The UK authorities made illegal copies of the Schengen Information System
twitter.com
twitter.com
The UK is not in the Schengen travel zone and had no right to be accessing the data or sharing it with other foreign powers.
The problem is that too much power is collected in one place that encourages bad actors to weaken security so that they can later do a grab and dash with "Plausible deniability".
When people raise this warning it is dismissed as fear mongering, when the fears turn out to be justified people side step the issue and argue that the title should be millions instead of all.
Some people have argued that the EU do not have a database of EU citizens fingerprints, but they have been building that database since 2004 [2].
These massive databases of personal information represent too much of a risk and should not exist. The only way to protect power from corruption is to distribute the power rather than consolidate it.
[1] https://euobserver.com/justice/145530 [2] https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-eu-fingerprints/fingerprin...
https://ec.europa.eu/home-affairs/what-we-do/policies/border...
Yes, the title should be millions. Of mostly missing or wanted persons or lost passport and national IDs. Not sure how you would propose to ensure the security of a zone without a massive database of people that are not desired in that zone or documents that should not be used because they are reported as lost by their owners.
Source: worked on SIS
Activists perhaps?
You know, those perfectly legitimate parties that rapidly tend to get labelled "terrorists" because reasons.
That's in the nature of power dynamics. Not abusing power is the exception to the rule.
> You have better suggestion to maintain law and order?
I think having the rules decided upon and enforced by the people (not some centralized institution that's disconnected from the social fabric) would help a lot.
What would help even more is to address the roots of criminality. There are for example many studies in the past two centuries showing that social inequalities necessarily lead to theft and violence (whether institutionalized or de facto), and that reducing unemployment (not with shitty uberized jobs) is an effective way to lower crime rates, if that is your objective.
Other root causes include the repression itself of crime: prisons and psychiatric hospitals are themselves fostering very violent human interactions.
Emma Goldman had a very good piece back in 1911 on prison as part of the problem:
http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/goldman/aando/...
Still, the way I see it, in any point in history or in the future, crime will exist and, if we want law and order maintained, we will have to maintain a database of stolen goods and of criminals. Do you see any alternative?
And how exactly are "the people" going to decide upon and enforce the rules? Just gathering all the people together to talk until they come to consensus is hardly scalable to the size of a small town, let alone a country or continent. Hence representative democracy, institutions, governments, police forces, court systems.... all that stuff. It may be far from perfect, but it's not clear anyone has come up with a better mechanism.
There is no centralized database for EU citizens photos or fingerprints (not even at national level in many countries).
"The database will aggregate the details of more than 350 million people, including their identifying information, such as names, passport number, dates of birth, as well as biometrics like fingerprints and facial scans."
https://www.computing.co.uk/ctg/news/3074472/eu-parliament-v...
Do we really believe we ca trust these groups with this data?
This is like the Vogons justifying blowing up a planet because the paperwork was filed years ago.
It’s not about the details. It’s about trust in institutions and I’m pretty sure we can see we should have none with these official bodies and the corporate buddies they give our work away to
This was an announced intention in April this year. The implementation of this decision probably needs further approvals and ratifications, and even after that, it takes time. The source material does not even exist, and I expect that in some EU countries collecting this data of all citizens will not be possible due to country legislation. Thus this is certainly far from complete, if even started at all.
It's safe to say that there is no database of 350 million EU citizens' fingerprints that anyone could copy.
This is like the police refusing to respond to death threats until the person is dead.
> So we should wait until every one's details are leaked before deciding this is a bad idea because it will inevitably leak?
In mine, the police has the picture and fingerprints of everyone older than 12 years old and any younger person that needed an ID card for whatever reason, travelling being just one.
Maybe that information has been shared with that database, maybe it hasn't. I have no way of knowing. Other EU countries have the same level of information about their citizens (and some record even more data).
Can we simply agree that what the UK has done is bad, should be investigated and, if true, the people resposible should face charges for it? Or should we spend days arguing about what information might/might not have been copied and how many people have been afected?
No useful discussion can result from comments like this.
In this case Spain hasn't done anything wrong (the data gathering for the id cards was done before entering the EU and complies with EU's regulations[0]). Other EU countries gather less or more data according to their specific legislations.
The country in question here is the UK and, to a lesser extent, the US. Specifics about other EU countries are, IMHO, irrelevant.
[0] Another question, for a different discussion, is if they should record all that data.
I simply mean that the claim about fingerprints of 350 M EU citizens copied cannot be true.
https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-eu-fingerprints/fingerprin...
What’s more interesting to me is in the Tweet: UK made illegals copies of hundreds of millions of people’s data (since you were mostly hung up on that, I qualified it better).
Are you seeing the interesting takeaway?
I see this as more of a security issue than a privacy issue. The data in the SIS is mostly about law enforcement, meaning that a leak would expose that a person is wanted (some of the person searches are undercover, and the data also covers a person's aliases - so if a "bad" person has access to the data it can react) and also, the SIS data is a "living" organism - using a copy (snapshot) of the data in a law enforcement activity is actually unlawful - if the snapshot is old it means that you cannot find a person that was added yesterday and also that you will find a person that was "cleared" yesterday.
I understand not all EU citizens were in the database.
There's also the issue of "copied to US", which was not demonstrated. It's really hard to keep all the US companies out of the SIS when you are using an Oracle database.
I would put it like this: "UK made illegal copies of classified personal information from the Schengen Information System"
When you apply for visa for Schengen countries, your info will be recorded on SIS. And stored there for 5 years.
Note: EU uses the term "3rd world country" term themselves and Im citizen of one of those countries.
First world = US + close allies Second world = USSR + close allies Third world = Everybody else
https://www.eurofound.europa.eu/observatories/eurwork/indust...
One of the things that came out of Snowden releases was just how bloody efficient and interconnectef GCHQ is with the NSA.
It's rather typical that the most efficient government body appears to be the one used for spying on its own (and everyone else's) citizens.
It's ok though as the new home secretary is a stable and sensible...no wait it's Priti "I had to resign because I had secret undeclared meetings with a foreign power" Patel[1].
We are totally fucked.
This came as a slight surprise as literally no other voice activated system works for me in any way that is remotely usable (Apple, Android, whatever is in my car...).
I wonder where they get their voice recognition technology from? ;-)
I hope that the EU-friendly states might join again, but I think they would need to break up the UK for that, don't they?
Edit: To be clear: I mean messy legally/politically - not anything worse.
Force wouldn't even be needed however - Westminster can just brush off pleas for an independence referendum (they'll point towards the one we had a couple of years ago pre-Brexit ), there's no revolutionary movement and I really don't foresee one developing any time soon.
... yet. A few years of Westminster arbitrarily frustrating calls for independence, coupled with Brexit-induced hardships and a resurgence of sectarian violence in NI, could well radicalise the SNP into taking matters in their own hands.
And it is a pity for this, especially after enjoying so many years of peace.
I'm English but was living in Scotland at the time of the referendum there (I abstained) and having been living in Barcelona since (including the vote here).
I'm not sure if independence would be good or not in either case (thus why I never voted) but I hope the UK Government never tries the sort of violent voter suppression I saw here.
Want something changed? Build a support within a bloc. Don't pretend your opinion is any more valuable than an opinion of any of the other 27 members.
I'm an outsider on this, but I could imagine this as an effective quote to replay in any "leave" campaign. Can we really imagine UK (or Germany) ever being relegated to having only the influence of e.g. Slovenia?
Each country picks its own members (at minimum, six of them in the European Parliament), those members congregate into political blocs, those blocs make proposals, build a majority within EUs regulatory bodies, and adopt changes.
The difference between Germany and the UK is that German parties recognize this process and follow it. UK's (right-wing) parties, on the other hand, go on a tantrum locally whenever something doesn't go their way on an EU level, because they believe they're in a privileged position and that their vote means more within the EU. It doesn't.
My aim isn't to convince "leave" campaign that they should stay. On the contrary, I agree with the comment that said good riddance. Their tantrums stopped the progress of the EU far too many times.
If you think that the electoral college in the US is terrible, please, look up how Boris Johnson got to the position of the Prime Minister. The process was so undemocratic than it can't be considered anything but a complete joke. Brexit will finally happen, EU will move forward, and we'll all sit back and watch the UK's economy crash and burn. In over two years, they haven't even figured out what Brexit actually means, so the thoughts of them figuring it out within the next four months is laughable at best. There's not gonna be enough popcorns in the world for that shitshow.
I don't share your gleefully grim expectations about UK's economic outlook. Sure, EU customs will be an issue. Making it too big an issue doesn't seem to be in anyone's interest, however. I can't imagine that e.g. Ireland want to hurt their own economy through any sort of "work to rule" policy. I can think of one EU member as important to the overall European economy as UK is (and it ain't France).
|{Germany}| = 1To use a bit of metaphor, we, the UK, are definitely shooting ourselves in the foot but we're doing it inside a metal box with the other member states. We'll loose a foot for sure but when the bullet starts ricocheting it's going to hit all of us sooner or later. Our economies are entwined.
There are no winners in a more fragmented world.
02:35 - "But once a month, do you know what happens? They load the contents of our offices and papers into big, plastic trunks, and they put those trunks on lorries, and they drive them nearly 400 miles down Europe’s motorways to a French city called Strasbourg where, for four days, the contents of our offices, and our papers, are put into a new office, and the parliament then sits there..."
(Given, this video was shot after the election, not before, but Nigel Farage most likely spoke about this before too.)
A weak UK, that would become the pawn of another super power, would be bad news, for both UK and EU.
I think this is sad that UK is leaving but no matter what, they will remain our ally and partner.
UK economy will probably get damaged but it will recover (in a couple of decades) and we will all have to thank a) David Cameron, b) BoJo, c) the voters of "Leave" for that.
can't one say this isn't the other way around?
bretton woods was basically a joint us+uk project, most macroeconomic policy & related geopolitics in the west (including EU) post wwII stems from this..
us is basically fighting iran overtly or covertly on behalf of the UK, and vietnam was massively in the french interest as some 'small' examples..
History has mostly backed up Keynes' opinion, though it worked sort-of reasonably until Nixon abandoned the gold standard.
Edit: Far more of the last 40 years geopolitics and economics stems from the oil crisis and the chaos of the immediately following years than Bretton Woods.
- set in stone that it is possible to leave the EU bureaucracy - set a role model on how not to leave the EU
The fact that the UK has done a piss-poor job of taking advantage of an unprecedented opportunity does not negate the fact that leaving, if done properly, is a once-in-a-lifetime good opportunity.
i.e. Despite the shock of brexit causing EU support to rise pretty much everywhere (IIRC including in the UK, but I'm not sure on that one), most italians are still decidedly negative (which is relevant because post-brexit Italy would be the #3 EU economy).
If Brexit were to be followed by an It-exit or even merely systematic subversion, that could seriously undermine the EU. Note also that some of the former soviet-block countries have governments currently that are much more euro-hostile that their populace, and they might well try a to undermine the EU as much as possible as long as they can do so without being voted out.
And furthermore, if some other countries were doubting their options, I'm not sure they'd compare themselves too much to the UK. There's simply been so much incompetence on the UK government's part that it's hard to believe any other country would need to follow their example. A little more strategically played exit might have been a lot less painful.
Well- assuming Brexit happens at all anyhow, which is pretty much anyone's guess at this point.
There is certainly more potential downside than a lot of people seem to realise.
The EU27 member states are not going to be affected in some uniform way by Brexit, particularly if we get the no-deal version without any sort of overall orderly transition. Those states that are particularly exposed to Brexit overall -- such as Ireland and the Netherlands -- stand to take a large economic hit, perhaps even worse than the UK itself in the Irish case. Other states may do fine in many respects, but specific industries or other collaborative efforts may be seriously affected.
This is why I find the Irish government's strategy puzzling: they continue to insist on a measure that has been a proven deal-breaker for an orderly withdrawal, which means unless they genuinely believe that the UK will fold and call the whole thing off, their strategy is almost certain to cause the maximum damage of any plausible outcome to their own country.
It's also worth saying, because it is relevant but rarely reported, that the economic models for different scenarios and how much effect they would have on various European countries' economies relative to a baseline no Brexit case do tend to assume that in the baseline the EU economy continues as-is or grows significantly. I have yet to see any serious economic model that compares outcomes for different types of Brexit against a no-Brexit scenario where the underlying problems with EU economics do then cause another serious problem or there is some sort of black swan event that affects the EU or Eurozone.
I don't think the Republic of Ireland has a good alternative. If they accept a hard border, then they suffer some of the worst no-deal effects anyway. If they accept customs checks between the Republic of Ireland and the continent (effectively putting them alone in a customs union with the UK), then the effects might be worse.
Really, getting the remainder of the EU to agree to this is an important victory for them. Under different circumstances, the continent could have thrown Ireland under the proverbial bus for the sake of a deal.
Given that the rest of the EU has been giving RoI a de facto veto on any UK withdrawal agreement, and given that the backstop appears to be the only complete deal-breaker here, they could have compromised in various ways that would be strictly better for them than driving everyone into a no-deal outcome.
For example, accepting a time-limited version of the backstop while May was still in charge would probably have got the WA through the UK Parliament. Brexit would have happened, defusing a lot of the political tension in the UK and liberating the EU27 from having a half-in, half-out member and all the attendant uncertainty. Everyone would have benefitted from a more orderly transition, including keeping the Irish border open without needing checks due to either WTO MFN rules or the EU's need to protect its overall border. There would have been perhaps another 5-10 years to clarify the future relationship and resolve any issues still arising at the Irish border, which would have been a far more plausible than magicking something up overnight in the event of a no-deal outcome. And the EU would have been dealing with a basically pro-EU government in the UK while that was going on, at least for the next few years.
That possibility appears to have been lost with the arrival of Boris Johnson as PM. If the Irish do want a 23:59 reprieve, it's going to cost them a lot of political capital to get it at this point. But realistically, I don't see that happening. I think they've blown it, and either a no-deal Brexit or a UK general election that certainly could result in a majority hard-Brexit government now seem like the most likely outcomes.
Critics often say, with considerable justification, that this is a mess of the UK's making. Certainly the UK's negotiators haven't done very well in all of this. Still, if we're playing the blame game, I think there is plenty to go around. The EU's rigid approach and negotiating strategy also caused problems right from the start, and the Irish hardline stance on the backstop in recent times has essentially sealed their own fate. It's all very sad, because it won't matter whose fault it was if a decade from now, as the Irish government's own commissioned analysis suggests, their economy is still significantly smaller and real terms wages are still significantly lower.
I still don't understand why both sides went into this with such an adversarial and rigid approach to the negotiations. There was so much common ground that could have been established early on, and if we were going to have Brexit, we could have had an amicable separation where we remained good friends even if by mutual agreement our relationship was not going to be as close as before and we'd each gain a bit more flexibility in other respects. The whole thing just seems like not only a huge missed opportunity, but an opportunity missed by following a process where glaring mistakes were made by both sides and both sides refused to then fix them even when they were widely criticised. It's just... sad.
There is no denying it, the meddling in foreign affairs from the western point of view shows that the influence of global powers on individual countries is very possible and this can easily come back around to bite you if you're not part of an equal or greater power.
The UK will be fine on it's own, because they have always been under the influence of a greater global political power.
I'm assuming you mean the US there and ... I'm not convinced because when the UK asked the US for assistance with their Iran-seized ship recently, the US told them to go away. They had to go to the EU for assistance (hilariously.)
This current issue is not a biggie, the US doesn't really need to get involved over a single British flagged tanker that is operated by a Swedish company with no British crew. The US already has been trying to hurt Iran with sanctions and pulling out of the nuclear deal, and they stated themselves that they have no interest in protecting tankers in the strait of hormuz. Clearly not important enough for the US's own oil industry.
I’m not saying UK played absolutely no role in building these institutions, but they’ve always displayed some reluctancy for further integration. Just fyi, France and Germany have been compensating since the 70s the budget contribution UK refused to make.
Like the League of Nations? And every other (defunt) supranational institution all the way back to Napoleon?
As citizens at least, it's pretty well understood that in majority we don't want to leave, one half definitely doesn't, the other half are mostly a combination of naive, manipulated and coerced based on false claims and social media, some portion are not manipulated or naive but have settled on some narrow view of a very large and complex decision... and finally the minority (the small number of racists and xenophobes you inevitably get in any country who want to cut off the rest of the world and built walls or some shit).
We've been fucked over because we let the vulnerable portion of the other half get manipulated. The only valid vote was no, because the premise was entirely flawed... it's like having a referendum for "Do you want lower taxes" without saying exactly how, but "leave the EU" is even more complex not only in how but what that even means and what that affects which is so broad, it's like taking a huge list of very specific not necessarily related things putting them in a bag and then saying "you wana change this stuff in undefined ways" - fuck no, if you want to watch the world burn at least be up front about it.
What?
There was a vote. A vote where everyone elligible had the chance to voice their opinion and the majority (albeit slim) said "we want out".
As for the slur of being naieve and manipulated that's bullshit (from my standpoint anyway).
You seem to be referring to people getting their news from social media... if that's their source then hell-mend them. Social media is an echo chamber. It's not designed for two-sided debates.
WRT to the false claims: If anyone actually believes that a politician has their interests at heart then they're delusional.
You seem to just be bitter that you (I assume) voted to stay in... I suppose you want another one until you get the result you would prefer!
People had their reasons for voting the way they did, and you show your ignorance and lack of perspective when you dismiss their views like that.
Calling people racist doesn't make opposing views go away, especially when over half the people in the country have those views.
edit: Keep up the downvotes, it doesn't change anything.
What't the GPs are doing are dismissing valid views from the other side by shouting racism. There's no proof or any real evidence provided that the other side is racist, just anecdotes.
The point is that isn't really actionable, it isn't a plan.
Hard Brexit was discussed, soft Brexit was discussed, BRINO, Norway plus. Everyone voted for their own preferred Brexit, so now we're in the situation on which Brexit to implement, and no one can agree, so which Brexit to go for?
And I would like to point out that no deal Brexit was never seriously discussed in the run up to the referendum, so there isn't a mandate for that. We were though promised that we would be able to leave the EU, keep access to the common market, and save ourselves £350 million a week, in what would be the 'easiest trade deal in human history'.
The fact that Boris is PM and he's A-OK with hard brexit doesn't change any of that. And I don't know what "more action" we could see - it is by very definition the zero-action option.
Hard Brexit is moving further away from Europe compared to a soft Brexit which would be something like Norway or closer.
What Teresa May was offering was a hard Brexit.
What Boris is proposing is a no deal Brexit
If it sounds to good to be true, it usually is. Surely it isn't the case that more than half the voters really believed Brexit was going to be that easy?
How, exactly, do you expect a populace to make an informed decision under such a relentless assault?
Its like the tax cut someone else mentioned. Sure 52% of the population could vote in favour, are all of those going to vote in favour of a tax cut for the rich? Or a tax cut for the poor? Or for low carbon technologies? Or to support the coal mining industry.
And because there wasn't a 'plan' for Brexit there wasn't a decent conversation on any Brexit plan. You couldn't pin down the Brexiteers because as soon as you suggested that leaving the common market would damage the economy, they'd tell you we could stay in the common market.
To answer your question more directly, I don't think the level of integration was appreciated, Northern Ireland wasn't discussed at all. Further than that I'm not sure you can say anything about all Brexit voters because its such a broad church, as it was never defined.
I respect the desires of those who genuinely wish to leave the EU, but the referendum result was not anything close to a true measurement of that, and any measure since has been grossly polluted by the ensuing acrimony.
The referendum was about many things, and most of them weren't our membership of the EU.
This is true in my experience, almost all arguments I have ever heard in person are of this form... I don't know where this came from but suspect the concept of "Leave == Change" was likely seeded on social media.
> The referendum was about many things, and most of them weren't our membership of the EU.
Yes, this is the source of the problem, even though manipulation is more of a problem than it used to be, this vote is particularly vulnerable to it because it's so poorly defined - it's basically impossible to have a sane and comprehensive debate about the topic so instead people naturally cling onto something that fits their values, and it's extremely easy to just fabricate those things in this case.
As for the result not reflecting the people that's nonsense: Everyone with the ability to vote and the right to vote could and should have voted. If they didn't then tough.
If people were swayed by politicians promising one thing or another and all the nonsense that flowed through social media then that's on them.
I don't get this attitude that people have of "oh, it's not fair, we were lied to". We are talking about policicians here: they are only going to say whatever makes them popular and gets/keeps them in power.
I'm assuming you wouldn't expect the Brexiteers to stop campaigning if they had lost the vote? They'd just carry on trying to smash things up until they got their way.
There were supposed to be rules follow with regard to funding and truthfulness on the part of the Leave campaign and it's now clear that those rules were broken. [1]
So in short, those of us in the UK that think the UK would be better off as a member of the EU are still going to fight for that because we care about doing what we think is best for the country.
[1] https://news.sky.com/story/vote-leave-broke-campaign-spendin...
I think you are writing off a huge portion of people because their manipulation is convenient and happens to fit your opinion. The effects of manipulation through social media are a real and significant societal problem that undermine any type of democratic process. It is particularly vulnerable when the decision is poorly defined in almost every way imaginable beyond the entirely abstract concept of "not part of the EU".
Here's a small test for you: go into an anti-vax group on FB and present a reasoned argument as to why vaccines are safe.
You will be annihilated!
If people believe their social media was manipulated they either need to stop using it or at least stop believing it.
If they can't do that then how do you hope to have a reasoned debate about the pro's and con's of Brexit?
I don't disagree that the Brexit thing was a joke from start to finish but we are talking about politicians here. Everything is a game to them and in my opinion as a group they are inherently untrustworthy.
I honestly do not believe you will ever hear the truth from either side. Or if you do, it will be drowned out by the noise.
FWIW I think social media is societal cancer to put it mildly.
IN or OUT?
None of the unsescapable consequences were mentioned, not was the form of an exit discussed.
i suspect we'll see this used in other elections ASAP.
https://theconversation.com/whatsapp-skewed-brazilian-electi...
There's no reasonable way to ask voters complex questions, which is why most countries have representative democracy and not a direct democracy. The only possible way to ask the voters those types of questions has to be a very simple choice, and than let government/parliament sort that out.
As an external observer, it looks to me like its the UK political class which looks most ridiculous here, more than voters of either persuasion. Parliament has so far voted against all possible options for the UK (including another referendum), the equivalent of putting fingers in their ears. Nothing good can come from that, not until they say what they do want.
isn't that itself intellectual capitulation?
Having not invested the time, just what kinds of manipulations are we talking?
I did and that is why I voted leave myself - better for the EU and the UK. That was my reason for voting as I did. Equally, many area's in the EU that need fixing and by the UK leaving, those would stick out and get fixed. Case in point, the UK initially asked for reform within the EU and got palmed off with some concessions and we had a vote on the back of that. Now after the vote - Tusk et all have said, the EU needs reform and Macron is driving for that reform. Ironically that reform won't happen or even start to be discussed, until the UK leaves.
I often get people who go on about the EU and how they are pro-EU and demanding a second vote (probably a third....until they get the result they want...) but if you ask them - what has the UK done for the EU? They stumble.
But as always - comedy foretold the whole story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37iHSwA1SwE
The UK helped the EU be more dynamic than it otherwise might have been, avoiding a certain French big-state mindset that could have seen eurobureaucracy really run riot on national laws. It definitely attracted capital investments from across the globe into the EU market, and it relieved some of the unemployment pressure in poorer countries thanks to a very dynamic labor market.
Obviously there have been sore points (complete opposition to real federalism, coordinated defence, and fighting dirty money / tax evasion), but overall both the UK and EU members have benefited from working together. Brexit is a lose-lose scenario that we will all have to endure rather than enjoy, whichever side of the fence we sit on.
Germany is not really onboard with that either, but I agree a more extreme counter-weight would have been helpful.
They said leaving the EU meant leaving the customs union and single market - that was pretty clear, that was what people understood from this and that is how they voted.
Alas many for whom the vote did not go as intended, seem to feel that everybody else did not understand what they voted for.
For me - staying in a customs union or single market would entail as best solution - staying in the EU. Leaving those meant leaving the EU.
Even mader is that the EU laws and article 50 state that any member state must leave without a deal as no deal can be negotiated until....they have left.
So this whole aspect of we can not leave without a deal, goes against EU law in article 50.
So really is very crazy how those aspects get overlooked and allowed to drag on when it was pretty well clear cut for so many and still is today.
World war 2 was set in motion the moment the WW1 peace agreement was codified.
Who is to say that WW3 was not started the moment an intrepid set of bureaucrats set about merging a diverse range of populations that have nothing in common whatsoever?
Remember Yugoslavia? Do you know what they did?
EU is yugoslavia 2.0
Is this the flyer?
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...
Because it doesn't say what you said it does.
Anyway that's what Teresa May's deal was offering. The one rejected by the Brexiteers amongst others.
Actually a transition period was proposed (and agreed upon in the current deal) for exactly that.
The problem, of course, is that if the UK breaks out without a deal there will be no transition period.
Not sure about leaflets (who reads these?), but the main point that people understood leave meant 'leave the customs union and single market' is correct.
The idea that people didn't understand this is a useful delusion for those who want to undo the result.
Source: Me, I was there. But also a quick google search: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fDn0MvcHQ4
Most leading Brexiteers expected some kind of access to the single market. Farage himself talked about a Norway type arrangement immediately post referendum at least.
https://m.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/open-britain-video-sing...
https://fullfact.org/europe/what-was-promised-about-customs-...
I've already linked to the official leaflet, I find it telling that you don't/didn't feel the need to read it.
Every person who voted in the referendum felt the need not to read the official leaflet.
My comment was about what a person who voted understood by the time they got to the ballot box.
I didn't make that clear enough and the part of the previous comment I quoted probably helped in this misunderstanding, I apologise.
"What people understood" encompasses the messages that they have received from politicians on both sides of the debate.
The video I linked to shows many politicians from both remain and leave making the point explicit.
I would argue that many, many more people saw these prime time messages than read the official leaflet.
You do know that the driving force behind the Single Market was Margaret Thatcher? Much of its legislation was set up initially to benefit the UK, and still does. Quite apart from that, there are plenty of individual pieces of legislation that originate in the UK.
https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/brexit/2018/07/09/british-influence-...
I am very happy to agree that the UK has never fully felt at home in the EU, but it is definitely wrong to say that our membership was never in the EU's best interest.
Even if it's the largest foreign investor, that's not so surprising. It's the 5 largest economy in terms of GDP, the only ones bigger are the US, China (limited in how they move capital), Japan (luckily for their national debt, they prefer to buy domestic govt bonds), Germany (the only likely alternative for investing more).
Also London is a major finance capital, so it could just be British banks buying US stocks with money from Russian oligarchs or whatever.
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/01/world/europe/germany-is-a...
It's one of the reasons I was glad Brexit happened. The UK was usually the most important nation members pushing for surveillance laws in the EU and then have the EU share that data with the US.
TBH they should rename NAFTA to the North Atlantic Free Trade Area and we'd all be better off.
Not even close, let's take a basic fundamental US principle like the right to free speech, it doesn't exist in the UK. The UK has had relation ships with most of the European countries for longer than the US has existed. The UK has more import and exports with the EU that the US and because of geographic constraints this will not change Brexit or not.
Sadly, this is correct, but I believe the UK has less constrained speech than continental Europe. I'd love to see a right to free speech brought into force in the UK
>>The UK has had relation ships with most of the European countries for longer than the US has existed.
This is also true, but neglects the fact that US was founded by Britain and was a British colony for 170 years. US law is based on English common law.
The UK has a right to freedom of expression in both common law and the Human Rights Act (incorporation of the European Convention on Human Rights). There are many exceptions, but that's also the case for the First Amendment of the United States' constitution.
Both the UK and US have defamation laws, criminalise real threats, Official Secrets Act / Espionage Act, gag orders, etc.
One could argue there is a better right to free speech in the US, and that it has stronger legal protections, but it's by no means absolute or beyond comparison with that of the UK.
Yes in the UK freedom of speech and religion is tolerated to an extent that exceeds the word of the very restrictive law, but the US has actual legal protections and a culture that protects those legal protections, there is a very big difference between the two.
You can compare the US free speech with our limited speech but at the end of the day Spain has free speech and privacy laws and culture thats way closer to the US than the UK nanny state.
There are other big differences between US and UK culture like GUNS! to name one
The only thing the UK and US hold in common is the want to have an empire. Oh and to steal brown people oil.
It's actually bang on the money. Two words: Common Law.
I would suggest, strongly, that the UK does indeed have vastly more in common with the US, at the most fundamental level. Our freedoms, law, government and society at large are based upon it, and this makes our countries much closer than any European nation based upon Civil Law will ever be. It's not just down to legalities, it shapes our entire attitude to how a society should run, and how the laws of the land are made and changed over time. In all these things, the UK and US are almost entirely the same.
Common Law is central to the fundamental philosophy, and political and judicial processes which make our societies run. Most European countries have Civil Law. It's very different, and I would argue that much of the friction between EU institutions and UK law (and public) is because it's trying to impose the Civil Law framework onto a Common Law system, and it's not really compatible. Much of the time, in the UK, we look at the actions and attitudes of EU political figures with disbelief. Because they make little sense, for people used to Common Law. In Civil Law, it's more understandable. The public's expectations are quite different in both systems, and this is a fundamental disconnect which can't be papered over. It's one of the reason many in the UK, including myself, feel that the rules-based EU is fundamentally undemocratic and unfit for purpose. Because from our rather less hidebound and laissez-faire point of view, this is absolutely the case. We're much more used to the "whatever is not specifically forbidden, is allowed" point of view. And when it comes to the law, we're used to our juries and judges being able to interpret and shape the law in new ways by common sense, rather than being rigidly stuck to the letter.
The Russians have nothing to do with Trump or Brexit, in my view the connections have been fabricated to seem real only to turn out to be dead ends that don't lead directly to the Kremlin in any meaningful way, both of these events have stifled democracy and social progress. The negative effects will only hurt the population and not the corrupt and nontransparent institutions.
The US and UK look like the least likely countries in the world to start a revolution. The powers at be know this, and we the people know this to an extent.
My gut feeling is this: Many people don't dare to express their true opinions even in supposedly private channels, fearing that these thoughts / ideas might come back at them years later. And I don't even mean radical thoughts.
In a world where we non-americans are asked for our cellphone passwords, laptops, social media handles and passwords, how can we dare to criticize world affairs?
Or imagine you are a young ambitious person who wants to change something by participating in the political process. You spend years getting somewhere, and then comes an info out of nowhere about your past and stops your carreer abruptly (like you cheated on your university diploma or something like that).
If there's one thing the Internet has taught us is it not that most people's "true opinions" are merde?
I don't like it either, but I think we have hope of stabilizing on a kind of "greatest common denominator" of behaviour, but only if the systems that do the surveillance are self-referential: they must apply to the powerful as much as the little guy.
The UK government gave access to US companies. There's currently no suggestion that the data moved to the US.
More details here: https://euobserver.com/justice/145530
> UK made illegal copies of classified personal information from a database reserved for members of the passport-free Schengen travel zone.
Why?
I didn't notice anywhere in his link that said that anyone moved copies of the data to the US.
That any of the Schengen information made it to the US at all is a dead canary.
The story referenced in the first point is:
https://euobserver.com/justice/145530
The second point raises a non-answer by the EC that led to the EP letter and the tweet.
It is possible to commit treason against your own country. Can someone commit treason against the EU? Is it a criminal offense?
The only government that has my fingerprint is the US, despite being an Irishman.
The Netherlands planned to create a centralized store but it seems to face public opposition.
The only way I could see a US passport containing fingerprint data is if you were naturalized, but even then, it would require USCIS/USCBP to actually share that data with the State Department.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_passport#Biometr...
The allegation is not that the UK authorities made a copy and gave it directly to the US authorities.
The allegation is that the UK authorities made copies for its own and its contractors use. These contractors include US companies- IBM is one example.
It really sounds like poor regard for security measures / lack of ownership and enforcement in the UK rather than anything malicious.
It is also noted that several other member states have similar issues.
It should also be noted - certain US authorities probably have or can get copies from various non-uk states and the UK. But that isn't what this incident is about.
The UK understand exactly how to do Passport security if they did it in a insecure way it was with malicious intent that gives them "plausible" deniability.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jul/25/death-penalty-...
They very much pick and choose to which treaties they wish to agree, and retain sovereignty. There are more things than treaties that define a nation - the people, culture, history, etc. Or to grab the definition off google, "a large body of people united by common descent, history, culture, or language, inhabiting a particular country or territory." The EU does not really share those, to the extent of a proper nation.
honest question: Does this exist in EU or UK?
[1] - https://www.gov.uk/make-a-freedom-of-information-request
> Schandal already made public in 2018: (link: https://euobserver.com/justice/141919) euobserver.com/justice/141919
Any ideas?
If you applied for a visa to the US, they already have your photo and fingerprints (hell, they had mine before my own country, before biometric passports). If not, what can they possibly do with that information?
So, as a made up example, [Massive US-based multinational consulting firm - IBM was listed in the euobserver article)] was contracted to do work for the UK government in this specific area and was provided access to the data (probably after being cleared to do so via a lengthy process that is typical for contracting with governments).
Do we have any indication that this data was "copied to the US" in this memo, instead of being worked with in accordance with data security policies to keep it in the EU / UK?
That said - if the UK is making illegal copies that's bad, but I wouldn't overreact to the submission title which is not correct.
I will be happy when the UK is brexed out, but someone has to take responsibility for this.
If anyone thinks they didn't already have it ..
Sure twitter has it's issues, anything of scale with that level of user-base will and you get truths, lies and twisted statistics.
Why the better media outlets have standard about two independent sources (BBC one example), however I'm mindful that you can get second sources that are just an echo-chamber of the first and it steam-rolls from there - VLC a good example again upon that.