Brexit discussion thread X (Please read OP before posting)

fash

cryptocurrency wrote: »

Come on, you only have to look at the change in mood, rhetoric and behavior.

Emotional tweets from Tusk, Guy Verhofstadt and others plus the language they use. 70 days left so we are about to find out but I’d put my mortgage on what I’ve said.

Please do.

cryptocurrency

fash wrote: »

I would suggest that anything other than the "sunlit uplands" will discredit the charlatans. I expect a no deal with result in rioting in cities within 6 months when the people realise they've been duped. I would also expect a sudden calm within the first week or two before the problems start to become obvious- with all sorts of panic collapses in the supply of certain goods with lots of unexpected consequences. As anyone competent has said however the major consequences of a no deal Brexit will happen in the years that follow- with a slowing UK economy waning in relative power.


So we should allow in refugees? (Just to see how you stand on the Brexiter scale and on the libertarian scale)


So if you think the Polish, Czechs and Germans are not afraid of change, why do you expect them to surrender to the UK by giving them a "cake & eat it" deal?

That is a serious amount of drama.

I don’t think you fishing on the refugees question is at all helpful here, that’s just responses driven by emotion.

Immigration isn’t a problem to me. You may be closer on the path with you libertarian angle as I’m pretty free market.

jimmycrackcorm

cryptocurrency wrote: »

May, May is what was different. They knew that she was weak and had many meetings with her. Boris has come in with a totally different approach and has put them from the front foot to the back foot. Brussels heads are still spinning.

It's largely irrelevant. It suits the EU that the consequence of a no deal means the EU project is secure as no other country will want to leave as they watch how GB flounders.

We should be grateful to the UK.

Forty Seven

First Up wrote: »

Be nice and point me to where you explained how the UK would be better able to control immigration by non-EU citizens when it leaves the EU. I seem to have missed that bit.

I have consistently posted that brexit was a protest vote due to problems with immigration. I have clearly stated that I understand brexit will not change this. If you can't be bothered reading my posts I sure as hell can't be bothered linking them for you.

54and56

Bit cynical wrote: »

However the future relationship text could be worded in such a way that, although the backstop text remained in the WA, it would be rendered null and void. Something along the lines of "these measures satisfy the requirements set out in the WA of a satisfactory alternative".

Obviously,

1. Johnson would have to come up with a satisfactory alternative that would satisfy the EU (unlikely).

2. The wording would have to be very specific about the backstop being no longer applicable (unlikely).

3. It would have to pass in the UK parliament (unlikely).

All unlikely but nevertheless there may have been some substance to Merkel's remarks.

I don't see how your idea works given the future relationship document is not legally binding and nothing more than a joint statement of intent about what both parties want to achieve in an FTA negotiation.

cryptocurrency

jimmycrackcorm wrote: »

It's largely irrelevant. It suits the EU that the consequence of a no deal means the EU project is secure as no other country will want to leave as they watch how GB flounders.

We should be grateful to the UK.

That tactic would make sense if it would happen but the bottom line is that it won’t and the UK is way too powerful for the EU to be so openly hostile to it and it’s citizens. You can’t possibly belief that.

We do have a tendency to fall into the trap here of swallowing what we are told. Nobody can survive outside the EU until the are surviving outside the EU. Something has to actually happen for us to believe it.

There isn’t a hope in hell of the UK “floundering “ post Brexit.

First Up

Forty Seven wrote: »

I have consistently posted that brexit was a protest vote due to problems with immigration. I have clearly stated that I understand brexit will not change this. If you can't be bothered reading my posts I sure as hell can't be bothered linking them for you.

Thanks; excuse me being a bit slow but your comments about boatloads of Libyans does disguise the fact that you agree that voting for Brexit because of non-EU immigrants was idiocy of the highest order.

Nody

cryptocurrency wrote: »

That tactic would make sense if it would happen but the bottom line is that it won’t and the UK is way too powerful for the EU to be so openly hostile to it and it’s citizens. You can’t possibly belief that.

EU is around 6x the size of UK and UK don't appear to have any problems being hostile to EU citizens; why would EU not being the more powerful be able to be hostile?

We do have a tendency to fall into the trap here of swallowing what we are told. Nobody can survive outside the EU until the are surviving outside the EU. Something has to actually happen for us to believe it.

There isn’t a hope in hell of the UK “floundering “ post Brexit.

Care to explain what will happen with the current 65% trade going to EU/EEA/EU FTA that are not going to be available 1st Nov.? You know WTO tariffs being smacked on 65% of a countries trade do sound like a bad thing but please do enlighten us on why that's actually a good thing. Oh and do keep in mind no FTAs with USA (months at least), EU (sort out those three issues before we talk), Australia(waiting until another big power has squeezed UK), Canada (refuses to sign anything until EU relationship is clear), India (visas among other items required) etc. and no grace period either.

fash

cryptocurrency wrote: »

That tactic would make sense if it would happen but the bottom line is that it won’t and the UK is way too powerful for the EU to be so openly hostile to it and it’s citizens. You can’t possibly belief that.

We do have a tendency to fall into the trap here of swallowing what we are told. Nobody can survive outside the EU until the are surviving outside the EU. Something has to actually happen for us to believe it.

There isn’t a hope in hell of the UK “floundering “ post Brexit.

Bet your mortgage on it - or put your crypto funds into Sterling.

trellheim

Listening carefully to the arguments at least put forward here by crypto and 47

You get lots and lots of posts back here because we're an english speaking close neighbour that cannot genuinely for the life of it see any motive for what you are doing, every single possible decent argument has been comprehensively rubbished many times over . There is no democratic mandate, any external observer checking into Vote Leave and Arron Banks funding would be saying - lets go again with someone actually being open and honest, both in funding ( we still dont know who funded the DUP for Vote Leave , remember all that ? , there was a BBC programme about that ).

So a 2nd referendum with some options including WA ? Don't like that ? Commons couldn't decide either. But thats fair enough, and from my point of view without clear consensus status quo ante should prevail, i.e remain until a clear direction exists. Out on 31 october is not a clear direction, its a cliff face that is not serious.

I do tend to agree that Brexit has brutalized the english (not the other nations) psyche in recent times, there seems to be a desire to get out , out, out at the earliest opportunity and make it all go away, which Johnson and ERG etc are lapping up - thats how he got elected . This neatly misses the point that even with WA (plus, minus, whatever) or No-Deal, the problems are only starting with Brexit . Even with No-Deal and Out , 24 hours later a GE will be called plus then months and months of mini-deals all over the media , repeating for years.

jimmycrackcorm

cryptocurrency wrote: »

That tactic would make sense if it would happen but the bottom line is that it won’t and the UK is way too powerful for the EU to be so openly hostile to it and it’s citizens. You can’t possibly belief that.

We do have a tendency to fall into the trap here of swallowing what we are told. Nobody can survive outside the EU until the are surviving outside the EU. Something has to actually happen for us to believe it.

There isn’t a hope in hell of the UK “floundering “ post Brexit.

Nobody is suggesting that a country cannot survive Street leaving the EU. But it's delirious to suggest that a no deal scenario will make the UK prosper.

It's a simple fact that the treat of the EU values what membership is about whereas the UK only thinks it's a trading arrangement.

Boris is being more desperate to get a deal as seen by the grovelling visits to "our friends in Europe"

Forty Seven

trellheim wrote: »

Listening carefully to the arguments at least put forward here by crypto and 47

You get lots and lots of posts back here because we're an english speaking close neighbour that cannot genuinely for the life of it see any motive for what you are doing, every single possible decent argument has been comprehensively rubbished many times over . There is no democratic mandate, any external observer checking into Vote Leave and Arron Banks funding would be saying - lets go again with someone actually being open and honest, both in funding ( we still dont know who funded the DUP for Vote Leave , remember all that ? , there was a BBC programme about that ).

So a 2nd referendum with some options including WA ? Don't like that ? Commons couldn't decide either. But thats fair enough, and from my point of view without clear consensus status quo ante should prevail, i.e remain until a clear direction exists. Out on 31 october is not a clear direction, its a cliff face that is not serious.

I do tend to agree that Brexit has brutalized the english (not the other nations) psyche in recent times, there seems to be a desire to get out , out, out at the earliest opportunity and make it all go away, which Johnson and ERG etc are lapping up - thats how he got elected . This neatly misses the point that even with WA (plus, minus, whatever) or No-Deal, the problems are only starting with Brexit . Even with No-Deal and Out , 24 hours later a GE will be called plus then months and months of mini-deals all over the media , repeating for years.

It is brutalising Scotland too. Coming right after brexit will be a referendum either legal or not. Another result likely to be misguided. A vote for independence just to try and join the EU. (which won't happen because of the Catalonia issue) The SNP are trying to sell it as an easy transition back to pre brexit but their motivation is just hatred of the English. They will likely win leaving Scotland (perhaps illegally) leaving the union and attempting to go it alone with the UK nuclear arsenal on our soil. A great plan....

If Brexit is extended again I fully expect riots. If it isn't and we no deal, I expect riots. I think the no deal riots will be less violent. The brexit crowd are a much different crowd to remainers.

There is no easy out here, extending or remaining doesn't matter anymore. We are entrenched, some of us across political lines, some personal but all have picked a side and all have had enough. Pray we don't get an Indian summer.

Call me Al

Forty Seven wrote: »

No deal is firmly on the table.

Oh please!
Taken from The Telegraph 17/1/17 Lancaster speech.
"....
The Prime Minister added: “Britain would not – indeed we could not – accept such an approach. And while I am confident that this scenario need never arise – while I am sure a positive agreement can be reached – I am equally clear that no deal for Britain is better than a bad deal for Britain.”

Her threat is a marked contrasted with the approach taken ahead of the referendum by David Cameron, who repeatedly refused to say he would walk away and support Brexit if EU leaders did not offer Britain a good deal. ".

They've been spouting this bull for 2 and a half years, in a "save me before I shoot myself in the head" kind of way.
It's been on the table over and over again.

Lackadaisical

I think though when you've a mess a non federal system with weirdly devolved power that essentially sees Westminster and the British government as really just being the English government with some other places being dragged along, you'll always have annoyance with England.

It's not hatred of the English, but hatred of the sense they're being ruled by England, which for all intents and purposes they are.

I mean you can call Scotland a country but it's not one. It's got fewer devolved powers then a US state and its devolution is very much at the behest of, what is in reality, an English parliament.

It's even worse for NI as they don't even have any of the same political parties as England, thus run a system within a system.

There's a big difference between 'hating' the English and simply hating being governed in an ad hoc mess of a system as exists in the UK. It should have federalised in the 1700s!

Midlife

Forty Seven wrote: »

It is brutalising Scotland too. Coming right after brexit will be a referendum either legal or not. Another result likely to be misguided. A vote for independence just to try and join the EU. (which won't happen because of the Catalonia issue) The SNP are trying to sell it as an easy transition back to pre brexit but their motivation is just hatred of the English. They will likely win leaving Scotland (perhaps illegally) leaving the union and attempting to go it alone with the UK nuclear arsenal on our soil. A great plan....

If Brexit is extended again I fully expect riots. If it isn't and we no deal, I expect riots. I think the no deal riots will be less violent. The brexit crowd are a much different crowd to remainers.

There is no easy out here, extending or remaining doesn't matter anymore. We are entrenched, some of us across political lines, some personal but all have picked a side and all have had enough. Pray we don't get an Indian summer.

There is a sensible out which I think funnily enough is exactly what Boris is doing. His bluster isn't to convince Europe he'll go through with it, it's to convince parliment. He'll repackage May's deal, add some kind of timeframe to the backstop, basically whatever he can do to say 'this is new' and then he'll say to parliment 'take this or take no deal'.

Basically with all the 'leaked' disaster prep and Gove's job, he's taking notions of remain off the table. Pretty smart actually.

I'm not saying Johnson is some genius but if the goal of the game is to scare labour etc into voting for a deal, it's pretty smart.

Calina

Forty Seven wrote: »

It is brutalising Scotland too. Coming right after brexit will be a referendum either legal or not. Another result likely to be misguided. A vote for independence just to try and join the EU. (which won't happen because of the Catalonia issue) The SNP are trying to sell it as an easy transition back to pre brexit but their motivation is just hatred of the English. They will likely win leaving Scotland (perhaps illegally) leaving the union and attempting to go it alone with the UK nuclear arsenal on our soil. A great plan....

If Brexit is extended again I fully expect riots. If it isn't and we no deal, I expect riots. I think the no deal riots will be less violent. The brexit crowd are a much different crowd to remainers.

There is no easy out here, extending or remaining doesn't matter anymore. We are entrenched, some of us across political lines, some personal but all have picked a side and all have had enough. Pray we don't get an Indian summer.

You are right, there is no easy out. But this is precisely because of entrenched positions which are rooted in emotions, not in rationality.

You appear to be a proUnion Scot, so I assume you do not support the SNP. Who would you vote for if avoiding entrenched irrational positions is an objective? Who decides what is misguided in the context if moving the UK forward?

Brexit is misguided, I think you are acknowledging. Could you accept that abdicating a fight against it is also misguided? You are on a site with people for whom referendums are annual at least. Our view is broadly that the Brexit referendum was badly done. Would you continue eating a lemon meringue someone made with salt instead of sugar just because you ordered lemon meringue, and regardless of it being made badly?

Because that is what the referendum is, badly done but you will eat it anyway, at huge cost.

Here, we send things back.

Lemming

Forty Seven wrote: »

If Brexit is extended again I fully expect riots. If it isn't and we no deal, I expect riots. I think the no deal riots will be less violent. The brexit crowd are a much different crowd to remainers.

You are missing an important consideration with regards the no-deal riots. Intially, you may be right, but here's the rub: Extension p1sses off a portion of the electorate. No-deal (whence fully exposed) will p1ss off the electorate at large; no medicine? food shortages? Can't afford food? Johnny Furdiner is still living next door because Brexit fixes no domestic issues? Still can't get an NHS appointment due to chronic underfunding by successive Tory governments? etc. etc. It would get very ugly. Very ugly indeed as the lies that were sold by a mendacious political cabal and an accomplice media are exposed with no end in sight.

The above is something that absolutely baffles me from a political point of view. Any politician with half a brain should be able to see the possible end-state for this misadventure and from a self-preservation stance alone, be seeking to avoid it.

Strazdas

Forty Seven wrote: »

Not wanting immigration is not xenophobia so you can bugger right off with the attempt to bypass debate with the racist card.

The rest of your post just reflects what I have been saying. Consistently, for pages.

I would say it is. Anyone who is prepared to blow up the economy and perhaps put their own relatives and friends out of a job just in order to reduce immigration is a xenophobe in my book.

Forty Seven

Lackadaisical wrote: »

I think though when you've a mess a non federal system with weirdly devolved power that essentially sees Westminster and the British government as really just being the English government with some other places being dragged along, you'll always have annoyance with England.

It's not hatred of the English, but hatred of the sense they're being ruled by England, which for all intents and purposes they are.

I mean you can call Scotland a country but it's not one. It's got fewer devolved powers then an US state and its devolution is very much at the behest of an what is in reality and English parliament.

It's even worse for NI as they don't even have any of the same political parties as England, thus run a system within a system.

There's a big difference between 'hating' the English and simply hating being governed in an ad hoc mess of a system as exists in the UK. It should have federalised in the 1700s!

Scotland is very much a country within the union. Just as Ireland is within the EU. There is a quite pronounced hatred of the English here. Mostly because we are force fed the historical abuses the English administered to us over the years whilst at school. I hated the English until I moved there as a teen. Many never overthrow this indoctrination. Many are just full of crap from Braveheart and other stories. A lot of the populace would be quite happy to stick it to the English. Some more recent policies haven't helped and that is the hatred of being ruled over, the poll tax was one. Brexit another.

54and56

cryptocurrency wrote: »

Boris has come in with a totally different approach and has put them from the front foot to the back foot. Brussels heads are still spinning.

Are you outside in the sun drinking special brew?

Forty Seven

Strazdas wrote: »

I would say it is. Anyone who is prepared to blow up the economy and perhaps put their own relatives and friends out of a job just in order to reduce immigration is a xenophobe in my book.

Thankfully I don't read your book. I get my definitions from a dictionary. My problems with immigration do not come from dislike or hatred of any people. They come purely from economic concerns. We cannot feed and house half a continent and we should not have to.

FrancieBrady

Forty Seven wrote: »

A vote for independence just to try and join the EU. (which won't happen because of the Catalonia issue)

This has been debunked many times now. Spain long ago pointed out that the two situations are not the same. If Scotland votes to leave, it will be in a 'legal' referendum. Spain contends the difference is that Catalonia's independence bid is illegal.
They would have no legitimate challenge to Scotland joining the EU.

Surprised a genuine 'Scot' wouldn't know that.

Lemming

Forty Seven wrote: »

Scotland is very much a country within the union. Just as Ireland is within the EU. There is a quite pronounced hatred of the English here. Mostly because we are force fed the historical abuses the English administered to us over the years whilst at school. I hated the English until I moved there as a teen. Many never overthrow this indoctrination. Many are just full of crap from Braveheart and other stories. A lot of the populace would be quite happy to stick it to the English. Some more recent policies haven't helped and that is the hatred of being ruled over, the poll tax was one. Brexit another.

Whilst I would never advocate any notion of "hate the English" and having lived in Yorkshire for the past decade, witnessing some of the discourse regards the EU, and both Ireland & Scotland in particular, the English (both politically and socially) have shown me two things; their awareness of even their own history never mind the British Empires less than stellar graces is shocking in the extreme, and for what would appear to be a lamentably sizeable number, that cliched superiority-racist streak is never far beneath the surface.

Strazdas

Strazdas wrote: »

I would say it is. Anyone who is prepared to blow up the economy and perhaps put their own relatives and friends out of a job just in order to reduce immigration is a xenophobe in my book.

Maybe you should ask the question as to why you "need" immigrants in the first instance, can anyone seriously answer that question.
Why an immigrant and not locals. Is a country too mean to educate the local children with the right skills for these jobs, or do they prefer to poach them from elsewhere.
Indigenous peoples with the right education are more than capable of doing any job that immigrants do, but at a higher cost and growth would be limited to the population.

Maybe it's just to perpetuate the infinite growth that financial economists believe we need to maintain the functioning of the current financial system.

Lackadaisical

Slightly different history and structure there in the sense that the EU is a voluntary membership multilateral organisation that is managed by what amounts to a quasi federal democracy that mixes direct represention (the European Parliament) with intergovernmentalism (the Council) and the Commission which is appointees of of each member (hugely over weighting the smaller ones).

If Scotland wants to leave the UK, Westminster can veto it. When Ireland did similar in the early 20th century it faced both military and economic sanctions.

The UK can leave the EU in the morning without anything other than practical consequences. There's nobody going to come after it with a gun nor is there anyone going to look for trade sanctions.

What the UK is looking for would be like Scotland leaving the UK and demanding full, unfettered access to the UK market and continued use of all the UK's trade deals, while banning English people from living in Scotland without heavy visa requirements and so on and threatening to throw a tantrum if that's not what it was given access to.

Also the UK is technically a unitary state with regionalization. The use of the term union and country for the sub regions is just historical reference and choice of language. In any technical description, a union would imply some kind of federated system like the US, Germany, Canada or Switzerland. The UK's closest analogy is probably present day Spain. It's probably also why they've similar problems with regions wanting independence. They'd both be better off as federal democracies but in both cases you've s dominant region that will not cede power.

Midlife

Forty Seven wrote: »

Thankfully I don't read your book. I get my definitions from a dictionary. My problems with immigration do not come from dislike or hatred of any people. They come purely from economic concerns. We cannot feed and house half a continent and we should not have to.

Every country in Europe has these concerns. I fail to understand why Britian's soloution to them is to leave the EU.

Forty Seven

Calina wrote: »

You are right, there is no easy out. But this is precisely because of entrenched positions which are rooted in emotions, not in rationality.

You appear to be a proUnion Scot, so I assume you do not support the SNP. Who would you vote for if avoiding entrenched irrational positions is an objective? Who decides what is misguided in the context if moving the UK forward?

Brexit is misguided, I think you are acknowledging. Could you accept that abdicating a fight against it is also misguided? You are on a site with people for whom referendums are annual at least. Our view is broadly that the Brexit referendum was badly done. Would you continue eating a lemon meringue someone made with salt instead of sugar just because you ordered lemon meringue, and regardless of it being made badly?

Because that is what the referendum is, badly done but you will eat it anyway, at huge cost.

Here, we send things back.

Honestly? I have no idea who to vote for anymore. The tories do not align with my beliefs, Labour is lost in identity politics which I abhor plus their leader is unelectable and has flip flopped so much on brexit he is no longer credible. The SNP are a one issue party that don't stand for me. The Lib Dems proved to be opportunists and liars when they went to the coalition.

As for the referendum, I ask again? What can I do? What is it about people online trying to condense a continental issue involving hundreds of millions of people to just one lone voice? I can't do diddly except prepare my family and protect it as best I can. Your lemon pie analogy is not relevant except perhaps if I were starving. Then I would eat it as I have no choice, just as I will accept the result of Brexit. I have no choice.

As for rationality, more people care more about love island than brexit. Trying to get a rational response from such a populace is like trying to herd cats.

CelticRambler

Forty Seven wrote: »

My problems with immigration do not come from dislike or hatred of any people. They come purely from economic concerns. We cannot feed and house half a continent and we should not have to.

You'll struggle to feed half the country if the immigrants who, up to now, pick and process most of the UK's agricultural output don't turn up for work. As it is, fruit and veg farmers in the south east of England (I know - a long way from you) have said that they will need to bring people in from Africa and Asia to replace the Europeans who've been chased out of Britain.

How are your economic concerns addressed by replacing European immigrants with Africans and Asians?

An Ciarraioch

Deleted User wrote: »

Maybe you should ask the question as to why you "need" immigrants in the first instance, can anyone seriously answer that question.
Why an immigrant and not locals. Is a country too mean to educate the local children with the right skills for these jobs, or do they prefer to poach them from elsewhere.
Indigenous peoples with the right education are more than capable of doing any job that immigrants do, but at a higher cost and growth would be limited to the population.

Maybe it's just to perpetuate the infinite growth that financial economists believe we need to maintain the functioning of the current financial system.

Either immigrants are filling jobs that locals don't want, such as catering, they fill particular skill sets in languages or technology, or else economic growth outpaces that of the domestic labour market, and immigration meets the remaining demand.

Forty Seven

Lemming wrote: »

You are missing an important consideration with regards the no-deal riots. Intially, you may be right, but here's the rub: Extension p1sses off a portion of the electorate. No-deal (whence fully exposed) will p1ss off the electorate at large; no medicine? food shortages? Can't afford food? Johnny Furdiner is still living next door because Brexit fixes no domestic issues? Still can't get an NHS appointment due to chronic underfunding by successive Tory governments? etc. etc. It would get very ugly. Very ugly indeed as the lies that were sold by a mendacious political cabal and an accomplice media are exposed with no end in sight.

The above is something that absolutely baffles me from a political point of view. Any politician with half a brain should be able to see the possible end-state for this misadventure and from a self-preservation stance alone, be seeking to avoid it.

Medicines are a red herring. This whole stockpiling nonsense seems overdone. Most medicines are tarriff free under WTO and our trade with the EU is almost equal so I doubt this will be too much of an issue. After all, the EU needs our output too.

Food shortages, maybe but we will not starve. We won't even go hungry, we may have limited choice but I'm not concerned.

The NHS will carry on, maybe longer waits but if I'm honest it will still be better than public health in Ireland and you guys manage. (Not an intentional dig, it's true)

If brexit doesn't happen you are looking at a whole different ballgame. The destruction of democracy is how it will be portrayed. Politicians ignoring the people. I believe that would be more serious.

Things may be tough for a while, standard of living may drop, people expect this, they've been told repeatedly. They will be ok with it because it is what they chose. Take away that choice and you've got a whole different ball game.