Brexit now = CETA +/-?

[Ed P]

Graham, if you ever dabble around with our even more broken local ‘democracy’, you will soon find that it is an outrageous level of responsibility in nearly everything, sod all real power and a highly constrained budgetry system. which means sod-all money to do the right things Its real function is to deflect criticism away from Central Government. Divide and rule!

It is about as far away from Federal Democracy as it is possible to get.

[Ed P]

Just out of interest I tried unsuccessfully  to find pictures of the *Urn in Benn’s Millbank Office. During this I refreshed my memory of Benn in those days.

I think it fair to say that the longer Benn was in Government the more left-wing he became (much further left than Corbyn). Although the emergency energy distribution system we were discussing was for the public good, if used in reverse by taking out critical nodes I think the country and armed services would have ground to a complete halt within ten days. It was probably these key nodes that the CS did not want me to discuss, as possibly the CS were unsure of Benn’s loyalties. Nothing is ever what it seems in Whitehall.

*The urn was a carved work of art. It had the detail of something carved in wood but in a jet-like material that must of been brittle as hell. If anyone does find a pic please post a link as it would be fun to see how the reality matches up with my memory.

[Wheels-Of-Fire]

Yes Ed, and it needs fixing at a national level not an international level. If, as seems proven, Westminster is too remote to sort things out then what hope has a collective of vastly different nations got ?

 

 

[Ed P]

Turkeys do not vote for Christmas, neither do politicians and Civil Servants willingly give up power.

[Dave Rice]

Westminster is too remote to sort things out then what hope has a collective of vastly different nations got ?

That’s where Federalisation comes in.

[The Duke]

I don’t understand why anyone is even bothered about a united Europe. It would hardly change anyone’s  daily lives.

Unlike leaving the block will.

For me leaving is a massive step backwards, in what the future ultimately will need. The next 50 years will need nation to work together more than ever before. If we all start dividing up, the outcome is bleak.

We need to be looking outwards, not inwards.

[The VFM Addict]

Dave Rice wrote:

I don’t think that’s a secret. It was mentioned here way back when. A Federal Europe makes a lot of sense to me. We would certainly have much more local government and accountability than we do now under Westminster. It works for the USA, Canada, Brazil, India, Australia, Mexico, Germany, Switzerland, Austria etc.

Dave, you know not fully of what you speak.

The EU as it is now and where it has declared plans to head, is absolutely nothing like the federal structure present in the states you mention; except perhaps Germany.  The degree of divergence permitted between states in the other federations you cited is HUGE.

You will obviously be aware that such is so in the USA with states having control even over whether or not to have the death penalty.   But what may shock you if you have never look closely at the federations you cite is the permitted divergence in the other federations you listed.

Australia places almost all powers under the control of the individual states/territories.  For example, the state parliaments have huge plenary power to legislate with respect to education, criminal law and state police, health, transport, and local government.   The Central Parliament does not have any specific power to legislate in these areas.

Canada also places the large percentage of powers within the three provincial parliaments for example each can determine its own fishing and agricultural policies(!).

Austria has a directly elected president and more federal freedoms than the EU plans even for today’s nation states.

That you cite Switzerland which has perhaps the best direct democracy in the world with referendums being the norm, amazes me it could not be further from what the EU is or intends to be.

I could go on and on.   There is absolutely no federation in the world that seeks to centralise in the way that the EU already has done in so many areas and plans to in future.   If any one the other federations you cited (bar perhaps Germany) ever tried to impose by hook or by crook the kind of centralisation that is the EU’s declared objective those countries beyond any doubt (certainly the USA, Australia and Canada) would descend into true civil war very rapidly indeed.

When will folks wake up to the fact that the degree of centralisation and removal of democracy that the EU seeks has never been seen or achieved before in the world.   It is intended to be an autocratic Empire sold to Europeans as something else.   Remember – The elected chamber of the EU (the Parliament) is in the main castrated and is only able to vote on what the unelected chamber (the Commission) requests it to.   The Parliament of its own right cannot propose or repeal EU legislation.

We are we not all aware that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.   The EU is certainly on the cusp of such with the EU Commission becoming more powerful almost by the day.   It wants central control of fiscal policy, of an army, of foreign policy and already has control of agricultural and fishing policies.   This isn’t going to end well folks.   Truly it isn’t.

I am reminded of the words of Carl Sagan:

“One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle.  We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth.  The bamboozle has captured us.   It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken.  Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.”

The EU by for so long pretending to be what it was not is a charlatan of continental proportions.   Only in the last few years now it has captured so many that has it been emboldened to increasingly show its full colours and objective of ‘central everything’.   Attempting to lull people into a false sense of security by suggesting that the EU seeks merely a federal system as already works in the USA, Australia, Canada and Switzerland (!!!) is simply untrue.   It is nothing like them.   When will folks wake up to this bamboozle.

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During the Covid-19 Epidemic I will be wearing a mask and goggles while posting so that if I become infected I won't spread it to you.

[The Duke]

I simply don’t care that much. As I look at our fine governing establishment and think, the EU could hardly do any worse.

Now maybe if our system worked I may think different. But the older I get,the more is see borders as a man made construct to hold power over them inside. I don’t really like how UK is being managed, so I’d happily hand the keys over.

[Dave Rice]

Ho hum, I’m still being told what I think.

I’m fully aware that there are lots of forms of Federalisation and that the EU is currently not like that. Where and when did I say it was? All I said was it seems to work for the countries who are based on Federalism.

It is totally impossible to say anything here without reams and reams of backup information to be picked apart and subject to an interpretation never intended. FFS it’s just a general discussion not a master plan for world domination! There isn’t and never will be a perfect political system that is all things to all men. Personally I quite like the direction Federalisation moves in but I’m not going to defend it to the death!

You don’t like the EU, we get it. We also get that you don’t believe they can be anything else. Chill out a bit before you blow a gasket ?

[The VFM Addict]

All I was saying, Dave, is that federalisation is such an imprecise term that it means nothing.

There is after all no reason whatsoever that the term cannot be used to describe the United Kingdom given our four nations and devolution.    Would you hold the UK as proof that federalisation works?

I truly wasn’t trying to tell you what you think rather that what you said had little objective validity. Indeed your words explicitly held that USA federalisation works and quite frankly I am not sure it does.   It elected Trump !!!    Inequality on a staggering scale, racism and violence thrive there.   Commit a crime in one state and you face perhaps the death penalty.   Commit it ten feet away across the State line and you don’t.   That’s madness.  Do you truly not see what I mean?

What the EU is attempting has never been seen before anywhere in the world let alone ever seen to work.    Loosely grouping it into the federalisation category means nothing because that category is far too loosely defined such as to be close to meaningless.

You are right though in that I do not believe the EU can now change.   It was, was it not, founded on deceit.   Sell a political project to the electorates on the falsehood that it was just about trade and then inch from there.   I’m sorry, Dave, but there is something in me that is certain that such leopards do not change their spots.   An institution founded on deceit of its very nature develops an ethos of deceit and usually quite quickly becomes utterly incapable of changing.    Politicians are politicians the world over.   What makes you think the average politician across the EU is any better than  he/she is in the UK.    Go check Macron’s ratings they are far worse than May’s or go look at the Yellow Jacket riots and fires on French streets.    Would you prefer that here?   The EU is no utopia and before you jump in I am not suggesting that you ever said it was.   I am merely saying just look at what one of the strongest advocates of a federal Europe has caused to happen on the streets of France.   Go look at the politicians that control the EU like Tusk and Drunker.   Every one of them kicked out of state office in their homelands by their own native electorates.    What next?   May as EU President when we kick her out if you see what I mean.

If you expect the EU to change I am certain you will be disappointed.    It is now more powerful than the sum total of its constituent states.    It will bully and cajole its member states to comply with its will no differently from the manner in which May is forcing through her deal which the vast majority of the UK electorate disagree with and patently do not want.    I believe that after the problems with Brexit we in the UK could force through changes in the way Westminster works.   But I do not believe we or even all member states working in unison could now force the EU to change.   Each individual state would be bullied independently by the over arching EU such that a solid front for change would never be allowed by the EU to develop.    The only thing that might bring change is for a significant number of states to leave the EU such that the EU bureaucrats suddenly concluded that they have no option but to change or they’ll all be out of a job.    Until then it will quite obviously will be more of the same with more and more liberties taken.   That is human nature.   Power corrupts.

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During the Covid-19 Epidemic I will be wearing a mask and goggles while posting so that if I become infected I won't spread it to you.

[Ed P]

Almost anything would be better than the UK first past the post system.

I really do not like voting for political parties.  I hate political Whips, and our elective dictatorship. Even assuming they will remotely respect manifesto promises each party’s manifesto contains something I would like but each also contains something that makes me want to barf.

What I really want is to be able to elect someone I can respect who will to their best ability do what is right for the country and tell Whips to stick it – Minister or No.

I also want a system that can sack (from Parliament) proven idiots and incompetents such as Grayling.

I’m never going to see any of these unfortunately.

btw VFM – your comment on Trump  has very little to do with Federalisation – Trump’s election was based on their Electoral College system.

[Dave Rice]

All this hair splitting on precise meanings of words and phrases again. You really do need to turn the serious level down from 11.

Federalisation seems to work for those countries that have it is all I’m saying. In general they seem happy with it as a system. There will of course be those groups that don’t.

As Ed says, the USA has an electoral college for the President. AFAIK the other nations that use Federalisation don’t, it doesn’t seem to be compulsory.

Lighten up, you’ll be out of the hated EU in a couple of weeks.

[The Duke]

Given the choice on other America made the correct one. He was a far better choice than her.

That doesn’t say much like.

Let’s just hope whatever happens with the brexit mess, this will start the seeds of a march to a political revolution in this land. One thing brexit has done, is bring everyone together in one way. We now all hate the system.

Even as a remainer, and their govs tactics is looking more and more likely to deliver what I want, I don’t like the way they are doing it. It’s underhand and anti diplomatic.

So even if they keep us in the EU, ill be happy but also pissed. As I know today I’m on the winning side, but tomorrow you never know. At the moment there is no accountability for there actions. They know they can do what they want, and they just shuffle the chairs and carry on. It’s not correct. This should and needs to end.

If a promise is made, they should have to prove they done everthigj in their power to try to achieve said goal and offer up reasons why they didn’t deliver. Or face the chop.

Also we need a system that has long term goals Teh 4/5 years cycle just breeds can kicking and shorterism.

I don’t know what this system would be, as we need a system that can axe people at will, but also cultivate long term planning. The two don’t really mix.

Answers on a postcard.

[JayCeeDee]

Maybe it’s time for the concept of TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT (TQM) to be introduced onto the Government by the Public it is supposed to be serving!!

Total Quality Management, TQM, is a method by which management and employees can become involved in the continuous improvement of the production of goods and services. It is a combination of quality and management tools aimed at increasing business and reducing losses due to wasteful practices.

That would be a novel concept for some and a rocket up the ar$es for quite a few others!!

[The VFM Addict]

@ Ed and Dave,

Yes, I am fully aware of the Electoral College system in the USA.   That’s the point.    Being federal didn’t stop that crazy Presidential system arising, did it.

I am just as aware of the USA’s Electoral College as I am of the EU’s system of degressive proportionality used to allocate MEP seats in the EU.   That system means that some states get one MEP per 75,000 voters and the UK got one MEP seat per 750,000 voters.   Literally under the EU system Europeans are by design not equal (i.e. not equally represented).   Some have ten times or more the say that others do.    Degressive proportionality goes against the basic democratic principle that all votes should count equally and goes against it even more so than does the USA’s Electoral College.

My point was that no two federal systems are the same.   The USA; Switzerland and the old USSR are/were all federal systems but are/were as different as chalk and cheese.   One simply cannot say, as if it is a given, that federal systems work.   Venezuela is federal, so do I make my point?

Whether a country’s political system works or how contented its population is has nothing to do with whether or not it is a federation – either way.    The top four countries when it comes to how contented their populations are are not federal.   Switzerland which is comes fifth and the USA is not even in the top ten.

@JCD

Switzerland comes closest to your ideal.   The almost constant involvement of the electorate, often by referendums, is the norm.    But I was always sure that the UK public were not that interested in politics for it to work here.   Who knows now though?    Politics has these last three years become increasingly topical.   It feels like the ’70s all over again albeit with entirely different ideological battle lines.

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During the Covid-19 Epidemic I will be wearing a mask and goggles while posting so that if I become infected I won't spread it to you.

[Ed P]

The VFM Addict wrote:

Yes, I am fully aware of the Electoral College system in the USA. That’s the point. Being federal didn’t stop that crazy Presidential system arising, did it.

I do not think I have ever seen such a blatant distort in order to fit your view of the world.

Its all moot unfortunately unless Bercow’s recent ruling gives an option to just dump this Brexit mess.

[Dave Rice]

You really do make the strangest links and spin out all sorts of things from a simple statement.  Just saying well they’re not all perfect would have me agreeing with you but you just had to go down the extreme routes of Trump and Venezuela. You really are impossible to just have a general chit chat with. I think as a matter of principal you’re going to gainsay anything that comes from me.

Well the Speaker certainly chucked a spanner in TMs works this afternoon didn’t he?

[Ed P]

He did. I am not a constitutional lawyer so I cannot say if he has stretched any interpretations in so doing. However, I do think that he has justifiably established some very slight limitations on our nasty system of Partially-Elected Dictatorship!

[The VFM Addict]

@Dave,

Sorry, Dave, but where I come from if someone makes a general observation that doesn’t really follow folks often during normal chit chat challenge it.   Such is surely normal in friendly debate. You made a statement that federal systems seem to work implying such systems are superior.  I simply explained that federal systems vary and that both federal and non-federal systems can work well or atrociously. You had listed a number of countries to suggest that federalisation works.  I can’t see that it was unreasonable to detail a few that don’t. No particular type of system of governance is intrinsically superior to any other.   Its is surely more about how one sets them up.

@Ed,
I can’t see that my words which you quoted are a ‘distort’ except when one quotes them as you did entirely out of context.    In the context of the total post in which those words resided they were entirely rational and were not a ‘distort’

Perhaps we can all agree that Switzerland and Canada are federal states that work well. Yet both are run in a fashion the very reverse of how Junker and Tusk et al desire to take the EU.   Switzerland comes close to running on referendums while Junker has voiced a desire to ban them in all in EU states.   Canada de-centralises allowing each province to have its own fisheries and agricultural polices, the EU already centralises both.   The point I was trying to make was simply that whether a country is based of federalisation or not seems to have little bearing on how it runs and whether it runs well or badly.

I leave it to other peeps to draw their own conclusions as to whether my arguments in the full context within which they were written were valid and reasonable or somehow distorts and extreme.

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During the Covid-19 Epidemic I will be wearing a mask and goggles while posting so that if I become infected I won't spread it to you.

[Wheels-Of-Fire]

I see the speaker of the house has stuck his oar in again. He has decided to disallow a third vote on Mrs Mays unchanged deal on the grounds that she’s been told twice already.

Sounds reasonable to me but that bloke is really enjoying his 15 min of fame.

[Author]

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