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On April 19 2017 05:46 Shield wrote: If French people believe that the EU is capitalist, they are leaning too much toward the left wing then. EU is more of a social democracy with some of its benefits, which I actually enjoy.
Considering that most of the European laws passed by the EU parliament are written up by lawyers on the payroll of big corporations, I think this idea is flawed.
Furthermore, we cannot even prevent bullfighting in Spain. Or rescue refugees on the Mediterranean and distribute the them fairly across Europe.
Europe is mostly free markets where the big corporations gain the most. And then the Eurozone is about dictating the fiscal policy most optimal for the German economy.
In that sense, I am not sure how the EU is a social project. Now maybe it being a social project will lead to the banning of same sex marriage and other regressive policies like that. But that is why certain countries shouldn't have been included until they share the same social values.
On April 19 2017 04:59 Ghostcom wrote: @LegalLord: I'm frankly unsure about how I can be any clearer than I am. I'm not playing the game of "anything you say that I disagree with is merely ignorance" - I'm playing the game of "everything you say is unsubstantiated by you and quite a lot of it is gross simplifications with little foundation in reality". Remedy either of these and stop the constant unsubstantiated repetitions and you shall receive no further complaints from me. The irony of you preaching self-awareness is not lost on me though.
@bard: I'm going to be hard pressed to produce conclusive evidence, as I don't have the means to give the UK population a multiple choice the day before they voted, however I can produce several indicators:
The second indicator would be what the Leave/Remain campaigns argued and what the factual truths were - a brief and very superflous fact-check was brought by www.telegraph.co.uk. I think both in this thread and in the EU thread the campaigns were thoroughly discussed and as such I'm not going to go further in-depth here.
A third, fourth and fifth indicator is going to be the negotiations, the consequences in 2 years time, and the reactions to them. As you and I often end up: Time will tell who of us was right and we will have to endure the wait together
I never really understood the Google trending thing. If some old celebrity dies they probably become the top search result because kids see the news and search their name. Also, that search 'What is the EU?' was trending for months. It's not like nobody searched for it until after the referendum and then suddenly people started looking.
In fact, the trending numbers seem to imply the opposite of what you suggest. Notice how England has the highest interest in the EU referendum - and also the highest Leave vote. Wales second - with the second highest leave vote. Scotland and Northern Ireland are far behind - they voted Remain. It's almost like those who were more informed about the issue were more likely to vote Leave. Which, incidentally, was the case for the age group differential. Polling showed that the elderly knew more about EU institutions than the young. They were the ones who voted to stay in the EEC in 1975 and then watched it morph into the EU, after all. They are the ones who remember Tony Blair promising a referendum on the Lisbon treaty and then not delivering. They are the ones who remember the controversy around the Maastricht treaty, too.
I might be misunderstanding your first paragraph, but as far as I can tell you are contradicting yourself? To sum up: People searched for it loads in the months prior (not actually backed by the data google provides), but there was a massive spike as soon as BREXIT became a reality because no one was sure whether or not EU made "The Final Countdown" despite a month-long wall-to-wall media covered campaign which resulted in the departure of the UK prime minister?
As for the second paragraph I think you are looking at the wrong numbers or misunderstanding what the numbers represent (my bad, the link I gave only gave the search-figures for the past week of april 2017 I think - trends.google.com here is one giving you the trend over the past 5 years - the line is close to flat outside of a very small blip the day the vote was announced and then a MASSIVE spike the days after BREXIT became reality). Based on number of queries "What is EU" was equally popular both before and after the election across all UK territories (and thus all exhibiting the same pattern and thus all being equally informed following your own logic).
People lie and exaggerate in political campaigns. I don't know if the UK is worse than other countries in this regard, but I honestly doubt it. The primary news source for the referendum was the BBC and they were pushing their fact checking throughout. Plus there were so many occasions where the two sides were head to head and had the opportunity to point out any inaccuracies.
I think that we probably focus on different aspects of the EU which leads continentals to believe we were mislead. In the east the EU is a force for democracy, whereas in the UK it is the exact opposite. In France, the EU is capitalist. In the UK, it's protectionist. Relatively speaking, we're all correct.
I agree with you first paragraph here - I don't think UK politicians are all that bad in comparison. However, the lies and exaggerations in political campaigns have gotten worse (or at least more effective if you like) with the development of modern technology, specifically social media and search algorithms - both which are designed to show you what you want.
We are only all relatively speaking correct if we abide by your generalizations. My contention was that BREXIT was a campaign led on specific issues and on those specific issues the UK population was by-and-large mislead (by both sides frankly) and as a consequence it was implausible that the average citizen fully understood the ramifications of either choice.
EDIT: Also, the closest cooperating partner Denmark had in EU was UK, so at least some of us "continentals" were pretty close to you "islanders".
On April 19 2017 04:59 Ghostcom wrote: @LegalLord: I'm frankly unsure about how I can be any clearer than I am. I'm not playing the game of "anything you say that I disagree with is merely ignorance" - I'm playing the game of "everything you say is unsubstantiated by you and quite a lot of it is gross simplifications with little foundation in reality". Remedy either of these and stop the constant unsubstantiated repetitions and you shall receive no further complaints from me. The irony of you preaching self-awareness is not lost on me though.
@bard: I'm going to be hard pressed to produce conclusive evidence, as I don't have the means to give the UK population a multiple choice the day before they voted, however I can produce several indicators:
The second indicator would be what the Leave/Remain campaigns argued and what the factual truths were - a brief and very superflous fact-check was brought by www.telegraph.co.uk. I think both in this thread and in the EU thread the campaigns were thoroughly discussed and as such I'm not going to go further in-depth here.
A third, fourth and fifth indicator is going to be the negotiations, the consequences in 2 years time, and the reactions to them. As you and I often end up: Time will tell who of us was right and we will have to endure the wait together
I never really understood the Google trending thing. If some old celebrity dies they probably become the top search result because kids see the news and search their name. Also, that search 'What is the EU?' was trending for months. It's not like nobody searched for it until after the referendum and then suddenly people started looking.
In fact, the trending numbers seem to imply the opposite of what you suggest. Notice how England has the highest interest in the EU referendum - and also the highest Leave vote. Wales second - with the second highest leave vote. Scotland and Northern Ireland are far behind - they voted Remain. It's almost like those who were more informed about the issue were more likely to vote Leave. Which, incidentally, was the case for the age group differential. Polling showed that the elderly knew more about EU institutions than the young. They were the ones who voted to stay in the EEC in 1975 and then watched it morph into the EU, after all. They are the ones who remember Tony Blair promising a referendum on the Lisbon treaty and then not delivering. They are the ones who remember the controversy around the Maastricht treaty, too.
I might be misunderstanding your first paragraph, but as far as I can tell you are contradicting yourself? To sum up: People searched for it loads in the months prior (not actually backed by the data google provides), but there was a massive spike as soon as BREXIT became a reality because no one was sure whether or not EU made "The Final Countdown" despite a month-long wall-to-wall media covered campaign which resulted in the departure of the UK prime minister?
As for the second paragraph I think you are looking at the wrong numbers or misunderstanding what the numbers represent (my bad, the link I gave only gave the search-figures for the past week of april 2017 I think - trends.google.com here is one giving you the trend over the past 5 years - the line is close to flat outside of a very small blip the day the vote was announced and then a MASSIVE spike the days after BREXIT became reality). Based on number of queries "What is EU" was equally popular both before and after the election across all UK territories (and thus all exhibiting the same pattern and thus all being equally informed following your own logic).
People lie and exaggerate in political campaigns. I don't know if the UK is worse than other countries in this regard, but I honestly doubt it. The primary news source for the referendum was the BBC and they were pushing their fact checking throughout. Plus there were so many occasions where the two sides were head to head and had the opportunity to point out any inaccuracies.
I think that we probably focus on different aspects of the EU which leads continentals to believe we were mislead. In the east the EU is a force for democracy, whereas in the UK it is the exact opposite. In France, the EU is capitalist. In the UK, it's protectionist. Relatively speaking, we're all correct.
I agree with you first paragraph here - I don't think UK politicians are all that bad in comparison. However, the lies and exaggerations in political campaigns have gotten worse (or at least more effective if you like) with the development of modern technology, specifically social media and search algorithms - both which are designed to show you what you want.
We are only all relatively speaking correct if we abide by your generalizations. My contention was that BREXIT was a campaign led on specific issues and on those specific issues the UK population was by-and-large mislead (by both sides frankly) and as a consequence it was implausible that the average citizen fully understood the ramifications of either choice.
EDIT: Also, the closest cooperating partner Denmark had in EU was UK, so at least some of us "continentals" were pretty close to you "islanders".
The link you had before was a general round-up of referendum issues, I guess. It showed what I said about the four nations. As for the 'What is the EU' search, I guess I misunderstood the data on that. It did spike after the referendum, but again I don't see why you would infer from that that the people searching for that question were people who had voted and not people who didn't vote (especially youngsters) who were reading about it on the news. Do you know how to search for real numbers? I tried comparing it to David Cameron and he seemed to be getting far more hits, implying the numbers can't have been that significant. I really don't think it's indicative.
I don't think that every individual understood all the ramifications, either. Neither did the economists or politicians involved, for that matter. That's the beauty of democracy, though: people vote on the issues that are most important to them and the aggregate gives a fairly reliable assessment as to which course of action is best. And engagement was far higher than in a general election, so in relative terms I think people did take an interest and try to understand as best they could. I guess your critique is more generally targeted at democracy (especially in the age of big data and targeted campaigning), and that's an interesting debate for sure. But I think it's a cop-out to dismiss the arguments themselves and say people were mislead.
Denmark is an exceptionally rational outpost on the continent . I'm impressed by how you've kept the best parts of the Scandinavian system while avoiding the insanity that has befallen Sweden. I also think there's a fair amount of scepticism there along the same lines as there is here. And I don't think they're mislead to be sceptical.
I would like to reply, but it's too late for me now. I will try and see if I can get some time to do it this week, but I got evening/night shifts until Saturday (and they can't all be as quiet as this one was up until now), so I might not get around to it. In any case, thanks for your perspective.
16/1 that Labour win the most seats, seems to me more likely than them actually get behind Corbyn and coming up with some policies that say "vote for us" rather than "at least we're not the Tories", which seemed to be their default answer to everything the last time they were in power. Even Brown was doing that in PMQ's every other question. Despite it being Labour's third term and a decade removed from Major.
On April 19 2017 05:46 Shield wrote: If French people believe that the EU is capitalist, they are leaning too much toward the left wing then. EU is more of a social democracy with some of its benefits, which I actually enjoy.
Its different perspectives from different cultures and people, for the UK most of the social democratic aspects and worker rights were already laws in our country, we joined primarily for trade after the collapse of empire and our economy. We now see the EU as a block to global trade (our global trade at least) and infringing on our sovereignty and so we chose to leave.
For the French again they had most of these social protection laws it was a project to bind France and Germany together so that there wouldn't be another war. This idea is ludicrous now, and with the Euro crises France has felt a lot of economic pain and now the EU demands reform to the French system and so some of the French see this as an attack from capitalists.
Bulgaria and eastern states as a former members of the Soviet bloc see things again from a different standpoint, the EU is seen as guarantor of democracy and human/workers rights because they never had these things at least not for a long period before the EU.
The EU has done many good things especially in its expansion to the east imo but it has also done many bad things with the Euro project and the constant striving for a unified political state. As it is right now I think it would be better for the EU to end than to continue but perhaps reform is possible in the future but the EU is no longer for the British and we just want to be good neighbours
Politicians do whatever gets them the most votes. If their voter potential will vote for them if they lie, they will lie. If you want less liars for politicians, stop believing their lies. It is that easy.
On April 19 2017 08:59 Eridanus wrote: Politicians do whatever gets them the most votes. If their voter potential will vote for them if they lie, they will lie. If you want less liars for politicians, stop believing their lies. It is that easy.
It's really not that simple. Firstly, not everybody is aware of a politician's lies depending on which news source(s) they trust. Secondly, in a country that uses FPTP elections, the two biggest parties are going to win virtually everything, so it's not realistic to say "just don't vote for them." Thirdly, some countries have such a deep partisan divide that there's some social expectations to only vote for one's own clan (particularly true in Northern Ireland), so it's not so easy to just call out a politician's lies and vote for somebody else.
Really if it were that simple, don't you think just about everybody would do so?
Going to be one of the biggest landslides in history. Lib Dems going to secure a sizable remain protest vote while the UKIP vote is neutered with Brexit. Just be grateful that this electoral demolition will see the end of extremist Corbyn and his loopy policies.
On April 20 2017 18:00 iPlaY.NettleS wrote: Going to be one of the biggest landslides in history. Lib Dems going to secure a sizable remain protest vote while the UKIP vote is neutered with Brexit. Just be grateful that this electoral demolition will see the end of extremist Corbyn and his loopy policies.
Funnily enough all the policies Corbyn announced last week enjoy widespread popular support, even if the polls don't reflect it. Strange how that works eh
On April 20 2017 18:00 iPlaY.NettleS wrote: Going to be one of the biggest landslides in history. Lib Dems going to secure a sizable remain protest vote while the UKIP vote is neutered with Brexit. Just be grateful that this electoral demolition will see the end of extremist Corbyn and his loopy policies.
Funnily enough all the policies Corbyn announced last week enjoy widespread popular support, even if the polls don't reflect it. Strange how that works eh
On April 20 2017 18:00 iPlaY.NettleS wrote: Going to be one of the biggest landslides in history. Lib Dems going to secure a sizable remain protest vote while the UKIP vote is neutered with Brexit. Just be grateful that this electoral demolition will see the end of extremist Corbyn and his loopy policies.
Funnily enough all the policies Corbyn announced last week enjoy widespread popular support, even if the polls don't reflect it. Strange how that works eh
So did Ed Miliband it didn't do him any good.
Yeah Corbyn will undoubtedly get demolished, but calling his policies loopy when they clearly aren't the reason for that demolishing is pretty ignorant.
Having good policies is meaningless if you don't have the competence to realise them. And whether you like it or not, we have Brexit to deal with, and Labour could not be more confused and incompetent on the issue.
There is a broader historical context to all of this. In the UK the Tories are "the natural party of government". The steady experienced hand on the tiller that people don't really like much but can rely upon it. Meanwhile Labour are more exciting to the people but have a reputation for constant and brutal infighting (as do the political left as a whole). If you remember the Monty Python Judean People's Front vs People's Front of Judea stuff, that's political satire. Labour have been at war with themselves for most of their history and there are always significant doubts about their competence, even while their policies are accepted.
The UK does Tories for three to four terms until they've gone so far right that the people can't stand it anymore and bring Labour back in to right the ship. Labour restore all the policies the people actually like but everyone gets reminded why they didn't want Labour running things in the first place (Old Labour vs Gang of Four, Benn vs Kinnock, New Labour vs Old Labour, Blairites vs Brownites, Corbyn vs New Labour etc). Then we go back to the Conservatives, not because we like them but because we think they're going to be self serving and generally awful in predictable ways.
If you have an interest in the plight of the left in this country, this is a very interesting interview between two people that are probably completely reviled by this thread.
I enjoyed that interview actually. I can't say I'm a huge fan of either but it was fun to watch them completely fail to get their respective points across (Jones failed more than Campbell of course).
On April 20 2017 18:00 iPlaY.NettleS wrote: Going to be one of the biggest landslides in history. Lib Dems going to secure a sizable remain protest vote while the UKIP vote is neutered with Brexit. Just be grateful that this electoral demolition will see the end of extremist Corbyn and his loopy policies.
Funnily enough all the policies Corbyn announced last week enjoy widespread popular support, even if the polls don't reflect it. Strange how that works eh
So did Ed Miliband it didn't do him any good.
Yeah Corbyn will undoubtedly get demolished, but calling his policies loopy when they clearly aren't the reason for that demolishing is pretty ignorant.
I've heard a few opinions about Corbyn and they're usually negative. Maybe he doesn't have enough personality to be likeable.
EPT
