Keir Starmer is not blameless when it comes to Brexit, but he is moving in the right direction. Even the Tories attacking him know that, says Guardian columnist Simon Jenkins
Do you agree that Brexit has been “a pointless waste of time, money and effort”?
Thank you for not just swearing at me. It’s appreciated :) So in terms of specific examples I can think of a few. The “Traveling Circus” was one where the EU was spending between 100 to 200 million Euros at an environmental cost of an extra 19k tonnes of CO2 annually moving their seat between Brussels and Strasbourg for the purely political reason of France insisting the Strasbourg remain a seat of power. Then there was also the Common Agricultural Policy that became infamous for subsidising farmland that wasn’t even producing food. French and Italian farmers were accused of manipulating records and misusing funds. There were concerns over auditing and transparency too. Misuse or misallocation of regional development funds, corruption scandals in southern and eastern members states and just generally a lack of accountability in how EU money was distributed and monitored. There’s lots more detail we could get into but I think those are some fairly representative examples.
Just to point out. The new UK replacement to the farming subsidiary. Also now works specifically to prevent land from growing food.
ATM for very good reasons.
But getting shit wrong is not curruption.
And the shit you saw with the EU. Is really just evidence on how open they are. You talk about the moving of seats. But know exactly why is happened. While the curruption in the UK government is real and often well hidden.
This was my whole issue with brexiters. The EU was blamed as an block independent of the nations. For shit our own leaders were constantly pushing through the EU.
Almost everything brexiters decried the EU for was shit the UK supported and often created. Yet the call was to give more power to the much less democratic processes in the UK.
Then to watch a minority that supported hard brexit. Instantly use our own less democratic first past the post bullshit. To override the waste majority and all the promises made by the Brexit crowd during the referendum.
Note how that is nations. And folks have been arrested.
So your evidence boils down to you blame criminals on the folks making the laws.
It’s logically like saying if we get rid of murder. We don’t have murderers.
Boris johnson broke the law during COVID. He also broke parliamentary procedure and the law. When he closed parliament and lied to the queen. To try and force through a Brexit deal he lack both parliamentary support for and the national mandate.
Non of that means the UK is corrupt. It means a subset Brexit supporters are.
Closing parliament because some MPs break the laws parliament creates. Is just removing the laws. Not solving curruption.
You are proposing the same solution to the EU. And if Italy did the same. They would be giving the power to the very people that broke those laws. Much as brexiters did giving power to the billionaires that funded the campaign.
Well, their own reports are pretty damning: The Commission’s response to fraud in the Common Agricultural Policy There’s a “Conclusions and recommendations” section that’s quite illuminating.
Taken separately. Because a few mins thought about recent UK history shows how fucked up giving the UK GOV More power to solve this is.
The UK GOV is currently attacking UK disabled benefits. Dispute multiple of their own reports stating it is against both UK law and ECHR laws.
Refusing to release Thier own investigation into the cause of multiple disabled suisides from victims of the gives changes to disability benefits,
If lack of response to recommendations is reason to leave the EU. Honestly you need to buy a boat renounce your citizenship of any nation. Because national governments you wish to give more power to are far far worse.
I agree that moving the parliament between two different places seems dumb. If it’s cheaper to remain in one place then they should do that.
As for corruption and misuse of funds, maybe that does happen. Maybe the solution though is to elect better politicians to run the EU, rather than leave the EU.
I’ve thought in the past that maybe the EU should have a directly elected president, in addition to EU citizens voting for European parliament members. This might allow for more democratic accountability of the EU. Someone might run for the presidency on a platform of stamping out misuse of EU funds.
What would an EU presidents authority be? The point is that currently all EU laws voted on in the European Parliament and are ratified by member states (that’s a legislative problem of its own when not all member states are leaning the same political direction, as Hungary demonstrates), while the EU executive is just that: executing member states decision.
Making the travelling circus an issue is akin to BJ’s 350mil bus. It’s a large number, but in a 400-450mil bloc, look at the context too. Did UK save it’s contribution to said circus by leaving?
And yes, bigger administration, bigger corruption (when people are caught). The world today, sadly, doesn’t favour the small and valiant.
Thank you for not just swearing at me. It’s appreciated :) So in terms of specific examples I can think of a few. The “Traveling Circus” was one where the EU was spending between 100 to 200 million Euros at an environmental cost of an extra 19k tonnes of CO2 annually moving their seat between Brussels and Strasbourg for the purely political reason of France insisting the Strasbourg remain a seat of power. Then there was also the Common Agricultural Policy that became infamous for subsidising farmland that wasn’t even producing food. French and Italian farmers were accused of manipulating records and misusing funds. There were concerns over auditing and transparency too. Misuse or misallocation of regional development funds, corruption scandals in southern and eastern members states and just generally a lack of accountability in how EU money was distributed and monitored. There’s lots more detail we could get into but I think those are some fairly representative examples.
There’s plenty of corruption in the UK. Are you going to advocate to break the UK union as well?
Just to point out. The new UK replacement to the farming subsidiary. Also now works specifically to prevent land from growing food.
ATM for very good reasons.
But getting shit wrong is not curruption.
And the shit you saw with the EU. Is really just evidence on how open they are. You talk about the moving of seats. But know exactly why is happened. While the curruption in the UK government is real and often well hidden.
This was my whole issue with brexiters. The EU was blamed as an block independent of the nations. For shit our own leaders were constantly pushing through the EU.
Almost everything brexiters decried the EU for was shit the UK supported and often created. Yet the call was to give more power to the much less democratic processes in the UK.
Then to watch a minority that supported hard brexit. Instantly use our own less democratic first past the post bullshit. To override the waste majority and all the promises made by the Brexit crowd during the referendum.
Sure, but corruption is corruption:
Italy: 12 arrests and over €9.6 million seized in investigation into agricultural funding fraud €440k frozen in Italy over suspect scam by fake farmers Italy smashes mafia racket defrauding EU agriculture funds 94 arrested in Italy over EU agriculture funding fraud
Well, their own reports are pretty damning: The Commission’s response to fraud in the Common Agricultural Policy There’s a “Conclusions and recommendations” section that’s quite illuminating.
Note how that is nations. And folks have been arrested.
So your evidence boils down to you blame criminals on the folks making the laws.
It’s logically like saying if we get rid of murder. We don’t have murderers.
Boris johnson broke the law during COVID. He also broke parliamentary procedure and the law. When he closed parliament and lied to the queen. To try and force through a Brexit deal he lack both parliamentary support for and the national mandate.
Non of that means the UK is corrupt. It means a subset Brexit supporters are.
Closing parliament because some MPs break the laws parliament creates. Is just removing the laws. Not solving curruption.
You are proposing the same solution to the EU. And if Italy did the same. They would be giving the power to the very people that broke those laws. Much as brexiters did giving power to the billionaires that funded the campaign.
Taken separately. Because a few mins thought about recent UK history shows how fucked up giving the UK GOV More power to solve this is.
The UK GOV is currently attacking UK disabled benefits. Dispute multiple of their own reports stating it is against both UK law and ECHR laws.
Refusing to release Thier own investigation into the cause of multiple disabled suisides from victims of the gives changes to disability benefits,
If lack of response to recommendations is reason to leave the EU. Honestly you need to buy a boat renounce your citizenship of any nation. Because national governments you wish to give more power to are far far worse.
Guess why billionaires funded Brexit?
I agree that moving the parliament between two different places seems dumb. If it’s cheaper to remain in one place then they should do that.
As for corruption and misuse of funds, maybe that does happen. Maybe the solution though is to elect better politicians to run the EU, rather than leave the EU.
I’ve thought in the past that maybe the EU should have a directly elected president, in addition to EU citizens voting for European parliament members. This might allow for more democratic accountability of the EU. Someone might run for the presidency on a platform of stamping out misuse of EU funds.
What would an EU presidents authority be? The point is that currently all EU laws voted on in the European Parliament and are ratified by member states (that’s a legislative problem of its own when not all member states are leaning the same political direction, as Hungary demonstrates), while the EU executive is just that: executing member states decision.
Making the travelling circus an issue is akin to BJ’s 350mil bus. It’s a large number, but in a 400-450mil bloc, look at the context too. Did UK save it’s contribution to said circus by leaving?
And yes, bigger administration, bigger corruption (when people are caught). The world today, sadly, doesn’t favour the small and valiant.
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