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Brexit vote: What just happened and what comes next?
With only approximately two more months before a default no-deal "hard Brexit," the British Parliament has decisively rejected Prime Minister May's proposed plan for leaving the European Union.
There is a no confidence vote in works which, if successful, will dissolve the government and force another general election.
See also: Live: Latest as MPs debate no confidence vote
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British Parliament Rejects (Only) Brexit Plan
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday January 17 2019, @12:17AM (4 children)
The EU is micromanaging a lot of the business of its member countries. I doubt any of your coulds are feasible except for a handful of issues just due to the complexity of lobbying and campaigning at that level. Even then, it just takes an opposing group with contrary interests and larger size somewhere else in the EU to nix a "could".
(Score: 2) by cubancigar11 on Thursday January 17 2019, @03:36AM (3 children)
I don't think EU is micromanaging anymore than what it was intended to. EU is a mouthpiece of its economic workhorses - Germany and France. This leaves little middle ground - either you are able to bargain by becoming an economic workhorse yourself, or you benefit from them like Italy and Spain.
I think the issue is simply bad management. For example, Germany wants young men for labor but actively discourages educated immigrants for reasons I won't comment on. It has worked before actually when it invited Turkish immigrants just after WW2 so maybe they want to repeat that experiment? But a large number of uneducated immigrants will cause disruption to existing system. May be it worked last time because Germany was in shambles after WW2 unlike now.
The same is true for France, for example, which accepted African immigrants from its colonies, and Afgan immigrants in the Netherlands, and Pakistanis in UK.
AFAIK UK wants to restore itself to its former glory, and EU is a scapegoat.
Also, I mentioned elsewhere, Britain was never part of Schengen so it never had the actual problems of immigration.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday January 17 2019, @12:16PM (2 children)
It still is micromanaging even if there is intent there.
After those other reasons you just gave? Like the "little middle ground" of either being a powerhouse or a moocher.
Schengen isn't a necessary condition for having problems with immigration. For example, despite not being part of Schengen (the "border-free" part of the EU), the number of foreign born residents of the UK has doubled recently over a twenty year period (from 1991 to 2011 [wikipedia.org] - roughly 6.5% to over 13% in 2011).
As recently as 1993, there was zero net migration [migrationwatchuk.org]. That has since changed to a net immigration of roughly 300k people per year over the last few years (around 0.4% increase in population from immigration each year). Substantial changes in demographics will see substantial changes in public attitudes both from the new immigrants and from the reactions of the old ones.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Thursday January 17 2019, @08:50PM (1 child)
Roughly the same increase occurred in the USA [migrationpolicy.org]...which as you may be aware, is not part of the EU. 8% in 1990 to 14% in 2010. This change could also be due to cheaper travel, globalization, corporate fucks and their constant demands for more exploitable labor...lots of possible causes.
If you wanna claim this is due to the EU, you're going to need some actual evidence of that...
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday January 18 2019, @01:39PM
The "same increase occurred over a time period of 25-30 years, ending in 2017, not 18 years, ending in 2011, and ignores that the UK had a bunch of huge years of immigration after 2011 (which were the highest levels of immigration since at least 1975).
Like large scale net immigration after the EU was formed in 1993, but not before? The graph I cited above shows almost no net immigration prior to 1993 and a substantial climb in immigration after. Further, let us note that I wasn't claiming that immigration was due to the EU, even though that's probably substantially true in light of this substantial correlation over time, but rather addressing the claim "Britain was never part of Schengen so it never had the actual problems of immigration".