:brexit: Brexit - The Ramifications

The problem I have with those that want to stay in the EU and make it work is that they don’t understand how it works. Whatever it has been called, however many members it has had, it works the same.

It slowly takes control over complete, and often very important areas of policy. In the 1960s, it was coal and steel production. In the 70s, it was food and fish. By the 1990s, it was border control. In the 2000s, it was monetary supply. The European Union wants an army by 2025.

The last couple of years in politics should have told you all bets are off. If Trump can get elected in the US in 2016, the AfD can get a government going before 2030, and as no-one seems to dispute the fact that the Germans have the strongest voice in the Union, how fucking scary does that EU Army look?

Enjoy your stew, @Cobham-Saint. There’s a point of view waiting for you when you get back. I don’t like upsetting you, but neither am I going to tread lightly on the EU when we trampled all over the Tories’ record on Grenfell.

That’s quite a sweeping statement, @pap.

I only speak for myself, but I thought the treatment of Greece by the financial institutions and EU itself was disgusting.

That said, I could also see why the way monetary policy was controlled (i.e. not controlled) across countries that share the same currency was always going to result in problems for a small and profligate nation like Greece.

I think the EU wastes a massive amount of time and money. I believe it is corrupt in places. I don’t think we get as a good a deal from it as some countries. I’m deeply sceptical of its deeper federal motives.

And yet I voted to Remain because the alternative, to my mind, was chaos and risk for the poorest in society.

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Can someone please answer my simple question. Did any other EU countries or the mysterious eu civil protection mechanism. eucpm? You’d have to be pissed to pronounce that(maybe that’s why the old bloke obviously was) step in to help Greece as they did Sweden, or were they left to burn?
That would be inexcusable wouldn’t it?

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Well the Greeks have the same problem every year.
About 10 years ago they stopped using the planes for water dropping on fire afffected areas due to cost since then the amount of area affected by fire has increased

I am with Pap on this nobody knows who actually runs the EU

If I lived in an area I would like to know who is in charge.

And where I presently am it is Dutarte and my son in law

From BBC website:

‘‘Italy, Germany, Poland and France have all sent help in the form of planes, vehicles and firefighters, and Spain and Cyprus have offered Greece assistance, but with temperatures set to soar again, they are in a race against time to get the fires under control.’’

I am no economist… but no one forced the greeks to join the euro… the global financial crisis of 2006-8 was not caused by the EU as far as I am aware, but was triggered by US ‘toxic’ debt… i am just interested in wondering how Greece would have faired outside the EU under that global meltdown? I am sure we will be told by the Brexit guru that they would have been fine and isolated form this shit… but i aspect they would have been completed fucked as opposed to only party fucked because of a massive EU bailout… Yes the austerity measures may be too harsh, I dint know, but they are surviving… just… but it is pretty fucking low to start bringing in tragic death caused by wild fires into this debate… seriously fucking low.

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The Greeks had a failed economy before they joined the Euro.
The only income was tourism .
Although they were the biggest shippowners in the western world and possibly still are. The money that generates is not going home.

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Thanks for the information @gavstar
Haven’t followed either story as globally its not really unexpected or that big.
The only real worry is that this spell(5-10 years) is the first reaction that we’ve noticeably seen from the tipping point we past a fair while back.

May taking personal control (and responsibility?) for negotiations.

I can see how you’d think that statement sweeping (although I prefer swashbuckling), @saintbletch, but is it?

Until we voted out, the direction of travel has been one way. It has been the slow centralisation of power away from the voter, and into unelected hands. The EU has got its hands on some fairly massive levers in the Eurozone.

Additionally, the EU was never really about us. De Gaulle certainly didn’t think us right for it, which is why he vetoed our attempt at joining.

I guess my other question is how, practically, do you get those it was set up to serve to give that power back to nation states?

PHEW!

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FFS, what kind of country do we live in when this is being proposed as a viable way to deal with the chaotic nature of leaving the EU, SM and CM.

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In a warped sort of way, I think I’m glad that we’re taking these sort of steps. At least we’ll be prepared.

I guess I could also see this as strengthening May’s hand in negotiations…

“You see, we’re prepared to go all the way in negotiations and walk away without a deal - we’ve got medicine and food and everything”

But the issue to me in this compromise of compromised ways of leaving the EU is, where is the benefit?

I could be more easily swayed by the benefits of a hard Brexit than I can this sort of half-way house Brexit.

Hence why I asked earlier in the thread whether we need another referendum to determine the type of Brexit.

Some said, “leave it to the politicians”.

I don’t have that much faith in May.

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We were always going to have either a halfway house brexit or a hard brexit. The only question would revolve around how “halfway” it would be, but everything that has happened would have happened anyway, irrespective of the Governments approach - there is no way any PM would have not had the same issues to deal with considering the fissures in the Government.

I have yet to see any benefits from a hard brexit, well, any brexit if truth be told, but i remain to be convinced!

Another referendum would be reasonably pointless, i think. Not through the principle of having a second referendum, but there is no way the Government will accede responsibility for the negotiations to a public vote that is likely to be a choice between two brexits. The EU would piss themselves laughing around the negotiating table and the Govnt would have such little authority that irrespective of any 2nd ref result, they’d be unlikely to get anythinig other than the balls out, lock the doors, hard brexit and then start again.

The biggest failure with the hard brexit stance is that it strips back everything (trade, law, standards, etc) to a point where it all has to be negotiated again. Utterly fucking pointless.

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I agree with much of that, @Numptyboi.

I think the hard Brexit benefit / impact would have to involve completely screwing over the EU on trade, encouraging the largest companies in the EU to incorporate (and pay tax here) here by becoming a very low tax economy and using the absence of worker protection legislation to allow companies the freedom to scale and retract as they see fit.

I’m not sure I’d love living in that sort of country, but I can at least see the argument from those that would. Although I still see massive issues with the EU likely doing all it can to deny us access to its markets in such a scenario. But UK Plc probably ends up wealthier more quickly in that sort of world. Although it’s moot as to how long and how big the post-EU dip would be before we get back in the green. Like I say, I can at least see the argument for it. Oh, and the whole sovereignty thing too, I guess.

Re a second referendum, you’re right about negotiations of course. They would have their hands tied behind their backs and end up giving away more to get what ‘the people’ want. But frankly, we’re already in that situation because May is so beholden to the different camps in her party that the EU knows what her red-lines will be. I don’t see much of an alternative. Also, we shouldn’t forget that there is a percentage of people who voted Leave that want a hard Brexit, and right now they’re not being represented.

I personally don’t see May’s plan making it through negotiations - or more likely I don’t see her staying in power to implement it.

If that happens, then we’ll get someone else from the other side of the Tory party who’ll have a go on different terms with the clocking ticking down that will likely fail or lose key votes in the House or Lords.

So then we could be into a General Election which risks hanging this fucking albatross around the winning party’s neck for decades. And in such a general election the parties will have to declare what their Brexit negotiation stance would be (with the Lib Dems probably stating they’d reverse Brexit - garnering a few votes no douby) - surely.

So a referendum on what type of Brexit we want seems like an obvious way to short-circuit all that bollocks.

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Some interesting points there, Bletch and I agree with a lot of it.

However, EU companies who currently rely on UK imports for their goods and services are already looking towards promoting EU companies to replace them and this will be encouraged by the EU, leaving UK companies with a huge immediate problem that cannot be replaced by the mythical new world trade deals so often peddled out by brexiters.

I’m convinced by your argument for a 2nd ref, but would contest that during the 1st one, there were precious few hard brexiters in plain sight. Hannan, Farage, etc were all promoting the idea that we wouldn’t have to leave the CU and SM. So they either had no idea about what brexit would entail, aside from a unicorns and fairies vision based upon bollocks from the past or they did know and lied. Hard brexit has, imho, gathered pace because it’s been allowed to by the Tory Govnt.

It’s a shithouse negotiation to have. No-one would want it and that’s why brexiters don’t want to take on the mantle. Much easier to sit back and be wise after the event, which is what will happen. I respect Davis for stepping down after being in the firing line for so long, but Johnson, Gove, Rees Mogg, et al are all lily livered, spineless cunts who just want to whinge after next years agreement, whatever form that takes and proclaim they would have done it differently.

I’m babbling on now! :grinning:

I suspect there will be a period of transition. What do you guys think?

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