I think the word "sovereignty" is being used as a shorthand for something else. ... And as I have said before it misses the point of the EU.
Well... I don't think most people believe the nation state is to be given up. Perhaps not even most REMAIN voters. Yet REMAIN is winning, apparently.
Even within the EU, the state remains the primary and practically the only unit of relevance for political discussion. States participate in the council and nominate commissioners; voters choose from among their national parties as their parliamentary representatives, with the geographical unit representation in all cases at the state or sub-state regional level.
(Needless to say the UK is not a nation state. It is a merger of several nations, woven together mainly by force of arms. Nothing odd about that latter point even among nation states - France a good example. But the UK was not an organic outgrowth of an ancient people from Enniskillen to Lowestoft all speaking the same language. And it has been a parliamentary democracy for less than a hundred years; before that, it was under a limited system of regional representation, in which most adults did not participate.)
People here may not believe the nation state is to be given up. But the EU does think that ultimately it should supercede the constituent nation states. And if we remain I think that we have to accept that that is the direction of travel.
Britain has been a parliamentary democracy for considerably longer than pretty much every other state within the EU. That is a point of significant difference. It is a point which is not given enough weight, IMO, by those on the Remain side and, more significantly, by those in positions of power in much of the rest of the EU.
You are aware of most of my views so I won't rehearse them here. Two points only (and then sadly I must away):
1. Walking down the road (I actually hear the distant sound of the massed bands of the Household Division from where I sit) it doesn't feel as though the UK is not sovereign. 2. I thought the five presidents report was a vision for EZ countries only.
But great piece. VL should have used it.
Thanks Topping.
(1) The UK is still *ultimately* sovereign.
Just as Texas is.....
Yes, there's a difference of course between being theoretically sovereign and practically sovereign: theoretically sovereign means there is a legal way to do it, but practically it's extremely difficult - i.e. you can make the cost and difficulty threshold of secession so high that it's a risky path to take. Practically sovereign means you can basically walk away anytime with no serious political or economic consequences.
The constitution of the USA does not permit a state to leave. It is a perpetual and indissoluble union, unless all other states agree for it to secede.
The equivalent constitution of the EU does recognise this right through Article 50 in TFEU (Lisbon) but this also isn't particularly practical: 2 years notice, being excluded from the exit negotiations, and the QMV votes on it, and it also threatens consequences if we do leave, so that makes it scary and hard to guarantee a decent exit deal.
We are, of course, already seeing how this is being exploited by the Remain campaign. So I think the UK is somewhere in between.
However, we can quit if we really want to (and there is a legal route to do so) and our parliament can repeal the European Communities Act as well.
But we'd have to vote for it first.
Texas, uniquely, does have the right to secede. But as you say it is a theoretical rather than practical right.
On your final paragraph, I think a large part of the nation is *still* living in the post-Suez and post-imperial shadow, despite that starting to move out of living memory and into the history books now.
Bizarre.
Perhaps when it comes down to it, the person ultimately responsible for our current predicament is Charles de Gaulle. If we'd been able to join when we first wanted to, as an answer to the realisation of our position post-Suez, we wouldn't have had such a long-standing ambivalence to the whole project.
We are, of course, already seeing how this is being exploited by the Remain campaign. So I think the UK is somewhere in between.
However, we can quit if we really want to (and there is a legal route to do so) and our parliament can repeal the European Communities Act as well.
But we'd have to vote for it first.
I think we're clearly in the latter camp rather than somewhere in between. Whatever arguments the government is using in the referendum campaign, if they were behind Leave, they could execute a withdrawal without the majority of the negative consequences they're threatening now.
Yes, that's true. I meant from the perspective of the politics of the moment, really.
The fear is being deliberately maximised through no-one showing what their true hands would be if the dice came up double-six.
If there was an informal position already on the table, and a willingness from the players that mattered to tango, then it would largely vanish.
This seems to me to be one of the fundamental divides between the UK and much of Continental Europe. We have largely made a success of the nation state. So we don't see the need to abandon it. Much of Continental Europe did not make a success of nationhood and some countries made such a mess of it that parts of Europe will forever be stained with the blood of those who died as a result. So creating a new structure seems right to them in a way that it does not to the UK. You don't change if what you have works.
Pinning that argument on the success of our constitutional arrangements rather than the good fortune of a stretch of water keeping us relatively safe from land invasions seems a bit tenuous.
Even now we have an unresolved situation from the mishandled withdrawal from Ireland and a nationalist party dominates the politics north of the border.
Arguably where the EU has been successful is in imitating the British art of fudge and delay as a core governing principle.
Arguably, our constitutional arrangements were the result of invasion - by the Dutch in the 17th century.
It is also possible that one of the reasons we were able successfully to resist invasion or domination by Continental powers was as a result of a relatively strong and - within the limits of the time - legitimate government. When the forces of extremism and reaction and economic failure blew through Europe in the 20th century many democracies fell; ours did not. That is a testament to the strength of our democracy and not just to the existence of the Channel.
Opinium has it 51% Remain 34% Leave in London, 60 40 excluding don't knows but only 44% Remain 40% Leave UK wide
How can polls still be showing REMAIN with only a 4% lead given the onslaught the Establishment has unleashed on LEAVE?
Betfair out to 6 now on Leave, and 55-60% Remain band now down to 3. Clearly people believe the phone polls in preference to online.
Leave have made no progress. It's a lock for Remain – most DKs will break for the status quo or just won't turn out. As most influencers (educational elite etc) are Remainers, that will crush Leave beyond the point of no return.
Then again YouGov and ICM have had the race level within the last 48 hours.
Also, while from a betting perspective I have money on Leave, from a political perspective I want Remain to win and from that standpoint I find Cameron's low trust rating worrying. How can one interpret that except in a way that suggests his message is being rejected?
Leave is far from out of this imo.
Leave at 5/1 or over is certainly value.
Agreed, with a caveat.
We need something, a catalyst to move the Leave vote upwards. Perhaps it's the debate, perhaps a resurgence of the migrant crisis, but we need something. Otherwise, it's likely the clock will run down, and there'll be an unenthusiastic (but near certain) vote for Remain.
Disruption of Euro 2016 by sundry strikers and rioters in France would do tbe job nicely
Sadly the French team is quite good, and therefore they are unlikely to want to disrupt the tournament
France are woefully under-ranked thanks to having played very few meaningful games in the last two years (simply because they have not been asked to qualify for the tournament, their being hosts). They are a superb side and it would be very French indeed, after all the horrors they have had to deal with in recent times, to go on to win the thing on a surge of national pride.
Varane is a big miss however.
They have N'Golo Kante, one of the best midfielders in the world.
You are aware of most of my views so I won't rehearse them here. Two points only (and then sadly I must away):
1. Walking down the road (I actually hear the distant sound of the massed bands of the Household Division from where I sit) it doesn't feel as though the UK is not sovereign. 2. I thought the five presidents report was a vision for EZ countries only.
But great piece. VL should have used it.
Thanks Topping.
(1) The UK is still *ultimately* sovereign.
Just as Texas is.....
Yes, there's a difference of course between being theoretically sovereign and practically sovereign: theoretically sovereign means there is a legal way to do it, but practically it's extremely difficult - i.e. you can make the cost and difficulty threshold of secession so high that it's a risky path to take. Practically sovereign means you can basically walk away anytime with no serious political or economic consequences.
The constitution of the USA does not permit a state to leave. It is a perpetual and indissoluble union, unless all other states agree for it to secede.
The equivalent constitution of the EU does recognise this right through Article 50 in TFEU (Lisbon) but this also isn't particularly practical: 2 years notice, being excluded from the exit negotiations, and the QMV votes on it, and it also threatens consequences if we do leave, so that makes it scary and hard to guarantee a decent exit deal.
We are, of course, already seeing how this is being exploited by the Remain campaign. So I think the UK is somewhere in between.
However, we can quit if we really want to (and there is a legal route to do so) and our parliament can repeal the European Communities Act as well.
But we'd have to vote for it first.
Texas, uniquely, does have the right to secede. But as you say it is a theoretical rather than practical right.
On your final paragraph, I think a large part of the nation is *still* living in the post-Suez and post-imperial shadow, despite that starting to move out of living memory and into the history books now.
Bizarre.
Perhaps when it comes down to it, the person ultimately responsible for our current predicament is Charles de Gaulle. If we'd been able to join when we first wanted to, as an answer to the realisation of our position post-Suez, we wouldn't have had such a long-standing ambivalence to the whole project.
Opinium has it 51% Remain 34% Leave in London, 60 40 excluding don't knows but only 44% Remain 40% Leave UK wide
How can polls still be showing REMAIN with only a 4% lead given the onslaught the Establishment has unleashed on LEAVE?
Betfair out to 6 now on Leave, and 55-60% Remain band now down to 3. Clearly people believe the phone polls in preference to online.
Leave have made no progress. It's a lock for Remain – most DKs will break for the status quo or just won't turn out. As most influencers (educational elite etc) are Remainers, that will crush Leave beyond the point of no return.
Then again YouGov and ICM have had the race level within the last 48 hours.
Also, while from a betting perspective I have money on Leave, from a political perspective I want Remain to win and from that standpoint I find Cameron's low trust rating worrying. How can one interpret that except in a way that suggests his message is being rejected?
Leave is far from out of this imo.
Leave at 5/1 or over is certainly value.
Agreed, with a caveat.
We need something, a catalyst to move the Leave vote upwards. Perhaps it's the debate, perhaps a resurgence of the migrant crisis, but we need something. Otherwise, it's likely the clock will run down, and there'll be an unenthusiastic (but near certain) vote for Remain.
Disruption of Euro 2016 by sundry strikers and rioters in France would do tbe job nicely
Sadly the French team is quite good, and therefore they are unlikely to want to disrupt the tournament
France are woefully under-ranked thanks to having played very few meaningful games in the last two years (simply because they have not been asked to qualify for the tournament, their being hosts). They are a superb side and it would be very French indeed, after all the horrors they have had to deal with in recent times, to go on to win the thing on a surge of national pride.
Varane is a big miss however.
They have N'Golo Kante, one of the best midfielders in the world.
On your final paragraph, I think a large part of the nation is *still* living in the post-Suez and post-imperial shadow, despite that starting to move out of living memory and into the history books now.
Bizarre.
Perhaps when it comes down to it, the person ultimately responsible for our current predicament is Charles de Gaulle. If we'd been able to join when we first wanted to, as an answer to the realisation of our position post-Suez, we wouldn't have had such a long-standing ambivalence to the whole project.
I think Britain's failure to get involved right at the start and shape it in its own image at a time when Britain had, post-WW2, immense moral authority was the big mistake. Imagine if we'd been in from the start and really taking the lead.
I can understand why the decision was taken. But on reflection it was the wrong decision. Once we'd stayed out, we lost the chance to shape it, we were seen by others as a mix of Johnny-come-latelys and supplicants and as a result we've ended up in something with which we have never felt comfortable.
De Gaulle was an arrogant so-and-so who, in vetoing Britain's entry, patronised the country which gave him a home and which shed much blood liberating his country by saying that it had not done enough to become more like the rest of Europe, a Europe which had so disgraced the civilisation it had brought to the world. If there was one country in Europe in the late 1950's which could hold its head high, it was Britain. For France - barely 15 years after Vichy (a stain on French history that De Gaulle simply ignored) - to presume to lecture Britain was really de trop.
If there was one country in Europe in the late 1950's which could hold its head high, it was Britain. For France - barely 15 years after Vichy (a stain on French history that De Gaulle simply ignored) - to presume to lecture Britain was really de trop.
The UK is a country where most people think the Empire was an unalloyed good thing, something to be proud of.
Hardly odd that countries brush aside their embarrassing moments, if they possibly can. Even the Austrians do it.
Gisela Stuart (as always) impressive on C4News earlier. She's the one Brexiteer who could sway my vote - shame about the rest of them.
The joint Labour Leave/UKIP event I've just watched was pretty impressive. Bolton audience of several hundred and packed - another 650 were watching the livestream. Hoey was on form in her usual understated way.
They're off to Newcastle tomorrow - if the reception is anything like this, I'm very encouraged. This groundwar event has really impressed me.
This seems to me to be one of the fundamental divides between the UK and much of Continental Europe. We have largely made a success of the nation state. So we don't see the need to abandon it. Much of Continental Europe did not make a success of nationhood and some countries made such a mess of it that parts of Europe will forever be stained with the blood of those who died as a result. So creating a new structure seems right to them in a way that it does not to the UK. You don't change if what you have works.
Pinning that argument on the success of our constitutional arrangements rather than the good fortune of a stretch of water keeping us relatively safe from land invasions seems a bit tenuous.
Even now we have an unresolved situation from the mishandled withdrawal from Ireland and a nationalist party dominates the politics north of the border.
Arguably where the EU has been successful is in imitating the British art of fudge and delay as a core governing principle.
Arguably, our constitutional arrangements were the result of invasion - by the Dutch in the 17th century.
It is also possible that one of the reasons we were able successfully to resist invasion or domination by Continental powers was as a result of a relatively strong and - within the limits of the time - legitimate government. When the forces of extremism and reaction and economic failure blew through Europe in the 20th century many democracies fell; ours did not. That is a testament to the strength of our democracy and not just to the existence of the Channel.
I am always reminded of the the late Asa Briggs talking about the Year of Revolutions 1848. He said that whilst the rest of Europe was in the throws of revolution the British Chartists organised a large picnic in Hyde Park. One might reasonably claim that as a tactic for forcing change it was actually more successful then the more violent European approaches.
Brexit Tory MPs turn on George Osborne over ‘pro-EU propaganda’
Ministers have been accused of trying to “muzzle” backbenchers as Brexit-backing Tory MPs lined up to condemn the Government’s behaviour in the EU referendum.
On your final paragraph, I think a large part of the nation is *still* living in the post-Suez and post-imperial shadow, despite that starting to move out of living memory and into the history books now.
Bizarre.
Perhaps when it comes down to it, the person ultimately responsible for our current predicament is Charles de Gaulle. If we'd been able to join when we first wanted to, as an answer to the realisation of our position post-Suez, we wouldn't have had such a long-standing ambivalence to the whole project.
I think Britain's failure to get involved right at the start and shape it in its own image at a time when Britain had, post-WW2, immense moral authority was the big mistake. Imagine if we'd been in from the start and really taking the lead.
I can understand why the decision was taken. But on reflection it was the wrong decision. Once we'd stayed out, we lost the chance to shape it, we were seen by others as a mix of Johnny-come-latelys and supplicants and as a result we've ended up in something with which we have never felt comfortable.
De Gaulle was an arrogant so-and-so who, in vetoing Britain's entry, patronised the country which gave him a home and which shed much blood liberating his country by saying that it had not done enough to become more like the rest of Europe, a Europe which had so disgraced the civilisation it had brought to the world. If there was one country in Europe in the late 1950's which could hold its head high, it was Britain. For France - barely 15 years after Vichy (a stain on French history that De Gaulle simply ignored) - to presume to lecture Britain was really de trop.
Fair comment Mrs. Free. However, I think you are overlooking that in the late forties and early fifties when the foundations of what is now the Eu were being laid the Uk was very much more of a command economy state than we have since become. Indeed the Civil Service laughed at West Germany's free enterprise culture - well it couldn't work, could it. So if we had, as you suggest, got involved at the beginning and led it in our own image then the results might have been even worse.
Twitter saying tampon tax abolition not included in new VAT rate list from EU.
Anyone know if this is true?
Why would it be on a list of VATable items when the entire point was its now a none VAT product.
There are no 'non-VAT items'. Everything is subject to VAT. It is just that there are some items which are zero-rated. But they still get included in the VAT rate list.
Opinium has it 51% Remain 34% Leave in London, 60 40 excluding don't knows but only 44% Remain 40% Leave UK wide
How can polls still be showing REMAIN with only a 4% lead given the onslaught the Establishment has unleashed on LEAVE?
Betfair out to 6 now on Leave, and 55-60% Remain band now down to 3. Clearly people believe the phone polls in preference to online.
Leave have made no progress. It's a lock for Remain – most DKs will break for the status quo or just won't turn out. As most influencers (educational elite etc) are Remainers, that will crush Leave beyond the point of no return.
Then again YouGov and ICM have had the race level within the last 48 hours.
Also, while from a betting perspective I have money on Leave, from a political perspective I want Remain to win and from that standpoint I find Cameron's low trust rating worrying. How can one interpret that except in a way that suggests his message is being rejected?
Leave is far from out of this imo.
Leave at 5/1 or over is certainly value.
Agreed, with a caveat.
We need something, a catalyst to move the Leave vote upwards. Perhaps it's the debate, perhaps a resurgence of the migrant crisis, but we need something. Otherwise, it's likely the clock will run down, and there'll be an unenthusiastic (but near certain) vote for Remain.
Disruption of Euro 2016 by sundry strikers and rioters in France would do tbe job nicely
Sadly the French team is quite good, and therefore they are unlikely to want to disrupt the tournament
France have dropped some 6-10 places from where they would normally be because as host country as they haven't had any high scoring Euro 2016 qualifiers to play - the reverse of the effect which helped take Wales up to their freakishly high position for a season ( after they stopped playing low value friendlies).
Comments
Not sure we needed the dramatic music / video as glorified powerpoint....
Britain has been a parliamentary democracy for considerably longer than pretty much every other state within the EU. That is a point of significant difference. It is a point which is not given enough weight, IMO, by those on the Remain side and, more significantly, by those in positions of power in much of the rest of the EU.
The fear is being deliberately maximised through no-one showing what their true hands would be if the dice came up double-six.
If there was an informal position already on the table, and a willingness from the players that mattered to tango, then it would largely vanish.
It is also possible that one of the reasons we were able successfully to resist invasion or domination by Continental powers was as a result of a relatively strong and - within the limits of the time - legitimate government. When the forces of extremism and reaction and economic failure blew through Europe in the 20th century many democracies fell; ours did not. That is a testament to the strength of our democracy and not just to the existence of the Channel.
I can understand why the decision was taken. But on reflection it was the wrong decision. Once we'd stayed out, we lost the chance to shape it, we were seen by others as a mix of Johnny-come-latelys and supplicants and as a result we've ended up in something with which we have never felt comfortable.
De Gaulle was an arrogant so-and-so who, in vetoing Britain's entry, patronised the country which gave him a home and which shed much blood liberating his country by saying that it had not done enough to become more like the rest of Europe, a Europe which had so disgraced the civilisation it had brought to the world. If there was one country in Europe in the late 1950's which could hold its head high, it was Britain. For France - barely 15 years after Vichy (a stain on French history that De Gaulle simply ignored) - to presume to lecture Britain was really de trop.
http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/health/racing-car-driver-james-bond-11385444
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/guardian-campaign-to-rein-in-the-bbc-zntzvhcbp
Hardly odd that countries brush aside their embarrassing moments, if they possibly can. Even the Austrians do it.
They're off to Newcastle tomorrow - if the reception is anything like this, I'm very encouraged. This groundwar event has really impressed me.
The rest of the country would rejoice.
Ministers have been accused of trying to “muzzle” backbenchers as Brexit-backing Tory MPs lined up to condemn the Government’s behaviour in the EU referendum.
https://www.politicshome.com/news/europe/eu-policy-agenda/brexit/news/75396/brexit-tory-mps-turn-george-osborne-over-‘pro-eu
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