French Constitution Vote

[david and julie]

The Hitler Youth had nothing to do with the EU and was also completely legal. I do not think that made it desirable.

The BNP is not off topic. Most of the objections people are making about the EU are objections to EU civil servants making rules rather than British/French/German civil servants making rules for themselves. If that is not nationalism, then I do not know what it is. Classic irrational old fashioned self-destructive nationalism. It is an objection not to bad government, but to perceived foreign government. In this present case it is mixed up with national leaders becoming so arrogant that they do not even bother to explain to people what they want to do and why.

At no point have I said any odious parties are desirable, are you suggesting it would be fair game for the EU to ban them though?

In my experience people are just sick of more rules and red tape regardless of where these come from. The main difference being that if we don't like what our own Gov does we can vote them out.

Tell me Damaocles, I don't trust Kinnock, Patten or Mandleson, if, hypothetically speaking, the whole of the UK agreed with me, how would we get them out of office?

 

[Freddie]

 

[Damocles]

Don't you think the tories also have their own version of jobs for the boys? Everyone does.

So what did you expect these union members to do? They were working for a company which could not go bust. Considered in the national interest to support our industry. Not just by labour. But when the whole company knows it makes its money by doing nothing, then that is exactly what everyone does. Maggie finally pulled the plug by refusing to pay subsidies and telling the unions to get lost. This did exactly what might have been expected. caused the companies concerned to collapse.

There always has to be a balance between people taking the **** because you are just giving them money for nothing and keeping something going because the whole economy depends on it. Maggie started with the easy targets. Dramatic confrontation, but unviable lossmakers. Her problem was when she ran out of targets she was still the lady not for turning and kept looking for things to close. so she fell, because she could not adapt to the changed circumstances which she had created herself.


If hypothetically all the UK population wanted to get rid of their EU commisioners then what they should do is complain to their mp. Threaten to vote for someone who will remove them. There are lots of people appointed by MPs acting together. Including the prime minister, judges, people who run the health service, run schools, prisons, child support agency, members of the house of lords, all this stuff. The democratic bit is exactly the same for all of them. You only ever get to vote for your own mp. Mandelson et al are part of the package you voted for (or someone did.) Most of the population really does not give a dam who is commisioner.

DJ, apologies if some replies become misdirected. I do not believe in banning anything. I believe in informing people of dangers and protecting them from the actions of others. I tend to feel that banning just removes the public face of things which makes it all the harder to know who is involved, or to put a different case. The BNP is an example of an extreme nationalist view which I have seen expressed here.

I am sure people ARE sick of new rules. But rember every single one of them was agreed by the parliament at Westminster. Almost all of them were framed by uk civil servants based on more general instructions from Europe. These EU instructions were themselves all agreed to by UK ministers. So when you say you dislike a rule, remember exactly who was responsible for it.

 

[Freddie]

Don't you think the tories also have their own version of jobs for the boys? Everyone does.

So what did you expect these union members to do? They were working for a company which could not go bust. Considered in the national interest to support our industry. Not just by labour. But when the whole company knows it makes its money by doing nothing, then that is exactly what everyone does. Maggie finally pulled the plug by refusing to pay subsidies and telling the unions to get lost. This did exactly what might have been expected. caused the companies concerned to collapse.

There always has to be a balance between people taking the p**s because you are just giving them money for nothing and keeping something going because the whole economy depends on it. Maggie started with the easy targets. Dramatic confrontation, but unviable lossmakers. Her problem was when she ran out of targets she was still the lady not for turning and kept looking for things to close. so she fell, because she could not adapt to the changed circumstances which she had created herself.


If hypothetically all the UK population wanted to get rid of their EU commisioners then what they should do is complain to their mp. Threaten to vote for someone who will remove them. There are lots of people appointed by MPs acting together. Including the prime minister, judges, people who run the health service, run schools, prisons, child support agency, members of the house of lords, all this stuff. The democratic bit is exactly the same for all of them. You only ever get to vote for your own mp. Mandelson et al are part of the package you voted for (or someone did.) Most of the population really does not give a dam who is commisioner.

DJ, apologies if some replies become misdirected. I do not believe in banning anything. I believe in informing people of dangers and protecting them from the actions of others. I tend to feel that banning just removes the public face of things which makes it all the harder to know who is involved, or to put a different case. The BNP is an example of an extreme nationalist view which I have seen expressed here.

I am sure people ARE sick of new rules. But rember every single one of them was agreed by the parliament at Westminster. Almost all of them were framed by uk civil servants based on more general instructions from Europe. These EU instructions were themselves all agreed to by UK ministers. So when you say you dislike a rule, remember exactly who was responsible for it.

You ask me a question and i answer it for you so then you tell me i would have been the same with other people---------i dont know all i can tell you is what i know from what i experienced personally, what is your point ??? that i should accept it because they are all like that ????

 

[AdamW]

Slightly besides the BL/Union discussion, but back to the whole splinter group/fascist issue for a second: Damocles, I think that 99.9% of those here would agree that it is the actions of groups such as the Hitler Youth and the NF that are illegal: simply being racist, however wrong it is, is not and never has been illegal, however beatings and killings ARE illegal regardless of motivation.

One reason that we didn't have war in Western Europe after WW2 was a very large, red reason that was fond of hammers and sickles and Warsaw Pacts. Communism. It is little, if anything, to do with the EU or its former guises. It was a matter of "Oh poo, look at all them tanks those Russkis have got. They could take Western Europe pretty damn quick if we got distracted with military action between us lot.".

Now, if anti-EU groups gained popularity throughout the EU, this would not result in Hitlers springing up all around, and ex-pats fleeing for their lives.

I'm all in favour of the eventual formation of a European superfederation, leading to a global federation, but I really don't think they are taking the right approach.

 

[david and julie]

DJ, apologies if some replies become misdirected. I do not believe in banning anything. I believe in informing people of dangers and protecting them from the actions of others.

But your version of dangerous differs from mine, so you are only informing me with a slant. If you were really concerned with protecting people from the actions of others, why are you pro EU? surely before any of this(EU) even started the people should have been told the facts of what was intended and asked their opinion? For good or for bad the peoples of Europe should have a say on their own future and they shouldn't be ignored. Condescending career politicians and bureaucrats should not be entitled to tell us what is best for us, they are only really in it for themselves. This should all come down to one man (or woman) one vote, it doesn't matter if we get it wrong or indeed if this then caused a war, either. What matters is that we had a choice, which was honoured, because Europe is a supposed democracy. The whole concept just can't work without the will of the people, it wasn't sought in the early stages, but needs to be so now, more so than ever before.

You have no need to apologise we all drift off in our chats. You never bother me as you debate in a polite manner. Which is more than can be said for some of our more recent members.

 

[Damocles]

well, 'condescending career politicians' do tell us what to do. The EU is totally irrelevant to that, notably since most of the aforementioned career politicians are nothing to do with the EU, rather are the government of this country. What doyou suggest we do about them?

 

[david and julie]

I would suggest that less is better, more so when they are our own and we can get rid of them if we wish. You ask me what I would do when really you know the answer, I would sack everyone of them because they are useless parasites. Even worse some of them(Kinnock and Patten) were unwanted by the voters anyway.

Tell me why is the EU placing crippling penalties on any members who wish to leave?

 

[kendor]

Funny how people see things differently re Freddies post above.
I started work before yourself freddie and remember those days well, it wasn't the government that was in power it was the unions that were running the country at the time, the reason labour couldn't change things at the time was that the mechanism hadn't been brought in to bring about these changes by then ie one of the lynchpin methods used by the tory government when they got to power was home ownership, this and the sell off of BT shares etc cornered the working person and penshioner into some form of control, once people had mortgages and penshioners had shares the tories had the power to bring in anti union laws and get them to work by using the things that the worker/penshioner would care about, loss of homes and loss of money.
All of a sudden workers were afraid to strike as the laws affected them more directly.
So what did Kinnock and co have to do with it?
and as blair is more right wing than labourites had ever been before there is no political connection between kinnock and blair.

 

[Freddie]

Kendor i know the unions were running the country that was a point i was trying to make.

Kinnock tried to reform the Labour party from being run by the unions to his own kind of Labour which was say one thing and do another just to keep people sweet and still look after himself in the process as he has done from the EU--he done it admirably, this is a man who has NEVER worked in his life but always claimed to represent the working class.

Where does Blair come into it?? well Kinnock he set a shining example of how not to be a losing lefty unionite party from the 60's, to be a lying cheating look after yourself and say anything to keep them quiet person and Blair has took it all in and two steps further-------without Kinnock there would have been no Blair

I think if the Scottish fella who died early on hadnt died Britain would be a much better place now, i think he was the one but cant remember his bloody name.

 

[Freddie]

By the way the Hitler youth wasnt an illegal party.

In the 1930's the normal German felt that he was a second class citizen because of Jews owning most of the wealth and immigrants, so they started to get there own country back with the Nazi party.

The reason all the killing started was because Germany started to kick all the people they didnt want out of their country but other countries wouldnt accept anymore refugees so the Naazi's found an alternative solution.

Similar thing happened in Bosnia a few years back when refugees werent allowed into a neighbouring country

 

[petewood]

I think if the Scottish fella who died early on hadnt died Britain would be a much better place now, i think he was the one but cant remember his b****y name.

John Smith, and I agree with you.

 

[Damocles]

Speaking personally for a change, I know exactly how it feels when you get wrapped up in something. You want to make the most super-duper whatsit ever. All bells and whistles. Doesn't matter that the customer just wants one exactly the same as his neighbour, he is gonna get the fancy version. Well, politicians are exactly the same.

Sure, they are after power. If they were not good at manipulating people they could not get to be important politicians. But they do also have dreams about utopian societies. They do want to make things better.

They may disagree on what is 'better' though. And absolutely for sure they all start thinking they know what the customer wants better than he does. I am not at all sure John Smith would have done better. how could he have done better than three landslide victories in a row? Perhaps now we would be thinking about whether Blair or Brown would be next. What would he have done about the war? If he had refused to join in, then indeed Labour might now be much stronger than it is.

Yes, I know the Hitler youth was not illegal. That is the point. It was very popular. It started pretty much as the youth wing of the equivalent of the BNP. Which unlike the present BNP managed to get a parliamentary majority which it then converted to a dictatorship. Therein lies the lesson about nationalism and where it gets you.

Umm,no. The killing may have started inside Germany but it became a problem for the world when Hitler started invading other peoples countries. The Iraq parallel is obvious. We rightly chose to stop Iraq when it invaded another country. Whether we could have prevented WW2 by firm action much earlier I do not know. Possibly, but I doubt Hitler could have been removed that way. More likely he would have continued until he died of old age.

The Jews were undoubtedly more successful than the average German, but they were blamed wholly unfairly. They were and are a cohesive extended family which helped each other. Nothing wrong in that. Their wealth probably made a significant contribution to the economy. Without them it would have been much harder for Germany to run a war. So Hitler used them as a convenient group to blame for everything which had gone wrong (much like the EU is used now), and decided their wealth would be much better under his direct control. A tendency of politicians when strapped for cash. Henry VIII did much the same thing with Catholics.

Labour before Maggie came to a sticky end in a rather similar way to Maggie herself. Both had a policy which for complicated reasons they could not change, even if they realised it was heading for disaster.

Blair (and John Smith) reformed their party as caring capitalism. Firmly holding the middle ground. Their mistakes have largely been right wing ones, making their position even more unassailable. I am waiting for the conservatives to perform a miracle of rebirth which will allow them to reclaim the centre. Continually banging on about taxes is not going to do it.

DJ. The EU is run by the council of ministers. Not by its parliament, not by the commission. Which means the UK representatives are members of the UK government. What you are saying is that you wish parliament to send different people to represent us. You are saying you wish to sack Blair. Well, there was a chance for people to decide this last month and they chose to keep him.

I would love to reform the EU. I would abolish the commisioners which have become pretty pointless, I agree. I would give their jobs to the parliament. It is a perfectly good parliament and should be allowed to appoint who runs the various departments. Giving it a responsibility would immediately make its members more accountable. When commisioners did something stupid they would have constituents who could complain about them. I also agree that tightening up their expenses would be a very good idea. Not so much because of the money, but because it looks bad. They should have to justify what they are spending it on.

The EU itself protects us from the actions of various groups. It protects us from unfriendly moves from other members. It allows us to influence the governments of other members. Perhaps most importantly it prevents our own government from extreme actions. Have you not noticed how the government is dismantling the house of lords which it perceives as a threat to its unshackled power?

Just because I approve of the principle of the EU, very much, does not mean I approve of the details.

 

[pipme]

ooooer !!

...burnt a Spanish bulk wine truck...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4600099.stm

More likely to cause a war !!

 

[masona]

.If hypothetically all the UK population wanted to get rid of their EU commisioners then what they should do is complain to their mp.

The trouble is that you can't because of one of the ruling will soon be illegal to withdraw from the EU even talking, writing or leaving will be illegal. You see they got it all ways and covered themselves. The government has handed over more and more power to the EU and there isn't a thing we can do about it if we don't like the new rules. So what chance have we got when we closing in on them then they make the rules to prevent you taking any action? Clever aren't they.........