Brexit Thread VIII: Taking a penalty kick-ing

[EnglishEdward]

Atm Johnson is looking at how he can avoid giving the powers returning from the EU to devolved assemblies.

The refusal to unthinkingly obey Nicola Sturgeon's shrill cries to automatically
give all returned powers to devolved assemblies is very much to be commended.

This does not mean that there will not be some return of powers to devolved
assemblies as appropriate in due course.

Combine that with looking at reducing the power of the courts to ensure government
obeys the law and I don't think we're heading for a more decentralised state.

Courts have made some strange decisions raising all sorts of difficulties for government.

And most importantly, Boris Johnson is not going to be there all that long.
He has made a number of mistakes and is in my opinion accident prone.
Losing a Chancellor over nothing really already does not bode well for his regime.

 

[AmazonQueen]

The refusal to unthinkingly obey Nicola Sturgeon's shrill cries to automatically
give all returned powers to devolved assemblies is very much to be commended.

This does not mean that there will not be some return of powers to devolved
assemblies as appropriate in due course.

So powers should only be devolved if you approve of the governments receiving them?

Courts have made some strange decisions raising all sorts of difficulties for government.

And most importantly, Boris Johnson is not going to be there all that long.
He has made a number of mistakes and is in my opinion accident prone.
Losing a Chancellor over nothing really already does not bode well for his regime.

Its not the job of courts to make things easy for the government.
Hes going to be around for the duration of at least this parliament. Plenty of damage he can do in almost 5 years.

 

[EnglishEdward]

So powers should only be devolved if you approve of the governments receiving them?

That is NOT what I said.

Its not the job of courts to make things easy for the government.

I never said that it was.

Hes going to be around for the duration of at least this parliament. Plenty of damage he can do in almost 5 years.

I am not so sure he will last that long.

There are a large number of minefields, and by centralising power in number ten, he is stepping into some more.

One of the reasons for having ministers and letting them enjoy some freedom of manoeuve is so that
they can succeed and, perhaps more importantly, take the blame when people don't like what they do.

This is particularly important regarding the Chancellor and the budget. Fact is there is no easy way of
pleasing or not pissing off a great many people. If he had kept Sajid Javid, then Sajid would carry the
can for unpopular tax increases or public service cuts, but now The Boris will own them himself.

 

[Hrothbern]

@Hrothbern

I can understand that, and why we can be seen as perplexing.

Many of us take the view that democracy works best at the small scale and bottom up, not top down

And if another place has a good idea, it is generally not necessary to be in a political union to use that idea.

An independent UK can look at the Canada, USA, EU, China, South America; and if they have better ways for something
than our own, we can consider whether to adopt them. There is declining member state flexibility while in the EU.

One of the great strengths of the USA was that it had historically little central law; each state did its own thing.
If it went well, other states could copy it. If it did not, then they would not copy it. This enabled local experimentation.

Centrally run states such as Louis XIV and Tsarist and communist Russia did not and had less flexibility.

In the short term central states can take the best idea from each component and obtain an economic boost,
but that only works for a while as the Bourbons and communists found out, and the danger is that the
wrong approach ends up being universally applied (Chinese cultural revolution) and can get locked in.

Agree in general that slightly less efficient diversity is more suited for continuous improvement than as such usually more efficient monocultures (that stiffle as well).
Trade offs everywhere and the optimal tuning depending on the nature of the task or activity and ofc the everchanginging circumstances from outside factors (incl new techs or civs elements).
Bigger changes in outside factors like a WW2 typical moments where more centralised focus is needed and carefree prosperity growth periods (like most of the post WW2 period) encouraging more "freedoms".

And I do like bottom up approaches.

That's why I do believe to focus on regions.... with the minimal framework, laws, regulations, convenants, etc for higher layers to give basic securities to the people in the regions. For their economical activities and their private lifes.
Less politics at above region level and more a general Rule of Law setting.
More like the Medieval continuum setting of most of Europe.

It is a gliding scale all the time... a dynamic process.
The UK will be an experiment
Which could very well include more politics at Westminster level, and less general Rule of Law setting giving freedoms to regions.
(Transparency of the decision process from Rule of Law gives more freedom for citizens, companies and lower authorities than the ad hoc character of political decisions dealing with the same matter at hand because politics is a compromise of political rivalry as well influenced by the day)

 

[Noble Zarkon]

From that perspective, the UK is not a democracy for a Scotsperson or Yorkshire devolutionist.

Actually a majority of us Scots voted to remain in the UK democracy in 2014, Yorkshire has never been a country obviously!

 

[Senethro]

Actually a majority of us Scots voted to remain in the UK democracy in 2014, Yorkshire has never been a country obviously!

If you look closely this is not in fact a reply.

AQ pretty much anticipated what you're hinting at though.

So powers should only be devolved if you approve of the governments receiving them?

 

[Gorbles]

So the UK has a majority in the European Parliament which is the only place that makes laws in the EU is that what you think lol.

Your objection was on grounds of electing our representatives. We elect our representatives.

If your issue is our elected representatives cannot enact every issue we, as individuals, want them to enact, that's a different argument. The Conservative government doesn't exactly align with what I think should be voted on.

 

[Kyriakos]

At least now Faridge will be quarantined in England.

 

[Arakhor]

I rather suspect he'll end up oozing all over right-wing nuts in the US instead. Gotta go where the money is!

 

[FriendlyFire]

Your objection was on grounds of electing our representatives. We elect our representatives.
If your issue is our elected representatives cannot enact every issue we, as individuals, want them to enact, that's a different argument. The Conservative government doesn't exactly align with what I think should be voted on.

The Solution is to Keep Balkanising the UK into smaller and smaller countries until the Leavers get back control of course
Now everyone is demanding that they make good on the unicorns.

 

[tjs282]

I rather suspect he'll end up oozing all over right-wing nuts in the US instead. Gotta go where the money is!

This too, already, has happened...

 

[Traitorfish]

The refusal to unthinkingly obey Nicola Sturgeon's shrill cries to automatically
give all returned powers to devolved assemblies is very much to be commended.

Sturgeon's party received 45% of the popular vote in Scotland, running on a explicit platform of maintaining said powers after Brexit. Surely you must concede that Scottish voters have a reasonable expectation that their elected representatives should attempt to fulfil their campaign promises?

No reasonable person can seriously believe that this is anything more than grandstanding for Little England, and at the well-understood cost of further alienating the Scottish electorate. This is not good politics, this is a cynical decision to trade the Union for another decade or so of Tory hegemony.

 

[Arakhor]

"British" democracy usually means "English" democracy and even that tends to mean southeast England in practice.

 

[FriendlyFire]

"British" democracy usually means "English" democracy and even that tends to mean southeast England in practice.

What Scotland, Ireland, Gilbertar need to understand is that, they must accept majority vote of the collective group of nations know as the UK

 

[Senethro]

Scotland, Ireland, Gilbertar

welp

 

[Hrothbern]

they must accept majority vote

The quality to be able to genuinely (not tactical) accept realities is typical not a quality of romanticism

Where Voltaire brought rationalism as foundation stone for the enlightnment (AND the start of individualism AND the seeds of the identity culture)
at the same time Rousseau adds the partial antagonist Romanticism to the Enlightnment
Secularisation cutting through the traditional societal cohesion

Over time we experience now a mature version of that cocktail

Romantic populism as aggregate of romantic identity culture bottom up from individualism... at odds with the rationalism of reality thinking of representative governing supported by experts.

 

[Arakhor]

What Scotland, Ireland, Gilbertar need to understand is that, they must accept majority vote of the collective group of nations know as the UK

Naturally. I'm English, so I'm on the "winning" side of this, then again, so is 80%+ of the British population, so it's hardly democratic in the way that Edward and Zarkon seem to want.

 

[Samson]

Actually a majority of us Scots voted to remain in the UK democracy in 2014, Yorkshire has never been a country obviously!

Jorvik wants a word...

Spoiler :

OK, so it was more like Yorkshire + Lancashire, but you know, never say never unless you really mean it.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I just read that the EU is going to ask for the Parthenon Marbles back as a prerequisite for a trade deal.

 

[Kyriakos]

I just read that the EU is going to ask for the Parthenon Marbles back as a prerequisite for a trade deal.

If by "Parthenon marbles" one means "more crisis-prevention jobs created in austerity-hit Germany and satellites", then likely.
The actual marbles won't be returned easily, not so much due to England (where afaik the population is in favour of giving them back), but others who stole ancient stuff in similar fashion (eg France, who even massacred greek people to get the Venus de Milo, and Germany).