Oh Britain, what have you done (part ∞+13)?

[Seanm]

I don't think it is a matter of 'doing away with fundamental facts' (and I dislike your over-use of the unicorns metaphor, btw, it demeans you); I do however think that a good leader would be able to make significant headway in the face of those 'fundamental facts', something Corbyn's LP hasn't achieved.

What has he done, for example, to erode the wavering Tories' support for their party in the key marginals?

The Brexit strategy is aimed at those key marginals. As for unicorns, I've requested a moratorium, but as long as sensibles are using it I will too.

 

[Seanm]

You know perfectly well that the "strategy" agreed at the conference was a fudge, sorry an artful compromise between what members wanted and the Brexit line pushed by the leadership.

Yes, a compromise. How awful.

 

[SteveS1]

Thanks for that. I think I now better understand your position on Brexit.

Points 2-10 I believe are to do with your desire for a Labour government and there is nothing there that cannot be done without the EU. Anyway after Brexit you will be better able to hold to account any goverment if they don't deliver on their promises (including Cornwall, after all it's our money the EU spends)....hoping the EU would do the governemnt's job for you is forlorn (the EU is neo-liberal and a drain on the UK's resources and wasteful).

Points 2 and 3 are laudable and signal your virtues very well. I do however believe you'll be able to continue those post Brexit on a worldwide basis.

So it really comes down to point 1, where I think the word there should be 'free' and you mean something more explicit. From the way the EU have worded the withdrawl agreement now on offer, I'm even more convinced the EU is worried that the word may mean 'free' and they would rather that not happen as it will mean the end of the EU.

I'm afraid you're list has done little to persuade me to your point of view, but thanks again for playing.

Laughable waffle in the trolling tradition. No points made or answered, not even the simple ones such as naming a single nation state outside the large blocks trading on better terms than the EU or how negotiation strength is helped by reducing your market size. Then comes the utterly crass "EU is neo-liberal and a drain on the UK's resources and wasteful".

Lets look at a few facts ....

There are over 400,000 civil servants in the UK, for a population of, say 65 million. That's about 1:167. Yet, in the EU, there are just under 50,000 civil servants for nearly half a billion people. That's 1:10,000. In other words, proportionately, the British Civil Service is nearly 60 times bigger than the EU civil service. A rather staggering amount - how are the social services, bin collections and pothole repairs doing for all that?

The ability of Liam Fox to strike any, never mind advantageous free-trade deals with other countries......

Fox's department has been touring the world for two years and not a single country has handed the UK a draft agreement and said 'this is what we will agree when you leave the EU' . The exception being Japan who has just agreed a comprehensive trade agreement with the EU but announced that outside the EU the UK's terms of trade would be less favourable.

The market reaction.

All this free trade, buccaneering Brits bollocks is a sham, the clue came when the EU made it clear the UK couldn't carry on taking advantage of EU trade agreements with the rest of the World after it left. Cue for mass panic in the Department for International Trade. That is why Sterling starting to slide and hasn't recovered. Forex economists had no involvement in 'Leave' or 'Remain' they are looking impartially at a WTO Brexit, assessing how much damage it will do to UK balance of trade and political stability, and marking it down accordingly. It's going to get worse, a lot worse. This isn't 'Project Fear' it's the real thing.

 

[SteveS1]

Yes, a compromise. How awful.

Labour leadership junk inconvenient Conference mandates used to be the left's mantra, how times change.

 

[tonerei]

Pity this will be lost and buried in 100's of pointless attempts to score cheap points posts.

Laughable waffle in the trolling tradition. No points made or answered, not even the simple ones such as naming a single nation state outside the large blocks trading on better terms than the EU or how negotiation strength is helped by reducing your market size. Then come the utterly crass "EU is neo-liberal and a drain on the UK's resources and wasteful".

Lets look at a few facts ....

There are over 400,000 civil servants in the UK, for a population of, say 65 million. That's about 1:167. Yet, in the EU, there are just under 50,000 civil servants for nearly half a billion people. That's 1:10,000. In other words, proportionately, the British Civil Service is nearly 60 times bigger than the EU civil service. A rather staggering amount - how are the social services, bin collections and pothole repairs doing for all that?

The ability of Liam Fox to strike any, never mind advantageous free-trade deals with other countries......

Fox's department has been touring the world for two years and not a single country has handed the UK a draft agreement and said 'this is what we will agree when you leave the EU' . The exception being Japan who has just agreed a comprehensive trade agreement with the EU but announced that outside the EU the UK's terms of trade would be less favourable.

The market reaction.

All this free trade, buccaneering Brits bollocks is a sham, the clue came when the EU made it clear the UK couldn't carry on taking advantage of EU trade agreements with the rest of the World after it left. Cue for mass panic in the Department for International Trade. That is why Sterling starting to slide and hasn't recovered. Forex economists had no involvement in 'Leave' or 'Remain' they are looking impartially at a WTO Brexit, assessing how much damage it will do to UK balance of trade and political stability, and marking it down accordingly. It's going to get worse, a lot worse. This isn't 'Project Fear' it's the real thing.

 

[TheDecameron]

This is Cameron's baby, the rest is noise.
You can thank Cameron's selfish delusion that he could predict the outcome of the voting public to gain office & his governments policies for Brexit, along with May's selfish immigration strategy to play on the racist side of Brexit & her pathetic negotiating skills & handling of Brexit to get us to where we are now, my Brexit vote was worthless, I voted for Labour last election.
May's deal is dead BTW, hoping for a ref with this included is just as delusional.

I stand by the closet remark, it's clear to anyone with a brain cell.

But Cameron made your choice to leave the EU possible! Now the economic consequences of that choice will flow. It’s going to be interesting to see how much they compound nine years of Conservative economic policy.

 

[flatpopely]

Laughable waffle in the trolling tradition. No points made or answered, not even the simple ones such as naming a single nation state outside the large blocks trading on better terms than the EU or how negotiation strength is helped by reducing your market size. Then comes the utterly crass "EU is neo-liberal and a drain on the UK's resources and wasteful".

Lets look at a few facts ....

There are over 400,000 civil servants in the UK, for a population of, say 65 million. That's about 1:167. Yet, in the EU, there are just under 50,000 civil servants for nearly half a billion people. That's 1:10,000. In other words, proportionately, the British Civil Service is nearly 60 times bigger than the EU civil service. A rather staggering amount - how are the social services, bin collections and pothole repairs doing for all that?

The ability of Liam Fox to strike any, never mind advantageous free-trade deals with other countries......

Fox's department has been touring the world for two years and not a single country has handed the UK a draft agreement and said 'this is what we will agree when you leave the EU' . The exception being Japan who has just agreed a comprehensive trade agreement with the EU but announced that outside the EU the UK's terms of trade would be less favourable.

The market reaction.

All this free trade, buccaneering Brits bollocks is a sham, the clue came when the EU made it clear the UK couldn't carry on taking advantage of EU trade agreements with the rest of the World after it left. Cue for mass panic in the Department for International Trade. That is why Sterling starting to slide and hasn't recovered. Forex economists had no involvement in 'Leave' or 'Remain' they are looking impartially at a WTO Brexit, assessing how much damage it will do to UK balance of trade and political stability, and marking it down accordingly. It's going to get worse, a lot worse. This isn't 'Project Fear' it's the real thing.

The bit in bold misses the fact that each country in the EU has its own civil service, look at France and Germany - both in the millions!
So the EU civil servants, 50,000, serve the mutliple layers of bureaucracy within the EU.

 

[ff1d1l]

Yes, a compromise. How awful.

Yeah, undemocratic crap.

 

[TheDecameron]

The bit in bold misses the fact that each country in the EU has its own civil service, look at France and Germany - both in the millions!
So the EU civil servants, 50,000, serve the mutliple layers of bureaucracy within the EU.

Of course the rebate from not funding that will become apparent when we leave.

 

[Tony L]

They can help shape events and ideas if they pick their moments. But Corbyn could be the most brilliant and charismatic leader since, I don't know, let's say Lenin - and he still would not be able to do much more than he's doing now, IMO.

If nothing else he could have stuck with his initial promise to be a democratic party leader acting on the wishes of the party membership. The stats quoted from the recent Guardian poll indicate just how hopelessly out of step he is with an overwhelming majority of Labour members supporting remain and a second referendum (as did the party conference previously). His blind intransigence and duplicitous arrogance in this, the key issue of the day, renders him no more credible than Boris Johnson or Michael Gove IMHO. Yet another slimy untrustworthy career politician. Just like Blair but without the talent!

 

[Sue Pertwee-Tyr]

The bit in bold misses the fact that each country in the EU has its own civil service, look at France and Germany - both in the millions!
So the EU civil servants, 50,000, serve the mutliple layers of bureaucracy within the EU.

That's true. But somehow, the EU manages to get its tentacles into every aspect of the lives of half a billion people (so we are told) via just 50,000 civil servants?

 

[SteveS1]

The bit in bold misses the fact that each country in the EU has its own civil service, look at France and Germany - both in the millions!
So the EU civil servants, 50,000, serve the mutliple layers of bureaucracy within the EU.

If you are using 'millions' you are counting public employees. Whole different ball game numbers here......UK 6 Million (pop 65M) Germany 4.6Million (pop 87M) still not looking 'held back by EU' is it?

 

[Colin L]

Thanks for that. I think I now better understand your position on Brexit.

Points 2-10 I believe are to do with your desire for a Labour government and there is nothing there that cannot be done without the EU. Anyway after Brexit you will be better able to hold to account any goverment if they don't deliver on their promises (including Cornwall, after all it's our money the EU spends)....hoping the EU would do the governemnt's job for you is forlorn (the EU is neo-liberal and a drain on the UK's resources and wasteful).

Points 2 and 3 are laudable and signal your virtues very well. I do however believe you'll be able to continue those post Brexit on a worldwide basis.

So it really comes down to point 1, where I think the word there should be 'free' and you mean something more explicit. From the way the EU have worded the withdrawl agreement now on offer, I'm even more convinced the EU is worried that the word may mean 'free' and they would rather that not happen as it will mean the end of the EU.

I'm afraid you're list has done little to persuade me to your point of view, but thanks again for playing.

"I'm afraid you're list has done little to persuade me to your point of view, but thanks again for playing"
The last word of your post speaks volumes about your presence on this forum Timola. DFTT

 

[droodzilla]

Laughable waffle in the trolling tradition. No points made or answered, not even the simple ones such as naming a single nation state outside the large blocks trading on better terms than the EU or how negotiation strength is helped by reducing your market size. Then comes the utterly crass "EU is neo-liberal and a drain on the UK's resources and wasteful".

Lets look at a few facts ....

There are over 400,000 civil servants in the UK, for a population of, say 65 million. That's about 1:167. Yet, in the EU, there are just under 50,000 civil servants for nearly half a billion people. That's 1:10,000. In other words, proportionately, the British Civil Service is nearly 60 times bigger than the EU civil service. A rather staggering amount - how are the social services, bin collections and pothole repairs doing for all that?

<snip>

As Flatpopely suggests (though I dislike his tendentious reference to EU bureaucracy), this is a meaningless comparison. To make it meaningful you would need to consider the range of services each group of civil servants is responsible for delivering or supporting, and then find some way of measuring effectiveness.

However, I agree with the rest of your post: you don't increase trade by making trade with your nearest and biggest market more difficult. Anyone who says otherwise is simply wrong.

 

[Marchbanks]

This one had escaped my notice: The Fantastic Dr Fox said a few days ago that the chances of Brexit are 50:50 if Tezdeal 1.0 is rejected...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-46713498

And without a hint of irony continued -

"And, for me, that would induce a sense that we had betrayed the people that had voted in the referendum."

It seems to me that if you take the country as one lumpenmass then a 50:50 chance of Brexit is almost precisely what was voted for.

 

[SteveS1]

As Flatpopely suggests (though I dislike his tendentious reference to EU bureaucracy), this is a meaningless comparison. To make it meaningful you would need to consider the range of services each group of civil servants is responsible for delivering or supporting, and then find some way of measuring effectiveness.

However, I agree with the rest of your post: you don't increase trade by making trade with your nearest and biggest market more difficult. Anyone who says otherwise is simply wrong.

Going down a few levels into public employees doesn't improve the UK's ratio. That's before you make judgements on performance. The point here is that the UK is in no position to criticise.

 

[droodzilla]

Going down a few levels into public employees doesn't improve the UK's ratio. That's before you make judgements on performance. The point here is that the UK is in no position to criticise.

But I thought your original point was about civil servants employed by the institutions of the EU? Comparisons between the civil service (or the public sector) in nation states aren't directly relevant though, as you say, they may well show that the UK is hardly a shining beacon of efficiency.

 

[TheDecameron]

However, I agree with the rest of your post: you don't increase trade by making trade with your nearest and biggest market more difficult. Anyone who says otherwise is simply wrong.

Someone better tell Jeremy because both options on the British table will do just that. He needs to enable the public to hit the abort button. Time is pressing

 

[MVV]

You are all wasting your breath. Our little coterie of brexiteers will never be persuaded that their idiot project is essentially a stupid fallacy cloaking simple nationalism and racism. Nothing will change their minds, it is a faith.

 

[Lee T]

But Cameron made your choice to leave the EU possible! .

No he didn't, you can defend his actions as you please, will not change the fact this guy single handedly destroyed people's lives on a daily basis, now May continues the trend, expect the unexpected come another ref if this government is still in place, a simple warning to all who think this is a done deal.