:brexit: Brexit - Deal or no deal

Can anyone honestly tell me why they’re bothered about EU citizenship?
What exactly are we losing?

Read this thread if you can be bothered- plenty of opinion on here.

I can’t, a succinct answer is all that’s needed nothing flash.

Dont worry. You’ll find out 1st January

2 Likes

On the subject of law, a brief aside. Justice should be available to everyone. The loss of legal aid in many circumstances has made this country even more two-tier than it used to be.

1 Like

As you say, it’s done. There may be a few wrinkles to iron out before now and January, and with this lot in charge, I fully expect any molehills to be promoted to mountains.

I do take slight issue with the notion that people had something taken from them against their will.

I think this is more true in Parliamentary democracy, where the popular vote needed for a stomping majority it typically in the 40% range. Sometimes, it’s lower, and yet we still get on with it.

I never fell for the milk and honey bullshit. I was simply approaching it from Tony Benn’s angle, that powers ceded to the EU (or any body for that matter) are powers lost to the British voter.

Regardless of anything printed on a bus, that is true. Regardless of any sunlit uplands speech by some jingoistic twat, that is true. That is a compelling argument to leave.

I think the problem with Remain, and hand on heart you know it’s true, was that it could not tell positive stories like that which resonated with the general public or correlated with their general experience.

By comparison, the three word “take back control” was genius.

1 Like

But I’ve never on a whim wanted to go olive picking as a career in Cyprus or become a tax specialist in Denmark, I doubt many people have and if they’re required they won’t need a visa, if the jobs needed or the person is then visas are drawn up easily, we make a hash of it as we’re shit but others nations manage perfectly well using that system and don’t seem to want to change.

The argument has changed now but back then remainers couldn’t answer clearly what the advantages were for the ordinary person well enough or at all, you heard about going on holiday and phone charges which patronised many as many were looking for more fundamental and strong reasons to why we should remain, the argument would be a different one now as we’ve handled it as this Government has handled everything else which is appallingly.

1 Like

The EU has made it as difficult as they can to reach a satisfactory agreement. They do not want to give up some of the gains that we gave away over the years. Both parties have failed us at times not just bumbling Boris.
I am of the opinion that a Tory government led by someone other than Boris would fare much better. The one thing he will have achieved is that his we will leave with or without deal will go ahead.
We may have to wait a year or two to see if we benefit from the decision to leave or not.

2 Likes

I was unaware that EU citizenship was a thing. I thought I was a citizen of the United Kingdom who was a member of the EU

No one ever told me that they had made me a citizen of something else. No one ever asked my permission or even asked if I wanted to be a citizen of somewhere else

4 Likes

I think a big problem with the international travel argument is twofold.

First, people remember life before “free movement” and may have indeed met passport controls at non-EU countries. Unless you get someone having a bad day at US Immigration, it’s not that bad.

Second, you can still go to these places regardless. I’ve been to the US far more times than I’ve been to Europe, and if I wanted to do a three year stint there, or even live there, there are pathways.

1 Like

It’s not really led by Boris. It’s led by Dominic Cummings. The Prime Minister is not big on political convictions. He wrote two pieces on the referendum, praising both outcomes.

1 Like

Which is precisely why people who voted for a common market voted out of what they see as a political union. Which they never asked for or agreed to.

4 Likes

Furthermore, the acquisition of this power by stealth was always on the roadmap.

that is true. I have Inlaws near Paris and they have always laughed at how we are now their patsies having to do as we are told.

I do wonder what our overall contribution to the EU was. I suspect we helped them centralise a lot quicker. Before proclaiming “No no no!”, Thatcher was very much a pro-marketer.

Not only was she on that side in 1975, she was initially a strong advocate of the single market until she saw the strings attached. It wouldn’t exist without her.

Similar thinks happened with a lot of British innovations on the continent, such as the primacy of business that governments of the day.

There are a couple of problems with that. The ideas we gave them were about the rampant free market. They also got a little lost in translation. Once in the hands of the bureaucrats, these “rules”, which not even the British voted consistently for, became continent wide.

It’s a ridiculously anti-democratic enterprise, purpose built to give certain elites control of the continent.

The real pity of it for me is that the idea of a common trading area was actually a brilliant one. It generated enormous extra trade, and simultaneously (in fact, quite naturally) helped to avoid major European conflicts. That was the original idea, that nations trading with each other are far less likely to go to war with each other. The concept of a single European state wasn’t put to the people of the UK at the time, and I’m pretty confident that however the remain side want to spin it, (ie that we’re all ignorant xenophobic bigots,) that’s what the country voted against in 2016.

2 Likes

Only some of the leave brigade, not all. Please don’t tar every Remainer with that generalisation.

1 Like

Generalisations have been so damaging to the social cohesion of this Country. To see them perpetuated with this strange Brexit based “us and them, you’ve gotta take sides” bollocks is dispiriting.

You lot always say that. :rage::smile:

2 Likes