Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[OttoVonBismarck]

That just seems kind of nuts to me - electing someone to a Parliament whose position is that the Parliament should not even exist.

Pure obstructionism, I guess.

I suppose the rest of the EU Parliament just ignores them?

How do you make deals when some 20-30% of the people you need to deal with are there to simply throw wrenches into the works?

Not that different from Ted Cruz, who is in the Senate but spends all his time talking about how the Federal legislature and government are the worst thing in history.

[Iormlund]

Why would the EU agree to a compromise?

Because if Switzerland just dumps all their treaties out of some kind of Constitutional obligation wouldn't that, you know, be bad for everybody else?

The Single Market rests on the Four Freedoms. Their integrity is well worth sacrificing the Swiss economy, especially since it would be self-sacrifice.

[Berkut]

That just seems kind of nuts to me - electing someone to a Parliament whose position is that the Parliament should not even exist.

Pure obstructionism, I guess.

I suppose the rest of the EU Parliament just ignores them?

How do you make deals when some 20-30% of the people you need to deal with are there to simply throw wrenches into the works?

Not that different from Ted Cruz, who is in the Senate but spends all his time talking about how the Federal legislature and government are the worst thing in history.

Similar, but pretty different. Cruz doesn't believe that the Senate should not even exist, or that Texas ought to secede from the Union.

If he did feel that way, he should resign from the Senate, since he could not possibly serve his function in good faith.

[OttoVonBismarck]

The grassroots members probably still like him. It's just his fellow parliamentarians that hate thim.

Which ultimately will probably mean there's a fracturing of Labour--maybe not permanently, but just for a time. If a huge portion of Labour MPs absolutely oppose him, but cannot beat him in a leadership election, it's not inconceivable they'd refuse to actually back him for PM in the commons, in which case that group of MPs would have to create a new party with some new name and their own proposed PM. I think structurally the easiest way to do this would be for the Labour MPs unhappy with Corbyn to essentially join the Lib Dems, if they actually try to make a new party then it's a repeat of the last Labour split, the splitters create the SDP which was destroyed in the polls because FPTP shatters parties like that, and Labour was out of power for a generation.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Although I think it's possible Corbyn will be ineligible in the next leadership election, I guess the Labour party general secretary (Iain McNicol) gets to rule on whether the 20% rule applies to the incumbent. If he does, then 20% of sitting Labour MPs would have to endorse Corbyn (same as for any challenger) for him to appear on the ballot. His support is so horrific among actual MPs, he may not meet this threshold. If that happens the establishment Labour gets to keep the party machinery--but it likely doesn't avert a split. Corbyn and all his £3 followers could very well split off and form their own party in rage as a response to that.

If Corbyn manages to get 20% then he'd likely win another leadership election; in which case the establishment will quite possibly split.

So there's a real, genuine chance Labor splits as a party in the coming 12 months.

[The Brain]

I don't get what's weird about anti-EU people being in the EU parliament. Seems like a natural place to be.

[alfred russel]

If he did feel that way, he should resign from the Senate, since he could not possibly serve his function in good faith.

What does good faith mean? What if he ran on a platform of being obstructionist to undermine the institution as he doesn't believe it should exist (or at least include Texas)?

[Jacob]

Although I think it's possible Corbyn will be ineligible in the next leadership election, I guess the Labour party general secretary (Iain McNicol) gets to rule on whether the 20% rule applies to the incumbent. If he does, then 20% of sitting Labour MPs would have to endorse Corbyn (same as for any challenger) for him to appear on the ballot. His support is so horrific among actual MPs, he may not meet this threshold. If that happens the establishment Labour gets to keep the party machinery--but it likely doesn't avert a split. Corbyn and all his £3 followers could very well split off and form their own party in rage as a response to that.

If Corbyn manages to get 20% then he'd likely win another leadership election; in which case the establishment will quite possibly split.

So there's a real, genuine chance Labor splits as a party in the coming 12 months.

Yeah, it's quite the show. At the same time the Tories will have their own leadership struggle at a time where they have not conclusively settled their internal issues with the EU.

[Zanza]

There is a perfect 30 year old scene from "Yes, Minister" about people like Farage and why they are in the European Parliament:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37iHSwA1SwE

[Valmy]

There is a perfect 30 year old scene from "Yes, Minister" about people like Farage and why they are in the European Parliament:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37iHSwA1SwE

Farage is not cynically trying to diplomatically undermine the EU at all. That is what the Remain crowd is trying to do.

[Berkut]

If he did feel that way, he should resign from the Senate, since he could not possibly serve his function in good faith.

What does good faith mean? What if he ran on a platform of being obstructionist to undermine the institution as he doesn't believe it should exist (or at least include Texas)?

Good faith means that you are there to fulfill the obligations of the job.

If you do not think the US Senate should exist, then you have no business being part of the US Senate. Granted, we have an electoral system, so if you get elected, so be it, but if there is an electorate out there electing people under the promise of them acting not in good faith, then I suggest there is a problem with your system and the support for that system that goes well beyond the particulars.

Which is apparently what we have here - the EU is so hated among a lot of the people who have a say in it and that is presumably represents that a huge minority of the people charged with administering it are actually elected to destroy it.

This is NOT the same as the Tea Party in the US. They might want to have a smaller federal government, but they aren't arguing that the federal government (including the constitutional entities themselves) ought to be destroyed.

[viper37]

Khan has said immigrants are welcome in London.
I've long wondered whether some sort of devolution of handing work visas could work.
Let London and other places that want migrants have them.
Let places like the north stew in their own juices that they can't blame imaginary immigrants for everything anymore.

A problem could arise if London needs workers, but they can not afford to live there and must live a little outside the city. Who hands what, then?

[alfred russel]

Good faith means that you are there to fulfill the obligations of the job.

If you do not think the US Senate should exist, then you have no business being part of the US Senate. Granted, we have an electoral system, so if you get elected, so be it, but if there is an electorate out there electing people under the promise of them acting not in good faith, then I suggest there is a problem with your system and the support for that system that goes well beyond the particulars.

Which is apparently what we have here - the EU is so hated among a lot of the people who have a say in it and that is presumably represents that a huge minority of the people charged with administering it are actually elected to destroy it.

This is NOT the same as the Tea Party in the US. They might want to have a smaller federal government, but they aren't arguing that the federal government (including the constitutional entities themselves) ought to be destroyed.

And thus the problem with increasing the democratic legitimacy of the EU.

The UK may be more euro skeptic than the average EU member state, but it isn't a total outlier. And the party that got the most votes and the most seats in the last EU election was UKIP (ahead of labour, the tories, and the lib dems).

[Berkut]

Good faith means that you are there to fulfill the obligations of the job.

If you do not think the US Senate should exist, then you have no business being part of the US Senate. Granted, we have an electoral system, so if you get elected, so be it, but if there is an electorate out there electing people under the promise of them acting not in good faith, then I suggest there is a problem with your system and the support for that system that goes well beyond the particulars.

Which is apparently what we have here - the EU is so hated among a lot of the people who have a say in it and that is presumably represents that a huge minority of the people charged with administering it are actually elected to destroy it.

This is NOT the same as the Tea Party in the US. They might want to have a smaller federal government, but they aren't arguing that the federal government (including the constitutional entities themselves) ought to be destroyed.

And thus the problem with increasing the democratic legitimacy of the EU.

The UK may be more euro skeptic than the average EU member state, but it isn't a total outlier. And the party that got the most votes and the most seats in the last EU election was UKIP (ahead of labour, the tories, and the lib dems).

Of course, that is also a result of the FPtP system though. Absent that, UKIP gets very little representation, right?

Seems nuts to me that they can be the majority party representing the UK in the EU, while not being able to secure actual representation in the UK itself...

What a fucking mess.

[Tamas]

IIRC its the other way around. If the UK had a national election law that took amount of votes into actual consideration UKIP would be a sizeable force in the commons