Brexit Thread IV - They're laughing with us, not at us

Status
Not open for further replies.
I agree. Joining the EEC was presented purely as an economic arrangement then.

It was only a few mavericks such as Enoch Powell and Tony Benn who looked at the constitutional issues.

Public concern was much more about particular issues, common fishery policy, common agricultural policy,
VAT replacing purchase tax, overseas french juggernauts damaging UK roads, the ethics of abandoning
commonwealth countries such as New Zealand with their butter and lamb exports being behind a tariff wall.

Its a myth that we abandoned the Commonwealth though. During the entry negotiations we made considerable concessions to the EU, particularly on the budget contribution, to obtain 5 year quota for NZ agricultural products for example.
 
Wasn't your argument that we shouldn't let 16-17 year-olds vote on the future of the UK, simply because they're legal minors? Somehow, I think that reproduction has a far greater effect on our species than voting on a vital matter two years earlier than normal.

I honestly can't work out how this comment got a like, but never mind eh :)

For one thing I don't see how you can't see the difference between trying to prohibit activity between individuals that can take place in private, and inevitably WILL take place in private regardless of what the law says, with being allowed to partake in something that it's only even possible to do with explicit state approval. And that's just the tip of the iceberg of the massive differences between the two things.

And also misses out smoking and driving for some reason.

Meanwhile... what's the argument FOR letting legal minors have the vote? They've not yet reached the age of legal majority, they're not individual sovereign citizens of the country, so why should the have a say in how it's run? I'm not saying that they necessarily shouldn't (although I don't believe so personally), but as I said I've never seen an argument put forward for it other than the "because they'd vote for what I want" argument, which is a terrible argument. Give a better one. "Because we let them do other different things under 18" isn't even an argument at all.
 
I honestly can't work out how this comment got a like, but never mind eh :)

For one thing I don't see how you can't see the difference between trying to prohibit activity between individuals that can take place in private, and inevitably WILL take place in private regardless of what the law says, with being allowed to partake in something that it's only even possible to do with explicit state approval. And that's just the tip of the iceberg of the massive differences between the two things.

And also misses out smoking and driving for some reason.

Meanwhile... what's the argument FOR letting legal minors have the vote? They've not yet reached the age of legal majority, they're not individual sovereign citizens of the country, so why should the have a say in how it's run? I'm not saying that they necessarily shouldn't (although I don't believe so personally), but as I said I've never seen an argument put forward for it other than the "because they'd vote for what I want" argument, which is a terrible argument. Give a better one. "Because we let them do other different things under 18" isn't even an argument at all.

I've seen arguments for it although I'm pretty neutral on the subject.

They can marry, serve in the armed forces, are past the age of criminal responsibility, will be affected by the decisions being taken, will learn about civic resposibility etc.

Personally I think we need to decide on a single age of adulthood rather than having things that only an adult should be able to do scattered between 16-18. Don't particularly care if the age is 16-18, although people aged 16-17 voting in the Scottish Independence vote didn't seem to have much effect one way or the other.
 
"Because we let them do other different things under 18" isn't even an argument at all.

"Because we let them do things that actually carry just as much if not more responsibility than voting" is actually quite a strong argument.
 
You can't buy cigarettes until you're 18 these days, so that's no longer valid.

That said, given that several people's beef with the EU was that they hadn't had a vote since the 70s (or never, for people not in their 60s) and that the referendum in 2016 is now supposed to have settled the matter for all time, one would have thought it only consistent to get as many interested parties voting as possible.
 
Now Takhisis blames that on Thatcherism which is indeed part, but only part, of the story.
Given that Thatcherism has been continued to varying degrees by the various governments that have succeeded the eponymous ruler,
Meanwhile... what's the argument FOR letting legal minors have the vote? They've not yet reached the age of legal majority, they're not individual sovereign citizens of the country, so why should the have a say in how it's run? I'm not saying that they necessarily shouldn't (although I don't believe so personally), but as I said I've never seen an argument put forward for it other than the "because they'd vote for what I want" argument, which is a terrible argument. Give a better one. "Because we let them do other different things under 18" isn't even an argument at all.
They were already allowed to vote in the Scottish independence referendum.
 
God I’m so happy for brexit. Makes me wish I was British. You all took back your country and secured your borders! Screw the EU and the Eurocrats!

#independenceday #gonigelfarage
 
Blasted Poe's Law.
 
This was a victory for ordinary people! For decent people! Jobs for British citizens are stolen by "migrant" workers and the EU's regulation and taxation is very harmful to British businesses. They are strong enough to be independent! England ruled half the world at one point all by themselves (no EU then) and they shall repeat without the EU holding them back!

Long live Nigel Farage!

#gloriousleader
 
This was a victory for ordinary people! For decent people! Jobs for British citizens are stolen by "migrant" workers and the EU's regulation and taxation is very harmful to British businesses. They are strong enough to be independent! England ruled half the world at one point all by themselves (no EU then) and they shall repeat without the EU holding them back!

PROTIP: The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is not "England". It would be like calling all of America "California" or "Texas".
(PROTIP 2: Note that the Union Jack incorporates other flags besides St Georges Cross.)
 
PROTIP: The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is not "England". It would be like calling all of America "California" or "Texas".
Pfffffffffftttt!!!! Nake Fews!
 

PROTIP: The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is not "England". It would be like calling all of America "California" or "Texas".
(PROTIP 2: Note that the Union Jack incorporates other flags besides St Georges Cross.)

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is an imperial project of the English, though.
 
PROTIP: The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is not "England". It would be like calling all of America "California" or "Texas".
(PROTIP 2: Note that the Union Jack incorporates other flags besides St Georges Cross.)
If you're affecting the rhetoric of a standard of garden variety Leaver, willfully confusing "Britain" conflating "England" is just honest reportage.

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is an imperial project of the English, though.
That's not really true historically, but it's how the English imagine it, which is possibly more relevant here.
 
I think that most of us in England are aware that the military attempts to annex Scotland in the Middle Ages all ultimately failed.

And that Britain became a political unit when Elizabeth 1st died in 1603 and King James and his Scots took over England.
 
I think that most of us in England are aware that the military attempts to annex Scotland in the Middle Ages all ultimately failed.
Yes, but there's a vague, unspoken assumption that England just absorbed Scotland through dint of obvious cultural and constitutional superiority. A lot of people are only hazily aware, if at all, that Scotland retains distinct legal and educational systems.

And that Britain became a political unit when Elizabeth 1st died in 1603 and King James and his Scots took over England.
They continued to function as distinct polities until the Act of Union, enough so that they ended up at war between 1649-1651. A shared king only takes you so far, especially in a period when the question of whether you even have a king is on the table, let alone who gets to wear the crown.
 
Yes, but there's a vague, unspoken assumption that England just absorbed Scotland through dint of obvious cultural and constitutional superiority.

Who do you think holds that assumption, the English, the Scots or foreigners?

Because the way I understand it, the english influence became predominant in the union merely because there were more of us.


A lot of people are only hazily aware, if at all, that Scotland retains distinct legal and educational systems.

Quite so.


They continued to function as distinct polities until the Act of Union, enough so that they ended up at war between 1649-1651.
A shared king only takes you so far, especially in a period when the question of whether you even have a king is on the table, let alone who gets to wear the crown.

Yes, I know there were two civil wars; the one with Oliver Cromwell and aftermath, and the multi-generation old pretender and Bonnie Prince Charlie story.
 
If you're affecting the rhetoric of a standard of garden variety Leaver, willfully confusing "Britain" conflating "England" is just honest reportage.
There's also the brand of nationalist that says Britain is really only England, if we want to argue semantics.
 
There's also the brand of nationalist that says Britain is really only England, if we want to argue semantics.
There are some Britons, Welsh and Scots, who argue that Britishness itself is a con, to paper over actual divides.

Regardless, it seems relatively safe to conclude that Brexit has primarily been an English project.

The problem the non-English Britons have is that they have no veto against an English majority on how the union moves. The union has historically stuck together because it is so hugely unbalanced in English favour. Leaving for Scots, Welsh etc. is tantamount to, well, doing what the UK would seem to be doing with a Brexit crash-out.

The Welsh ended up permenantely in a union after the largest military campaign ever on the British isles (Henry V's), while the Scots accepted the union when Scotland was flat broke (after a failed colonial adventure), and then had to decide on the relative merits of staying or leaving, and where the Scottish National Writer bar none, Walter Scott, firmly came down on how Scotland had no future except accepting being wedded to England.

A United Kingdom like this, attempted between more evenly matched parties, would likely have fractured long ago, vis the Great Nordic Union. Denmark never strong enough to force Sweden to accept the necessity of staying, and Sweden never strong enough to bludgeon the others sufficiently into submission. But British people gleaning an insight into the constant inter-Nordic bickering tells us it feels just like home. :)
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top Bottom