Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[mongers]

Well I'm popping into town this weekend, so I'll try and swing by Hyde Park and do some debating at Speakers' Corner*, see if 'we' can have a reasoned debate about the Referendum without too much of the fear and hate seen recently.

Maybe that would be a fitting modest tribute to the slain MP ?   



* I'll need to find someone I know, who'll lend me their step ladder.

[Tamas]

The Internet has made speaker's corner grossly obsolete

[Sheilbh]

There is apparently also a flotilla of pro-remain boats.

Could we have a naval battle plz?!

With "reds" vs. "blue"?

As promised:

[mongers]

The Internet has made speaker's corner grossly obsolete

Thus speaks the voice of ignorance.

[Richard Hakluyt]

Looks like Geldof may have succeeded in crossing Farage's T; but Farage, understanding the bravery and enterprise of his true blue British sailors, broke through and gave Johnny Foreigner a damn good thrashing 

[Sheilbh]

I saw the Momentum Flotilla and immediately assumed they'd be socialist Incan torpedo boats

[Admiral Yi]

Blue needs to shape up that formation.

[celedhring]

Rule, Britannia! rule the waves,
Britons never will be slaves 

[Sheilbh]

When you (Richard Hakluyt, Sheilbh) write that the EU must be reformed, what do you have in mind as potential changes?

Significantly more democracy, transparency and accountability - it's absurd that the Parliament still can't fire an individual Commissioner.

Also some progress on the liberalisation of free movement of services - first proposed by the Commission in 1997 - would be nice.

Personally I'd also get rid of the Charter of Fundamental Rights. I'm really not sure having two competing human rights courts engaged in jurisdictional dick waving is a great thing. The CJEU especially is really bad at making judgements on CFR cases that don't refer at all to the 50 years of cases on a subject the ECtHR often has. In general, I don't know how, but I'd like to see the CJEU. They're a very political court and I think they have a bad habit of acting ultra vires.

Yeah but presently the European Parlaiment is just the dumping ground of politicians who need to leave the scene in their home countries for whatever reason. Maybe this would change if they had actual power to make changes and steal money and stuff.

The Commission is just a more concentrated version of what you've described. I mean maybe they're a higher calibre of politicians who need to leave their home countries but that's hardly inspiring

However, when it comes to economic policies: is this really true? I have my doubts, especially in a country like the UK. And even if not enough protection was done, would more protection actually help things on the long run?

Well I'm not sure what you're asking. What sort of things are you thinking of?

I think a lot's to do with status and how that relates to economics.

[Sheilbh]

By the by for those confident that 'more integration' won't be Europe's answer it is worth remember it's already the Five Presidents' Plan.

And Macron's comments yesterday:

"It's the end of an ultra-liberal Europe that has lost its political direction ... The European project cannot only be a system of abolishing rules." He said that, at the heart of the British debate, was a drive to correct the effect of ultra-liberal economic policies "that they [the British] pushed us into".

And the liberal bloc (UK, Scandis, Baltics, Dutch) + Germany are currently a blocking minority on most EU subjects. If you remove the UK then Germany, Scandis, Baltics and the Dutch aren't.

I'm not convinced the answer won't be more integration and more regulation.

[Josquius]

The Internet has made speaker's corner grossly obsolete

Like your mom.

[Tamas]

Should have known better than to suggest something the Brits have been doing for a hundred years might have become obsolete. 

[Sheilbh]

I beg your pardon?

[Valmy]

The British never throw anything away. Almost everybody lives in buildings built before WWII. Almost every political institution traces its roots back to something some German/Celtic tribesmen decided to do back in the Iron Age.

[Zanza]

Is there any precedent for a referendum picking an option that a majority of MPs disagrees with? Is it likely that they vote against their own convictions in that case? As this is not a referendum that directly creates a law, the House of Commons would still have to enact such a law to leave the EU, right?