EU Elections

[Ed209]

As I see it we are no longer living in a true democracy.
With a very biased BBC , Pro remain big business funding the remain camp quite happy to ignore a democratic vote, and eu citizens allowed to vote in the uk eu elections to bolster the remain vote and the complete failure of the major parties to accept people want to leave I think it is only a matter of time until people take direct action.
Come remembrance sunday I cant see how these hypocrites can lay wreaths for people who died defending democracy.

[cbe]

The disconnect between MPs and 'ordinary' people is mindblowing. I honestly believe we need a whole new batch of politicians - people with some life and work experience. I don't count 3 years at a ((university)) followed by employment either with a trade union or a 'researcher' for an MP in any way prepares anyone for the job of being an MP and yet very, very many of them have come through that route. I also believe that Mps should be able to serve only a maximum of 10 years - never mind this job for life and sod the voters.

[Richard]

T. May tried to play the 'go-between' to arrange an orderly Brexit, tried to please both sides and failed. It is true that a small majority voted to leave but it was never going to be that simple was it?
Just to leave completely and let the country pick up the pieces afterwards may have resulted in a disorderly situation with panic over jobs, workers rights and supply chains in limbo.
At least now we have had time to work through all the arguments, both for remaining and leaving, with or without a deal, which has yet remained elusive.
I voted for leave and will not change my decision but we have been involved with the EU for many years and I think it is not as easy as some may believe just to walk away and leave without due respect for all the workers here from overseas and the businesses dependent on their labour.

[Ed209]

In an ideal world the EU wouldn't be riddled with corruption and their would have been a way for us to control our own immigration so the public wouldn't feel they were being flooded with migration from eastern Europe.
As wages in most low / medium skilled jobs have not grown apart from the minimum wage and places at schools have got harder to get, certainly in the Catholic ones locally and in London as I've found where other than siblings the whole intake is eastern European and the local kids from the estate 2 minutes away who's families have always gone their can't get in.
It's no wonder the public are angry, any chance of a deal was torpedoed by career politicians.
I think a no deal in October and then negotiate a new deal is the best option especially with what was reported about right wing groups preparing attacks on MPs up north.
Failing to leave will probably result in another dead MP at some point.
It can only be a matter of time if brexit doesn't happen, they only have to be lucky once.

[seahermit]

There has to be some continuing involvement with the EU of course, trade agreements, exchanges of workers, some recognition of each other's rights. Such arrangements have always existed, that is how the world works together. But absolutely not the political power and bureaucratic dominance which the EU has come to represent (and the corruption). In the 1970s, I and many others did not vote for a political union with Europe nor dream that the course of events would flow towards an outcome of that kind.

Also in the 1970s (showing my age), I was briefly a Young Conservative (like Tony Hancock, I couldn't play ping-pong and I didn't want to get married, but the girls WERE nice and the Saturday discos we're good!). However, point is that I knew several YC members, male and female, who more or less went straight from university into a political job at the Commons and two later became Cabinet ministers. Another friend became a candidate for a South London borough, never got elected thank God, because he was an absolute imbecile!

I agree, that in some way, proven work experience and skills should become part of the approved route into a parliamentary career.

Applying a ten-year limit on service as a MP is somewhat arbitrary and artificial - if a politician demonstrates the relevant skills and wisdom, I don't see anything wrong with someone serving a long term, as in business or any other field. A ten-year limit in the past would have eliminated many of our greatest, ablest statesmen. But, yes, it should be tied much more to performance and it should be much easier to move on those MPs who don't want to retire! In practice, I think this is the way things have been moving, scutiny from the media and the public is these days so much more intense that it is atleast harder for feeble and ineffective politicians to achieve real power.

The problem at present is that FEW of them are particularly brilliant or charismatic politicians, some would say quite a lot are definitely feeble! So, we have to make the best of what we are served up with ..

[Richard]

Even at this late stage some of the aspiring leaders are talking about pursuing a deal but the EU has said there can be no real deal change at all.
If the 'Pollies' carry out the wishes of the electorate does it matter what their background is?

We don't want the backstop arrangement but something has to be worked out re- the Irish border impasse.
Let the EU man the borders?

[cbe]

My suggestion of a 10 year maximum of course has faults in that, as you say seahermit, it would discard the able too. But we have far more seat-blockers than the able in this Parliament and I would say for at least the last ten years that has been the case.The people who are able to stand and get elected purely because they wear the party rosette rather than any quantifiable ability has got us the dross we are lumbered with. If they carry out the electorate's wishes does it matter about their background says Richard - in that case no it doesn't. But we have the inexperienced presiding over us and in theory passing laws, when many of them could not run the proverbial whelk stall. In closing - the 'Irish Backstop' is listed as THE reason for not accepting Mrs May's WA. That was used as a 'look - a squirrel' smokescreen -there are many things in that 'agreement' which are staggering to believe a British PM could agree to - but the 'backstop' was used as the one problem with it. Establishment shorthand for 'sort out the backstop and everything else is fine'. NO it wasn't and isn't and is why it is consigned to the ignominy which will soon receive Mrs May.

[Richard]

John Bercow, House of Commons Speaker, has warned Conservative leadership candidates that the next UK prime minister will not be able to force through a no-deal Brexit this autumn against the will of parliament.
Mr Bercow acknowledged that if a deal could not be finalised between the UK and EU by October 31'st — and if no extension were agreed — then leaving the EU without a Brexit deal would be the legal default.
But he added: “There is a difference between a legal default position and what the interplay of different political forces in parliament will facilitate.”
Mr Bercow did not spell out how those forces could express themselves. But his comments will fuel expectations that he could find a way for MPs to stage a vote allowing passage of a law to block a no-deal Brexit.
It is important to understand that the overwhelming majority of MPs are opposed to a no-deal Brexit. If they remain opposed it will be hard for any government to ignore them.
If 400 MPs want to stop a no deal Brexit, as they said they did in March, they can.
But is it possible to negotiate a better deal than did T. May? If not we are back to 'square one' all over again.

Jeremy Hunt, the foreign secretary and another Tory leadership candidate, warned on Tuesday that a clear majority of MPs were against leaving the EU without a deal and that they would act to stop it happening:
“Any prime minister who promised to leave the EU by a specific date — without the time to renegotiate and pass a new deal — would, in effect, be committing to a general election the moment parliament tried to stop it,” he wrote. “And trying to deliver no deal through a general election is not a solution; it is political suicide.”

[cbe]

John Bercow has long demeaned the position of Speaker. That is all.

[Richard]

In a representative democracy, voting by the public provides the basis for, not the exclusion of Parliament to begin its work.
The idea of parliamentary sovereignty connects in turn to the ‘take back control’ slogan. If Parliament is to be denied a meaningful part in the process of leaving, who, it might be asked, is regaining this ‘control’?
The UK government believes it can undertake this process on behalf of the entire UK exclusively on its own account, with no formal rights for the Westminster Parliament, or the devolved institutions. In this scenario, it is not the EU that appears a monolithic polity suffering from democratic deficit, but the UK.
Overall the the May Doctrine envisaged a role for Parliament that amounted to little more than that of a bystander.

There is one particular parliamentary lever that is uniquely the property of the Commons. If the UK government denies Parliament any express role in the response to the EU referendum – as it seemingly intends to do at present – or if it seeks to exclude it at a particular crucial moment, the Commons nonetheless possesses an important latent power. It can remove its support from the government as a whole, and force the formation of a new administration committed to remaining within the EU.