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Don't forget, before we had a say (even a veto sometimes) over EU rules. Now we actually do have to just accept whatever Brussels decides for the bendiness of o

Don't forget, before we had a say (even a veto sometimes) over EU rules. Now we actually do have to just accept whatever Brussels decides for the bendiness of our bananas...

hardlianotion 6y ago
Quite some effort has been expended to ensure that this is not the case.
- LatteLazy 6y ago
  Really? By who? I haven't seen that from anyone in the brexit camp or government. Either way, once that deal is signed, the effort was wasted and we'll finally actually be in the crazy dumb position brexiteers thought we were in.
- nmca 6y ago
  I think parent means for goods sold in the EU - and they correctly point out that we have lost direct influence over the regulations in a collosal trading block. (The effort was to ensure that we didn't have to follow the eu regs in the UK market too).
krona 6y ago
One tends to loose friends and get alienated when you start throwing veto's around. It's just not very British, is it?
lmm 6y ago
And how did that work out for the UK? The UK opened up their procurement to anywhere in the EU, but the EU found ways to avoid offering service contracts to UK companies. National operators from the EU run most of the UK's trains, while the UK's government gets blocked from even running its own, yet alone anyone else's. Countries with manufacturing economies and a... relaxed attitude to actually following the rules benefited; countries with service economies and a strong sense of fair play lost out.
- inflagranti 6y ago
  How was the UK gov blocked from running trains? From what I read some lines actually did get nationalized again after how poorly Virgin & co run some of the lines. For sure privatizing them in the first place was a pure UK decision with - IMHO - predictable outcome.
  - lmm 6y ago
    > How was the UK gov blocked from running trains? The UK applied the state aid rules in a rigorous way, while other countries, uh, didn't. > From what I read some lines actually did get nationalized again after how poorly Virgin & co run some of the lines. That did happen (though I don't think it was Virgin, who were one of the better operators IME - they had sharp elbows in their dealings with the government, but they needed them), but the rules allowed that strictly on a temporary emergency basis (even though they ended up running a significantly better service than most operators).
    - LatteLazy 6y ago
      UK gov runs plenty of trains. Even before covid, TFL took over chunks of the overground and no one batted an eye lid. Where do people get this nonsense from? And even if it were true, why not just apply the rules less strictly to ourselves like you say everyone else is!? For decades British politicians have blamed Brussels for their own mistakes and dumb brits have swallowed it without question. That's our fault, no one else's. Brexit at least may price that when we aren't suddenly vastly more free and successful and socialist and capitalist and powerful on 01/01/21...
      - lmm 6y ago
        > UK gov runs plenty of trains. Even before covid, TFL took over chunks of the overground and no one batted an eye lid. Where do people get this nonsense from? Overground is run by Arriva i.e. Deutsche Bahn who are fully owned by the German government. "TfL" Rail is run by MTR who are majority owned by the government of Hong Kong. > And even if it were true, why not just apply the rules less strictly to ourselves like you say everyone else is!? Because respect for the rule of law is one of the greatest strengths of the UK, both for our international reputation and for its own sake. If joining the EU means following rules that are written for Italian-style legal systems, staying out is a lesser evil than turning into Italy.
throwaway2245 6y ago
I'm not sure that Britain is exporting a huge number of bananas to the EU...
- LatteLazy 6y ago
  This whole thing is about saving industries like British banana exports at the cost of trifling nonsense like banking. So if bananas or fishing or car manufacturers aren't literally the greatest of all our achievements it would have been a colossal mistake...
gorgoiler 6y ago
Two counter examples worth mentioning: prisoner suffrage and air quality. Two different kinds of EU centralism. Both rejected by the UK. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jan/14/uk-failed-to-enforce-eu-air-quality-standards-what-will-happen-after-brexit https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jan/14/uk-faile... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hirst_v_United_Kingdom_(No_2) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hirst_v_United_Kingdom_(No_2...
- LatteLazy 6y ago
  The ruling was in 2005. 15 years ago. Since then, not one prisoner has voted and its made literally zero difference to anyone. So what, actually, is anyone complaining about? Seriously? Imagine that tomorrow parliament gives prisoners the vote, but not to implimented it for 15 years. Does this upset you so much that you will you emigrate? No? Then why do I have to leave the EU over the exact same thing? The most amazing thing about this to me, is that people hate the EU, really hate it, for literally no reason at all. Then they make up reasons to justify it. And they don't even seem to see what they're doing. So many people acting completely irrationally. It's actually scary. It makes me worry about the future of democracy.

Don't forget, before we had a say (even a veto sometimes) over EU rules. Now we actually do have to just accept whatever Brussels decides for the bendiness of our bananas...

hardlianotion 6y ago

Quite some effort has been expended to ensure that this is not the case.

LatteLazy 6y ago
Really? By who? I haven't seen that from anyone in the brexit camp or government. Either way, once that deal is signed, the effort was wasted and we'll finally actually be in the crazy dumb position brexiteers thought we were in.
nmca 6y ago
I think parent means for goods sold in the EU - and they correctly point out that we have lost direct influence over the regulations in a collosal trading block. (The effort was to ensure that we didn't have to follow the eu regs in the UK market too).

krona 6y ago

One tends to loose friends and get alienated when you start throwing veto's around. It's just not very British, is it?

lmm 6y ago

And how did that work out for the UK? The UK opened up their procurement to anywhere in the EU, but the EU found ways to avoid offering service contracts to UK companies. National operators from the EU run most of the UK's trains, while the UK's government gets blocked from even running its own, yet alone anyone else's. Countries with manufacturing economies and a... relaxed attitude to actually following the rules benefited; countries with service economies and a strong sense of fair play lost out.

inflagranti 6y ago
How was the UK gov blocked from running trains? From what I read some lines actually did get nationalized again after how poorly Virgin & co run some of the lines. For sure privatizing them in the first place was a pure UK decision with - IMHO - predictable outcome.
- lmm 6y ago
  > How was the UK gov blocked from running trains? The UK applied the state aid rules in a rigorous way, while other countries, uh, didn't. > From what I read some lines actually did get nationalized again after how poorly Virgin & co run some of the lines. That did happen (though I don't think it was Virgin, who were one of the better operators IME - they had sharp elbows in their dealings with the government, but they needed them), but the rules allowed that strictly on a temporary emergency basis (even though they ended up running a significantly better service than most operators).
  - LatteLazy 6y ago
    UK gov runs plenty of trains. Even before covid, TFL took over chunks of the overground and no one batted an eye lid. Where do people get this nonsense from? And even if it were true, why not just apply the rules less strictly to ourselves like you say everyone else is!? For decades British politicians have blamed Brussels for their own mistakes and dumb brits have swallowed it without question. That's our fault, no one else's. Brexit at least may price that when we aren't suddenly vastly more free and successful and socialist and capitalist and powerful on 01/01/21...
    - lmm 6y ago
      > UK gov runs plenty of trains. Even before covid, TFL took over chunks of the overground and no one batted an eye lid. Where do people get this nonsense from? Overground is run by Arriva i.e. Deutsche Bahn who are fully owned by the German government. "TfL" Rail is run by MTR who are majority owned by the government of Hong Kong. > And even if it were true, why not just apply the rules less strictly to ourselves like you say everyone else is!? Because respect for the rule of law is one of the greatest strengths of the UK, both for our international reputation and for its own sake. If joining the EU means following rules that are written for Italian-style legal systems, staying out is a lesser evil than turning into Italy.

throwaway2245 6y ago

I'm not sure that Britain is exporting a huge number of bananas to the EU...

LatteLazy 6y ago
This whole thing is about saving industries like British banana exports at the cost of trifling nonsense like banking. So if bananas or fishing or car manufacturers aren't literally the greatest of all our achievements it would have been a colossal mistake...

gorgoiler 6y ago

Two counter examples worth mentioning: prisoner suffrage and air quality. Two different kinds of EU centralism. Both rejected by the UK. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jan/14/uk-failed-to-enforce-eu-air-quality-standards-what-will-happen-after-brexit https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jan/14/uk-faile... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hirst_v_United_Kingdom_(No_2) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hirst_v_United_Kingdom_(No_2...

LatteLazy 6y ago
The ruling was in 2005. 15 years ago. Since then, not one prisoner has voted and its made literally zero difference to anyone. So what, actually, is anyone complaining about? Seriously? Imagine that tomorrow parliament gives prisoners the vote, but not to implimented it for 15 years. Does this upset you so much that you will you emigrate? No? Then why do I have to leave the EU over the exact same thing? The most amazing thing about this to me, is that people hate the EU, really hate it, for literally no reason at all. Then they make up reasons to justify it. And they don't even seem to see what they're doing. So many people acting completely irrationally. It's actually scary. It makes me worry about the future of democracy.