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There's no such thing as a failed referendum. You may not like the outcome, or even consider it 'stupid', but that's democracy, others will find your opinios stupid.
In the Netherlands, after the referendum on the association treaty with Ukraine, it was abolished because the government didn't like the outcome. People were mislead, didn't understand the complexity, etc. etc. Well, perhaps they understood that opening the borders to another increadably corrupt nation was just a bad idea. Zylensky didn't become President recently because of his pro-Europe stance, but because even the Ukrainians themselves were completely fed up with their corrupt political leaders. If you have any idea on how he's battling that, you'd understand that at the time of the referndum the Dutch population had it right, the politicians were wrong. And I'm saying this whilst I personally profit from the treaty.....
The next referndum, only just in before the abolishment, was about becoming organ donor by proxy. You'd have to take action to stop it from happening. The government again was scared, they just introduced the law. Lo and behold, the people weren't agianst it, to the amazement of the organisers of the referendum.
@thelivingroyale it's the by now very old problem with the true socialists. They don't understand that people with little money are conservative by nature. They love the beauty and glamour of royalty. It's a fairytale they love to watch. They don't think long term. It's their lack of income that makes them focus on next week instead of next year. They want things to stay the same so they understand them, change makes live unpredictable.
What an f-bomb s-bomb.
I think here we disagree for the most part. The support for this non-binding Dutch referendum only kicked off because of fear, lies and dirt initiated by two of the biggest anti-EU campaigners: Jan Roos and Thierry Baudet. Two nitwits who show the deepest admiration for figures like Boris Johnson, John Laughland, Donald Trump, Nigel Farage and Jared Taylor (google the ones that sound less familiar to you). The first one, Jan Roos, has become kind of a sensation for alt-right conspiracy thinkers. The latter, Thierry Baudet, actually founded a more dangerous alt-right, bordering-racism version of Wilders' PVV, named FvD. Actually FvD is currently eating most of the votes from PVV and is represented in the Dutch Tweede Kamer (Congres).
This is just to give you some background on this referendum, which in essence is the less 'succesful' variant of the Brexit-referendum. Both Jan Roos and Thierry Baudet were more or less succesful in brandmarking the Ukraine–European Union Association Agreement as a magnet for Ukrainian workers stealing Dutch jobs and a vehicle for Dutch taxpayer money transferred to Brussels so that this agreement supports more corruption.
Really, where shall I start?? Yes, the EU-membership did not exactly 'clean up' nations like Romania and Bulgaria. However, people tend to forget how much actually has been improved in those states. EU-membership brings about forced changes that Mother Russia can't do to nations like Moldova and Belarus. As a matter of fact, corruption in Romania and Bulgaria is not the same as those in Russia-tied nations like Moldova and Belarus. So EU-membership does good things too. It surprises me therefore that the word 'corruption' is never mentioned in relation to Russia. Because really guys? Oligarchs and authoritarian leaders, backed up by aggressive 'unofficial' police forces and the Russian FSB? There's white collar corruption yes, but there's also corruption creating death and destruction sucking out the last bits of democracy out of a nation. Like in Russia. At least in Romania demonstrations made a government fall. Not in Russia.
So when Jan Roos and Thierry Baudet talked about Ukrainian corruption all the time, they did not tell you that such Association Agreements also initiate more extensive anti-corruption control on these nations when they go into effect. And on top of that, in nations like The Netherlands, where exactly those people who vote for Geert Wilders and Thierry Baudet refuse to work in greenhouse agriculture and horticulture and fishery processing (a huge sector in The Netherlands), we desperately need workers. So stop painting Ukrainians and Polish workers as dirty job stealers, when you are too spoiled and even a bit too elitist to pick up whatever job is available in The Netherlands. In fact, such skilled workers are needed to keep production going. And not just that: they actually create jobs, they bring in money, and keep the workforce fresh when the other option is robotization (and loss of jobs).
Therefore, I have been highly sceptical about this referendum and its true intentions. The promoters of this referendum were nothing more than staunch anti-EU people who were skilled in telling only one side of the story. Just like Brexit. And then it's also a story for a large part filled with lies and incorrect assumptions. Hence I wanted to clear this up with a counter-story. Perhaps not everything of my 'story' isn't perfect. But it does show the other side. A side that had to be campaigned and defended more staunchly by then Prime Minister Rutte (member of the Conservative-Liberal Party VVD, the so called 'sister party' of the UK Conservative 'Tories' Party). But he didn't. Rutte knew that support of his party are in part people who are staunchly anti-EU. And here things go wrong. To organize a referendum is one thing. To make it a succesful referendum that campaigns for both options (and sub-options) in equal fashion is a whole different ball game.
A good referendum needs to be activated with proper written laws in times of prosperity. welfare and no real social unrest. As this seems to be completely impossible (because humans apparently care more for bolstering their own ideas and not other possible less favourable outcomes) I am happy, very very happy, out of name of pragmatic functioning representative democracies, that the Dutch government entirely deleted the Advisory Referendum Act. It only sows discord, enhances xenophobia and creates chaos. The Dutch were prompt in realizing that our representative democracy functions better if we explain complexities of society better to our people, not by using instruments of chaos-inducing 'ultra-democracy' and 'hate-inducing direct referenda'.
For the United Kingdom however it's too late. The 'democratic' Brexit referendum has done it's irreparable damage: dividing your society even further, sowing more discord, no policymaking about all these other problems that need to be tackled (health care, education), and the first seeds sown of another secession: Scotland leaving the UK. It also belittles the very idea of the European Union: trade deals. While in essence you now start craving for it. Because in 6 weeks from now the UK is without any of such trade deals with your biggest export partner Europe. And if the UK tries to make new trade deals, then make no mistake: this will in the long-term make the UK realize that alone you are less influential and more prone to loss of welfare and prosperity than when you help each other on this ever-changing planet. For now though, nations like Japan, China, Russia and the EU will now turn your back to the UK. They won't take up any new offers for trade deals.
MAYBE ALL-CAPS THEN???
If you ask me you're not able to distinguish your own political opinion from your political ideas. Don't worry, you're not the only one. Many politicians will only support that which helps them along to achieve their ideas.
Romania especially has hardly improved over the last ten years, and a fair point could be made they would've done far better without the confines of EU conditions.
You compare the EU (as a nation, which it is not) to Russia. Russia has no formal influence on Moldova or Belarus. Those are independent countries. The era of the Soviet Union is far gone and the fact that the government then was seated in Moscow doesn't make it Russia either. The Soviet republics ascended to tht union volontarily.
I just came back from Ukraine and my wife is Ukrainian. I can tell you this: the assocation with the EU was a bad move by a corrupt government which helped the push by Putin to invade the Crimea and send 'support' to the Donbas region. Again, now, with Zylensky things might change, but he only just started and I've seen with my own eyes how bad it is there. Government officials driving the most expensive cars, going on holiday seven times a year and grandmothers living off of 50 euro p/m pensions whilst food is as expensive as it is in Western Europe.
I know it's a message you don't want to hear, and it's the unwillingness of pro-EU people to listen to these sorts of problems that is feeding the xenofobia.
And another problem: Poland is now offering youth `18.000 euro in tax cuts only to keep them in the country. The West may need them, but so does Poland. The brain drain is hugh and destroying it's economy.
Back to Boris now though: isn't there a way in which he can e impea... eh... I mean forced to resign? He clearly doesn't want to step down himself, but lying to Queen and country should have it's consequences no?
We both make some sense @CommanderRoss. It's just a simple matter of disagreement. You call me in one breath with politicians. Not to mention your notion that I can't *cough* separate my own political opinion from my own political ideas? Uhm really? They are the same. Trust me.
It also kind of agitates me that you think I am unwilling to hear other sides of the coin. I am willing to hear those out. Look, I am unemployed myself (if you really want to drag my personal ideas into this), I live from barely €850,- a month in Spain. And trust me, corruption in Spain is big too. But for Dutch standards, an amount like that is unheard of. But I'm not fingerpointing for this shit to politicians. It is because I myself made some very dire decisions in my life. So don't tell me that I am not willing to hear the sorrow of others. Don't tell me that I am 'deaf' as a pro-EU person.
If you met me in person, you would find an empathic person. And if we really have to make comparisons this extreme, if we really have to choose the best of two bad alternatives, then the EU to me is still the best of many other worse alternatives.
I also don't get this debate very well. I wanted to give you some backstory on why I think referenda like Brexit are not the solution to a better alternative. Let's not turn this into a pro- or anti-EU discussion. The EU has lots of problems yes, but the other option, going back to single nation state solutions is most likely even worse. But Brexit happens, regardless of how you think of the EU. And frankly, at this very moment the countries in the EU are a bitttt better off than the UK.
On top of that, you make quite some big assumptions about this Thierry Baudet. In The Netherlands we have a Multi-Party System, unlike the district system in the UK, which causes gigantic disproportional representations. Eventually in The Netherlands coalitions have to be formed. Hence right-wing-populists can not really deal with that realism: because with a Multi-Party System you are forced to co-govern, something right- and left-wing populists can't do. Hence the gigantic mess with both Labour and the Tories atm, because both are led by anti-democratic populists.
Currently FvD is sinking in the polls. And you know why? It is because the so called call for a 'Nexit' has been completely mothballed. Dutch people see what's happening with Brexit. They realize, even all those poor fishermen in Volendam and Urk who voted for PVV in the past, what a gigantic mess Brexit means to their income and future job forecasts.
Just to be clear, in The Netherlands you need to have 76 seats or more to form a coalition government. No way FvD will sail close to 30 seats. And even then, who wants to govern with a playboy who loves travelling with his besties' private planes to expensive Ibiza parties? You just mentioned Ukrainian politicians driving themselves in expensive limousines haha. And then you think (or even want) a guy like Thierry Baudet, who openly flirts with racists like Jared Taylor, to get big? He won't get big. Dutch people are slightly more pragmatic and calvinistic than that:
The man is not fit to be a politician! Starring in low budget comedy shows seems like a more appropriate career for him.
Yes, that's Thierry Baudet. Another narcissist numbhead like Trump, Johnson and Fortuyn, hellbent on chaos, and not real solutions. Perhaps even worse than that. Luckily the coalition model, multi-party system in The Netherlands exactly prevents such populists to gain the power like they did in the UK and US.
Yes, but at the same time he's dragging the UK into a No Deal Brexit.
It's still better than the mostly weak governments that are made out of coalitions. Just look at how long it took them to form a government in Belgium for one example! Coalition governments are thankfully few and far between in the UK, largely thanks to our first past the post voting system.
Ha ha ha. I don't know where to start.
That sounds distinctly like a cop out to me. It's not like you to be so reticent. I suspect that you're secretly agreeing with me though as you know it makes sense.
Luckily some right minded politicians are making that next to impossible for him.
I am really worried that you said exactly that. Obviously the "Ha ha ha" was a moment when I thought, with a smile on my face, "did he really say that??".
Because really, if you just take some time in comparing policy making in The Netherlands (not so much Belgium, because there they have the added disadvantage of two states, Flanders and Wallony, so that in both states they have their language-equivalent of parties with similar ideologies, causing extra problems), then you would at least see its advantages over two-party systems like in the UK or the USA. And frankly, I see it happening. For three years now the Conservative Party, being the prime government party, has done almost zilch to tackle important problems related to Health Care (NHS), Education (student fees as gifts from government), Security & Safety, City Council & Municipality finances (how to effectively govern a community), Defense, Job Security.
In The Netherlands parties are more or less 'forced' to give up ideological bickering and start working towards a common policy agenda. In the UK and the USA the 'campaign button' doesn't stop after the government takes office. Because there is only one party represented within the government drawing up policy agendas. I think it's entirely disfunctional. And currently we see exactly how that spans out in the USA and the UK. It's either Labour or Tories, Democrats or Republicans. Both mammoth parties only enhance destructive division and ireparable schisms. In The Netherlands even the biggest political party is forced to cooperate. Hence I find your notion that the UK model is more effective than the Dutch model rather...flawed. To put it mildly.
PS: With regard to corruption in the EU. Try google up Pavel Melnikov and Dimitry Kochenov. You will be interested to see how corruption works. Make no mistake, in the near-future Brussels will make laws against such disgusting acts.
Thank you and apologies...if it was that simple, I should have checked an online dictionary.
:D ^:)^
I won't list it all here mate, just go on any news website. Won't take you long to find it!
MOD EDIT: No S-bombs, please.
Actually, when you read Fleming closely, you'll find he's got a lot in common with Goldfinger.
@GertGettler I didn't mean your personal situation or personality. I have no doubt you're an emphatic person. What I meant is that you let the facts be coloured immediately by your political opinion. i.e. you can oppose brexitieers by dismissing their arguments (which has been done mostly by those who oppose Brexit), or you can accept that they see the world in that way. Let's take immigrants:
you're saying they don't take all those jobs and it isn't that much of a problem. But for those living close to Calais, i.e., it is a huge problem. Now you can say 'yes, but on the grander scale of the whole of Europe it isn't a problem', or 'they should be nicer and give those immigrants a chance'. But that doesn't take the problem away for those who are confronted by it. It doesn't mean that they are right and you are wrong, or the other wayaround, it means that a problem should be adressed.
You are saying the EU is better because all independent countries is worse. I'd say you might be right, but at the same time, at the time of the 'wirdshaftswunder', there was no EU. The EEC did everything to maintain peace without a superstate idea or corruption and false(*) democracy in Brussels.
So what I'm saying is: as long as politicians don't take their constituancies' problems and ideas serious, people like Baudet and Wilders will always have voters. You're complaining about the fact that they don't come up with realistic answers (btw Baudet doesn't, but the FvD programm does. But Baudet doesn't follow that too much). It's a fair complaint, but it ignores the fact that sitting politicians are neither coming up with solutions, they even deny the existence of those (perceived) problems.