TonyParliament stands on the foundation that the elected members represent majority will of their constituencies.
If the will of those constituencies has already been determined in a legally valid manner Parliament is redundant and serves no function.
There is no need for an MP to assume a proxy stance for their constituency as the wishes of that constituency are already a matter of record.
The prime ministers function is solely to direct the actioning of the vote outcome. Either that or the referendum serves no function.
If a referendum, pure democracy, serves no function then we are saying that parliamentary democracy is void as the will of the people is no longer necessarily the dominant factor in the course our country takes.
A referendum, by its nature, must supersede the will of parliament as the more legitimate measure of the political will of the electorate.
Sorry Jonesy, but with all due respect under UK law that is a load of tosh!
I’ll explain why:
You are assuming that referendums supersede Parliament…..this can never be because laws can only be enacted through Parliament….referendums are advisory only and that was made clear from the outset….we’ve never even had a referendum until 1975 and there have only ever been three! Not exactly part and parcel of how laws are made here!
I take your point we could get to a situation where people who have not fully understood or even thought about the actual legal processes and how Theresa May by herself cannot set into motion Clause 50 without a vote in Parliament (because she is acting outwith her constitutional powers), and who think they have been done out or diddled of what they think is the winner’s lot will start to moan….hopefully it won’t come to armed militias like the Georgia Three Percenters (named after the claim that the historical American Revolution military in armed resistance against the British in the American Revolution constituted three per cent of the population).
Instead of referendums, the sovereign will of the people is manifested through Parliament and the members elected are representatives of the people that elected them, they are not delegates of their constituents. As such, they don’t have to go along with their constituents saying for example we don’t want a third runway at Heathrow if they believe it is better for the greater good of the nation to have the runway…..the fact they can be booted out by their constituents in the next election is another matter….
The next possible general election date is May 2017 (for many reasons)…..Theresa May thought she could get to 2020 without an election but having one sooner might legitimatise her own position and with Labour in the disarray it’s in at the moment, and with new constituency boundary changes benefitting the conservatives, might even mean she’ll get a majority of around 100!
TonyAs for the stock markets being higher, that is a reflection of the weak £ and thus giving an increased paper value to exporters that feature in the FTSE
Sorry, while I agree with most of the rest of what you say, the main reason why the FTSE100 gained when the Pound was weaker is because the 7 or 8 out of 10 companies that make up the top shares have revenues in currencies other than Sterling…..for example BP which makes up a big chunk (by market capitalisation) of the FSTE has most of its oil revenues in US Dollars……the effect of the weaker pound is less apparent on the FTSE 250 which has many more UK companies with revenues in Sterling. The fortunes of exporters because the pound is weaker has had less effect on the bounce the FTSE has experienced.
TonyT
The reason we’re a net importer was because the value of the £ was so high relative to the Euro, as such being in the EU didn’t really benefit us. The increase in investment and tourism will help us change to a more productive, exporter economy.
The reason why we are a net importer is because we need to buy things that are e.g. not grown here or mined etc.
It’s got nothing to do with the value of the £ being so high relative to the Euro……firstly they are not linked: the pound floats on the market and finds its own value with respect to other currencies…..the only time we were linked was for two short years 1990-1992 when we were in the Exchange Rate Mechanism which was trying to maintain an artificial value with respect to the Euro….pretty bonkers to try to do that in my opinion but glad we got out….but it cost us £6 billion (Maggie was at the helm when we entered the ERM ; -)
What we import is to do with what we need for our economy and nothing to do with the EU!
T
I don’t see why construction and aerospace would suffer. Aerospace is an exporter and a lot of construction relies on foreign purchases. BAE certainly soared on Brexit.
http://www.redmayne.co.uk/research/securitydetails/charts.htm?tkr=BA.
If we make things to sell abroad we need to import raw materials….if they are more expensive to buy then we have to charge more for the goods we sell…..it works both ways and our exports being cheaper because the pound is weaker is only part of the story.
T
Banking sure, but the financial services sector was too large anyway and only really benefited London and was of sod all use to the rest of the country as regards employment.
if London is successful the UK is successful…..a third of UK income tax comes from London and that goes towards building schools, hospitals , roads, paying for the police, the armed forces throughout the whole country…..this benefits everyone including providing jobs outside London…..why would you cut off your nose to spite your face?
TonyLooks more like a banana republic every day.
The “elites” (govt. Officials, govt. media/bbc, academics, anyone who has called the exit voters unflattering names) allow a vote (to give the ignorant masses the idea their opinions really matter), but it doesn’t go their way so they want to undo it.
Why not be honest and call the Pro-EU factions of the military out…that would give it the “transparency” Corbin is calling for. 😉 😉 😉
Or better yet, bring back the all powerful monarch until democracy means something.
BTW: I’m neither for or against exit, in the long run it doesn’t really matter, but if you allow “do overs” or legal word games to vacate the will of the majority, then something’s wrong.
John, it can seem like it at times, but it’s not a banana republic because UK law is and has always been clear: referendums are not binding in law and are only advisory (we’ve only ever had 3, all in the last 40 years).
I realise most people have little or no interest in constitutional law (why would they?) but Parliament has supreme sovereignty in the UK and always has had since the Civil War in 1649.
To change the law in the UK you have to go through Parliament and pass Acts of Parliament or repeal Acts.
We’ve never had a referendum before the one held when we joined the EU and unlike some countries who hold them all the time on every little matter in the UK the will of the people is represented in Parliament…..otherwise why not have a daily referendum on almost everything (now possible through electronic voting) because that would be real democracy?…..only trouble is you’d never get anything done.
A good analogy is 10 people are responsible for half of the 25,2000 complaints against the third runway at Heathrow even though this will benefit the country as a whole…..I say only people already living there in 1946 when Heathrow Airport was opened have a case because anyone buying a house after then would know there was an airport there…..aircraft were a lot noisier then and I remember the house shaking when Concorde used to fly over and we were miles from the airport but on the flight path.
I know that people who are hurting from the present budget cuts will suffer more and I know by doing business with Europe without big tariffs will bring more tax revenues to build more schools, hospitals etc. (I remember the buses hired by the Leave campaign with written on the side “leave the EU and we’ll spend £350m a week on the National Health Service”….a lady I know voted leave because she thought her local hospital would get more money! There was not and won’t be any money for the NHS and she was sold a pup!)
Nigel Farage (he lost 8 elections to get elected a MP and never could get in) who said before the election if it was 52%- 48% to stay, that would be grounds to for another vote (until he got the result he wanted)….
This is a bit like the Scots who want to keep having a referendum to leave until they get the result they want even though they lost…..and we thought that was the end of it for a few more generations (or until the Scot Nats get all misty eyed again in a few years time after watching re-runs of Braveheart (total fiction in the film but that’s Hollywood)….better with the Scots than without).
We know once we leave there will be damage to the UK because we’ll be paying more than we are now in trade tariffs and may not get easy or cheap access to the common market but it’s not the end of the world we’ll manage ….is it worth the price to not have to deal with faceless bureaucrats (and insufferable people like Junckers don’t exactly help) who are not accountable? Maybe. But on balance I’d say we are better off in with some controls on movement.
For those wanting the blue passports back, remember it was to big to fit easily in a pocket and couldn’t track terrorists on a database like the computer readable ones can….a reason to leave? Probably not.
Tony……but to have a referendum and then suggest, afterwards, that parliament has primacy over the actually quantified will of the people is an utter absurdity.
Jonesy, it is parliament that has supreme sovereignty in the UK and it is not the Prime Minister who has sovereignty over parliament….
This was established in the English Civil War and is the reason why Charles 1 was beheaded on that bitterly cold day on 30 January 1649 (he wore two shirts so as not to shiver and let people think he was afraid)…..he was executed for treason and to establish that the sovereignty of parliament was supreme above all else, even the King.
We don’t have referendums every five minutes like the Swiss and in any case under UK law referendums are only advisory and are not biding in law.
Another thing to bear in mind is that members of parliaments are not delegates, but representatives, which means they themselves decide what is in the best interests of the country.
At the moment, things look tricky for Theresa May because there are enough Labour, Lib Dems, Scottish and disaffected conservatives to block a vote to leave.
MPs can of course be voted out at the next election and if Theresa May should hold an election in May 2017, she may gain a bigger majority, or it will be undecided and a coalition needed.
in 1933 Hitler used a referendum after the burning of the Reichstag (done by Nazis as a pretext to override parliament) to enact laws without parliament….under the powers given to him under the Enabling Act 1933 Hitler was then able to make laws without parliament…..in fact the Reichstag barely met after he declared a one party state and decided he didn’t need parliament any more.
To join the EU an act of accession was passed in parliament (European Communities Act 1972) and to leave the EU that Act has to be repealed…..or a similar act passed to reflect the downgrading of EU membership save for access to the common market and other changes like stopping freedom of movement except for perhaps “passporting” rights for the City of London to carry on trade with the EU as it makes most of the money in the UK (a third of all income tax comes from London).
It is interesting to note that Norway, not in the EU, and suggested by many as a model for the UK outside the EU, does have access to the common market but must allow freedom of movement….all the costs but no say in the EU regulations they have to abide by…. just to do business with their neighbours.
If Liam Fox (trade secretary and mad as a box of frogs) says we can have a fantastic deal with Uruguay (population 3m) or Australia (population 23m)…..I would just remind him that we do more trade with our physical neighbour Ireland than with India and China combined (combined population 2.61 billion).
PS Hilary should stop screeching it doesn’t suit her….reminds me a bit like when Telly Savalas (of Kojak) had a song out but he spoke the words but didn’t sing them (because he couldn’t sing) and the in the joke version they kept saying “Telly baby….I keep tellin ya don’t sing baby don’t sing!” She should leave street fighting to people who can like Biden…..a lot of undecided voters don’t like candidates rubbishing their opponent…..why not say how you can make their lives better and what can be done to help ease their daily burden?
Trump is a real good real-estate salesman from New York , who could you sell a building for twice what’s it worth…..even if he doesn’t win the election the amount of free advertising he’s got for his brand is worth billions….even if yet another Trump Tower has gone bust in Canada (not much loss for the Donald personally, but which for a so-called great businessman is not good…..if he put the millions his daddy left him on deposit doing nothing he would be worth billions more today! 😉 If he does win, he may never show his tax returns because they show he paid no tax (like in the returns that were seen in a court case) or contributed to charities….Warren Buffet richest man in the world, who Trump said paid no tax, actually paid millions and donates millions to charity….only reason Trump not showing his returns (have an audit doesn’t mean he can’t still show them…that’s just an excuse) is he doesn’t want the ordinary man in the street to see he doesn’t give a dime (in fact used his foundation’s money to pay his own expenses!)……he’s also real lucky (so far but it will come out) the underage girl bottled out from showing her face yesterday after receiving threats to kill her….she’s the one who alleges Trump had her at the infamous underage sex parties held in the 1990s by Jeffrey Epstein (Wolf of Wall Street banker from Bear Stearns (the company went bust in 2008)….
…..it was a British academic who actually wrote clause 50 that allows a country to voluntarily leave the EU ; -)
TonyMaurobaggio, please don’t post your table again for the millionth time because in my opinion it adds nothing!
(my opinion is not humble or proud….it’s just my opinion! Also, I am not young or very old….just in between….not that my age matters!:D).
You know the table you keep posting in which you divide the SAAB contract by 36 airframes to give unit cost!
The real cost is the cost of acquisition, plus setting up a production line in Brazil, plus training hundreds of engineers (living with their families) in Linkoping, Sweden, true technology transfer to enable a two-seater version to be designed and built in Brazil (with the possibility of developing Sea Gripen later if Brazil replaces carrier), weapons, spares etc.
If you have a copy of the contract and can tell us what is included this would be appreciated….many thanks.
TonyWhy do you hate SAAB so much? Did your wife run off with a SAAB employee?
This is very, very stupid stuff. 15 years ago SAAB hadn’t even proposed the Gripen E. It was selling Gripen C – & Gripen A had only been in service for 5 years. Gripen E developed from proposals for upgraded Gripens made less than 10 years ago. You’re suggesting that Gripen E could have flown before the first production Gripen C (look it up!). Complete idiocy.
You’re supposed to be a defence journalist, aren’t you? Why don’t you try to do a proper job, instead of polluting the internet with nonsense & making yourself look like a fool?
+1
Well said Swerve!
Maurobaggio please don’t come back with that old nonsense about “I am just an old man and in my humble opinion”….it doesn’t not matter if you are eight years old or eighty years old if you come out with the same old nonsense!
What has your age got to do with anything and why do you mention it anytime some challenges you? Perhaps you think they will go easier on you if you keep saying you are old and are packing groceries in the supermarket in your retirement (nothing wrong with that….I hope one day to also to do something similar and useful when I am much older and retired;-).
Perhaps you think by keep mentioning you are old this means you can get away with talking nonsense ….but at the same time you slyly talking about dodgy deals……if you have any evidence why don’t you take it to the National Congress or to journalist friends like Hammer (Brazilian journalist who used to post here regularly)?
With all due respect some posters here are old, some young and other in-between….age makes no difference….we are only interested in what you have to say and your age is irrelevant because we are all here to exchange information and to learn more…..nothing more!
Also, please stop saying “in my humble opinion”….firstly because just because you say you are humble does not mean you are! You ignore and do not have a dialogue or conversation with anyone that challenges or disagrees with your statements!
Secondly, your opinion is a good as anyone else’s (even if someone else might disagree with your opinion) and your opinion is good enough by itself without any extra qualification as either “humble” (you are not really humble because you are very angry for some reason with SAAB and keep talking about dodgy deals :D) and it does not matter if your opinion is said by either a old or young man…..only the facts matter!
Tony….”putting yourself forward…! I did. I came second. Bloody voters !
Well done for putting yourself forward John….bloody voters, there’s no accounting for taste! 😉
TonyTold that the RN and its Italian counterpart were looking for a name for the then-new EH101 naval helicopter that would be meaningful in both languages, the late Anthony Preston mischievously suggested “Taranto”.
😉
I have at long last located the (unmarked) grave in the same cemetery of another young woman I knew back in the 1960s. So for my next visit, I will have to take two red roses, and find a French quotation suitable for a girl who was buried on what would have been her 25th birthday.
Perhaps another Eluard quotation will do:
“Elle est en bas, avec les pierres et les ombres. Je l’ai rejointe.”But in this case, there will be no-one else to intrigue. I am probably the only visitor she will have had, or is ever likely to have.
This is so poignant….I have no words.
Tony….as usual I’m quite right in my assessment…
This is a great gift John, we need you in charge of something! 😉
If something, heaven forbid, were to happen to the Sainted Theresa of May, he would make a natural successor.
Hang on a cotton pickin’ minute….have you, John, considered putting yourself forward? 😉
TonyWas Todenhofer played?
It is possible….but we know he is a serious journalist and has interviewed ISIS many times in their territory….I have a lot on at the moment and will come back later.
TonyLorsque l’on n’a pas tout donné, on n’a rien donné.
Too French? Is this possible? A few weeks ago I left on the grave of an old girlfriend a single red rose and a quotation from the French poet Paul Éluard.
Good thread Rii…would it be asking too much Mercurius to ask what was the quotation you left?
I didn’t. The original – taken from his ‘Capitale de la douleur’ – fitted the mood of what I wanted to say.
Perhaps her family are now wondering who the mysterious Frenchman who left the rose was, and whether their late wife/mother had been an international woman of mystery while in her early 20s. Perhaps she had travelled on the Orient Express with stolen state secrets in her luggage and a 0.25″ Beretta in her handbag….
This is tantalising and has left me asking for more of your previous life;-)
This is the last poem by the American short story writer (MadRat will like his brevity;-) Raymond Carver
He died aged 50 in 1988…..https://allpoetry.com/Raymond-Carver
Late fragment
And did you get what
you wanted from this life, even so?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself
beloved on the earth.
TonyI repeat, i don’t know him. You like it or not, but for me his not a “respected journalist”. Sorry if it hurts your feelings.
.
No it does not hurt my feelings what you think of Todenhofer!
Who are you that you think you may tell me what to do? GTFO, kid – eating pork and wearing gold are both haram in Islam, deal with it.
Firstly, I am not telling you what to do…..the internet is not like having a conversation in person and something may be lost in translation!
Do you see the guy in the video eating pork? No…..so why bring it up? That’s is what I was saying.
We know eating pork is haram in Islam but is a statement of fact not related to the video we are discussing
I agree wearing gold is haram in Islam (although just for men, it’s ok for women).
You are correct that a strictly observant Sunni man should not wear gold……but it’s a long stretch from that to say the chap being interviewed in the video is not with Nusra because he has a ring.
Why do I need to deal with it? I agree with you that Sunni men should not wear gold…..that’s not the same as saying the man in the video is still a jihadi terrorist even though he is wearing a ring!
“Kid” Lol 😀
I don’t know, what you’ve actually seen, kid.
“Kid” 😀 Does it matter what I’ve seen…..I am not extrapolating from what I’ve seen to other people and other situations.
Anyway, I’ll leave it at that because this is a petty thing distracting from the real news…..you can have the last word if you like but it doesn’t matter to me 😉
The main thing I appreciate is that you kindly posted the video of the Virginia State senator and thanks for that.
TonyI don’t know who is this Jurgen Todenhofer – may be he’s a honest person, may be he’s not, i just don’t know him personally, and you don’t know him too, as well, as i see – you don’t know much about Islam. But i know for 1000%, from my own experience with sunni muslims, that even a slightly religious sunni man, not speaking about religious islamic fanatic, wouldn’t wear such a jewerly, especially on public. That’s what i know for sure.
Jurgen Todenhofer is a respected journalist and your attempt to discount his credentials is risible.
Todenhofer is a respected journalist, just like Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein who uncovered the criminal wrong-doing by the President of the United States and by his administration…..President Nixon received a pardon for his criminal acts……this was the first act of President Gerald Ford who became president after Nixon resigned.
Maybe you know more about Islam than me….what has that got to do with anything? You are extrapolating your experience, presumably in Russia, of Sunnis known to you to those from other parts of the world…..also stop talking about eating pork….he’s not doing that….all you’ve got is he “looks funny” and he’s wearing a wedding ring.
Excuse me, but two decades of my own experience with sunnis tell me that i should explain this as your fantasy, or at least sincere
mistake/misconception. :rolleyes: Coz this is the same type of haram like eating pork. Show me a devouted Sunni who’s eating prok and still concidered as devouted sunni muslim by his brothers in faith – and then i will believe in your cool story. 😉
Like I said stop talking about eating pork….he’s not doing that and had nothing to do with what we are discussing.
Your 20 years of your experience with Sunnis, in presumably Russia, is impressive and I would not be surprised if you know more about Islam than me…..it’s a long stretch from that to contend this chap is not an Al Nusra commander because he “looks funny” and is wearing a ring…I have no cool story, only what I have seen.
TonyNo offense, But I find the whole of the latest posts on this thread unbelievable and offensive to basic humanity. This is my last post on this topic as it has turned to unreality. People justifying vicious bombing with “well the U.S. did something like it” or the “U.S. is supporting terrorists”. Who exactly do you think Hezbollah is? Or the Quds force, or an army that is massacring the their own population? What is the point? That the U.S., Russia, et. al. can do terrible acts in war? Does that make it justifiable? Do you really believe only terrorists are being killed in this bombing campaign?
Sorry, no, the unbelievable is the justifications used to indiscriminately bomb an entire city as is happening right now. Nothing justifies the actions of the current actions in Aleppo, regardless if the US, UK, Roman Empire, Zulu nation, committed atrocities here or there, on and on. Does not make any of this less disgusting to defend.
BTW, Tony read a bit more. Richard Black is not a U.S. senator. He is a wack job who is in the Virginia state senate, read the rest of his views. Though judging by your posts, you may agree with those too, sadly enough.
Oh spare me your sanctimonious crocodile tears and give me a freakin break with your “offensive to basic humanity”……what is offensive to basic humanity is the people pumping arms and jihadis to fuel that war resulting in the death of hundreds of thousands of human beings…..that is what is offensive.
Stop distracting and throwing sand in peoples’ eyes with horrible things done elsewhere….what’s that got to do with anything?
We know all war is hell……it’s people like that 31-year old Gulf princeling from Saudi that started this nasty war who put no value on human life……while Assad’s regime are no angels let the Syrian people decide themselves and work out their own destiny and not have foisted on them a fundamentalist Wahhabhi regime…..just like it worked out so well in Libya didn’t it? That the Saudis who don’t have democracy at home and claim they want to impose it in Syria is a cruel and sad joke by people with no sense of irony!
(Even sadder are people that talk about precision bombing and surgical strikes and have no idea how much damage even a few hundred pounds of high explosive can cause to humans in the vicinity…..a computer guided artillery barrage is lethal even if raining down “pinpoint” shells).
What the Virginia State Senator is saying is the jihadis led the assault on Aleppo using tanks (presumably the ones shipped over from Libya through Turkey)….but the jihadis do not want civilians to leave Aleppo and use them as shields and they use cease-fires to re-group and mass for further offensives.
This whole misery could be stopped if the “moderate” terrorists allowed the civilian population to leave and the Syrian government could then feed and house the refugees as it is doing in the rest of the country…..
…..the whole thing stinks and it is sad reflection that otherwise intelligent people like you FBW who suspend their moral compass and hold their nose to stop smelling the stench of wrong doing while watching outside forces do their worst…..you have nothing to say about the poor American special forces who are retching at having to train Nusra terrorists, who are part of Al Qaeda, the ones who did 9/11?
It is the Gulf despots and the US using funding given by congress to arm to the “moderate” terrorists (of which there are 4 or 5 maximum “good” “moderate ” terrorist as testified in Congress by an US general…..the rest presumably have gone over, with their US supplied arms, to the dark side of the “bad” “moderate” terrorists) who are the ones pumping arms and non-Syrian jihadis to further fuel the fire for their own ends…….this horrible war could stop if they stopped pushing the arms, missiles and non-Syrian jihadis into Syria that are fuelling this dirty war.
Clearly, the Gulf non-democratic monarchies and their American supporters are not for the well being of the people who live there and sadly don’t give a rat’s a** for them as long as they achieve their aim, illegal under US and international law, of removing Assad, the head of state of a sovereign country.
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