How does the UK stop cutting off it's nose to spite it's face

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merseymouth
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Re: How does the UK stop cutting off it's nose to spite it's face

Post by merseymouth »

So, Is the Polish government totally out of order to prefer it having control over its own destiny?
With another 5 countries trying to get into the E.U., but an E.U. pause on acceptance being pushed, the future will not be a bed of roses for Brussels! With more nations getting more back than they put in, the big losers like Germany will find it hard to justify the cost to their own electorate, which is what the UK electorate did.
France is getting tough with Belgium over their soft (invisible) border over migrants, their hypocrisy over the channel flotilla will be more blatant! MM
reohn2
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Re: How does the UK stop cutting off it's nose to spite it's face

Post by reohn2 »

merseymouth wrote: 13 Oct 2021, 5:21pm So, Is the Polish government totally out of order to prefer it having control over its own destiny?
With another 5 countries trying to get into the E.U., but an E.U. pause on acceptance being pushed, the future will not be a bed of roses for Brussels! With more nations getting more back than they put in, the big losers like Germany will find it hard to justify the cost to their own electorate, which is what the UK electorate did.
France is getting tough with Belgium over their soft (invisible) border over migrants, their hypocrisy over the channel flotilla will be more blatant! MM
What has all that to do with the UK getting round to stopping cutting off it's nose to spite it's face?

It may have escaped your attention but the UK is in deep doodah,doodah of it's own making due to the selfseeking morons we laughably currently term as government.
Perhaps that's how you like it,I don't know,but you seem to be missing the point by the width of the English(sic) Channel

EDIT:- how do you propose the UK fills the current 100,000 HGV driver shortage,the current 114,000 care staff shortage,the 50,000 nursing staff shortage,the doctor shortages and other NHS staff shortages,the farm worker shortages,the 43,000police and police support staff shortages,etc,etc,etc?
Do you have any ideas?
Last edited by reohn2 on 13 Oct 2021, 6:23pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Ben@Forest
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Re: How does the UK stop cutting off it's nose to spite it's face

Post by Ben@Forest »

[XAP]Bob wrote: 13 Oct 2021, 4:25pm Most votes doesn't necessarily mean that they should be the governing party - it just means they have a pretty good chance to negotiate sensible compromises because they are the party with the most vote share.

If there were only 6 parties - one extreme left, one extreme right and a cluster of four in the middle and they got 15,20,15,16,10,24 ... then I would expect that the three left of centre parties would join together as the most representative option available.
What we have at the moment is nothing significant far left, a cluster of centre left parties, and then a single party that encompasses everything from slightly right of centre to the very far right - with the nut jobs seemingly in charge at the moment.
Sorry to harp on about Germany, but I know it well, the idea that there will be spread of parties along a clearly defined line left to right where they'll have natural partners isn't really there. So currently you have:

1. No other party will work at a federal level with the AfD (though they have at the regional level).

2. The FDP has often been described as 'the Liberal Party' but there is no comparison with our Liberal Democrats; the FDP take a laissez-faire approach to government's relationship with business, believe in the free-market economy and think the state should interfere as little as possible in the lives of individuals.

3. Die Linke (the Left) wants NATO to be dissolved, rejects deportations, wants to dissolve the EU border protection agency and demands asylum for all poverty, environmental, and climate refugees (I know people here really don't get this about Germany but it's a really conservative country - those type of policies are not popular and at the recent GE they only just scraped in to having seats at all). Also interestingly until, I think, 2007 they were anti-EU and changed only to gain more votes.

That isn't all the parties (obviously) but it demonstrates that a simple - 'you're just a bit further left or right than that us' we can make a deal isn't that simple...
Oldjohnw
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Re: How does the UK stop cutting off it's nose to spite it's face

Post by Oldjohnw »

De Valera. De Gaulle. Hitler. In a 21stC discussion on the EU?
John
Mike Sales
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Re: How does the UK stop cutting off it's nose to spite it's face

Post by Mike Sales »

[
merseymouth wrote: 13 Oct 2021, 5:21pm So, Is the Polish government totally out of order to prefer it having control over its own destiny?
The Polish Government is a nasty, authoritarian party intent on subverting the law courts.
The EU insist on decent democratic standards, which is why the Law and Justice Party is unhappy.
What are the issues involved?

Poland’s right-wing government has long been at odds with the European Union over issues like media freedom and L.G.B.T.Q. rights, as well as its efforts to oversee its judiciary.

It escalated that conflict in July when it refused to implement two decisions of the European Court of Justice that effectively ordered the dismantling of a disciplinary “chamber” that critics say has been used by Poland’s government to intimidate judges.
The European Court ruled that the chamber violated the rights of E.U. citizens, guaranteed by treaties, to live under a judiciary system that is free from political interference.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/08/worl ... -laws.html
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It's the rich what gets the pleasure
Isn't it a blooming shame?
Oldjohnw
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Re: How does the UK stop cutting off it's nose to spite it's face

Post by Oldjohnw »

I have just listened to a wonderful 18 minutes of Beethoven’s 9th 4th Movement: Ode to Joy extract. Oslo Cathedral Choir and Hanover Orchestra, British soloists.

And why shouldn’t some nations be net contributors and some net recipients? That is the family of nations, society, community. Seems somewhat better than fighting over resources.
John
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mjr
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Re: How does the UK stop cutting off it's nose to spite it's face

Post by mjr »

Ben@Forest wrote: 13 Oct 2021, 5:34pm 1. No other party will work at a federal level with the AfD (though they have at the regional level).
Where has a regional governing coalition included the AfD?
2. The FDP has often been described as 'the Liberal Party' but there is no comparison with our Liberal Democrats; the FDP take a laissez-faire approach to government's relationship with business, believe in the free-market economy and think the state should interfere as little as possible in the lives of individuals.
They are nothing like the same, but it is an easy comparison: they are like so-called Orange Book Lib Dems but more Lib and less Dem.
3. Die Linke (the Left) [...] Also interestingly until, I think, 2007 they were anti-EU and changed only to gain more votes.
Parties often change policies for that reason. It's a feature of democracy. Occasionally a drawback.
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AlanD
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Re: How does the UK stop cutting off it's nose to spite it's face

Post by AlanD »

I’m really worried by the fiasco over the trade with Northern Ireland. Listening to the news, I hear a lot of militant posturing and I don’t think it will take a lot before there are stronger measures. What needs to happen is for NI to be towed across the Irish Sea and attached to the mainland. But of course, that is impossible! So the only way to solve it is if: (a) NI becomes part of Ireland. (b) Ireland becomes part of the UK. (c) Britain rejoins the EU. That’s three impossible things, we’re scuppered!
Ben@Forest
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Re: How does the UK stop cutting off it's nose to spite it's face

Post by Ben@Forest »

mjr wrote: 13 Oct 2021, 6:19pm
Ben@Forest wrote: 13 Oct 2021, 5:34pm 1. No other party will work at a federal level with the AfD (though they have at the regional level).
Where has a regional governing coalition included the AfD?
I didn't say coalition, from Feb 2020:

Germany’s postwar political consensus over ostracising far-right parties was torn up on Wednesday after Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats sided with the nationalist Alternative for Germany to install a little-known local politician as prime minister of the eastern state of Thuringia.

The election of Thomas Kemmerich is the first time that the AfD has become such a kingmaker in German politics. Most mainstream rivals have shunned the party.

“It is a new low point in Germany’s postwar history,” said Lars Klingbeil, secretary-general of the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD).

Mr Kemmerich, of the liberal Free Democrats (FDP), may now try to form a minority government with the centre-right Christian Democratic Union, the party of chancellor Angela Merkel, whose votes also helped him into office.

It is highly unlikely that he will invite the AfD into his government. But for his administration to survive, it will be reliant on the AfD’s support in the Thuringian parliament.

The new prime minister insisted, however, that he would not work with the nationalists. “The firewall to the AfD is still standing,” he said in his acceptance speech. “There will be no AfD ministries, no co-operation and no AfD policies.”

Despite his assurances, Mr Kemmerich’s election is likely to trigger a backlash in Berlin. The national leaderships of both the FDP and CDU have repeatedly ruled out all forms of co-operation with the AfD.


I don't think the above is the only instance of 'tolerating' the AfD to get a regional Parliament functioning.
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mjr
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Re: How does the UK stop cutting off it's nose to spite it's face

Post by mjr »

Ben@Forest wrote: 13 Oct 2021, 6:47pm I don't think the above is the only instance of 'tolerating' the AfD to get a regional Parliament functioning.
The AfD were elected. The others have little choice but to tolerate them. That does not say they were working together, but only that AfD did not vote down an FDP candidate. Is there any evidence of working together? AfD may merely have decided that it did not want to be blamed for a regional government floundering just then.
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[XAP]Bob
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Re: How does the UK stop cutting off it's nose to spite it's face

Post by [XAP]Bob »

AlanD wrote: 13 Oct 2021, 6:26pm I’m really worried by the fiasco over the trade with Northern Ireland. Listening to the news, I hear a lot of militant posturing and I don’t think it will take a lot before there are stronger measures. What needs to happen is for NI to be towed across the Irish Sea and attached to the mainland. But of course, that is impossible! So the only way to solve it is if: (a) NI becomes part of Ireland. (b) Ireland becomes part of the UK. (c) Britain rejoins the EU. That’s three impossible things, we’re scuppered!
A is possible, and in fact quite likely.
C is possible, although actually we only need to rejoin the single market, not the EU.
A shortcut has to be a challenge, otherwise it would just be the way. No situation is so dire that panic cannot make it worse.
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mjr
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Re: How does the UK stop cutting off it's nose to spite it's face

Post by mjr »

[XAP]Bob wrote: 13 Oct 2021, 10:17pm C is possible, although actually we only need to rejoin the single market, not the EU.
Do you mean the single market that many Leave campaigners said we didn't have to leave? https://m.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/op ... 25ba310fce
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pete75
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Re: How does the UK stop cutting off it's nose to spite it's face

Post by pete75 »

Mike Sales wrote: 13 Oct 2021, 5:35pm [
merseymouth wrote: 13 Oct 2021, 5:21pm So, Is the Polish government totally out of order to prefer it having control over its own destiny?
The Polish Government is a nasty, authoritarian party intent on subverting the law courts.
The EU insist on decent democratic standards, which is why the Law and Justice Party is unhappy.
What are the issues involved?

Poland’s right-wing government has long been at odds with the European Union over issues like media freedom and L.G.B.T.Q. rights, as well as its efforts to oversee its judiciary.

It escalated that conflict in July when it refused to implement two decisions of the European Court of Justice that effectively ordered the dismantling of a disciplinary “chamber” that critics say has been used by Poland’s government to intimidate judges.
The European Court ruled that the chamber violated the rights of E.U. citizens, guaranteed by treaties, to live under a judiciary system that is free from political interference.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/08/worl ... -laws.html
And that is probably one of the reasons Boris Johnson et al were so keen to leave the EU, so they can control the courts. In the EU we were covered by the treaty requiring the judiciary to be free from political interference. That protection has now gone and the government can bring in legislation to control the courts however it likes.
Britain is still a signatory to the European Convention on Human Rights, so the government can be challenged in the European Court of Human Rights which is free from political inference by any government. They appear to want to pull out of the convention, saying they'll bring in a British bill of human rights. Final appeal to this will be to the Supreme Court whose judiciary can be brought under the control of the UK government.
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Re: How does the UK stop cutting off it's nose to spite it's face

Post by PH »

Mick F wrote: 13 Oct 2021, 4:23pm I'm a Labour supporter and a Brexit supporter (but not the Brexit that the tories organised),
The problem is there was no other Brexit, believing so is just a fantasy, the idea that we can have some parts but not others was never an option, otherwise every country would choose it.
I have a real dislike of the EU, the protectionism, the centralised economic policy, the control it exerts over sovereign governments... but while it exists not being a part of it is doing exactly as this thread title suggests.
Oldjohnw
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Re: How does the UK stop cutting off it's nose to spite it's face

Post by Oldjohnw »

PH wrote: 14 Oct 2021, 11:49am
Mick F wrote: 13 Oct 2021, 4:23pm I'm a Labour supporter and a Brexit supporter (but not the Brexit that the tories organised),
The problem is there was no other Brexit, believing so is just a fantasy, the idea that we can have some parts but not others was never an option, otherwise every country would choose it.
I have a real dislike of the EU, the protectionism, the centralised economic policy, the control it exerts over sovereign governments... but while it exists not being a part of it is doing exactly as this thread title suggests.
I don’t remember various types of Brexit being an option. I’m afraid that people voted Brexit then they voted Tory in order to “get Brexit done”. As a consequence, we are now where we are. Prior to the vote we were told we were scaremongering. During transition we were told it was teething troubles. Now it is hindsight, apparently.
John
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