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Author Topic:   Brexit - Should they stay or should they go?
caffeine
Member (Idle past 1015 days)
Posts: 1800
From: Prague, Czech Republic
Joined: 10-22-2008


(1)
Message 555 of 887 (850051)
03-29-2019 3:45 PM
Reply to: Message 553 by Tangle
03-29-2019 3:09 PM


Two year delay, followed by referendum where the vote is 55/45 remain.
A boy can hope.
If you're going to hope then hope for something like 68% remain - as anything less means at least a decade of hearing people moan about the people's will being ignored.

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caffeine
Member (Idle past 1015 days)
Posts: 1800
From: Prague, Czech Republic
Joined: 10-22-2008


(1)
Message 558 of 887 (850078)
03-30-2019 4:17 PM
Reply to: Message 557 by ringo
03-30-2019 11:54 AM


I can't speak for the UK but in Canada we prefer ineffective governments. A politician who breaks his promises is by far preferable to one who keeps stupid promises.
Whenever there's a debate about voting reform in the UK, one of the arguments people use to defend the first-past-the-post system is that it increases the chance of parties getting a significant parliamentary majority (even without a significant majority of votes), and thus means they can effectively implement their policy programme.
I still haven't figured out why that's supposed to be a positive.

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caffeine
Member (Idle past 1015 days)
Posts: 1800
From: Prague, Czech Republic
Joined: 10-22-2008


Message 562 of 887 (850156)
04-02-2019 6:42 AM
Reply to: Message 560 by AZPaul3
04-01-2019 6:34 PM


Re: All Brexit proposals fail - Again
You need to get over this weird obsession with the Queen. It's 2019. No solution lies in that direction.

This message is a reply to:
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caffeine
Member (Idle past 1015 days)
Posts: 1800
From: Prague, Czech Republic
Joined: 10-22-2008


Message 565 of 887 (850174)
04-02-2019 2:04 PM
Reply to: Message 563 by AZPaul3
04-02-2019 9:27 AM


Re: All Brexit proposals fail - Again
She has the constitutional power but it is socially unacceptable for her to use them.
It's not about social acceptability - she does not have the constitutional powers you think she has. The Queen's authority to dissolve Parliament was formally abolished by the Fixed-term Parliaments Act (2011).
She does have the theoretical power to dismiss May, but not to dissolve Parliament.

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caffeine
Member (Idle past 1015 days)
Posts: 1800
From: Prague, Czech Republic
Joined: 10-22-2008


Message 570 of 887 (850231)
04-04-2019 3:42 AM
Reply to: Message 569 by ringo
04-03-2019 3:40 PM


Which logo do you have on the obverse?

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caffeine
Member (Idle past 1015 days)
Posts: 1800
From: Prague, Czech Republic
Joined: 10-22-2008


(1)
Message 572 of 887 (850242)
04-04-2019 12:51 PM
Reply to: Message 571 by ringo
04-04-2019 11:52 AM


I didn't keep it but as I recall (and looking it up in Wikipedia) it was probably the Austrian version with an edelweiss.
I like the ones that make you guess where it's from. Some are really dull. ie:
Just in case you didn't recognise the weird stylised profile, we're gonna bung the Queen's name and the name of the country on in big letters. Where's the fun?
Others make the country name a little less obvious:
but once you've learnt that the RI logo is Republicca Italiana there's no more fun.
Austria's are some of my favourites - much more subtle. They all incorporate a flag design but it doesn't always leap at you without colour. They sometimes use heads, and then you're struggling to think what the Grand Duke of Luxembourg looks like before you realise that it's a famous historical figure from Austria.
Finland makes some of my favourites though:

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caffeine
Member (Idle past 1015 days)
Posts: 1800
From: Prague, Czech Republic
Joined: 10-22-2008


Message 574 of 887 (850290)
04-05-2019 12:53 PM
Reply to: Message 573 by Diomedes
04-05-2019 9:45 AM


Re: UK asks EU for another extension until June 30
Interestingly, there will also be no more indicative votes on alternatives for Brexit. They voted on whether they should continue doing indicative votes and it ended with a tie in parliament: 310-310. The speaker then broke the tie and voted with the noes.
Fun fact - this is the first tie in the Commons since 1993. That tie (317-317) was a vote on the Maastricht Treaty!
The EU really is a topic that seems to divide people.

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caffeine
Member (Idle past 1015 days)
Posts: 1800
From: Prague, Czech Republic
Joined: 10-22-2008


Message 581 of 887 (852481)
05-12-2019 9:33 AM
Reply to: Message 580 by Percy
05-12-2019 8:35 AM


My interpretations of the article could be off because such articles have a variety of names that I'm not familiar with that they use to refer to the different political parties. For example, I think Tories are the Conservative party, but I could be wrong. I think Farage's party is the Brexit party, but I could be wrong.
You are correct on both points.
But if I correctly picked up the gist of that article, and if those poll figures hold up, then after a new general election the Conservatives and the Brexits would form one alliance, and the Labour party would try to find common cause with enough Liberal Democrats and Other to take control of Parliament. If Labour takes control of Parliament would that make a cancellation of Brexit possible?
Sorry if I'm way off. It would be welcome if someone could clarify. I know a lot has been written here and I should understand this better, but I don't.
There's a few things to bear in mind here.
First, there's a fundamental problem with your idea of a Tory/Brexit coalition. It would very much depend what sort of Tory party we had - particularly the leadership. A lot of the Tories are against Brexit. This is one of the central reasons that this whole process has turned into such a mess - neither of the two biggest traditional parties have a coherent policy on the European Union - both include members strongly committed to the European project and others strongly opposed, with a variety of intermediate positions.
I also think the Tories would be wary of allying with the Brexit party in any case, since they are aware that it's not a real political party. It's a single-issue campaign hastily thrown together - and the likelihood of it holding together coherently should it have a massive electoral success is slim. For a glimpse into what I'm thinking of - look at the current UKIP contingent in the EU Parliament. After the big UKIP success in the last election, they elected 24 MEPS.
Now, shortly before the next election; there are only two MEPs which still call themselves UKIP. Those two no longer sit with the EFDD (UKIP's European political alliance) - they decided to instead go and caucus with the fascists. They found there another former UKIP member, now sitting as an independent fascist after being expelled from the party.
14 of the UKIP MPs joined the Brexit Party - one of which had previously left UKIP to form his own Libertarian Party. Three refused to join the Brexit Party and sit as independents in the EFDD. One quit UKIP for the centre left, Eurosceptic SDP. One quite UKIP and joined the Tories. Two others quit the party and sit as unaffiliated independents - one after his failed leadership bid led to a fistfight with a fellow member and one in protest over the party's Islamophobia.
The Brexit will be the same. It's a motley alliance of xenophobes, old-school socialists, libertarians, and others with a load of incompatible principles - united solely on the one issue of leaving the European Union. It will fall apart pretty rapidly.
The other thing to bear in mind here, is that those numbers you're looking at are not going to be representation in Parliament; even if they're accurate vote figures. UK general elections are not elected proportionally - the same as in the US. The structure of the multiparty system means that parties can get significant vote shares without significant representation in Parliament. In 2015, the Lib Dems got 8% of the vote, and 1% of the seats. UKIP got almost 13% of the national vote, but they only won them 1 seat out of 650.
To get people in Parliament you don't need a large vote total - you need a geographically concentrated vote. To see how this works look at the Scottish Nationalists - they got much less than half UKIP's total votes; but this gave them 56 MPs, in contrast to UKIP's one. The Green Party got almost as many votes as the SNP, but they also only elected one MP. The SNP's votes are (obviously) concentrated in Scotland, and so matter more than the widely distributed support for parties like UKIP, Greens and Lib Dems.
ABE: If you want to fill in your question marks, by the way, the full results of the Opinium survey were as follows:
Labour: 28%
Tory: 22%
Brexit: 21%
Lib Dem: 11%
Green: 6%
Other: 12%
Edited by caffeine, : No reason given.

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caffeine
Member (Idle past 1015 days)
Posts: 1800
From: Prague, Czech Republic
Joined: 10-22-2008


Message 584 of 887 (852488)
05-12-2019 2:40 PM
Reply to: Message 583 by PaulK
05-12-2019 2:04 PM


Given the First Past the Post system it depends on the distribution of votes. Labour and the Tories will almost certainly get more seats than the numbers suggest.
I think those figures would give Labour more seats than the Tories, but I don’t think they’d get a majority.
There's very little chance of anyone winning a majority. The lowest vote share that has ever sufficed for a single-party majority (since Irish independence) was 36.9% (this was David Cameron's slim victory when he ran on the promise of a referendum).
In reality though, I am guessing, since if the vote share in the opinion poll is correct it's uncharted territory. There has never have been a UK election in which the top two parties had less than 50% collectively - probably never less than about 65%. Election results like that opinion poll will probably mean a Commons whose composition is wildly out of whack with the popular vote.
Funny that a decade ago we had a referendum to reform our electoral system, which lost dramatically. And yet now we're in a situation where the two largest parties may not receive a majority of the popular vote collectively.
Not that they would stop Brexit if they did, unless something changes. Labour’s policy is pro-Brexit and they are reluctant to even go with a second referendum.
Though Labour did commit to a second referendum in their official party platform. The fact that they are nonetheless reluctant to follow through is probably a large contributor to why they're polling so poorly (even if they're the most popular single party in the polls, 28% is pretty appalling considering they got 40% of the vote in the 2017 election).

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caffeine
Member (Idle past 1015 days)
Posts: 1800
From: Prague, Czech Republic
Joined: 10-22-2008


Message 590 of 887 (852539)
05-13-2019 11:11 AM
Reply to: Message 589 by Heathen
05-13-2019 10:07 AM


Do the EU elections have any form of proportional representation? or is it FPTP?
It's a roughly proportional system.

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caffeine
Member (Idle past 1015 days)
Posts: 1800
From: Prague, Czech Republic
Joined: 10-22-2008


Message 593 of 887 (852804)
05-17-2019 8:11 AM
Reply to: Message 592 by Diomedes
05-17-2019 8:05 AM


Re: Labour-Tory Brexit talks fail with no compromise
And on a side note, apparently Theresa May indicated that if she loses the next Brexit plan vote, she has promised to set a timetable for her successor.
It's not contingent on winning or losing the vote - she just said after the vote, regardless of outcome.

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caffeine
Member (Idle past 1015 days)
Posts: 1800
From: Prague, Czech Republic
Joined: 10-22-2008


Message 595 of 887 (852818)
05-17-2019 12:45 PM
Reply to: Message 594 by Diomedes
05-17-2019 9:03 AM


Re: Labour-Tory Brexit talks fail with no compromise
On another note, Boris Johnson has stated he plans to run for PM:
Please god, no.

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caffeine
Member (Idle past 1015 days)
Posts: 1800
From: Prague, Czech Republic
Joined: 10-22-2008


Message 599 of 887 (852849)
05-18-2019 9:40 AM
Reply to: Message 598 by Taq
05-17-2019 5:21 PM


Re: Labour-Tory Brexit talks fail with no compromise
Stupid question . . . if May steps down would this result in new elections, or can a new PM be appointed by the ruling coalition without an election?
They can appoint a new PM without an election, as long as there's someone Paliament is actually willing to support.
Since the Fixed-Terms Parliament Act was passed, the government no longer has the power to dissolve Parliament at will, including by the PM resigning. It needs a two-thirds majority in Parliament to have an early election.
In order that this doesn't mean the country continues rudderless if no one can form a new government; Parliament can with a simple majority pass a vote of no confidence in whatever new government the Tories try to form - after this there's a two week grace period in which to try and form a government that can command majority support. If this fails Parliament will be dissolved and there will be an early general election.

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caffeine
Member (Idle past 1015 days)
Posts: 1800
From: Prague, Czech Republic
Joined: 10-22-2008


Message 617 of 887 (853279)
05-24-2019 4:41 PM
Reply to: Message 615 by Percy
05-24-2019 2:49 PM


Re: Understanding Brexit
And would the EU even agree to it?
To a very soft Brexit with Britain still tied to most European treaties? Of course they would! Most European governments would rather Britain stays in the EU, but if they're going to leave better they leave without disrupting the European market. For a country like the Netherlands, a Brexit where Britain adopts a position like Norway's is the best case scenario, excluding Britain remaining in the EU. For a country like France, it would actually be a best case scenario fullstop (my thinking here being that UK and Holland usually vote the same way in the Council, unlike France, so a UK in the EU without voting power would be the ideal situation for France).

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caffeine
Member (Idle past 1015 days)
Posts: 1800
From: Prague, Czech Republic
Joined: 10-22-2008


Message 634 of 887 (853379)
05-27-2019 5:20 AM
Reply to: Message 633 by LamarkNewAge
05-26-2019 11:21 PM


Re: Did the nationalists really "win" this E.U. election?
I would agree that the media is over excited and carried away with it's 'far right on the march!' narrative. This obsession with the right is probably helping to find the successes they're having, by giving them confidence, airtime and respectability.
Actually looking at the results, we can see that populist, Eurosceptic parties gained seats. The ENF (the fascist grouping of Le Pen and Salvini) jumped from 37 to 58 seats. The EDFF (the less extreme Eurosceptics, this is the Brexit Party and AfD), went from 45 to 56.
This means that, collectively, the two groups have gone from 10.9% to 15.2%. Sure, this is a success, but to hear some people speak you would think they won the election. On the contrary, they appear to represent a minority viewpoint. As it stands, neither group actually has enough members to form an official group in the new Parliament since, unlike the Communists or the Greens, their numbers do not represent broad European coalitions from all across the continent. They represent the successes of a few specific national parties (Brexit, AfD, National Rally and Lega).
If we need a narrative to describe the election, it should be one of fragmentation. The Eurosceptics increased their vote share, yes. But so did the Liberals and the Greens, at the expense of the two traditional main blocs.

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