Partly because it's small and technical and boring, partly because people don't really understand it.

.

It's not that small though is it? How many votes have been made worthless through that process?

Nor is it that hard to understand.

It is just bewildering to me to see how many people accept the loss of their vote without speaking up.

Some sort of PR coalition based system seems best to me. Minority groups need to be paid attention to, but need not to be given free rein.

I'd prefer a paralysed PR coalition that can't get much done to the UK's current situation by a long chalk.

Ok stop the presses!!

Boris Johnson is now foreign secretary? SRSLY?

Ok, nice one Britain! Nice joke. Who gets internal affairs? John Cleese?

Wait, you guys are serious?

Or maybe they went: "Hey Boris, you got us into this mess, you go explain it to the EU from now on."

Or maybe they went: "Hey Boris, you got us into this mess, you go explain it to the EU from now on."

I believe they are anticipating Trump getting elected here and wanted a foreign minister with an equally silly hairdo.

Better than what Hollande's got, at 10.000 euro a month.

Or maybe they went: "Hey Boris, you got us into this mess, you go explain it to the EU from now on."

David Davis has the Brexit brief, I feel doubtful that BoJo will retain the job long enough to outlast the Brexit negotiations at this stage.

Or maybe they went: "Hey Boris, you got us into this mess, you go explain it to the EU from now on."

I believe they are anticipating Trump getting elected here and wanted a foreign minister with an equally silly hairdo.

That's downright scary...

Or maybe they went: "Hey Boris, you got us into this mess, you go explain it to the EU from now on."

I believe they are anticipating Trump getting elected here and wanted a foreign minister with an equally silly hairdo.

That's downright scary...

Oh, you want to talk scary while throwing in an image of the Simpsons?

Boom. Minds blown.

In a move that surprised nobody, the new buffoons in power in the UK have virtually ended carbon emissions and climate adaptation planning.

http://grist.org/politics/britains-new-leader-just-replaced-the-climate-department-with-a-business-department/?utm_content=buffer7de67&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer

Well duh. We have a government full of climate change deniers and we're about to part ways with all the EU climate change rules.

Or so they must be thinking, anyway. Of course, it's likely that any trade negotiations with the EU will result in us having to follow their rules with no control over them, so nice job on ARE SOVRENTY there, Leave folks.

Instead you get your job moved to Amsterdam though?

I'm disappointed by everyone calling for the EU's destruction. It may not be what it was, but the EU was founded as a force for peace after the most damaging war in human history.

My grandmother was an au pair in Germany up until 1938, for a Jewish family. She got out before the war, but the whole family was annihilated at Auschwitz. She couldn't ever talk to another German person again in her life.

But she voted to join the EU and supported its aims fully for the rest of her life, because she had seen what happens when Europe is not peaceful, and didn't want that to happen to her children or her grandchildren or her great grandchildren.

Sadly, her first great grandchild will probably grow up without it.

And we won't have any hope of bringing it back to what it should have been if we take our toys and sail off into the sunset - or is that a giant tyre fire, who knows?

Close by Amsterdam, but even if everything moved to Frankfurt it would make no sense to move us there. Right now we've duplicate departments, one in NL and one in London, if London falls away, it'll just be us.

I'm not convinced it is the EU as it currently is, that we need to keep peace, nor that its dissolution would lead to war (talk about fear mongering, it isn't just the leave camp that used scare tactics).

The EU expanded way too quickly for my taste, adding loads of countries that were economically not up to standards, nor socially. And that just to add more markets for the larger economies, mostly Germany, or more political prestige and power. Add to that the dictatorial attitude, the disparity (France and Germany having deficits higher than allowed other countries and reglations), the too nationalistic attitudes of several countries.

No, the EU either goes too far, or not far enough, it should dial down or turn into a united states of Europe. The latter will not happen, the cultural differences are too large, too old, too deep.

I know, old post, etc … and not the only own making that point. I just pick this one.

The EU indeed expanded very quickly to the east, absorbed most of eastern europe, pissed of russia, might indeed took more than just a healthy bite on that front, etc … still manageable, but causing unnecessary stress. And you know who was pushing hard for that? The ******* UK. The UK governments of the past decades had one big agenda which was to stop the franco-german EU domination and they needed for that recently some allies in the east. They were the pushing force behind this, their own government ****** up their immigration policies as well and on top of that it seems like most of the emigration is actually based on old commonwealth memberships and not the EU. So the whole base for the brexit campaign is more than just a little silly, even when the brexit itself is in the long term more than a little healthy for the development of the EU. Shocks can be healthy, you need one sometimes to get your heart beating again. Better waking up now than 20 years later when right-wing ultra nationalist take over germany. ;-)

Not sure it would be a bad thing if it did. What do Americans think?

Well that was the plan in the beginning... Until Lincoln the states were much more independent and the Fed really had little power. The Pres was mostly there as a point of contact for other nations. The federal government didn't have much impact on the day to day life of people, the state and county government mattered a lot more.

We Texans amuse ourselves by proposing we become an independent Republic again because the alternative to joking about it is crying that we can't actually do that and are stuck in this Union.

You could have a civil war again. It's your turn to win!...

Define "your." Not all of us Texans want a civil war again. Some of us would be happy to secede, but not at that cost. Sam Houston, the first president of the Republic of Texas and the first governor of the State of Texas, vehemently opposed slavery, and was the only Southern governor to oppose secession from the Union:

Although a slaveholder himself, Houston repeatedly voted against the spread of slavery to new territories of the United States during his 13 years in the Senate. An ardent advocate of the Union, Houston was the only Southern governor to oppose secession in the lead-up to the Civil War. Over his opposition, a state convention voted on February 1, 1861, to secede by a margin of 168 to. 8. When Houston refused a month later to swear allegiance to the Confederate States of America, the Texas legislature deposed him and replaced him with the pro-Confederacy lieutenant governor. Houston turned down a Union offer to lead a 50,000-man force against the Confederate rebels and retired to Huntsville, Texas, where he died in 1863.

This led to one of my favourite statements, by James Throckmorton (whom Houston had tapped to head up the anti-secession movement in Texas), delivered after his vote against secession had been jeered by his colleagues: "When the rabble hiss, well may patriots tremble."

TL;DR: Sam Houston opposed the #Texit