Topic: Brexitmageddon

[Snarky]

IMHO, if a process results in oppression and loss of personal liberty then, yes, it's not democratic. The EU parliament seems to me to be little more that than a communist socialist politburo.

The only way a large top-down government such as the EU can work if there is one top boss running everything.

Hmmm. Vague generalizations, stereotypes and purely theoretical suppositions that show no indication of being based on even the most glancing familiarity with EU politics... Oh, right:

Since I don't live there I can only tell you my opinion based on the US news reports.

You know, you don't HAVE to.

[RickJ]

It doesn't even have legislative initiative (the right to propose a new law).

As I understand it unaccountable bureaucrats propose new law that automatically takes affect unless voted down by a certain % majority of parliament.  The parliament is just a facade as is the politburo.

[Problem]

If you use a term like this, you should probably look it up first. The European parliament is elected directly (unlike the politburo in a communist party), but it doesn't have much power (again: unlike a politburo, which usually had a lot of power in communist states). So you're just mixing things up that have nothing to do with each other. I understand it's popular to compare institutions one doesn't like with communists (or nazis). But that shows a lack of understanding what this actually is. We had communist states in Europe, one half of Germany was communist until 1989, and I can confirm that the EU is nothing like that. And it makes me angry if people use this term without having a clue what it actually means.
(And yes, it's no surprise that communists in Europe are mostly against the EU in its current form.)

Enough ranting. Of course all that doesn't mean your criticism of the EU is invalid - but it's simplified, because the parliament has a lot more rights than that, and with every new treaty its power has grown. Still a long way to go, because the whole process is overly complicated and not democratic enough. But no system is perfect, and everything can be improved. And as I said in my previous post, the EU actually guarantees its citizens many liberties that are not to be taken for granted. And don't forget that the member states all have their own constitutions, some more and some less democratic, and they are are much more independent in their laws and decisions than the states in the USA for example. That big goverment that takes away our rights, rules everything and kills our national independence - it doesn't exist. People who argue like that make the EU institutions much more powerful than they actually are. The EU is far from being a real government. We have an economic union, but we're still far away from having a political union.

[RickJ]

The similarity I see is that a small group of unaccountable people run things as they see fit.  A faux legislative body, with very little power, is used to legitimize actions as "the will of the people".  I'm unaware of a communist leader who is/was actually beholden to an independent politburo whose members didn't have "a hand in the til".

[Scavenger]

Okay, let's look at it the other way around. Are there any laws that the EU has passed that justify a full exit from the EU that are worth:

• Tanking our currency to never before seen lows.
• Cutting off all free trade between us and Europe. (combined with our weakened currency, prepare to see basic necessities skyrocket in price)
• Cutting off free movement between us and Europe (even though we have a lot of british nationals living in other countries - more than all the other countries have in the UK)
• Our government classifying and deporting families from the UK for being not British nationals, potentially sending them to die in other countries, and letting children suffer for it.
• Our government wanting to deport foreign workers like doctors without having a suitable pipeline for creating new British doctors?
• The fivefold rise in hate crime against people seen as non-British.
• The lack of an exit strategy by the government, which is currently salivating over deportations rather than striking trade deals with people.
• The leave campaign's absolute focus on fucking immigrants.

Are there any laws that have been passed that are that bad? Any particular law? Or is it just the principle of the thing?

[Stupot]

Anyone else get that sense of impending doom? What a mess. It's got to be that UK government knows something more than they are telling us. The only way I can think this whole referendum and brexit fiasco is being allowed to happen is because something bad is coming and this is all some kind of damage limitation measure for whatever that something is.

Why on earth else would this be going ahead? My mind is going round in circles about it.

[Blondbraid]

Something that worries me about Brexit is that it's toted as "the will of the people", but from what I've seen on the news, not only was there an exceptionally low participation rate in the voting, many people have come forth and said that they weren't sure about the consequences of what they were voting on and have since changed their mind. I wonder how the results would be if another vote on Brexit was held today.

At the same time, I can see what some of the criticism of EU comes from, since it wasn't originally constructed to be a union for all of Europe. EU started off as the European Coal and Steel Community after WWII, and its main purpose was to prevent another war between France and Germany by making West Germany and France share their market for steel and coal. Europe also looked different then, with the cold war and iron curtain and people wanted to stand united against the eastern bloc.

Now however, many more and different countries are part of the EU, and most of them have very different socio-economic systems from one another, and what might be beneficial to some of them have been detrimental to others. One such example is environmental and health-regulations on food and agriculture. EU have imposed restrictions that prevent the use of some dangerous pesticides, which have been an improvement for many former soviet-states, but at the same time, the same regulations have led to many previous forbidden pesticides and substances being made legal in the Scandinavian countries, which before entering into EU had much stricter regulations on such things.

And I think all can agree on that switching to Euro haven't worked out too well for Greece.

[KyriakosCH]

It isn't a union by now. It likely was doomed by the massive expansion (at 2003 iirc?). It only allowed Germany to have a host of vassal or client states, and less than 5 years later the crisis started in earnest, recall how Germany (at least officially) triggered it by refusing other choices like a small inflation with the euro which would have erased public debt.
I am not seeing the EU lasting long, although there may be some other event shadowing it, eg some massive war. Either way, it obviously is not a union of prosperity, but of ruining other member countries for the benefit of a few oligarchs.

As i noted, this isn't why the british voted to leave. It was more of an undercurrent- but an important one- to their decision which probably was more intuitive anyway, given they were obviously not hit hard by the actual euro crisis, when compared to other countries.

[Jack]

Anyone else get that sense of impending doom? What a mess. It's got to be that UK government knows something more than they are telling us. The only way I can think this whole referendum and brexit fiasco is being allowed to happen is because something bad is coming and this is all some kind of damage limitation measure for whatever that something is.

Why on earth else would this be going ahead? My mind is going round in circles about it.

Yes! This was my thought. I naturally assumed that Britain was quietly excusing itself from the upcoming TTIP and ISDS, not saying anything concerning their true motives so as to ensure they can make good on their escape without anyone stampeding the exit. But, who knows.

To be honest, stay or go, I don't think it's going to help save the UK. Most of the world has set itself on a path with reliance on careless debt consumption, and that is not being addressed. If you want to talk about unelected policy makers...

EDIT: Critical distinction

[Snarky]

Anyone else get that sense of impending doom? What a mess. It's got to be that UK government knows something more than they are telling us. The only way I can think this whole referendum and brexit fiasco is being allowed to happen is because something bad is coming and this is all some kind of damage limitation measure for whatever that something is.

Why on earth else would this be going ahead? My mind is going round in circles about it.

Yes! This was my thought. I naturally assumed that Britain was quietly excusing itself from the upcoming TTIP and ISDS, not saying anything concerning their true motives so as to ensure they can make good on their escape without anyone stampeding the exit.