Brexit, for once some facts.
- Thread starter flecc
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What many people in mainland UK probably don't realise is how porous and long the border between NI and the ROI is and how porous the links between NI and Scotland are. The Scottish isles are only short jaunt by motor launch from say the giants causeway, and a bit further from Donegal, but still visible . The distances are about the width of the Bristol channel, from Mumbles accross.
a BBC journalist said today that there are about 260 roads between NI and the ROI, currently unmanned.
I imagine the problem won't be serious, not many people would want to come to work in the UK after brexit.
I don't agree with the proposition that the EU team and Barnier wants to slow things down. They just cannot negotiate without proposals. Now they have a proposal here, it's half baked but is a proposal.
He might be correct about the number of the roads, but has he counted boreens , culverts, fields , barns and houses straddling the border.
Even with radar, helicopter patrols , gunboats and foot patrols, there was illicit traffic accross those same fields for 30 years and smuggling since 1922.
And we in the republic don't have the resources to keep back the tide of refugee bankers, and other economic migrants flooding accross from the UK...
Hang on Tommie,
Neither we in the ROI or yourselves in NI wanted to leave the EU. You at least got a vote, and sensible sound people you are, soundly rejected the notion. You should be peeved that your voice wasn't listened to.
For what it`s worth Dan most of the farming community in N.I. voted Remain. I know, i live in the middle of them.
Why?
They were told the economy would crash, banking system would fail, sterling would become worthless, the sky would fall in, etc,etc...... we were all lied to.
The farmers were told their EU subsidies and grants would come to an end, they panicked at the sound of that.
However when Gove was over a few weeks back he promised the UFU that the same subsidies and grants would be backed up by the government with a proviso that they only receive payments should they agree to help protect the environment and help enhance rural life, blah, blah.
I would not be so certain of a Remain vote here right now.
It`s been over a year now and locals are out spending money, going on holidays, buying new cars, there`s been no change whatsoever, unemployment has gone down again, shops and stores doing great business - where is this Apocalypse we were warned of??!
Why?
They were told the economy would crash, banking system would fail, sterling would become worthless, the sky would fall in, etc,etc...... we were all lied to.
The farmers were told their EU subsidies and grants would come to an end, they panicked at the sound of that.
However when Gove was over a few weeks back he promised the UFU that the same subsidies and grants would be backed up by the government with a proviso that they only receive payments should they agree to help protect the environment and help enhance rural life, blah, blah.
I would not be so certain of a Remain vote here right now.
It`s been over a year now and locals are out spending money, going on holidays, buying new cars, there`s been no change whatsoever, unemployment has gone down again, shops and stores doing great business - where is this Apocalypse we were warned of??!
So they believed the biggest of the liars with the latest and biggest lies yet?
Extraordinary!
All the promises made to them have proved to be lies, why do they choose to ignore that fact? could it be because doesn't it fit in with their wishful thinking?
And the warnings they were given about the consequences of leaving are starting to come true, project Fear is becoming Project Reality and we haven't even left yet, and even after we do it will take time, but it's inevitable that things will not get better, will they? no one is even bothering to claim they will, are they.
"What sort of a future have they voted for? so who's fault is it if they ignore promises made by liars the first time round, pretending they don't matter and even after that betrayal
As soon as they start lying to them again rather than be wary they believe them again even though they have been proven untrustworthy?
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no, I don't see disaster coming.
I see common sense slowly returning.
When the negotiation with the EU led by hard brexiters gets to nowhere, common sense is the only solution remaining and that will win the day,
Hi Tommie, since Brexit has not yet happened, it is premature to say that NI farmers have been lied to. The only fact so far is that sterling has devalued significantly over the post referendum period. In so far as the farmers are primary producers and selling into a sterling market, and into a EU market, this has been advantageous, and will only bite if they want to buy German, Italian or Dutch farm equipment, or French fertilizer. In fact those dairy farmers selling into Dunnes Stores in the ROI, will be reaping a euro dividend of 20%., at present
Today's. Irish Times contains a letter from a Lord Kilooney Armagh, suggesting that the subsidies that NI farmers currently enjoy will in a future be paid from the 20 billion currently sent to the EU, but there are now a lot of calls on this money.. the NHS, the research centres, the educational facilities, the new border patrols etc.
Yesterday's Irish times disagrees with your assessment that retailing in NI is booming, and excluding the border towns of Newry etc, which are gaining from the euro sterling exchange , is suffering a 6% reduction, according to the NIRC.
.. I would not be complacent and again I state that for both of us, the reimposition of a border, and the forced divergence of our economies will be bad .
The ECJ is a triumph over the previous absence of any recognition that ordinary people are entitled to certain rights, rights that needed to be enshrined in international law.
This infographic is a stark reminder, particularly after the recent rise of neo-Nazism among British tories and their affiliates plus the new-wave, swastika-brandishing hoodlums in the USA, of the dangers of denying and failing to respect the basic human rights of all people.
Tom
Not overly Brexit related, but if you have time over a coffee today.
Watch this from the US at the weekend.
https://news.vice.com/story/vice-news-tonight-full-episode-charlottesville-race-and-terror
Watch this from the US at the weekend.
https://news.vice.com/story/vice-news-tonight-full-episode-charlottesville-race-and-terror
Well, sadly, 'Brexit' impacts, one way or another, on just about everything so it's perfectly reasonable to draw attention to these horrible events brought about by the same kind of people who presented and continue to propel the case for 'Brexit'
That the events to which you allude took place in the USA comes as no surprise given the obsequious nature of Theresa May's and Nigel Farage's visits upon the new world's first ever right-wing extremist leader.
We are witnessing the re-emergence of fascism in several countries and unless it is crushed before much longer, we will be embroiled in a major war. The signs are all around but people are sleepwalking towards a conflict which could easily become armageddon, given the nutcases holding power in N Korea, the USA and Whitehall.
The animated clip I attached in post ＃18914 is a very telling indictment of our current government's intentions with regard to the EU and particularly the ECJ. Isn't it strange that neo-Nazism should rear its ugly head in somewhere like Charlottesville? Well, it isn't really if you know a little of American history but if the American and the British public don't wake up soon to what is happening, supposedly in their name and under the guise of democracy, it may well be too late.
Too late is when the words of Martin Niemöller, which I have posted several times, will become a tragic reality for perhaps millions of people.
Here are those words again, this time on the New England Holocaust Memorial in Boston, Mass:
Tom
You say that as if common sense is a necessary conclusion. One thing critically absent from vote leave from beginning is just that. Now there's a wish that remainders, the EU must somehow save us from our (uninformed, unintelligent) selves by behaving like benign parents and creating something reasonable. There's a great deal of common sense that argue against that happening- financial services moving to EU, us not being able to have a manufacturing Base integrated with the vast EU sector and market, etc etc.
Sterling has crashed and it did so quickly.....Gove's promises are about as trustworthy as the £350 million on the side of the red bus....I am very busy with EU customers because of the strength of the Euro v £....I bet the businesses in Ireland near the border are not doing so well???
It was stupid of Osborne/Cameron to warn of Apocalypse,businesses have ways of protecting a cliff edge,loss of spending power is a slow creep as price rises come into the system...rail fares,food,the annual holiday all are that bit more expensive and salaries are stagnant.
Be interesting what the farmers think after 2019?????
KudosDave
As I said in one previous post, the question asked of the voters was what they wish for, a choice out of two. Would you like not to pay in? Would you like to be free of the ECJ? There was no need to think further than that.
Brexit has to run its course because that was the rule of the game, and the majority would still like to see what will pan out from brexit. However, this time, everyone will take into account not only what they wish for but also any hidden cost to them personally that comes with real brexit.
I, for one, will accept soft brexit. A gradual change.
But why would anyone here want to be free of the ECJ? Can anyone give me a single instance of the ECJ ever harming a UK citizen or resident?
On the contrary there are numerous instances where the ECJ has protected them, mainly against the excesses and defects of UK governments and law.
Anyone who voted Leave expressly to get rid of the ECJ defined themselves as unbelievably stupid, for there are no possible grounds for that decision.
.
The Sky press review last night was very interesting...Carol Malone (a staunch Brexiter) v Stiq Abel (a staunch remainer).
Carol is of the 'we won ,you lost,lets leave now' brigade but she was admitting that leaving was proving more complex than she imagined,she blamed the lack of negotiation progress on our poor negotiating team.
Stiq pointed out to her that the EU had been doing trade and legal negotiations for the last 40 years,including our negotiations,so we dont have much expertise in doing so.
But his more important point is that the UK want in the negotiations replicas of all the current EU situation but without being a member of the EU....we want no border in Ireland,we want no tariffs between the UK and EU,we want our courts to directly replace the ECJ etc etc....but we want all this without being a member of the club or prepared to pay the membership fees....which is why EU negotiations are stalling because we want the same but the EU have repeatedly told us we are not going to get that,we are going to get what the EU chooses to give us,outside of the club.
For those who say but they have to let us have what we want because we spend more money with them than they do with us....but the £280 billion we spend with them is largely made up with goods that we cant get anywhere else....we love German cars,say £150 billion is spent on VW/Merc/Audi/BMW/Porsche and we fall out on WTO rules,that is going to involve a tariff of 10%,that tariff is paid by us,Theresa May may like that ,a £15 billion extra tax on the very people in our country that can afford it and dialled into leasing payments that would hardly notice,EU-UK tariffs may make little difference.
I must say that I dont really know what they buy from us,but Nissan/Honda/Toyota could easily relocate to Eastern Europe,what our farmers sell could easily be replaced in Europe,is there much that they have to buy from us??? ....so the WTO tariffs could really hurt UK-EU.
Our balance of trade with the EU post Brexit could be awful for us.
As a complete aside...one of my chinese suppliers accused of copying said to me...'we dont copy,we perform reverse engineering!!!!'
KudosDave
Carol is of the 'we won ,you lost,lets leave now' brigade but she was admitting that leaving was proving more complex than she imagined,she blamed the lack of negotiation progress on our poor negotiating team.
Stiq pointed out to her that the EU had been doing trade and legal negotiations for the last 40 years,including our negotiations,so we dont have much expertise in doing so.
But his more important point is that the UK want in the negotiations replicas of all the current EU situation but without being a member of the EU....we want no border in Ireland,we want no tariffs between the UK and EU,we want our courts to directly replace the ECJ etc etc....but we want all this without being a member of the club or prepared to pay the membership fees....which is why EU negotiations are stalling because we want the same but the EU have repeatedly told us we are not going to get that,we are going to get what the EU chooses to give us,outside of the club.
For those who say but they have to let us have what we want because we spend more money with them than they do with us....but the £280 billion we spend with them is largely made up with goods that we cant get anywhere else....we love German cars,say £150 billion is spent on VW/Merc/Audi/BMW/Porsche and we fall out on WTO rules,that is going to involve a tariff of 10%,that tariff is paid by us,Theresa May may like that ,a £15 billion extra tax on the very people in our country that can afford it and dialled into leasing payments that would hardly notice,EU-UK tariffs may make little difference.
I must say that I dont really know what they buy from us,but Nissan/Honda/Toyota could easily relocate to Eastern Europe,what our farmers sell could easily be replaced in Europe,is there much that they have to buy from us??? ....so the WTO tariffs could really hurt UK-EU.
Our balance of trade with the EU post Brexit could be awful for us.
As a complete aside...one of my chinese suppliers accused of copying said to me...'we dont copy,we perform reverse engineering!!!!'
KudosDave