(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.

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 29^th 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.

All human comments appreciated. All abuse or like clicks chucked in the bin. 

(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. 

All human comments appreciated. All abuse and like clicks chucked in the bin.

( 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.

All human comments appreciated. All abuse and like clicks chucked in the bin.

(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.

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.

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.”

All human comments appreciated. All like comments chucked in the bin.