Davie P

That's potentially interesting! Do you have a link? It sounds a little dubious as the Lisbon Treaty has been in place since 2009.

It's difficult to keep track of all the developments, but this article tries to explain! Scottish court ruling: what happens next in prorogation dispute? I'm usually quite interested in politics but I'm struggling to process news as it develops. In the past 24hrs or so, the PM has been accused of lying to the Queen, more Yellowhammer documents have been published revealing the governments worst case Brexit scenarios, Scottish courts have ruled the prorogation of parliament to be illegal, but Irish and English have ruled the opposite.....

I was pleasantly surprised to see staffing levels being relatively low (IMHO) and being scaled back. I noted that there was plans to increase the number of cheaper contract staff which has its pros and cons. It doesn't seem that Brexit will mean savings on admin any time soon with increasing numbers of staff being taken on to deal with the transition, and the UK will still have a delegation in Europe.

Interestingly, in the article you just linked to, it states the EU were in the process of reducing staff levels by 5% from 2013 to 2017. Edit: here's more detailed info: Agreement reached on austerity measures and reforms for European civil serviceMyths and truths about the salaries and taxes of EU officials I'm all up for letting off steam and posting opinion, but people can expect to query and delve into others' opinions and vice versa.

How many people work for the EU? "At first glance, these figures might seem quite high, particularly if we look at the commission. But for an administrative staff covering institutions serving over 500m people it’s a shoestring operation, especially when we compare it to civil services operating at the national, or even local levels. Compare this, for example, to the 33,477 people employed by Birmingham City Council, covering a population of 1.1m in 2015-16."

Look it up, for heaven's sake! Don't keep asking the same thing over and over here! If you're going to complain about something, at least make some effort to find out what you're complaning about

I have no intentions of making a "case" just a casual observation that has raised my curiosity. I could probably google it and spend some searching but I do have better things to do.with my time. Equally, I'm sure most people have better things to do with their time than read baseless complaining why just to suit you-p off My point is that you regularly post factless 'observations' about the EU, particularly about legislation you believe the EU is forcing on us, but consistently can't provide evidence. If you're going to do that on a public forum, you can expect to be challenged.

"unprecedented scenes" as Parliament is prorogued today https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-49645338

Please do google things before you post them. Facts, rather than anti-EU rhetoric, would help the discussion immensely.

Perhaps it would help you make a stronger case if you understood the thing(s) you're complaining about?

So you don't know what they do, but you know you don't like them doing whatever it is they do??

So you think it'll be easier to buy wine from Spain if we leave the EU?!

You can trade freely with your local shop because you are in the same country with the same laws, currency, tax arrangements, safety standards etc etc. If you want to trade across borders, you need trade agreements - hence the various EU trade agreements and harmonisation. Re: 'a regime in which we have little say'. Nonsense. We are/were one of the most influential partners in the EU. With the greatest respect, your recent analogies of comparing Brexit to the Y2K computing system upgrade and comparing international trade agreements with nipping to the local shop would indicate you haven't fully grasped the complexities of Brexit.

Agreed. We were told that Brexit would bring untold benefits to the UK and that we'd be able to pick and choose which bits of EU membership we wished to retain. We were warned from many quarters that Brexit would be a complex issue to resolve, but were told by the 'Leave' politicians it would be easy. Many people didn't either didn't see the benefit of leaving the EU or didn't believe the rhetoric and voted for the status quo in the referendum, others did believe it and voted to leave. Since the vote, the utopian Brexit vision has proven to be undeliverable through a combination of 'unforeseen circumstances' which should have been thoroughly investigated before the referendum (the Irish backstop and the complexity of much of the legislation, for example), the EU understandably sticking to their negotiating guns and the government being unable to find a consensus or even a majority for one of the many flavours of Brexit that was promised. Now the very people who set this train in motion are blaming those who didn't want it in the first place for not getting on board and supporting the increasingly extreme vision and attempts to circumvent laws and parliamentary processes (however, our governmental executive and the legislature branches, and independent judiciary, seem to be holding up relatively well in the face of these attempts).

Just cast your mind back to hogmany 2000, all computers were going to stop working ,power stations would fail, telephone exchanges would stop working everything would be total chaos. What happened after thousands of employees were paid to be on standby, well absolutely nothing. Someone somewhere is making money out of spreading utter bull**it, and unfortunately many are being convinced. Stop worrying everything will be just fine. ^ That's a myth. The Y2K problems were largely averted because of a global effort to upgrade computer hardware and operating systems in the years before the turn of the millennium. Comparing a No-deal Brexit to a well planned and implemented technical upgrade process that took place over years is quite far off the mark.

^ an interesting interpretation considering the recent UK wide protests about Johnson's attempts to by-pass parliament. I haven't seen much in the way of public support for Johnson, even in the right-leaning media? But yes, a General Election would seem like the best solution

Fair enough you're anti-SNP, but the Lib Dem majority was more than halved from 4,895 in 2016 and the SNP gained a 14.4% swing. I don't expect the SNP will be licking their wounds or thinking the north isles don't want or need them.

He has quite a track record! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuart_%22Captain_Calamity%22_Hill

Completely agree Shetlander. The tone of discussion on Twitter and FB has been appalling - everything from childish insults (can we please ban the use of '(friends with concerns about Brexit)'!) to threats of violence. However, the candidates themselves have largely fought positive campaigns (although the Lib Dems did seem to emphasise an anti-SNP agenda which is perhaps to be expected of an opposition party) Whatever your political persuasion and despite the inevitable social media trolling, I think the by-election has been <cliché alert> a good result for local democracy

Did anyone see Michael Gove on the Andrew Marr show this morning? As well as completely contradicting himself on the issue of proroguing parliament (he had previously dismissed the idea and declared it undemocratic, but now seems to think it's fine), he refused to confirm that the government would comply with any new legislation passed by parliament. Sadly, that's no surprise as they've already been pulled up in the High Court for trying to by-pass parliament, and were also held in contempt of parliament. The 'democratic' argument for pushing through a no-deal Brexit based on a slim majority pre-legislative referendum 3 years ago is on very shaky ground indeed. We are now in the making of an unprecedented abuse of governmental executive power.

Oh, what a fun! Labour got 1.28% of the vote!

Lib Dems hold Shetland Beatrice Wishart, Scottish Liberal Democrats 5,659;Tom Wills, Scottish National Party 3,822;Ryan Thomson, independent 1,266;Peter Tait, independent 31;Michael Stout, independent 134;Ian Scott, independent 66;Debra Nicolson, Scottish Green Party 189;Stuart Martin, UKIP 60;Brydon Goodlad, Conservative and Unionist Party 425;Johan Adamson, Scottish Labour and Co-operative Party 152.

Yes, I know

Here's the Shetland News live updates of the count https://www.shetnews.co.uk/2019/08/29/by-election-2019-count/ -- 00.25pm: Returning officer Jan Riise has just announced voting figures of 11,835 – or 66.5 per cent of the electorate. The postal vote of 2,414 was a whopping return of 83 per cent and 9,421 ballot papers were cast at station, a 63 per cent return. More votes have been cast at this by-election than in the 2016 election, an extraordinary engagement.