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Brexit next week: give me a positive effect it will have on my daily life

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Your 'average Joe' has been useful to agitators like Farage and opportunists like Johnson as they tend to swallow a diet of tabloid anti-foreigner bile with unquestioning certainty and confuse it with being patriotic.

The "average Joe" has very little knowledge of the "outside" world, apart from the few bars and pools in sunny destinations, notable foreign football teams and some exotic food names like ciabatta, profiteroles or stracciatella...
 
A small point, but it's important to highlight a recurring mistake British people make about the EU: It's not the EU election system, it's the Government of the UK's... national governments decide on how Euorpean Parliament elections should be conducted - the EU only sets a minimum requirement that the results be proportional to the vote-shares. So in the UK, you use a simplified PR system, while we in Ireland use the exact same PR-STV system we use for parliamentary elections.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_to_the_European_Parliament#Voting_system

That's how the EU works - its members agree a minimum acceptable standard, and memer states can legislate it however they want.



Representative means that its composition reflects the electors' choices - nothing more, nothing less. That's the lowest bar for an electoral system: everything else is down to the electors to some degree. Perhaps the if UK electorate took more interest in European politics, they'd have had better results. Apathy has always characterised the domestic parties' approach to the EP, leaving the field open for the fringes like UKIP, BP.


Sorry, this is bollocks. 400 million citizens of the 27 EU member countries are eligible to vote. That is the demos.


You feel a tribal identification with your town council? Really? I couldn't give two shiny shits about mine, but I know that by not voting for competent people, I increase the chances of morons getting to run it, and things would stop getting done. Voting is not an expression of identity.



To most cynics the object of their cynicism serves no purpose whatsoever. Yes, I agree the Strasbourg jaunt is a waste of money - I'm no blind fan of the EP. I just don't see grounds for the Brexiters' disdain for it, although I understand their exploitation of it very well. (When Irish separatists were elected to Westminster after the First World War, they declined to take their seats; It's not often that anyone gets out-nobled by Sinn Féin*, but Brexit Party managed to gather all the nice EP salary, while doing nothing, rather than take a proper stand against the evil EU)

(* I know well it's not the same party, but he modern spoofers claim to be them)

The Parliament is only a legislature because it is subordinate to the national governments. The Commission, which is appointed by the national governments, and directed by them, holds the executive power because is composition is controlled by the national governments.

And if the debates are mind-numbing (they are), it's because the EU has legal competence over the very boring things that make a trading economy work: standards, regulations, co-operations. Nothing as exciting as trying to shut down a parliament because you can't get your legislation through it, granted, but it's the boring stuff like not getting fleeced by your mobile company when someone phones you while you're abroad, or knowing that food you buy in Spanish/Greek/Belgian supermarket isn't loaded with toxic preservatives that makes a difference to people's lives.

If you see that as creeping centralism, fine, but as someone who's had to make a physical product, I'm glad that certifying its safety in Ireland was enough to allow it to be sold in 28 countries wihtout further modification.


It won't. Brexit is an intensely conservative project, with a small c - it's trying to destroy the present to recreate a previous Britain, a Britain before the 1980s hollowed out the North, before the 1970s destroyed its industry, before the 1960s' devaluation killed the Pound. Its sunlit uplands are the boom of the 1960s. It's a Britain that never existed, except in nostalgic memory.

That sentiment isn't going to drive any change the time-honoured institutions of British government. If the outcomes of Brexit fail the people, there will be much more appetite for change, but it will be fuelled by anger, and it will manifest in the sort of civil disorder not seen since the early 1980s. Personally, I'd prefer the UK not to go down that route.


You yourself will demonstrate in a moment that there's no binding EU foreign policy now, and I'll say there's none coming - it'll be guidelines and minimum standards again; and there is also no EU Army (unless you think NATO has an army too). As for treasury and currency, the UK was always outside of that - the nations who chose to form the Eurozone accept that a common currency implies a common treasury.

You're also the first person I've ever heard of complaining about Europol (of course, I don't know any criminals). Policing across borders requires a police force with agreements that allow it to operate across borders. The recent "County Lines" drugs cases in the UK show how criminals exploit boundaries of jurisdiction even on a small scale.

I'm confident that the UK will push to remain in Europol to the greatest extent that it can.


... while being subject to toeing the line on an "EU Foreign Policy"? How rebellious of them.


One might posit that, but the longer one tries to argue it, the more ignorant they'd sound.

Over its existence, the EU has negotiated away thousands of the kind of trivial regulations that impede trade and political cooperation. Your typical British PM is too busy with "statecraft" and making big legacy statements to bother about the everyday small things, but it's these that allow trade and political cooperation, like making sure that shipping palettes manufactured anywhere in the EU are interchangeable in size, load and usable lifetime, or that health systems in one country can procure services from those in another, regardless of the funding models used in those countries, or ensuring that everyone agrees on the meaning of things as diverse as "full fat" milk or how a univeristy degree is recognised; or allowing a drug approval by any national approval authority serve for all countries in the EU, or for that matter assuring that pharmaceuticals are made to the same standards in Warsaw, Cambridge, Bratislava or Turin.

There's hundreds more examples.

Every complaint I've ever heard from British industry about the EU boiled down to "we're making substandard products, and these rules don't let us get away with it anymore!". That cry is not unique to the UK, mind you - stronger regulations always piss someone off, but only in the UK does the press rally behind the cheapskate and the fraudster and defend them against being forced to do the right thing.

But this is my last word on electoral systems and the benefits of the EU. The OP was asking about what benefits there will be once Brexit happens.

So far, we've had your feeling of having a more direct control of government. That's one. Can anyone offer anything else? Something more tangible, perhaps.

Just quoting this in the hope our Brexit supporting posters might respond to it.... they seem to be trying to ignore it. One of the best posts on pfm IMO, thanks for putting it together.
 
The "average Joe" has very little knowledge of the "outside" world, apart from the few bars and pools in sunny destinations, notable foreign football teams and some exotic food names like ciabatta, profiteroles or stracciatella...
and occasionally salmonella.
 
Just quoting this in the hope our Brexit supporting posters might respond to it.... they seem to be trying to ignore it. One of the best posts on pfm IMO, thanks for putting it together.
Oh I bet the word salad is being tossed at this very moment
 
I don’t think the EU and the UK signed the same WA.

Barnier refutes Johnson's claims over Irish Sea trade checks


This could get interesting. Wonder if Johnson will have forgotten the divorce bill too?


Stephen

Eventually Johnson’s habit of lying will clash with the factual content of the binding agreement he signed with Europe. Then we get to see the effects of relative power held by both parties. No point in running to Uncle Trump- his employees are already threatening trade war with Britain when Johnson proceeds with allowing China to take control of the UK’s 5G infrastructure and when he tries to tax Google and Facebook. It’s grim and grimly fascinating. Pass the pork scratchings.
 
That Barnier is a real professional. When asked for his opinion on Johnson's comments, he merely refers back to the text. Class.

Yes top notch but in this strange world that counts for nothing in the UK. You have bungling Boris and his merry band of do-gooders
 
Eventually Johnson’s habit of lying will clash with the factual content of the binding agreement he signed with Europe. Then we get to see the effects of relative power held by both parties. No point in running to Uncle Trump- his employees are already threatening trade war with Britain when Johnson proceeds with allowing China to take control of the UK’s 5G infrastructure and when he tries to tax Google and Facebook. It’s grim and grimly fascinating. Pass the pork scratchings.

When the ordure strikes, the EU side will have to be very careful to focus attention on the fact that the U.K. already signed up to the specific terms of the agreement. Otherwise the calls of ‘again, the EU tries to impose unreasonable terms on us - it’s THEM making sure this process fails to punish us!’ will be deafening.
 
Just quoting this in the hope our Brexit supporting posters might respond to it.... they seem to be trying to ignore it. One of the best posts on pfm IMO, thanks for putting it together.

Oh God no, please don't! KrisW's was a long, informed and well written post. Imagine the mind numbing tedium of the point by point response. Just seeing it hove into view, like the side of an oil tanker will cause me to dry up and blow away.
 
When the ordure strikes, the EU side will have to be very careful to focus attention on the fact that the U.K. already signed up to the specific terms of the agreement. Otherwise the calls of ‘again, the EU tries to impose unreasonable terms on us - it’s THEM making sure this process fails to punish us!’ will be deafening.
They will anyway. Since when did the truth have any part in the garbage printed by the DM and the Sun?
 
When the ordure strikes, the EU side will have to be very careful to focus attention on the fact that the U.K. already signed up to the specific terms of the agreement. Otherwise the calls of ‘again, the EU tries to impose unreasonable terms on us - it’s THEM making sure this process fails to punish us!’ will be deafening.
It’ll be ‘Those tricky EU types and their sneaky tactics trying to put one over on us. They obviously intended to trap us with this all along, thank God we’re out so we can just tell them to shove it, sunshine’
 
I am certainly looking forward to experiencing less interminable bloviating bollocks from Brexit supporters swollen on self-rectitude.

Does that count as a positive effect?

Ha! I've borrowed that!

The "average Joe" has very little knowledge of the "outside" world, apart from the few bars and pools in sunny destinations, notable foreign football teams and some exotic food names like ciabatta, profiteroles or stracciatella...

I was referring to what you might refer to as ordinary working people with jobs, kids, mortgages and all the day-to-day worries that most of us have. Presumably you see yourself as belonging to a higher social echelon. You're not alone, it's acknowledged as a bit of a continuity remainer trait.

Just quoting this in the hope our Brexit supporting posters might respond to it.... they seem to be trying to ignore it. One of the best posts on pfm IMO, thanks for putting it together.

I think that is referred to as 'confirmation bias'.

Oh God no, please don't! KrisW's was a long, informed and well written post. Imagine the mind numbing tedium of the point by point response. Just seeing it hove into view, like the side of an oil tanker will cause me to dry up and blow away.

Don't worry, you can relax. Kris has even taken the wind out of my sails! Needless to say, I very much disagree with (most of) what he wrote as it is both narrowly focussed, ignores a large number of indubitable facts regarding the EU institutions, and is, well...wrong on numerous counts. But I've already set my case out, and if I did so again I would probably be hoofed from the thread for 'circularity' and thread-crapping, as it distracts from what is an important point from the OP. I'm sure we'll meet elsewhere on the forum.
 
I was referring to what you might refer to as ordinary working people with jobs, kids, mortgages and all the day-to-day worries that most of us have. Presumably you see yourself as belonging to a higher social echelon. You're not alone, it's acknowledged as a bit of a continuity remainer trait.

Actually I see myself as belonging to a pariah social echelon, that of the foreigners. But my background gives me a different, wider perspective. I have inside as well as outside knowlege and experience. I grew up listening to music in other languages, watching subtitled cartoons and films spoken in other languages, reading books by foreign writers in their native languages, about other countries, interacted with foreign visitors that did not speak my mother tongue. That makes a hell of a difference.

The way foreign languages are taught in state schools here in England (and the cultural background that comes with learning a language) is tragic.
 
The way foreign languages are taught in state schools here in England (and the cultural background that comes with learning a language) is tragic.
I dunno about that, it worked OK for me. I came out at 16 with an O level (now GCSE) and a decent grasp of the language in 1983, and I have no further French quali's. After a bit of night school action about 1992 I got *a bit* better, and I just used it on holiday and with French friends through the 90s. Quite good by 1996-7. Then 2002, I did some work in France. 2003, moved there full time. Worked like hell, fully fluent.

If there is anything tragic about the UK it is the undervaluing of anyone speaking a foreign language and the people that are proud of the fact that they don't speak anything other than English.
 
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