Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Loud Whispers]

banter

Hardly. It's a massive power grab by the government.

Invoking laws enacted by Henry VIII to get brexed on time makes me positively moist tbqh

I haven't found a power grab thing yet but one bit of moist news that actually gives me hope that I won't have to keep adding 'for now' every time I say Scotland's a part of the UK is that the Dankirk withdrawal bill allows us to go beyond the EU's limits of devolution. On the power grab, I'm trying to figure out how the UK would adapt direct EU legislation into retained EU law without this clause in question, which is the one that's got everyone in a pickle. On the surface it's pretty uncontroversial, giving ministers the power to 'prevent, remedy or mitigate' any failure or deficiency in retained EU law.

What that means is that the cabinet ministers (the executive ministers of the ruling party) would have the power to modify or repeal laws that either do not work anymore or are redundant in the UK, so for example regulations on French agriculture are entirely useless in the UK and need not remain as a part of retained EU law. Putting each 19,000 bits of legislation through parliament for debate would mean that Brexit would probably be completed in the year 40,000 so as long as one of May's merry band of men doesn't down the line use some obscure bit of retained EU law to give themselves more power, this shouldn't go wrong. Though now I've said it I've probably jynxed it and we're gonna see the ministers be princes

[Sheb]

I haven't found a power grab thing yet but one bit of moist news that actually gives me hope that I won't have to keep adding 'for now' every time I say Scotland's a part of the UK is that the Dankirk withdrawal bill allows us to go beyond the EU's limits of devolution.

Wut? Given that "We're only officially a single country because we can't be arsed to split" Belgium is in the EU, I really wonder what kind of EU limit on devolution exists.

[Loud Whispers]

Wut? Given that "We're only officially a single country because we can't be arsed to split" Belgium is in the EU, I really wonder what kind of EU limit on devolution exists.

The EU hasn't decreed anything against devolution far as I've heard at least, only that the EU's centralization runs contrary to UK policy on devolution
Right now the UK runs under reserve powers. Basically, any power not reserved by Westminster goes to a devolved authority for them to decide on, the most notable exception of policies that are not reserve powers but which apply to every UK authority irregardless of what they want is in regards to EU policy; upon leaving Westminster can give Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and maybe even the rest of the local authorities throughout the UK and dependencies the right to manage powers that are currently reserved by common yurop policies, like in justice, agriculture, fisheries or environment

[Helgoland]

"because we can't be arsed to split"

That's a strange way of saying you can't figure out if the Flemish should get the even- or the odd-numbered houses in Brussels.

[Sheb]

"because we can't be arsed to split"

That's a strange way of saying you can't figure out if the Flemish should get the even- or the odd-numbered houses in Brussels.

For those that don't get the joke: when my university split into French- and Flemish-speaking parts in the early 70's, the library had to be split. One university got the odd-numbered book, the other the even-numbered books.

[Starver]

the cabinet ministers (the executive ministers of the ruling party)

A set of unelected bureaucrats, by your standards, if you think about it...

[smjjames]

"because we can't be arsed to split"

That's a strange way of saying you can't figure out if the Flemish should get the even- or the odd-numbered houses in Brussels.

For those that don't get the joke: when my university split into French- and Flemish-speaking parts in the early 70's, the library had to be split. One university got the odd-numbered book, the other the even-numbered books.

rofl........... That's just so absurd...... I can imagine it completely screwed up any book series.

[Helgoland]

Wasn't actually thinking of that - I guess it just proves how messed-up Belgium is, really.

[Starver]

Even Tintin, Poirot and Merckx preferred to ply their respective trades mostly outside of Belgium, and Mercator must have desperately wanted to!

[Loud Whispers]

the cabinet ministers (the executive ministers of the ruling party)

A set of unelected bureaucrats, by your standards, if you think about it...

Ministers =/= Bureaucrats
The civil service are our equivalent of the unelected bureaucrat, with the civil service being neither appointed by nor elected by anyone, rather being employed on a professional basis to advise, administer or execute policy decided upon by executive branches of gov. The ministers are appointed, the members of parliament elected - though traditionally, the ministers are appointed from the house of commons (as a result, 28 of the 29 ministers including the PM are all elected members of parliament, the one minister who is not an elected MP is a Baroness of the House of Lords, who is the minister in charge of the formalities and organization of the House of Lords - her post is always held by a peer).
So by my standards they are not equivalent; different problems exist for rule by Ministers or rule by Bureaucrats

[hector13]

Tories got themselves into the mess they're in now. Had they took their majority and ran with it they'd be fine and dandy, barring a significant revolt in their ranks. 'cause Theresa decided to chance her arm and blow a 20 point lead in 45 days, now they have to make sure to keep everybody happy, all of the time.

It's glorious. Democracy is brill.

To be fair, though, the fact they can't just appease business leaders and be on their way is quite brilliant regarding Brexit. They actually have to listen to people and take account opinions from everywhere, 'cause if they piss off enough of their own people, they can't do anything.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Personally, I can't wait for the negotiations to prevent the automatic sever in 2019 to fail based on a single DUP vote from a fellow with the fire of imperialism in his eyes, followed by political and economic crisis as all connections between EU and UK citizens fall through in a single day and every member of the House of Lords sells off national assets to buy Qatari citizenship and escape the Fawkes Mask flash mobs.

[ChairmanPoo]

Personally, I can't wait for the negotiations to prevent the automatic sever in 2019 to fail based on a single DUP vote from a fellow with the fire of imperialism in his eyes, followed by political and economic crisis as all connections between EU and UK citizens fall through in a single day and every member of the House of Lords sells off national assets to buy Qatari citizenship and escape the Fawkes Mask flash mobs.

Soon

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[Loud Whispers]

yfw the fate of your civilization is in the hands of dup

[Starver]

the cabinet ministers (the executive ministers of the ruling party)

A set of unelected bureaucrats, by your standards, if you think about it...

Ministers =/= Bureaucrats
The civil service are our equivalent of the unelected bureaucrat, with the civil service being neither appointed by nor elected by anyone, rather being employed on a professional basis to advise, administer or execute policy decided upon by executive branches of gov. The ministers are appointed, the members of parliament elected - though traditionally, the ministers are appointed from the house of commons (as a result, 28 of the 29 ministers including the PM are all elected members of parliament, the one minister who is not an elected MP is a Baroness of the House of Lords, who is the minister in charge of the formalities and organization of the House of Lords - her post is always held by a peer).
So by my standards they are not equivalent; different problems exist for rule by Ministers or rule by Bureaucrats

The European Commission is effectively a cabinet, which everyone complains about. The President of the Commission is suggested by the European Council and agreed upon by the European Parliament, the rest of the members proposed by the Council Of The European Union. It is non-executive in powers, so nothing like the proposed super-government Westminster cabinet in terms of powers, not even the current "need to defer to parliament" cabinet executive, as they need the EP/etc to listen to them, not just ratify.

The European Council is composed of the Heads Of States/Government, who vary by their way they attain that power but are mostly voted in by the democratic process that the entirety of their home state already uses. (Our HoG isn't, please note!)

The European Parliament is an elected body, as per the Westminster one, with a few (arguably better) small differences to the process.

The Council Of The European Union consists of one designated minister for every state, however so those ministers are put forward.

The European Court Of Justice is composed of one representative judge from each state, but I'm no expert on how every state stuffs its judiciary.

The European Central Bank is administrative, not legislative, and composed of term-limited individuals recommended for their financial expertise and integrity by the national governments, and is much derided but is pretty much nothing like as bad as painted and irrelevant here except for completeness.

As is the European Court Of Auditors, whose composition is dictated by the Council and function is not even remotely legislative.


So, which set of bureaucrats (that, where they count, aint even bureaucrats!) has any more undue relative power than this group of people we propose to give such power to in the UK. This group appointed only by convention from amongst elected persons. Persons elected to just one non-majority party, and chosen/made-do-with by a person whose sole practical majority is the 26,000 odd constituency voters (down from 29k!) that lets her represent Maidenhead, and only in power 'cos she was the last woman standing and now nobody from her own party has any mind to seize the poisoned challice from her unappointed lips... Yet!

Tell me that you had any hand in getting any of this potentially hyper-executive Cabinet into power. At most, you might have voted for one of them, but (unless you're in Maidenhead, and even then) then that's just luck. Run the numbers, and you'll find that your voter influence in these matters is more insignificant than the multi-path authorisation that the average European (us included, although we Brits can't actually claim to have elected our Head Of Government, so maybe we should fix that first, before complaining about the Gnomes Of Zurich, etc.) has over the pan-European supranational institution that some of us seem not to like.