http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-39431428
The UK Government has officially notified the EU that they are invoking Article 50. This begins the 2-year timer for the UK to leave the EU.
In a statement in the Commons, [Prime Minister Teresa] May said: "Today the government acts on the democratic will of the British people and it acts too on the clear and convincing position of this House."
She added: "The Article 50 process is now under way and in accordance with the wishes of the British people the United Kingdom is leaving the European Union.
"This is an historic moment from which there can be no turning back."
(Score: 4, Interesting) by PiMuNu on Thursday March 30 2017, @10:00AM (12 children)
As a remainer, I am not really shocked that Britain voted "out", it has been coming for years. What has shocked me is that the EU has done *nothing* to stop other countries voting out. I think the three main issues in the leave campaign were:
* Freedom of movement/immigrants: There has been some hand wringing but no real movement from EU. How about backing off on complete freedom of movement?
* Bureaucracy-led crappile: No one has even thought about how to address this. How about a democratically elected leader to the EU? Rather than the stupid 1 year rotating presidency, designed to ensure EU does nothing and has no effective political establishment. How about primacy given to the MEPs?
* Transfer of money to Eastern Europe: How about reducing payments to Eastern Europe?
I understand each of these bullets has political implications, but the EU has to change or die. I don't see how it can continue in its present incarnation.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by zocalo on Thursday March 30 2017, @10:41AM (4 children)
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 4, Informative) by FatPhil on Thursday March 30 2017, @01:23PM (3 children)
That's absurdly wrong, it's not even close.
Latest UK Governmental data:
* EU Exports for January 2017 were £12.8 billion. This was an increase of £0.7 billion (5.5 per cent) compared with last month, and an increase of £2.3 billion (22 per cent) compared with January 2016.
* EU Imports for January 2017 were £19.5 billion. This was a decrease of £0.4 billion (1.8 per cent) compared with last month, but an increase of £2.8 billion (17 per cent) compared with January 2016.
* In EU trade the UK was a net importer this month, with imports exceeding exports by £6.8 billion.
-- https://www.uktradeinfo.com/Statistics/OverseasTradeStatistics/Pages/EU_and_Non-EU_Data.aspx
Mininformation like yours was what got the UK into the Brexit mess in the first place.
You may award yourself the Farage-Johnson badge of bold-faced alternate-fact propagation.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by zocalo on Thursday March 30 2017, @02:48PM (2 children)
The bulk of the UK's exports currently go to the EU.
The UK imports more goods by value from the EU than it exports to it.
The conclusion is still correct though; a default to WTO trade arrangements for UK-EU trade is going to hurt the UK a lot more than it is the EU, especially since the EU nations will still have an option to resell goods that might previously have been bound for the UK elsewhere in the EU without the WTO tariffs, additional border controls, etc.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Thursday March 30 2017, @06:40PM (1 child)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by zocalo on Thursday March 30 2017, @08:05PM
Today's news had a piece on Welsh sheep farmers - many of whom voted "Leave", despite the EU being currently where more than 50% of their lambs get sold to - that pretty much summed that up to a T. Only one seemed to be actively thinking about new markets and business models; the rest were all doom and gloom if the subsidies were to stop, which is currently due to occur in 2020. Maybe that was a representative sample, maybe it wasn't, but it does indicate that at least some people are starting to question the implications of their decision now that a hard exit seems more likely - albeit probably too late to do much about it unless reality bites hard enough for enough people to make an Article 50 U-turn a non-suicidal option for the Conservatives, and given the number of Eurosceptics in the party, that's going to have to be an *awfully* hard bite.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 5, Insightful) by TheRaven on Thursday March 30 2017, @10:49AM (3 children)
Freedom of movement/immigrants: There has been some hand wringing but no real movement from EU. How about backing off on complete freedom of movement?
Freedom of movement for EU citizens isn't really the problem. You can retain that and still fix most of the perceived problems with two fixes:
Bureaucracy-led crappile: No one has even thought about how to address this. How about a democratically elected leader to the EU? Rather than the stupid 1 year rotating presidency, designed to ensure EU does nothing and has no effective political establishment. How about primacy given to the MEPs?
The EU bureaucracy is actually pretty small. They employ fewer civil servants than most British counties. That said, there is a real problem with the balance of power between the Parliament, the Council and the Commission. Ironically, Brexit is likely to fix this. There have been several attempts to shift more power to the Parliament but they've been vetoed by the British and French. It's been very convenient for successive British governments to be able to pass unpopular laws via the Council and then say 'well, we didn't want to do it, but those evil EU people [who are definitely not us wearing a different hat] forced us to!'. The Parliament wasn't much better - it's only in the last few years that voting records of MEPs have been public, so that their constituents can hold them to account.
Transfer of money to Eastern Europe: How about reducing payments to Eastern Europe?
This is an absolute requirement for the Eurozone to work (and one of the problems in the UK is that we don't do it enough on a national basis). If you have two different regions with the same currency but different levels of economic productivity, then you are effectively in a situation where one area has an artificially strong currency and the other has an artificially weak one. This makes exports from the economically stronger area (with its artificially weakened currency) easier, but penalises the other area. You need a flow of money to balance this. The USA does it within states and the EU does it within countries. The extent to which the EU does it is actually less than is necessary, which is one of the main reasons why several of the Eurozone countries are having problems. There are several secondary effects that benefit even the UK (we actually gain more in terms of increased markets for our exports than we lose by the money that we pay to these countries).
The real problem here is one of perception. Any number that deals with countries is going to be big. £350M/week sounds like a huge amount of money, but between 60M people it's actually not that much. Even between the 31M in full-time employment, it's not that much: a little over £10/week. My last tax return had a breakdown of the amount of my tax that goes to the EU. Even though I'm living in a relatively wealthy (and overwhelmingly remain-voting) area, and am earning well over the median wage, my contribution to the EU budget was significantly less than my contribution to the turnover of local pubs - and I'm not a particularly heavy drinker. Looking at the council tax breakdown, I think I pay around 2-3 times as much for the local police force as I pay to the EU in total.
I understand each of these bullets has political implications, but the EU has to change or die. I don't see how it can continue in its present incarnation.
I agree. The problem with the referendum was that the vast majority of people are unhappy with the status quo. On the leave side, people had strong beliefs that change was needed and the EU was a convenient scapegoat (conveniently ignoring the fact that most of the problems that leave voters suffered from were caused by policies from Westminster and voting to give more power to Westminster politicians was unlikely to change that). On the remain side, there were few people who were staunch backers of the EU, for most it was a lesser of two evils: being in the EU isn't great, it's just better than being outside. The EU needs to become an institution that people want to be a member of, not one that they consider to be a necessary evil.
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Thursday March 30 2017, @11:30AM (2 children)
> The EU needs to become an institution that people want to be a member of, not one that they consider to be a necessary evil.
This is the point. I don't really care for the other stuff, but strengthening the democratic mandate of the EU is really what I would focus on if I had any influence. If I were an MEP, I would *just do it* (rather than waiting for Britain, or France, or anyone else to approve). Major political change doesn't have to go by the book, and is often stronger for circumventing existing political infrastructure (e.g. 1688 and all that...)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 30 2017, @02:59PM
Well, the MEPs cannot just do it. They only can vote on laws given to them by the European Commission.
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Friday March 31 2017, @09:31AM
If I were an MEP, I would *just do it* (rather than waiting for Britain, or France, or anyone else to approve)
If MEPs were in a position to 'just do it' then they wouldn't need to 'just do it' because they'd already have the power that you want them to have. The only powers that MEPs have over nation states are those granted by the various EU treaties. If you want to move power from the Council / Commission to the Parliament then you need to either re-draft those treaties and get all member states to sign them, or you need the organisation that was granted those powers by the treaties to cede them. The French and British representatives on the Council of Ministers vetoed the proposals to do this.
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Magneto on Thursday March 30 2017, @12:42PM
The EU doesn't need to do anything to stop other countries voting out, the farce that is brexit is doing that for them.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 30 2017, @02:47PM (1 child)
"The EU" cannot do anything of that kind. The foundations of the EU are still contracts between the member countries, and therefore it is those member states who would have to make a new contract for any fundamental change. Which should address most of your bullet points.
About this one:
Freedom of movement is one of the cornerstones of the EU market, and AFAIK the UK is the only country that objects (note that refugees are a completely different topic; formally those don't have freedom of movement in the EU anyway).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 30 2017, @07:32PM
So is free movement of capital and yet the EU were quick enough to introduce capital controls on the Greeks.