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posted by martyb on Friday September 14 2018, @03:19AM   Printer-friendly
from the when-in-Rome,-charge-as-the-roamers-do? dept.

Free mobile phone roaming 'not guaranteed' with a no-deal Brexit

Britons visiting the EU could be hit with mobile phone roaming charges in the event of a no-deal Brexit.

Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab said the government would try to force firms to limit charges but he could not give a "cast iron guarantee" on the issue. The EU directive which capped the prices mobile phone operators could charge each other will no longer apply to the UK after Brexit.

Mr Raab said that two mobile operators had agreed to keep free data roaming. And the government is proposing to cap any data charges at £45 a month.

In an interview with BBC Political Editor Laura Kuenssberg, the Brexit secretary said the government was trying to give the "reassurance that consumers need" on the issue of mobile phone roaming charges but admitted that European operators could pass on charges. He said: "No, I can't give a cast-iron guarantee. What I can say is that the government would legislate to limit the ability of roaming charges to be imposed on customers."


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  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by PiMuNu on Friday September 14 2018, @09:22AM (5 children)

    by PiMuNu (3823) on Friday September 14 2018, @09:22AM (#734753)

    Brexit is clearly terrible for the UK economy. On the other hand, the governance of the EU is very not-democratic. It is a tough decision to make, and I can understand why folks voted to leave.

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  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 14 2018, @09:46AM (4 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 14 2018, @09:46AM (#734757)

    It's a popular talking point, but it's also utter nonsense. Unless you also are of the opinion that the prime minister is a horrible undemocratic institution that should be gotten rid of.
    Almost everything needs approval of a democratically elected parliament (with a far more democratic election method that what the UK uses, it is rather hard to consider first-past-the-post in gerrymandered districts particularly democratic), AND of people directly appointed by governments that are themselves democratically elected.
    I don't see a way in which the EU comes out as LESS democratic than the UK, and many measures by which it comes out as MORE democratic.
    Though some people might think of the EU 20 years ago with no parliament.
    Still, that was also all based on people making the decisions being directly appointed by democratically elected governments. That voters in some countries like UK let their politicians get away with blaming the EU for policies they themselves instigated (like free immigration from eastern European countries, the UK was the primary - if not sole - driving force behind extending the EU) is something you can at best partially blame the EU for!

    • (Score: 2) by zocalo on Friday September 14 2018, @10:14AM

      by zocalo (302) on Friday September 14 2018, @10:14AM (#734761)
      The PM vs. EU comparison is an interesting point. In both cases, the electorates are (essentially) voting for representatives of a party (MPs/MEPs) who then get to appoint representatives to act in positions of actual authority and make decisions. Typically, the voter has a pretty good idea up front who those individuals are likely to be (hence the reason many UK voters will say they are voting for $person rather than $party in a general election), but neither institution actually guarantees that won't change at any point - including before the most likely candidates take office. In the case of the EU, it's the duly elected MEPs that get to annoint the "unelected" bureaucrats that Brexiteers like to bang on about, so a truly informed voter (assuming any exist!) would take that into account when deciding on which MEP to vote for.

      Of course, you don't hear many of those same Brexiteer EU critics complaining about how the general public doesn't get to have a say in who becomes a member of the cabinet, or gets to be Minister of whatever in the UK government. Or complaining about the unelected mandarins in the UK's civil service that hold an obscene amount of power in some cases (the TV shows "Yes Minister" and "Yes Prime Minister" nailed this aspect) for that matter. The UK does it that way because it would clearly be an impractical administrative burden, and even were that not the case it would be extremely unlikely you'd see a high voter turnout for major positions of state let alone the really obscure ministerial offices scattered across the civil service, yet when the EU does the same things it's undemocratic? Then again, many of them seem to be hankering for the days of the British Empire, or possibly even some form of a pre-Cromwell absolute monarchy, so maybe glossing over the few decades that have elapsed since the EEC (as it was then) didn't have a parliament is neither here nor there.
      --
      UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
    • (Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Friday September 14 2018, @04:02PM (2 children)

      by PiMuNu (3823) on Friday September 14 2018, @04:02PM (#734876)

      I don't think that you are correct. Let's consider, practically, how the UK political system works:

      UK:
      I vote for a MP to represent me in parliament. The MP subscribes, broadly, to a political party's ethics and policies. She nominates a cabinet that subscribes, broadly, to a manifesto that the government then seeks to execute. The House of Lords acts as a foil to some of the more idiotic stuff, and some of them cream a bit of political influence and probably $$ off the top.

      EU:
      1. I vote for a government in the UK. They nominate representatives to the European Council, who do *stuff*. Crucially, I *never* voted for an identifiable leadership team, and really I *never* got to vote for an EU manifesto beyond "vaguely pro-EU" or "vaguely anti-EU". *I* never got to vote for expansion in Eastern Europe, or the magnitude of the EU subscription, or any of that stuff which came up in Brexit.
      2. I vote for MEPs. They do *stuff*. But MEPs are crucially *not* the people who drive the EU, that is the European Council. They act as a sort of House of Lords, acting as a foil to some of the more idiotic stuff, and then creaming a bit of political influence off the top.

      So while the EU institutions look democratic, I never voted for a bunch of people to run the EU and act through some manifesto. To me as a citizen of Europe, the EU feels (and is) very un-democratic. *In practice* the decision making process is highly indirect and largely out of the hands of the electorate.

      That's okay if the EU is just a treaty organisation (a sort of European UN), but that is not the case. Primacy is given to, for example, the ECHR, GDPR, and other things. The EU had a very aggressive legislative programme that is completely changing the entire way the UK works, far more rapidly and fundamentally than the UK government itself. I *never* saw GDPR in a party manifesto. I *never* saw accession of Turkey in a party manifesto.

      ... and let me be clear, I am arguing for a much stronger, much more democratic European Union. I want a European Union where I can actually vote on this sort of stuff, not just a dumping ground for washed up British (and other) politicians as it is at the moment.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 14 2018, @05:53PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 14 2018, @05:53PM (#734934)

        I understand your criticism about the indirectness, though in all fairness things necessarily get more indirect the more people are governed.
        And about your specific points: if you are in the UK and voted for the government in power back then you most definitely DID vote for expansion into Eastern Europe. Maybe the parties preferred not to tell you that, but as said blaming the dishonesty of your national politicians on the EU seems highly unfair to me.
        Even more so since people could at any time have protested against it, which largely did not happen.
        Also there are a lot of things people didn't vote for that were done in the UK, for example none of the handling of the economic crisis you got to vote for until the next election afterwards (by which time it was not much of a topic anymore).
        Also the European Parliament has far more power than e.g. the House of Lords nowadays. However they cannot have full power, exactly because the EU is largely meant to implement only things that ALL member states agree on.
        In other words, a lot of the perceived un-democraticness is exactly because the EU leaves most of the power in the hands of its member states! Which means, it is most democratic when you have open and honest local politicians that also tell you what plans they have at the EU level. However since too few people care about the EU, they tend to prefer to not talk much about it...
        Btw. all who can, remember to inform yourselves and vote in the next election to the European Parliament! It DOES matter!

        • (Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Monday September 17 2018, @08:29AM

          by PiMuNu (3823) on Monday September 17 2018, @08:29AM (#735899)

          > In other words, a lot of the perceived un-democraticness is exactly because the EU leaves most of the power in the hands of its member states

          Exactly my point. This is a flaw in the EU that I think is largely to blame for Brexit.

          For example, no one is complaining about the (huge) UK aid budget to Africa - but they do complain about the EU subsidy. Why is that?