Erm so why go to the trouble of arranging the loss of veto power if it's effectively the same?

Maybe because it isn't the same?

I'm no tory but they need to regroup and show some backbone. The ERG need to be quelled internally - or else Mogg and his cronies lead us into oblivion.

While we still have our comical electoral system they're always going to put party interests over national interests, this shouldn't be new news

I don’t think the ongoing debate with the Brexit faithful on the merits of the EU is helpful tbh. Diebitter’s core position isn’t going to move at this stage, though it might be expressed differently over time.

I’m more interested now in focussing in on two points:

- The negotiations haven’t panned out like Brexiters promised during the referendum campaign (‘easiest trade deal ever’)
- How much potential economic calamity or loss of international standing will you tolerate for ‘freedom’?

Because the outcomes thus far are already diverging from the rhetoric and promises

Yes ongoing debate is probably useless.

I see leaving vs remaining as self determination vs subservience

I think remainers see it as isolationism vs partnership

These do not mesh in any way.

If we leave then it might well cause a lot of the same sort of economic harm to spend the next decade+ fighting to rejoin rather than accepting it and making the best of it - I'm still fighting to rejoin.

The idea this is all about economics is deeply flawed - if the economics ever say, post brexit, that it's better to do a deal with trump and move further from the EU politically then **** economics.

It was a vote - that's why the focus was on "the pound in your pocket". It might have been a mistake, but it's how the 70s referendum was won and how GE's are often won.

Post-Brexit we wont be given a vote on whether to Trumpify the UK or not. That would happen via the back door by the likes of Johnson/Rees-Mogg etc if they'd gained power.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...vement-of-pets

"Jean-Claude Juncker seeks deal on free movement of pets. European commission president has taken a personal interest in pet passport scheme"

lol

Horrible thing, that.

You're naively assuming we still live in normal times. We don't. Brexit is a power-grab by the international far-right who want to thin down the plebs (by extermination) and get rid of the welfare state, the National Health Service, the old-age pension and free primary and secondary education so they don't have to pay any tax and they can live like feudal overlords.



That is why Johnson, Gove and Rees-Mogg, two of whom took part in the Vote Leave campaign now known to have broken the law, are in bed with Steve Bannon. That is why Putin's bootboy Trump announced, 'I'm Mr Brexit!'

Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab has stated on the record that the Human Rights Act must be abolished (not possible until we leave the EU, and May has said she wants to quit the European Convention on Human Rights as well, which is extremely strange since we set the ECHR up in the first place) and that 'there are no economic or social rights.' You need to realise that these people want you dead so they don't have to pay taxes.



The government is planning for no-deal, which will be catastrophic, and they're trying to force non-disclosure agreements on everyone in industry and commerce who takes part in the discussions because if the public knew what was going on they'd revolt.

Famine, cholera and typhoid, along with civil unrest and the collapse of the NHS and other public services, are going to kill very large numbers of people very quickly. (The government has already made a modest start. Death by starvation is increasingly common in England, where it was almost unknown till the 'benefits reform' of 2015 which Labour didn't even bother to oppose till third reading, but because it's 'only' mentally ill people who've had their benefits withdrawn nobody gives one. That's called testing the waters. People will soon find out that the same starvation plan applies to them as well, but it'll be too late by then.)

And this is going to happen simply because the 1% don't want to pay tax, and most people are so suggestible, gullible and stupid that they're going to let them get away with it. And the 'opposition' (cue hollow laughter) is led by student-politics Stalinists who think that the resulting 'crisis of capitalism' will allow them to set up a one-party police state with a siege economy under the total control of their tiny little clique. Which wouldn't be a good outcome either.

Debate with Brexitards was always useless, because they're wilfully, self-destructively deluded and ineducable. They are fascists, and they're on the usual mass-hysterical kick that, as a rule, only blood and gunfire can end.

So is this one of those things where it's becoming patently obvious Brexit is a disaster but the Leave crowd is still clinging on because of power of the cult?

Same as with Trump - obviously a disaster (if it happens) but after decades of conditioning by the deplorable right-wing press people are ill-informed, prejudiced or both.

Pretty much everyone is unhappy with where brexit is heading and would like to change course. It is a disaster by all standards

'Shambles' doesn't come close. The problem people now are those not supporting a rethink of something pretty much no-one want.

who? name someone on the british side of for example the lisbon treaty that's getting an eu pension. you're just making stuff up


a treaty change could happen the exact same way it did last time. by the member states sitting down together and coming up with something, and then all their parliaments and the eu parliament voting for it. it's a long process but it's not in any way blocked.

and it's probably worth repeating a general point. the commission works at the directions of the council. the member states are always in charge

You see no problem with temporary governments (they are all temporary in a democracy) giving away powers forever - without consulting citizenry - to a body that can block them taking those powers back forever? (unless they leave)


Eh forget it, we're different sides on an argument about EU powers. I can only respect people on the other side who acknowledge and accept EU will just grow in powers and accept it will not reform except to centralise. It's the people who deny this I find exasperating.

i dont buy the idea that the eu can block the countries from taking back power. it's just not reality. it's a process, but governments could obviously take powers back. the commitments made are to eachother. at the end of the day the council has the power in the eu, both legally and de facto <-- if you could just accept that fact we would have gotten so much further

OK, play out the edge cases, not the happy clappy let's all agree cases.

Country 1: we want to alter the Treaty of Lisbon

countries 2-27 nope

What's Country 1s options?

If you want to argue about that case, how about if it finds a law passed by qvm iniquitous and unaceptable.

What are country 1's options?

Once veto has gone, would I be right one saying other options are roll over and take it, or leave? Would you agree?

the option is to complain a lot, so you get your way. as the uk did on opt-outs, schengen, the rebate, financial regulation and so on. and as denmark and other countries have on a number of issues

it's going to work most of the time

'most of the time... '

And that's when veto was available, which it no longer is in lots of areas...


Case rests.

another serious problem i have with the EU (which is not the fault of the EU) is how many major changes go through without popular support because here today gone tomorrow politicians decide its a good thing, despite we what their countrymen think. That **** Blair nearly saddled us with the euro...thank **** he didn't.

Almost all major changes in fact.

Check out Kohls shenanegins to drag Germany into the Euro, for example.

there's still a veto on the important stuff

but if we can just come to the agreement that the members states decide (and try very hard to be pragmatic with regards to different interests), but not every member state can get it exactly as it wants. then im satisfied.

at least we'll have ended all the stuff about "the eu" forcing things on the countries

You do know the stuff you can veto is shrinking over time, right?

Erm, any chance you care to speculate on how many of the next 5 changes to veto power will be removals or contstraints of veto rather than reinstatements? Go on, take a guess.

Tweet with a graph of EU Nurse registrations in the UK.

500 in Jan 2016, rising to 1300 in August, then plummeting to a low level, hovering at around 50 ever since.

Brexit uncertainty and outright hostility to foreigners means the UK won't have to try hard to exclude EU citizens. They will not be able to attract even the ones they want.

In the NMCs own report, you can also see Nurses leaving. Numbers joining from the EEA are at about 10% where they were in 2015. Numbers leaving have tripled.

https://twitter.com/doctor_oxford/st...06157171195905

Fair to say public opinion is now firmly shifting towards Remain:

https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/sta...45007768408064

58% for remain in this poll...