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The Brexit Thread

I think it's good to keep In mind that this was just a list of the things i believed in 2016...either way...

1, is just an observation, I had observed that they seem to have a pro-French/German bias...and the ruling class of the EU seem to genuinely hold contempt for british culture... cant prove it, but there you go.

*2, I think is sufficiently justified (and why an EU army would be a bad thing) in the video, "#EUref: The Sovereignty Argument"
But the basic summary is that the EU seem to be agenda driven on turning the EU into a single sovereign state and that they already have plans for an army (as per the original intention) that they are keeping on hold until after Brexit...I would highly reccomend watching that video.

*3 is generally wrapped up in 2 and I feel is also sufficiently explained in the sovereignty video. (But it admittedly would be more accurate to call it a single sovereign state rather than an empire)

*5 MEPs can only amend or veto laws and have no power to actually propose new laws (which is also why its unreformable)...that is done by an unelected house of lords (for lack of better term) and that house of lords seems to be toying around with ways to bypass the MEP stage.
(I think this is also sufficiently explained in the sovereignty video, although it is also touched upon the hour long video I posted a few pages back)

6 well for starters, we won't be trapped in a stagnant market, we won't be paying the EU on the grounds that we will be given a portion of it back and ever since we voted leave, it seems that we have gone right to the front of the queue with other countries (US for example)

*7 I would point you to "the financial argument" video.

8 I disagree with it simply on principle, I don't like the idea of us British, handing over people to a legal system that is not in line with British values (for example, the French courts work more like an inquisition and as a brit, I think that's wrong)
 
MattyH said:
You're delusional
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https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/oct/10/brexit-leaving-eu-farming-agriculture
arguably the most regressive transfer of public money in the modern world. Farmers are paid by the hectare for owning or using land; so the more you have, the more you get. While in the UK benefits for poor people are capped at £20,000 (outside London), these benefits for the rich are uncapped. Some landowners receive £1m or more. You don’t even have to live in the EU to take this money: you just have to own land here.
 
Edit: in re: britford.

Citations needed across the board.

1- France and Germany are the biggest contributors and generally push for reform in the EU, unlike the UK which usually resists.

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If anything Poland are the biggest winners, but this is all about helping our fellow neighbours to improve and be able to contribute more. It's a long term vision. (Which fine, you don't have to believe in, but don't say Germany gets more out of the EU than us.)

2 - it's not happening. There is no EU army.

3 - the EU is not a state. Of course there are rules and minimum standards we have to follow to trade with them, but we get as much of a say as anyone else.

5 - you missed one critical power the MEPs have, to reject a law. They can reject, amend or accept. The European parliament supervises the work of the Commission and other EU bodies and cooperates with national parliaments of EU countries to get their input. They might not directly put forward new laws, however they play their part in shaping them. They are not a house of lords, they are far more similar to a civil service.

6 - how are we trapped? How is the market stagnant? It's nonsense. Trade is very active between the UK and the EU. (And the EU and the rest of the world, hence why we can buy products from America and China ect. Already).

As for our contributions, they pay for investments in the UK https://www.myeu.uk/ as well as the many agencies the EU operate. It can be contested how much these agencies actually cost to run, and how much they will cost to replace in the UK. However some require membership after we leave the EU, and our contribution to those agencies will continue. Your original point was that the UK would be more prosperous, so not only does money need to be saved, it needs to be reinvested too, and right now there is no plan for that at all.

8 - don't commit crimes then, and be respectful of other countries legal and judicial systems when you do visit them. I can tell you, there are far worse places to get extradited to. And these are crimes which are punishable by over a year in prison, and although these crimes can be "minor" from time to time (drug possession, theft and driving under the influence) which might cause some controversy, generally the system is relatively fair. As I say, this is only the simplification of a process which happens worldwide.
 
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bluesonichd said:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/oct/10/brexit-leaving-eu-farming-agriculture
arguably the most regressive transfer of public money in the modern world. Farmers are paid by the hectare for owning or using land; so the more you have, the more you get. While in the UK benefits for poor people are capped at £20,000 (outside London), these benefits for the rich are uncapped. Some landowners receive £1m or more. You don’t even have to live in the EU to take this money: you just have to own land here.
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While this might be terrible, it in no way effects the price of dairy products, which are produced in this country for internal consumption and export.

The value of land might have gone up, but without the data it can't be proved that this outweighs the benefit of recieving the subsidy.

One important part you missed in your quote is that the land has to be in agricultural condition. I.e owning land isn't sufficient to make you eligible, you have to be using it for agriculture (or at least appear to be, at which point you might as well just have some livestock or crops).

If anything more competition from abroad drives down prices.

You might be aware also that a deal with America would be an interesting one to strike for the dairy industry. The USA currently has a dairy oversupply issue, which they are keeping afloat by creating a cheese mountain. Selling this oversupply and stock of cheese to the UK market could undercut the UK dairy farmers and mean that we see more farms going out of business.
 
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Lurker said:
2 - it's not happening. There is no EU army.

3 - the EU is not a state. Of course there are rules and minimum standards we have to follow to trade with them, but we get as much of a say as anyone else.
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https://www.brugesgroup.com/blog/the-european-army
By late 2018, the EU was open about its military plans. Bruno Le Maire, France's finance minister, urged the German government to turn the EU into a 'sovereign' power on the world stage. He said, "This is the struggle of a generation … Europe needs to become a kind of empire like China and the USA … Europe should no longer shy away from displaying its power and being an empire of peace." (13 November 2018.) Yet this 'empire of peace' was creating its own army.

French President Emmanuel Macron said that Europeans cannot be protected without a 'true European army' and Chancellor Merkel backed the scheme. On 13 November she said, "We have to work on a vision of one day creating a real, true European army." She said it should involve a common arms industry and a 'European intervention force'. She said that the rule of unanimity for such decisions needed to be changed so that a majority would suffice.
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I would still suggest watching the (sovereignty) video to better understand my reasoning for thinking the EU are trying to build a single state and army, to better understand what brought me to this conclusion...I think its useful to understand the opposing argument (if you have watched it, then please ignore ^that^ bit)
Regardless, why do you think they are NOT looking to build an army and state or is it just a (somewhat justified) default assumption?
 
Even if it was true, the EU army could've been vetoed by us in any case.

Personally I don't see any problem in having an army to protect the EUs citizens though. NATO is pretty ineffectual and we can't rely on the USA to look after us.
 
Forgive me, but this idea that 'the EU' is some collective and continuous being of mind and ideology is bizarre.

It is made up of a fairly reasonable representation of the European electorate, whose views are reflected every 5 years at most.

If the EU truly was dictating to anyone or truly did have aspirations of a superstate, then that would be relative view of the European electorate. Hundreds of millions of people either sharing these extreme positions, or at the very least not opposing them. I'd ask you to consider how likely that is.

The fact is that we have been a member of a club that we do simply not agree with too often, and we will now we will be leaving.
 
Tom said:
If the EU truly was dictating to anyone or truly did have aspirations of a superstate, then that would be relative view of the European electorate.
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But it already is a form of superstate that no electorate agreed to, run by a commission of unelected people representing no electorate?

You may like or dislike the EU but there is a valid argument for the concerns about its agenda and structure. It’s already got much of the way relatively unscrutinised

Im not a decided ‘Brexiteer’ but like, what was the motivation for it to adopt this political structure in the first place (after the original EEC) if it was nothing to do with a superstate agenda?
 
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Alsty said:
Personally I don't see any problem in having an army to protect the EUs citizens though. NATO is pretty ineffectual and we can't rely on the USA to look after us.
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The problem, (as explained in the sovereignty video) is the same problem that that turned the Roman republic, into an empire.

Originally, to enlist in the Roman army, you had to own wealth or land in the republic, while this limited recruits, it ensured that all troops were loyal to the republic as they owned a stake in it.
After a wave of barbarian raids the republic deccided to open up recruitment to anyone willing to fight, unfortunately, this ment the army was essentially marching for pay rather than the republic effectively making them a band of mercenaries.
This resulted in a vast army made up of different factions all loyal, to each's own commander... it was then, a matter of time until the roman army was marching on Rome for political gain and after a campaign against each province...the winning faction finally formed the Roman empire.

This is the problem, an army with split loyalties will always end badly and that's before you consider how provocative it would be to the likes of China or Russia!

Alsty said:
Even if it was true, the EU army could've been vetoed by us in any case.
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About the veto thing...no, if the EU wants something hard enough, it will get it.
(It's only 7 min but you can safely skip to the 2min mark)
Britford said:
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While the European parliament isn't the same thing as individual referendums, it seems safe to assume that if they can do that, they can probably find a way to do it to the European parliament.

And it seems they already mess about with MEPs,
As mentioned in this video
(She starts talking about it at the 9:50 mark)
Britford said:
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Yes, you heard that right, they pulled the fire alarm to stop UKIP bringing up a point of order...
Sure, they could be lying, but I don't see why they would not have been instantly fired and tried for slander if that were the case.
 


The EU might be run by unelected people, but so is the UK. This works because the unelected people work under the laws and guidelines set by the elected officials.

While I might agree that some within Europe have an agenda to further European powers as a whole, it doesn't mean that is the plan of the Union. Or even necessarily a bad thing.

The EU army is not happening. Each country offering forces to defend Europe as a whole (much the same as NATO is not a EU army).

Citations still required across the board.
 
Lurker said:
The EU might be run by unelected people, but so is the UK. This works because the unelected people work under the laws and guidelines set by the elected officials.
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They don't work under the laws and guidelines set by elected officials. There is nothing in the Lisbon Treaty that specifies anything like that; it bars them from making laws in certain legislative areas (security policy and foreign policy of member states) but it doesn't provide any framework to ensure that the laws that they are drafting are made with 'neutrality'; they and their colleagues determine this.
They set and control the entire agenda, MEPs are supposed to hold them to account, but are compromised on doing so because parties are combined across european countries in to supranational coalitions.

And 'some within Europe' is a bit of a sweeping statement. France, Germany, and most members of the commission are all pro integration and giving the EU more legislative areas.

Also, on the army point: with PESCO, the EU already have the pre-requisite to an army; and its already been accepted by the EU council. It's getting larger as the years go by in budget and military capability. It's in early days, but it's laying down the foundations for a permanent defence force. Why do you need that when you have NATO already? Surely the best forms of cooperation would be to include all Western nations including the USA; or as many nations as possible, and not to drive a wedge between them?
Alsty said:
Even if it was true, the EU army could've been vetoed by us in any case.
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Nope. PESCO isn't applicable to all member states, and the ones that aren't signed up to it can't decide any policy (or control further integration). They could of just suspended the UK's PESCO membership and continued regardless on a separate strategy. I accept that we can't be forced in to one without our governments consent (trust them to act on our behalf I guess?).
 
Alsty said:
And isn't that the point? We couldn't be forced into joining an EU army.
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No. I was answering the point that an "EU army is not going to happen", or the idea that we could stop it happening. I was never saying that we'd be forced in to it, as that is impossible given the EU constitution. The point is that regardless of what we do an EU army is going to form as all the structures, departments, financing and planning is already there.
Interestingly, the Tories have signed us up to PESCO commitmnts after we leave. Odd how this is being done on the sly without the people having a direct say o_O. Either way, I hope we do exit this at one stage or another. I'm all for countries working together, but we should be outward reaching and include as many countries as possible in peace strategies.
 
I do agree with the European superstate concerns, however, leaving is no guarantee of independence. If power, especially economic clout, is becoming more concentrated to the point it is deemed necessary to have a continental union then we will end up a part of one regardless eventually.

Presumably, the big dogs will be the USA, China, Russia, Brazil, the EU, and India. It seems to me that we'll end up as Airstrip One eventually. But, to be honest, I feel more of a connection to the USA than mainland Europe culturally. The 'evil money' is everywhere and does exert a big influence, which we may well be on the wrong end of more often in the near future, but I think that's inevitable. There doesn't need to be a conspiracy, just an inclination and the right/wrong circumstances.
 
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