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U-Know! Forum » The EU: in or out? |
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Captain Starlet 1110 posts |
Feb 12, 2016, 14:32
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sanshee wrote: But do we really need the EU to have something like a 'human rights act' for UK citizens? I've yet to hear what the opposite would be. Heard Hilary Benn hint on C4 news the right to holiday pay is worth hanging on to the EU for. Oh aye I am sure every worker in Britain would accept the removal of that one. Anyways will follow arguments as they go, or rather when they actually start I suppose. Considering what the tories have got planned I'd say it's a resounding yes to maintaining the Human Rights Act, it's the EU court that's basically where they can be held to account, unless it's a case of going to the UN. As for Benn, as far as I'm aware we have the unions to thank for holiday pay etc, not the EU, although they may have prevented the stopping of that, I've no idea to be honest there.
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sanshee 1080 posts |
Edited Feb 13, 2016, 12:03
Feb 13, 2016, 11:42
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I suppose my bugbear with the EU is similar to those who have had a gut load of free flow capitalism, and the encroaching TTIP agreement (which not only includes the EU but the US as well. Now to say 'ah well free flow capitalism is here to stay' is like saying 'sod any ideas from the left' and I do not want to do that, and yes, I am aware it is a fight and a half. More here on TTIP. http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/what-is-ttip-and-six-reasons-why-the-answer-should-scare-you-9779688.html Oddly enough Benn falsely champions the EU connecting it to our rights to holiday pay yet that barely exists the US, and as the article highlights, the agreement means US will be a major player. Now does this sound good? **As a bi-lateral trade agreement, TTIP is about reducing the regulatory barriers to trade for big business, things like food safety law, environmental legislation, banking regulations and the sovereign powers of individual nations** When it comes to 'profit' and 'deregulation' I can see the EU slowly shuffling the human rights act into the loft like the Victorians would some crazy old demented Uncle.
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tk421 121 posts |
Feb 13, 2016, 13:31
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Hi and thanks for your reply. I agree with you that the European Convention came about after world war 2 in an understandable attempt to prevent those horrors from happening again. I remember reading somewhere that the drafters of the convention rights were mostly British. To my mind this adds to the irony of the long delay in introducing it's protections in the UK and also the constant attacks on Human Rights in the British media. It may be that some different UK bill guaranteeing rights could be introduced. How different would it really be? What rights would we forego from the HRA and what would we replace them with? Would it include a level of appeal outside of the UK to enforce your rights against the government? These would all be questions that would need addressed. I did not mean to give the impression that I was saying that health and safety stem from the convention or the human rights act. I was just giving it as an example of a benefit from membership of the EU; along with consumer protection, various rights in law for individuals, freedom of movement etc. All these are tangible benefits to be weighed up when considering in or out. Weighed against those benefits is the obviously struggling single currency, an apparent economic imbalance between the north and south of the EU and the fact that the EU seems to be allowing or pursuing unrestrained capitalism as evidenced by the new trade agreement with the US. However, I suspect that the current governing party of the UK, and labour of the last twenty years, would have signed up to that treaty anyway. Finally, being in essence a big club, there are differences across the EU on a range of issues. That's probably not unusual but it's not just in the EU that some countries ban abortion against the rights of women. That happens in the UK which includes Northern Ireland. That issue actually applies at the moment. Indeed, it was just voted on again and the situation remains the same as before.
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sanshee 1080 posts |
Edited Feb 13, 2016, 14:24
Feb 13, 2016, 14:11
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tk421 wrote: Finally, being in essence a big club, there are differences across the EU on a range of issues. That's probably not unusual but it's not just in the EU that some countries ban abortion against the rights of women. That happens in the UK which includes Northern Ireland. That issue actually applies at the moment. Indeed, it was just voted on again and the situation remains the same as before. Yes, and same sex marriage has just been passed in Ireland not through EU legislation but through society welcoming change. N.I remains opposed, yet it is accepted in the rest of the UK. I understand that abortion rights have nothing to do with the EU, that is not the point I was making. If anything that should be top of the human rights agenda bit isn't, and I've have more respect for it if it was. Human rights cases will be brought based on interpretation of where someone feels they have been personally violated or have suffered psychological harm, pointing to a particular article, as was the case brought regards the rights for prisoner votes. I'll put it bluntly there: the psychological let alone physical harm caused to a woman forced to go through with a pregnancy versus someone being denied a vote in an election is far, far greater. But as I said, a religion will trump a woman's rights every time. Women from Ireland have the 'opportunity' to travel across water to have abortions and if no one can see that as some how violating a person's dignity then they haven't seriously thought about it. Now of course we don't leave the EU and are left with a sudden magical solution to these things, but to say the human rights act is reason alone to remain doesn't ring true to me. EDIT: I listen to some of the rational voices opposed to the EU (not the effing UKIPPERS), as in this article I referred to earlier. Represents the concerns of War on Want http://waronwant.org/ttip
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Captain Starlet 1110 posts |
Feb 14, 2016, 12:29
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The TTIP scares the hell out of me, the EU is supposed to be just that the EU, not EU&US. I've no problem with trade deals but a trade deal that undermines the principle of government is inherently corrupt and leads to the undermining of the remains of our democracy. As I see it if we leave the EU we'll immediately sign the TTIP as we'll need that trade link, and the tories will sign anything if it gets rid of public services and put money in their pockets. There's a number of EU countries that don't support the TTIP so with that in mind at the moment there's a bit of support there.
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sanshee 1080 posts |
Feb 17, 2016, 12:02
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George Galloway has some interesting stuff to say here regards the case to leave, or rather, what it actually is we are involved in. Now no one can accuse him of being a xenophobe or right wing etc etc. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03ht2lp Note also he defends McDonnell yet Stephen Kinnock doesn't. Who knew:/
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Markoid 1621 posts |
Edited Feb 17, 2016, 13:37
Feb 17, 2016, 13:36
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In. There you go. I cast my vote. I'm European to the core. It is mainly about stopping war.
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Captain Starlet 1110 posts |
Feb 20, 2016, 12:33
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Following fat Dave's tax payer funded jolly and face stuffing in the EU his begging has now ended and to be honest with what he's ended up with I'm tempted to vote out as what he's ended up with will cost the UK a lot more money! So, once again a right tory cock up! http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/eu-renegotiation-what-david-cameron-wanted-and-what-he-really-got-a6885761.html
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IanB 6761 posts |
Edited Feb 24, 2016, 12:52
Feb 24, 2016, 04:32
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Every fibre of my being says we should stay in BUT Greece BUT Cyprus BUT TTIP BUT Ukraine BUT inequality BUT the Rise of the Far Right BUT Palestine. Corbyn and Varoufakis are right to say "stay in and reform from the inside". It makes perfect sense morally. However it makes no sense politically simply because there is no process by which it can be reformed to the fundamental degree that is required. No £3 memberships available for this revolution from below sadly. £300 billion might get you a seat at the table. Or Trident of course. I have no idea what I will do. I wont abstain. I will probably do what I always do and vote with my heart not head. Largely because the boom bust cycle and political see-saw that goes with it will end up coming back round to a left of Social Democrat position before too long and then we can start to claw back a national sense of civility rather than perpetual scapegoating. I would lay money that a Labour government would have saved the Greeks and Cypriots from this degree of humiliation and, to use Varoufakis' memorable phrase, from decades of financial water boarding. There would also have been enough firewalls in TTIP proposals to protect the Labour Party's traditional red lines. Brown may have been a lot of things (and a good Labour leader was not one of them) but, being basically a Sunday School Socialist, he was not unaware of the need to be paying down the moral national debt of history, where you can, as well as the one on the balance sheet. Sadly I think the "outs" will win for all the wrong reasons and there will be an EU Premier League established of maybe eight states trickling spare change down to nations where people take wheel barrows of money to the bread shop. GB returns to the prefects room off the back of a snap vote before Scotland can make their get-away. By which point the Pound will be on a par with the Euro and close to par with the US Dollar. I am constantly reminded of all the people who thought staying at home six years ago on election day was a positive moral decision or else voted Lib Dem / Green / Nationalist so that they could be seen to be virtuously "protesting" the Labour government's role in the Iraq War. Well you've got plenty to protest about now. No one can tell me any of this would be happening even if Labour had only scraped a workable tie in 2010. Yes there would still be plenty of Blairites fattening their consultancies and we would never have had Corbyn but do you really think it would be a tenth as bad as this? Robin Cook will be spinning in his grave if what he sacrificed in resigning his cabinet position and opening himself and his family up to endless attacks led to all this. If I still gave money to bookmakers I would bet on Corbyn and John Mcdonnell engineering Livingstone into the hot seat in 2018 for a Bonking Boris v Red Ken rematch which will be fought to a bloody standstill. Clive Lewis or someone Clive Lewis shaped is meanwhile groomed to step in next to bring a more youthful leftist patriot Vision Thing thing in 2025. A Corbynised Labour Party filling the Podemos spoiler role with the SNP at the next General Election is going to be ten years too late for those who will suffer the most - here and abroad.
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dhajjieboy 913 posts |
Feb 24, 2016, 14:21
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"I have no idea what I will do. I wont abstain. I will probably do what I always do and vote with my heart not head. Largely because the boom bust cycle and political see-saw that goes with it will end up coming back round to a left of Social Democrat position before too long and then we can start to claw back a national sense of civility rather than perpetual scapegoating." It's just the same for me/us in the states. How many times can the EU keep financialy bailing out utterly failed economies within it's own ranks though? Solvency requires cutting losses in any economic model. As far as the US goes....we never needed such a membership to be experiancing exactly the same woes. It's the world we all live in now. No left/right see-saw schism can fix this...time to rewrite the book. And people will suffer too. It's inevitable. Your post was worth reading.
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