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The people have spoken

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson: G7 Nations Must Build Back in a Greener, More Gender Neutral and Perhaps More Feminine Way​

 
I'd be interested to know how many times the word "anecdotal" featured in this thread though i will accept it was often accurate , because its difficult to describe or explain an instinctive feeling .

Reading this readers comment today i felt it perhaps lends credence to that which we could not find words to explain .

"Annabel Partridge 12 Jun 2021 10:45PM



@Kenneth Grimshaw
I might be able to help you out here, as I used to teach commercial EU law to postgraduates and constitutional law to undergraduates.
Before Brexit, EU law took effect within the UK either directly, with no involvement from the Westminster Parliament, or indirectly via EU Directives, which were transposed into UK law via secondary legislation (statutory instruments) - these also didn’t get voted on at Westminster. EU law was therefore enforceable within the UK in the same way as domestic law; indeed, it was, arguably, a type of domestic law. If there was any conflict between EU law and laws created at Westminster, as there was in the 1980s and 1990s with fishing legislation and weights and measures legislation, EU law prevailed. It was supreme. Our courts confirmed this, and it was in any event the established position under EU law (Costa v ENEL 1964), as confirmed by the ECJ before the UK even joined the EEC in 1973. (It is this supremacy principle that the German constitutional courts rather astonishingly refused to acknowledge last year, and the CJEU is now taking the German courts to task on that. Watch that space).
EU law and law-making began in 1957 once the Treaty of Rome created the EEC. It was based, naturally, on the law-making traditions of its then member states, who were then all civil code countries, the UK not having yet joined. So EU law is effectively a civil code system and our joining in 1973 made no difference to that. The cliche that under European civil code systems, nothing is permitted unless there is a law that says so (while under a common law jurisdiction like England and Wales, all is permitted unless there’s a law against it) has become rather fudged over the centuries but, in essence, there is some truth in it. EU law does effectively tend to operate on the basis that there ought to be laws for everything, and one ought only to be able to do anything with permission. By contrast, English law (can’t vouch for Scots or NI law) is still just about based on the notion of individual freedom to do whatever you like, unless there’s a law that says otherwise (hence the saying “there’s no law against it”, a saying you’d never hear in, say, France, where it would make no sense.
This contrast means that it has always been like mixing oil and water, when it comes to having EU law operating in the UK (or at least in England and Wales) alongside domestic common law-based UK laws. They are two vastly different legal traditions, and our judges have over the last 47 years had to interpret and apply both. In true English tradition, they’ve got on with the job and been pragmatic about it, which is why it didn’t really cause any ripples for so long (apart from the fishing cases). (One could argue that our judges became increasingly civil—code-y in their approach, and less common law-ish, and that would be a fair observation, although one must also always accept that legal and philosophical thought doesn’t and mustn’t stand still, and will always remain open to development and influence from elsewhere. Heaven forfend that any country’s legal system should ever be immune from ideas from outside).
Anyway, I digress. Over the 47 years of our membership, EU law has grown in significance and scope within all member states. Within the UK it has accordingly become increasingly difficult to make laws based on our common law traditional freedom-based approach without banging up against some EU law that restricts; in short, EU law had, by the time of the Leave vote, become somewhat of a stranglehold on our courts and legislators. I recall Michael Gove exclaiming in 2016 that the business of making laws, as a UK government generating them, had become virtually impossible, because of the amount of overriding stuff coming from the EU
There was, then, a pressing need to sort this out and redress the balance between EU law and domestic law-making. And it wasn’t just a question of who makes the laws, ie the UK Parliament or the EU; it was also always, crucially, a matter of what thinking or philosophy lay behind the laws - freedom-based common law, especially contract law, that sought to uphold and enforce what the parties to the contract had themselves actually agreed, or civil code-type laws that took much less notice of what the parties had actually agreed, and much more notice of what the legislators and the Commission thought “ought” to happen in a particular scenario (the latter being very disempowering and disincentivising for commercial activity)? Civil code-type law-making is, as Barnaby indicates, much more interventionist (interfering and downright bossy) than a common law system. And EU law being of the restrictive civil code type, there was, among other concerns, the sad prospect that continued freedom-based UK commercial activity would start to suffer badly from the erosion of English law. Contract law, in particular, is effectively the jewel in the crown of English law, enabling business and trade all over the world, trusted as a copper-bottomed system of private regulation, and it was in danger of being obliterated by a totally different mindset that inherently sought to control rather than enable.
The country voted to leave the EU for lots of reasons but what I have just described is effectively the sovereignty issue. On the UK’s leaving the EU, the vast body of EU law that took effect in the UK before Brexit has now been adopted into UK law, for us to ponder over at leisure and either keep or repeal, but no new EU law will henceforth take effect within the UK. All legislation from now on will be made in the UK, either at Westminster or one of the devolved parliaments.And that new legislation will be based (mostly) on our common law system; the slow erosion of that system in favour of the civil code-type of law-making used in the EU has been brought to a halt.
I said “mostly” and that is because, of course, our legal thinking is not untouched by our 47 years in the EU. There might be some repealing of adopted EU law, but modern lawyers, judges and legislators won’t all suddenly start thinking exclusively in common law terms like they did in the 19th century. We’re not going backwards; that isn’t possible or desirable. No, what Brexit represents is an alteration of the course our ship is steering. We were on a ever-more EU law-based course, watching the common law way of thinking erode away, and now we’re on a more balanced course, whereby the common law elements of our legal system, which protect our inherent freedom, keep going.
Who knows how it will pan out. There was a very valid argument in favour of Remain that was never made much of during 2016, and that was that it was basically too late to leave, so enmeshed were we in the EU. This argument was generally made on economic grounds, on the “can’t unscramble a scrambled egg” principle, although it wasn’t very convincing in that context, businesses being entirely designed and motivated to adapt and find new markets, which they’re doing. But legally? I think there was a big argument to say that we were/are too legally enmeshed in the EU to leave. Lawyers aged 35-40 now qualified 20 years ago, when EU law and its civil-code approach already had their knees well under the table in the UK. And the older ones whose careers have survived this far and prospered have generally done so by adapting and getting with the “EU law script”; they can barely remember the time when common law thinking prevailed. But there are a few of us. Quite a high proportion of older lawyers voted Leave, and that’s why we did it. Common law thinking is worth keeping and must not erode away."
 
Also interesting that of America's 50 Union States 49 are common law and only Louisiana adopted French civil law .

Louisiana also ranks 50th and last by whatever grading system i can find .
 
its been quiet here of late.

looks like, predictable, the remainer doom mongering has amounted to nothing. even with a pandemic thrown into the mix.

loving my new found sovereignty too! :thumbup:
 
loving my new found sovereignty too!
didn't know you were royalty :astonished: .The sausage wars seem to be heating up , lots of folks seem surprised that the EU are playing difficult but Johnson is complaining about the details of a deal he signed .Joking aside there's a danger with Northern Ireland that this could undermine the Good Friday agreement.
 
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Washington 24 August 1814 ............... oh no wait wrong thread and wrong date .

But i will take the blame for misdirecting , perhaps if i had said an American eagle under the current presidency it may have clarified my deeper meaning .
 
Firstly, I never said that DM readers deserve a "smack" as you put it - so please don't put words in my mouth/post.

On the other point, you may or may not be aware that the Daily Mail was one, if not the most, supportive and sympathetic newspapers of both Hitler and Mussolini and fascism in general.
The Daily Mail's owner at the time, Lord Rothermere was a huge admirer of both Hitler and Mussolini and used the DM to promote a pro-Nazi agenda in Britain in the late 1930s. This stance led to him/DM having personal meetings, as an honoured guest with both men and having 1-2-1 interviews etc. Rothermere/DM even congratulated Hitler on the annexation of Czechoslovakia. For a short period they also supported Oswald Mosley and his Blackshirts. However, following the outbreak of WWII, the Daily Mail distanced itself from Nazism and Fascism in general.

Well that was 80+ years ago and yes, in that period ownership has changed and moved on, so has the DM's editorial stance on many things. However the DM's general rhetoric and outlook since, till now has been one tinged with racism and xenophobia - slowly drip feeding hate and fear to its audience. So if you're consuming the "news" from the DM regularly, then it can only help to promote those attitudes and perceptions and eventually legitimise them. It's like the frog in warm water, if you heat the water slowly enough, the frog doesn't notice until it's getting boiled to death.

On to Brexit: Let's take one of the key drivers behind support for the Leave campaign - the fear stoked up around mass immigration from the EU. Remember the Nigel Farage Breaking Point poster*? Or the "Turkey is joining the EU" poster? This was all stoking fear about immigration from the EU, when in fact, (legal) immigration from the RoW was actually running much higher than (legal) immigration from the EU and had been for several years, plus Turkey has very little hope of joining the EU and hasn't for the last 20 years, nor for the foreseeable future. (Ironically the post-Brexit trade agreement we have signed with Turkey might make our relationship with them closer than the EU's).

And finally, just some flavour of the DM's front pages over the last 8-10 years, so you know what I'm talking about.....Tolerance, inclusivity and liberalism are certainly not the first words that come to my mind.

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* The Breaking Point poster was almost a direct copy of a piece of Nazi propaganda.
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Anyone with even an ounce of natural intelligence knows all newspapers are for profitable gain , they aim to sell , so they pick up the mood of the nation and sensationalize it . As is clearly shown on both sides of the debate people like to read that which supports their own opinion . Propaganda is a lucrative business .

Brexit is done and as i see it the crux of the matter which will not be laid to rest is this -

Definition of LIBERAL - [Leaving Land Cruiser Club] V Definition of ILLIBERAL - [Leaving Land Cruiser Club]

I know where i should be pigeonholed in those categories and so does the first gay kid i ever encountered who was curled up in a ball being beaten up by the biggest kid in the school when i walked in on my very first day at that school and lost my temper .

So does the black girl i dated and more or less lived with from the age of 15 to about 17 .

And so does the girl who had been outed at school as a lesbian and pretty much outcast until we started dating and she moved in with me when she was about 18 .

I could go on but its unimportant , what is important is i will never ever support a united states of europe because as is evidenced everywhere you care to look it reduces individuals to a worthless status of binary code pawn in a game of big business monopoly .
 
Anyone with even an ounce of natural intelligence knows all newspapers are for profitable gain , they aim to sell , so they pick up the mood of the nation and sensationalize it
Yes news outlets appeal to their target audiences but also shape their opinions .I think it was Chris that said on this thread that if the government wants you to have an opinion they'll give you one,The right wing press has a clear agenda & that is to promote the interests of their billionaire owners .Dividing the public by stoking up their worst fears and blaming those without a voice are as old as the printed word.
 
And when the Brexit question was first raised on the forum I recounted a discussion I had with a friend about my objection to the EU principal way back in the 1990's , and i'm still waiting to hear why some think its a good thing ?

Cheaper postage - yeah like its cheaper to buy a car on finance if you agree to pay a bigger %APR :lol:
 
One of the most recognizable brands spends 4 billion dollars a year to make sure people keep buying it's sugared and flavored water & media outlets perform a similar function as regards to politics.20 years ago no one was really bothered about the EU apart from some Tories.As much as i agree with you on the unaccountable nature of the EU i'm still waiting to hear what the real benefit will be for ordinary folks.The real damage has been caused by the increased xenophobia even though i agree that not everyone who voted for brexit is a racist.
Parliamentary politics used to be about offering a better future but the slow failure of capitalism means that this isn't possible .Now it's all about fear and blaming the other .In the UK it's the turn of Gypsies , Roma and Travellers .
 
Difference is while i share much of your contempt for the powers that be all through history I recognize that people are pack animals who will always follow a leader .

For fun think of Billy the Kid .

His idyllic childhood was torn apart when the bigwigs decided to take the land on which he worked , and in response he became the leader of his own gang . Jesse James did something similar , Ned Kelly .
The myth of Robin Hood has survived since 1377 because the appeal of overthrowing the establishment was as popular a fantasy then as it is now . However, they were all leaders set to duplicate the very system they opposed had they succeeded .

They are all fanciful examples of extreme democracy , they were consequence .

Brexit in itself brings nothing more than accountability and the fallout will continue to evolve , merge and blur until nobody can tell what it actually achieved . When Cromwell defeated the Crown they asked him to be king :icon-rolleyes:

Brexit changed the course of history for the better because it reintroduced consequence and accountability . There is no winning . America shows that , the establishment had to remove Trump by any means necessary , and so they did , but not without recognizing how tenuous their grip on control actually is and accepting a bare minimum of 1.9 trillion dollars must be spent on ivory tower foundations repair .

Its all just an evolution of societies continual pattern since the biggest and baddest caveman took the best cave , women and food .
 
Give it a break we have to live with your narrative. An evolution of misguided people! STFU!
 
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