What is it with you and rules, man ?! There’s a strict process and mounds of established precedents dealing with this situation. We’re supposed to double down on our respective mistakes and fling growing contempt and snark at each other under a gradually thinning veneer of civility until one of us gets a warning. You can’t just apologize when you’re wrong, for fuck’s sake. That’s not how we DO things.
Apology begrudgingly accepted, but come on.
Leo Varadkar pointed out that might actually require a referendum in Ireland to allow a postponement of EU elections in the UK
Good debate about Brexit:
Yes, well, that’s not what’s happening. The EU vessel has been sitting and waiting for 2 years to begin rescue ops, but the UK people insist on bringing their baggage along.
Also they insist the EU rescue boats wait to begin their operations so the stranded UK passengers can figure out (1) if they want to be rescued at all and (2) if so, dictate how the rescue is to proceed.
And then complain vociferously when told they are bonkers for making such ridiculous demands in their situation.
Brit Dopers: do you think there’s any realistic chance that this could fracture the party structure? It seems to me from afar that the problem in the Commons is that there are divisions in both the Conservative and the Labour parties on how to handle Brexit, and that is contributing significantly to the political paralysis. In particular, May is hampered by the strong Brexit wing of her own party, which I understand has been voting against the withdrawal agreement?
One theoretical possibility is that the party structure itself may fracture on the Brexit issue, because it is the single most important issue in British politics today, leading to parties organized on pro- and anti- Brexit principles. Are the Brexit divisions in either party strong enough to make that a possibility?
I note that there are now calls starting for a national unity government, which is along those lines, but perhaps more temporary than an outright party fracture.
(And as an aside, this whole episode illustrates the folly of the new confidence measures that were introduced as part of the fixed election dates. When a government suffers the largest defeat in the Commons in British history, on a key matter, it should be out on its ear. Instead, the new confidence measures allow party members to vote against their own government’s plan, secure in the knowledge that they stay in power. If the Government can’t deliver, it should be out and someone else be given the opportunity to try to fix the problem.)
I think it was an Economist article that said that politics today are less aligned according to capitalism/socialism lines and more along closed society/open society lines. It is, in a way, a continuation of Sparta vs Athens.
I would expect that pro-Brexit members of Labour and the Tories would doggedly hang on to party organization so there might have to be a third party. The Lib Dems would be in good place to gather the open society votes if they hadn’t apparently lost a lot of goodwill in their coalition government with the Tories. I’m not sure how whatever they did makes them worse than the current Labour and Tory parties.
Canadian politics that’s relevant: Quebec’s nationalist Parti Quebecois also went the chauvinist xenophobic way these last few years and it went disastrously for them. They’re at risk of not being a party anymore. So don’t think that a Labour or Tory party with the Leave leftovers couldn’t be defeated.
It has never been my understanding that the terms “EEC” and “EU” are, or were ever intended to be, interchangeable.
Could someone be good enough to educate me on the point? When exactly did the EU come into existence? ISTM that THAT is the point at which the “founding members” can be listed.
On the subject of taking away already-reallocated seats in the MEP, shall we not presume that immediate revocation of A50 would NOT resolve that issue?
How long ago were the seats reallocated?
Could the current UK delegation not be placed in a “penalty box” until the 2024 elections, with perhaps the right to join debates (and perhaps even propose legislation) but not to vote?
The official European Union website refers to the change from “European Economic Community” to the “European Union” as a “name change” (albeit one that reflects the evolution of a “purely economic union” into “an organization spanning policy areas, from climate, environment and health to external relations and security, justice and migration”). The brief history of the EU on their website talks about the “European Union” and “EU” as dating back to 1950 and the formation of the European Coal and Steel Community.
We Americans always date the founding of the United States to July 4, 1776, even though we’re under a completely different constitution (and that constitution has seen some very significant amendments since its adoption).
Ta. 
I think the EU began being called EU after the Maastricht treaty in '93. I see EEC as essentially the same organisation, perhaps a bit looser in the old days.
The latest treaty is the Lisbon treaty, when article 50 came to be, and we got a president. I think it is from 2009, that may be the time you are looking for. Then all members of the EU, except Croatia (2013), are founders.
It’s an interesting question whether it is a new organisation after each treaty, after all it’s the same members before and after the new treaty.
I’m sure that the 6 original signers of the treaty of Rome believe they are the founders.
The Lib Dems sound good in theory, but they have a long record of being weak and useless… with a series of problem leaders.
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Jeremy Thorpe (Liberal Party leader 1967-1976) - attempted murder of gay prostitute with whom he had an ongoing relationship.
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Cyril Smith (Lib, Lib-Dem MP 1972-1992) - long-term serial child abuser, died before being brought to justice. Defended use of asbestos, owned shares in asbestos company.
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David Steel (Lib, Lib-Dem leader 1976-1988) - discussed child abuse allegations with Cyril Smith in 1979, and says he concluded the allegations were true, but did nothing about it. Later recommended him for a knighthood. Currently in the House of Lords and still doesn’t think he did anything wrong.
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Charles Kennedy (Leader 1999–2006) - resigned due to serious problems with alcoholism.
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Nick Clegg (Leader 2007–2015) - pact with Conservatives, supported austerity, discarded his principles, broke his promises. Currently earning a fat salary as an executive at Facebook.
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Tim Farron (Leader 2015–2017) - fundamentalist Christian, forced to resign because he believes homosexuality is a sin.
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Vince Cable (2017 - present) - decent, well-meaning, intelligent… but ineffectual.
There’s a reason that the MPs who left Labour and the Tories recently to form a new party didn’t join the Lib-Dems.
It’s not really my area of expertise (it should kinda be, but I’ve evidently been slacking on that front) ; but my understanding of the terms is that the EEC refers to the original, strictly economic partnership/free trade/single currency/free movement of persons & capital vision of our international partnership while the EU includes the further political, social and cultural aspects introduced in later treaties that implemented mutual defence, a common foreign policy, the ECJ & tighter police cooperation between countries, equivalid diplomas & standardized college credits, copyrights & regulations, etc…
As for founding members, it’s a bit hazier. It all depends on where one sets the start of “True Europe”, innit ? Technically the EU only got itself a constitution in 2004, but of course a number of treaties and institutions pre-date it.
For myself, I’ve sort of reflexively internalized the 12 of the 1980s EEC as “the founders”, because that’s the structure that existed or was in the process of forming when I was growing up and taught about Europe in school ; and because those are the ones who signed the Maastricht treaty that, to me at least, really gave Europe a tangible political reality (if only because that’s when we ditched the Franc). Also possibly because there always seems to me to have been a sort of unspoken axiom in French newspapers that those 12 were the “real” or the “core” of the Union, while later joiners were of lesser value, motivated to join due to baser considerations etc… We were into Europe before it became mainstream, if you will :). I know it’s completely silly when examined (or at least, I just now realized it), and of course the 12 don’t have any more or fewer rights or powers than the other EU countries do… but I still reckon that’s the French zeitgeist/cultural osmosis, at least for my generation.
That’s an impressive amount of dysfunction. Any ideas as to why Lib Dem leaders would tend to be so messed up?
Thorpe was acquitted, and there’s no real likelihood that he was involved in the alleged conspiracy to murder Norman Scott. That he was gay was probably scandalous enough at the time, and his relationship with Scott started while homosexuality was illegal.
Arguably there were six “founding members” of (what became the) EU: Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and West Germany. These are the countries that signed the Treaty of Rome in 1957 (and that had formed the European Coal and Steel Community in 1951).
(In other words, kaylasdad99: It’s complicated.)
Yes, I would think so. If the UK stays in, presumably the EU would go back to the current allocation.
Don’t know.
I would think highly doubtful. That would be a major change to the composition of the Parliament, and it would deprive the U.K. Citizens of their right to vote in EU elections, if the U.K. is still a member of the EU.
The EU isn’t a club with flexible rules. It’s created by international treaties which set out binding rules for all the member states. Changing those treaties can only be done by ratification of each country.
nm
It seems like both hard Brexiters and Remainers are willing to accept that and then draw different conclusions from that. Soft Brexiters are the ones who keep fooling themselves into thinking that you can cherry-pick the parts you want. If EU members were generally allowed to do that, it would be like an HOA, fraternity or condominium building where everything is optional. I don’t know if these are considered fighting words, but they remind me of people who go in the 12-items-or-fewer checkout aisle and think themselves cheeky and clever for sneaking in a few extra items.
So how does that affect all of the countries that have already made their election preparations with the presumption that they’re going to have x more members than in 2014?
It seems to me that if A50 is revoked, somebody is getting jerked around. Inflexible rules or no, that really ought to be the ones who caused a jerking around situation to exist (that’s the UK, for those of you playing at home).