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You guys know more than me, but I've always assumed that Brexit makes it very likely that Scotland will get another vote relatively soon and when they do leaving will be a huge favourite.
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.
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Originally Posted by chezlaw
still it's a common fallacy to think that what we have now is some special end point of evolution rather than having the same status as previous and future points of similar stability.
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and yes, eventually a world government will come to the fore. WTO, UN etc are forerunners but the world hasn't become smaller enough yet.
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Originally Posted by grizy
France, China, Germany, Italy, and pretty much every major successful nation on the planet started off as a forced federation.
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.
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Originally Posted by SiMor29
What are some of these laws that you object to that have been forced on us?
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.
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Originally Posted by SiMor29
Thought I’d look into the control your fishing waters thing a bit more. There are 12500 fisherman employed in the UK and 75% of their catch gets exported to Europe. Jesus Christ.
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."
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Originally Posted by 57 On Red
Just as a reminder, in the BBC article, check once again that famous picture of Brexitards celebrating the Sunderland result. The man in the blue shirt on the right (and boy is he on the right) -- he's a member of Combat-18.
So what? Does Combat-18 have 17 million members?
Continental countries still don't send non-whites to the European parliament.
(on relative wages )
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The only EU input is to demand that the market is "fair" - so that, for example, one country can't work people 80 hours a week, beat them with a stick, and pay then $4 an hour. A single market doesn't work then.
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Originally Posted by LektorAJ
FYI minimum wage in Bulgaria is 1.38 UKP per hour next to 7.50 UKP for the UK. Whatever the accompanying social package does or doesn't include is a drop in the ocean relatively speaking, which suggests the desire to define it at the European level is primarily ideological and not competition-driven.
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Both the comparison and the conclusion are a billy silly imo.
Isn't it obvious that minimum wage levels will vary if you fixed then in terms of a single currency? Some countries are poorer than others - purchasing power is the key. Are people in Bulgaria on low pay levels (relative to their economy) living in shanty towns and working in sweatshops? How do rent levels compare? You can't even conclude that those on minimum wage there would have a higher standard if living if they earned a minimum wage here (though it may be true, I guess it's hard to be definitive).
How you get from that to the EU being primarily ideological is quite a thing.
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.
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And what was that referendum in 2011 that confirmed the desire to maintain our political system (inc the House of Lords)?
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.
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Originally Posted by 57 On Red
Energy is life-critical. None of the other services you mention is life-critical in the same way.
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.
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Originally Posted by martymc1
Could do with you quoting some of that incorrect information.
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).
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Originally Posted by martymc1
The EU is a partnership of countries, which all have entered into freely, as has already been explained to you. Decisions from London are imposed on us.