This 2017 you make up own your definitions now and don't invite anyone to the party who disagrees with you

mrjonno wrote:This 2017 you make up own your definitions now and don't invite anyone to the party who disagrees with you

Then I suggest you go to a forum where there sort of bullshit is tolerated then.

mrjonno wrote:I think that is a big naive, a governing just means rewarding your supporters (or least persuading them that they have been rewarded) so they can get reelected. If you want a government for everyone you will be greatly disappointed when you have a first past the post electoral system (which isnt going away)

Again, you're confusing the role of the political party with the job of the Government.

What a political party does whilst it is in government is, in part, to ensure enough people want to re-elect it. However, the job of the Government is not to be re-elected, because the Government is something you are elected 'to'.

Sendraks wrote:

mrjonno wrote:This 2017 you make up own your definitions now and don't invite anyone to the party who disagrees with you

Then I suggest you go to a forum where there sort of bullshit is tolerated then.

I think you will find the real world does tolerate it very much, in fact its what gets you elected

mrjonno wrote:I think you will find the real world does tolerate it very much, in fact its what gets you elected

Then go there and chant your nonsensical mantras if you want to promote irrationality. In case you hadn't realised, that sort of approach is rather at odds with what these forums are supposed to be about.

Sendraks wrote:

mrjonno wrote:I think you will find the real world does tolerate it very much, in fact its what gets you elected

Then go there and chant your nonsensical mantras if you want to promote irrationality. In case you hadn't realised, that sort of approach is rather at odds with what these forums are supposed to be about.

The forum seem to be about pretending you can win political power with reasoned argument which considering the evidence has to one of the worst faith positions in history. Leaving the rationality to the science section

mrjonno wrote:
The forum seem to be about pretending you can win political power with reasoned argument which considering the evidence has to one of the worst faith positions in history.

No, that's what you are pretending the forum is about with a side order of conflating what is persuasive to the individual members here with the flawed assumption that this is what they think persuades the masses.

mrjonno wrote: Leaving the rationality to the science section

No.
Be rational or take your BS definitions and alt-facts elsewhere.

ronmcd wrote:
Not at all, the UK govt should have guaranteed the EU citizens living in UK after the vote they could remain, instead they wanted to play politics with their lives. The lives they have chosen to build in UK. That hasnt changed with this announcement by May, they are still up in the air and subject to negotiations, the difference is just theres now a cut-off date. It's still subject to negotiations and reciprocal arrangements, ie they are still pawns in the Tory brexit game.

And as has been pointed out on SKY news, this is May's hope, that it's legal. But between now and us actually leaving EU we have legal responsibilities, this may well be challengeable.

But why do it in the first place?

The usual argument - what about Brits abroad! - is a red herring, we are the ones choosing to leave and cause this situation, we should be guaranteeing the position of those who WE CAN guarantee, and encouraging by that action the reciprocal rights from other members.

Causing Brexit, then using their citizens in UK as pawns in the negotiations ... its not how to win friends and influence.

It seems more realpolitik than red herring. Much better to guarantee the status of citizens of EU member states resident in Britain once equivalent guaranties are granted to British citizens in those states.

That is not the way to do things in the EU. Dont threaten it will always backfire.

Scot Dutchy wrote:You think it was a purely unbiased democratic vote. No lying or cheating? Using fake news? It should been declared void and ignored as it is not binding.

Arguably it should have been defined with a better question, a requirement for written manifestos, provision for fact-checking and perhaps a minimum margin, but none of those things were in place. It was what it was. I note that no party has made a case for, and moved on, declaring the result null and void. That is surely because they are realists and know it's political suicide to do so. You are guaranteed to deeply offend 17 million Leave voters plus some proportion of all other voters.

The whole thing was a shambles, but the people were asked and they gave their democratic verdict.

Anyway, your bleating about the referendum should be confined to the topic on the EU referendum, so I shall reply there.

Who is bleating? It was not run in anyway acceptable to any civilised country. It was just as bad as the American Presidential elections. Just pure populism.

Scot Dutchy wrote:Who is bleating? It was not run in anyway acceptable to any civilised country. It was just as bad as the American Presidential elections. Just pure populism.

You are bleating, obviously.

Are you worried about your status as an immigrant?

ronmcd wrote:

OlivierK wrote:

Thommo wrote:

ronmcd wrote:The usual argument - what about Brits abroad! - is a red herring, we are the ones choosing to leave and cause this situation, we should be guaranteeing the position of those who WE CAN guarantee, and encouraging by that action the reciprocal rights from other members.

Really? Brits abroad were responsible for Brexit rather than voting overwhelmingly against it?

Are you sure about that?

Thommo wrote:If you have to twist what someone says only to decide that its new shape is faulty, then the best thing to do is not twist.

(I'm sure you don't mean to twist ron's words, but rather have simply got the wrong end of the stick impressively thoroughly.)

I'm completely lost, I'm not sure what other meaning that paragraph could have than the one I intended.

"We are the ones choosing to leave and cause this situation" - literally the first words of argument you deploy. It's the same excuse of blame that's recurred throughout this thread. No, the British people living in the EU by and large did not choose to leave and cause this situation.

Whether your assumption that giving up any basis for a reciprocal negotiation is the best path to getting an equal deal or not is correct is another matter, a technical rather than moral one. It is a fairly radical claim which I've certainly never met anyone who works in negotiation endorse. One which flies in the face of pretty much everything we know about negotiation, including what we know about the EU's own position.

But the thing is, you've repeatedly said that the argument is a moral one, not a technical one, and of these two points only one is moral - the one where you place blame on a certain subset of victims of circumstance (as you see them).

ronmcd wrote:The argument (see, it's already happening!) that we can't guarantee the position of EU nationals here because of Brits abroad, is a red herring - we only have control over the situation of those who are *here*, so we should do that, and encourage by that action the reciprocal rights from other members.

It's not a red herring, it's that you assert a false premise. That we have no control over what the EU does, that our only path is to "encourage" a (presumably reluctant, yet morally blameless) EU to do the right thing. This is obviously false, we can deal with it in negotiation, which provides far more incentive for a truly equivalent deal and protects the rights of the full ~4 million.

ronmcd wrote:That's the moral thing to do, and would help UK govt in negotiations not harm them.

But it's neither. Although it does provide a thin excuse for directing sanctimony at the government by playing politics with these people's lives, even as it becomes more clear that the government is taking clear steps towards protecting their status.

ronmcd wrote:

This would carry a lot more force if you weren't literally playing politics with it as we speak. Yet again you refuse to issue even a lesser criticism of people who've done at least as much, if not more to perpetuate this uncertainty.

This is rank hypocrisy.

I guess this is simply our differing perspective on the whole EU situation writ large. I don't HAVE any criticisms of EU member states who have found themselves in this situation:

- Cameron tells them he's having a referendum, it's ok, it's just an internal party thing, people won't vote leave
- His party (and successive govts in UK) demonise foreigners, and EU
- People vote to leave
- Politicians and even the leave campaign push for all EU nationals to be guaranteed to stay, to allay fears
- UK does FUCK ALL for at least 6 months after the vote, Cameron abandons ship and fucks off to fuck a pig in a country house somewhere
- UK replaces Cameron with the woman who invented the "FOREIGNER: GO HOME" buses (FFS)
- *****EDIT***** I forgot the 2016 Tory Conference (Fascism Edition), Amber Rudd speech etc.
- and then at the tail end of the year, the Tories and their friends in the media start claiming it's the EU who are preventing Mother Theresa from guaranteeing the rights of EU citizens.

Indeed it is the difference, I'm not manipulating assignment of blame to justify actions I would otherwise consider immoral, or creating a fun little story full of half truths and that ignores actual facts (such as the repeated attempts to resolve this issue that the EU has batted away) to shore up criticism of a perfectly ordinary development of clarification, which is what repeatedly was asked for.

You blame the UK government because it suits you politically, because of the surrounding situation, not because they've actually done anything wrong by trying to secure the rights of all 4 million people. That is a rank double standard. The EU could have secured the rights of the 3 million living in the UK and the 1 million living in the EU at any time, they have chosen not to. But you make excuses for them and then claim moral outrage.

This is literally doing the very thing you complain about - playing politics with people's lives. You don't get to claim the moral high ground while taking the low road.

GrahamH wrote:

Scot Dutchy wrote:Who is bleating? It was not run in anyway acceptable to any civilised country. It was just as bad as the American Presidential elections. Just pure populism.

You are bleating, obviously.

Are you worried about your status as an immigrant?

Not an immigrant and I am not bleating but you accept a bad referendum without objecting to it well that is up to you.

Well, as a Brit living in the EU, I have not had my future residence guaranteed by the EU. As they said at the outset, no negotiation could take place before Article 50 was triggered.

In my view, it would be absolute folly for the UK government to give a guarantee to the 3 million EU nationals living in the UK without reciprocal rights being agreed.

How do you think us Brits living abroad would feel about that?

Arnold Layne wrote:Well, as a Brit living in the EU, I have not had my future residence guaranteed by the EU. As they said at the outset, no negotiation could take place before Article 50 was triggered.

In my view, it would be absolute folly for the UK government to give a guarantee to the 3 million EU nationals living in the UK without reciprocal rights being agreed.

How do you think us Brits living abroad would feel about that?

I should think all EU immigrants will feel similarly nervous about whether political games will be played with their lives.

My view, as a bystander, is that the UK should make that guarantee, withi the only proviso that a reciprocal agreement is realised. I.e. make the first move in a positive direction, set the tone and keep the issue completely separate to negotiations of trade, future free movement etc. I would hope you are not made a pawn in the Brexit game.

This might grow legs.

A US hedge-fund billionaire who helped finance Donald Trump's campaign to become US president reportedly played a key role in the campaign for Britain to leave the EU.

Robert Mercer, co-owner of right-wing news organisation Breitbart, allegedly directed his data-analytics firm Cambridge Analytica to provide expert advice to the Leave campaign.

Mr Mercer, whose firm was paid £4.8m by the Trump campaign to persuade swing voters, offered his firm's help to Ukip leader Nigel Farage for free, Leave.eu communications director Andy Wigmore told The Observer.

“They were happy to help. Because Nigel is a good friend of the Mercers," Mr Wigmore said.

"What they were trying to do in the US and what we were trying to do had massive parallels. We shared a lot of information.”

The firm is said to have advised Leave.eu by harvesting data from people's Facebook profiles to decide how to target them with individualised advertisements.

However, the electoral commission was not informed of Mr Mercer's work. All services worth more than £7,500 must be declared.


http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/po ... 00041.html

I don't think it will be a pawn in any negotiations outside of those people living in foreign countries.

But to make a statement that the EU nationals can stay as long as there is a reciprocal agreement is no real statement at all, and is just saying it's for negotiation.

It is actually the EU who has stated no negotiation before Article 50. That means they have vetoed talking about it.

I do not side on the UK Government often, but I don't believe there is anything they can do in this respect in terms of a guarantee. I just believe it should, and probably will be, one of the first things agreed on starting negotiations.

Thommo wrote:

ronmcd wrote:

OlivierK wrote:

Thommo wrote:

Really? Brits abroad were responsible for Brexit rather than voting overwhelmingly against it?

Are you sure about that?

Thommo wrote:If you have to twist what someone says only to decide that its new shape is faulty, then the best thing to do is not twist.

(I'm sure you don't mean to twist ron's words, but rather have simply got the wrong end of the stick impressively thoroughly.)

I'm completely lost, I'm not sure what other meaning that paragraph could have than the one I intended.

"We are the ones choosing to leave and cause this situation" - literally the first words of argument you deploy. It's the same excuse of blame that's recurred throughout this thread. No, the British people living in the EU by and large did not choose to leave and cause this situation.

Whether your assumption that giving up any basis for a reciprocal negotiation is the best path to getting an equal deal or not is correct is another matter, a technical rather than moral one. It is a fairly radical claim which I've certainly never met anyone who works in negotiation endorse. One which flies in the face of pretty much everything we know about negotiation, including what we know about the EU's own position.

But the thing is, you've repeatedly said that the argument is a moral one, not a technical one, and of these two points only one is moral - the one where you place blame on a certain subset of victims of circumstance (as you see them).

What ARE you talking about? Are you suggesting - still suggesting - I'm saying Brits living in EU caused this situation?

WTF?

"We are the ones choosing to leave and cause this situation" - Yes, we, the UK. The member state of the EU which has voted to leave.

I'm PATENTLY no more blaming the subset of Brits abroad than the subset of Brits in Scotland or NI or London who didn't vote to leave either. I'm blaming us, the UK.

Again, WTF.

Arnold Layne wrote:I don't think it will be a pawn in any negotiations outside of those people living in foreign countries.

But to make a statement that the EU nationals can stay as long as there is a reciprocal agreement is no real statement at all, and is just saying it's for negotiation.

It is actually the EU who has stated no negotiation before Article 50. That means they have vetoed talking about it.

I do not side on the UK Government often, but I don't believe there is anything they can do in this respect in terms of a guarantee. I just believe it should, and probably will be, one of the first things agreed on starting negotiations.

But are procedures to obtain permanent resident status (outside EU agreement) anywhere as onerous for UK citizens in the rest of the EU as they seem to be for EU citizens in the EU?
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/dec/28/dutch-woman-with-two-british-children-told-to-leave-uk-after-24-years

Hawkins, who is a software developer and the daughter of a former oil company executive, lived in several countries as a child and says the UK is the only place she feels she can call home. She studied maths at Cambridge University and settled in the UK in 1992. She lives in Surrey and has two children, aged 15 and 17. “I always used to feel I had no roots. Because of my dad’s background we used to move every five years. This is the first time I’ve laid down roots,” she said.

“I had a massive shock following the referendum. I felt very stressed and suddenly felt walking down the street that the place didn’t want me any more. That feeling began to subside, but I thought I should apply for citizenship.”

The application form, which includes a “flummoxing” requirement to list every absence from the UK in the past 24 years, took an entire weekend to complete, she said. “It is important to realise that in applying for permanent residency I am not gaining a right, I am only getting a document stating a right I already have,” she said.

Her husband, Robert, raised another issue: that Europeans married to Britons do not have an automatic right to citizenship. “As a British citizen, I had the expectation that marrying someone from abroad would automatically give them the right to become a British citizen. That seems to be the case unless your wife happens to come from the European Union,” he said.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/jan/25/plight-of-eu-nationals-seeking-uk-residency-to-be-investigated-brexit-vote

In ‘t Veld said that, along with colleagues in the European parliament, she was concerned EU nationals were feeling harassed. The issue had also been raised with the government in the Netherlands by Dutch politicians, she said.

“People feel they are being harassed,” she said. “Why is the British government trying to make it so hard for people who have been living in the UK for decades, who have set up a family there, work there? It is their home.

“What sort of signal are they trying to send out to these people? I am not aware of UK nationals trying to apply for citizenship elsewhere in the EU running into these kind bureaucratic walls. I am not saying it doesn’t exist but I have not heard of it yet. I can only suppose other countries are a bit more welcoming and facilitating.”