

It's an analogue with parallels worth drawing, but if you take the parallels too far, they won't hold up, like all analogies.

Doesn't make much sense to me how the Irish land border is presented as one of the main problems with Brexit but introducing an EU-grade land border between Scotland and England is presented as trouble free. I know the received wisdom is that leaving the EU makes Scottish independence more likely, but I personally I think when the debates actually start it just turbocharges all the Project Fear stuff that No used last time, but we'll see.

Depends on the definition of "nation" but the European ones you list are made up of groups of people speaking the same language, which has been the usual basis for recognizing a nation, and hence making a state for it, in this part of the world for a long time and it has been successful - alternative past forced federations you could have listed made of different groups (Austria-Hungary, Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Yugoslavia, USSR as well as all the past ones made of whatever random kings happened to conquer) have not lasted.

I don't know Chinese history well enough to discuss it properly, but in more modern times we can look at the case of Hong Kong Cantonese people. They are Chinese, but speak a different language to the others, write (somewhat) differently to the others and have a completely different conception to the others about the role of government, citizens and relations therebetween. That's pretty much what it would look like for us too if British people were ever subsumed into a European nation.

You don't pick and choose your nationality based on whether or not you agree with individual policies of different countries. If the EU is intended to become a country you have to decide if it's yours or not. When you get your own country you then persuade your compatriots round to your own views on a particular thing.

If you want a specific thing then personally I'm not happy with live exports of animals in the meat industry, which we can't stop under EU law. I'm sure you don't agree with every single your local council does, just as you don't agree with every single thing the national government does. If you think you agree with literally every single thing that the European level government does, then that's pretty strange; either you're a zealot or you just don't have enough information about what's going on.

But Brexiters shouldn't try to present a shopping list of what they would personally want to persuade their compatriots about if they had the freedom to do so, it's off topic to the discussion of who should be deciding what.


https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-br...-idUKKCN1BU0J6

"Belgian fishermen get around half their catch from UK waters."

"about 60 percent of mackerel and 40 percent of Dublin Bay prawns, which together make up about 60 percent of the value of all Irish fish landed in Irish ports, are sourced from UK waters."

"Almost 60 per cent of British fish are currently taken by other EU countries under the CFP."


So what? Does Combat-18 have 17 million members?

Continental countries still don't send non-whites to the European parliament.

(on relative wages )
I just don't buy it that a country deciding to let companies negotiate a half-hour longer working day with their workers would crash the single market and has to be stopped, when a country can allow its companies to negotiate much lower wages (e.g. there is nothing in the treaties to stop a country halving it's minimum wage). Therefore we have to look at explanations in the wider European agenda.

The referendum was on the HoC election system - don't agree personally but it seems like minority government is a feature of the system desired by the majority.

The situation with the Lords has never been subject to a referendum and IMHO it needs changing but post 2010 most (and most active) lords are chosen in exactly the same way as new UK MEPs - they are nominated by their party and get in based on the proportion of votes their party got in an election.

I was just pointing out why the existence of the HoL as our second chamber is hardly the slam dunk you think it is in terms of the UK system being broken and worse than the EU when the only chamber in the European parliament is filled in only a slightly better same way.

MEPs however have been subject to a referendum and they're out.

Food is also life critical but it doesn't mean we should nationalize the production and distribution of food.

The thing is that having a market in food makes sense as different customers care about multiple dimensions of price, quality, health, taste etc which different types of food can cover. Electricity is different as we don't have a favourite flavour of electricity and we just waste time looking at deals when actually what all of us want is the same, i.e. for it to be as cheap as possible to get through 4MWh in a year (in electricity production competition to generate and put it into the nationaol grid makes more sense though).

Privatization (along with PPI, why people voted Tory etc.) is off-topic btw and should be continued in the UK politarding thread.

Posts like the below suggest to people not familiar with the situation that NI is in the UK against it's will when you could leave at any time in the same way as Rep. Ireland can leave the EU at any time (which was what it was being compared to).