The only sort of referendum provided for by the Constitution is for an amendment to the Constitution, and for that you need to specify exactly what the wording of the amendment will be and the only choices are Yes and No.
That’s why what we had for gay marriage was called a plebiscite, and it was not binding on Parliament.
It was non-binding because the spineless git tories who promised to “obey their constituents’ wishes” are spineless git tories.
Rubbish. And stupid rubbish.
I know they are but you old people keep voting them in.
Are the gut tories git tories or are the git tories gut tories?
The UK doesn’t have a constitution so I don’t believe there are any rules.
Well I accept I’m old but I won’t be voting for them at the next election. I did vote for them last time. And just for your information, in the course of my much-longer-than-your life, although I haven’t done a count, I’d say I’ve voted Labor just as often as Liberal. It’s called having an open mind, in case you didn’t know.
■■■■ ip, fickwut.
Sure you are.
If Malcolm had any nads, he would’ve reversed Howard’s law in about half an hour. Spineless.
When Abbott and co say they’ll vote with their constituents, then walk out, rather than doing what they say they would? Spineless.
Would you say that there are a lot of these git gut tories? Like, perhaps, a glut of them?
Let’s get back to the topic.
Brexut.
Who got it done? Julia had her chance.
In the 2 months before the election? Or with the minority govt she won with?
Make all the excuses you like.
To my basic eye…the EU has not been well designed…it brought various countries together in a way that was ‘half pregnant’…and over time, this just leads to the build-up of stresses, that are pulling it apart again.
Firstly, on the common currency. I can see transactional benefits, but those benefits may be diminishing as we simply digitalise more transactions? We don’t need to swap credit cards as we cross borders!..and the common monetary policy is a problematic inflexibility. It looks like it has benefited the Germans et al at the expense of the PIGS et al.
Customs streamlining is probably a worthwhile goal to enhancing trade…but it sounds like the philosophy of fair trade is compromised by protectionist policies/subsidies for certain agriculture?? (I don’t know enough, happy to be advised on this topic)
And finally, the issue of ownership. A German doesn’t feel enough kinship with a Greek to really share anything. So balance sheets stay separate…and yet, someone wrote freedom of movement of people into the EU? It feels like a potential contradiction to me.
Anyway…I think Britain were wise to keep the pound…I think I probably would have voted for Brexit…and I think I would accept May’s deal as a step forward.
You really should have a look at how the currencies were going in Spain, Portugal, Greece and Italy, pre Euro.
(It wasn’t good)
Correct.
The UK will never get rid of the pound and nor should it though.
There will be many effects of Brexit, but there are about 2.5 million legal EU workers in UK and maybe another million illegals.
Brexit will mean the legals workers will find it more difficult to continue and this will cause havoc in many industries.
And the EU was always an economic union, and never for Nations to lose any identity, and they haven’t .
That’s a feature, not a bug.
If you’re a country with your own currency and you get in a bad economic state, you can devalue your currency, which instantly reduces your debt in real terms and attracts investment and tourism.
.If you’re a country in a bad economic state which is pinned to a strong currency , you’re a bit stuffed. The single currency benefits strong economies and hamstrings weak economies. The weak economies are pinned to an artificially high exchange rate (bumped up by the sttong economies that also use the currency) which means it’s a lot harder to manage debt and attract investment, while the strong economies benefit from an artificially low currency (because it’s held back by the weak economies) which makes their exports cheaper and attracts even more investment. Basically, under a single currency, everyone is cushioned from the worst of currency volatility by the sheer inertia or a bigger economic unity using the same currency, but within the currency bloc, the strong get stronger and the weak lose control over their own destinies.
Greece etc would be much better off financially now if they’d been able to devalue the drachma (or the lira, or whatever) years ago. Instead, they’re all locked into using a Euro which is valued based more on the German industrial sector rather than the needs of their own economy. The EU has mostly been a good thing, but I’d argue that the Euro has been a catastrophe.