looking at the details, I doubt this wins a vote anywhere in the world. it's hard to get people to vote for less power because you think they're ungovernable.

there seems to have been a reasonably informed debate on the issues and turnout was high. just calling it a protest feels simplistic.

Not sure how dysfunctional the government is, they called a stupid referendum over a constitutional matter, but apart from that seemed to be doing ok with the hand dealt them.

The problem is the mistake of the euro.

The five star party is much against the euro than the EU. I know lightweights itt like to conflate those together.

As its been pointed out to DB a million times, a federalist or more fiscally united EU is not happening any time soon because very few national leaders could agree to it and remain national leaders.

So the EU has to ditch the euro, it has to bight the bullet on this one or we can get what DB wants, economic chaos in EU, far right parties on the rise but the end of a idea that can never happen anyway.

If the EU ditched the Euro, that would be fantastic.

back on topic, i have a feeling this plan will not move much further than the first part of step 1

I wouldn't say it's just a protest vote but it was alot of it. We can sometimes get seduced by hearing a reasonably informed debate and thinking the people involved in it are some represenative sample.

okay, but a lot of it seems to have been that the changes were just not very appealing to many people on their merits.

Its disfunctional in the sense that everyone agrees Italy has huge problems that require reforms but the government is incapable of delivering any reforms - it's not even an argument about which reforms as pretty much nothing is possible until there's a big structural change of some sort.

We shouldn't conflate the EU and the Eurozone but I dont think you can argue with a straught face that the Euro has to go but that's not a huge crack in the EU project. I dont agree with you that the EU has to ditch the Euro but it does have to address the economic problems and it may well be running out of time. Coming back to brexit - it will be big mistake for the EU to think it can play hardball when it really needs to sit down with the UK and find the least disruptive quickest way forward (or preferably give us the excuse we need to fight and win a 2nd referendum)

We can agree on that.

Plus it was over-determined wth a lot of people having two sufficient reasons to vote against.

The euro is huge part of the economic problems facing the EU, saying solve the economic problems but keep the euro is a total oxymoron.

Having a unified interest rate/monetary policy across such divergent economies is economically ******ed and is a purely political construct.

At this point basically no one thinks the euro is a good idea economically, no one. Its continued existence is completely due to political expediency.

I disagree. Euro plus movement towards fiscal and political union is also viable

btw if I did agree with you then brexit would look sensible.

I completely agree.

Britain is not in the Euro, the main reason it emerged from 2008 better than the Euro zone, being in charge of your own currency really really helps.

You could find the most right wing economist and the most left wing, they would both agree the Euro is bad idea, it basically contradicts one of the most simple foundational rules of economics. Greece and Germany should not have the same monetary policy.

Its a simple economic fact that in the present configuration, Euro is very damaging to numerous southern economies.

Movement to fiscal union is just not happening. Public are already sceptical of the amount of union there is now, I mean why does this thread even exist?

No politician commits suicide which is what trying to promote greater fiscal or political union is.

What planet are you living on? Everything you say above is so contrarian to the most rudimentary observations.

Fundamentally I disagree with you. Yes the euro was implemented extremely badly and with unfortuante timing. It doesn't follow that getting rid of it is a good idea.

The EU is not going to transition to no Euro in anything like a smooth manner - if we are certain that its either no Euro or political disaster for the EU then getting away looks very wise. Also if the EU is an organisation that sacrifices so many people for political expendiency then I would want no part of it.

You seem to be confusing some ideal of the EU with the realities it faces.

Obviously getting rid of the Euro will be massively destabilizing, but its the lesser of two evils as letting it continue without at this moment totally impossible fiscal union, will just continue to inflict economic pain on large parts of the EU zone, putting the whole project in jeopardy.

Again you seem to be ignoring what is happening right in front your eyeballs, for some ideal of the EU.

One of the main drivers for unpopularity of the EU is the Euro.

Maybe it would work with greater fiscal union, but jesus christ, that is an obvious pipe dream at the moment. What are you smoking?

I'm smoking the pipe of reality as the political will is still to save the Euro and have more FU and PU. That may well fail, it's a very real concern (and as before is definitely a crack)

I get the funny pipe out to help me fantasize about the UK remaining and yes it's about ideals.

I was googling about Italian immigration to the Uk and google's top 'questions other people asked' was 'Is Italy part of the UK?' Maybe I am stoned.

The irony about the Italians voting down political reforms is that the establishment (in its widest sense) benefits from the unreformed economic system that results from political paralysis and the poor and unemployed are oppressed by that system.

An oldish reuters article

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-it...0QZ07320150830


At the start of this year 383 laws passed since 2011 had still not taken effect because they had not been approved by ministries. That includes half the laws passed by former Prime Minister Enrico Letta, who left office in February 2014, and a quarter of those of his predecessor Mario Monti, who resigned in 2012.

The political will might be to do those things, but the public will is absolutely diametrically opposed to those things. If the political will pushes against that it will defeat its own aims. That is the reality.

As I said the EU has to save what it can, insisting on with the Euro at this point will probably doom the whole project.

Saying fix the economy keep the euro when fiscal union is in reality politically impossible (you must concede this) is an oxymoron, the euro only works with fiscal union, the latter is an absolute fantasy at this point, and without that the euro is massive economic negative.

Wouldn't a more apt analogy be, a hospital treating a boxer ought to be forced to live stream it on the internet because of "accountability", and if his opponents learn his weak spots then that's tough?

No, fair's fair. There can be another referendum in 40 years time.

Not so much a bill as a tweet.

A few thousand lol. Do you even know Leave won by over 1.25M votes?

Remain would need to increase its vote by 10% to be the majority.

And you can't have a referendum every day of the year until your side has the most votes.

This decision has been made. If the next generation in 20/30/whatever years time get enough support for a referendum and somehow win a vote to rejoin then we're back in. I wouldn't be happy about it if the EU was the same body as today but I imagine lots will have changed by then.

Only 625000 people would have to change the way they voted, not including all the people who did not vote.

We brought it up before but you have probably forgotten, that a small minority of voters only actively voted for Brexit.

Lets be clear, you dont give a single iota of a **** about the will of the people, you care that your agenda won a procedure and now that procedure should be carried out without any interruptions from any kind of interference from other procedures which are in fact basic features of how decisions are made in this country.

**** that no one actually voted on the details of Brexit, no one had an actual clue on the specifics of what they were voting for, **** that those details might be worth voting on, **** all that, I won and if I dont get my way Ill scream and scream until Im sick.

Lol, only 625,000 voters. And of course everyone who didn't vote will automatically be a Remoaner, sore losers and dreamers it seems. Fantasy politics I would call it. Wake up and smell reality.

Incredible, you're the one who doesn't care about democracy or the will of the people. A small elite to rule over us, as long as they do things the way you want of course. If not then the toys come out of your pram. Of course you're never wrong, I wonder how many of the Remoaners also wanted to join the euro? Fortunately that argument was also lost.

And you and a lot of others Remoaners don't seem to have a clue what Brexit is about. We voted to leave the EU, that's it. There's nothing hard to understand, we invoke article 50 and get ourselves out of this mess.

That's it, that's Brexit. There is no hard or soft Brexit, we hand in our resignation and we leave.

Then we can start our new beginning.

FYP

Still more than those who actively voted against Brexit though.

I actually think it's very telling that, despite the fine detail over leaving, the majority of the vote still preferred that unknown to staying with the ****ty old EU...

It'd would be kind of hilarious karma though, if by this constant bad-blood whining and blocking tactics by a hardcore of the EU-loving elite who consist of the likes of that political peewee Farron, it ultimately caused a general election and UKIP swept the North from labour (which Nuttall seems way better at plugging into than Farage), and they then held the whip hand over the tories to bring about the hardest of brexits...