Comments by "Awesome Avenger" (@awesomeavenger2810) on "Is Brexit definitely going to happen?" video.

  1. The problem is political ideology riding on the back of mutually beneficial trade. To the point where the question is asked, do we really want this? And the answer would appear to be no. Which isn't surprising. Because no one in the UK ever voted to be governed from Brussels. Even the majority of remainers only voted to remain, not because they agree with the political project that is the EU, but because they have been told that the cost of leaving is too high. And that's not a sound basis for continued membership of the European project. True, nobody on the leave side can promise what the future holds. But then neither could anyone on the remain side had the UK voted to stay. After all, the EU was originally sold as a common market. There was no talk of political union back in the 70s.
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  2. Not so. The 1975 referendum was a vote on whether to remain within the EEC (European Economic Community). And just as now, the same scare tactics were used by those who whished to remain. The issue of sovereignty was hidden away in an internal document by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office under the Thirty-year rule. "The whole thrust of our campaign was to depict the anti-Marketeers as unreliable people - dangerous people who would lead you down the wrong path... It wasn't so much that it was sensible to stay in, but that anybody who proposed that we came out was off their rocker or virtually Marxist." - Yes campaign treasurer, Lord McAlpine, as reported by the BBC. And while it is true that trade is part of politics. You don't need political union in order to trade.
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  3. So are you arguing that TTIP, the proposed US/EU trade deal that Trump shot down as soon as he got into the WH, was a political union between the US and EU? Would there have been US MEPs? Would the US have signed up to the jurisdiction of the ECHR? Or would Europe have been sending senators to Washington? Because you don't need to do any of that to make a trade deal with another country.
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  4. Lol. Gordon Bradley the halfwit socialist dotard is now going to lecture everyone on rationality.
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  5. YorickReturns TTIP would not have included clauses that enable Brussels to pass laws in the US. Nor would it have made the US subject to European law. If the only way you can defend the EU project is to exaggerate to a ridiculous degree, then its no wonder the referendum was lost by the remain campaign.
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  6. YorickReturns Nice try. But as I said, not a valid comparison with EU membership in any way.
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  7. No. Because as far as I remember it's a blank cheque. The UK would agree to align its regulations and standards to that of the EU. Not just present regulations and standards. But those of the future also. While having no say in those rules (ask yourself if the EU would agree to this if it was the other way around). This is why your claim that the EU is simply a glorified trade agreement falls flat.
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  8. Not so. Because two countries can have a trade agreement, without one country dictating standards and regulations to the other. I mentioned TTIP in the hope you might name which of the two (proposed) signatories would have dictated to the other? Who would have set future legislation in regards to, say, food standards in both the US and the EU? Washington or Brussels? Who's court would take precedence? The Supreme Court or the ECJ? For your claim that all trade deals are essentially just political unions to be true, it would have to be the one or the other, right?
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  9. As for your question (What happens to TTIP, if there is not sufficient regulatory alignment in the future?), the answer is that both sides negotiate on the basis of the agreed TTIP plan. Did you think that one, or both, would simply pass regulations in their respective capitals for both?
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  10. No. I'm not ignoring the fact that trade policy is part of politics. I'm disagreeing with you when you say every trade agreement is like political union. You seem to be having a hard time understanding that one country negotiating an agreement with another is not the same thing as one country handing the policy making process over to another. If you think it is, then tell me, had TTIP been signed, who would have decided future regulations between the US and the EU? Would it have been Washington? Would it have been Brussels? Or would they both have simply legislated across the whole of Europe and North America as they saw fit? If you don't think it really matters who sets future standards and regulations on services and goods, then why doesnt Brussels simply agree to align its policy with the UK? Why doesn't Brussels just hand over its future policy making to London? Or Washington? Or anyone else it has trade agreements with?
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  11. If trade policy is a part of politics, then any restriction on trade policy is a political union No. It's a trade agreement. That's why it's called a trade agreement. And not a political union. You can't 'pool sovereignty'. You either are sovereign. Or you're not. You can make agreements with other countries, NATO memberships for example, but that doesnt mean all other NATO members have control over your country's defence policy. The term 'pooling sovereignty' just sounds better than 'handing power to Brussels'. But that is what it is.
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