At the end of the second world war Europe was broke and divided and a plan was made to help both, by pooling coal and steel markets the countries could work together to be richer and at the same time make war socially impossible. 43 years ago the UK joined the EC and 41 years ago had a referendum to decide if it should stay in. The UK voted to stay in.
The 1975 Out campaign. Hard left politicians working with racist Tory Enoch Powel and showing a weird ignorance of the difference between the UK and England & Wales.
Since then the EC has become the EU and expanded to a single market which has largely removed borders for people to travel and work as well as companies to trade.
Now there is another referendum on whether the UK should stay in the EU. This time it’s the hard right of politics leading it. The Conservative (Tory) party in England wants to deal with its internal divisions as well as the anti-EU UKIP party by having a referendum. Nobody else sees the need and unlike the referendums for Scottish or Catalan independence there’s zero engagement from the public. I’ve seen not one poster in windows or on cars, there has been not one rally in the streets and it’s extremely hard to find even debates or talks to attend. There’s no campaign to join, the political parties who worked together in the anti-Scottish independence campaign all lost lots of the vote after it so now no party wants to work together and instead there’s a campaign fronted by Tories and run by Blairite Labour family member Will Straw who’s dad is responsible for kidnapping and mass surveillance.
Which I find extremely frustrating because this is important. With Scottish Independence the issue was taking a risk of change for a promise of a government that reflects the people who vote for it. Here the risk is destroying working with neighbouring countries with a replacement that literally nobody knows what it would be and it would be implemented by a government that doesn’t want to implement it (the UK government is split on the issue but the Prime Minister is a Remain campaigner).
The EU allows basic freedoms which I have no idea why anyone would want to give up. I can live and work in Stirling and I’d object to any government telling me I couldn’t but I can also live and work in Guadeloupe (politically if not geographically in Europe) or in Barcelona and I see zero reason why a government should say where I can go.
So I watched some debates and went to some meetings to try to understand why anyone would want to vote leave. Some of the main arguments:
It’s undemocratic – no it’s not and it’s extremely dishonest to claim it is. The problem is there’s zero media coverage of EU politics but that’s not the EU’s fault.
Judges make our laws – that’s very normal and called common law, a principle founded in England. The supreme court of the UK overrides the Scottish Government as much as the European Court of Justice.
It undermines the workers – very occasionally you hear the old left argument against the EU that it allows more competition for the workers. But this is basic economics, more competition improves the economy overall and everyone wins. The economically right wing politicians should be a big supporter of the EU it’s mystifying they are not.
Beware the immigrants! – this is the big one. The leave campaign is going all out with this message and it works. The idea that lines on a map should decide where we can and can’t go is incredible but tribal instincts are strong and potential leave voters all seem to be happy to dislike people from across those lines.
I was doing a political stall at the weekend and one person really did start his questions with “I’m not a racist but… when’s it going to stop all these refugees from Pakistan” which is incredible but people really do mix up an imaginary problem with real problems (refugees from Syria for example) with the unrelated EU referendum (which wouldn’t stop any refugees that are delt with under different treaties).
But look at what they did to Greece! Another popular line with left wing voters is the conditions for a Greek bail out and with right wing voters is the problems with the Euro. Certainly the Euro was badly managed by fudging the figures to allow in countries that didn’t meet the criteria. And certainly that’s been harsh on Greece, although nobody complained when their politicians were lying about their finances to allow them into the Euro and now 90% of people in Greece want to remain in the EU. But the UK leaving the EU will do nothing to solve that. (By the way it’s still my preferred option for an independent Scotland to join the Euro but only if the economic conditions are met rather than by fudging the figures.)
But you want an independent Scotland so you should want an independent UK I want an independent Scotland largely because we have the EU which means we can work with our neighbouring countries on common regulations and ignore the boring details of how you class bananas in shops. If the EU didn’t exist I might still be all for the UK but as it is the UK is a middle layer of government that serves no particular purpose, we have a larger union now.
But the banana laws make it illegal to sell bent bananas in bunches of four! One of the weirder lies from the Leave campaigners is the myth that the EU makes some bananas illegal. I find it insanely frustrating that the media don’t cover this as a straight lie and pretend it might be true. There were rules for the classification of fruit which were based on an British standards before them, they never prohibited anything and the rules were scrapped 7 years ago.
The EU will destroy our NHS with TTIP! TTIP being the trade agreement between the EU and the US which might make more government services put out to tender. Voters in the UK are weirdly attached to the health service (a good thing) forgetting the hundreds of other services the government runs, if TTIP is bad for the NHS why isn’t it bad for the Procurator Fiscal service? But the debate seems to be only about the precious NHS, which shows how limited it is possible to have a debate on the complex world of international tariffs. TTIP is being promoted by the governments of the EU and lead by the UK government. The democratic EU parliament is the best chance we have of scrutiny and probably scrapping it.
But but sovereignty! Along with immigration this is the main battle cry from the leave campaigns (they’re so fractured there’s multiple campaigns). Sovereignty is a weird mediaeval idea that was used to justify absolute power in a monarch over an arbitrary circle on a map. It’s a good thing we’ve mostly got past that idea and lines on a map don’t matter and power is shared between different places for checks and balances. English politics has a cognitive dissonance of believing England/Britain to be a great world power but not actually having much power since the Empire long since dissolved and somehow that gets blamed on the EU. Winston Churchill is often quoted with talk of fighting not to let Germans rule us, it’s straight xenophobia I find repugnant. And Winston Churchill was all for a United States of Europe.
But the polling is for 50% of people to vote to allow governments to once again be able to say where you can live. And that 50% is more motivated than the remain side so it’s quite likely we will not be in the EU in two weeks time. The polling in Scotland is for about 54% of people to vote remain and 32% for leave, that’s very different from England. Scotland is likely to be taken out of the EU against its political will (remember there’s no shared democracy in Scotland compared to England, Scotland voted for 53 of its 56 members of parliament to be from the Scotland only SNP). This may be a good excuse for another Scottish independence referendum at which point who knows what will happen. Scotland could be the continuing member of the EU? Or maybe the public will get bored of referendums and not bother to vote.
So I’m voting remain. Voting remain to work with common standards that allow free movement and trade without the lowest common denominator problem of say NAFTA. Voting remain to be able to go and live wherever I want to. Voting remain to not have England dominate Scotland politically. Voting remain to remove arbitrary lines on a map. Voting remain for a layer of government that investigates tax avoidance to stop it turning into tax evasion. Voting remain for a control on bankers bonuses that destroyed the economy. Voting remain for workers rights and paid holiday. Voting remain on pollution controls which don’t care about lines on a map. Voting remain to work with my friends and colleagues in the rest of the continent because a person in London is no more foreign than a person in Barcelona or Brno.
I strongly advocate for British, Irish or Commonwealth citizens living in the UK to vote similarly.
I would’ve loved if this post was not on PlanetKDE.
It’s a vitally important topic and the post complies with the policy “Blog posts about personal subjects are also encouraged since Planet KDE is a chance to learn more about the developers behind KDE.”
The post is just a political propaganda. Especially if I think it’s a bunch of lies and labels like “Sovereignty is a weird mediaeval idea “.
Hi, I’m with you. Sometimes I feel like people live into Matrix. Anyway I appreciate that Jonathan shared his thought on Planet KDE. This is a chance for me to understand what people really think about EU and neo-liberism.
You’ve deliberately cropped one line out of a completely different paragraph.
The topic of which is literally
===Blogs should be KDE themed===
The majority of content in your blog should be about KDE and your work on KDE. Blog posts about personal subjects are also encouraged since Planet KDE is a chance to learn more about the developers behind KDE. However blog feeds should not be entirely personal, if in doubt set up a tag for Planet KDE and subscribe the feed from that tag so you can control what gets posted.
So that’s multiple sentences saying not to do it, and one sentence loosely saying it’s OK.
Please don’t push your political agenda on others.
I did write that paragraph. By a long way the feed I put on Planet KDE is KDE themed but when there’s a wider topic I feel passionate about and which affects and interests the Planet KDE readers I’ll add that too. This is the intention of the policy to create a community where people know about the characteristics of those we work and have fun with.
You wrote it? So you’re citing your own rules as a defence of leveraging KDE’s platform.
That makes no sense.
Makes sense to me
Guys,
this is not the right forum to complain about the type of blog posts on KDE. There are better forums for it where the community can reach the consensus. Please bring it up on community@kde.org if it is a real issue for you and you cannot just skip it.
However, I was told a while ago when seeing religious posts that they were ok because they gave more information about the people behind KDE.
I disagree. First, Jonathan is not publically criticizing one single person. And second, the decision to leave the EU will most certainly restricts the rights of their citizens and adds barriers between countries. And since “freedom” is also _our_ (KDE’s) central foundation, this topic very well deserves to be on the planet.
As EU limits freedom, leaving the EU increases freedom of UK citizens. Hence propagating EU propaganda restricts freedom which does not belong on planetkde. See, one can spin it any way.
How does the EU limit freedom?
It’s not propaganda as I’m a humble blogger not a government PR machine.
I don’t know in UK, but in Italy we can’t decide about anything that is important. Decisions made on EU are stronger that decisions by Italian Parliament. If we vote for a decision different from the EU laws, it can’t be applied. We have to respect economic parameters and can’t spend the money the real economy needs to work. We can’t make our money, we have to ask it on loan and have to give it back with interests. We depend on international corporations and their investments. With TTIP we won’t be able to make a law for our citizens and/or workers because the corporations can pretend by countries the money the lost because of that law, and it’s a big amount of money.
I really don’t know if UK will have the government to fight neo-liberism. But for sure we will have it in Italy, that’s why Italy will leave EU and Euro in the next years, hoping all the other countries in the world will do the same fighting the neo-liberism and collaborate each others.
Anyway well done in publishing your post on Planet KDE, while I have different opinions, I appreciated that.
reading your comments makes me think of the way i feel feel when UKip speak, i..e dropped head first into a field of incontinent bullocks
> the decision to leave the EU will most certainly restricts the rights of their citizens and adds barriers between countries.
Why? EU isn’t the only way for countries to collaborate. Also, the evidence for me is that EU is promoting competition between countries instead of collaboration.
Why?
Glad to see someone else agree that the main ‘democracy’ problem with the EU is with the lack of reporting in the media, not the Parliament itself.
Glad to see common sense voiced. its about time we punished politicians who deliberately lie after being corrected with facts.
* Problem with EU is that it’s utterly incompetent. UK is one of the few states which lowers taxes for the middle class. EU itself advises most countries to raise taxes.
* I regularly watch videos from the EU parliament. It’s hard to have an informed discussion there. Emotions,, slogans .. facts? no
* Democracy? The EU leadership is not elected through a democratic method.
Also, I don’t wanna read about it on planetkde. Go away.
The Council is the democratically elected governments. The parliament is the democratically elected members. The Commission is the appointed ambassadors by the democratic governments (similar to WTO, NATO, UN whatever have).
Don’t read it if you don’t want to.
lowers taxes for the richest, you mean. its got to a point where the ignorant blame the EU for the incompetence of the government
Tax free allowance increases every year. 11k GBP a year is not for the rich. It was 8k 2 or 3 years ago. This is a real improvement for majority of people.
whats aboot neon release? qt 5.6.1 is already out
That feels like a different topic 🙂
Qt 5.6.1 is only in preview still
Hi,
Nicely argumented 😉
But I still disagree; the main point being :
Sovereignity : Sovereignity, per the macmillandictionary is “the right of a country to rule itself” . And that is IMO the main issue at hand. The closer the center of power is to home, the more I feel I can do about it.
I’d like to take your argument of “lines on a map” ad absurdum : would you also delete fences and doors?
PS : if my optinion on this counts; I also don’t think this belongs on planetkde, however important the topic is.
What’s a country? It’s a line on the map which is largely arbitrary. Scotland can’t rule itself, we elected 53 members of parliament who are just ignored by the Conservative government in Westminster. How would you prefer to work with neighbouring countries? Or would you prefer not to? Without lines on the map there’s no need for fences and doors, whatever they are in your metaphor.
Rather than pushing everybody to a totalitarian regime (EU) because it doesn’t have sovereignty, Scotland should fight for its own freedom. Working with all countries and free trade is superb and it’s what EU originally was. Today we see it transforming into uber-country ruled by questionable socialist ideology. One step at a time…
Hi, italian guy here. Maybe I’m a minority but I hope that ‘leave’ wins, simply because I don’t like that a country not fully participant to the EU like Germany, France, Spain, Italy and so on pretend to have voice on EU legislation.
All these countries are fully participant. They won’t get their way all the time because else it would be a dictatorship. But I don’t want the UK government to gets its way all the time, the country I live in didn’t vote for that government.
Rather than having a vote in your future, better to control it. After all, freedom is ability to decide about yourself. EU != freedom. Even US states have more to say than EU countries.
why do some people always think they are better than people from other nations, the level of ignorance, arrogance and xenophobia is astounding. The UK has a government that only represents 30% of the country, just how democratic is that where a minority rules a majority ?
Another Italian guy here: I perfectly agree. All in or all out.
You Italians do seem quite interested in this. Naturally I’m all for the Sardinian independence campaign as long as they remain in the EU 🙂
I think this sentiment is not just popular in Italy 🙂
I also wish countries would either commit to being a contributing member or not being a member instead of sabotaging the work of those who’d like to move forward.
I’m Italian too, can I suggest this video (in Italian)? It’s by two founders of Alternativa per l’Italia, I think it could be interesting for you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGcCYoVTsbA
I’m Italian too, can I suggest this video (in Italian)? It’s by two founders of Alternativa per l’Italia, I think it could be interesting for you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGcCYoVTsbA
Don’t use Planet-KDE for your political Propaganda!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Do it on your own blog!
KDE has to care for good free Software not political Opinions!
You hurting KDE with such things!
This is my own blog.
It’s not propaganda, I’m a blogger not a government PR machine.
KDE cares about freedom, this affects freedom a lot.
KDE seems remarkably unharmed by me using Planet KDE in line with KDE policy which I wrote.
(Sarcasm on) Please write a blog Entry on PlanetKDE about the Syrian war, Ukraine conflict and the pollution of our oceans. (Sarcasm off)
This affects freedom so much more!
In my opinion it’s only selfish what you are doing. Because all you do is using the name of KDE for your political agenda.
KDE is for me about the freedom of Software, knowledge, connecting people. If you have a beer with someone, talk politics how much you want. On your blog talk politics or whatsoever how much you want!
But leave KDE out of this.
I have no say on influence on the Syrian or Ukranian wars. Here I do.
I don’t think it’s selfish to vote in a referendum, I think it’s ignorant not to.
And I have no doubt that Jonathan did his posting in a good intention! But too often the opposite of good is good intentions!
+1
Free Software is a political movement.
I mean do it only on your own blog!
Well said. I can’t imagine why one would want to leave it, either. Here (Lithuania) the EU is the single thing that keeps the environment at an acceptably healthy level, through initiatives like NATURA 2000, energy efficiency improvement requirements, carbon stock trading, recycling level requirements, subsidies for renewable energy sources etc. etc. And that’s just a single aspect of it. Also, the funding it gives to properly-managed projects is amazing, we wouldn’t be able to catch up with the rest of the world if not for the EU. Same for research projects. So indeed, to me it seems that euroskeptics are those who are simply not informed enough about the myriad of benefits that it brings.
That said, the UK has always been the loose screw within EU. No Euro, no Schengen area, slow Bologna process… It looks like quite a few exceptions have been made for it within the EU that have not been made to other countries, and that’s rather annoying since it impedes the progress on harmonisation.
Exactly!
I discovered recently that immigration controls in the UK were first instituted because of political debate about too many Jews coming to the UK. Says it all really!
(Will be voting Remain on the day.)
Nicely written JR. I completely agree. I’ll be voting to remain also.
Hi,
the EU is democratic? Yeah right take look at how TTIP is being handled a law made by corporations and everthing decided in secret very democratic right? And then a parliament which can not propose a legislation because the commission has to do it which is elected by no one. Great democracy…
Regarding the Euro which is an actual problem since it killed the economy of every southern euro nation. Just take a look at Italy, Spain, Portugal and Greece none of them will really recover. Greece is now in a crisis for over 5 years. Now finland has lost its AAA rating and here in Germany things are getting worse and worse. Nearly none of the current Euro countries could today fulfill the requirements for joining the Euro, in 2011 only Finnland, Estonia und Luxembourg still fulfilled them.
You just have to take a look at the current national debt of the Euro countries to see that all of them are in a horrible economic state and pretty much dead.
btw you can spin this however you want this literally has nothing to do with KDE.
As I said, the commission is appointed by democratic governments who are directing it to make TTIP, this is what happens in any international forum.
The UK isn’t in the Eurozone so that’s irrelevant to the referendum.
It affects KDE a lot.
Nice of you to ignore the fact that TTIP is being written in secret and nobody is allowed to reveal its content to the public makes the hole thing so democratic and its content trustable especially after reading all the horror stories about the leaked parts…
You are the one who wrote about the Euro if you don’t now what you are talking about then don’t start it yourself…
Nope it doesn’t effect KDE in any way and the fact that you insist on this is without giving even one example is quite insane. In what strange world do you live? KDE being affected whether one country is in the EU or not? Unbelievable.
TTIP being written in secret is what happens with any international agreement, that’s not a good thing but it wouldn’t be any different if the UK’s civil servants in London were running it rather than the UK’s commissioner at the EU.
I ran a KDE conference in Scotland and had lots of visa issues, that would be worse if the UK was not in the EU.
Please keep your propaganda out of the feed. People do not care about your political stance. It’s unnecessary and pointless.
I would say the same if your stance was on Leaving EU. Does not matter. Politics are a mechanism to keep freedom in check. Anyone who condones global politics within Software Circles surely should have their opinion and have every right to voice it, however they should not be given tools to massively advertise their own views, whether that view is harmful or quite harmless like yours. – This kind of behaviour ended up with Code of Conduct madness which scam artists are making money out of people’s feelings in *cough* some *cough* mediums.
It should not b allowed in any means and we should take our responsibilities.
I love your blog, I love your posts. But please be a bit more mindful. Remove Planet KDE and Planet Ubuntu out of your post. You have every damn right to have every kind of opinion piece within your blog. Your post is fine, just remove the tags.
Thank you.
Politics is important and necessary, else you end up with dictatorship. There is nothing in anyone’s code of conduct against it, quite the opposite.
Politics creates dictatorships, its absence has no effect whatsoever. Politics in software circles are nothing but headaches, though I myself have been into politics since I was a kid; but there is no absolute good out of using a platform to justify your opinions. You have absolutely no saying in which choice is good and which choice is bad, otherwise you would be the one who endorses authoritarian narrative. You using Planet KDE to spread your word about voting remain is absolutely the same pointless effort of using Planet KDE to spread vote leave. There is no difference and it is propaganda. – If you didn’t tag your post, it would be fine, people who agreed and disagreed with you would just voice their minds and this conversation would never happened.
Again, it’s good to have a discussion about this. But as you can clearly see from your approved and awaiting comments, this kind of behaviour leads to the judging the ethical background of your actions.
So, your argument is invalid not because you have an opinion; but because you used a public and a specialized platform to mass distribute your opinion. Your, or my, opinion has nothing to do with Planet KDE and this can not possibly be justified in a heated discussion, not to mention nobody would agree with each other on common grounds anyway.
So please, I beg of you, do not do this again.
Regards.
Don’t think I have much more to add to this. Planet KDE exists to show the people in KDE, their work and their interests. This is a massive issue which will affect every person in KDE so it’s important to be able to share it.
What’s wrong with dictatorship? With a right dictator it can be one heck of a lot better than totalitarian balls and chains of democracy.
Heck, we have lots of FOSS projects headed by Benevolent Dictators For Life, and these are on average more long-lasting and well-directed than communally directed projects which, when they grow beyond a certain size, quickly get mired in (often very spiteful) internal politicking that saps energy from actual coding. Politicking that can be nipped in the bud by firm leadership of a competent dictator who cares deeply about his project precisely because it is his project.
I don’t see why a country could not be ruled by a BDFL (with emphasis on the “B”) and reap the same benefits.
Although I appreciate what Jonathan did for Kubuntu and does for Neon and KDE I don’t support politics on Planet KDE.
When I want to read about politics I go to politics or news sites.
We are a community of KDE users from all over the world. We have different opinions on many social and political topics. What makes us a community is one topic we agree on: we love KDE and want to make it better. There are appropriate channels to discuss politics on the Internet and write about it.
If this is private blog of Johnathan he can write what he wants but politics should not go into planet KDE. The fact that admin share Johnathan’s point of view should not affect his decisions about what can go to the multinational, diverse KDE community. What unites users is KDE not political points of view.
KDE is a community of many people, it’s interesting to find out what their values are in life, that’s why Planet KDE exists
Hi Jon,
please be careful with posting images of filled out ballots. At least in Germany, this is illegal AFAIK. At least members of the Pirate Party were warned about this, since they would also prominently display their ballots. I think the reason is that someone could be bribing you to vote in their way, but your vote should be your own business, without anybody being able to check on it.
Mike
There’s nothing illegal about it in the UK
Regardless of whether I think pushing political agendas on PlanetKDE is a good idea (and FWIW I really strongly don’t):
Posting a photo of a completed ballot is illegal.
The reason is that if it wasn’t, you could coerce someone to voting a particular way and tell them to take a photo to prove it. Voting has to be secret.
How do you stop that happening? By making it illegal to take a photo of a ballot.
And as a result you make it easier to tamper with vote counting, since voters can’t prove their votes when they disappear from the results.
Banning ballot photos to prevent vote selling is ridiculous, since buying and selling votes is already illegal. You think anybody willing to break the latter law would give a damn about breaking the former? We’re in the 21st century, photographing equipment is not big and conspicuous anymore. Good luck catching the “offenders” (unless they’re so stupid to show their photos publicly).
From MacMillan dictionary: Sovereignty – the right of a country to rule itself.
So, sovereignty is not about power. Of course people give power to government to exercise authority but first of all it is about freedom and not being conquered by other countries. Borders are not just lines on the map. They are to tell that this is my private area that I own and I decide how I want to live. The same as about your house.
EU wants to impose on its countries socialist utopia:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N14U5ZE-N2w
There were many attempts in history and always ended up in millions of death. I am afraid this will happen again. They want to mix cultures because it is easier to rule and control when all people are the same.
Every cultural or economic cooperation should be based on free choice not on imposing on others by rules or threats.
Migration is made by design. It is not just spontaneous Syrian refugees. Read about George Soros. Read about Hilary’s emails and how US and France designed war in Syria.
Yes, people should cooperate but EU is far from initial principles. Now it is all about Germany telling others how they should live while they cover rapes.
You may want to invite guest but you would not be happy if someone broke in uninvited and wanted you to pay for their living. As far as I am concerned I just can’t afford it.
EU was created by US as a way to control Europe and US military and economic influence
Mutual Security Act U.S. Government Publishing Office (page 373):
https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/STATUTE-65/pdf/STATUTE-65-Pg373.pdf
Also search 21 mai 1949 RFN der Geheime Staatsvertrag
So, please when you start a topic like this read more about it first. Also read about Federal Reserve, bank system, domination of petrol-dollar. I don’t know if it is good for particular interests of Great Britain to stay or to leave EU but the topic is far more complicated.
A private are defined by lines on a map, if you move the lines suddenly you are sharing that area with different people. I don’t want my area to be private to the people who happen to be on one side of a line and not to the people on the other, that’s arbitrary and harms society for all.
I stopped reading here, it gets very conspiracy theory.
Saying conspiracy doesn’t make real conspiracy by governments and politicians and wealthy people to disappear. If you want to ignore reality you can. Learn some history and you will learn that conspiracy is always present. Do you remember ACTA or TTIP. Why they were made in secrecy so that public can’t oppose it? Is it conspiracy theory or conspiracy reality?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqEdOUfj9dI
You don’t want to make borders until you get raped or killed or the same happens to your family. People on the other side on the line may not be your friends. They may want to kill you or just get economic advantage over you. Politics is about power and control and your ideals are not important at all. People with money and power don’t give a damn about ideals. They want more money and more power.
That’s why I don’t want to politics on planet KDE. You are IT expert but you have little understanding of history and politics. No offense intended.
But thank you for KDE Neon. This is the area were your ideals can be made reality. The whole wisdom is to differentiate between the one that can be put in practice and the one that can’t.
Best regards.
All trade deals are negotiated in secret, whether it’s TTIP or the one with Maldova the EU made last year but which nobody cares about or any of the dozens made at the WTO. It’s not a good system but it’s nothing that would change by leaving the EU.
Thank you for posting this!
I was really surprised to read that this isn’t a widely campainged thing in the UK.
Part of the problem, not just in the UK but also in other member countries, is that lots of people don’t make use of the advantages nor even plan on doing so, e.g. working abroad.
For us as KDE contributors this is way more important, as it allows us, or would allow us if we chose to, to increase our contribution by seeking work that directly or indirectly is contribution on itself.
One of the sad things is that part of me wishes the leave side to win, as the negative impact of such self imposed isolationism would then become referenceable.
Currently similar considerations in other member countries can naively claim that no bad things would happen.
Obviously I am hoping for the remain option to win, as this is the one I would be voting for if it ever comes to it here in Austria.
I don’t like this type of EU and if I am British citizen I vote to go out of EU… however if you stay in EU, you have to pay the same as others (link below).
in italian: http://www.truenumbers.it/brexit-conseguenze/
in english (google translated): https://translate.google.it/translate?sl=it&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=it&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.truenumbers.it%2Fbrexit-conseguenze%2F&edit-text=
Your post is not really political, it is a citizen’s opinion about current affairs involving us all – including political affairs. It would be political if you are planning to be involved in politics somehow (and I do not mean voting).
I am also involved in open source and recently decided to post an article on my blog about Organ Harvesting from live people in China lead by communist party officials: https://www.polydraw.com/urgent-call
I really do not have any interest in politics by itself, but human rights and basic rights are quite important. If you feel that your rights are abused and you are pointing out political issues, this is not politics – it is your right to voice your opinion.
Hi Jonathan
I respect you a great deal, and I admire your blog post on this matter. It is clear that you have considered your thoughts on this matter in detail.
However, I feel that unfortunately your decision has been made without having full site of all of the facts.
Alex L posts quite correctly that his political representatives in Italy are effectively neutralised, as EU law has primacy over that of the member state, and he is correct.
The Treaties are the only source of truth, as they represent the agreements and accords in law. I have been deeply interested in the facts of this situation for many years, and made a Film on the matter with a good friend of mine who is also an MEP, and an ex Inspector with the Metropolitan Police, a very upstanding individual.
https://youtu.be/uyBr9RNx4k0
What is at stake is a supranational EU state, one in which you’ve vote will count for nothing.
My vote in the UK government counts for nothing, the elected representatives get overruled by English politicians on a daily basis. English politicians can vote on and stop any changes from Scottish politicians in the Scotland Act but now Scottish politicians are restricted from voting on “English” laws which affect the Scottish budget and more. I’d give my vote to the EU any day (and have, because y’know, it’s democratic).