Is Britain about to leave the EU?

[Agent327]

As things stand now a government of a EU country using the Euro cannot even pass its budget without approval from the EC! Budgeting revenues and expenses, choosing what to tax and what to spend on, has historically been a sovereign power, and for good reason: every meaningful act of goverment depends on that! But in the EU economic and social policy now depends on approval from the powers that dictate rules in Brussels and Frankfurt. And we know which powers count.

Highly suggestive reasoning. This so-called 'dictate from Brussels' is actually the result of EU negotiations (the kind of EU negotiations the UK has opted out of quite some time ago). Secondly, how a state spends its budget (and this is what matters), isn't 'dictated' by Brussels at all.

Which, incidentally, puts this whole Cameron/referendum initiative into perspective. Realistically, Cameron can't achieve much - not beyond what Britain already has compared to regular EU members.

One size fits all for strategic decisions is bound to ruin a portion of the EU in order to benefit another portion, because policies required for different regions are different.

Absolutely. So what exactly gets 'ruined' here?

The EU and the Eurozone in particular have been managed disastrously. I don't need to even argue about that: reality speaks for itself. Getting rid of the EU removes the suprestructure that has been forcing uniform policies in what its not, and cannot be, uniform.

Argument turning weak here: first, Britain isn't even in the euro. Second, nobody is getting rid of the EU - especially not 'because of the euro'.

There will still be international issues of trade balances and balances of payments. But governments will be able to negotiate that bilateralty with whatever countries they choose, instead of being tied to a set of "partners" in the EU. Manage internal financing, shop around for the best deal in international financing, and manage trade dealts according to their economic priorities. And this is just the economic aspect of the EU issue. But everything else ties into it: for a government that cannot choose economy policies cannot choose social policies either. And if a government cannot make policy, can only manage according to directions from an upper level, what is there for the people to vote on? Choosing the prettiest manager?

You seem to be unaware that the EU is still primarily a common market. But sure, if Britain would like to opt out of that, see what happens.

Interestingly, PM Cameron has had an audit held to determine the exact negative economic impact of EU membership. For reasons only known to Cameron, the results of this audit have not peen widely publicized: the UK actually gains economically from the EU. Now, to anyone actually familiar with the EU, this of course is not a surprise. While there is much talk of the so-called political union, in reality the EU has always primarily been an economic union. And to good effect.

Migrants are coming into Europe because certain countries (hint: France is foremost among the european ones) have been busy destabilizing their countries of origin. And I for one don't see why the greeks should play gaolers (or should it be executioners?) for the countries those migrants are trying to get to. What has been the EU response to the "refugee crisis"? Try to bribe the turks with 3 billion euros for them to close their border (but it's not working, the sultan wants more) and not a dime to the greeks who, having been pushed to ruinous debt by the ECB's mismanagement (that is a case where the word is appropriate) of interest rates during the first years of the euro, are mired in such a depression that no migrants want to stay there.

And now argument turns to rant. First, according to the Turkish foreign minister, there are currently 2,5 million Syrian refugees in Turkey - so far. So, in fact, Turkey is playing gaoler, not Greece. Secondly, Turkey is not getting 3 billion to 'close borders', but to help manage the refugee problem. On which Turkey has been spending close to 9 billion dollar so far. Just to put things a bit in proper perspective. And you shall be glad to hear that the Turkish foreign minister agrees with you on the cause of the refugee problem: as longs as Syria is in civil war (and while Russians and Syrians are bombing civilian areas) it will not end.

 

[Mega Tsunami]

It really does. The whole point of having human rights (or any law) enforced by a central body is to split up the people who make and enforce the rules from the people who have an interest in breaking them. It's exactly the same logic that means we don't let restaurants do their own kitchen inspections.

We already have our own independent ‘inspectors’ in the form of our own police, courts and parliament. We don’t need another layer of inspectors from another country, who do things differently to us, overriding our inspectors and telling them how to do their jobs. I have much more faith in our own inspectors anyway.

Classic stuff - The European Convention on Human Rights and the European Court of Human Rights are a product of the Council of Europe, not the EU.

No they don't. they are completely separate organizations.

Technically you are both right, but in practice, during this referendum, they are treated as one. Perhaps we should be referring to the EUetc instead of the EU, because there are people who are going to be heavily influenced in their vote by the etc bit. Some might vote to stay and some might vote to leave based on it.
Of course if we do vote to leave it is only the EU we are leaving but I am sure it will then be a lot easier to extract ourselves from the clutches of the European courts.

 

[Flying Pig]

We already have our own independent ‘inspectors’ in the form of our own police, courts and parliament. We don’t need another layer of inspectors from another country, who do things differently to us, overriding our inspectors and telling them how to do their jobs. I have much more faith in our own inspectors anyway.

We don't actually have any inspectors of what Parliament does, apart from the EU. Presently, the only way in which a law can be checked, once in force, is for a court to rule that it is incompatible with EU law, chiefly the European Convention on Human Rights. Without that, there's no mechanism in British law for any body to tell Parliament that it has passed an unjust law. Nor is there any way to fix it, short of waiting until the next General Election and hoping that one of the opposition parties comes with both the desire and, once elected, the power to repeal it.

 

[Lillefix]

We don't actually have any inspectors of what Parliament does, apart from the EU. Presently, the only way in which a law can be checked, once in force, is for a court to rule that it is incompatible with EU law, chiefly the European Convention on Human Rights. Without that, there's no mechanism in British law for any body to tell Parliament that it has passed an unjust law. Nor is there any way to fix it, short of waiting until the next General Election and hoping that one of the opposition parties comes with both the desire and, once elected, the power to repeal it.

I think that in the US the Supreme court tells the congress whether or not a law is legal or not according to the constitution. You don't have something similar in Britain?

 

[AdrienIer]

I think that in the US the Supreme court tells the congress whether or not a law is legal or not according to the constitution. You don't have something similar in Britain?

I'm similarly surprised, we have a constitutional council here in France as well.

 

[Thorgalaeg]

Nothing to be surprised of since the UK has not any real constitution to check new laws against. They like to say there is an "unwriten" or "uncoded" constitution but it is really only a set of laws what the parlament can derogate or change at will, so not a constitution at all in the sense the rest of the world understand it. In fact the parlament has absolute power.

 

[Flying Pig]

I think that in the US the Supreme court tells the congress whether or not a law is legal or not according to the constitution. You don't have something similar in Britain?

Nothing to be surprised of since the UK has not any real constitution to check new laws against. They like to say there is an "unwriten" or "uncoded" constitution but it is really only a set of laws what the parlament can derogate or change at will, so not a constitution at all in the sense the rest of the world understand it. In fact the parlament has absolute power.

That's precisely the issue: that we don't currently have any law with any more authority than another, and statute law overwrites case law as well as any older law with which it happens (often not deliberately) to be inconsistent. The Supreme Court in this country is exactly what it says on the tin: a final court of appeal, usually invoked when the interpretation of the law in a particular case is extremely tricky. If we were to get rid of our obligation to the ECHR, I think it would be essential to create a law that filled some of the same role. We already have the Human Rights Act, which is a copy-paste of the ECHR, which would be the most likely candidate.

 

[Arakhor]

I agree with FP. I simply cannot trust a future government not to balls everything up and take us lurching into a legal dystopia if Westminster became the final, unchallenged arbiter of what it means to be human. Just look at the recent butchering of welfare, health and education for size.

 

[dutchfire]

There's always the Queen to keep things in check!

 

[gay_Aleks]

Yes, but who keeps the Queen in check? Ya think it's all joking matter and then she lets on her Corgies in the Parliament and nobody walks out of it alive in one piece.

 

[Thorgalaeg]

That's precisely the issue: that we don't currently have any law with any more authority than another, and statute law overwrites case law as well as any older law with which it happens (often not deliberately) to be inconsistent. The Supreme Court in this country is exactly what it says on the tin: a final court of appeal, usually invoked when the interpretation of the law in a particular case is extremely tricky. If we were to get rid of our obligation to the ECHR, I think it would be essential to create a law that filled some of the same role. We already have the Human Rights Act, which is a copy-paste of the ECHR, which would be the most likely candidate.

If anything i wonder about how such a system has worked for so long, and fairly well afaik. Without a set of fundamental rules everybody agrees on which requires a qualified majority to be changed, the lack of stability at national level and of legal security at a personal level would be huge. Any ocasional or accidental extraordinary circunstance may lead to crazy laws and dangerous situations. It is the heaven for oportunists and populists!

 

[Flying Pig]

I agree with FP. I simply cannot trust a future government not to balls everything up and take us lurching into a legal dystopia if Westminster became the final, unchallenged arbiter of what it means to be human. Just look at the recent butchering of welfare, health and education for size.

If anythink i wonder about how such a system have worked for so long, and fairly well afaik. Without a set of fundamental rules everybody agrees on which requires a qualified majority to be changed, the lack of stability at national level and of legal security at a personal level would be huge. Any ocasional or accidental extraordinary circunstance may lead to crazy laws and dangerous situations. It is the heaven for oportunists and populists!

As Arakhor pointed out, it doesn't exactly 'work' in the sense that there's rarely much beyond compassion protecting the marginalised and politically weak from being rolled over in the interests of the wealthy and powerful. When people say that it's 'worked', they mean that we haven't yet voted in a dictatorship, but that's far from the only awful thing that a government can do.

 

[Mega Tsunami]

That's precisely the issue: that we don't currently have any law with any more authority than another, and statute law overwrites case law as well as any older law with which it happens (often not deliberately) to be inconsistent. The Supreme Court in this country is exactly what it says on the tin: a final court of appeal, usually invoked when the interpretation of the law in a particular case is extremely tricky. If we were to get rid of our obligation to the ECHR, I think it would be essential to create a law that filled some of the same role. We already have the Human Rights Act, which is a copy-paste of the ECHR, which would be the most likely candidate.

This taken from Wiki:
The United Kingdom has no written constitution, but we have a number of constitutional instruments. They include Magna Carta, the Petition of Right 1628, the Bill of Rights and (in Scotland) the Claim of Rights Act 1689, the Act of Settlement 1701 and the Act of Union 1707. The European Communities Act 1972, the Human Rights Act 1998 and the Constitutional Reform Act 2005 may now be added to this list.

I really do think we can look out for our own rights. We have done so better than most for a very, very long time.

 

[dutchfire]

T
I really do think we can look out for our own rights. We have done so better than most for a very, very long time.

Yeah, your treatment of the Irish question was absolutely great.

 

[Flying Pig]

This taken from Wiki:
The United Kingdom has no written constitution, but we have a number of constitutional instruments. They include Magna Carta, the Petition of Right 1628, the Bill of Rights and (in Scotland) the Claim of Rights Act 1689, the Act of Settlement 1701 and the Act of Union 1707. The European Communities Act 1972, the Human Rights Act 1998 and the Constitutional Reform Act 2005 may now be added to this list.

I really do think we can look out for our own rights. We have done so better than most for a very, very long time.

None of those are at all binding - by 'Constitution', it just means 'laws that determine how the government is set up'. Any can be changed or overwritten - for example, almost all of Manga Carta is no longer in force, and quite thankfully so.

 

[Thorgalaeg]

"You have right to not get randomly killed, to no get enslaved (formally at least) and to pray to your puny God, period". That is the kind of constitutions most conservatives like. Not any of that pesky commy second generation rights, thank you. That is the fundamental problem here i think.

 

[EnglishEdward]

If anything i wonder about how such a system has worked for so long, and fairly well afaik. Without a set of fundamental rules everybody agrees on which requires a qualified majority to be changed, the lack of stability at national level and of legal security at a personal level would be huge. Any ocasional or accidental extraordinary circunstance may lead to crazy laws and dangerous situations. It is the heaven for oportunists and populists!

It requires the agreement of three parties:

(a) House of Commons,
(b) House of Lords; and
(c) Her Majesty the Queen.

and in practice the agreement of each of the:

(a) Judiciary including juries
(b) Police Force; and
(c) Prison Service

to enforce those laws.

The concept that if we leave the EU and/or EC, the UK will
accordingly descend into fascism is merely a scare tactic.

 

[Flying Pig]

First, a point of information - neither the judiciary, nor the police force, nor the prison service, have any right to comment on, still less refuse to enforce, a law passed by Parliament. If a lawyer raises the possibility of jury nullification in court, he can be held in contempt for doing so. Neither of those are designed or able to be checks on Parliamentary action. That's not a bad thing: neither is elected, and it's good that we're not in a situation that until reasonably recently prevailed in parts of the southern US, where laws against lynching simply weren't enforced because white juries refused to convict white people for killing black people.

Secondly, nobody's talking about fascism. We're talking about making bad laws, which deal unfairly with the weak because they play to popular fear and hatred. It's not popular for governments to speak on behalf of the poor, refugees, the environment, the homeless, prisoners, those with views that society finds uncomfortable or offensive, and any number of other groups with little political voice who are regularly hurt by bad legislation. It's even less popular for them to spend money on those when money is tight. However, they need to do it. The whole reason that we have the idea of human rights is to make sure that happens.

 

[Thorgalaeg]

I was going to say that i sincerely hope british police judges and prisons are strictily subject to the rule of law. Not any "practical" agreement needed from them. Otherwise we are speaking of factual powers, honor tribunals and general lynching, all left well behind in any civilized country, but FP was much faster.

About Queen agreement, it is real queen agreement or only formal symbolic agreement?

 

[Flying Pig]

Apparently it's not as symbolic as often thought: although the Royal Assent hasn't been refused in its final stage since Queen Anne, the Queen (and, apparently, Prince Charles) does have the power to impose a hurdle on bills at quite an early stage, which, although I don't think it's necessarily the end of the road, usually leads to their being dropped. Prince Charles has wrecked at least 12 bills in the last decade, and the Queen vetoed a bill in 1999 which would have given command over any air strikes in Iraq to Parliament, rather than her (that is, the Prime Minister). Personally, I quite like the whole pomp and circumstance of monarchy (particularly from a military point of view, where it's quite prominent - see 'taking the Queen's shilling', 'that equipment belong to Her Majesty', 'working for Her Majesty' - and does have quite a large and beneficial effect on how you think of yourself) but can't say the same about her actually having political power.