So the Good Friday Agreement? How do LEAVE propose to sort? (on Brexit and Northern Ireland - title amended by MNHQ)

[RedToothBrush]

Go on. Lets have some answers.
Can we have a proper talk about how we can stop this affront to democracy and ripping up of a peace plan?

Its totally relevant! She used it as a criticism of GB saying he had no mandate, and then does the same herself, why is it OK for her and not for Brown? This was often used to attack Brown during his leadership so I see no problem critiquing the current administration with it. In fact I agreed with them back then too, Brown should have called an election in 2008.

Especially as the fixed terms parliament act means that we won't get another GE for 4 years. Last year people elected a government led by David Cameron, not Theresa May,

If we are going to talk about systems in this country, I'd like to point out the one about constitutional legislation having to be approved by parliament, not pushed through on the back of a small majority in a non legally binding referendum.

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So basically you cannot answer the questions because they are 'difficult' and some things are 'likely', but you have no idea and you voted for this???

How dare you rick fucking up the future of our children without having a definite plan and knowledge of the future

carol the leave vote has already fucked up the future of one of my children which if TM had a plan that did not also fuck up the competitive advantage we have as a result of our preeminence in Science would not be forcing her overseas with the rest of our brightest .....

Can you answer any of mine Carol? Which put the future of our children far more at risk and are far more important than the fairly minor questions you asked.

No, you can't say what the contribution would have been, or what the Swiss will do, you can say VAT reform was coming, you can't say when the CETA deal will be signed.

You however can't answer any of the bigger questions, which have far more to do with the economic prosperity of the country, our public servces, infrastructure and much more that dictates the possibilites and futures of our children.

How dare you accuse me of anything like that because I voted remain because, if we had remained:

I can say that the areas who were guarenteed funding would get it.

I can say that firms that are located in the UK but have large EU markets would have stayed.

I can say that Universities would have received funding and still be part of wider research programmes.

I can say that car firms would have continued to invest in the UK, beyond the current investment plans.

I can say that the NHS would still have been able to access the pool of skilled workers that it needs to fill shortage positions.

I can say that the value of the pound would not have fallen and that the coming bout of inflation would not have been driven by a self inflicted wound.

I can say that UK banks would retain passporting rights.

That FDI would continue from the EU.

etc etc etc

All questions you can't answer that are far more important than the ones that you posed.

Oh and there was a definite plan, it was to remain in the EU,

your attempt to pull this argument back round on to remainers is both mendacious and fallacious.

Come on, answer my much more important questions...

^So basically you cannot answer the questions because they are 'difficult' and some things are 'likely', but you have no idea and you voted for this???

How dare you rick fucking up the future of our children without having a definite plan and knowledge of the future^

Carol, are you for real?!

The questions smallfox asked you were far more numerous and far more important than the questions you came up with, and you haven't even attempted to answer any of those.

I can't believe you're accusing remainers of not having a plan. Can't decide whether you're a massive hypocrite or just plain deluded.

Carol here's a few more for you:

Can you safely state that the UK will not have to pay into the EU under the future deal?

Can you safely state that UK laws will not be effected by those enacted in Brussles? But that the UK will have no say in their formulation?

Can you safely state that the UK economy will not be detrimentally effected by brexit?

Can you safely state that the new trade deals will be as beneficial as those that we have already through the EU?

No, you can't tell us anything, cause you have no fucking idea, you're just a right wing ideologue, but without any real intellectual backing for your arguments.

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There is one thing I would like to know.

My boyfriend is from another EU country and lives there still. We met when I exercised my treaty rights to go and live in his country temporarily and we've been in a long distance relationship ever since. Right now, I could go and live in his country, or he could come and live here without any immigration problems, but due to our respective careers it's not really feasible at the moment. (He's on a fixed term army contract and my job isn't really transferrable abroad.) I would like to be reassured that when the time comes for us to move in together, we'll still be allowed to live in each other's country. But the problem is, no one knows anymore.

I also want to know Lovein, in what way can the referendum be called "democracy" when not all effected adults were allowed to vote, as they were in the Scottish referendum.

In fact the removal of suffarage from EU residents and UK nationals living abroad for more than 15 years actually shows that this wasn't a democratic vote at all, because a large number were not allowed to vote in a decision which would directly effect the outcome of their lives.

This was mainly done as a sop to UKIP, but it doesn't make this vote democratic, nor is it legally binding, nor should it be allowed to go forward with out passing parliamentary debate on its format.

To do so would be quite undemocratic and remove sovereignty from parliament.

But as I said, leavers only want democracy and sovereignty when it suits them. They don't like it when it can be used to challenge them, and its funny.

my point is no-one knows the future - for example, voting Labour at the next GE with Corbyn at the helm would make much more difference than the EU vote, the financial crash in 2008 changed many a plan and forecast.

It is, as I have said, your major failing to think you know the future.

We will see what Leave brings, but it will not be the disaster the remainers seem to want.

The Scottish vote was in no way democratic, if it was all members of the union would have been allowed to vote.

Sorry Carol that doesn't wash.

There were lots of certainties short and medium term for the UK and the EU that the UK can now no longer be certain of. These also lead to long term consequences. There are so many more uncertainties with negative connotations with leaving the EU brings that although we can never know the future, you would always take the safer path over the one which might take you blindly over the cliff.

Leaving the EU will probably not be a disaster, but we will not be as well off and have very few of the benefits that were promised.

I find it fundamentally undermines the argument of any leaver when you say that you don't want Brexit to be debated and its terms decided by parliament. It was sovereignty you wanted, you have it, but now you don't want it.

Carol, can you appreciate that "no one knows" doesn't bring much comfort to people whose lives are directly affected?

I'm not someone living in Northern Ireland who is worried about what will happen to their community if the troubles start up again. I'm also not someone currently living in another member state who was denied the right to vote and/or has no clarify over their future immigration status.

I am someone who has made quite substantial and long-term life plans on the assumption that I would continue to have the EU citizenship (in particular free movement) rights I was born with, and now everything is up in the air.

Can you at least understand why "no one knows" and "it'll all be fine" and "you lost, get over it" are not a very satisfactory response?

smallfox, if David Cameron wanted the remain vote to win, I have no idea why he didn't extend the franchise to expats (particularly those living in the EU) and 16/17 year olds.

The Conservatives even made a manifesto commitment to abolish the 15 year rule; it seems absurd that they didn't follow through on their promise to do that, at a time when it really mattered.

smallfox i never said i didn't want the terms discussed. My preference would be discussion with the EU before invoking article 50 - this is not happening because the EU will not play.
So we invoke article 50, no discussion necessary as a binary decision.
We include a number of groups in the negotiation, we see what we get.
The EU are not allowing any flexibility on article 50, not Leave voters or the UK govt. You need to see how your team(the EU) are playing the game and wonder why a majority did not trust them.

But if you'd done your research you'd know that the EU position would be thus, it actually states it in the article!!

I still think that voting leave was far riskier and damaging than to remain
when the leave campaign were unable to articulate what a post brexit Britain would be like, and when they often contradicted themselves or ignored completely other points, it demonstrated the lack of cohesion, but also that they were pandering to many different groups interests and making many promises that they would never have to enact.

Leaving the EU is far riskier, and had the potential.to blight the future for.a decade

I see Carol isn't going to address anything I've said...

By the way, I am currently writing a master's dissertation on Article 50, and triggering it now would be just about the stupidest thing we could do.

Why are people allowing carol to turn this into a general bunfighty what did people want, which side was more of a wild stab in the dark, Article 50, manifesto commitments type thread? There are a dozen others to do that one. This thread is about NI, and requires a bit of specific knowledge in order to make the sort of contribution that doesn't involve embarrassing yourself. Let's not allow her to distract from that purpose.

A small point of order on the Scottish referendum. All affected citizens were not allowed to vote. The vote was based on short term residency. Therefore anyone Scottish studying or living and working in another part of the UK or the EU was denied a vote - this included serving Scottish soldiers. However non Scottish EU nationals living in Scotland did get to vote.

There would always be problems in defining the electorate for both the Scottish and EU referendums but imho the Scottish position was worse.

Thing is with that is how do you define Scottish and prove it to register your vote? +

I would have thought that it was quite easy to give soldiers serving with Scottish regiments the vote, or was that not what you meant?

As for registering Scots elsewhere - would it have been possible to ask for proof of continued residence there in a defined period of years? No system is perfect, I admit, and there are people who identify as Scots, who have never lived there.

To bring this back to Ireland, by the same token, DH's granny was Irish. Except I only found out recently that she had been born in England. I don't even know whether she ever set foot in Ireland. Would she have had an Irish passport? I doubt if she had any passport, but was born before the Republic was established, so could have had a British passport if any. So, she was Irish, but not necessarily legally. Whatever, it was, we were pretty sure that DH's chance of getting an Irish passport would be scuppered.

I've come back to a different thread. It's telling that the Leave voters who've contributed have tried to deflect from the central issue. mangomoon onto the non-voters in NI and carol onto all manner of nonsense. (Thanks to smallfox for her reliably sound demolition).

All to avoid the issue that the Leave vote has derailed the peace plan and needs to find a solution.

Sorry guys, I went off topic a bit. But you're right, there needs to be a concrete plan for Northern Ireland, before Article 50 is triggered. Amazing that Theresa Villiers and Kate Hoey both campaigned for leave without addressing this.

I actually went to a debate on Brexit back in April or May, where Kate Hoey was one of the speakers. Someone in the audience asked about Northern Ireland and Hoey went off on some indignant rant saying she considered it offensive to the people of Northern Ireland and all the people who had worked so hard on the peace process to even suggest that Brexit would cause all of that to start up again.

And yet, here we are.

I think the problem with this thread is that some posters are not clear whether they want to discuss solutions to any effects of Brexit on the peace process or to use this issue as another to have a go at leave voters with. There was a bit on an attempt earlier to try and steer back to the first but now its all gone a bit the second again.

I am not interested in a thread which does the second. I am interested in the first but probably more from a reading than contributing point of view in my case. But you can't have it both ways and expect leave supporters to not defend their position if you are attacking them (by which I mean for example, saying they don't care about NI, implying some kind of moral inferiority if non-NI voters have made their voting decision on issues which effect them directly etc).

All to avoid the issue that the Leave vote has derailed the peace plan and needs to find a solution.

I think the implication that NI is somehow for leavers to solve whilst remainers can just sit back with their arms crossed and say I told so is not sensible.

I think mangomoon has made some very good points and I don't think raising the issue of non NI voters in the referendum is in any way a deflection from the core issue, especially if you are framing the discussion on this thread as that non-leave voters should have had the NI situation as a major factor in their voting decision. How is irrelevant? So eg English voters should have prioritised the NI situation over issues effecting them directly when a large proportion of the NI electorate didn't vote at all? I just can't get my head around that view.