:brexit: Brexit - Deal or no deal

Reasonably serious discussion
1521

ffs, your “posting gait” (whatever the fuck that is)? just shows you up as a self-opinionated poster who thinks it clever to come up with “arguments” in an attempt to make themselves look clever and belittle everyone else.

You accuse me of not checking out information, but I do. I struggle to understand why you think it’s wrong to have a united Europe. I really don’t get you at all with Brexit tbh. You profess to be of a socialist persuasion but you’re getting into bed with the desires of right wing Brexiteers - there’s something fundamentally wrong there. Do you not see this?

I’m done for this evening- not flouncing as you so eloquently like to keep on saying - but off out to reality and a bit of sanity.

1522

Its the big dilemma Cobs. The socialist ideal is opposed to the EU on two principles: a) its perceived as an elite capitalist entity driven by the establishment for themselves and b) the EU commission is seen as undemocratic making policy to the the detriment of its own member states… Now elements of this are all true… however, if it was as simple as saying is this good or bad, then we would have seen a much bigger majority (a proper one)…

My take is simple, in a global economy, there will ALWAYS be an ‘establishment elite’ looking after themselves… to believe it can be destroyed or that we can be independent from it sadly extremely naive and the stuff of schoolboy politics. The solution which the EU does to some extent is to keep tabs on it and where possible set its boundaries. The ones imposed by the EU are not great, but are MUCH stricter than those non-existent ones from the US and even China… in effect, we swap something that is not ideal, for something that is fundamentally much much worse.

Re the undemocratic nature of the decision making by the EU commission, most brexiteers when asked could not think of any EU legislation they would change, or were falsely of the belief that certain regulations were EU when in fact they were UK policies… I am also of the strong belief that I dont give a flying fuck where or who makes the laws under which we abide… only what those laws ARE

Its why Corbyn is so stuck in a mire. Because whilst his principles and doctrine say leave based on those ideals, His pragmatism and realism recognise its going to fuck the country and place us at the mercy of cunts like Trump…dilemma indeed… why even the Greens whose policy was always underpinned by localised government and decision making are pro Europe… why? Because they recognise that our biggest problems (environment, global trade challenges and tensions between West, MiddleEast and East) require unified and integrated European responses for best outcomes…

What brexiteers like to suggest is that Remainers fail to see or accept the fundamental problems with the EU… we dont, we just recognise that its in many respects the best option we have when we consider the alternatives, to ensure economic and social stability and ARE prepared to compromise on ‘ideals’ to retain that…

Its the message that sadly, the Remain campaign failed to deliver… and that those with nefarious aims managed to label as ‘project fear’ like it was ‘Tell Sid’ all over again.

Sadly, when those disenfranchised up North see that the food banks are just becoming more necessary, and they cant blame Polish builders for their their predicament, I can imagine who they will blame next… after all many of those towns already have form for doing just that…

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1523

I must confess it seems to be an attempt at metaphor… but ‘style’ may have been less pompous, or pseudo intellectual

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1524

Meanwhile, back in the real world. Never mind all the arguments about tariffs, customs unions, Irish backstops and all that malarky, this is the reality of Brexit and what it will mean to all of us in this country, regardless of whether you voted leave or remain.Mere vassals.

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1525

But i thought we had our country back?

#werewetoldporkies?

Time for bed… need sleep

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1526

Quite an interesting read:

https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2019/07/we-remainers-arent-going-away/

1527

Not by me.

As Tariq Ali pointed out in 2014, we’re an economic vassal of the EU and a military vassal of the US.

That hasn’t changed, despite 17.4m voting to get out of economic vassalage.

1528

Didn’t the deal Churchill sign also make us an economic vassal of the US?
Forced fire sale of all central and South American assets at around 50% of value. Told we’re not allowed to compete in any over seas market they already sell too.
These sound very much like economic vassalage(if i’m remembering correctly).
Maybe the EU saved us from that(big leap i admit), but we’re sprinting back as fast as we can and it’s a given that any deal with them will make working people worse off.

1529

I’d be willing to bet that if you asked the entire voting age population of this country (remainers and leavers alike) what an ‘economic vassal’ was you’d be met by a lot of blank/puzzled/confused faces*

image *like this one but not as cute.

We may well cease to be an economic vassal of the EU after/if (:lou_wink_2:) we leave, but I think stating that everyone who voted to leave did so to ‘get out of economic vassalage’ is reaching a bit. If that was one of your reasons fantastic, but it seems that you are projecting your reasons for leaving onto everyone who put a tick in the same box as you (much like when MoT projects reasons as to why leavers voted the way they did, how do either of you know?). If I have missed your point I apologise, I don’t visit the Brexit threads much these days and just wanted to post a picture of a cute doggo in all honesty.

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1530

Is it?

Those that voted may not have said that they were voting to escape economic vassalage, but whether they knew the terminology or not, that’s what they were voting against.

Ask them for their actual reasons, and it boils down to economic vassalage.

Pressure on wages? Cause? The huge supply of unskilled labour that can travel visa free to the UK and happily do unskilled work for what we’d consider south of a living wage, and what they’d see as a king’s bounty at home.

Greater influence over political decisions? Economic vassalage again. The only reason those powers were ceded to the European Union and its forebears were because they were preconditions for joining or remaining.

Wanting the choice to spend our EU contributions on something else? The ability to control a food or fish supply? The choice on whether we start paying for a big fuck off EU army?

Why weren’t those choices already in the hands of the public?

Yes, you can’t discount the thick as pig shit contributors on either side of the debate. No, not all 17.4m people had “economic vassalage” in their heads when voting to Leave.

Make no mistake though, that is what they voted for when they did. We have been an economic vassal of the EU or its forebears since 1973. It hasn’t worked out too well for our economy.

1531

Assume this fits here:

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1532

To make such a statement, and a true comparison, one would need to understand what our economy would look like had we NOT joined in 1973… a period that had been underpinned by massive underinvestment in our industry, wholescale industrial action, 3 -day weeks and all that nonsense… so I must get one of your crystal balls, Preferably not one that has been ‘smeared’…

1533

That’s your 1970s, is it?

You seem to have left an oil crisis or two out.

1534

The underinvestment and industry began long before those…

1535

Odd that. The balance of payments deficit with the then EEC countries only started after 1973.

And lasted to the present day.

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1536

haha… you know, sometimes I do wonder why you keep thinking you are so smart when you come out with naive stuff like this… very simply, do you not believe that the huge under investment in our manufacturing industry from the 1960s onwards and thus the reduction in quality of our produced products relative to Japan and Germany etc and the reduction in demand for the crap we began producing throughout the 70s and 80s may not have had an inncy wincy bit to do with balance of trade deficit? Its’ not the EU, it’s the demand for better quality foreign produced goods… The EEC membership made better quality from abroad more affordable… had our quality been better, the EEC member ship would have seem increased exports and positive balance of trade. FACT is from cars to washing machines we produced crap that no one wanted… have you blanked that out from history? Are you longing for that Austin Allegro that got away in shit brown?

Your model seems to be to aspire to Communist era eastern bloc countries… no option but to buy locally produced shit because that is all that is available… yeah nice ‘balance of trade figures’ but limited consumer choice… will be interested to see how that goes down with your 17.4 million principled allies…

1537

Doesn’t need the waffle guv.

Balance of payments is just measuring the stuff we sell versus the stuff we buy.

We’ve been in trade deficit ever since we joined. I’d advise gripping that fact before trying any of your own.

1538

FFS you are daft are you not… I have not contradicted your statement on BoT… merely suggest a far more logical explanation for it than your rather blanket and naive ‘its all the EEC joining fault’ conveniently forgetting the previous 20 odd years of under investment leading to us producing shit in the 70s and 80s and not very much after that…

Your definition of ‘fact’ is also questionable - you seem to like making simple correlations, without examining the evidence… seriously, do you really believe this shit, or did your youtube get stuck on Tony Benn in 1973?

1539

indeed… Export of goods produced where there is foreign demand vs Import of goods for which we have a high demand… the EEC membership made that easy… a facilitation. The Balance of trade is because we WANT more foreign stuff than foreigners what our stuff… it really is that simple… the EEC was not the cause. The cause was our inability to produce stuff both our own and foreign potential customers wanted

Like I said are you pissed because you missed out on an Austin Allegro, or were you more a ‘Princess’ man?

1540

Put it this way.

Could you run a business which consistently spent more than it received?