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Brexit: give me a positive effect... X

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I’m certain the grifters in charge will also manipulate the electoral boundaries in their favour. The chances of sacking them at the ballot box are slim indeed.

The UK is flummoxed by a Labour party that appears with the exception of Blairs time to lack coherence and ability to create an alternative that enough people will vote for. Why the hell did Blair not introduce PR during his long tenure? It is the only way you will get a parliament that more closely reflects the voting patterns.
 
Don't you think the people in places like Grimsby and Barsnley were a little bit sick of being told how fabulous the EU was, when after 4 decades of membership, they still find themselves in some of the poorest parts?

Someone comes along in a referendum, and promises them change and new opportunity. They are going to grab it. That sounds like the standard mode of politicians to me.

Everyone gets how gullible voters are not only in Grimsby and Barnsley but all over the world. That doesn't justify blaming the EU rather than their elected government. These people were voting for narrow reasons that have been well played out and are hiding in plain view for all to see. The few Brexiteers who posted on this thread were made well aware of all the problems that would occur. But they were not and still are not interested. Like Trump pulling out of the WHO and Paris accord these folk imho are just selfish and narrow minded. I could understand if they could produce a list of positives and the UK government were moving swiftly to put in place the wonderful policies that would demonstrate why Brexit was a good idea. Nada from BJ and his band. Biden is barely in a day and he has done more in that time then BJ has or will do in his full term.
 
It's big corporates which will erode rights. We could be on the edge of the next massive wave of technology replacing jobs in the decade to come.
Do you really think the likes of Amazon will employ people just to be nice?


Do you think so?, what makes you think corporate UK is going to invest in high tech manufacturing, it hasn’t bothered since the steam engine was invented.
 
Do you think so?, what makes you think corporate UK is going to invest in high tech manufacturing, it hasn’t bothered since the steam engine was invented.
Yes, I think you pin your aspirations on the right big business, and you will still have opportunity. I've lost faith in the nation state. I have more in common with work colleagues based half way around the world than I do with some people in this country.
 
Yes, I think you pin your aspirations on the right big business, and you will still have opportunity. I've lost faith in the nation state. I have more in common with work colleagues based half way around the world than I do with some people in this country.

Well, we’re all different, but culturally I feel European. I love the fact that all European countries are different but share the a common heritage - and I’m not claiming any kind of cultural superiority regarding Europe versus ‘the rest’. The idea that the EU has led to some kind of inter-national homogeny is nonsense. I’ve worked with many people in the States but feel no affinity to the country.
 
Well, we’re all different, but culturally I feel European. I love the fact that all European countries are different but share the a common heritage - and I’m not claiming any kind of cultural superiority regarding Europe versus ‘the rest’. The idea that the EU has led to some kind of inter-national homogeny is nonsense. I’ve worked with many people in the States but feel no affinity to the country.
Do you think that some USA companies don't really get Europe?

One of my old American bosses used to think that the different countries in Europe were just like states, and that VAT was like a state sales tax. He was wrong of course.

The UK has sat in this quasi position between Europe and USA for a long time. It's like having a foot in both camps.
 
SitRep for clarity:

UK%202021%20position.jpg


Summary: utterly shite situation.


(NB: I just stole this as a scrape from a re-tweet by an old friend, and would rather credit the originator if anyone recognises the image)
 
We've been through this several times before, EV.

Oh, God, haven't we just, it is wearily familiar. The so patronising 'we've been through this several times before, EV', the not too long to retirement schoolteacher dealing patiently with just another tiresome, annoyingly awkward, know-it-all but ever-so-slighly dim teenager, pfm's own sensible uncle, all the facts to hand but entirely innocent of the the underlying truths. Yes, we've been here before, uncle PsB.

First, your number of 7 presidents is far, far too low. The EU has a lot more than that. Still, the real number is probably lower than the number of Lords in the UK, so there. (Why does a middling country like the UK need 817 Lords and Ladies, including 25 "not currently eligible" (as if any of them were ever elected)? Feudal legacy, profligate pomp, or just a dysfunctional (and not very democratic) way of cobbling together an upper chamber?)

Oh, I think that we can all agree that the vastly overbloated HoL is overdue for abolition or fundamental reform, but to compare the HoL with the European Commission is both absurd and disingenuous. The HoL doesn't propose legislation, it merely debates legislation that has been proposed by the government and debated in the Commons. It can't reject that draft legislation, but can propose amendments for further consideration by the HoC. In that respect it is more like the ridiculous EP, that over-lunched, over-remunerated and over-expended body of nobodies trekking forever between Brussels and Strasbourg, but with the advantage of some seriously knowledgeable and experienced public and not-so-public figures amongst the ever-increasing sea of drab politically-ermined appointees.

Second, there is plenty of effective democracy across the EU, both within its member states but also in the way decision makers within EU institutions are selected and overseen. The members of the European Council are all elected, MEPs are all elected, together they pick, confirm and oversee the Commission to work on its areas of competence, etc.

Beyond the member states, effective only in theory. You've been swallowing too much of that soothing EC press office ointment. The European Council, so oddly similarly nomenclatured to the Council of the EU and the unrelated (but with a curiously common HQ city, flag and anthem) Council of Europe, conducts only EU27 business when the doors close behind it. The European Parliament is a strange and remote institution, with an electoral structure and geographical constituency completely unfamiliar to those on these shores, if sometimes less so on the continent, the Parliament itself comprising dominant so-called 'grand coalitions' which represent a predominantly mid-European, pro-EU, social-democratic political hegenomy and provide the (predominantly white, male) man-power to the horse-traded into place members of the European Commission, itself the effective executive of the EU, framing and proposing legislation before posting it to the EP to be agonisingly debated, committeed and sub-committeed before being dutifully rubber stamped and sent back to the Commission to frame, shovel through the national legislations without further troubling their Parliaments, neatly press officed, and sent on to the CJEU to be enforced by the politically highly activist ECJ. And we wonder why the bewildered, befuddled, bebugger'd and totally disenfranchised EU electorates can't be bothered to turn up the EP elections!

Please make up your mind once and for all. Is the EU essentially:
- An empire, evil or otherwise, in which case a lack of democracy is surely a given, and complaints about accoutrements (good word, that) like imperial pretension, a standing army, flag, hymn etc. are just part of the package
- A fledgling federal state, in which case you would expect things like a common currency, a standing army and other accoutrements to develop over time, as well as democratic tools to control these
- A technocracy set up just to manage a specific set of common interests of its member states (in which case you can criticize a lack of efficiency but complaining about a lack of things such as a proper standing army is a bit daft, and the democracy issue becomes less relevant)
- Or is it something else?
You know already what the EU isn't: it is not a free trade zone or a nation-state.

It sounds to me as if you need to make your mind, not me, I'm pretty clear on it.

The EU might be defined as all of those things, except the nation state, to which it entirey antipathetic. An empire in the making, sans democracy etc, certainly. A fledgling federal state, even more so, but one with, lets see, imperial pretensions? Yes. A technocracy indeed, with an irrelevant democracy, and inclinations towards a standing army, indeed. If it isn't also a free trade zone, it is entirely irrelevant, the single market (and elements of the CU) being the only aspect of it which has any real merit.

What do you want it to be. If we can move beyond an alternative to the tories?
 
I'd have said that was true certainly in the 80s, and probably in the 90s.

But, I disagree with regards to the modern EU, post 2003.

Walk down pretty much any high street. The changes of mass migration are clear to see. Whether you agree with the changes or not, they do impact our lives.

I simply stated that the result of EU policy has changed the UK in recent times.
No you didn't.You said "the changes on the high street are plain to see". That's not EU policy.
 
And yet, as Dec has pointed out, after all these things that they have done without consequence, the Tories are still in power with a large thumbs-up from the electorate. So your argument rings somewhat hollow.

The tories are in power thanks to an utterly useless opposition. I repeat, it isn't the job of the EU to provide parliamentary opposition, unless it wishes to stand candidates in the UK Parliamentary elections. Which, of course, it can't.
 
Don't you think the people in places like Grimsby and Barsnley were a little bit sick of being told how fabulous the EU was, when after 4 decades of membership, they still find themselves in some of the poorest parts?
Come off it. Who *ever* told them that, compared to the decades of lies in the popular press about straight bananas and all the rest?

Someone comes along in a referendum, and promises them change and new opportunity. They are going to grab it. That sounds like the standard mode of politicians to me.
This much is obvious. Barnsley and Grimsby are tired of being f*d for decades so they want change. Who wouldn't? They just believed the lies about who was responsible and they are now in for some proper shagging. Levelling up? Yeah, right.
 
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