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Politics, politics, politics

It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion. It is easy in solitude to live after our own. But the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
 
Merkel got bummed in the state polls, because of the move to the extreme left that so much of Europe has had the last decade I now fear we will move to the extreme right.
 
This is an interesting, if not entirely unexpected, development

Theresa May refuses to commit to Brexit pledges on NHS and immigration
Prime minister declines to guarantee points-based system and extra £100m a week for health service as Japan and US warn of exit risks to Britain

http://www.theguardian.com/politics...arantee-brexit-pledges-on-immigration-and-nhs

I would imagine that she will get some trouble from her own MPs on this and many leave voters will also be unhappy
 
milo said:
This is an interesting, if not entirely unexpected, development

Theresa May refuses to commit to Brexit pledges on NHS and immigration
Prime minister declines to guarantee points-based system and extra £100m a week for health service as Japan and US warn of exit risks to Britain

http://www.theguardian.com/politics...arantee-brexit-pledges-on-immigration-and-nhs

I would imagine that she will get some trouble from her own MPs on this and many leave voters will also be unhappy
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Add to that May saying a points based system is not the right solution.

She is positioning herself to get the brexit MPs to complain about the path (this complaining about their own lies) and manufacture a commons vote that decrees the Brexit that was voted for is not viable and therefore not inacted but despite this she will pledge to control the core issues. IE Change immigration rules and conditions.

And she'll almost certainly get to bring down Johnson and Leadsom along the way as well as make the opposition parties look like they don't respect democracy.

I do like House of Cards....
 
The EU is in it's death throes with the German and French electorate soon to have their say. Free movement of people has been one of the main factors in people turning away from the EU . Let the EU undemocratic politicians carry on insisting upon it.
 
wiziwig said:
The EU is in it's death throes with the German and French electorate soon to have their say. Free movement of people has been one of the main factors in people turning away from the EU . Let the EU undemocratic politicians carry on insisting upon it.
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The polls that I have seen have showed that freedom of movement of European citizens is still popular on the continent. There is widespread concern about the refugee crisis though but that is a different issue entirely.
 
A lot of things flying around at the moment; Brexit ("we know what it means but we can't say"), Grammar Schools (fanatics for and against, even some Tories don't like them), but for me, the big thing the other day was in US Politics.

Clinton said that she would not send ground troops into Iraq or Syria. Trump, whilst evasive on the subject (bit like Mrs. May "we've got a plan but nobody can know what it is"), implies that he might. This issue might have more knock-on effects than any other from the US Presidential Election.

Of course, they could both be full of sh1t and pull a 180 on the subject when in power...for now though, it seems as if Clinton really will continue on where Obama left off, should she win The Presidency.
 
milo said:
The polls that I have seen have showed that freedom of movement of European citizens is still popular on the continent. There is widespread concern about the refugee crisis though but that is a different issue entirely.
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Ignore those polls and instead, digest the results of the recent regional election in Mrs Merkel's home constituency of Mecklenburg-West Pomerania, where her political party the CDU (Christian Democratic Union of Germany), came in third behind the SPD (Social Democratic Party of Germany) and the newly formed AFD (Alternative For Germany). For the CDU, the result is it's worse ever in the constituency.

The refugee crises is not a different issue entirely and people are only now waking up to the fact. The politicians who have done more than most in pushing for the free movement of people within a United States of Europe border, are the same who have been shouting loudest for more to be done for the refugees and economic migrants. These politicians, the likes of Merkel, Guy Verhofstadt, the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe MEPs, are federalist fanatics intent on destroying nation state diversity.
 
wiziwig said:
Ignore those polls and instead, digest the results of the recent regional election in Mrs Merkel's home constituency of Mecklenburg-West Pomerania, where her political party the CDU (Christian Democratic Union of Germany), came in third behind the SPD (Social Democratic Party of Germany) and the newly formed AFD (Alternative For Germany). For the CDU, the result is it's worse ever in the constituency.

The refugee crises is not a different issue entirely and people are only now waking up to the fact. The politicians who have done more than most in pushing for the free movement of people within a United States of Europe border, are the same who have been shouting loudest for more to be done for the refugees and economic migrants. These politicians, the likes of Merkel, Guy Verhofstadt, the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe MEPs, are federalist fanatics intent on destroying nation state diversity.
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Given how long Merkel has been in power and that the voters often given governments a slap in mid-term polls, I don't think that we should be too surprised or read too much into last week's result.

I also think that it is a mistake to start labeling people as federal fanatics. There are some European federalists and there is support for further cooperation but I do not believe that this will be at the expense of the nation state. There are too many different views of what Europe should look like to get something like that through. You can guarantee that the Visegrad Group, Ireland and the Netherlands would oppose it for a start.

I disagree with you about there not being a difference between Syrian refugees and freedom of movement of European citizens within Europe. There is widespread support for the latter in Europe. Obviously, some countries have been hit very hard by the refugee crisis and some of those have not had a significant Muslim population before. Understandably that is causing tension.

The Syrian refugees are not economic migrants, they are freeing a warzone where they are caught between a dictator who used chemical weapons on his own people and a fascist group hellbent on brutally killing anyone who does not share their beliefs. It is the biggest movement of people since the second world war for a reason. Europe's initial response was flawed but subsequently it has done better. Turning people back was not an option.
 
scaramanga said:
When they flee from Syria to Greece they're refugees.

When they move from Greece to France they're economic migrants.
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They're not though because the European countries agreed to spread the burden. There is no way that Greece could have coped with that influx on their own.
 
milo said:
They're not though because the European countries agreed to spread the burden. There is no way that Greece could have coped with that influx on their own.
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Isn't that precisely what the electorate are getting upset about? They don't mind Europe accepting refugees but the open borders mean that national allocations are meaningless.

Once those refugees are settled they're free to move between EU countries, meaning that the more successful ones would end up shouldering a disproportionate burden.
 
scaramanga said:
Isn't that precisely what the electorate are getting upset about? They don't mind Europe accepting refugees but the open borders mean that national allocations are meaningless.

Once those refugees are settled they're free to move between EU countries, meaning that the more successful ones would end up shouldering a disproportionate burden.
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They are not free to move between countries. Once they have been accepted into a country another country can return them there should they move on.

Obviously there is nothing to physically stop someone going from one country to the next but we're getting into Trumpian territory if people think that the solution is building walls.
 
milo said:
They are not free to move between countries. Once they have been accepted into a country another country can return them there should they move on.
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That's the current situation. Certainly in this country (so I assume plenty of others) there's a feeling that these rules change as and when it suits the EU leaders. There's certainly far less trust in them as a group than there is of individual national governments, even when trust in national governments is at an all time low.

milo said:
Obviously there is nothing to physically stop someone going from one country to the next but we're getting into Trumpian territory if people think that the solution is building walls.
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Obviously walls are not the answer, there are far better ways of controlling immigration - reducing minimum wages and benefit levels being the best.
 
scaramanga said:
That's the current situation. Certainly in this country (so I assume plenty of others) there's a feeling that these rules change as and when it suits the EU leaders. There's certainly far less trust in them as a group than there is of individual national governments, even when trust in national governments is at an all time low.

Obviously walls are not the answer, there are far better ways of controlling immigration - reducing minimum wages and benefit levels being the best.
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I'm not clear how either of these points relates to the Syrian refugee crisis. The quotas were agreed by national governments. Maybe the media have moved on and it is not being covered but I have not read much about refugees moving within Europe like we saw last summer.

I have met with friends in the last week who live and work in Paris, Vienna, Prague and Bratislava and spoken to them about it. One of those people spends most of his time commuting between European capitals and had a quite good view of how the situation is playing out across the continent.
 
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