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What if the consequences are instability or large scale war?
by fossuser 8y ago
What if the consequences are instability or large scale war?
- xienze 8y agoWell, what if? You're essentially arguing that if our benevolent overlords decide that the democratic process might result in something unfavorable that they should do the wise thing and ignore the will of the people.
- fossuser 8y agoI'm arguing in favor of representative government where elected people decide on what makes the most sense for complex issues. Relying on advice from experts, but ultimately making the call that's in the country's best interest.
- RobertoG 8y agoThat sounds like a fantastic system, where is being implemented? I would like to move there.
- falsedan 8y agoIt’s Switzerland.
- sievebrain 8y agoSo far every expert prediction about Brexit had been wrong. The UK was meant to be in a deep recession by now, remember?
- inciampati 8y agoIt is not doing well. It's turning back into the sick man of Europe. Productivity growth is among the lowest in the EU.
- sievebrain 8y agoThat's an interesting description. Last year UK growth beat Germany, France and Italy in Q3 (don't know q4 figures yet I believe). It looks like the eurozone may be heading for recession given falling industrial output in Germany. It bothers me immensely how quickly the truth gets discarded the moment it conflicts with EU ideology. The UK has shown excellent economics relative to the rest of Europe since the vote despite its people being told "uncertainty" would trigger a massive recession and employment bloodbath. Yet here you are, saying it's turning into the sick man of Europe!
- AstralStorm 8y agoIt probably is, but so is most of EU. Important big money already migrated to Ireland (mostly), but it takes some time (years, multiple) to take an effect if any.
- spuz 8y agoWhere did you read that the UK would be in a deep recession 2 months before Brexit actually happens?
- stephen_g 8y agohttps://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-36355564 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-36355564 (2016). Treasury (as well as other organisations) predicted that the vote itself would immediately trigger a deep and severe recession.
- dane-pgp 8y agoThat's a helpful article, but I don't know of any examples of organisations other than the Treasury that predicted a deep and severe recession occurring before the UK had even left the EU. One has to admit that there is something of a conflict of interest when it comes to the Chancellor of the Exchequer producing a document to analyse the negative consequences of a scenario which his own prime minister was campaigning against.
- sievebrain 8y agoYou didn't look, maybe? https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/jun/18/imf-says-brexit-would-trigger-uk-recession-eu-referendum https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/jun/18/imf-says-br... The entire global establishment of "experts" united together and made a series of predictions that weren't just wrong by a percentage, they were wrong in the wrong direction. There are NO organisations that I remember who predicted the outcome correctly. There were though, quite a lot of vox pops with the man on the street who said words to the effect of, "it'll be fine, we'll manage". The brutal reality is that people who put their faith in the notion of expert understanding of politics or economics have been made to look very foolish, and worse, many of them don't seem to have accepted the uselessness or bias levels of the people the media present as experts. They are still being upheld not only as important, but actually as people who should be given vast new powers to run government! It's quite concerning.
- tim333 8y agoIt's true it's not as bad as some predicted and I imagine with a no deal brexit we'd muddle through but it still wouldn't be great. For reference here's some prediction from back then: >The Treasury's "cautious" economic forecasts of the two years following a vote to leave - which assumes a bilateral trade agreement with the EU would have been negotiated - predicts Gross Domestic Product would grow by 3.6% less than currently predicted. >In such a scenario, it suggests sterling would fall by 12%, unemployment would rise by 520,000, average wages would fall by 2.8% and house prices would be hit by 10%. Which was pessimistic. Sterling certainly fell, about 20%, but unemployment's doing fine so far.
- AstralStorm 8y agoBy fine you mean as poorly as before so far, and Brexit is not yet in full effect.
- dragonwriter 8y agoSo, like, Parliamentary sovereignty with a democratically elected parliament, instead of popular sovereignty? What an odd idea.
- blibble 8y agothis is the general principle behind the EU Commission: that of a technocracy the head of the Commission, Jean Claude Juncker, on the 2005 French referendum on the Lisbon Treaty: "If it's a Yes, we will say 'on we go', and if it's a No we will say 'we continue'." the result being that the French rejected it, but it was adopted regardless
- jimnotgym 8y agoWikipedia suggests that 1. The French didn't hold a referendum on Lisbon 2. The treaty was ratified in 2008 Presumably you are either confusing the referendum on the EU constitution with the Lisbon treaty, or trying to suggest that they are one and the same? They are not of course, the Lisbon treaty was drafted specifically to address the concerns with the EU constitution. "The electorate rejected version 1, so we redrafted until it was acceptable" sounds like a pretty good policy to me. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratification_of_the_Treaty_of_Lisbon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratification_of_the_Treaty_of_...
- blibble 8y agoas I'm sure you are aware: the texts of the constitution and the Lisbon Treaty are essentially completely identical the Treaty was a device created to pass the constitution while bypassing the need for referendums > "The electorate rejected version 1, so we redrafted until it was acceptable" sounds like a pretty good policy to me well yes, that sounds reasonable, except the electorate were not given the option to reject it a second time, because they might actually do that
- jimnotgym 8y ago> as I'm sure you are aware: the texts of the constitution and the Lisbon Treaty are essentially completely identical I am not aware of any such thing, in fact I reject your statement completely. > the electorate were not given the option to reject it a second time Isn't that a matter for France to address, rather than the EU
- andybak 8y ago"the will of the people" sounds very grand and final. "the will of 52% of the people" doesn't quite have the same ring to it. I'm not claiming that I don't understand the concept of referendum by simple majority - merely that there's a certain duplicity in the sanctimonious language being used to describe the result.
- starshadowx2 8y ago52% of a 72% turnout, so really just ~37% of "the people". (If I did the maths right)
- tim333 8y agoYeah 52% of those who could be bothered to vote. The non voters polled about 60-40 remain so you could argue the will of the people including the lazy was remain. Though of course there isn't really a single will of the people, just a lot of people with differing opinions.
- dane-pgp 8y ago> 52% of those who could be bothered to vote. Not just bothered to vote, but allowed to vote. Citizens of other EU member states, living in Britain, were not eligible to vote (with a few exceptions), and nor were British citizens who had been living in other EU member states for "too long". Moreover, 16 and 17 year olds were disenfranchised too, despite that age group being allowed to vote in the 2014 Scottish independence referendum.
- petre 8y agoAre 16 and 17 year olds even of voting age in the UK? You can't possibly advocate letting non UK citizens decide for UK matters.
- jashmatthews 8y ago> You can't possibly advocate letting non UK citizens decide for UK matters. The UK has a long history of letting non UK commonwealth citizens vote in things like... The Brexit referendum!
- nostrademons 8y agoThen that's what we get. There's no guarantee of a good outcome: if the majority of people want to do stupid things, a democracy will let them. In such a case we'd probably be fucked regardless of what form of government we had. A dictatorship, monarchy, or oligarchy lets a minority of people do stupid things, and if you have a majority, it's fairly likely there is a powerful minority contained within them.
- Beldin 8y agoThe majority of EU citizens did not vote in the Brexit referendum. They shouldn't have to suffer the consequences [edit to clarify] of a war resulting from this vote.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- candiodari 8y agoThe majority of EU citizens that voted whether to join the EU or not ... voted against doing that. Ditto with expansion of the EU, constitution of the EU. Should that be fixed too ? For example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_establishing_a_Constitution_for_Europe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_establishing_a_Constitu... (see "ratification") The EU has a long history of ignoring democratic elections. That, to me, does not seem like a good thing at all, and yet it's becoming ever more clear that if you want the EU to exist at all, ignoring elections will be the cost: Both the current Greek and the current Italian government made promises of leaving the EU to get elected. Both have reneged, but of course other parties are springing up with more forceful leave rhetoric. Now French and German extreme-right parties promise to kill the EU if they get elected, and the more mainstream is forced to also take a more anti-EU stance in each country. If either France or Germany decides to leave, then the EU experiment is over.
- petre 8y ago> Both the current Greek and the current Italian government made promises of leaving the EU It's quite late for that, since unlike the Brits they also joined the EMU and thus ceded sovereignity to the EU. This is exactly what Margaret Tatcher warned against: a federal Europe by the back door. Also, organizing a referendum on the topic of exiting from the Eurozone is a violation of EU treaties. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_withdrawal_from_the_eurozone#cite_note-60 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_withdrawal_from_the_eu... Other EU exits could be less disastrous if coordinated. For instance if Greece and Italy would leave at the same time and negotiate together. For this they would first need to form an aliance like the Visegrad group. Regardless, everyone would have to suffer in such an event due to lack of credibility in the EU project, lack of confidence in national currencies and the Euro.
- cm2187 8y agoWar between who and who?
- philwelch 8y agoNot necessarily "large scale", but it's hard to leave the EU customs union without introducing a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, and specifically not having a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland was part of the peace agreement that ended the Troubles.
- cm2187 8y agoRight, though technically the EU insists on a border, not the UK.
- pbhjpbhj 8y agoOne of the main pillars of Brexit voters was immigration control. So, we're going to ruin the entire country to get immigration controls (and destroy trade, and cut ourselves off politically, socially, and from the scientific communities, and...) then just leave the border open? That's like burning down your luxury rental accommodation because you don't like that exact shade of wallpaper, then moving in to a hovel with graffiti on the walls.