Brexit.

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

I just became a Brexiteer, I think.

You are frightening me right now.

 

[Bondmaster]

The UK is no longer EU worthy IMHO.

I always thought that the brexiters main strategy was to make UK look so selfish and arrogant that it would be the EU to cut the ties and reject them. A position that would relieve them the burden of any consequence the brexit will have on the people. This way they could blame EU and get even more consensus.
I am not sure that's really the case, but it seems to be working rgardless

 

[Sid]

Let them blame the EU. They always did that already.
Enough is simply enough.
In the Netherlands we have a saying that translates like 'gentle healers make smelly wounds'.
Europe was the gentle healer in this brexit process so far and the UK is delivering the smelly wounds now.
That has to stop.

 

[Kara Spengler]

And it all is about the UK again, about their rules, their regulations, their traditions and the EU can f*ck off and wait at the side lines ....... again.
It is simply the way the UK floats.... totally self centered, filled with self importance and a bit over sensitive about traditions.
Maybe it is a good thing the kingdom leaves the EU. It should be with a good deal though.

Purdah is not a 'tradition'. It is a law an a very good one, here in the US we probably would not have donnie if we had it.

 

[Sid]

I was not writing about a specific thing, when I had mention the traditions, more their minds still being with the 'good old times' of the empire, ruling the waves and workers knowing their place downstairs and stuff.

And the Donald is in the end America's own fault, there were and are enough Democrats living in the different states of the USA, that could and can stop him.
But Bernie and other stuff like not bother to go out and vote, seemed more important.

Brexit is something the rest of Europe can do very little about, and is now in serious trouble not having a complete European Commission. And that after being so nice to grand extension after extension.

From now on my take on the matter has become: Out with the UK at the first moment possible and no further negotiations until every single cent they still owe us is payed back in full.
This not appointing someone is a very serious political obstruction IMHO and shows an awful lot of disrespect towards the rest of the EU.


Edit to add: And now I stop reading and reacting in this thread at least for a while.
I need to cool down first.

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

Look, Bernie Sanders was sabotaged by his own party. They just pretended to have an open race, in reality the Democratic National Committee favoured Clinton from the beginning and acted like that.

As Debbie Wasserman Schultz made her unceremonious exit as chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, what was most remarkable was what you didn’t hear: practically anybody coming to her defense.

The Florida congresswoman did not go quietly. She reportedly resisted stepping down, and blamed subordinates for the content of the leaked emails that were released Friday, which clearly showed the committee’s posture of neutrality in the Democratic primary to have been a hollow pretense, just as Bernie Sanders and his supporters long contended.

[...]

The litany of Wasserman Schultz’s offenses during the primary was familiar to supporters of Sanders and other Clinton rivals: scheduling debates at odd times, shutting Sanders out of the party’s data file, stacking convention committees with Clinton supporters.

And I mean this is now the official stance of Elizabeth Warren that 2016's primary was rigged: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/11/02/ex-dnc-chair-goes-at-the-clintons-alleging-hillarys-campaign-hijacked-dnc-during-primary-with-bernie-sanders/

 

[Innula Zenovka]

And it all is about the UK again, about their rules, their regulations, their traditions and the EU can f*ck off and wait at the side lines ....... again.
It is simply the way the UK floats.... totally self centered, filled with self importance and a bit over sensitive about traditions.
Maybe it is a good thing the kingdom leaves the EU. It should be with a good deal though.

David Allen Green, on Twitter, who knows what he's talking about when it comes to Constitutional Law, suggests quite strongly that the UK's rules on the conduct of civil servants during the pre-election period do not, in fact, prevent the UK's naming a commissioner during the election period, and having now read the rules I see what he means.

While it's not best practice to make such appointments during the pre-election period -- and Johnson has no excuse for not having made the appointment earlier -- it's not prohibited, and if he were to nominate a serious paper candidate, who was willing to step down if the Conservatives lose and the new PM wishes to appoint someone else, then no one would object.

However, while I can see that the Commission clearly have to protect the principle that all member states must comply with their obligation to nominate commissioners when their treaty obligations require that, I'm not sure how much it helps anyone to make an issue of it, since the government have said they're willing to appoint someone as soon the elections are finished, and the court case and appeals won't be over for months yet.

Nothing is gained, it seems to me, by making an issue of this right now other than to help the Conservatives' election chances -- which I assume Johnson and Cummings intended to happen -- by creating a situation in which the Conservatives and their supporters in the media will portray this as yet another example of meddling Brussels bureaucrats trying to push us around.

That's not my view of it, of course, but it's the story Conservative Central Office and the pro-Brexit press will push, and it's one that will be believed.

 

[Kara Spengler]

I was not writing about a specific thing, when I had mention the traditions, more their minds still being with the 'good old times' of the empire, ruling the waves and workers knowing their place downstairs and stuff.

And the Donald is in the end America's own fault, there were and are enough Democrats living in the different states of the USA, that could and can stop him.
But Bernie and other stuff like not bother to go out and vote, seemed more important.

Brexit is something the rest of Europe can do very little about, and is now in serious trouble not having a complete European Commission. And that after being so nice to grand extension after extension.

From now on my take on the matter has become: Out with the UK at the first moment possible and no further negotiations until every single cent they still owe us is payed back in full.
This not appointing someone is a very serious political obstruction IMHO and shows an awful lot of disrespect towards the rest of the EU.


Edit to add: And now I stop reading and reacting in this thread at least for a while.
I need to cool down first.

There is a law in the UK that says certain things can not be done near an election. While I do agree someone should have been named it is impossible to do that now if you draw your salary from their government.

Part of how donnie won was the FBI announcing right before the election they were reopening an investigation into his opponent. If we had that same law on the books here they could not have done it, which swung some votes.

 

[Argent Stonecutter]

Look, Bernie Sanders was sabotaged by his own party. They just pretended to have an open race, in reality the Democratic National Committee favoured Clinton from the beginning and acted like that.

Bernie was an independent, he only joined the Democratic party to run for president. The whole purpose of the superdelegates was to defend against an outsider candidate like Sanders or Trump. It may have been a bad idea, but it was a compromise set in 1968 that actually made the nomination process *more* democratic at the time, and it made Sanders' nomination a mathematical impossibility well before the emails that marked the DNC putting their wood behind Clinton.

 

[Veritable Quandry]

Bernie was an independent, he only joined the Democratic party to run for president.

He promised to join the Democratic Party IF he got the nomination. He's still an independent.

 

[Kara Spengler]

He promised to join the Democratic Party IF he got the nomination. He's still an independent.

The last I knew he did not get the nomination either.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Purdah is not a 'tradition'. It is a law an a very good one, here in the US we probably would not have donnie if we had it.

Please see my correction to my own post, above.

While making this kind of appointment during a general election period is certainly not encouraged, it's not actually unlawful.

The official Cabinet Office guidance to civil servants on conduct during the election period (adherence to which is part of their conditions of employment) states

During the election period, the Government retains its responsibility to govern, and Ministers remain in charge of their departments. Essential business (which includes routine business necessary to ensure the continued smooth functioning of government and public services) must be allowed to continue. However, it is customary for Ministers to observe discretion in initiating any new action of a continuing or long term character. Decisions on matters of policy on which a new government might be expected to want the opportunity to take a different view from the present government should be postponed until after the election, provided that such postponement would not be detrimental to the national interest or wasteful of public money.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/844380/General_Election_Guidance_2019.pdf

Since reneging on a treaty obligation is certainly detrimental to the national interest, and will almost certainly be wasteful of public money spent on defending the case brought against the UK by the Commission and then paying any fines as a result, then it's not prohibited.

It may be worth noting that, in contrast to the US, British public servants are appointed by the Civil Service Commission, not the government, and they are employed in the service of the Crown, not the government (as are members of the police and the armed services).

That's a very important distinction, which shields them from a good deal of the kind of government interference that is sometimes a feature of US politics -- when my late father and his colleagues had disagreements with their minister, they were fighting with their minister but not their boss, the head of HM's civil service, who had appointed them to assist her majesty's ministers in the conduct of HM's business.

 

[Kara Spengler]

Please see my correction to my own post, above.

While making this kind of appointment during a general election period is certainly not encouraged, it's not actually unlawful.

The official Cabinet Office guidance to civil servants on conduct during the election period (adherence to which is part of their conditions of employment) states

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/844380/General_Election_Guidance_2019.pdf

Since reneging on a treaty obligation is certainly detrimental to the national interest, and will almost certainly be wasteful of public money spent on defending the case brought against the UK by the Commission and then paying any fines as a result, then it's not prohibited.

It may be worth noting that, in contrast to the US, British public servants are appointed by the Civil Service Commission, not the government, and they are employed in the service of the Crown, not the government (as are members of the police and the armed services).

That's a very important distinction, which shields them from a good deal of the kind of government interference that is sometimes a feature of US politics -- when my late father and his colleagues had disagreements with their minister, they were fighting with their minister but not their boss, the head of HM's civil service, who had appointed them to assist her majesty's ministers in the conduct of HM's business.

Ah, thanks for pointing it out. I missed the correction and had not seen your post this morning yet when typing up my reply.

 

[Aribeth Zelin]

Actually, the superdelegate system was to protect the party from those in their own damn party; candidates like McGovern and yes, Carter.

 

[Chin Rey]

A bit of nostalgia - a sequence from a twelve year old QI show.

I think it's important to still remember how Brexit actually started: fantasy fiction press posing as newsmedia and hiring faux journalists to sit in bars and cook up tall stories to feed an ignorant and uneducated audience.

If we compare England and the USA to functional western style democracies, there are two factors that are so obviously missing: A free, critical, reliable press and a good educational system. That may explain a lot.

​

 

[Tigger]

That video is blocked in the UK.

 

[Myficals]

A bit of nostalgia - a sequence from a twelve year old QI show.

And that segment is referencing a joke from a Yes, Minister episode from 1984.

I remember finding the "eurosausage" joke quite funny when I first saw the Yes, Minister episode it's from (in my defense, I would have been 12 or 13 at the time). These days, it's just a reminder of how deeply entrenched "eurosceptisim" is in the English psyche.

 

[Chin Rey]

That video is blocked in the UK.

Aww.
It's probably copyright issues rather than censorship. For those who can't see it, it's a segment from QI series E, episode 5. They're reading some of the silliest "EU Regulations" stories the British Fantasy Press had produced and making fun of the people who are actually stupid enough to fall for it.
A decade later it turned out half the British population was stupid enough to fall for it.

 

[Essence Lumin]

That video is blocked in the UK.

US too.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Police assessing claims that Tories offered peerages to Brexit party

Lord Falconer urges Met to look at allegations candidates were offered peerages to stand down

www.theguardian.com