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Europe

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Britain could adopt single market rules without MPs’ vote as part of UK-EU reset (www.theguardian.com)
submitted 4 hours ago by Weingeist@feddit.org to c/europe@feddit.org
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[–] HowRu68@lemmy.world 2 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago) (1 children)

Huh, Starmer has some cards up his sleeves:

" A new bill, which will bring into force the food and drink trade deal with the EU, will contain powers enabling the government to dynamically align with Europe on areas where it has already made agreements. But it will also allow the UK to quickly implement evolving single market rules if it determines it is in the national interest, without having to face full parliamentary scrutiny each time.(..)

But the Guardian understands that if the new bill –expected to be introduced before the summer– is passed, negotiators could seek to adopt EU rules on everything from cars to farming using secondary legislation.The move is possible under so-called Henry VIII powers..(..)

[–] homes@piefed.world 1 points 2 hours ago (2 children)

ok, you seem to understand what's going on, and forgive my ignorance (as an American, I'm a little distracted atm by what my own government is doing...)

is the uk trying to rejoin the eu? I didn't know that your government (or the eu) was interested. how's that going?

[–] biscuit 1 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

It's complicated, and something to bear in mind if you're American is that our right wing politics is more like your Democrats party. In fact I think the only truly left wing politician you guys have is Bernie Sanders. Happy to be corrected on that though.

Labour are predominantly left-leaning and thus always supported being in the EU. It was the Conservatives (our main right-wing party and who had run the government from 2010 to 2024) that did the Brexit referendum and subsequent negotiations. However, it was Nigel Farage (our far-right, immigrant-hating, russian-backed Trump-lite grifter) who has been pushing the idea of moving away from the EU and closer to the US for decades. Farage is often touted as the guy who painted Brexit as a means for the UK to "take back control" and all the other usual right wing nationalistic bollocks.

Brexit was incredibly divisive but it's been long enough now and there's enough proof that the Brexit that we got has harmed the UK economically. This comes to no surprise to the people who voted Remain in 2016, but hey ho. The conservatives and the far-right somehow succeeded in framing any attempt to question Brexit as "disregarding the will of the people", so the 2024 election Labour were too cowardly to actually speak out against it for fear of hurting their chances at winning.

Now it's nearly 2 years of Labour cleaning up after the mess of the conservatives and they are clearly signalling a push towards the EU as a means to help the UK economically, which most experts are concurring with. That's where we're at currently.

But "rejoining the EU" is complicated. There are different levels of being in the EU, and the UK in particular had a really unique deal with our membership. A deal I doubt we'd get back. Labour would struggle to sell "let's give up the pound and take the Euro currency", and they're also not going to risk another referendum on it.

So that leaves Labour doing what it can to improve our relations with our neighbours, getting the most benefits it can whilst in power, and then in a future General Election they'll run rejoining as part of their mandate (effectively making the GE a rejoin referendum).

Some people think the 2029 GE will be Labour's time to push for rejoining, but I personally think it'll take longer than that and it may be the following term.

The big thing Labour needs to focus on right now is proving to the UK that its economic policies and infrastructure investments have improved the average Brit's life. Trump and Putin are making that a bit easier by highlighting two things - how Farage and the Conservatives would've dived straight into Iran alongside Trump, and how breaking our dependence on fossil fuels is the most important thing to get energy bills down.

[–] homes@piefed.world 1 points 1 hour ago

Thanks for the answer!

[–] HowRu68@lemmy.world 0 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago) (1 children)

the uk trying to rejoin the eu?

Good question; Starmer, the UK PM and a lib , is sort of pro Europe, as is now the majority of the UK. He's not persé full package EU , but he wants to partake in an important part of the trade & defense bit of Europe using the European Internal Market.

This bit is what the UK EU summit in the summer is probably about and we'll see how negotiations will go from there.

What's interesting here, is that PM Starmer might evade a " Nay-" vote for closer EU cooperation via a special law trick in UKs Parliament by the Brexit parties & Conservatives .

a little distracted atm by what my own government is doing..

Yips, unfortunately so is the whole world.

[–] homes@piefed.world 3 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago) (1 children)

I was always in favor of the EU, finding the whole idea fascinating. Its seemed, in a way, a more modern attempt to form something similar to the US, but having learned a lot from what we did wrong, but also trying to unite a bunch of sovereign nations, some of which have existed for millennia, rather than just few years or decades like our colonies/states. Which seems to have worked very, very well, for the most part.

And, as disappointing as Brexit was, I wasn't really surprised at the time given the clown you had in office. But, of course, we had to do it bigger and better, and now we have Trump who might get us kicked out of NATO somehow, the cunt.

[–] HowRu68@lemmy.world 3 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

was always in favor of the EU, finding the whole idea fascinating.

Agreed, the European Project as some like to call it, is weirdly fascinating and to be part of history-in-the-making gives it extra dimension.

Trump who might get us kicked out of NATO somehow, the cunt.

Don't think the Reps will let him and his cult do that. But I think we'll definitely see a smaller role for USA. Someone called it Nato minus.

[–] homes@piefed.world 1 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago) (1 children)

But I think we'll definitely see a smaller role for USA. Someone called it Nato minus.

I hate that so much. In the post World War II era, our country created an excellent legacy for diplomacy and world peace. It’s slowly been chipped away a lot, but of what was left, he just slapped away. A lot during his first term and so much in the last year, especially in the last few weeks. Nothing and no one has done more damage to our country than this man, and never so quickly. Frankly, it’s shocking and what’s more shocking, is that the politicians in office have just let it happen.

I’m old enough that I used to be proud to be an American. But now, how could I be?

[–] HowRu68@lemmy.world 0 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago) (1 children)

I hate that so much. In the post World War II era, our country created an excellent legacy for diplomacy and world peace.

Yes that was quite a nice system in place That's why so many people are rightfully angry now it's beeing destroyed. In retrospect, it's been going on for decades, and now we all( have to) see it's culminating effect.

To me, there's actually much more going on and these politics are part of a broader geopolitical movement towards more authoritarian regimes & power to oligarchs. That's very worrisome.

[–] homes@piefed.world 2 points 2 hours ago

oh, you're definitely right about all of that. thing is, and what I find most upsetting, is that it's been at a slow boil over the last few decades, and now it's all suddenly blowing up much, much faster. and, honestly, it's also a bit of a well-deserved slap in the face. A wake-up call to a population that's become far too complacent, arrogantly thinking that we just deserve all of this and forgot that we have to keep vigilant to keep it all from slipping away or being stolen from us-- as much of it now clearly has been. And now we have to fight to get it all back.

And it's going to get a lot worse before it gets better, but it's been bad before. We got through it, and we'll get through this. But, will we learn our lessons? Will; things get better? Or we forget and fuck it all up again in 5 or 10 years?

I'm getting really tired of this