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0 pointsdane-pgp7y ago0 comments

> This is true, but the Queen's job to sign new laws is purely ceremonial at this point,

The fact that her role is purely ceremonial (at least the parts of it which the British public are privy to) just means that her powers are either unexercised (potentially a dereliction of duty) or are exercised by the Prime Minister, concentrating too much power in one person's hands. If Britain had an elected head of state, with a democratic mandate, then there could be a proper separation of powers, and a less authoritarian executive.

> and while I can't democratically affect the House of Lords, I can affect the House of Commons and the Cabinet.

You may be able to affect one seat in the House of Commons, but the Prime Minister (and the Cabinet) are determined by an extra layer or two of abstraction (just as EU commissioners and the members of the European Council are chosen).

> The EU can make good decisions and bad decisions, but in either case it is unaccountable to the people it is supposed to serve.

I suppose you are saying it is "not sufficiently accountable" or "not as accountable" rather than completely unaccountable. I would say that there is a trade-off between how accountable/local the government is, and how effective it is at protecting rights and producing positive outcomes for citizens. At one extreme, we'd all be kings of one-person kingdoms, as sovereign individuals, not subject to any other laws, and at the other extreme we'd have a global government with perhaps log2(7 billion) levels of indirect elections. While there might be an intuitive appeal to the idea that the correct balance is for all decisions to be made no further away from you than London (as if there are no decisions made outside the country that can affect Britain), I personally feel that having the EU as an extra level of accountability for the British government is, in practice, beneficial for British citizens (and European citizens generally, to whom the EU is accountable).

> Our fishing industry has been suppressed leading to even less job opportunities in the coastal North, but then Norway (which is not an EU member but has mutual fishing agreements with it) is permitted to come in and fish our waters.

If non-EU member Norway has decided it is in their interests to enter a bilateral agreement with the EU regarding fishing, then I don't think we can rule out the possibility that Britain would end up in a similar agreement with the EU next year.

> the EU has handed the supposedly-restricted fishing rights to another country that is only bound by trade agreements, not membership under a unified international court

The existence of a bilateral fishing agreement with Norway doesn't mean there are no restrictions on fishing (indeed, it proves that there are restrictions, otherwise there would be no need for an agreement). Also, I'm afraid you're wrong about Norway not being part of a unified international court, since the EFTA Court exists and Norway is subject to its jurisdiction.

> And I have to ask - who benefits? Because the EU negotiates over all its member states, and this arrangement certainly doesn't do Britain any favours.

Is it really certain that carrying out negotiations at the EU level doesn't do Britain any favours? By "negotiations" I assume you are talking about trade negotiations, since the size of quotas is based on scientific evidence, and the allocation of them based on market forces. It seems intuitive to me that when a large economic entity is negotiating with a small economic entity, the larger entity has more bargaining power, since they have more to offer. Therefore Britain is (in general) more likely to receive a favourable deal when negotiating as part of the largest economic bloc in the world (rather than treating that bloc as a competitor in a zero-sum game). Also it's not accurate to treat all trade as being subject to negotiation at the EU level, since Britain can and does negotiate its own trade deals even while a member of the EU:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-21496563

> If Norwegian fishing boats are collecting British fish and selling them from Norway, there are two options: 1) they aren't selling them to Britain, leading to a simple drain on our natural resources, and 2) they are selling to Britain, adding transport costs (both fiscal and ecological) to the production of fish, meaning increased costs.

As for option 1, is anyone really claiming that there is now less fish available to British consumers since joining the Common Fisheries Policy? Similarly for option 2, is there evidence that fish is now more expensive in Britain (and that this isn't caused by historic over-fishing)? You make it sound like Norwegian companies are taking boats over from Norway to the UK, fishing there, taking the fish back to Norway, and then shipping the fish back to the UK for sale in British shops. Given that Norwegian companies (like any other companies) are motivated to cut their costs, it would make more sense for them to take their catch directly to British fish markets, and indeed to use British boats, and even British workers. If Norwegian companies really have increased costs, then presumably their bids for fishing rights are less competitive than the bids of British companies, in which case you have nothing to worry about.

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beaconstudios7y ago

> The fact that... authoritarian executive.

I concede your point that arguably, the UK is not democratic in that the final word on laws is held by a monarch. Personally, I like the Royal Family on a cultural level and am largely ambivalent on a legislative level because as far as I'm aware, they've never done anything to a bill that gave me cause to dislike them. That doesn't preclude their having done so though.

> You may be able to affect one seat in the House of Commons, but the Prime Minister (and the Cabinet) are determined by an extra layer or two of abstraction (just as EU commissioners and the members of the European Council are chosen).

Given that our general elections are held against parties, there's 1. nomination of a party leader by party members and 2. election of a party by the population. But election of the ruling party is in my mind important but complemented by the real power of the populace in democracies - the power to influence the government through protest, petition the Prime Minister, to write to our MPs, and so on. This is part of the reason I dislike the "distance" between the EU and the public - a protest in a large city is going to definitely get the council/MP's attention and probably get talked about in parliament, but to get the EU to act it needs to be passed on by the MEP and then the other nations (all of whom are still separate entities with their own concerns) need to express interest in solving the problems of the protesting nation. Plus any motion has to go through the "democratic deficit" portions of the EU.

I suppose at the root of my issue is that the EU is made of nation states that are vastly different both culturally and economically. Within the UK there's a lot of difference of opinion, but we're still bound by the same culture, land mass and national economy, so that helps to hedge the divisions between us (North/South, England/Scotland/Wales/N. Ireland, London/Everywhere Else etc). We can have internal disagreements but that bond still exists. I don't harbour any dislike or ill will towards the other European nations (some are strangers to me, others I really love), but I recognise that they have little reason to sacrifice their interests to support Britain and we have little reason to sacrifice our interests to support theirs. This is where international agreements work better than a shared supranational entity - we can find mutually beneficial agreements and are never forced to go along with something we dislike that another country wants. I think this is why the UK is known in the EU as having been a royal pain - we keep demanding exceptions and concessions and different rules, because we just aren't that similar to Germany or France or Belgium or Italy. I guess it comes from being an island nation.

> If non-EU member... next year.

And that's a good thing, if we can negotiate such a deal to our benefit as a sovereign nation. My issue is where Britain has to sacrifice its interests for the sake of other nations, when we get such a small say in the decision. To be honest, I would prefer it if this "coming together based on mutual interests, not hierarchical authority" were to operate at even more local levels, but the nation-state model isn't something that's likely to devolve any time soon.

> The existence of... its jurisdiction.

I'll concede you that point. The point I was trying to approach rather ham-fistedly is that the natural rights to the UK's resources are (from what I can see) being packaged up and sold off, to the detriment of the British fishing industry. If Britain were to do that as an independent entity it would still suck but at least you could be reasonably sure (corruption aside) that it was in exchange for something that would, in return, net-benefit the national economy. When it's the EU doing the bargaining, the benefit we get in return isn't so clear. Is the EU trading British waters for German access to Norway's market? It would be conspiratorial to suggest an explicit example like this were literally true, but the prospect is there.

> Is it... a member of the EU:

First off, there's a miscommunication occurring here - I was trying to say that EU trading off British fishing rights isn't benefitting Britain. Of course, collective bargaining nets the EU as a whole a stronger bargaining position. However, when a large entity is negotiating for a deal that spans each of its member states, each with different interests, you have to wonder whether the benefits that reach the states are better than those they would have negotiated if you were doing so independently. You get a bigger slice of pie, but it's no longer your favourite flavour.

On the issue of independent trade deals, I know that we can make our own deals still but there are confounding factors. If the EU negotiates as a bloc, how hard is it for us to reject a proposal? If each member state can reject a trade agreement then you're not really negotiating as a bloc because the benefit to the trade partner of uniform access is no longer there. Also, if we make an independent trade deal does that cancel, supplement or supersede the deal that nation has with the EU? Say, the EU negotiates a steel market with India. Is the UK still free to sell bulk steel to India for less than the EU? I can't really give any answers here as I'm not well versed in the topic, but then that's part of the problem with the referendum - it's impossible to have a deep enough knowledge of the EU's operations to make a fully informed vote.

> As for option 1, ... even British workers.

I wasn't claiming that my cases 1 and 2 were definitive, real life is always more complicated than that. More that the logistics of Norway fishing British waters don't make much sense compared to Britain fishing British waters. If Norwegian companies are indeed selling to British markets, using British workers and British boats, doesn't that mean that they're doing nothing but capturing the profit for their own economy? That still strikes me as a net negative compared to a British company doing the same.

> If Norwegian companies really have increased costs, then presumably their bids for fishing rights are less competitive than the bids of British companies, in which case you have nothing to worry about.

If it really is an open market, you would expect that British companies would win out given their proximity to the waters in question, and cost-free access to the nearest fish and job markets (given presumably there is at least some cost in foreign boats selling in British markets and hiring British fishermen/women). So then, where is this unexpected result coming from?

Fundamentally though, I don't think the price of fish to the consumer is the metric to be optimising for, which is the metric that a totally free globalised market will optimise for. There's also local employment, taxes, secondary sector benefits (as you mentioned, using British boats for example). Probably more beyond that. I don't see how this combined tally could possibly be higher when using a foreign company. Thus, offering our waters to another country should fundamentally come with a return that is greater than the loss of these benefits. This can be controlled for when negotiating individual agreements on a nation-state level. When the EU does the negotiating, not only does the net effect just have to benefit the EU as a whole, but it's hard to see how and whether the return comes back to us at all. Even if those benefits are redistributed one-for-one back to the put-out country, you're basically just implementing the trade agreement system with extra steps.

Having thought through the trade issue, I think it at least in part comes down to a trade-off of opportunity cost against collective bargaining + administrative overhead that cannot really be quantified. But then, that's a common thread of EU debates - the system we're talking about is so large and its concerns so diverse that in a finite timespan you can only really talk about ideals and principles. Any argument about specific industries, agreements, laws etc can be countered by another like example that is perceived to have a countering or exchanged effect.

I'm glad we're having this discussion, I feel like I'm learning a lot about both my position and yours.

[edit]

I've had to abbreviate your quotes because the comment was too long otherwise. Hopefully nothing is lost in translation.

dane-pgpOP7y ago

> as far as I'm aware, they've never done anything to a bill that gave me cause to dislike them. That doesn't preclude their having done so though.

There are bigger questions than just whether the royals have done something that you personally don't like (or failed to do something that you would have liked them to have done). It is worth considering whether their power has legitimacy in a democracy (including whether they are illegitimately taking power away from the role of an elected head of state, who could veto bad legislation, for example), and whether there is sufficient scrutiny of their actions that we can feel confident that they really aren't acting against your interest without you knowing it. For further reading, I offer:

https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2013/jan/14/secret-papers-roy...

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/6-things-we-l...

> Given that our general elections are held against parties, there's 1. nomination of a party leader by party members and 2. election of a party by the population.

We are told that our general elections are about local candidates and not parties (as an excuse to avoid certain types of voting reform), but moreover I don't think that there is a requirement that parties have to let their entire membership have a say in who is selected as party leader. In any case, parties generally do not allow you to be a member of more than one at a time, so most of the UK population cannot influence your option 1, and parties generally don't win the support of the majority of the population, so most people are unhappy with the outcome of option 2 as well, even before the party has a change of leader mid-term.

I'm sure you know all that already, so I'm just reiterating that there are abstractions, and distance, and "democratic deficits" in the UK system too, and that you may be more comfortable with them because you are more familiar with them (and perhaps the problems tend to work in your favour over all).

> I suppose at the root of my issue is that the EU is made of nation states that are vastly different both culturally and economically. Within the UK there's a lot of difference of opinion, but we're still bound by the same culture, land mass and national economy ... we just aren't that similar to Germany or France or Belgium or Italy. I guess it comes from being an island nation.

I think this gets to the core difference between our two perspectives. I would say that I have more in common with a German, French, Belgian, or Italian person that had a similar profession to me, a similar age, and similar politics, than I might do with someone living across the street from me. Indeed, I've met, and lived with, and worked with, people who have travelled from across Europe, and I felt I could trust their input into the political processes that affect me (on a supra-national level) than apparently the average British voter. That doesn't mean I want someone in France deciding what the income tax rate is in the UK, or someone in Italy deciding whether to send British troops to war, but these are examples of political decisions which are deliberately left to member states (and we're not talking about one country deciding another's policies, we're talking about an electorate of equal individuals collectively deciding the evolution of their shared environment).

> the natural rights to the UK's resources are (from what I can see) being packaged up and sold off, to the detriment of the British fishing industry.

If the UK has "natural rights", they are the rights of the people of the UK, not of the British fishing industry (as I'm sure you'll agree). My point is that the government is entrusted with the duty to let those rights be delegated to whomever will serve the British people best (ignoring for the moment the more complicated judgements of making concessions in one area to gain greater benefits in others). As such, I don't think that the government is actually "giving up" its rights, as if some bureaucrat in Brussels is rubbing his hands with glee that he has tricked Britain into banning British fish catchers from British waters, and forcing the government to sit back in despair as "undeserving" foreign boats "invade" our waters. The only thing that the British government has given up is the ability to set its own (unrealistic, but politically expedient) quotas, and the ability to block competition from businesses that happen to be registered elsewhere in the EU. You could try to make the case that the one thing that coastal communities need is (in effect) subsidised industry, and that the British government would love to provide it if they weren't prevented by the EU, but even if that were true (at a time of record high levels of employment), I think that the benefits of EU membership (including the ability for British fish catchers to operate in other European countries' waters, and to sell fish tariff-free within the Single Market) outweigh this cost.

> You get a bigger slice of pie, but it's no longer your favourite flavour. ... If the EU negotiates as a bloc, how hard is it for us to reject a proposal?

I really like that analogy. But yes, the question you ask is a pertinent one and I don't have an obvious answer. Personally I rely on the reports of experts working in these areas, who seem to suggest that Britain does have a good amount of influence in these negotiations (and ends up with better deals than it would get outside the bloc), and look at the macro trends that suggest that EU membership has been good for the UK economy (even though that growing prosperity may not have been shared or invested correctly).

> capturing the profit for their own economy? That still strikes me as a net negative compared to a British company doing the same.

It strikes me as being similar to allowing foreign companies to trade in the UK, or allowing foreign goods into the UK. It would in theory be great for British businesses if they had no competition, but I'm not sure it would be so great for consumers and the economy generally.

> If it really is an open market, you would expect that British companies would win out ... So then, where is this unexpected result coming from?

I suppose we would similarly expect that a British search engine would offer better search results to British people, or a British social network would offer better friends. Sadly international trade isn't as simple as that.

> Having thought through the trade issue, I think it at least in part comes down to a trade-off of opportunity cost against collective bargaining + administrative overhead that cannot really be quantified.

Right, there are a whole load of variables that it is difficult to get an intuitive feel for, or even clear cut numerical values. That's why I resort to looking at high level trends, and checking specific (hopefully representative) areas against theoretical models and logical arguments and opinions of experts in those fields. I don't claim it has given me a perfect perspective (and I would be suspicious of anyone who said they had achieved that), but I'm reassured that I can go looking for alternative viewpoints without facing too much cognitive dissonance (just the amount you would expect when being prepared to change your mind about something you think you understand).

> I'm glad we're having this discussion, I feel like I'm learning a lot about both my position and yours.

This is something I'm very happy to agree with you on. It is rare to have a conversation with someone who can clearly express the other side of this debate without both sides feeling frustrated and resorting to rhetorical short cuts that fail to shine light on the underlying issues.

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