Is Britain about to leave the EU?

Agent327 said:

While officials may indeed have diplomatic immunity in their official capacity, your conclusion doesn't follow at all. It's pure speculation based on the idea that officials are engaged in illegal actions, for which you provide no proof whatsoever.

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Which part of they are beyond the reach of investigations by parliaments or national judicial systems have you missed? How can it be proven that they commit illegal actions if they can deny access to any information about their actions required for an investigation?

And my conclusions don't follow... you are the Trump of CFC: never admit a mistake!

innonimatu said:

How can it be proven that they commit illegal actions if they can deny access to any information about their actions required for an investigation?

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Well, that sounds like a great set-up for an anti-Euro conspiracy, wouldn't you say? No proof necessary or (as you contend) possible!

Arakhor said:

Firstly, she's 90, not 100, and secondly, that is something she'd never do, as she strictly remains above public political opinions.

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Synecdoche, m8, synecdoche

Agent327 said:

While officials may indeed have diplomatic immunity in their official capacity, your conclusion doesn't follow at all. It's pure speculation based on the idea that officials are engaged in illegal actions, for which you provide no proof whatsoever.

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I am retired, after being a UK civil servant for over 37 years.

While most UK public officials are honest and merely seek to serve the public;
many are self serving and some are financially corrupt. I have sadly encountered
many of the latter categories.

The fact is that in the absence of proper accountability and transparency,
corruption in government is as sure as night following day.

The EU civil service is regarded as an elite. My experience is that corruption is
typically greater with the elite than the work and file, because the elite have both a
sense of entitlement arising from their abilities and the confidence to get away with it.

Assuming government is honest until proved otherwise is astonishingly naïve,
and to say that posters here must provide proof of corruption is absurd.

I quite agree. But that wasn't the argument. Simply assuming people are guilty of something is beyond legality. As Arakhor remarked, this goes in the direction of conspiracy theories.

innonimatu said:

Which part of they are beyond the reach of investigations by parliaments or national judicial systems have you missed? How can it be proven that they commit illegal actions if they can deny access to any information about their actions required for an investigation?

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You are suggesting that EU officials are above the law; they are not. Secondly, since when do (national) parliaments handle legal investigations? To wit, illegal actions are usually uncovered by media and the judiciary. Lastly, you are still presuming that EU officials are involved in illegal actions without any evidence whatsoever.

But perhaps you have missed legal accusations against certain high placed EU officials. Which kind of proves that EU officials aren't above the law. Far from it. But, since they are EU officials, they should (and are) in the first instance accountable to the EU, not its member nations. Of course, if it is proven that any EU official has broken certain national laws, they are equally accountable nationally. After all, every EU official also has a (EU) nationality. EU diplomatic immunity notwithstanding.

Arakhor said:

That's certainly one way to be dramatic. To think that in this very thread you were lambasting Vote Remain as Project Fear!

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How dare you point out inconsistencies in someone else's statements and positions.

Arakhor said:

If you mean the comments where she allegedly expressed satisfaction that Scotland had chosen to remain in the UK, I can quite imagine that she would be and it was expressed in private (if indeed it was at all).

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Oh, those were post-facto comments. If anything, blame that pompous idiot of a PM for revealing it.
What I meant was her ‘think carefully before voting’ which was interpreted -rightly, I think- as a stern warning. Not an entirely unjustified one, of course, but we should dispense with this fairytale that the monarchy hold no political opinions whatsoever.

Oh yes, that one. I'd forgotten about that one because it was fairly neutral and reasonable obvious - in these sorts of affairs, one should think very carefully about voting!

Yes, except that in those circumstances it wasn't exactly a neutral position and the undertone was more than obvious.

(And, as I said before, what irks me is not what the Queen said, but that people insist on considering such statements as a neutral position -the woman is entitled to her own opinions, bloody hell)

When considering all the pro- and contra-ranting such a statement should be considered as neutral indeed. As well as being wise advice: if one were to believe the pros and contras thinking carefully is exactly what they would not have you do.

And in a constitutional monarchy the monarch should keep any political views to herself, since it's not the monarch who is being held responsible for the expression of such views, but the government.

A neutral "statement" would have been to keep quiet. Her subtext was definitely "Anyone given to thinking will vote to stay in the UK", imo.

Yes, when one side's pitch is based on caution, and calling the other position 'a gamble' and 'a risk we cannot afford to take', you might well interpret that as a subtle hint. Very subtle, mind.

An interesting article here by the Independent:

EU referendum: Why the economic consensus on Brexit is flawed
A former senior International Monetary Fund economist says the arguments that leaving the EU would cause permanent damage to the UK are not supported by evidence

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http://www.independent.co.uk/news/b...c-consensus-on-brexit-is-flawed-a7057306.html

I think it unlikely that it would cause permanent damage, but I don't think there's any doubt* that it would have a harmful effect on our economy for at least a while.

(I'm sure Vote Leave would disagree, given that that's been their thing of late.)

Flying Pig said:

Yes, when one side's pitch is based on caution, and calling the other position 'a gamble' and 'a risk we cannot afford to take', you might well interpret that as a subtle hint. Very subtle, mind.

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Doesn't sound subtle. It sounds very clear. Such terms are always used, risk, threat, gamble, etc.

There's not a lot in that beyond 'no it isn't' - which seems to be the general level of the Leave arguments. It also ignores the fundamental point that sellers seek to maximise profits - in other words, that even if the goods currently being sold in the EU could be sold elsewhere, or the goods currently being sourced from within the EU could be sourced from elsewhere, that this would be a net economic loss, because otherwise they wouldn't be going to the EU now.

Cross post - Kyriakos - I agree (though recently the other side have been using them as well), but it's a sufficiently 'obvious' statement that you can't really point to it as a 'political opinion', because that would imply that there was some doubt in it. Boris Johnson is hardly going to stand up and say that this isn't an important decision! So if it was supposed to be an intervention, it's very cleverly done. Otherwise, it's a very poorly done not-intervention.

Arakhor said:

I think it unlikely that it would cause permanent damage, but I don't think there's any doubt* that it would have a harmful effect on our economy for at least a while.

(I'm sure Vote Leave would disagree, given that that's been their thing of late.)

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If the pound falls after Brexit, that'll be great for British exporters.. which is the last thing the Eurozone wants.. a devalued British pound in competition with them, which they can't export to as profitably as well.

A devalued pound would a great solution for the UK trade deficit with the rest of the world too.

Donald Trump will be visiting the UK the day after the vote for the opening of his golf course in Scotland.

It could be an opportunity to jump start negotiations on a new trade deal.

really said:

Donald Trump will be visiting the UK the day after the vote for the opening of his golf course in Scotland.

It could be an opportunity to jump start negotiations on a new trade deal.

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Sounds like a plan.

Flying Pig said:

Yes, when one side's pitch is based on caution, and calling the other position 'a gamble' and 'a risk we cannot afford to take', you might well interpret that as a subtle hint. Very subtle, mind.

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One does get the impression that HM would have been disinclined to approve of a secession by the Scots.

Most of the arguments put forth for staying in the EU have been conservative (with a lowercase c, I must stress). It's safe, slow and steady wins the day, we can't take a leap into the unknown, etc. etc. They're more or less the same used two years ago in Scotland.

And I am also seeing the same kind of racism and xenophobia being touted. ‘Let's get rid of them filthy English!’ ‘Stupid little Scots, you're too small to make it on your own!’ has become ‘let's get rid of all these immigrants’ and ‘don't be stupid, Britain can't go it alone!’. The fact that officials on all sides make up figures (37% per cent of all facts are made up on the spot, remember) doesn't help much. A few sane voices try to make social, economic or other arguments, but they are not the norm. I can even accept a simple ‘Why should we?’ but the childish ways in which Nigel Farage and the Tories are making themselves felt are, well… disappointing.

That is why this is so frustrating. It's a rehash of the same. YMCA, yesterday's muck cooked again…

HAND said:

really said:

Donald Trump will be visiting the UK the day after the vote for the opening of his golf course in Scotland.

It could be an opportunity to jump start negotiations on a new trade deal.

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Sounds like a plan.

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Well, if he wants to deal with a strengthened EU… oh wait, he's not the president of the US.

Also, this is more for Edward than anyone else, but you can't claim that this is not about xenophobia when Boris Johnson and Michael Gove claim there is no trust in immigration policy so migrants must be required to speak English and so forth.