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Community => Politics and Government => Topic started by: Chaos Undivided on May 24, 2019, 11:27:19 am

Title: Theresa May to resign
Post by: Chaos Undivided on May 24, 2019, 11:27:19 am
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/24/world/europe/theresa-may-resignation.html (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/24/world/europe/theresa-may-resignation.html)

Hope she's properly planned this out. After all, no resignation is better than a bad resignation.
Title: Re: Theresa May to resign
Post by: The_Queen on May 24, 2019, 12:39:20 pm
The damage is done.
Title: Re: Theresa May to resign
Post by: Id82 on May 24, 2019, 02:11:48 pm
This whole Brexit thing has been a cluster fuck. For any Brits that might be here, can they just give up on Brexit now or do they have to let the people vote to drop it?
Title: Re: Theresa May to resign
Post by: Chaos Undivided on May 24, 2019, 02:45:27 pm
This whole Brexit thing has been a cluster fuck. For any Brits that might be here, can they just give up on Brexit now or do they have to let the people vote to drop it?

I don't know, I hardly understand Brexit to begin with. Hell, I'm not sure anyone really understands it, even (maybe especially) its own supporters.
Title: Re: Theresa May to resign
Post by: dpareja on May 24, 2019, 02:54:47 pm
This whole Brexit thing has been a cluster fuck. For any Brits that might be here, can they just give up on Brexit now or do they have to let the people vote to drop it?

Not a Brit, but from the same governmental system...

Yes, Parliament could just say, nah, screw Brexit. The referendum was advisory at best, and not binding on Parliament, which retains ultimate legislative sovereignty. The question is how much it would cost them politically to do that; already both the Conservatives and Labour (which are split on the question) are tanking in popular support, while Nigel Farage's Brexit Party (which wants Brexit under any circumstances, including a no-deal exit) and solidly pro-EU parties (like the Liberal Democrats and Greens) are rising.

May's resignation leaves it unclear just who would become the leader of the Conservative Party after this. She basically became leader because she was the only person left looking like an adult after the rest of the upper echelons ripped each other apart during the referendum. With her gone, who knows who'll take over. (My money's on the dark horse Ruth Davidson, who probably did more than anything to even let there be a somewhat stable House with the Conservatives having a confidence-and-supply agreement with the DUP thanks to six Conservative seats in Scotland... if she can be lured from Holyrood to Westminster.)
Title: Re: Theresa May to resign
Post by: Skybison on May 25, 2019, 01:06:47 am
Honestly what seems like the best plan to me is to get rid of any ticking clock about Brexit, carry on with business as usual until a Brexit deal is worked out between Britain and the EU that actually passes parliament.  Since that is impossible Brexit is avoided without needing to call it off.  If the hardcore brexiters don't like it just ask them to come up with a plan that can win a vote and the UK is out, ball's in your court.
Title: Re: Theresa May to resign
Post by: dpareja on May 25, 2019, 01:56:43 am
Honestly what seems like the best plan to me is to get rid of any ticking clock about Brexit, carry on with business as usual until a Brexit deal is worked out between Britain and the EU that actually passes parliament.  Since that is impossible Brexit is avoided without needing to call it off.  If the hardcore brexiters don't like it just ask them to come up with a plan that can win a vote and the UK is out, ball's in your court.

Then the EU will delay forever. They've already said that the deal rejected by the Commons was the best the UK was going to get.
Title: Re: Theresa May to resign
Post by: Askold on May 25, 2019, 03:18:36 am
I think a good solution by EU would be to stop letting British vote in internal EU matters and take away their representation. They said that they are leaving EU so why should they vote on future things that they will not be part of?

And if the EU deal that has been given to Britain isn't acceptable then I still think that they should be forcibly kicked out by some deadline rather than kept in limbo. Then at least they can rejoin after replacing their politicians with more competent people. ...And say goodbye to Pound. New EU members all have to start using Euro and give up their old currency.
Title: Re: Theresa May to resign
Post by: dpareja on May 25, 2019, 04:49:49 am
Doesn't the loss of representation in the European Parliament happen at some point in the withdrawal process?

As for kicking the UK out... is there anything in the treaties constituting the EU that allows for such an action? And if there were, and I were advising the EU... kick out the UK, then turn around and tell Scotland that if they vote for independence, they'll get automatic membership. (Scotland's really pissed since one factor cited by the "No" side in the independence referendum was the loss of EU membership, and of all the various regions of the UK, Scotland voted "Remain" most heavily, but got dragged out by England anyway, which had just been telling them that if they did leave the UK, they'd also leave the EU, and now by not leaving the UK, they're leaving the EU against their will.)

And that doesn't even get into the mess Northern Ireland could become if the hard border goes back up and the Good Friday Agreement no longer applies (oh, another region that voted Remain), or the chaos in the financial sector (London's full of bankers and voted... Remain), or how it could impact Gibraltar (which voted something like 96% Remain).

EDIT: Or, in other words, all the reasons the three regions that voted Remain (London, Scotland, NI) did so have been proved valid, and all the benefits that were supposed to accrue to voting Leave have been less than forthcoming or apparent.

Voters forgot that leaving the EU doesn't mean just getting the economic benefits setting your own trade policy gives... it also means giving up all the economic benefits EU membership gives. All too many of them thought they could have both.
Title: Re: Theresa May to resign
Post by: Askold on May 25, 2019, 06:17:37 am
One of the biggest problems with BREXIT is that no one ever defined it.

The voters didn't know if LEAVE meant a No-deal BREXIT or any of the hundred variants where UK cuts some ties to EU. And now that politicians in UK are driving for the No-deal BREXIT because they have been unable to make any kinds of deals while claiming that they have the mandate of everyone who voted for LEAVE is utter bullshit.

Also, why the hell was UK so insistent with trying to make separate deals with EU countries? They could have jumped in bed with USA, Russia or China and maybe gotten a deal but EU countries are mainly small and weak and only by being part of EU do they have bargaining power. They are not going to lose that no matter how juicy deal UK offers to them because UK cannot make a deal that would be good enough to cover for loss of EU benefits.
Title: Re: Theresa May to resign
Post by: dpareja on May 25, 2019, 01:55:01 pm
One of the biggest problems with BREXIT is that no one ever defined it.

Exactly, and this is one of the biggest issues with direct democracy.

You either have something sufficiently vague that enough people can project their own meaning onto it to support it (Brexit referendum), or something sufficiently specific that many of those who support the underlying principle vote against the proposed implementation (Australian republicanism referendum).

And in the former case, it falls to someone to define it, and then when they do they run into the second problem, especially when there were too many different views of what it actually meant.

The voters didn't know if LEAVE meant a No-deal BREXIT or any of the hundred variants where UK cuts some ties to EU. And now that politicians in UK are driving for the No-deal BREXIT because they have been unable to make any kinds of deals while claiming that they have the mandate of everyone who voted for LEAVE is utter bullshit.

Also, why the hell was UK so insistent with trying to make separate deals with EU countries? They could have jumped in bed with USA, Russia or China and maybe gotten a deal but EU countries are mainly small and weak and only by being part of EU do they have bargaining power. They are not going to lose that no matter how juicy deal UK offers to them because UK cannot make a deal that would be good enough to cover for loss of EU benefits.

The UK doesn't want to make deals with Russia or China (for reasons of optics if nothing else) and nobody can trust the USA's word now.

Trying to make deals with individual EU countries, on the other hand, is precisely the attempt to retain the economic benefits of EU membership while realising the economic benefits of not being in the EU.