Starmer's resigned

[Sadcafe]

So the admittedly boring but truly decent PM has announced his resignation and the egotistical, pompous Burnham will doubtless become PM. God help the country

There was nothing to stop the UK implementing it's own laws to do the same. We didn't need the EU to do it for us.

But it didn't do it.

Of course we're capable of making our own laws but being part of a union is a safeguard. Even as members of the EU there was a great deal of scope for independent decisions and there were some bad ones. Tuition fees leaving young people with debt and Iraq war, both under Labour, and that's before we even look at the misery caused by those long years when we were governed by those self serving buffoons that thought themselves Conservatives, much to the disgust of Heseltine. To be completely without safeguard now is scary.

What safeguard? If our leaders are not capable of making decisions in our interests, we vote them out. Why do we need other countries to manage our lawmaking?

The EU as an economic trading block is great, as I already said, and yes, there has to be rules governing that trade. But the EU became something bigger and messier. And people grew to dislike that.

They grew to dislike it mainly because they were whipped up by the media and lied to by people like Farage and Boris. Boris wasn't even committed to leaving. He chose his side almost on the toss of a coin. Everything he did was about his own ego.

People had concerns way before Farage and Boris. Remember Gordon Brown and Gillian Duffy?

Blair’s strategy didn’t help.

Diversity - Rub their noses in it

Of course treating the electorate like that will get kick back.

That's as may be, but the lies told to them were outrageous.

Absolutely right. Cameron/Osborne were complacent and arrogant and stupidly believed that it wasn't a big issue and it was obvious that we should remain. The fault lies squarely with them. As for the protest vote, absolutely spot on too. Which is another reason why it should never have gone to a referendum.

I agree the electorate was whipped up into a media frenzy.

The EU as an economic trading block is great, as I already said, and yes, there has to be rules governing that

Yes exactly. I do find it odd (on a thread about Starmer) that a decade later we gravitate to Brexit again. The huge cost of Brexit, that the experts accurately predicted, is now known. But, as Gove famously said, who needs experts? Even now some posters still reinforce the false Farage narrative about lost control. That was never true. However it’s about feelz not facts. The same applies to assessing the many excellent things that Starmer achieved over the last 2 years.

I still can’t help but rely on facts, as I did a decade ago but I do now accept that for many people facts are irrelevant.
For example, we always had parliamentary control of our own legislation. The few things we delegated and voted on in the EU were only limited trade related spin offs. Yes we agreed to delegate some rules regarding food, agriculture, environment in return for trade.. There is some linked trade stuff about basic workers’ rights and treating people (including women) equally. However the U.K. govt retained complete autonomy over the vast majority of matters.

For example, we controlled all these laws then, as we do now: administrative law, banking and finance, commercial law, constitutional law, Construction law, Contract law ,Corporation law ,Some Employment law ,Energy and resources law, Family law including marriage, divorce, adoption, marital finances,Film and entertainment law, Insolvency litigation, banking and debt recovery issues, Law of succession, wills and estates, Law of torts , compensation for wrongful acts e.g. negligence, nuisance, defamation, trespass,personal injury and medical negligence law ,Property law, Sports law and income tax, inheritance tax, CGT, council tax etc. We managed domestic violence, guardianship ,emergency protection, divorce property, spousal maintenance, adoption, mental capacity, probate, health, elderly care, benefits,housing ,pensions, education, policing, crime, murder, manslaughter, theft, defence , fiscal policy etc.etc.

This was never understood properly. For example when we were in the EU we didn’t think the UK had control, of say, Greek laws of succession or divorce law and yet the rhetoric was that we had lost our sovereignty, which was never true.

Anyway, despite the ease of fact checking (with google research and now AI) the facts and experts just. don’t. matter. It’s all about feelings.

The feeling was the EU, and now Starmer, did not help the UK. So we jettison both of them, despite the many facts to the contrary. Hey Ho.

It's simply not true to say that "The few things we delegated and voted on in the EU were only limited trade related spin offs."

As this article states, "If you count all EU regulations, EU-related Acts of Parliament, and EU-related Statutory Instruments, about 62% of laws introduced between 1993 and 2014 that apply in the UK implemented EU obligations."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-36473105#:~:text=If%20you%20count%20all%20EU,the%20UK%20implemented%20EU%20obligations.

That’s not true. I’m a lawyer. I have gone to the trouble of explaining which laws we chose to vote on and share ( in trade related legislation) and I have listed the areas where there was no crossover. But still the same myths perpetuate.

The areas where we agreed to coordinate were food standards, agriculture, environment and some minimum workers’ rights.

In the areas we did share we voted against EU trade laws about 2% of the time between 1999 and 2016. In fact, the British government rarely disagreed with the food laws etc passed at EU level voting no on under 60 occasions, abstaining 70 times, and voting ‘Yes’ nearly 2, 500 times.

But you are just proving my point, it’s about feelings not facts. Some people feel better losing 6% of the economy and feel better with some nebulous narrative that they are in control of their food regulations.

So be it. But admit it for what it is!

https://fullfact.org/europe/eu-facts-behind-claims-uk-influence/

It's not my feelings. Are you saying the information in the article I linked to was incorrect?

No I am not saying it’s incorrect. The number of rules is irrelevant- what matters is if they were related to trade or not. They were. Most of the regs Brexit supporters seemed to complain about related to food, consumer and environment standards. We agreed to those whilst in the EU and have replicated those rules now anyway.

Are you saying that the vast list of legal areas that I listed eg wills and probate, crime, property and family law were within EU competencies? They never were.

It's lovely for those who are privileged enough who aren't worried about men in women's spaces. I'm guessing all the female prisoners locked up with criminal males with 160% their punch power in Scotland are now quite glad that women can fight the system here and that women now have more human rights here than in Europe and they no longer are locked up with violent men. Europe is generally much worse on women's rights than the UK.

I know with the grooming gangs that's really quite difficult to believe - but many, many laws were broken in terms of the grooming gangs. At least these laws exist and the law is in alignment with actual reality. That gives ground to fight back and hopefully one day actually have justice.

Do you remember the Paradise Papers? Do you really believe that Brexit was instigated for the grand purposes of exercising democracy and sovereignty?

Why were the instigators of Brexit driven to make such an expensive (for us) and unnecessary change?

Their dubious massive funding was from err who?

Anyone can get these answers from Googling and I apologise for the laziness.

But just to make the point that I agree that the general public had not a clue of what they were really voting for or any in depth understanding of the reasons behind the move and were well manipulated.

‘Brexit would have primarily advantaged the multinational corporations and ultra-wealthy individuals exposed in the Paradise Papers by removing them from the jurisdiction of EU-wide tax directives. It offered the potential for deregulation, the evasion of incoming transparency measures, and the ability to lobby for low-tax, "Singapore-on-Thames" economic policies. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
Key ways Brexit was projected to benefit those using offshore schemes include:
Avoiding EU Transparency Directives: Prominent figures named in the leaks utilized opaque trust structures and shell companies in British Crown Dependencies (e.g., Isle of Man, Jersey, and Guernsey). Brexit allowed the UK and its overseas territories to circumvent incoming EU anti-money laundering and tax evasion rules, which require public registries of beneficial ownership. 1, 2, 3, ]
Regulatory Divergence: The EU has long sought to crack down on aggressive tax planning and offshore VAT loopholes. By leaving the EU, the UK and its dependent territories gained the freedom to retain or create bespoke tax-friendly laws for non-domiciled residents, private jet imports, and offshore investments without being bound by bloc-wide financial regulations. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5]