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Brexit: give me a positive effect... XIV

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Spraggons Den said:
Interesting, this comment is very different from many Remainers on PF and positions you close to EV actually. I suppose the difference is he believed disruptions to trade and commerce could be kept small whilst you think they are going to be serious. Time will tell.
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I've some while since concluded that we should probably have applied to come out through EFTA.
 
foxwelljsly said:
I'll stand by what I said as valid criticism of some of your discourse here. It's not a personal attack on you. I haven't called anyone a racist. I said an irrational fear of foreigners and their impact upon 'our culture' (xenophobia) played a significant part in people's decision to vote to leave.

I don't really support the EU and completely accept it's a deeply flawed institution. I just think there will never be any material benefit for 99% of UK citizens to being outside of it and significant costs to a great many in this country whilst we're managing the transition and beyond. Anything else, IMHO, is immaterial.

Mind you, everyone that felt it was daft to leave Europe could do well to reflect on if they feel their sense of identity and belonging has been undermined and recognise that's one thing they have in common with many of those they oppose - as that's how many of them felt before the referendum.
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That's a very much more measured post.
 
eternumviti said:
PS Robinson who? :)
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Yes, that was like when you claimed not to know who Katie Hopkins and Richard Tice were (you had ‘head the name’ but that was about it) and had never heard of Quentin Letts.
You must be the only Tory and Brexit promoter who didn’t know who they were or your dinghy was washed up on Juan Fernandez in 1704 and you’ve been relying on messages in a bottle since.
 
Quentin Letts is a comedian who used to write for one paper, and now writes for another, but I don't know which ones. I still know very little about Katie Hopkins and Richard Tice. One is something to do with the radio and is considered repugnant by people here, and the other had a hand in one or the other of the brexit campaign organisations. I wouldn't know either of them if I fell over them.
 
Incidentally, I am not a 'brexit promoter'. I would very much have preferred it if brexit hadn't had to happen at all, though I believe that it did.

I am first of all anti-EU, not pro-brexit.
 
wacko said:
Probably better for Brits not to bring up the subject of slavery.

Macron called colonisation a "crime against humanity".
Germany pays reparations to Namibia for early 20th century genocide.

By comparison Cameron thought it OK to offer to pay for a 'human rights-compliant' prison (!) in Jamaica (probably intended for some UK exports). And Bojo's embarrassing govt worries about statues of slavers and decries footballers taking the knee.

Slave owners were paid the equivalent of £billions by the British taxpayer while the actual slaves received no compensation.

If the answer is just "Nothing to see here, it is old history, we have moved on" then what is a Govt policy of 'hostile environment' ? What is a racially biased 'Stop and Search' ?
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And yet France has the most colonial 'post-colonial' control of its ex-colonies than any other country in Europe. If you look at the French media they are obsessed with 'FranceAfrique' and it's because they still control it via the imposed colonial currency the CFA-Franc pegged to the Euro solely via France. This has them depositing their foreign currency reserves into the French treasury and having it administered from Paris as 'aid'! This accounts for the large presence of French military bases (propped-up by the U.S.) and the exclusive access they have to these countries' governments and economies.
On TV news in Senegal or Mali when they cover meetings of government infrastructure plans or some other initiative, there is a large contingent of French officials and business people. In Senegal most people don't speak French day-to-day, yet the news, public signage etc is in French. It's absurd. This promotion of French in that region has always been politically motivated to create a dependency link.

Recently several of those countries got together to jettison the CFA and planned to create a new single currency for the region called the 'eco' (ECOWAS - Economic Community of West African States), but Macron in league with FranceAfrique people in league with France quickly made an announcement that the name would change under 'reforms' and they just stole the name renaming it the 'Eco'. Nothing has changed, but the name.
And they try to con Africa that if they pull out of the CFA they will go into hyperinflation because of the 'danger of fiat currencies' even though it is linked to a fiat currency (the Euro)! The real fact is that France sees 'FranceAfrique' as its economic property for development and extraction in colonial terms. During the 'migrant crisis' in the wake of the Syrian War, the Italian government squarely laid the blame on France for impoverishing that region of Africa and surrounding regions with its policies, which is largely where African migrants came from. And they went to Italy/Spain first.

Then you have France's overseas territories like Réunion whose people are officially citizens of the EU via France, but who have a much lower quality of life. Unemployment has never been below 20% (as high as 30% in some cases).

I've rambled a bit, but I think it's clear that Macron or France has zero moral high-ground on this issue.
 
eternumviti said:
Incidentally, I am not a 'brexit promoter'. I would very much have preferred it if brexit hadn't had to happen at all, though I believe that it did.

I am first of all anti-EU, not pro-brexit.
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The thing is it has made no difference. Where it matters and there is more loss on the fringe benefits than there is gain economically. I am anti-EU because it is a neoliberal organisation, but UK exit won't change that for the EU or the UK or the UK's population. All it has done is drive a needless wedge between people based upon utter misinformation on both sides.

Brexit didn't 'have to' happen, it was engineered and to a specific goal (the wrong goal in my opinion). For the way in which Britain operates as an economy being in the EU was perfectly compatible and actually very beneficial in terms of power and influence. I am in favour of cooperation of entirely sovereign nation states, rather than the EU model, but Britain least of all suffered from the loss of sovereignty and that was the thing the Brexiteers harped-on about the most.
 
^^ I agree that France has left terrible scars on Algeria etc and Belgium on the Congo. And encourages corruption/economic value extraction. I already diverted this thread enough so I'll leave it there.
 
Le Baron said:
The thing is it has made no difference. Where it matters and there is more loss on the fringe benefits than there is gain economically. I am anti-EU because it is a neoliberal organisation, but UK exit won't change that for the EU or the UK or the UK's population. All it has done is drive a needless wedge between people based upon utter misinformation on both sides.

Brexit didn't 'have to' happen, it was engineered and to a specific goal (the wrong goal in my opinion). For the way in which Britain operates as an economy being in the EU was perfectly compatible and actually very beneficial in terms of power and influence. I am in favour of cooperation of entirely sovereign nation states, rather than the EU model, but Britain least of all suffered from the loss of sovereignty and that was the thing the Brexiteers harped-on about the most.
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Yes, you make some good points, others I think more marginal.

Its a fine line. You came down on one side of it, I came down on the other.
 
eternumviti said:
Yes, you make some good points, others I think more marginal.

Its a fine line. You came down on one side of it, I came down on the other.
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It's not a line of inquiry I would majorly press, since the whole thing is a 'done deal' now. However I do wonder what made you come down on that particular side, since it should have been clear that a gang of Thatcherite neoliberal-monetarists weren't leaving a neoliberal-monetarist economic union to become something else. Or that it would magically increase the UK's geopolitical influence among large power blocs. That in particular baffled me.

Aside from the ludicrously rose-tinted view of the EU from many centrist-type remainers, I think the charge that a huge number of Brexiters were and are simply clueless regarding the central facts of the problem is a justified charge. Almost every single point of contention the average Brexit voter puts forward as a reason is pure fantasy or a talking point from The Sun. Don't get me wrong, I think it would be crazy to say 'no-one can ever leave the EU, you're in or nothing', but the actual reasons given for departing were 99% fiction.
 
Minio said:
So are the reasons that Switzerland and Norway have not joined, 99% fictional too?
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The reasons for not having joined and those for removing oneself are not the same thing. The reasons differ per country. Switzerland has no real need for the EU.

I specifically said the reasons put forward by Brexit foot soldiers and many others were fictional, as they are. What are the specific comparisons you want to make between Norway's, Switzerland's and those of the UK? Be precise so I can address them.
 
eternumviti said:
by people who have a strong ideological commitment to the EU project.
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This is what you prefer to believe rather than what people are actually taking issue with you over, certainly in my case. A strong ideological commitment to the EU project is your projection, it isn't the same thing as a strong ideological commitment to thinking the UK was better off as part of the EU. I have more of a strong ideological commitment that the "facts" many gave for voting Leave were either fantasy, alarmingly uninformed or in many cases xenophobic.

I certainly agree with you that this whole shambles has divided us and this is very regrettable, only a masochist could enjoy that. But it would be wrong to assume that the anger comes from a "strong ideological commitment to the EU project". But it certainly stems from the belief that Brexit is an act of horrendous self harm for the UK and that many people agitating for it had a purely destructive focus. Any fool can destroy something. The complete paucity of any tangible transition plan and the hubristic pride some are taking in the subsequent mess would seem to support this view.
 
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Meanwhile back on terra firma good auld M&S have cut 800 lines in Irish stores and announced the closure of their French stores. All because of EU bureaucracy.
The chairman sounds very like EV. Are they one and the same?

BTW no shortage of food supplies or empty shelve in Irish stores I frequent. Let's face it Brexit is a fxck up and the UK is in trouble. There are no benefits except for a couple of loyal Brexiteers on a thread like this to have an opportunity to throw red herrings around whilst somehow never able to list a single bona fide benefit
 
tonerei said:
Meanwhile back on terra firma good auld M&S have cut 800 lines in Irish stores and announced the closure of their French stores. All because of EU bureaucracy.
The chairman sounds very like EV. Are they one and the same?

BTW no shortage of food supplies or empty shelve in Irish stores I frequent. Let's face it Brexit is a fxck up and the UK is in trouble. There are no benefits except for a couple of loyal Brexiteers on a thread like this to have an opportunity to throw red herrings around whilst somehow never able to list a single bona fide benefit
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Any company that exports fresh sandwiches deserves it.

There's loads of benefits to brexit. You are just blinkered.
 
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