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Do you think there will be a Deal or No Deal?

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marktan said:
Well yes, because if ever a situation occurred where a law is different to the one in the EU directives, it would be a major scandal and the people in charge of that change would be sacked on the spot, and the parliament would then change it back to what it was meant to be (i.e. what the parliament actually voted for - bring EU laws into the UK ones).

I mean obviously this is a new situation caused by leaving the EU, the alternative would be MPs voting for each new law on a case by case basis, if anyone wants to do that for 12,000 laws then let them do that. Otherwise I'm not really worried because nothing's going to change for us - as I've said all these laws will be public so can be scrutinised. I understand the trepidation towards this approach, but we're not North Korea, no politician will be dumb enough to push through their own personal agenda through this. If it does happen it's easily rectifiable.
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Your faith in the Conservatives is admirable, but I'm not sure you can push the 'there's 12,000 laws that need to be copied across line so we need to bypass Parliament' and the 'These 12,000 laws will be properly scrutinised' simultaneously. Either there's too many laws for proper oversight to be possible, and the strong likelihood that 'slipshod' legislation will pass through uncorrected for decades, or there's no reason for them not to go through Parliament. We can be naive and say that will inevitably happen by accident, but we can also be a bit more pragmatic and say that this was partly the reason for doing it this way.

We agree though that clearly this is a huge legislative challenge, and its unsurprising that unprecedented legislation has come forward. I think it was possible to do it without sidestepping Parliament, but that's not really the particularly problematic point. The problematic point is specific powers the Conservatives have granted themselves:

Section 7 has taken most of the flak, but it's this bit of Section 9 that is the most problematic:
'Regulations under this section may make any provision that could be made by an Act of Parliament (including modifying this Act).'

That's a blank cheque to do anything considering that Section 9 contains most of the limits upon the act. It doesn't matter time limits they impose, what restrictions they have included, or anything else really because they can retrospectively remove them.

Now that might, and most people say that it will, get beaten down in the committee stage, but that's an incredible thing for a government to try and pass.

Nor is your argument that 'we're not North Korea' worth any time. We have checks and balances in our system to prevent such things occurring, and being reliant upon the good will of politicians not to abuse their power is incredibly naive. I'm sure you'll have seen the comparisons between the powers the Conservatives are granting themselves and the special measures that Hitler granted himself in the Enabling Act in 1933. I'm not for a second suggesting that that is where we are heading, but what I am suggesting is we know that giving the Executive sweeping powers to make laws creates the potential for abuse. There is no way that the EU Withdrawal bill should be accepted as some sort of necessary evil, and there's certainly no way that it should be clapped in by Brexiteers who claimed to stand for everything this bill shits on.

I notice that @Nick 0208 Ldn has been conspicuously quiet over the past few months, but then again I always thought his arguments on this point were incredibly hollow.
 
So they're not even trying to hide the fact they're living in fantasy land these Brexiters.
 
NinjaFletch said:
Nor is your argument that 'we're not North Korea' worth any time. We have checks and balances in our system to prevent such things occurring, and being reliant upon the good will of politicians not to abuse their power is incredibly naive. I'm sure you'll have seen the comparisons between the powers the Conservatives are granting themselves and the special measures that Hitler granted himself in the Enabling Act in 1933. I'm not for a second suggesting that that is where we are heading, but what I am suggesting is we know that giving the Executive sweeping powers to make laws creates the potential for abuse. There is no way that the EU Withdrawal bill should be accepted as some sort of necessary evil, and there's certainly no way that it should be clapped in by Brexiteers who claimed to stand for everything this bill shits on.
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I'm paraphrasing my previous point a bit as I don't disagree with your post, ideally it'll be done in a way where there's no scope for abuse. I'm not 100% sure on how the second reading etc for the bill work, but I'd assume some sort of compromise would be reached.

As I've said, the reason this doesn't really worry me is precisely the comparison between Hitler - that was one person, this is a government. Each MP is accountable - if a single piece of significant change is pushed through with these powers (e.g. human rights), then there'll be accountability. But I do agree with you that there's a better way to do it, I just don't agree that it warrants some of the hyperbole being used. David Davis has said that they plan to make the powers time limited and done in way so that 'Parliament will need to be satisfied that the procedures are appropriate', so I'd assume there's some plans for flexibility here.
 
marktan said:
I'm paraphrasing my previous point a bit as I don't disagree with your post, ideally it'll be done in a way where there's no scope for abuse. I'm not 100% sure on how the second reading etc for the bill work, but I'd assume some sort of compromise would be reached.

As I've said, the reason this doesn't really worry me is precisely the comparison between Hitler - that was one person, this is a government. Each MP is accountable - if a single piece of significant change is pushed through with these powers (e.g. human rights), then there'll be accountability. But I do agree with you that there's a better way to do it, I just don't agree that it warrants some of the hyperbole being used. David Davis has said that they plan to make the powers time limited and done in way so that 'Parliament will need to be satisfied that the procedures are appropriate', so I'd assume there's some plans for flexibility here.
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See this is my problem here. The 'This is the UK it couldn't possibly happen here' argument is inherently flawed. It doesn't happen anywhere until it does, and when it does happen it's too late to do anything about it. There's nothing about being born on this lump of rock in the North Sea that makes it impossible for politicians to abuse their power or authoritarian dictators to seize power, and creating bad legislation that is eerily reminiscent of similar legislation which led to one of the most destructive wars in history is generally a bad idea.

That's not saying that I think anything bad will happen because of the EU(W) bill (and it goes without saying that I desperately want something bad not to happen), but that the possibility for abuse makes it a bad bill that should be shitcanned.

I think what is dangerous about the bill is the potential that it normalises these powers. If Brexit is a legislative emergency that requires an unprecedented transfer of powers then it creates a precedent. Suddenly those powers aren't being in the hands of the executive aren't unthinkable, and smaller 'emergencies' could lead to a 'temporary' transfer again. Once the genie is out of the bottle it will be difficult to put it back in.

All of which is the worrying part. I hope to be wrong and then we can all sit around in the pub in 30 years time and just laugh at the sheer irony of a perceived threat to Parliamentary Sovereignty leading to legislation that actually infringes on the principal that Parliament should be sovereign, and was clapped in by those that forced us out of the EU because of that principal.

Edit: Sorry, just a little extra point. On your use of the word 'hyperbole' in particular. Of course some of the fears being expressed here are hyperbolic. We're talking about worse case scenarios. It's my personal belief that we should work with those in mind though, and actively make those worse case scenarios impossibilities rather than just create legislation on the principal 'ah feck it, it will probably be fine'.
 
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NinjaFletch said:
Your faith in the Conservatives is admirable, but I'm not sure you can push the 'there's 12,000 laws that need to be copied across line so we need to bypass Parliament' and the 'These 12,000 laws will be properly scrutinised' simultaneously. Either there's too many laws for proper oversight to be possible, and the strong likelihood that 'slipshod' legislation will pass through uncorrected for decades, or there's no reason for them not to go through Parliament. We can be naive and say that will inevitably happen by accident, but we can also be a bit more pragmatic and say that this was partly the reason for doing it this way.

We agree though that clearly this is a huge legislative challenge, and its unsurprising that unprecedented legislation has come forward. I think it was possible to do it without sidestepping Parliament, but that's not really the particularly problematic point. The problematic point is specific powers the Conservatives have granted themselves:

Section 7 has taken most of the flak, but it's this bit of Section 9 that is the most problematic:
'Regulations under this section may make any provision that could be made by an Act of Parliament (including modifying this Act).'.
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That is putting it very mildly. IMO it is the biggest legislative task any modern Western democracy has faced. It makes the German reunification look like childs play.

What is happening right now is not surprising in the least btw. It is the obvious outcome that every person who extensively works with administrative law saw coming.

When I went into office the day after Brexit (I work for the German federal foreign office so this vote actually had impact on parts of my work) we had a meeting regarding it. When we sat there in disbelief (quite honestly none of my collegues including myself expected this outcome, although we of course planned for the worst case), one actually asked the question that many wondered about: How long would it take the British legislation with it´s regular processes to entangle their national law from the EU ties and completely transfer EU law into domestical law? We went around the room and made estimations. Mine was 20 years. It was one of the most generous ones in the rooms.


People underestimate what a beaurocratical juggernaut Brexit represents. It makes general legislative processes completely unpracticable, Even if they would work day and night it would take too damn long to be accomplished. So the government tries to circumvent the general processes to make it work.


This is one of the biggest ironies of Brexit. It advertised soveregnty of the British people ("taking back control"), but in truth it leads to undemocratic practises. It crushes one of the core aspects of modern democracy: the devide of power between the three pillars of it.
 
So in a nutshell... do I understand correctly that the U.K. first wanted to leave the EU because it's undemocratic (amongst other things), yet now the U.K.'s Government is attempting push through an act which will make the U.K. vulnerable to undemocratic practices?
 
Rams said:
So in a nutshell... do I understand correctly that the U.K. first wanted to leave the EU because it's undemocratic (amongst other things), yet now the U.K.'s Government is attempting push through an act which will make the U.K. vulnerable to undemocratic practices?
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Thankfully, they've only done it for the current parliament. After that it expires.

So we don't need to worry! Everything is fine!

:nervous:
 
Sphaero said:
That is putting it very mildly. IMO it is the biggest legislative task any modern Western democracy has faced. It makes the German reunification look like childs play.

What is happening right now is not surprising in the least btw. It is the obvious outcome that every person who extensively works with administrative law saw coming.

When I went into office the day after Brexit (I work for the German federal foreign office so this vote actually had impact on parts of my work) we had a meeting regarding it. When we sat there in disbelief (quite honestly none of my collegues including myself expected this outcome, although we of course planned for the worst case), one actually asked the question that many wondered about: How long would it take the British legislation with it´s regular processes to entangle their national law from the EU ties and completely transfer EU law into domestical law? We went around the room and made estimations. Mine was 20 years. It was one of the most generous ones in the rooms.


People underestimate what a beaurocratical juggernaut Brexit represents. It makes general legislative processes completely unpracticable, Even if they would work day and night it would take too damn long to be accomplished. So the government tries to circumvent the general processes to make it work.


This is one of the biggest ironies of Brexit. It advertised soveregnty of the British people ("taking back control"), but in truth it leads to undemocratic practises. It crushes one of the core aspects of modern democracy: the devide of power between the three pillars of it.
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It's not surprising, no, it doesn't mean that this particular bill should be accepted or tolerated though. If it is strictly necessary to do it this way – on which point I'm not sure myself – it doesn't justify the pretty galling lack of real checks on the powers it is granting ministers.
 
NinjaFletch said:
It's not surprising, no, it doesn't mean that this particular bill should be accepted or tolerated though. If it is strictly necessary to do it this way – on which point I'm not sure myself – it doesn't justify the pretty galling lack of real checks on the powers it is granting ministers.
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You are right, it shouldn´t. But then again, from a legal standpoint I don´t see the Brexit vote in itself as viable to cause such far reaching legal changes. I know no Western constitution that would allow such extreme changes, both in structure and in number to be passed by a simple majority. It would take at least a 2/3 majority, in many cases even a 3/4 majority to pass something like that. These very potent majorities function as protection from too extreme changes.
 
Sphaero said:
You are right, it shouldn´t. But then again, from a legal standpoint I don´t see the Brexit vote in itself as viable to cause such far reaching legal changes. I know no Western constitution that would allow such extreme changes, both in structure and in number to be passed by a simple majority. It would take at least a 2/3 majority, in many cases even a 3/4 majority to pass something like that. These very potent majorities function as protection from too extreme changes.
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We don't have a codified constitution, and a basic principle of the system is that Parliament can not be bound by Parliament. By design (well, by tradition more than design) everything Parliament has ever done ever has been done by a simple majority (someone might reply about the Fixed Term Parliament Act here, but that can be repealed by a simple majority because of the fact that Parliament can't bind Parliament).

In that sense, Parliament remains sovereign even in spite of this bill because it can repeal the bill granting Ministers extra power, but I imagine if a situation arose where Ministers passed a law extending the period that they have these powers for and Parliament sought to repeal the original bill - for example if the DUP rebelled and voted with Labour to repay (however ludicrously unlikely that is) – we'd be in for another costly legal battle to decide the law.
 
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So Junk made his speech about further integration and not everyone is happy about it, Rutte being one. With wankers like him at the forefront how on earth can anyone like this club?
 
@Sphaero I'm not sure if it's actually possible to entangle national laws from the EU laws, at least not if you want any sorts of contact with the EU.
 
Stanley Road said:
So Junk made his speech about further integration and not everyone is happy about it, Rutte being one. With wankers like him at the forefront how on earth can anyone like this club?
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Yes, because May, Gove, Fox and Johnson inspire confidence, trust and friendship on the international stage.
 
NinjaFletch said:
Edit: Sorry, just a little extra point. On your use of the word 'hyperbole' in particular. Of course some of the fears being expressed here are hyperbolic. We're talking about worse case scenarios. It's my personal belief that we should work with those in mind though, and actively make those worse case scenarios impossibilities rather than just create legislation on the principal 'ah feck it, it will probably be fine'.
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Again I agree with your point - I'm hopeful that some sort of compromise is reached and the changes are done in the proper way. It's just pretty jarring for a lot of people who were against Brexit to come out with xyz reasons how the country's going to die post Brexit. I've been reading this thread for a good while and plenty of Brits and plenty of the non-Brits do that. I get this forum has more say labour voters than not but it's still pretty annoying to read. Brexit is a huge challenge but it can be done reasonably if both sides show willingness to compromise. The current impasse in negotiations is really caused by the one sided structure of negotiations - they're discussing all the things that are crucial to the EU first but none of the things like trade that are crucial to the UK. It's hard to compromise when you can't be sure the other side will do so at a later date.

I mean obviously we lose out economically from Brexit but the sovereignty balance is up for debate. Just today you had Juncker in his Union address raised the possibility of an EU finance minister, and again raised the idea leading to united EU army. These are all things that point towards the federalisation of European countries into what would be wanted to be the USA equivalent of the EU - but there's so many culutral and economical differences between countries in the EU that I'm not sure if it's viable at all. I mean compare the GDP/income in Germany vs say Bulgaria, or the unemployment rate in Germany vs Spain.

Just fyi, I was undecided about the vote and abstained, my preference would've been for the UK to actually get some concessions from the EU about the existing issues pre-vote and then to remain, which was what I was hoping for, and I was really disappointed by the wafer-thin concessions offered. Take a parallel to the Scottish independence vote - we offered far more for the issues they raised. Right now the best we can hope for is everyone to work together and sort things out for the betterment of everyone, but all the doomsayers do get annoying. This isn't just related to the current repeal by the way, which is a genuine concern to an extent, but more so aimed at the general liturgy of posts in this thread.
 
Stanley Road said:
So Junk made his speech about further integration and not everyone is happy about it, Rutte being one. With wankers like him at the forefront how on earth can anyone like this club?
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I loved it honestly. Seeing farage losing it at the prospect of a unified europe which would be big enough and rich enough to ignore anyone was mint. Thats the brexiters nightmare. The irony is that such project could never happen with the uk as eu member. In few words brexiters voted in for their own nighmare

Not that such level of integration will happen anytime soon. Most European countries are too independent to lose their veto even for a qualified majority (something the likes of wales and scotland would dream of having)
 
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devilish said:
I loved it honestly. Seeing farage losing it at the prospect of a unified europe which would be big enough and rich enough to ignore anyone was mint. Thats the brexiters nightmare. The irony is that such project could never happen with the uk as eu member. In few words brexiters voted in for their own nighmare

Not that such level of integration will happen anytime soon. Most European countries are too independent to lose their veto even for a qualified majority (something the likes of wales and scotland would dream of having)
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How does a further unified Europe suddenly get richer? Maybe they cut defence budgets (arguable) but it's not like the Macedonians will suddenly enjoy Germany level wages or that Germany would suddenly be willing to give up it's huge trade surplass.

It's a bad idea for precisely what you state - the countries are simply too different. Even now you have Hungary rebelling against the EU migrant deal with them not having taking in a single migrant, something the EU has now used the EU's court of justice to enforce, but getting Hungary to actually accept migrants against its will still be a struggle.

And fyi, the relationship between the members of the EU and the UK are different so the parallel doesn't hold up. Scotland has it better than us in some ways anyhow, my family would save about £90k in tuition fees over the next 5 years if we lived in Scotland.
 
marktan said:
How does a further unified Europe suddenly get richer? Maybe they cut defence budgets (arguable) but it's not like the Macedonians will suddenly enjoy Germany level wages or that Germany would suddenly be willing to give up it's huge trade surplass.

It's a bad idea for precisely what you state - the countries are simply too different. Even now you have Hungary rebelling against the EU migrant deal with them not having taking in a single migrant, something the EU has now used the EU's court of justice to enforce, but getting Hungary to actually accept migrants against its will still be a struggle.

And fyi, the relationship between the members of the EU and the UK are different so the parallel doesn't hold up. Scotland has it better than us in some ways anyhow, my family would save about £90k in tuition fees over the next 5 years if we lived in Scotland.
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A more unified europe will be more effective on signing trade deals, it would be more effective on immigration and faster in dealing to business changes. Imagine how difficult it would be for westminster to govern if the wales, scotland and co had a veto on everything. Brexit itself would never happen

I think juncker went the extremes but a slightly better integration would do a lot of good for Europe. For example we cant expect third countries to take care of Europe's security and we certainly cant expect the southern European nations to nanny all immigrants on Europe behalf. An EU army will give us protection and credibility on the world scene especially if that means stripping the US/UK with European support whenever they go warmongering . Ultimately what makes China, Russia and even the US so relevant is their military prowess and Europe currently lacks that.

And thats a very poor example you used.My qualifications are all British and that despite having the opportunity not to pay a euro by going to Uni in my own country (ie another eu country). Scotland doesn't need to barter its autonomy for free tertiary education. Malta is a clear example to that. In fact the rock is a perfect example of how a country can be free from the British rule and not only survive but thrive.
 
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Stanley Road said:
So Junk made his speech about further integration and not everyone is happy about it, Rutte being one. With wankers like him at the forefront how on earth can anyone like this club?
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He's probably upset because the EU wants to tax multinationals where profits arise instead of allowing cross border shenanigans
 
In the space of about 12 hours the BBC have found time to interview pro-Brexit 'celebs' Ringo Starr (who lives in Monaco) and James Dyson (who manufactures his products in Asia and is currently lobbying the government to replace his EU farm subsidies).
 
LuisNaniencia said:
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Barold I see as 2 sides of the same coin, the rich white conservative who doesn't like foreigners or the rich white liberal who doesn't care who comes in because his community won't have to deal with foreigners and if you don't like immigration then you're racist. Both of them live in a bubble.
 
Its hilarious to see Farage panicking at the idea of a United States of Europe and unified and potentially more aggressive military policy when the United Kingdom had spend decades kissing the United States of America arse and backing it through most of its post 14 wars outside US soil. Is he worried that soon enough there will be yet another arse for his country to kiss? That's quite considerable considering that 'nightmare' of a unified Europe could never happen without Brexit
 
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Junckers latest bullshit validates the assumption that any reasonable reform of the EU is impossible. It's more centralism or nothing. A union, that allows/encourages different levels/forms of cooperation is not wanted. Now that the UK left, the ideologues will take the next steps.
 
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