What do you think about UKIP?

[Estado Paulista]

Why is withdrawing strictly reactionary?

Because by withdrawing, you'll be returning to the status quo ante. Not that withdrawing from the EU is a bad thing, anyway.

[Greater-London]

If it's based in data and facts, why have I never seen them?

Well I assume your not an all knowing all seeing entity, however here are some facts for you.

Firstly the European Union is not just an un democratic but an anti-democratic institution - look at the referendums on the Lisbon treaty in France and Ireland, when the electorate made it clear they didn't wish to ratify the treaty they were asked again and again until they gave the right answer. The EU only care about the will of the people if its means further integration.

Keeping in the democracy camp you also have the issue were all the laws in Europe are devised by a group of appointees, the "Parliament" is a rubber stamp for the executive. The EU in its current form has no democratic mandate and it fails the EU's own standards for membership, if the EU was a country applying for membership it would fail the Copenhagen criteria. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copenhagen_criteria

You then also have the issue of corruption, the way that the EU is funded and the money is spent makes it impossible to track where vast sums of money go. Which is why the EU can't be audited and money so often goes astray, costing the EU taxpayer 120 Billion Euros a year. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-26014387

[Greater-London]

Why is withdrawing strictly reactionary?

Because by withdrawing, you'll be returning to the status quo ante. Not that withdrawing from the EU is a bad thing, anyway.

Well by that definition theirs nothing wrong with being recatiory. It simply appears to be a willingness to change things that haven't changed for the better.

[The New Lowlands]

If it's based in data and facts, why have I never seen them?

Well I assume your not an all knowing all seeing entity, however here are some facts for you.

i) Firstly the European Union is not just an un democratic but an anti-democratic institution - look at the referendums on the Lisbon treaty in France and Ireland, when the electorate made it clear they didn't wish to ratify the treaty they were asked again and again until they gave the right answer. The EU only care about the will of the people if its means further integration.

ii) Keeping in the democracy camp you also have the issue were all the laws in Europe are devised by a group of appointees, the "Parliament" is a rubber stamp for the executive. The EU in its current form has no democratic mandate and it fails the EU's own standards for membership, if the EU was a country applying for membership it would fail the Copenhagen criteria. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copenhagen_criteria

iii) You then also have the issue of corruption, the way that the EU is funded and the money is spent makes it impossible to track where vast sums of money go. Which is why the EU can't be audited and money so often goes astray, costing the EU taxpayer 120 Billion Euros a year. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-26014387

A handfull of varifiable facts for you.

i) So the EU didn't enact this legislation until the referenda agreed? Which is, you know, democratic?

ii)... By 'executive' you mean the European council consisting of the elected heads of state of European countries?

iii) Which is a problem, sure, but certainly insufficient reason to leave the EU.

[Greater-London]

i) So the EU didn't enact this legislation until the referenda agreed? Which is, you know, democratic?

ii)... By 'executive' you mean the European council consisting of the elected heads of state of European countries?

iii) Which is a problem, sure, but certainly insufficient reason to leave the EU.

1) It is, but it's the neverendum example. You are offered a treaty which you decline after a "period of reflection" you are offered a nearly identical treaty again and again until you have it. The people of France and Ireland rejcted the treaty but through political will it was pushed through.

2) Well the executive in the EU is the European Commision. The commissioners are chosen by elected heads of state and they are not elected. As such you have a situation where the people who devise policy in the EU parliament are people you haven't heard of and have no democratic mandate.

3) It would be insufficient reason if I didn't hold the belief that corruption will be an endemic in the European union, due to the fact that the way the money is collated and distributed amongst members states cannot be properly audited. As such corruption is a bit of an inevitability.

[Ifreann]

If it's based in data and facts, why have I never seen them?

Well I assume your not an all knowing all seeing entity, however here are some facts for you.

Firstly the European Union is not just an un democratic but an anti-democratic institution - look at the referendums on the Lisbon treaty in France and Ireland, when the electorate made it clear they didn't wish to ratify the treaty they were asked again and again until they gave the right answer....

That's not how I remember the Irish Lisbon referenda.

[Greater-London]

That's not how I remember the Irish Lisbon referenda.

How do you remember it? As I see it, it was rejected by the Irish people only have to another election on a near identical treaty later.

[The New Lowlands]

1) It is, but it's the neverendum example. You are offered a treaty which you decline after a "period of reflection" you are offered a nearly identical treaty again and again until you have it.

2) Well the executive in the EU is the European Commision. The commissioners are chosen by elected heads of state and they are not elected. As such you have a situation where the people who devise policy in the EU parliament are people you haven't heard of and have no democratic mandate.

3) It would be insufficient reason if I didn't hole the belief that corruption will be an endemic in the European union due to the fact that the way the money is collated and distributed amongst members states cannot be properly audited. As such corruption is a bit of an inevitability.

1) And you could keep refusing it.

2) i) "While the European Council has no formal legislative power, it is charged under the Treaty of Lisbon[2] with defining "the general political directions and priorities" of the Union. It is thus the Union's strategic (and crisis solving) body, acting as the collective presidency of the EU."

ii) Is every cop, judge, and minister elected? The answer to this is no, because we trust that the people we do elect will be smart enough to appoint people to do the more specific tasks correctly. This is the basis of representative democracy.

3) How can it not be properly audited? If the BBC found out about this corruption, then surely it is possible to investigate it?

Incidentally, in your very own source;
"The extent of corruption in Europe is "breathtaking" and it costs the EU economy at least 120bn euros (£99bn) annually, the European Commission says."

So, obviously, steps are being taken against it.

[Ifreann]

That's not how I remember the Irish Lisbon referenda.

How do you remember it? As I see it, it was rejected by the Irish people only have to another election on a near identical treaty later.

In fact it was the exact same treaty. If they had made any changes to the treaty they would have had to redo the ratification in every other country. What they did was take the Irish people's reasons for voting no(not mine, I voted yes both times) into account, specifically our prohibition of abortion and our policy of neutrality, and offered us assurances that they wouldn't be affected by the Lisbon Treaty. Of course, there's also the fact that there was scarcely any Yes campaign the first time around to counter the outright lies from the No campaign. Nonsense about our minimum wage being cut to €1.84.

[Greater-London]

1) And you could keep refusing it.

2) i) "While the European Council has no formal legislative power, it is charged under the Treaty of Lisbon[2] with defining "the general political directions and priorities" of the Union. It is thus the Union's strategic (and crisis solving) body, acting as the collective presidency of the EU."

ii) Is every cop, judge, and minister elected? The answer to this is no, because we trust that the people we do elect will be smart enough to appoint people to do the more specific tasks correctly. This is the basis of representative democracy.

3) How can it not be properly audited? If the BBC found out about this corruption, then surely it is possible to investigate it?

Incidentally, in your very own source;
"The extent of corruption in Europe is "breathtaking" and it costs the EU economy at least 120bn euros (£99bn) annually, the European Commission says."

So, obviously, steps are being taken against it.

1) After very heavy political pressure

2) i) It is no the European Council but the European Commission that functions as the executive in the EU

"it is the Commission that currently holds executive powers over the European Union.[42][43] The governmental powers of the Commission have been such that some such as former Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt have suggested changing its name to the "European Government", calling the present name of commission "ridiculous". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_C ... tive_power

2) ii) Do I want every policeman and judge elected? No I don't thats silly. Do I want my government ministers to be elected? YES PLEASE. To use an analogy from the UK its the eqivelant of the PM choosing their cabinet from the House of Lords. If someone is going to be governing me then I want them to have some sort of mandate to govern other than you have a rapore with a European head of government.

3) One can assume it cant be as they have never audited a single EU budget. They either can't tell you where the money goes or they don't want to. Steps are being taken against it, but steps are useless without results.

[ShadowDragons]

I like them.

[Malgrave]

Firstly the European Union is not just an un democratic but an anti-democratic institution - look at the referendums on the Lisbon treaty in France and Ireland, when the electorate made it clear they didn't wish to ratify the treaty they were asked again and again until they gave the right answer. The EU only care about the will of the people if its means further integration.

I don't see how this is undemocratic. The EU did not implement the treaty until it was approved and the voters could of continued to vote against its implementation. Ireland voted against the Lisbon Treaty first but voted in favour after it was offered assurances on abortion and taxation.

Keeping in the democracy camp you also have the issue were all the laws in Europe are devised by a group of appointees, the "Parliament" is a rubber stamp for the executive.

Wrong. Parliament has the power to approve and disapprove appointed members of the EU Commission (and has done so in the past) reject legislation and propose its own legislative agenda.

The EU in its current form has no democratic mandate and it fails the EU's own standards for membership, if the EU was a country applying for membership it would fail the Copenhagen criteria. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copenhagen_criteria

Euro Parliament is elected directly.
Euro Council is filled with democratically elected HoS
Euro Commission is appointed by HoS and approved by the Euro Parliament.

It is a system that I would like to see reformed but it is not exactly anti-democratic.

You then also have the issue of corruption, the way that the EU is funded and the money is spent makes it impossible to track where vast sums of money go. Which is why the EU can't be audited and money so often goes astray, costing the EU taxpayer 120 Billion Euros a year. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-26014387

The European Union has been consistently audited by the European Court of Auditors and its accounts have been declared to be free from major fraud and corruption. You are also linking a report that links to major crime in individual member states, something that is awful but has NOTHING TO DO WITH THE EUROPEAN UNION'S BUDGET

http://www.eca.europa.eu/en/Pages/ecadefault.aspx

[Divair]

They have a stance on gun control that I agree with, so that alone gets them in my good books.

Seriously? Of all the issues to care about, you pick gun control? Jesus fucking Christ.

[Frisivisia]

They have a stance on gun control that I agree with, so that alone gets them in my good books.

Seriously? Of all the issues to care about, you pick gun control? Jesus fucking Christ.

If you've got guns, your opinions on other matters tend to matter more, eh?

[Geilinor]

They have a stance on gun control that I agree with, so that alone gets them in my good books.

Seriously? Of all the issues to care about, you pick gun control? Jesus fucking Christ.

Is gun control even an issue in the UK?

[Tagmatium]

Seriously? Of all the issues to care about, you pick gun control? Jesus fucking Christ.

Is gun control even an issue in the UK?

Not especially, by and large.

The only time it gets mentioned tends to be after someone's blown away a half-dozen or so people.

Then we have to have news articles explaining what our stance on gun control as a country is. The government in power makes noises about tightening the laws, maybe they do, maybe they don't. It doesn't impact on the vast majority of people's lives, so they don't really give a fuck and life goes back to normal.

[Imperializt Russia]

Well, leaving a visa-border between the north and the south wouldn't have made the UK any more popular during the troubles. Special historical reasons.

Perhaps, but why it happened was irrelevant. I was pointing out that on a practical level you CAN have two states with free movement of people and goods without a political union. It doesn't matter what the circumstances where in the past I was just showing how it could be done. Also I'm fairly sure the rules of moving between north and south were set in stone before the troubles took of.

It's incredibly relevant, since political reasons are the only reasons why anything happens. North and South Ireland had a particularly special political reason, which would not be applied in any other setting.

Is gun control even an issue in the UK?

Not especially, by and large.

The only time it gets mentioned tends to be after someone's blown away a half-dozen or so people.

Then we have to have news articles explaining what our stance on gun control as a country is. The government in power makes noises about tightening the laws, maybe they do, maybe they don't. It doesn't impact on the vast majority of people's lives, so they don't really give a fuck and life goes back to normal.

You know that gun control isn't an issue in this country as soon as you realise that this semi-automatic combat shotgun that can accept a magazine of unlimited capacity is completely UK legal and is marketed at the UK. And no-one has ever used anything like it to commit a shooting in this country.

They manufacture 20-round drum magazines for them and they're still legal.

[Tagmatium]

Perhaps, but why it happened was irrelevant. I was pointing out that on a practical level you CAN have two states with free movement of people and goods without a political union. It doesn't matter what the circumstances where in the past I was just showing how it could be done. Also I'm fairly sure the rules of moving between north and south were set in stone before the troubles took of.

It's incredibly relevant, since political reasons are the only reasons why anything happens. North and South Ireland had a particularly special political reason, which would not be applied in any other setting.

Not especially, by and large.

The only time it gets mentioned tends to be after someone's blown away a half-dozen or so people.

Then we have to have news articles explaining what our stance on gun control as a country is. The government in power makes noises about tightening the laws, maybe they do, maybe they don't. It doesn't impact on the vast majority of people's lives, so they don't really give a fuck and life goes back to normal.

You know that gun control isn't an issue in this country as soon as you realise that this semi-automatic combat shotgun that can accept a magazine of unlimited capacity is completely UK legal and is marketed at the UK. And no-one has ever used anything like it to commit a shooting in this country.

They manufacture 20-round drum magazines for them and they're still legal.

Well, it's already an issue - just one of minute proportions that most people don't give a shit about.

[Divair]

Seriously? Of all the issues to care about, you pick gun control? Jesus fucking Christ.

Is gun control even an issue in the UK?

No. Nobody has guns and nobody cares. Only far-rightists and Americans ever mention it.

[Greater-London]

It's incredibly relevant, since political reasons are the only reasons why anything happens. North and South Ireland had a particularly special political reason, which would not be applied in any other setting.

Once again your sort of missing my point. My point is that it CAN be done if the political will is there to do it. Considering there is a consensus amongst our mainstream politicians that free travel and trade are good things, if the EU was to disband why wouldn't they favor establishing a series of multi-lateral treaties that allowed for this to occur? considering their is no practical reason to why this shouldn't be the case - other than it would take some time at the negotiating table to get things going. This however might be faster than passing laws in the EU parliament as you would only need the consent of 2 states.

[Imperializt Russia]

It's incredibly relevant, since political reasons are the only reasons why anything happens. North and South Ireland had a particularly special political reason, which would not be applied in any other setting.

Once again your sort of missing my point. My point is that it CAN be done if the political will is there to do it. Considering there is a consensus amongst our mainstream politicians that free travel and trade are good things, if the EU was to disband why wouldn't they favor establishing a series of multi-lateral treaties that allowed for this to occur? considering their is no practical reason to why this shouldn't be the case - other than it would take some time at the negotiating table to get things going. This however might be faster than passing laws in the EU parliament as you would only need the consent of 2 states.

Because current EU member states would probably refuse on some kind of basis of saying "well, see how much better we were with the EU!" or something equally as questionable.

Note the fact that we had to get a European Union in place to do it to begin with, and no other union except the US (which is, of course, an actual country) has a similar arrangement.

[Quintium]

Not only do I not share their views on the EU and immigration

Labour, are we? Just one of the parties, like the Conservative Party, that bribes voters in the short term and sets them up for economic, demographic, social and military disaster in the long term. Let's let the entire world move to the United Kingdom even after the riots two years ago and with unemployment among young British people very high. Let's let the bureaucrats who engineered the common currency and operate by the principle of an ever-closer union dictate more and more British policies! I'm sure nothing will go wrong!

I also deride their basic political philosophy. However much they're now trying to come across as a more broad-church party, their leadership - centered around the charismatic Nigel Farage

You could also look at it from another perspective - at least their leadership is not centered around Ed Miliband, Gordon Brown or Tony Blair. Compared to those three, and to David Cameron and Nick Clegg, Nigel Farage is a world-class speaker and a world-class politician. He's out gaining the support of an increasing share of the British public while other major politicians are too busy courting friendly journalists, discussing trivial matters, going to Brussels for lunch or having their wives sleep with other men. He has the appeal of an ordinary, if slightly eccentric, British man. He's not a Belgian-Polish Jew like Miliband or an oversized public school boy like David Cameron, or a pretentious globalist like Clegg.

It irritates me that they are now trying to do a 180 and trying to play down their views in an effort to widen their support.

I'm sure Labour isn't going to sing the Internationale smack-bang in the City of London and then expect people to like them, and the Lib Dems are pretty much silent about every issue now. All parties occasionally part with their original views, or give them a less prominent place in their rhetoric. It's what being a political party is all about, unfortunately.

And to boot, they're filled with climate change deniers, and the spectre of global warming is something I feel very passionately about.

There are issues a lot more pressing than global warming. In fact, even if mankind ceased all pollution, the climate would still change, as it has been for billions of years. If you look at changes in global temperatures in the past ten thousand years instead of the past one hundred years, you'll find that what we're facing now is not unique. The temperatures we have now are roughly comparable to those we had around 950-1250 AD.

[Quintium]

Is gun control even an issue in the UK?

No. Nobody has guns and nobody cares. Only far-rightists and Americans ever mention it.

Actually, there are almost two million registered firearms in the United Kingdom, and undoubtedly many more that aren't registered.
Especially in rural areas, firearm ownership is not rare at all.

[Divair]

No. Nobody has guns and nobody cares. Only far-rightists and Americans ever mention it.

Actually, there are almost two million registered firearms in the United Kingdom, and undoubtedly many more that aren't registered.
Especially in rural areas, firearm ownership is not rare at all.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10220974
About half a million. Out of 63 million. As I said, nobody.

[Quintium]

Actually, there are almost two million registered firearms in the United Kingdom, and undoubtedly many more that aren't registered.
Especially in rural areas, firearm ownership is not rare at all.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10220974
About half a million. Out of 63 million. As I said, nobody.

>There are 574,946 shotgun certificates which cover 1.4 million shotguns.