Is Brexit actually going to happen?

[BemusedbyLife]

Greece doesn't owe the EU any money.

It owes the banks, the IMF and the ECB has a consequence of an EU brokered deal, the EU has massive clout in this situation.

 

[BemusedbyLife]

They can, and should, write off the money. They'll have to eventually.

They may very well have no choice eventually but I would imagine that they're reluctant to do it up front while Greece is still a bottomless pit.

 

[Santino]

How does brexit help Greece?

Do you continue to support a club that bullies one of its members? (And has it pretty much written into its constitution that it will keep doing so.) Or do you leave?

At least by leaving you withdraw support for the abuse, and maybe you undermine the club a bit.

By staying and not immediately and incessantly demanding an end to the abuse, and taking actions to back up those demands, you are endorsing it.

 

[Silas Loom]

It owes the banks, the IMF and the ECB has a consequence of an EU brokered deal, the EU has massive clout in this situation.

Which EU institution do you suggest has the clout?

 

[BemusedbyLife]

Which EU institution do you suggest has the clout?

In order of importance I would say the Council and the Commission have the most clout with the Parliament having very little (pity really since its the one I feel would be most sympathetic to a fairer solution)
The Council tends to distorted by its members putting national interests first and the Commission is dominated by too many technocrats like Junkers and his mates, I would like to see it elected directly myself.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Do you continue to support a club that bullies one of its members? (And has it pretty much written into its constitution that it will keep doing so.) Or do you leave?

At least by leaving you withdraw support for the abuse, and maybe you undermine the club a bit.

By staying and not immediately and incessantly demanding an end to the abuse, and taking actions to back up those demands, you are endorsing it.

That's pretty abstract. I don't particularly see how it has a real-world effect to negate effect on Greece of taking away the UK contribution to the pot. The UK govt has played a full role in that kind of abuse in recent years, abusing its own people in the name of bailing out banks. Didn't even need to be forced to do it by the EU. The problem with lexit arguments is that lexit isn't happening.

 

[pocketscience]

not really - Greece would continue to be subject to the EU's whims regardless of whether the UK was or was not a member, so voting one way or t'other has absolutely no impact whatsoever on Greece.

tbf, since the brexit vote, the EU appears to be trying to show its humane side with Greece (or at least taken its foot off the sadistic/ humiliation pedal for now).
My guess is that a sizeable portion of the €1.8bn QE that the ECB has been printing every day is finding its way to the poorer corners of the Eu, just to keep them quite while the brexit megaton bomb is being defused.
So indirectly, the brexit vote possibly did Greece a favour for the short term - and therefore Santino's point is as relevant/ flawed as teuchters original one that a vote for brexit = a vote for a 32 county republic.

 

[Silas Loom]

In order of importance I would say the Council and the Commission have the most clout with the Parliament having very little (pity really since its the one I feel would be most sympathetic to a fairer solution)
The Council tends to distorted by its members putting national interests first and the Commission is dominated by too many technocrats like Junkers and his mates, I would like to see it elected directly myself.

And you think they have that clout over the EFSF? I'd say that they really are just observers. When the Eurozone finance ministers and their treasury officials are gathered together, there's nothing that really trumps them, supranationally speaking.

 

[Santino]

That's pretty abstract. I don't particularly see how it has a real-world effect to negate effect on Greece of taking away the UK contribution to the pot. The UK govt has played a full role in that kind of abuse in recent years, abusing its own people in the name of bailing out banks. Didn't even need to be forced to do it by the EU. The problem with lexit arguments is that lexit isn't happening.

Let's be clear - the argument to Leave wasn't that it would directly or immediately help Greece, it was that the EU is the sort of place where things like that happen to countries like Greece. And we were asked whether we wanted to be a part of that. Your answer is that we should.

 

[Santino]

And you think they have that clout over the EFSF? I'd say that they really are just observers. When the Eurozone finance ministers and their treasury officials are gathered together, there's nothing that really trumps them, supranationally speaking.

Vote Remain.

 

[teuchter]

Do you continue to support a club that bullies one of its members? (And has it pretty much written into its constitution that it will keep doing so.) Or do you leave?

At least by leaving you withdraw support for the abuse, and maybe you undermine the club a bit.

By staying and not immediately and incessantly demanding an end to the abuse, and taking actions to back up those demands, you are endorsing it.

Is your position that there is no mechanism for reform from within the EU that can be influenced by its citizens?

 

[BemusedbyLife]

And you think they have that clout over the EFSF? I'd say that they really are just observers. When the Eurozone finance ministers and their treasury officials are gathered together, there's nothing that really trumps them, supranationally speaking.

Yes you're undoubtably right, in fact you have just demolished the 2nd biggest pro-brexit argument (it's taking power away from Westminster), the finance ministers of the member states are the people with the power not the unelected commissioners.

 

[BemusedbyLife]

Let's be clear - the argument to Leave wasn't that it would directly or immediately help Greece, it was that the EU is the sort of place where things like that happen to countries like Greece. And we were asked whether we wanted to be a part of that. Your answer is that we should.

I'm willing to bet that very few people who cast a vote in the Referendum either Leave or Remain were concerned with the effect that vote would have on Greece

 

[DotCommunist]

Vote Remain.

this is why the greece situation has remain voters on a cleft stick. Either you are happy with technocrats and bankers effectively running the wider polity (silas is, with no feelings of shame) or you have the LBJ position which doesn't want to admit that the remain position is basically holding the bullies coat

 

[gosub]

Is your position that there is no mechanism for reform from within the EU that can be influenced by its citizens?

Mine pretty much is.

 

[kebabking]

...By staying and not immediately and incessantly demanding an end to the abuse, and taking actions to back up those demands, you are endorsing it.

thats fine if Greece is the only iron in the fire, but its not - well, it might be if you're Citizen Smith from the Free Tooting Collective - but for the rest of us its a plate spinning act of Greece, the GFA and associated Irish issues, concern/fear over the path UK politics might take post-Brexit, the economy/trade, concern over what deals might be struck by a post-Brexit government desperate for non-EU trade agreements, and the lexit argument that the EU rules and structures tie us into spiv capitalism.

all of those carry weight, all of those have both upsides and downsides, and all have uncertainties.

if you only considered one of them, and gave no thought to either the others, then you're probably an idiot.

 

[Santino]

Is your position that there is no mechanism for reform from within the EU that can be influenced by its citizens?

Is your position that there is?

 

[Santino]

thats fine if Greece is the only iron in the fire, but its not - well, it might be if you're Citizen Smith from the Free Tooting Collective - but for the rest of us its a plate spinning act of Greece, the GFA and associated Irish issues, concern/fear over the path UK politics might take post-Brexit, the economy/trade, concern over what deals might be struck by a post-Brexit government desperate for non-EU trade agreements, and the lexit argument that the EU rules and structures tie us into spiv capitalism.

all of those carry weight, all of those have both upsides and downsides, and all have uncertainties.

if you only considered one of them, and gave no thought to either the others, then you're probably an idiot.

I also considered what Nick Clegg would have done, and then did the opposite.

 

[Winot]

thats fine if Greece is the only iron in the fire, but its not - well, it might be if you're Citizen Smith from the Free Tooting Collective - but for the rest of us its a plate spinning act of Greece, the GFA and associated Irish issues, concern/fear over the path UK politics might take post-Brexit, the economy/trade, concern over what deals might be struck by a post-Brexit government desperate for non-EU trade agreements, and the lexit argument that the EU rules and structures tie us into spiv capitalism.

all of those carry weight, all of those have both upsides and downsides, and all have uncertainties.

if you only considered one of them, and gave no thought to either the others, then you're probably an idiot.

Exactly. Most votes have an element of holding your nose. Oh to have the freedom of an ideologue.

 

[Silas Loom]

Back to whether Brexit is going to happen, Davis has put some interesting markers on what "regulatory alignment" means: "alignment does not mean the same standards"....it means regulations "that give similar results"

It now sounds like something that Dublin would be less inclined to trust and take seriously. Certainly very different from regulatory convergence.

Now that everyone is being forced to clarify their fudge, there's surely no chance of anything being settled in the next couple of days.

 

[teuchter]

Is your position that there is?

Yes.
Now your answer?

 

[kebabking]

I also considered what Nick Clegg would have done, and then did the opposite.

did you do the same regarding Jeremy Clarkson?

 

[Santino]

did you do the same regarding Jeremy Clarkson?

How did he vote?

 

[kebabking]

How did he vote?

no idea, i wasn't in the booth with him.

 

[Santino]

Yes.
Now your answer?

I'm not aware of any mechanism that offers any practical hope in the short or even medium term, but perhaps you are privy to some information that would challenge this.

 

[Santino]

no idea, i wasn't in the booth with him.

Well, what public pronouncements did he make? Perhaps we can make a cautious inference from those.

 

[kabbes]

A quick google reveals that Clarkson voted remain.

Jeremy Clarkson: I wanted to stay in EU but, so far, Brexit has been fun

AS YOU probably know, I was very keen that Britain should remain in the EU and very worried when I woke on that fateful Friday morning to find that we had voted to leave.

 

[Santino]

Well then, by accident I also did the opposite of Clarkson. kebabking , how about you?

 

[DotCommunist]

as I said at the time clarkeson may enjoy the notoriety of being a comedy bigot but he's rich enough that this could fuck with his many travel plans, property values and the atmosphere in the rich peoples seats at Le Mans will be toxic. So remain he did

 

[teuchter]

I'm not aware of any mechanism that offers any practical hope in the short or even medium term, but perhaps you are privy to some information that would challenge this.

Your strategy seems to rely on all countries eventually leaving the EU, or at least, enough countries leaving the EU that its in your opinion undemocratic leadership changes its ways so as to protect itself from complete dissolution. To me, that strategy doesn't seem to offer any practical hope in the short or medium term.
The mechanism that I'm privy to is the fact that the EU does have an elected parliament and that it is subject to influence from the elected national governments of its member countries. You presumably feel that this mechanism does not work in practice, and that the whole system ends up reflecting the interests of business and so on. I'd say that is maybe true as long as the same applies to the majority of the national governments that are part of that system. And if it applies to the national governments too then I don't really see that citizens can have more influence outside of the EU but still governed by those institutions.