Is this really such an impossible a thing to comprehend?
This argument that Stu and TT and others are making about us 'having a good deal of influence in the EU to change things (standards etc) for our benefit'. How true is this really? Honest question. There are a lot of other countries in the EU all with their own interests - we can't steamroller over everyone else. How successful has the UK been in changing 'things' for our benefit? How did Cameron get on with his renegotiated deal? It wasn't a great success as far as I can tell. What evidence is there to support this assertion that we have all this influence in EU law-making? Crucially - who decides what new laws to make?
Comments like your 'the subnormal level of intelligence that much of the Leave campaign has pitched at' make you come across (even if you're not) as the sort of patronising sneering intellectual portrayed in the film, contemptible of the silly people who he thinks he knows better than how their lives should be run.
Or to put it another way you're suggesting the civil service would remain doing things in the same way it did when we were part of the EU, if the country left the EU. That would be more than a bit silly wouldn't it? I'm no head of civil service but here's an idea - change with the demands of the situation.
MEPs. What powers do MEPs have to influence law-making in the EU? I understand from the debate that they don't have any real power to influence EU law-making.
Quote from: Three Nine on June 21, 2016, 07:50:03 pmRemain people - you dont help your cause by being such patronizing, holier-than-thou cunts. I might be wrong here but it seems to me that the patronising cunts are addressing one group of leavers, and another group (I.e you and dense) are assuming it's directed at them. If you don't believe that sizeable chunks of the population are voting leave because they are both bigoted and not that bright you've clearly got your eyes closed. I'd have thought it obvious this doesn't imply there's no case for leave, or that all leave supporters have the same motivations. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Remain people - you dont help your cause by being such patronizing, holier-than-thou cunts.
So Mrs Obi popped into the travel agents to get some euros in case the rate craps out after Thursday. The girl behind the counter had postal voted leave because 'we're getting a bit full'. When it was suggested that an exit may negatively impact both the exchange rate and her industry in general she seemed rather surprised. I fear we are all doomed.
Politics is, in a way, ignoring what is "scientifically right" and instead reaching the most social acceptable compromise, or fits a certain long term vision best, etc.The current cult of the scientific method and the attempt of any discipline to reach a status of "hard" science, in particular when it comes to social sciences (economy, sociology, demographics, etc) can be partly explained as a mean to restrict the horizon of political action, by putting it under "un-debatable" pressure..
Quote from: ghisino on June 22, 2016, 12:28:28 amPolitics is, in a way, ignoring what is "scientifically right" and instead reaching the most social acceptable compromise, or fits a certain long term vision best, etc.The current cult of the scientific method and the attempt of any discipline to reach a status of "hard" science, in particular when it comes to social sciences (economy, sociology, demographics, etc) can be partly explained as a mean to restrict the horizon of political action, by putting it under "un-debatable" pressure..Politics predates the scientific method having been around since civilisation started. Science by definition is about the public sharing of testable and disprovable models, to best meet the evidence at hand. It gives us a useful tool to assess the veracity of what politicians say. If anything is a cult in this interface with science, it's some politicians: the attempted misuse or abuse of social science... creationalist ideas in US politics being a good example of the crazy end but the simple mundane misrepresentations of scientific results (that the scientists would not support) are all too common.
Quote from: Obi-Wan is lost... on June 21, 2016, 11:53:15 pmMy previous comments were born of frustration at this sort of attitude which has mercifully been entirely absent from this thread but is rife elsewhere. I am a member of a Facebook group called "Harrogate Grumbler (No Rules)" which has a membership of about 20k people in Harrogate and the surrounding areas. The best way to describe it is that, in amongst the buying and selling, it's like an online version of the Jeremy Kyle show and is very much a guilty pleasure of mine. However it is also a useful gauge of public opinion as it seems to be populated by a broad demographic of people who are all there to speak their mind. I have been absolutely terrified at the amount of simplistic sentiment similar to what Obi relates above, and this is in Harrogate where they might be socially conservative but are nowhere near as affected by net migration as those in the SE of England.I had a conversation about the referendum with my Singapore resident brother a few days ago. We can always be relied upon to disagree, with him being MUCH more conservative than I, but he does debate well. He made some very cogent points about why we should leave, but interestingly thought that the pragmatic way forward was to vote remain. They're the same points that Pete might make, however this is not the level that most people are thinking at. I would hazard a guess that 10% of the population share Pete's point of view (I.e a reasonably argued Leave position) and 35% of people have read the Sun this morning and think "we're a bit full". It's deeply depressing.On a different note, I'm delighted to learn that JB is one of those awful technocrats that we keep hearing about! A technical expert in his field who has had an input into advising the EC. Tell us JB, how does it feel to pull the strings of the EU puppet with no accountability to anybody? Must be a bit of a kick, right?Joking aside, can anybody explain to me how the system of technical experts making policy recommendations to those who draft legislation, which is in turn voted on by elected officials, is any different to our own system of governance? As I see it now the EU system is largely similar to our own yet seems more resilient to lobbying by those who don't have the people's best interests at heart. One point my brother made in our conversation was that the UK government could pass useful laws such as the WFD on their own. My counterargument was that "could" doesn't equal "would".Harrogate is a 'blue rinse' conservative dominated town, I'd expect it to be firmly in the leave camp.I'm in Malaysia currently and some of my old chinese research student pals are really interested in brexit following the death of Jo Cox and are attracted to the 'being in contol' message of leave. They have also noted the conspiracy theories that Jo was killed by a secret pro stay cabal.In reality control is rather overstated: if we leave just swap some control to a different group of people with different democratic deficits (we have a monach in the political system, no written constitution, the lords -with some taking ministerial posts, FPTP elections which heavily distort the proportions not voting for the two biggest political parties, a civil service which is not as detatched from politics or forming law as it should be and just as much lobbying as in Europe)As for JB he straightens bananas.
My previous comments were born of frustration at this sort of attitude which has mercifully been entirely absent from this thread but is rife elsewhere. I am a member of a Facebook group called "Harrogate Grumbler (No Rules)" which has a membership of about 20k people in Harrogate and the surrounding areas. The best way to describe it is that, in amongst the buying and selling, it's like an online version of the Jeremy Kyle show and is very much a guilty pleasure of mine. However it is also a useful gauge of public opinion as it seems to be populated by a broad demographic of people who are all there to speak their mind. I have been absolutely terrified at the amount of simplistic sentiment similar to what Obi relates above, and this is in Harrogate where they might be socially conservative but are nowhere near as affected by net migration as those in the SE of England.I had a conversation about the referendum with my Singapore resident brother a few days ago. We can always be relied upon to disagree, with him being MUCH more conservative than I, but he does debate well. He made some very cogent points about why we should leave, but interestingly thought that the pragmatic way forward was to vote remain. They're the same points that Pete might make, however this is not the level that most people are thinking at. I would hazard a guess that 10% of the population share Pete's point of view (I.e a reasonably argued Leave position) and 35% of people have read the Sun this morning and think "we're a bit full". It's deeply depressing.On a different note, I'm delighted to learn that JB is one of those awful technocrats that we keep hearing about! A technical expert in his field who has had an input into advising the EC. Tell us JB, how does it feel to pull the strings of the EU puppet with no accountability to anybody? Must be a bit of a kick, right?Joking aside, can anybody explain to me how the system of technical experts making policy recommendations to those who draft legislation, which is in turn voted on by elected officials, is any different to our own system of governance? As I see it now the EU system is largely similar to our own yet seems more resilient to lobbying by those who don't have the people's best interests at heart. One point my brother made in our conversation was that the UK government could pass useful laws such as the WFD on their own. My counterargument was that "could" doesn't equal "would".
Quote from: petejh on June 21, 2016, 10:47:52 pmOr to put it another way you're suggesting the civil service would remain doing things in the same way it did when we were part of the EU, if the country left the EU. That would be more than a bit silly wouldn't it? I'm no head of civil service but here's an idea - change with the demands of the situation.It might take us a while to train staff in trade negotiation and would likely be more effective to recruit internationally to acclerate this type of work. Not something that has been addressed by leave, how we fill skills gaps at short notice that is (remember big F is going for 30,000-50,000 migrants a year, so drop of an order of magnatude).
I had a conversation about the referendum with my Singapore resident brother a few days ago. We can always be relied upon to disagree, with him being MUCH more conservative than I, but he does debate well. He made some very cogent points about why we should leave, but interestingly thought that the pragmatic way forward was to vote remain. They're the same points that Pete might make, however this is not the level that most people are thinking at. I would hazard a guess that 10% of the population share Pete's point of view (I.e a reasonably argued Leave position) and 35% of people have read the Sun this morning and think "we're a bit full". It's deeply depressing.
Interesting on the odds - all the media/papers are giving it all this "it's a close thing, it's all hanging in the balance" stuff based on opinion polls, yet the bookies are painting a vastly different picture, and the bookies are usually right on these things, especially given how wrong the polls were a year ago in the election. Are the papers just trying to talk-up their own influence?
If I could make a wider point on what I have seen/heard/read:- In have done a piss poor job of mythbusting and making a positive case- Out haven't made a case. No answer on what the actual relationship we should have with EU/World. Instead they contradict themselves (Norway model sans free movement being feasible) and tell lies (Turkey will join the EU, flooding us with migrants and our vetos mean nothing).