pratty

Most of those rights in the link pertain to specifically to the EU, and require EU membership for them to have any meaning, it would be strange for example to still have the right to "vote for and stand as a candidate in European Parliament and municipal elections," if you were no longer an EU citizen. I do appreciate that you feel you have had an opportunity taken away from you. Though I feel right may be too strong a word, to me it applies something more fundamental and personal, I think it is more fitting to say you have had privileges revoked. Of course I would never expect a government to refer to a privilege as anything other than a right. I do think people who really believe in and want to live under the EU that badly should consider emigrating to an EU country while they can and see about gaining citizenship there. I'm all for people living how they want to (to a fair extent obviously) and being happy, despite all the flowery talk of unity and togetherness, this is the beauty of separation and having different independant nations, it creates more scope for diverse living options, people who want different things can live seperately in different houses, cities, counties, countries, unions etc, without always infringing on each other. I suppose ultimately it is democracy that decides who should leave, if they can't bear living under the direction of the given majoirty. It sucks to be on the wrong end of democracy but we know that's a possibility everytime we vote and we're happy to champion the system when our cause wins. Few things are set in stone though, people now have the choice to stay and campaign for the Britain they want (including re-entry into the EU at some point), or leave for the EU, I don't blame people doing either.

Most of those rights in the link pertain to specifically to the EU, and require EU membership for them to have any meaning, it would be strange for example to still have the right to "vote for and stand as a candidate in European Parliament and municipal elections," if you were no longer an EU citizen. I do appreciate that you feel you have had an opportunity taken away from you. Though I feel right may be too strong a word, to me it applies something more fundamental and personal, I think it is more fitting to say you have had privileges revoked. Of course I would never expect a government to refer to a privilege as anything other than a right. I do think people who really believe in and want to live under the EU that badly should consider emigrating to an EU country while they can and see about gaining citizenship there. I'm all for people living how they want to (to a fair extent obviously) and being happy, despite all the flowery talk of unity and togetherness, this is the beauty of separation and having different independant nations, it creates more scope for diverse living options, people who want different things can live seperately in different houses, cities, counties, countries, unions etc, without always infringing on each other. I suppose ultimately it is democracy that decides who should leave, if they can't bear living under the direction of the given majoirty. It sucks to be on the wrong end of democracy but we know that's a possibility everytime we vote and we're happy to champion the system when our cause wins. Few things are set in stone though, people now have the choice to stay and campaign for the Britain they want (including re-entry into the EU at some point), or leave for the EU, I don't blame people doing either.

Not trying to pick a fight, but what rights would you say you have lost? The subject of rights and the distinction between rights and privileges is tricky. Did you really have the right to travel freely within the EU, or did you have the privilege? Did you have employment rights, or did you have employment privileges? They might feel like rights but if the government grants them and takes them away, are they? If you can change the government you can change the 'rights', not much of a right then was it? The United States made a distinction with the constitution. The government generally doesn't really grant or deny their rights, or at least it isn't supposed to, they are said to come from god, the first priority of their government is to protect those rights. This is why people can't just vote away other people's right to bear arms. Claiming certain things as a right is problematic, to insist that another person or institution owes you a service as your right implies they are compelled to provide that service whether they want to or not, this is the problem for example of claiming healthcare should be a general right, what if a doctor doesn't want to treat you? It may be unethical of them if they don't, but is it ethical to force them, what about their free will? If you say freedom to travel in the EU was a right then that implies that the other countries must let you in whether they want or not. What does this then say about the free will of a nation under the EU? That you may have lost the freedom to travel within the EU as you please is the problem with the EU, it's a conditional privilege club. Stay and you get the perks, leave and you don't. Seeing as it's so desirable by our respective governemnts and large portions of our citizens you'd think mutual free movement deals could be struck between Britian and probably whichever European neighbour we like. Doing so through the EU however means you can't just set up mutual free movement agreements with the countries you want, you have one with all of them up on the same terms, and you take on all the EU regulations unrelated to immigration. So are the leavers to blame for voting to leave, or is it the EU for placing such conditions on the free movement perks of EU membership that many conclude the perks are not worth the totality of EU membership. As for employment 'rights', if we choose to there is no reason we can't lobby and vote in a government that will pass the same laws domestically. I don't know why people give the EU so much credit, it's easy for the EU or any government to say "Free goodies for everyone!" when they aren't the one that has to pay the cost of them. It's as though some people think the EU is paying for people's holiday pay etc, no the EU is forcing businesses to regardless of whether they can afford to or not, those that can't will just have to employ fewer people. At least if Britian does it it can create the employment laws that suit Britian and it's culture and economy, not the laws that suit Britain and 27 other countries. In short, was anything we got the EU and have now lost truly a right?

Not trying to pick a fight, but what rights would you say you have lost? The subject of rights and the distinction between rights and privileges is tricky. Did you really have the right to travel freely within the EU, or did you have the privilege? Did you have employment rights, or did you have employment privileges? They might feel like rights but if the government grants them and takes them away, are they? If you can change the government you can change the 'rights', not much of a right then was it? The United States made a distinction with the constitution. The government generally doesn't really grant or deny their rights, or at least it isn't supposed to, they are said to come from god, the first priority of their government is to protect those rights. This is why people can't just vote away other people's right to bear arms. Claiming certain things as a right is problematic, to insist that another person or institution owes you a service as your right implies they are compelled to provide that service whether they want to or not, this is the problem for example of claiming healthcare should be a general right, what if a doctor doesn't want to treat you? It may be unethical of them if they don't, but is it ethical to force them, what about their free will? If you say freedom to travel in the EU was a right then that implies that the other countries must let you in whether they want or not. What does this then say about the free will of a nation under the EU? That you may have lost the freedom to travel within the EU as you please is the problem with the EU, it's a conditional privilege club. Stay and you get the perks, leave and you don't. Seeing as it's so desirable by our respective governemnts and large portions of our citizens you'd think mutual free movement deals could be struck between Britian and probably whichever European neighbour we like. Doing so through the EU however means you can't just set up mutual free movement agreements with the countries you want, you have one with all of them up on the same terms, and you take on all the EU regulations unrelated to immigration. So are the leavers to blame for voting to leave, or is it the EU for placing such conditions on the free movement perks of EU membership that many conclude the perks are not worth the totality of EU membership. As for employment 'rights', if we choose to there is no reason we can't lobby and vote in a government that will pass the same laws domestically. I don't know why people give the EU so much credit, it's easy for the EU or any government to say "Free goodies for everyone!" when they aren't the one that has to pay the cost of them. It's as though some people think the EU is paying for people's holiday pay etc, no the EU is forcing businesses to regardless of whether they can afford to or not, those that can't will just have to employ fewer people. At least if Britian does it it can create the employment laws that suit Britian and it's culture and economy, not the laws that suit Britain and 27 other countries. In short, was anything we got the EU and have now lost truly a right?

I'm not saying people shouldn't bring racism up, I said maybe the racists think other leave voters are racist too because so many remainers said they were. The vote was about wanting to leave or to stay, it was not a racists vs non-racists vote about whether we should be racist to foreigners or not. The people I heard the most boiling this debate down to whether you were racist/xenophobic or not were people on the stay side generalising remainers as insecure, racist or xenophobic little Englanders that what wanted to keep the foreigners out simply because they were foreign, and it was they that labelled the vote to leave as racist/xenophobic and the vote to stay as tolerant and welcoming, implying there was something dirty and disgraceful about wanting to leave. I'll give you a personal example, here's recent email conversation I had with a friend on the day of the vote: My friend: My reply: His reply: Who alluded to and brought attitudes to race into the discussion? who was making the broad generalisations about voters? Who was the angry and aggressive one? Apparently I'm a far right scumbag even though my reason didn't even mention immigration. And this is coming from a friend! He's so convinced only a xenophobe or racist, and someone down with Farage and Putin could entertain the idea of wanting to leave the EU. So which of us is summing the debate up as one about racism and xenophobia? This has just been my experience and perspective though, maybe others saw it differently, which is fine. People like Farage obviously put immigration and by extension the perceived detrimental effect of large numbers of foreigners coming into the country at the front of their campaign, but that concern in itself isn't racist in my opinion. It really comes down to what specific people say and their personal motivations as to whether their stance on immigration is racist or not.

No worries, I'm not looking to hammer you over it or take the piss. But we knew that the decision, if acted on, would affect the whole country. I like the idea of people having certain rights that cannot be voted away by a majority that doesn't like them, but I don't see how we could apply this idea to EU membership, what alternative is there then other than a democratic vote, or having no vote at all and just leaving our fate in the hands of our politicians? The latter might be practical in this case with regard to our economic stability, but as a general rule isn't this a dangerous power to give away to the government? To veto the dominant view of the country. It could come back to bite a lot of people on other issues.

Hundreds of millions of British people? Is there even a hundred million Britons on the planet? What am I missing here? I assumed affects hundreds of millions of people refered to the collective population of the EU, because there are hundreds of millions of them. Are you counting anybody born abroad with any kind of British ancenestry, and saying they deserve a say in Britian's EU membership?

So 52% taking the other 48% in one direction is wrong because it's too close, but 48% taking the other 52% in the other direction is ok? Despite the same closeless and that the people getting their way are in the minority. If that's how you and others feel then that's fine, I just hope everyone is consistant about this when they want change. That the UK should be prevented from deciding itself what it wants to do, because it effects hundreds of millions of mostly non-British people, is exactly my problem with the EU. As a political union the EU is too big and too dependant on each other that many people will not tolerate the freedom of a nation do as it pleases or even leave. I understand this, could it be that the racists think the other leavers are with them because so many of the remainers said you were racist to question the EU's immigration policy and want more immigration contro linto the UK? If anyone made this out to be a racist vs non-racist issue it was them.

Would you have accepted the governemnt ignoring an equally close vote to stay? How do we decide what to do? The simple reason the majority usually wins a vote is because setting required percentages is arbitrary. If we say "just leave to the governemnt, we'll effectively decide on the EU when we decide on the governemnt that decides on the EU for us," then we're saying that we do want to decide on the EU afterall. The remain side need to make up there mind here, they defend the EU by saying we (the people) have say and effectively have a vote on the EU through voting for our government and for our MEPs, but then say we're not qualified enough for our opinion to count and the politicians should ignore us and do what they want, so surely while we might have 'a say', we don't necessarily have any influence on the EU. And if an anti policy X party were to beat a pro policy X party, by 52% to 48% in a general election, we don't demand a re-vote because it's unfair on the 48%.

Indeed, it's always been this way, now we would be explicitly saying we want it that way. Is that what we want? What if the government disagrees that it's doing a shit job, how can you argue when you've already admitted that their opinion is superior to the voters? It devalues protest.

If it's any consolation to those depressed about the racism we should remember that leaving the EU is not the end of immigration into Britain, the way some people are reacting you'd think all immigration had been outlawed. It hasn't and it won't be. However as someone who voted leave I don't think it's unreasonable to have legitimate non-racist/xenophobic concerns over mass/free immigration, and to express the desire to see immigration controlled by Britain as we see fit because we are the ones who will have to deal with any negative consequences of it. And I say this as a person with immigrant friends and family from such countries as Chile, Burma, New Zealand and The Phillipines. I have no problem whatsoever with them being here as they went through the proper immigration channels to become residents, (and they have fit in and contributed). For me it's hardly mean or unfair to ask our EU neighbours to do the same and go through the same process, and it certainly isn't an expression of hate against them. Perhaps this would be best economically, but if we permit them to do this, it will say a lot about democracy and how we a governed in general. We will be admitting the government does infact know best for the nation, and will therefore potentially make it more difficult to challenge the governemnt in future, even on the basis that the majority of people disagree with them. You may be glad of the governemnt ignoring the majority of people now over this, but will you accept this over other issues? I can't help feeling if the vote had gone the other way, 52% voting remain, the system of democratic voting would be praised by the remainers, and anything other than the complete obedience by our governemnt of the democratically decided majority will of the people would be condemed as sour grapes, unfair, authoritarian and undemocratic.

No probs mate, clearly i must have issues expressing myself because I wasn't trying to say living under the EU is the same under bloody colonialism.

I'm obviously aware of the differing contexts but the similarity I see is that both the colonies and now Britain wanted to seperate themselves from under a political umbrella to their percieved benefit. To get back to the original point, I don't see why it has to be perceived as insular, regressive and negative to seperate from something or someone. Seeing as the colonies example bothers people so much let's try another one. Let's say two flatmates share a flat, then one moves out to get their own place because that better suits their needs. Does that mean they must hate each other? Can't they still be friends, and still visit? Does that mean they can't still borrow each other's stuff? Can they not still lend each other a hand on a project, or share the costs of mutually beneficial boxing pay per view? All I'm saying is separation doesn't have to have a negative connotaion, it can actually have positives.

Well I thought it was clear I was speaking of Britain and the EU as seperate entities as they're soon to be, there's no need for the snark but yes you're not wrong to point out that Britain had it's hand in setting it up. So to clarify then, I think the nature of the EU is as much of an obstruction to trade as the desire of today's Britain to leave it. And many of us who voted to leave now weren't repsonsible for how the EU was formed back then, so I'm personally not backtracking on a prior stance even if the country as a whole appears to be.

So you're saying because of the context you can think more of one cause for independance and less of the other? If so fair enough, I think I get what you're saying but I still think we'll have to agree to disagree, to express my view as a personal analogy just because I've never been physically oppressed as a slave doesn't mean I should be thought any less of for wanting to peacefully preserve my freedom. I don't think voting to leave the EU is necessarily an insular move, but frankly I think if people do want to be insular then that's fair enough, I think people should have that right to feel that way and good luck to them. Until we actually know their motives I don't think it's fair to harshly judge them, it doesn't necessarily mean they hate other people and that they are a bad person. If a person wants to hole themselves up in log cabin in the woods like a hermit I don't think that in itself is deserving of scorn, or that they should be dragged out and forced to participate in wider society against their will, at least to me that's a liberal point of view. Obviously the situation is complicated by voting where an individual's vote affects the collective, but even if you think a person is wrong they deserve to have their say, that's just the nature of democracy, you take the rough with the smooth.

Why is it ok for the EU to have it's way in the negotiations but not the UK? Why is it the UK the villain for leaving, and supposedly obstructing trade and wanting favourable trade terms, when it was the EU that formed this exclusive and highly conditional trade club in the first place, which reaches beyond the field of trade into general politics? Why? The end goals are independence. Had countries such as the US had the option to vote to leave Britain instead of fight, don't you think they would have taken it?

Being outward looking is one thing, being joined at the hip with 27 other countries and sharing legislation from one single source is another. Was it insular and backward for colonies formally under British rule to declare their independence? I imagine the people of the US, of Canada, of Australia etc got sick of being governed by Britain (just as many Brits now are tired of following the EU directives and having to bargain to do otherwise), and came to the conclusion the could run themselves better as they were the best judge of what they wanted. I'm sure it was a brave and contentious decision which resulted in some economic uncertainty and a somewhat divided population, but the majority placed a high value on independence and things worked out ok in the end.

I suppose it depends whether he meant the people around him (who's personal reasons for leaving he knew and disapproved of), or the country as a whole. I feel it's a bit harsh to say you can't identify with people in general who voted leave. Does voting leave make you a bad person or something? I voted to leave and I'm still for immigration and trade with Europe, I just don't want it on the EU's terms and conditions, leaving and risking our economy may be considered foolish but does that make us bad people no longer worth being identified with?

That's a bit over the top isn't it? You'd think we'd just voted to elect Jimmy Saville as PM or something, instead of simply voting to leave an international political and economic union.

No you misunderstood, I didn't say anything about other EU citizens voting in our referendum, I said (or at least meant) with the EU it's worse than just being on the wrong end of a referendum vote, you don't even get one. But I later re-read that and thought actually seeing as we so rarely have referendum votes in British politics anyway it's probably not fair to expect them often in EU politics either, so I deleted it. Maybe though as immigration is such a big topic with people, perhaps the it would be democratic of the EU to give people a vote on it. Though doing so runs the risk of exposing a policy of actually being something the majority of people don't want. Would it be fair to say this is as much a consequence of being in the EU in the first place? When someone finds themselves in a messy divorce it's not the divorce they regret, it's usually the marriage. Since I can remember our EU membership has been somewhat contentious and the prospect of a referendum was talked about for some time. I honestly don't know, but at the time when we were signed up were we made aware of just how economically painful deciding to leave, as is our right, would be?

I stand by my point, Europe is too big and diverse to legislate across on internal matters, the more people decision makers make decisions over, the more people they will dissappoint. Sure we can negotiate deals and opt outs, but this is a compromise, conditional and it requires EU approval, that's not being in complete charge of yourself and that's not good enough for me.

The compulsion to pay taxes by force, and for the rich to pay prortionately more taxes, is a contentious issue for another debate. Your comparison though implies that we should be morally compelled to be a member of the EU, I don't believe we should. Sorry but I'm not prepared to give up self determination to the EU at the convenience of less well off EU countries. Oh I completely agree you should have the right to leave, I just don't think any country you happen to choose should be obliged to let you in, expecially if you're just going there as an economic migrant. Think about the implication of saying admittance to any country should be a right, we'd be saying that there is no point at which a country can ever say they are full and won't let anyone else in, because to do so would be to infringe your rights. Completely free and unrestricted immigration would result in an increase in migration and the majority of migrants would concentrate the prefered places to live. This would cause overcrowding, multi-cultural issues, the over burdening of public services and resources, and increased competition for jobs and housing, leading to lower wages/conditions and the increased cost of property. The concentration of wealth and prosperity in these areas may also attract an increase in crime there. These are the perfectly reasonable considerations for any country to implement a controlled immigration policy. And controlled immigration doesn't even have to mean less immigration, it just means you control it. Depending on their circumstances some countries might require less immigration, some might require more immigration, some might need migrant workers of a certain skill more than other skills. The EU (with its one size fits all open immigration policy) doesn't know what each EU country requires better than those individual countries themselves do. That's why I think the UK should have complete immigration control.

This vote has perfectly illustrated why the EU and international government is such a bad idea. The majority of British posters in this thread are displeased, they have been out voted by the majority and have to live with the consequences, 51% can tell the other 49% the way it's going to be. This flaw of democracy is magnified the larger it is, more people may have to live unhappily under the decisions of the majority. If you have a population of 11, you can have 5 unhappy people living under the majoity of 6, if you increase it to 21, now you have 10 unhappy people living under the majority of 11, and so on. If there was an actual vote within the EU you could have over 200 million people (multiple countries worth) pissed off with the result. Obviously you can never satisfy all the people all the time, but the bigger the political body, the greater the potential to force on an increasing number of people a political/economic/cultural direction they don't like. So what can you do if you're not happy? Leave. None of the leave voters is forcing the break up of the UK, it's up to the Scottish if they want to leave or not (just as it was up to the British whether to leave the EU or not), that's the beauty of self determination, they now have a choice if they want it, the UK or the EU, and genuinely good luck to them whatever they choose. I'm a true liberal (not a modern SJW 'liberal' that wants everything they don't like banned), I have a bias towards freedom, as much as it's fashionable to talk about "intergration" and "cooperation" etc, and as inconvenient as it may be for us, people shoud have the right to seperate if they want too. Same goes for the other EU countries, the UK leaving isn't forcing other countries to do anything, if it breaks up it's because it freely choose to. Why shouldn't other countries decide to leave the EU if they want to? Why should countries feel obliged to stay for the convenience of others? If the EU is such a great idea why is it's collapse apparently imminent because one country left? The "free trade" of the EU was anything but free. It was highly condtional and the market literally had a multi billion pound entrance fee. If the EU and British government really wanted free trade they should have just got out of the way and let businesses get on with it. What the EU effectively does is hold free trade hostage and demands compliance. I'm confident we will continue to trade and do business because it's in everyone's interests to make it happen, it may be a bumpy ride for a while but I think we'll work it out, optimism rather than pessimism can only help.

Are you serious? If so, do you realise the irony of that statement, negatively generalising a large group of people you don't know? The likes of Farage and other dubious remain campaigners didn't influence me, I'm was against the idea of the EU before I'd even heard of these people. The reality is immigration is a privilege, not a right. I'm sorry the British people voting for self determination and independence from the EU is inconvenient for many good EU immigrants here, but surely they can't expect the British people to base their decision on the future of their country on the feelings of foreigners. Of course a portion of the remain voters will be racist or xenophobic, but that's no reason not to let the British people decide their future, nor can we assume that every single EU immigrant is a saint making this country better. This isn't actually a vote on immigration, nor is it a debate about whether you're "pro-immigration" or "anti-immigration", i voted leave and I'm not anti-immigration, I'm for controlled immigration, all that means is we decide. We could hypothetically and in theory leave immigration as it is through the political process (voting and influencing our politicians), the point is we want to decide the level and terms of immigration, not the EU. Hardly unreasonable given we are the ones that have to live with the consequences, good and bad. It's about controlling deciding our own internal affairs, what I consider the right of any country, and that goes way beyond just the issue of immigration, it goes for everything. What is a nation if it has to seek the approval and accept the conditions of an organisation outside itself to control it's own borders and regulate it's own businesses (the majority of which don't trade with the EU)? We're effectively an administrative region of the EU. Even the remain campaign recognises the problems of the EU, saying we have to be in it to reform it, a lot of people would rather just cut ties with such a problematic organisation, and perhaps focus on reforming ourselves, our own government and political process is bad enough, I don't want more government (that is less accountable, less democratic and less loyal to Britain) to contend with. There will be a lot of uncertainty and economic challenges if we leave but I think this is the price of independence and self determination.

As I say I'm not defending Roy's decisions, just saying had the game finished 1-0 we wouldn't be so bothered about them. I think the issue was the team was all wrong to begin with and it took a set late-ish piece to finally score a single goal. If you're going to play 4-3-3 you need at least two proper centre-mids, Rooney doesn't cut it for me, he's a "in the hole" player at best, But Ali was playing there. Sterling on either wing is fine, except for the fact he's out of form, Lallana can do a job in a wide-ish position but he's not a winger, Townsend on the right would be more ideal as he'd stay out wide where he's most effective. You have either Rooney or Ali in the hole (or even Lallana) but you can't really have both, it felt like England wanted to shoe horn both into the team, the only way that works is if you have a beast of a def-mid, which we don't. Roy should should have picked one or the other, if that means dropping Rooney then so be it. Alternatively Ali coming off the bench is a great option. That leaves up front where we're spoilt for choice, I don't mind which of Sturridge, Kane or Vardy Roy prefers as they all make a good case, it's probably a horses for courses thing as they're all a little bit different. If needed Sturridge doing a job on the right cutting is in an acceptable use of him but not ideal, and I don't want to see Vardy or even Rashford forced to play as a winger to shoehorn them in. Unless we're playing two upfront as proper centre forwards then Roy needs to make some difficult decisions about who to play and who to leave out, but that still means we have great striking options off the bench.