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Brexit
Jan 20, 2019 9:24:46 GMT
Post by mossie on Jan 20, 2019 9:24:46 GMT
Yes Bixa, the concept was first class and intended to keep the peace and I was all for it initially. But the implementation has been terrible. We were promised a referendum when the Maastricht Treaty was signed which was has bound us too close, but the government of the day realised that it was a step too far for patriots like me, so they withdrew the idea and meekly signed up. We were very lucky that Gordon Brown was the cautious chancellor who persuaded Tony Blair to forget signing up to the euro. Had that happened we would have been in far worse problems. At least we have not got the levels of unemployment that many eurozone countries have, even if our youth have been conditioned not to get their hands dirty resulting in many jobs being filled by willing and able foreigners.
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Brexit
Jan 20, 2019 15:20:23 GMT
Post by bixaorellana on Jan 20, 2019 15:20:23 GMT
It's the practicalities of being separate from the EU which seem so insurmountable and so negative for the UK, though.
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Brexit
Feb 5, 2019 17:23:32 GMT
Post by kerouac2 on Feb 5, 2019 17:23:32 GMT
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Brexit
Feb 5, 2019 18:13:41 GMT
Post by bixaorellana on Feb 5, 2019 18:13:41 GMT
How is it more insane than the outright lying and deliberate manipulation by all those forces complicit in the framing and presentation of Brexit to begin with?
I am incapable of understanding how all those people in my own country and in the UK who are the perpetual victims of the ruling class as represented by the Republican and the Conservative parties are so perpetually willing to be bamboozled by them.
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Brexit
Feb 5, 2019 18:17:30 GMT
via mobile
Post by mickthecactus on Feb 5, 2019 18:17:30 GMT
I fancy this is fake news. I have seen nothing of this here. And you think the Labour party are decent, honest and truthful?
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Brexit
Feb 5, 2019 18:43:08 GMT
Post by bixaorellana on Feb 5, 2019 18:43:08 GMT
No I do not, no more than I think the Democrats are decent etc. But their entire focus is not on screwing the common man.
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Brexit
Feb 5, 2019 19:02:57 GMT
Post by cheerypeabrain on Feb 5, 2019 19:02:57 GMT
It's quite possible to be patriotic whilst being in the E.U.
I understand that there are many British citizens who felt that our country was being subjected to unfair and unnecessary restrictions by Brussels. Our overall decent representatives in the European parliament were overshadowed by self serving, corrupt idiots feeding off rumour and extremist propaganda to whip up anti-EU feeling, fuelled by toxic nonsense put out by the right wing press to stoke the fires and force Cameron's hand.
The Great Britain that many of the Leave voters thought that they were voting for doesnt exist and never has done. I remember the pre-EEC UK...and it wasn't the Enid Blyton, predominantly white, everybody knows their place, sunshine and roses country that has been portrayed in the press. It was just different. The politicians driving the Leave campaign have dispersed and washed their hands of it (most of them blaming Jeremy Corbyn for some reason...for everything!) The vote was an ill advised diversion to try to silence Farage, Johnson, Rees-Mogg and their cronies..because nobody, even the Tories, expected the Leave faction to win.
The ridiculous panic in parliament is shameful. MPs should have banded together and formed a cross party negotiating team, thrashed out a good, solid proposal and gone to Brussels ready to fight our corner. But no. We have a terribly weak, wishy washy bunch trying to sneak through a pathetic, secretive deal which doesnt meet anybody's expectations, Remain nor Leave. Of course we have to fulfill our financial obligations. We signed up to them and we reaped our share of the rewards.. I don't think that twit Farage should get his MEP pension tbh (he should be in the Tower!). But basically we're buggered.
I think that another vote would give a different result to the first one. There would probably be civil unrest if we had another tho because the far right have hijacked the Leave cause..BUT a referendum is an opinion seeking exercise..article 50 was triggered too soon. Once the last referendum result was known thre SHOULD have been an honest, open, factual campaign educating the voting public about exactly what leaving the EU actually means. Not the lack lustre bollox the Remainers ran and not the ridiculous highly suspect claims run by the Leavers ..then have a second vote. But it's too late...May and co have run the clock down. None of us know what we've let ourselves in for.
Cheerypeabrain. Winner of the Bleeding Obvious Award...
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Brexit
Feb 5, 2019 19:07:35 GMT
Post by bixaorellana on Feb 5, 2019 19:07:35 GMT
Cheerypeabrain, winner of the Succinctly Perfect Explanation Award!
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Brexit
Feb 5, 2019 19:11:17 GMT
Post by cheerypeabrain on Feb 5, 2019 19:11:17 GMT
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Brexit
Feb 5, 2019 19:21:16 GMT
Post by kerouac2 on Feb 5, 2019 19:21:16 GMT
Perhaps unfortunately -- who knows? -- most French public opinion has now shifted from "those poor people made a mistake" to "good riddance!" This is based on the concept that the British don't know what they really want, are chronic whiners (like the French!) and would become even worse if somehow they stayed in the EU, feeling punished, humiliated and god knows what -- but once they are out, they are on their own and can only blame themselves. (And yet I'm sure that somehow a lot of them will blame the EU anyway, if only because it will continue to have better trade deals than anything a non member can sign.) Maybe there is hope for the UK with Venezuela or North Korea...
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Brexit
Feb 5, 2019 19:26:49 GMT
Post by cheerypeabrain on Feb 5, 2019 19:26:49 GMT
It's so embarrassing...it would (almost) be ok if preparations had been made...atm we're Johnny No Mates full stop.
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Brexit
Feb 17, 2019 7:16:12 GMT
Post by bixaorellana on Feb 17, 2019 7:16:12 GMT
Hooray, hooray for the die-hard Brits! Campaigners against Theresa May’s “my deal or no deal” Brexit strategy are planning to mobilise the public and politicians for a showdown ...
The plans will involve a huge march in London on Saturday, 23 March, aimed at demonstrating the scale of public anxiety about the two Brexit options May is offering, which will conclude with speeches outside the Palace of Westminster. Hundreds of thousands are expected to attend. Then on 25 and 26 March, MPs of all parties say they will be ready to rally behind a “lethal” amendment that will allow May’s deal to be passed, but only on condition that it is first ratified and approved by the British people in a referendum. Such a referendum would require article 50 to be delayed.
If the British people reject May’s deal in that second public vote, the UK would in all probability stay in the EU on its current terms.
MPs who backed Remain in the 2016 referendum – and who are appalled by May’s attempts to “run down the clock” in the hope of forcing parliament to vote for her hugely unpopular deal – believe that the two-pronged approach of involving the public and politicians has a good chance of averting a disastrous Brexit outcome, albeit at the 11th hour.www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/feb/16/huge-march-last-week-before-brexit
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Brexit
Feb 17, 2019 9:52:45 GMT
Post by bixaorellana on Feb 17, 2019 9:52:45 GMT
It was a referendum, not a binding vote, in a process since shown to have been flawed, to put it kindly. I fail to see how the views of some French or "others on the continent" are pertinent, nor the turgid rehash you linked.
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Brexit
Feb 17, 2019 10:06:18 GMT
Post by bjd on Feb 17, 2019 10:06:18 GMT
I think this "voting till they get it right" strategy is what scares many people. It calls democracy into question, even though in the case of the Brexit referendum, it wasn't binding.
However, this whole Brexit thing has been a mess from the start. Cameron's stupid decision to hold it to mollify some die-hards in the Conservative party, lies by the Brexiters, Corbyn who is wishy-washy about Brexit but leads a party strongly divided but generally pro-EU but not wanting to lose votes from Midlands and Northern pro-Brexit voters, the Irish question that nobody seems to have considered at first,...
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Brexit
Feb 17, 2019 13:25:01 GMT
Post by kerouac2 on Feb 17, 2019 13:25:01 GMT
Am I the only person who has no idea exactly what May's "Brexit deal" is? I know that I am in no way qualified to say whether it is good or bad, so perhaps some of you with opinions about it can enlighten me. I would imagine that one of the principal bones of contention is the agreement to pay x-number billion pounds to the EU to get an exit receipt, plus quite a bit of a transitional period for a lot of the rules and regulations. Anything else?
I know that I understand the payment part, because if I sell my flat, I have to pay for anything I voted for in the annual meetings, even years later. That's the same everywhere, no? This is just a grander scale. As for a lot of the other rules and regulations, I know that many of them will stay in effect more or less forever -- for example, anything that the UK wants to export to the EU will have to comply to EU regulations. This makes me think of the zillions of American products that are also sold in Canada. I was surprised at first, but almost all of the common American products also have their labels in French, because that conforms to Canadian law. Not a big deal for a manufacturer but rich in symbolism for ordinary consumers.
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Brexit
Feb 17, 2019 14:32:53 GMT
via mobile
Post by mickthecactus on Feb 17, 2019 14:32:53 GMT
You aren’t the only person and I live here.
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Brexit
Feb 18, 2019 5:11:48 GMT
via mobile
Post by patricklondon on Feb 18, 2019 5:11:48 GMT
The payment bit gets a lot of attention from the hard-line Brexiteers, but I think the penny has dropped for most of them (not that they'll say so too loud) that we are legally and morally bound to the budget we were party to agreeing for the period up to the end of 2020. So a major part of the agreement concerns a transitional period until then, covering such legacy issues and allowing time for negotiation and agreement on the detail of whatever new relationship we are going to have. Most of the fuss and blockage now focusses on the outline statement of the issues to be covered in that negotiation, i.e., how can we have frictionless trade within the EU (particularly with Ireland) and at the same time expect to set our own rules for it, and how can negotiate our own trade deals with third countries without reference to the EU countries with which we want frictionless trade? In relation to Ireland, it's additionally complicated because the Good Friday Agreement is legislated as an international treaty and in effect requires the open border arrangement inherent in the EU single market and customs union, which necessarily includes sticking to EU trading standards with disputes ruled by the EU court. The outline statement envisages a default customs union automatically applying in Ireland if there is no agreement on the future by the end of the transitional period (December 2020). So how is the wording of that outline agreement for the future going to cover that "backstop", which the EU insists on? With it, we have either (a) all of Ireland but not the rest of the UK in a continuing customs union (i.e. border checks between two parts of the UK, therefore unacceptable to unionists) or (b) all of the UK in a continuing customs union (i.e. we don't have unilateral control of tariffs and trading standards or trade agreements with third countries, as Brexiteers insist is the whole point of the exercise). Without it we would have (c) border checks in Ireland (i.e., potential flashpoints for trouble from the extremists, and unacceptable in principle to the EU and the Republic and ruled out by the GFA) and/or (d) the deadlock in parliament goes on so long that there is no time to legislate on any agreement (and we're nearly at that point), so we drift past March 29 with no agreement at all, and all that flows from that, which is clearly not acceptable to all but about 10% of parliament. My blog | My photos | My video clips | My Librivox recordings"too literate to be spam"
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Brexit
Feb 18, 2019 6:56:25 GMT
Post by bjd on Feb 18, 2019 6:56:25 GMT
How about dressing that 10% of parliament in uniforms and having them control the border between the Irish republic and Northern Ireland?
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Brexit
Feb 18, 2019 7:31:37 GMT
Post by kerouac2 on Feb 18, 2019 7:31:37 GMT
Ireland really does seem to be the most insoluable problem. I looked up polls about reunification, but even though there is a slight shift in public opinion in the north in favour of a united Ireland, it is not nearly enough to consider the matter yet.
Of course if Scotland were to break away, that would completely change the game in Ireland at the same time. Nevertheless, I don't think that Scotland will really do anything any time soon because there is still considerable margin for giving it more and more autonomy to appease the republicans.
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Brexit
Feb 18, 2019 10:05:00 GMT
Post by mickthecactus on Feb 18, 2019 10:05:00 GMT
Good job we have Patrick...
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Brexit
Feb 19, 2019 13:04:55 GMT
Post by questa on Feb 19, 2019 13:04:55 GMT
I have been skipping all the Brexit posts because I could not keep up with the cast of hundreds and dingbat politics involved. Then I read Cheerie's post and the part she emphasised hit me like a brick. BUT a referendum is an opinion seeking exercise. A referendum is not a vote for action to be taken. It is simply a testing of the waters to give the parliament some idea what the people are thinking about. What...or who...highjacked it and made it a binary vote that required action, when it was only a glorified opinion poll.
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Brexit
Feb 19, 2019 14:38:12 GMT
Post by bjd on Feb 19, 2019 14:38:12 GMT
It's true that it was never mentioned at the time. Brexit-favouring politicians pushed it I guess.
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Brexit
Feb 19, 2019 15:49:39 GMT
Post by kerouac2 on Feb 19, 2019 15:49:39 GMT
The problem is that in recent times, governments have pledged to implement the results of a referendum, with recent notable exceptions being the French and Dutch rejection of the EU constitution in 2005. It is interesting to note that the Netherlands legislature voted in 2018 to eliminate referendums while France is currently going in the opposite direction under the pressure of the gilets jaunes.
Referendums have a strange appeal for a number of parliaments, because it relieves them of making difficult and possibly unpopular decisions themselves.
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Brexit
Feb 19, 2019 16:47:48 GMT
Post by cheerypeabrain on Feb 19, 2019 16:47:48 GMT
We're all doomed. I'm so angry with our idiot politicians. I know one or two people who voted to leave..my sister is saying that it will all be fine..STOP WORRYING (she's quite bossy). Any time another Japanese manufacturer ups sticks she blames the 'remoaners' saying that our attitude is causing the lack of confidence in the economy. My cousin also makes sweeping statements about 'getting our sovereignty back' (we never lost it) and getting jobs for hard working British people (we just lost another 3500 with Honda pulling out of Swindon)...
Thing is...we are all entrenched in our views and there doesnt seem to be anyway forward. It's ok for my sister and cousin...they're in their 70s and already have nice houses, good pensions and have benefited from membership of the EU. They cant see that it's our own politicians ruining everything..not Europe.
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Brexit
Feb 19, 2019 17:04:12 GMT
Post by bixaorellana on Feb 19, 2019 17:04:12 GMT
Referendums have a strange appeal for a number of parliaments, because it relieves them of making difficult and possibly unpopular decisions themselves. It's particularly disgusting in the case of the Brexit referendum, which was a self-serving political stunt that backfired. But then, instead of saying, "Boy, the vote referendum/poll is really close -- we need to really study the situation", the ruling party charged ahead with Brexit-or-die, as though no other solution was possible. They cant see that it's our own politicians ruining everything..not Europe. So it would seem!!!
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Brexit
Feb 21, 2019 19:57:21 GMT
Post by lugg on Feb 21, 2019 19:57:21 GMT
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Brexit
Feb 21, 2019 20:25:18 GMT
Post by kerouac2 on Feb 21, 2019 20:25:18 GMT
Hope springs eternal. Trade with the Faroe Islands has been saved.
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Brexit
Feb 21, 2019 21:08:16 GMT
Post by mossie on Feb 21, 2019 21:08:16 GMT
Our politicians and civil servants are the most useless bunch, pissups in breweries are far and away totally impossible for them to organise.
Cameron called the referendum because he was so totally confident of getting a resounding pro EU vote to get the evil Nigel off his back, after all he had his devious mate Osbourne masterminding Project Fear which was going to frighten all us ignorant proles into backing them. When they failed to get the result they expected they panicked and chickened out altogether as there was no Plan B. May was so cowed by it all she just went with the flow and she is the best of the remaining rabble now attempting to run the country. Both main parties are seriously fraying round the edges so what will now happen is anyones guess. Most of them never wanted to leave the EU and now run about like headless chickens, our strongest bargaining point with the EU is 'No Deal', but they haven't got the guts to stick with it, but it is the only thing which will make the EU move. Our alternative is Commie Corby and to become Venezuala Mk 2, Gawd help us all.
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Brexit
Feb 22, 2019 5:52:27 GMT
Post by bjd on Feb 22, 2019 5:52:27 GMT
Mossie, if the UK's "strongest bargaining point with the EU is 'No Deal', it looks as though you are bluffing. What does the UK have to offer? The other 27 EU countries are making contingency plans for a No Deal Brexit, while May and Corbin are just waiting things out and hoping a miracle will occur and they will get what they want, whatever that is.
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Brexit
Feb 22, 2019 16:07:16 GMT
Post by cheerypeabrain on Feb 22, 2019 16:07:16 GMT
It may be irresponsible but I'm tempted to ban news programmes on the days leading up to leaving Europe. It's so frustrating and extremely annoying to watch armageddon approaching whilst petty politicians run around like headless chickens and journalist gleefully interview each other.
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