https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-46509288
"Prime Minister Theresa May has called off Tuesday's crucial vote on her Brexit deal so she can go back to Brussels and ask for changes to it.
"As it stands the deal 'would be rejected by a significant margin' if MPs voted on it, she admitted."
The biggest stumbling block appears to be the issue between Ireland and Northern Ireland. In particular, what the borders will look like in terms of what people and goods will need to do or not do in order to cross it.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 12 2018, @06:08PM (5 children)
"The real problem is that Brexit was always a stupid idea, and the politicians are now stuck trying to make that stupid idea not quite so stupid."
centralization of power, especially to unelected parasites is incredibly stupid. if you can't control you local government what makes you think you can control your state government? If you can't control the fucking traitors in the state capital what makes you think you can control the shameless whores in the national capital? if you can't control those raving reptillians, what makes you think you can control some international con artists like the EU?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Thexalon on Wednesday December 12 2018, @07:37PM (3 children)
Centralization of power being bad is not something I'm willing to accept as axiomatic. Sometimes, a distributed power structure makes a better decision than a centralized power structure would. Sometimes it's the other way around.
For example, the EU definitely has treated Greece very badly during the latest economic crisis. On the other hand, the latest economic crisis didn't turn into a major war like several pre-EU economic crises have. It's not like there aren't any tradeoffs involved here.
As for who controls the EU, the appointed representatives are a bit like how the US senate was originally created to represent the state government's interests. If you want to change what your nation is doing on the European Council, the way to go about that is changing your national government.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 12 2018, @09:24PM
I marvel at how people can just come up with fake reasons for decentralization and argue against them.
It has nothing to do with whether a "better decision" is made, it has to do with how bad things get when the "wrong" person is making decisions. I mentioned before on here that there is some sort of connection between so-called "liberal" political ideas and making strawman arguments. It is really deserving of study.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 12 2018, @10:06PM (1 child)
UK trade deficit [hhttps] with the EU is £67 billion (£28 billion surplus in services less £95 billion in goods). UK trade surplus with non-EU countries is £41 billion. The UK accounts for 15% of EU GDP. [europa.eu] The EU not doing a good faith, mutually beneficial deal is a stupid idea.
Price controls are usually bad [iea.org.uk] if not always EU butter mountain level bad.
Greece should never have been admitted to the Eurozone. Europe is simply a sub-optimal currency area. [city.ac.uk] I think you already know this.
Not yet. [businessinsider.com] Western governments allowed companies to off-shore global growth. When government borrowing was based on growth projections, printing money and importing "human capital" simply suspends the inevitable.
(Score: 2) by legont on Thursday December 13 2018, @03:51AM
but
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8536862.stm [bbc.co.uk]
That's probably why Greece was admitted; and it was fun for awhile.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by PartTimeZombie on Wednesday December 12 2018, @08:56PM
And is also not true. It's another one of the Brexiteer's lies, along with £350 million extra for the NHS and how the rest of the world will be lining up to trade with the UK.
I mean, my country is keen to negotiate a trade deal with the UK, but frankly they don't have much to offer us, and we produce much that they want, so we'll see how that goes I suppose.