Brexit, for once some facts.

[KTM Bike Industries UK]

Well therein lies one main difference that no amount of arguing and counter arguing will ever likely change.

I do not consider myself 'European'. Along with many others. Do you know what the % is? Have a guess? What % of Brits consider themselves Europeans? 50? 40? Take a guess.

It's 15%. 15%. 85% do not consider themselves European. Its one of the main reasons (Hi Tom) we voted out.

"According to the latest British Social Attitudes (2014), when asked to choose as many identities as we like from a list of every national identity associated with Great Britain and Ireland, just 15% of us describe ourselves as ‘European’."

http://whatukthinks.org/eu/european-not-us-brits/

Lol, so that's the point clearly... What people "think" has no relationship to the reality of the situation. Brexit in a nutshell.

People don't realise they ARE European shocker. People don't realise the facts shocker. Vote based on nonsense... is not the way to run anything, let alone a country. All your post show is passion and ignorance I'm afraid, nothing actually useful or giving me any reason to change my opinion that leaving is crazy.

 

[KTM Bike Industries UK]

1 in 4 now starting to admit they were lied to...

http://uk.businessinsider.com/one-in-four-brexit-voters-believe-they-were-misled-by-the-leave-campaign-2017-8?r=US&IR=T

 

[oldgroaner]

Thats because you only speak to people who agree with you. The rest you ignore, belittle and deride as fools. And the result? You still can't figure out why we voted like we did.

You do have an unfortunate habit of jumping to conclusions without bothering with the facts, and checking, don't you?
And why do you go all defensive when confronted with facts you can check?

On the contrary to your supposition I speak to people with a widely ranging set of views on Brexit, and listen carefully to their arguments.

Not only do I know why they voted like they did, but if you check back you will see that I forecast a win for the leave Vote too, and went to some trouble to explain the reasoning behind that vote.

Interestingly the leader of the leave campaign agrees with many of us that the promise of £350 million that could be spent on the NHS, while a lie, actually clinched the vote.
The truth is most people voted for Brexit as a vote against poor Government , the EU was presented to them as the villain of the piece by the press.
And as you have demonstrated on previous posts, Brexit voters are not inclined to check the facts are they?

And once again if you check back, I have NEVER called the Brexit voters fools,nor belittled them, but stated they were mislead, but you simply see what you want to and make assumptions without checking, don't you?

There was nothing complicated about the reasons for Voting to leave, on the face of it they were quite understandable, nothing complex there at all.
I am still sympathetic to some of the reasoning behind that vote, but the ire behind it was aimed at the wrong target, and will not achieve the desired result.
The majority of voters attributed fault to the EU when it really belonged with our own Government, which repeatedly lied, blaming the EU.
Would you like links to a case history of lies?
Here it is http://blogs.ec.europa.eu/ECintheUK/euromyths-a-z-index/

And you have ignored the question I posed with all that pretentious "We voted and you aren't able to understand why nonsense"

I did, the question I asked was
What are you expecting to be achieved in ten years?
Are you afraid to answer?

 

[flecc]

Yes. And we have to start somewhere. We will get to Whitehall and the civil service in due course.

I admire your misplaced confidence, but why haven't we tackled that in the last 70 years? How does leaving the EU suddenly enable us to better manage our Civil Service or produce more competent governments? We've never been prevented from doing those by the EU or ECJ.

Our incompetence at governing is national and endemic, and has been for about 70 years post WW2 and at least two decades pre WW2. During that span of some 100 years we've only been in the EU for the 25 years since Maastricht, and only partially in at that.

So much for blaming the EU for our ills.
.

 

[oldgroaner]

Our 'poor performance' in the 'highest levels of Europe' is - perhaps - more due to the fact that we WE NEVER WANTED TO BE PART OF A FULLY INTEGRATED Europe in the first place. Doh. Which is where it's going (the EU). We do not want that. Try to get that in your head. You say you're not from the UK yes? (apologies if not but I think I remember you saying that). It is showing. Just because you're hanging out here with a bunch of people who would in fact like us to be part of the federal states of Europe - does not mean thats true of most people here. Against all odds we won the referendum. This has been a long time coming. You are talking to the losing side here. They are not happy. Nor would I have been had we lost. But that's not what happened. We want out. Plain and simple.

What exactly do you want "out" of? when you have demonstrated that you haven't the remotest idea of what the EU is, how it is organised, how it is run, or what it has achieved for our benefit?
And simply blame it for everything that is wrong, without for a moment bothering to check the truth of that assumption.

 

[Woosh]

What are you expecting to be achieved in ten years?

membership of EFTA.

 

[oldgroaner]

Yes. And we have to start somewhere. We will get to Whitehall and the civil service in due course.

Ah! the Mythical "WE" obviously it can't be the present Government, or for that matter the opposition.
They will carry on as normal, as they have no choice.
Are we to assume you know how Whitehall and the Civil service work and disapprove?
May one ask how you KNOW this, did you research the subject, or more likely you've been told by the press or Politicians?

Who you Gonna call capable of making these changes and how you want them made?

 

[oldgroaner]

membership of EFTA.

Not much to show for all the losses incurred is it?
Interesting, as I'm expecting we will either be back in the EU or attempting to.

 

[KTM Bike Industries UK]

membership of EFTA.

a real step back in time... to gain precisely nothing.

 

[Woosh]

Not much to show for all the losses incurred is it?

what loss? has anyone lost their job or got poorer?

 

[Woosh]

a real step back in time... to gain precisely nothing.

you are wrong there.
Outside the EU, we will have to choose one or more groupings. EFTA or the USA. The Commonwealth is too disparate. EFTA is a better fit. Similar income level, similar industries, tiny budget etc.

 

[Kudoscycles]

Hi Dave.

When I first joined eons ago I had just bought an Oxygen - hence the name - but I then later got rid of that and got a something else who's name escapes me - and now I have a Haibike. Which is super excellent if a little ridiculously expensive.

I do hope you're not going to use that information to argue against Brexit - though I fear you might.... but heck I have nothing to do right now so fire away.

James.

Nope....I was interested in the name....Andrew(Oxygen) and D8VEH and myself used to meet regularly at the Shanghai show....The Oxygen bike was very good although Andrew suffered from some battery problems.
Brexit has already pushed up the prices of all imported bikes whether it has come from China,like the Oxygen,or from Germany,like the Haibike.,but you seem happy with that.
KudosDave

 

[OxygenJames]

What are you expecting to be achieved in ten years?

Freedom Tom. Freedom. And not in ten years. Its already happening. I can feel it in my bones.

 

[OxygenJames]

Nope....I was interested in the name....Andrew(Oxygen) and D8VEH and myself used to meet regularly at the Shanghai show....The Oxygen bike was very good although Andrew suffered from some battery problems.
Brexit has already pushed up the prices of all imported bikes whether it has come from China,like the Oxygen,or from Germany,like the Haibike.,but you seem happy with that.
KudosDave

It was my first electric bike and I liked it lots. But it was heavy - and the Haibike I have now is a far more advanced piece of engineering.

 

[OxygenJames]

I admire your misplaced confidence, but why haven't we tackled that in the last 70 years? How does leaving the EU suddenly enable us to better manage our Civil Service or produce more competent governments? We've never been prevented from doing those by the EU or ECJ.

Our incompetence at governing is national and endemic, and has been for about 70 years post WW2 and at least two decades pre WW2. During that span of some 100 years we've only been in the EU for the 25 years since Maastricht, and only partially in at that.

So much for blaming the EU for our ills.
.

True very true. Do you read Dominic Cumming's blog? - he bangs on about this all the time.

 

[KTM Bike Industries UK]

what loss? has anyone lost their job or got poorer?

Do you want a list...? Because this could go on and on and on.

http://www.foodmanufacture.co.uk/Business-News/Salad-firm-enters-administration-after-Brexit-price-challenges

I've got poorer, and so have you.

Butter in local morrisons used to be 88p, now its close to £1.20 most week.
Dark Chocolate used to come in 200g packs, now its 180g packs.

So the brownies my wife made this weekend cost me quite a bit more.

 

[flecc]

True very true. Do you read Dominic Cumming's blog? - he bangs on about this all the time.

No, I don't read any blogs. In this instance I don't need to, hailing from the mid 1930s I've lived through much of that history of failures so know them only too well.

It's why I'm so convinced that we will be unable to compete in an unprotected position in the trading or political worlds. The list of countries that can and will run rings around us is very long.
.

 

[Kudoscycles]

For all you Brexit lovers out there Matt Ridley has written an excellent piece today in the Times. Here's the first two paragraphs and the link. I know you all want to broaden your minds and read other opinions.

"Why does the European Union raise a tariff on coffee? It has no coffee industry to protect so the sole effect is to make coffee more expensive for all Europeans. Even where there is an industry to protect, protectionism hurts far more people than it helps. Last October the EU surreptitiously quintupled the tariff on imported oranges to 16 per cent to protect Spanish citrus producers against competition from South Africa and punish the rest of us. It imposes a tax of 4.7 per cent on imported umbrellas, 15 per cent on unicycles and 16.9 per cent on sports footwear.

I find that many Twitter trolls do not even realise that the European “single market” is actually a fortress protected by high external tariff walls. Yet external tariffs are pure self-harm; they are blockades against your own ports, as the economist Ryan Bourne has pointed out. We impose sanctions on pariah regimes, restricting their imports, not to help their economies but to hurt them. The entire point of producing things is to consume things (the pattern of pay shows that we work to live rather than vice versa), so punishing consumers is perverse. As Adam Smith put it, describing the European Union in advance, “in the mercantile system the interest of the consumer is almost constantly sacrificed to that of the producer”."

For the full article go to here:

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/best-hope-for-free-trade-is-to-have-principles-7wgfw2l7v

I agree with all you say,for my business the removal of these tariffs would be wonderful and a lot of my core products (not e-bikes) I have a monopoly so my customers have to buy them.
But the big problem is that if we are outside the EU all our exports to the EU would be subject to those same tariffs...this is not a problem for China because their very efficient factories combined with cheap labour means their products are still competitive even with the tariffs,but that is not the case for us....imagine Brompton bikes,already expensive,a 55% tariff UK to EU would hurt them,they are a lovely folding bike but not that lovely....at the moment they ship tariff free to all EU states.
This is of course why Davis wants to conclude a free trade deal with Barnier asap ,but Barnier and the EU are not fools,if we leave I doubt that they will ever give us a free trade deal,that would be hugely damaging for the EU if we do a free trade deal with China,India and the USA,it would underrmine the EU protections and on their doorstep.....this is the most important aspect of any deal,linked of course to an open border in Ireland.
KudosDave

 

[Woosh]

Do you want a list...? Because this could go on and on and on.

http://www.foodmanufacture.co.uk/Business-News/Salad-firm-enters-administration-after-Brexit-price-challenges

I've got poorer, and so have you.

Butter in local morrisons used to be 88p, now its close to £1.20 most week.
Dark Chocolate used to come in 200g packs, now its 180g packs.

So the brownies my wife made this weekend cost me quite a bit more.

you should take unemployment statistics and RPI as guides, not pick and choose examples.

 

[Kudoscycles]

Freedom Tom. Freedom. And not in ten years. Its already happening. I can feel it in my bones.

How free would you feel if we have to pay EU tariffs on all imports from the EU and the EU would put the same tariffs from UK to EU? Only 6% on e-bikes but some big numbers on some products.
There is no way the EU are going to give us a free trade deal,when we leave we will be just like any other country.
That is very expensive freedom,massive job losses in the UK.
KudosDave