Published on 12, July, 2020
Give Northern Ireland back to the Irish. It's only ever been trouble.
Discuss...
Should there be a referendum on whether Northern Ireland remains part of the Union?
If so, then should it only be offered in Northern Ireland or should it be offered throughout the UK?
I've never seen anyone of African descent refer to themselves as Nigerien.
By catch doesn't exist. There is only catch.
Regardless of your intent, what is in your net is catch.
Typically, sea bass feed very close to shore during the summer (in the surf!), only moving into deeper water in winter.
However, if a species reaches a critical situation where the only safe catch is ZERO, then yes, for the good of the wider fishery, it has to be a total fishing ban in that area. It's the only thing that'll work. Anything else is a tragedy of the commons.
This is far from clear cut but there is some trend that those on both the left and the right tended to vote Leave and those in the political centre tended to vote Remain in England and Wales but the media (deliberately?) chose to ignore the political left and their 'Lexit' as they like to shoehorn politics into left vs right on many issues, and Labour with Remain represented the left when in reality Jeremy Corbyn was historically anti-EU and many old Labour types in the party voted Leave.
The socioeconomic group A was the most pro-EU and support for the EU decreased downwards to the point where socioeconomic group D was the most anti-EU although there is some anecdotal evidence that the trend somewhat reversed for socioeconomic group E.
DongFeng5 said:There's no way you're getting me into a red mankini- not even for Charlotte Rampling...
Connery's Mankini had a ******* bandelero on the straps. A ******* BANDELERO! I would probably wear one in grey. I don't know which I find sexier a mankini with a bandelero or Leia's metal bikini.
Cassandro said:Had I been an MP (I'm not, by the way), I would have supported the SNP's amendment to define when the vote would have an effect, and for that to include, for the sake of cohesion and stability, a requirement that NI and Scotland had a majority to leave too:
I think that Scotland do kind of play both sides of the fence. I just think in my own mind that the UK should have been counted the way it was. The UK is basically one administrational area. I'm a remainer and if England had have voted to remain and Scotland would have voted to leave I wouldn't expect Sturgeon to have demanded a vote. I think that the SNP have learned to play the game very well but it seems a bit of a moot point if she still wants Scotland to be part of the UK. It was a UK vote not a regional vote. Again I'm a remainer but I think it was done right imo.
Cassandro said:I'm amazed the automatic censor didn't pick up your expletive for the Con********e Par**. Seems plurals and present participles slip through.
Sometimes censorship isn't applicable. I think the accuracy of the comment was deemed as acceptable by our machine overlord.
Cassandro said:How about England Lite with a new bluey whiteness and a side plate of Mercia?
If the "lite" part means it contains Aspartame I'll pass. Mercia sounds quite delicious though, I know it's real root but it does kind of sound like a dish.
nexus9 said:Scandinavian countries pay high taxes but they also provide a good standard of living for everyone.
Looking at the proportion of taxes we pay here we aren't far off but we don't get as much back proportionately. I have Scots in my family and lived there for a while and trust me they wouldn't want to be Scandanavian. Far too patriotic!
Not sure I understand what you're saying. If trawlers have sea bass as unintentional by-catch, what happens to it? If it's allowed to be landed and sold, what incentive does that create to avoid this happening? So there will need to be some discards at least?
And I think you are saying there would be no danger from a general quota, if that general quota were set to the sustainable catch of the most endangered species. Well, you've effectively given the figure for sea bass as 0. Therefore all fishing would be banned, which would be unpopular with the industry and public.
I've stumbled on this defence from the EU from 2015:
https://ec.europa.eu/fisheries/cfp/fishing_rules/sea-bass_en
I'm not arguing that any commercial landing of sea bass should be allowed. It seems since 2015, the UK and France have been arguing against a complete ban:
http://www.saveourseabass.org/en/over-fishing/
Cassandro said:Putting a quota on the total catch as some suggested would be worse
Untrue. Let's suppose that scientists conclude that at current stocks, the North Sea can sustainably provide 75,000 tonnes of cod. Let's also pretend for the sake of argument that it's the most endangered species (it's not).
With a total catch quota for an obviously indiscriminate net, that means North Sea boats can only afford to catch a total of 75,000 tonnes of fish - just in case they all turn out to be cod.
Total catch will work - but it requires "design for worst case" thinking, and a draconian enforcement policy because too many people want to flout the rules for money.
Boats of any nation which are damaging the environment by breaching their total catch quota deserve to be used as target practice by the Navy.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/only-fishing-ban-can-save-sea-bass-htx7x0cz2
Scientists say stop all fishing for this species.
EU fudges issue, allowing commercials to continue, but banning people using a rod and line...
Cloudy Mountains said:We could have Zardoz type stone flying heads
There's no way you're getting me into a red mankini- not even for Charlotte Rampling...
nexus9 said:Here is an article that suggests the issue is a little more nuanced....
It is. Putting a quota on the total catch as some suggested would be worse, because then there would be overfishing just of the most valuable species (then when they're nearly gone, the next, and so on). I've already mentioned this in a post below.
It's not a simple problem to solve - it's effectively a potential tragedy of the commons, and some form of international co-operation at least is needed, whether or not that is associated with a trading bloc. Is there any outstanding valid criticism of the 2013 Common Fisheries Policy along these lines, which was agreed in order to fix the damage?
DongFeng5 said:Therefore the EU does not protect the environment.
Even if the premise of criminal waste of natural resources and ecosystem damage is true, that conclusion doesn't follow logically. There is more to the environment than fish. Overfishing can also be considered an environmental issue.
Here are some of the messages I was seeing from environmental organisations before the referendum:
Having said that, in theory there's no reason why the UK outside the EU couldn't in theory choose to have the same or higher environmental standards. One problem, however, is that to encourage other countries to have higher standards and avoid a race to the bottom, pressure may need to be exerted through trading agreements. For example, a country with a high carbon price would have to be able to charge a duty imports produced using coal, if only as a form of moral disapprobation... To accomplish this may require explicitly making the WTO subservient to environmental conventions.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jun/11/brexit-uk-fishermen-fishing-industry-quotas-uk-government
Here is an article that suggests the issue is a little more nuanced....
nexus9 said:relatively small example of bureaucratic stupidity
No. A criminal waste of natural resources and ecosystem damage.
Therefore the EU does not protect the environment.
The wastage went on and on for years. Just because they have been shamed into fixing things now doesn't mean the EU is suddenly fit. They're unfit precisely because the waste remained unaddressed for so long.
Maybe I grasped the wrong end of the stick, but if Arran is a Scot he is using Jock to self-refer, just as many people of African descent seem to refer to themselves as if they hail from Niger. Or something.
Cloudy Mountains said:In a practical sense people or entities own something as the legislation on a said thing dictates.
Yeah. For as much as that counts for anything.
I think my garden is mine.
The neighbouring cats think it belongs to them, and fight over it.
The blackbirds think it belongs to them, but the robins know better...
nexus9 said:How exactly is the EU an empire?
It might help to look at the Roman Empire and its successor the Holy Roman Empire to get an idea of this.
Remember how Ted Heath stated in 1973 that it's only a trading arrangement but over the years the EU has moved closer and closer to becoming a superstate.
How exactly is the EU an empire? And how are things like the Trans-Pacific Partnership supposed to be better and to benefit the UK? Worker protection and human rights will go completely out of the window. How about that for an empire?
Neither am I sure which evolved countries you had in mind as being part of the EU rather than these basketball nations closer to home. Possibly an affiliated status should have been maintained for longer but no....don't see the logic there. Oh, wait: they could return to another empire of yesteryear again...
I'm convinced that the EU will not last more than a few more decades. All empires eventually collapse.
One question I ask Europhiles is that if the purpose of the EU is primary economic (remember the European Economic Community) and now that the EU has almost every European country as a member then should it expand and take in non-European countries as members? If not, then why, other than name, should it restrict its membership to countries on the basis of nothing more than a quirk in geography?
There are many non-European countries that are developed democracies with a high standard of living and it would have made more sense from an economic perspective to admit them as members of the EU rather than the basket cases of eastern Europe like Romania and Bulgaria. The fact that EU expansionism beyond Europe is such an obscure and unthought of concept even amongst hardened Europhiles was a strong factor behind why I voted Leave.
Cloudy Mountains said:They are part of the democratic process, so yeah they should have been included however you felt they might affect the vote.
Had I been an MP (I'm not, by the way), I would have supported the SNP's amendment to define when the vote would have an effect, and for that to include, for the sake of cohesion and stability, a requirement that NI and Scotland had a majority to leave too:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/eureferendum/11646236/Nicola-Sturgeon-Scottish-people-will-demand-second-independence-vote-if-dragged-out-of-EU.html
(I'd be against Scottish independence, for reference.)
DongFeng5 said:It was the EU that ensured up to 50% of fish being caught in Europe was dumped at sea. Wasted.
nexus9 said:Well then it is a pity that the likes of Farage didn't use his skills to lobby against a relatively small exams of bureaucratic stupidity an an MEP
Risk of overfishing particular species is a serious problem, and 'discards' were a result of previous policy that was amended in 2013. There would be a full ban on discards by 2019 anyway:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/feb/27/eu-fish-discards-ban-welcomed
(Incidentally, Britain had been pushing for higher quotas that were probably unsustainable and would ultimately also be bad for fishermen and consumers.)
Cloudy Mountains said:This is like right-left political jingoism ping-pong. I'm joining in. Medium sized England with ketchup.
How about England Lite with a new bluey whiteness and a side plate of Mercia?
I'm amazed the automatic censor didn't pick up your expletive for the Con********e Par**. Seems plurals and present participles slip through.
Well Scotland is that much more up north.......
I was thinking geology rather than ethnicity, though I understand the Vikings did come a-calling and left some of their gene markers behind.
I read somewhere that the same volcanic hotspot that created the rock of Edinburgh is the same that has created Iceland.
They just quietly sacked their government and banks when it was clear they were corrupt and had bankrupted the country. Good Scandinavians. Scandinavian countries pay high taxes but they also provide a good standard of living for everyone.