The fact you have said it over and over doesnât make it any less derisory. Sure why have elections at all? We should just trust politicians to do whatâs best for us, they have such a good track record.
Democracy as we know it for all its flaws was hard won, and shouldnât be abandoned because a shower of unelected Eurocrats in Brussels are worried about their jobs.
Only an opinion mate, mine is that this wonât end well, not the end of the world but Britain wonât do well in my very uneducated opinion.
I just think that some things are too important for referendum, particularly when they are driven by politicians who are always candidates for a bloody nose.
Who are the unelected officials? Commissioners?
Civil Servants have always existed, the mandarins at the Foreign Office have shaped British foreign politics for decades.
Iâd Britain wants to stay in the a Common Market now, they will have to comply with Brussells laws like Norway do. It makes sense for Norway to stay out because of their natural resources but there is still an enormous democratic deficit for them in order to enjoy free trade and movement of people.
No one has the right to tell and Englishman what to do, except a born-to-rule Etonian obviously.
Corbs to be PM by October.
But you have to assume that civil servants in London or Dublin for that matter have some interest in the welfare of the countries they serve. The bureaucrats in Brussels have no such interest and are only interested in growing their bureaucracy and creating a generic Europe.
Why would the common market be so important to the UK in a globalized world? Especially as itâs stagnant with effectively zero growth. China and India combined have ~3B people compared to 0.5B in the EU. Excluding India there are almost 1B in the Commonwealth. Countries that will prosper are those that can compete globally.
Next theyâll be suggesting a delegation from the best fans in the world in France to broker a settlement in the delicate and tricky exit talks.
A dangerous opinion though. The idea you are expressing i.e. some things are too important for the âfoolsâ to decide, is what leads to totalitarianism. The UK population surely have the right to decide whether they want to be governed by people they elect, and have some influence over, or increasingly by bureaucrats in Brussels they have no control over.
Itâs the same decision many other EU countries will be facing regardless of how much squealing comes from Brussels.
I agree short term this will bring economic pain for Britain, but how it plays out long term depends entirely on how well the exit process is managed.
You could be right, Iâm far from an expert, and I get what youâre saying about totalitarianism.
It seems at the moment the âpeopleâ will oppose the politicians on just about anything, the immigration and climate of fear that exists made the ignorant easy prey for the xenophobes.
To continue the populist theme I suggest that the properties pms be put on an x factor show where they are whittle down week by week to final 3 by public vote. Then a grand finale over a weekend, perhaps the last weekend in October or so, with mandatory text voting.
That logic applies to anywhere though. You can argue any civil service that way. Whatâs good for New York federally might be shit for Delaware. Same goes for the UK with London and Wigan.
The EUâs goals are sound generally. I wouldnât for one second say itâs perfect but fuck me I hear the same moaning about every western democracy from cranks. I know from working in Ireland the benefits of the single market, people donât appreciate it day to day but many have woken up to that reality now.
In the next year I really fear for us in Ireland as investment is going to stall across the Eurozone.
Boris, as we all know, did this for personal reasons. He is actually a traditional economically liberal Tory looking out for his class who loved freedom of movement. Gove admitted to ignoring experts, he is a nationalist at his core.
Iâm in favour of stomping on radical Islam in some radical ways but I fear people in Britain saw Brexit as a way to do this- it wonât. Economically deprived Europeans, I.e, those damaged by free trade displacing traditional industries, have far less to moan about than Americans, we have access to education and upsklling that Yanks donât.
If memory serves me correctly, it was a 3-part documentary on BBC. He also did âCentury of the Selfâ - also an excellent documentary.
The proportion of kids from the depressed parts of England (towns everywhere but North in particular) is shrinking rapidly. While the opportunity to upskill is essential if you are to morally justify free trade treaties, there is a point beyond which education doesnât thrive. There are now lots of areas in the UK where barely 5-10% of young people progress to third level.
The reality is that young people need some sense of possibility to even buy into education as a road that leads somewhere in the first place, and role models in their life that make them think they can do it. When neither of those elements are there, and schools are being defunded because they canât magically undo this conditioning and produce good results, the whole notion of mobility through education becomes a bit of a fantasy. Theoretically itâs possible but in reality it doesnât happen.
Where does it all go? The rapid progress in the automation of narrow job roles makes knowledge intensive work more and more important for economic security. Without a deeply embedded culture of education and training (like we traditionally have had in Ireland), and very strong state support, you will have millions of people who have an economic value thatâs close to zero. As is the case with the vast ghettos and industrial wastelands of the US today, where will the incentive be to invest the billions in taxation needed to revive entire geographical regions. I donât think it will exist.
I have heard similar anecdotes on the north of England but are the stats correct? Can it really be as low as 5-10% for third level?
Depends on your unit of analysis. In Bootle for example, the working age population is 40-50k and the third level education rate is 10.7%. Imagine how bad it is in the worst of the schools and neighbourhoods in a place like that. You can find stats on the Times Higher Ed website. In places like Cynon Valley and Ogmore in Wales that were former coal mining towns itâs about 15% across their populations. Frightening to think what the massive rise in tuition fees is going to do to those places.
Those stats are shocking.
No surprise that they voted against the establishment.
I thought that age group voted stay?
They did but not many of them voted. As always young people donât vote. Too busy talking shite on the Internet as if that mattered.
