Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Sheilbh]

There are about 6m Americans living outside the USA, about 1 in 50. Coincidentally there are about 6m "unadventurous" Brits living abroad, about 1 in 10. One reason that Britain can look unadventurous, especially declining places like Middlesborough and Wakefield that they mention, is that people with get up and go got up and went. That is a continuing process of course, which does not help the declining places who lose their more active people, but there is little evidence of a eugenics type change in the entrepreneurial nature of those populations.

I think Brits are second only to Portuguese in Europeans who live abroad - it's just we move to other countries that speak English.

I think there is something to this for actual immigrants. So the people who leave their country and move someone else are, by definition, the ones with get up and go.

I don't think it has any effect on a "population" level. There may possibly be a cultural effect I suppose? I think America is more risk taking and Britain is very (and increasingly) risk averse - but I don't think that's to do with something inherited.

(Having said that I do think the fact that much of early America was colonised by the most fractious, religiously fanatical and disputatious 17th century Englishman does explain a fair bit )

[Admiral Yi]

How many of those six million Brits are retirees playing darts in Spain though?

[Duque de Bragança]

I would have said the Irish, instead of Brits.

PS: If counting previous migrations, the Irish might be first, as a matter of fact.

[HVC]

I think Brits are second only to Portuguese in Europeans who live abroad

although, that's because they're poor actually, I think just just (is going to?) enacted a tax scheme for zero income tax for those under 35 in a sliding scale. Still, with wages what they are it's still better for educated pork chops to flee.

[Sheilbh]

How many of those six million Brits are retirees playing darts in Spain though?

I think a few hundred thousand. Fewer than there are Brits in America. But more generally, there are more Brits in Australia alone than the entire EU combined. I suspect every Brit knows at least one person who has moved to Australia.

As I say I think it's mainly language - we are shamefully bad at learning other languages - and I think the ones with get up and go who are broadly younger and workers go to the US, Canada, Australia (increasingly the Gulf too). While people move to Spain (if they're working class) or France and Italy (if they're middle class) to retire.

[Tamas]

From all I have heard and read, it is BS that all pain can be removed in palitative care. "you'll be fine we'll just drug you into a near-vegetable state until you go through all the myriad stages of a slow death" is a ghastly proposition in any case. And if you are advocating the killing of the patient via pain killer overdose, how is that not worse than what the bill wants to do? It's not like the doctor can openly discuss this with either the patient or their family, it's up to that single doctor to do an "oopsie".

[Barrister]

From all I have heard and read, it is BS that all pain can be removed in palitative care. "you'll be fine we'll just drug you into a near-vegetable state until you go through all the myriad stages of a slow death" is a ghastly proposition in any case. And if you are advocating the killing of the patient via pain killer overdose, how is that not worse than what the bill wants to do? It's not like the doctor can openly discuss this with either the patient or their family, it's up to that single doctor to do an "oopsie".

I've explained it numerous times Tamas.

"Give 'em an inch and they'll take a mile".

[Tamas]

There's all these theoreticals of enforced /pressures suicides and all that....

But I wonder. Looking at the Dutch who seem to theoretically have the best law on this stuff... Are there many actual cases of that in practice?

This was an interesting case and something i theoretically totally support the right to have.

BBC News - The troubled 29-year-old helped to die by Dutch doctors
https://www.bbc.com/news/stories-45117163

No there isn't. It's an excuse of those opposed to it on a general level to prevent it from becoming law.

If there was Internet at the time there would have been similar discussions on abortion, gay rights, the women's vote. It's the next step in the fight for individual freedom and dignity.

[HVC]

How many of those six million Brits are retirees playing darts in Spain though?

I think a few hundred thousand. Fewer than there are Brits in America. But more generally, there are more Brits in Australia alone than the entire EU combined. I suspect every Brit knows at least one person who has moved to Australia.

As I say I think it's mainly language - we are shamefully bad at learning other languages - and I think the ones with get up and go who are broadly younger and workers go to the US, Canada, Australia (increasingly the Gulf too). While people move to Spain (if they're working class) or France and Italy (if they're middle class) to retire.

When people don't need to learn a language they don't, usually. Constant cultural exposure helps too. Blame American cultural domination there a reason so many euros speak English, and it's not for a love of languages

[Sheilbh]

When people don't need to learn a language they don't, usually. Constant cultural exposure helps too. Blame American cultural domination there a reason so many euros speak English, and it's not for a love of languages

Oh, I do

Yeah I totally agree. Although I still think we should force children to do more language learning at school because I do think it's pretty shaming.

[HVC]

When people don't need to learn a language they don't, usually. Constant cultural exposure helps too. Blame American cultural domination there a reason so many euros speak English, and it's not for a love of languages

Oh, I do

Yeah I totally agree. Although I still think we should force children to do more language learning at school because I do think it's pretty shaming.

A bonus of knowing a Romance language is you can understand the others to varying degrees. My French was much better then my peers (though I've lost a lot ), for example. Funny enough I understand Spanish better than Brazilian Portuguese . That could also be because Brazilian triggers my misophonia.

[Tamas]

From all I have heard and read, it is BS that all pain can be removed in palitative care. "you'll be fine we'll just drug you into a near-vegetable state until you go through all the myriad stages of a slow death" is a ghastly proposition in any case. And if you are advocating the killing of the patient via pain killer overdose, how is that not worse than what the bill wants to do? It's not like the doctor can openly discuss this with either the patient or their family, it's up to that single doctor to do an "oopsie".

I've explained it numerous times Tamas.

"Give 'em an inch and they'll take a mile".

I sure hope they will. But then the same debate can be repeated and people can list their reason why it's not their ingrained religious beliefs that make them oppose it.

As I said numerous times, we allow things be it smoking, car driving, etc. where there is hard statistical proof that they harm and kill people. We have the assumption that some people would coerced re. assisted dying. There is only argument to flat-out deny the latter, though.

Why? Because people are selfish so they want their cars and the economic/lifestyle benefits. But people also selfish and they don't know they will face an agonising death, so they can't see their own interests damaged by their pro-suffering stance.

Also, perhaps, allowing assisted suicide makes it too uncomfortably obvious that we are all going to die. It's not just a risk in the background, it is something that is guaranteed to happen.





Changing society's view on death and suicide is long overdue. Banning suicide was necessary when you built religions on the wonderfulness of the afterlife to avoid the logical conclusion of people wanting to off themselves. Also it was lucky enough if people lived to see old age and there was very little to do to help lengthen the life of a terminally ill person. This is not the case anymore.  Deciding when to go is the last step of agency you can have in your existence, a way to reclaim your dignity in face of the lethal condition that is taking away all of it.

[Barrister]

Changing society's view on death and suicide is long overdue. Banning suicide was necessary when you built religions on the wonderfulness of the afterlife to avoid the logical conclusion of people wanting to off themselves. Also it was lucky enough if people lived to see old age and there was very little to do to help lengthen the life of a terminally ill person. This is not the case anymore.  Deciding when to go is the last step of agency you can have in your existence, a way to reclaim your dignity in face of the lethal condition that is taking away all of it.

So just before we go too far down any other lines of reasoning...

your position is we're all going to die, so people should be free to chose when and how.  Without restriction.  Perhaps like a Futurama suicide booth?  Or if not, something close to it?

Because I have an answer to that, but I want to make sure I'm addressing your real root argument.

[Tamas]

No that's not my position because people can kill themselves under emotional duress that can be temporary so it shouldn't be the extreme case I never argued for that you listed.

But people should be able to make the argument that due to their health their quality of life is only going to deteriorate, they do not wish to experience that further and request that medical professionals assist them in ending their life.

Of what little I know of the Canadian system I probably don't agree with its execution (the whole "BTW you could just die" thing with disabled people sounded like a nasty version of "computer says no" attitude) but agree with it's principles.

For the specific British case I would like to mention that currently not only there is no state-offered assistance to terminally ill people to commit suicide, but any private individual assisting their suicide or even being aware of it can be prosecuted and imprisoned. This is why people have to go to Switzerland alone to use Dignitas' services.

It is an exceedingly cruel system absolutely out of date with the state of society,as shown by the decades-long overwhelming popular support for assisted dying.

[Sheilbh]

In theory perhaps, but in practice there are prosecutorial guidelines in England and Wales in relation to that (issued by Keir Starmer, incidentally). In the last 20 years about 200 people have been investigated. Only four have been prosecuted. I don't think any have been prosecuted in the last DPP's term of office because none met the guidance for prosecutors or met the public interest test. All go to the DPP for a decision.

Broadly speaking the guidelines say it is not likely be in the public interest to prosecute if someone had made a voluntary, clear, settled and informed decision to end their life, if someone was wholly motivated by compassion, provided only minor assistance etc. It is more likely to be in the public interest if the individual was helping someone who was under 18, who didn't have mental capacity, hadn't made a voluntary, clear, settled and informed decision, was not wholly motivated by compassion, pressured someone or did not prevent someone from being pressured.

I'd add I don't entirely disagree with this - I just can't think of a country more likely to have a "computer says no" accident resulting in lots of wrongful deaths than Britain. We are a country that in recent years have deported residents of 60 years because the Home Office decided to save money by destroying the paper archive that had proof of their rights, that prosecuted hundreds of people on the basis of a faulty IT system and , as mentioned, that had NHS trusts issuing blanket "do not resuscitate" orders on people with disabilities or the elderly without any individual assessment or expression of wishes. That's exactly why I think it's really important to try and build robust safeguards in now and it needs to be in the context of an improving NHS and reform of social care (and palliative care).

I don't think popular support matters on this sort of issue. I think it's the sort of issue that's susceptible to Tony Blair's 3 second, 30 second, 3 minute conversation rule. But also I don't think there's ever been a poll on the subject that doesn't show majority support for bringing back the death penalty which I oppose absolutely on fully moral grounds (unlike assisted dying which I don't think is morally impossible).