EU Referendum – are you in or out?

@kimbers – looks like there is a bright future full of opportunities waiting for us post-Brexit!!

One assumes we’ve sold the Saudis a fresh batch of bombs for Yemen (with an agreement they wouldn’t do it at Easter).

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/apr/04/free-movement-will-go-on-in-transition-after-brexit-theresa-may?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

what can you say to this really….

I worked in Germany for a massive internationally known firm whose services you’ve probably all used, and they were definitely NOT better at working. They were an absolute joke. A British ex-pat who worked there was adamant that the concept of German efficiency was a myth, and that they had no common sense at all.

Yes, for one-off stuff the Brits are as good as anyone but where it’s a repeatable process (design and operation) then they’re very good and are prepared to invest. Seen this across both aluminium and building materials sectors.

good job that germanys doing so well, that must really upset all the EU haters

I posted an artilce a few pages back – the following is an extract from it.

Lahnstein explained that he supported the ERM because it was in Germany’s national interest. “His argument was, as always, simple and powerful,” wrote Healey. “The mechanism would require the weaker countries to intervene on the currency markets to keep the stronger currencies down, and vice versa; this meant that France and Italy would have to pay to keep the Deutschmark lower than it would have been in a free market, thus keeping Germany more competitive, and other countries less so.” The euro removed the inconvenience of interventions in the currency markets to secure Germany’s advantage over the rest of the continent. But it still followed Lahnstein’s logic.

We are a small scale seller of weapons to Saudi. French are 4x us and US bigger again. Let me find some numbers.

@mrleb – there aren’t really facts about the future are there ? It’s unknown.

Edukator I think the run off will be between Fillion and Le Pen. Lets see.

Jamba – you gonna stop claimin’ you can see the future then? 😉

Macron is the one with all the answers

What are his policies?

We are a small scale seller of weapons to Saudi. French are 4x us and US bigger again. Let me find some numbers.

Oh I guess that makes it all ok then??

what can you say to this really….

she probably still wants a housemaid on the cheap when she leaves office.

what can you say to this really….

I’d expected it to unravel slowly but it’s coming on really rather fast since Article 50 was signed and the gloves have come off. More than a few people at work are expressing concern at the ‘let’s fight the Spanish’ outburst…

I’m really rather worried about how those who believed the most obvious lies of the Leave campaign will respond as it becomes clear just how big those lies were. Same as Trump supporters – having put so much faith in something so obviously an electoral ploy, what will be the reaction when the faith turns out to be misplaced…

@mattjg there are not 100,000 jobs in euro clearing. Thats the total number of jobs in clearing in all currencies in London (the worlds largest fx market). You can clear euros in New York too for example.

Wow – Michael Fallon said this:

“Our object is to regain control over migration – to make sure we can manage the number of people who are coming here and the numbers of people who are going to Europe.”

So they actually want to stop people leaving the country as well? They want to trap people here?

What the actual ****?

@jambalaya : “The future of an estimated 100,000 jobs has been plunged into doubt after a close political ally of the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, and president of the European commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, warned that a prized sector in the City of London must relocate to EU soil after Brexit.”

Is that factually incorrect? I’m not a fundamentalist and find it very plausible any article can be wrong.

So they actually want to stop people leaving the country as well? They want to trap people here?

What the actual ****?

Only enemies of the people would want to leave glorious Wangland.

I’m only half joking, the quitters throw around the word “traitor” without a thought.

Morning giggle: https://capx.co/england-has-gone-mad/

We’ll all remember where we were when we heard about the 2017 War with Spain, inspired by unlovely Gibraltar, declared by Michael Howard and passionately taken up by the kind of right-wing Tory who lovingly displays decommissioned weaponry on their living-room wall. I was on a long train journey passing through some of England’s finest countryside when the news broke. How sad, I thought, that one day this would all be patatas bravas fields and manchego trees. We’d have to learn how to pronounce “chorizo” the right way and to pass a football properly. I worked through the maths – at 43, was I too old for the frontline? I checked my conscience – I’d happily write racist propaganda from home, but would rather avoid having to shoot Andres Iniesta in the face.

Now that the war is over and we survivors are making the best of the aftermath, a much more serious issue dominates the national debate, namely whether Cadbury and the National Trust have removed the word “Easter” from their Easter egg hunts. The answer to this is “no”, but in loopy England that hasn’t stopped the Prime Minister and the leader of the Opposition and the Church of England expressing strong condemnation.

I’m really rather worried about how those who believed the most obvious lies of the Leave campaign will respond as it becomes clear just how big those lies were. Same as Trump supporters – having put so much faith in something so obviously an electoral ploy, what will be the reaction when the faith turns out to be misplaced…

Brooess – according to Andrew Rawnsley in the Observer a few weeks ago, theres a core of less rabid Tory MPs who share your concerns. They believe that as the working classes, who believed all this bullshit and voted leave, realise the scale of the deception – as their employment rights and benefits (EU red tape?) are gleefully torched by the Tory Right – all hell is going to break loose

“Our object is to regain control over migration – to make sure we can manage the number of people who are coming here and the numbers of people who are going to Europe.”

So they actually want to stop people leaving the country as well? They want to trap people here?

What the actual ****?

Build a wall!!

They believe that as the working classes, who believed all this bullshit and voted leave, realise the scale of the deception – as their employment rights and benefits (EU red tape?) are gleefully torched by the Tory Right – all hell is going to break loose

It won’t though. That’s not how it is in Britain. The Mail and Express will publish some suitable Dunkirk spirit messages and the proles will tug their forelocks and carry on. As long as the masters in the Big House are OK, everything is fine in Downton Abbey.

all hell is going to break loose

Yup. Big trouble coming IMO.

DrJ – I think there could be serious civil unrest ahead, because of a combination of things creating a perfect storm. A couple of things that will happen simultaneously

1) A Tory party now having policy dictated exclusively by its lunatic fringe, and taking full advantage of the utter shambles of Corbyns labour, will be simply unable to resist its base instincts. This will lead to them, as they enact the Great Repeal Bill (nice flag-waving name) taking a torch to workers rights, and benefits that have been taken for granted for decades. I think that may lead to the scales falling from a lot of peoples eyes.

But this is the clincher…

2) At the same time, there will be no reduction in immigration. Far from it. David Davis has already conceded this. The Tory party’s paymasters want their supply of cheap labour to continue. And what they want, they get.

How do you think these things are going to play out to a population sold the ‘Taking back control of our borders’ bullshit, that was blatantly exploiting fear, xenophobia, and out and out racism? This was always a dangerous game to be playing. I think that the right wing nut-jobs, getting carried away with their victorious, crowing ‘Enemies of the People’ posturing, seem to be forgetting that as this pans out, delivering the polar opposite of what you promised will have repercussions. Even the less foaming-at-the-mouth in the Tory party know this.

Do you think the unquestioning Sun/MailExpress/Telegraph axis will carry on their unwavering flag-waving support once it becomes clear that the immigration figures won’t be coming down?

The right are going to be brought down by their own swaggering cocksure over-confidence making them think they can do whatever they damn well like. They can’t. They’ve had a very easy ride so far. As reality intrudes on the rhetoric and lies, that won’t last. I expect at some point the public mood is going to change rapidly and dramatically once the extent of the lies and deceptions become apparent.

What happens then? Who knows? Its impossible to predict anything at the moment. But I very much doubt it’ll be good.

all hell is going to break loose
Yup. Big trouble coming IMO.

It won’t matter the brexies will believe what the right wing press and demagogues tell them: that leaving the EU was the best thing to do and any other problems are obviously the fault of Europeans/Muslims/lefties/curvy bananas/Mr tumble, there will always be someone else to scapegoat.

May is already preparing the way – today she said FOM won’t end after Brexit, Davis admitted it last week, reality is beginning to bite but a nrw reality will be spun where it’s junker etc to blame……

Do you think the unquestioning Sun/MailExpress/Telegraph axis will carry on their unwavering flag-waving support once it becomes clear that the immigration figures won’t be coming down?

My theory is simpler. Yes I think they will, digging the hole deeper and deeper and deeper as Brexit fails to deliver the promised sunlit uplands. Then in due course the blame will be put at the feet of the “traitorous remoaners” for not being fully behind the “will of the people”.

A significant part of the leave vote base are the same people who see you on your bike in the street, drive straight at you, and at the collision blame you for getting in their way. These are not the kinds of people who admit to mistakes or see balance. They see no further than they want what they want. “End of.” as they charmingly put it.

Pretty damn scary.

Oh God … the Remoaners and their superior intellect and sage-like predictions of the future 😕

Step back from your skinny-latte`s and crystals balls of doom … if what gets delivered isnt what was ordered; it gets cancelled … and a new order is put in.

The Brexit result wasnt what those in the EU wanted – and the result has been used to sow division ever since.

Some peoples glass is always half empty; why not focus on what good may happen – instead of what bad could?

Hopefully I’m just being a pessimist. But I don’t buy “can’t happen here”. Can happen anywhere.

Which gives me an excuse to add to the playlist:

You lucky people.

I think it all comes down to your fundamental attitude.

When you have problems, do you look for a solution or look for someone to blame?

The general population is full of both types in all walks of life.

if what gets delivered isnt what was ordered; it gets cancelled … and a new order is put in.

That is pretty funny. You want the lunatics to run the assylum? 🙂

binners – Member

all hell is going to break loose

Don’t worry, when it does it’ll be Wanton Criminality and Mindless Opportuniest Thuggery and we can break out the rubber bullets and hanging judges.

Thing is, these things don’t seem to be that rational. When politicians make ridiculous promises then let you down, logically you’d stop listening to those politicians. Maybe you’d listen to the other guy- that guy you didn’t vote for because he didn’t promise you the world. But actually people just seem to want more ridiculous promises, and you can respond with “well we would have done it but The Enemy stopped us” and all that.

So if this does go the way it looks like it will, it’s just as likely to be “it’s the EU’s fault” and “it’s the Enemies Of The People’s fault” and never Theresa May and the three brexiteers’ faults for being ****ing spoons.

Same in the states- in fact it’s already happening, the Trump administration moved into Blame The Other Guy mode before they’d even started failing. Traditionally it’s a response to failure but more recently it’s become a first preference.

I’m pretty sure I’m stating the obvious but the last page or so seems to have overlooked all this.

mooman – Member

if what gets delivered isnt what was ordered; it gets cancelled … and a new order is put in

I’m sorry, what?

Some peoples glass is always half empty; why not focus on what good may happen – instead of what bad could?

Because its pretty self-evident to anyone with anything between their ears, that unless you’re one of the usual 1% who did quite nicely out of the banking crisis, while everyone else got bent over, then there’s nothing good conceivably going to come out of this forthcoming crisis either.

As the months ahead go by this will become more and more apparent to even the most terminally dense

The end of FOM was always going to be a nightmare for industry, EU NHS staff are already leaving n droves, still huge shortages across the construction sector, farms dependent on migrant labour.

It was just a xenophobic fantasy that immigration would reduce let alone end. (Interesting that even ‘Go Home van’ May is now saying it.

The extra cost and bureaucracy of arranging work visas for a potential 3million EU workers and families here is the kind of logistical details Brexies like to wish away.

And right on cue up steps farage to shirk responsibility

I’m sorry to say that the response to the triggering of article 50 has been all too predictable. Already you have made a series of demands that are not just unreasonable but, in some cases, clearly impossible for Britain to comply with. You began by telling us that we have to pay a bill, a cool £52bn, a figure that has clearly been plucked out of the air, effectively a form of ransom demand ….

You are behaving like the mafia. You think we are a hostage. We are not. We are free to go.

I’m so **** glad I live in Scotland

Some peoples glass is always half empty; why not focus on what good may happen – instead of what bad could?

Can you give us some examples of the good that you think may happen?

There’s being optimistic then there’s being hopelessly unrealistic.

By comparison Guy Verhofstsad gives a speech that illustrates just how poorly served we are by UK politicians.

Perhaps it was always impossible to unite Great Britain with the continent. Naive to reconcile the legal system of Napoleon with the common law of the British empire. Perhaps it was never meant to be.

But, our predecessors should never be blamed for having tried. Never. It’s as important in politics as it is in life: to try; new partnerships, new horizons, to reach out to each other, the other side of the Channel. I am also sure that – one day or another – there will be a young man or woman who will try again, who will lead Britain into the European family once again. A young generation that will see Brexit for what it really is: a catfight in the Conservative party that got out of hand, a loss of time, a waste of energy, stupidity.

Let’s not forget: Britain entered the union as the ‘sick man of Europe’ and – thanks to the single market – came out of the other side. Europe made Britain also punch above its weight in terms of geopolitics, as in the heydays of the British empire. And we from our side must pay tribute to Britain’s immense contributions: a staunch, unmatched defender of free markets and civil liberties. Thank you for that. As a liberal, I tell you, I will miss that

Some peoples glass is always half empty; why not focus on what good may happen

Yeah still waiting on that one….

I’d just like to say that I was delivered some very small and oddly shaped bananas by Ocado this week.
I compared them to the pre-A50 bananas from the week before and they looked quite odd.

The strangest thing is this isn’t me taking the mickey – it actually happened.
Equally I accept it must just be a strange coincidence – the banana bill has not been re-peeled yet. (Ok I couldn’t resist one pun).

mooman – Member

Some peoples glass is always half empty; why not focus on what good may happen – instead of what bad could?

😆
Are you new here?

binners:
What happens then? Who knows? Its impossible to predict anything at the moment. But I very much doubt it’ll be good.

Yep, and the complete absence of an effective opposition limits the democratic options a bit!

Maybe we’ll see a new party arise? Or a LibLab coalition?

mooman:
if what gets delivered isnt what was ordered; it gets cancelled … and a new order is put in

I’d like some clarification on that too?

Are you suggesting that the public should have some sort of vote on whether they accept the proposed deal once it has been negotiated?

“You think we are a hostage. We are not. We are free to go.”

We might be hostage.

Yes we can leave simply by changing our law and ceasing to pay our fee, but who knows what sanctions the EU could impose if we just go (in their view) owing them cash.

I’ve always thought we weren’t leaving – we’ll get bogged down in decades of complex negotiations and then it’ll just not happen.

Must be a laugh going for a meal with Farage

“Your bill sir”- eh, sorry, “L’addition, monsieur”, since he’ll be living in France
“THIS IS A RANSOM DEMAND!1!!”