Well, there is a point at which the analogy can’t hold, yes. The Commission collectively is the equivalent to the POTUS (although it’s more akin to the Civil Service leadership than any explicitly political function), and the Commission has British Commissioners on it. And the Commission’s actions and instructions are ratified by an elected Parliament, with British MEPs, and a Council of Ministers, with British ministers on it, and a European Council, with the British PM on it, that sets the EU’s political agenda. And every EU law is reviewed by the British Parliament and has a chance to query the logic behind each proposal both to the Government and directly to the Commission. So it is British people telling the British what to do.
So we are back to where I came in: the supply chain is now doing extra stockpiling to deal with expected increases in processing time, and:
“Observing from far away, I have no reason to expect shortages of drugs. Drug supply is already disjointed, requiring local storage to manage supply irregularities. Having stuff take an extra week or month at the border is no different from having stuff take an extra week or year in the supply chain for some other reason.”
But we’ve had this comment:
… which (from this distance) seem strange: you don’t normally stop prescribing drugs because of forecast supply chain disruptions unless the drug is expected to be off-line for more than the claimed storage life. You don’t normally require new drugs or new licensing because of supply chain disruptions. If this is just what might happen if something insane happens, then that looks like fear mongering ???
Your problem, I think, is that while this may be your motivation for voting to Leave, it is not the movation of others who voted Leave. 52% of those who voted voted to leave, but they did so for a wide variety of reasons. There is not, and there never was, a consensus among Leave voters as to why the UK is leaving the EU, what it hopes to acheive by doing so. And since only 52% voted to leave at all, there is definitely no majority among the population as a whole in support of any particular outcome of leaving that might be postulated or offered.
This matters, because the Brexit you want depends on the reason you want Brexit.
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If your objection to the EU is “ever closer union” and/or the euro, then the solution is a Brexit in which the UK joins the EEA, participates in the single market, forms a Customs Union with the EU.
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If your objection to the EU is that it’s fundamentally undemocratic, then you can’t support joining the EEA. You want a free trade agreement, nothing more. This is probably also where you end up if your objection to the EU is all them foreigners taking our jobs and our women.
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If your objection to the EU involves the word “sovereignty”, it’s impossible to say what kind of Brexit will suit you. Sovereignty is a sliding scale, and every single international agreement a country makes is simultaneously an exercise of its sovereignty and a (voluntary) limitation of that sovereignty. Until you can identify the degree of sovereignty that you regard as an irreducible minimum, you can’t frame a Brexit that will provide it.
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Finally what if what you want is for the UK to do better economically? There are three views here. The majority opinion is that you should favour no Brexit at all. There’s a minority opinion which holds that the way forward is to abolish all tariffs and deregulate unilaterally. The theory is that the UK will lose its agriculture and manufacturing industries more or less completely, but will sell lots of services and so (after a fairly rough transition) will be OK. This is quite a daring opinion. it implies no trade deal at all with the EU (or with anyone else). Finally, there’s an opinion that is basically held by one person that the way forward is lots of clever trade deals with as many countries as possible. The one person is Liam Fox and this view is not so much daring as insane.
This is the reason why the UK government’s engagement with the whole Brexit process has been such a shambolic parade of ineptitude and incompetence; they do not who what their object is. They do not know what leave is for, and therefore they are unable to articulate coherent and consistent proposals for how Brexit should proceed, or to respond coherently and consistently to proposals emanating from the EU.
Youre response to this - no offence - is just to squeeze your eyes tightly shut and assume as hard as you can that Brexit will unfold in the way you want. You don’t want it to impede the UK’s international trade in any way, so you assume - in defiance of all common sense - that it won’t. But this, as I say, is wishful thinking. There is no reason to assume that Brexit will unfold in a way that you want, rather than in a way that any other Leave voter might want, or in a largely random and uncontrolled way, or - and this is what is actually most likely to happen - in the way the EU wants, since the EU actually knows what it wants, has considerable influence over the course of events, and is exerting that influence to advance the outcomes that it desires.
Which is why your commitment to vote Leave again if there is a second referendum is, I suggest, a little unwise. The UK needs to learn from the errors already made. It was a mistake to decide, by the 2016 referendum, to leave the EU without first developing a consensus about what the purpose of leaving was. It was a further mistake actually to commence the leaving process still without having developed a consensus as to the purpose, plus a strategy for acheiving the purpose. These mistakes are probably irrecoverable at this point but, if there is a further referendum, it would be a great shame to repeat them. You should only vote for Brexit if there’s a concrete proposal as to what that Brexit is, and it’s the Brexit that you want.
I could see if there be an issue for products with only UK plug, but manufacturers almost always sell those with adopters.
It doesn’t seem to be a carefully made argument.
Can you quantify sovereignty? I’d like to patent a my new ‘sovereigntons’. Brexit can cost between nine and fifty-six sovereigntons.
I think there’s a competing methodology that uses Farages.
UDS, thank you for the excellent, insightful post without the snark. All I can say is that it is currently not “my” problem as such, it is Theresa May’s problem, and I still think it is a circle that can be squared. So all we really can do is close our eyes and hope at this stage.
Now, if there is indeed a second referendum, it is highly unlikely it will pose the same question as before (that would be idiotic beyond words). It will be more detailed and with more options. I would weigh up those options, being much better informed on the issues than I was three years ago, not least thanks to this thread. But such a referendum would probably be a bad idea as it would likely result in an even less clear mandate than the last one provided.
Oh jeez, DC, you slag off Ramira, but some of your posts have me smacking my forehead. Hard. To the point of concussion, and triple-strength aspirin. I hope you find the posts here informative, not to say instructional. And look for some info from other than Leave sources. Puhleez.
I can’t get this system to cut and paste quotes, so this is without any. UDS said that the leavers had many reasons why they voted so,. Not infrequently. it was s seen as a way of flipping the bird at Cameron, And the faceless bureaucrats in Brussels. Or a bunch of fishermen in, I think, the Shetlands, who expressed their displeasure at the EU for having been caught infringing fishing regulations.
Quote from a UK friend: “You get the same sort of responses in Catalonia as among the Brexit crowd. All emotion, no logic, no facts.” In short: you can’t trust Joe Public when it concerns matters of great importance, but somehow they still have to be put through in a democratic way." The voters must clearly understand that they must vote on the issue - and nothing else - in a referendum. The Swiss know this, but it took a while.
This is something which is difficult to analyze and only you can, but I wonder how much of your problem with Ramira isn’t snark but grammar. To me she’s clearly translating from a language which has a True Impersonal (something English doesn’t have), which in her case I understand to be French; to you the resulting grammar is likely to sound as if she’s giving herself airs. To me she sounds irritated; to you she sounds like a Wodehouse Aunt Agatha’s or an Agatha Christie’s Monsieur Poirot version of irritated.
Certainly informative, as I have acknowledged several times including in the post you quoted. Instructional is taking it a bit far - not many people enjoy being told their considered opinion is simply a load of nonsense and there is only one true path. However, as I have also acknowledged, this thread has helped me rethink some of my ill-considered opinions, and I thank everyone who has done that.
I am yet to regret my vote but am prepared to do so (and apologise for it - much good that may do, I know but hindsight is a wonderful thing) if Brexit is the complete disaster that the doom-mongers are predicting. Indeed, I said that (not on this forum) immediately after the vote, but it will be at least 2 or 3 more years before a proper determination can be made.
Also, I don’t get my opinions from “Leave sources” (whatever they may be - The Daily Express perhaps? The Daily Mail seems to have softened considerably since its recent change of editor but I still wouldn’t trust it as far as I could throw a copy, nor pay any money for it. The only newspaper I read regularly is Private Eye, which I think is actually pretty even-handed but probably leans Remain slightly). I take in information from anywhere and everywhere and can usually spot propaganda when I see it. In other words, I’m perfectly capable of coming to conclusions you disagree with all by myself, thank you.
Since you mention it, I have found her style a bit hard to read, but I’m certainly not criticising that, since it would take me about another 5 years of solid study to come close to being able to have this discussion in any language other than English. As usual I am embarrassed by my (and most native English speakers’) relative lack of skill in this area. So I look past that, and still find myself irritated by her irritation, whereas I have not found this from other posters. It could well be a linguistic thing, but there also seems to be an undercurrent of certainty that I feel is misplaced. Then again, I guess that applies to some other posters too. Sadly I haven’t read enough Wodehouse or Christie to comment on the specific examples - they’re still on my “to read” list.
There’s a bit more to it that that.
Yes, voters shoudl vote on the issue, but it’s easier for them to do this if an issue is actually put before them. So how you frame and conduct the referendum matters.
Contrast the Brext Ref with the Scottish Indyref. The proponents of Scottish independence - the Scottish government - published a detailed proposal for indepencence, embodied in a white paper describing in some details their policies for an independent Scotland, plus a draft interim constitution for an independent Scotland. They couldn’t, of course, guarantee that they would be able to deliver that programme - the transition to independence would have to be negotiated, plus Scottish political institutions and processes would continue to operate and people might use them to alter or oppose the programme - but at least a vote in the referendum was a vote for a clear programme, set out in some detail, and would confer a strong mandate to pursue that programme.
Whereas the Brexit referendum just asked a very open question - shall the UK leave the EU? - with no detail at all about what that might look like. People could vote agains EU membership but not for any particular externan relationship with the EU. So the referendum outcome confers an equally strong mandate for (a) having absolutely no relationship with the EU, like North Korea, and (b) having an extremely close relationship with the EU, like Norway, and (c) anything in between. But you can’t say that the people have actually voted by a majority for any of these things; in fact it’s pretty certain that none of them commands majority support. Ironically, the relationship with the EU which (based on the 2016 result) has the best chance of building commanding majority support is actually full membership, but it’s ruled out by the referendum result). Meanwhile each leave voter believes that the referendum conferred a mandate for the Brexit that he or she wanted - a Brexit that stops immigration, or a Brexit that does not disrupt trade, or a Brexit that gives the UK the rights or membership but not the obligations, or whatever.
The lesson, I think, is that a referendum has to offer the voters a choice between two (or more) options, but not a choice between (a) the status quo and (b) not the status quo, but an unspecified something else. If the referendum isn’t framed that way, no amount of exhorting voters to “vote on the issues” is going to solve the problem.
It need not. A referendum presenting a menu of positive options (i.e. statements about what is to happen, not about what is not) which voters rank in order of preference can reliably identify the option which commands the broadest assent.
I think the objections to holding a referendum are political, and are at least partly self-serving - those who think their chances of getting the outcome they want are maximised by not holding a second referendum will oppose holding one; those who think the reverse will support holding one.
But there’s another objection, which is that what the present episode shows is that the British people have no clear understanding of what referndums are for and have an entirely unrealistic expectation of what referendums can acheive, and that the British constitution doesn’t have a clear space for refernedums, or conventions about how to conduct them. I think all of these issues really need to be sorted out, and a consensus developed, before the British consider holding a referendum on any subject.
I can understand the frustration of people who try engaging with you.
You only gave a couple of concrete examples of what you didn’t like about the EU, and then when you were rebutted on one of them, you didn’t bother to look at the article, but came out seeming attacking on the other poster and not the addressing the issue.
The linked article on EODR addresses your complaint and shows how it’s a nonissue. Basically takes almost no resources to implement and that there are no fines for not following it. The article takes 5 minutes to read.
But you don’t engage on it.
I’m not sure that attacking people who are frustrated with you is winning anyone over.
And for many of us, Brexit is an enormous source of irritation by itself.
The contract I just signed with a British agency with which I’ve worked before is twice as long as it used to be. My payments will still be processed by the nice lady in London, but the tax code is now German, but in case of dispute the courts of reference are those of England and Wales. That’s just a tiny drop in a sea of reorganizations going on through whole sectors. But people who are in favor of Brexit, Catexit, Frenxit or whatever dismiss those as “being nothing” or “affecting the elites”. Ah, ok, so since I make more than you do it’s ok that my agents (who don’t make more than you do) now need to go through the laws of two different countries to generate a contract, when previously it was only the one in which they live. Gotcha.
The article is the neutral analysis of a well respected English law firm. Bird & Bird.
It completely refutes his assertions for his concerns (or the ad hoc additions that seem to be the pure goal post shifting rather than admitting a non factual assertions)
It is also possible to read the actual regulation in English (here - it is not hard to read in fact, in the ordinary English), of which here describing the approach:
And this is not to take a position on if the EU platform works well or not, only that the supposed problem is not factually supported, that there is the clear economic and legal approach for lower cost efficiency rationale, and the actual burden is quite limited - for the online sales which logically can ont be said to be restrictable to a single country within the Customs Union zone, and to assist in the consumers being able to confidentelly buy across the EU - as already noted it would be more bureaucracy to have national opt outs which one would then have to control as the obvious source of anti-consumer abuse.
Again a Bird & Bird summary for the actual requirements
Encore, without saying the EU plateforme works well or not, it seems clear that supposed problem asserted was like what seems to be the majority of the Brexiter assertios about the EU problems based on the third hand end-of-the-pub or the tabloid misinformation and/or exaggeration.
But pointing the factual problems via the objective technical sources and lack of the basis, it is insulting and being overly certain of “one path” or something.
The nuances of international trade are not the point for supporters of Brexit. It is more about sticking two fingers up to Brussels or the entitled politicians in Westminster. The vote gave anyone who felt left behind by the modern economy an opportunity to register a loud protest. The EU is simply an convenient whipping boy that can be punished without consequence. That had been the attitude towards the EU for many years and that could be clearly seen by the regular election of UKIP members to the EU Parliament who did little to engage the EU except to cast insults and claim expenses.
Sadly, while this message was sent loud and clear, the task of re-negotiating the past four decades of trade agreements between the UK and rest of the world will consume politicians and strain the economy for the next decade. All the big issues in the UK - education, healthcare, housing, social care, law and order, etc. Attention to these matters will be sorely diminished and this burden will fall on many poorer Brexit voters to bear.
The lesson to draw from this is that there is a frustrated section on the population that feels their concerns are under represented by the political system. It will manifest itself in different ways in different countries. The Trumpists in the US, the Brexiteers in the UK, The yellow jackets in France and the populist politicians in Italy, Hungary and other countries.
I am guessing that the dramatic changes to the economies of these countries is the reason for this. But clearly, the political systems need to catch up, if they ever manage to get on top of the disruptive protests that dominate current politics.
Brexit in the UK seems to be the most serious case at the moment, with lots of long term economic consequences with no benefit. However, whether the US manages to weather the Trump administration without being led into some awful disaster, that remains to be seen.
Fair enough, I can agree with all of that.
I have expressed frustration with precisely one poster, I don’t think “attacking people” is really fair. And apparently unlike many others, I don’t particularly care about winning anyone over, I am simply offended by the underlying insinuation that anyone who voted for Brexit must be a fool who has been hoodwinked by the nasty tabloids. Clearly I am not doing a very good job of refuting that either, but there we go - I’m much less bothered by it all than everyone else seems to be.
Let’s take it back a step - the original assertion I was responding to was that Brexiters cannot point to any particular thing they dislike about the EU. I therefore refuted this by mentioning two examples from my own personal experience. Those are not the only reasons I voted to Leave, but that wasn’t the debate.
On the EODR, I still disagree with your analysis. “Almost no resources” is still too much for something that is not only unnecessary but actively unhelpful to consumers in many contexts.
Oh, and “there are no fines for not following it” - great, we’ll not bother with laws where there are no explicit penalties, then? Just like customs and border checks, for example? But as we have already established, just because there isn’t a fine for something doesn’t mean it’s OK to do it. Yes, I know I am using an example that is the opposite of what I stated earlier in the thread, that’s because I’ve had my mind changed on the issue.
I don’t know why you keep highlighting the country of the law firm - what has that got to do with anything? Any firm specialising in EU laws should be able to analyse them. I can only assume that this is a backhanded insult along the lines of people voting for Brexit must necessarily be racist, or at least jingoistic.
OK, I have read it and I am glad I did because it actually increases my concerns about the system. Firstly, it doesn’t seem to indicate any possibility of opting out of the regulation where it is unnecessary to have it, which is the focus of my original complaint (unless you mean the above assertion that there is no penalty for non-compliance). Secondly, it looks like it is trivially easy for the business being complained about to effectively opt out of taking part, without any problems, at every stage. So if the point of this rule is to give consumers more rights, I would say it clearly fails.
I agree it is understandable but perhaps the fact you describe this as “ordinary English” gives us more clues as to the origin of your writing style than the grammar of your native language.
You keep asserting it is "actively unhelpful but show no understanding of what the ODR does and make no practical reference . Instead you simply assert. (how the online reference for the online sales platforms without the hard obligations can be unhelpful for the smoothing of the online consumer goods sales trade within the EU completely escapes rational analysis)
The regulation simply requires the consumer facing notice of the ability to use the referral plateform for the traders who are doing business on-line selling to consumers and the ability of the consumers to clearly be able to contact and use an ADR mechanism (indeed even in the very home country of the trader! oh dear!).
Oh my god the horror of the Brussels commissar, this horrid burden of providing to the consumer the reference on the website or the sales Appi tool a link-access to the less expensive Alternative Dispute Resolution…
Why because the English law firm based in London has the **understanding and the mastery of your UK interpretation of the EU regulation and the UK law and regulation framework ** - since of course there is no such thing as a direct application of an EU regulation, but has to be transmited to the UK regulation via the Uk (or the other domestic law - if not UK - thus there is indeed in the regulation itself mention of this).
Thus the English reference by the well respected English law firm specialist in the commercial law is the most relevant and the useful of the references. Better than a non English reference that will not master the English regualtion and better than the Tabloid or the Pub information.
I am sorry that like the earlier non factual magical thinking about the international trade law and regulation, you do not understand this. So make bizarre assumptions. No wonder there is so much offendedness.
It has already been covered why “opting out” for the online consumer facing information makes no sense if you are not putting up a Great English Wall of Internet (and of course are staying in the EU)…
(it seems you have abandoned the other ad hoc goal shifting- although the complete incoherence )
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… So now you have galloped off to a new set of shifted goal posts - in general logical incoherence with the other complaints.
Fine it is understood no objective facts are of any utility. All is only to fit into the existing conclusion…
She’s mentioned it, not highlighted it. She searched for information from a British law firm because an analysis from a French or Spanish firm, while perfectly correct, would
- most likely have been in a language you don’t understand, and
- have been 100% sure to care about how the regulation affects, respectively, persons in France and Spain rather than about how it affects those in the UK.
These two reasons are also why the country of the law firm is relevant. That you don’t understand this isn’t just frustrating, it’s “I’m not pulling my hairs out because they’re so short it’s impossible” levels of frustrating: you don’t understand it, not because it’s difficult to understand, but because rather than think “why has she provided information specifically from an English firm and not one from any other country”, you’ve jumped directly into “she is insulting me by using information from an English law firm and not one from any other country! How dare she!” She’s going out of the way to be helpful, you find this insulting. UK-EU relations in a nutshell.
Honestly, I think Brexit is going very well. The Tories are in disarray, which can only be good for the nation. The vindictive nature of the EU is on display for all to see. People are getting jobs they wouldn’t previously have got. Migration is going well. And that’s all before Brexit has even happened.
I was at a recruitment event not too long ago, and one of the companies were getting lip from the natives for not hiring people who aren’t Polish. One of the people they had sent to the event was Polish. But now they say they’re hiring normal people because they can’t be sure of their source of imported labour.
Obviously it would be nice if the government had spent the last couple of years coming up with a plan, setting up trade deals with foreign nations, that sort of thing, but I’ll settle for No Deal.