Brexit, for once some facts.

[oyster]

And more from the same place, the brexit cupboard of delights:

Brexit could drive up energy bills, say power firms
Imposing tariffs on energy trading could also hinder efforts to counter global warming

Brexit could drive up energy bills, power companies have said, because trade barriers threaten to increase the cost of importing gas and electricity across the Channel.


EDF and Engie of France and the UK’s energy industry body urged politicians to avoid imposing tariffs or barriers on energy trading across borders. In a letter to Jean-Claude Juncker, the European commission president, and UK prime minister Theresa May, they said imposing costs on the use of interconnectors – electricity and gas cables between the UK and its European neighbours – would hit consumers and set back the battle against global warming.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/sep/04/brexit-could-drive-up-energy-bills-say-power-firms

 

[oldtom]

Apart from a bunch of super-rich individuals in the UK, who else actually wants the UK to secede from the EU?

I read this and I think it sums up pretty well the kind of people who want to bully everyone else into 'Brexit':

'It’s all about them, isn’t it?

The hardline Leavers, just like a majority would support a recession-inducing Brexit (LBC poll, today), will happily accept the secession of Scotland and Northern Ireland to get a hard or no deal Brexit - and now the Scots and Northern Irish will prefer to leave the UK because of Brexit (Deltapoll, today).

These are sacrifices the deluded Leavers would accept to get a Little England where they again can feel right in their isolated, bigoted, bygone dream.

You can only understand this when you see Brexit in the context of their lives.

It’s their vehicle to vent a white supremacist, xenophobic, chauvinistic, misogynistic and small-minded worldview again. To be important and have a rediscovered voice, revolting against those who left their lives behind; the ‘establishment’, the ‘elite’, the educated. Those different, settled in a new global community- and not them, cut off, lost after empire.

That’s why the economy or their wallet don’t matter. Nor the unity and future of the nation. Or fellow Brits of different colours at home, or those with homes abroad.

All that matter is their bigotry and keeping the long-suppressed Brexit voice given to their outdated values and thinking by a referendum two years ago.

That’s Brexit for them. It’s not about trade or the money in their pockets. Or a national breakdown.

It’s about their right to express bad values. It’s about their right to only think about themselves and their little worlds where only they matter. It’s about living out a revenge on those who managed to adapt, to accept a community of less borders, different coloured faces, where exceptionalism was in talent, not in skin tone or place of birth.

Don’t expect to change their minds soon. This is their final battle to return to and keep the only thing they know.

A tiny perspective in a small world of white faces on a green Island, proud, alone and adrift offshore, better than all nations, anywhere.

It’s strong emotion. Dying slowly, but almost unchangeable. Stupid, nonetheless.'

You may recall seeing some of these faces on your TV as they pontificated on their racist ideals.




I think the message is sound and reflects the reality of the UK, divided because of the message from the new messiahs so beloved by the billionaire class, the fascists and the mainstream media. Shame about the grammar!

Tom

 

[oyster]

Rewrite this as you see fit:


Where have all the flowers gone, long time passing?
Where have all the flowers gone, long time ago?
Where have all the flowers gone?
Young girls have picked them everyone.
Oh, when will they ever learn?
Oh, when will they ever learn?


One marooned ship exposes the Brexiteers’ phoney claims

Polly Toynbee
The case of the Malaviya Twenty and its crew isn’t a one-off. Foreign companies have stranded other unpaid crews here

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/sep/04/marooned-ship-brexiteers-phoney-claims

 

[oldgroaner]

Rewrite this as you see fit:


Where have all the flowers gone, long time passing?
Where have all the flowers gone, long time ago?
Where have all the flowers gone?
Young girls have picked them everyone.
Oh, when will they ever learn?
Oh, when will they ever learn?


One marooned ship exposes the Brexiteers’ phoney claims

Polly Toynbee
The case of the Malaviya Twenty and its crew isn’t a one-off. Foreign companies have stranded other unpaid crews here

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/sep/04/marooned-ship-brexiteers-phoney-claims

Yet again
Britannia Waives the Rules! truly someone does need to "Take back control" don't they?

 

[oyster]

Apart from a bunch of super-rich individuals in the UK, who else actually wants the UK to secede from the EU?

And I thought I was in the pretty darned unattractive, late-middle-age-or-older, white-towards-flushed-red, somewhat overweight, would-never-want-to-see-on-TV demographic.

I don't even get a look-in!

And many of their opinions are even less attractive.

Maybe I'll change my name to Adonis?

 

[oldtom]

One marooned ship exposes the Brexiteers’ phoney claims

Polly Toynbee
The case of the Malaviya Twenty and its crew isn’t a one-off. Foreign companies have stranded other unpaid crews here

That really is a shocking story and as Toynbee has remarked, it isn't unique.

Being outside of a pan-European regulatory body after 'Brexit' will only exacerbate the situation as greedy capitalists will seek to expand their personal wealth by further abuses of employment legislation, worker's rights and indeed, human rights.

Tom

 

[oldtom]

Nestlé is a global company and has about 20 plants around the UK and Ireland, employing something of the order of 7,000 staff.

Apparently, they are one of the food industry's major exporters, delivering in excess of £266 million of products to 32 countries, according to their own blurb. Now, I had never previously associated that company with the bottled water on supermarket shelves and in warehouses all around the world but they are indeed one of the biggest in the business of bottling water and flogging it for big profits.

This may seem unconnected with 'Brexit' but I suspect it may well impact on their British/Irish operations and I just wonder if they will stick around after 'Brexit'. The business of bottling water and creating visual images suggesting it is essential for good health, (in case we didn't know) and makes people look like tennis-playing models from healthy living magazines has always fascinated me.

People buy the stuff while I have never paid for it in my life even in Spain before my water company improved their supply to match the purest water elsewhere. I got it free from local fuentes before that.

There is a report on the attached link from the USA about water harvesting and bottling which doesn't make very nice reading:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-09-21/nestl-makes-billions-bottling-water-it-pays-nearly-nothing-for

Tom

 

[flecc]

Nestlé is a global company and has about 20 plants around the UK and Ireland, employing something of the order of 7,000 staff.

Nearly a thousand of them worked here in the London Borough of Croydon in the Nestle UK Head Office. But about five years back they decamped to 1, City Place, Gatwick.

With no takers for their huge office block here since firms usually prefer our up to date new builds, it was sold to a Chinese developer who is demolishing and building a block of hundreds of flats there.
.

 

[oyster]

Apparently, they are one of the food industry's major exporters, delivering in excess of £266 million of products to 32 countries, according to their own blurb. Now, I had never previously associated that company with the bottled water on supermarket shelves and in warehouses all around the world but they are indeed one of the biggest in the business of bottling water and flogging it for big profits.

This may seem unconnected with 'Brexit' but I suspect it may well impact on their British/Irish operations and I just wonder if they will stick around after 'Brexit'. The business of bottling water and creating visual images suggesting it is essential for good health, (in case we didn't know) and makes people look like tennis-playing models from healthy living magazines has always fascinated me.

People buy the stuff while I have never paid for it in my life even in Spain before my water company improved their supply to match the purest water elsewhere. I got it free from local fuentes before that.

One of the few reasons to buy bottled water - possibly:

https://www.hippocraticpost.com/nursing/why-everyone-should-drink-silicon-rich-mineral-water/

Even then, only a few specific products.

 

[oyster]

It is getting ever easier to associate Pandora's jar (or box) with brexit. The evils may have been existence all along but they appear to have been released all at once.

 

[Fingers]

Wow. What an amazing set of balanced views!

LOL!!

Dear oh dear.

 

[flecc]

Wow. What an amazing set of balanced views!

LOL!!

Dear oh dear.

This is the thread critical of Brexit, as my thread opening post showed.

If you want balance, simple, open a pro Brexit thread. For 1753 pages we've been asking what the advantages of Brexit are, but still we have no answer other than the wishful thinking exposed by the departure negotiations.

If you think Brexit is a good thing, tell us why with facts and not just waffle about the fictions of "sovereignty" and "taking back control".
.

 

[Fingers]

I don't think there is any point trying to engage in any sort of discussion tbh. This is a closed talking shop.

All I will say is nothing much will change, certainly in the short term and whipping yourselves into a frenzy with constant quotes from the Guardian et al isn't going to do your hearts much good.

Yes I voted out and I'm happy with my choice. Not overly pleased with the idiots conducting the negotiations but then I didn't vote for them in the first place...

The EU is falling apart. Its a dieing old fashioned model developed in the last century with last century ideas. I hope a new system will emerge that is fairer for all concerned.

 

[flecc]

I don't think there is any point trying to engage in any sort of discussion tbh. This is a closed talking shop.

I invited you to open an opposing thread if you don't want to discuss in this thread, so hardly a closed shop.

The EU is falling apart. Its a dieing old fashioned model developed in the last century with last century ideas. I hope a new system will emerge that is fairer for all concerned.

In what way to both points, I honestly don't recognise this or even know what you mean. What is old fashioned and last century about becoming a major player in the world, like the USA and China? And what is unfair about wanting to bring all of Europe's countries up to the standard of the best, a fundamental aim of the EU?
.

 

[Fingers]

I invited you to open an opposing thread if you don't want to discuss in this thread, so hardly a closed shop.



In what way to both points, I honestly don't recognise this or even know what you mean. What is old fashioned and last century about becoming a major player in the world, like the USA and China? And what is unfair about wanting to bring all of Europe's countries up to the standard of the best, a fundamental aim of the EU?
.

There is a huge difference in comparing the USA and China to the EU. They are completely different.

If the EU just wanted everything to be fair then I would be more relaxed about their Federalist policies. Unfortunately as you see with the likes of Italy, Greece, Spains Catalonia issue, the expoitation of Eastern Europes youth labour market and the allowance of far right tendancies allowed unchecked in Hungary and Austria etc and whose policies are actively letting the far right grow across the entire continent i don't really see them bringing everyone to the 'best' whatever that is in the EU.

I see an unelected cabal dictating policy that suits big business and arch Capitilism on their terms and their terms only.

 

[anotherkiwi]

Spec savers might be the answer then?

 

[oldtom]

The EU is falling apart. Its a dieing old fashioned model developed in the last century with last century ideas. I hope a new system will emerge that is fairer for all concerned.

I disagree with your premise about the EU dying and I think you may have forgotten that 'The mother of parliaments' is more than a little older than the EU parliament.

That apart, as for your hopes, you must be a committed betting man if you imagine that the UK's political class might somehow bring about any system that is fairer for all....I mean, when have they ever done anything like that? In the first place, they would need to want greater fairness and that is seriously not in their plans and never has been.

Thank you for your contribution though.

Tom

 

[oldtom]

I see an unelected cabal dictating policy that suits big business and arch Capitilism on their terms and their terms only.

Who exactly do you mean when you refer to 'unelected'? The House of Lords perhaps?

Next to the gerrymandered political system we have in the UK, that of the EU is far more efficient and fairer.

Tom

 

[anotherkiwi]

Who exactly do you mean when you refer to 'unelected'? The House of Lords perhaps?

Next to the gerrymandered political system we have in the UK, that of the EU is far more efficient and fairer.

He is thinking(?) of the commission perhaps.

The EU commission for dummies:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Commission

Looks like a lot of voting goes into it's formation doesn't it? In fact the commissioners seem to be elected, how strange...

"The procedural languages of the Commission are English, French and German."

Well, we'll be able to save a bit of money next year won't we! Only printing documents in and translating to/from two languages will surely bring running costs down!

 

[flecc]

If the EU just wanted everything to be fair then I would be more relaxed about their Federalist policies. Unfortunately as you see with the likes of Italy, Greece, Spains Catalonia issue, the expoitation of Eastern Europes youth labour market and the allowance of far right tendancies allowed unchecked in Hungary and Austria etc and whose policies are actively letting the far right grow across the entire continent i don't really see them bringing everyone to the 'best' whatever that is in the EU.

I see an unelected cabal dictating policy that suits big business and arch Capitilism on their terms and their terms only.

But that's what individual sovereignty does. It's precisely because the EU does not dictate that those countries allow those things they have control over to happen. You are doing exactly what Zlatan does regularly in here, blaming the EU for things they have no control over, being only national.

As for policies that suit big business, how come the EU have enforced immense fines against giants like Microsoft and VW for their consumer abuses? The last fine for VW was a swingeing 880 million euros for price fixing in their Scania division and they've previously been successively fined 8 million and 40 million euros for price fixing of their cars. Hardly business friendly policy.

It's the facts about the EU that interest me, not the fictions that so many Brexiters imagine exist.
.