Brexit Referendum Superthread

First Up

Fratton Fred wrote:

it has, but the signs are not as visible. You may see a small notice outside an eu funded community scheme, but you aren't going to see massive signs next to a motorway advising that it was 50% funded by the eu.

Nor do you see signs outside business premises saying that 44% of the people working here owe their jobs to customers in the EU, or that another chunk of employees owe their jobs to customers in other countries because the EU has negotiated good market access for its members.

The benefits to the UK from EU membership are a lot more than grants for community centres or motorways.

steddyeddy

The European medicines agency or Euro clearing zones would be two big hints the the EU benefits the UK.

Fratton Fred

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

Takes very, very little looking in fairness. You can't compare an industrial nation like the UK to a mainly rural nation like Ireland. Having said that, the UK has benefited in different ways. Look at Universities, the banking sector, startups, technology firms, etc...

From the BBC:

First Up wrote: »

Nor do you see signs outside business premises saying that 44% of the people working here owe their jobs to customers in the EU, or that another chunk of employees owe their jobs to customers in other countries because the EU has negotiated good market access for its members.

The benefits to the UK from EU membership are a lot more than grants for community centres or motorways.

steddyeddy wrote: »

The European medicines agency or Euro clearing zones would be two big hints the the EU benefits the UK.

yes, I appreciate that.

that is why I used the word Visibly, as in it is easily visible.

Studying the funding of a niche agency, or the balance sheet of a business is not as visible as a bloody great big sign next to a motorway.

First Up

Fratton Fred wrote:

Studying the funding of a niche agency, or the balance sheet of a business is not as visible as a bloody great big sign next to a motorway.

Which illustrates the uninformed nature of much of the Brexit vote.

Fratton Fred

First Up wrote: »

Which illustrates the uninformed nature of much of the Brexit vote.

why does it?

for the vast majority of people, a banks passporting rights and Euratom are completely irrelevant. A restriction in the amount of fish they can land does.

Chester Copperpot

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

Takes very, very little looking in fairness. You can't compare an industrial nation like the UK to a mainly rural nation like Ireland. Having said that, the UK has benefited in different ways. Look at Universities, the banking sector, startups, technology firms, etc...

From the BBC:

Looking at that spending chart, it is hard to imagine how the shortfall in subsidies is going to be made up for farmers in the North in the coming years. Would be interesting to know how many from that particular sector voted to leave.

First Up

Fratton Fred wrote:

for the vast majority of people, a banks passporting rights and Euratom are completely irrelevant.

Not if their jobs depend directly or indirectly on them. The fact they don't understand it doesn't lessen that.

swampgas

First Up wrote: »

Not if their jobs depend directly or indirectly on them. The fact they don't understand it doesn't lessen that.

Remember this in Wales?

The Brexit campaign did a good job of convincing people that any benefits due to the EU were a net loss.

They also managed (bizarrely) to convince people that the UK government would replace the EU funding in deprived areas, although they backtracked on that almost as fast as they did on the 350 million for the NHS.

ancapailldorcha

Fratton Fred wrote: »

yes, I appreciate that.

that is why I used the word Visibly, as in it is easily visible.

Studying the funding of a niche agency, or the balance sheet of a business is not as visible as a bloody great big sign next to a motorway.

Again, that's down to rural Ireland getting new roads which are quite visible. In the UK, there are signs all over the place. I'm starting to see your point but so many people just opted for whatever explanation required less effort for them to accept and voted accordingly.

Chester Copperpot wrote: »

Looking at that spending chart, it is hard to imagine how the shortfall in subsidies is going to be made up for farmers in the North in the coming years. Would be interesting to know how many from that particular sector voted to leave.

A lot of them did. Places like Peterborough, Cornwall, Lincolnshire, etc.... They'll hopefully be cut by the Tories.

djpbarry

Fratton Fred wrote: »

no, it has its roots in Britain being an Island. Ireland is no dofferent in this regard.

Ireland was not an imperial power - Britain was. The rivalry between Britain and other European empires is a big factor in the UK's present-day mistrust of all things EU-related.

Fratton Fred wrote: »

Studying the funding of a niche agency, or the balance sheet of a business is not as visible as a bloody great big sign next to a motorway.

The Channel Tunnel? The Second Severn Crossing? The Jubilee Line? The Heathrow Express? The South-Eastern High Speed link from London to Dover?

I think you are seriously under-estimating how much UK infrastructure has benefited from EIB funding.

Fratton Fred wrote: »

for the vast majority of people, a banks passporting rights and Euratom are completely irrelevant. A restriction in the amount of fish they can land does.

The UK only employs about 12,000 fishermen. Compare that to the number of people who work in science or finance.

CrabRevolution

Fred_Johnson wrote: »

Well, it's interesting. Last year i got talking to this female doctor from Northern Ireland. Highly educated and from a solidly Presbyterian background. Even though her family was farming stock, they were resolutely pro-Brexit. After the referendum i remember she mentioned something about how she hoped Denmark and Netherlands would follow the UK's lead. I thought nothing of it at the time. Then it hit me - of course, those are all PROTESTANT countries. Remember how Ian Paisley called the EU a Papist plot?

We all like to think we're past these sorts of things, but don't for a moment underestimate the sectarian aspect of this. Deep in English and British DNA, it's there.

I always thought that sort of "we superior protestants" thing was confined mostly to local politics in Northern Ireland and Scotland, but the man who came third in the race to be PM after Cameron came out with this:

Britain’s path to preeminence in the past followed our break with Catholicism and embrace of the Reformation. We pursued a global, maritime, buccaneering, individualistic, liberal destiny — the spirit of our capitalism was infused with a very Protestant ethic. Now that we are once more freeing ourselves from a conformist Continent to make our own way in the world the question of whether we need to be more radical to maximise opportunities or more cautious to reassure and protect is central to our politics.

Fratton Fred

djpbarry wrote: »

Ireland was not an imperial power - Britain was. The rivalry between Britain and other European empires is a big factor in the UK's present-day mistrust of all things EU-related.

Maybe, but being an island plays a significant part in both our mentalities. We see borders as being easily defined by bits of water and within those borders, everyone is more or less the same nationality. Our outlook is very different to people who live in mainland europe.

djpbarry wrote: »

The Channel Tunnel? The Second Severn Crossing? The Jubilee Line? The Heathrow Express? The South-Eastern High Speed link from London to Dover?

Were they? I honestly had no idea. I thought they were all either funded by PPP or by the local operators. I'm pretty sure there was little, if any eu funding in the eurotunnel

djpbarry wrote: »

I think you are seriously under-estimating how much UK infrastructure has benefited from EIB funding.
The UK only employs about 12,000 fishermen. Compare that to the number of people who work in science or finance.

I'm not underestimating anything, It is obvious that the eu pumps billions in to the UK each year, what I am saying that eu investment in England is not as immediately obvious as it is in (among other countries) Ireland.

Fratton Fred

CrabRevolution wrote: »

I always thought that sort of "we superior protestants" thing was confined mostly to local politics in Northern Ireland and Scotland, but the man who came third in the race to be PM after Cameron came out with this:

and yet he lost to a woman educated in a convent school and would be considered an Anglo Catholic.

http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/news/2017/03/10/theresa-may-is-britains-first-catholic-prime-minister-says-michael-gove/

Professor Moriarty

Fratton Fred wrote: »

and yet he lost to a woman educated in a convent school and would be considered an Anglo Catholic.

http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/news/2017/03/10/theresa-may-is-britains-first-catholic-prime-minister-says-michael-gove/

She was raised a Protestant and her father was a vicar. Anyway, the article is quoting Michael Gove, who is not to be taken seriously.

Fratton Fred

Professor Moriarty wrote: »

She was raised a Protestant and her father was a vicar. Anyway, the article is quoting Michael Gove, who is not to be taken seriously.

sigh.

Try reading the article

First Up

Fratton Fred wrote:

Were they? I honestly had no idea. I thought they were all either funded by PPP or by the local operators. I'm pretty sure there was little, if any eu funding in the eurotunnel

Correct. The EU did not contribute to the cost of building the tunnel.

catbear

When the likes of Gove talk about protestant britain he's not talking about spiritual or ideology but rather economic apartness.

Now it worked fine when European nations were competing for global supremacy but in reverse I can't see how beneficial that same apartness works.

One constant criticism repeated is that the UK joined EEC and didn't want the EU. However the whole project was always been political in that it's aim was to avoid war by sharing economic resources and for the UK to say it was misled is disingenuous.

Professor Moriarty

Fratton Fred wrote: »

sigh.

Try reading the article

I read the article. I was giving you the benefit of the doubt and assumed you hadn't read the article. Let me save you the trouble.

The article is a pathetic and grovelling attempt to align May with elements of Catholicism based on, at best, tenuous and meaningless links dreamt up by Gove. Bizarrely, for instance, he thinks that May has Catholic principles because she once gave up crisps for Lent and because she chose two Catholic hymns on Desert Island Discs.

She is a Protestant. Her father was a Protestant vicar. She attends an Anglican church on Sundays. The Queen of England is the Head of her church, not the Pope. That's how Catholic she is.

It is a meaningless article that says nothing of substance. Utter waste of time.

Fratton Fred

Professor Moriarty wrote: »

I read the article. I was giving you the benefit of the doubt and assumed you hadn't read the article. Let me save you the trouble.

The article is a pathetic and grovelling attempt to align May with elements of Catholicism based on, at best, tenuous and meaningless links dreamt up by Gove. Bizarrely, for instance, he thinks that May has Catholic principles because she once gave up crisps for Lent and because she chose two Catholic hymns on Desert Island Discs.

She is a Protestant. Her father was a Protestant vicar. She attends an Anglican church on Sundays. The Queen of England is the Head of her church, not the Pope. That's how Catholic she is.

It is a meaningless article that says nothing of substance. Utter waste of time.

She is a catholic. The Church of England is a catholic church, it just isn't Roman Catholic.

An Anglo Catholic (which is kind of a branch of the CofE) would follow more or less the same teachings as the Roman Catholic church. Her father may have been a vicar, but he may have subscribed to the Anglo Catholic side of the CofE. It is worth noting as well, that she also attended a Roman Catholic convent School for girls.

But this is all absolute bollox anyway, discussing religion in a thread about Brexit is as relevant as discussing it in one about horse racing.

Fratton Fred

catbear wrote: »

When the likes of Gove talk about protestant britain he's not talking about spiritual or ideology but rather economic apartness.

Now it worked fine when European nations were competing for global supremacy but in reverse I can't see how beneficial that same apartness works.

One constant criticism repeated is that the UK joined EEC and didn't want the EU. However the whole project was always been political in that it's aim was to avoid war by sharing economic resources and for the UK to say it was misled is disingenuous.

I believe the main concern would be the "Ever closer Union" bit. What exactly does this mean. The eu themselves seem to think this means ultimately a federal Europe, but there seems to be some disconnect there with several member states.

djpbarry

Fratton Fred wrote: »

Were they? I honestly had no idea. I thought they were all either funded by PPP or by the local operators. I'm pretty sure there was little, if any eu funding in the eurotunnel.

Focusing on UK investment in particular, the EIB has been a key financier in the Channel tunnel, Crossrail, the M25 extension, the second Severn crossing, the Jubilee Line extension to the London Underground network, the Heathrow Express and London to Dover fast rail links, as well as in smaller road, rail, port and airport, energy, hospital and school projects.

In 2015, EIB financing committed to the UK amounted to nearly EUR 8bn, including more than EUR 400m for the expansion of Aberdeen and Liverpool ports, EUR 700m for social housing in Northern Ireland and in London, more than EUR 525m for the Caithness Coast wind farm, and EUR 260m to Swansea and Oxford universities for research and improved teaching facilities.

http://www.infrastructure-intelligence.com/article/nov-2016/will-uk-still-have-access-european-investment-bank-after-brexit

oscarBravo

Fratton Fred wrote: »

I believe the main concern would be the "Ever closer Union" bit. What exactly does this mean.

It means whatever the member states decide it means, because the member states set the Union's competencies through the Treaties, which all members have to ratify.

There's a long-running myth that the UK signed up to a common market and that they were somehow blindsided by the sneaky concept of "ever closer union", which is rampant nonsense, given that that phrase was in the preamble to the Treaty of Rome.

Professor Moriarty

Fratton Fred wrote: »

She is a catholic. The Church of England is a catholic church, it just isn't Roman Catholic.

An Anglo Catholic (which is kind of a branch of the CofE) would follow more or less the same teachings as the Roman Catholic church. Her father may have been a vicar, but he may have subscribed to the Anglo Catholic side of the CofE. It is worth noting as well, that she also attended a Roman Catholic convent School for girls.

But this is all absolute bollox anyway, discussing religion in a thread about Brexit is as relevant as discussing it in one about horse racing.

Agreed.

Fratton Fred

oscarBravo wrote: »

It means whatever the member states decide it means, because the member states set the Union's competencies through the Treaties, which all members have to ratify.

There's a long-running myth that the UK signed up to a common market and that they were somehow blindsided by the sneaky concept of "ever closer union", which is rampant nonsense, given that that phrase was in the preamble to the Treaty of Rome.

it is irrelevant if this myth about blindsided exists or not. It is open to interpretation and if one state reads it one way and the rest another, then that state has two choices, fall in or leave.

As it stands though, there is more than one state who have reservations about federalisation.

First Up

Fratton Fred wrote:

I believe the main concern would be the "Ever closer Union" bit. What exactly does this mean. The eu themselves seem to think this means ultimately a federal Europe, but there seems to be some disconnect there with several member states.

The sentence says "ever closer union among the peoples and member states of the European community". Considering it was written not much more than ten years after the end of WW2, I'd interpreted it as a legitimate and laudable aspiration.

I don't know who you mean by "the EU themselves" but can you tell us which of its consituent parts interpret the phrase as a mandate for a federal Europe?

Fratton Fred

djpbarry wrote: »

http://www.infrastructure-intelligence.com/article/nov-2016/will-uk-still-have-access-european-investment-bank-after-brexit

yeah, ok.

The EIB only loans money though doesn't it, it isn't paying towards those projects, it just facilitates loans so the projects can take place.

Professor Moriarty

Fratton Fred wrote: »

it is irrelevant if this myth about blindsided exists or not. It is open to interpretation and if one state reads it one way and the rest another, then that state has two choices, fall in or leave.

As it stands though, there is more than one state who have reservations about federalisation.

Many states do indeed have concerns about the direction the EU is heading. However, it appears that only one state wants to leave.

catbear

Fratton Fred wrote: »

catbear wrote: »

When the likes of Gove talk about protestant britain he's not talking about spiritual or ideology but rather economic apartness.

Now it worked fine when European nations were competing for global supremacy but in reverse I can't see how beneficial that same apartness works.

One constant criticism repeated is that the UK joined EEC and didn't want the EU. However the whole project was always been political in that it's aim was to avoid war by sharing economic resources and for the UK to say it was misled is disingenuous.

I believe the main concern would be the "Ever closer Union" bit. What exactly does this mean. The eu themselves seem to think this means ultimately a federal Europe, but there seems to be some disconnect there with several member states.

I hear what you're saying and lots of people are jumping the gun with the assumption that the EU is destined to be another USA.

But the point remains going back to Benelux that the project has always been political. Trade happens regardless of the union.

Also I think the Henrician uniformity of the catholic church in England can't be understated in the current contest. The Elizabethan reign cemented the English mind into an independent nation state form that was revolutionary in its day.

I believe we hear it every time the size of the UK is trotted out as leverage. Ironically in leaving, the UK seems to have inspired a uniformity of purpose for the EU, not unlike the Tudor mind.

Fratton Fred

First Up wrote: »

The sentence says "ever closer union among the peoples and member states of the European community". Considering it was written not much more than ten years after the end of WW2, I'd interpreted it as a legitimate and laudable aspiration.

very legitimate and very laudable. Is it still relevant though?

First Up wrote: »

I don't know who you mean by "the EU themselves" but can you tell us which of its consituent parts interpret the phrase as a mandate for a federal Europe?

oh please, enough of this "We are all part of the eu" fanboy ism.

The eu, as in the commission, the actual people who sit, year after year, in Brussels and actually operate this thing called the european union.

Chips Lovell

Fratton Fred wrote: »

it is irrelevant if this myth about blindsided exists or not. It is open to interpretation and if one state reads it one way and the rest another, then that state has two choices, fall in or leave.

As it stands though, there is more than one state who have reservations about federalisation.

Not really. Every new treaty has to be ratified by member states. Nobody was railroaded into ever closer union. They all signed up for it.