19 ms·

Sometimes I can‘t help thinking whether the UK is just the US‘ trojan horse in the EU. Well, things might change quite a bit after October 31st, so hurry up!

by 2a0c40 7y ago

noir_lord 7y ago
Not much to think about we completely and totally are. One of the things that came out of Snowden releases was just how bloody efficient and interconnectef GCHQ is with the NSA. It's rather typical that the most efficient government body appears to be the one used for spying on its own (and everyone else's) citizens. It's ok though as the new home secretary is a stable and sensible...no wait it's Priti "I had to resign because I had secret undeclared meetings with a foreign power" Patel[1]. We are totally fucked. [1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-politics-41920238 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-politics-41920238
- arethuza 7y ago
  I had a phone call with the Inland Revenue where they collected most of my details by an automated voice based system - which worked flawlessly. This came as a slight surprise as literally no other voice activated system works for me in any way that is remotely usable (Apple, Android, whatever is in my car...). I wonder where they get their voice recognition technology from? ;-)
  - viraptor 7y ago
    Highly targeted voice recognition is much simpler to train, which makes endpoints like inland revenue much more accurate than generic voice assistants. In many cases this is a problem of "did you say one of these 20 things" vs "let's try to transcribe every one of these words from a full dictionary".
    - arethuza 7y ago
      Yeah that makes sense, still it was a lot better than other systems I've used when I've phoned support lines for some commercial companies.
  - szerr0221 7y ago
    FYI some companies use people to transcribe the speech in real time, its faster than taking a phone call with all the extra pleasantries.
  - noir_lord 7y ago
    If I was a cynic I'd say they seem to be remarkably efficient at doing the things we don't want and much less so the things we do.
malka 7y ago
as a french, I cant wait for them to be out. They spent the last 50 years trying to sabotage the EU. They want to leave ? Good riddance.
- martin_a 7y ago
  I'm totally with you. I wonder if UK should have left the EU even earlier and saved themselves and us a lot of hassle. I hope that the EU-friendly states might join again, but I think they would need to break up the UK for that, don't they?
  - arethuza 7y ago
    It could all get very messy - I think it is is highly likely that Scotland will want a second independence referendum as a major argument for staying in the union the last time was that it meant Scotland would stay in the EU. However, I also think the current government is also unlikely to allow a second referendum, and it wouldn't surprise me if the Scottish Government decided to have one anyway. Edit: To be clear: I mean messy legally/politically - not anything worse.
    - toyg 7y ago
      Yeah, it’s going to be Catalunya all over again. Except Scotland is not a little province, and if the SNP is forced underground, stuff will start to blow up for real.
      - barry-cotter 7y ago
        Support for Scottish independence is greater in England than it is in Scotland. The U.K. isn’t Spain, the English are no more likely to keep the Scots in by force than the Canadians were going to keep Quebec in by force.
        smcl 7y ago
        That's nonsense. Some English might claim indifference or scoff at the idea of an independent Scotland. In reality however the UK is more a part of their identity than it is ours - Scotland splitting away literally kills off the concept of the "UK". Force wouldn't even be needed however - Westminster can just brush off pleas for an independence referendum (they'll point towards the one we had a couple of years ago pre-Brexit ), there's no revolutionary movement and I really don't foresee one developing any time soon.
gingabriska 7y ago
UK along with its overseas territories are biggest investor in US stock.
- benj111 7y ago
  Isn't the US the biggest investor in US stock? Even if it's the largest foreign investor, that's not so surprising. It's the 5 largest economy in terms of GDP, the only ones bigger are the US, China (limited in how they move capital), Japan (luckily for their national debt, they prefer to buy domestic govt bonds), Germany (the only likely alternative for investing more). Also London is a major finance capital, so it could just be British banks buying US stocks with money from Russian oligarchs or whatever.
sma222k0n 7y ago
It's not the only trojan horse in EU https://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/01/world/europe/germany-is-accused-of-helping-nsa-spy-on-european-allies.html https://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/01/world/europe/germany-is-a...
mtgx 7y ago
Of course it is. You could note it from all the US-friendly legislation they've been pushing within the EU. It's one of the reasons I was glad Brexit happened. The UK was usually the most important nation members pushing for surveillance laws in the EU and then have the EU share that data with the US.
gadders 7y ago
You say it like it's a bad thing. The UK has a lot more in common politically and philosophically with the US than the EU. TBH they should rename NAFTA to the North Atlantic Free Trade Area and we'd all be better off.
- dangerface 7y ago
  >The UK has a lot more in common politically and philosophically with the US than the EU. Not even close, let's take a basic fundamental US principle like the right to free speech, it doesn't exist in the UK. The UK has had relation ships with most of the European countries for longer than the US has existed. The UK has more import and exports with the EU that the US and because of geographic constraints this will not change Brexit or not.
  - gadders 7y ago
    >>Not even close, let's take a basic fundamental US principle like the right to free speech, it doesn't exist in the UK. Sadly, this is correct, but I believe the UK has less constrained speech than continental Europe. I'd love to see a right to free speech brought into force in the UK >>The UK has had relation ships with most of the European countries for longer than the US has existed. This is also true, but neglects the fact that US was founded by Britain and was a British colony for 170 years. US law is based on English common law.
  - gnode 7y ago
    > US principle like the right to free speech, it doesn't exist in the UK. The UK has a right to freedom of expression in both common law and the Human Rights Act (incorporation of the European Convention on Human Rights). There are many exceptions, but that's also the case for the First Amendment of the United States' constitution. Both the UK and US have defamation laws, criminalise real threats, Official Secrets Act / Espionage Act, gag orders, etc. One could argue there is a better right to free speech in the US, and that it has stronger legal protections, but it's by no means absolute or beyond comparison with that of the UK.
    - 7y ago
rado 7y ago
As they ask in Polanski's "The Ghost": Has the UK ever acted against US interests?
zahrc 7y ago
Can you elaborate on this?
newsgremlin 7y ago
I recently discovered a documentary: "The Spider’s Web – Britain’s Second Empire". Highlights that as much as 25% of the worlds wealth is held in offshore and onshore British jurisdictions. The Russians have nothing to do with Trump or Brexit, in my view the connections have been fabricated to seem real only to turn out to be dead ends that don't lead directly to the Kremlin in any meaningful way, both of these events have stifled democracy and social progress. The negative effects will only hurt the population and not the corrupt and nontransparent institutions. The US and UK look like the least likely countries in the world to start a revolution. The powers at be know this, and we the people know this to an extent.
fpalmans 7y ago
Can't the UK still unilaterally decide to stay?

Sometimes I can‘t help thinking whether the UK is just the US‘ trojan horse in the EU. Well, things might change quite a bit after October 31st, so hurry up!

by 2a0c40 7y ago

Sometimes I can‘t help thinking whether the UK is just the US‘ trojan horse in the EU. Well, things might change quite a bit after October 31st, so hurry up!

noir_lord 7y ago

Not much to think about we completely and totally are. One of the things that came out of Snowden releases was just how bloody efficient and interconnectef GCHQ is with the NSA. It's rather typical that the most efficient government body appears to be the one used for spying on its own (and everyone else's) citizens. It's ok though as the new home secretary is a stable and sensible...no wait it's Priti "I had to resign because I had secret undeclared meetings with a foreign power" Patel[1]. We are totally fucked. [1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-politics-41920238 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-politics-41920238

arethuza 7y ago
I had a phone call with the Inland Revenue where they collected most of my details by an automated voice based system - which worked flawlessly. This came as a slight surprise as literally no other voice activated system works for me in any way that is remotely usable (Apple, Android, whatever is in my car...). I wonder where they get their voice recognition technology from? ;-)
- viraptor 7y ago
  Highly targeted voice recognition is much simpler to train, which makes endpoints like inland revenue much more accurate than generic voice assistants. In many cases this is a problem of "did you say one of these 20 things" vs "let's try to transcribe every one of these words from a full dictionary".
  - arethuza 7y ago
    Yeah that makes sense, still it was a lot better than other systems I've used when I've phoned support lines for some commercial companies.
- szerr0221 7y ago
  FYI some companies use people to transcribe the speech in real time, its faster than taking a phone call with all the extra pleasantries.
- noir_lord 7y ago
  If I was a cynic I'd say they seem to be remarkably efficient at doing the things we don't want and much less so the things we do.

malka 7y ago

as a french, I cant wait for them to be out. They spent the last 50 years trying to sabotage the EU. They want to leave ? Good riddance.

martin_a 7y ago
I'm totally with you. I wonder if UK should have left the EU even earlier and saved themselves and us a lot of hassle. I hope that the EU-friendly states might join again, but I think they would need to break up the UK for that, don't they?
- arethuza 7y ago
  It could all get very messy - I think it is is highly likely that Scotland will want a second independence referendum as a major argument for staying in the union the last time was that it meant Scotland would stay in the EU. However, I also think the current government is also unlikely to allow a second referendum, and it wouldn't surprise me if the Scottish Government decided to have one anyway. Edit: To be clear: I mean messy legally/politically - not anything worse.
  - toyg 7y ago
    Yeah, it’s going to be Catalunya all over again. Except Scotland is not a little province, and if the SNP is forced underground, stuff will start to blow up for real.
    - barry-cotter 7y ago
      Support for Scottish independence is greater in England than it is in Scotland. The U.K. isn’t Spain, the English are no more likely to keep the Scots in by force than the Canadians were going to keep Quebec in by force.
      - smcl 7y ago
        That's nonsense. Some English might claim indifference or scoff at the idea of an independent Scotland. In reality however the UK is more a part of their identity than it is ours - Scotland splitting away literally kills off the concept of the "UK". Force wouldn't even be needed however - Westminster can just brush off pleas for an independence referendum (they'll point towards the one we had a couple of years ago pre-Brexit ), there's no revolutionary movement and I really don't foresee one developing any time soon.

gingabriska 7y ago

UK along with its overseas territories are biggest investor in US stock.

benj111 7y ago
Isn't the US the biggest investor in US stock? Even if it's the largest foreign investor, that's not so surprising. It's the 5 largest economy in terms of GDP, the only ones bigger are the US, China (limited in how they move capital), Japan (luckily for their national debt, they prefer to buy domestic govt bonds), Germany (the only likely alternative for investing more). Also London is a major finance capital, so it could just be British banks buying US stocks with money from Russian oligarchs or whatever.

sma222k0n 7y ago

It's not the only trojan horse in EU https://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/01/world/europe/germany-is-accused-of-helping-nsa-spy-on-european-allies.html https://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/01/world/europe/germany-is-a...

mtgx 7y ago

Of course it is. You could note it from all the US-friendly legislation they've been pushing within the EU. It's one of the reasons I was glad Brexit happened. The UK was usually the most important nation members pushing for surveillance laws in the EU and then have the EU share that data with the US.

gadders 7y ago

You say it like it's a bad thing. The UK has a lot more in common politically and philosophically with the US than the EU. TBH they should rename NAFTA to the North Atlantic Free Trade Area and we'd all be better off.

dangerface 7y ago
>The UK has a lot more in common politically and philosophically with the US than the EU. Not even close, let's take a basic fundamental US principle like the right to free speech, it doesn't exist in the UK. The UK has had relation ships with most of the European countries for longer than the US has existed. The UK has more import and exports with the EU that the US and because of geographic constraints this will not change Brexit or not.
- gadders 7y ago
  >>Not even close, let's take a basic fundamental US principle like the right to free speech, it doesn't exist in the UK. Sadly, this is correct, but I believe the UK has less constrained speech than continental Europe. I'd love to see a right to free speech brought into force in the UK >>The UK has had relation ships with most of the European countries for longer than the US has existed. This is also true, but neglects the fact that US was founded by Britain and was a British colony for 170 years. US law is based on English common law.
- gnode 7y ago
  > US principle like the right to free speech, it doesn't exist in the UK. The UK has a right to freedom of expression in both common law and the Human Rights Act (incorporation of the European Convention on Human Rights). There are many exceptions, but that's also the case for the First Amendment of the United States' constitution. Both the UK and US have defamation laws, criminalise real threats, Official Secrets Act / Espionage Act, gag orders, etc. One could argue there is a better right to free speech in the US, and that it has stronger legal protections, but it's by no means absolute or beyond comparison with that of the UK.
  - 7y ago

rado 7y ago

As they ask in Polanski's "The Ghost": Has the UK ever acted against US interests?

zahrc 7y ago

Can you elaborate on this?

newsgremlin 7y ago

I recently discovered a documentary: "The Spider’s Web – Britain’s Second Empire". Highlights that as much as 25% of the worlds wealth is held in offshore and onshore British jurisdictions. The Russians have nothing to do with Trump or Brexit, in my view the connections have been fabricated to seem real only to turn out to be dead ends that don't lead directly to the Kremlin in any meaningful way, both of these events have stifled democracy and social progress. The negative effects will only hurt the population and not the corrupt and nontransparent institutions. The US and UK look like the least likely countries in the world to start a revolution. The powers at be know this, and we the people know this to an extent.

fpalmans 7y ago

Can't the UK still unilaterally decide to stay?