The trouble with trumped-up charges, is that often outsiders don’t have the capacity to determine that they’re bogus. I mean, the point of extradition is a trial, and the point of a trial is to determine guilt.
Of course, as you seem to he referring to Assange, just remember the UK is (it claims) leaving the EU, and is currently run by people who don’t really know what they want but are fairly sure that whatever it is involves getting on well with the USA.
> and is currently run by people who don’t really know what they want but are fairly sure that whatever it is involves getting on well with the USA
Bit offtopic for this thread, but I'd call that a very peculiar read of the situation. The Withdrawal Agreement that May is pushing involves a permanent de facto customs union with the EU, ongoing regulatory alignment with the EU, and military integration with the EU. That doesn't leave a whole lot of room for the US.
May's plan absolutely does not call for a permanent customs union. That's rather been one the larger sticking points. It's what the opposition party, Labour, wants but can't get.
And if you leave your shiny new car in the wrong part of town with the door open and the keys in the ignition, you're not calling for it to be stolen, but you know damn well it's going to be.
May doesn't want to call it a customs union, because her 2017 manifesto committed to leaving the Customs Union, but that's absolutely what it amounts to. I don't know whether Labour really want it, or even understand what it entails; I suspect they mostly wanted a point of disagreement with the government.
What May actually believes I suppose I don't really know. But a large portion of the hard-line Tory Brexiters are adamant that it isn't a permanent customs union and absolutely will not allow the backstop option to become such. It's that very sticking point that has lead to her lack of support for the plan within her own party. The apparent contradiction vis-a-vis leaving your car in a bad place is largely due to that same hard brexit wing wanting both to eat their cake, have it too, and maybe steal all the cake from the rest of the EU (that last part is probably an exaggeration. cake is delicious and no one in their right mind would let it be taken away or even deprive another person of it.)
I think you're deeply confused about who believes what.
1. May is not and has never been a Brexiter. I honestly can't understand how anyone still thinks she is.
2. If by "hard-line Tory Brexiters" you mean the ERG, they absolutely hate the WA, largely because it ends in a customs union. If you know of an exception, I'd be interested to hear who it is.
3. The "cakeism"/"cherry-picking" thing is almost entirely May. The voting public was told before the referendum that Leave meant leaving the Single Market and Customs Union completely. May's manifesto at the 2017 election said the same. Insofar as there was a mandate, that was it. She had absolutely NO mandate for suddenly pulling out that weird Chequers monstrosity; nobody ever wanted it except her and Olly Robbins. Your "hard-line Tory Brexiters" (and a lot of the softer ones) almost universally want a WTO exit at this point, with no special treatment, because May has wrecked any chance of getting anything better.
1. Almost all Remainers think May is a hardcore Leaver, because of what I’m about to say for 3.
3. Except for anyone who heard or saw:
“Absolutely nobody is talking about threatening our place in the Single Market” - Daniel Hannan MEP
“Only a madman would actually leave the Market” - Owen Paterson MP, Vote Leave backer
And anyone who knows that Norway is in the single market who heard:
“Wouldn't it be terrible if we were really like Norway and Switzerland? Really? They're rich. They're happy. They're self-governing” - Nigel Farage
“The Norwegian option, the EEA option, I think that it might be initally attractive for some business people” - Matthew Elliot, Vote Leave chief executive
“Increasingly, the Norway option looks the best for the UK” - Arron Banks, Leave.EU founder
1) I think she wants to leave. Why she wants to leave is hard to say. I'm inclined to think it's as much cynical political opportunism as anything else. It's what she campaigned on and has shouted since becoming PM. Certainly she's not in the ERG range of things though.
2) I thought that was pretty much what I'm saying. ERG types dislike May's plan because it has no legally binding guarantee for when the Backstop would end. That's probably a good thing on giving ample time to thread the needle (which may be impossible) on a compromise that won't spike the Good Friday Accord and start folks trying to blow up cake all over again. In this case, cake is people, cars, and buildings.
3. Yes. Cake, as I said, is fantastic. Here though, there's no majority in favor of any particular flavor, and most people are perfectly satisfied to deny cake to everyone that doesn't want their flavor. It's become sort of a "I'll have my cake and eat yours too" situation. I'm not sure the metaphor matches all that well at this point, but I really want some cake right now so I'm sticking to it.
OK, I'm calling a severe case of Cake Derangement Syndrome and revoking your cake privileges. For the sake of both your mental health and your incipient diabetes.
Last I checked, Corbyn has requested something that isn't actually a customs union, but wants to call it that, but May actually does want a customs union, but doesn't want to call it that.
Near as I can tell, apart from the hard-line Brexiters that would be perfectly happy with crashing out of the EU without any deal, May and the other Tories want something resembling a customs union that retains the sovereign right of the UK to withdraw at any time and also make deals with non-EU partners on vastly different terms than what they have with the EU. This was a major part of the anti-EU sentiment: Being in the EU, you can't just make a deal with another non-EU country. Corbyn, regardless of what he actually wants out of any sort of Brexit, I believe is now angling for a General Election that would likely swing at least a little more support towards Labour. Despite the large EU Remainer elements in Labour though, Corbyn is himself about as much anti-EU as some folks on the Tory side, albeit in a different direction.
The policy itself doesn't matter. The entire point is that your government has elected a prime minister that is in disagreement with almost the entire parliament which does not want the withdrawal agreement you are talking about. So the only options remaining are delaying brexit again (wouldn't surprise me if they keep delaying it until 2025+) or a hard brexit which makes relations with the US just as likely as relations with the EU.
> the only options remaining are delaying brexit again (wouldn't surprise me if they keep delaying it until 2025+) or a hard brexit
The other option is revoking Article 50, either openly or disguised as a second referendum with no Leave option. Neither would particularly surprise me at this point.
ETA: I still wouldn't rule out some form of the WA passing, though. Everyone in Westminster is in blind reactive panic mode now; it's not exactly conducive to good decisions.
A second referendum with no Leave option would I suspect be political suicide for whoever organized it.
Instead, the referendum should have a Leave option - a specific Leave option. Not an amorphous, everyone-can-think-it's-whatever-they-want option, but a concrete, well-defined, specific option. That option would almost certainly lose, since all the Remain people would vote against it, and so would many of the people who want some other flavor of Leave.
The problem is that there are several different flavors of Leave: There's hard Brexit, and the customs union, and May's deal, and maybe one or two others. None of them has a majority, either in Parliament or among the voters. But I'm not sure that Remain has a majority, either (it didn't in the referendum, and at least in Parliament, there's a feeling that remaining in the end will be regarded as a betrayal of the referendum).
Then there's the problem that May seems to feel that the most urgent task at the moment is not cleaning up this mess, but rather keeping Corbyn out of the PM position.
All this makes it almost impossible to find a way forward. However, I would say that May's deal is dead, no matter how many times she keeps trying to bring it up for a vote in Parliament. And Parliament seems to be indicating that it will take the reins out of May's hands rather than permitting her to run them (willingly or not) into a hard Brexit. The EU seems to be against the idea of perpetual delay (though it remains to be seen if they will blink when push comes to shove). That leaves revoking Article 50 or a customs union as the only options available (unless the EU blinks and keeps blinking, or unless Parliament is willing to let May do a hard Brexit).
Or so it seems to me. In this mess of a situation, who knows whether I'm right...
I'm curious that you say "May's deal is dead" but then say that a customs union (presumably tacked on to May's deal) remains an option. Surely they're effectively the same thing? May's WA already leads to a customs union in practice, it's just evasive about coming out and saying so. Maybe a ref on WA+CU-explicit versus WTO is what's needed, but let's be honest, they're never ever going to run that one.
Maybe a solid kicking in the May elections (EU and local) will concentrate minds a bit, but I'm not hopeful. I can easily see both main parties disintegrating soon, at which point we're really off to the races.
I said that May's deal (the WA) is dead because of the degree to which it has been rejected in Parliament. I said customs union as a possibility in terms of CU minus the non-CU parts of the WA, that is, something rather distinct from the WA. I said it remained as an option because I didn't know enough to rule it out.
Now, you could be right that either May (or her successor) would never be floated as an option. Or it could be that it is not possible to get an agreement on those parameters (CU minus the rest of the WA) with the EU. Both those could be perfectly valid reasons this would never fly. I was just trying to list the possibilities, and rule out the ones that looked to me like they were dead.
> I can easily see both main parties disintegrating soon
Parties can disintegrate when they aren't well aligned with what becomes the dominant issue of the day. This looks to me exactly like what's happening in the UK, especially with the Tories. But maybe new parties that actually correspond to positions on Brexit would be better than the incredible muddle that currently exists...
Very off topic, but the backstop is only meant to take effect if no other agreement can be made by the end of the transition period. If it does take effect, it's meant to be temporary until such time as a more permanent deal is agreed (although it's true it could last indefinitely if no such agreement is ever made).
Yes, but the EU has both the ability and every economic incentive to refuse any permanent agreement that doesn't give them at least the same level of UK lock-in. The "temporary" is a figleaf to try to sell the WA to domestic voters and MPs; I don't think anyone takes it seriously.
You're reading too much bad/biased reporting. Anyone who ever worked in international relations or trade knows that the worst case is uncertainty. It's neither in the UK's not in the EU's interest.
It's quite weird to see how much the news and information cycle in the UK is based on rumours and quotes of random MPs. Like, seriously, try to think for a second from the EU's perspective and it's just plain obvious how it's not in the EU's interest to keep the UK in an arrangement that it's uncomfortable with and that has no clear legal standing. Everything gets more costly and complex - think just of external trade negotiations, import taxes, quality standards and norms, etc which all fall into a place of uncertain "could change at any minute" state in such a situation.
The EU is not some weird evil creature.thstsboutnto get you. The EU is the set of countries that for decades have been your closest allies. No one is trying to rip you off. Except, it seems, for the Tories that prefer to divide the UK and insult all their allies over internal power struggles, rather than actually try and act in the country's interest.
> it's just plain obvious how it's not in the EU's interest to keep the UK in an arrangement that it's uncomfortable with
It's very much in the EU's economic interest to keep the UK as a captive market for their exporters. It's very much in the EU's financial interest to put the UK on the hook for any liabilities it cares to dream up. It's very much in the EU's institutional interest to inflict a humiliating defeat so as to dissuade other members from leaving. And I don't see that if the WA goes through there'd be much "uncertainty"; the UK would be screwed, no two ways about it, unless it throws Northern Ireland under the bus.
It'd be nice to imagine that broader, fluffier, more forward-thinking interests were being considered as well, but I haven't seen any sign of that so far.
I do think a lot of people in Europe and elsewhere are misinterpreting the anger in the UK at the moment. No, the EU isn't evil or malicious; it's acting perfectly rationally according to its interests as it sees them, and those interests make perfect sense in a realist view of IR. It found itself pushing on an open door with Theresa May and it'd be wholly unrealistic to expect it to stop pushing out of some weird sense of fair play. The anger is about the EU, but it's mostly not directed at the EU; it's directed at the UK political establishment.
The choice of words matters. Any type of self preservation by the EU is demonized as evil self interest.
positive wording -> negative wording
Keep 4 core principles of the single market as written in the "constitution"? -> EU is strong arming the UK and trying to punish it in negotiations and is not willing to even give small concessions.
UK is part of the EU until Brexit negotiations have been concluded -> EU has the upper hand in negotiations.
EU wants to avoid a hard border and the potential societal unrest at all costs with the backstop -> EU is trying to tie the UK into the customs union indefinitely with the backstop. / The EU is trying to impose a border between northern Ireland and the mainland.
I mean seriously what did you expect? Negotiating the constitution of a country or political union isn't realistic at all. It was never going to happen unless the other party wants to voluntarily self destruct itself. Do you think Russia could renegotiate the abolishment of human rights in the US to arrest political enemies abroad? Because that's just as silly.
Heck I've also read this gem recently (paraphrased):
Copyright directive passed with significantly more than 70% of the countries voting in favor -> The EU is threatening the sovereignty of member states by passing laws to countries that have voted against them.
The problem with the EU in this case isn't the democratic process. It's the fact that countries voted in favor of it at all.
I'm not sure who you're arguing with here, but I don't think it's me. The word "evil" only appears once in my comment, immediately preceded by the word "isn't".
Doesn't the backstop apply only to Northern Ireland, though? It's even why the DUP rejects the agreement — because different rules would apply to NY.
The EU is actually not that interested in keeping the backstop indefinitely because it sees the risk that NY will be used by UK companies as a backdoor to the single market.
IIUC, May insisted the backstop would be UK-wide, but not everyone seems to agree with that claim, including at least one DUP MP who thinks (or thought) it’s NI-only.
Simultaneously, many people seem to have a problem with it being UK-wide, and would be absolutely fine with it being NI-only.
Other people have a problem with both options, and yet seem to think it’s incapable of being a problem because everyone agrees a hard border would be a problem.
I really hope I’m accidentally straw-manning that last group, it would be really bad if my perception is correct.
It’s not about control, it’s just that they don’t have to extend anything beneficial to the UK at the EU’s expense. Basically the UK wants a divorce, and they’re pissed that they’re not getting what think they deserve. Whatever control issues exist are due to a treaty the UK freely entered into, and choices (like getting married) have predictable consequences. If you decide freely to marry me, then unilaterally decide to divorce me, you wouldn’t be shocked if the result was a compromise between what you wanted in terms of property and rights, and what I wanted right?
Of course the EU is going to push for every inch, and since they don’t even want Brexit that gives them a lot of power. That was (or should have been) obvious from the get-go.
Yes, it all should have been obvious. But the Brexiters campaigned for it on the promise that they would secure every benefit of EU membership without having to put up with the perceived downsides, and they did this quite vocally. So now much of the opposition to May's plan come from within her own party which does not want to be seen as having failed to deliver on promises that were never realistic to begin with.
Not at all. You're thinking in antagonistic terms. The EU wants the closest possible link and alliance - this is not furthered by forcing the other party in a position where they are unhappy. What the EU is concerned with is that the 27 other countries don't suffer excessively due to the UK's bad internal political process.
The EU wants legal certainty and had committed to protect the good Friday agreement. That's why there is a backstop. Talk to anyone in Ireland and they are convinced that violence will break out the moment the border is back up. That's why there is a backstop. Look at what UK politicians publicly say about how they will act - that's why it's enshrined in the withdrawal agreement - to make clear that the UK doesn't hold the rest of the EU hostage.
The UK, and any other member state, is allowed to leave the EU at any time. There is, however, nothing saying that a country leaving the EU get to keep the advantages of being a member state. Thus, the previous divorce analogy was spot on.
I have the impression that no-dealers generally believe that all EU membership benefits can be attributed to things other than the EU, or that they can force the EU to provide all important benefits post-Brexit regardless.
I mean, perhaps there’s someone who wants it so much they’re fine tearing up the residency and employment rights of 10% of the workforce while simultaneously messing up most import and export oriented businesses — tourist, service, industrial, and fishing/agriculture — and that having no further access to medical radioisotopes is a small price to pay for leaving Euratom, and who think it’s great (or at the very least ‘fine’) that the UK has already not only lost 10% of the value of the currency but also had a capital flight of approximately 20% of non-land assets…
But I think most of them hear stuff like that and say “project fear”.
So, are you one of the few people who thinks it’s entirely fine to seriously mess up an enormous part of the UK’s economy? You don’t think, for example, that such a concern is “just project fear, they need us more than we need them and will therefore give the UK a great deal”?
Theresa May is so tone-deaf she’s made 80-90% of voters think she’s on the opposite team to themselves, where half of the population think that means “Remainer” and half think it means “Leaver”.
Unfortunately, that 10-20% support for her deal means that literally no option has majority support.
No-deal and Remain both independently beat May’s deal in a direct competition.
If you put the question “do you want no deal?” to the population, almost all the supporters of May’d deal say “no”, but if you put the question “do you want to cancel Brexit and remain?” to the population, almost all the supporters of May’d deal say “no”.
If you make it a normal three-way referendum, I’ve seen Leavers complain that would split the vote.
If you make it a three-way vote with single-transferable-vote, you end up with a real-life version of Arrow’s impossibly Theorem, where voter preferences are non-transitive.
I don't think that's accurate. The vote was on Leave (with the specifics completely unspecified) vs. Remain.
Within those who favor Leave, no-deal may be what the majority want. That isn't the majority of the country, though. If you said that May's deal and no deal were the only two flavors of Leave available, then I think it would come down to 48% Remain (using the figure from the previous vote), at most 35% for no-deal, and at least 17% for May's deal. Even if the exact numbers are off, there's no way that no-deal has so much support among leavers that it has more total support than remain.
Worse, of those who support something like May's deal, some would prefer remaining to a no-deal exit. So it's unclear, if the only options on the table are specifically a no-deal exit and remaining, that a no-deal exit is what the people want.
The whole extradition process needs an overhaul. In that the jurisdiction should decide you are guilty before handing you over to some foreign power to be tried in their court system.
All but the first would be held by the ECtHR to be in violation of accused's human rights, therefore no signatory of the ECHR can extradite in any such case.
This is an idealistic world view. In reality many high profile cases are determined primarily by the political clout of the entities involved. When it comes to nations such as the US we are going to get what we want on issues that are deemed significant. The recent Huawei case had a particularly interesting illustration of this.
Under US instruction Canada arrested Meng Wanzhou, the daughter of the founder of Huawei and a high ranking executive of the company herself. Following this event John McCallum, Canada's ambassador to China, stated that Meng Wanzhou had a strong argument against extradition for reasons including political interference from Donald Trump, the extraterritorial nature of the charges and the fact that Canada is not party to American sanctions against Iran. For context one one of those points, Trump himself has publicly stated he'd be happy to "intervene" in the case in exchange for a favorable trade deal from China.
Following internal pressure John McCallum released a message stating, "I regret that my comments with respect to the legal proceedings of Ms Meng have created confusion. I misspoke. These comments do not accurately represent my position on the issue. As the government has consistently made clear, there has been no political involvement in this process.". He was then fired by Canada's prime minister Justin Trudeau.
This does not speak to whether the charges are legitimate or not, but rather that people involved in cases like this are often in positions of immense pressure that undermines the entire system. McCallum had a 20 year political career. It's likely that his firing has now come with an implicit political black listing as well, ending that career. Such can be the cost of honesty in such cases.
From [1, page 6, 25]: "Effective enforcement of Union law requires that protection is granted to the broadest possible range of categories of persons, who, irrespective of whether they are EU citizens or third-country nationals, by virtue of work-related activities (irrespective of the nature of these activities,whether they are paid or not), have privileged access to information about breaches that would be in the public’s interest to report and who may suffer retaliation if they report them."
So there's some form of protection for non-eu citizens, but I have no idea how far it goes or how the rules will be interpreted in those cases.
He’s not being charged for what he published, he’s being charged with conspiracy to “hack” as it were. If you’re asking whether something stops being a crime because you did it for virtuous reasons, obviously the answer is no from a legal perspective.
That is what I'm asking - Assange aside, surely this can apply to any number of whistle-blowing scenarios, and whistle-blowing laws should provide protections from law under certain circumstances?
Don't the ends justify the means, especially if far greater crimes are revealed as a result?
Whsitleblowers need protection from cooperations and nation states.