Forum menu
As I said at the time of the disastrous Brexit vote, the best thing we can now do is destabilise the EU and prompt other exits.
As I've said all along, the threat of further destabilisation and exits will be the single biggest reason why the EU will do everything it can to make sure brexit is as disastrous as possible for the UK. They *need* to make an example of the UK if the EU project is to continue. This will trump all other considerations, even if it means EU exporters losing money and EU economies being negatively affected. There's a much bigger, more longterm picture than short term economic growth.
As I've said all along, the threat of further destabilisation and exits will be the single biggest reason why the EU will do everything it can to make sure brexit is as disastrous as possible for the UK. They *need* to make an example of the UK if the EU project is to continue. This will trump all other considerations, even if it means EU exporters losing money and EU economies being negatively affected. There's a much bigger, more longterm picture than short term economic growth.
Basically this is my main gripe with being IN the EU - that the political project part of the thing became a self-justifying cabal.
However, I don't think that trying to unravel 60 years of mostly mutually beneficial agreements virtually overnight was ever going to be a good thing because I am not a child.
Doing it on the mistaken basis that it would mean less brown people in the UK makes it even more unforgiveable.
Haters have to hate Junky.
Let's measure the success of Brexit when it actually happens, so 2020 and 2025 will be good tests at the General Elections. So far all the doom and gloom of IMF/OECD/Cameron amd Osbourne has been shiw to be garbage. Economy still growing and outperforming Europe and the G7, services at record level, manufacturing strong.
The haters and pessimists here are going to be oh so silent when eurozone crises resurfaces for real.
TMH I can tell you the car manufacturers in France and Germany won't be enjoying life, even without tariffs their products are 10%+ less attractive to UK customers than they where 6 months ago.
dannyh - Member
The morons who voted Brexit are still ultimately to blame, though!
There are about 50% of those people that could be your family members, friends, relatives and love ones.
molgrips - Member
Remember we are the original bureaucrats.
1) That's wrong, it was the Chinese.
Yes, indeed, you are right if you intend to go that far.
In that case I shall accept the compliment and credit for my ancestors.
However, the West (generally speaking) seem to be very good/proficient in applying such concept blindly.
I am referring to a system(s) that is better applied by some nations etc.2) There's no such thing as racial memory anyway so wtf does it matter?
However, I don't think that trying to unravel 60 years of mostly mutually beneficial agreements virtually overnight was ever going to be a good thing because I am not a child.
But this could have been avoided had the negotiations between the UK and the Commission been handled in good faith earlier in the year. Many of Europe's elected leaders have criticised the conduct of Juncker and the bureacrats involved in their negotiations.
The direction of travel in the UK was crystal clear at that time so is just incredible that the Commission was only willing to offer meaningless compromises on the basis of a "take it and forever forfeit your right to discuss this again". How many of us would accept a bad deal offered on those terms?
If the member states have any sense they need to work towards a reversal of the 5 President model, Juncker to stand down and then a good detailed review of what's not working in europe and why. This would inform sensible shifts in policy and may will result in enough significant change to warrant a second referendum in the UK i.e. the outcome doesn't need to be a disaster but so far there's been very little acceptance of the need for change in Brussels even though many member states and their people are demanding this.
IIRC Brexit means Brexit was trotted out quite early on. It would have been better for a UK PM to take the result to Brussels and say 'this is what our public thinks of the EU (and they probably aren't alone) what are YOU going to do about it?'
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jun/28/uk-lacks-expertise-for-trade-talks-with-europe-says-top-civil-servant
Seems STW is full of em!
No, I would Not push for the Norwegian option
[url= http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/eu-referendum-are-you-in-or-out/page/174#post-7790295 ]Ahem[/url].
(called you on it at the time, but you were in the full grip of some kind of meme-induced psychotic episode)
But this could have been avoided had the negotiations between the UK and the Commission been handled in good faith earlier in the year. Many of Europe's elected leaders have criticised the conduct of Juncker and the bureacrats involved in their negotiations.
YOu are so one sides its worrying
FFS senior tories have criticised senior tories who have been involved int he negotiations
To argue its just them is nuts and at odds with the facts
Its a club it has rulesThe direction of travel in the UK was crystal clear at that time so is just incredible that the Commission was only willing to offer meaningless compromises on the basis of a "take it and forever forfeit your right to discuss this again". How many of us would accept a bad deal offered on those terms?
we have to obey them. They tried to accommodate our wish to not obey th rules as far as was practical. Its bonkers to argue that their refusal to ignore the club riles to let us do what we wanted is a sign of them offering a bad deal, Its a sign that we want to have our cake and to eat it.
As for arguing they should change in the chance they change enough to let us stay. How much coke have you had to be this arrogant?
We asked them to bend to our will, they refused, We will ask them in negotiations to bend to our will they will refuse again
To blame them for this is a little odd
Basically we dont want to follow their rules. that is not their fault and they wont change the rules just to accommodate one member who is/was , at best , an unwilling noisy partner prior to us saying that's it we are off.
Your posts are more one sided than Govt press releases
jambalaya - Member
Haters have to hate Junky.
So true. Which presumably is why the 'KIPers are now punching each other - allegedly.
In other news, I have a young son who gets upset when other children want to play one game and he wants to play another. It's not fair. They're being mean. But he's only 5 and he's just about grown out of it.
Strange to see it's now government foreign policy.
They tried to accommodate our wish to not obey th rules as far as was practical. Its bonkers to argue that their refusal to ignore the club rules to let us do what we wanted is a sign of them offering a bad deal, Its a sign that we want to have our cake and to eat it.
Which is literally our stated negotiating policy, according to our Foreign Secretary:
Mr Johnson told [url= https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/1889723/boris-johnson-joins-forces-with-liam-foxand-declares-support-for-hard-brexit-which-will-liberate-britain-to-champion-free-trade/ ]The Sun[/url]: [i]"Our policy is having our cake and eating it."[/i]"We are Pro-secco but by no means anti-pasto".
What cars are you going to buy Jambalaya when you don't want to pay extra for European cars, boycott Japanese because they are going to downsize UK factories?
Chrisler is Italian now, GM has Opel.
Looks like everyone will be driving Ford.
The remain campaign missed a scaremongering trick:
"No more Euromillions if we leave!"
Would have swung it IMO.
Looks like everyone will be driving Ford.
Everyone?
Increasing car prices should, hopefully, keep the less affluent out of car ownership. Far too many proles getting s****y cars on lease deals. It's getting harder to tell the haves from the have nots these days.
They tried to accommodate our wish to not obey the rules as far as was practical.
Junkyard, you're ignoring the rather awkward fact that they didn't.
We know this not from David Cameron but from other European Leaders who criticised the conduct of Juncker and his team before, during and after the negotiations with the UK.
Juncker's personal agenda is to retain / extend power held by the commission. He has not accepted any need to consider an evolution of current rules in order to address the quite apparent unforeseen effect even though this has been called for by member states.
In short the ego of one unelected man has been allowed to dominate the will of Elected Representatives of the EU member states and has led us to where we now find ourselves.
Should Juncker be replaced by a pragmatist, or member states regain control of the Commission it's quite likely that the many calls for change across Europe will be heard and acted on.
[url= http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/angela-merkel-will-soon-have-to-deal-with-european-commission-president-jean-claude-juncker-sources-a7117536.html ]Merckel will have to deal with Juncker[/url]
[url= http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/eu-commission-president-juncker-under-fire-a-1098232.html ]Juncker under fire from Leaders[/url]
[url= https://www.ft.com/content/ed74cafc-3c84-11e6-9f2c-36b487ebd80a ]Leaders call for Juncker to step down[/url]
Well just been to a lecture by a former doctor now lawyer that works in scienftific and medical law, in the UK & the EU
some really inspiring stuff about the input of UK scientists to shape Europes laws around medicine and science, admittedly some of it was poorly written originally, but we really have [b]had[/b] a huge nfluence.
obviously he had quite an anti-brexit stance, he was now working to ensure that scienctific and medical research would suffer as little as possible, he had a lot of praise for Jo Johnson (though not his brother) and he had sat on a government biotechnology committee with Andrea Loathesome, which sounded like an exercise in absolute futility.
He was of the opinion that the Repeal Law bill would leave huge grey areas.
The talk within legal circles was that many, many lawyers had 40 years of work ahead of them to straighten things out
especially as regards to science and medicine as the technology is in many cases controversial (GMOs, stem cells, gene editing etc) and incredibly complicated.
Nothing can be done about the loss of funding, and despite government pledges to cover lost budgets the pound now buys much less research equipment and reagents than it did a year ago.
The attacks by the government on foreign doctors, students and EU workers at the Tory Conference also paints a very depressing picture
Im yet to hear a BSer in any way say how Brexit will improve something that we currently lead the world in (by some measures)
Let's measure the success of Brexit when it actually happens, so
so...nothing. Agreed lets wait. Our economy is highly synched with EU - just look at the graph. There is nothing to be gained from delighting in EU area weakness. They remain our key economic partners.
The haters and pessimists here are going to be oh so silent when eurozone crises resurfaces for real.
This is irrelevat to the debate. The impact will be the same for us (bad) irrespective of the vote. We have not had/do not have/will no have any liability to the EZ (other than in a non-collateralised IMF bailout)
TMH I can tell you the car manufacturers in France and Germany won't be enjoying life, even without tariffs their products are 10%+ less attractive to UK customers than they where 6 months ago.
Who is/will be enjoying things. Our lives have been made more difficult due to crass stupidity and lies. Trade is more complicated and more costly and the BoE has responded by stealing more of our money and taking more from the prudent to give the foolhardy. Its bllx.
just5minutes - MemberJunkyard, you're ignoring the rather awkward fact that they didn't.
Outside Schengen.
With a Veto.
with a Rebate.
We had all kinds of concessions, given to us to help us feel important.
ctk - Member
The remain campaign missed a scaremongering trick:
"No more Euromillions if we leave!"
Would have swung it IMO.
No, that cannot do. We Cannot do without Euromillions. Street protest I call.
In that case I better strike me Euromillions Jackpot quick - preferably tonight for £139 millions ... Imagine that.
We had all kinds of concessions, given to us to help us feel important.
Yes but they didn't kneel on the steps of buck house and kiss the feet of our glorious queen. They should know their bloody place.
Just a thought - presumably, just like the £ falling being good really, should unemployment rise as a result of Brexit this too would be good because it would make patriotic Britons willing to work for less in order to keep their jobs, thereby making the UK more productive and competitive - no?
Would any Leavers like to comment?
m yet to hear a BSer in any way say how Brexit will improve something that we currently lead the world in (by some measures)
Why would anyone bother to respond to insults ?
jambalaya - MemberWhy would anyone bother to respond to insults ?
so, no you dont have a response, then
Indeed, which is why it's more than odd that the nutters & co spend their time insulting our major trading partners. Stupidity personified.
Nothing like the EU exists anywhere else in the world. There is a very good reason for that.
Sapin (French Economics/Business minster) said something interesting today, the UK cannot seperate freedom of movement from the single market because if we did that it would be the end of the EU as we know it. That's the point, people throughout Europe don't want the EU as we now have it. The Commission knows its fighting for its life and their very cushy low tax jobs.
.
so, no you dont have a response, then
Just read back, we've discussed numerous times before hiw being outside the EU will create opportunities
The ministry of Brexit
xenophobic or just really really stupid?
Everybody agrees that Europe is not perfect but to change it, you need to be part of it.
In 3 years time, you will be part of nothing.
I doubt that the UK economy will totally collapse but a large number of people are going to find life a lot more difficult. That is obviously a price you are prepared to pay in pursuit of your ideology and principles.
[url= https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/oct/07/lse-brexit-non-uk-experts-foreign-academics ]I see the purge of the dirty foreigners has already begun. [/url]
What the **** is happening to this country? How long before we start dishing out armbands with 12 stars on them?
Nothing like the EU exists anywhere else in the world. There is a very good reason for that.
Do they still want the right to invade on a whim? Let's not forget why the EU was developed in the first place.
Just read back, we've discussed this numerous times before
as I said, no response
Government guaranteed all EU grants committed would be honoured for their life even if the project goes on after Brexi in 2019
You can be a moaner consumed by bitterness of defeat or you can take a positive attitude forward.
Take a lead from Jezza if you have to, he's all for getting on with the job of Brexit.
Take a lead from Jezza if you have to, he's all for getting on with the job of Brexit
He is a weapons grade **** after all.
[i]There are about 50% of those people that could be your family members, friends, relatives and love ones.[/i]
But this is the thing, they're not.
We had this discussion at work recently and in our small team only one person voted Leave, and the rest of us know few if anyone else that also voted leave.
So the vote seems to have split very much on geographical/class/educational lines.
jambalaya - Member
Government guaranteed all EU grants committed would be honoured for their life even if the project goes on after Brexi in 2019
of course I believe the government, theyd never lie or break a pledge
as I pointed out before because funding applied for 3, 5, 10 years in advance we have now been shut out of the worlds largest scientific grant network, 10% of science funding is now simply a huge black hole of uncertainty
and as our government spends less on R&D as % of gdp than any other than greece, portugal & italy, + the huge blow the loss of access to colaborative networks + the huge blow of loosing EU citizens from our projects
Ill just have to keep moaning that britain has become a smaller, less influential, parochial nation 🙂
Government guaranteed all EU grants committed would be honoured for their life even if the project goes on after Brexi in 2019
Well, it didn't really. But even if it did, what happens next? European research funding has transformed collaborative science and research across and beyond an entire continent. The UK has done a very good job of mopping up a lot of this funding. What are the xenophobes going to do to minimise damage to this?
ambalaya - MemberYou can be a moaner consumed by bitterness of defeat or you can take a positive attitude forward.
i don't know anyone 'consumed by bitterness'...? what an odd thing to say.
teamhurtmore - Member
Indeed, which is why it's more than odd that the nutters & co spend their time insulting our major trading partners. Stupidity personified
There is a difference between trading partners & EU bureaucrats.
The former nations/people we buy/sell to.
The latter EU bureaucrats are just non-entity administrators.
Not for you perhaps but others may be coz there are things people keep secret.b r - Member
There are about 50% of those people that could be your family members, friends, relatives and love ones.
But this is the thing, they're not.
We had this discussion at work recently and in our small team only one person voted Leave, and the rest of us know few if anyone else that also voted leave.
I don't know about the split as all I know is I do not like EU Bureaucrats coz we already have enough of them all over ...So the vote seems to have split very much on geographical/class/educational lines.
😯since the start of the year only the currencies of Angola, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Venezuela, Mozambique and Suriname have fallen by more.
coz there are things people keep secret.
Why would they keep it a secret? They won, didn't they? They took back control!
You can be a moaner consumed by bitterness of defeat or you can take a positive attitude forward.
I'm not remotely bitter about it. I am however being pragmatic, rather than positive. That pragmatism enables me to see the clear disadvantage the UK has put itself in as the result of a woefully untruthful and spiteful campaign, and a government that seems shameless in its overt xenophobia, if not quite yet outright racism.
If you want positivity, perhaps try highlighting some 'positives' that don't fly in the face of the large body of evidence that is presented before us.
If you want positivity, perhaps try highlighting some 'positives' that don't fly in the face of the large body of evidence that is presented before us.
HGNFY is going to have a wealth of material to work with. 🙂
I was saying that sometimes people do not tell the truth as to who they have voted for particularly those people you know like friends, family members etc. They might tell you one thing but they have voted for another. e.g. your friends etc might have said that they voted for this but in actual they voted for that, just to avoid hard feelings etc.phiiiiil - Member
coz there are things people keep secret.
Why would they keep it a secret? They won, didn't they? They took back control!
If you want positivity, perhaps try highlighting some 'positives' that don't fly in the face of the large body of evidence that is presented before us.HGNFY is going to have a wealth of material to work with.
I'm not entirely convinced that they'll have to say anything TBH. I suspect they couldn't do much better than playing 30 minutes of news clips from the past three months, then rolling the credits. I doubt they'd actually need to say anything!
Kimbers that link is unreal.
Unreal.
torsoinalake - MemberKimbers that link is unreal.
Unreal.
The speculators or the ones being speculated?
The former are people doing their normal practice to hype up or down events for financial gains.
The latter are people being taken for a ride. They are usually the ones being hyped up/down and end up worst then they started.
I have a positive attitude but, yes, I am bitter about the referendum nonetheless. I am bitter about the outright lies that were at the core of the BS argument, about the negative impact that this had had on my work, disgusted at the extent of xenophobia and racism that it has uncovered, and dismayed at the outcome in terms of UK politics.
[b]Above all, none of this was necessary. We had the best possible result in the bag - access and benefits without the downsides of the €. It doesn't get better than that.[/b]
I have also benefitted from the core freedoms, my family has too - 3/4 of us have lived or studied in France and I would like the same opportunities to be there for number 4 and for people of the EU to do the same here [b]without barriers. [/b]
In the end, after all the BS will we end up slightly worse that we started. We will compromise and will end up with less influence and less control. Exactly the opposite of what was promised (sic).
CMD was absolutely right. [b]This is self-harm[/b]. On top of that it is driven by narrow-minded xenophobia and racism and crass isolationism at its core. History has always judged those factors harshly and often with catastrophic results. I hope that the downside will be limited this time, but it is still downside.
So excuse me for not jumping up an down about that and being an insy-winsy bit negative. It would be naive to do so. Its like someone shitting on your doorstep.
Brexshit is Brexshit - its crap however much sugar you want to sprinkle on top of it.
You can be a moaner consumed by bitterness of defeat
FFS is that really what you think this is? It's not the bloody FA Cup final. This is something that's going to fundamentally affect the lives and futures of everyone and their future descendants. I could happily accept such a fundamental and important decision if it was made based on the available evidence and decided in a mature and measured fashion by a clear and unambiguous majority of the people, but that's not what happened is it? Can you not even acknowledge the genuine, reasoned and not entirely baseless fears of those of us who think this is going to be an unparalleled disaster?
Words out of my mouth dazh.
Coupled with the rights that were important to me having been stripped away. Also for my kids. Can't you see how I'd be pissed off about that?
No, of course he can't, because he can't afford to consider the possibility that he might be wrong.
Also for my kids.
yup thats what really annoys me
my children will have to pay for the stupidity of others
Well I don't have children so (as Loathsome would tell you) I don't really give a shit about the future, and it won't affect me too much one way or the other.
However, I'm not a complete moron and it is abundantly clear that brexit is an act of catastrophic self-harm driven largely by racism and bigotry (after such hatred having been stoked for years by the gutter press and various politicians). Certainly makes me ashamed to be British, though as a Scot living in England, I can just about call myself a foreigner anyway.
Some anecdotal evidence from a colleague. His friend has a very successful business exporting "machinery" worldwide. The expected weak pound bonanza is not happening, but instead is seeing his order book shrink, as his customers aren't comfortable with the risk, so are moving to suppliers in the EU.
So not all good for exporters.
see there you go doing Britain down with facts
FFS people lets cheer up as together we can achieve wonderful things [ flicks V at foreigners as he makes speech]
I'm finding that I'm now acknowledging something that I've half-known about my fellow man for a long, long time, but was always too scared to address.
I think its a fantasy thing for many, this scenario. (I don't mean the ones who've seriously considered this and voted out, but I'm starting to think they were in the minority.)
The others want to be perceived as strong, defiant, dismissive, ill-mannered, someone who gets what he/she wants. For the downtrodden, thats powerful stuff- someone who can let them be the person that they've always wanted to be, something that was promised to them but denied.
Brexit as a wish-fulfilment device basically.
People are now showing their inner reality in an unbridled way, because politicians have tacitly signalled that its ok to be that way in public, whereas formerly, even in private, they would have felt shame.
I think a lot of people, deep down, secretly want to be dicks to just about everyone who ever made them feel bad, but they've been suppressing this for a lifetime; Brexit was the nail they could hang their hat on and allows them to unburden themselves and hang it all out there.
I think of it as being a bit like Pride, only for crypto-fascists and the butt-hurt masses.
Ok I can add another one......
Can you guess?
1930s Germany or Tory Party conference
Just delete the word Foreign or Jewish depending on where you think it was thought up
Pledge to remove\replace all foreign/Jewish doctors
Restrictions on foreign/Jewish students at universities
Shaming businesses for employing Jews/ foreigners
[url= https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/oct/07/lse-brexit-non-uk-experts-foreign-academics ]Excluding foreigners/jews from jobs the civil service[/url]
https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/mobile/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005681
I heard that non-UK forum members are going to be excluded from this thread.
Apparently the ban even includes chewkw.
Everybody agrees that Europe is not perfect but to change it, you need to be part of it.In 3 years time, you will be part of nothing.
CC we've been told that for years and the reality is very different. It's a democracy and the other members want ever closer Union, we foolishly gave up our veto. It's now a condition of EU membership you join or prepare to join the € for example. It is a one way street to a European Superstate. There is no interest at the EU for anything else as more Europe equals more power, influence and money for the EU elite.
And the last thing we want for the UK is more power, influence and money... 😆
Errrr....name who was exempt from those trends but still had access to the markets and much of the other benefits? And like clowns we (clue) threw it away!
It's now a condition of EU membership you join or prepare to join the € for example.
How does that affect us?
It's now a condition of EU membership you join or prepare to join the € for example.
Weren't we exempted from that?
It didnt/it doesnt/ it will not
Although if you are Scottish you would be a bit nervous that dear Nicola's desperation to part from the English might extend as far as joining the disaster that is the €. She really is that silly at times.
How does that affect us?
For now, it doesn't, beyond giving Jamby yet more irrelevant bollocks to tupe. When we're grovelling to rejoin in about 10 years and Turkey is threatening us with a veto, it will.
Dont be so despondent Zokes. Bojo is going to help his homeland join first so perhaps they will return the favour!!
(but jambas is correct about one thing. The € is terminally fu@ked. It cannot work either on paper or in practice. So the Euro-project is in a cul-de-sac of its own making. Unfortunately the BSers cannot exercise their brains enough to distinguish between the different events and how to protect our best interests)
Can we split the country in some way? So you could say affiliate yourself with the EU on a personal level? I wonder how that would work.
- EU members would be allowed to trade and move freely.
- EU affliated business owners would have to declare their business an EU businss and only be able to employ EU affiliated workers. You could affiliate yourself if you wanted to work there.
- You'd get an EU/UK passport, in red
- You'd be subject to EU laws
- Other EU citizens would only be able to come and work for the EU affiliated companies
- EU inbound funding to geographic areas could only be given if more than 50% affliated.. or maybe you can only access the regenerated housing/businesses/landscape if you are an affiliate..
Interesting experiment that would be 🙂
Yes, perhaps there could be some sort of border where the EU people lived in the North and the UK people lived in the South 🙂
Can we split the country in some way?
Not necessary, we just need the EU to offer all current british citizens an EU passport if they want one. Perhaps in return for a one-off payment for life, of say €1000 per citizen. I suspect many would take up the offer. I'm pretty sure I would.
I see Hammond has now commented on the [url= http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/pound-value-crash-brexit-flash-philip-hammond-sterling-drop-worse-to-come-a7351076.html ]'flash crash'[/url]
[img] 
[/img]
Oh excellent, there's more to come 🙄
We really are governed by the most imbecilic shysters.
Cody - been meaning to read one of his, that's as good an excuse as any 🙂
Polish man attacked for speaking Polish.
I hope Bojo is proud of himself.
We really are governed by the most imbecilic shysters.
We are, and have been for some time. Me and the Mrs were discussing this last night. Basically since the miners' strikes I think bugger all has really happened politically. A few distant wars, a bit of grumling here and there but for the most part things have just rumbled on. And I think as a consequence most people lost interest in politics, the media let itself become a soapbox for its owners instead of giving out information, and living standards mostly went up regardless based on increased manufacturing capacity in poor countries.
But now as Labour lost its competency, and let's face it Dave wasn't really a competent politician, the shit of the financial crisis and the Tories' ideological austerity has been building. Then Dave put a big fan right in the way, put it on max and here we are.
And no bugger knows what to do, because they're all a bit crap, because for the last 30 years none of them have really had to govern much of anything. The big policies of investing in doctor training and housing - those are basics that should've been happening all along. It's like proudly anouncing you're going to do the washing up after dinner; that's not an innovative policy, it's just what you have to do as a matter of course!
You can be a moaner consumed by bitterness of defeat or you can take a positive attitude forward.
It's quite hard not to be bitter when theres a possibility that my small child could leave the UK, if the terms of Brexit make her mothers position here untenable financially or socially. Still hoping for soft brexit or that there'll be an easy route to a passport for the ex.
Me and the Mrs were discussing this last night. Basically since the miners' strikes I think bugger all has really happened politically
How much wine were you drinking at the time?
Go on then - what big things have happened in the last 30 years?
Not necessary, we just need the EU to offer all current british citizens an EU passport if they want one. Perhaps in return for a one-off payment for life, of say €1000 per citizen. I suspect many would take up the offer. I'm pretty sure I would.
I would, I'm sick of having to explain I'm not English every time Johnny Foreigner looks down his nose at my British passport.