Brexit Referendum Superthread

Thomas_...

Sam Russell wrote: »

Does 'free movement of labour' mean freedom to move to another country to take up employment and not so one can retire?

If the EU states choose not to honour the UK E111 forms for retirees and insist they pay full medical costs, full income tax, plus all other taxes as aliens, will the increase cost not drive many British retirees back to the UK? Currently Switzerland honours the E111.

I think this needs more thought.

That is a very interesting aspect in regards to the countries where many of the Brit retirees live, like Malta, Spain, Portugal and Spain.

djpbarry

Bob24 wrote: »

Don't you think he is adapting his speech to what will get him the most votes?
Is that no pragmatism?

No, it’s populism.

Bob24 wrote: »

I invite you to click on the quote link and read one more time the statement I was replying to here. The question I was addressing in this case is whether Belgium does have a specific issue with Molenbeek and other similar places.

It still has nothing to do with Verhofstadt’s suitability as a Brexit negotiator.

djpbarry

Thomas_... wrote: »

I trust that you´ve noticed of what was going on in Bautzen, Germany recently?

Where asylum seekers were attacked by right-wing extremists? Yes, I noticed.

Other than the fact that your posts on this issue resemble UKIP propaganda, what’s it got to do with Brexit?

Bob24

djpbarry wrote: »

No, it’s populism.

If "adapting his speech to what will get him the most votes" is your definition of populism, you will find that pretty much every single politician is a populist to you.

For me that's what I called pragmatism in a political career (which most politicians practice). To me it is more demagogy than populism (which is a tricky word because it often means different things to different people - to some people it is the same as demagogy, to others it over-lapses with all the phopic/ist words, or to yet another group it still carries its original definition of serving the interest of the common people, etc).

djpbarry wrote: »

It still has nothing to do with Verhofstadt’s suitability as a Brexit negotiator.

OK - but why is this a topic for you since no-one said it was? What point are you trying to make?

Thomas_...

djpbarry wrote: »

Where asylum seekers were attacked by right-wing extremists? Yes, I noticed.

Other than the fact that your posts on this issue resemble UKIP propaganda, what’s it got to do with Brexit?

I don´t see it that way and I just like to tell you, that I´m not one of those UKIP supporters but the opposite.

Thomas_...

Bob24 wrote: »

If "adapting his speech to what will get him the most votes" is your definition of populism, you will find that pretty much every single politician is a populist to you.

That's what I called pragmatism in a political career (which most politicians practice). To me it is more demagogy than populism (which is a tricky word because it often means different things to different people - to some people it is the same as demagogy, to others it over-lapses with all the phopic/ist words, or to yet another group it still carries its original definition of serving the interest of the common people, etc).



OK - but why is this a topic for you since no-one said it was? What point are you trying to make?

I don´t know it either, but it doesn´t matter much to me, for I´ve already made my right decision regarding his posts.

Enzokk

Lemming wrote: »

To be perfectly frank; from seeing some of the drivel I've had the misfortune to see coming out of the facebook walls of 'acquaintances' around me in Yorkshire, I doubt many of the leave voters reckoned with much of anything. it was all so much emotive, nonsensical b*llocks, built on top of lie after lie pedaled by cretins who treated the referendum as an election campaign.

Yes, and if there was a re-vote my guess would be a closer result but still a Brexit win. People have been reading about how bad the EU/immigrants are for years (aided by opportunistic politicians who would blame the EU for some of their own failings) and their own anecdotal evidence confirms this. As a result a nurse will believe that most EU visitors are only there to sponge off the NHS because she sees it in her ward, not thinking about the multitude more British people she treats. Its the ones that don't speak the language that they remember and leads to resentment.

Not many people have actually tried to see the woods from the trees, so what they were seeing was too many immigrants from their own perspective, yet the fact that EU citizens pay in more than their fellow EU citizens take out doesn't come into it. Its those patients from other EU countries, or those people from Poland that have 5 children that is remembered.

Thomas_...

Enzokk wrote: »

Yes, and if there was a re-vote my guess would be a closer result but still a Brexit win. People have been reading about how bad the EU/immigrants are for years (aided by opportunistic politicians who would blame the EU for some of their own failings) and their own anecdotal evidence confirms this. As a result a nurse will believe that most EU visitors are only there to sponge off the NHS because she sees it in her ward, not thinking about the multitude more British people she treats. Its the ones that don't speak the language that they remember and leads to resentment.

Not many people have actually tried to see the woods from the trees, so what they were seeing was too many immigrants from their own perspective, yet the fact that EU citizens pay in more than their fellow EU citizens take out doesn't come into it. Its those patients from other EU countries, or those people from Poland that have 5 children that is remembered.

You do have some points there. Says a lot about the mindest of the Brexiteers but also point to the right direction to whom it was who was very "cunny" to use it for his own propaganda. He has a name and he´s no longer the leader of the very party that was stirring such resentments to gain from the electorate.

djpbarry

Bob24 wrote: »

If "adapting his speech to what will get him the most votes" is your definition of populism, you will find that pretty much every single politician is a populist to you.

To some extent, perhaps, but it’s a broad spectrum: there’s a world of difference between what the likes of Farage and Trump will come out with to secure votes and/or media attention (pretty much anything, as far as I can tell) and what the average politician will say.

Bob24 wrote: »

OK - but why is this a topic for you since no-one said it was?

I’m sorry? You brought up in Molenbeek in a discussion on Verhofstadt’s suitability as a negotiator:

Bob24 wrote: »

View wrote: »

Bob24 wrote: »

View wrote: »

Verhofstadt is a former PM of Belgium. He held that office for almost a decade. You don't hold such office in any country, never mind in the bear pit of Belgian politics, without being a pragmatist (even if you'd prefer not to be).

Being a pragmatist to remain in power and progress your career, yes all politicians are (including Farage). But when it comes to actually defend the interest of the people, different story!

The people of Belgium clearly did not share your opinion since they returned him to office on multiple occasions. Neither also do MEPs share your opinion, since they as directly elected representatives have chosen to have him as one of the EU negotiators.

The people of Belgium don't directly elect their PM, and whoever gets the roles is more the result of political bargaining than anything else (when Verhofstadt became PM in 1999 his party only had 23/150 seats in the parliament and 14.3% of the votes).

This broken political system is what gave Belgium the infamous Molenbeek...

I am simply questioning what Molenbeek has got to do with Brexit negotiations (and I think you knew that).

djpbarry

Enzokk wrote: »

Not many people have actually tried to see the woods from the trees, so what they were seeing was too many immigrants from their own perspective...

Actually there’s a pretty strong inverse relationship between anti-immigrant sentiment within a population and the number of immigrants in that population, in the UK at least.

In other words, anti-immigrant sentiment tends to be strongest in areas that don’t have many immigrants.

Bob24

djpbarry wrote: »

I’m sorry? You brought up in Molenbeek in a discussion on Verhofstadt’s suitability as a negotiator:

I am simply questioning what Molenbeek has got to do with Brexit negotiations (and I think you knew that).

I will just quote again this sentence you are referring to (and only partly quoted whereas you included all the rest of the discussion in full): "This broken political system is what gave Belgium the infamous Molenbeek - too many competing layers of government, no clear leader, and ideology over pragmatism all led to inaction as the situation was slowly getting more and more rotten. ".

This was clearly a side note on the Belgian political system and not in any way linked to Brexit.

So to answer your question, we probaby agree Molenbeek doesn't have much to do with Brexit negotiations ... but again no-one ever said that so I am not sure why you are questioning it.

djpbarry

Bob24 wrote: »

This was clearly a side note on the Belgian political system and not in any way linked to Brexit.

So to answer your question, we probaby agree Molenbeek doesn't have much to do with Brexit negotiations ...

Great. Thanks.

You could have just said that in response to my initial question.

Bob24

djpbarry wrote: »

Great. Thanks.

You could have just said that in response to my initial question.

No problem. I would gladely have answered earlier if the initial question had asked that clearly rather than asking me to justify something different which I never said:

djpbarry wrote: »

Ok - so how does this make Verhofstadt an unsuitable candidate for Brexit negotiations?

murphaph

djpbarry wrote: »

Actually there’s a pretty strong inverse relationship between anti-immigrant sentiment within a population and the number of immigrants in that population, in the UK at least.

In other words, anti-immigrant sentiment tends to be strongest in areas that don’t have many immigrants.

Same in Germany.

Peregrinus

It's the same everywhere. Generally our propensity to hate/fear anything is based on ignorance, and is reduced when we know more about whatever it is that we are afraid of.

Patser

Anyone else amazed and surprised by today's revelations by a Tory MP that Boris apparently didn't want to win the Brexit vote and was only setting himself up as an alternative to Cameron.

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-37439890

Inquitus

Patser wrote: »

Anyone else amazed and surprised by today's revelations by a Tory MP that Boris apparently didn't want to win the Brexit vote and was only setting himself up as an alternative to Cameron.

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-37439890

No, it's pretty much how I saw it at the time.

Patser

Inquitus wrote: »

No, it's pretty much how I saw it at the time.

Think it's pretty much how we all saw it.

djpbarry

It’s fairly common knowledge that, prior to announcing which side he would take in the referendum campaign, Boris sent two different opinion pieces to the editor of The Telegraph, one pro-Remain, one pro-Leave, before opting for the latter at the eleventh hour.

K-9

I don't think there is any apparently or opinion about it sadly!

djpbarry

Fairly damning/pessimistic piece in the FT this week (syndicated by the IT) from Martin Wolf:

“Brexit means Brexit.” As circular as it is concise, this three-word sentence tells us much about the style of Theresa May, the UK prime minister. I take this to mean that the UK will, in her view, formally leave the EU, without the option of a second referendum or a parliamentary override. If so, it seems overwhelmingly likely that the outcome will be “hard Brexit”.

By “hard Brexit” I mean a departure not only from the European Union but also from the customs union and the single market. The UK should, however, end up with a free-trade arrangement that covers goods and possibly some parts of services and, one hopes, liberal travel arrangements. But the “passporting” of UK-based financial institutions would end and London would cease to be the EU’s unrivalled financial capital. The UK and the EU would also impose controls on their nationals’ ability to work in one another’s economies.

…

Why then is a hard Brexit the most likely outcome? My belief rests on the view that this UK government will not seek to reverse the result of the vote and that it will feel obliged to impose controls on immigration from the EU and to free itself from the bloc’s regulations overseen by its judicial processes.

Continued membership of the customs union or the single market, from outside the EU, would deprive the UK of legislative autonomy. The former would mean it could not adopt its own trade policy. The latter would mean accepting all regulations relating to the single market, without possessing any say on them, continuing with free movement of labour, and, probably, paying budget contributions. A country that has rejected membership is not going to accept so humiliating an alternative. It would be a state of dependence far worse than continued EU membership.

…

Do I like this outcome? No. I would like a government prepared to overturn the referendum. Nothing has changed my view that the UK is making a huge economic and strategic blunder. The country is going to be meaner and poorer. David Cameron will go down as one of the worst prime ministers in UK history. But the halfway houses between membership of the EU and hard Brexit are uninhabitable. So what now has to be done is to move to the miserable new dispensation as smoothly as possible.

The UK has chosen a largely illusory autonomy over EU membership. That has consequences. It will have to accept this grim reality and move as quickly as it can to whatever the future holds.

http://www.irishtimes.com/business/economy/martin-wolf-uk-faces-grim-but-unavoidable-hard-brexit-1.2800096

I’m not sure I agree that a Hard Brexit is inevitable at this point, because I doubt it’s the desired outcome of either Theresa May, Philip Hammond or Boris Johnson. It’s undoubtedly the desired outcome for a large chunk of the electorate, but I’m not convinced it’s what the majority would want.

Zubeneschamali

djpbarry wrote: »

I’m not convinced it’s what the majority would want.

I think Wolf is right - even an idiot can see that Swiss or Norwegian terms are worse than EU membership, so the voters will have to back hard brexit or admit they made a terrible mistake.

I can't see them admitting that until they've tried it.

Peston has a good post today.

https://www.facebook.com/pestonitv/posts/1697230203935051

Essentially, there is a paradox afoot as Liam Fox's department cannot exist if UK is to stay within the customs union. (Single Market)

First of all it is a rule that members of the customs union are prohibited from negotiating free trade deals with countries in the rest of the world (there is relatively trivial flexibility for Turkey, which is a non-EU member of the customs union, but not the degree of flexibility that would be any use to us).
But that prohibition would not matter perhaps if it was irrational - because we could have some expectation of negotiating a way around it.
However EU governments would be nuts - economically suicidal in fact - for them to give customs union members free rein to negotiate their own bilateral deals with third-party countries.

And he asks if May is even aware of this problem, and how might in indeed develop

So the choice for her is painful: admit either that Fox is as much use as a fish on a bicycle or own up that we're out of the customs union (or perhaps ask Boris Johnson to fess up on this, since one of his great lines during the Brexit campaign is we could have wonderfully lucrative new trade deals all over the world while staying in the customs union).

Inquitus

It's a proper clusterfeck really, leave only won because of Boris who only campaigned leave to lose and get one step closer to being PM, now it's an unmitigated mess, May at the helm, "Brexit means Brexit", no clue what they are doing, and bad news for Britain and the EU, I hope he feels like a cnut!

Clearlier

djpbarry wrote: »

Fairly damning/pessimistic piece in the FT this week (syndicated by the IT) from Martin Wolf:

http://www.irishtimes.com/business/economy/martin-wolf-uk-faces-grim-but-unavoidable-hard-brexit-1.2800096

I’m not sure I agree that a Hard Brexit is inevitable at this point, because I doubt it’s the desired outcome of either Theresa May, Philip Hammond or Boris Johnson. It’s undoubtedly the desired outcome for a large chunk of the electorate, but I’m not convinced it’s what the majority would want.

IMO Theresa May's primary focus is on cementing her positions as PM. All of her decisions on appointments and most of what she has done and said make sense only in a political context. The expansion of grammar schools policy for example is a sop to the right wing of her party. You will struggle to find anyone with a serious understanding of education and the research that has gone into grammar schools who thinks that they should be revived yet she is pushing it through. It's a policy that's bad for children, bad for communities and bad for her country but it's good for her party.

When thinking about Theresa May on Brexit you need to keep in mind that her actions will be driven not by what she thinks the right thing to do for her country but the right thing to do for her party and by extension her position. I could be and I hope that I'm wrong but I don't for a moment see her taking any kind of initiative to suggest reconsidering Brexit. Regardless of her opinion on the matter she'll follow the mood of her party and that's just not going to change. If the referendum were held again tomorrow the result just would not change. The reasons that people voted no continue not to be well understood and not addressed. There are enough people who are unhappy enough with the status quo and who don't think that it can get an awful lot worse. They want change and this was a way for them to get it. I'm not saying that it's rational - I think that it's nuts but unless the dissatisfaction with the status quo is addressed (and I don't see it happening) the mood won't change either IMO.

Inquitus

Clearlier wrote: »

When thinking about Theresa May on Brexit you need to keep in mind that her actions will be driven not by what she thinks the right thing to do for her country but the right thing to do for her party and by extension her position. I could be and I hope that I'm wrong but I don't for a moment see her taking any kind of initiative to suggest reconsidering Brexit. Regardless of her opinion on the matter she'll follow the mood of her party and that's just not going to change. If the referendum were held again tomorrow the result just would not change. The reasons that people voted no continue not to be well understood and not addressed. There are enough people who are unhappy enough with the status quo and who don't think that it can get an awful lot worse. They want change and this was a way for them to get it. I'm not saying that it's rational - I think that it's nuts but unless the dissatisfaction with the status quo is addressed (and I don't see it happening) the mood won't change either IMO.

A good summary of why Democracy doesn't work great, short sighted, 4 or 5 years terms, focused on self serving political self and party interest, rather on what's best for the nation you are supposed to be serving.

Lemming

Clearlier wrote: »

If the referendum were held again tomorrow the result just would not change. The reasons that people voted no continue not to be well understood and not addressed. There are enough people who are unhappy enough with the status quo and who don't think that it can get an awful lot worse. They want change and this was a way for them to get it. I'm not saying that it's rational - I think that it's nuts but unless the dissatisfaction with the status quo is addressed (and I don't see it happening) the mood won't change either IMO.

I think if the referendum were to be held tomorrow it would be another "leave" vote, simply on account of all the crowing of "Oh look, nothing's happened so we'll do fine" when the reality is that besides losing a f*ck-ton of money (in a single day I might add ... ) more than could ever have been saved by leaving the EU, nothing has happened precisely because nothing has happened .... yet. The UK is still part of the EU and until such time as exit becomes an actual reality, nothing notably bad (worse?) will continue to happen. I've said it before, and I'll say it again, for the referendum result to be reversed, the country is going to have to take an absolute kicking - as in back to early 1980s socio-economic reality kicking. When you hear people shouting that they'd rather be poor than in the EU shows how deluded they are and how little they've thought about anything other than the promises of personalised, magical unicorns for each and every one of them.

Jim2007

Sam Russell wrote: »

If the EU states choose not to honour the UK E111 forms for retirees and insist they pay full medical costs, full income tax, plus all other taxes as aliens, will the increase cost not drive many British retirees back to the UK? Currently Switzerland honours the E111.

This is incorrect. First of all E111 is for tourists not residents. Secondly the rule to determine who is responsible for the health of EU/EEA retiree depends on their pension payments - the country making the highest payment must cover the health costs of a retiree.
In the case of Switzerland we have no national health service, in fact the federal health department employs less than 500 people in total. E111 costs are covered by a fund to which all health insurance companies are required to contribute. EU/EEA retirees are issued with standard health insurance via a federal office and the costs are then invoiced to the state responsible for those retirees healthcare.

Thomas_...

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-37443662

Johnson: Brexit talks 'probably' to begin in early 2017

The UK will "probably" begin formal negotiations to leave the European Union early in 2017, Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson has told the BBC.

The foreign secretary said it was still "subject for discussion" but the "Article 50 letter" would be produced "probably in the early part" of 2017.

But Number 10 said the government's position had not changed and Article 50 would not be triggered in 2016.

PM Theresa May has not yet given a clear statement on when it will begin.

Asked about Mr Johnson's comments, a spokeswoman for the prime minister said the government position on when it would trigger Article 50 was "not before the end of this year".

"The decision is hers [Mrs May's] and she will do that at a time which is most likely to get the best deal for Britain," the spokeswoman added.
...

Jim2007

Lemming wrote: »

The UK is still part of the EU and until such time as exit becomes an actual reality, nothing notably bad (worse?) will continue to happen.

[font=Open Sans, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]On the contrary the full impact of the FX will not be reflected in consumer prices until probably not be felt until Dec/Jan, which is really bad time to discover your purchasing power has been reduced.[/font]