If You Could Vote Again (Brexit)

[rjan]

Carryfast:

Winseer:
Exactly, but despite that obvious situation, the EU sent Cameron home with nothing, not even one tiny concession to perhaps “talk about reform” in some kind of “Jam Tomorrow” deal that might have swung an extra 3% on the referendum to come… The arrogance of the EU is staggering.

The only ‘reform’ which would matter and make any sense regarding reversing Brexit would be for the EU to change into a Confederation of Sovereign states with the right to agree to disagree in the form of opt out or substitution and the removal of the Commissioners.

It already is a confederation, and already has opt-outs and vetoes (including the ultimate opt-out, Brexit). The problem is that you want the benefits and freedoms of the confederacy without the costs or constraints! Rather than forging alliances with other members of the confederacy and using Brexit as a soundboard to argue for reform, the Tories have alienated everyone with their mostly ludicrous set of demands and threats.

And the reality is, the EU does have the Tories by the balls, because they can threaten their business and money interests and wealthy backers. It’s like that EU official who said “markets will teach the Italians how to vote”. They can say the same thing to the Tories, because the Tories are unwilling to challenge markets.

[rjan]

Winseer:
Exactly, but despite that obvious situation, the EU sent Cameron home with nothing, not even one tiny concession to perhaps “talk about reform” in some kind of “Jam Tomorrow” deal that might have swung an extra 3% on the referendum to come… The arrogance of the EU is staggering. They clearly believed their own lies and spin, when the media reported “massive support for remain” going into the referendum.

I agree. The problem is that Cameron wasn’t going there to represent settled workers. Cameron could have gone there and said we want an end to free movement, and they’d have said “OK, but if you refuse to accept unskilled migrants, then you can’t cream or cherrypick skilled workers from Eastern Europe either”, and at that point faced with a substantially higher wage bill, the necessity to train more settled workers, improved bargaining power for settled workers, and lower profits for the bosses, he’ll have folded, because it’s not in his interests (or those of the interests he represents) to push the issue.

If it hadn’t had been for the assassination of Jo Cox MP - the result might well have been more 65/35 for Leave.

I doubt it made much difference to be honest. I haven’t heard the issue used in the context of Brexit.

What a sandbunker 52/48 was and still is to this country.

Now, two years on - we have 0% UK government progress on Brexit and the EU have also moved 0% in both any “voluntary Reforms” or even 0% in “reducing their budget, that can only last until the UK finally pulls the plug on the tribute payments…”

But if contributions go down, then the UK has to give up some sort of benefit in exchange, and there has been no progress on that front either about what benefits the UK wants to give up (or what EU-wide policy it wants abolished) in exchange for reduced contributions.

There’s no point trying to take the moral high ground with Germany, because it has the highest net contribution of all, by a massive margin. And France is not far behind. Even on a per-capita basis, Germany and France contribute significantly more than Britain.

Even the Eastern European countries that are net beneficiaries of the EU budget, they’d rightly say “well if you’re going to cut your net contributions, then we want the hordes of skilled workers back that you keep creaming from our countries!”.

And the last thing the Tories want is for the British farm owner or factory owner to be deprived of workers, who were raised, schooled, trained, and skilled on the Polish dime!

I’ll state again “Restricting free movement” is the thing that should have been pushed down the priority list - with “stopping the payments” raised to the priorty 1 position. Everything else will quickly fall into place ONCE we stop those payments - so WTF has this country done nothing towards that end? Culpable Civil Servants led by a Remainer senior cabinet.

Then what benefits are you willing to give up? And are you sure they are benefits that the Tories are willing to give up?

All this talk of “Having our cake and eating it”. All we ever had to do was just stop paying the money. The EU will kick us out at their own speed, after that. They might not even be able to kick us out of the customs union and close down UK-EU trade routes any more than WE can.

I disagree, because all the EU has to do is screw down the valve on that big fat pipe of money that leads from the City of London. Not a problem for working class people, but everything as far the Tories’ interests are concerned.

It’s the same with like the new EU GPS system. For working class people, if the UK has to have it’s own military GPS system then so be it, but for Tories who are trying to cut taxes for the rich (and who promised “savings”), it’s absurd to end up having to spend another £10bn on their own satellite system (which will either hit the interests of the rich who they represent, or else have to hit workers to whom they promised the whole deal would yield “savings”).

There is no force on Earth that can make us pay any kind of “Brexit Bill”.

There is, they just sequester British material assets. Even if you threaten them with armed force, they have 27 nations’ worth of armies, including several sea powers, and major military allies like the USA!

Of course, I’m not suggesting it will go that far, since they too face political constraints on the measures they can take, but some perspective on this would go a long way. To menace the Tories in the negotiations, the EU doesn’t need to wipe us out or bring us to our knees, all it has to do is either undermine electoral support for the Tories (for example, cut off subsidies for British farmers), or threaten the money interests of the rich.

It is also easy to leave any EU-based judicial authority as well.
“Leaving the Customs Union” and “Leaving the Single Market” will likely end up being the very EU sanctions they put upon us - once we stop paying the money over to Brussels. It is essential politically then, that we MUST be prepared to “give these up” - or we’ll always buckle under to the threat of “Nope, you stop paying - we take this that and the other away from you.”

Only when you are prepared to sacrifice something entirely - do you finally have any kind of real control over it.

I agree, but although the Tories want to leave the customs union and single market, they don’t actually want trade to cease. And there’s a big difference between being forced out of the single market and customs union, and returning to (say) WTO terms, and the EU actually imposing trade sanctions on us - literally pulling down the roller shutter.

The only possible way the Tories would cope with that, would be by sustaining a hemorrhage of profits and using the state to reformulate the economy, and revealing those powers of the state is exactly what the Tories are in power to prevent! Because Corbyn would naturally say, if the state can be used for that (with success), then why can’t it be used for other things? They’d be back to 1945 with a huge swing to the left-wing, without a shred of credible argument left against it. Or, if they didn’t use the state, then mass unemployment and economic crisis would follow (for at least a period of years whilst things were naturally reorganised by the markets), and they’d then be ejected from office for that reason and there’d be a huge turn against them.

[carryfast]

Rjan:

Carryfast:
The only ‘reform’ which would matter and make any sense regarding reversing Brexit would be for the EU to change into a Confederation of Sovereign states with the right to agree to disagree in the form of opt out or substitution and the removal of the Commissioners.

It already is a confederation, and already has opt-outs and vetoes (including the ultimate opt-out, Brexit). The problem is that you want the benefits and freedoms of the confederacy without the costs or constraints! Rather than forging alliances with other members of the confederacy and using Brexit as a soundboard to argue for reform, the Tories have alienated everyone with their mostly ludicrous set of demands and threats.

And the reality is, the EU does have the Tories by the balls, because they can threaten their business and money interests and wealthy backers. It’s like that EU official who said “markets will teach the Italians how to vote”. They can say the same thing to the Tories, because the Tories are unwilling to challenge markets.

If it’s a Confederation with opt outs and not a Soviet style Federation feel free to explain what QMV means or for that matter all the other rights of National opt out that we supposedly have over all the directives of the Commissioners.While surely no one is naive enough to believe that the removal of the right of secession isn’t on the EU agenda.If you really must lie at least try to make it a bit believable.

While you’re obviously contradicting your own lies by saying that the EU bankers have the Italian right of national democracy by the balls.On that note you can take your EU ‘officials’ ( commissars ) and shove them where the sun don’t shine.

The fact is Spinelli’s commy EUSSR plans are falling apart even in your own Commy heartlands.Get used to it because this is only the start of the Nationalist backlash throughout Europe against your stinking dictatorial ideology and lies in trying to hijack the Leave agenda.As for the Tories no being ideologically Federalist/Globalist they’ve always been on the same side as the Soviet Socialist Labour lot.As you’re now proving by saying that you’re going to hold your banker class allies to ransom if they don’t maintain the dictatorial Soviet EU status quo.Not Nationalism which has more right to call itself left,than all the liars like Callaghan and Blair and now Starmer and Corbyn which characterise your rabble ever did.As I’ve said it’s clear that you’re closer to Blair than Hoey and shame on her for not walking away and standing as an independent.Just as Davis should in the case of your Con remain allies in the form of May and Hammond and Clark and ironically Thatcher.Make no mistake the Labour leave vote has Corbyn and Starmer sussed it’s just that it took it later rather than sooner to do it.It’s now just a question of where that vote will go with May and her stinking Cons being another Globalist Remainer no hoper rabble as usual allied to the corrupt Soviet Socialist Labour one pretending to be the refuge of the working class.

Let me guess the next line of defence will be the Globalist and Socialist alliance desperately rigging the electoral process ( oh wait no surprise the Italian president has already done that just as in the case of the Le Pen’s ballot paper fiasco ) and/or the Socialist vote showing its true colours by joining the Globalist vote ( the French elections which put Macron into power again being an example of that ).That’s ended well for the French working class and the ongoing Islamification of France if not Europe.

[winseer]

If you pay 100 units IN towards benefits, and 7 bodies receive say, 8 units each back - then we’re getting back 56% of what we hand over back as benefits.

If we then scrap the payments at source, then we have 100 units to allocate, and there’s nothing to prevent the original recipients of the 56 units from getting that straight away.
There would be NO waiting, as the 100 units are still in the UK exchequer, having not been paid over to start with. There’s nothing “pie in the sky” about it. The money is already here, because it hasn’t left our proverbial pockets yet.

Once re-allocated in full, there would be 44 units in this example which we COULD hand all over to the NHS, but in practice will likely be split among a number of “worthy causes”, the NHS being but one of those.

It is clear that the British Public, be they Remain or Leave voter - need some lessons in basic accounting.

We would be better off if we paid over less - even if 100% of the “back money” came to an immediate halt as a result.
In real life, it is highly likely that the EU won’t be able to halt those payments and benefits back to the UK anywhere near as quickly as they would like - but they hope that the UK never actually calls its bluff by proceeding with this oh-so-obvious “past point of no return” aspect of Brexit: Ceasing the Payments to Brussels. Once done, the passage of time works in the UK’s favour, rather than the EU’s favour. If they waste weeks and months “getting things done” or “getting things stopped” - then that is no skin off our nose, with government departments, especially local councils keen and eager to spend all this extra money they’ll now have from the central exchequer the moment some civil servants can be arsed to sit down at a pootah and do the relevant day-to-day administrations.

I do believe Labour and Conservative have different visions of what those example 44 units of “left over cash” can and would be spent on - BUT I don’t doubt for a minute that ANY UK council of any political party - would have a lot of reasons to spend everything they are given.

I have not heard any talk of “The Tories would take the entire 44 units, and pay down the deficit with it, leaving the everlasting austerity plans intact”.
I have also not heard any talk of “Labour would spend the entire 44 units on the NHS and absolutely nothing else other than the NHS”…
I HAVE heard Remain endlessly insist that the “£350m on the side of the bus was a lie” - which is easy to say, when they’ve campaigned so hard and long so that NO one gets their hands on that money, however much it really is.

Perhaps it is time for both May and Corbyn to actually come out and say HOW much money is the real figure to be recouped (by not paying it) and WHAT they as a party, would allocate this surplus cash to within the UK. If it were say, BNP running the show here - we might have something extreme like “Spend £10m of it on deportations, £14m on new Prisons, £10m on Border Police, and £10m on re-developing confiscated Mosque land into much-needed housing”

The BNP policies are never going to see the light of day though, - so let’s be realistic instead, and talk about what is actual main party policy “to spend that money on” - and the actual nuts and bolts of “ceasing those payments forthwith”. We’ve already paid in for 2 years totally needlessly, imo.
It is almost as if our entire Westminster bubble “don’t want the extra work involved” rather than “don’t want the money, and the popularity they would no doubt get in spending it”.
ARE we our own country - or are we truly a vassal of the EU?

Italy really need the UK to trailblaze FIRST, as the “recouped money” is FAR more for the UK than it would be from Italy “going foward, and doing what I’ve just described as a serious modus operandi for the UK’s leaving plans…”

[winseer]

Rjan:

Winseer:
Exactly, but despite that obvious situation, the EU sent Cameron home with nothing, not even one tiny concession to perhaps “talk about reform” in some kind of “Jam Tomorrow” deal that might have swung an extra 3% on the referendum to come… The arrogance of the EU is staggering. They clearly believed their own lies and spin, when the media reported “massive support for remain” going into the referendum.

I agree. The problem is that Cameron wasn’t going there to represent settled workers. Cameron could have gone there and said we want an end to free movement, and they’d have said “OK, but if you refuse to accept unskilled migrants, then you can’t cream or cherrypick skilled workers from Eastern Europe either”, and at that point faced with a substantially higher wage bill, the necessity to train more settled workers, improved bargaining power for settled workers, and lower profits for the bosses, he’ll have folded, because it’s not in his interests (or those of the interests he represents) to push the issue.

If it hadn’t had been for the assassination of Jo Cox MP - the result might well have been more 65/35 for Leave.

I doubt it made much difference to be honest. I haven’t heard the issue used in the context of Brexit.
It would have made some difference, as some people that were about to vote Leave, might have stayed at home instead, disgusted that someone has actually been murdered over “the issue of Brexit”.

What a sandbunker 52/48 was and still is to this country.

Now, two years on - we have 0% UK government progress on Brexit and the EU have also moved 0% in both any “voluntary Reforms” or even 0% in “reducing their budget, that can only last until the UK finally pulls the plug on the tribute payments…”

But if contributions go down, then the UK has to give up some sort of benefit in exchange, and there has been no progress on that front either about what benefits the UK wants to give up (or what EU-wide policy it wants abolished) in exchange for reduced contributions. I would expect the benefits to cease immediately, but in practice the EU “ceasing” - would be difficult to accomplish overnight, unless actual hostilities broke out of course.

There’s no point trying to take the moral high ground with Germany, because it has the highest net contribution of all, by a massive margin. And France is not far behind. Even on a per-capita basis, Germany and France contribute significantly more than Britain. We can take the moral high ground with Germany, because they didn’t pay for the two world wars in financial terms. Free “Aid” money under the Bretton-Woods deal is quite different from “Lend Lease” that has to be repaid. Germany, by rights - should never have been in charge of any “United States of Europe” project from the outset. It is no coincidence imo that the former imperial powers are the ones getting most shirty with all that is wrong with the EU btw…

Even the Eastern European countries that are net beneficiaries of the EU budget, they’d rightly say “well if you’re going to cut your net contributions, then we want the hordes of skilled workers back that you keep creaming from our countries!”. Actually, I can live with that, and I suspect a large number of others in this country could as well. I can be Pro-EU citizen’s rights and Anti-EU citizens pushing down collective wages at the same time, oddly enough.

And the last thing the Tories want is for the British farm owner or factory owner to be deprived of workers, who were raised, schooled, trained, and skilled on the Polish dime!
If wages rise, then inflation will also rise to counteract it. Inflation encourages rich Tories to go out and spend some money before they lose it to inflationary attrition. That I ‘don’t have a problem with that’, - is about the furthest ‘Left’ thing you’ll hear from me today.

I’ll state again “Restricting free movement” is the thing that should have been pushed down the priority list - with “stopping the payments” raised to the priorty 1 position. Everything else will quickly fall into place ONCE we stop those payments - so WTF has this country done nothing towards that end? Culpable Civil Servants led by a Remainer senior cabinet.

Then what benefits are you willing to give up? And are you sure they are benefits that the Tories are willing to give up?

The “Benefit” we might be giving up is a Socialist Dictatorship getting to decide what meagre part of the money we hand over - can go to what exact UK causes picked and chosen by the EU, rather than the UK’s citizens… These “Benefits” then are only “Benefits” if you are a fellow socialist, and likely approve of how and where the money is being spent as it stands.
If you are NOT happy with how the money is being allocated from the rebate amount - then chances are, you are not a socialist in the first place - correct?
It makes sense that the Left fear the exact manner in which the Right would re-allocate that money. This might be a legitimate concern BUT it is worth remembering that we still get to hold an election every so often, and this money we “no longer pay to Brussels” will be as ongoing as an agency contract… (!) I.e. We could always elect a Labour government to spend that money differently if we didn’t like the way the Conservatives spent the first couple of years of the recouped Brexit money, assuming that everything stays on schedule, we cease payments by the end of march next year, and the next election is held in June 2022…

All this talk of “Having our cake and eating it”. All we ever had to do was just stop paying the money. The EU will kick us out at their own speed, after that. They might not even be able to kick us out of the customs union and close down UK-EU trade routes any more than WE can.

I disagree, because all the EU has to do is screw down the valve on that big fat pipe of money that leads from the City of London. Not a problem for working class people, but everything as far the Tories’ interests are concerned. If the EU don’t want to use our highly efficient financial system - then that’s no skin off our noses. London is going to stay a world financial powerhouse, despite efforts to scare money away from the City with this “Inquisition on Russian Money” that seems to be going on of late… The rest of the world is hardly going to run to Frankfurt because London is no longer in the EU… The money coming to London will be for UK benefit, rather than sidelined into the EU wider banking system, which is as bent as a nine-bob-note as it is. Dead banks walking like Deutsche Bank, The next big bank blow-up - not being advised of to the public, and no actual government commitment to “bailing out savers” after the way even the Left handled the last banking crisis…

It’s the same with like the new EU GPS system. For working class people, if the UK has to have it’s own military GPS system then so be it, but for Tories who are trying to cut taxes for the rich (and who promised “savings”), it’s absurd to end up having to spend another £10bn on their own satellite system (which will either hit the interests of the rich who they represent, or else have to hit workers to whom they promised the whole deal would yield “savings”). That seems like a reasonable reason to not care much for the Tory way of doing things.

There is no force on Earth that can make us pay any kind of “Brexit Bill”.

There is, they just sequester British material assets. Even if you threaten them with armed force, they have 27 nations’ worth of armies, including several sea powers, and major military allies like the USA! You mean actually steal UK money on deposit in the ECB, and prevent the Bank of England dumping its huge amounts of Eurocurrency reserves onto the open market. Sorry bud, the City of London can totally wipe the floor with the ECB on that score. The City seems rather “Pro Remain” because it is a huge cash cow to them. If the UK government ordered the City to act against the ECB - then trust me - they’d throw it under the train quicker than Underwood could chuck Zoe! The ECB are trying to play “Age of Empires” vs counties including Britain that were a lot better at it in two previous world wars than they were. The moment the ECB is seen to default on ANYTHING financial - it is FINISHED. Who would leave their money on deposit there once the ECB has refused to hand back Britain’s £9bn on deposit, for example? How would the ECB “Intervene in the Forex market” to absorb the Bank of England dumping some 4.2 Trillion Euros, now that we are no longer obliged by EU laws for EU convieneince to hold that amount as reserves? Actually, this might have happened a long time since IF we could have got rid of Foreigner Remainer Mark Carney from the Bank of England…

Of course, I’m not suggesting it will go that far, since they too face political constraints on the measures they can take, but some perspective on this would go a long way. To menace the Tories in the negotiations, the EU doesn’t need to wipe us out or bring us to our knees, all it has to do is either undermine electoral support for the Tories (for example, cut off subsidies for British farmers), or threaten the money interests of the rich.

It is also easy to leave any EU-based judicial authority as well.
“Leaving the Customs Union” and “Leaving the Single Market” will likely end up being the very EU sanctions they put upon us - once we stop paying the money over to Brussels. It is essential politically then, that we MUST be prepared to “give these up” - or we’ll always buckle under to the threat of “Nope, you stop paying - we take this that and the other away from you.”

Only when you are prepared to sacrifice something entirely - do you finally have any kind of real control over it.

I agree, but although the Tories want to leave the customs union and single market, they don’t actually want trade to cease. And there’s a big difference between being forced out of the single market and customs union, and returning to (say) WTO terms, and the EU actually imposing trade sanctions on us - literally pulling down the roller shutter. I would suggest I don’t want “trade” to cease either - but if I’m not prepared to SEE it cease - then the EU have got us over a barrel of fear forever. We then get to block ourselves from leaving. We’re being played by the EU on this score. What would hurt us - hurts the EU a whole lot more. Let’s just crack on, and see who can take the most pain then…

The only possible way the Tories would cope with that, would be by sustaining a hemorrhage of profits and using the state to reformulate the economy, and revealing those powers of the state is exactly what the Tories are in power to prevent! Because Corbyn would naturally say, if the state can be used for that (with success), then why can’t it be used for other things? They’d be back to 1945 with a huge swing to the left-wing, without a shred of credible argument left against it. Or, if they didn’t use the state, then mass unemployment and economic crisis would follow (for at least a period of years whilst things were naturally reorganised by the markets), and they’d then be ejected from office for that reason and there’d be a huge turn against them.

I think the Tories might be trying to actually TIME Brexit to suit it’s chances at the next election. They’ll fail for the same reason Churchill lost to a landslide Atlee election victory right after WWII was done…

[rjan]

Carryfast:

Rjan:

Carryfast:
The only ‘reform’ which would matter and make any sense regarding reversing Brexit would be for the EU to change into a Confederation of Sovereign states with the right to agree to disagree in the form of opt out or substitution and the removal of the Commissioners.

It already is a confederation, and already has opt-outs and vetoes (including the ultimate opt-out, Brexit). The problem is that you want the benefits and freedoms of the confederacy without the costs or constraints! Rather than forging alliances with other members of the confederacy and using Brexit as a soundboard to argue for reform, the Tories have alienated everyone with their mostly ludicrous set of demands and threats.

And the reality is, the EU does have the Tories by the balls, because they can threaten their business and money interests and wealthy backers. It’s like that EU official who said “markets will teach the Italians how to vote”. They can say the same thing to the Tories, because the Tories are unwilling to challenge markets.

If it’s a Confederation with opt outs and not a Soviet style Federation feel free to explain what QMV means or for that matter all the other rights of National opt out that we supposedly have over all the directives of the Commissioners.

But even under QMV, we still have the ultimate right to leave the club - and that’s broadly what distinguishes a confederacy from a union, since with a union you don’t have the right to leave unilaterally. And the UK has had vetoes and opt-outs at various stages (as well as the facility to have asked for opt-outs or to have prevented changes, if the elected government had wished at the time).

If you’re in a club and you agree a set of rules amongst yourselves one day, you can’t as a single member just decide the next day that you don’t like the rule anymore and want to reimpose the old rules on everyone. At that point, if you don’t have support from others for reverting (or otherwise revising or disapplying) the rules, then you have to accept the rules as they are or leave the club.

The point being that to participate in a club - or a confederacy - doesn’t mean you alone run it and determine all its rules. And in any confederacy, there has to be some sort of continuing commitment to collective will or some ability for all members to depend on prior agreements.

While surely no one is naive enough to believe that the removal of the right of secession isn’t on the EU agenda.If you really must lie at least try to make it a bit believable.

Well, I’m not aware of that being in the pipeline, that’s all I can say. The real obstacle to secession, even now, is not a lack of legal right to do so, but the fact that we have become accustomed to the benefits of the arrangement (the very benefits we entered into the club for in the first place), and are reluctant to forgo them.

While you’re obviously contradicting your own lies by saying that the EU bankers have the Italian right of national democracy by the balls.On that note you can take your EU ‘officials’ ( commissars ) and shove them where the sun don’t shine.

But they do have the Italian rich by the balls! That’s why the president has rejected the populist government.

The fact is Spinelli’s commy EUSSR plans are falling apart even in your own Commy heartlands.Get used to it because this is only the start of the Nationalist backlash throughout Europe against your stinking dictatorial ideology and lies in trying to hijack the Leave agenda.As for the Tories no being ideologically Federalist/Globalist they’ve always been on the same side as the Soviet Socialist Labour lot.As you’re now proving by saying that you’re going to hold your banker class allies to ransom if they don’t maintain the dictatorial Soviet EU status quo.

I don’t follow you Carryfast. I’m explaining fundamentally why they have the Tories by the balls in the negotiations, and why nothing of the sort of radicalism you want to see is going to be implemented by them (as shown by how they folded like a piece of paper at every step of the negotiations, when public claims have come up against hard consequences for profit discussed in private).

[rjan]

Winseer:
If you pay 100 units IN towards benefits, and 7 bodies receive say, 8 units each back - then we’re getting back 56% of what we hand over back as benefits.

If we then scrap the payments at source, then we have 100 units to allocate, and there’s nothing to prevent the original recipients of the 56 units from getting that straight away.
There would be NO waiting, as the 100 units are still in the UK exchequer, having not been paid over to start with. There’s nothing “pie in the sky” about it. The money is already here, because it hasn’t left our proverbial pockets yet.

Once re-allocated in full, there would be 44 units in this example which we COULD hand all over to the NHS, but in practice will likely be split among a number of “worthy causes”, the NHS being but one of those.

It is clear that the British Public, be they Remain or Leave voter - need some lessons in basic accounting.

We would be better off if we paid over less - even if 100% of the “back money” came to an immediate halt as a result.
In real life, it is highly likely that the EU won’t be able to halt those payments and benefits back to the UK anywhere near as quickly as they would like - but they hope that the UK never actually calls its bluff by proceeding with this oh-so-obvious “past point of no return” aspect of Brexit: Ceasing the Payments to Brussels. Once done, the passage of time works in the UK’s favour, rather than the EU’s favour. If they waste weeks and months “getting things done” or “getting things stopped” - then that is no skin off our nose, with government departments, especially local councils keen and eager to spend all this extra money they’ll now have from the central exchequer the moment some civil servants can be arsed to sit down at a pootah and do the relevant day-to-day administrations.

But that’s not the reality of how things work. If we have, say, an investment in a factory in the EU, that investment might only pay for itself after 30 years. If that physical capital is sequestered, then it’s gone, and so are the profits that it would have yielded. And clearly, we have far more eggs in their basket, than any one of them has in ours. And other nations, like Japan, have eggs in our basket mainly because we are EU members, and they would move their eggs across if we exited.

And the EU could easily summon the money to cover our net contribution out of its own pocket - the Tories coughed up £1bn just for the DUP deal, and they’re going to cough up £200bn for a new nuclear deterrent or whatever.

How hard do you think it will really be, if their hand is really forced, for 27 nations together to cough up £4bn or whatever that represents our net contribution? It’s closer to a mosquito bite than the loss of a limb for a combined EU economy that without us would still produce more than £15tn a year.

The EU doesn’t have the political or moral power to sequester assets unilaterally - simply as a punishment or deterrent to Brexit - but if it was to recoup only what we had agreed to prior to our exit and then defaulted on, it could well. And either way, our word in future agreements of any kind would not be trusted again by any country for at least a generation.

It just doesn’t make any sense to grab hold of these couple of billions and squeeze them in our chest for dear life - even if you see no justification at all for continuing with the payments - when the costs in the long-term would be much greater and we can just as easily afford to wind our relationship in an orderly fashion and in accordance with prior agreements.

And I go back to my point, that if we are willing to give up all benefits of being in the EU, then there is no obstacle to our exit, none at all. The problem the Tories have is that they aren’t willing to give up the benefits, because it will cause crisis of one kind or another, and that’s why they’re stuck in this ridiculous position of trying to negotiate all the costs or constraints away whilst insisting they retain all the old benefits.

I do believe Labour and Conservative have different visions of what those example 44 units of “left over cash” can and would be spent on - BUT I don’t doubt for a minute that ANY UK council of any political party - would have a lot of reasons to spend everything they are given.

I have not heard any talk of “The Tories would take the entire 44 units, and pay down the deficit with it, leaving the everlasting austerity plans intact”.
I have also not heard any talk of “Labour would spend the entire 44 units on the NHS and absolutely nothing else other than the NHS”…
I HAVE heard Remain endlessly insist that the “£350m on the side of the bus was a lie” - which is easy to say, when they’ve campaigned so hard and long so that NO one gets their hands on that money, however much it really is.

Perhaps it is time for both May and Corbyn to actually come out and say HOW much money is the real figure to be recouped (by not paying it) and WHAT they as a party, would allocate this surplus cash to within the UK. If it were say, BNP running the show here - we might have something extreme like “Spend £10m of it on deportations, £14m on new Prisons, £10m on Border Police, and £10m on re-developing confiscated Mosque land into much-needed housing”

The BNP policies are never going to see the light of day though, - so let’s be realistic instead, and talk about what is actual main party policy “to spend that money on” - and the actual nuts and bolts of “ceasing those payments forthwith”. We’ve already paid in for 2 years totally needlessly, imo.
It is almost as if our entire Westminster bubble “don’t want the extra work involved” rather than “don’t want the money, and the popularity they would no doubt get in spending it”.
ARE we our own country - or are we truly a vassal of the EU?

Italy really need the UK to trailblaze FIRST, as the “recouped money” is FAR more for the UK than it would be from Italy “going foward, and doing what I’ve just described as a serious modus operandi for the UK’s leaving plans…”

[rjan]

Winseer:
There’s no point trying to take the moral high ground with Germany, because it has the highest net contribution of all, by a massive margin. And France is not far behind. Even on a per-capita basis, Germany and France contribute significantly more than Britain. We can take the moral high ground with Germany, because they didn’t pay for the two world wars in financial terms. Free “Aid” money under the Bretton-Woods deal is quite different from “Lend Lease” that has to be repaid. Germany, by rights - should never have been in charge of any “United States of Europe” project from the outset. It is no coincidence imo that the former imperial powers are the ones getting most shirty with all that is wrong with the EU btw…

I really doubt that the peace settlement of a previous era, will be seen as a bargaining point - to have the “moral high ground” means to be seen to have the high ground over your opponent, not to simply have the high ground in your own mind.

Even the Eastern European countries that are net beneficiaries of the EU budget, they’d rightly say “well if you’re going to cut your net contributions, then we want the hordes of skilled workers back that you keep creaming from our countries!”. Actually, I can live with that, and I suspect a large number of others in this country could as well. I can be Pro-EU citizen’s rights and Anti-EU citizens pushing down collective wages at the same time, oddly enough.

Yes you can live with that, but the Tories can’t! They’re not going to have wages shooting through the roof in Britain, because they’re the Tory party!

And the last thing the Tories want is for the British farm owner or factory owner to be deprived of workers, who were raised, schooled, trained, and skilled on the Polish dime!
If wages rise, then inflation will also rise to counteract it. Inflation encourages rich Tories to go out and spend some money before they lose it to inflationary attrition. That I ‘don’t have a problem with that’, - is about the furthest ‘Left’ thing you’ll hear from me today.

Agreed, but then you see exactly why the Tories will get nowhere in EU negotiations, because the consequence of any change will be lower profits for British bosses and the erosion of wealth for the rich!

It makes sense that the Left fear the exact manner in which the Right would re-allocate that money. This might be a legitimate concern BUT it is worth remembering that we still get to hold an election every so often, and this money we “no longer pay to Brussels” will be as ongoing as an agency contract… (!) I.e. We could always elect a Labour government to spend that money differently if we didn’t like the way the Conservatives spent the first couple of years of the recouped Brexit money, assuming that everything stays on schedule, we cease payments by the end of march next year, and the next election is held in June 2022…

The left don’t fear how the Tories are going to spend contribution money. They fear the structural reforms that will result as part of their ulterior agenda, and the apparent eagerness with which people swallowed their propaganda.

Fortunately I’m starting to get the impression that the Tories are snookered on Brexit, and that they are simply going to drag it out - I think at some point, if they become convinced they are onto a sure loser with the Tories, you may either see the right-wing media swinging back towards Remain (if they feel it’s plausible to hold another referendum and put the genie back in the bottle by winning it decisively), or you might even see the ruling class subtly swing behind Corbyn and start going easy on him, reasoning that at least he does not intend to destroy the capitalist economy completely over the issue of Brexit, and will have the parliamentary numbers to move forward and keep a significant part of both his electorate and his party happy in the way that the Tories don’t.

The problem in the Tory party for negotiating a soft Brexit themselves (a pro-business one, that is more of a BINO), is that their majority of moderate Tory MPs simply don’t have the numbers (in parliament or in the country), even with propaganda running at full steam, and are beholden to their extremists, and it is only the wild promises of their extremists (themselves lacking any support for their real, ulterior agenda) that the working class electorate is attracted to, so they’d lose a GE if they moderated.

I disagree, because all the EU has to do is screw down the valve on that big fat pipe of money that leads from the City of London. Not a problem for working class people, but everything as far the Tories’ interests are concerned. If the EU don’t want to use our highly efficient financial system - then that’s no skin off our noses. London is going to stay a world financial powerhouse, despite efforts to scare money away from the City with this “Inquisition on Russian Money” that seems to be going on of late… The rest of the world is hardly going to run to Frankfurt because London is no longer in the EU… The money coming to London will be for UK benefit, rather than sidelined into the EU wider banking system, which is as bent as a nine-bob-note as it is. Dead banks walking like Deutsche Bank, The next big bank blow-up - not being advised of to the public, and no actual government commitment to “bailing out savers” after the way even the Left handled the last banking crisis…

I disagree, the loss of the EU market will be profit off the noses of the rich who invest in or operate our financial system - you can see this in how the Tories are haggling so hard about maintaining financial access to the EU. It would be no great loss for the working class of course, but that’s not who the Tories represent.

It’s the same with like the new EU GPS system. For working class people, if the UK has to have it’s own military GPS system then so be it, but for Tories who are trying to cut taxes for the rich (and who promised “savings”), it’s absurd to end up having to spend another £10bn on their own satellite system (which will either hit the interests of the rich who they represent, or else have to hit workers to whom they promised the whole deal would yield “savings”). That seems like a reasonable reason to not care much for the Tory way of doing things.

Indeed, but that’s why they’re paralysed!

There is no force on Earth that can make us pay any kind of “Brexit Bill”.

There is, they just sequester British material assets. Even if you threaten them with armed force, they have 27 nations’ worth of armies, including several sea powers, and major military allies like the USA! You mean actually steal UK money on deposit in the ECB, and prevent the Bank of England dumping its huge amounts of Eurocurrency reserves onto the open market. Sorry bud, the City of London can totally wipe the floor with the ECB on that score. The City seems rather “Pro Remain” because it is a huge cash cow to them. If the UK government ordered the City to act against the ECB - then trust me - they’d throw it under the train quicker than Underwood could chuck Zoe! The ECB are trying to play “Age of Empires” vs counties including Britain that were a lot better at it in two previous world wars than they were. The moment the ECB is seen to default on ANYTHING financial - it is FINISHED. Who would leave their money on deposit there once the ECB has refused to hand back Britain’s £9bn on deposit, for example? How would the ECB “Intervene in the Forex market” to absorb the Bank of England dumping some 4.2 Trillion Euros, now that we are no longer obliged by EU laws for EU convieneince to hold that amount as reserves? Actually, this might have happened a long time since IF we could have got rid of Foreigner Remainer Mark Carney from the Bank of England…

You can never control a foreign power whose fiat currency you don’t control - because in the extreme they can just redenominate, and accept old claims selectively. They always have the upper hand. And real economic power always comes back to the hard productive economy, not finance. That’s why China is always careful to keep the US economy in reasonable shape, because the huge reserves it holds of USD are China’s problem, not the US’s.

I agree, but although the Tories want to leave the customs union and single market, they don’t actually want trade to cease. And there’s a big difference between being forced out of the single market and customs union, and returning to (say) WTO terms, and the EU actually imposing trade sanctions on us - literally pulling down the roller shutter. I would suggest I don’t want “trade” to cease either - but if I’m not prepared to SEE it cease - then the EU have got us over a barrel of fear forever. We then get to block ourselves from leaving. We’re being played by the EU on this score. What would hurt us - hurts the EU a whole lot more. Let’s just crack on, and see who can take the most pain then…

But bluffs have to be credible. Putting a gun in your own mouth is a weak threat to others at the best of times, but if there is any sniff that you are actually of sound mind and are bluffing, you seriously risk having your bluff called. And the Tories have no sensible demands against which to leverage such threats. There’s no point asking the other person to blow their brains out as the condition of you not blowing yours out, because then you just force the other person to accept the inevitable (even if they think you’re serious) and prepare for the fact that they’re going to be facing one hell of a mopping up job soon.

That’s why I say for Corbyn, he can afford to throw many more of the wealthy interests under the bus in the course of achieving his demands for the majority of people, and in terms of demands is actually more moderate and in-tune with popular sentiment across Europe to begin with.

It’s not for nothing that the Times reports that the EU fear the ghost of Corbyn future most, because they know they’ll be facing someone who’s not a wealthy blagger and over whom they’ll have exceptionally little leverage, and that any attempt to menace the economic interests of workers will only embolden his willingness to use the state to compensate whilst causing them political grief at home amongst their own working classes, and it’s exactly those forces that they are trying to keep at bay rather than fuel.

[carryfast]

Rjan:

Carryfast:
If it’s a Confederation with opt outs and not a Soviet style Federation feel free to explain what QMV means or for that matter all the other rights of National opt out that we supposedly have over all the directives of the Commissioners.

But even under QMV, we still have the ultimate right to leave the club - and that’s broadly what distinguishes a confederacy from a union, since with a union you don’t have the right to leave unilaterally. And the UK has had vetoes and opt-outs at various stages (as well as the facility to have asked for opt-outs or to have prevented changes, if the elected government had wished at the time).

If you’re in a club and you agree a set of rules amongst yourselves one day, you can’t as a single member just decide the next day that you don’t like the rule anymore and want to reimpose the old rules on everyone. At that point, if you don’t have support from others for reverting (or otherwise revising or disapplying) the rules, then you have to accept the rules as they are or leave the club.

The point being that to participate in a club - or a confederacy - doesn’t mean you alone run it and determine all its rules. And in any confederacy, there has to be some sort of continuing commitment to collective will or some ability for all members to depend on prior agreements.

Surely you can’t possibly believe your own bs that the only difference between a Federation v a Confederation is that the latter just provides the right to secede ( leave the club ).As opposed to being a club in which the member states are the supreme legislature with all the rights of opt out and susbtitution which go with it not the Congressional parliament imposing it’s will across state borders and where it has no electoral mandate let alone unelected Commissioners imposing their dictat.On that note you do know that Texas for one has the legal right to secede from the Union in what is definitely a Federal government system.To the point where,contrary to your ideas,secession,as opposed to the right of opt out and substitution over the decision making process,being the only way to impose state supremacy over the Federal legislature,is the marker of a Federation and not a Confederation.On that note how does the right of opt out and substitution over the decision making process supposedly translate as running anything.As opposed to just a state or states choosing to agree to disagree with the others and letting the others go their own way regarding what they want to do and vice versa.

So no the EU isn’t what it needs to be in the form of a Confederation of Sovereign Nation Sates and you know it because that would defeat the object of what you’re in it for.IE anti nation state dictatorial foreign and Politburo rule that ignores national democratic accountability because you think that is in the best interests of Socialism.Just like Lenin and Stalin and Callaghan and Blair and Starmer.

[grumpyken52]

Voted no to joining and voted out for Brexit.
Consistently misled by the politicians.

Sent from my SM-G903F using Tapatalk

[winseer]

It seems we have expectations of our main parties rather than any expectation of any real kind of Brexit happening at all, as it stands.

You might not win much by “bluffing” in the wrong situations during negotiations, but the proverbial way to do it by “putting a gun in your own mouth” is to use one’s other hand to…

Pull open your shirt, revealing wiring connected to your chest like ECG electrodes, with it’s dead-mans switch connected to a nuclear suicide vest… "Set off by stopping heart".

NOW “holding a gun into your own mouth” - becomes rather more scary for everyone within a city’s radius - doesn’t it?

[winseer]

In real life, the Bank of England commanding the City of London could actually go for the “nuclear option” which is to “take a hit” on our massive Euro position, and dump it across days and weeks, totally destablizing the entire continental banking system. Three days of falls beyond 1% in a day on the spin - and the rest of the world would start to “momentum-trade short positions” on the Euro to accerlate it’s decline too.

This is only possible, because the UK has been obliged over the past 18 years or so to slowly build up a massive “Eurocurrency Reserve” more to uphold the Eurocurrency (Keep it over-valued more like!) which also represents a very large but LIQUID investment in the ECB as well.

The city of London is the deepest, most liquid Forex market on the planet. It dwarfs New York, Paris, Frankfurt, Shanghai, Singapore, and Tokyo combined.

If London had a mind to liquidate a trillion plus Euro position - then believe me - It’ll manage it with some finesse!

What could be done to the Iraqi Dinar as a Currency, or BCCI as a Deposit-taking Bank - can be done to any Currency and Any bank, - not just the petro-arab ones…

What would be interesting to see in all this - is if America and China (don’t ask about Russia…) would take any interest in accerlating this process, or halting it.

My guess is it’ll be like a “Shark’s Feeding Frenzy” with American and Chinese speculators turning the Euro into a pariah currency as quickly as anyone can say “Sell a position limit of Cable limit a cent off”.

[carryfast]

Winseer:
It seems we have expectations of our main parties rather than any expectation of any real kind of Brexit happening at all, as it stands.

You might not win much by “bluffing” in the wrong situations during negotiations, but the proverbial way to do it by “putting a gun in your own mouth” is to use one’s other hand to…

Pull open your shirt, revealing wiring connected to your chest like ECG electrodes, with it’s dead-mans switch connected to a nuclear suicide vest… "Set off by stopping heart".

NOW “holding a gun into your own mouth” - becomes rather more scary for everyone within a city’s radius - doesn’t it?

It’s obvious that Cameron’s sham referendum was never going to work.Brexit isn’t happening because the majority of the constituency first past the post elected MP’s are ideologically Federalist/Globalist/Socialist remainers including the PM.While Brexit is only something which has been voted for on an aggregate vote and therefore has no way of being enforced on the remainers.The referendum itself having only been passed as a non binding consultative document which you can bet would have been anything but non binding if the remainers had won it.

As for your analogy that’s what a truly Nationalist government would do.In the form of not only retaliating against any EU sanctions with a trade war imposed mostly against Germany,it would actually ‘prefer’ the option of such a trade war than the ongoing situation of Brit jobs for EU workers.IE there’s nothing in the the bs free trade red herring for us.

Instead of which we’ve got the ongoing situation of ideological Remainers having a stranglehold over a non existent Brexit which was always doomed from the point when the referendum stunt intended to seal us into the EU federation backfired on them.Also no doubt even the few Leave sympathisers in the government also fearing a poll tax riot situation when Rjan’s Soviet Socialist rabble show their true colours if they ever did press the Secession button on the EUSSR adding to the remain stitch up.I don’t see this ending well let alone soon.It’s going to simmer on for a few more decades yet before it implodes or explodes in a proper Nationalist v Socialist/Globalist secessionist struggle.Hopefully it will then end in a Soviet Union and East European type implosion rather than a US or Yugoslav war of secession type explosion.

[rjan]

Carryfast:

Rjan:
[…]

Surely you can’t possibly believe your own bs that the only difference between a Federation v a Confederation is that the latter just provides the right to secede ( leave the club ).As opposed to being a club in which the member states are the supreme legislature with all the rights of opt out and susbtitution which go with it not the Congressional parliament imposing it’s will across state borders and where it has no electoral mandate let alone unelected Commissioners imposing their dictat.On that note you do know that Texas for one has the legal right to secede from the Union in what is definitely a Federal government system.To the point where,contrary to your ideas,secession,as opposed to the right of opt out and substitution over the decision making process,being the only way to impose state supremacy over the Federal legislature,is the marker of a Federation and not a Confederation.On that note how does the right of opt out and substitution over the decision making process supposedly translate as running anything.As opposed to just a state or states choosing to agree to disagree with the others and letting the others go their own way regarding what they want to do and vice versa.

I’m not sure “unions” and “confederacies” are well-defined concepts, but yes the “right to secede” is probably the one distinguishing feature. Where cooperation and participation is only for the time being and like the shifting sands, or where cooperation in all matters arises in an a la carte fashion, it would just be considered a bilateral or multi-lateral alliance (probably on single-issue concerns) and not any sort of system, because a system is always defined by the presence of constraints (and in the case of a confederacy, the constraint is that you do not have access to any preferential benefits unless you participate in the whole, so that although you have the right to leave, the members will all agree to make a clear division between the in-group and out-group, and there will always be at least one important benefit that the in-group enjoy that the out-group do not).

And there always has to be at least one defining issue, for which the confederacy is formed, that is not a matter for “opt-out” or “substitution” - whether it be collective defence or whatever. And so far as the “net contribution” is concerned, that is really what it is about - that’s why there are net transfers to the south and the east (and net contributions from the major north and west economies), because inducing economic development (which also acts as a trojan horse for ideological imperialism) is seen as a strategic defensive act.

So no the EU isn’t what it needs to be in the form of a Confederation of Sovereign Nation Sates and you know it because that would defeat the object of what you’re in it for.IE anti nation state dictatorial foreign and Politburo rule that ignores national democratic accountability because you think that is in the best interests of Socialism.Just like Lenin and Stalin and Callaghan and Blair and Starmer.

Oh belt up.

[rjan]

Winseer:
It seems we have expectations of our main parties rather than any expectation of any real kind of Brexit happening at all, as it stands.

You might not win much by “bluffing” in the wrong situations during negotiations, but the proverbial way to do it by “putting a gun in your own mouth” is to use one’s other hand to…

Pull open your shirt, revealing wiring connected to your chest like ECG electrodes, with it’s dead-mans switch connected to a nuclear suicide vest… "Set off by stopping heart".

NOW “holding a gun into your own mouth” - becomes rather more scary for everyone within a city’s radius - doesn’t it?

But if your demand is still for the other person to blow their own brains out, then you are still likely to be called.

It’s like I say, the only reasonable demands that the EU can meet is either demand for collective reform (which in practice will mean not Leaving at all), or for some sort of special new relationship in which we accept forfeits for additional control over domestic matters.

But I go back to my point that the only reasonable forfeits that the population will accept, are those that hit the rich disproportionately, and that’s against the underlying Tory agenda.

And as for the Brexiteers amongst the populace, you either have those who are basically lodging blow-your-brains-out demands against the EU (and so they face having their threats called), or there are those who are basically lodging an anti-rich agenda against the EU (in which case they face having their agenda worked against by the Tories).

That’s why I say at some point, if the deadlock continues, you’re likely to see either a heave toward a second referendum in which the right-wing will turn to Remain, or they will turn to Corbyn and allow him to take power but put pressure on him (including by exploiting internal division) to conserve the interests of the rich.

I think for now, they are just waiting to see if events turn in their favour. If the left-wing are dislodged from Labour, for example - quite possible if Corbyn simply dies of natural causes, or something like that - then they will figure if they get a Blairite back in that that will be the way to undo the situation and maintain the status quo, because the rich will be able to let the Labour party in without being afraid of Labour attacking the rich or doing anything for workers.

So too, if the Remain cause itself gains significantly more traction (particularly if right-wingers realise they’ve been stymied and fear they’re heading for a left-wing negotiated Brexit), then you’ll definitely see another referendum on the cards.

Things could of course go the other way if workers wake up and realise what the Tories’ agenda is all about, and start to express themselves in opinion polls as Labour-supporting Brexiteers (because that’s really the constituency that Labour needs to gain to defeat the Blairites decisively - the Tories need to be denuded of their working class support). It all remains to be seen.

[carryfast]

Rjan:
I’m not sure “unions” and “confederacies” are well-defined concepts, but yes the “right to secede” is probably the one distinguishing feature. Where cooperation and participation is only for the time being and like the shifting sands, or where cooperation in all matters arises in an a la carte fashion, it would just be considered a bilateral or multi-lateral alliance (probably on single-issue concerns) and not any sort of system, because a system is always defined by the presence of constraints (and in the case of a confederacy, the constraint is that you do not have access to any preferential benefits unless you participate in the whole, so that although you have the right to leave, the members will all agree to make a clear division between the in-group and out-group, and there will always be at least one important benefit that the in-group enjoy that the out-group do not).

And there always has to be at least one defining issue, for which the confederacy is formed, that is not a matter for “opt-out” or “substitution” - whether it be collective defence or whatever. And so far as the “net contribution” is concerned, that is really what it is about - that’s why there are net transfers to the south and the east (and net contributions from the major north and west economies), because inducing economic development (which also acts as a trojan horse for ideological imperialism) is seen as a strategic defensive act.

Oh belt up.

No surprise you’ve taken the expected Socialist line of shutting down the opposition when you’re held to account on your ideology.

This should remove all doubt that a Confederation of Sovereign States isn’t mutually exclusive with the definition of a ‘Union’.

memory.loc.gov/ll/llsl/001/0100/01280004.gif

While some would say that the bs excuse used by the Federalists for '‘the need for a stronger Federal government’ was/is in reality just a hijack and corruption of the original intentions of the founders of the ‘CSA’.No surprise that the EU has no intention of describing itself as a Confederation of Sovereign States with the same obvious aim of imposing the same type of fraudulent stitch up as that which took over America.Except this time in the case of the USE/EUSSR there won’t be a paper trail to prove it.While the right of secession was never actually made illegal even under that corruption at least in the form of the United States Constitution.To this day Lincoln’s war of Federal aggression being rightly seen as an illegal act and a war crime by many secessionists/Nationalists.With Texas for one also having shown that secession and Federal government aren’t mutually exclusive nor does Federation over Confederation make secession illegal.On the contrary the current US position that the states can’t secede being as illegal as the original corruption of the US founding constitution and we can bet that type of illegal move is what the EU will inevitably impose on us if we don’t get out now.

video.foxbusiness.com/v/5773272 … show-clips

The real difference between the two systems being the idea of state sovereignty in the form of a conditional arrangement between the states ( which by definition means the right of opt out and substitution ) over all decisions.

As for defence there is no precedent which would suggest that an allied force made up of seperate sovereign states is any less effective than a Federal force.Bearing in mind that was exactly the type of force which won the American War of Independence over the Brits and WW2 over the axis.But there is plenty of evidence to show that a Federal force is generally used first and foremost to impose Federal rule over the right of self determination and/or secession.

[rjan]

Carryfast:

Rjan:
[…]

No surprise you’ve taken the expected Socialist line of shutting down the opposition when you’re held to account on your ideology.

This should remove all doubt that a Confederation of Sovereign States isn’t mutually exclusive with the definition of a ‘Union’.

memory.loc.gov/ll/llsl/001/0100/01280004.gif

Who’s shutting you down? And that’s what I said, that the terms are not well-defined. And even in the case of the USA, bear in mind states do not have the right to leave, and are centrally-governed, so it doesn’t help your case much to argue that the USA is a “confederation”.

While some would say that the bs excuse used by the Federalists for '‘the need for a stronger Federal government’ was/is in reality just a hijack and corruption of the original intentions of the founders of the ‘CSA’.No surprise that the EU has no intention of describing itself as a Confederation of Sovereign States with the same obvious aim of imposing the same type of fraudulent stitch up as that which took over America.Except this time in the case of the USE/EUSSR there won’t be a paper trail to prove it.While the right of secession was never actually made illegal even under that corruption at least in the form of the United States Constitution.To this day Lincoln’s war of Federal aggression being rightly seen as an illegal act and a war crime by many secessionists/Nationalists.With Texas for one also having shown that secession and Federal government aren’t mutually exclusive nor does Federation over Confederation make secession illegal.On the contrary the current US position that the states can’t secede being as illegal as the original corruption of the US founding constitution and we can bet that type of illegal move is what the EU will inevitably impose on us if we don’t get out now.

video.foxbusiness.com/v/5773272 … show-clips

The real difference between the two systems being the idea of state sovereignty in the form of a conditional arrangement between the states ( which by definition means the right of opt out and substitution ) over all decisions.

But the fact is that the Confederates were smashed by the Union, and in due course the US became the most powerful nation on the Earth, and (when the appropriate political policies were at their zenith) with the wealthiest workers in the world.

As for defence there is no precedent which would suggest that an allied force made up of seperate sovereign states is any less effective than a Federal force.Bearing in mind that was exactly the type of force which won the American War of Independence over the Brits and WW2 over the axis.But there is plenty of evidence to show that a Federal force is generally used first and foremost to impose Federal rule over the right of self determination and/or secession.

Yes federal force will be used to prevent self-determination or secession, because it is precisely the point of a union to be politically integrated, and to enable the state to function in a way that depends on continued integration.

We’ve talked before about how the miners would never have had an industry, and huge highly-productive works built by the national state to serve the entire country, if each constituency had had veto or secession rights.

[carryfast]

Rjan:
Who’s shutting you down? And that’s what I said, that the terms are not well-defined. And even in the case of the USA, bear in mind states do not have the right to leave, and are centrally-governed, so it doesn’t help your case much to argue that the USA is a “confederation”.

But the fact is that the Confederates were smashed by the Union, and in due course the US became the most powerful nation on the Earth, and (when the appropriate political policies were at their zenith) with the wealthiest workers in the world.

Yes federal force will be used to prevent self-determination or secession, because it is precisely the point of a union to be politically integrated, and to enable the state to function in a way that depends on continued integration.

You were the one who resorted to oh belt up.

The terms of the Articles of Confederation I’ve posted are definitely well defined assuming anyone can read.

Also bearing in mind that the states in question weren’t the type of even more defined Nations with their own ethnicities,languages,cultures and actual borders that applied in Europe before the EU took it over.Which explains the less than ideal contradictions and compromises between Sovereignty and Union which even under that document the American states accepted.But which shouldn’t apply in Europe with the choice of accepting free movement or foreign imposed justice and law definitely coming under the heading of sovereignty.So obviously no articles 4 and 5 in our case.

While as we all know there is no actual recognised provision of State sovereignty over the EU parliament or commissioners at all within the EU constitution/treaties just as there was no longer under the Federal US constitution.Unlike the original American Articles of Confederation and that’s the difference.Not Lincoln’s bs claim that the states cannot secede from the Union in either case which that criminal piece of zb and his successors have only imposed by force to this day and not by any legal means stated within the US constitution.

While your own views clearly condone the use of force and violence to keep any state under the jackboot of your stinking ideology and to deny the right of self determination and democracy.Just like any of the other tin pot dictators from Lincoln to Stalin to Tito through history who tried the same thing.On that note I could quite imagine us being on opposite sides of this argument at any point in history staring at each other down the barrel of a gun.With you clearly being on the side that started it.While also explaining the bitterness and motivation which is so often misunderstood as to why people would happily fight to the death over the issue of Federalism/Soviet Socialism v Nationalism and self determination.The latter being the definition of what it means to be free against the control freak nature of those with your views.

On that note exactly what evidence are you going by and have to offer as to why America would have been any less powerful if not more powerful and certainly more democratic had it kept to the original Confederal constitution rather than the Federal one.Oh wait you can’t offer any such evidence because the original constitution ceased to exist as of 1787.

While Europe is now turning into a degenerate zb hole.In large part because of the impositions along the lines of the Kalergi plan and wealth redistribution which does anything but,put on it by EU Federal rule over it.

[rjan]

Carryfast:

Rjan:
Who’s shutting you down? And that’s what I said, that the terms are not well-defined. And even in the case of the USA, bear in mind states do not have the right to leave, and are centrally-governed, so it doesn’t help your case much to argue that the USA is a “confederation”.

But the fact is that the Confederates were smashed by the Union, and in due course the US became the most powerful nation on the Earth, and (when the appropriate political policies were at their zenith) with the wealthiest workers in the world.

Yes federal force will be used to prevent self-determination or secession, because it is precisely the point of a union to be politically integrated, and to enable the state to function in a way that depends on continued integration.

You were the one who resorted to oh belt up.

Only because of the “you support dictatorial Politburo socialism just like everyone from Stalin to Starmer”

The terms of the Articles of Confederation I’ve posted are definitely well defined assuming anyone can read.

Also bearing in mind that the states in question weren’t the type of even more defined Nations with their own ethnicities,languages,cultures and actual borders that applied in Europe before the EU took it over.Which explains the less than ideal contradictions and compromises between Sovereignty and Union which even under that document the American states accepted.But which shouldn’t apply in Europe with the choice of accepting free movement or foreign imposed justice and law definitely coming under the heading of sovereignty.So obviously no articles 4 and 5 in our case.

But I’ve turned against free movement myself and against continued mass immigration (albeit seemingly on a very different rationale to you), and in terms of “foreign imposed justice”, it isn’t foreign-imposed, it’s a system of collective justice that we participate in (and most of the principles and systems of justice in Europe don’t have significant differences).

The fact that the EU is not democratic enough I agree, and if you were waging a war against the EU for its lack of democracy I’d support it, but you seem to hold as a matter of principle that any sort of integrated democracy can never be a democracy (and despite all your trumpeting of the nation state, even the national democracy you’re not happy about, since it binds individual constituencies into the collective will of the national democracy).

Most of the opposition to European laws and justice is either from blackguard small businessmen who complain about the existence of rules that force them to raise their standards and behave responsibly (and prevent them carving up the market share of businesses that already operate responsibly), or from right-wing politicians who complain that it effectively prevents them from manipulating people into support for their agenda through the sop and spectacle of scapegoating minorities.

While as we all know there is no actual recognised provision of State sovereignty over the EU parliament or commissioners at all within the EU constitution/treaties just as there was no longer under the Federal US constitution.Unlike the original American Articles of Confederation and that’s the difference.Not Lincoln’s bs claim that the states cannot secede from the Union in either case which that criminal piece of zb and his successors have only imposed by force to this day and not by any legal means stated within the US constitution.

But in the end, what matters is power - the confederate states were imposed upon because the union states were more powerful and had a superior form of organisation (including the fact that they had no slavery, and thus actually had a great deal more consent amongst the populace).

While your own views clearly condone the use of force and violence to keep any state under the jackboot of your stinking ideology and to deny the right of self determination and democracy.

But I don’t deny the right of democracy. I support violence when the minority are attacking the interests of the majority, as democratically expressed. And that doesn’t mean I support a brutal majoritarianism either. Who is in the right and where the proper balance lies is to be determined in each case by the majority in a properly functioning democracy in which citizens are given the means to participate.

The real problem in our society is not too much democracy, but too little, and we are quite consistently governed in all aspects of our lives and manipulated by a right-wing minority, who attack the interests of the majority and push things until the top blows off like it has with Brexit, and because people have been subject to so much manipulation and provoked into so much anger, the answers that then come back from democracy are grotesque.

Just like any of the other tin pot dictators from Lincoln to Stalin to Tito through history who tried the same thing.On that note I could quite imagine us being on opposite sides of this argument at any point in history staring at each other down the barrel of a gun.With you clearly being on the side that started it.While also explaining the bitterness and motivation which is so often misunderstood as to why people would happily fight to the death over the issue of Federalism/Soviet Socialism v Nationalism and self determination.The latter being the definition of what it means to be free against the control freak nature of those with your views.

The same thing has often occurred to me, except I lay the blame at your failure to grapple with the contradictions of your own views, since I (no less than you) want freedom and ideally the freedom to do whatever I want, but unlike you I recognise that there has to be some system that balances the freedoms of multiple people and resolves contradictions between the will of each.

On that note exactly what evidence are you going by and have to offer as to why America would have been any less powerful if not more powerful and certainly more democratic had it kept to the original Confederal constitution rather than the Federal one.Oh wait you can’t offer any such evidence because the original constitution ceased to exist as of 1787.

The main evidence is that slave societies, lacking democracy and popular consent as they do, are weak societies - and that was the totemic issue at stake in the American Civil War. The reality is, if their opinion had been solicited in a vote, most slaves would have supported the Union.

While Europe is now turning into a degenerate zb hole.In large part because of the impositions along the lines of the Kalergi plan and wealth redistribution which does anything but,put on it by EU Federal rule over it.

Europe is turning into a degenerate ■■■■ hole because we are in the grip of centre-right politicians, determined to promote the interests of the rich above all. And people keep voting for the ■■■■■■■■■ and have been for decades.

[carryfast]

Rjan:
Only because of the “you support dictatorial Politburo socialism just like everyone from Stalin to Starmer”

But I’ve turned against free movement myself and against continued mass immigration (albeit seemingly on a very different rationale to you), and in terms of “foreign imposed justice”, it isn’t foreign-imposed, it’s a system of collective justice that we participate in (and most of the principles and systems of justice in Europe don’t have significant differences).

The fact that the EU is not democratic enough I agree, and if you were waging a war against the EU for its lack of democracy I’d support it, but you seem to hold as a matter of principle that any sort of integrated democracy can never be a democracy (and despite all your trumpeting of the nation state, even the national democracy you’re not happy about, since it binds individual constituencies into the collective will of the national democracy).

Most of the opposition to European laws and justice is either from blackguard small businessmen who complain about the existence of rules that force them to raise their standards and behave responsibly (and prevent them carving up the market share of businesses that already operate responsibly), or from right-wing politicians who complain that it effectively prevents them from manipulating people into support for their agenda through the sop and spectacle of scapegoating minorities.

But in the end, what matters is power - the confederate states were imposed upon because the union states were more powerful and had a superior form of organisation (including the fact that they had no slavery, and thus actually had a great deal more consent amongst the populace).

But I don’t deny the right of democracy. I support violence when the minority are attacking the interests of the majority, as democratically expressed. And that doesn’t mean I support a brutal majoritarianism either. Who is in the right and where the proper balance lies is to be determined in each case by the majority in a properly functioning democracy in which citizens are given the means to participate.

The real problem in our society is not too much democracy, but too little, and we are quite consistently governed in all aspects of our lives and manipulated by a right-wing minority, who attack the interests of the majority and push things until the top blows off like it has with Brexit, and because people have been subject to so much manipulation and provoked into so much anger, the answers that then come back from democracy are grotesque.

The same thing has often occurred to me, except I lay the blame at your failure to grapple with the contradictions of your own views, since I (no less than you) want freedom and ideally the freedom to do whatever I want, but unlike you I recognise that there has to be some system that balances the freedoms of multiple people and resolves contradictions between the will of each.

The main evidence is that slave societies, lacking democracy and popular consent as they do, are weak societies - and that was the totemic issue at stake in the American Civil War. The reality is, if their opinion had been solicited in a vote, most slaves would have supported the Union.

Europe is turning into a degenerate [zb] hole because we are in the grip of centre-right politicians, determined to promote the interests of the rich above all. And people keep voting for the [zb], and have been for decades.

Yes I was referring to the fact that you support the idea of imposing a Stalinist Soviet Socialist collective by force.To which your answer was oh belt up.Sounds par for the socialist course to me.

No the US war of Federal aggression was simply about State sovereignty ( as originally provided for within the Articles of Confederation ).While if you’d have asked the average Secessionist Soldier then ( just like their descendants and supporters to date ) they actually rightly preferred the idea of repatriating the slaves not holding them captive any longer.Bearing in mind that only slave owners got rich from slavery not the average working class farm worker and the war was fought by those workers not by slave owners.Not to mention that Lincoln only made slavery an issue after he saw that he could make political capital from it to help with his primary mission of imposing Federal US rule over the secessionist states.

As for your idea of democracy.How does a majority made up of remote foreign politicians working for their own local interests and who we have no electoral control over and resulting foreign mandate,let alone unelected Politburo Commissioners,supposedly translate as more democracy not less.

When the truth is Socialists are in it for what’s in it for them.Hence Kahn and Sturgeon using their local London and National remain mandates to keep us in a Federation in which their respective local vote can then be voted down by a majority European vote let alone swamped by a third world demographic invasion based on the Kalergi plan.

Their perception being based on nothing more than they think the resulting foreign majority will defeat the Tory vote at home and the idea that Socialism is better.With the result being that the biggest winners are the German banker classes and the biggest losers the indigenous Brit working class.

The reference to denial here being a great analogy of your position.Your pathetic destructive ideology was wiped out in Europe with the fall of the Soviet Union and Tito’s Yugoslav social engineering project so get used to it.When the fact is Nationalism is actually the new legitimate and inherently more democratic left.

youtube.com/watch?v=WcTRSMliBXk