Brexit discussion thread IV

Capt'n Midnight

swampgas wrote: »

Just how big a mountain would the British government have to climb to credibly project any kind of positivity about the EU to a major chunk of the electorate?

They could start by throwing up those big blue signs that say "EU funded" all over the place.

Sassygirl1999

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

They could start by throwing up those big blue signs that say "EU funded" all over the place.

May is in the med getting burned, the heat wave is not the reason

bilston

cml387 wrote: »

Mark Carney has warned about a no deal Brexit, and the usual suspects have immediately criticised him.

Now when the CBI, most all of the large car manufacturers, food suppliers and the foreign secretary have all warned about such an eventuality you might think that the penny has dropped.

I sometimes think that Jacob Rees Mogg has the touch of the De Valera's about him. All he has to do is look into his heart to know the will of the British people.

Peter Bone (Tory Brexiteer MP) was on the BBC 6 o clock news responding to Mark Carney and feck me it was pathetic. His response to Mark Carney was primarily based on the fact that Carney is a Canadian who would soon be going back to Canada. He made no relevant counter arguments whatsoever...it actually enraged me.

FrancieBrady

Sassygirl1999 wrote: »

May is in the med getting burned, the heat wave is not the reason

She cut short her holiday to go see Macron.

imokyrok

Not sure this is the right place to ask . I have a relative in Northern Ireland who is moving to Dundalk. He has some savings and wonders if it would be financially safer to move it into euro now. If the UK crashes out with a no deal I'm thinking sterling will drop further against the euro. Any thoughts?

Water John

I would be jittery if I was stuck with sterling at this point. It could easily go below parity. Then I'm always a bit cautious.

Capt'n Midnight

Igotadose wrote: »

Interesting. 1.4Million new voters can vote if there were a new referendum: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/final-say-brexit-latest-young-voters-second-referendum-remain-poll-a8467631.html

The other side of that coin is Conservative voters dying out at rate of 2% per year, Lord Heseltine warns



It's a dogs life
British pug, dogged by no-deal Brexit fears, applies for Belgian 'citizenship'

Imreoir2

imokyrok wrote: »

Not sure this is the right place to ask . I have a relative in Northern Ireland who is moving to Dundalk. He has some savings and wonders if it would be financially safer to move it into euro now. If the UK crashes out with a no deal I'm thinking sterling will drop further against the euro. Any thoughts?

Hard to tell, if there is a no deal outcome, the value of the pound could easily fall below parity with the Euro. On the other hand, if a deal is done and the UK goes into the transition period the value of the pound might even rise. Which is worse for your family member, the potential loss if things go badly, or losing the potential gain if things go well?

trellheim

On a "you could not make this up" Conor McGregor was on one of my FB feeds in Manhattan today ... and everyone is wondering why Jonathan Rees-Mogg walked past. ( wearing a double breasted suit in this weather )

imokyrok

Imreoir2 wrote: »

Hard to tell, if there is a no deal outcome, the value of the pound could easily fall below parity with the Euro. On the other hand, if a deal is done and the UK goes into the transition period the value of the pound might even rise. Which is worse for your family member, the potential loss if things go badly, or losing the potential gain if things go well?

Probably the loss. They don't have much.

Spook_ie

Water John wrote: »

What Constitution are you referring to? UK doesn't have a written one. This is about having diff tax status. Not a problem, look at Tax free Industrial Zones, Duty Free Airports.
Correct Swampgas, it was the years of austerity that had people really p****d off. I think there was some study on that released yesterday.

So you want to turn NI into some kind of superport with a fence around it to prevent imports transiting the free zone from getting into the general economy?

Spook_ie

imokyrok wrote: »

Not sure this is the right place to ask . I have a relative in Northern Ireland who is moving to Dundalk. He has some savings and wonders if it would be financially safer to move it into euro now. If the UK crashes out with a no deal I'm thinking sterling will drop further against the euro. Any thoughts?

Spend it, you know it makes sense.

fash

imokyrok wrote: »

Not sure this is the right place to ask . I have a relative in Northern Ireland who is moving to Dundalk. He has some savings and wonders if it would be financially safer to move it into euro now. If the UK crashes out with a no deal I'm thinking sterling will drop further against the euro. Any thoughts?

The conservative answer (which would seem appropriate) is to transfer 50% now and 50% later.

Imreoir2

imokyrok wrote: »

Probably the loss. They don't have much.

Far be it from me to offer financial advice, but if they want to get it over to Euro, its probably better to do so before any potential further bad news on the Brexit front.

There probably wont be much change for the rest of the summer, so no need to rush down to the bank on Tuesday, but there may well be further moves in September and October. Might want to get it sorted before then as that is the point at which a further change in value is likely if things look bad.

Might be no harm to get some professional advice if you can, randomers on an online forum, handsom and sophisticated though we may be, are not always the best source of information.

Strazdas

bilston wrote: »

Peter Bone (Tory Brexiteer MP) was on the BBC 6 o clock news responding to Mark Carney and feck me it was pathetic. His response to Mark Carney was primarily based on the fact that Carney is a Canadian who would soon be going back to Canada. He made no relevant counter arguments whatsoever...it actually enraged me.

A recurring theme - and I hate to say this - is that a huge number of people on the Brexit side seem to be thick. We hear a lot about the young / old divide but another factor seems to be the thick half of the UK are all behind Brexit. You only have to watch the debates on Twitter, the Brexiteers making mistake after mistake and the Remainers coming back at them with tons of facts and statistics. The Brexiteers sometimes use statistics as well but frequently don't seem to understand the stats they are quoting or they misinterpret them.

murphaph

Indeed. Peter Bone really does seem quite unintelligent any time he is interviewed or even when he is asking questions in parliamentary committees. I don't know which one is worse, him or Iain Duncan-Smith.

Rhineshark

Regarding austerity, I was struck reading through some newspaper articles over the past few months just how bad things have been getting for British people the last while and things are starting to come to a crunch over the past few months.


Councils have been giving warnings about chronic underfunding and really started to get loud in March, when Somerset drastically cut support for literacy support programs and the NAO warned that councils were having to use their reserves with 15 of them at risk of bankruptcy when those reserves ran out.


Northamptonshire council went bankrupt recently, although it was mostly seen as a badly run council with some Tory ideologues in charge. The ideal Tory council collapses first, there's a surprise..

But East Sussex council has released a bare bones, to the legal minimum offer of services and have admitted that they don't think they can provide even that by 2021. They're regarded as well run.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/aug/03/local-council-funding-crisis-east-sussex-cuts-services

The NHS is well-known to be on its knees, mental health services have been drastically cut. There is a surge of children being taken into care across England because councils can no longer afford to offer preventative aid, social workers, child protection officers. Which of course means the council that couldn't afford to keep them in their homes now has to home them.

The police force has been cut and there has been a consequent rise in crime.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/apr/08/police-cuts-likely-contributed-to-rise-in-violent-leaked-report-reveals

I wasn't sure about education (although I had a shrewd suspicion); first result on Google is https://www.google.ie/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/education/2018/feb/07/cash-crisis-forces-secondary-schools-in-england-to-cut-15000-staff

..so that's not going well either.

The botched Universal Credit scheme contributed, but its the same story, benefits cuts and increased poverty.
https://www.google.ie/amp/s/www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/food-bank-uk-benefits-trussell-trust-cost-of-living-highest-rate-a8317001.html%3famp

And yet the government reckons near full-employment by fudging the underemployment figures - the reason for the jump in employed people on benefits and/or using food banks.

I can't actually think of any sector under governmental responsibility that isn't on the verge of collapse - the post office?

Where the hell is the money going? In most countries you could look at the military, but that's being cut too. The UK is one of the wealthiest countries/national set ups in the world, this shouldn't be happening.

And then the same charlatans that got the country into this appalling mess convince them to turn their anger on the EU and bloody well Brexit, solving nothing and exacerbating every one of the above.


The voting system disenfranchises anyone in safe seat candidacies and there seem to be a lot of them, along with a proposal to reorganise electoral boundaries in some way that seems to benefit the Tories to the tune of 40 seats but I've forgotten the detail.

I sincerely feel for the British people in this mess. But their governing class, particularly the Tory part of it, is a festering pit of Etonian arrogance and aristocratic disconnect coupled with several crackpot ideologues and the backing of disastor capitalists. And that was before Brexit, which a fully-functioning country would struggle with, let alone one on its knees.


Ffs...and Corbyn is still the bogeyman.

Silent Running

Rhineshark wrote: »

Regarding austerity, I was struck reading through some newspaper articles over the past few months just how bad things have been getting for British people the last while and things are starting to come to a crunch over the past few months.


Councils have been giving warnings about chronic underfunding and really started to get loud in March, when Somerset drastically cut support for literacy support programs and the NAO warned that councils were having to use their reserves with 15 of them at risk of bankruptcy when those reserves ran out.


Northamptonshire council went bankrupt recently, although it was mostly seen as a badly run council with some Tory ideologues in charge. The ideal Tory council collapses first, there's a surprise..

But East Sussex council has released a bare bones, to the legal minimum offer of services and have admitted that they don't think they can provide even that by 2021. They're regarded as well run.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/aug/03/local-council-funding-crisis-east-sussex-cuts-services

The NHS is well-known to be on its knees, mental health services have been drastically cut. There is a surge of children being taken into care across England because councils can no longer afford to offer preventative aid, social workers, child protection officers. Which of course means the council that couldn't afford to keep them in their homes now has to home them.

The police force has been cut and there has been a consequent rise in crime.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/apr/08/police-cuts-likely-contributed-to-rise-in-violent-leaked-report-reveals

I wasn't sure about education (although I had a shrewd suspicion); first result on Google is https://www.google.ie/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/education/2018/feb/07/cash-crisis-forces-secondary-schools-in-england-to-cut-15000-staff

..so that's not going well either.

The botched Universal Credit scheme contributed, but its the same story, benefits cuts and increased poverty.
https://www.google.ie/amp/s/www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/food-bank-uk-benefits-trussell-trust-cost-of-living-highest-rate-a8317001.html%3famp

And yet the government reckons near full-employment by fudging the underemployment figures - the reason for the jump in employed people on benefits and/or using food banks.

I can't actually think of any sector under governmental responsibility that isn't on the verge of collapse - the post office?

Where the hell is the money going? In most countries you could look at the military, but that's being cut too. The UK is one of the wealthiest countries/national set ups in the world, this shouldn't be happening.

And then the same charlatans that got the country into this appalling mess convince them to turn their anger on the EU and bloody well Brexit, solving nothing and exacerbating every one of the above.


The voting system disenfranchises anyone in safe seat candidacies and there seem to be a lot of them, along with a proposal to reorganise electoral boundaries in some way that seems to benefit the Tories to the tune of 40 seats but I've forgotten the detail.

I sincerely feel for the British people in this mess. But their governing class, particularly the Tory part of it, is a festering pit of Etonian arrogance and aristocratic disconnect coupled with several crackpot ideologues and the backing of disastor capitalists. And that was before Brexit, which a fully-functioning country would struggle with, let alone one on its knees.


Ffs...and Corbyn is still the bogeyman.

Yeah, but at least they can go through all that holding their blue passports high.

I seriously worry about the damage our neighbour can do to us. They seem to think that any price is worth paying to escape the tyranny of the EU. They don't care who else is in the splatter zone. The thinking seems to be: as long as we're hurting the EU it doesn't matter how much we're hurting ourselves. Bizarre really.

Rhineshark

Silent Running wrote: »

Yeah, but at least they can go through all that holding their blue passports high.

I seriously worry about the damage our neighbour can do to us. They seem to think that any price is worth paying to escape the tyranny of the EU. They don't care who else is in the splatter zone. The thinking seems to be: as long as we're hurting the EU it doesn't matter how much we're hurting ourselves. Bizarre really.

All of the above and everything leading to it has bern blamed on the EU with a similar pattern of blame going back 40 years.

Yeah, they want to damage the EU. Given what they think it's caused I can't entirely blame them, although this is purely internal and caused by gross mismanagement for ideological reasons.

I am pissed at what's being done to Ireland as basically collateral damage. There's no excuse for it at the top and the idiots cheering them on don't realise what they've actually been tricked into. Not that it makes the nastier rhetoric any easier to swallow.

Peregrinus

Taytoland wrote: »

Indeed. The number one aim for any Prime Minister is to defend and protect the Union. The Union has to be the number priority. Everyone knows my view on the EU but if it meant a CU of sort to defend the Union then so be it. The Union is so much more important in all regards.

Where have you been for the past 30 years, Taytoland? The UK declared in 1990 that it had no strategic interest in Northern Ireland, and that the continuance of the Union was a matter for the people of Northern Ireland. The Westminster governement is officially neutral on this - the (British-NI) union continues, it doesn't continue; they have no preference. And this neutrality is repeated and enshrined in the Good Friday Agreement. And this is a bipartisan position; Labour and Tory governments have both stuck to it since 1990.

It was noted at the time that it was pretty well unprecedented for any national government to announce that it had no strategic interest in a part of its own territory, so this is not something they decided or stuck to by accident, as it were.

If the people of NI are happy with regulatory controls between GB and NI, even if you take the view that this implies a weakening or dissolution of the Union (which I don't), Westminster should be happy with that. Unless they intend to repudiate the Downing Street Declaration, which I kind of doubt.

Peregrinus

imokyrok wrote: »

Not sure this is the right place to ask . I have a relative in Northern Ireland who is moving to Dundalk. He has some savings and wonders if it would be financially safer to move it into euro now. If the UK crashes out with a no deal I'm thinking sterling will drop further against the euro. Any thoughts?

If your relative will be living in euroland, and spending in euros, then she takes a risk by keeping her savings in a currency other than euros. This is true regardless of whether you think sterling is more likely to go up or go down. The question she should be asking herself is not "do I think sterling will go up or down?" It's "do I want to gamble on future exchange rate movements?"

Maybe she does, which is fine, so long as she appreciates that that's what she's doing, and is happy about it. But if she's risk-averse, then the idea of betting on future sterling movements will probably not appeal to her.

FrancieBrady

Peregrinus wrote: »

Where have you been for the past 30 years, Taytoland? The UK declared in 1990 that it had no strategic interest in Northern Ireland, and that the continuance of the Union was a matter for the people of Northern Ireland. The Westminster governement is officially neutral on this - the (British-NI) union continues, it doesn't continue; they have no preference. And this neutrality is repeated and enshrined in the Good Friday Agreement. And this is a bipartisan position; Labour and Tory governments have both stuck to it since 1990.

It was noted at the time that it was pretty well unprecedented for any national government to announce that it had no strategic interest in a part of its own territory, so this is not something they decided or stuck to by accident, as it were.

If the people of NI are happy with regulatory controls between GB and NI, even if you take the view that this implies a weakening or dissolution of the Union (which I don't), Westminster should be happy with that. Unless they intend to repudiate the Downing Street Declaration, which I kind of doubt.

^ What Unionism dare not publicly acknowledge or discuss.

Good summation of the reality there.

brickster69

FrancieBrady wrote: »

Taytoland wrote: »

Indeed. The number one aim for any Prime Minister is to defend and protect the Union. The Union has to be the number priority. Everyone knows my view on the EU but if it meant a CU of sort to defend the Union then so be it. The Union is so much more important in all regards.

Well then you cannot mind Ireland vetoing any cozy deal the UK gets if it is not in our best interests.

Sounds like a good plan.  It beats no planes flying over Ireland that one :)
One day the united 27, next day in it for themselves.

FrancieBrady

brickster69 wrote: »

Sounds like a good plan.  It beats no planes flying over Ireland that one :)
One day the united 27, next day in it for themselves.

Not sure I get your point.

EdgeCase

One reasonable approach would be a Northern Irish referendum on the customs union, rather than a border poll.

If Northern Ireland wants a special arrangement, then it should be something that ALL of the electorate up there gets to vote on, not just some cabal of the DUP and right-wing Tories.

Something like that is far more in the spirit of the GFA.

Peregrinus

Spook_ie wrote: »

So you want to turn NI into some kind of superport with a fence around it to prevent imports transiting the free zone from getting into the general economy?

Yeah, 'cos Shannon Airport was just like that.

The proposal, basically, is that NI would remain in the Customs Union and (large parts of) the Single Market.

This would mean no border controls of any kind between NI and RoI.

It would mean limited border controls between NI and GB - how limited would depend on choices made by the UK. There would be no need for any controls on goods moving from NI to GB (unless GB chose to impose such controls; but this would be a matter for them - the EU would not require or expect that). But there would need to be controls to ensure that goods entering NI from GB were Single Market-compliant. There are already some controls of this kind on livestock, agricultural produce and a few other goods; they would need to be expanded.

brickster69

FrancieBrady wrote: »

brickster69 wrote: »

Sounds like a good plan.  It beats no planes flying over Ireland that one :)
One day the united 27, next day in it for themselves.

Not sure I get your point.

I was responding to " Well then you cannot mind Ireland vetoing any cozy deal the UK gets if it is not in our best interests."
I understand " our best interest " meaning Ireland's  interests not the EU as a whole. Maybe i'm mistaken.

FrancieBrady

brickster69 wrote: »

I was responding to " Well then you cannot mind Ireland vetoing any cozy deal the UK gets if it is not in our best interests."
I understand " our best interest " meaning Ireland's  interests not the EU as a whole. Maybe i'm mistaken.

That is how the EU are playing it, the EU's interest is Ireland and vice versa.

The UK and Unionism in general are having a difficult time comprehending that

Gerry T

brickster69 wrote:

I was responding to " Well then you cannot mind Ireland vetoing any cozy deal the UK gets if it is not in our best interests." I understand " our best interest " meaning Ireland's interests not the EU as a whole. Maybe i'm mistaken.

Your confused, IRL is the EU, any proposed deal has to be agreed to by 27 members, if any 1 is unhappy then the deal is off. And we all (27) stand together in that decision.

Very unlike the UK, where England's population dwarfs it's partners, Wales, Scotland and NI. even though 2 of the 4 wanted to remain, there was no discussion between the 4, England decided and set the course, set the red lines, set the timeline. No wonder the UK is a mess.

FrancieBrady

brickster69 wrote: »

I was responding to " Well then you cannot mind Ireland vetoing any cozy deal the UK gets if it is not in our best interests."
I understand " our best interest " meaning Ireland's  interests not the EU as a whole. Maybe i'm mistaken.

btw your reading of what Leo said as a 'threat' about airspace is not really subscribed to around here. It wasn't a threat.