That is, of course, a nonsensical and antidemocratic conception of "choice".
That is, of course, a nonsensical and antidemocratic conception of "choice".
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
So, does this mean the NHS can get the £438 million a week now?
I could have had class. I could have been a contender.
I could have been somebody. Instead of a bum
Which is what I am
I aim at the stars
But sometimes I hit London
Yes - and more. That has already been committed in full.Originally Posted by Ziggy Stardust
Why?
The ability to change your mind on something is a crucial element of "choice". The ratchet was one of the most antidemocratic features of the EU.
You seem to have missed that arbitration can be called in significantly faster than what's usual in trade agreements. For the next 5 years you won't really be free to use your freedoms.
Congratulations America
We will absolutely be free to do so, barring fishing which was a masterstroke of negotiations. Arbitration is really not something we are worried about - worst case there will be some post-arbitration tariffs that are capped by the arbitration - not exactly a major concern.
On all the major issues the UK has won an agreement to be recognised as a sovereign nation not bound to EU rules except for one in the next five and a half years: fishing.
It seems like the French (Macron and Barnier) got completely obsessed and bogged down in the threat to fishing and a line by line detail over fishing quotas for five years only while the Germans and British got on with resolving the rest of the concerns. Negotiating genius. Here's some fish for the French to play with while the grown ups worry about everything else.
Actually, I think the British government should charter regular eurostar trains for civil servants traveling to Brussels. You'll be negotiating so much about the technicalities of this treaty that you'll be missing the times where you knew what the rules were.
Congratulations America
Adequate information, and sufficient time for consideration—including scrutiny & debate—are essential elements of democracy as well as of free choice. I cannot pretend I've given my patients a meaningful choice between alternatives if I don't first ensure that they have the information they need to make an informed decision. If you have an election between Candidate A and Candidate B, but you don't know who they are or what they intend to do, would you consider that to be a democratic election? You appear to have a cargo cult view of democracy. But, like I said, we already knew you hold democracy in low regard from your bizarre reaction to Johnson & co's attempts to evade parliamentary scrutiny.
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
Well, maybe we shouldn't want them to properly examine the terms of surrender. We're going to have a lot of fun twisting them in knots over services. I think that some people in London forgot that sovereignty is great principle but not worth very much with a severe lack of authonomy.
Congratulations America
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Done. Comprehensive overwhelming majority in favour.
Third reading had an identical result, goes to the Lords now.
Last edited by RandBlade; 12-30-2020 at 01:58 PM.
And so the steady economic decline begins.
You can't say that. Well you can say that, but saying that means you don't believe De Pfeffel is just one step away from cornering the Market in Unicorns. And that makes you a Remoaner. And responsible for every bad outcome of anything for the following decades because of you Brexit couldn't be done properly innit ?
Congratulations America
When you give parliament only 1 day to review and only two options (this or no deal), it's hardly a surprise. Or democratic.
The only reason the negotiations were drawn out for so long was to ensure this was the case. It all could have been done months ago, giving businesses and our elected time to scrutinise and prepare.
But that's not Johnson Brexit Britain. It's pathetic.
Bollocks.
What's bollocks, exactly?
The fact that the basic, minimum expectation of Brexit passed through parliament given the condition (i.e. accept it now or no deal)? That's not surprising. Neither is it an achievement.
Let's also remember that Johnson has a history of sacking those that disagree with him. So again, not surprising this deal passed.
Is it bollocks that Johnson would prefer one day's scrutiny as opposed to, say, 3 months? Given his past actions in this arena I think it's reasonable to assume he did all he could to limit parliamentary scrutiny.
My opinion here is fair and grounded in precedent. You might not like it, but it's hardly "bollocks" as you so eloquently put it.
Last edited by gogobongopop; 12-31-2020 at 05:39 AM.
Has Liz signed the Terms of Surrender yet ?
Congratulations America
Truss? Yes I understand she voted for it.
It is bollocks because 3 months scrutiny was never feasible since there was never a chance of getting the EU to sign this deal 3 months ago. Both parties ran down the clock and only moved inch by inch gradually with movement coming at the end because it had to then, which is the only way these things ever can and ever do work. He doesn't share my views on Europe but Guy Verhofstadt last week summed it up well when he said "any compromise can only happen at the end, if you give more time to politicians they will take up all that time for talks".
Had the UK moved to where it ended up three months ago would the EU have reciprocated by moving to where it ended up? No, of course not. Barnier would have known he had three more months and if he thought the UK was desperate to get this wrapped up prematurely he would have stood firm to exercise that pressure. The response would have been a rather bland "the two sides remain far apart, talks continue" yadda yadda yadda.
As for Parliamentary scrutiny you and Aimless misunderstand the way these things work - and have always worked under our constitution. Indeed under most nations constitutions.
The legislature is not and never has been responsible for international negotiations. Our Parliamentary sovereignty has the ultimate decision in Parliament but splits off how that decision is made to three separate branches: the legislature which is the Commons (and Lords), the executive (the Government) and the professional Civil Service. In this domestic law is scrutinised and debated line by line and amended by the legislature - but international negotiations remains a Royal Prerogative, in other words a responsibility for the executive.
The executive sets the priority for international negotiations and the Civil Service (like Lord Frost and those working for him) carry out the negotiations. Then once the negotiations are done they are put before Parliament. If the agreement does not change domestic law then the agreement will be 'considered' by Parliament but it is signed under the Prerogative, since there is no change to domestic law then Parliament has no need to agree to it. If the agreement does change domestic law (which this one does) then Parliament can't amend the agreement - that is the same in every country, if each countries legislature could amend international agreements then international negotiations would not work - Parliament has one job and one job alone: to vote Aye or No to it.
So yes the choice is Deal or No Deal. Because the legislature (not Boris) voted to get an 11 month Transition and that expires at 11pm tonight. Parliament set that as our law a year ago and if the executive had failed to agree a deal then the transition would have expired and we would have ended up in no deal automatically, by default, no change in law required. An agreement was negotiated in the time available to it and Parliament has only one question to answer: does it want to accept or reject the agreement. Renegotiating the agreement is not an option and never has been an option for a legislature to back, though they can reject an agreement trying to force a renegotiation.
So what about scrutiny? Well the scrutiny has already happened in inexorable detail. The final and longest serving Europhile Tory MP Ken Clarke famously angered some Eurosceptics by saying that as a member of the Cabinet he voted to pass the Maastricht Treaty without reading it. Was he wrong to vote for Maastricht without reading it? No. His point was that as a Cabinet Minister he did not have the time even if he had the ability to read and understand the Treaty which is written in legalese. Instead the Civil Service which have been involved in negotiating it and the lawyers have to be trusted to have done their job properly. He read the executive summaries prepared by the Civil Service as to what the Treaty involved - those were put on the government's website last week.
So the Tory Government's line (as all Government's are) is that they have done the negotiation, they're happy with it and the lawyers and the Civil Servants have prepared the summaries and it should be approved. So their whip is to vote Aye.
But MPs aren't obliged to follow the Government's line. Other parties create their own and even groupings within parties can create their own too. Within the Tories the ERG group had their own team of lawyers they called their 'star chamber' scrutinise the Treaty in full, they said they were happy with it, so they said to vote Aye.
The Labour Party in its own decision making also decided to vote Aye. Take that up with Keir Starmer as to why he chose that.
Even Nigel f***ing Farage was ok with the deal. I never saw that coming, I never thought anything short of blowing up the Channel Tunnel and enforcing the Treaty of Troyes upon the French would satisfy him.
So yes precedent has been followed. Negotiations were done by the people responsible for them, as per precedent. They went to the wire, as per precedent. They were voted for by the Legislature as per precedent. The MP groupings in their own parties and parties within parties came to their own positions, as per precedent. Since this wasn't made a confidence motion (unlike Maastricht) even some individiuals went against the whip, as per precedent.
But democracy doesn't stop. No Parliament can bind its successors and if this or any future Parliament wants to change this Treaty and remove consent from it they can do so - and it comes with a 12 month notification exit clause.
Wow, you are worked up. No need to worry any longer ;you already signed the Terms of Surrender. We'll take care of the rest.
Congratulations America
It looks like RB doesn't understand the role of parliamentary scrutiny. Cargo cult "democracy"—but that has always been the Little Englander way.
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
I absolutely understand it and explained it, it seems you don't.
Parliaments role in scrutinising international agreements is to say Aye or No to them. They voted yesterday 521 Aye to 73 No, so that is Parliament's job done. On a timeline Parliament gave itself.
As I have explained already, this is a nonsensical cargo cult view of democracy. If Parliament cannot scrutinize & debate arguments before voting on them, it has no meaningful role—and you have no meaningful democracy. Again, we already know you think it's okay for the govt. to try to sidestep Parliament in various ways—including through illegal deception. You're not fooling anyone with your Trumpian attempts to deflect & project.
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
Parliament hasn't been sidestepped.
Parliament set the timetable itself.
Parliament set the law itself.
Parliament voted for the timetable motion on the day.
Parliament has been debating these issues for 4.5 years.
Parliament has made its own decisions.
Parliament voted.
Parliament could have voted No if it wanted to do so.
The only Parliament that has been sidestepped is the European Parliament which will get to vote after this deal has already been implemented.
PS if Parliament had only wanted to give provisional approval then debate this in full in the New Year on the same timetable as the European Parliament will be doing then Parliament could have done that too, overriding the PMs wishes - and having more of a say than the European Parliament by voting before enactment and after it. Parliament chose not to do that.
Thank you for a more courteous response. I appreciate it.
Perhaps 3 months was an unrealistic example. That's fine. Lets say a month though. Or a week. It seems to me far too much of a coincidence that MPs were only allowed the very minimum of time to digest, debate and then vote for this deal (David Davies said so himself and wasn't happy). You may not think it important that our elected are given appropriate time to understand and debate things like this, but I do; I think it's fundamental to our democracy and our the sovereignty we now have.
Parliament may not be able to table any amendments, but that doesn't stop them rejecting the deal. Had they done so with appropriate time, there would have been nothing stopping both sides continuing with the negotiations. You'll probably disagree with this, but if you do please provide some evidence that shows we could not have carried on. The fact that our parliament enabled this situation to happen is pathetic, in my view. The fact that the people we voted for were only given a day to understand a hugely complex and important agreement before committing to it is pathetic.
And I still stand by my belief that Johnson drew this out for as long as possible to minimise the time our MPs had.
Johnson didn't drag this out because Johnson didn't write this deal it was a negotiation. It takes two to tango.
Barnier and Ursula von der Leyen moved dramatically in the final days. If you want to claim it was dragged out then please explain why they were dragging it out? Why did they not reach this agreement sooner?
It wasn't possible to reach this deal a month ago since UVDL hadn't compromised yet a month ago.
I can't prove that. If the EU have a precedent of breaking law and doing everything possible to avoid parliamentary debate and scrutiny, then I'll happily believe -they- drew it out as well to do the same. And that would be pathetic as well.
I believe Boris did because of his history, as I've already stated.
EU negotiations always go to the wire.
All negotiations go to the wire.
It is standard in negotiations. Its not about avoiding debate.
It isn't possible to end negotiations until all parties reach an agreement and it isn't possible to debate the agreement until the negotiations end.
Labour could have put forward an amendment to the bill giving provisional approval only and demanding a longer debate in January in the timetable the European Parliament have to have their debate and challenging Tory backbenchers like Davis to back it. They chose to vote Aye. That is on Starmer not Boris.
Can you give me 3 examples of where EU negotiations have "gone to the wire"? i.e. gone on to the deadline imposed by international law.
And it wouldn't be about avoiding debate/scrutiny if Johnson didn't have a history of doing so. But he does. So it does. Because a PM's actions have consequences on how some of the electorate perceive them and their approach to things.
And Starmer isn't free from criticism. But your example there is on all politicians, including Boris. I've made clear that it's -parliament- I find at fault here for enabling this situation to happen. Boris takes ultimate responsibility, because he's the PM.
Repeatedly, more than 3 times, during the Eurozone and Greek etc crises.
Plus the negotiations for the Withdrawal Agreement itself last year.
Going to the wire is inevitable if neither party wants to concede. The only alternative is one party does all the concessions prematurely. That isn't smart or mature or advisable.
Are those two things really comparible?
Did the Greek/Eurozone crisis have legally defined deadlines?
And wasn't the issue with the WA our parliament rather than the EU?
And that's not the only alternative. Another alternative is for both sides to work to the originally agreed deadlines to allow enough time for elected officials to properly digest and scrutinise the proposition.
The Greek situation didn't have a deadline as such. But withdrawal of liquidity by the ECB put the whole thing under pressure.
Otherwise this whole going to the wire things was more of a particular British need to ramp up the drama in order to claim victory. Seems like the trauma of the Munich agreement still live on in London.
Congratulations America
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