The UK could quite possibly have had a million or two Turkish people coming in, with no way of controlling it.
— Punshhh

Could you explain why that's problematic? Is it a problem with resources to accommodate the immigrants? — frank

It's a problem because studies show that the contributions of EU migrant workers constitute a net benefit to the UK economy, and a good economy is a bad thing apparently, because errrrgh, foreigners, get out arrrr maaaah couuunnntttry!!

On the other hand, there are others who think that being slagged off by the Tories counts as a plus...

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/sep/16/rnli-donations-surge-tory-criticism-work-overseas-lifeboat-charity?CMP=fb_gu&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook&fbclid=IwAR19IvevbkhBo9N2QsV4_gwqlx0kHVUvmOZbyapfyobWzAwR0VbS4bBoEww#Echobox=1568642677

Could you explain why that's problematic? Is it a problem with resources to accommodate the immigrants

Its problematic because, certainly in my area, a lot of people think the amount of incomers has reached saturation point.* There is some impact of resources, but this is not the main beef. In other areas such as the north of England and the south west, where lots of people have become right wing populists fuelled by the notion of foriegners coming in, even though there are none in their area, or ghettoisation and division of immigrant populations that arrived a generation ago.

* by saturation point, I mean the numbers are causing the towns, shops, businesses to change and become like the towns in the country they came from.

I'm not arguing, I making the point that the way the EU is set up is flawed and it's inflexibility and lack of reform is one of the reasons why the UK may leave. A analogous situation is developing in Italy with the number of migrants crossing the Mediterranean Sea. Fortunately an agreement has been made for other member states to take some of the migrants. But if this had not been agreed and Italy was given no choice but to accept all the migrants, a similar situation might have developed there. The point is that the EU appears blind to the demographic consequences of its expansion.

Yes I'm aware of the status of Turkey and that it is unlikely to join now. I used it as an example as it was exploited in the leave campaign.

Take back control. Let's decide for ourselves who is deserving of being saved from drowning.

The hulk has morphed into the invisible man, it'll be the incredible shrinking man next.

While I agree there are consequences to how the EU operates resulting from the way it is constituted I would resist the notion that flexibility is a goal in and of itself. I'm not a proponent of an EU à-la-carte, which would be optimal flexibility. In fact, I think it would be disastrous. That Cameron didn't get what he wanted was necessary to ensure no precedent was created.

In that respect I think your point that the EU appears blind to the consequences of expansion is far more accurate. It is a political vision to have the entirety of continental Europe included in the EU but it's a vision that's not shared by the EU27 electorate. Politicians and public servants are probably also moved by prestige; "I'm the one that got country X in the EU" so these things move forward inexorably - too far removed from common voters.

↪Punshhh While I agree there are consequences to how the EU operates resulting from the way it is constituted I would resist the notion that flexibility is a goal in and of itself. I'm not a proponent of an EU à-la-carte, which would be optimal flexibility. In fact, I think it would be disastrous. That Cameron didn't get what he wanted was necessary to ensure no precedent was created.

Then the inevitable leaving of the UK was a fait accompli from a much earlier point in the development of the EU. Not only in regards to free movement, but in regards of other unifications on the cards.

I suspect in this case then that the inviolable nature of the four freedoms, is in a collision course with the realities of this expansion and that welcoming the UK in the the 1970's was one instance where this collision of opposing forces was going to end in the circumstances we find ourselves in. Perhaps this is the beginning of a trend.

The point is that the EU appears blind to the demographic consequences of its expansion. — Punshhh

the EU appears blind to the consequences of expansion is far more accurate. It is a political vision to have the entirety of continental Europe included in the EU but it's a vision that's not shared by the EU27 electorate. — Benkei

A divided vision. How to manage ?
It is not the case that the EU is blind to the problems of expansion. The problem might be that some people can make such blind assumptions and run with them.
The trouble is when the anti-EU brigade, like Farage, start to demean and destroy the EU from within its system.That is what I don't get. It troubles me.

Here's what I found:
How to govern a fragmented EU: What Europeans said at the ballot box.
The results of the European Parliament election confront EU leaders with a considerable challenge: navigating a new, more fragmented, and polarised political environment.

+Summary+Introduction+The post-political family map+The new political geography+The new policy map+Conclusion+Country analysis

SUMMARY
The results of the European Parliament election confront EU leaders with a considerable challenge: navigating a new, more fragmented, and polarised political environment.
This was a ‘split screen’ election: electors rarely used their vote to endorse the status quo, but they requested different things. Some want to take on climate change and nationalism; others want to regain national sovereignty and tackle Islamic radicalism.
This need not mean a ‘split screen’ Europe: the desire for change is real across the board, and the new EU institutions will need to provide answers for voters on these issues.
To meet this challenge, the larger political families should prepare to work with parties beyond the mainstream, some of which became stronger on the domestic political scene thanks to the election results. They must do this while preserving red lines on European values.
The high turnout in the election gives the EU a mandate to prove it can respond to voters’ concerns. But this mandate is not open-ended – volatility in the electorate could benefit anti-system parties much more the next time Europe goes to the polls.

...This report studies five ‘maps’ which should guide the formation of these new, shifting majorities; the next generation of EU institution leaders should also study these maps carefully to help them identify where best to focus their energy and attention...

[my bolds]

https://www.ecfr.eu/publications/summary/how_to_govern_a_fragmented_eu_what_europeans_said_at_the_ballot_box

Just watching the opening statements in the Supreme Court hearing. Looks like a slam dunk for Gina Miller.

link please?

This analogy doesn't work. — Benkei

Coming from the promised land of associations I can assure you the metaphor of movie fans and a movie fan club works very well. I do understand that your point is that EU can make legislation over the member states, yet this happens all the time with international agreements too. Basically to be a UN member state limits the sovereignty of countries... at least theoretically. But my point was something more basic.

You see, it's one thing for a group of movie fanatics to meet and watch movies together. It's a totally other thing when they decide to form an association, basically a legal person, with the idea that the association can organize events better. Yet once when that fan club exists, be it a formal association or not, it has a separate agendas from a single movie fan. Will the association continue? Where will it get it's members and are more members needed or not? Will it have enough money to operate? Will it try to organize something else, like trips to movie festivals or whatever? And now of course it has to have some kind of a staff, let's say a secretary and a chairperson. Even if these are movie fans themselves, they have a separate job now to take care of the club.

Yet let's not forget the movie fans, now the members of the new glorious association. For them to be a member of the association is just a tool for their convenience. They get something out of the membership. If the fan club doesn't give them anything, if they would be better simply watching movies themselves, then why shouldn't they opt for that?

This is something that is many times forgotten in the EU debate: the EU is just a tool for it's member states. Nothing else. The members states could co-operate even without it. It isn't an existential institution: if the EU would collapse Europe wouldn't go to war with itself as it did earlier. The EU doesn't exist because there are people hell bent on defending it and willing even giving their life for it. There wasn't and surely isn't an ideological grass roots movement that made the EU. Yes, the EU surely does have it's support, even I think of myself being a supporter of the EU and voted to join the union, yet that support didn't grow from an independent movement. The EU (or the EEC and earlier agreements) were concocted by leaders and top politicians of nation states, like Adenauer, De Gasperi, Schuman and Monnet. And I should add that it was a quite rational and logical concoction after the pile of millions of killed in Europe in WW1 and in it's sequel WW2. Still, the whole process has been right from the start a top-down process and has been done with the sovereign nation states firmly at the helm.

Hence to say that EU's problem is that the nation states have too much power totally ignores from where and how the EU has been created. It shows a lack of historical understanding of just how states form and how they differ from other institutions.

A divided vision. How to manage ?
It is not the case that the EU is blind to the problems of expansion. The problem might be that some people can make such blind assumptions and run with them.
The trouble is when the anti-EU brigade, like Farage, start to demean and destroy the EU from within its system.That is what I don't get. It troubles me. — Amity

Of course one alternative line exists: And that is just to be happy what the EU is now and not go forward with even more integration. Why wouldn't the EU of the present work? You can improve small things (transparency, efficiency etc.), but not totally organize it to be something else. Accept that the EU is far more EEC than a federation and totally different from the United States of America. Having open borders inside the EU and border controls on the outer frontiers generally works OK, especially if one prepares for actors like Turkey deliberately opening the flood gates of refugees. One doesn't need to break up EU.

It is being live streamed on Sky news and BBC news.

I haven't been watching. But I hope to catch up soon.
Here's the 3 day timetable:
https://www.supremecourt.uk/brexit/timetable-of-proceedings.html

The Supreme Court Live:
https://www.supremecourt.uk/live/court-01.html

Its problematic because, certainly in my area, a lot of people think the amount of incomers has reached saturation point. — Punshhh

People who feel like they're losing their culture are worth sympathy. It's potentially a source of volatility.

It would be better to guard the old culture through immigration control than to expose the immigrants to violence.

In the US, we're pretty much made of the invading immigrants. We already mostly destroyed the original culture.

Totally different in the UK. We're all Picts apart from the Celts the Angles The Saxons, the Vikings, the Normans, the Jews, the Poles, the Spanish, the Aussies, the Indians the Pakistanis, the South Africans, the Nigerians, the Caribbeans and so on.

The Algonquin, Siouxan, Iroquois, Muskogee, Apache, Seminiole, etc. would have said the same, I guess. Those are all distinct language groups, btw, some further divided by distinct groups.

It will be interesting to see what transpires in the Supreme Court. At the heart of the case seems to be the dividing line between the court's jurisdiction and the government's. There has been much talk about Boris's motives for proroguing parliament, and whether they are valid. But surely the point of law is whether and to what extent a PM is allowed to prorogue, whatever his reason. Under our nebulous unwritten constitution, as I understand it, precedent says he can, but only for a few weeks for the conference season. So what if he decides to prorogue for longer? He can always justify any decision as political, so unless the court stipulates a maximum time limit what is to stop a PM from closing parliament for as long as he wants, certainly until after October 31st? An unwritten constitution requires politicians to play by those unwritten rules. Sadly, in the age of populism, ends alone matter, not means; so will a written constitution inevitably be the result?

The British came here from the Basque Country as the ice melted. A few foreigners have appeared from time to time since, but other than changing the language they were mostly a few gangsters stealing the land or mercenary troops like the Germans who didn't make serious differences. The people in the south east like to pretend they are somehow the people who've conquered them, but I don't see why we should believe it, any more than we should pretend that 'England' was the only country on earth that not only gave up Christianity for paganism, but for a foreign paganism. I think we are still basically the same people as we ever were, British.

I think we are still basically the same people as we ever were, British. — iolo

Ah yes, the good old days when the ice was melting and Doggerland was flooding... I remember it well.

I think we are still basically the same people as we ever were, British. — iolo

Especially when the term and (the layered identity) started to be used only from the late 17th Century onwards and Britishness started to be used in the middle of the 19th Century.

The hearing is fascinating, I can now point out what I think it will hinge on. It is quite a Gordian knot for the judges to undo.

The appeal is contending that the Prime minister, acted improperly in prorouging, because his motive was to prevent (stymie) Parliament so as to avoid the risk that parliament could interfere, or stop his free reign to enact his policies.

The argument for the defence is essentially that the prime minister has free reign to proroge for whatever purpose, for as long as he likes, and whenever he wants. And that the courts can't stray into his powers to do it, because it is a political act and would breach the separation of powers.

There are serious flaws in the argument for the defence in my opinion,
Firstly, it is well established in law that no one is above the law, so if the Prime minister acts unlawfully, he can be sanctioned by the court.
Secondly, it is established that the executive(government), is accountable to parliament, as sovereignty rests in parliament and not the executive. So if the exectitive silences parliament to continue on a course for which it does not have parliamentary consent, this relationship becomes reversed. The tail is wagging the dog, rendering the constitution broken. So the Supreme Court must sanction the Prime minister so as to maintain, or protect the constitution.
Third, if they rule in favour of the defence, the government, then the prime minister will have free reign to proroge again on the 14th of October ( when parliament is due to return) until after the 31st of October, enabling the Prime minister to take the UK out of The EU with no deal, simply by inaction and parliament and the Queen would be powerless to stop him. Well I think the Queen could refuse him, but it would compromise her impartiality. So the Supreme Court must sanction the Prime minister so as to protect the Queen and therefore the Crown.
Fourth, I think it can be argued that sanctioning the Prime minister for certain conduct is not actually becoming embroiled in politics, but rather protecting the systems and working of parliament, so as to maintain parliamentary sovereignty. And the proper working of the constitution.

So I can't see how the Supreme Court could do anything other than to find the Prime minister to have acted unlawfully and sanction his powers.

Im looking forward to the intervention of John Major tomorrow.

EU leaders have given Boris Johnson an ultimatum to come up with a new Brexit plan by the end of September or face up to a no deal.

The deadline, agreed at a meeting in Paris on Wednesday evening, comes as the bloc’s chief negotiator Michel Barnier told Mr Johnson to stop “pretending” to negotiate. ...

“If the UK wants to discuss alternatives to the existing Brexit agreement then these must be presented before the end of the month,” Mr Rinne [Finland's PM] told reporters after the meeting in which the deadline was agreed.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-eu-boris-johnson-deal-plan-deadline-ultimatum-latest-a9111066.html

At least we'll know before Halloween.

Also shows up Johnson's empty threat of no-deal to gain traction in negotiations - the Europeans have called his bluff.

Also shows up Johnson's empty threat of no-deal to gain traction in negotiations - the Europeans have called his bluff. — Wayfarer

What's really amazing is that BJ's popularity (in the UK, and more so in the conservative base) seems to be going up in all this.

Is BJ successfully creating the dynamic of complete incoherent expectations from his followers and they will defend him come-what-may (there will always be others to blame, a la Trump)? Or is that not his plan, and his plan is just going horribly wrong ... but support increases anyways? Or is there real potential for 5D chess with the EU, Labour, competitors within his party? Or will there be comeuppance from his followers when he fails to deliver Brexit?

On this side of the North Sea, Brexit has just become a side-show running joke, there is no longer any ideological stakes or even much worry about consequential relevance at play (hence the "show us this deal now then or then go away"). Are there any viable end-points for BJ, if not in terms of reasonable policy, at least for his followers?

What's really amazing is that BJ's popularity (in the UK, and more so in the conservative base) seems to be going up in all this. — boethius

I would put that down to wishful thinking, soon to be mugged by reality.

Im looking forward to the intervention of John Major tomorrow. — Punshhh

Today's timetable. https://www.supremecourt.uk/brexit/timetable-of-proceedings.html
Also, link to written cases on behalf of the parties and interveners:
https://www.supremecourt.uk/brexit/written-case-submissions.html

10:30 to 11:00
Oral Intervention by Scottish Government in Cherry/Miller, The Lord Advocate - James Mure QC (30 minutes)
11:00 to 11:40
Oral Intervention by NI Claimant (McCord) in Cherry/Miller, Ronan Lavery QC (40 minutes)
11:40 to 12:10
Oral Intervention by Counsel General for Wales, Mike Fordham QC (30 minutes)
12:10 to 12:30 Oral Intervention on behalf of Sir John Major, Lord Garnier QC (20 minutes)
14:00 to 14:30
Appellants reply for Advocate General for Scotland from Inner House in Cherry, Lord Keen QC (30 minutes)
14:30 to 15:00
Appellants reply for Miller, Lord Pannick QC (30 minutes)

Britannia was the name of the Country when it was part of the Roman Empire. There must surely have been some reason, like being British?

What's really amazing is that BJ's popularity (in the UK, and more so in the conservative base) seems to be going up in all this. — boethius

This is the rise of populism in the UK. Very sad. Nietzsche spoke of 'slave morality', which unlike 'master morality' is not driven by lofty aims and theorems, but expediency. The ignorant Brexiteer masses don't care about the law or constitution, they just want out of the EU, and as Boris has chosen to champion that simplistic end they support him; thus he's won back hard-line ex-Tories from the Brexit party. Much is spoken now about identity politics, and it's clear that many Brexiteers are now so scared of 'their' referendum result being ignored that they no longer care about the problems of no-deal, they just want their democratic outcry acted upon at any cost. It's the rise of cartoon, black-and-white politics, the dumbing down of debate and the hyping of one-line emotive tropes based usually on fear. We now have a simplistic one-line Brexit policy from the Lib Dems. How long until Labour follows?

So I don't think there's much chance of Boris's popularity waning in a sudden outbreak of enlightened debate and a realisation of the facts of the situation among Brexiteers. The only hope is that parliament - which is the repository of sense in this battle - can frustrate his do-or-die Brexit, and, longer term, push for a full written constitution to set down the limits of the PM's powers and stop him playing dictator again. Whatever happens, I expect Boris will still find a way to say he was frustrated by the 'Remainer parliament' (lies: do the sums..) and keep most supporters on board. He's learned a lot from Trump..

Britannia was the name of the Country when it was part of the Roman Empire. There must surely have been some reason, like being British? — iolo

Just like the Romans called one place Germania. Copied in the similar way. Yet Modern Germany and 'the Germans' is even a younger thing than the talk about the British. I assure you that during Roman times there weren't Germans as we know now living there. There is a difference between 'the Germans' and 'Germanic tribes'.