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Post by doktorb🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️ on Apr 29, 2024 17:24:42 GMT
In this pure fantasy thread, it's worth considering just what would happen if the GFA was disregarded in that way
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Post by No Offence Alan on Apr 29, 2024 17:48:28 GMT
In this pure fantasy thread, it's worth considering just what would happen if the GFA was disregarded in that way What, by stringing up some trigger-happy squaddies? |
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Post by doktorb🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️ on Apr 29, 2024 18:31:53 GMT
In this pure fantasy thread, it's worth considering just what would happen if the GFA was disregarded in that way What, by stringing up some trigger-happy squaddies? That's not what I had in mind 😅. I suppose I could do an alternative history thread about NI being further divided with only Cos. Down and Antrim in the UK. |
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Post by Defenestrated Fipplebox on Apr 29, 2024 19:03:38 GMT
Tbh, the more likely referendum would be on leaving the ECHR. Such a vote has already been raised as a possibility. Considering that it is a legal requirement for the UK to remain within the ECHR under the Good Friday Agreement any talk of leaving is again pure mindless fantasy. Many people would vote to leave the EHCR, vote for capital punishment and for Northern Ireland to leave the UK, which would solve the problem and stop it being a mindless fantasy. |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Apr 29, 2024 21:56:24 GMT
Yes but breaking the GFA by leaving the ECHR would not only land NI in the shit in a big way it would severely damage our relationship with the Republic.
This really is an issue where the people elected to do the job of running the country should just do it
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carlton43
Reform Party
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Member is Online
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Post by carlton43 on Apr 29, 2024 22:27:14 GMT
Considering that it is a legal requirement for the UK to remain within the ECHR under the Good Friday Agreement any talk of leaving is again pure mindless fantasy. Considering that it would be easy for Parliament to legislate for the UK to leave the ECHR if it wanted to, any talk of leaving it is a realistic possibility. I want the UK to stay in the ECHR And I deeply want it to leave and will not rejoin until it does, even if then. |
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Post by markgoodair on Apr 29, 2024 22:28:26 GMT
Yes but breaking the GFA by leaving the ECHR would not only land NI in the shit in a big way it would severely damage our relationship with the Republic. This really is an issue where the people elected to do the job of running the country should just do it It would also ensure that the possibility of a post Brexit UK-USA trade deal would remain as pure fantasy. |
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Post by swingometer on Apr 29, 2024 23:23:30 GMT
Yes but breaking the GFA by leaving the ECHR would not only land NI in the shit in a big way it would severely damage our relationship with the Republic. This really is an issue where the people elected to do the job of running the country should just do it It would also ensure that the possibility of a post Brexit UK-USA trade deal would remain as pure fantasy. Oh God we’ve heard all this before |
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Post by doktorb🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️ on Apr 30, 2024 1:53:06 GMT
Yes but breaking the GFA by leaving the ECHR would not only land NI in the shit in a big way it would severely damage our relationship with the Republic. This really is an issue where the people elected to do the job of running the country should just do it And our current relationship isn't exactly spilling over with joy |
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Post by markgoodair on Apr 30, 2024 8:46:57 GMT
It would also ensure that the possibility of a post Brexit UK-USA trade deal would remain as pure fantasy. Oh God we’ve heard all this before So have we actually signed a post Brexit Trade Agreement with the United States? |
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J.G.Harston
Lib Dem
Leave-voting Brexit-supporting Liberal Democrat
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Post by J.G.Harston on Apr 30, 2024 9:26:01 GMT
Oh God we’ve heard all this before So have we actually signed a post Brexit Trade Agreement with the United States? You don't need a trade agreement to trade, you just need traders willing to trade. I don't need to enter into a trade agreement with Tesco to buy things from Tesco, we don't need to enter into a political arrangement with the USA to buy things from producers in the USA.
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Post by Defenestrated Fipplebox on Apr 30, 2024 9:28:58 GMT
Yes but breaking the GFA by leaving the ECHR would not only land NI in the shit in a big way it would severely damage our relationship with the Republic. This really is an issue where the people elected to do the job of running the country should just do it
I agree governments should generally get on with running the country, but they don't they bring electoral considerations, ex-birdie and newspaper reactions into the mix.
Personally for me Northern Ireland is an interesting kettle of fish, one which I have no emotional attatchment to at all. Due to both sides of the community setting of bombs when I was growing up, I don't really care about any damage done to them like I do about damage done to Wales for instance. Not good politics for running a country I agree, but I suspect that quite a few people in Great Britain feel the way I do.
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The Bishop
Labour
Down With Factionalism!
Posts: 38,889
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Post by The Bishop on Apr 30, 2024 10:51:41 GMT
Considering that it is a legal requirement for the UK to remain within the ECHR under the Good Friday Agreement any talk of leaving is again pure mindless fantasy. Many people would vote to leave the EHCR, vote for capital punishment and for Northern Ireland to leave the UK, which would solve the problem and stop it being a mindless fantasy. "Many" people no doubt would - but there is no guarantee of a majority for any of those things, and still less of one for all three as a package. |
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Post by swingometer on Apr 30, 2024 16:23:49 GMT
Yeah my threads looking really relevant now…
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Post by rcronald on Apr 30, 2024 16:41:32 GMT
Yeah my threads looking really relevant now… I’m personally a strong supporter of the death penalty, but I recognise that a lot of people are scared that an innocent person would somehow end up being executed. The UK is heavily surveilled, so I think that a practical compromise (at least with people who are opposed for practical reasons and not moral ones) would be that one could only be sentenced to death if caught on camera (like the human scum in Hainault). |
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Post by swingometer on Apr 30, 2024 16:42:44 GMT
Yeah my threads looking really relevant now… I’m personally a strong supporter of the death penalty, but I recognise that a lot of people are scared that an innocent person would somehow end up being executed. The UK is heavily surveilled, so I think that a practical compromise (at least with people who are opposed for practical reasons and not moral ones) would be that one could only be sentenced to death if caught on camera (like the human scum in Hainault). My thoughts exactly |
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Post by swingometer on May 19, 2024 7:06:47 GMT
Sorry to bring this thread up, but a cruel twist of irony that Jo Cox’s constituency was that of Elizabeth Peacock, MP from 83-97, who campaigned for the restoration of the death penalty relentlessly in the Commons
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Post by timrollpickering on May 19, 2024 9:11:14 GMT
I'm firmly opposed to the death penalty and a supporter of the Good Friday Agreement...
...but at what point will the elastic snap and the GFA cease to be a sufficient argument for staying in the ECHR?
One of the general frustrations in politics in recent decades has been the tendency for one generation of ministers to sign the UK up for things that could not be easily undone by their successors - most obviously with the EU this was everything from directives that governments implementing them hated and told critics to blame ministers no longer in office for headnodding instead of vetoing them at the time through to EU integration treaties that couldn't be unratified by new governments or renegotiated to reverse them.
To rephrase the position a bit, at what stage does "Tony Blair signed the country into an international agreement that locks this into place domestically and there's nothing the electorate can do, no matter how much it objects to it, short of pulling the whole edifice down" cease to be a winning argument for keeping something in place and instead becomes a "this is the price to pay and it's worth paying"?
Why is the ECHR so often defended with either this or random lists of countries on one little continent who aren't members (there's a heck of a lot more countries who aren't) rather than defence on the merits of the institution as it operates in practice? Where are the great rulings held up to be admired across the spectrum or even just on the right? Why is there such a reluctance to sell actual benefits?
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The Bishop
Labour
Down With Factionalism!
Posts: 38,889
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Post by The Bishop on May 19, 2024 9:23:17 GMT
Why is the ECHR so often defended with either this or random lists of countries on one little continent who aren't members (there's a heck of a lot more countries who aren't) I'm afraid this at least is a totally disingenuous argument - the E stands for EUROPEAN, so the USA or New Zealand or Thailand or Senegal not being members is a totally irrelevant red herring. Whereas, on the other hand, the only EUROPEAN countries who are not members being Belarus and Russia could not be more relevant to many of us. Why are pretty much all other European countries happy with being members of the ECHR? What makes us so different to them?? Its not that classic Tory disease of largely unfounded if not mythical British exceptionalism, is it? Or maybe something darker - that at least some of them see Russia ands Belarus as positive examples to emulate. |
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Post by timrollpickering on May 19, 2024 10:30:18 GMT
Why is the ECHR so often defended with either this or random lists of countries on one little continent who aren't members (there's a heck of a lot more countries who aren't) I'm afraid this at least is a totally disingenuous argument - the E stands for EUROPEAN, so the USA or New Zealand or Thailand or Senegal not being members is a totally irrelevant red herring. Whereas, on the other hand, the only EUROPEAN countries who are not members being Belarus and Russia could not be more relevant to many of us. Regional and continental blocks are a very old dated way of dividing up the world when geography becomes ever more irrelevant. And European institutions are not confined to the European continent as shown by Cyprus's membership of this or the OSCE or others. (You may have noticed another European event last weekend with a great deal of focus on one country's participation - and the protests weren't from geographers. It's far from the only country not on the continent to have taken part over the years.) The ECHR stretches to places all over the world due to multi-continental countries. We are a country with ties all over the world. We don't need to look to just one little continent. So "the only other country/ies in Europe that do X are A (and B)" does not convince as an argument, whether it's about the ECHR or voting systems or anything else. Just because you care about what Russia and Belarus do (though curiously not Kazakhstan which is partially on the European continent) doesn't mean everyone else does. And in case you forget criticism of the ECHR in this country stretches back to the days when Russia was a member. Each country must assess transnational institutions on their own merits, not get into a pathetic herd mentality that stifles scrutiny and criticism in favour of a mentality that "we must be in this club because so many others are". I do not know what the state of debate about the ECHR is in other countries but I hope they approach it on an assessment of the merits of the institution for the protection and advancement of their countries not a crude glance at the membership list. |
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