Category Archives: Brexit v EU – Negotiations.

THE BEADY EYE ASK’S: IS ENGLAND NOW ENTERTAINING DOOMSDAY, WHEN MEN FACE THE RECORD FROM WHICH THERE IS NO APPEAL.

14 Friday Dec 2018

Posted by in Articular 50., Brexit v EU - Negotiations., Brexit.

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(Three-minute read)

Watching Britain trying to find a way out of its current constitutional crisis this week devolution to England is firmly back on the political agenda.Search results for "pictures of devolution"

History tells us that political leaders are often taken over by events.

With growing disquiet about the way the current set-up works, among both the public and MPs themselves Brexit, is turning into a Constitutional

The politics of English administration is becoming sharply polarised between the traditionalist instincts of the Conservative Party and the devolutionary demands of the Labour heartlands not mention Scotland and Northern Ireland or Wales all three facing funding implications.

The social and political turmoil of the 1980s saw the invention of a new and unofficial English boundary – the North-South divide which is now manifesting itself in Brexit.

What is revealed in all of this is an important facet of the English personality.

After 2,000 years of administrators trying to bully the population into neatly defined blocks, England has developed a natural distrust of straight lines on a map. They prefer the quirkiness of a complicated back-story, they like things to be irregular and idiosyncratic, revel in the fact that Americans cannot pronounce, never mind spell, Worcestershire.

In 1970 the Tories introduced the Local Government Bill. It was debated for months with MPs arguing over boundaries, place names, geography and history. The result was an act of parliament that, in attempting to satisfy everyone, infuriated millions.

WITHOUT PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION NITHER A PEOPLES VOTE NOR A  GENERAL ELECTION WILL PRODUCE A SOLUTION THAT WILL BE UNIFYING.

The big question is what would be on the ballot paper: it could be a three-way referendum, with voters choosing between May’s deal, a harder Brexit/no deal, or Remain.

Northern England is increasingly resentful at the London-based government.

Scotland is on the verge of another referendum for independence.

Northern Ireland Assembly is disassembling.

Wales is ignored.

WHILE IRELAND THE CLOSEST NEIGHBOUR IS STARING DOWN OF BARREL OF ECONOMIC DISASTER THROUGH NO FAULT OF ITS OWN if Theresa May goes for a no deal to save her own premiership.

All of the above could be avoided, of course, if England stayed in the EU.

Instead, we are in a stalemate. The EU is unlikely to want to reopen talks until the vote has actually taken place on the withdrawal agreement which has a legal Backstop re the Irish border.

If there is no backstop, there will be no divorce deal and no transition period. In other words, there would be a disorderly Brexit and the UK would crash out of the EU in March 2019.

Brexit IS NOW a topic so complex and confused that I sensed every twinge of political pain in the reforms.

A mock customs post set up by anti-Brexit campaigners at Ravensdale, Co Louth, in April. Photograph: Niall Carson/PA Wire

Perhaps, with the forthcoming European Elections with England still in the EU, a European vote on whether England should stay or leave might resolve the question that England can not.

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THE BEADY EYE ASK’S: WHAT IS A MEANINGFUL VOTE.

10 Monday Dec 2018

Posted by in Brexit v EU - Negotiations., Brexit.

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(Five-minute read)

As the Brexit ‘meaningful vote’ in Parliament is delayed what, exactly, will

MPs vote on? and what will be left of a burning Britain?

Under the Bill of Rights of 1689, it is for parliament and parliament alone to

govern its own proceedings, which includes interpreting the consequences of

it’s motions.Résultat de recherche d'images pour "pictures a meaningful vote"

So it follows that in order to have a meaning or purposes with an assigned function the people’s meaningfully vote must be a General Election.

Why?

Because without a written constitution the Crown has the final say, not forgetting that it is the EU that has the right to withhold its consent on the final deal.

God only knows these days what is meaningful.

Think about things that are meaningful to you, words of wisdom, people that inspire you, or even a piece of art that speaks to you!

We had meaningful dialogue with Donald Trump.

When it comes Brexit there is no doubting that lies made a meaningful contribution to the referendum prior to people voting out.

In a mechanical sense, Brexit would now be disturbing the workings and the structure of the European Union more but for the spirit and future perspective and meaningfulness of the European Union.

By meaningfulness, one has to ask which has the quality of having great value or significance, England or the Europen Union.

We are left with pondering just what is a stake.

Is Brexit communicating something that is not directly possible to expressed like big, consequential, earth-shattering, earthshaking, eventful, historic, important, major, material, momentous, monumental, much, significant, substantial, tectonic, weighty?

Or is it just a storm in a teacup.

As in many Brexit end-game scenarios, however, there could still be a mismatch between British and European law:

The UK parliament can do nothing to bind the rest of the EU into continuing to treat the UK as a member state.

Unless something changes, however, the UK’s membership really will—under international law, and more specifically the Article 50 procedure of the Treaty of Lisbon—simply cease on 29th March at 11pm GMT, potentially with no deal.

There is no automatic way for England to force Brussels to pay attention and interrupt the Article 50 process:

In other words, if parliament wants to stop Brexit or give time to adjust the approach, it must either use brute political pressure to change the government’s mind or otherwise change the government.

“Press Pause”

The most fundamental ground rule of the British constitution remains the same as it ever has been: The crown in parliament is law. When the crown, which in effect means the government of the day, forgets about the parliament bit, its power will not long endure.

The “traditional” means of forcing a government out—through an election after a no-confidence vote—has certainly become harder to accomplish under the Fixed-term Parliaments Act;

THEN YOU HAVE FIRST PAST THE POST VOTING SYSTEM. AN ELECTORAL SYSTEM THAT IS WIDE OPEN TO MANIPULATION THAT IS NO LONGER DEMOCRACY.

BECAUSE:

Ignoring the point that votes are supposed to have equal value, wherever you live.

Come election time, most constituencies have no prospect of changing hands. This means that the few marginal seats and the small number of swing voters, who live in them decide the government.

Now, in the new world of online campaigning, and with the ability of companies such as Facebook to produce detailed profiles of its users, first past the post is more vulnerable than ever.

When the world’s most primitive voting system is targeted by the world’s most sophisticated data outfits, democracy doesn’t stand a chance.

IF ENGLAND IS TO HAVE ANOTHER REFERENDUM ITS TIME TO INTRODUCE PR.

With proportional representation, the share of seats each party wins reflects the share of the vote they receive. There are tried-and-tested systems of PR in use across the world – and in the UK’s devolved assemblies – that keep a local constituency link and give voters far more power to decide who will represent them.

Every vote counts with PR, not just the marginal ones, so it takes millions of votes to change the final result.

PR would make elections far more resilient to the rapid evolution of big data and micro-targeting; it would free political parties from a joyless arms race in marginal constituencies, and it would make everyone’s vote matter.

Around 85% of developed countries already use some form of PR.

There you have it, not the I’s to the right nor the I’s to the left but a meaningful vote.

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THE BEADY EYE ASK’S: WHY SHOULD WE IN THE EU BE PAYING THE PENSION OF A MAN WHO IS OBVIOUSLY ANTI THE EU AND ALL IT STANDS FOR.

10 Monday Dec 2018

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(Two-minute read)

WE ALL KNOW THAT THE EU IS IN NEED OF REFORM.

Such as THE OBSERTITY OF PAYING £150m a year in regard to moving the European Parliament once a month from Brussels to Strasbourg.

But why should the citizens of the EU continue to pay a man who has caused immeasurable harm to the institution itself?

A man who has consistently defied his oath upon becoming an MEP?

MEPs earn €101,808 a year before tax and receive thousands more in expenses for staff, travel and office costs. Farage’s pension is understood to be worth £73,000 a year and he will also be entitled to a transitional allowance worth £117,000 when he steps down as an MEP in 2019, as the UK leaves the EU.

Farage is one of eight Ukip MEPs who was investigated in 2017 for misuse of EU funds.

Farage, who has been an MEP for 18 years, has one of the worst attendance records at the parliament in Brussels and Strasbourg. He is ranked 748 out of 751 MEPs and has taken part in only 37% of votes in the current parliamentary session, according to VoteWatch Europe.

IF THERE IS a DEAL OR  NO DEAL AND THE UK RENEGES ON ITS LEGAL FINANCIAL COMMITMENTS TO THE EU –  Nigel Farage along with former British MEP’S and EU officials should be stripped of their EU Golden Parachute payment and EU Pension.

With their combined pot worth an estimated £10 million a saving of an estimated £500,00 a year in pensions.

Some time ago he was docked half his monthly MEP salary.

The EU European Council are indicating the Brexit bill will include UK budgetary rights and obligations. This will include MEPs pensions. If the UK agree to the EU’s proposals, then Nigel Farage will receive an EU pension.

ITS NO WONDER GENUINE YELLOW JACKETS ARE MAKING THEMSELVES VISIBLE.

As for keeping the symbolism of where the EU was started alive if France wants to move the parliament monthly from Brussels to Strasbourg for this purpose let France pay. French police detain a protester during clashes in Paris

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THE BEADY EYE SAY’S: WE WILL NEVER KNOW THE TRUE COST OF BREXIT.

07 Friday Dec 2018

Posted by in Brexit v EU - Negotiations., Brexit.

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( THREE MINUTE READ)

As Britain’s negotiations to leave the European Union enter their crunch moment, let’s be clear on one thing:

The EU doesn’t need to punish Britain for leaving; the referendum did that just fine.

To have a meaningful Parliamentary vote on a withdrawal agreement Parliament and the taxpayer require an up-to-date estimate of the settlement’s costs, as well as better information on the wider potential costs of withdrawal.

Without this, MPs and the taxpayer won’t have complete information about the potential costs of the government’s deal with the EU.

The UK’s contribution to the EU’s outstanding commitments and liabilities after 2020 is unknown.

Any estimate excludes the costs that may arise from parts of the withdrawal agreement still to be negotiated. But there are other potentially significant ongoing costs likely to arise from post-Brexit restructuring—for example, new trade and customs arrangements, replacement institutions and the costs of participating in EU programmes as a non-member state.

FOR EXAMPLE, UK payments to cover pension and benefit costs could run for decades.

A Parliamentary vote on EU withdrawal will only be truly meaningful if this information is disclosed in a timely fashion.

Is it possible to take part in the economic advantages of the European project without having to bear the associated political costs of relinquishing sovereignty?

THERE IS ONE THING ABOUT BREXIT THAT IS TRUE AND THAT IS THE COST NOT IN FINANCIAL TERMS BUT IN WHAT IT HAS UNLEASHED POLITICALLY BOTH IN ENGLAND AND THE EU ITSELF. WEAKING BOTH.

Any dividend are still too remote even to assess.

The economic impact various degrees depending who you believe.

We don’t know the shape of the Brexit deal, including what arrangements will be put in place to keep trade flowing. And Brexiters complain such exercises tend to use assumptions that favour negative results.

However, you model how the U.K. economy it would have grown had the referendum gone the other way.

Leaving without a deal is now a high possibility and it stands to reason that in the short term it will lead to lower growth which means lost income for the government, meaning it has to borrow more to meet its spending goals.

If the U.K. remains in the customs union and achieves a trade deal with minimal barriers, tariffs or otherwise, the economy will recover lost ground in a shorter time.

On the leaver’s side, it seems that economic toll doesn’t matter. They voted for “control,” for sovereignty over laws and borders above all.

There must be a solution to the conflict that is better for everyone involved than a Brexit, which would burn all the bridges.

Here is my suggestion.

Hold a peoples assembly to decide on what question or questions should be on the ballot paper in a peoples referendum.

or

Call a halt to Article 50 provided it is agreed that the Uk net contributions to the EU’s limited to 0.03% of GDP.  The cost of such a compromise would have to be borne by the other member states provided the Uk takes an active and reformist leadership role in Europe – Good for All.

Article 50 is always open it can be used TO LEAVE whenever if there is no improvement.

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THE BEADY EYE’S OPEN LETTER : TO THE PEOPLE OF ENGLAND: I can’t see a rationale of not staying in the EU beyond furthering the rich while making the lives of the poor more miserable.

07 Friday Dec 2018

Posted by in Beady Eyes: Open Letters., Brexit v EU - Negotiations., Brexit.

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Dear English friends.

Résultat de recherche d'images pour "pictures of english people"

Don’t read this if you’re easily offended. It’s about Brexit the UK but I’m not

even sure what that means any more.

On 23rd June 2016, you were asked a ludicrously banal binary question.

To leave the EU or stay in it? Two boxes, one tick. There was no manifesto. The two scenarios were not fully explained.

You were told nothing about what would happen if you opted to leave. If you were told, I don’t believe people would have voted for it because without EU money huge parts of Britain are unsustainable sovereign or not.

Even with a majority vote on an advisory referendum peddled on lies, this does not represent democracy where 16 – 18-year-olds weren’t allowed to vote on the single biggest issue to affect their future.

And you tell me this was a democratic vote?

But people bought it. Because clowns were saying – like Trump – what people *really* wanted to say but were too bound up by social mores to do so.

As far as I can see Brexit has made it ok to be racist, xenophobic, misogynistic and has given many millions license to say appalling things to complete strangers on Twitter.

But this is making Britain Great Again, isn’t it??

Of course, not all people who voted to Leave are racist. That’s like saying everybody who voted to Remain is passionate, whole-heartedly in favour of every single thing the EU does. Brexit has given racists license to spread their hate.

After two years of table banging about Project Fear and how facts explaining the dire economic, social and legal consequences of leaving the EU were all a hoax, no one in the fifth-wealthiest country in the whole world of sane mind should be compleating that an act of colossal self-harm really is an appropriate reaction.

Why?

Because now if you plough on with Article 50 to its terrible, dystopian conclusion, you won’t be able to live, work, love or study in Europe in quite the same way ever again.

The referendum was won not by UKIP but by populist papers appealing to prejudices and rage. They exploited people living in communities who were suffering under Osborne’s austerity.

And now you are being told BY EXPERTS that these communities – the communities who voted most strongly to leave – will suffer the most after Brexit.

Cop on.

I believe that instead of leaving, you need to negotiate a new Treaty with the EU.

You don’t need a divorce from the EU. You need medication and a helluva lot of counselling. But leaving – like this – because of such lies, with no plan, not enough civil servants to cope with the workload and a dire lack of trained negotiators, will mean you are likely to be fucked for lack of a better word.

Today there is a monumental effort on the part of the press to convince people that triggering Article 50 is the point of no return. It isn’t. And here’s why.

There is a European election in May next year and both France and Germany are running scared of the far right not to mention member state both would benefit greatly as has been offered to withdraw and stay in and fight your quarter for reforms.

Thanks to the Good Law Project, there is a chance that a truly democratic vote *could* succeed. If you really care about democracy and everything that brings, now’s your chance to prove it.

Demand a peoples vote.

Up to now the political architecture of Britain insulates those imposing austerity from the wrath of those on the receiving end. A refashioned British society, making it less like the rest of Western Europe, is akin to setting your house on fire and then revelling in the community spirit as neighbours come running to help extinguish the blaze.

A perverse sense of community.

16 million British voters are being fucked over. Their views – in this amazingly democratic referendum – don’t matter. The views of the 48% have been fucked right off.

This will only be a “done deal” if people don’t put up a fight for something better.

It’s about politics abandoning vulnerable people.”

You want something more than just economics.

I only hope that, as Brexit goes tits up and when the current generation dies out, the young have a chance of salvaging a decent life from this appalling mess your political leaders are creating – a slow bleed, broken monument to another age.

Setting aside the lowlights of English history  — the slave trade, colonial barbarity the global economy is now in the throes of negotiating a wrenching transition to technological economies  — with no hours contracts jobs replacing full-time positions and robots substituting for human labour this is no time to be hight and mighty.

With virtually every public agency struggling to do more with less while attending to additional problems wealthy Britons remain among the world’s most comfortable people, enjoying lavish homes, private medical care, top-notch schools and restaurants run by chefs from Paris and Tokyo.

When one looks from the outside in here is a country with a vast deficit problem, with its debt growing, spending billions on worthless Aircraft Carriers, Trident missiles while many measures of social well-being — are being ignored

The poor, the elderly, the disabled and the jobless are increasingly prone to Kafka-esque tangles with the bureaucracy to keep public support.

It not just that your democracy will be bankrupted, you will see the rats of profit abandoning the sinking ship depressing growth for years to come.

Remember that London bankers concocted a financial crisis, multiplying their wealth through reckless gambling; then London politicians used budget deficits as an excuse to cut spending on the poor while handing tax cuts to corporations.

Perhaps this is the real reason you are now looking down the barrel of a social crisis called Brexit.

Finally:

Will a peoples vote solve the impasse?

Only if the question to decide is set by a Citizens assemble and not by any political party.  

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THE BEADY EYE SAY’S ENGLAND IS NEGLECTING THE BIGGER PICTURE WHICH IS GOING TO BE AN MONUMENTAL MISTAKE FOR THE UK AS A WHOLE.

26 Monday Nov 2018

Posted by in Brexit v EU - Negotiations., England., The Obvious.

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( A six-minute read)

Some time ago the Beady eye asks just who or what is the EU going to sign any deal with.

United Kingdom - British Flags

England is often (although incorrectly) used as a term to describe the whole of the UK.

Great Britain is not a country; it’s a landmass.

The name Britain derives from the Roman word Britannia.

The British Isles is the name of a group of islands situated off the northwestern corner of mainland Europe. It is made up of Great Britain, Ireland, The Isle of Man, The Isles of Scilly, The Channel Islands (including Guernsey, Jersey, Sark and Alderney), as well as over 6,000 other smaller islands.

The problem with “Brexit”, as shorthand for “British exit”, is that there is no such place as Britain.

This question above is being ignored but one thing is clear: The union state is not a unitary state, still less an English state. It would be outrageous to force Scotland and Northern Ireland to leave the EU in defiance of the wishes of their peoples.

What is sauce for the English and Welsh leavers is also sauce for the Scottish and Northern Irish remainders?

All will be yoked forever to a Conservative-dominated England.

The UK – a sovereign state that includes England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

It contains four nations, one far richer, more populous and more powerful than the other three – England. For much of the past two centuries, most of the inhabitants of the union state have taken it for granted; it has been in serious contention only in Ireland.

Now all is changed. The empire on which the sun never set has been consigned to the dustbin of history.

Northern Ireland is the legatee of a war of conquest between the English crown and the native Irish, which ebbed and flowed for centuries and ended with the island’s partition between the overwhelmingly Catholic south and west and the predominantly Protestant north-east.

Wales ( Welsh ) Flag Flags

Wales was conquered by the English crown in complex medieval struggles, in which Welsh warlords were as apt to fight one another as to fight the English; the title “Prince of Wales” is a reminder of the English victory, not an emblem of Welsh defiance.

Scotland - Scottish Flags

Scotland was never conquered, Scotland with the  Act of Union of 1707 was incorporated into England (an England that included Wales)

 

A few hundred years of history once bound the four nations of the UK. Now they’re pulling this very odd state apart.

There are now four capital cities, four administrations and four legislatures in the once monolithic union state. Each of the devolved administrations has its own political priorities and follows its own political trajectory.

Like a mortar bomb crashing into a building infested with dry rot, the EU referendum has torn great holes in the structure, the operational codes and the underlying assumptions of the increasingly rickety union state.

Down the centuries of English history, there are ample examples of divide and rule which to this day can be applied to England a country within the UK.

No government has ever existed which did not take advantage of social, religious political divisions to further its own interests.

Perhaps for the first time, we are witnessing the folly of not prioritizing the population before the economy with a no deal scenario. Tell them all others are out to finish you except me will only enrich the lawyers.

There comes a point in our lives when we have to accept our destiny is down to ourselves, and we have to abandon our adolescent tendencies to blame our parents for everything we dislike about our present lives.

The ongoing threat of Brexit is that is building roads to where the sun will not shine.

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THE BEADY EYE ASK’S: WILL ENGLAND FALL ON THE ROCK OF GIBRALTAR.

25 Sunday Nov 2018

Posted by in Brexit v EU - Negotiations., Brexit., Gibraltar.

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(Five-minute read)

You can rest assured that majority voting in the referendum whether to remaining or not in the EU had little grasp of the consequences of an out vote.

Certainly, neither the Good Friday Agreement or the treaty of Utrecht had any bearing on the voting in the Referendum.

Now the Rock of Gib along with 10 DUP Unionists are showing the absurdity of Brexit.Résultat de recherche d'images pour "pictures of the rock of gibraltar"

Brexit has put the Rock back in the news, with Spain being awarded a veto over future EU deals on Gibraltar – effectively giving the country its strongest hand in the territory for three centuries.

Gibraltar a peninsula on the south of Spain which was ceded by Spain under a peace treaty called Utrecht 1713 which brought an end the War of Spanish Succession between England and France

It voted 90% to stay in the EU.

Like Northern Ireland and Scotland how also voted to stay when the UK leaves, it must leave.

The Peace of Utrecht is a series of individual peace treaties that ended more than 13 years of war that had been fought in both the old and new worlds.Résultat de recherche d'images pour "pictures of Peace of Utrecht"

The first treaty signed at Utrecht was the truce between France and Portugal on 7 November, followed by the truce between France and Savoy on 14 March 1714. That same day, Spain, Great Britain, France and the Empire agreed to the evacuation of Catalonia and an armistice in Italy. The main treaties of peace followed on 11 April 1713.

Spain, which seized Gibraltar from the Moors as part of the 15th century “Reconquista”, ceded sovereignty over the Rock to the British crown “absolutely and forever without exception or impediment whatsoever”

Of course, as with all treaties, the devil is in the small print.

The treaty continued to haunt Europe.

Clause 10 of the 305-year-old treaty stipulates that the British crown was at the liberty to dispose of the rock as it pleased, but if it ever did so, preference shall always be given to the crown of Spain before any others. Madrid takes this to mean that Gibraltar would return to Spain if it were decolonised.

So it seems reasonable that if the people of Gibraltar voted 90% to stay in the EU this should be honoured in the forthcoming Brexit deal.

Of course, if this was to happen for all intended purposes the Rock of Gib would be decolonised, as will Northern Ireland be if the current deal holds.

Bombroof: The mile-long complex includes this large chamber. The tunnel is one of the largest man made underground spaces without roof supports and was capable of housing 16,000 soldiers for up to 16 months

In a nutshell, the reality of discussion in Gibraltar is exposed.

JUST WHAT IS SO IMPORTANT TO ENGLAND OR SPAIN THAT BOTH ARE WILLING TO ALLOW THE WHOLE BREXIT PROCESS TO COLLAPSE.

The economy of Gibraltar consists largely of the services sector. While being part of the European Union, the British overseas territory of Gibraltar has a separate legal jurisdiction from the United Kingdom and enjoys a different tax system.

The truth is it probably does not matter enormously to Spain to get Gibraltar back.

On the other hand, having a location at its southern tip deliberately run as a tax haven with the intention of undermining its tax revenues must be deeply aggravating, and that’s a precisely fair summary of what the UK is permitting. Of course Spain us rightly upset about that. And the EU is for this reason right to support Spain.

Ponder this though:

How many UK politicians would be brave enough to say this?

So the issue comes down to a straightforward question of why Spain or Ireland should be expected to live with a hostile tax haven seeking to undermine its laws and taxes as its immediate neighbour and the answer is, quite reasonably, that this should not be happening. In which case the solution is to take the tax haven out if Gibraltar and reunite Ireland.

At which point, I suggest, there won’t be much left to fight over. And at the same time, the issues will have been made explicit.

Is there any solution?

Shared sovereignty.

That would allow Gibraltarians and Northern Irelanders to stay in the EU and enjoy joint British and Spanish nationality- Irish British nationality.  They would both remain EU citizens, with all the rights that come from that, while keeping their current institutions and legislation. But Spain & Ireland would become a co-sovereign nation’s.

If not people living near borders between Britain and the EU are going to face a devasting future.

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THE BEADY EYE ASK’S THE QUESTION; WHAT WILL HAPPEN IN THE UK IF THERE IS A NO DEAL WITH THE EU.

22 Thursday Nov 2018

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(Five-minute read)

They say that if you sing country and western backwards everything comes back to you.

Of course, very few of us can sing backwards but if we were able to go forward in history you would wonder how a country that once was a small island ruled a vast empire that created unlimited wealth is now in the process of ending up as a broken small player on the world stage.

IS IT BECAUSE ITS WEALTH WAS USED INCORRECTLY. PROTECTING THE RICH WHILE THE WORKING CLASSES LIVED IN SQUALOR. England is now in the midst of a deep struggle over the future of the country.Résultat de recherche d'images pour "pictures of uk demonstrations to stay in the eu"Résultat de recherche d'images pour "pictures of uk demonstrations"

It has all the ingredients in place to create civil unrest in particular in the event of a hard or no deal Brexit.

There is no way back to how the UK was governed before 2016.

Were Brexit to succeed, it will deliver not independence or an honest democracy but rule by oligarchs and their financial servants, such as the hard-right Brexiteer Jacob Rees-Mogg, under a mendacious exploitation of the rhetoric of sovereignty.

It seems unable to grasp that it was not wholly, or even principally, on economic grounds that the country voted to leave.

IT VOTED TO LEAVE BECAUSE OVER THE FORTY ODD YEARS IT WAS A MEMBER OF THE EU IT MADE LITTLE ATTEMPT POLITICALLY TO CONTRIBUTE OR TO REFORM THE EU WHICH IS STILL IN ITS INFANCY.

The source of the problem is in Britain itself and not the EU.

Now each side of the referendum vote is committed to a future unacceptable to the other.

ON ONE HAND, WE HAVE THE LEAVERS WHO ADVOCATE THAT THE LEAVE VOTE owed far more to a deep-seated human yearning to recover national identity and independence by taking back sovereign control of borders, laws, money and trade.

For this precious prize voters were prepared to risk taking a knock to their standard of living, at least in the short term and perhaps sacrifice the Union as a whole.

To put it in terms of opposing, negative caricatures:

A passionate rejection of losing independence to the EU is up against a stubborn refusal to embrace Great British isolationism. 

The referendum campaign was not a fight about which side had the best argument on the issues… Instead, the fight was about which of these issues the economic future or immigration was more important.

The EU, while not wholly innocent, is not primarily responsible for this dilemma.

The changes that are needed can’t be achieved by the existing arrangements nor can they be achieved by argued about terms of trade, business and how to organise economic growth.

Fear and precarity are generated by a culture of competition and a form of capitalism that feeds off anxiety, insecurity and debt were created by Mrs Thatcher how sold the family silver, crushed the trade unions, and turned the country into a free market economy of consumers. All leading to decades of social conditioning that has warped the British psyche into thinking that Britain was a place apart and superior to the European Union.

We are now looking at a country that had lost an empire and failed to find a role in the EU that will see mass demonstrations, leading to civil unrest, from the thousands of people who will lose their jobs resulted in a kleptocrat British Union with brainless, soulless political elites who know nothing of their own cultures.

I say that staying in Europe is essential to repairing the damage.

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I leave you with Maggie Thatcher observations

“Do you know that one of the great problems of our age is that we are governed by people who care more about feelings than they do about thoughts and ideas.”

 

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THE BEADY EYE LOOK AT THE POSSIBILITY OF ENGLAND RE JOINING THE EU.

13 Tuesday Nov 2018

Posted by in Brexit v EU - Negotiations., Brexit.

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(Three-minute read)

So while it is wrong to say “The UK can not rejoin the EU”, one might say that “The UK can not rejoin the EU and regain all the special privileges it had”.

There is no special procedure for readmission. There is no special route back into the EU for past members.

A key factor here is the nature of the membership that would be on offer.

It is almost inconceivable that newer member states who have assumed all the obligations of membership would be willing to see a larger and richer state being granted special treatment.

It is quite obvious that if England were to reapply it would be put on a fast track to membership. However, the EU members may not be willing to make concessions that would put the UK back in the position in which it left the EU. It would probably have to forget about their old opt-outs and have to accept everything the EU throws at them.

It’s one thing when a current and long-standing member of a club opts-out of changes to the club… It’s something completely different for a “new” member who wants to join – they pretty much must accept everything a membership entails.

This answer seems incomplete to me.

(1) While the UK could re-join the EU in theory, in practice this is about as unlikely as Turkey joining. Over recent decades, discontent in the EU with its uncooperative member has been almost as strong as discontent in the UK with the EU. It is extremely likely that someone will veto a new application even without the privileges.

When politicians say the UK could never rejoin the EU, they’re talking about the practical and political impediments, not any legal ones.

If the UK rejoined, they’d have to start completely from scratch.

All the exceptions and favours they’ve negotiated from the EU (such as using the pound instead of the Euro) would be gone. The actual process to rejoin is also as long and arduous as the daunting task the UK now faces in leaving the EU.

As I have said even if the UK’s political climate did a 180, admission to the EU can be vetoed by any one of its current members.

If, say, France decided they didn’t want the UK to rejoin, that’d be that. That isn’t some absurd hypothetical; the UK originally was blocked by France until 1973. Imagine what would happen the next time around, now that the UK has publicly thumbed its nose at the EU and weakened the entire enterprise.

So yes, the UK could reapply, but the concessions they’d have to make and the headache of applying makes it very unlikely.

A no-deal Brexit remains by far the greatest threat to the status of EU citizens in the UK and English people in the EU.Résultat de recherche d'images pour "funny pictures of brexit"

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THE BEADY EYE SAY’S: SOCIAL MEDIA POLITICS IS OUTPACING THE ISSUES FACING THE EU AND WAS THE MAIN DRIVING FORCE BEHIND BREXIT.

26 Friday Oct 2018

Posted by in Brexit v EU - Negotiations., Brexit., European Commission., European Union., Politics., Populism., Social Media, The common good., The Obvious., The Refugees, Unanswered Questions., What needs to change in European Union.

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(Seven-minute read)

After Brexit, the EU will remain a global player, with 440 million citizens, and one of the biggest world economies.

How Brexit will impact the political weight of and the dynamics between smaller member states has generated far less attention than it should.

Brexit means losing capacity because a large and influential country is leaving. But Brexit also means that the EU gain the capacity to act.

It will be a different union from now on.Résultat de recherche d'images pour "pictures of the eu in the future"

The starting point in trying to answer the question of how the EU should be reformed is the observation that the European Union has a very negative image today.

Let’s be frank:

As the UK has decided to leave the Single Market, it can no longer be as close economically to the rest of the EU. The UK wants to leave the common regulatory area, where people, goods, services and capital move freely across national borders. These are the economic foundations on which the EU was built. And the European Council – the 27 Heads of State or government – as well as the European Parliament have often recalled that these economic foundations cannot be weakened.

It is fair to say, however, that Brexit has prompted a great deal of political movement. The direction of this movement is yet unknown, but it has instilled a new sense of unity among the EU’s twenty-seven remaining members.

Contrary to what some had predicted, Brexit has not led to enthusiasm for more EU departures. On the contrary, member states have so far demonstrated they want to explore new ways to stay together.

However, the biggest danger to the EU is not Brexit but its citizens becoming more and more inward-looking.

There is certainly a lack of democracy in the decision-making at the European level.

But is the democratic deficit at the EU level worse than at the national level?

Legislation in the European Union is made by the Council of Ministers
and the European Parliament. The ministers are sent by their national governments, which hold power as a result of democratic elections in each country. Members of the European Parliament are elected directly.

The Council of Ministers, which is perhaps not what we want.

The main problem with the CoM is that the individual ministers are accountable to national parliaments, but the whole body isn’t accountable to anyone.

Unless the CoM is reformed in some significant ways the decision-making bodies in the European Union will not have the same
democratic legitimacy as national governments and parliaments.

This could be solved by making the CoM more independent, where the whole body would, for example, be elected by national parliaments at fixed times (say every 2 years or so).

Unless Europe becomes more than just a market that benefits not just its member states CORPORATIONS there is every likelihood that its days are numbered.

So instead of promoting economic and social welfare across Europe, the very thing that got the EU the Nobel prize for peace, the region should just not focus on trade relations but on engaging with its citizens at grass root level.

How can this be achieved?

By establishing legal immigration channels. Migration has completely upstaged all the good things that are being done all the time at the European level.

Why?

Because the EU has reduced the capacity of national governments to take on the role of protector, while nothing has been done to create such a mechanism at the EU level.

Because you cannot have a union with mass youth unemployment.

Because there is no direct way of its citizens to investing in the union as it develops other than harping back to the two world wars.

Because it is quite evident that Social media has the potential to connect far and wide but it also with its individual tailored algorithms is closing open-minded politics. Which means there is more information than ever about Europe, and it is sparking a debate which is unprecedented.

Because of a lack of interest.

Because over the past 5 to 7 years, there has been a very alarming and very dramatic loss of trust both in national governments and in the political institutions of the European Union.

Because there is practically no implementation of otherwise good initiatives from the top of EC or the governments at the lowest level of local communities. So, most citizens can’t really see any direct tangible interests for their benefit and are unsatisfied.

Because Politicians who are supposed to serve are focused mostly on infrastructure projects and big organizations on using these for their own benefit. The European officials spend far too much time on issues that everyday citizens are not, at least today, concerned about.

If we could get focus on say the five biggest issues affecting Europeans, one would expect to see reform in the number of people working with the institutions.

People in microlocal communities should be therefore more pro-active and self-organized to do the same not one by one but together in cooperation. However, rarely they are indeed doing it in this way.

I love Europe as a concept and the idea that we are part of a grouping where our everyday citizens can live, learn and love in any of 28 countries needs is a more positive participation of the citizens. Not an egocentric participation. More in the sense of “what can I do to improve citizenship and cooperation in Europe”. One where the everyday citizen is able to prioritize the big issues for Europe.

Securing the right outcome will be a tough balancing act: Image associée

It will take many guises: trends, signals, scenarios, visions, roadmaps and plans are all parts of the tool-box for looking to the future. In addition to these tools, using foresight requires an in-depth reflection on the policy implications and related scenarios.

In the end, it is the people that will make or break the EU so why not afford them an opportunity to contribute by issuing European green energy bonds that can be cashed in ten-twenty years.  Just think what it would do to the whole of the European Union if it became self-sufficient in energy.

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