Japan not best pleased by Brexit

kuuderes_shadow said:
I haven't read the FT since late last year but unless it has changed its tune radically since then it is nothing like you are presenting it. It's position was very much "Brexit is economically a bad thing therefore we will take an editorial position that is opposed to it", rather than the "we hate Brexit therefore we must try to come up with stories that portray it in a bad light even if we have to write misleadingly in order to do so" that you are portraying it as. It's not some mirror image of the Daily Express.

And holding a particular position in an argument doesn't inherently make the claims a source does make any less valid.
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As someone else pointed out you should take reports from FT and there right wing counterparts with a pinch of salt, because like it or not they are bias and that does make there claims less reliable/valid.
 
kuuderes_shadow said:
"Urging a faster deal" (yes, I know this is the BBC's wording, not yours) is also a potentially misleading representation of the contents of the letter. What they are calling for is an end to uncertainty, which would be helped by things being agreed on faster. "Urging a faster deal" makes it sound a bit like they're pushing for Brexit to happen faster, or that they are pushing for things to be resolved ASAP no matter the costs, neither of which is the
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Uncertainty caused by how slow the negotiations are going( Caused by the EU's ridiculous divorce bill) so using wording like Urging a faster deal seems appropriate.
 
kuuderes_shadow said:
And the one thing it actively labels a "risk" is the prospect of "no deal". And who are the only ones who have made statements indicating that "no deal" could be something they might actually aim for? Theresa May and a handful of Brexit hardliners.
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If that was true then why are the government proposing more frequent meetings.
 
Watanabe Ken said:
As someone else pointed out you should take reports from FT and there right wing counterparts with a pinch of salt, because like it or not they are bias and that does make there claims less reliable/valid.
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The Telegraph (a paper I haven't read in even longer than the FT, incidentally) is probably the closest to a "right wing counterpart" to the FT from my experience. Not something like the Daily Mail.
And yes, you need to bear in mind any news source's position on an issue when reading an article. That applies to any organisation. Even with the BBC you should bear in mind their position - in this case to try to present arguments from different positions roughly in line with the amount of support that position gets, with no regards to how credible or well founded their position is.
But no, holding a position does not make someone's claims less valid or reliable. A fact isn't any less a fact because it comes from a source that strongly supports a position which is also supported by that fact rather than a more neutral source. Likewise a false claim is no less nonsense when it is put forward by someone who doesn't have a particular position on the issue in question than when it comes from someone who does.

A far better measure of how reliable a source is is to think about the relative priorities it gives to facts versus emotional appeal or sensationalism. The more priority it gives to the facts, regardless of how strong its editorial stance may be, the more reliable it is as a source. A strong editorial stance may mean a source places less prominence or even doesn't report a story which goes against that stance, but it doesn't make the stories they do report any less (or more) reliable.

Watanabe Ken said:
I don't where you got this notion from ( the financial Times perhaps) the evidence clearly shows that it's the EU who are under prepared.
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What evidence? It is the UK government that keeps arguing with itself and contradicting itself over what it actually wants* and thus doesn't have a fixed negotiation position - the EU on the other hand has been relatively consistent (arguably too much so) on where its priorities lie. It's the UK that stalled and stalled over starting the whole thing in the first place.

*Take the whole payments on leaving things - the EU made a demand it was always going to make, and put forth a figure that was fully calculated. If the UK was prepared it would have put forward a counter proposal, and these would then be used as a starting point for negotiation.
The actual UK government reaction? First to act with shock that this was even being proposed, then insisting the very idea was outrageous and there was no way we would pay a thing, then finally coming down to the position that should have been held from the start which is "yes we'll pay but not a penny more than we're obliged to". However, several months down the line and the UK government has yet to come up with any actual proposal as to what it thinks we're obliged to pay, which is necessary to even start the negotiations on the issue. Several months of obfuscation due to the UK's unpreparedness for something that was always going to come up, and always going to be one of the key issues of any negotiations.

Watanabe Ken said:
Uncertainty caused by how slow the negotiations are going
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Yes.

Watanabe Ken said:
( Caused by the EU's ridiculous divorce bill)
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Your assertation there directly contradicts the contents of the letter, which specifically blames both sides.

Watanabe Ken said:
so using wording like Urging a faster deal seems appropriate.
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I already explained how it was open for misinterpretation, and thus inappropriate. Something like "Urging faster progress on a deal" would have been far better wording.

Watanabe Ken said:
If that was true then why are the government proposing more frequent meetings.
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Either I'm missing something here or that's a complete non-sequitur.
 
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I take everything I read with a pinch of salt no matter who publishes it. In the case of the FT it's there content not there position that I base my accusation of them not being a valid source.

Legally the UK doesn't owe the EU a penny, The EU knows this that's why they use the term Moral obligation because legally they don't have a leg to stand on. Imagine if Poland left the EU and demanded a divorce settlement to pay for things they would receive as net benefiters of the EU budget.
 
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Watanabe Ken said:
Legally the UK doesn't owe the EU a penny
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The UK has made commitments to contributions towards various EU projects up to 2020. There's also things like the pension scheme, which we're also committed to (and there are plenty of British citizens who are on this pension scheme as well).

Claims that the UK doesn't have to pay anything are true only in the same sense that a country could choose to default on its debts if it wanted to - which in a sense is exactly what refusing to pay a thing would be doing. Refusing to pay what you've already committed to is tantamount to suicide in terms of our negotiation strength for literally everything else.

Of course, not everything the EU is asking for payment for is clear cut, and there may also be things (eg the UK's share of assets) that can be used to counterbalance what we owe, which is where the negotiating comes in, along with various ways of calculating what our outstanding commitments in various areas actually are.

Added to that there's also payments that we could make to get rid of certain contingent liabilities that we have committed to - in other words a single up front payment to prevent us from potentially being liable for much larger sums further down the line. We're not obligated to make this up front payment, but it may be in our best interest anyway.

The EU set out its initial estimate figure in November 2016, and presented a methodology which could be used for calculating an exact figure in July. The UK government has yet to do either of these things. I repeat from before - it isn't the EU dragging its feet on this issue.

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As an aside, you've got me curious now. Can you give examples as to what contents the FT has published in order to make you think them an unreliable source?
 
What the notorious Article 50 says in its second paragraph is that the divorce will take account of the framework for the future relationship with the union. “So what actually Article 50 itself concedes is that you can’t do the divorce bill first and then the future relationship. “You are entitled to do both at the same time.

As for the FT I don't currently subscribe to them, so I don't have access to there site and bias articles.
 
Neil.T said:
You'd think there were no other factors at work in steering people's choices.
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It does seem like the economy has become the main focus of the debate now from both sides, with the remain camp prophesying doom and the leave camp promising a rosy future. I certainly agree Neil that people's reasons for voting the way they did were much more complex than that and such debate is not likely to change people's minds - By focusing so heavily on the economy it's becoming a battle of fear over the future vs. hope for the future and whatever you happen to believe, hopefulness always sounds more confident and promising.

People want to hear how things can be better, not how things will stay the same or get worse and really, until we actually get some substance of what any deal is going to contain the leave camp is going to have the edge there. That's what Boris's article in the Telegraph was all about (whatever you think of him and whether you believe him or not), hopefulness and positivity. And like it or not, that's always a winning attitude.
 
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Neil.T said:
Believe it or not, I think Code Geass's Lelouch Lamperouge said it better than anyone:

"My father sought the past, my brother sought the present, but what the people seek is the future."​
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Very appropriate. I think while some people who voted for Brexit hope it will take us back to the past and some who voted against it fear that it will, history shows us that just doesn't happen and what most people on both sides want is not Brexit or the EU, it's just a better future. Things will always keep changing, the future will always be a different place to the present and the past. Nobody really knows what it holds, not the confident brexiteers nor the fearful remainers. Change happens and the world re-orders itself around it. That's why as someone who voted remain I'm still not particularly fearful of Brexit, just like I'm not particularly fearful of automation taking everyone's jobs or Korean War redux. I might not want these things to happen, but if and when they do happen, we'll adjust to deal with it. Humanity's ability to adapt and endure is stronger than just about anything.
 
I don't know, I think having pride in Britain, or any other nation, is totally fine. I'm certainly not one of these people who think that anything less than denouncing your home country to be a total shithole is flagrant jingoism. That actually reminds me of this anecdote: I met an English girl who told me that Japan is basically a shithole because Japanese people all think Japan is great, but England is apparently great because, according to her, all English people will merrily agree that England is a shithole. I don't think I need to point the irony out there. But I could only express incredulity at her statement, as she had lived in Japan for a couple years and was ethnically Japanese herself, while I've only flapped through a few dusty (but great) library books about the country. It got really awkward when she turned around to a Japanese girl sitting next to her (who didn't know us) and said something like "Japan ichiban? Japan ichiban?" to which the Japanese girl replied "yeah". haha.

But I don't know about swathing myself in the Union Jack and all that, I don't see that as much of a solution to anything. I do think that part of what seems to make that Rees-Mogg twat a popular politician right now is that he is literally a Dickensian caricature of an English toff, and people seem like that, strangely enough. But I'm not sure we'll be so amused when he turns Britain into the Dickensian nightmare of his dreams!
 
Vashdaman said:
I do think that part of what seems to make that Rees-Mogg twat a popular politician right now is that he is literally a Dickensian caricature of an English toff, and people seem like that, strangely enough. But I'm not sure we'll be so amused when he turns Britain into the Dickensian nightmare of his dreams!
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He's Popular because he's honest, some would say too honest after that GMB interview, but good for him for not pandering to the intolerant left and sticking to his beliefs.
 
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Is he actually popular, or is the media just a bit overly obsessed with him like they got a bit obsessed with Nigel Farage? Personally I think he's the new flavour of the month for the right-wing tabloids to try and push the electorate to the right.

See traditionalist toff totty Jacob Rees-Mogg (48 - but looks much older!) get his big opinions out on Page 3 - Phwoar, they don't make opinions like that any more! Or accents!
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You know when it was like the Tories' wildest dreams Corbyn being elected leader because they thought they'd slaughter Labour at the ballot box? Boot's kind of on the other foot now, isn't it? I mean kudos to him for being honest and sticking by his beliefs, I wouldn't ever suggest anyone do otherwise, but I'm not sure they're anyone else's beliefs any more.
 
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