[Closed] EU Referendum - are you in or out?

Just been chatting to my brother who lives in France and travels all over Europe. Let's say we've not won any friends - basically ordinary people are echoing what the politicians are saying and there's no mood to let us have our cake and eat it.

It's sad, he works for train manufacturers and they're all talking about how the Hitachi plant in the NE is in jeopardy. Hitachi bought another plant in Italy which they can use instead if we leave the EU. I guess that's when, now.

I have been saying that practically we can only get the worst of all worlds if we leave (the Binners scenario) and it seems that we've got to go through an entire Tory party election, two years of Brexit negotiations followed by heaven knows how long of 'new relations' negotiations whilst the economy stagnates and more jobs are lost.

basically ordinary people are echoing what the politicians are saying and there's no mood to let us have our cake and eat it.

Just been chatting to my brother who lives in France and travels all over Europe. Let's say we've not won any friends - basically ordinary people are echoing what the politicians are saying and there's no mood to let us have our cake and eat it.

This echoes my view: Basically, we've just taken a massive dump on our own doorstep. In fact, it's so large, we have to go out the back door, fight off the rabid pittbull called Rooney, and then clamber over all the fences of the gardens in the terrace, fighting off the Sharons and Dazzas, just to make it around to the front door so we can clear the crap we'd previously dumped there ourselves; just to make it back to the point at which we started.

[url= http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-36678222 ]We might not even get a slice of cake…[/url]

[b]Edit: [/b]someone's already posted it, sorry, it's the BBC piece about how we could be in the wilderness with NO trade deals with ANY countries when we leave the EU... a position of total weakness going into trade negotiations in 3 years time. We're talking complete shit for a decade here. Thanks a _______ lot!

Over and out…

Jamba +1

Passporting - I think once you have one European branch thats good enough for all the EU. The 50 different regulators I was referring to are all in non EU countries of course. Was solved by seperate capitalisations plus gty and each country having a CEO/CFO/Compliance Head etc - often these people had more than one job

@binners and @clover there are plenty or Eurosceptics in France, Germany, Holland etc who want the same reforms as we did and their own Referendum. As Leave have said repeatedly the Referendum delivered its result on the EU and its/Cameron's non-deal its up to the Governemt to do the implementation. We had a Referendum not a General Election like when Foot/Labour campaigned to Leave in the 1970's

@clover amongst my French in-laws there is a lot of surprise, concern about what it means for France's economy (inc increased EU budget contributions), wondering what the UK knows that they don't, thinking about a French Referendum. Remember for 6 months Schengen has been officially suspended here and when the Calais camp was bulldozed Belgium closed its border. Generally they are eurosceptic by 70/30 - the 30 are pretty far to the left 😉 There is great concern that Le Penn and FN will benefit as they are the most eurosceptic party

As Leave have said repeatedly the Referendum delivered its result on the EU and its/Cameron's non-deal its up to the Governemt to do the implementation

It s not surprising it would be based on yet another lie though

S&P cut the rating of the EU today too btw citing declining cohesion as a factor

oh what the hell is this Tony Blair getting involved now??!
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/06/30/tony-blair-hints-at-role-as-brexit-negotiator-in-eu-talks-that-w/

We scrapped that Trident thing didn't we?

S&P cut the rating of the EU today too btw citing declining cohesion as a factor

Yup, we've screwed things up for all 28 countries, and those bordering the EU, not just ourselves.

[b]Well done us.[/b]

Big boy pants time!

Well I can honestly say reading the last few Jamby comments his views are there with most of the out at any cost lot, almost religious in their unwavering belief that it must be better twisting evidence the suit claims etc.

S&P cut the rating of the EU today too btw citing declining cohesion as a factor

It sums up a selfish generation who were handed growth, expansion and opportunity on a plate, made their money through boom after boom and have left the rest of us to deal with it.

As predicted by remain
Companies are considering their future plans
People are activating their get out plans to the EU
Investment is slowing
Grants will stop

On top of this people still defend VL for having no plan, perhaps it's because all of their statements sounded like they did (if you didn't scratch the surface) anyone who questioned them was attacked and put down - "We don'd need experts"

Worst of all we are probably looking at a situation where we end up with all the things VL hated but none of the things they promised.
The worst outcome for both camps.

b r - Member
That's quite worrying.

Yes, and seems that she's just repeating what the 'rules' say - so presumably this was known BEFORE Cameron even offered the referendum, even more lies?

Yes the was very well known before the referendum and I've mentioned it on one of posts explaining A50.

A50 is the divorce settlement if you like, nothing more. It may elude to how future negotiations may be conducted but that's as far as it goes. It's much more about what happens to all those British immigrants living in Spain, the EU citizens living here etc.

Only once we know the terms of the divorce can we then we look at how we live together in the future.

For Liam Fox to be all incredulous about it now is a bit embarrassing really. You'd have thought he hadn't read the rule book or something but surely that can't be the case...

Yup, we've screwed things up for all 28 countries, and those bordering the EU, not just ourselves.

if they had cut us some slack over our concerns instead of overriding our wishes all the time then things might have been different.

I know why wont they write the rules of europe for the way of the one rather than for the way of the 27 other member states ...the undemocratic selfish bastards eh.
I mean why do we have to obey the rules we signed up for and the treaties we signed....whats democratic about that eh and why would they not cur us some slack and let us not honour what we had said we would...Bloody europe and ehw coming over here and sticking to their word

if they had cut us some slack over our concerns instead of overriding our wishes all the time then things might have been different.

Yes, they could have started with immigration. Dear people of the UK. We direct you to stop taking in any more of those people who are making a positive contribution to your economy. This is unfair and distorting the labour markets in the rest of Europe to your advantage. You must now limit the numbers coming in even though the demand for their labour remains strong from your businesses.

#keepjohnnyout

[img] [/img]
Sauce: [url= https://twitter.com/lexistwit/status/748549607265869826/photo/1 ]@lexistwit on twitter[/url]

Yes, they could have started with immigration. Dear people of the UK. We direct you to stop taking in any more of those people who are making a positive contribution to your economy. This is unfair and distorting the labour markets in the rest of Europe to your advantage. You must now limit the numbers coming in even though the demand for their labour remains strong from your businesses.

And stop sending all the old people and criminals to us who are frankly nothing more than a drain on our resources...

if they had cut us some slack over our concerns instead of overriding our wishes all the time then things might have been different.

This. The EU took a punt on us voting Remain and lost. They are so wrapped up in their own little world they couldn't possibly believe we might reject it.

TMH we don't know whether they make a positive contribution as no one has shared the detailed information with us. The Government has misrepresented immigration stats and only given us the broadest brush headline stats on tax revenues. To make a proper decison we need detailed break downs by earning bands and proper costing of housing and health service provison implications. The fact they never gave us those suggests to me the results don't look so good.

if they had cut us some slack over our concerns instead of overriding our wishes all the time then things might have been different.

So our response is to throw our toys out of the pram and ruin it for everyone "well, if we can't have it, no one will".

Yes they have - you just need to have a desire to look at the facts.

Alternatively some lateral thinking such as compare the growth in earnings with the timing od the accession of the latest two EU countries.. The fact that you are unlikely to show the results, suggest they don't look too good. But happy to see any links/evidence to be proven wrong.

we don't know whether they make a positive contribution as no one has shared the detailed information with us

The Government has misrepresented immigration stats

On this point, those who voted remain should, at the very least, concede that had we voted to stay in, the country would not be having this conversation. If remain had won, we would already have returned to pretending that everything was carrying on just fine. Those people who have been forgotten would have stayed forgotten; those communities that have been abandoned would have stayed invisible to all but those who live in them. To insist that they will now suffer most ignores the fact that unless something had changed, they were going to suffer anyway. Those on the remain side who felt they didn’t recognise their own country when they woke up on Friday morning must spare a thought for the pensioner in Redcar or Wolverhampton who has been waking up every morning for the last 30 years, watching factories close and businesses move while the council cuts back services and foreigners arrive, wondering where their world has gone to.

Gary Younge
[url= http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jun/30/brexit-disaster-decades-in-the-making ]Article Here[/url]

Well said samunkin, completely agree (I voted remain)

and foreigners arrive,

😯

Nothing new there especially in Wolverhampton and nothing to do with the EU, but carry on - bloody foreigners....

Junkyard - lazarus

Yes we do as various sources tell us its positive.

Various sources state that the fiscal impact is small in either direction, and most use a static approach which will heavily weight the evidence towards the positive.
There are so many factors involved, including huge assumptions and predictions about the future that anyone who offers a certain opinion in either direction is probably not worth listening to.
Not that this should be a surprise to anyone that has actually read any of the studies...

http://www.migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/briefings/fiscal-impact-immigration-uk

the fact you choose to ignore it for your own reasons tells us more about you than the facts

Mmmmm, sweet, sweet IRONY for breakfast. 😆

Oh no, the bitter aftertaste of having defended Jamba by proxy.
Bleurgh! 😡

Man with one arm cuts of remaining arm, because "how could things get any worse?"
Briefly feels that the world is now paying him attention.
Roll on a few years… being totally ignored again, and, what do you know, things are worse with no arms.
Who'd have thought it?
Probably the fault of the scaremongers who warned him not to cut of that arm.
They didn't do enough to help him because they were bitter.
Or perhaps it was the fault of the foreigners not yet "sent home".

if they had cut us some slack over our concerns instead of overriding our wishes all the time then things might

No point having a common market in goods and capital, but not workers. Workers are THE MOST IMPORTANT part of the economy, and it is the flexibility for workers to move to where they are most needed that allows companies and countries to specialise and grow. Those thinking the EU are just being "awkward" about something that they see as seperate to trade just don't get it. People moving to pursue careers isn't a side effect, or the "price" of a free market, it is an essential cornerstone of if.

Of course, the EU had offered to let us make things difficult for low paid migrant workers by withholding in work benefits, and even worse for a migrants who lost their jobs. So, yes, they did listen, they just weren't prepared to tear down the right for workers to move… as that would cripple the economy and remove an essential element of the whole idea of the EU.

wondering where their world has gone to.

Well as part of the ignored 48, I'm wondering where my country has gone to.

A tolerant country now seems to spend more time justifying why an MP was murdered (seriously look at the stuff that is flying about) than confronting the racists and their sympathisers than created the situation where that happened. We tolerated Farage claiming victory “without a single bullet being fired” - tell that to Jo Cox - oh, you can't.
A country where it is suddenly OK to abuse people because they are Polish or Ukrainian - we were so fast to try to close the borders to Poles when they were flying with the RAF (though we were pretty quick to try and deport them after the war was over).

This was a victory for racism. It will also be bad for the economy (which rarely helps with racial tension). Even Jamba agrees it will be bad in the short to medium term; ill happily agree that the industry he describes himself as part of will make money out of this long term, though the rest of the UK won't see any of it.

@igm financial services pay a lot of the bills for UK, the country as a whole sees a very large amount of that as London/SE is a major net contributer to the UK. It was a Remain argument we needed to protect that.

I see the racism issue the other way round, when you have a crazy policy like free movement of Labour between countries of vastly differing economic wealth it is going to stoke resentment. Look at the attitudes and bitterness which exists within our nation with the North / South divide. Managed gradual migration allows a society to adapt and even then that is challenging.

sbob its a very good link[url= http://www.migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/sites/files/migobs/briefing%20-%20Fiscal%20Impacts_0.pdf ]PDF here[/url] Thanks. Its true its more complicated than I stated but the only consistent negative reports comes from the right wing think tank/pressure group migration watch and they are as neutral on this issue are UKIP. Its not surprising they find it negative.
It also worth noting that they all find non EU migration to be CONSIDERABLY more negative[ or less positive]. So the stuff we control is worse than the stuff we dont control. That is an amusing irony.
I shall turn the hyperbole and certainty down to a reasonable level[ as caveats were needed]...much as it grates to accept that , its a fair point you make that it is not as simplistic or as clear cut as I said and your board point is true

We can both share the bitter taste:wink:

However my broad point is true that it is broadly positive and i think jamby is clutching at methodological straws for political reasons.

To insist that they will now suffer most ignores the fact that unless something had changed, they were going to suffer anyway.

spare a thought for the pensioner in Redcar or Wolverhampton who has been waking up every morning for the last 30 years, watching factories close and businesses move while the council cuts back services and foreigners arrive, wondering where their world has gone to.

I get peoples concerns what i dont get is how they think this addressed them.

Politely old people will always look at life and think its not like when i was a kid- time stand still for no person. We allways miss what we had and dislike change to some degree.
I dont like the fact my kids dont play out as much as i did and prefer youtube and Playstations - like i would have ignored them at their age eh. It has always been thus sine we had the written word

“The children now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise.”

? Socrates

I see the racism issue the other way round, when you have a crazy policy like free movement of Labour between countries of vastly differing economic wealth it is going to stoke resentment

[img] [/img]

Those people who have been forgotten would have stayed forgotten; those communities that have been abandoned would have stayed invisible to all but those who live in them.

Those 'invisible' areas that were receiving millions of pounds of EU funding?
I know that's a fairly glib reply but I'm not sure the argument that everyone had forgotten about them entirely holds up.
It might be a different story from now on though.

yes that is true the EU were helping them out and still they blamed them for it all

It really was turkeys voting for XMas

if they think tories are going to get all interventionist in the market to protect people rather than serve business they are in for some very very disappointing times.

I see the racism issue the other way round, when you have a crazy policy like free movement of Labour between countries of vastly differing economic wealth [b]it is going to stoke resentment[/b]

It might be true but it isn't right (the highlighted resentment bit) and that's what needs to be addressed.

How far should that go. No migration into London? Don't want those people from the smelly deprived North moving down to London to take the well paid city jobs away from the indigenous London types, do we?

Those people who have been forgotten would have stayed forgotten; those communities that have been abandoned would have stayed invisible to all but those who live in them. To insist that they will now suffer most ignores the fact that unless something had changed, they were going to suffer anyway.

There are levels of suffering. The status quo is that they were suffering, yet receiving sizeable development funds from the EU, and benefitted somewhat from the greater opportunities for business (and thus employers) that being a member of the EU brought. Now they suffer, but receive none of the above. There are already many real reports of plans to move businesses (and thus employment) to a country remaining inside the EU.

You need to have been taking a very special type of Jambydrug to see that as an improvement.

I wonder if Manchester is holding a Christmas Market this year?

Jamba - 'Tis true that the London area punches above its weight economically - about 12.5% of the UK population provides about 20% of GDP as I recall. But then Scotland also produces a higher GDP per capita than the UK average - make of that what you will.
I suspect you need to come down from your ivory tower though - even I (in my slightly smaller ivory tower) can see the rise in racism that accompanied the referendum campaign and the spike that has followed the result. BNP have been leafleting EU types round here again - I didn't know they still had any real presence any more and that sort of thing hasn't happened here for a long time. Adults shouting at school kids to go home (no I don't mean sending them back to their house and no those adults probably didn't stop to ask where they were born). Death threats to the kids of the local (to where I work) MP.

Now to be fair I blame a recession followed by a recovery that was seen only to help the wealthy (look at wage growth) for most of the issue. But I can't see quitting Europe helping that.

I'm sure you'll be ok though Jamba. As will I more than likely. Not sure about my children though.

Well the Eu was dishing out some money on specific projects like the odd art museum or MTB trail centre, but you can't buy people's votes. What they want is jobs and prosperity, but some eu rules don't facilitate that. This notion that the eu can't do any wrong is looking at it with rose tinted glasses. It does some good and some bad. The Eu has helped drive inequality throughout Europe and that is the one and only root cause of this whole debacle. Issues like immigration have been made the scapegoat and exploited by the leave campaigners because it's something people can see with their own eyes. But that is not the root cause.

I'm sure you'll be ok though Jamba. As will I more than likely. Not sure about my children though.

This. I also have a lot of friends who won't be OK either. The only problem is, nobody has yet been able to explain the amazing benefits leaving the EU will unfold. Meanwhile, story after story emerges of businesses considering moves out of the UK to the EU, and people are being racially abused because the utter cockweasles hurling the abuse think "we voted them out".

Still I'm sure Gove/Jamby have a plan...

The Eu has helped drive inequality throughout Europe and that is the one and only root cause of this whole debacle.

At no point in my 32 years has the EU been to the political right of any UK government. I agree that in some other countries it has interfered in socially progressive policies. It hasn't here though, mainly because there hasn't been a government with socially progressive policies in my lifetime in the UK. If anything, EU regulations have helped temper policies of British governments that essentially sought to increase inequality.

it is the flexibility for workers to move to where they are most needed that allows companies and countries to specialise and grow.

what if they don't want to move - does this mean you are really a fan of Norman Tebbitt - they should get on their bikes?

So you are favouring big companies needs over the population - the population are forced to continually move in order to remain employed?

Not so good if you are trying to raise a family, keep you kids in some sort of a stable environment.

does this mean you are really a fan of Norman Tebbitt - they should get on their bikes?

You'd think he'd be a hero here

some people on this thread seem very two faced, when you look at their support for Corbyn on other threads.

some people on this thread seem very two faced, when you look at their support for Corbyn on other threads.

[b]WOW[/b]

Austrian Presidential Poll result anulled. There will be a re-run

[url= http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-36681475 ]BBC[/url]

Yes, they could have started with immigration. Dear people of the UK. We direct you to stop taking in any more of those people who are making a positive contribution to your economy. This is unfair and distorting the labour markets in the rest of Europe to your advantage. You must now limit the numbers coming in even though the demand for their labour remains strong from your businesses.

#keepjohnnyout

just because we have more (apparent) control over immigration (and benefits) doesn't mean that anything has to change, just that we have control and are not subserviant to/overridden by the EU.

but you can't buy people's votes.

Lol, seriously?

So zokes what makes us immune from the same mechanisms that have had an influence on the rest of Europe? How are we special? The point is this has been an issue no government or the Euro has noticed or been aware of. It's an unintended consequence. But the powers at be have been so focused on their EU project and pandering to the big business lobby and not listening to the little folk the discontent has crept up over decades and now the right wing nutters have exploited that, blamed it on all the immigrants nicking people's jobs and there you have it. The far right nutters have been on the rise for 20 yrs nibbling away at people, planting seeds in people's minds, but governments and the EU has been blind to it. I don't think for a second any of this was deliberate on the part of the EU or countries governments.

Agree to a point - the EU has a lot of problems and has at times been run in a way with which I do not agree. And yes, its course has been bound to anger the right.

But there's far more to the EU than that.

Those people who have been forgotten would have stayed forgotten; those communities that have been abandoned would have stayed invisible to all but those who live in them. To insist that they will now suffer most ignores the fact that unless something had changed, they were going to suffer anyway

So is their lot going to improve post brexit? Not looking too rosy now is it?

Mr smith, I guess the theory is, or rather hope, is that when we're free from Eu restrictions we can increase trade, be more prosperous and spend the proceeds of that prosperity as we see fit without interference from an outside body, and if the people don't like what's happening the can vote out the government of the day for one that will take a different tack. That's the theory anyway.

The million dollar question is how much short term pain do we need to ride before we see the increased prosperity. Ii'd have much rather achieved that through a reformed EU though.

For the next time you are telling us the separatists/far right are on the rise
[img] [/img]

So is their lot going to improve post brexit? Not looking too rosy now is it?

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-salford-vote-european-union-latest-updates-polls-a7103521.html

Threats of a recession and economic Armageddon from Downing Street appeared to have little, if any, resonance with the discontented working-class here. For the people who have nothing – who have bore the brunt of the government's austerity drive over the last six years – they are more than willing to take a leap in the dark for a chance of a better life.

“I would like to say on behalf of Leave we all know that there may be tough times ahead,” said one woman who works as sales assistant at Marks & Spencers. “In my 53 years I’ve had my fair share of them and they are not nice. Tough times make you unable to sleep, cry yourself to sleep, panic about everything – horrible.

But tough times also mean coming out on the other side – which we will – feeling stronger and able to deal with whatever life throws at us. We are a nation of strong hardworking and proud people. Do not call us morons or idiots. As a person who has nearly hit rock bottom but pulled myself up again I’m prepared to do it again for a better society.

Ok junkyard, half the country are obviously all raging racists and we deserve everything we get because one map tells us so. We're doomed, and the fact that far right groups have gained in popularity over the last 10 to 15 years and the Eu and Euro governments have failed to halt their rise is irrelevant. we're all going to become poverty striken and retreat back into the caves from where we came. That's obviously what the 'facts' are telling us so let's just give up then.

EDIT: ^ you really need to calm down there was so many straw men, ad homs, red herrings and shooting of the messenger [ who never said any of that ] that its not worth addressing.
ORIGINAL

the population are forced to continually move in order to remain employed?

DO you think this will cease out of the EU

I am no fan of this but all the complaints will not be addressed by leaving the EU despite that womans optimism and faith.
We wont be stronger we will be weaker, isolated and have more of these fearful sleepless nights than ever before
At least she has accepted that it will be shit in the short to medium term unlike most Leave voters

TBH no report had it anywhere near positive if we get no deal with the EU and that looks pretty much a certainty these days

We won't be isolated, we trade with countries all over the world. They will want to continue trading with us. Already there are countries queuing up to sign trade deals with us post brexit. New Zealand has offered up their trade negotiators to help us, and in all likelihood we will agree some form of deal with the eu. It won't be plain ailing. There will be ups and downs but we're talking about commerse here and commerce knows no emotion or vindictiveness, if it benefits you then it's all good. I refuse to believe the Euro doesn't want to have a beneficial arrangement with us after all this. And in the areas ourside of trade and commerce things will be unchanged. We still have a GLOBAL terrorist problem that can only be sorted by working together. And there are many crisis us in the established west have to face in the coming decades. We're seeing alot of pre negotiation posturing right now. Anyone familiar with negotiating in their Jo can see this, I'm out of the U.K. And the EU at the mo and the mood is a lot more pragmatic and matter of fact. Those outside of the EU will deal with it an continue to deal with us post brexit. The process of brexit is where the uncertainty is.

Junkyard 14% ? Front Nationale have the largest share of the popular vote of any party in France. They will eliminate Hollande/PS from the Presidential election next year and the only way they'll be kept out is Socialists voting for the UMP/Sarkozy

Austria was 49.9 vs 50.1 and I think post Brexit its going to be a clear win as people there want change

Im with this guy

The problem with all that wobbliscott is the risks and vulnerabilities, and also the practicailities.

If it takes years and years to negotiate the suitably favourable deals that our businesses need to compete, then what happens in the meantime? How many businesses will fold before it's all sorted out, where a few international contracts would have saved them? How many business will be depressed and not invest in new programmes that would generate new products, where those in the rest of the EU can happily invest? We could be handing a competitive advantage to EU countries for decades to come, just whilst we wait to get these deals (IF we get them).

And in the areas ourside of trade and commerce things will be unchanged.

Well if you ignore science, then you presumably are talking about international cooperation. Sharing data is likely to become a lot harder. A lot of government organisations have rules about keeping their data within the EU. So that's going to exclude us. If they have data on say movement of people, that we need to analyse for threats, they probably won't be able to share it with us in the future.

The process of brexit is where the uncertainty is.

Yes, and this could take many many years.

jambalaya - Member
WOW

Austrian Presidential Poll result anulled. There will be a re-run

BBC

Whats even more astonishing is how the Conservative electoral scandal in this country seems to have been all but forgotten about.

Whats even more astonishing is how the Conservative electoral scandal in this country seems to have been all but forgotten about.

If you mean the battle bus Scandal then all three main parties are under police investigation

laughing man is awesome

in all likelihood we will agree some form of deal with the eu. It won't be plain ailing

Its not inconceivable that a fudge can be arrived at but it will mean we stay in the EU- we wont get access to the market without free movement

I know what you think Jamby but the picture shows its hardly a widespread European issue.
Still I do admire your ability to spin it even when presented with the evidence
I dont knwo why i tried to counter your view with facts
Forgive me 😉

I'm still all for staying in, BTW.

I've been reading/listening to what David Pannick QC and David Allen Green have been saying on twitter and i'd bet money on Article 50 not being implemented.

Stockholm Syndrome Track World ..

Stockholm Syndrome Track World ..

🙂

Already there are countries queuing up to sign trade deals with us post brexit.

In a way, this might be true, because they will probably get a good deal (to our disadvantage).

We are in the worst possible position to negotiate from. We will have no trade deals and everyone will know it. Most of the developed world is aware of Brexit.

It's like a game of Poker, where you have a poor hand [i]and everyone can see it[/i].

What Horatio said. Bargains for all at the U.K. distress sale!!

Not being fully party to all that a trade deal entails I am still slightly unsure what all the fuss is about. Apparently the EU does not have a tade agreemnt with the US. Neither does the UK. And yet we seem to be able to export goods to the US. Last time I was there I saw plentry of VWs, BMWs and Mercs.

It certainly seems a bit rocky at the moment but it also feels as though there will be some settling down. We have a long way to go before we get to see what Brexit actually looks like but there are moderate voices in the EU (Merkel for one seems, at least outwardly, sensible and reasonable on having grown up conversations). We may see some companies talk about moving HQs out of Britain etc but I don't think they have fully thought through what they are doing and why. For a number of them I suspect one of the issues they may face as a result of Brexit is that it may be harder for them to move cash around the European countries to minimize their corporation tax liabilities. I doubt anyone will pull out of the UK beause we are worth too much to them.

Neither does the EU/UK have a deal with China, but that doesn't stop us being flooded with light sets for a couple of quid.

And yet we seem to be able to export goods to the US. Last time I was there I saw plentry of VWs, BMWs and Mercs.

Last time I was there, I didn't. I go to the Mid West, not any rich city, and there are very few BMWs and next to no Audis and Mercs. It's noticeable enough for me to have noticed it. Not many VWs either. Far more Jap cars than anything else non-American.

I've asked why there are so few foreign cars, and it's because they are expensive. Not only are they expensive to buy but the parts are expensive too because of import tariffs. So people buy American cars (which aren't the same as the Fords etc we get here) which really do deserve their reputation for being worse*. The rubbish cars are propped up by protectionist trade tariffs. Whether or not this is a good thing is arguable, of course.

* for example my Sister in Law's Chrysler I think had the wheel bearings fail. Turns out the whole driveshaft needed to be replaced, at high cost, because the roller bearing ran directly on the driveshaft instead of on an inner race. As a cost saving measure, one would assume.

That is one thing I have noticed about the US - broadly they have utterly **** cars. 🙂

"Neither does the EU/UK have a deal with China, but that doesn't stop us being flooded with light sets for a couple of quid. "

Or steel.

[url= http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-36684452 ]The great news is rolling in already[/url]

I've got a friend who works for the DWP. They've spent this week having meetings to plan the expected leap in the unemployment numbers that is presently in the post

We get to wave our little Union Jacks though, so its all good. A Price Worth Paying, as the lady herself would have said....

Kimbers, Laughing man famous for having worked just 7 years out of a possible total of 45. Sounds like a Brussels lover alright.

@soma we don't have to activate Artcile 50, we could just repeal the acts of Parliament which created our membership and we'd be out immediately. Thats the real nuclear option. Until Lisbon the EU hadn't even thought about how a country might leave.

@binners we have been getting our deficit under control to prepare for potentially difficult days ahead, even before Brexit vote Osbourne was warning about "aotrm clouds" gathering in Europe. We have a bump in the road to get over but the future is now much brighter.

Jamba - there's the odd constitutional lawyer that thinks one needs to repeal the parliamentary acts in order to trigger A50. - Google it.

@igm so thats the way out then, lets crack on.

Majority of MPd need to vote against their stated view of Britain's best interests then

the future is now much brighter

Only if you are looking through brexit tinted glasses.

Can I ask what specifically you think will improve, and with concrete reasons why?