"The Brexit Effect: How leaving the EU hit the UK." Financial Times. [V-28:24]

I don't agree because I don't think you followed a rigorous enough process to arrive at your decision.

You had an opinion on the current state of the European Union as at 2016. How did you arrive at that, what sources did you use?
A big red bus with a slogan on the side!
 
Six and a half years on and the discussions still can't be had without descending into insults and mischaracterisations.

In all honesty I don't think we got what most people voted for. All the talk from the vote leave organisations was about leaving with a better deal, no talk of leaving the single market or customs union.

Most people voted leave because they couldn't articulate what they didn't like about their life or what was wrong with society. it didn't help that the Daily Mail and Sun etc would often villify immigrants and Europe and print lies about EU laws such as bendy bananas. Crappy bits of modern "art" (remember the straw or whatever that crap was at the cargo fleet roundabout) allegedly paid for from EU funds when high streets were crying out for proper investment.

An all remain could say was "remain or bad things will happen", yes they were right but it's not as convincing a strapline as "take back control" and all the over lies that the leave campaigns were trotting out. no tangible incentives other than the beatings wouldn't get any worse.

So here we are, things are demonstrably worse and getting more so. some happy coincidences for the con men responsible have been a series of unprecedented global events with Covid, War and the supply chain issues to cop some of the blame for the inevitable economic downturn. If Labour got in tomorrow and made plans to reverse some of this to stabilise things I believe there'd still be uproar and cries of "undemocratic" despite what has happened.

For the record I voted leave, I was wrong to do so. My reasons, on reflection, were stupid and despite considering myself intelligent and somewhat anti-establishment I played into the hands of establishment bellends who cared only about making themselves richer and the poor poorer.
 
I don't agree because I don't think you followed a rigorous enough process to arrive at your decision.

You had an opinion on the current state of the European Union as at 2016. How did you arrive at that, what sources did you use?
Your arrogance is an ongoing feature.
You have no idea what "process" I went through, or what "sources" I used.
You appear to believe that you can assess whether people have the right to hold a different opinion to yours and no doubt then whether they are well informed enough to have a voice/vote.

I have been against "ever closer union" for a long time. I support close economic cooperation, but am sceptical about broader integration and highly cynical about full political integration, especially of a much broader membership.
I understand that the UK had the most opt outs of any member state (Schengen, EMU, Fundamental Rights, FSJ and Social Charter). I understand we had the rebate and why and how it came about. I know we were not in the Banking Union.
I am fully aware that Cameron did obtain more clarity about our right not to support further Political integration and our right to be excluded from further Treaties embracing "ever closer union". He also communicated all this really poorly.
I understand how the Council, Parliament and Commission work. I understand the vetos and how the voting works.
I do understand the budget principles too.
I also fully understand that you can not cherry pick, you can not take yet not give, and that we had a special arrangement.

Yet my concerns were and are about the rapid evolution of the EEC into the behometh EU it became. 28 member countries of massively varying states, challenges, capabilities and needs. Others looking to join what had already creaked under crises of financial collapse and mass migration - and went on to creak on pandemic and Ukraine.
I believe countries will always ultimately cooperate in crisis without having to be bound together on absolutely everything in the way the EU demands and I think will move towards.

I dislike the Commission, the fact it is completely unelected, has 32k extortionately paid civil servants without accountability, but license to shape/do so much.

The opt outs and vetos and rhetoric tells me we can theoretically resist what we fundamentally oppose, and I am aware of the 2011 European Union Act; yet the UK population was frog marched through Maastricht, Lisbon and expansions without so much as a nod to our electorate, let alone the sort of referendum other nations had. In a nutshell that is why I don't trust the relentless progression from 9 nation Common Market through 28 nation EU to the US of E.

I don't feel "European", have greater affinity to other nations and identify strongly as British.
I fully respect that others feel differently and respect their position.
I'm aware that Brexit is part of our current economic difficulties and of course I regret things are (unnecessarily) even tougher.
I didn't vote for this version of Brexit and don't think we will end up with it for very long.

But please don't attempt to put me down as having not thought/read/talked about it, or as how you stereotype other people who were "stupid", "racist", "selfish", "ignorant" etc etc.
I was given the chance to vote and did, just not the same as you.
 
Here we go again, w* nkers deciding that's all people voted for. It's extremely disrespectful branding people racists for leaving the EU. People have many different reasons. I could just presume you voted remain because your a greedy money loving ch unt!

By greedy do you mean it is bad to vote not to make the country poorer?

I'm struggling with your reasoning here - it makes no sense whatsoever!! It has obviously touched a nerve as you have come out swinging with the old insults! :)
 
Your arrogance is an ongoing feature.
You have no idea what "process" I went through, or what "sources" I used.
You appear to believe that you can assess whether people have the right to hold a different opinion to yours and no doubt then whether they are well informed enough to have a voice/vote.

I have been against "ever closer union" for a long time. I support close economic cooperation, but am sceptical about broader integration and highly cynical about full political integration, especially of a much broader membership.
I understand that the UK had the most opt outs of any member state (Schengen, EMU, Fundamental Rights, FSJ and Social Charter). I understand we had the rebate and why and how it came about. I know we were not in the Banking Union.
I am fully aware that Cameron did obtain more clarity about our right not to support further Political integration and our right to be excluded from further Treaties embracing "ever closer union". He also communicated all this really poorly.
I understand how the Council, Parliament and Commission work. I understand the vetos and how the voting works.
I do understand the budget principles too.
I also fully understand that you can not cherry pick, you can not take yet not give, and that we had a special arrangement.

Yet my concerns were and are about the rapid evolution of the EEC into the behometh EU it became. 28 member countries of massively varying states, challenges, capabilities and needs. Others looking to join what had already creaked under crises of financial collapse and mass migration - and went on to creak on pandemic and Ukraine.
I believe countries will always ultimately cooperate in crisis without having to be bound together on absolutely everything in the way the EU demands and I think will move towards.

I dislike the Commission, the fact it is completely unelected, has 32k extortionately paid civil servants without accountability, but license to shape/do so much.

The opt outs and vetos and rhetoric tells me we can theoretically resist what we fundamentally oppose, and I am aware of the 2011 European Union Act; yet the UK population was frog marched through Maastricht, Lisbon and expansions without so much as a nod to our electorate, let alone the sort of referendum other nations had. In a nutshell that is why I don't trust the relentless progression from 9 nation Common Market through 28 nation EU to the US of E.

I don't feel "European", have greater affinity to other nations and identify strongly as British.
I fully respect that others feel differently and respect their position.
I'm aware that Brexit is part of our current economic difficulties and of course I regret things are (unnecessarily) even tougher.
I didn't vote for this version of Brexit and don't think we will end up with it for very long.

But please don't attempt to put me down as having not thought/read/talked about it, or as how you stereotype other people who were "stupid", "racist", "selfish", "ignorant" etc etc.
I was given the chance to vote and did, just not the same as you.

And how's that going do you think?
 
For the record I voted leave, I was wrong to do so. My reasons, on reflection, were stupid and despite considering myself intelligent and somewhat anti-establishment I played into the hands of establishment bellends who cared only about making themselves richer and the poor poorer.

Fair play 👏

Out of interest did any one thing sway you? I've often thought that maybe the remain side talking about the doom and gloom of leaving may have encouraged people, in an anti-establishment kinda way, into voting leave. People want things that make them feel better - change and leaving (the promised sunlit uplands of Brexit) was a powerful driver.
 
Was talking about this in the pub last night, going to be a very interesting couple of years with regards to the B word I think.

We've now got (on the face of it) a fairly rational PM in Number 10 who (like the Silicon Valley technocrat he is), knows he needs some results on the economy before the next election. If his team are spit balling solutions, there's a pretty big one staring them in the face. Now clearly I'm not suggesting full membership, cut and dried but there's absolutely no way the Times and Mail run the "Swiss" story if it's not being considered somewhere in Government.

I think the electoral rationale could go a little like this:
Tory seats at risk of falling to Lib Dem - closer ties to Europe would largely placate this group, salvaging some of this vote.
Red Wall - I'm not sure there is the vehemence of feeling there was previously re: Brexit in this group. I think the correct promises of improved economic performance could win (some of) them round?
ERG/Monster Ravers - collateral which can probably be sacrificed with little real terms impact in vote share (Farage is already swimming around the edges ready to mop these up if closer ties are proposed).

At this moment I actually think it's a possibility that at the next election you have a Conservative party advocating closer ties and a Labour party advocating no ties at all. If I was a Conservative strategist it's certainly an "outflanking manoeuvre" I'd be considering.
 
Your arrogance is an ongoing feature.
You have no idea what "process" I went through, or what "sources" I used.
he doesn’t, correct. Which is why he asked you. You can’t blame people for being sceptical when the Brexit campaign containing so many lies, so much mistruth. So much social engineering to create fear of Türkiye, European armies, immigrants, people who wanted to colour our passports and straighten our bananas. Surely, given the failure of Brexit, and the mountain of lies told to get people to vote for it, you can understand why people would question how you got to your decisions
 
Ref Netflix analogy for trading agreements.

If I agree you can watch my Disney + channel in return for me watching your Netflix. I think its fair that I don't have to wait 2 weeks to watch a Netflix programme after making a request, when you can watch my Disney+ when you like.

The FT video makes it quite clear goods are held in customs for longish periods when entering the EU/SEM and require excessive paperwork that was not required in the past for exactly the same goods. It maybe about punishment it may not, I don't know, but it is happening according to the innocent business owners. In business terms its called non tariff barriers and is called that on the FT Video. It is commonly known tactic around the World to protect home markets.

Rule taker and rule maker is not super important to me. The ethos of the EU/EEC was to create protective barriers around member nations Europe initially to protect EEC rural communities from outside competing food imports. It appears the ethos is still there.

Change was a driver to me of voting Leave the EU - the current model running from 1993 to 2016 was not working for areas like Teesside the local economies were shrinking under UK Labour, Coalition and Conservative Governments. The Steel industry had all but gone and a lot of the chemical industry. New industries replacing it seemed non existent or smaller. Anyone disagree?

I am critical of all UK Governments as well as the EU. That makes me sound like Mr Angry, but I do believe there are better ways of managing change than have existed between 1993 and 2016.
 
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If I agree you can watch my Disney + channel in return for me watching your Netflix. I think its fair that I don't have to wait 2 weeks to watch a programme after making a request. on Netflix, when you can watch my Disney+ when you like to.

The FT video makes it quite clear goods are held in customs for longish periods when entering the EU/SEM and require excessive paerwork that was not required in the past for exactly the same goods. It maybe about punishment it may not, I don't know, but it is happening according to the innocent business owners. In business terms its called non tariff barriers and is called that on the FT Video. It is commonly known tactic around the World to protect home markets.
Ok I'll take a deep breath and try again...

The EU countries have agreed on mutual standards and regulations, which means there is a level playing field for competitiveness and guaranteed standards (e.g. the CE mark on goods). Consequently EU countries have agreed that they don't need checks and much paperwork when goods cross borders between EU members. The delays and extra paperwork that the UK has to now endure are due to the fact that the UK has voluntarily left the EU and so cannot be trusted to keep to the same standards and regulations so could gain an unfair advantage from lower costs and standards (Reece-Mogg's India wet dream).
Indeed the UK is intent on getting rid of every law and regulation that was passed into UK law while it was in the EU. UK will either not replace those laws or replace them with lower requirement laws (that will include employment rights if you work in the UK - say goodbye to bank holidays, holidays, sick pay, parental leave etc).

So as per my previous post, the UK will not be allowed to keep watching Netflix and quite rightly so.

The UK can stop the EU watching its Disney+ any time it wants to but it dare not because it would cause imports to collapse, as the clown Reece-Mogg admitted, and would cause extreme shortages in all areas. What the UK has done by leaving the EU is impose sanctions on itself while giving the EU a free hand. A total catastrophe that is playing out in real time.

Do you think trade relations and rules are just based on whims and good will? Nope.
 
Prisoner you obviously have very strong views on full EU membership and dislike any sort of opposing views. I respect you are doing this in a genuine manner and belief

I tend to go on what is happening on the ground, not the theory. Some of what is happening the individual businesses is shown on the video. The source of the video is the FT who I do respect and was an advocate for EU membership and I guess still is.

My tendency is for free trade where ever its realistically possible i.e few barriers to free trade. There will be incidences where this is not realistic, but more times than not it is possible an example would be buinsesses employing child labour in some overseas countries. The UK operates employment laws and living wage rates some above of those in the EU. Non tariff barriers can be particularly uncompetitive because they are often hidden, opaque and inconsistent.
 
The Americans appreciate England, Wales and Scotland, leaving the EU , because any weakening of the largest single trading block on the planet - is in their interests.

Interesting who was funding the flag waving, Farage and his boys........

Politically I have always thought the USA wanted a strong Western Europe as a buffer agianst communism and now Russia and some radical Islamic groups - Many US businesses are heavily invested in Europe. China is normally seen in the last 20 years as the trading enemy by a significant some in authority in the USA.

The Americans are normally happy to take European goods and run trade deficits with many European countries including the UK. Steel was an exception when for many years the US accused European governments of giving subsidies. The UK stopped subsidising steel on a significant scale in the early 1980s, in fact I would say it was doing the opposite with green energy taxes/credits in more recent years.
 
At the time of the ref in 2016 EU nationals were covered by freedom of movement so the majority of them didnt need to apply for permanent residency or become british citizens - its only since Brexit that they have had to.

The most annoying thing for me was that throughout the campaign we were told by the Brexiters that we would stay in the customs union and single market - while remainers warned we would have to leave both. Once we voted to leave then suddenly the brexiters insisted that we leave both as had been threatened, using the excuse that thats what remainers had promised! The twisting of logic was remarkable and its the first time I can recall where the party winning a vote have taken on the manifesto of the losers!
 
Prisoner you obviously have very strong views on full EU membership and dislike any sort of opposing views. I respect you are doing this in a genuine manner and belief

I tend to go on what is happening on the ground, not the theory. Some of what is happening the individual businesses is shown on the video. The source of the video is the FT who I do respect and was an advocate for EU membership and I guess still is.

My tendency is for free trade where ever its realistically possible i.e few barriers to free trade. There will be incidences where this is not realistic, but more times than not it is possible an example would be buinsesses employing child labour in some overseas countries. The UK operates employment laws and living wage rates some above of those in the EU. Non tariff barriers can be particularly uncompetitive because they are often hidden, opaque and inconsistent.
I have strong feelings on people who still don't understand (or pretend not to understand) why the UK is facing trading problems post-Brexit.

The UK signed up to non-tariff barriers when Johnson signed the TCA. For some reason he seems not to have mentioned that.

The EU is the largest free trade area on the planet I think. I know anti-EU people say it's a protectionist bloc but that is a canard, partly prompted by envy from not being inside it. If it did not exist there would be much less free trade. All countries are protectionist but some come together and get real free trade between them, like the EU. A trade agreement in itself is not free trade so the UK will never be able to get the benefits it had in the EU.

You still seem to expect the EU to trade with the UK on the same terms as before Brexit. That is absurd Johnson cakeism. You can never get free trade when one of the parties is actively seeking to undercut the other. The end result of that is a race to the bottom and corporate fascism (we are on our way). If you thought cakeism was what was going to happen then you have been duped, like millions of others, that the UK held all the cards, that the German car industry would collapse without us and that we would be knee deep in fantastic free trade deals with Malaysia, Indonesia and god knows where else.

The USA trade deal? DOA. The USA is protectionist, except when it can exploit a weak country. How could an economy the size of 1.8% of global GDP possibly get a good trade deal with an economy representing about 17%?

It's a shame that UK SMEs that trade with the EU are being crucified but it was inevitable. Tragic for the UK, but inevitable. Not so bad for EU SMEs who can now fill the gaps.

The UK has fecked itself.
 
Politically I have always thought the USA wanted a strong Western Europe as a buffer agianst communism and now Russia and some radical Islamic groups - Many US businesses are heavily invested in Europe. China is normally seen in the last 20 years as the trading enemy by a significant some in authority in the USA.

The Americans are normally happy to take European goods and run trade deficits with many European countries including the UK. Steel was an exception when for many years the US accused European governments of giving subsidies. The UK stopped subsidising steel on a significant scale in the early 1980s, in fact I would say it was doing the opposite with green energy taxes/credits in more recent years.
The current issue regards Russian supplied gas has given the USA a new market in Europe to export LPG. Indeed, the American fossil fuel giants have been looking to expand their markets. The war in Ukraine opens wide the door to lever their way into the European markets. Not only is war a major profit-maker for the US economy it also empowers their geo-economic-political influence over Europe. Not only are they "weakening" Russia, they are setting their table in the EU.
 
Stop wasting your time trying to question Brexiteers frustrating as it is - it's a de facto religious belief

They have ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to offer for reasoning that does not stand up to critical scrutiny in intelligent discourse, we all know that
because after 6 years of questioning, not a single brexiteer has ever offered a single , demonstrable, tangible reason to support their belief

The biggest irony being that they are self proclaimed patriots, when the opposite actually applies

Patriotism is what wanting what is best for the country , not what is worse

Let them live in the world they occupy, along with flat earthers, holocaust deniers etc etc

Biggest lesson learnt - democracy conceptually only works when the electorate are educated enough to make a rational decision,
based on research and data, and not on slogans and catchphrases regurgitated ad infinitum by bent and jingoistic politicians
 
Stop wasting your time trying to question Brexiteers frustrating as it is - it's a de facto religious belief

They have ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to offer for reasoning that does not stand up to critical scrutiny in intelligent discourse, we all know that
because after 6 years of questioning, not a single brexiteer has ever offered a single , demonstrable, tangible reason to support their belief

The biggest irony being that they are self proclaimed patriots, when the opposite actually applies

Patriotism is what wanting what is best for the country , not what is worse

Let them live in the world they occupy, along with flat earthers, holocaust deniers etc etc

Biggest lesson learnt - democracy conceptually only works when the electorate are educated enough to make a rational decision,
based on research and data, and not on slogans and catchphrases regurgitated ad infinitum by bent and jingoistic politicians
We'd be better off just leaving it to you to decide the "educational" and "rational" thresh-holds, and therefore who is allowed to vote and who isn't.
Pompous doesn't get near it.
 
We'd be better off just leaving it to you to decide the "educational" and "rational" thresh-holds, and therefore who is allowed to vote and who isn't.
Pompous doesn't get near it.

adjective
adjective: pompous
  1. 1.
    affectedly grand, solemn, or self-important.
    "a pompous ass who pretends he knows everything"

Says the guy who can't provide any reasoning for his religious brexit belief other than some laughable waffle about a super state fantasy that wouldn't even qualify as
a hypothesis - and it is akin to a religious belief because your sat there holding an empty sack claiming it is full of gifts

What exactly do you determine is pompous in my nature when all i am doing is projecting the mathematical reality of Brexit?

Are you suggesting 2 x 2 = 5?

I don't decide the laws of reality, i don't decide that 2 x 2 =4

That is reality, the brexit reality is the country is worse off, in every single tangible, measurable, quantifiable empirical model known to man

If you chose to live in a fantasy world, that's your choice, if you can't handle being questioned about your religious belief, don't respond

Take your empty bag and go and play with it, your prize, you won, but don't forget , if you won, then everybody else in the UK by definition also
won, so where is my prize?
 
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