Brexit mega thread part 11: is fucktastrophy a word?

[mirages08]

Part 11 of this mega thread

Couldn't see a new one?

Hope you don't mind a newbie starting it!

Also, you were saying about a personnel relationship with your elected representative, whether you voted for them or not (and you say you never have). Why would you not be able to raise issues with your MEP in the same way?

Although correct, that we actually vote for individuals and once elected that individual can do whatever they want, I would disagree with you in the publics voting motivations. I think most people are primarily motivated to vote for a party. As evidenced by the very, very many threads on a 'who will you vote for theme'. Almost all answers are for a political party, very occasionally you see a sitting MP mentioned and I don't think I've ever seem a poster say they'll see who the candidates are first.

Well done @Kendodd An adrmirably simple explanation of the practical effect that I don't like there.

I agree with @pointythings that MPs voting as they are told to by the whips severely damages the personal connection to the voter. That's why whipping shouldn't exist.

Every vote counts now. Every vote has a value of 1. The power of those votes might vary from consitiuency to constituency (safe/marginal) etc but the value of 1 vote is always 1 vote.

If we have PR then people's 2nd and 3rd preferences can come into play so you can't always guarantee that the person with the most 1st preferences (i.e. the person most people want, the most) wins.

I'm not wholly opposed to preferential voting systems or PR generally, locally I think they can work very well. I do however think that when chosing a nation's Government that choice should be as clear as possibe.

The 2010 GE example was instructive for me. We got a coalition and while I suppported it as providing a government, it was was arrived at by all sorts of backroom dealing that IMO was deeply unsatisfactory. IMO that damaged accountability. What should have happened was a second poll.

@LouiseCollins28

Ok, good, I get it, you want FPSP elections not PR like they have for EU elections.

Why were you saying that you didn't like the fact you couldn't vote out French MEPs then?

I have to assume you are not in Scotland Louise. Didn't they have 4 different systems in place? FPTP for Westminster, a hybrid system of list and individual vote for Holyrood, STV for local elections and D'Hondt for EU elections. Somehow the Scots managed to cope with all this.

Oh come on. In a safe seat of any kind, the power of a vote for the safe party is 1 and the power of any other vote is 0. Fortunately the number of very safe seats is coming down.

There are ways of doing PR, but as far as I'm concerned they are all better than FPTP.

Does anyone remember the brief flirtation with the concept of a primary we had ? About 10 years ago in the South West I believe.

I would accept keeping FPTP if we had a primary type mechanism for indicating which candidates tone and approach the constituency prefers. It would solve the whipping problem.

https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn05168/

news.sky.com/story/liberal-democrat-conference-sir-ed-davey-hints-at-post-election-deal-with-labour-12969876

Just thought I'd share this...

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/sep/26/senior-business-leaders-back-keir-starmers-call-not-to-diverge-from-eu

@LouiseCollins28

You never did come back to say why you didn't like the fact you couldn't vote out French MEPs?
Seems at odds the you voting Leave because you didn't like PR. And also you saying you don't think you should be able to vote out French MEPs.
Anyway, perhaps you can come back and let me know why to took such exception to not being about to vote out MEPs from miles away earlier.

PR no part of my reasoning for voting to Leave. I didn't, and don't, think I should have been able to vote out French MEPs. I objected because they exercised law making power over me, while I was an EU citizen, while I'd no way of voting against them. Hope that gives a satisfactory answer if I failed to before.

I bore no ill will towards France, French voters or even the French MEPs. Simply, I didn't then, and don't now, wish to be part of a trans-national European polity.

In other news, interesting polling from YouGov #knowwhoyourfriendsare
Self-determination optional for the Falkland Islanders in the opinion of many of our large European neighbours, it would appear.

Home / X (twitter.com)

>I objected because they exercised law making power over me, while I was an EU citizen, while I'd no way of voting against them.

"They" exercised law making powers over trade and cooperation related areas where the uk had ceded responsibility in order to gain trade and scale benefits . "They" included the UK MEPs you voted for who had veto power over any laws 'made'

Today the EU make trade related laws where we have no input let alone veto but with which we will need to be compliant in order to trade / cooperate. Cf CE, Horizon, GDPR, NI protocol..

Yeah but we're now free to pump as much shit in the sea as we like.
I suggest to take a dip, breath deeply and smell the sovereignty.

Joking aside, on this thread alone (and I've only read the back end) Louise has said/been -
Angry because she can't vote out French MEPs
Doesn't think she should be able to vote out French MEPs
Voted Leave because she doesn't like PR and wants FPTP
PR played no part in her decision to vote Leave

In fairness to her if not liking PR had been the reason to vote Leave, at least that's a real thing. I might not agree with her or the importance she places on it (above the peace in NI) but it's not a lie built on sand that falls apart as soon as it's examined.

It's almost as if disingenuous and bad faith had a bastard love child, isn't it ?

Misrepresenting what other posters say is not a good look. Stop doing it.

I guess I'm used to it on here. Would you rather I simply left the threads?

No, I really wouldn't rather you left the threads, genuinely.

Im not misrepresentating you. I can go back, have a look and post your quotes if you want?

Yes you are. Sure, post the quotes if you want to.

"Voted Leave because she doesn't like PR and wants FPTP." I've not said that or anything like it.

You have VERY odd way of engaging in a conversation then.

For @LouiseCollins28 and many other supporters of Brexit, the use of the word 'they/them' rather than 'us/we' regarding the EU speaks volumes. It wasn't 'them' making laws at a European level it was 'us'. It wasn't 'them' deciding standards, it was 'us'. The European project was always 'us' but sold as 'them' by a biased media for so long that some people forgot.

👏👏👏👏👏

It wasn't 'them' making laws at a European level it was 'us'. It wasn't 'them' deciding standards, it was 'us'.

A question I have asked Brexiters a number of times is 'When you want to see EU laws scrapped, does that include the ones that the UK proposed?' As far as I remember, they never ever answer this question.

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-66897881

Faisal Islam burns Laura K in no uncertain fashion.

Over the past year, I have spoken to all the key players, some in public and some in private, about what happened both before and after that day.
Those conversations have revealed important new details about Mr Kwarteng and then-PM Liz Truss' "growth plan" - including that its initial impact was far worse than has been publicly known up to this point.

... and where was Laura Kuenssberg when these events were happening?

To be fair some do come up with things like metrication, or the smoking ban.

And then fade away when reminded (because they knew all along, didn't they ? After all, as we have been told incessantly: don't call them stupid) that it was the UK that gold-plated them far in excess of what was required.

Metrification is fascinating and came up in my first year doing a law degree. The UK had been trying to bring it in for forever but every attempt failed. It was a requirement of EU membership (or whatever it was called back then) but they offered to waive that requirement for the UK. The UK rejected the offer as they really, really wanted it. So they finally managed to force it through in the UK and blamed the EU for it. It was 100% the UK's decision but played so they took 0% of the backlash.

The UK was going metric long before we joined the EEC. I was taught exclusively in metric from day one at reception.

Which is why anyone younger than me who "pines" for the days of imperial is a think twunt who can fuck off with their faux "back in my day".

And as I have repeatedly noted, if we are to bring back useless measures, why aren't we clamouring for Lsd ? Decimalisation was a much more seismic shift away from Britishness.

That's what I was trying to say. Joining the EEC just gave them a bogeyman to blame.

I learnt both at school in Liverpool and now I'm a weird blend of metric and imperial. Body weight is kg, height is feet and inches, milk is pints, fruit juice is litres, scones and Christmas cake are made using pounds and ounces but chocolate cake is grams.