The BREXIT Discussion Thread.

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  • ThunderpussyThunderpussy My Secret Lair
    Posts: 13,384
    Total payments - €117.5bn. In 2007, five countries - Germany, France, Italy, the UK, and Spain - contributed nearly half of the budget
    The EU will have a big hole in its budget after we leave, perhaps Greece can help out ? :D
  • Posts: 19,339
    They will all have to put even more money in then,it seems.
    Doesn't bother me,as long as we don't contribute.
  • ThunderpussyThunderpussy My Secret Lair
    Posts: 13,384
    The amusing thing is Italy and Spain are like Greece basically broke, so I doubt they'll
    Be able to pay more, and I doubt given the support to leave in France, the French
    Government will be willing to pay more, so the EU will be depending on Germany...... So
    Interesting times ahead for us all.
  • Posts: 19,339
    Exactly....and we can stay out of it for once.
  • Posts: 12,526
    And now the political ping pong begins!!!!!! ~X(
  • TheWizardOfIceTheWizardOfIce 'One of the Internet's more toxic individuals'
    edited March 2017 Posts: 9,117
    The leader of what's left of the Liberals just gobbing off on the BBC about how it's all going to be a disaster.

    I'm filled with renewed confidence that Brexit will be a roaring success given this pessimism comes from a bloke who came out with this unbelievable quote:

    ‘I became a Christian because the evidence for Christianity is staggeringly compelling'


    I'm not making that up.

    https://www.premierchristianity.com/Blog/Tim-Farron-is-our-first-openly-evangelical-party-leader-in-a-century.-Will-he-survive

    What is staggering is not the evidence but the fact that someone stating that is permitted to hold public office in a civilised western democracy.
  • stagstag In the thick of it!
    Posts: 1,053
    To quote Paul Daniels: ‘I became a magician because the evidence for magic is staggeringly compelling'. Some people might like that, not a lot!
  • ThunderpussyThunderpussy My Secret Lair
    Posts: 13,384
    I became a Jedi because of so much evidence ..... Well just as much as all the rest ;)
  • PropertyOfALadyPropertyOfALady Colders Federation CEO
    Posts: 3,675
    stag wrote: »
    The EU a beacon of light? Try replacing the 'ligh' with 'shy' and you're nearer the mark!
    In ten years time, when people see what is happening in a federalised Europe, they will be glad that we removed ourselves.

    I am sorry​, but I find that first bit hilarious! Nice one, @stag.
  • BondJasonBond006BondJasonBond006 on fb and ajb
    edited March 2017 Posts: 9,020
    For this one message I had to log in!

    <font size=6>BREXIT</font> is the best thing happening to Britain in our lifetime. Short term it may be hurtful to some industries, yes. Middle term it may be a challenge.

    But ultimately Britain will be seen as wise and visionary once 5 to 10 years have passed. If the EU in its current form even still exists then, we will see. And I am not saying I would be glad if the EU would not survive. What I personally want is the EU to wake up and to reform and be there not only for the 1% of the population that is the new aristocracy but for all the people and especially for the middle and lower classes.

    Look at Switzerland, we never joined the EU and we are "fighting" the EU bureaucracy since 25 years now, successfully. We are in bilateral talks constantly with Brussels.


    *Look at us, look how we are the country with the best living standard in Europe, we have the wealthiest middle class, the best social security, the lowest criminal rate (even if our population is 25% foreigners!!!) and we still are multicultural in all of this! It can work, if you are not under the thumb of a bureaucratic monster like the EU.

    *should by any chance my statement be incorrect and Norway, Sweden or Denmark have the best living standard then I apologise, but you get my point.


    Here's to you my beloved United Kingdom, I am proud of you today. After all I have my origins in Southbourne (Bournemouth) as my father was British.

    <font size=5>Be proud Britains! You do well.
    </font>

    Let me share this, it seems fitting today.
    I am a proud Swiss and not afraid to show I'm a patriot too.


    Photo: some days ago, Chief Warrant Officer Jason Stephen Bond saluting the Swiss flag.
    full.jpg
  • In my view from the Antipodes, Brexit is understandable but regrettable.

    I think some of the joy felt by Brexit’s supporters is based on a particular view of what the European project was/is about. The European Commission was originally set up as part of a recognition that the competitive nation-state system had twice led Europe to widespread destruction in the previous half century, that European countries had more common values than differences and that economic integration would produce more growth within countries and more equitable living standards between countries. Whether or not we agree or disagree with individual decisions or not along the way (such as whether it was too early to introduce a common currency or who gets EU membership), these were essentially the objectives of the project.

    I think it also makes sense that in our contemporary world, authority does not lie purely within a nation-state, but that regional/provincial governments have some autonomy or local issues, that national governments have authority in many issues and that international or global organisations have sovereignty for those issues where a common problem exists or a common solution is required. I think that by and large this is how the EU worked/works (and thus why Scottish independence and Scottish membership of the EU are not contradictory – each would have different powers of jurisdiction).

    I personally don’t believe that the EU project can be reduced to a handful of bureaucrats in Brussels trying to strip countries of their national sovereignty, although I would concede that there are some cases where better decisions could have been made (but this is not an argument to scrap the entire project).

    I also don’t believe that the pro-Brexit vote can be entirely or even mainly attributed to nativism/xenophobia, but I do believe that it is extremely naïve not to consider immigration as one of the most important factors. My interpretation of the Brexit vote, as with the Trump vote in the US and the Hanson/One Nation vote in Australia, is that many people feel increasingly insecure about their own cultural identity and about their own economic prospects. They see a world changing very quickly, feel that many of the comfortable day to day certainties are disappearing and feel that they are being left behind (in many cases quite correctly). I think most 'ordinary people' including myself have much sympathy for this view.

    Where I differ with these people is in the explanation of why it is happening and who is to blame. While immigrants are the obvious, visible and easy targets, immigration – even mass immigration – is overwhelmingly a positive factor in developed countries. Immigration drives much of the economic growth in developed countries, it will help us from losing our social security systems entirely once the baby boomers retire, it enriches the social and cultural life of those societies (think: US, UK, Canada, Israel, Australia) and it produces innovation and creativity.

    In my view, the real reason that people are left behind is that governments have been, since the 1970s, slowly abdicating their social responsibilities (public health, education, infrastructure) and slowly dismantling the protections for the most vulnerable in our society in order to greatly increase corporate power and privilege. Many people will no doubt disagree with this view (and it is anathema to many Americans), but I believe that government exists to protect the vulnerable and weak from exploitation by the rich and privileged few. Government exists to provide the most level playing field possible for each citizen without encroaching unduly on the rights of the individual (thus there is a balance between freedom and equality). This is social democracy, and many of the world’s most successful developed societies – Australia, New Zealand, Scandinavia, the Low Countries – have been at their most prosperous under precisely this model. So, in a nutshell, it is ‘neoliberalism’ and not immigration/multiculturalism/’globalism’ that is largely to blame for so many people being left behind over the past 20 years, and it could be useful to take a more balanced view about the role of government in our society.
  • Posts: 19,339
    In my view from the Antipodes, Brexit is understandable but regrettable.

    I think some of the joy felt by Brexit’s supporters is based on a particular view of what the European project was/is about. The European Commission was originally set up as part of a recognition that the competitive nation-state system had twice led Europe to widespread destruction in the previous half century, that European countries had more common values than differences and that economic integration would produce more growth within countries and more equitable living standards between countries. Whether or not we agree or disagree with individual decisions or not along the way (such as whether it was too early to introduce a common currency or who gets EU membership), these were essentially the objectives of the project.

    I think it also makes sense that in our contemporary world, authority does not lie purely within a nation-state, but that regional/provincial governments have some autonomy or local issues, that national governments have authority in many issues and that international or global organisations have sovereignty for those issues where a common problem exists or a common solution is required. I think that by and large this is how the EU worked/works (and thus why Scottish independence and Scottish membership of the EU are not contradictory – each would have different powers of jurisdiction).

    I personally don’t believe that the EU project can be reduced to a handful of bureaucrats in Brussels trying to strip countries of their national sovereignty, although I would concede that there are some cases where better decisions could have been made (but this is not an argument to scrap the entire project).

    I also don’t believe that the pro-Brexit vote can be entirely or even mainly attributed to nativism/xenophobia, but I do believe that it is extremely naïve not to consider immigration as one of the most important factors. My interpretation of the Brexit vote, as with the Trump vote in the US and the Hanson/One Nation vote in Australia, is that many people feel increasingly insecure about their own cultural identity and about their own economic prospects. They see a world changing very quickly, feel that many of the comfortable day to day certainties are disappearing and feel that they are being left behind (in many cases quite correctly). I think most 'ordinary people' including myself have much sympathy for this view.

    Where I differ with these people is in the explanation of why it is happening and who is to blame. While immigrants are the obvious, visible and easy targets, immigration – even mass immigration – is overwhelmingly a positive factor in developed countries. Immigration drives much of the economic growth in developed countries, it will help us from losing our social security systems entirely once the baby boomers retire, it enriches the social and cultural life of those societies (think: US, UK, Canada, Israel, Australia) and it produces innovation and creativity.

    In my view, the real reason that people are left behind is that governments have been, since the 1970s, slowly abdicating their social responsibilities (public health, education, infrastructure) and slowly dismantling the protections for the most vulnerable in our society in order to greatly increase corporate power and privilege. Many people will no doubt disagree with this view (and it is anathema to many Americans), but I believe that government exists to protect the vulnerable and weak from exploitation by the rich and privileged few. Government exists to provide the most level playing field possible for each citizen without encroaching unduly on the rights of the individual (thus there is a balance between freedom and equality). This is social democracy, and many of the world’s most successful developed societies – Australia, New Zealand, Scandinavia, the Low Countries – have been at their most prosperous under precisely this model. So, in a nutshell, it is ‘neoliberalism’ and not immigration/multiculturalism/’globalism’ that is largely to blame for so many people being left behind over the past 20 years, and it could be useful to take a more balanced view about the role of government in our society.

    Totally wrong.

  • edited March 2017 Posts: 4,619
    Immigration drives much of the economic growth in developed countries, it will help us from losing our social security systems entirely once the baby boomers retire,

    You do realize that no country can escape a future population stagnation or decline as long as humanity is bound to this planet, right? What will happen when those immigrants retire? Even more immigrants? What will happen when they retire?
  • ThunderpussyThunderpussy My Secret Lair
    Posts: 13,384
    Speaking about the Antipodes, .... how did immigrantion work out for the
    aboriginal people ? or the Native Americans ? ...... somehow I don't think
    they'd agree it was a "Positive Factor" ;)
  • Posts: 19,339
    UK takes back the right to deport as Britain repeals powers from EU

    Britain has begun to take back control from Brussels as David Davis announced that the first EU law to be scrapped after Brexit will be a charter that helps criminals avoid deportation.

    Revealing details of the forthcoming Great Repeal Bill, Mr Davis told MPs that the controversial EU Charter of Fundamental Rights will be dropped on the day Britain leaves Europe.

    MPs cheered in the House of Commons as the Brexit Secretary told them Britain would be regaining the sovereignty it last enjoyed in 1972.

    He said: “A strong, independent country needs control of its own laws. That process starts now.”

    A day after Theresa May began the Brexit process by invoking Article 50, European leaders entrenched their positions on their refusal to discuss a trade deal until the UK has paid its “divorce bill”.


    Francois Hollande, the French president, told Mrs May in a phone call that Britain must agree to meet its “obligations” first. Senior EU officials said it was “highly unlikely” that the other 27 member states would give ground on the contentious point.

    Meanwhile Nicola Sturgeon, the Scottish First Minister, came up with a new tactic to frustrate Brexit by threatening to veto the Great Repeal Bill in the Scottish Parliament.

    Mr Davis published a 37-page white paper setting out the objectives of the Bill, the legislation that will convert EU laws into UK laws on the day Britain quits Europe in 2019.
    Parliament will then be able to choose which laws to keep and which to revoke. Mr Davis said the Bill will “provide clarity and certainty for businesses, workers and consumers across the United Kingdom on the day we leave the EU”.

    It will repeal the European Communities Act 1972 - which provides the legal underpinning of Britain’s EU membership - on the day Brexit happens in March 2019.


    Mr Davis said that doing so “enables the return to this Parliament of the sovereignty we ceded in 1972 and ends the supremacy of EU law in this country,” which would ensure that “power sits closer to the people of the United Kingdom than ever before”.

    While the Bill will provide for around 19,000 pieces of EU legislation to be brought onto Britain’s statute books, the Charter of Fundamental Rights will not be one of them.

    Sir Bill Cash MP, chairman of the Commons European Scrutiny Committee, said Britain would immediately benefit when the Charter was dropped because “it provides protection for people who have no right to be protected”.

    He said: “There is a disproportionate number of those in prison convicted of crimes which warrant deportation who, by virtue of human rights legislation, including and in particular the consequences of the Charter, are not able to be deported because of case law."

    The Charter has also been used as the basis for a so-called “right to be forgotten”, with criminals using the courts to force Google to block searches about their past convictions.


    Britain will still be a signatory to the European Convention on Human Rights, which is not part of EU law. Writing in today’s Daily Telegraph, John Longworth, former director general of the British Chambers of Commerce, urged the Government to cut a swathe through EU red tape by setting up a “Star Chamber” of MPs, economists and businessmen who are “not frightened to think the unthinkable”.

    He says the process needs to start now, so that EU laws can be revoked on Brexit day plus one. In the Scottish Parliament, Ms Sturgeon threatened to block the Great Repeal Bill - and delay Brexit - by refusing to pass a Legislative Consent Motion - the device by which devolved powers give Westminster permission to make laws on devolved matters.

    She claimed Westminster was planning a “power grab” by refusing to hand over all responsibilities currently exercised by the EU in devolved policy areas such as fisheries and agriculture.

    Mrs May has insisted Scotland will have more devolved powers after Brexit, but Ms Sturgeon’s official spokesman said that unless unless every power in these areas was transferred, the SNP would refuse to pass a consent motion.

    In Westminster, there was confusion over whether a consent motion from Holyrood would be required to pass the Bill.


    Mr Davis was unable to say whether it was needed or not, but David Mundell, the Scottish Secretary, has previously said he thought it would be.

    Adam Tomkins, the Scottish Conservative constitution spokesman, said: “The SNP is complaining about the return of substantial new powers which, under its plans, would remain in Brussels. If ever people needed to see their utter hypocrisy, this is it.”

    It came as Gina Miller, the financier who forced Mrs May through the Supreme Court to get parliamentary approval before she triggered Article 50, said she would consider fresh legal action to clarify whether the Government could legally enact the Great Repeal Bill.

    Mrs Miller said she wants to stop the Prime Minster using so-called “Henry VIII powers” to tweak existing EU laws before they are passed into UK law without parliament being able to vote on the changes.

    Downing Street has insisted the use of secondary legislation - which allows the Government to amend Acts once they have been passed - is purely an administrative matter.

  • bondjamesbondjames You were expecting someone else?
    edited March 2017 Posts: 23,883
    This pretentious fool Juncker is out of control. He'd be well placed to watch himself, rather than making the EU enemy #1 in the US Congress. They're already on a Russian witch hunt, and ill advised comments like this will only serve to fuel the paranoia of foreign meddling. The US isn't the EU. There's only one country. Not 27 (28-1) culturally disparate ones.

    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/jean-claude-juncker-ohio-independence-donald-trump-brexit-eu-president-european-commision-a7659471.html
  • edited March 2017 Posts: 5,994
    Well, the Soviet Unon was also one country. Except it was not. But Putin wants it to become one again. Which reminds me of someone, with the initials AH.

    And it's not as if the US were always one single country (the Republic of Texas, anyone), or stayed one. "These things happened before, they will happen again".
  • bondjamesbondjames You were expecting someone else?
    Posts: 23,883
    Fair enough. There are some idiots in Cali who are trying to secede as we speak so anything is possible I suppose. My point still stands though - Juncker is exceeding his brief.
  • Posts: 5,994
    And Trump isn't ?
  • bondjamesbondjames You were expecting someone else?
    edited March 2017 Posts: 23,883
    Gerard wrote: »
    And Trump isn't ?
    Europe has far more problems to deal with than the US at the moment, and people like Juncker will be well served to be careful with their words, lest he wants to find himself caught with his pants down in a New York hotel (like what happened with Strauss-Kahn).
  • TheWizardOfIceTheWizardOfIce 'One of the Internet's more toxic individuals'
    edited March 2017 Posts: 9,117
    Gerard wrote: »
    And Trump isn't ?

    The difference is Trump is the democratically elected leader of the the most influential country in the world with a mandate to speak given to him by the people.

    Juncker was only 'elected' to his dubious position of 'power' by some similarly grey, self serving, charisma vacuums and the biggest public mandate he has ever had was from the mighty nation of Luxembourg, which even if we presume 100% of the population voted for him has less than the population of Albuquerque, NM.

    The biggest joke though is the typically egotistical delusion of the EU elite that this nonentity of a man can influence any election outside Luxembourg and that a single person in the US has ever heard of him or has the slightest interest in his opinion on anything.
  • stagstag In the thick of it!
    Posts: 1,053
    The following article perfectly illustrates the ill balanced EU machine and how it allowed itself to become saddled with Junker.

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/27/eu-democratic-bandwagon-juncker-president-wanted
  • edited April 2017 Posts: 19,339
    Europe ? whats that ? we arn't European in my country... :-?

    We never were.
  • MayDayDiVicenzoMayDayDiVicenzo Here and there
    Posts: 5,080
    barryt007 wrote: »
    Europe ? whats that ? we arn't European in my country... :-?

    We never were.

    eh?
  • Posts: 19,339
    We have never been European....in thinking,food,culture etc...
  • MayDayDiVicenzoMayDayDiVicenzo Here and there
    Posts: 5,080
    Then the same must be true of France, because it is culturally disparate to Germany, Italy, Poland, Romania...
  • ThunderfingerThunderfinger Das Boot Hill
    Posts: 45,489
    In Norway we are very continental. We love pizza.
  • Posts: 19,339
    Then the same must be true of France, because it is culturally disparate to Germany, Italy, Poland, Romania...

    I dont care if they are or are not..i only care about my country,matey.

  • MayDayDiVicenzoMayDayDiVicenzo Here and there
    Posts: 5,080
    I'm certainly not questioning your patriotism, you can still be proud of Queen and country while still acknowledging that we are very much part of Europe (whether that we like that idea or otherwise).
  • Posts: 19,339
    We are an island,between USA and Europe....we are just ourselves.
This discussion has been closed.