Game of Morons: The UK General Election Thread

Nobody knows if it's going to be a bad decision or not yet.

And you know what, I'm rather hoping the UK government starts thinking bigger too. There's a lot of places outside of the Custom Union to trade with, and a lot of the developing nations have been kept down by EU tariffs.

Plant coffee beans brown people! Start canning them and we'll have to put you back in your place!

Yeah. Really fucking progressive.

http://www.express.co.uk/news/polit...S-Congressman-UK-front-of-queue-EU-trade-deal

A key Congressman says the UK will leap to the front of the que and that free trade between the UK and US will be the top priority ahead of free trade with the EU. There is wide spread dissatisfaction with the EU's foot dragging and protectionist measures. The US's chief trade negotiator is even threatening wide spread US sanctions on the EU is they insist on being protectionist on Euro clearing.

It's a horrendously bad decision. All that remains to be seen whether it will be bad, for both sides, if we're all very lucky, or catastrophic, if each side gets what they deserve.

Nobody has suggested disallowing a vote. But it stands to reason that just repeating the vote until you get a result you like makes no sense. Imagine they do have another vote, a 'snap' vote as you suggested, and that one turns out Remain. Would you agree with them repeating that once a week to see if a majority ever goes back to Leave?

I think once a deal has or has not been reached so the people or parliament actually have an idea about what Leave means is not a crazy time for people or parliament to assess and make an actually informed decision.

The UK doesn't normally have referendums on trade deals so your position is just one of a retarded sore loser upset with democracy.

Obviously I disagree. In an ideal world the UK would remain in a sensible EU, but that requires the EU to do some growing up, and there is precious little evidence of that happening.

Okay, I'm tired, so sorry if this comes across as a little testy, but you understand in all likelihood there isn't going to be a cliff edge?

In all probability there'll be a series of interim steps as the UK extricates itself. For a measured exit there are too many ways we are intertwined, and in many cases wish to remain intertwined, so just being in at 23:59 Monday and out at 00:00 Tuesday is unlikely to occur.

The only way there'll be a sharp transition is if no deal can be made, or the EU makes an effort for a punishment deal.

As I said, these are trade deals, and nations don't usually provide votes on those.

What does growing up mean? Cater to every single one of the UK's whims?

If you want to change the EU, you need to stay and change it. The damage done by disassembling the first peaceful unity we've had in Europe for half a millennium simply isn't commensurate to any squabbles about percentages of taxes and tariffs and distributed asylum seekers.

^
Source of the first peaceful unity, what bullshit.
Democracies don't declare war on other democracies, and certainly absence of a multi-lateral trade agreement has almost negligible (if any) impact on peace vs hostilities, and is only a benefit insofar as each signatory finds it beneficial to its own interests.

^Idiocy of the highest order, in complete disregard of history.

No. Try reading the below, I'll be curious if you respond as you seem to have an allergy to anything not rabidly pro-EU.

1) Be a Union. Currently the EU is a collective of self-serving entities - witness the attempts by France to get the whole of the EU to fund its nuclear issue, Poland's unwillingness to see EU money reduced and Germany... Well, much as I love the place, politically and economically it has been moulding the EU into something for its own ends rather than for the benefit of the union as a whole. There is a litany of examples that do not seem to be reducing in number as time goes on.

2) Embrace the 'four freedoms' properly. Both Germany and France kept their workforce and benefits isolated from the Eastern entries for as long as they could, and kneecapped the likes of the Services Directive for purely protectionist reasons. The UK has actually been one of the "best" EU members for this, usually to the point of idiocy (see Royal Mail vs Die Post) whilst the 'core' nations play politics and act in two-faced manner.

3) Be a Union (redux.) Sort out a unified border, military and budgetary system. The EU proclaims it has averted war on the continent, yet in the 90's we again saw ethnic cleansing on our doorstep. Something it took the US to deal with. The EU, over 20 years on, still has no capacity to deal with such things. How can you proclaim yourself a force for peace when the shame of mass graves will not enervate you into action?

4) Stop with the anti-Africa policies. And no, chucking a few million euro's blood money doesn't mitigate the fact that EU operates along the view of "give a nation a million euros, and maybe they'll not come over, teach a nation to make a million euros and they may compete with our wealthy first world businesses and that will never do."

5) Stop centralizing. We know that imperial model alienates social, economic and geographical groupings leading to instability and eventual fall. Longevity comes from devolved, empowered, groups working together.

6) Stop avoiding problems. Over the last decade the EU has come close to failure with only last-minute partial solutions to existential issues. You cannot keep doing that as it only requires one failure to start to bring everything down.

7) Recognise one speed Europe doesn't work. One-size fits all policies are difficult to satisfy problems in smaller regions, a continental one? Insanity.

And yes, I would have liked some recognition of the unique issues that faced the UK, but not at the cost of the Union as a whole. It's isn't the EU's fault that English is the lingua franca of the world, that US/UK media dominates globally or that the British Empire left an indelible stamp across the entire globe giving a most undeserved cachet with refugees and migrants. But it is sensible to accommodate, where possible, reality.

Let me abundantly clear here - I am pro Europe, but I am not pro-EU, and the two are not the same.

The EU has minimal interest in change. The short shrift Cameron got for fairly minimal changes, in the face of rising anti-EU sentiment, indicates there is a massive disconnect between the leaders of the EU and the people themselves.

Currently there is a something of a reliance on "better the devil you know." Well, how well has that plan worked out in the UK?

In fact, how well is it working out in the EU? "Phew, Wilders only did pretty well and didn't win!" or "Phew, lucky the NF only got to the run-off"

It's like weeping to the gods that you only got shot in the bollocks. How about not getting shot at all?

It tells a tale of the EU's attitude to change that one of it's crown jewels - Schengen - only came about because the Benelux group got fed up of the incessant delays and did it themselves, independently, and then got it folded into the EU.

Most of those are good points, but you realise that many directly contradict the UK's policy towards the EU when they were still holding on to their half-membership, right? Chances for us ever getting the Europe you want are drastically reduced by Brexit. Or do you think that the UK is about to start a more perfect European union in the EU's place? That would be wonderful, but I see no indication that it will happen.

Yes, but I'm not stating the UK is correct in any of its views of the EU. If the UK wishes to make me Absolute Ruler for a few years that may change.

In complex situations, all sides can be wrong after all.

The UK was never a good fit for the EU. Whereas the Code Napoleon formed a template for the continent, we pursued Common Law, and the results can be seen in attitudes towards rules. The UK will follow them as much as it can, the continent will turn a blind eye when it feels it necessary. Neither truly understands that aspect of the other, and for all our similarities that gap is the one is blocks any real union.

A fine example are smoking bans. You can find many bars in Europe that turn a blind eye to it, as do the local authorities, in the UK any attempt to do would be met with an army of bureaucrats and police, a court case and a po-faced media story condemning the owner as a cancer-creating beast.

As for getting the Europe I want, I don't expect it. I do expect that Germany and France will enforce further integration without the UK, as to if it'll be the correct form for a long-term stable union, we'll have to see.

For the UK, I hope to see increased trade. We're not going to form anything unless the EU collapses, in which it'll likely be Hanseatic League: The Sequel rather than what I'd like to see.

My prediction is that the EU will run out of last minutes, and a smaller version will appear out of the ashes. It's anthem can be Orange Juice's "Rip it Up (and Start again)"...

Ripping stuff up might seem like a faster way to results than gradual and consensual reform. But in international politics, it usually goes along with deep recessions or wars or both.

I'm not the one that needs explaining to.

I'm also the one not playing Russian roulette with the union on a depressingly frequent basis.

And I'm also not the one roadblocking reforms.

That sentiment needs passing over to Brussels and Strasbourg.

You're one person who seems to consider Brexit less catastrophic than it is.

I don't regard it as catastrophic at all. I also don't regard it as a dismantlement of the EU.

The UK wanted a bigger renegotiation, the EU didn't, thus ways were parted. It's why Article 50 exists.

Events will determine the consequences, but it'll only be a problem if it is made into one.

It is not going to be catastrophic for anyone other than the EU's budget. Will there be an adjustment period for the UK? Of course, it will take 5-10 years to get all the new free trade deals in place but until then the WTO rules or even temporary membership in a few other organizations can bridge the gap. In the end the UK will be better off.

If the EU tries to punish the UK for daring to tell them no then it will be the EU who gets hurt worse not least of all because any protectionist actions taken against the UK will also hit countries like the US, China, and Japan resulting in them also taking actions against the EU. The balance of trade show the EU really does have more to lose and it will lose on a global scale. The arrogant fucks should have honestly negotiated with Cameron when he pointed out obvious major flaws and suggested some relatively minor changes to fix them but instead we got the fucktards Junckers and Merkel arrogantly declaring nothing would ever be allowed to be reformed so the British public decided to say "fuck these wankers".

I've been all over the place on this, and there are valid points on all sides.

Originally I was gung-ho about leaving, because fuck the EU and fuck the way they've been treating countries like Greece.
But putting the question to the public in a referendum was probably the wrong thing. There isn't nearly enough public understanding of the issues, and the respective campaigns did little to assuage that. The vote was based on who had the best soundbites.
Now I'm firmly of the view that there's going to be a lot of damage done by Brexit and while I also understand that re-running referendums isn't a good habit, maybe people would be genuinely more informed this time particularly if the specifics of a deal were known.

Given your history in particular, I can readily see why your and Aurora's countrymen are never to be trusted (by anyone on earth ever again), regardless of multi-lateral trade agreements or euroland bureaucrat's brand of fascism-lite.

Oh, and please cite any example of a democracy declaring war on another (even absent a bi- or multi-lateral trade agreement). Pretty please?

There are many that could be cited but how about the Spanish-American war as a single example?

Spain in 1898 wasn't really a functional democracy in the same way that modern Russia is not a real democracy.

Arguable. But if you're going to play this game then of course you can define the word "democracy" so narrowly as to produce the answer you want.

I guess we can pretend Eygpt is/was some how a democracy because they pretended to have elections (where no one but the dictator got to run election ads on state owned tv and radio which was every station) and where the same guy magically won every election for 30 years straight but that seems dumb. I think reasonable people can come up with reasonable definitions of what a democracy is but it needs to have free, fair, and open elections with real competition.

We can argue what really is or isn't a democracy all day long -- remember the US is "not a democracy but a republic". That's the kind of confusion you get when you try to make sense of a stupid apodiction like 'no democracy has ever declared war on another'.

Democracy and peace do go together, but one is not a guarantee of the other; both are fragile. Not all nations in the EU were democracies in a strong sense of the word when they joined; some aren't today. And the Weimar Republic was a democracy and peaceful right up to the point where it stopped being either.

Packard, given your background, consider me unsurprised that you can't conceive of not invading countries with which you have no broad trading relation. Your apparent fear that Germany without the EU will backslide into old habits and start exterminating populations may be sound and well-grounded, I don't consume most of the same media as you and am probably ill-suited to opine fairly. I stand by my view of Britain, that *they're* not going to start invading places just because of Brexit, even outside of all the other mutually beneficial trade that will undoubtedly persist.

The whole claim that the EU kept the peace in Europe is bull shit from start to finish. NATO and NATO alone kept the peace especially since the modern EU didn't form until the 1990's after the cold war was over. Before that it was mostly just a protectionist trade union.