News1 min ago
John Major Live On Today Program Now !
Last Tory PM in favour of staying.
Answers
Well, he's not mincing his words, is he?
07:17 Fri 29th Apr 2016
FF...I thought it was obvious what I meant ! ...he was the last Tory PM, before our current incumbent.
No, Jim...he certainly isn't mincing his words. Quite brave methinks, for a man whose political career was stopped by the bar stewards (his words, not mine) in his own Party.
But as far as I am concerned, he is speaking good common sense, although that view won't be universally popular here on AB !
No, Jim...he certainly isn't mincing his words. Quite brave methinks, for a man whose political career was stopped by the bar stewards (his words, not mine) in his own Party.
But as far as I am concerned, he is speaking good common sense, although that view won't be universally popular here on AB !
Is he still around ?
I thought it was obvious what was meant by last. It meant no further Tory PMs are going to support continued domination of our country by an outside power block. After his appalling behaviour at Maastricht it isn't surprising he feels the need to support the mess he is partly responsible for.
I thought it was obvious what was meant by last. It meant no further Tory PMs are going to support continued domination of our country by an outside power block. After his appalling behaviour at Maastricht it isn't surprising he feels the need to support the mess he is partly responsible for.
I only caught a bit of the interview, but he lauded the fact that we had agreed to something like 70% (can’t remember the exact figure) of the laws made by the EU. Hurrah! However, he declined to mention that we have had around 30% of those laws imposed upon us against our wishes - but I expect the 'Inners' would have ignored that just as he did.
If I've corrected you wrongly I apologise, although I had thought I'd heard 90% correctly. But never mind -- in terms of the philosophy of it I doubt Brexit supporters would care if it was 99.99%.
My counter to that is that the use of "we" is a misrepresentation anyway. The UK is not one entity, neither united at the level of Europe (obviously), nor nationally, nor even locally. It's not as if everyone is happy with the laws "we" do agree to; of the laws "we" do not but pass anyway, some in the UK would have liked to have seen them pass but our representatives in the various legislative EU bodies disagreed.
This mismatch between what passes and what does not, and what "we" agree to and what we do not, is sold by the Leave campaign as a violation of democracy. But in fact, not getting what you want all the time is a necessary condition of democracy (although hardly sufficient; I am not claiming here that the EU is perfectly democratic). This is equivalent to the national picture, where the government passes legislation all the time that "we" don't all agree with, because "we" are separate people with separate opinions.
Painting the UK as a single entity at the level of the EU is disingenuous. Nor should it be a surprise, or even necessarily a problem, that the UK doesn't agree with all laws that pass. At the very least, complaining about this seems to be the UK protesting too much, and either ignoring or just suppressing the fact that the same applies, in one degree or another, to *all* countries in the EU. Often the debate is presented as if it is the UK v. the continent in all matters, which is not even close to the truth.
We are part of a larger group of nations in which we are not the majority party. Of *course* we aren't going to agree with everything. That's what being "part of a larger group of nations in which we aren't the majority" means. Frankly I think we should be more troubled if we got our way with everything, which would imply that the UK was imposing its will on the EU against the wishes of the rest of it.
My counter to that is that the use of "we" is a misrepresentation anyway. The UK is not one entity, neither united at the level of Europe (obviously), nor nationally, nor even locally. It's not as if everyone is happy with the laws "we" do agree to; of the laws "we" do not but pass anyway, some in the UK would have liked to have seen them pass but our representatives in the various legislative EU bodies disagreed.
This mismatch between what passes and what does not, and what "we" agree to and what we do not, is sold by the Leave campaign as a violation of democracy. But in fact, not getting what you want all the time is a necessary condition of democracy (although hardly sufficient; I am not claiming here that the EU is perfectly democratic). This is equivalent to the national picture, where the government passes legislation all the time that "we" don't all agree with, because "we" are separate people with separate opinions.
Painting the UK as a single entity at the level of the EU is disingenuous. Nor should it be a surprise, or even necessarily a problem, that the UK doesn't agree with all laws that pass. At the very least, complaining about this seems to be the UK protesting too much, and either ignoring or just suppressing the fact that the same applies, in one degree or another, to *all* countries in the EU. Often the debate is presented as if it is the UK v. the continent in all matters, which is not even close to the truth.
We are part of a larger group of nations in which we are not the majority party. Of *course* we aren't going to agree with everything. That's what being "part of a larger group of nations in which we aren't the majority" means. Frankly I think we should be more troubled if we got our way with everything, which would imply that the UK was imposing its will on the EU against the wishes of the rest of it.
Jim, thank you for the apology. I thought I’d heard correctly. The thing is, if this country introduces laws that for one reason or another turn out to be bad laws, or laws that its inhabitants aren’t happy with, those laws are our own mistakes and we are free to amend or abolish them. They are not laws constructed and approved by other people that we have no hope of changing.
As you point out; in a sense no country is a single entity in that it will have different areas.
Heck families aren't either as each member has their own viewpoint.
I don't see that these subsections make a large difference if the group are prepared to have a system they can agree to.
It is the sheer size of the EU that is a problem. A nation state is large enough to have advantages without the members feeling they are no longer a part of the whole. When you have different cultures which have different ideas, and one lot inevitably imposing their views, which may be diametrically opposite the views of some of the others, it becomes unacceptable. If the EU simply made suggestions and the national governments debated and decided whether they wanted to implement them or not, that would be a different matter.
At this scale when a diktat comes through that one doesn't want, it isn't interpreted so much a case of being in a democratic minority this time, and hoping that it'll be different next time; it's a case of them lot imposing their ideas, that we are unhappy to accept, maybe vehemently against, upon us and we can't do anything about it.
Usually it takes a war to form such a power block, it's unusual for nations to volunteer to become less significant and subsumed.
Heck families aren't either as each member has their own viewpoint.
I don't see that these subsections make a large difference if the group are prepared to have a system they can agree to.
It is the sheer size of the EU that is a problem. A nation state is large enough to have advantages without the members feeling they are no longer a part of the whole. When you have different cultures which have different ideas, and one lot inevitably imposing their views, which may be diametrically opposite the views of some of the others, it becomes unacceptable. If the EU simply made suggestions and the national governments debated and decided whether they wanted to implement them or not, that would be a different matter.
At this scale when a diktat comes through that one doesn't want, it isn't interpreted so much a case of being in a democratic minority this time, and hoping that it'll be different next time; it's a case of them lot imposing their ideas, that we are unhappy to accept, maybe vehemently against, upon us and we can't do anything about it.
Usually it takes a war to form such a power block, it's unusual for nations to volunteer to become less significant and subsumed.
Naomi,
// ... if this country introduces laws that for one reason or another turn out to be bad laws ... those laws are our own mistakes and we are free to amend or abolish them. //
How free are "we", really? Again, it's that use of the word "we" that implies some sense of collective agreement, when the reality is anything but. The current situation in the UK buries this a little by having a form of democracy whereby the "we" who are free to amend bad laws is restricted to either of two groups, neither of whom commands the support of the majority nor has ever done. Even when "we" vote one lot or the other out, the new group has an effective carte blanche for five years or so to pass whatever laws it chooses, and "we" have no say in that period. The freedom "we" then have to amend "our" laws is really only extended to a subset of around 1,000 people, most of which can't be held to account either in theory or in practice.
Before I get ranting too much, the basic point is that "we" are, in general, mostly far from free to set our own laws, and the freedom "we" do have is very illusory. This doesn't mean that I don't think the UK is a democracy (certainly I can't think of anywhere better). But the UK is not "we", when it comes to some collective agreement. For most of us, all of the purported problems of being in the EU will remain. Locally and nationally, "we" will have to accept laws that "we" have no say in, or disagreed with at least, and a limited opportunity (and, in practice, no opportunity at all) to change those laws.
The "freedom" the UK gains on leaving the EU is therefore highly deceptive. "We" won't even necessarily be freer when it comes to defining our international relations; "we" will still have to make compromises, accept deals, make concessions. Short of withdrawing from the rest of the world entirely, it is certain that "we" won't always get what "we" want.
It won't even be necessarily any better with the EU. We will still have to accept their rules, to some extent. How far depends on the deal we get, but again the only way to avoid the EU and its rules entirely is to turn our backs on it, and that is completely unfeasible. So we deal with them. And then comes the choice: deal with the EU from outside, or from within? In, and we can change the rules (and despite being overruled a few times, we have changed some rules, and quite significant ones at that). In, sometimes, we don't get our way, and the rules go against our choices. But we have some chance to amend them. Out, we have no such chance, ever.
If you like, this is simple a larger-scale version of your "if we don't like the laws, we are free to amend them" -- albeit with the modification "we are free to try to amend them", but then being free to try is the best freedom one can ever really have in a democracy, or in a large group of nations in general.
Apologies for this post going on so long. I've actually pared it back a few times...
// ... if this country introduces laws that for one reason or another turn out to be bad laws ... those laws are our own mistakes and we are free to amend or abolish them. //
How free are "we", really? Again, it's that use of the word "we" that implies some sense of collective agreement, when the reality is anything but. The current situation in the UK buries this a little by having a form of democracy whereby the "we" who are free to amend bad laws is restricted to either of two groups, neither of whom commands the support of the majority nor has ever done. Even when "we" vote one lot or the other out, the new group has an effective carte blanche for five years or so to pass whatever laws it chooses, and "we" have no say in that period. The freedom "we" then have to amend "our" laws is really only extended to a subset of around 1,000 people, most of which can't be held to account either in theory or in practice.
Before I get ranting too much, the basic point is that "we" are, in general, mostly far from free to set our own laws, and the freedom "we" do have is very illusory. This doesn't mean that I don't think the UK is a democracy (certainly I can't think of anywhere better). But the UK is not "we", when it comes to some collective agreement. For most of us, all of the purported problems of being in the EU will remain. Locally and nationally, "we" will have to accept laws that "we" have no say in, or disagreed with at least, and a limited opportunity (and, in practice, no opportunity at all) to change those laws.
The "freedom" the UK gains on leaving the EU is therefore highly deceptive. "We" won't even necessarily be freer when it comes to defining our international relations; "we" will still have to make compromises, accept deals, make concessions. Short of withdrawing from the rest of the world entirely, it is certain that "we" won't always get what "we" want.
It won't even be necessarily any better with the EU. We will still have to accept their rules, to some extent. How far depends on the deal we get, but again the only way to avoid the EU and its rules entirely is to turn our backs on it, and that is completely unfeasible. So we deal with them. And then comes the choice: deal with the EU from outside, or from within? In, and we can change the rules (and despite being overruled a few times, we have changed some rules, and quite significant ones at that). In, sometimes, we don't get our way, and the rules go against our choices. But we have some chance to amend them. Out, we have no such chance, ever.
If you like, this is simple a larger-scale version of your "if we don't like the laws, we are free to amend them" -- albeit with the modification "we are free to try to amend them", but then being free to try is the best freedom one can ever really have in a democracy, or in a large group of nations in general.
Apologies for this post going on so long. I've actually pared it back a few times...
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