Brexit

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  • Cuz1 said:

    Just because we leave doesn’t mean I’d be happy to let standards or to lower them but we would make our own regulations and rules we don’t need the eu for that surely,

    No, we can make our own., as you say. But you said you were fed up of the EU ones.

    So am I to take it that you don't mind what the regs are, you just object to them being developed through discussion among the EU member states? That the actual rules are fine?
  • Cuz, these rules and regulations that you talk about, is it not simply the elephant in the room, otherwise known as FoM i.e immigration?
  • Cuz1 said:

    For me I believe we will get better free trade deals for starters

    So who do you think is going to get better deals?

    28 countries negotiating as a single block that make up 18.8% of the world's GDP

    or

    A country that makes up 3.3% of the world's GDP.
  • There is a striking vagueness of why Leavers want out of the EU compared with the reasons for remaining.
  • And there’s an obsession that those who voted leave voted because of immigration, those who voted remain and some of these people are still friends of mine I’m fine with but I didn’t vote leave because of immigration or any form of racism, me personally I think article 50 will be revoked and we will stay because the politicians are spineless to agree with the electorate
  • Cuz, for me the overriding reason to remain is the economy since everything depends on it being strong. With a weak economy the first thing to suffer is public spending - NHS, education, police etc.
    You say that you didn't vote leave because of immigration yet the reasons you have given are vague as shown in the posts and replies from MrsGrey, Grey, Aslef.
    I don't have any problem in admitting that I believe that unrestricted immigration from the EU needs to be addressed simply from the point of overstretched resources and infrastructure.
    However, part of the economy depends on immigration so where will it come from if/when we're out of the EU? The government wants to restrict it to people who have a £30,000pa job to go to although I don't think that goes down too well with the Kent fruit farmers.
    I have no doubt that the EU needs reforming, and I do believe that reform will come. I also believe that if we remain we can be instrumental in effecting that reform.
    We have a louder voice inside the EU than outside.

    You say that "politicians are spineless to agree with the electorate".
    Or you could say it seems that they're growing a spine in resisting (some of) the electorate for the sake of the national interest.
  • cuz

    I don't see that it is an obsession.

    I'm sure lots of people didn't have immigration as a reason for voting leave.

    However, it s also clear that some people did have immigration as one of their main reasons, and that some have seen the vote for Leave as an excuse for racist behaviour, and a more public airing of racist views.
  • Well for me with mixed race grandkids it certainly wasn’t for me, it’s a terrible world we live in if racism is part of a vote to leave and for me the colour, sexual orientation and any other form of racism is wrong on all levels thought I’d clear that up
  • edited April 2019
    I think one of the problems, or perhaps it is the problem, is that people are confusing racism with an objection to immigration.
    It's quite possible to object to unrestricted immigration (from anywhere) on the grounds of it overwhelming resources without there being any racist motive at all.
  • Cuz1 said:

    For me I believe we will get better free trade deals for starters

    So who do you think is going to get better deals?

    28 countries negotiating as a single block that make up 18.8% of the world's GDP

    or

    A country that makes up 3.3% of the world's GDP.
    It started when we had pay more then others to be in this club
  • As for reforming the EU I’m at a loss to think of any major impact we’ve had on changing the EU.
  • imagelost said:

    It started when we had pay more then others to be in this club

    The EU countries pay an amount roughly in proportion to their GDP so Germany pays most, then France, then the UK, Italy and Spain all the way down to Malta and Cyprus who pay the least.

    Regardless that still doesn't mean that we're going to get better deals as a lone country than we do as part of the "club".
  • edited April 2019

    There is a striking vagueness of why Leavers want out of the EU compared with the reasons for remaining.

    And the concrete reasons for staying in the EU are................?

    The only reason for staying in the EU is fear of the unknown. The only concrete positive a remainer can give is "it`s not gone too bad for the last 40 years". You can list as many perceived achievements as you like, there is no concrete proof that things wouldn`t have gone equally as well or better if we had been out of the EU. The reasons for staying in are equally as "airy fairy" as the reasons for leaving. If things were absolutely 100% going swimmingly 17.4 million people wouldn`t have voted to leave. Rather than demanding a second referendum why not instead demand the right to a referendum 5 or 10 years hence to rejoin the EU. If things have gone pear shaped then rejoining should win by a landslide. Yes, it may be a mistake to leave, but not one of us knows. MP`s are not standing up for the national interest, they are being cowards.

    "It is only those that do nothing that makes no mistake"
  • edited April 2019
    Although, given that some of those calculations include amount of waste produced, how much of the land is covered by forest and what % of land and sea is designated as protected area.... and given that the analysis doesn't just cover the EU countries... the picture isn't as simple as you suggest.

    But, in the end, it is beside the point.

    In the EU, the UK will be required to make improvements. outside the EU, it can carry on as it has been. Doing nothing.


    (But, an interesting map - I'm going to bookmark it.)
  • I don't understand this thing about we will only do things if the EU tell us - that is why I switched to leave. EU tell us to stop farming and they just give out subsidies. EU put such tight standards (unnecessarily so) on fruit and veg that there is huge wastage. EU wastes huge amounts of money on meetings, moving files from one location to the next because they cant agree where to meet; red carpet etc for their meetings; refuse to declare their expenses.
    why do we need the EU to run OUR country. what next - european army, european police force etc etc. Why should their courts, parliament etc be superior to ours?
    if other countries are better then ours then that is where people should live. I love GB and I want us to thrive in our own way.
    it is also very wrong that they are trying to make it difficult for us to leave; I think they are worried that others will do the same. Time to get out and others will follow.
    Just my opinion!!
  • Can you give me an example of what the 'tight standards' are on fruit and veg, and why you think this (the example you give) isn't necessary?

    More generally, their courts aren't 'superior to ours'. But if its an EU law that requires and interpretation or a judgement, the EU court has a role to play. Rightly, imo, so that the law is interpreted and applied consistently.

    It is's a domestic UK law, then the EU courts have no jurisdiction at all. And our own courts make the decisions.

    Seems fine to me.
  • Barney said:


    it is also very wrong that they are trying to make it difficult for us to leave;

    How are they making it difficult?

    We could have left last week, but chose not to. Where they lying on the ground holding round our ankles?
  • I would suggest the 'backstop' makes it difficult for us to leave.

    I think the backstop is an EU initiative.

    The EU were always going to make it difficult for us to leave because they do not want to see any further exodus.
  • Madcap said

    And the concrete reasons for staying in the EU are................?

    For me it is that I am a citizen of Europe and I can travel, work, own property without problem. I feel privilaged to be in other European countries as a European citizen, if we leave I will feel like an outsider. I desperately hope that we get a second referendum and choose to stay.

  • Whitehorse everyone in Europe is a citizen of Europe but you don’t have to be a citizen of the EU.
    If what you’re saying is you’d like to be a citizen of a federal state of Europe then that’s your choice but it’s not the same thing.
  • I would suggest the 'backstop' makes it difficult for us to leave.

    I think the backstop is an EU initiative.

    The EU were always going to make it difficult for us to leave because they do not want to see any further exodus.

    Well, maybe .


    Another way of looking at it is that the 'no border between NI and Ireland' is a UK initiative - something the UK has invented and insisting on. The EU don't mind if there is, but are trying to accomodate the UK.

  • I must say I find it very ironic that the EU's requirement to have a border at which goods and people coming in to the EU can be monitored is seen as them being awkward.

    When 'getting back control of our borders' was such a motivating argument for so many who voted Leave.
  • Mrs Grey - there have been many examples of wastage due to EU standards see https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/third-of-food-wasted-as-its-too-ugly-for-eu-and-shops-rhk6b3mpm
  • anyone see Rees mogg or whatever his name is Twitter comments. Basically in 2016 he tweets we need to leave because we have no power in the EU and now he tweets that if we have to stay for a bit we should use our power to veto everything the EU wants to do....So straight up lie back in 2016 about us being powerless in the EU....
  • According to the Irish guy he’s never seen a veto used by anybody so having a veto looks a bit toothless.
  • Thorn, If it was not clear I was of course referring to being a citizen of the EU, with all the benefits that gives me and which I will be very annoyed to have taken away from me.
  • Barney said:

    Mrs Grey - there have been many examples of wastage due to EU standards see https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/third-of-food-wasted-as-its-too-ugly-for-eu-and-shops-rhk6b3mpm

    Barney, sorry, it's a paywall, and I can't read the full article.

    From the couple of paragraphs I can see, I notce

    Up to a third of fresh food grown on British farmsis discarded each year because... new research claims.

    The team at Edinburgh University claims to have estimated the quantity of fruit and vegetables lost and emissions produced in the UK as a result of EU Commission controls and stores with a large market share


    So, I can't accept that as evidence as (a) it's only 'estimates' and 'claims' and (b) it's in part due to supermarket decision, but it's not clear what part.

  • edited April 2019
    Madcap, I've had other things to do today, but I'm back briefly. :biggrin:
    You said
    "If things were absolutely 100% going swimmingly 17.4 million people wouldn`t have voted to leave."

    You know as well as I do (although you'd never admit it), that 17.4 million people were conned into believing that the EU was the cause of the financial crash of 2008, subsequent Tory austerity measures, a million Turks were at the border and anything else Farage, Reet-Smugg and his band the ERG (if ever there was a misnomer) et al could think of.

    If there had been a referendum prior to the 2008 financial crash do you really believe that Leave would've won.
    It was just convenient for all the rabid anti-EU (insert epithet) to blame the EU for everything.

    As far as the concrete reasons for remain, Whitehorse mentioned some of them.
    But the idea of self-sufficiency ignores that we're all on a little rock in space and if we don't get our act together soon we won't be on it much longer.

    You keep talking about co-operation and yet you want us out of a fantastic project which is trying to unite millions of people not by force but by choice and which was born out of the ashes of WW2 in an attempt for it never to happen again.

    And you keep going on about Pyotr Alexeyevich Kropotkin, can you tell me what he actually achieved?

    And btw Aslef, Grey and MrsGrey among others have been dismantling all the "vague" reasons that people voted to leave.

    Now I need a beer. :biggrin: :ale:

    And I know you shouldn't start a sentence with "And" :biggrin:
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