Sovereignty in the Twenty First Century

michaels

antrobus wrote: »

So that explains why Italy and France have such dynamic economies that put ours to shame.

I knew there was a reason.:)

I guess you are joining me in looking forward to EUR Zone levels of growth for the next 15 years that the Treasury report seems to keen to tie us to....

mwpt

Conrad wrote: »

Sovereignty is about US being masters of the deals we do and don't do.

Which US? The US that is Europe, or the US that is the UK, or the US that is England, or the US that is London, or the US that is city of London or the US that is your country town?

princeofpounds

So that explains why Italy and France have such dynamic economies that put ours to shame.

Ha yes...

I agreed with your post apart from this part. I know Germany and France well, and there has always been a specific national focus on buying your own output - for example their Police forces use their own cars.

This is true. And I would not argue that this is bad for the car manufacturer who gets higher revenues as a result.


But the point is that this sort of feel-good procurement does not come for free. If a nationalistic policy is needed to incentivise, one can assume that the domestic provider offers a higher price and/or less capability than the alternatives.


That cost is then passed on, in less visible terms. In this example, taxpayers are therefore paying more money for their police service than they have to, either in initial cost or more importantly through-lifecycle cost.


That means they then pay more tax than they need to.


But because that can sound horribly selfish, we can assume tax stays constant and come to the real problem with lower productivity; it forces a less optimal choice with limited resources.


So every nice French car you see the Gendarmerie whizz past in means one week's less of visits for a social care worker, or one less boiler fixed in social housing, or one less bed available for a women's shelter.


It's all about priorities.

Generali

Conrad wrote: »

Of course trade deals will impose rules of engagement, and I'm cool with that, however we do not then need to extend this to oversight of much of our law and every day political dynamics to Brussels. If a remainiac states we make most of our own rules anyway, then this undermines the need for Brussels.

Remainiac: great word!!!!

I agree that Brussels' reach goes too far and much of that is the fault of the Blair Government for giving away the protections the Major Government had put in place regarding the Social Chapter.

Conrad wrote: »

General - does it not perplex you that remain state the UK will be less safe and less able to co-operate across borders if independent, when Australia and other independents manage perfectly well?

In Europe it's complex and TBH I think Project Fear has gone well OTT with the safety thing. It brings to mind the Franklin quote along the lines of those that would exchange freedom for security deserve neither, sorry I CBA to antrobus the precise version.

Conrad wrote: »

I see Australia sitting on all sorts of global environmental task forces and bodies for example, and yet The Greens and others relentlessly tell us 'global warming does not respect borders, the UK will have no influence if outside the EU'. Do aussies cry at night over so supposed lack of influence?

Well Australia is an interesting point to take.

Australia feels that it has about as much influence in the world as, say, the Netherlands. Aussies' attitude to world influence is the same as Dutch people's: we're small in number and nobody cares. Nor do we.

Then if you actually look at Asia, Australia has a lot of influence. That influence comes from things like being a strong ally of the US; standing alongside Indonesia (~10x Australia's population) when possible but standing up to it when necessary; having rule of law, strong contract law and the right to own property that won't be seized.

If the UK decides to change the rules of engagement seemingly arbitrarily for no obvious reason (as far as the rest of the world is concerned) then a lot of those stability and predictability gains the UK has earned post-1970s will be gone.

My greatest fear of a Brexit, which ultimately doesn't really impact me directly, is that the UK returns to some 70s crap hole where you can't do business because every pollie is surfing the most recent wave of public opinion rather than getting on with governing. AFAICS the EU is most concerned with technocracy which is probably best left out of the hands of politicians anyway.

ruggedtoast

Generali wrote: »

I heard an interesting exchange between Ms Lambie (independent although quite an interesting history) and A Minister in the Aussie Parliament today that might enlighten those that think that a Brexit will lead to a new Age of Democracy in the UK where MPs can vote for whatever they want.

So Ms Lambie presented an amendment to a bill which would have forced the Australian Government to buy Australian steel in preference to any other. She made a very compelling case that by at least bringing the vote, MPs would have to put on record whether they supported this or not.

Then A Minister (didn't catch his name, sorry) stood to speak to oppose. He made it perfectly simple: if the Parliament was to vote through the law then it would mean ripping up most trade agreements that Australia has signed with the rest of the world and that would cause chaos and throw lots of people out of work.

This, IMHO, is the nature of Sovereignty in the Twenty-First Century. We have all in the rich countries of the world, and maybe the poor too, ceded a certain amount of Sovereignty in order to gain free trade agreements (FTAs) with other countries. Pulling the UK out of the EU isn't going to reverse that at all. Even assuming the UK can get FTAs signed outside of the EU, not a given, then those will tie the UK into similar binds that Brexiteers find so onerous when members of the EU.

Interesting thread.

It strikes me when talking to BREXIT supporters that they don't seem to be terribly sure what they even mean by sovereignty. It seems to be wrapped into some vague resentment about a loss of identity and fear of foreigners.

Many of the angry UKIP voters have much more in common with the Polish lorry drivers they hate than they ever will with Michael Gove.

One of the challenges of Labour over the next few years is to bring this issue into focus. One of the fundamental tenets of socialism is that working people are in essence a large family, national boundaries are fabrications of the elites to ensure they don't collectivise across borders.

The Little Englanders really are spinning around in ever decreasing circles at the moment. Orphaned by the 1% who no longer want troublesome little countries to govern piecemeal, and out of step with the Corbyn zeitgeist.

Thank goodness they still have Kate and Wills to ogle as they march pointlessly around pre arranged photoshoots in India wearing £3000 shoes.

antrobus

Generali wrote: »

....This, IMHO, is the nature of Sovereignty in the Twenty-First Century....

In my opinion, the nature of sovereigntyis closely linked to the number of aircraft carriers and cruise missiles that you have on hand.

But then, I am a natural born cynic.

princeofpounds

One of the fundamental tenets of socialism is that working people are in essence a large family, national boundaries are fabrications of the elites to ensure they don't collectivise across borders.

Which always really struck me as one of the more stupid tenets of socialism.


It's more an expression of wishful thinking than an evidenced fact.


Your average English peasant has always been quite happy throughout history to take up arms again annoying French peasants on behalf of their lords, and vice versa.


And your average Chinese shipyard worker is quite happy to take jobs from your average Tyneside shipyard worker. And the Geordies are pretty miserable about giving them up in favour of their poorer Tianjin cousins.


The only large historic example of such a 'family' actually being established is the Soviet Union, and that didn't work out very well for international worker solidarity within its borders, even before you get onto its economic failures. Not much grain being shared with your comrade Ukrainian during the Holodomor.


The point is not to bash all principles of socialism; I think that a certain degree of social support is essential to a healthy society. But this is one of those bits of wishy-washy Marxist 'thinking' which is little more than myth.

Moby

antrobus wrote: »

In my opinion, the nature of sovereigntyis closely linked to the number of aircraft carriers and cruise missiles that you have on hand.

But then, I am a natural born cynic.

I saw an interview with a former US British Ambassador......under Clinton I think......he was asked about the Boris' comments referring to Obama's anticipated statements during his visit in favour of 'remain' being hypocritical.....because America would never even think of giving up their sovereignty so why should we!! With a wry smile he said because we are a super power who has a huge army ....Britain isn't.!

Andy_L

Conrad wrote: »

Italy, France and others procure their own boats by puting a little catapult on the front of them in order to give them a 'military capacity', whereas we recently gave a large boat building contract to S Korea - this typifies how Britain is hamstrung as we follow rules to the letter.

Most Military equipment is exempt from the requirement for open EU tender though. We're having the RFA tankers built in Korea because there's no capacity in UK ship yards what with the Carriers, destroyers & (planned) frigates. All the clever stuff (design & fitting out) is being done in the UK, Korea is just doing the steel bashing.

CLAPTON

ruggedtoast wrote: »

Interesting thread.


One of the challenges of Labour over the next few years is to bring this issue into focus. One of the fundamental tenets of socialism is that working people are in essence a large family, national boundaries are fabrications of the elites to ensure they don't collectivise across borders.

the one real challenge the labour party faces over the next few years, is to still be in existence.