BREXIT - Britain will be out of the EU!

[Phoenix]

Ela re.
I don't know a word of Greek. Imagine every conversation being a declaration of Macedonism and you'll get the idea. This place doesn't care less. Actually, really nice place called Kalymnos. A bit out of the way. Rock climbers come from all round the world to enjoy. Plenty of rocks in Greece.

Enjoy mate...

[vicsinad]

Ela re.
I don't know a word of Greek. Imagine every conversation being a declaration of Macedonism and you'll get the idea. This place doesn't care less. Actually, really nice place called Kalymnos. A bit out of the way. Rock climbers come from all round the world to enjoy. Plenty of rocks in Greece.

I hear this a lot from Macedonians and some Greeks. I have a Macedonian friend from Bitola living here in Vermont who goes to Greek islands and southern Greece and they either have no real knowledge or care about the Macedonian-Greek troubles. They're just living life.

Though he and a friend were in either Solun or Athens (I can't remember which one) and they got attacked/chased by Goldn-Dawn types for speaking Macedonian.

[vicsinad]

The Muslim Albanians of the Balkans have been empowered for hundreds of years. They have a far more confident disposition. I read recently how they were encouraged by the ruling Turks to pelt the dead bodies of Christian Macedonians and Serbs (at funerals) with rocks and whatever else they could find. I'm sure hundreds of years of this kind of attitude changes the psyche of a people.

This is absolutely true, the notion about empowerment. The Albanian Muslims could commit crimes against Macedonians and not face any consequences (a Christian's testimony was essentially worthless in court); the Albanians could have weapons while the Macedonians couldn't; they formed several bands of brigands before the revolutionary period that simply looted and kidnapped whenever they pleased, and etc.

My great-grandma (from the Polog region in Tetovo) would scare her grandkids with threats of how a specific Albanian tribe would steal the kids from their family if they misbehaved. These attitudes changed the psyches of both the peoples in much different ways.

[Amphipolis]

I just heard it and I thought it was another exaggeration, but checked and it is true. According to 2011 census, white British people in London are for the first time less than 50% (actually they're 45%). Only ten years earlier (in 2001 census) they were still 60%! That’s really unbelievable. In 1991 they were around 70-76% (classification was slightly different).

As for the rest 55% it's:
Asians: 18% (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh etc.)
Other whites: 15% (various Europeans and Irish)
Blacks: 13% (various Africans & Caribbeans)
Mixed: 5%
Others: 3,5% (mostly Arabs)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_groups_in_London

Christians (of all dogmas) are also for the first time below 50% (precisely 48% from 58% in 2001)

[Karposh]

That's insane. The Brexit was a good start for what's left of the native British population but it just seems like a case of too little too late.

[vicsinad]

I just heard it and I thought it was another exaggeration, but checked and it is true. According to 2011 census, white British people in London are for the first time less than 50% (actually they're 45%). Only ten years earlier (in 2001 census) they were still 60%! That’s really unbelievable. In 1991 they were around 70-76% (classification was slightly different).

It was fine for England to colonize the "uncivilized" world but as soon as the "colored folk" start peacefully intruding into their land, their culture and way of life is suddenly under threat. Perhaps this is the cost of their past transgressions.

What do I care. They chose the Greek monarchy's suppression of Macedonian's in Aegean Macedonia over the rights and liberty of a people. Having a cosmopolitan capital city is hardly a punishment.

[Karposh]

It was fine for England to colonize the "uncivilized" world but as soon as the "colored folk" start peacefully intruding into their land, their culture and way of life is suddenly under threat. Perhaps this is the cost of their past transgressions.

What do I care. They chose the Greek monarchy's suppression of Macedonian's in Aegean Macedonia over the rights and liberty of a people. Having a cosmopolitan capital city is hardly a punishment.

Can't argue with that Vic. All the same, it's still sad to see an indigenous population slowly but surely melt away into extinction...Even the Brits.

[vicsinad]

Can't argue with that Vic. All the same, it's still sad to see an indigenous population slowly but surely melt away into extinction...Even the Brits.

They'll be fine. Anyway, there are currently hundreds of ethnic, cultural and/or linguistic groups around the world that are down to just several thousand or even several hundred people, and plenty more that are not thriving nowhere near as the English are.

Perhaps hundreds of years from now the English culture and genetic make up will have significantly changed. But all cultures and peoples go through such evolution and transformation.

[Gocka]

Good riddance.

[Tomche Makedonche]

https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/mps-seize-control-of-brexit-from-may-in-constitutional-revolution-20190326-p517kq.html

MPs seize control of Brexit from May in 'constitutional revolution'

London:*The UK parliament has seized control of Brexit from the May government and will hold an extraordinary session on Wednesday to choose between possible outcomes such as another referendum, a no-deal Brexit or even cancelling Brexit altogether

The government fiercely opposed the House of Commons vote on Monday night to take control, warning it would set a dangerous constitutional precedent. The government traditionally runs business in the House of Commons, deciding when and what debates and votes occur.

“[It] would overturn the balance of our democratic institutions,” Prime Minister Theresa May said.

Another Conservative called it a “constitutional revolution” that the House of Commons “will come to regret”.

However the May government lost a vote to oppose the Commons takeover by 27 votes, after 30 Conservatives including three ministers defied the party whip

After the vote Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said “where this government failed this House must, and I believe will succeed”.

He also suggested any decision reached on Wednesday might go back to the people for a “confirmatory vote”.

Before the vote May conceded that she did not have enough support to get her Brexit divorce deal over the line, though she hopes for another "meaningful vote" on the deal later this week. It is still opposed by the Northern Irish DUP and members of the hardline pro-Brexit wing of the Conservatives.

May said the “default outcome” in the absence of a vote for her deal was for the UK to leave the European Union with no deal at the new April 12 deadline set by the EU last week.

But “unless this House agrees to it, No Deal will not happen”, May said.

“The alternative is to pursue a different form of Brexit or a second referendum.”

May tried to keep control of parliament by promising her own “indicative votes” later this week which the government would guide, to identify such an alternative.

May said she was “sceptical about such a process”.

“When we have tried this kind of thing in the past, it has produced contradictory outcomes or no outcome at all,” she said.

The 30 Conservative defectors who defied the party whip to vote for the motion included three ministers, who resigned in order to do so.

Business Minister Richard Harrington said the government’s approach to Brexit was “playing roulette with the lives and livelihoods of the vast majority of people in this country”.

He said he resigned so he could do everything possible to prevent a no-deal Brexit which, he said was being championed by “a small minority of the Conservative Party and a small minority of the country”.

“The failure to secure a deal and to rule out a hard Brexit is resulting in cancelled investment decisions, business being placed abroad and a sense of ridicule for British business across the world,” he said.

The government also lost a health minister and foreign office minister.

Reacting to the vote, a spokesman for the Department for Exiting the EU said it “sets a dangerous and unpredictable precedent for the future”.

Earlier, May had refused to commit the government to delivering the outcome of any such series of votes.

“No government could give a blank cheque to commit to an outcome without knowing what it is,” she said, as the result could be “unnegotiable” with the European Union.

Labour Brexit spokesman Kier Starmer also avoided committing his party to supporting any parliamentary consensus that emerged, saying that, for example, Labour would oppose a “no-deal” Brexit in any vote.

However if one of the options on Wednesday emerges with a clear majority, the government could be powerless to oppose it without calling an election.

The process for the vote, and the options to be considered, will be decided on the day. Tory elder statesman Ken Clarke suggested a “single transferable*vote”, which would work like Australia’s preferential voting system to identify the option with the most support.

A core group of pro-Brexit MPs believe a no-deal Brexit is the best result.

Conservative Crispin Blunt told May that “taking No Deal off the table just put the final torpedo into her own deal and any real prospect of Brexit. Her statement will represent the most shameful surrender by a British leader since Singapore in 1942.”

At Monday’s Cabinet meeting at 10 Downing Street a supposed “coup” widely tipped in the Sunday newspapers failed to materialise.

The Sunday Times had reported half May’s Cabinet would demand she resign. But according to reports nobody even mentioned her future during the meeting.

[Risto the Great]

Maybe new international laws will be applied in relation to the constitution. The latest one is constitutions can be ignored when inconvenient.

The nation spoke, it said it wanted out. Out is out in my opinion. They want out but only if they can be in.

https://9gag.com/gag/awAO6dW

[Vangelovski]

Nothing in the UK is unconstitutional because the UK doesn't actually have a constitution. Its legal system works on the basis that whatever the parliament decides is considered as constitutional law, i.e., Acts of Parliament are the constitution, and by extension, the will of Parliament is a living constitution. So the Parliament doing whatever it likes is by definition, in the UK, constitutional.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_the_United_Kingdom

Its a very dangerous thing to have an unlimited (in power and authority) Parliament and, by extension, Government.

[Gocka]

Nothing in the UK is unconstitutional because the UK doesn't actually have a constitution. Its legal system works on the basis that whatever the parliament decides is considered as constitutional law, i.e., Acts of Parliament are the constitution, and by extension, the will of Parliament is a living constitution. So the Parliament doing whatever it likes is by definition, in the UK, constitutional.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_the_United_Kingdom

Its a very dangerous thing to have an unlimited (in power and authority) Parliament and, by extension, Government.

I had no idea that the British system of government was this way. I always assumed it was something similar to the US, Canada, and Australia who all seem to have very similar systems, also given that they are all former British colonies.

What is their check on abuse of power then, the Queen, Judiciary? I've always heard people praise the British system as on of the best in terms of democracy. How can it be that good if anything is allowed whenever they need it. Seems like a recipe for disaster.

[Risto the Great]

Interesting that not having an obvious constitution still surpasses that of the highly constitutional Donkeydonia.

Having said that, take a look at the actual "city of London" for how ye Olde Law works in that strange country. You would think everyone walks around with secret handshakes over there.

[Vangelovski]

I had no idea that the British system of government was this way. I always assumed it was something similar to the US, Canada, and Australia who all seem to have very similar systems, also given that they are all former British colonies.

What is their check on abuse of power then, the Queen, Judiciary? I've always heard people praise the British system as on of the best in terms of democracy. How can it be that good if anything is allowed whenever they need it. Seems like a recipe for disaster.

I think the rest of us learnt from that massive oversight, but to be fair, the Australian Constitution is not what it should/could be. At the end of the day, it is an Act of the British Parliament, not a constitution whose authority derives from a sovereign people. Further, the British Parliament had to pass a another Act, the Australia Act, in the 1980s to completely (but not really) cut the apron strings. The Australia Act supposedly ended all British ability to legislate for Australia.

The Australian Constitution (the Constitution Act) and the Australia Act are meant to bestow Australia with independence and sovereignty, but are ultimately Acts of the British Parliament and therefore could be rescinded by the British Parliament. So our independence, legally, relies on the goodwill of the British Parliament and that isn't really independence at all if we're honest.

The question would then be, where does that leave Australia and what are Australians prepared to do? The choices are really a) submit to the British, or b) declare a sovereign Australian state of the Australian people, by the Australian people, for the Australian people. I'm pretty sure at this stage in world affairs, however, that the British would be unable to put down a rebellion in the colonies.

I'm not sure what the Canadian or New Zealand situations are, but the Americans clearly sorted that shit out way back.

As far as I can tell, the only check on the abuse of power in the UK is the Monarch (though that has rarely ended well for the King/Queen and possibly why they rarely refuse to assent to Acts of Parliament) and their mere "British" existence (whom one assumes can do no wrong).